Welp, I had this one percolating for a while. It probably won't get updated as fast as Changeling or Vegas Rules, at least until one of those is done, but I wanted this one out because I wanted to write unabashed fluff with some angst and drama, eventually.
What inspired this was mostly "Swimming Pool" by Freezepop, and the springboard from which I started writing will be the line "Kiss me, dumbass" from the second chapter when I release it! For some reason it stuck in my head and I had the plot bunnies assault me.
When your life's a charade, an act, what can you do but play your part?
A field of battle over curry bread with two figures fighting. One with a pigtail is victorious, landing in front of the other with a cocky grin. The fang-toothed boy glares at them and challenges them for their name. To his surprise the other child laughs, walks over and hands him the curry bread, walking out the room with a grin.
What can you do but pretend to be that person everyone says you are, but you're not, in your heart of hearts?
The walk home from school, the pigtailed child with black hair easily holding his hand with no trace of embarrassment. The fang-toothed boy himself is embarrassed, but thankful someone is helping him home with his sense of direction. "So yeah, sorry about beatin' ya there. Don't wanna look weak in front'a the guys, yanno? Like sharks, or somethin'."
The fang-toothed boy smiles, happy his stomach isn't growling today. "I'll beat you tomorrow." He promises.
"Sure ya will, Ryouga." The familiarity is easy, comforting, despite that they've just met properly today. "But I'll still fight ya with everythin'. I don't lose."
What do you do with your true self, but bury it deep below the surface of your heart?
A few weeks later the friends are standing near Ryouga's house, the pigtailed child looking awkward. "Hey, Ryouga, can I tell ya a secret? I've only directly told two people before."
Ryouga looks at his friend. The last few days they'd teamed up to win all the bread after beating everyone and then distribute it evenly around everyone, and he feels proud of that. "Sure."
Where no one can find it.
"M'name ain't Ranma." The pigtailed child smiles at him. "S'Keiko."
"Keiko?" Ryouga looks confused. "That's a girl's…"
"Yeah." Admits the pigtailed one. "It is."
Where no one can see it.
"So, what, you're a…"
"Girl. Yeah. On the inside." Keiko grimaces. "On the outside not so much, which sucks."
"That's weird."
"See it from my side, fang-boy." Keiko retorts.
"How do you know?"
"Just do." She pats her sadly flat chest. "Just here, yanno?"
"I guess. Why tell me?" Ryouga asks. Keiko shrugs.
Until it's buried so far down below the mask you build that you can't find yourself anymore.
"You're like my best friend. Well, you're my only friend so it kinda makes you that by default. And, yanno, I think you're nice." Ryouga blushes. Keiko rubs the back of her head. "Do me a favour though, don't let my Pop know. He'd try to kill me or somethin'."
"…I won't."
"And… I think he's gonna take me away again real soon." Keiko looks morose. "Which also sucks."
Until the mask's become your life, the pretense becoming the real you.
"Why the hell're we going to this shitty place, Pops?"
"Don't ask questions, Boy."
Keiko grumbles to herself as she follows. There's boredom. Then there's a fight, and then there's throwing her father into the pool and an enraged panda emerging.
What happens when that mask starts to crack?
A roar, a swipe and her falling.
A splash and a tingle.
And then everything feels right for the first time in her life. She looks down. Gropes in the manner most would when presented with new things. Her hand travels further south and finds something missing that had always bothered her. She blinks. Takes in a breath.
The guide is babbling something about apologies and girls who drowned in the spring yadda yadda. Keiko can only express herself in two words.
"FUCK YEAH!"
Then she jumps out of the pool and starts chasing her father around, fully intending on beating him down.
When you're handed the keys to bringing your real self out?
"Yeah I ain't gonna eat none of that, Pops." Keiko crosses her arms under her breasts. Her breasts! She was still bubbling away inside at the thought, though outwardly she pretended to hate it. The feast is right there and she's so hungry, but something in her says it's a bad fuckin' idea to piss off a bunch of backwoods Chinese Amazons.
"Suit yourself, Boy." Genma turns and she grabs his arm.
"Don't, Pops. I'm sure they'd be willin' ta share if we ask the winner nicely."
Everything you ever wanted, for a splash of water.
Keiko explains in low, broken Chinese to the purple-haired girl the blessing she's received and her grandmother looks on in interest. They make a short plan, dislike for her father in both of them. The elder chuckles darkly, seeing an opportunity for mischief, a holiday and training outside the village for her great-granddaughter.
Keiko beats Xian Pu in a duel and the girl kisses her on the cheek. Cologne explains that it's a death mark to Keiko's father.
She's lying.
But you keep the pretense up, fearing more than anything the pit again. All he had to do was mention it.
Swimming home to Japan, heading to her father's friend's dojo. Apparently to get married.
