The Better Half

by Rain16

An everyday annoyance brings about some much awaited changes, from both perspectives. [ RA oneshot ]

Disclaimer:

All characters of the Ranma ½ Universe courtesy Rumiko Takahashi and her fantastically brilliant mind. Hooray for people (like the goddess artist of Ranma herself) with imagination, just so we can have a blast and say "Water Fun!" and think of some random Japanese guy who wears Chinese clothes, a pigtail, and turns into a girl.

Just add cold water!

Note: Narration in "bold-face" is Ranma's point-of-view, narration in "plain text" is Akane's point-of-view, and narration in "italics" is an undisclosed third party.

"speech"

:: thoughts ::

「Panda signs」

And now, introducing…

The Better Half by Rain

A knock at the door.

He had already known, from the soft sound of her feet on the floor outside, the light rustling

of the yellow sundress; that it was Akane.

Usually he was accustomed to the small sound passing without stopping, moving on to Kasumi or Nabiki's rooms. Just the fact that she was standing outside his door quickened his heartbeat just a little bit.

"Yaa, Aka-" he tried to force his tone to a casual one, but froze at the sight of her face.

Akane wasn't crying, but she looked close to tears as she stared at the floor, or at least that was all he could make out from under the dark blue bangs that shaded her eyes. Her hands were clasped together tightly in front of her, and she was twisting her fingers, her toes pointed inwards timidly. If Ranma hadn't been so worried about her, he would have found himself thinking of how adorable she looked.

"Akane, what's wrong?" he asked, having a feeling he knew what she was about to say before she even began.

::I don't know why I came to talk to him. It seems like we only make one another more upset.::

And yet the first person she had thought to talk with had been him.

She had wanted to complain to anyone else, it didn't really matter who. Most times she would

go to Nabiki, who was always good at twisting the situation to convince Akane that everything was Ranma's fault. Almost every time, however, it wasn't. A small part of Akane was always telling her so, but she stubbornly postponed the problem. When Nabiki failed to be any sort of assistance - it was never a question of "if," but "when" - she could depend on Kasumi to be her typical maternal, concerned self. Kasumi would delicately press her small fingers to her lips in concern, and tell her to talk to Ranma. Strangely enough, that would be what she had wanted to do in the first place.

She knocked on the door, lightly, although it was silly of her to hope he wouldn't hear it. Forget not hearing the knock, she would have been surprised had he not heard her walk up to the door, even though she was trying her best to move silently. Dresses obviously weren't designed for girls who planned on a quiet getaway. Regardless, she had been hoping. For too much, apparently; she could see on his face when he opened the door he wasn't surprised.

He also looked, although he was trying his best not to, extremely apprehensive.

"Yaa, Aka-" he cut himself off. Or at least she had had him fooled for the first half of a second. Until he had gotten a better look at her face, tilting his head to the side a bit to try and see around her bangs while she stared at her feet. She felt him stiffen as he saw the expression there.

"Akane, what's wrong?"

She looked up into those beautiful blue-gray eyes, and swallowed, fearing her dry throat would fail her.

"Everyone at school was saying you kissed Shampoo. Is it true?"

Damn, he had been hoping against hope she would have for once taken his side, but ::Honestly, what did you expect?::

Suddenly, he had a crazy idea.

::What if I tried a different approach...?::

Clearing his throat, he folded his arms across his chest, and took his turn finding himself his own fascinating wooden floor plank to stare at.

"Well, Akane, I think what's more important is whether or not you think I did."

Silence.

Well, not entirely, he thought he heard her sigh heavily, but it had sounded more like she had been holding her breath, and he found himself wondering why. Again, he wasn't exactly surprised, but he had been half hoping she'd jump to conclusions like she always did, call him a Baka, hit him and be over with it. That Akane he knew how to deal with. He had already found himself at a loss for words seeing her standing there with a whole lot to say and not knowing how to, but that was hardly an entire conversation. Fighting the urge to look at her, he just stared harder at the floor.

"Well, Akane, I think what's more important is whether or not you think I did."

Whoosh! went all the air she had held in, waiting for him to stick his foot in his mouth like he always did.

That caught her off guard.

::What do I think?::

 For some reason, what should have been so easy seemed like another carefully calculated move in the game they were always playing around one another.

