Disclaimer: Not for commercial use. The characters in this fan fiction work are used without permission, as I do not own the rights to Ranma 1/2. But I do own quite a few Ranma DVDs and manga... does that count?

The Courtship of Tendou Kasumi
A Ranma 1/2 fanfic
written by Ambulatory Kettle

Kasumi watched the steam rise from her cup of tea. After a moment, her eye refocused on the face reflected there, green-cast in the hot liquid. Even accounting for the unflattering coloration, the face looked entirely unremarkable to her.

Mother had been beautiful. People frequently told Kasumi that she was beautiful, that she resembled her mother, but it was mostly old women and friends of the family. Besides her father and a few doting grandfatherly-types, only one man had ever told her she was beautiful.

Kasumi looked up to meet his anxious gaze, and smiled at him. Toufuu smiled back, somewhat crookedly. Uncle Saotome had grabbed a broom and excused himself with a polite panda-grunt some time ago, and Ranma and Akane were long since gone, but Toufuu still glanced nervously at the door as he sat stiff-backed in a chair across from her. Overall though, he had largely calmed down.

She often wished for the day when he would finally be able to feel comfortable being in the same room with other people when she was around. Just before she and Ranma left, Akane had confided that Toufuu didn't act nearly so ridiculous when Kasumi herself wasn't around, as if trying to let slip a hint. Kasumi hadn't bothered to correct her sister's misunderstanding of the situation.

Kasumi lifted her teacup to her lips, letting the hot vapor bathe her face and bring back memories of a steamy August day.

It was the summer of her junior year of high school. The cicadas were still out in force, and their strident voices mingled with the sound of her footsteps ringing dully off the pavement in the heavy midday air. A vagrant breeze tugged briefly at her parasol, and Kasumi closed her eyes, smiling and basking in the moment of cool respite.

During the schoolyear, she was kept busy by a regular combination of academics and housework, but now that she had free time, she had been visiting Toufuu-sensei regularly to discuss the books he lent her. He had begun lending her books in earnest earlier that year, and he seemed to enjoy discussing them with her as much as she enjoyed reading them and discussing them with him. She was flattered that he thought of her as a worthy conversational partner, educated man that he was.

As she came upon Toufuu's clinic, she found him stepping briskly out to meet her.

"Ah, Kasumi-san," he said. "I, ah, wasn't expecting... I mean, that is... hello!"

Kasumi smiled at him warmly. He could be so hesitant and awkward sometimes, it was almost hard to believe that, once they sat down to talk, he would open up to reveal the richly intelligent and charming man he really was.

"Hello, Sensei. I've finished reading this," she greeted him, handing him the small volume she was carrying.

His hand fumbled for the book, and for a moment he seemed acutely nervous. Then his eyes fell on the title, and his face fell into an uncharacteristically disinterested mask.

"Oh, yes. Did you like it?" he asked somewhat absently.

"Very much," Kasumi affirmed, hoping her enthusiasm would rub off on him. "Kawabata's writing is very beautiful. Though it felt a little strange reading a book called Snow Country in the summertime."

"Mmm," Toufuu grunted. "What about the other book I lent you?"

"That collection of poetry? I haven't finished that one yet."

"Oh," Toufuu replied, sounding strangely both disappointed and relieved. "Oh. Well, I, um. You should. I mean, I'd recommend the very last bit. The, er, last page, I think it was. I... don't know if it will... be to your tastes or not. But."

Toufuu's level of agitation concerned Kasumi. Lately, he'd seemed to be growing more and more anxious. She hoped everything was all right. He'd also switched from calling her "Kasumi-chan" to calling her "Kasumi-san" some time ago, and she still wasn't sure what to think of that. An acknowledgement of her maturity? Perhaps, but she could have hardly begrudged him the familiarity of the former endearment.

"Yes, well," he said. "I should be getting back. Inside, that is, I mean. I have patience. I mean, patients."

Kasumi found it hard to hide her disappointment. She had been hoping to talk more. "Oh. Well... in that case, I'll be seeing you."

Toufuu fidgeted, eyes downcast. "Mmm, thank you. I mean, see you soon. And, er, drive safely."

Kasumi laughed. "Sensei, I don't drive! I walked here, just like I always do."

