Just when Ranma thought the night would never end, the last customer walked out and Izumi flipped the little sign in the window to the CLOSED side, deadbolting both of the glass doors. Not since the last time her father had made her lug boulders up a mountain for some stupid training thing had Ranma been so tired. She slumped into the closest chair at table eight, feeling her body relax with a long, slow exhale.


    Izumi came up behind her, putting an arm around her shoulder with a little squeeze. “So, hey ladies, what do we think of Ranko tonight?” Izumi whooped and clapped, and Mei enthusiastically joined in. Yui and Hana were still in the back, where they had been mired in more conspiratorial conversations since just after last call, but they emerged at Izumi’s prompting. Yui gave the new hire a little round of applause as well. Hana was all smiles, but did not clap because she had a clipboard in her hand.


    “Seriously, honey. Great job today,” Izumi said warmly. Ranma smiled up at the brunette, feeling at least a little accomplished. She found it difficult to be too happy though, as she was still worried about whatever it was that Yui and Hana were up to.


    As Mei finished wiping down the bar top with a clean rag, Hana slid into the chair across from the redhead. “Hey, Ranko, can we talk for a second?”


    Ranma nodded, eyeing Hana with some measure of concern. Her nerves were getting the best of her now, and she fidgeted in her seat a little.


    Hana looked up over the clipboard, and she must have seen the poor girl jittering. “Take it easy, kiddo. I just gotta get some information from you for the employee file.” Ranma swallowed hard with an audible gulp.


    This is even worse, she thought, tapping her foot anxiously under the table.


    “Okay, let’s start off. Real basic stuff. Name’s Ranko… you said your last name was Tendo, right?”


    Ranma nodded nervously, her eyes darting around the room for signs of suspicion in the other girls’ eyes.


    “Got it. Birth date?” Ranma gave a date of November twenty-fifth, remembering to subtract two from the year at the last possible second.


    A whoop came from behind the bar. “Nice! Hey, Yui! Saturday’s the new kid’s birthday!” Mei giggled.


    “Alright. I take it you’re a Japanese citizen, so no worries there?”


    Ranma nodded again, meekly, in response to Hana’s latest query, and the bar owner’s pen moved some more behind the clipboard. “Great! Almost done. And, what’s your address?”


    Ranma froze. Oh, man. What are they gonna think, knowing I’ve been sleeping in parks and stuff the last few weeks? Are they gonna think less of me, like I’m some loser? I mean… they’re not wrong, I guess. Will they even want me? She slumped down in her chair. “Well, I… ah…”


    Hana nodded sadly. “Yeah, that’s pretty much what we thought.” Ranma looked up from her despair, puzzled. “Don’t blame me,” the proprietress continued. “Yui spotted it first.”


    The blonde had made her way out of the back room without Ranma having noticed, and was now standing behind the new hire’s chair. “You’ve got leaves all over your back. You’re carrying a camping backpack with a sleeping mat thing, and you felt the need to bring it here with you because you don’t have anyplace else to leave it. You ate like you’ve been starving for a week. If you were trying to hide it, you… kinda suck at it, blockhead.”


    Ranma wanted to crawl under the table. She wished she could say she’d never been so humiliated, but lately that seemed to just invite a new low to lurk just around the corner. Hana sighed, putting the clipboard down on the table. Ranma’s eyes darted to it and found that the top page contained a crossword puzzle, with a little abstract doodle off to the side.


    What had been nervousness became panic. Clearly, her situation was going to be an issue for them if they had made such a big deal about it. Her eyes wide, she racked her brain for anything she could do or say to salvage the situation. If she couldn’t even hold a job as a bar helper, she was well and truly sunk.


    It was then that Hana reached across the table, covering Ranma’s hand with her own and patting it to focus the teen’s attention. “Hey, hey, hey. Ranko. Look at me. Look at me, baby. Everything’s okay, honey. Relax.” Something about the woman’s voice, her presence, reassured Ranma, and she quieted herself at least somewhat. “Listen, the girls and I have been talking. You really impressed us today. We think you’re going to do great here. But, baby, we can’t have you out on the streets like that. It’s not safe for you.”


    Ranma nodded, following along. While she was pretty sure she could still handle the odd pervy vagrant, and had had to do so more than once since she left Nerima, she appreciated her boss’s concern nonetheless.


    After a sip from her brown beer bottle, Hana continued. “So, anyway, we keep a little studio apartment upstairs. It’s not much; we mostly just use it for quick changes and if one of us needs to crash for a while after a long night, but nobody lives up there. If you like…” Ranma noticed that as Hana spoke, Izumi, Yui and Mei had formed a semicircle behind her chair. “You’re welcome to use it for a while if you want to.”


