Phoenix: Reignited Edition

Ranko blinked her eyes open, reacclimating to her surroundings after a blissful few hours of sleep. Man, my dreams were freakin' crazy last night. I could have sworn that Akane… She rubbed the sleep from her eyes, and when they opened again, they fell on her bedroll, still rolled up tightly on the floor. Wait. Why would that be there, unless…

She started to move her arm tentatively, but found she couldn't, as it was being pinned down by the left arm of the person holding her from behind. Her eyes jolted open, and she rolled over on her back to look behind her.

Holy shit. It was real.

Her mind raced through her memories of the evening. After the show, Akane… kissed me. She just helped me out of my outfit, we blushed and stammered at each other for twenty minutes, and we went to bed. I was gonna sleep on the floor, but she invited me to share the bed. We were both girls, so it's okay, right? Nothing else happened. It's not like we had sex or anything… hell, how would two girls even… Ranko shook her head, careful not to let her ponytail fly back and strike the sleeping Akane's face. Yui would know. She swallowed hard enough for her gulp to be audible. Not like I need to know! Not thinking about that! Nope! She'd never want to…

She looked up at the bathroom door, sighing contemplatively as she snuggled back under the lavender duvet cover that enveloped both girls. I really gotta pee, but I don't wanna get up. This feels really nice. Really nice. Doesn't have to be anything gross about it. It's always cold up here at night, and she's so warm. And it just feels good to have somebody… hold me like this. It feels… safe. Plus, if I get up, it'll wake her up.

Ranko played with the white ribbon that still adorned her braided pigtail, sighing happily. After a moment, she scooted backward, ever so gently, until her yellow nightshirt touched the green one she'd loaned Akane. She felt her muscles relax at the touch of the larger girl against her back, and the sleeping woman unconsciously squeezed a bit with the arm draped over Ranko's waist. An involuntary purr escaped the redhead's lips as she was held. Ranko lay there quiet and still for about twenty more minutes before Akane finally stirred.

Akane sat up with a stretch, the pale green nightshirt she had borrowed from Ranko sliding up her arms and barely exposing her white satin panties. "Mmm. Good morning."

Ranko rolled over, smiling up at her companion. "Good morning to you, too." There was a contented glow about her as she lay on her back in her yellow nightshirt, her pigtail laying across her chest. "Want some breakfast?"

Akane shook her head, smiling down at the redhead through a yawn. "Not right now. Thanks, though." I don't want her to get up yet. It feels really good, just being close like this.

The redhead sat up in bed next to Akane, resting her back against the headboard and pulling the duvet back up around her waist. "Akane… about last night…"

Akane blushed, hiding her face behind her splayed fingers and her bed-matted bangs. "I don't know what came over me. I'm really sorry."

Resting her hand on Akane's, Ranko turned her head and gazed sincerely into a pair of smiling brown eyes. "I guess, what I wanted to say is, I'm not."

"Y…you're not?" Akane gasped audibly. "But…"

The redhead shook her head, grateful to no longer sound like a wind chime in a hurricane when she did so owing to her clip-on jingle bell earrings having been removed. "It was… kind of nice, actually. Just unexpected."

Akane swallowed hard, stammering as she fidgeted nervously with her fingers in her lap. "Well, I, ahh, I didn't mean to… I… I should have…"

Her voice quieted when Ranko laid her index finger across her lips. "Shh. Come here." Ranko removed her finger from Akane's lips, closing her eyes and softly kissing her in the spot her finger had just vacated. Holy crap, holy crap, she's not hitting me or nothin'... this is really happening!

Akane was smiling through bright red cheeks when Ranko pulled back out of the kiss. "Well, that was nice."

Ranko nodded. "For me, too." She bit her lip, looking down at her hands with a coy simper. "So… what does this mean? Like, for us?"

"I don't know," Akane said with a shrug, brushing her bangs out of her eyes with her fingers. "What do you want it to mean?"

Sighing heavily, Ranko slumped her shoulders in disappointment. "I'm not sure it matters. We both know it can't happen. Not with me like… this."

