Burn

Ranko squinted into the bright lights surrounding the mirror with a heavy sigh. She'd been in the chair for almost ninety minutes, and she was getting more than a little frustrated."Seriously, this is stupid."The cosmetologist harrumphed, putting down her brush and putting her hands on her hips. "Listen. Rise is a story about surviving hard times, and the director wants you to look a little rough in the video."Ranko rolled her eyes. "Yeah, Daiko, I know what the damn song's about. I wrote it. I'm saying the makeup is stupid.""Look," the makeup artist said exasperatedly. "I know this is your first video shoot, so you don't understand. You just need to trust the process. We have a specific effect we're going for here."Ranko nodded. "Yeah, I get that. No argument. The part that's stupid is that you've spent an hour and a half putting twenty thousand yen worth of makeup on my face to make it look like I'm dirty. So, you know what else looks just like dirt? Fucking dirt. Like, I can go outside right now, get a handful of the stuff, rub it on my face in thirty seconds, and I'm done. It's even free. Like, there's a whole planet full of the stuff out there. They just let you take it."The blonde cosmetologist smirked. "Well, fortunately, you're about done. Just try not to touch your face too much."Ranko rolled her eyes with a shake of her head. "Yeah. Definitely wouldn't want to smudge my dirt." She hopped up from the chair, stretching her back. She strode across the soundstage, watching the activity surrounding her. There must have been seventy people there, between safety technicians, directors, cameramen, makeup people, scene dressers… She was pretty sure there was one lady there who was just in charge of donuts.And they were all there for her.The label hadn't been kidding when they said they'd provide everything that was needed for the video. They even had brand-new instruments for Crash and Shin, in a matching glossy black with a flame painted along the bottom edge. A new Yamaha DX7 synthesizer on a black stand awaited Jacob, too.The bass drum at the far back featured the band's updated logo, courtesy of the Yokai marketing department. It featured hot pink romaji characters spelling out Ranko's name in a thick script with slightly uneven strokes, as if they'd been written in lipstick. The end of it was punctuated with the outline of a heart. It was an exact match of her signature, the way she usually wrote it when she signed autographs at the Phoenix. Underneath the large signature, white katakana starting under the a in her name spelled out and the Dapper Dragons in a thin, modern font in bright white against the black background, with thin white lines above and below.She liked that her signature looked so distinct that way; whether in kanji, hiragana or katakana, only the last character changed from when she used to write Ranma. She often regretted using the kanji for wild girl when selecting her new name, but she'd been in a panic when Hana asked for her name all those months ago and she hadn't had time to think it through. Orchid girl was much prettier, but it was far too late to change it now. Of course, at the time she'd chosen it, she could not have fathomed how comfortable with feminine things like having a pretty name she would eventually become.On the platform against the back wall, the scenery people had constructed a facade that looked fairly convincingly like a dark, dingy city alleyway, all the way down to the lights in the shop windows and signs. It was a first-class operation, and Ranko couldn't believe she actually belonged there."It's kinda crazy, huh?" Ranko looked up as Crash put his arm around her shoulder. "A long way from where we met, huh?"Ranko nodded. "I'll say. Hey, how come you get to saunter your ass in here at 11:00, when I had to be here at 8:30 for hair and makeup?"With a winning smile, Crash gave her a playful mock punch in the arm, being careful to be very gentle. She really didn't have much tolerance for pain, he'd found. "What can I say? Yuji thought I was cute enough already. Sorry you needed so much help.""Oh, I'll get you for that, Matsuyama." She giggled, punching back at his arm, less gently.He smiled down into her eyes. "Man, what did they do to your face?" He reached down with his hand, gently manipulating her chin to let her cheeks catch the light at different angles.Ranko blushed. "Hey, don't fuck up my dirt, man! They spent, like, an hour on that shit!"The tall guitarist laughed. "I wouldn't dream of it!""Did Yuji tell you what we do next? Where is everybody?" Ranko rested her hands on her hips, at the waistband of the black studded miniskirt the costumer had dressed her in.Crash shook his head. "They're still getting everything set up, I think. Shin's out back smoking, Jake went for a little walk. Dude's nervous as hell. And Ken…" His face took on a furtive tone. "I haven't actually seen him yet today."The redhead nodded. "Well, I'm sure he'll turn u…" The rest of her sentence was lost to a shriek as a few meters to her left, a column of flame erupted from the floor between two of the building facades in the mock cityscape. And then another. And then another. And then another. "What the hell?!""Right, Nishida! Turn that one down twenty percent, and let's get another emitter going over here on the left side!" One of the technicians ran between the burning streaks of fire on the floor, reaching down and making adjustments to the little valves under the false floor."Crash… they don't expect me to stand in that, do they?"Ranko's friend laughed. "Well, you did write a song all about catching fire. I don't know what you expected."The redhead shook her head, taking a step back, almost hiding behind his leather-clad arm. "I… I can't.""Hey, relax! You'll be fine. They won't let it get close enough to burn you." He laughed heartily. "Don't be such a girl."It's almost burning me from here, Crash, she thought to herself. She watched the flames in terror as the pyrotechnicians adjusted their output. She clutched onto Crash's arm, and he could feel her trembling through the sleeve of his leather jacket.As Ranko cowered behind her guitarist, she heard a familiar voice approaching from behind her. "Man, it's looking really good in here."Ranko turned, her eyes wide. "Jake, did they tell you there was gonna be fucking fire?"The Australian shrugged, taking off his sunglasses and pocketing them in the breast pocket of his leather jacket. "No, but it makes sense."Crash craned his neck, looking around the bustle of the soundstage. "Jake, you seen Ken?"Nodding, Jake tousled his hair a bit. "Yeah, he was talking with Uyehara, the lady from the record label, over there somewhere." He pointed in the general direction of the catering table, where the official donut lady had set up her wares.Ranko just watched the fire crackling from the floor. She couldn't take her eyes off of it. I can do this. I've been through worse. Focus.Clad in a flamboyant pink polo shirt, a short, chubby man approached with a wide smile. "There's our girl! How we feeling today, Ranko?""Hot." Ranko released Crash's arm and forced herself to turn away from the flames erupting from the soundstage floor, making eye contact with Yuji Oe, the director the record label had assigned to produce the music video for Rise.Crash snickered, leaning over to Jacob and speaking quietly in English. "You can say that again.""Well," Yuji said, surveying the stage. "Pyro's almost set, everybody seems good to go with costumes and makeup. As soon as the backup dancers show up, we're ready to get this thing going."Grinning, Jacob looked up to Crash and raised his eyebrows. "You hear that, buddy? More girls! This is gonna be great! C'mon, let's go check out our new gear." The musicians walked together toward the back of the stage.Ranko shook her head. "Wait, Yuji, nobody told me anything about backup dancers." Or fucking fire."Yeah," the director said with a shrug. "The studio thought it needed a little more motion on screen. Love your band, but they kinda stand there like statues while they play." A door clattered shut with a heavy bang a dozen or so meters behind Ranko, and Yuji looked up. "Ah, here they are now!"Ranko turned her head, and froze in her tracks.She'd know those mirrored sunglasses anywhere.