The December chill followed Ranko through the steel door back into the Phoenix kitchen. Her eyes were completely dead and unfeeling. Mei, who had been huddled in the back corner of the kitchen near the walk-in freezer, quickly closed the distance between herself and her younger sister. When she did, she reached her arms around the redhead to hug her.
“Ranko, thank you. Thank you. You tried to warn me, and you were right about everything. I am so sorry I didn’t listen. I was cruel and stupid, and I said terrible, mean things, and…”
Ranko did not acknowledge her presence. She did not turn to make eye contact. Rather, she walked right through Mei’s arms without breaking stride, heading directly up the stairs. Mei’s worried eyes followed her.
“Would somebody please tell me what the fu…”
Hana cut her daughter off mid-sentence as she closed and locked the door leading to the alleyway behind herself. “Not now, Yui! Shut it down. Right now!”
Yui gestured in confusion. “How am I suppos…”
Again, Hana did not let her finish. “I don’t give a fuck if you have to pull the fire alarm! Clear it out, and don’t let Izumi out of your sight until it’s done!”
Mei slumped back into the corner next to the walk-in, her shivering not brought on by the cold. The adrenaline of the encounter finally giving way, she began to sob quietly. I was so sure he was a good guy. Finally, I had a good guy. And then he goes and does this? And tries to… Worst of all, Ranko tried to warn me he was bad news, and all I did was abuse her for it, she admonished herself in silence.
Hana crouched at Mei’s side and reached out for her daughter’s shoulder, but Mei shrank back from the matriarch’s touch. “Mei, baby, you’re safe now, sweetheart. It’s okay. I’ve got you.” Hana had not seen what Mikado had done, but it was clear enough to her what had happened.
The throbbing of the bass from the sound system up front faded, and Yui and Izumi shortly made their way to the back room. “They’re gone,” Yui said with a sigh and a shrug. “Everything’s locked up tighter than a drum. Now, what the hell happened?!”
Hana looked up to her sadly. “Mei’s date tried to force himself on her.”
Izumi gasped. “My gods! Are you…”
The proprietress nodded. “She''s going to be okay. Ranko… dealt with him.”
Whether the battered perpetrator in the back alley would be okay, however, she did not know. In thirty years in the bar business, she had seen her share of fights, but nothing like that. It was as if the girl had been possessed. She wasn''t sure that Ranko had even heard her screaming at her to stop. "Mei, I''m sorry to ask, but… the last time you saw Ranko fight, was she… like that?"
Mei shook her head, sniffling her tears back. "Not at all. She basically embarrassed them until they ran. But this time… Mama, that was…”
Izumi looked around for the subject of conversation, not finding her. “Where is Ranko, anyway?”
Hana shook her head, raising her palm in a not now gesture.
Yui stalked to the back door, double-checking to ensure it was locked, and then moved to turn off the oven which was beginning to smell of the pizza Hana had left burning within. She stroked her chin thoughtfully. “I don’t get it. Ranko didn’t take her eyes off of him all night. It’s like she knew he was going to try something.”
Hana nodded. “And she warned Mei to stay away from him.”
In the corner, the blue-haired girl cringed, remembering some of the things she’d said to Ranko. I was so vicious to her, and Ranko really was only trying to protect me. I just assumed Ranko was jealous. Wait, didn''t Mikado say something about jealousy? Something about wanting more? Is that what brought out that level of… rage? It couldn’t be because she was protecting me, because she was protecting me last time, too. This was something almost… primal. It wasn’t just anger, it was… hate. Almost as if it was her that he…
She gasped. There was only one explanation. Mei looked up in the direction of the closed door at the top of the stairs, sniffling and sighing in sadness and regret. “Mama, I don''t think I was the first girl Mikado did this to."
<hr>
Minutes later, there was a knock at Ranko’s apartment door. Not receiving an answer, Hana gently turned the doorknob and swung the door open to find Ranko sitting on her bed, hugging her knees. Hana was somewhat surprised to see that she was not crying. Instead, Ranko was just staring forward catatonically. She didn’t seem to even be aware that Hana had entered the room until the Phoenix’s matriarch sat on the bed and rested her hand reassuringly on Ranko’s ankle. The redhead tightened the ball she was curled into, pulling herself away from Hana’s touch.