Toufuu grinned sheepishly. "Right. Of course. Haha."

"Well, I'd better let you go then."

"Ka-Kasumi-san?" he piped up as she made to leave.

She turned back.

Toufuu's eyes were fixed on some point on the ground off to his left, but they flicked in her direction briefly. "I... like your hair," he said. "It's really... long."

Puzzled, Kasumi frowned for a moment, but then smiled again, realizing that, even while there was something else on his mind that was obviously distracting him, Toufuu was making an effort to try and pay her a compliment, in his own way. "Thank you, Sensei," she said.

He nodded, then scampered back into the clinic.

While she was still disappointed, Kasumi was determined not to let it get her down. She would go home and read the poetry Toufuu had lent her and come again tomorrow. Certainly he couldn't be too busy to talk two days in a row.

As she passed an awning at the end of the block, a little old woman sitting beneath it and fanning herself looked up and greeted Kasumi.

"Oh, hello, Kasumi-chan."

"Hello, Takamiya-san. How have you been?"

"Quite well for an old lady, thank you. Coming from visiting Toufuu-sensei, are you?"

"Yes, just now," Kasumi replied, glancing back over her shoulder at the empty, sun-baked street. "He said he was busy with patients though, so I didn't want to bother him."

The little woman's brows went up, pulling the network of wrinkles on her face into a new pattern of surprise. "Really? But he's been pacing in and out of the clinic gate all morning. And I haven't noticed more than two or three folks go in today."

"That's strange." Kasumi frowned. Maybe he was busy with some private project? Or... maybe he just didn't want to see her.

Kasumi swallowed that thought. But the suppression came more out of fear of that possibility than from any rationale against it.

As she sat on her bed in her room, reading through the last few pages of the volume of poetry, Kasumi's mind kept wandering inexorably back to Toufuu's agitation. She tried to lose herself in the verse, but since the book was Toufuu's she was inevitably drawn back to wondering and worrying at his increasingly odd behavior. Perhaps a family crisis? His mother's health? Kasumi would have liked to think that Toufuu could confide anything in her, but he'd said nothing. Did she not merit that much trust after all? It was a painful thought to contemplate.

But as Kasumi turned to the very last page of the book, she discovered something unexpected. Beneath the final poem, a collection of characters were scrawled in Toufuu's unmistakable hand.

The words practically jumped off the page at her: 'I like you.'

Kasumi slammed the book shut and pulled her hands away like she'd been bitten. She stared at the book in disbelief; the book just lay inert atop the bedsheets.

Her heart raced.

No, she thought. She must have imagined it. Reaching one hand out gingerly, she flipped the book open to the last page.

There were the words, in blue ink, plain as day. Within Kasumi, something broke, and a torrent of old and near-forgotten feelings came rushing up from some unseen recess inside her, flooding into her mind, filling her.

It was just a girlish infatuation, she told herself. Like having a crush on a teacher. Nothing ever came of those. Every little girl in Nerima probably had a crush on Toufuu-sensei at one time or another; he was handsome, and he was great with children, charming and funny, making Betty-chan dance and speak, always complimenting the boys on their health and strength, always telling the girls how pretty they kept getting with every visit.

But Kasumi had grown out of that, just like any other little girl, right? Nothing ever came of these things. Nothing ever came of them.

Kasumi knew she was very mature for her age. She'd had to grow up quickly, after Mother died. All this time spent reading and discussing all manner of subjects with Toufuu, she had been trying to prove to herself that she was an adult, trying to show that her childish adoration was behind her and she could interact with him on equal terms.

But she realized now that she'd failed. The infatuation was still there, buried beneath the surface. The only person she'd managed to convince of the maturity of her mind was Toufuu. Had he now fallen in love with that mind?

Kasumi wrapped her arms around herself, staring at the words that Toufuu had written on the page, and tried desperately to suppress the joy and wonder and fear that nearly threatened to overwhelm her.

She closed her eyes. The childhood infatuation must be tempered with the discerning mind of the adult, she told herself, repeating it in her head like something halfway between a mantra and a clinical prescription.

How old was Toufuu? Kasumi realized that she didn't even know. Still in his twenties, she guessed, but she couldn't say for sure. He had always been "an adult" to her, even when she was trying to prove herself to be one, and to a child, adults are always ageless.

