Morning dawns through overcast skies. A quiet, steady rain falls. A sense of peace remains over the area. The quiet sussurations of the rain drown out any outside sounds that might have been heard through the walls surrounding the Tendo compound.
Akane has foregone her morning jog, in favor of katas in the dojo. Kasumi and Nodoka have quietly created the mornings meal. Everyone feels calm, and aware; enjoying a peace so precious, that no squabbles occur over breakfast. All of the personal agendas are put aside, in favor of an hour's quiet companionship.
After breakfast, Ranma announces "I'm going to go for a walk. It's been a long time since I enjoyed a rainy day like this, and I have so much to think about."
Ranma drifts through the neighborhood, enjoying the quiet peace. This is the first rainstorm since Jusenkyou he'd been able to enjoy as a male, and he was pleasantly aware of it. Oddly, he didn't feel like doing flips on the top of the fence he was walking beside. He just feels a calm appreciation of his surroundings. He's happy, not extatic, but happy was good enough.
The day seemed better adapted to meditation and contemplation, than to perfecting his athletic prowess. Reaching a park, he wiped excess water off of a park bench, and sat down to watch the scenery.
For the last week, his mind had been constantly awhirl. Forced to consider his own death, marriage, relationship with his mother, possible insanity looming on the horizon, family honor, and fiancees. Problems that he used to ignore, and hope they'd get better over time, were now coming to a head simultaneously.
He felt mentally exhausted, and strangely satisfied. At last he was dealing with his problems. Acting, instead of just reacting to the demands from others. He was risking death if his mother and his honor required it; but if he survived, he'd be free forever from this risk and worry. He was risking being forced to acknowledge one fiancee, and possibly marriage; but this risk had been cropping up weekly for months, it had lost most of its potential to scare him.
Meanwhile, the normal web of conflict that had surrounded Nerima had shifted. Cologne had gone from being his most dangerous adversary to being his greatest hope for surviving. His father is the only one against his plans to tell his mother, and he's been reduced to hiding as a panda. Akane and Ukyou haven't fought all week, and were spending time together as uneasy friends. Shampoo is actually trying to understand Ranma, instead of just glomping onto him, and Mousse is becoming a family friend, rather than a random threat.
Ranma's life looks like a giant free-for-all fight. Where Ranma has to be constantly alert to the actions of everyone else. But being constantly alert can be more tiring than being physically active, so this quiet interlude in the park was affecting Ranma like a well needed balm on the soul. The real world continued beyond his vision in its maddening gyrations, but without Ranma to prod.
As the day progressed, Ranma's thoughts turned toward the pleasant idea of spending the rest of his life like this, quietly resting in the park. But this idea bothered him, it was too much like his father's method of ignoring problems. So around lunchtime, Ranma forced himself to leave his quiet haven, and rejoin the others who wanted a hand in his future.
* * *
Akane is in her room doing some homework, when Nabiki knocks on the door. "Come in."
"So how are you getting along with the new Ranma? Your three way date caught me by surprise."
"It wasn't a three way date."
"Well, now that he no longer changes gender, it hardly looks like three girls hanging out anymore, ne?"
"Nabiki, what's gotten into you lately? Your sarcasm has gotten much more bitter this last week."
"You noticed? It's hard to explain. I've been thinking about it for a long time. Remember when we were younger? I was only a few months older than you, but we were very similar. Now we are so different, but we started off nearly the same. In many things we are opposites now. When you are angry, everyone knows it. You have trouble hiding how you feel, and I have trouble showing how I feel. You jump to conclusions, I get reports from other people about what my friends and family are doing. You take risks without knowing what they are, I try to compute the odds beforehand. I don't know which is better, but it does make me painfully aware when you are walking into a situation where you'll be hurt, without being aware of it."
"What are you driving at, Nabiki?"
"Ok, let me put this plain. Everyone knows you don't want to marry Ranma. Our neighbors could swear to it in a court of law. Daddy wouldn't have concocted all of these elaborate wedding plans if he didn't know you don't want to marry Ranma, and Ranma doesn't want to marry anyone. If you suddenly did want to marry him, everyone would know at about the same time you found out. But you do have one way of keeping a secret, and you have been keeping something secret for a long time. You keep us from learning your secrets by not admitting them to yourself. You want something from Ranma."
"I don't want anything from Ranma!"
"Yes you do. We just don't know what yet. You can't generate this level of emotion from apathy. You probably want a lot of things, many of them minor, but you want something. Compare your feelings about Ranma to your feelings for Gosunkugi, or for the head of Furinkan's sumo club, or for the guy who sits in class in front of Kuno. That's what it feels like to not care for someone. I don't know if you want Ranma's friendship, his defeat, his death, or his respect, but you better figure it out now. You no longer have the luxury of time."
"What do you mean?"
"I mean these wonderfully entertaining antics that you and your friends have been performing for the amusement of your fellow classmates are quickly coming to an end. Within a years time he may be dead or insane. In a few days time, his mother might have him married or commit seppuku. Either way, It will be too late to discover what you want from him. He's just as bad at this as you are, but after he dies, you'll be the one living with regrets.
