The first time it happened, Akane was enjoying a nice dream of herself at the beach. She'd finally gotten in the water and discovered she was a natural swimmer with Olympic-level talent when the scene faded to white around her. Rude, really.
She'd been dropped down into some cafe, a pretty girl with black hair sitting across from her and enthusiastically eating a strawberry parfait. Unfortunately for both of them, the 'dropped' part had been literal. An invisible force slammed Akane into the booth (thankfully in real clothes and not a swimsuit). The other girl yelped and narrowly avoided spilling her parfait.
"What the fuck?" she said, sounding more curious than defensive despite her word choice.
Akane didn't know how to answer that. Most of the time when her dreams shifted plots it was a lot more subtle. Not to mention she'd never managed to be aware that she was dreaming when it happened.
She was saved from having to answer by a dream waitress coming up and setting down another parfait in front of her. Akane took a minute to study the cafe. The details were fuzzy the farther away they were from her booth, disappearing into the same whiteness that pulled apart her other dream. There were other people there, but their facial features shifted too much for Akane to recognize anyone.
She was snapped out of her observing by a spoon scooping the cherry of the top of her parfait. "Hey!" she tried to grab the girl's wrist but she was too slow.
"What? Not like you were eating it." she said and then stuck her tongue out at her before popping the stolen cherry into her mouth. Akane growled.
"Who are you?" she asked, pulling her parfait back towards her. She wasn't really interested in eating it but she sure as hell wasn't giving it to this girl.
"Me? Uh, my name's Ranma. Shouldn't that be my question though, considering you're in my dream and stuff?" she'd set the parfait cup down, now empty, and seemed to actually look Akane over for the first time. "Whoa, hold on. Are you like, a real person?"
"A real person? What are you talking about?" Akane's temper had reached a boiling point. She grabbed her spoon and pointed it at Ranma in accusation. "What's going on here?"
Ranma held out her hands in a placating gesture. "I don't know! Really, I was just minding my business when you jumped in. Isn't this your doing somehow?" she still just sounded interested, no hint of frustration or anything. This made Akane angrier somehow.
"Of course not! I don't even know how to lucid dream, much less…" she didn't even know how to describe what was happening. Ranma seemed to understand her frustrated hand gestures anyways. Akane sighed and put her head in her hands. She missed the swimming dream.
Akane only got a few minutes before the sound of giggling broke her out of her wallowing. Ranma was trying (and failing) not to laugh, shoulders hunched and face red from the effort. Akane found herself starting to laugh too, if not at how ridiculous the whole situation was, then at how funny the girl in front her looked. They laughed together for about two minutes before Ranma stopped suddenly, her face grave.
"Hey," Akane tensed up at the sudden shift in mood,"are you gonna eat that?" Ranma asked, pointing at Akane's forgotten parfait. She maintained her deathly serious expression and Akane felt all of the tension bleed out of her. It was promptly replaced by anger.
"What the hell, I thought you were going to say something important!" Akane said, and then groaned. This girl was going to drive her insane, she just knew it.
"Aw, c'mon." Ranma whined, drawing out her words and pitching her voice to be extra annoying. Akane just growled at her and started shoveling the parfait into her mouth. She expected more resistance from Ranma, maybe even an actual fight, but instead she just gave a wistful sigh and watched Akane eat.
"What does it taste like?" she asked when Akane had gotten halfway down the cup. Akane raised an eyebrow at her.
"Weren't you eating one earlier?" Akane managed to ask in between bites. Ranma sighed again.
"This is still just a dream, you can't really experience new things. I've never had one in real life, so…" she trailed off and shrugged.
"Makes sense." Akane took another bite and hummed. "I mean, it mainly just tastes like ice cream. I guess I'm basing this off of the ones they sell at the cafe near my school. It depends on who's working that day but they're usually pretty thick and sweet, with lots of syrup. Their syrup is really good, the strawberry is my favorite." Ranma nodded as she spoke, almost like she was taking mental notes. Akane wasn't going to say it out loud, but she was pretty cute.