But then, she had a crazy idea.

::Why not just tell the truth? Tell him for once how I really feel?::

If Akane hadn't felt so emotionally spent from pretending she didn't care about what the girls

at school had been saying all day, she would have given it more thought, and realized that she never was honest because she knew where that would lead.

It meant that she would finally admit to him how she really felt about him.

Ignoring – perhaps consciously - that oversight, she told him the truth.

"I don't think you did."

"Come on, Akane! Shampoo's the one who- eh?" Ranma, who had been expecting her default rebuttal of blaming him without thinking, had already started fighting back, hardly hearing what she had said. He took a tentative step backwards, still skeptical.

"You… You don't think I kissed her?"

That was it. Asking twice was bound to blow her cover. He found himself struggling to believe she had even remained calm this long.

Akane bit her lip, but the extra second was enough to boost her confidence. She was so sick of always blaming Ranma when it was her own fault she was avoiding her true feelings. That was what she had been doing, hadn't it?

"No, I don't."

That was simply too much. Ranma promptly fell over.

"No, I don't."

Caught completely off guard, which was saying something regarding Ranma, he fell over in shock. Akane blink-blinked down at him.

::What in the name of Kami is going on?::

He had to admit he hadn't been expecting that sort of response at all. Since when did Akane care whether he was wrongly accused? Since when did she actually give his feelings any thought? Since when did Akane care… about him?

"Why?" he blurted out.

::Well, there goes your argument.::

But he couldn't help wondering.

"Why?"

Although she had had to give him the benefit of the doubt for being shocked at her sudden change in attitude, the lack of confidence in her still stung.

She took a tentative step forwards.

::Well, you've come this far. No use turning back now.::

"I…" she began, realizing a bit late she didn't know how to say what she wanted to.

"I…" she moved a little closer to him, and he could just barely catch a trace of lavender in the air then. "I guess I blame you so quickly all the time because it's almost a habit for you to be stuck on the short end of the stick, you know. You have to admit sometimes, I really do have reason to. To… to tell you the truth, I hardly ever think, deep down, that you're to blame, but, I don't know, I'm stubborn and clumsy with words and things, and I'm really no good at telling you what I really want to… I…"

She was stumbling now, trying to continue, but he was just sitting there, staring up at her, incredulous. And even as all this registered in his brain, proving him wrong in a mere second or two about everything he had ever resented about her, all he could think about was how beautiful she looked with her hair framing her chin, almost touching the curve of her shoulders like that.

Naturally misinterpreting his silence, mostly due to her self-doubt about being so reckless – or was it brave? – her anxiousness to say all the words she wanted to but couldn't get her tongue around, she found herself losing heart halfway through. She squeezed her eyes shut, trying to concentrate, at the same time trying to understand why this was so difficult, but…

Slumping to her knees dejectedly, barely a foot away from him, strangely enough all she could think of was how handsome he looked in that familiar red Chinese shirt of his.

When Akane silently slid to the floor, looking so crestfallen with her eyes shut so tight, the last of Ranma's barriers caved.

In one quick movement he had moved right in front of her, leaning over so he could look into her russet-colored eyes that looked so close to tears for the second time. Afraid to touch her, he tried at least to give her the courage to continue, because he felt somewhere inside him that they both needed to hear what she was trying to say.

"It's OK, Akane, tell me. I'm listening."

The tiniest glint of her old determination flickered in her eyes as she lifted her head again.

"I'm listening."

Oh, if only Ranma knew the world of a difference those two little words made. Or perhaps he did.

Like a dam bursting, the rest of the words flowed out easily, and Akane felt as if a great weight was being expelled from within her. As her feelings rushed out into the open, the reduction of the space between them was almost palpable in the air.