Opening her eyes, Kasumi gazed up at the ceiling. But I'm not a child anymore. And Toufuu had clearly noticed. Some cautious and rational part of her warned that this could be an instance of an older mentor-figure trying to take advantage of a young and innocent protoge.

And yet, 'innocent' described his own shy confession very aptly, scribbled on the page of a book like a middle-schooler's love-note. It seemed to bespeak something else, a naive sincerity that was itself reminiscent of childhood, of emotion without guile.

Kasumi forced her eyes to look down at the open book again. It came down to honesty. This was the honest truth of Toufuu's feelings. She could do no less than to respond with equal honesty.

Scooting off the bed and jerking hastily to her feet before she lost her nerve, Kasumi snatched up a pen from her desk and, hand shaking, set it to the page.

The ticking of the clinic's wall clock brought Kasumi back to the present. She looked to Toufuu, watching him watching her.

There had been complications, of course. He was almost ten years older than her, and a doctor, after all; he couldn't afford to have people think he was chasing after high school girls. He had never mentioned this, but Kasumi had understood all the same.

They had had to be discrete. Even in private, he remained physically restrained, even by Kasumi's chaste standards, letting himself do little more than hold her hand. But what their relationship lacked in physical intimacy, it more than made up for in emotional intimacy. Kasumi was perfectly content to wait and welcome his advances whenever he was ready to make them.

Perhaps there was some part of Toufuu that still thought of Kasumi as that seventeen-year-old girl he had started shyly courting two years before. Habits shaped by their age difference still held sway... his private restraint, his public nervous distraction, as if afraid someone might catch on. Even she had yet to publicize their relationship.

But there must have been some part of him that realized she wasn't a school-girl any longer. Otherwise...

"Sensei... I've been thinking about... what you asked me last time I visited you," she said. She realized that he wasn't the only one whose view had been slow to change; even now, she still called him "sensei."

Toufuu's muscles slackened visibly into what definitely wasn't a posture of relaxation. "Y-... yes...?"

"I..." Kasumi began, but then stopped. She looked down again at her rapidly cooling tea, gathering her thoughts. "I... have to put my family first, right now."

Toufuu slumped down further into his chair. "Oh." His response was small, far away.

"I'm not saying no," Kasumi was quick to add. She glanced away, fixing her gaze on the wall. "I'm just saying... I can't right now. My family needs me too much. You... understand, right?"

Toufuu straightened up. "So... you're saying... what are you saying?"

Kasumi took a sip of her tea. "I suppose I'm saying... not right now."

"But... later?" Toufuu leaned forward slightly in his seat. "What about later?"

His eagerness made Kasumi want to laugh and cry at the same time. "I... don't know. These new guests make even more work around the house. There's... no way I could leave my family. Not now."

"Not now," Toufuu repeated, downcast. "But... maybe someday?" he asked, his voice turning hopeful. He would not be easily discouraged, she could see by the look in his eyes. It lifted her heart to know she meant that much to him, but it saddened her to know she had to disappoint him.

"Not... any time soon. It could be years, but... maybe someday. Yes."

Toufuu sat up, a glow of elation filling his eyes. "So... so it's a 'yes' then?"

Kasumi smiled shyly, and felt that she must be blushing. "It's a... 'yes-but-not-right-now'..."

Toufuu's face lit up. He looked at his skeleton, Betty-chan. "She said yes!"

Jumping to his feet he whisked the skeleton from its stand and danced it around the room. "She said yes, she said yes, she said yes!"

Unable to help herself, Kasumi laughed. She was as delighted by his reaction as he obviously was by her answer.

"She said YES!" Toufuu sang, hitching Betty-chan up on his back and loping for the door. Kasumi dashed after him, her face burning in a strange and wonderful mix of joy and embarrassment at her joy.

She watched as Toufuu jogged off down the road with the skeleton riding on his back, and realized that time was no object to Toufuu. He would wait for her for as long as was needed.

As Betty-chan's flapping arms waved farewell, Kasumi smiled, blinking away moisture from her eyes.

"We'll meet again soon," she whispered into the empty street.

Fin.