“Please watch your step while exiting the platform. Thank you.” A merry little chime alerted Ranko and her mother to the opening of the automatic train doors, and the redhead rose to her feet.


    Ranko winced slightly, the backs of her legs having uncomfortably stuck to the vinyl seats under the borrowed pencil skirt she wore. Ow. Stupid Cat’s Tongue.


    The two well-dressed women stepped off the train and onto the platform. Ranko looked around, sighing softly as she followed Hana clear of the platform and toward the main concourse. She noticed Hana checking her wristwatch, probably for the fourth or fifth time since they’d left the library. She got a hot date or something? Ranko wondered. Honestly, I can’t believe she even set this meeting up right now; between getting ready for the concert, the holidays and everything, it just doesn’t seem like the most important thing. Her concerted expression gave way to a blush.


    Hana motioned to a little cafe nestled into the corner of the station, just beyond the ticket booth. “You hungry, kiddo? We could grab a quick bite if you want. I just know you didn’t get up early enough for breakfast before getting ready so early.”


    Ranko shrugged nonchalantly. “I’m okay, but we can stop if you wanna.” In reality, she hadn’t been eating much the last few days. Between concert preparations and the impending threat of an encounter with Mikado Sanzenin, she’d been running on pure adrenaline for the better part of a week.


    Hana nodded. “Yeah, I could go for a tamagoyaki.” She meandered over toward the order window, making and paying for her selection, leaving Ranko leaning against the gray metal railing overlooking the tracks and watching the trains come in. The teen seemed deep in thought.


    After a few moments, the owner of the Phoenix returned from the order window, a white paper tray of folded egg in her hand. Her youngest adopted daughter was not where Hana had left her, however. “Ranko?” She craned her neck, scanning the crowd for the telltale shock of red hair, but she did not spy it. Maybe she went to the bathroom?


    Hana walked toward the restroom, waiting a moment, and when no one she recognized emerged, she looked around again. Her eye caught on a dark little alcove, off of the narrow corridor leading from the main concourse to the restrooms. Sticking out into the entranceway at about knee height was a familiar black chunky heel. Ranko? Hana crept to the entrance of the darkened nook, as quietly as she could in her own heels. There, she found the young redhead, curled up in almost the fetal position on a slatted bamboo bench opposite a pair of dusty, inoperative vending machines that had been stored in the disused space. “There you are, little star. You disappeared on me.”


    The redhead nodded, sitting up on the bench and scooting over to one side to make room for her. “Sorry, Mama. I was just…” She shrugged, deciding the rest of her sentence was unimportant and not worth finishing.


    Hana sat next to her daughter, offering her a bite of tamagoyaki with her wooden chopsticks. Ranko shook her head in polite declination, so Hana popped it into her mouth, speaking as she chewed. “What are you doing, hiding in here? You okay, kiddo? What’s buggin’ ya?”


    Ranko frowned, looking down in shame at her hands. “Sorry. I was just thinking.” She brushed a fleck of dust from the navy skirt she’d borrowed from Izumi. “I… used to sleep here sometimes, if it was too cold outside or it was raining or something.”


    The elder woman frowned, looking around the bleak little corner of the train station with a new perspective. “You’re never going to have to do anything like that again, honey. You’re never going to be alone again. Look at me.” She waited for Ranko’s eyes to lift to meet hers before continuing. “I mean it. I promise, Ranko.”


    Hana set her tray of food down on the bench at her right hip, turning on the seat to face her young ward. “Hey, you know you can talk to me, right?” Hana rested her hand on her daughter’s shoulder. “C’mon. What’s going on in there? I know you’ve got a lot on your plate right now with the show, this new exam thing, and whatever’s happening between you and Mei.”


    Ranko sighed. The situation with Mei and Mikado was eating her up, not only with worry over Mei getting hurt, but with her own memories of her assailant being dredged up. If I tell them, and they pressure Mei to break it off with him, it’ll be like I’m asking them to trust me over her. Mei already thinks I’m getting favoritism from them. It’ll just make things worse and push her further away from me. Why can’t I just… why can’t I admit what he did to me? Why can’t I be brave enough? She looked up into Hana’s eyes again. “I’m sorry I’m such a mess.”


    Hana’s shoulders slumped as she swallowed a bite of egg. “Hey. Knock that off now. C’mon.” She reached out, stroking the teen’s flame-red hair. “All of us are a mess, baby. You, me, all your sisters, hell, most people in the world. I’d take it all away from you if I could. Every single thing that’s hurting you, or scaring you, or haunting you. But, I’m also grateful for the fact that one day, you woke up on this bench, and decided to make your life better. One day, you got up off of this bench and wandered into my bar looking for a job.” She cupped her hand around Ranko’s cheek. “And because you did - because you made that choice to look for something better - I got to meet my incredible little girl.”


    The redhead threw herself forward, wrapping her arms around Hana and squeezing her around the midsection. “Thank you. For the… for… thank you.”


