Soft. As if it were fragile, he caresses the picture sitting in his lap; prominent is the feeling of everything inside him somehow shucked from his skin, leaving him a hollow shell.
Gently he traces the outline of the man's jaw in the picture... letting his fingertips drift slowly across his eyebrow, touching his lips with the tip of a single finger as a shiver runs through him. The emotions leave him raw and drained, wave upon wave crash into his heart with unyielding ferocity.
Only a picture, Disappointment shows in his posture, in how weary and tired his eyes look. You would think he had thought it was the person, for a brief moment. A moment in time, where everything once more seemed happy... the figure laughed, and hugged him close. Closer than a friend should.
The picture of Hiroshi is a good one... one of him smiling. Unfortunately, it is also one that makes him seem so dreadfully alone. The same picture taken the day Cologne vanished. His eyes seem to dig into Ranma's soul, making the guilt feel ever worse. Eyes that see exactly what is there, something Ranma is unsure that he can ignore.
"I can't do anything, you know that. They won't let me... I don't know if it would work anyways. We're... we're both guys, you know??? I mean... I don't think you'd do that for me, and I wouldn't feel... Comfortable at all... why would you fall in love with stupid me??? I am just... trouble. Ask anyone... they'll tell you," He's only trouble, he tells himself. He's hurt, somehow, everyone who's ever loved him...
He is a shameful disappointment to his father, a constant wound against his Mother's happiness, a stupid stupid boy to Akane... everyone he disappointed. He's never too smart for Nabiki, never too modest for Kasumi...
Clutching the picture to himself he fights back the tears. I AM A MAN. A MAN, I can say that, because it's true! I'm a MAN! A soft chanting as he rocks back and forth, the ache in his heart only growing worse.
Ranma shivers, and opens his blue eyes... he hears laughter, soft, musical, pure as distilled sunshine.
She blinks her eyes open, the brightness of the colors seeming so much more real than the world she left. She was somewhere else a moment ago... it was dark, and there was a picture...
"My Love!" His voice! Oh, so handsome and strong... his voice, that voice so full of sunshine and wind. She giggles lightly as she looks up at him, smoothing her skirt.
"Yes, Hiro-Chan???" His blush is so deep... her affection always did make him blush. She looks at him, standing only a few yards away; the grassy hill around them topped with only a few trees, the breeze ruffling the leaves in a lazy manner.
He opens his arms, "C'mon... the others are waiting, can't very well have a picnic without the guest of honor, ne???"
He smiles so shyly He always did when she kept her hair down. Kami, how I love him,
She waves at him as she stands, smoothing her blue and white dress, "I'm coming, I'm coming! keep your pants on!!!"
That grin, just out of the side of his mouth, his eyes squinting as he holds his hand out...
She reaches out to take it...
"Ranma?" The voice is wary as it speaks, a masculine voice, deep in timbre and thick in old strength, like an oak.
She laughs as he takes her into his arms, as he nuzzles her neck with kisses, "My my, very fresh today aren't we hentai-chan???"
He chortles, bringing his head up and pressing it against her forehead, his eyes looking into hers. "You are so beautiful, you know... a man could just die," His arms draping lovingly around her waist.
A mischievous grin from her as she cocks her head to one side, "That can be arranged, Hentai-Chan... I thought you said the others were waiting???"
A blush colors his cheek as he smiles broadly, a slight mischievous wink, "They can wait"
"Oh, Stop!" She kicks him hard, pushing him away as he yelps in pain. "Honestly... I'm not some sex toy!"
Genma's face becomes melancholic as he frowns, shaking his son, "Ranma... Ranma, look at me boy!"
Ranma's eyes are distant, his face slack, his arms clutching the picture to his chest.
"Do you think that we could take a trip, my love???" His eyes are so soft, glimmering beautifully in the summer sunlight. It almost causes her to melt thoroughly on the inside.
Teasingly, she tugs on some of his bangs, brushing them aside, "Gee... I dunno... a training trip???"
That laugh, that laugh so full of life, overflowing and abundant, that laugh she so dearly loves, "Of course! Of course... anything you want, Beloved," A soft stroke of her hair with his hand, a gentle kiss on her forehead.
A shy, but almost coy grin as she turns away from him, her back against his chest... "Anything, M'lord???"
He shakes a finger in admonishing, "Now now... do I have to chastise YOU this time???"
That soft, all too girlish giggle ushering from her own lips. "Mmmmm, maybe..."
He starts gently to tug her away, "C'mon... the others are waiting for us..."
"Ranma!!! Please, boy! Wake up!" Genma's strong, deep, resonating voice now wavers with fear, his boy just STARING off at nothing, as if he'd finally gone over the edge!!!
Ranma's eyes take on a concerned look, the only change in the past several minutes.
"I don't know, Hiro-Chan..." There was something she was forgetting, a room, with blinds. It seemed familiar, as if from a memory. There was a picture she was holding.
He frowns, looking at her cautiously, "Is something wrong, My Love??" His singsong voice thick with concern for her well-being.
She looks back, her head suddenly aching... she was somewhere else a few moments ago... a... a room, back in the Tendou Dojo???
"Ranma???" Hiroshi's voice is now inquiring, wondering what could be troubling his beautiful bride.
SNAP
"Ranma!!! RANMA!" Genma sees that Ranma is slowly rising out of the strange stupor he had been in, the Saotome Father suddenly realizing how terribly frightened he suddenly is at the possibility of losing what was left of his child.