    Ranma blushed. She could not believe the kindness being shown to her, but she couldn’t be a freeloader again. Not after how things ended with the Tendo family. “Thank you,” she squeaked, “but really, I’m fine. I don’t mind. It’s not so bad.” As she finished her sentence, the walls of the bar shook with a loud peal of thunder from outside. It had been so loud and so busy throughout the evening that none of the women had noticed it was storming.


    Hana pursed her lips. “Okay, and now I’m not asking. Come on, honey.”


    She stood and offered Ranma her hand, but before Ranma could get out of her chair, Yui stepped forward. “Mama, let me get her settled?”


    Hana nodded. “I think that’s a great idea. Good night, Ranko.”


    With cheery assents from Mei and Izumi, Yui put her arm around the shorter girl’s shoulders. “C’mon, you.”


    Ranma blushed furiously at being catered to after weeks of living rough. She felt terrible as she considered how distrusting she had been of Yui and Hana’s conversations, and horribly guilty at the idea of living off of someone else’s generosity again. On the other hand, she did have a job at the Phoenix. She wasn’t freeloading; it would be no different than when Ukyo offered her a place to stay above her restaurant. Maybe she’d just stay the night, so she wasn’t stuck out in the rain. It hadn’t really stormed much since Ranma left home, but the thought of having to walk, let alone sleep, in a deluge made every cell of her hypersensitive skin stand on end.The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.


    Her backpack slung over her shoulder, she followed Yui up the narrow stairs to the left. The door at the top wasn’t locked, and Yui pushed it open. “Well, here you go. Make yourself at home.” Yui stepped forward to allow Ranma to enter and take in the space.


    It was indeed a small apartment, probably not much bigger than the Tendo guest room, and it was fairly sparsely decorated. A tiny cooktop, a microwave and a half-sized refrigerator were crammed into one corner. Two narrow doors took up most of the east wall. Centered on the window directly ahead of her stood a twin-sized bed, sticking out into the center of the room. It had a fairly plain purple comforter, two small pillows, a headboard made of hollow aluminum painted white and bent into a few basic but dainty patterns, and a footboard to match. A small, white-painted nightstand and a round pine table with two chairs rounded out the furnishings. The air smelled faintly of flowers.


    Ranma’s eyes widened. She couldn’t believe her good luck. What the heck did I do to deserve all this? Do Hana and the others want something from me? What’s the catch? When’s the other shoe going to drop? She tried not to get too excited in case things went south, but she had to admit, she couldn’t wait to try out that bed. Her feet ached in ways she didn’t know existed, and she honestly couldn’t remember the last time she’d slept on a mattress. She kicked off her shoes and set her backpack on the hardwood floor next to the front door, which Yui closed behind them.


    Yui motioned to the two doors on her right. “The one on the left is the bathroom, the other’s the closet. There’s a few outfits in there that the girls and I have left here over time; if anything fits you, you’re welcome to borrow it.”


    Ranma looked up at her coworker skeptically, but hopefully. “Are you guys sure about this? I really...”


    The blonde shushed her with an open palm and a smile. “You heard Mama. If she says you stay, you stay. There’s no argument to be had about it.”


    Ranma sat on the bed, stifling a giggle as her butt sank into the soft mattress a little. “Well, thank you. All of you. I hope I’m going to make you all proud.”


    Her comment earned a more earnest smile than Ranma had seen from Yui thus far, and the tall blonde pulled up a chair from the dining table to a spot next to the bed. “Of that, Ranko, I have no doubt.”


    Ranma fidgeted with her hands a little, not really sure how to conduct herself. She didn’t exactly have a lot of experience at the whole girl talk thing, other than an occasional conversation with Akane where Ranma thought her once-fiancée might find it easier to discuss a difficult subject with a girl. “Why do you call Hana Mama?”


    Yui smiled a bit wistfully, looking around the room as if she were watching the ghosts of the past dance around on the wallpaper. “Well, kiddo, here’s the thing. Where you’re sitting right now? All of us sat there at one time or another. Hana took us all in and helped us find our way. We all had something to run from, and she refused to give up on any of us. She’s the mother none of us really ever had. She’s good people – the best. Over time, we’ve kind of become a little family, the five of us. Oh yeah, there’s Ayako too – you’ll meet her one of these days. She’s the oldest of us, but she got married a few weeks ago and moved out to Yokohama with her husband. That’s why we had an opening – which reminds me, tomorrow, make sure you take that sign out of the window, yeah?”


