Pencils Down

Please, gods. Kill me. Bolt of lightning. Right here at the kitchen table. Quick and painless. A meteor works, too. Anything to make it stop.

Ranko sighed, rubbing her throbbing temples with her pink-manicured fingertips, her elbows resting on the top of the dining table straddling her calculus notes. I swear, when I get to college, I'm majoring in flower arranging or something where there's no damn math.

She stared down at the integrals in her notes, groaning quietly. The numbers were starting to swim in her vision, and she wasn't sure if it was because her eyes were watering with exhaustion, or if her brain was just full. Okay, if the area of the circle is 82, then the oval around it is… oh, who the fuck cares? C'mon, Ranko. Focus. Next right step. Take the lim…

Her mind ground to a halt mid-thought with the subtlety of a train crash at the sensation of her loose ponytail being picked up and moved slowly over the bare skin of her back. Before she could turn in her chair, a set of strong fingers began moving whisper-softly over both of her shoulders.

"Hey there, beautiful."

"Hi," Ranko stammered, leaning back in her creaky wooden chair and blushing up at Akane with an almost drunken giggle.

Akane bent down, kissing her wife on the top of her head through her flame-red hair. "How's it coming?"

"I hate math," Ranko whined pathetically. "And I don't know how I'm s'posed to concentrate on it, when you're bein' all sexy and shit up there. Aren't you supposed to be studying, too?"

"Yeah, just stretching for a sec," Akane said, vocalizing her way through reaching for the ceiling with her wrists crossed. "I'm gonna run down and get the mail real quick. Need anything while I'm up?"

Receiving a shake of Ranko's head in the negative by way of reply, Akane grabbed her keys from the nail hammered into the back of the apartment's front door, pulling it open and slipping through it into the somewhat dingy hallway. "Hey, Mr. Gao," she said with a bright smile and a wave as she passed her neighbor on the way to the stairs down to the mailbox.

Ranko sighed, tossing her pencil to the tabletop and rubbing at her eyes. What kind of asshole makes us do this stuff without a calculator, anyway? Like, basic math, enough to make change for a drink or something, sure. But, I'm pretty sure the day is never gonna come where I'm gonna be like, out in the woods, with nothing but a pencil, and think, "Ya know what? I think I'm gonna spontaneously engineer a suspension bridge real quick, just for funsies."

She shook the cobwebs from her mind, taking another sip from the narrow can of energy drink next to her notebook and turning to the next page of her book. Come on, Ranko, she encouraged herself. Gotta pass this. This test is about the only thing left between me and college.

Okay. Vectors. At least these are straight lines, none of that parabullshit. I can do this! Let's see. Question one. Describe the vector [0, -100, 0]. She chuckled darkly. Long line, pointing straight down, she wrote on her paper with a frustrated sneer. Like, all the way down, off the page, off the table, into the garbage disposal. Just like what this test is gonna do to my fucking grades.

Ranko looked up with bleary eyes as Akane returned to the apartment with a bundle of mail under her arm. She offered Akane a little wave as her wife returned her keys to the nail behind the door. "Make sure you hang on to the flyer from the grocery store for me, babe."

I used to spend my weekends learning forbidden martial arts techniques in hidden temples in the mountains, and now? I clip coupons for frozen vegetables. I guess adventures as an adult just hit different.

"Sure," Akane replied, a chipper brightness in her voice that had not been present before she left the apartment to head downstairs. She closed the few steps from the kitchen to the dining area after tossing most of the junk mail in the trash, softly dragging her fingers over the exposed part of Ranko's neck and back again through the wide opening of her pastel yellow square-necked shirt.

Ranko smiled, putting down her pencil and dropping her head to let Akane have easier access to her shoulders. "Fuck, that feels good. But you need to get back to work in there." While you still can, because if you tease me too much longer…

"A girl can only stare at so many organic chemistry formulas. I needed a break. I thought maybe you might, too." Akane slid the puffy elastic sleeves down a bit on Ranko's forearms to expose more of her shoulders, leaning down and kissing the left one as the smaller girl quivered in her chair.

Ranko's breath caught in her throat with a quiet whine, the Full-Body Cat's Tongue causing her to shiver from her nose to her toes. "Uh-hmmmm," came a high-pitched whimper in reply. Perhaps there had been a more complex thought in Ranko's mind on the matter, but somewhere between her brain and her mouth, the screaming of her hypersensitive nerve endings had shouted it down until it had become an unintelligible, muddled mess not worth voicing.

Akane smiled, petting Ranko's hair. "How's your knee feeling? Think you're up to going out for a bit? It's too nice of a day to be cooped up in separate rooms all afternoon with our noses in books."

