The Phoenix Saga

"Hey! Take it easy! You're gonna break something!" Yui rolled her eyes as Akane pulled a clean stock pot from the dishwasher and slammed it down hard on the front burner of the gas commercial stovetop.

Sakura approached down the hallway from her office, resting her hand on Yui's back to let her wife know she was behind her. Her voice was soft and soothing. "Akane, honey, you need to calm down, now. We can't have you going off like this in here. What happened?! What can we do to help?"

Akane growled, slamming the dishwasher shut with her foot. "Ranko's hiding something. Again! Something happened while she was away, and she won't tell me what it is. She hasn't acted right since she's been home. She doesn't wanna be intimate, and she doesn't want to talk. She's just… distant, and every time I try to talk to her, she just gets this look like she's ashamed of herself. She swore to me that she wouldn't keep secrets from me anymore, after the whole fiasco with Eiji."

Yui frowned, sliding onto the metal stool on the near side of the prep counter. "Yeah, she's been acting weird around here, too. Especially around Crash. It's like she doesn't even want to look him in the eyes."

Akane turned to face her sisters-in-not-quite-law, and her eyes widened with an audible gasp. "You… you don't think she… and… they…"

"Ranko? With a dude?! No chance. C'mon, now." Yui waved off her suggestion with the back of her hand. "That girl's head over stilettos for you, Akane. You shouldn't even think that way for a second. You know better." 

"Do I?!" Akane sighed, turning and leaning her backside on the counter with her arms crossed over her breasts. "I thought I did too, but what the hell else am I supposed to think?! She was cagey on the phone the last few days she was gone, too. At first, I thought it was just the contract she signed, but… it's more than that. It's gotta be. We all know about that now, so there's no reason for her to still be all mysterious about it."

Sakura rolled her eyes. "I swear, when she gets here, I'm locking the two of you in the walk-in until you fucking talk. This is ridiculous, Akane. You're both grown-ass women."

"You're telling me! I've been trying for weeks! She just…" Akane shook her head. "Whatever she did, she thinks it's so bad I won't be able to forgive it. But you won't be able to put her anywhere, Sakura. Not tonight, anyway, because she's not coming. We fought, and she decided to stay home and pout."

Yui groaned, throwing her hands up. "The band's already setting up! She has to come!" She rested her elbows on the metal prep counter, scratching at her scalp with her yellow-painted fingernails. I don't know how the hell Mama dealt with all this drama on the daily and kept the trains running on time. I swear, that woman has the patience of a saint.

"Give her a call, I guess. Maybe you can talk some sense into her. Gods know she doesn't want to hear anything I have to say!" Akane growled gutturally, crossing her arms over her chest.

Sakura approached the furious girl, reaching her hand out for her shoulder tentatively. "Do you need to go home? I'm sure we can manage, if you need to go work things out with her." She shot Yui a worried glance over her shoulder. "We can't exactly have you dealing with customers in this state, regardless."

Akane shook her head, relaxing a little at Sakura's touch. "I'll be alright. I just need a minute. And I need some fucking answers!" 

Yui gave a shrug. "I don't have any for you, sis. But I've been watching her - and I have a little more experience than you dealing with girls who have shit to hide. And as much as I hate to say it, you're right. She's messed up about the contract thing, but there's something else. I can see it in her eyes every day."

"I can't even think about it right now. I have to… put it out of my mind somehow. Get through the shift. Then, when I get home, I'm gonna get it out of her if I have to tie her to a fucking chair!" Akane sighed, shaking her head as she looked up at Yui. "Sorry for the outburst, boss."

The blonde chuckled, putting up her hands in a please stop gesture. "Please. Show me somebody Ranko hasn't driven to drink, and I'll show you somebody who's never met her. Take a walk if you need to. Clear your head."

Akane pushed the dishwasher closed, shrugging her shoulders as she did. "It won't matter. I just need to stop thinking about it for a minute. Focus on something else. I need a distraction. What needs doing up front?"

Sakura rubbed her chin thoughtfully. "Yui, did you refill the napkin holders on the tables?"

"Day before yesterday, but…" Yui shrugged. "I guess she could check 'em again. We did have that wing special the other day, and we probably went through more than normal."

