The Phoenix Saga Part II: Phoenix Ascendant

Chapter Thirty-One: The End of What Was

Mei stood, walking the three steps from the foot of the bed to the door of the little apartment above the Phoenix and pulling it open a crack to see who was knocking.

Akane frowned. This was already even worse than she'd thought, and she thought it was pretty bad. Mei hadn't even acknowledged that Ranko was in the little upstairs apartment behind her, but Akane could clearly hear someone sobbing behind the door. She spoke softly, pleading with Mei with her eyes. "Can I see her, Mei? Please?"

Mei said nothing, but turned her head inward to look at the crying girl on the bed, before turning back to Akane. "Alright. But be nice." Her face dripped with worry, fearful of what she had just allowed into the room with her hysterical little sister as she stepped out of the path of the door.

Ranko lay in the fetal position atop the purple duvet, curled up around the giant pink teddy bear she'd left in the apartment when she moved out. It was hard to tell where the bear's fur ended and her pink minidress began. As Akane entered the room, Ranko started to sit up, her face absolutely melting with her ruined makeup.

"Please don't s...say it, Akane. I al... ready know." Ranko sniffled, trying to quell her crying enough to speak.

Mei lingered in the open doorway. She knew the right thing to do was to give them space, but she wanted to make sure she wasn't needed, as she and her sister both expected she would be.

"Say what, Ranko?" Akane sat on the edge of the bed, resting her hand on Ranko's thigh. She spoke far more softly than either of the sisters expected her to.

"I'll come get my stuff in the morning." Ranko pulled the bear into her lap, squeezing it tightly around its chest, getting a bit of liquefied foundation smudged into the soft fur on its back.

Akane bit her lip. No wonder the poor thing was like this. "Ranko, you don't have to do that."

"I killed us. I hurt you and I embarrassed you and I hid things from you and I'm s... so sorry." Crash had been right; the second the song ended, she had wished she could snatch the notes out of the air before they reached Akane's ears. Everything about the song, from the lyrics to the performance itself, was designed to cut deep. She had weaponized her art against the person she loved, and she doubted she'd ever forgive herself for it. "I never wanted to hurt you, Akane. I just wanted to make you understand how I felt, the only way I knew how. I ruined everything."

"Is that what you think?" Akane rubbed Ranko's bare thigh gently in the space between the hem of her girlfriend's dress and her knee. "Maybe you should hear me out before you jump to conclusions, huh?" Even with everything going on, Akane felt underdressed. She was still in the gray Minato University Athletics tee shirt and black jeans she'd been wearing when the argument started in their apartment, and Ranko, her destroyed makeup notwithstanding, looked ready for a date in high society. She always was the pretty one, Akane thought to herself with only the slightest twinge of jealousy.

Ranko sniffled, trying to calm down enough to listen, her nose dripping onto the back of the poor soiled stuffed bear. "I'm so sorry. I'll never sing it again, I swear. Never."

Akane forced a little smile. Ranko wasn't wrong that the performance had been a knife in her heart, but Akane knew she'd deserved it. Ranko had tried to tell her so many times, given so many hints that she was unhappy, and Akane had ignored her pleas because they hadn't been what she wanted to hear. She'd left Ranko no choice but to use the only method of communication that was uniquely hers in the relationship - the only one Akane couldn't run from, dismiss or shout down - and the songstress had done so with incredible efficacy. Besides, even Akane had to admit, as much as the lyrics and the feelings that inspired them had broken her heart, the song itself was catchy as hell. Had it been written by anyone else, about anyone else, she would have been singing it the whole walk home.