The redhead gritted her teeth for a moment, trying to will her mind to focus despite Akane's attentions. "We can't. Not 'til we get paid."

"You sure about that?"

A white envelope fell to the table in front of Ranko with a loud thwap. The upper-left hand corner was marked with the red wordmark logo for Yokai Records. Ranko knew what it was without opening it; they'd been waiting for weeks for her first royalty check from Wild Orchid to arrive. With it, they'd finally be able to get Ranko some of the things she needed for the tour, but beyond that, it would give the young couple the first financial breathing room they'd had since before Christmas.

The award-winning songstress' eyes widened in excitement, but before she could voice her reaction, Akane placed another soft kiss on the side of her neck, and the whole of her mind was again flooded in the song of her Cat's Tongue-amplified nerve endings, drowning out her every attempt at cogent thought.

"I can't even remember the last time we went on a date. Maybe New Year's, if you count the awards show." Akane's fingers traced the upper edge of the black lace choker around Ranko's throat, agonizingly slowly. "I mean, I suppose it should count, considering what we did in the back of the limo on the way home," Akane offered with a tittering smicker. Her wife was not in much of a position to participate meaningfully in the conversation, so she availed herself of the opportunity to steer it in whatever direction she chose. "Come on, princess. Let's shut these damn books and go do something!"

Ranko turned her head slightly to the left, glancing up at the half-ajar bedroom door. A soft purr escaped her lips as she quivered in her chair. I know where you can take me, Akane, and I don't even gotta put my shoes on. It's been so fucking long… Between how busy the girls had been, and the risk to Ranko's still-healing knee, the pair had not been intimate in weeks.

Akane leaned down, leaning on Ranko's relaxing shoulders and whispering in her ear. "I want to show off my beautiful wife."

The feel of her partner's hot breath on Ranko's earlobe alone was almost enough to cost her the last remaining infinitesimal shred of control she had over her nervous system. She turned her head to Akane, a desperate, unspoken plea pooling in her eyes.

"Aww," Akane said teasingly with a playful giggle. "Somebody has other ideas, huh?"

Ranko nodded emphatically, and a single whimpered word made it through the fog of sparks that clouded her mind. "... p… please?"

Akane laughed loudly, a wide grin growing on her face. "Aww, poor baby. You don't have to beg." As she spoke, Ranko heard a low rumbling coming from her beloved's abdomen through her pastel green blouse and white knee-length skirt. "But you do have to wait. I'm starving. How do you feel about dim sum?" She broke her touch, allowing Ranko's mental faculties to begin the process of rebooting enough to function.

"Sure," Ranko purred, still trying to normalize her breathing. "Dim some lights, light some candles…" She answered in English in order to make her wordplay work. Don't look now, but lyrics girl is gettin' kinda good at this shit.

"Nice try, silly girl. C'mon," Akane coaxed, offering her wife a hand out of her wooden chair.

Ranko wobbled a bit on her feet, flushing dark red as she realized it wasn't because of her still-unstable knee. Biting her lip, she looked down coyly, fidgeting idly with her fingers. "What do you… want me to wear?"

Akane's face flushed as well. Wow. She really is trying hard today. She looked over Ranko's yellow square-necked shirt, pale with white daisies dotting it all over. It fit tight around her midsection with rows of ruffled elastic, much like the ends of the short, puffy sleeves. Ranko had paired it with a long umber tiered skirt that came to the middle of her calves, concealing the unsightly steel-and-nylon buttress still fortifying her left leg.

The larger girl wrapped her arms gently around Ranko's waist, her hands gently rubbing the small of her back. Her touch felt wonderful to Ranko; not only was she craving Akane's physical attention beyond all words or reason, but her lumbar region was killing her after three and a half hours spent in a wooden dining chair hunched over a green spiral notebook.

"You can change if you want, but I think you're absolutely stunning just like that, flower girl." Akane leaned down slowly, and Ranko needed no encouragement to lift her chin to offer her lips up to her. After taking her fill of them, Akane pulled back and offered her love a warm smile. "Well, there's one thing we should still probably do before we go. Sit back down for a second?"

The redhead did as she was told as Akane disappeared into the bathroom, returning a moment later with a pink chrome-finished hair brush. Ranko reached for it with grasping fingers, but her hand was rebuffed, and mere few seconds later, she felt her wife gently pulling the brown elastic from her flame-red hair and teasing it loose with her fingers.

Draping Ranko's hair over the white painted wood of the chair back, Akane started at the ends and began brushing the tangles from it. She wrapped her hand around the hair she was working with, holding it tight a few centimeters above where she was working, such that the pulling sensation of the brush through her hair was arrested by her fingers before causing discomfort to Ranko's ever-sensitive scalp.