    The old barkeep smiled, stroking her child’s hair and putting her arm over her back. “Oh, Ranko, honey, you’re so welcome.” As she turned her body into the hug, she knocked her half-eaten tray of tamagoyaki to the floor. Whatever. I really wasn’t all that hungry anyway; I was just trying to kill a little time. But, it should be late enough now, I think. “C’mon, precious. You about ready to get out of here, and go home?”


    Ranko sat up, putting on a bright smile that was only slightly betrayed by her welling eyes. She did have plenty of reasons to smile, she realized, even when the reasons not to were the ones currently dominating her thoughts. “You bet!”


    <hr>


    Hana slid her key into the lock of the glass door painted with her name, fumbling with it clumsily for a moment before turning it in the lock and pushing the door open. She held it open for her daughter.


    As Ranko entered the main bar area of the Phoenix, she noticed that the aluminum stepladder and some of the other tools they’d used while decorating had been pulled out again. Maybe Ayako found some more decorations to put up? No, that’s not it... She realized she no longer heard the attract music loop coming from the Pac-Man arcade machine in the back. Did it break? Mei’s gonna have a conniption.


    Hana stopped walking near the main bar counter, just watching the young redhead from behind with an excited smile. I wonder how long it’ll take her to notice what changed, she thought as she pulled off her blazer and hung it over the back of a bar stool.


    As Ranko approached the little alcove, she stopped suddenly. The arcade machine was completely gone, and so was the purple-felted billiards table. In their place were three six-top tables and chairs. They perfectly matched the ones that filled the rest of the bar, but Ranko had been through every centimeter of the bar she called home, and she knew they had no spares. The tables had to have been moved from somewhere. She looked back to the main room, counting the rows. Four, five, six, sev… no! The seventh row of tables is missing! Why? The lights in the back half of the room were turned off, so she hadn’t noticed the change at first. She strode to the wall by the service bar and reached out for the light switch. When she flicked it, she gasped quietly as her eyes found the reason for the rearrangement.


    The little triangular corner stage with the karaoke machine - her home for the last two months - had been entirely replaced. In place of it, a raised wooden platform now stretched the entire length of the back wall that separated the main bar room from the ladies’ restroom. The platform was almost breast-high to Ranko, where the previous didn’t even reach her knees, and there were three steps recessed into the right side to ascend it. Two of the large speakers that had previously been propped in the corner so the music could be heard over the arcade machine had been relocated, one on either side of the stage facing into the room from new mounts near the ceiling. Off to one side, near where the arcade machine had been, a small booth had been erected, and all of the sound and lighting control equipment had been moved into it. “What is… how…”Unauthorized usage: this tale is on Amazon without the author''s consent. Report any sightings.


    The entire front edge of the stage was lined in silver garland, and two large plastic candy canes stood bookending the stage in the back. The posters that had adorned the back wall were gone, leaving a clean backdrop of oak paneling. On the left side of the stage, in the very corner, stood a small, sparsely-but-tastefully decorated Christmas tree.


    She stepped up the stairs, and she heard a loud mechanical clunk of a breaker being flipped. The Christmas tree lit up. The colored lights that used to flash patterns on the walls when the music played had been repositioned, pointing up at the center of the platform, where a simple pine stool and a microphone stand waited. The stool also had some silver garland weaved through its legs, and a few red baubles hung from it. Ranko covered her open mouth, taking another step forward. Resting on the stool was a single red rose, with a red ribbon tied around its stem bearing a small paper tag in the shape of a heart. She turned it in the beams of light to read it. Three immaculately calligraphed characters adorned the tag. They read, for our star.


    “Surprise!”


    Ranko turned, and found Yui and Izumi popping up from their hiding positions behind the bar. Both were wearing denim overalls smudged with dirt and wood stain, and Izumi’s hair was tied back in a tight bun.


    “You… you guys! You did this?”


    Yui nodded. “Mm-hmm. Just barely finished in time, too. Mama was supposed to keep you out for another hour or so.” The blonde rolled her eyes at Hana with a playful smirk of mock judgement.


    Hana sighed in exaggerated defeat, shrugging her shoulders with a smirk. “The meeting didn’t take as long as I expected, and I ran out of excuses, Sorry, girls.”


    Ranko looked out over the room from her raised vantage point atop her new stage platform, her jaw still slack in disbelief of what had been done for her. “But, how? We couldn’t afford this…”


    Yui pointed to the equipment as she spoke. “The lights, speakers, all of that stuff, we already had, we just had to move ‘em.”


    Izumi grinned. “As for the stage itself, well, I guess it’s a good thing one of us is marrying a building contractor in a couple months, huh? Kaito built everything. He had to run, but he says he loves ya.”


    “Girls, I… I don’t know what to say. It’s beautiful. I just… I can’t believe you did this. Thank you so much.” Ranko walked up to Yui, then Izumi, and then Hana, hugging them each in turn. “I’ll… I’ll be able to dance now!”


    Hana smiled, wrapping her arms around Yui’s shoulders on her left, and Izumi’s on her right. “You deserve it.”