Akane considered for a minute before moving her cup towards Ranma. "Here, try it now. You've at least had ice cream before right?" Ranma nodded, a huge grin on her face.
"Mmm," Ranma let out an exaggerated groan, eyes closed in pleasure, "yeah I think I have it now."
Akane gaped for a second, but thankfully was able to pull her jaw up by the time Ranma opened her eyes again. She didn't manage to stop staring though, and this earned her a raised eyebrow from Ranma. Goddammit, this girl really was going to drive her crazy.
"What? Do you want it back?" Ranma asked, leaning back with the parfait. Akane almost went into another giggle fit, maybe a bit less hysterical this time, but she managed to just let out a laugh.
"No, you can keep it." Akane smiled, feeling a sense of ease she hadn't felt since she'd been slammed into this dream.
"Um, thanks…" Ranma seemed nervous all of a sudden,"I think, I mean um," she cursed under her breath and Akane looked at her curiously,"I think having you here probably helped. I mean since you've had these before…" she trailed off, as she started to realize something.
"Ranma?" Akane felt like she was getting whiplash from the sudden changes in mood.
"Oh wow," Ranma muttered, staring intently at the parfait cup in front of her, "I hadn't even thought of this." She looked up at Akane suddenly, startling her. "How much do you know about dreams?"
Akane thought about that for a minute. She sort of knew what lucid dreaming was because Yuka and Sayuri had gotten interested in it a few months ago and subjected her to their rambles on the subject. "Not much I guess. I usually don't think about it." This seemed to excite Ranma rather than deter her.
"Yeah, most people don't. I know I only got into this stuff since some guy in a monastery taught me about lucid dreaming," Ranma was starting to ramble.
"'Guy in a monastery' wouldn't that be a monk?" Akane blurted before thinking. Ranma didn't seem to mind thankfully, she just snorted and waved her hand dismissively.
"If that guy was a monk I'm giving up on Buddhism. No, I think he just lodged there. Anyways," she paused, "...what was I talking about?"
"Uh, dream stuff? I'm not sure exactly." Akane tried to help since she was the one to get her off track in the first place.
"Oh, right! Anyways, dreams just pull from memories right? Anything you see in a dream is something you've seen before, even it was just for a second. Your brain like, records it subconsciously or something. Don't ask me to give all the scientific stuff on this cause I don't really get that." Akane snorted at this and Ranma paused for a second to pout at her before launching back in.
Even the five percent of Akane's brain that still thought this was just a convoluted dream found Ranma adorable at this point.
"Like I was saying," Ranma continued, giving Akane a pointed look," this is amazing! We can both experience completely new things that we may not have ever even thought of because of our shared memories!"
"Like the parfait?" Akane asked, starting to get interested too.
"Yeah! Just imagining ice cream shouldn't have been enough to make it feel so realistic, and I don't think listening to you describe it would do it either. I'm pretty sure your memories filled in for what I didn't know." Ranma grinned. She was so excited about this it was infectious, and so Akane smiled back at her.
"We should run some more tests, right? Just to be sure?" Akane asked.
"Yeah," Ranma nodded,"hm, let's see… have you ever had lassi?" Akane shook her head and Ranma waved her hand. A glass of what Akane guessed was lassi appeared. "I had so much of this stuff when we were in India… there are non-sweet kinds too but sweet rose was my favorite."
Akane hummed in acknowledgment as she tried it. The moment her lips touched the glass she started to feel hot, making the drink feel heavenly. It was thick, sweet, and most importantly, cold. She'd drained the glass before she knew it.
Ranma grinned. "Good right?"
"Yeah..." Akane tapped her nails against the table thoughtfully, "is that something you drink in the summer?"