The redhead relaxed her shoulders, closing her eyes and sighing happily. I am the luckiest girl alive, she mused as the rounded plastic bristles of Akane's brush reached the hair at the nape of her neck and began massaging the base of her scalp.

Akane finished taming her lover's wild mane, pulling it back into a more orderly ponytail with the same brown elastic she'd removed from it a few minutes before. Just above the hair tie, she weaved the aluminum clip of a ten-centimeter yellow grosgrain bow through the ruby strands, snapping it into place with a little click.

"There. Beautiful." Akane planted another gentle kiss on Ranko's neck where it met her left shoulder, now that her wife's tresses had been corralled out of the way.

"Mm… You sure you don't want me to go put on some makeup or something?" Ranko blushed, playing cutely with the tip of her newly-decorated red ponytail as she smiled up at her wife.

Akane scrunched her nose, shaking her head with a smile. "You can if you want to, but I don't think you need to. You already look amazing, and besides, I wanna get the hell out of this apartment."

The redhead peered longingly back at the couple's unmade queen-sized bed through the cracked bedroom door. That makes one of us, she thought with cheeks that were somehow collecting even more of her blood supply.

Her wife must have read her mind, because Akane closed on her, placing her hands gently on Ranko's hips from behind. "The sooner we leave, the sooner we can get home."

Ranko turned in her chair, nodding emphatically with a hopeful smile. "Then, I'm ready! Yep! All set!"

Akane laughed, slipping into the bedroom again and returning with a pair of thin white ankle socks with little lace frills trimming the top edges. She next headed to the door, picking up Ranko's sparkly silver cheerleading sneakers from a black plastic tray just inside the apartment's front door. "Okay, c'mere, you."

Ranko blushed as Akane knelt on the laminate floor in front of her chair, separating the bundle of socks in her hands. The brace still made it quite difficult, if not impossible, for Ranko to turn her leg to the side in her lap in order to put her shoes on, so Akane helped her whenever she could. The act of being physically dressed by her wife was embarrassing, but when she was in certain moods, it sent a little tingle down her spine, too. She was pulled out of her wandering thoughts by a sudden, overpowering sensation radiating from the sole of her right foot.

"Hey! STOP that! It tic… tickles!" Ranko giggled brightly, kicking her leg as best she could in a futile effort to defend herself as Akane restrained her ankle tightly in her right hand, the fingers of her left dancing on the underside of her lover's Cat's Tongue-afflicted foot.

"Not a chance, babe. I love listening to you laugh." Akane tormented her for a few more moments before releasing her ankle, wiggling one of the white socks onto her right foot. She was far gentler with Ranko's left foot, and in moments, the lacy ankle socks and silver sneakers were in place and Ranko was being helped to her feet again.

The redhead's body was all but vibrating as Akane reached for the door. "After you, my love," Akane invited, motioning to the open doorway.

Ranko blushed, smiling cutely as she started to step forward, but her left foot caught on one of the legs of the chair she'd just stood from. It skittered a few centimeters away with a loud scrape on the laminate floor as she wobbled a bit, quickly regaining her balance and shifting her weight to her good leg. She snapped her head back toward the grating noise. "Shit, sorry!"

Akane cackled, shaking her head and rolling her eyes with a disbelieving grin. "Um, Ranko? Baby? Did you… just apologize… to the furniture?"

Ranko laughed, letting her head drop until she cradled her face in her open palm. Her cheeks were aflame with her embarrassment. "Mm-hmm. Yep. I did that."

"Wow." Akane's mirthful laughter continued as she tossed Ranko's white peacoat over her wife's shoulders, rubbing her back through it. "I love you, silly girl, but you're hopeless. Precious, but hopeless."

Well, if you didn't want me acting like an airhead, you shouldn't have turned my damned brain to mush like that, Akane. The redhead leaned to her right, snuggling into Akane's chest as Akane pulled the door closed behind them and locked it. "I love you, too."

Ranko blushed as Akane helped her out of the taxi, careful to keep her skirt from getting caught in the car door as Akane closed it behind her. "I could've walked, ya know. It was only a couple of blocks."

Her spouse nodded, smiling softly. "I know, superstar, but it's better for you to take it easy on that leg for a little while longer if you can." She offered a hand to Ranko to allow her to distribute some of her weight onto her forearm.

The injured girl didn't feel any great need to favor her leg, but she was grateful for the excuse to hold Akane's hand, and took it as she was led to the front door of the couple's favorite dim sum restaurant. Akane released her hand long enough to hold the door open for her, and Ranko flashed her the sweetest of smiles as she passed her in the entryway.