    Ranko bit her lip. On one hand, she was absolutely floored with the surprise and the consideration that had been paid to doing it for her at all. On the other hand, it broke her heart that Mei wasn’t there, and she worried that the girls having made such a grand gesture without her input would only add fuel to her jealousy.


    Hana looked around at the ladder and other remnants of the construction effort. “Well, since we’re here early, we might as well help get this cleaned up.”


    “Of course.” Ranko nodded and started moving toward the pile of tools.


    Izumi stopped her with a gentle palm to her sternum, however. “Not in my favorite suit, you’re not. Go get changed, silly.”


    Ranko blushed, looking down at her businesslike attire. “You got it!” She turned and rushed up the stairs.


    <hr>


    Having changed into a pair of black jeans and a cherry red tee shirt bearing the bar’s trapezoidal firebird logo across its chest, Ranko emerged from her little apartment. Her hair was pulled back in a loose ponytail secured with a short length of white satin ribbon, and she wore a bright smile. They built me a stage. They’re trying to build me… a life. She had nearly reached the base of the steps leading down into the hallway separating the kitchen from the front of the house when she heard raised voices.


    “Look, we’re doing a concert to try to save this place. It’s kind of important! We had to make it look decent. We’ve all been working our asses off getting ready. You’d know that if you’d been around at all!”


    Is that Yui? What’s got her so upset? Better hang back. Ranko paused in the hallway, listening to the conversation to determine if it was safe to come out.


    The second voice was definitely Mei’s. “Well, excuse me, Yui, for finally having a life and not wanting to be here seven days a week until I die, like you!”


    Yui’s voice responded, sharpened but not to the level of yelling. “Yeah, but you could have told us if you needed time. You just haven’t shown up, and left us short-handed while we’re trying to put this whole thing together and get out of this jam.”


    Mei scoffed. “I honestly didn’t think you’d miss me all that much, considering you had Princess Diva here to pick up the slack. I swear, it’s like you girls forgot I exist!”


    Izumi growled in frustration from the direction of the kitchen. “Mei, of course we were going to have to focus on her! She’s new. She’s scared. She needs us! ALL of us! Did you hear me lose my shit when you showed up, and I wasn’t the baby anymore?! Mama slept on the floor next to your bed for a fucking month, trying to keep you clean and get you through detox, and not one of us complained for a fucking second! We’re all holding that poor kid together with our bare fucking hands, and we could really use your help, Mei!”


    Ranko backed up on the stairs, careful not to make a sound. It’s even worse than I thought. I’m… hurting them, just by being here.


    “It’s bad enough that she’s taking over everything about this place, but then when I go try to find a little happiness for myself and let her have it, she has to shit all over that, too! Telling me how I shouldn’t be going out with Mikado. Doesn’t she have enough people here to kiss her ass? Does she really need all four of us to have our heads up her ass every night, or could I maybe get the occasional night off to have a life?!”


    Tell her, Ranko. Walk down those last eight steps, right now, look her in the face and tell her. You’re dating a creep. A pervert. A predator. Maybe I could say it like it happened to someone else. Just someone I know. Ranko shook her head. One look at my face and they’d know I was lying. They’re too perceptive for that, especially Mama. She hung her head, shaking it slightly. You’re right to be angry with me, Mei. Not because I’m a jerk. Because I’m a coward.


    “That’s enough!” Hana snapped, her voice coming from the direction of her office. “Look, I know you were the youngest here for a long time, and that it can be hard when someone new starts getting attention. But you know what a mess that girl was when she got here. She needed us. She still needs us. All of us. She misses you something terrible, Mei. Besides, she’s killing herself, trying to put this place on her back and get us out of trouble. She’s been here barely a month, and she’s carrying this family, and this is how you treat her?! I’m disappointed, Mei.”


    “Oh, I’m sure her throngs of adoring fans will stroke her ego just fine!” Mei growled, and Ranko could hear the slam of what sounded like an aluminum tray being thrown. “Don’t worry. I’ll be here to help tonight, so nobody needs to cry about having to pour a few extra drinks. Oh, and by the way, not that anyone’s all that interested, but Mikado’s coming by for a while tonight with a couple of his friends. Ya know, just in case my family cares at all about meeting my boyfriend. I’m not really holding my breath, though.”


    Ranko gasped, and it felt like the world had begun spinning. She slumped against the wall of the narrow staircase, trying not to make a sound and tip her family off to her eavesdropping. That jerk, here?! In the only safe place I’ve ever known? What, so he can humiliate me again? I’ve finally got some people in my life who respect me, and… She swallowed hard. Go tell them. Walk down the stairs. Tell her. Before he destroys us both.


    She stared at her feet, willing them to move, but they would not.


    Hana sighed, and Ranko held her breath as she watched her adoptive mother pass the staircase to join Mei in the kitchen. “We didn’t stop loving you just because we started loving Ranko. We never will. We’re not going to run out of love, baby. There’s enough for everyone. You’re always going to be part of this family, no matter how much it grows. Of course we want to meet Mikado. All of us do.”


    Ranko ran back up the stairs, grateful she’d passed on Hana’s offer of breakfast. There would be less to throw up.