Note: As you’ll see, the time skipping is going to become confusing. So, each chapter title is going to look like this from now on, just to avoid all of that:
CHAPTER THREE: 2004
Loves You Steady
Ranma had never seen Ryoga look so forlorn. Not even when Akane had screamed that she hated him to help him learn the Perfect Shi Shi Hokodan, not during the koi rod incident, not when he thought he’d lost Akane to Shinnosuke.
“Say you don’t hate me,” he said.
Ranma blinked.
“Ryoga, don’t push her,” Akane warned.
“Him,” Ranma corrected.
“See?” Akane shrugged helplessly. “Please try to get along,” she admonished, pushing past them down the stairs.
Ryoga stared after her, confused. “But we always get along!”
Akane turned, pinned him with her eyes, before sweeping down the stairs. A moment later, Ranma heard the front door close.
“Oh. Heh.” Ryoga put his hand to the back of his neck and looked embarrassed. “Right.”
Ranma’s eyebrows raised. It was strange... no, eerie... to see Ryoga treat her like he’d always treated Akane in the past. “So you switched from Akane ta me pretty quick, huh?”
Ryoga stared at her blankly for a moment. “Akane? Oh. Uh, not really. There were two years in between.”
“Two years,” Ranma repeated. “So we got married young.” She paused again. “Eighteen.”
“Do you wanna... uh, do you wanna step away from the door?” Ryoga inquired gently.
Ranma realized that she was standing in the shelter of Akane’s bedroom doorway, one hand on Akane’s inside wall, the other resting on the frame. She moved her hands rapidly to cross over her chest. “I can’t do this. I mean – I don’t understand.” She retreated into Akane’s room. “I mean... I mean, what did Pops say! And Mister Tendo? And... and everybody. How could they let this happen!” She whirled on him, seeing he’d followed her inside. “How could you let this happen! You know what I am! I’m... I’m a... I’m not a wife!”
“Whoa, Ranma, whoa...” Ryoga soothed, his hands raised in a placating manner.
“Don’t you ‘whoa’ me, P-chan! I’m a guy, a boy, a one-hundred-percent paragon of masculinity! I’m not some air-headed, fluff-brained, klutz of a weak little girl! I’m a man, and you’re not my husband.”
Ryoga’s jaw ticked as she ran herself down, but when she reached her conclusion, he obviously couldn’t hold himself back any longer. “Ranma, please don’t say that...”
“Don’t say that you’re not my husband! You’re NOT! That’s not my daughter. I can’t have a baby, I’m a guy!”
“Ranma –”
Ranma began to pace to let off some of her nervous energy.
Ryoga’s brows lowered in sympathy, and he moved towards her.
“Don’t touch me!” she shouted, flinching away from him.
“I... I won’t hurt you,” he managed tenatively, taking a step back to allow the pacing redhead some room.
“Hurt me! Ha! That’s a laugh. You can’t hurt me. You never could. You were never as good as me, not half as good. I’d never have married you even if I did think I was some kind of airy-fairy princess...”
Ryoga flinched slightly, before his features hardened into frustration. “I’ll leave you alone.”
But now that Ranma sensed she’d drawn blood, she couldn’t seem to stop. “You do that. Rethink this whole ‘married’ thing. Because it’s not like I’d have ever thought of touching a pig like you anyway!”
Ryoga backed out of Akane’s room and softly closed the door behind him.
Ranma stared at the cool yellow painted across its surface and hurled a pillow at the closed door with all of her strength and screamed at the top of her lungs.
The scream stopped her short. She became aware of her breath, that she was panting, that her hands were shaking. Her heart was pounding in her chest so hard and so loud that Ryoga could probably hear it.
“The pig deserves it,” she murmured to herself, sliding down against the closed bedroom door. “He... damn it, he took advantage of me after I’d been knocked on the head – BY HIM! Who does he think he is, coming in here and expecting me to just accept that?
“And who does Akane think she is, anyway? Telling me to be nice to
him? She always did think that the sun rose and set on that idiot. ‘Oh, he’s
such a gentleman, Ranma!’ – when he was sleeping in her bed every night!