Blink. Blink. Ranma's eyes slowly begin to focus as it thunders again outside, threatening yet again to burst forth in a maelstrom of water. "…pop…what…?"
The embrace almost crushes the wind out of Ranma, his Father's strong arms wrapping around him. He wasn't sure, but he thought Genma was shaking.
"Oh Ranma, don't... Don't do that to your Father again, boy!!!" Genma feels relief flood into him, and wonders at why his face is suddenly wet.
Ranma blinks in mute shock, then suddenly realizes that it was just a daydream... his body slumping into his Father's arms as he sighs deeply, "Dad... I... I've got a problem..."
"Dad??? What happened to Pop???" Genma wipes his eyes quickly with his sleeve, then holds his son at arms length.
Ranma's eyes are haunted with grief that Genma only recalled seeing in Soun's eyes when he had lost his wife. The boy seemed drained, completely sucked dry of any joyful life, as if there had been nothing before Hiroshi.
Sitting in the meager lighting that the candles provide for the room, Genma opens a part of his heart he long kept guarded so that he can listen for once... truly listen to what his boy tells him.
"I think I love him, and I don't know what to do. I- I know what you and mom want, and- and- and I'm... I'm willing to- ya know," Ranma turns his face away from Genma, hiding the tears that suddenly begin escaping. "It's- honor and all... and you made a promise... And- And-,"
"Ranma," Genma's voice is stern as iron, sharp as steel. His boy was grieving for love... love. Something he once had with Nodoka, something that seems now faded and lost, Nodoka a whole other woman. A woman not too unlike the man he had been acting like. The man he had been to his child.
That horrid, cruel man.
There is no rain outside, the battle between earth and sky having halted for a brief moment.
Ranma looks up, his eyes haggard and lost. He looks at his Father, whose eyes are almost sad. Something he's never really seen before... not true sadness like this, in any case.
"I love you, my son," Five words. Genma wants to say more, years of admonishing leaping to the tip of his tongue, but he clamps his mouth shut. He always spoiled those words before... using them to start a firm lecture of Ranma's weakness.
"And-?" Ranma wearily waits to hear all of the rest... everything he's heard a thousand times before, his heart sinking into his stomach as he realizes just how horrid his father truly is. Soun and Mother probably sent him up here...
There is a tense moment of silence; Genma hangs his head as he realizes that Ranma might not be able to trust him anymore. Him of all people. Ranma, coincidentally, wondering what it is that Genma gets out of this sick, sick endeavor.
Slowly, Genma begins to put words to his feelings, "Ranma, I love you. I have been a useless, hurtful monster... doing you more harm than good in your life. You've come to hate me, the coward and thief that I am... but... I love you, because you are my child and I can do nothing else."
"Father?" This is new, and shocking to Ranma. His father seems to be speaking with feeling, from his heart. He doesn't know if he should believe Genma, the man who has more often than not acted his way out of scrapes.
Genma's hands tighten their grip on his son's arms, his fierce eyes burning into Ranma's, "Do you love him, Ranma?" The question is flat, straight, a demand for truth with no quarter for lies.
Flash. Boom. The sky threatens once more to proceed with its bombardment of Tokyo. The crisp smell of rain is thick in the air as the koi fish leaps towards the sky, only to arc back down into the icy depths of the pond.
Ranma slowly begins to shake his head. Then a broken look shows in his eyes, and his face contorts in heavy emotion... a short, curt nod. He feels so weak, suddenly... as if his much talked about strength decided to take a vacation. His heart beats feebly, it seems.
"I- I know. I'm weak- I'm weak and- and... It's just not right," Ranma feels tears running down his cheeks. Damn him and his fool heart! That he would be crying like some stupid girl. He's NOT a girl, he is a man!
Shock, the ruffling of a gi as silk shirt meets with it's fabric, arms like branches of an oak tree pulling tight around Ranma's body.
Genma's deep baritone speaks as if it were silk in the wind, "Ranma... my child. You are the strongest person I've ever known, that I may ever know," Genma shakes in the embrace, as if he was freezing.
Blink. Blink. For a long moment Ranma feels like a stuffed practice dummy. Then, quite suddenly, Ranma finds the strength to do one thing. And with that, he wraps his arms around his father. HIS Father... someone he strangely never thought he could be proud of. Someone he never thought would be the one he needed.
"Don't dare make a decision now, Ranma... I- I support you and Hiroshi, if it must come to that, but I beg you as your father that... that... you don't decide right now. I will do all I can to make sure you have some time. I am sorry for all the things I've done wrong, but by Kami I will do THIS right," His voice is fierce, and strong. It was a vow he was making, a vow that he would not soon break. A vow that, perhaps, had a wager of his soul on the paper.
Ranma felt despair set in once more... the weakness washing over him as the devoured feeling returned. How could he make a choice, when he would disappoint someone either way??? It was too much. How could he choose to be with Akane... when he had trouble LIVING without Hiroshi???
"I love you, Father," It was said in a weary, battered tone of voice, but it was nonetheless true. It made Genma weep... something Ranma rarely remembered, at least the sort of weeping that required sincere tears.
For a brief moment, by the candlelight, a child's faith was once more restored. Perhaps it was a new beginning for both of them... a chance to heal the wounds...