"Why are you getting so mad about this, Nabiki? Why does this bother you so much?"
"Well, how would you react, if I had everything going for me, everything I want within grasp if I could only decide, and then you had to watch me run towards the only cliff, ready to jump off?"
"How do I have everything going for me?"
"If you were interested in any boy at Furinkan other than Ranma, he'd gladly go out with you. They used to get beaten up daily just to let you know that. For that matter, many of the girls would have been flattered had you asked them out. Even after pounding Ranma daily, he still defends you whether you want him to or not. Make any choice at all, and your odds are better than most people of it coming true."
"But I don't know what I want!"
"I know. But if you wait to find out, you'll discover it too late."
* * *
After getting his (now normal) daily checkup at Dr. Tofu's, Ranma headed over to the Nekohanten. While he devoured a goodly helping of ramen, Cologne looked him over for any changes. "Ranma, you seem quieter than usual. Has anything happened today, that I should know about?"
"I've just been spending the day thinking in the park. There is something that you should know. You must have heard about my trip to the Amusement park with Akane and Ukyou. Shampoo asked me if I could do the same thing with her. I've thought of a method to spend more time with Shampoo, but it will fail if anyone tries to take advantage of the situation. I want to run it by you and see if you think it is worthwhile, even if it doesn't lead to a formal marriage ceremony. If you oppose it, it wont work anyway."
"What did you have in mind?"
* * *
Ranma comes up to talk to Shampoo when she's alone. "Shampoo, I've thought of something so that we can go have some fun. But I don't know if it would work. You might find it too difficult."
"Tell me how! I am an amazon. I succeed at nearly everything. I fight past any obstacle."
"The obstacle is you. For this to work, you have to do some difficult things. Three of us are going to go out as friends. None of us are going to talk about love, or marriage. Everyone must have a good time, and we must treat all of us well; no one should be excluded, or feel left out."
"That sounds OK. Why is it so hard? Who is the third person? Kodachi? Ukyou?"
"No, it would be Mousse. You'd have to treat Mousse the same as me. The three of us would do things together. The hard part is that it wont work if Mousse feels like he's second-best, or acting just as a chaperone. But if it works, all three of us can have a good time together."
"Your right. that is hard. I need to think about it, but I think I want to try it."
"I'll talk to Mousse about it. He'll have to promise to treat you as a friend, and not shout about his love to you. That will make it easier for you too."
* * *
As evening approaches, Ranma heads home, and enters the dojo. Akane is already there exercising, and soon the two of them fall to talking while performing katas.
"Where were you all day? No one's seen you since breakfast."
"I spent a lot of time just thinking. And enjoying the quiet in the park during the rain. I also spent time preparing the roots for transplanting. I'm trying to find an alternative to being ambushed, and pestered to go on dates. I think my biggest problem right now is figuring out how to convince my mother that magic isn't just from stories or in the distant past, but a bloody nuisance on a daily basis for a lot of us."
"You're going to have to get Mousse or Shampoo to transform for her. You and your father can't right now."
"Yeah. Mousse would be easiest. If that doesn't work, I'll beg Cologne for more of that one-shot nanniichuan. You can't disbelieve in magic when you watch your gender change in the bathtub."
"You'd curse your mother?"
"I'd never curse my enemies, much less my mother. But the one-shot version wears off so quickly. If you tried it, you might not be so quick to call me a pervert."
"I'm not enough a pervert to want to turn into a boy in the bath. Keep your powder."
"Be glad you get a choice in the matter. You don't realize what a pleasure it is not to change form, until you regain your stability. It might be worth the one year death sentence. You don't know what this last week was like for me. My mother and my death by seppuku are rolled together, and cooking dinner with Kasumi. My manhood and my death in a year are combined in this coin stuck to me. I can now outfight everyone, so now I find myself sparring mentally with everyone. I have one foot in the grave, and I've never felt so alive. Never felt so tired."
"Tired?"
"Exhausted. Not physically tired, I could sprint to school and back, but I'd rather just relax. Yesterday was great. I wish there were more days like that where we could set aside this endless conflict, and just relax together. I wonder what it'd be like to get lost like Ryouga does. Maybe someday I'll take a few weeks off, spend one week getting as far away as possible, one week traveling randomly, and leave a week to get back. Three weeks without plots, deceptions, misunderstandings, and unreasonable expectations sounds like heaven now."
"It hasn't been that bad around here lately, has it?"
"No, but all of the problems remain. They just aren't calling for attention now. Sometimes I feel like everyone is waiting for me to make decisions, and not only do I have no idea what I ultimately want, I can't even think about it dispassionately, because everyone else is so anxious to influence my decision. Everybody around seems to have pinned their hopes to my future; if I do die in a year, I wonder how everything will be resolved."
* * *
Akane has foregone her morning jog, in favor of katas in the dojo. Kasumi and Nodoka have quietly created the mornings meal. Everyone feels calm, and aware; enjoying a peace so precious, that no squabbles occur over breakfast. All of the personal agendas are put aside, in favor of an hour's quiet companionship.
After breakfast, Ranma announces "I'm going to go for a walk. It's been a long time since I enjoyed a rainy day like this, and I have so much to think about."