Kawaiikune idiot, she’s always been an idiot, that’s nothing new. Why didn’t
anyone stop this? Why didn’t Pops tie me down and carry me off to
Ranma drew her knees close to her body and buried her head in her hands. It’s a joke. It’s gotta be a joke or something.
But she knew it wasn’t. The new house, the small child... not to mention the simple fact that Ryoga would never go along with a joke like this, or even be capable of acting that was this high-caliber. She’d seen her insults strike him physically, like he really cared what she said. Well, strike him physically more than usual, anyway. The poor sap never took insults well.
There was a small tap at the door. “Ranma?”
Ranma didn’t reply. She merely buried her face more deeply into her arms.
“C’mon, honey, open up.”
Honey! That wasn’t going to get him anywhere!
Ranma found the window with her eyes. She didn’t need to stay here – didn’t need to be here. She could go.
The redhead moved towards the window and jumped down, her soft shoes slipping against the pavement. She gazed up at the clear, cold night sky and marveled that things could be just the same outside when everything inside of her was churning up dust. She caught sight of Akane down the road and hunkered down instinctively behind some trash cans, waiting until the youngest Tendo was out of sight.
Ranma picked a direction and ran. It almost didn’t matter where she headed, so long as she was away from him. She took to the air, night wind under her feet, Nerima’s lights beneath and around her. She moved so fast her lungs beat harder than her heart. She ran so fast it was like she was outrunning the truth. For a couple of minutes, anyway, she could imagine it was any other night, that she was simply outside to get away from pressing fiancee matters, that she was running out to do a favor for Kasumi, that she was catching Happousai – anything – and then nothing, as the exhaustion became all she was.
Ranma finally stopped, slid to her knees and gazed around her.
It wasn’t much of a surprise that she’d looped around, even to her. Ukyo’s shop now had a neon sign that lit up the night, and a broad welcome mat that Ranma hadn’t noticed at first while coming with Kuno. The porchlight up out in front of the okonomiyaki-ya looked like some kind of saving grace. The redhead stumbled towards it, half-articulated thoughts sifting through her panic – Ukyo would take her in. Ukyo loved her, always had – Ranma knew it, loved her more like a boyfriend-girlfriend love than the love between two friends. Even in six years – even in sixty – Ukyo would never stop liking her like that. Ukyo would let her in, let her stay.
It reminded Ranma of some old European fairy tale, she couldn’t place which, standing outside in the dark like that, waiting to see if Ukyo had forgotten her love in the space of so many years. If she leapt up and knocked on Ukyo’s window – tapped – wouldn’t Ukyo come?
For a moment, Ranma paused, a dark surmise taking hold of her, a strange premonition. If she didn’t? Maybe it was better to move on without asking.
But the dark feeling lifted from Ranma’s soul quickly. No, Ukyo would let her in and keep her so long as she wanted. And if Ukyo got tired of that, they could go on the road, keep one another company.
Ranma found herself practicing the words in her mind as she landed on the roof of the Ucchan’s. Ukyo, she’d say with a grin, I’m about to make a dream come true for you. I wanna live here, with you. I know what you’ll say, but I don’t care a fig for Ryoga and don’t understand how anybody could. He’s a jerk, you know? I’m here to be with you, for as long as you like.
Ranma leaned over and tapped on the window, just hard enough to wake her.
Ukyo’s bleary face appeared, shoving the curtains aside. She hefted the window open and leaned against the sill. “Ramma?” she slurred, pulling her bangs away from her face.
Ranma offered her the best grin in her arsenal. She only wished she also had some hot water. “Ukyo...”
Ukyo appeared to note the importance of this meeting in a relatively sudden way. “Ranma? What are you doing here? It’s the middle of the night.”
“Ukyo, I’m about to make a dream come true for you.”
Instead of smiling in that winning way she had, Ukyo frowned suspiciously. “What are you talking about?”
This wasn’t going according to script. “I wanna live here with you. Or we could just go, you and me, and never stop moving.”
“But Ranma–”
“I know what you’re gonna say. But I don’t care about Ryoga. I just want to be with you.”
Ukyo’s grey eyes were no longer sleepy. “Peter Pan,” she whispered.