You always make me feel so special, Akane. It's the little things.

The pair were seated in moments at their usual table, a secluded round four-top in the back corner of the restaurant closest to the kitchen, nearly surrounded with a continuous curved red vinyl bench. Ranko gingerly slid her away around the C-shaped seat to the very back, as she usually did when she and Akane went out to avoid being recognized by her ever-growing legion of Firebirds.

The restaurant was dark, decorated mostly in black and burgundy. It was lit by round red paper lanterns dangling over each of the tables, the name of the restaurant hand-painted on each in broad black brush strokes. A sort of lingering mist hung in the air from all the steaming delicacies, and the moisture of it tickled Ranko's skin as she pulled off her white peacoat and folded it on the bench to her left.

Akane thanked the server that had led them to their table with a smile and a nod before turning her attention to Ranko. "It always smells so good in here," she said over the sound of pots and pans being shuttled around on the other side of the half-door leading into the restaurant's alley kitchen.

Ranko nodded dreamily, stars in her eyes as she turned her gaze to the laminated menu resting on the table. "What are you in the mood for?"

Akane smirked devilishly, sliding from the outer edge of the bench around the curve toward the back, until her left hip was touching Ranko's right.

"Oh, I can think of a few things."

As she spoke, Ranko felt her tiered skirt tickling her right leg as it was pulled up to her knee under the long beige polyester tablecloth. Her eyes bulged, her cheeks blazing, as she felt Akane's fingers ever so gingerly start dancing on the top of her right thigh.

"I… 'kane, how… am…"

Akane smiled, giggling as she watched the poor girl's lower jaw quiver as she tried to protest. "Shhhh."

Knowing better than to argue, Ranko nodded quietly, focusing on breathing as Akane continued to tease her. Akane's touch was nowhere near high enough on her leg to be indecent, but the Cat's Tongue did not care in the slightest.

"Hi, welcome to Bao by Zhao! Have you ladies decided what you want to start with today," asked a harried server in her early forties as she scurried over to their table. Her long, slightly greasy brown hair was tied back with a red silk handkerchief that almost matched her burgundy polo shirt.

Ranko opened her mouth to answer, but nothing came out of it.

"Sure," Akane said with a bright smile. "We'd love some almond shrimp balls, some pork shumai, a couple of ginger soup buns…"

Just breathe. Don't make noise. Don't make a face. Stay perfectly still, Ranko coached herself, struggling to do all of those things as Akane tormented her ceaselessly with her gentle caress while she nonchalantly placed their dinner order.

"... some steamed spare ribs, and… oh, maybe some egg tarts, please."

The server nodded, finishing her shorthand notes for the order. "And what all would you like to drink?"

Akane smiled brightly, quite amused with her wife's current predicament. "I'll do the green tea, and she'll have a soda, please."

Ranko's face was aflame as Akane ordered for her. Her wife had gotten what she wanted exactly right, but that wasn't the point at all.

"You're ssso b-bad…"

The black-haired girl snickered as their server disappeared into the kitchen to deliver their ticket to the expediter, leaning in close to Ranko's shoulder. "I mean, if it's really that much of a problem, I don't have to touch you any more for the rest of the day…" She paused the motion of her hand, only for the briefest of moments, but her threat was clearly understood.

The redhead whined quietly. "... n… not f-fair…"

Akane nodded, letting one of her fingers slide to the inside of Ranko's right thigh, just barely a centimeter above her knee, where she knew from blissfully-earned experience the poor thing was even more sensitive. "Who said it had to be fair to be fun? Besides, didn't you write a whole verse in a song about this once? Careful what you wish for, princess."

Ranko's face somehow glowed a deeper red than the paper lantern gently swaying from the ceiling a half-meter above their table. It was true. By the time he brings the menus, I can't even speak… Even drunk as she had been, she'd quite enjoyed making Akane squirm all those months ago with the surprise debut of Turn Me Off/Turn Me On at Steam the night before their wedding. I guess this is her revenge, Ranko thought.

"What are you gon-na d-do?" The redhead quaked in her seat, careful not to let her backside move too much and risk the vinyl of the bench under her backside squeaking and attracting attention. The tablecloth concealed Akane's hand and her half-raised brown skirt, but that would only hold so long as Ranko raised no further suspicion.

Akane beamed sweetly. "I'm going to sit right here and enjoy our lovely celebration dinner." She lowered her voice to a whisper, her innocent smile morphing into a devilishly devious smirk as her fingers flicked across her lover's exposed skin just behind her right knee.

"And you're going to sit right there, look pretty for me, and wait patiently to be dessert."