A Transvestite and a Tomboy
By Jeanne Free
Chapter One: Man... Tranny Meets Woman
I couldn't believe this. Shuhei was at the bar. Again. That stupid bar... The one with all the female escorts. The one with all the dirty old men who always REEKED of desperation. I had seen him go in... And yet, I hoped it wasn't him. Gritting my teeth, I prepared to give my stupid boyfriend a good dressing down and possibly pulverizing him. If not FINALLY dumping him this time... Especially if it was him that I'd seen go into the bar.
With an angry huff, I marched into the bar. Blowing a strand of bright red hair off my forehead, I marched up to the barkeep.
"Has a man named Shuhei Karuzawa come in? Five foot four, skinny? Black hair and beady black eyes?"
"Sorry, Miss, I-" the barkeep caught a glace of my eyes and gulped, visibly scared, "Ah, geez! Yeah, yeah... You're his girlfreind?"
"Unfortunately for him, it won't be for much longer. Where is he?"
"Back of the place," he said, indicating one of the cloistered area in back. I could hear laughter that sounded suspiciously feminine and Shuhei's laughter combined. Snarling, I made my way back there. Shuhei would get it, and would get it GOOD this time!
I knocked back the screen. There he was, laughing it up with a small-breasted woman with long maroon-ish hair. It wasn't even natural, dammit! The dye was raspberry colored, for heaven's sake... There was no way it was real. On comparison to my carrot-hair, though, it looked better. More... Stylish.
"J-J-Jeanie?"
Shuhei looked almost terrified for a moment. I took that opportunity, snarling, "What the hell are you doing here, Shuhei? We were supposed to be at the restaurant-"
"Jeanne!"
That got my attention. I paused, glaring at him for a solid minute.
Then he sneered, still half fearfully but apparently getting up the gall to say, "So you found me... I'm dumping you, Jeanne."
That froze me in my tracks. There was a sort of roaring in my ears as my extremities numbed... I guess this is what I get. What I get for my horrible, horrible taste in men... He visits a bar with prostitutes to tell me he's done with me... Haha...
Before I knew what I was doing, I was on top of Shuhei. The other woman had skittered away, brown eyes wide and looking like she was attempting to stay out of it. Hissing, I drove a fist into Shuhei's face. And another, and another.
"That's for asking me out!"
A few more punches, to differing places.
"Those're for all our missed dates!"
An open-handed slap to both cheeks.
"That's for not calling for that month!"
And finally, a knee to the happy sacks. I got a satisfying scream from him on that one. I didn't even notice one of the bouncers attempting to pull me off. I was hell bent on my revenge on this bastard who had dared to visit prostitutes while dating me.
"AND THAT IS FOR CHEATING ON ME YOU RAT BASTARD! I HATE YOU! MAY YOU ROT IN HELL," I howled, more than a little drunk on my own fury.
The bouncer finally pulled me off him, and that was the point I realized it wasn't a bouncer at all. It was the fake redhead, with a male's strength. Flailing my short frame, it didn't help when she lifted me from the ground and I had no footing to kick her with.
In a surprisingly crackly voice, somewhere between deep and female, she snapped, "Calm the hell down, shorty. If you make too much racket with this guy you'll both get thrown out."
I snapped. Shorty?! SHORTY!? This woman, not in my good graces at best, had JUST set off one of my major buttons. I stand at only five feet tall, a nod to my half Japanese, half Irish heritage. I guess most Japanese would call me "Lolita"... And whoever this woman was, she was about to be on the receiving end of a red-headed Irish hellion bout of temper. Redoubling my efforts to get loose, I howled angrily at this crazy woman.
"YOU-YOU- DON'T YOU DARE CALL ME SHORT!"
I whacked my head backward, slamming it into her breasts. Where it should have hurt, made her squeal. Except... All I felt was padding. No skin or flesh under there.
Which was when I realized EXACTLY what the sign out front- advertising an "okama" bar- meant... A gay bar...Which only added insult to injury as it meant I had the crappy luck to pick a guy who was GAY, of all people, to date!
I shrieked, both upset AND angry now, promptly going instead for her- his- lower regions. Skillfully, s/he manuvered so I couldn't reach them. With a miserable howl, I was left to wriggle and curse in his/her grip. Don't cry, don't cry! You'll disgrace yourself even more than you already have if you do... Don't cry over him!
"Wow... Thanks, Ranka-chan," Shuhei said, eyes shining disgustingly, "Saving me from that violent short-stacked bitch..."
Short. Called short yet again. I wriggled more determinedly, trying to get loose from the much taller wo/man's grip. I still wasn't quite sure what gender s/he was, because I honestly didn't know whether or not there were balls down there. I paused in wriggling for a sec, pissed to be thinking like that about the wo/man that Shuhei had been cheating on me with.
His voice a somewhat female growl, Ranka replied, "Oh, I'm not done with you yet MR. Shuhei! If there's one thing I can't tolerate, it's a cheater!"
S/he firmly dropped me into a pile of pillows in one corner, and promptly evicted Shuhei from the room. When a man came over to inquire about the ruckus, s/he explained it away with a girlish giggle, "Oh, dear, he was ready to go! He says he has a girlfreind to get home to, explain some things..."
S/he looked at Shuhei briefly with a demonic glare, daring him to contradict. When I peeked out through the other side of the screen door, Shuhei looked like he was about to piss his pants. For the first time tonight—or maybe in a long time- I smiled. This he/she was, sort of, looking out for me...
It was a nice feeling.