“That’s it,” Ranma said. “I was trying to think of it before.” The redhead peered at Ukyo’s eyes. They were all wrong. Instead of blissful and happy, they were... they were wistful, and sad, and clear and knowing, and, and wise. “Ukyo,” she murmured, suddenly aware that something was slipping away from her – no, falling, faster and faster.
“I can’t come away with you,” Ukyo said. “I’m older than you, now, you know. And I have a life here, Ranma.”
“And it doesn’t include me,” Ranma finished bitterly.
“It does,” Ukyo protested. “You’re my best friend.”
Ranma wanted to cry, and it was a lot easier in this form, but she managed to hold herself quietly back. “You don’t care,” she accused roughly. “You don’t care I’m stuck there.”
Ukyo’s grey eyes softened and she finally smiled. “I care, love,” she whispered. “But not the way you might imagine. I suppose you’ll think of throwing yourself off a cliff, next, or skipping town altogether – all on your own, off into the sunset,” she added casually.
The very way she put it made it all seem impossible. “You don’t get it,” Ranma replied. “I don’t understand what you an’ Akane are missing, but you’re missing it. How wrong this is.”
Ukyo’s bare shoulders glimmered in the moonlight as she turned, tilted her head in consideration. A twinkle in the dark-haired girl’s eye caught Ranma’s. “Guess I am,” she replied. “Something fundamental I’m missing about what’s so terrible about it.”
“You’re laughing at me.”
Ukyo’s smile twinkled brightly in the midnight. “Just a little,” she admitted, squeezing the air between her thumb and forefinger. Gazing into Ranma’s eyes, her own softened. “Oh, Ranma. Don’t look like that. You have someone who loves you. That’s more precious than... better than anything. Ryoga’s love is steady, too. It’s not like Akane’s. Not like mine,” she admitted.
Ranma frowned. “What does ‘steady’ mean?”
“It means he knows the darkest part of you and loves you the same,” Ukyo replied readily.
The redhead thought about this a moment. “It doesn’t matter. He’s still a guy.”
“You love him, Ranma, the same.”
“I don’t.”
“You do, and you’ll remember, after awhile.”
Ranma eyed her curiously. In the night, half hanging out the window in the moonlight, she’d turned into some kind of seer, dark-eyed and wise. “How do you know?”
“Because Ranma Saotome always wins,” she replied after a moment. “You’ll get over this amnesia nonsense and you’ll remember how in love with him you were. Even if my heart were to turn around this very instant and I’d go with you, in a couple of weeks, a month, a year, you’d turn on me. You’d hate me for taking advantage of you this way.”
“Ukyo, I... I wouldn’t. I don’t...” Ranma grappled for a way to explain what he didn’t require of Ukyo. “I don’t need anything from you... I just want a place to stay.”
“No, Ranma.”
“Can I at least come in?”
“Go home, Ranma.” She slammed her bedroom window shut.
Ranma perched precariously on the inch or two of windowsill remaining for a moment before leaping down and pausing to consider her next course of action, feeling lost and cold and as though the world had no welcome left for her. She hadn’t realized just how rooted she’d become in Nerima, and the thought of moving pained her.
“Ranma.”
Ranma turned to find Ryoga standing under the light of Ukyo’s okonomiyaki-ya. The bright illuminated his hurt and strained expression.
She made her way to him, stopping several paces before him. For a moment, they looked at one another silently, as if communicating without words. Ryoga stood there, looking hurt, betrayed and more lost than ever; Ranma watched him warily, but the hurt and loss was in her, too.
After a moment, Ryoga stepped slightly closer to her. “Ranma...”
“Ukyo says I love you,” Ranma informed him conversationally, almost at the same time. “Akane, too.”
“You’ve said the same thing yourself a couple of times,” Ryoga offered in a feeble attempt at humor. He paused. “Please come home.”
“And do what?” she wanted to know. “Be your wife? Cook and clean for you, Ryoga, ‘cause I won’t. Take care of your kid? No way.”
“For now, eat some supper,” Ryoga countered. “Go to sleep. In the morning we can talk more. You aren’t going to turn down supper and a warm bed, are you, just because you’re scared of me?”
