The Plan
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Writer's notes: Hello everyone! This is my first written piece in say about 10 years but one day, I suddenly remembered Ranma 1/2 and started watching it and reading a few fics here and there and then before you know it, an idea popped into my head. This story was loosely inspired by the movie Pretty Woman with Ryoga in place of the woman and Ukyo as Edward Lewis. However, this story does not have hookers and their reason for transformation does not have to do with Ukyo's scheme for over some corporate giant lol. I will try very hard to finish this one. Comments and reviews are welcome!
Before I start, I just wanted to note that I will not be going into much descriptive detail on the characters' appearance. This fic was created with the assumption that the readers know what each character (avaliable in the manga/anime) looks like. All new characters that I introduce will have short descriptive sentences to help you, the reader, imagine him/her.
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"You stupid pig! You messed up our plans again! If you had just waited for the cue, we would have split them up!" a young woman screamed, raising her iconic spatula high above her head, ready to swoop down on the tiny squealing pig at her feet.
"Sqeeee!" it yelled as it scampered to avoid the inevitable blow.
"Get back here!" yelled the young woman and she proceeded to chase the pig for several blocks.
"Come out now, Ryoga," the young woman said, huffing, strapping her spatula back on her back as stopped to catch her breath. "I'm not mad anymore."
"Sqee?" came a soft and terrified little sound as the little pig came out from behind a large empty bag of octopus chips.
"Hurry up now, you jackass," grumbled the girl, her voice significantly less angry than she had been only moments before. Exercise did wonders for blowing off steam. She crouched down next to the pig and sighed. "Why is it that out of all people, I end up being stuck with you as a partner?" She held out a hand and the pig tentatively moved forward to touch it with his snout. She gently grabbed the pig by the yellow bandana around its neck and started walking.
"Stop squirming!" she reprimanded sharply as she placed the pig onto the palm of her hand. The pig stopped moving and stood watching as the girl carried him back to an apartment above an okonomiyaki restaurant.
Setting the pig down on a table, the girl moved over to the kitchen counter and started to boil water on her stove. After a few minutes as the pig sat quietly, though it's face hesitant and a little wary, she grabbed the kettle and poured steaming hot water in a plastic bucket that she had placed on the floor a few minutes ago.
Picking up the pig, she dropped it into the hot water.
"Ahh! Hot! Would it hurt you to give me some warning?" shouted a very naked man, who jumped up quickly from the very spot the girl had dumped the pig just moments before.
The girl had turned her head so as to provide the young man with a modicum of modesty. "Oh my bad," she mumbled, rolling her eyes and tossing him a towel with her back still turned.
Deeming it safe to turn around, the young woman saw the young man with the towel around his waist, ringing his fingers through his hair in an attempt to dry it out. She rolled her eyes again and proceeded to untie the strap holding her giant spatula to her back.
"Uh, Ukyo?" the guy said tentatively, his voice small, "I'm sorry I failed... again." The tips of his two index fingers kept tapping against each other in rapid motion as he stood in front of the girl.
Ukyo placed her spatula against the wall of her kitchen. "You only had one job, Ryoga. All you had to do was come running when I gave you the signal. How could that have been so hard?"
Ryoga's shoulders hunched. "I don't know what happened, I just saw her and— and—"
"Yeah, yeah, yeah," said Ukyo, waving her hand dismissively. "It's my fault, I should have known better than to count on you to hold back when it came to Akane." She then mumbled under her breath, "I should have just tied you up until the plan was ready."
"I said I'm sorry!" he said again, blushing, "but when I see her, it's like the sun had shined its rays on my face for the first time in many long years."
Ukyo rolled her eyes. "Well sorry ain't fixin' things, sugar." She set the kettle back down on the stove. "There's only a month left till the Cherry Blossom festival. You need to ask Akane so that Ranma will be free to ask me. That was the plan."
"I know, I know…" he said softly. "I just…"
"All you had to do was wait until I got Ranma away from Akane so you could swoop in and ask her in that ridiculously romantic way of yours." She rolled her eyes. "Oh forget it, jackass! Ugh, we need a new plan." She turned back around to face him, while pulling up a chair, noticing that Ryoga was still undressed. She saw the start of a furious blush forming on his face, slowly spreading to this neck.
Unabashedly, Ukyo stared at him. She knew she wasn't attracted to him, explaining the curious lack of pink tinge on her own cheeks but something about his half-dressed state was starting to turn the gears in her noggin.
Looking at him objectively, Ryoga was not a bad looking man. In fact, she thought, her gaze going over silky full head of hair, brown hazel eyes, long eyelashes, sharp features –while ignoring the pink cheeks—, broad shoulders, muscular build and a good height, he easily rivaled Ranma in terms of looks. Objectively, of course. She knew too that he was a skilled martial artist, the only other person whom Ranma had acknowledged as a real rival. That meant that he was athletic.
Her mind turned and turned and turned as she quietly gazed at Ryoga's bare torso, unaware of the fact that his blush had now reached his chest. Good looks… Athletic… Good looks… Athletic… Good
"I got it!" she yelled, suddenly jumping from her chair and sending a wide eyed and very confused Ryoga a few steps back.