"There's always so much more that I want to say, but instead I just tell myself that it's all your fault, and I yell at you and say things I don't mean, and my stupid temper gets in the way, always, always and I hate myself for giving in and I can tell by the look on your face that the words hurt a lot more than when I hit you and that makes me feel even worse… When all I really wanted to say was I'm sorry for never listening to you and assuming that you're always responsible and hurting you like that… I know it hurts you, even though you don't say so, I can see it in your eyes how much I hurt you… And you'd think that after so long I'd finally find the courage to tell you all of this but then I just do it all over again and all I know how to do then is just lie alone in my room and wish I could cry, because it would make me feel better, maybe… But I know I haven't got any tears left because I do it to you almost every damn day and I just keep thinking over and over 'I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, why am I so terrible to you when you're so important to me, I'm sorry, I really am…'"

She was shaking now, and it seemed that all the tears she hadn't been able to cry then were cascading down her face and falling to the floor, making tiny little plip noises. She shuddered and wrapped her arms around herself and without even thinking Ranma leaned over, taking his chance at closing the space between them, and drew her into him, holding her tightly, afraid that if he let go of her again he would lose something more than the warmth of her small body against his.

She wasn't making those choking noises anymore, but a few tears still managed their way down her already glistening cheeks, staining his shirt a darker red. Trying not to move too much, Ranma leaned back against the stacked futons, Akane calming down a little more.

She felt so safe and warm and protected in Ranma's arms that she started to settle down, and by the time Ranma relaxed back against the futons, she wasn't sobbing anymore.

"Akane, please don't cry… God, I always manage to make you cry…"

::How did he know that all I needed was him to be there for me like he is right now? But Ranma was always there for me, whether or not we fought. Those were the times I loved the most, when all those stupid things we said didn't matter.::

A small sigh escaped her, and she unconsciously moved her hands from where they were resting on his chest to clasp them between his shoulder blades. For now, she couldn't choke out any more words, so she just sat there, breathing with him, their rhythm the same.

Ranma felt so helpless, sitting there while Akane's breathing slowed down again, feeling the way she must have when she first stepped into his room: like he had a whole lot he had to say but he didn't know how to say it. But all the same, when Akane reached her arms behind him and buried her face further into his shirt, he knew, somehow, that for the moment, his holding her was enough.

Resting his chin on the top of her head, he ran his fingers through her silky hair, taking in the intoxicating aroma of her, gently stroking the material of her butter-yellow sundress with his other hand. And suddenly, he realized he had been whispering to her for the past few minutes.

"Sshh, it's OK, Akane, everything's all right… Sshh…"

Akane was completely exhausted. If there was one thing about a good cry, it was that it always left you feeling strangely drained afterwards.  Ranma had absentmindedly been murmuring little comforting things to her, his words muffled into her hair, trying to get her to relax. Akane found herself hardly listening to the actual words, simply letting the distinct, pleasant sound of his voice wash over her.

Despite the pacifying effects of all this, Akane still noticed the change in his tone.

Ranma knew at that moment that it was now or never.

Here she was, the girl who meant more to him than anything, nestled in his arms, the two of them quietly connecting in the room that he realized seemed so empty without her in it.

Now was the best time of any to tell her. He pulled her a little closer to him, and began.

"Akane…"

::Man, this is harder than it sounded in my head a few seconds ago.::

But all the same, he wanted to be sure she hadn't fallen asleep. Somewhere nearby, he was almost sure he heard a faint clicking sound.

"Mmm?" she answered from where her face was burrowed into his shoulder, sounding sleepy, but still awake. She seemed to perk up a little when she heard the seriousness in his voice. Maybe she could feel how terrified he was of what he was about to say, because she squeezed him just a little tighter, and he felt a bit braver.

"Akane, there's something that I've… that I've been wanting to tell you…"

Akane froze.

::Am I dreaming? Am I assuming; hoping for too much too soon? Is he going to tell me what I've wanted to hear? Is he-::

"Akane, I'm not exactly sure when it was that I realized how much you meant to me, but it seems like pretty early on I had forgotten what it was like to live without you around. It was only when I went on the sporadic training trip that I really thought about what the word 'home' meant to me, now that I've been staying with you and your family at the dojo for over a year. But it took something terrible to shake me into admitting to myself that the dojo wouldn't be a home without you. I think that time when you were staying in the woods with Shinnosuke was the first time I recognized that I cared about you, and maybe something more, but when we were in Jusendo, that was when I knew I loved you. When I almost lost you forever."