Ranma looked a little surprised. "Oh, yeah. I used to down glass after glass when Pops and I got back from training. The woman who ran the hostel we were staying at always wrinkled her nose at me but she made me more anyway." she laughed as she recalled the memory.
"Thought so. I felt hot as soon as I started drinking. I guess you have pretty strong memories connected to it?" Akane felt kind of silly theorizing when she felt so out of depth, but Ranma looked ecstatic so she must've been on the right track.
"Oh wow, I didn't even think of that..." Ranma was practically vibrating in her seat, "I mean just... wow. I've heard of linked dreams before but I never really thought about it. This is so fucking cool."
Akane thought back to something Ranma had said. "Wait, you said you always got them after 'training'? What kind of training?" she was trying to keep the excitement out of her voice as she asked. Training could mean anything, Akane told herself. Didn't mean she'd finally met another girl her age who was interested in martial arts.
"Man, our conversations go all over the place," Ranma mused, "and uh, Pops changes it up all the time but I guess just, in general, you could call it martial arts training... maybe."
Akane was too excited to notice the hesitation in Ranma's voice. "I'm a martial artist too! Do you study kenpo? Oh, but you said your dad has you do a lot of different stuff... have you ever done kendo? I've been looking into it, my sister says they have a club at her high school but she's not sure if they let in girls. Which is so dumb, I think I can swing around a wooden sword just as well as a boy," Akane only realized she hadn't been breathing when she needed to take in a breath. Ranma took the opportunity to cut her off.
"Is this what I sound like when I talk about dream stuff? No wonder Pops tells me to shut up all the time," Akane glared at her, "oh, um. No offense."
Akane huffed. "Well excuse me for being glad to meet another girl my age who's a martial artist. None of the girls at my school are into this stuff. They all just think I'm weird." she felt herself getting annoyed again as she said it.
"Weird, huh? I would've said tomboy." Ranma said with a shrug. Akane was getting ready to yell when Ranma just sighed. "Guess I'm a tomboy too."
Akane slumped back into her seat, shoulders dropping. "You're frustrating," she said flatly, fiddling with the edge of a dream cafe menu.
"Wha- frustrating? How am I frustrating? You're the one who dropped into my dream and starting yelling at everything!"
Akane did something neither of them expected, she started laughing again.
"If I'm frustrating you're weird," Ranma said, looking kind of lost but not wanting to lose an argument.
"Whatever you say, tomboy," Akane grinned.
Ranma spluttered a minute before giving up. She cleared her throat. "We've gotten off topic." Akane gave her a knowing smile. Ranma wouldn't look at her.
"What topic?" Akane asked.
"I don't know, dream stuff, whatever."
Akane was about to respond when she started glowing. "What-" she choked out. Ranma sprung up from her seat, panicked. Akane followed her gaze and almost screamed. The same white space that occupied the rest of the dream space had replaced her feet, and was working on her legs.
"Waitwait, I think you're just waking up!" Ranma tried to calm her down.
"What the fuck!" Akane shouted.
"It's okay, you're just gonna wake up in a second. Try to calm down." Ranma had grabbed her arms and was now very close. It didn't do much to calm Akane but at least now she was freaking out about something else. "Ah! Before you go, I never got your name."
"Agh, really?" Akane couldn't believe she was asking something like that when her waist was pretty much gone.
"Yeah I know, I gave my name right when we met, that was kind of rude of you," Ranma said, amused. She knew exactly what Akane had meant.
"My name's Akane! Happy?"
"Yup! Now wake up!" Ranma slapped her, somewhat lightly, on the side of the head. Akane shot up in her bed, breathing heavily. Her alarm blared a moment later and she groaned.
This was a bizarre start to her last week of junior high.
new story! i don't have a concrete updating schedule but the rest of the chapters will be longer.
ty to jusendork (on tumblr) for beta-reading!
my ranma sideblog is adhdranma if u wanna come talk about stuff w/ me!