“Ranko, baby, are you alright? Are you hurt?” Hana received no reply. “Sweetheart, what happened out there? I’ve never seen you like that. I’ve never seen anyone like that. You scared us a little bit.”
After a long pause came a mousey reply, her back still turned to Hana. “Is Mei alright?”
Hana nodded. “She will be, thanks to you.”
With a heavy sigh, Ranko turned her head back to face her adoptive mother, still hugging her knees tightly. “Please don’t thank me. I don’t deserve it.”
Hana reached up to Ranko’s temple, brushing her hair from her eyes – partly to help calm her, and partly to check her for injuries. In her current state, Hana wasn’t entirely sure Ranko would even notice if she were hurt. “Why wouldn’t I thank you? You saved Mei. Again.”
“You don’t understand,” Ranko retorted with a quiet whimper.
Hana nodded, stroking Ranko’s hair. The teen shied away from the old barkeep’s touch, but not enough to prevent it. “I know, honey, but I want to. Help me understand?”
The distraught redhead shook her head, undoing all the work Hana had done to corral her hair. “It’s my problem. I’ll deal with it. I always do. You should go check on Mei. She’s going to need somebody.”
Hana reached out for her shoulder, but Ranko shifted away on the bed again, trying to dismiss her. “Ranko…” She sighed quietly. I’m pretty certain Mei was right, but better not to let on that I know unless Ranko decides to open up about it, she thought. “Yui and Izzi are with Mei. She’s going to be okay. And I am with someone else who deserves love and support. You don’t have to carry everything alone. Not anymore. Please, let me help?”
Ranko looked away, her face and voice both tinged with shame. “I… I can’t. I’m a disgrace.”
“You most certainly are not! I know you lost your temper out there, but…”
Ranko interrupted her adoptive mother, and for the first time, there was at least a little inflection in her voice. “You don’t get it. I was raised in the martial arts my whole life. I’ve fought lots of times. Hundreds. Thousands. When I fight, I fight to end the fight as quickly as possible and make sure everyone I care about is safe. That’s what you’re supposed to do as a martial artist. You’re not supposed to lose your temper. You’re supposed to be in control of yourself.” She swallowed hard. “Tonight was different. I…” She could not finish the thought, her head lowered shamefully.
“It’s okay, honey. I’m here. Even if it’s just so you can get it off your chest.” Hana patted her young charge’s leg gently as she spoke.
The teen looked up, a tear running down her right cheek. She looked, for the first time that night, truly afraid. “Tonight, I wasn’t fighting to defend anybody. I wasn’t fighting to end the fight. I was fighting to end him. I could have killed him! If you hadn’t stopped me when you did, I don’t know that I could have stopped myself. I’m not even sure I wanted to stop myself. I wasn’t protecting anybody anymore. He was beaten and we were safe. But I just couldn’t stop.”
Hana patted her leg again, nodding quietly. The fact that Ranko was capable of such a destructive, blind rage scared her, too, but she wasn’t entirely sure it hadn’t been justified, especially if Mei’s theory was correct. I have to try and get the truth out of her somehow. The poor thing has carried this so long on her own that it already exploded out of her once. I’m pretty sure a second occurrence won’t be good for anybody. She leaned a bit closer to Ranko, speaking as gently and non-threateningly as possible. “It sounds like you might have been angry at him about more than just what he tried to do to Mei.”If you encounter this tale on Amazon, note that it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it.
Ranko did not answer verbally, but the way she physically shrank from the words and hid her eyes confirmed Hana’s worst fear, and Mei’s.
Hana shook her head in dismay. Is there nothing this poor kid hasn’t gone through, at just eighteen? She wrapped her arms around the quivering girl, holding her tight. “He… hurt you too, didn’t he, baby?”
Ranko did not look up at her, but slowly nodded her head, sniffling.
“Do you want to talk about it?” Hana coaxed. A pigtail shaking side to side was the only reply she received. “Don’t you think you should?”
The teen closed her eyes, willing the images flashing through her mind to stop. “What’s the point? It’s done now. Nobody cared then; why would anyone care now?”
Hana looked away for just a moment, wiping a tear of her own from her cheek. If I could get my hands on Ranko’s parents right now, I might be the one that has to be talked down from murder. The amount that this child has suffered without anything resembling a support system is just unforgivable. “I can’t speak to what happened then. But I’m here now, and I care, because I care about you. Because you deserve a chance to heal, too.”