Ranma was stunned he had finally said it. It wasn't the way they said it in movies, the way it was supposedly done, not the three little words 'I love you' all by themselves… Maybe he had buried it in such a long sentence because he was still so afraid of her reaction, of what she would say, of the emotions he felt behind it… Akane was achingly silent, and for the first time in minutes Ranma entertained doubts about whether he had been right to say it. But something in his heart squashed that train of thought, and no matter what her reaction was, he knew he had needed to tell her. He had tortured himself with it long enough, and to hell with waiting forever. No matter if it was unorthodox, it felt right…

…It felt perfect. Akane, although she had been wishing for, dreaming of the moment when Ranma would tell her that he loved her, was shocked beyond all belief. Somehow, nothing her imagination had envisioned had prepared her for this. The sound of Ranma's voice, so soft and full of emotion, almost so quiet she couldn't hear; his mask of calm breathing betrayed by the racing of his heart she felt on her cheek through the material of his shirt… Thinking on it now, in retrospect, none of her dreams had ever been so real.

Akane felt like she had suddenly been filled with some sort of warm, golden light that caught her heart in her throat.

He plunged onwards, all hesitation lost to his feelings, for once.

"Akane, it doesn't matter when – I doubt some particular day I suddenly decided, 'Well, what do you know, I love her – it doesn't matter who else gets in the way of me telling you how I feel, the only people that are involved in this are me and you. I was just using those things as an excuse to hide behind because I was afraid the feeling wasn't mutual. I'm still not even sure of that, but I can't hide behind it anymore. Anyway I'm blabbing and I don't think there's anything left to say except that I love you, Akane. I have for who-knows how long, but what matters most is that I always will."

"Ranma," she said. There was a whole lot more of her emotion bundled up in just saying his name, but they both felt it there. She reached her hands up behind his neck and pulled her head back, gazing into his blue-gray eyes. Looking into them, she saw even more than what he had said, more than she could have ever hoped to find in him. Seeing that gave her the strength to say what she had wanted to say for so long.

"I remember that day in Shinnosuke's forest so clearly… I still have dreams about it sometimes. Or maybe I should call them nightmares. Either way, the most distinct memory I have isn't Shinnosuke confessing his love for me, because as soon as he said it, all I could think of was you. I just kept thinking to myself in circles, so frantic I must have gotten dizzy; '::What should I say? Say you love him back. But do I love him?::' I'd never really thought about it before then, he was just an old friend I was trying to help."

Ranma was hoping against hope that this wasn't leading towards what he had feared.

"'::No, I can't love him. But why can't I love him? Why is it so hard to think like that?::' And all I kept seeing before me was your face. And then, almost like telepathy, there you were. I would have been ecstatic to see you if it hadn't been for the look on your face. The hurt in your eyes was enough to feel like I had been stabbed. But it would have been me holding the knife, and that's why it hurt so much, because I knew I had done it to you. Your voice sounded so forced and when I stopped you from fighting Shinnosuke, your face stopped me short. And you said it so quietly: 'I get it. Sorry I bothered you, Akane.' That knife twisted."

Akane drew a deep, shuddering breath.

"It was then I was sure you cared for me, maybe even loved me. I had thought about it before, but then I was certain. And I knew I loved you. I couldn't question it, argue it… and there it was… and it felt wonderful. And then at Jusendo, when I was so close to giving in, I heard your voice scream my name and it pulled me back to you. A second chance, I'm sure of it. 

"I love you, Ranma. You are the most important to me, and I'm not letting you go, ever again. You took my hand that afternoon, despite all that could have torn us apart, and I felt my heart lifted. I'm never letting go of your hand again."

Perhaps it was the time of night. They had been talking since after dinner, and by now the sky had blackened and the few stars that could be seen in the suburban area of Nerima were winking softly down at them. They had been there on the floor for hours, talking, and the room was dark. The waxing moon gave off a silvery glow that crept across the floor and illuminated their faces as they looked into one another's eyes, searching for and finding something inexplicable and infinite; something timeless.

It was quiet, uncharacteristically quiet for the Tendo household, and Ranma, somewhere in the back of his mind, was almost certain Nabiki was plotting something. But now, finally, it no longer mattered. So what if everyone else knew? Right now he felt like shouting it from the rooftops, it felt so fantastic.

Absentmindedly, he reached into his pocket, feeling for the tiny object he knew would be there. He turned back to Akane, the need for words between the two of them gone, feeling like he could drown in her eyes.