Akane rested her hand on the redhead's back, rubbing it reassuringly through her thin cotton night shirt. "I'm willing to try if you are, Ranko."

Ranko blinked up at her in shock. "Y…you are?!"

A nod and a smile came in reply. "Mm-hmm! What about you?"

Diving forward, Ranko wrapped her arms around the black-haired girl, squeezing her tightly enough to almost void the air from her lungs.

Akane hugged back, laughing and kicking her feet excitedly. "I take it that's a yes?"

Ranko let go, sitting up and looking Akane in the face. Taking both of Akane's hands in hers in the space between their laps, Ranko nodded with an ear-to-ear smile. "Yes."

The elder girl smiled brightly, but her expression faded a few moments later as a harsh reality set in. "So, what do we do now? We can't just go back to how things were before, obviously. We're both girls now. Our parents don't even know you're alive."

Ranko laid her head in Akane's lap, resting her right ear on Akane's thigh with a heavy sigh. "For now, let's keep it between us. Just until we figure out what it all means and what to do. But right now, this minute, I don't care what we call it. Worrying about that bullshit with labels and pressure and crap is what got us in trouble last time, back when I lived at your place. For now, all I need to know is, whatever it is, I just don't want it to end."

Akane took a moment to consider her words, and she was right. The couple had been deemed to be engaged by their parents less than two hours after they met, and the pressure it added to their relationship had caused nothing but problems. I've often wondered what would've happened between us if Dad and Mr. Saotome had just butted out and let us figure it out for ourselves, Akane mused. Maybe this is our chance. Although… it's certainly a little different now. "You're right. I care about you, you care about me, and for now, the rest can take care of itself."

No idea how that's actually gonna happen, but… Ranko curled her knees tighter into her chest as Akane idly stroked her hair. I've been thinking about it for weeks, ever since she came that first time. Ever since Nabiki found me, really. Kinda bullshit if you ask me; the minute I accept that I'm stuck as a girl and there's no way I could ever be with her, here she comes, and… She wrapped her arms around Akane's knee. If there was a way, I'd have thought of it by now.

"Now, are you going to get off of me so I can go to the bathroom?" Akane poked the redhead gently on her shoulder. "You're cute and all, but…"

Ranko scooted closer to her, nuzzling her cheek on Akane's thigh as she pulled the down duvet cover up to her shoulders. "Nope. It's too cold."

Akane chuckled. "Listen here, you little brat, I'm gonna…" Her voice devolved into uncontrolled giggling as Ranko reached up and began tickling her ribs at lightning speed. "Hey! Stop that, you!" Akane squirmed, but could not escape Ranko's lightning-quick hands until she was ultimately shown mercy a few moments later.

The roughhousing caused Ranko's still-damaged hand to ache, but the young songstress didn't care much. At least being distracted with the concert and everything, she never made me tell her about Mikado. Last thing I wanna do is look her in the face and think about that asshole again, Ranko thought. I beat him, Akane. I made sure he can't ever hurt me or the people I love ever again. Not Mei, and not… Her breath caught in her throat as she realized exactly who else she had included in the people I love category.

Finally released from Ranko's grasp, Akane stood and walked into the little bathroom. She left the door open for the moment, gazing into the wall-mounted mirror behind the countertop. Her hair was a chaotic mess and the minimal makeup she had worn to the concert was long removed, washed away before the pair went to bed the night before. "Yeesh! I'm a total freakin' wreck."

Ranko shrugged. "Well, I think you're cute."

Akane blushed, popping her head back out of the bathroom. Her face was painted with stunned shock. She's never said that to me! In fact, she usually says the opposite, quite often. "Y... you do?"

Ranko nodded emphatically, beaming at the elder girl. "Yep. Bed head and all."

Akane tried again to tame her hair with her fingers, smirking. "You know, you're pretty cute yourself, missy." She closed the bathroom door as she finished speaking, flashing a wink in Ranko's direction just before the doorknob latched shut.