Ranko wiped her eyes, burying her face back in her kneecaps. “I know you are, Mama. And I appreciate it. But like I said, you wouldn’t understand.”
Hana sighed. “I want to understand, baby. I want to help. Please let me.”
“I can’t.” The distraught teen hugged her knees tighter. “I don’t want to see it in my head anymore. I can’t face it.”
Hana slid her arm under Ranko’s head, lifting it and resting it gently on her lap. She softly stroked the teen’s hair with her fingers, trying to calm her in any way she could. “What if we faced it together?”
Ranko sniffled quietly, giving a small, resolute nod. “Um…” She bit her bottom lip and took a deep breath. She remembered what Hana had said at the library that morning. Her daughter. Maybe, she thought, almost hopefully. Just maybe, she might listen. Maybe she’ll understand. Maybe she’ll laugh. But if they all know me and Mikado had a history now, they’ll never stop asking until I tell ‘em the story. It might as well be now, when my heart is too fucking empty to hurt.
“So,” Ranko began. Crap. How am I gonna get past telling her me and Akane were doing it as a couple? She’ll know I used to be a dude… “My last year in school, his school’s figure skating team and ours had a match in their school’s skating rink. Our… um, our team had an injury, and they needed a last-minute replacement, and they asked me. I have no idea why; I don’t even know how to skate. I could barely stand up without falling, let alone do any tricks or anything. We were out on the ice, and he came right at me. I tried to get away, but I wasn’t fast enough, and I slipped.
“I almost hit my head on the ice, but he caught me. At first I thought he was being nice, but then he wouldn’t let me go. His hands were… everywhere, and I couldn’t get any leverage to get away because he picked me off the ground. I opened my mouth to scream at him, to tell him to put me down, and when I did, he lifted me up and… he kissed me.” Ranko gazed down at her hands, despondently picking at her fingernails to avoid having to make eye contact with Hana.
“Like, crammed his tongue in my mouth and everything. I should have bit the damn thing off. I couldn’t get away, I couldn’t move, I couldn’t even say no. And the crowd… There were thousands of them in the arena watching the match. And they just cheered, and laughed, and shouted dirty things at me. It was fun for them! I was just the sacrifice that got fed to the lion for entertainment.”
Hana hugged her ward tightly around her shoulders. “Oh, baby…”
Ranko shook her head. “Of course, our school newspaper covered the match, so everyone at my school knew what happened too. I heard about it for months. Guys would come up and ask when it was their turn. I’d hear them in the hall talking about what a slut I must be to make out with some upperclassman from another school in front of all those people.” In fact, most of them had said it to her face, because they thought they were being crass around a sympathetic fellow guy, and not the very subject of their taunts. “I’d never kissed anybody before, and now every time I think about it, I just hear them laughing from everywhere at once, like my skull is gonna explode with it.
“I had nobody to talk to about it. I didn’t know what to do. I even made the mistake of going to my father for advice, and he just laughed at me, too. Said if I were a strong enough martial artist, I could have stopped him, and that since I wasn’t good enough to beat him in a fair fight, I should just let him distract himself by… touching me… until he let his guard down.” A tear fell from her eye, racing down her cheek and soaking into Hana’s blue jeans. “I wasn’t even good enough at being violated for him.
“I ended up having another fight with Mikado, and the second time, I won. Barely. I thought that when I beat him, I’d get over it. Like, I’d feel safe again. It would stop hurting. But it just never happened. All I could think about is that anytime I lost a fight, somebody could just… do whatever they wanted to me, and I wouldn’t be able to stop it.”
Hana sat with her back to the headboard, enveloping her young charge in her arms as both women wavered on the precipice of tears. “Oh, Ranko, honey. There are no words. I’m so sorry, sweetheart. But it wasn’t your fault. I don’t care what that asshole father of yours said. Try to focus on the fact that when you needed to, you got stronger, and you stopped him.”
Ranko shook her head. “If I had stopped him, or even been brave enough to tell Mei about what he did, he couldn’t have tried to hurt her tonight.”
Hana sighed, nodding. “I understand why you would be reluctant to talk about what happened. I’m sure Mei will, too. But you did what you could, and when he did try to hurt her, you were there to defend her.”