Akane wanted to etch every minute detail of that night into her memory. His unruly black hair hanging over his forehead, almost long enough to hide his eyes, where somehow she always found what she had been looking for…

… The way what scarce light filtered through the window played across her sweet features, catching the light of her dark eyes that wasn't shaded by her long eyelashes; that was maybe why he hoped she wouldn't mind if he gently inched her shoulders a few inches forwards, if he drew his face just a little closer to hers…

… The silence between them, not angry or awkward or uncertain as was characteristic of the few quiet times they ever had together; no, a calm quiet, assured and expectant of the moment to follow… Akane thought she saw him lean down towards her slightly, and as her eyes fluttered closed, she tilted her head a fraction to the right, lifting her chin and meeting him halfway.

 For a first kiss, it was short, sweet, but wonderful. Akane softly pressed her lips to Ranma's; a resultant instant or two of magical contact. It probably wouldn't have looked like much to an outsider, but to the two of them it was thrilling, if brief.

Drawing back from her slowly, opening his eyes, Ranma couldn't help it; couldn't stop the blush that crept across his face right then.

Akane, her eyes flitting back and forth between Ranma's left and right, was a bit pink in the cheeks as well, but she smiled all the same. A strange tightness right between the halves of her ribcage, not uncomfortable; almost adrenaline-induced, made her feel as if an invisible string were pulling her upwards, attached to that peculiar spot just to the right of her heart.

Ranma looked, to put it lightly, flustered, which Akane was finding irresistibly cute. Trying to get him to make eye contact with her again, since he was now staring at his knees, she tugged lightly on his pigtail, in all honesty feeling ridiculously playful.

::Really, what is wrong with me? Why am I so giddy?::

But the incredibly light, almost weightless feeling in her chest answered for her.

Ranma had been concentrating so hard on looking elsewhere, that when Akane tugged on his pigtail snapping him out of it and he looked up at her again, he was reminded why he had been trying so hard not to.

He wanted to hold her close to him again; kiss her again.

But he supposed, for now, it was enough just to be silly and kiss her on the tip of her nose.

Akane giggled like a little girl.

Well, that was it, if Ranma was going to try and be cuter than her, even if it was working, she was going to have to get him back for it fair and square. Despite that little show just now, Akane knew Ranma well enough to expect him to be too timid to initiate anything, so she made her winning move.

"Oh, Ranma, quit fooling around," she laughed, sliding one of her hands to his cheek, using the other to pull him back to her before he could react, "And just kiss me again."

Needless to say, this one lasted longer than the last, each of them immersed in what they felt for the other.

At long last, when they broke apart for the second time, Ranma had already extracted the tiny object from his pocket, holding it tightly in his hand. If he hadn't been nervous when he first opened the door, he definitely was now. Moving Akane's hands from around his neck to place them in his own, he tried to suppress his reservations and get his voice to work again.

"A-Akane… I… I'm no good at telling how I feel or anything like that, my mouth tends to run away with me instead, and I usually make you angry or upset even though I don't mean to-"

::What is he getting at?:: Akane wondered.

It was then she noticed that his hands were shaking slightly. Startled, she looked back up at his face, but he didn't seem to be able to look back at her just then.

"-and I know we're kind of like oil and water sometimes, but I'm hoping you can put up with me anyway, because I've been thinking for a long time, and… There are other people who tend to get in the way too, but it's usually the two of us who get in our own way… But I was thinking, if you can help me out, help us work around it, work together instead of against each other, then maybe this whole thing isn't as crazy as it seems…"

Akane found herself hanging on his every word, as if she were expecting something very important, though she couldn't think what. The fact that everything he had said so far was true only heightened her feeling that this was all leading up to that something.

"Anyway, what I'm trying to say is, I've been wanting to tell you for a long time now that out of all the people in my life right now, you're the one who matters to me the most. I've wanted to tell you that out of however many fiancées that were forced on me, you were the only one I felt this way about. So I was thinking, even with all the fiascos and absurd people and circumstances we'd have to deal with, I just wanted to let you know that if you don't mind being my fiancée for real, then I don't." He fumbled uneasily with something between his fingers. "Akane, if you don't mind all that, would you make me the happiest man alive and marry me? Not for our fathers or anyone else, but just for us."

Those last few sentences were so quiet, his voice had been trailing off, afraid of what she would say, or more of what she wouldn't, as the small item in Ranma's hand caught the moonlight for the first time, drawing her attention to it.