Ranma’s eyes widened. This was more like the Ryoga she knew. “I’m not scared of you.”
“Come a little closer and say that,” Ryoga added, noting their separateness. To someone casually glancing their way, they didn’t look married – not even like friends. Ranma’s distance from Ryoga signified that they were strangers. Maybe a young man stopping to ask a young woman for directions, or if she had a light, or if she happened to have the time. They were two completely unconnected people standing in the street like that.
Ranma knew it. “Fine.” She took two paces towards him. “Can we go now?”
Something in him relaxed – maybe in his shoulders, maybe in his eyes – but he was the unfamiliar Ryoga again, the one with a loping, relaxed gait and easy smile. “’Course,” he replied, and the two began to walk down the street back towards the Tendo household.
My house, Ranma suddenly reminded herself. If anything, he should leave, not me. What did he have to do with the Tendos before he knew me?
“Are you hungry?” Ryoga inquired.
“I’m starving!” Ranma announced. She hadn’t gotten much at Ukyo’s for lunch... Ukyo... she double-crossed me.
You could still leave, a little voice in her head reminded her.
But already she knew she wouldn’t. She had a comfortable place to stay, and Ryoga was playing nice – there was no reason not to stay. Unless she was afraid.
And that was impossible.
“I’m glad you’re hungry. I got nervous and made a lot,” Ryoga explained with that wry grin on his face again.
“You cook?”
Ryoga shrugged. “We trade off, but it turns out that I make breakfast most of the time, and you make dinner most of the time. Because of our schedules, you know.”
Ranma didn’t know, but didn’t particularly want to. Little details like that were making this less and less like a strange sort of dream she might be able to ignore. “You knew where I was.”
“Akane called me from Ukyo’s,” Ryoga replied.
“Akane? Ukyo was asleep! What was she doing there?”
Ryoga stared at her for a moment before replying with what seemed to be excess caution. “Sleeping, also... I’d guess.”
“Oh, a sleepover,” Ranma replied in sudden understanding, wondering at his hesitance. “Probably watching all kinds of girly movies and stuff.”
Ryoga snorted to himself. “Yeah, maybe.”
Ranma smiled; this was more like it. This was more like reality, just talking like this. The only difference was that Ryoga seemed to have the upper hand this time, because he actually knew what was going on, knew what had happened in these past six years, probably knew all kinds of things Ranma didn’t. Ranma didn’t like that feeling at all. Maybe she could convince him to tell her her life story, even if it might make her gag or might cause him to get romantic notions. She was just wondering whether she should ask straight out or just continue to give him more little prompts like the dinner thing so that she could soak up information without Ryoga figuring what she was about.
But was it important to conceal motives from him? He was her husband, after all. And, according to every single person she’d ever trusted, he was a Good Guy. She knew Ryoga was loyal and guillible, too. Maybe she didn’t have to worry about him really.
“Here we are,” Ryoga said helpfully as they came within sight of the Tendo compound. Ranma pulled the gate open and the two of them re-entered the Tendo home.
Immediately, the smells of food assaulted Ranma’s nose.
“It’s probably already cold, so I’ll heat it up. You’ve got to be frozen; you didn’t even put on a coat. Why don’t you put on pyjamas or something while I just shove this back in the oven for a sec?”
He was trying to make it sound like he wasn’t really going out of his way or anything, but Ranma knew that he was doing his best to get on her good side again.
What did it matter? She was really, really cold.
“Be right back,” Ranma replied, neither agreeing nor disagreeing with Ryoga’s suggestions. She closed herself up in Akane’s room and disrobed.
Ranma got pictures of Ryoga with his eye to the keyhole, but she knew he wasn’t that kind of guy. Even under the influence of enough crazed hormones and infatuation to sink ten sixteen-year-old guys, Ryoga hadn’t peeped on Akane, even as P-chan. Ranma did wonder if he was carefully listening for sounds of her departure, however. She’d left once, and she might well decide to leave again.