“Maybe at first,” Ranko retorted. “But by the end, I wasn’t even thinking about what he did to Mei. All I wanted was to avenge myself. I watched him all night tonight, and I kept telling myself I was making sure he didn’t try to hurt her. And I mean, don’t get me wrong, I did want to make sure she didn’t get hurt, but… I think a part of me was hoping he would try something just to give me an excuse to hurt him back. I just kept remembering his hands on me, the smell of his breath, the sound of everyone laughing, and all I could feel was anger, and hate, and wanting him to suffer for everything he put me through. It’s no better than he deserves, but it’s my responsibility to be better than that.”
The redhead cringed, looking away from her mother as the image of Mikado’s battered face appeared again in her mind’s eye. “I was seconds away from beating him to death, and I’m not sure I was even conscious anymore. I completely lost control, and that shames me and scares me more than anything he ever did to me. That’s not who I want to be. I hate him more than ever for bringing that out of me, and I hate myself even more for losing control and letting him. And then on top of it all, the people I respect most in the world look me in the face and tell me they’re proud of me for it, and it makes me wanna be sick.”
Hana swallowed hard. I expected a hell of a story, but this is… a lot. She paused for a moment to process it all before responding. “I don’t know much about being a martial artist. But you say that it’s about protecting the people you love, right? Well, I say that the list of people you love and care about should start with yourself.” She squeezed Ranko’s shoulder, not sure if she was trying to give the girl some strength, or find some for herself. Probably both. “When you’re in a fight, someone is trying to hurt you, and your job is to fight until they can’t hurt you anymore, yeah?”
Ranko nodded, her cheek still resting in Hana’s lap.
“Since he did what he did to you, have you had a single day that you didn’t think about it? That it didn’t make you feel vulnerable and afraid and angry?” Hana stroked her youngest daughter’s hair as she spoke.
The redhead shook her head no.
“Do you think he can hurt you anymore now? That he’d ever dare to try again?” Hana wiped a tear from Ranko’s cheek with a whisper-soft touch of the backs of her fingers.
Again, Ranko shook her head.
“Well, I don’t know what place an old barkeep has to lecture a martial artist about honor, but I would argue that he never stopped hurting you until tonight, when you finally stopped him. He threw the first punch the day he did what he did, and you’ve been in that fight ever since.
“You’re right to think about using your skills responsibly. They give you a power that you can wield against other people. The fact that you make the effort to consider how it impacts them - even when they have hurt you as much as he did - is what makes you better and more honorable than them. Maybe you did go too far tonight, and if I’m the only thing that stopped you, then I’m glad I did. Not because I think he didn’t deserve what he almost got, but because you don’t deserve to spend the rest of your life carrying the weight of that around. He has already haunted you long enough.
“I’m not proud of you just because you beat on that scumbag. I’m proud of you because you stopped. You defeated him when you stopped him from hurting you and Mei, and then you defeated him again when you made the decision not to let him drive you to do something you’d regret forever. Even if you did have help making that decision, there’s no shame in that. All of us need help sometimes. All of us have moments where we’re hurt and angry and broken and not thinking straight, and we need the strength of the people who care about us to lean on until we find our way again. That’s not weakness, it’s humanity. And the fact that you don’t already know that breaks my heart. You’ve been facing everything on your own because the people who were supposed to be there to help you carry the load failed you. That’s not your shortcoming, but theirs. You deserve support from the people who love you, and if I can only teach you one thing, I hope it’s that.”
She stroked Ranko’s arm softly. “I don’t know about the people in your past, but I can promise you that as long as the other girls and I are around, you will never have to face anything alone again, ever. I may be shit in a fistfight, but I will always have your back anyway. Come douchebag figure skaters or fucking dragons, or just a bad dream, I don’t care. That’s what it means to be a real family. Fuck bloodlines and ancestry and clan names and all that shit. It’s being there for each other when the chips are down, no matter what.”
Ranko’s eyes welling, she sat up and leaned into Hana’s chest, wrapping her arms around the elder woman’s back and squeezing as if she feared she’d fall off the world if she let go. She breathed deeply of the scent of Hana’s leather jacket - an aroma she’d come to associate with safety and peace. “I… I…” She knew what was in her mind, but it had been so long since she’d said the words sincerely to anyone that she couldn’t find a way to will them past her lips.
Hana squeezed back, kissing the top of Ranko’s head through her wavy flame-red hair. “I know, kiddo. I love you too.”