Akane nodded. "Consider it done!" She forced a smile onto her face, grabbing a long package of napkins wrapped in heavy brown paper and stalking down the hallway in Ranko's mauve sweater dress. She burst through the swinging slatted door, making a beeline to the VIP table and opening the aluminum napkin dispenser. Try though she might, she couldn't keep herself from glancing up at Crash sitting on the edge of the platform, laughing with Zoe about something Akane didn't hear.

"There she is," Crash said, mirth still lingering in his voice. "Hey, 'Kane! Where's Ranko at? I mean, I'm cute and all, but I'm pretty sure the crowd's gonna notice if we're missing our singer."

"Well, better run home and get your party dress, I guess, 'cause she's not coming tonight." Akane sighed defeatedly, slamming the napkin dispenser shut after refilling it. "Not feeling well," she added, preferring the lie to having to explain her marital dispute to Crash, of all people.

Crash rolled his eyes. "Alright. Forget it, Zo, guess we're not playing tonight." 

Akane buzzed back to table two, sliding into one of the red vinyl benches of the booth closest to the stage and reaching to the very back for the napkin dispenser. We should start leaving these on the edges of the tables when we wipe them down at night, so we don't have to crawl into every booth, she considered. 

"Damn. Tough, that." The Dapper Dragons' new drummer knocked back the rest of their beer, wiping their lips on the sleeve of their black-and-gray striped overshirt. "Guess you're just gonna have to spend the night with your actual girlfriend for a change, Burn."

Actual girlfriend?! Akane stiffened on her knees in the booth. What do you mean, actual girlfriend?!

"Would you quit with the Burn thing? Where are you even getting that from, anyway?" The guitarist turned at the waist from his seat at the edge of the stage, looking up at Zoe. 

"Ya know." Zoe smirked, gesturing to their new friend and bandmate with both hands. "Crash." They moved both hands to their right, as if to indicate a second, following thing. "And Burn." 

Crash laughed again, popping off the bottle cap from his condensation-slick bottle of beer with the opener tool dangling from his studded belt. "Well it's weird. Stop i…"

"MATSUYAMA!" 

Zoe cringed, stepping back toward their drum set. "Oi, I'm gettin' out the line o' fire, mate. That… don't look good, yeah?"

Before Crash could respond, Akane had grabbed him by the studded lapels of his black leather jacket. "Alright, mister. Spill! Enough of the games. Something's wrong with Ranko, and you have something to do with it. You two have always been thick as thieves. I want to know what happened with you two while you were away, and I want to know right the fuck NOW!"

"Akane! I… what the heck are you…" Crash stammered as he was pulled off of the stage and onto his feet on the bar floor. 

The irate woman slammed his back against the edge of the stage, eliciting a pained grunt from her wife's best friend. "Talk, Crash!" 

The blond guitarist looked over her shoulder to Yui and Sakura for help, as the couple had emerged behind the bar at the sound of the commotion. "Akane, I don't have the slightest idea what you're talking about! I didn't even touch her that night! I swear!"

Akane blinked, momentarily relaxing her grip on Crash's jacket. "That… that night? What are you… WHAT DID YOU DO?!"

"Oh, Christ on a pogo stick." Zoe gasped, covering their mouth with their hand. "Crash… Blue didn't fuckin' tell her." 

"Whaddya mean?! She said she told her everything!" Crash looked up at Zoe incredulously, flailing against the edge of the stage. "She swore!"

Zoe stepped closer to the edge of the stage, dropping to their knees in a long denim skirt. Their voice was soft, a tinge of what could easily be taken as pity in it. "Look at her face, mate. Ranko lied to us."

"Well, somebody better fucking tell me, or I'm gonna start swinging!" Akane's eyes darted between Zoe and Crash, her anger starting to give way to worry.

Crash rested his hands on the backs of Akane's, gently. His voice was sad, quiet, and non-threatening. "Akane, listen… you, umm… you might wanna sit down, hon."

"Ranko's never gonna forgive you if you spill it, Crash." Zoe dropped to their backside, swinging their legs over the edge of the stage with a quiet sigh. "You know how she gets about all that touchy-feely shit, yeah?"