After Ranma had changed into a fluffy robe (with complete pyjamas underneath – best not give the pervert any ideas) she descended down the stairs, but Ryoga was still busy with the food, not by keyholes or sitting on the steps straining for any untoward noises. She’d forgotten how guillible he was. She said ‘okay’ and she told him she’d go home. That implied she wasn’t about to disappear again, and he believed what she said.
Ranma rolled her eyes as she sat at the table. “Thanks for the food,” she said as Ryoga set several steaming plates down in front of her.
Ryoga laughed at her.
“What? What the hell are you giggling over, pig-boy?”
He sobered quickly. “It’s leftovers,” he replied. “You cooked almost everything on the table. Dig in.”
Ranma blinked down at her plate, finding it hard to believe that she’d suddenly acquired the ability to make such items, but there it was. Besides, she’d probably been in a state to do anything her little hubby wanted. It was almost enough to put Ranma off of her food.
Almost. It looked, really, really good though. Once Ryoga sat down, Ranma hesitantly popped a small bit of soup into her mouth. “Mmm, it’s good!”
“Don’t compliment your own cooking, Ranma,” Ryoga advised.
Ranma glared at him from under her lashes as she sipped the soup. That sounded like the old Ryoga, too, somehow. She wished he’d make up his mind.
After a bit of silence, Ranma noted something missing.
“Where’s the baby?”
“She’s with her auntie Nabiki. Nabiki said she’d look after her for a little while while we got things settled over here.”
“Good. I don’t know nothin’ about kids,” Ranma admitted.
Ryoga choked on his soup. “You’re such a liar. When she was born, you told me this whole story about how you’d looked after a cousin when you were little, and so you knew everything about babies.”
Ranma blinked. “I did? I mean... I sure don’t remember a cousin. Are you sure I said that?”
Ryoga nodded firmly, then shook his head in derision. “You’re so full of it, Ranma.”
How could he casually insult her like this? Weren’t they married? What happened to how worried he was a second ago? “I may be full of it, but at least I don’t get lost from the front door to the mailbox, pig-boy.”
Ryoga stared at her in consternation. “Neither do I.”
“Huh?”
“Who led who back home today?”
Ranma paused, thinking back. Ryoga had been in the lead.
He was grinning at her, expecting her to share in his triumph. “So far this is the only up side I can see,” he commented. “I get to tell you all of the good things all over again.”
“How?” Ranma wanted to know. “I mean, it’s not like you woke up one morning and it clicked, is it?” This was the longest conversation she and Ryoga had ever had, minus several in junior high; it was beginning to develop an odd-but-not-odd feeling for the redhead. She remembered when Ryoga had been this friendly to her, but that was a long time ago.
“No, actually, it was you.”
“Me?”
“You and old Cologne, anyway, before she left for China,” he clarified. “You seemed to have the idea that getting lost had something to do with inadvertently using my depression chi.”
Ranma’s eyebrows lifted. “No way, man.”
“Yeah, actually. Without noticing it, I was... moving myself. I’d get lost in thought – always something upsetting – and when I looked up, I was someplace else. That was pretty much it. When I learned to control it, it got to be no big deal.”
The conversation petered out. Ranma finished her soup and moved on to the rest of the meal, but even for her, the silence was beginning to be uncomfortable.
“I always believed you about your cousin, though, because you were so good with Sa-chan,” Ryoga suddenly added.
Ranma snorted. “Yeah, I’m sure I’m the perfect paragon of a housewife.”
“Oh! Is that what you’re worried about?”
“Is that what I’m worried about!” Ranma snapped. “Hell yes, among other things. What the hell made you think I was... marriagable?”
Ryoga set his chopsticks down meditatively. “You’re a paragon of a lot of things, Ranma, but housewife isn’t one of them. You won’t wear pink. You don’t cook or clean for me any more than I cook or clean for you. I don’t give you an allowance, or anything like that. You have a job. We waited to have children. The idea wasn’t to pop them out as many as possible as quickly as possible. Are you beginning to get a picture, here?”
Ranma nodded grudgingly. “I guess. So what’s my job?”
“You teach martial arts,” Ryoga supplied, “here at the dojo. You haven’t been, lately, because of Sachiko, but just the other day you were saying it was time to start up again.”