It was Ranko's turn to blush. In all the times she'd inhabited her now-seemingly-permanent feminine form, she couldn't remember a time where she had expressly wanted to be cute. There had been plenty of times where her appearance or affected feminine mannerisms had proven advantageous as a means to an end, but never had she wanted cuteness for its own sake. At that moment, nothing in the world sounded better, as long as the compliment came from Akane. If I'm gonna subject Akane to all of the stress and bullshit that could come with being with another girl, I damn sure wanna be worth it, she decided. The resolution brought up another question that darkened her heart, and her eyes drooped to the bed. "Is… is that what you want from me?"

Akane opened the bathroom door, giving Ranko a quizzical look and speaking over the sound of the toilet refilling. "What do you mean?"

Aw, man, Ranko thought. You're actually gonna make me say it out loud, Akane?! "I… how to say this?" She bounced her leg on the bed nervously. "I mean… We're both girls. Nothing's gonna change that now."

"Yeah, I think we've established that," Akane said with a slow nod. She retrieved her red knee-length skirt and white sweater from Ranko's open closet, taking a seat back on the edge of the bed. "I thought we were past it."

Ranko frowned, furrowing her brow as she turned her eyes away from Akane to let her dress in privacy. "That's not what I mean." She swallowed hard, picking at a bit of green fingernail polish that had strayed onto her cuticle. "Like, how do you want me to be?"

Having pulled off her borrowed nightshirt, Akane fastened her powder blue bra behind her back and swiveled on the bed. "Ran-chan, you're not making sense. I don't understand what you're asking me." She rested a hand on Ranko's shoulder tentatively, paying no mind to her state of undress.

Ranko looked down and off toward the dinette table rather than turning and risking being accused of peeping. There was a shame in her voice and on her face that Akane had not noticed at any point since Ranko's last night as a guest in her father's home. "Like… Do you expect me to act like a guy again if we're together? I mean, as far as I know, you don't, ya know, like girls. Not like that, anyway."

Akane cringed. That had to have been hard for her to ask, considering everything. "Ranko, listen to me. Look at me. It's okay."

The redhead lifted her eyes from her hands and met Akane's, careful not to let her gaze stray southward at the lithe woman sitting on her bed in nothing but her underwear.

"I don't like girls," Akane began. "I don't like most guys, either. But I like you. I expect you to be you. You're… we're… still learning who that is right now, and that's okay. I'm not exactly a Disney princess all the time either, as this jerk of a boy I used to know was always saying."

She smirked, hoping the moment of levity eased the tension for Ranko. "You are a girl now, and I have no more right to make you act like a boy than you would have to make me be one." Akane leaned over the bed, playing with the ribbon in Ranko's cherry-red hair. "If you want to be cute, then you be cute. If you want to be a tomboy, then do that. But whatever you do, do it for you. Not for me, or Izumi, or anybody but you. If you do that, you'll be amazing no matter how you turn out, and I'll be happy to be along for the ride." As she spoke, she slipped her corduroy skirt up her legs, lifting her backside up on the mattress to shimmy it up to her waist.

Ranko smiled, her cheeks aflame as she took a moment to consider Akane's words. Do I actually want to be… cute? To be… pretty? I mean, if I'm gonna be on stage… but I mean, there's punky girls that do like all black and baggy jeans and stuff and still do music. So I don't have to go all bubblegum princess if I want to sing. But…

"Thanks, Akane," she said, a tentative halt in her voice. "I think… I think I like where I am right now. I mean, it's a lot. The clothes and the makeup and all of that is just so much more… complicated… for girls. I'm not sure I'm gonna do it right. But… even before the Cat's Tongue, I spent the last few years feeling like I couldn't fully be a guy, and I couldn't really be a girl either. So now, I kind of just want to settle into one and do it right, ya know? Feel normal?"

Akane slipped her sweater over her head and stood, walking toward Ranko's closet. She started idly flipping through outfits, looking back over her shoulder at the redhead with a mischievous grin. "Then, I suppose we'd better find my totally normal girlfriend something really pretty to wear, huh?"