She fights him, he wins, as he always does.
And at the end of the day, fear is what keeps all your masks in place while you crack and break slowly.
"I'm really glad you're a girl." Akane says, tossing her head at the thought of losing to a boy. Keiko looks down at the ground morosely. "What's wrong?"
"It's not… I just want you to…" Keiko swallows. This girl rescued her from the awkward scene in the entrance, the casual groping from her sister. She's trustworthy. She remembers another person she trusted, years ago and wonders where he is. How she explained it to him might work here. How she explained it to Xian Pu, too. "My name's not Ranma." She says softly. "It's Keiko. I am a girl. I am."
"Well, yeah, obviously you are…" Akane says, confused. "It's a cute name, way better than Ranma. That's a boy's name."
What happens when the inner you that's been buried starts to swim for the surface. To yearn for freedom?
"No, I mean… I…" She sighs, dejected. "Can you fetch two cups of water and bring them out here? One has to be pretty hot, the other cold."
Akane looks confused but nods.
What happens when you can't take the strain of the pretense anymore, but the mask is so tightly attached, so suffocating you can't breathe enough to remove it?
Akane returns and Keiko sits, bowed in front of her. "Pour it over my head when I go say. And please. Remember. I'm a girl." She looks up and the yearning for acceptance and a deep unhappiness are there, piercing Akane's heart. "Please don't hate me." Keiko says in a small voice. "I am a girl. Pour the hot water first."
She waits while Akane pours the hot water over her and changes into a much taller boy, lean, muscled, with black hair. Akane stumbles back in shock as the boy says in that same feminine way. "I wasn't born one in body though."
What happens when you're suffocating under the weight of the lies you've told, just to survive?
Akane's face reddens with anger, a sharp, angry retort on her face that dies as she looks into those same blue eyes of the girl she'd befriended already and sees self-loathing and misery and a pain she can't understand, let alone put words to. Keiko picks up the glass of cold water and pours it over herself, returning to the short, buxom redhead. She bows, forehead pressing to the floor.
"I'm sorry."
"…Don't be." Akane manages, hand that had been raised to slap the boy falling limply to her side. She kneels by Keiko and rubs her back as Keiko tonelessly tells her the story of growing up with Ranma on the outside but being Keiko in her heart. Of telling her best friend, who she still can't stop worrying about. Of Xian Pu, who celebrated her sisterhood with her quietly in the few times that she'd managed to catch Keiko without her father around and having to pretend to try and kill her.
The pain of being in the wrong body, the terror of her father's reaction to her true self if he found out, and then that first moment falling into the nyanniichuan at Jusenkyo. That 'click' in her soul when body and mind finally matched. The joy at everything coming into focus as right for the first time in her life.
When you desperately want, need to be yourself and not the lie you crafted?
Akane looks at the girl and she smiles softly. "Your secret is safe with me, Keiko." She says. "Always and always."
Keiko looks at her with hope, which quickly turns to ash. "We'll have to pretend. I can't ask you to do that for me."
"It's what friends do. But if you want to make it up to me, teach me to fight."
Keiko nods. "Sure! I'd have done it anyway, though." She sighs. "My Pop and yours are probably gonna try to make us engaged. I don't wanna be engaged at my age, yanno?"
"Me neither. We'll have to put them off immediately marrying us. I think Kasumi-nee-chan should be able to help. But maybe we should pretend we hate each other or something? Like those arguing couples in a romance comedy manga."
Keiko hums, "Might work."
When it's so hard to pull your real self from the quagmire of lies?
"…You'll have to walk in on me in the furo or somethin'." Keiko says. "Yanno, shriek and call me pervert. Then I can explain the," She makes a face and air quotes, "'Truth', and you can pretend to always be 'mad' at me. I don't know how long we can trick 'em but hopefully it'll be a while."
Akane nods, "I can do that. You'll probably be best insulting me or something, like a lot."
"I don't like the idea of doing that… You're like my only friend in a while since… well, since Ryouga and Xian Pu."
"I'll get over it. I'm a big girl but make them good insults. Just…"
"What?"
"If you apologise later; I'll always forgive you."
But lies can't last forever – they don't sustain themselves.
So it goes. Cries of "Pervert!" and retorts of "Uncute Tomboy" and quiet, whispered conversations on the roof when everyone's asleep, apologies for the horrid words said and the casual violence.
And the stage is set.
So it begins! If it's not obvious this is going to be HEAVILY AU. Also I really get bored of writing so much about discovering dysphoria so I figured I'd skip the whole 'realising' step this time round. Yes I know I have a schtick with trans Ranma, no I'm not going to stop, yes Ryouga/Ranma is my OTP, but other stuff I write will have other ships I swear.
This chapter will be the only one in present tense, the rest will be in past so please try not to let it jar you!