The guitarist shook his head as Akane slumped nervously into a seat at the VIP table. "I don't care, Zo. Akane needs to know." He walked over to the round table, pulling out the chair to Akane's immediate left and sitting down slowly with a heavy sigh, resting his mostly-empty brown beer bottle on the tabletop. "Akane, I wanna say I'm sorry. She promised us she told you, so we stayed out of it."

Akane looked up, all the fury in her eyes having been replaced with fear. "Crash, please… you're scaring me now."

Receiving a nod of assurance from her partner, Yui slipped out from the bar and walked closer to table one, a mask of concern covering her face like an encroaching shadow as well. 

"So, we were in Bangkok, the night before the show, and we all went to this bar. Well, most of us - 'Tomi and Emi stayed at the hotel, but the rest of us all went out. And Ranko was being Ranko; you know how she is, and she wandered off to go play pool with somebody. And…" Crash shook his head, looking down at the table in shame. "Akane, I'm sorry. I should have been watching her. I promised you."

Akane swallowed hard. "Crash, what…"

"Somebody put something in her drink, Akane." 

Ranko's wife gasped, covering her mouth with her hands. "... no…"

"Oh, gods!" Yui said, resting her trembling hand on Akane's back.

"She's okay." Crash held his palms up to Akane, hoping to calm her, but he could see in her eyes that it was having no effect. "He didn't… thank the gods, Lance saw it happen, and we got her back to the hotel before whatever he gave her could kick in all the way. I sat up and watched her all night. I know she doesn't remember much about it. I had to tell her what happened the next morning. Nothing else happened, Akane. I swear it. But ever since, it's like… she just hasn't been right in the head. Akane, I'm so sorry."

Akane rocketed out of her chair, stumbling back a few steps as she recoiled from the thought Ranko is… She's not equipped to deal with this. Not her. No wonder she's been such a mess. "No one touched her? No one…"

Crash sighed, shaking his head resolutely. "On my life, Akane. She was safe. I'd have killed anyone who tried anything. I think Lance actually might've offed the guy."

"Yui, I… I need to…" Akane turned to glance back at her sister and boss, but got no further in her sentence before she had the answer she sought.

"Go."

Akane nodded, taking the first three steps backward before turning and running to the front door, slamming through it with a loud bang that rattled the other side of the double door in its frame. 

Yui stepped closer to the table, standing behind the chair Akane had just vacated, and glared daggers down toward Crash. "I want you to listen to me, Matsuyama, because I am only going to fucking say this once." Unlike Akane's screaming, there was a quiet, roiling rage in Yui's voice that might have scared the guitarist even more. "If I ever hear that something bad happened to Ranko and you didn't call me…"

"Yui, she promised she was gonna…"

"I DON'T CARE!" Yui slammed the table hard with her palm, sending Crash's beer bottle clattering to the floor. "That headstrong, more-guts-than-brains idiot you knock around the world with is my little sister! I don't give a fuck if the emperor himself tells you she's okay! You. Fucking. CALL! ME! IMMEDIATELY! We know how to deal with this kind of shit around here! So fucking help me gods, Crash, I will put your damned balls in that blender over there if I ever hear word that something like this happened again and I wasn't your first call!" 

She thrust her hand forward with a stomp of her black heeled boot, pointing at the cringing drummer that all but hid behind their boyfriend's synthesizer. "And that goes for all YOU fuckers, too! That girl may be your meal ticket, but that is my mother fucking FAMILY! AM I FUCKING UNDERSTOOD?!"

In all the years he had known her, Crash had never heard Yui raise her voice like that, not even when she was drinking. "Yui," he said softly, bowing his head in deference. "There was nothing you could have done. You girls were dealing with the bar, and…"

"BULLSHIT! You don't get to decide that! I could have been there! I could have held her fucking hand when you told her what happened!" Angry tears rained down the blonde's cheeks as she shook in her fury, and she shrugged off Sakura's hand on her back. "She wouldn't have been alone."

Crash stood, slowly walking toward her, his hands held open at his sides in nonthreatening supplication. "Yui, it was the middle of the night. You couldn't have even gotten a flight. I watched over her. I held her hand." He wrapped his arms gently around the quaking barkeep, relaxing his muscles in the hopes of calming her. He had seen it work many times with her younger sister. "She wasn't alone. Not for a second. I swear."

"She's my baby sister. I'd have fucking grown wings," Yui wailed through her sobs into the shoulder of his leather jacket.