When she/he had things cleared up, apparently, s/he came back into the screened-off room. S/he didn't seem to notice that I was still in the room, actually. I sat back up, ready to forgive s/he for the offense of calling me short. Yes, I was actually short, but I didn't like that pointed out by someone who was a complete stranger...And a stranger I wasn't even quite sure of the gender, despite the "Okama bar" sign clearing some things up, like my boyfriend's possible- no, probable true sexual oritentation. I mean, I didn't know whether or not girls could serve at okama bars... Unless they were what I was thinking, they probably could... Maybe s/he was just flat-chested and used the padding to hide it...
Oh, I am so confused...
I heard a soft snort of amusement. Ranka, if that was his/her name, was looking down at me with a good-tempered smile. He or she seemed to realize I had had a rough day, even before seeing my boyfriend walk into an okama bar.
Do NOT even get me started on what led up to this... It involved coffee, my boss, and walking in on an unexpectedly sexual situation in the office...
"You've never been in a bar like this before, have you?"
I nodded in agreement. I needed to know this guy/girl's gender before my head exploded... I had never been big on ambiguity. You were either a guy or a girl – biologically at least – for example. The day I'd been having didn't help my normally low tolerance of grey areas.
"Then you wouldn't know. This is a transvestite bar, to put things simply," Ranka said, reaching down a hand, "And if you're fretting over it, I'm male, biologically speaking."
"I thought so when I didn't hear you scream when I hit your boobs," I muttered, taking the hand and pulling myself upright.
He chuckled, somewhat girlishly flapping his hands, as he said, "Of course I have to have the padding, but only for certain customers... Others, they like the-"
"Please, too much information. I'm not disrespecting your job, it's just," I said, "I need... I don't know what I need, but that information is a bit much right now. A chat might be nice."
The info about other male sexual preferences is a bit much when I walked in on two males giving each other handjobs... I gave a weary sigh, rubbing my pert nose. I was starting to get dizzy with everything that had happened today, both my head and my heart hurting. Ranka perked up a bit at the proffer of a chat, though. With a companionable grin, he patted the top of my head. I was a tad irked at this further reminder of being much shorter than he was, but put up with it when I saw the genuinely nice smile.
"What you need, hon, is a nice stiff drink. Start getting over that bastard in one night, just like ripping off a bandaid."
He patted my shoulder, very friendly for a guy who'd just seen me attempt to beat another guy to a pulp... Then again, to be working here, he was gay. So it probably wasn't a come-on. I relaxed a little bit.
"Why are you being so nice?" I allowed myself to be led to the bar by the guy in female clothes.
"Like I said... I can't stand cheaters. I have a daughter and she's... Well, she's got her pick of the boys in her school," Ranka said with a proud chortle, "I'd personally kill any of them if they cheated on her while they were together. Not that they are together, of course... Haruuuuhiiii would never do that to me behind my back..."
I smiled faintly, the pain of yet another betrayal pushed to the back of my mind by this oddly entertaining wo-man. Despite the idea that he may have done what my boss and- and the other guy were doing with Shuhei, he seemed to be a genuine sweetheart. Maybe it was just a job.
"Tell me about your daughter over that drink?"
It turns out, I was in for an earful. Ranka absolutely adored his daughter, and could rant for hours on that one subject. Suffice to say, he did. His boss had once briefly interrupted the spiel, asking me if I wanted to leave. Instead, I laid down some money.
"It's nice to hear someone talk so vividly about someone else. And... I need the booze and the chatter, anyways. Nasty breakup." I'm proud that I finally got rid of Shuhei, anyways.
"Suit yourself. But you're in for a long night if you keep asking questions along the line of his daughter. Haruhi is one of his favorite topics," the boss warned, eyes twinkling.
"Like I said, I just want to hear it," I said, giggling a little bit at Ranka's antics as he described a tea party he had had with his daughter once, when she was seven. At his own request, of course. This guy... Wasn't so bad. Even if he'd called me short, which was normally unforgivable... He was cute, even. In a cutesy girly way, not that way... I'd just broken up with someone, do you think I'd be into that? Besides, he was likely gay. Right now though, I'd settle for a guy friend.
"What was Haruhi's favorite color again?" And with that, I set off on what was likely to be a fairly long, curious night.
Hey! First post over in the Ouran fandom ^^ I've got the story on the brain, since I'm re-watching the series. There aren't enough Ranka fics out there, so I decided to publish this one and see if it gets reviews. This story is purely recreational, so I might not update alot unless there's a flood of reviews for another chapter.
Did I do okay, describing where Ranka worked? I wasn't sure how to go about it, never being in one myself... ^/^ Please tell me if I didn't get the details right.
What do you think of my Irish/Japanese halfer character? Jeanne is suuuure tempramental... But how would you feel after a trying day at work, when walking home you saw your boyfriend walk into a bar that you knew had some sort of "entertainers" in it? She didn't know what an Okama bar is until she went in because she'd never gone that deeply into gay culture, over in Japan- Jeanne had grown out of it by the time she moved back to Japan. No wonder she was confused. In a family of ambiguity- both father and daughter crossdressing regularly- how will this woman, used to absolutes and uncomfortable with the grey areas, fit? I think our redhead has trouble brewing ahead...
Did I get Ranka right, with characterization? I mean, I think he'd have issues with cheaters because of Haruhi... One of THE most overprotective Dads I've ever seen in anime. Even if the girl was violent, I think he'd sympathize and not be too too hard on her. Like in the story.
Ryoji/Ranka's still super adorable, especially with a couple of his lines, and one of my favorite characters in Ouran. I have a soft spot for anime Daddies :)
Anyways...
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Love, hugs, and kisses from (insert favorite Ouran character here) to all who review
-June