Fireworks went off in Akane's mind; she really couldn't relate the feeling to anything else.

Downstairs, in the gathering room, there was an audible thump! as Akane tackled Ranma in the fiercest embrace yet, knocking them both to the floor.

Soun looked up at the ceiling, curious. Genma-panda looked intrigued, holding up a wooden sign: 「Nan da?」

*           *           *

Kasumi is passing around the iced barely tea later that night, the chimes in the doorway tinkling pleasantly in the background. Soun and Genma-panda are at Shogi again, and accept the cups gratefully.

Nabiki is sitting in her usual spot, every now and then glancing sideways at either Ranma or Akane, who are both avoiding the other's eyes, and both of them very red; Ranma is on his way to matching his face to his shirt. They are sitting opposite one another at the small table, their knees brushing against each other.

Ranma's chin is resting on his hand, trying to keep up the appearance of watching the chimes, when he really keeps sneaking looks at Akane when he thinks no one is watching.

Akane is attempting to do her schoolwork, a few papers spread neatly around her. She can't seem to concentrate though, and keeps pressing the end of her pencil to her lips, preoccupied. She leans her cheek into her left hand also, distracted. Idly turning to the next page in her notebook, she is surprised when a photograph falls out from between the pages. Blushing at the photo, she tucks it back between the pages again.

Sensing Ranma's eyes on her, she flicks her own upwards to meet them. Smiling lightly, she extends her left ring finger slightly from the others under her chin, her ring mirroring the brightness that seems to radiate from her face as they look at each other. Contented with this small exchange, she winks covertly at him, is rewarded with one of Ranma's crooked little smiles that make him look so charming, and turns back to her work, casually reaching her hand across the table to have it enclosed in Ranma's.

None of this goes unnoticed by Nabiki, however, and she smiles contentedly to herself. About damn time.

Later still, the very same notebook lies open on Akane's desk. A gentle breeze blows through her window, bringing with it the homey sounds of the dishes clinking in the sink downstairs; Kasumi humming to herself.

The pages rustle in the wind, turning haphazardly and coming to rest at a page where a certain photograph is hidden away. A certain photograph of a certain brown-eyed young lady half-asleep on a certain blue-eyed young man's lap in a certain dark room with only the light from a certain silvery moon shining down on them.

And it is with that certain photograph, my trusted confidante, that their story begins.

* Owari *

Footnotes:

"Yaa" is sort of like a casual "hey" in the evening hours.

"Baka" means idiot, moron, stupid, fool, etc. (Although I would be surprised to find too many Ranma fans who haven't heard that one).

"Kami" are the gods.

"Shogi" is a Japanese board game, sort of like chess.

「Nan da?」means "Huh?" or "What's that?"

*           *           *

And now, if I might have a moment more of your time…

This style of writing, meaning the switching back and forth between two character's points-of-view is a little eccentric maybe, but I wanted to experiment with something different, and I think I like how it turned out. I know, I know, they might be a bit OOC, but I just can't help myself. Also, I'm sure someone will be wanting to point out to me that I didn't mention Ranma's curse at any point, or really touch on any other secondary characters, (eg. Ryoga, Ukyo, Shampoo, etc.) besides the Tendo family, but I wanted to just focus on my favorite pair. It's a traditional pairing, but I never tire of it. Oh, and excuse the spontaneous Japanese embellishments, I thought it might sound more natural.

C&C (or R&R) are very much appreciated. No flames, please, thank you. Although I could always use them to accompany my obsession with having millions of candles burning while I write… hmm. (I know, I'm such a pryo.) Contact me at creepyoldmanwink@yahoo.com. And no, I am not a creepy old man; I'm actually a teenage girl. It's a joke with a friend ^_~

In case anyone was interested enough to wonder where the title came from, since a fellow author of mine once said that these things are hard to title:

I was thinking along the lines of there are two halves of the relationship; the spoken and the inward feeling. Both are utilized in this shortfic, but the half I concentrated more heavily on was the latter, and I think that was the better of the two. So there you are.

Dedicated to all the cute little moments of Ranma and Akane, and to my struggle with a terrible case of hopeless-romanticism.

Hope you all enjoyed it, minna-sama.

… Until we meet again.

:: Rain