A/N: Miss me? I know it's been a while, a super, super long while, but I'm hoping this one-shot will help me to get back to my other stories, at least the ones that tend to be easy to write. For once, IRL problems seem to be diminishing a little bit, so let's hope that's a sign! Read on and don't forget to review!
Sitting in Akane's room, papers spread across her desk, Ranma struggled to pay attention to her instruction, knowing that this session was critical to passing the final exams they would face in just three days. In the chaos that was Jusendo and the disaster of a wedding that followed thereafter, he had forgotten about his school responsibilities, had forgotten that they soon would be heading into their third year.
There was something important about their third year that Akane had told him, though his mind shied away from it every time he tried to remember.
Generally speaking, academia had never caught his attention, not in the way his full immersion in the Art had. He devoted everything that was in him to martial arts, very rarely finding room for anything else. More often than not, the only thing that consistently made it inside his circle of devotion was Akane, making itself clear in concern for Akane, caring for Akane…
Love for Akane.
"Come on, Ranma. Just pay attention for ten more minutes and then we can take a break, okay?" More than anything, it was the soft, pleading note in her voice that returned his focus to full force. Looking at her face, he suddenly realized that he hadn't seen a genuine smile from her in several days, not since the day she had been prepared to marry him. Her face seemed tired and drawn, conveying a sadness he couldn't describe when her eyes flitted to her open window.
From their current vantage point, the dojo could not easily be seen but Ranma knew it wouldn't take much for her to alter her view to look at it. Even though the outside of the building gave little idea as to how damaged it was on the inside, he knew Akane well enough to know that she had every crack, every mark catalogued in her mind. In fact, as he thought back to that day, he could feel the guilt in his chest build, feeling far more remorse about the damage that had been done to the dojo than the words he had said that even he knew suggested that he didn't love her.
"Oh! He's here." Akane jumped out of her chair, leaning over her desk for a clearer view through the window, before she headed toward her door. Before reaching it, however, she paused. "Study that formula," she commanded, referring to the series of numbers that had caused him to glaze over in the first place. "We need to move on from math before lunch." He knew what she wasn't saying, that her tutoring schedule would be shot if they didn't.
"Who's that guy?"
She arched an eyebrow, though he wasn't sure if she was wondering whether he was being jealous or just nosy. "A contractor Daddy hired. For the dojo."
Ranma stood, suddenly feeling protective of the building. "I could fix it myself."
Akane shook her head, something firm in the gesture. "That's not important. This is," she declared, pointing at the notebook on her desk. "You need to know this stuff, Ranma. I won't be around to help you next year."
As she left to talk to the man in the yard below, Ranma suddenly remembered the conversation that had been eluding him. It hadn't seemed real at the time and had quickly been overwhelmed by the events of Jusendo, but he could remember Akane trying to outline their final year of high school for him. He was going straight from school to running the dojo, a decision that had been incredibly easy to make. School had always seemed like a distraction to him, so finishing his last year with half-days seemed tidy in its own way. His fiancée, on the other hand, would be going to university after high school and that meant two things. First, she would continue to have full days of class and secondly, the two of them would no longer be in the same class.
He immediately knew why his mind had been avoiding this truth, for the same reason he had declared he hadn't said those words out loud. He wanted everything to stay the same. As it was, their relationship was easy to maintain and love would make it complicated. In fact, any change would alter their dynamic in unknowable ways. And this, the reality of their third year, was a definite change.
Clenching his fists in determination, he focused on the mathematical formula that had been giving him such trouble. He would learn this and the Japanese literature that he hated, largely because it reminded him so much of Kuno. He needed to prove himself to be reliable and dependable to Akane, to prove that he was worthy of… of what?
Of love, he knew, not even having to dig too deep into introspection. There was a part of him, a part that he often hid away, that deeply regretted his denial on the day of the wedding, despite how he had qualified it. Akane had nearly died for him at least twice over and had followed that with going forward with the wedding with full knowledge of it. She was obviously willing to risk life and limb to help most anyone but this instance smacked of above and beyond.