"G-got what?"
Her eyes went to his quickly and a grin formed on her face. "Ryoga, we know that Ranchan won't ask Akane to the festival until the very last minute but that doesn't mean that he won't stop any other guys asking her."
Ryoga sputtered, "Well he won't stop me!" He was suddenly in his fighting stance.
She waved her hand dismissively turning toward the window, thinking as she spoke, "Yeah, yeah, I know. You're the definition of determined if I ever saw one. But that doesn't mean Akane won't hesitate to accept your offer right away. It usually goes like this, right? You ask her, she hesitates, looks at Ranchan and waits for his response. He doesn't do anything or insults her, she gets mad, she accepts your offer, and then when you think everything is going your way, what happens then?" Before even giving him a chance to answer, she continued, "that's right! Ranchan finds a way to make up with Akane and they end up going together!"
Realization dawned on Ryoga's face and anger started to replace the pink tinge of his cheeks. "Saotome!"
"Now hold your horses there, sugar," she said, turning her gaze back to the lost boy. "What we need to do is get Akane to turn to you."
"Huh?"
"We need Akane to fall in love with you."
The pink on Ryoga's face turned almost immediately to a deep shade of red and he started to twiddle his thumbs together and a shy, foolish grin started to form on his face. "A-ak-kane hehe in l-love with m-me."
A swift hand knocked him off the side of the head, "Snap out of it, will you! I'm trying to tell you my plans here! What we have to do is make Akane see you in a new light. This stuttering, foolish, knight in shining armor thing isn't working. You can barely even stay in her presence five minutes without running away or looking like a fool."
Ukyo started pacing while Ryoga quietly watched her, wide eyed wondering where she was going with her plans. He wasn't as big a fool as she claimed but he knew that Akane wasn't yet in the place to return his love. She was far too busy yelling at Ranma to notice much around her. If Ukyo had a plan to change that then…
The girl slapped her hands on the table right in front of where he stood, pulling him sharply from his thoughts. "We'll have to change you to be the kind of man that she'll want!"
"C-change me? How?"
"Of course, we'll also need a reason for you to be near her more regularly than you are now without being suspicious."
Thoughts of being with Akane ran through Ryoga's head. Spending more time with her was all he ever wanted.
He wasn't aware of Ukyo coming within a foot of his face, so lost was he in his own thoughts. "Did you hear me, Ryoga?"
He looked up, "What?"
"I said, make sure you're at Furinkan High at exactly 7 o'clock tomorrow morning."
"Uh, why exactly?"
The sigh that escaped Ukyo was slow and hinted at the level of exasperation she had for the lost boy, "to register you as a student."
"A s-student? M-me? At Furinkan w-with Akane?"
"Yes! Now will you stop stuttering!" She sat back down on her chair.
"I don't understand," said Ryoga, his arms out in front of him, "why am I going to Furinkan high?"
"Where you listening to me at all, Ryoga?"
"Uh," his index fingers started tapping against each other again as he turned his gaze to her kitchen door, wondering idly if he could make a dash for it before any more fists or worse, a spatula turned his way.
"Ugh! I said, we're going to register you as a student and then we will work to changing your stuttering, pathetic behavior." Ukyo's eyes lit up as if she were viewing it all in front of her instead of in her head, "We're going to give you a whole new image! One that's confident, secure, attractive! All the girls in the school will go crazy for you for once! Then Akane will have to see you! And when that happens, BAM." She slammed her hands against the table, causing Ryoga to jump. "You swoop in and you ask her to the dance!" Ukyo was grinning.
Ryoga stood there for a second, jaw hanging, trying to take in Ukyo's newest plan that for the life of him, he could not figure out how they would pull it off. "D-do you think that will work, Ukyo?" Ryoga asked, after a minute of dumbly staring at her.
"Sure it will! Look you're attractive enough and you are athletic, though not as much as Ranma but even Ranma admitted you to being the only person worthy enough to being your rival. If we push that energy to some sport at school. We will have to think about which one and of course," her tone changing a little, bringing back some of the earlier exaggeration and removing some of her zeal, "we will have to work on your behavior around girls in general."
"What do you mean?! I'm a gentleman at all time!"
"Yeah! A stuttering, shy, awkward gentleman! Don't you get it by now, Ryoga? Girls don't like the kind, nice best friend. They like the assertive, confident men!"
He rolled his eyes, "so you mean a jerk like Ranma?"
Ukyo ignored him. "You'll have to be desirable from afar and then when all this attention is on you, you can turn to her and say…" She took his hands in hers and gazed into his eyes. "Akane, will you go to the Cherry Blossom Festival with me?"
His eyes were as round as saucers, staring back at hers, as he nearly whispered "and what would she say?"
"You dingus!" she smacked the side of his head, "of course, she'll say yes!"
"Y-you think so?"
She turned her head and smirked, "when I'm done with you, sugar, no girl will be able to turn you down."