Ranma noted that, despite the fact that Ryoga was referring to her in the second person, his eyes were lowered and faraway. He was missing her, this other Ranma, but was trying to keep it to himself. She flushed, suddenly uncomfortable without knowing why.
“And... and you?”
“I’m a construction worker,” Ryoga replied, his discomfort sloughing off.
Ranma grinned. “Bakusai Tenketsu,” she replied.
“Yeah. Figured that there’s gotta be some kind of good use for it other than breaking up city streets.”
Ranma laughed.
“Ah, there it is! Your teeth! I knew that they were around there someplace...” He was smiling at her, too. All of a sudden, he’d forgotten she wasn’t this other Ranma, and that was even worse. The smile slid off of Ranma’s face.
“Shut up, Ryoga. Far as I’m concerned, I’m a guy and you’re a guy, and...”
“Did you know that two men kissed on network television?” Ryoga suddenly queried, serving Ranma some more veggies.
“Whaaaa!”
“That’s right, Ranma.” Ryoga was looking smug.
“On T.V.?”
“Uh huh. Right in front of God and everyone,” Ryoga said, employing a phrase Ranma had heard him use before.
Ranma poked silently at her vegetables.
“Times change, don’t they?” Ryoga inquired.
Ranma looked at her husband. “They damn well do,” she swore.
They parted on the second floor, Ranma heading for Akane’s room, Ryoga for Kasumi’s – but Ryoga stopped her before she could escape him completely. His hand wrapped around her wrist so suddenly that Ranma almost whirled around to hit him.
“What!” she snapped, her voice coming out a little more panicky than she’d intended. “Look, I know I’m supposed to be your wife, but...”
Ryoga tilted his head to the side in inquiry, waiting for her to finish.
Ranma hadn’t known he would do that. The old Ryoga was always assuming, always interrupting, always construing the worst possible meaning from the words she’d uttered. She wasn’t used to his polite, steady, intense gaze. She fidgeted under his eyes.
“I... uh, I mean... I’m your wife, but... I don’t... remember being your... Why are you looking at me like that!”
“Will you promise me that you’re not going to take off in the next week or so?”
“Ryoga...”
“I’m serious.” His eyes were shadowed and stared into her with a directness she wasn’t used to from the Lost Boy. When she’d known him, he seldom, if ever, made eye contact. Now he held her blue eyes with his hazel ones until hers dropped to the carpet. Where did he get off being so... so pushy about it?
“If I got up tomorrow, or the next day, and you were just gone...” He swallowed. “I don’t know what I would do. I need you to promise. I need your word.”
Ranma frowned up at him. “And after that?”
“And after a week or so, if you want to leave, I won’t stand in your way.”
She examined him in the dim light of the hallway. He appeared to be serious, but then Ryoga always was. The only time she’d ever seen him joke had been in the past several hours. That didn’t mean he wouldn’t change his mind. He couldn’t stop her from leaving, but he could search for her, even with the kid, or he could leave Sachiko with one of her many aunts while he hunted her down.
“Fine,” she replied, “but you have to swear you’ll really let me go.”
Ryoga gulped, and she was surprised to see his eyes were wet. “I will. I swear,” he said.
Ranma didn’t want to feel like the bad guy here; he had married her, after all, not the other way around. But – that didn’t make sense, did it? It did to her, but she recognized that the logic wouldn’t work for anyone else. She did feel bad, though, for making him miserable. Ranma couldn’t live with making anyone cry. It was one of her worst weaknesses and one of her best strengths.
“I’m sorry about this, Ryoga,” she said, hoping that would do. She was, really, for him and for her. She just wanted to go back home to where things made sense, but she could understand how he might feel exactly the same way.
Before she knew what was happening, he had pulled her in by the wrist and pressed her close. “I’m sorry, too,” he said.
Ranma twitched. It wasn’t exactly an unfamiliar embrace, if she were going to be honest with herself. She’d hugged Ryoga a couple of times, and he’d hugged her more than once. But this was different. It was real; he meant it.
Shoving him into the nearest wall was becoming more and more of an option to Ranma’s racing brain, but she’d just said she was sorry, and he’d agreed, and that didn’t really seem like it should be followed up with a punch. Still, couldn’t he understand how uncomfortable this was making her? “Ryoga...”