What irritated him the most was that he couldn't even say the words. Not even when she was unconscious.
Several days had passed and Ranma found himself sitting in the classroom alone, finally finding an end to the exams and time to think about what exactly it was that he needed Akane to hear. What exactly it was that he needed to say, would be more accurate.
He could feel in his bones that it was time to convey to her out loud how he felt. In fact, something in him whispered that it was far beyond time. However, even the thought of it sowed fear into the very fiber of his muscles, causing him to tense up unexpectedly and have to fight the urge to run away in any direction.
Again, for the second time in a week, he did not have to search very far to figure out the why of it. It wasn't just the change the next semester would bring; his life had prepared him for change in nearly all forms. It wasn't even the idea that he had pushed her buttons too often for too long for her to feel any real affection for him. It was, in the end, the fact that any confession would be inviting very real danger into their lives.
Sighing, he thought of Shampoo and Ukyo, his two "fiancées" that he had kept at bay for nearly two full years. In hindsight, he could see that he had been unintentionally yo-yoing them and their very obvious feelings, refusing to admit love to anyone but also refusing to release them when it would have been so easy to do so. If his ego weren't so inflated, as Akane often stated, perhaps this ordeal could have been solved long ago.
But he doubted it.
"Ranma! Come on. You have to see your score." The teenager in question looked up to see Akane's brightly smiling face, almost mirroring the grin back at her. However, his thoughts hung around his neck like a bad omen, spoiling even the hope of a happy moment.
He immediately shook his head, unwilling to admit the dilemma in which he had mired himself but trapped by it just the same. "It was just tests, 'Kane."
However, she wouldn't let it go, some source of joy causing a string of giggles to bubble past her lips. "No, Ranma, you… You just have to see." She grabbed his hands and pulled him to his feet, revealing for the millionth time the true strength she wielded, pulling him out into the hallway where the exam scores were posted.
Despite his initial resistance, something Akane had seemed to disregard as easily as breathing, he allowed her to lead him and further humored her by looking at the posted scores, scanning toward the far end of their years but not even expecting to find his name on the board at all. If anything had been proved time and again in his two years in Nerima, it was that he was not academically minded in the least.
His fiancée reached out finally to turned his head slightly, having noticed where his focus was. It was then that he found his name, having scored fifteenth in their year. Flicking his eyes to the right, he found that Akane had scored second, being very nearly the smartest student in their year. "See, Ranma? You don't need me."
On the surface, he knew the words were meant to be innocent, meant to say that she had faith in him. Even so, he could somehow hear insult in the words and it pained him like a strike to the chest. If he were honest with himself, it sounded like something he might say to her in a fit of protectiveness: that she was useless and unnecessary. "No," he whispered, feeling emotion and truth thicken his words. "I do." He turned to look into her chocolate brown eyes. "I do need you."
She laughed again, her mirth and joy melting some of the sharp edges off of his need to say one thing, anything, right. "I thought it was 'just tests'."
There it was, Akane's forceful miscomprehension. Now, feeling his emotion create tension in the air, he thought that it was shield against all the things that could hurt: rejection, disapproval from her father, perhaps even the reality of Ryoga's curse. Then and there, he swore that he would shield her just as she had shielded him from Saffron's worst attacks, protecting her from the things that could break her.
"Yeah, but I still need you. I love you, Akane Tendo." Then, he kissed her on the lips, hoping that he hadn't broken her heart too permanently yet.
Though she didn't move at first, she tentatively returned the kiss, something shuddering and hesitant in the action. He felt something incomplete in him snap together at the answer in her action, clearing away the tension and unease in him like so much fog. However, she came back to herself first, pulling away from him after a few seconds.
She looked around at the crowd that had already been around them, most of them students that were there just to find their grade. In reaction, she immediately hid her face in his shoulder, the hint of a blush of her cheeks visible when he looked down at her. "Ranma, everyone's looking," she murmured softly.
He chuckled and wrapped his arms around her shoulders in a move that felt like coming home after a long journey. "I don't care. Not anymore."