    Ranma rocked back. She couldn’t believe what she was hearing. She wasn’t sure if her gloom despite this incredible turn of events was because she felt awkward for being pitied, because she felt guilty for accepting the charity of people who had themselves struggled, because she sympathized with her coworkers for having all been through similar situations to the one she found herself in now without the benefit of a childhood spent living out of a bag, or if it was just the sea of pent-up fears and worries that had finally begun to crest. Maybe all of it combined.


    “What brought you all here, if I can ask?”


    Yui scoffed a little, shaking her head as if admonishing herself for not expecting the obvious followup question. “Well, Izzi… she got pregnant at her 18th birthday party, and the shitbag guy bailed on her. She was alone with a young son when she first came. But now, she’s seeing a great guy named Kaito, and he’s amazing with little Hoshi. She’ll probably be the next one getting hitched at this rate.” She chuckled. “As for Mei, it was drugs, real bad. Man, the first month, she was so sick, but Mama stayed with her through the whole thing, got her clean, and she’s been able to stay that way. We’re all super proud of her.”


    Ranma nodded softly, the new context for the compassion her coworkers had shown her crashing into her like a wave of sledgehammers. “The other one… Ayako, you said her name was? What was her deal?”


    The blonde chuckled. “Compared to the rest of ‘em, Aya got off easy in the trauma department. She just had sticky fingers, and Mama had to save her from the cops a bunch of times.”


    “I guess that just leaves you,” Ranma said, leaving the unasked question hanging in the air as she leaned over on the bed, nudging Yui’s forearm playfully.


    Yui blushed, nervously rubbing her wrist through her sleeve. “Me? Pshaw. I was fine, Mama just needed somebody cute to tend bar.”


    Ranma smirked disbelievingly. “Fine, fine. Keep your secrets.”


    Yui turned to her, and while her expression turned more serious, it was painted with compassion and care. It reminded Ranma a lot of Kasumi. “More importantly, what about you, Ranko? You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to, but I’m here if and when you do.”


    Ranma had only known this girl for a few hours, but she wanted to tell her everything. Jusenkyo, the love hexagon-or-however-many-sides-it-had, the Cat’s Tongue thing, all of it. She wanted somewhere to put it all, even just for a minute, but she was certain that there was no way Yui would believe her. She thought maybe she could say enough without saying too much.


    “Sheesh, where do I start? Um, well, my pop was like, super strict about wanting me to… take over the family business. I mean, I wanted to and everything, but with him it was like, all training, all the time. We left home when I was like five, and he started taking me all over to… ya know, show me parts of the business and stuff. I haven’t seen my mom since.” She fidgeted a little, not sure how to broach the next part. “Thing is, Pop had this best friend, see, and they got the genius idea that one of Pop’s kids and one of his should get married, and, well, I’m an only child. So, that pretty much settled things for me.”


    Yui cringed, crinkling her nose and recoiling in disgust. “An arranged marriage? People still do that? Ugh! Gross! Well, I hope he was decent, at least.”


    Ranma gulped hard. He? That was not a conversation she was prepared to have - not yet, at least. “Ak… my… was really sweet sometimes, and really cute sometimes, and really violent and untrusting sometimes. It was… complicated. We might’ve been able to make it work, maybe, but then I… got hurt, and everything started changing for me. I wasn’t sure what to do, I was confused and scared and depressed and I needed time and I needed help, and Pop and his friend and everybody just insisted that I keep on like nothing ever happened and I just couldn’t do it. I tried, Yui. I swear I did. I couldn’t do it anymore. I…”


    The touch of Yui’s hand on hers interrupted her train of thought. Yui’s slender fingers curled around Ranma’s left hand and wrist, sympathy filling her eyes. “You don’t have to say anything else, honey. I understand.” Her voice was soft and soothing.


    Ranma’s eyes welled and she turned away slightly, hiding the black eye that had been left as a souvenir from her humiliation at the dojo. I can’t do this, she admonished herself. I can’t. Gotta suck it up. Gotta be strong. Can’t let them see weakness. I can’t afford to make myself vulnerable. That’s how you get hurt. Fuck, it feels good to just have somewhere to go, and someone to talk to about everything, though. Her body quaked slightly as she fought to stem the tide, and she only looked back to Yui when she felt her coworker gently squeezing her hand.


    “Ranko, it’s okay. You’re okay now. You’re safe here with us.”


    Ranko. The name she’d chosen so she could bury her male half, or at least try to. But Yui didn’t know she’d ever been a boy. To Yui, she was just another girl. And girls were allowed to cry.


    Ranma clung to her new friend’s arm, and the dam broke.