He was quiet.
She noted, as a strange background to her rising panic, that he smelled like construction: like wood and acrid metal, and some strange, wholesome-smelling soap, plus the smell that was him, that was Ryoga, which she had noticed before. Ranma had a sharper sense of smell than most of the people she knew, and she could pick out Akane’s scent, her father’s, Ryoga’s, and a handful of other people’s if she knew them well. Being surrounded by Ryoga’s scent was disturbing, as though he’d suddenly risen to envelop her, obscure her in some way.
Just when Ranma was deciding that it was time to shove him as hard as she could, his arms released her. “Goodnight, Ranma,” he said, and leaned in to kiss her on the cheek. He disappeared away into Kasumi’s old room, soundless.
Ranma half-turned, half backed away into Akane’s room, scrubbing frantically at her cheek. Being kind was one thing, but she never should have let that go on so long. She sat numbly on the edge of the bed, slowly rubbing away at the spot where he’d kissed her. “I’m a boy. I’m a guy, right?”
A guy who married another guy. A guy who gave birth to a cute baby girl!
Had some part of her been enjoying that? She didn’t think so, but it was important to try and find out, no matter how unpleasant the answer.
Sorting through the bewilderment and fear and disgust, Ranma found what she’d been looking for. Not exactly love, definitely not lust. Up until the point where she’d begun to smell him, it had been okay, really. Not much of anything, and definitely not anything scary. Come to think of it, it lapsed from not-that-bad into kind-of-good. Kind of... kind of... big-brother good. Family good.
Ranma flushed as she remembered... the interior of Ryoga’s house, outside his bedroom door. Akane was inside, and Ranma was bound and determined to prevent anything from happening while the pair was alone. So she’d dyed and braided the wig she’d used to fool Ryoga into thinking she was his fiancee, stole vampire fangs from one of the Tendo sisters’ old Halloween costumes, and bought a red leopard-print bandanna... and the next thing she knew, the disguise was more than good enough to fool Ryoga into believing she was his long-lost sister. She’d been pretending to be lonely without him, but that had really just been an excuse to knock him silly for ‘abandoning’ her.
But his response hadn’t been to slap her; instead, he’d drawn her in and given her what he must’ve thought was a good apology for his behaviour: a hug. It was freaky, and strange, but also... Ranma forced herself to admit it. For a second after the surprise, there had been a sort of nice feeling that came with it, especially since she’d been expecting him to attack her. She’d gotten the impression from his behaviour that he liked her, wanted to protect her, was sorry if he’d ever hurt her. And that was... pleasant... no matter how you looked at it. His hug this time felt the same. Like she was... the six years younger she felt she was.
Like she was a little sister, or something, not his wife.
That was the connection. Ryoga hadn’t pressed her to him, or allowed his hands to wander. He hadn’t tried to touch her in any place she didn’t like. He’d kissed her on the cheek.
He was giving her more space than Ranma had initally supposed.
The redhead crawled into Akane’s bed with more than a little trepidation, never having fallen asleep there, so far as she could recall.
I need to just remember how it was. It shouldn’t be so bad I can’t remember it, not according to everyone else. Come on, Saotome, she told herself staunchly. You can face it. When did you first... kiss Ryoga?
Nothing.
All right, maybe that’s too much. Uh... what about... a date with Ryoga?
Ranma grew excited. I think I’m seeing something! We... we were on a boat, and...
Wait, you idiot. That happened while you were still a guy.
All right... what about that time when...
No, that was when you were pretending you were his sister, remember?
Oooh, incest!
Ranma snorted.
All right, how about when...
No, that was also when you were a guy... and he almost killed you that time. Sweet guy you’ve married.
“Mou!”
How about when...
That wasn’t a date! That was a set-up...
The night wore on while Ranma tried to dredge up something, anything about her life with Ryoga, coming up blank every time.
Author’s Notes:
I know. I swore about the chapter updates. Christmas vacation was a little crazy, and I ended up not having the disc with me when all was said and done. :(
In payment for my foolishness, two chapters this week. Hope you like ‘em! C&C!
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