Ranma drifts through the neighborhood, enjoying the quiet peace. This is the first rainstorm since Jusenkyou he'd been able to enjoy as a male, and he was pleasantly aware of it. Oddly, he didn't feel like doing flips on the top of the fence he was walking beside. He just feels a calm appreciation of his surroundings. He's happy, not extatic, but happy was good enough.
The day seemed better adapted to meditation and contemplation, than to perfecting his athletic prowess. Reaching a park, he wiped excess water off of a park bench, and sat down to watch the scenery.
For the last week, his mind had been constantly awhirl. Forced to consider his own death, marriage, relationship with his mother, possible insanity looming on the horizon, family honor, and fiancees. Problems that he used to ignore, and hope they'd get better over time, were now coming to a head simultaneously.
He felt mentally exhausted, and strangely satisfied. At last he was dealing with his problems. Acting, instead of just reacting to the demands from others. He was risking death if his mother and his honor required it; but if he survived, he'd be free forever from this risk and worry. He was risking being forced to acknowledge one fiancee, and possibly marriage; but this risk had been cropping up weekly for months, it had lost most of its potential to scare him.
Meanwhile, the normal web of conflict that had surrounded Nerima had shifted. Cologne had gone from being his most dangerous adversary to being his greatest hope for surviving. His father is the only one against his plans to tell his mother, and he's been reduced to hiding as a panda. Akane and Ukyou haven't fought all week, and were spending time together as uneasy friends. Shampoo is actually trying to understand Ranma, instead of just glomping onto him, and Mousse is becoming a family friend, rather than a random threat.
Ranma's life looks like a giant free-for-all fight. Where Ranma has to be constantly alert to the actions of everyone else. But being constantly alert can be more tiring than being physically active, so this quiet interlude in the park was affecting Ranma like a well needed balm on the soul. The real world continued beyond his vision in its maddening gyrations, but without Ranma to prod.
As the day progressed, Ranma's thoughts turned toward the pleasant idea of spending the rest of his life like this, quietly resting in the park. But this idea bothered him, it was too much like his father's method of ignoring problems. So around lunchtime, Ranma forced himself to leave his quiet haven, and rejoin the others who wanted a hand in his future.
* * *
Akane is in her room doing some homework, when Nabiki knocks on the door. "Come in."
"So how are you getting along with the new Ranma? Your three way date caught me by surprise."
"It wasn't a three way date."
"Well, now that he no longer changes gender, it hardly looks like three girls hanging out anymore, ne?"
"Nabiki, what's gotten into you lately? Your sarcasm has gotten much more bitter this last week."
"You noticed? It's hard to explain. I've been thinking about it for a long time. Remember when we were younger? I was only a few months older than you, but we were very similar. Now we are so different, but we started off nearly the same. In many things we are opposites now. When you are angry, everyone knows it. You have trouble hiding how you feel, and I have trouble showing how I feel. You jump to conclusions, I get reports from other people about what my friends and family are doing. You take risks without knowing what they are, I try to compute the odds beforehand. I don't know which is better, but it does make me painfully aware when you are walking into a situation where you'll be hurt, without being aware of it."
"What are you driving at, Nabiki?"
"Ok, let me put this plain. Everyone knows you don't want to marry Ranma. Our neighbors could swear to it in a court of law. Daddy wouldn't have concocted all of these elaborate wedding plans if he didn't know you don't want to marry Ranma, and Ranma doesn't want to marry anyone. If you suddenly did want to marry him, everyone would know at about the same time you found out. But you do have one way of keeping a secret, and you have been keeping something secret for a long time. You keep us from learning your secrets by not admitting them to yourself. You want something from Ranma."
"I don't want anything from Ranma!"
"Yes you do. We just don't know what yet. You can't generate this level of emotion from apathy. You probably want a lot of things, many of them minor, but you want something. Compare your feelings about Ranma to your feelings for Gosunkugi, or for the head of Furinkan's sumo club, or for the guy who sits in class in front of Kuno. That's what it feels like to not care for someone. I don't know if you want Ranma's friendship, his defeat, his death, or his respect, but you better figure it out now. You no longer have the luxury of time."
"What do you mean?"
"I mean these wonderfully entertaining antics that you and your friends have been performing for the amusement of your fellow classmates are quickly coming to an end. Within a years time he may be dead or insane. In a few days time, his mother might have him married or commit seppuku. Either way, It will be too late to discover what you want from him. He's just as bad at this as you are, but after he dies, you'll be the one living with regrets.
"Why are you getting so mad about this, Nabiki? Why does this bother you so much?"
"Well, how would you react, if I had everything going for me, everything I want within grasp if I could only decide, and then you had to watch me run towards the only cliff, ready to jump off?"
"How do I have everything going for me?"
"If you were interested in any boy at Furinkan other than Ranma, he'd gladly go out with you. They used to get beaten up daily just to let you know that. For that matter, many of the girls would have been flattered had you asked them out. Even after pounding Ranma daily, he still defends you whether you want him to or not. Make any choice at all, and your odds are better than most people of it coming true."
"But I don't know what I want!"
"I know. But if you wait to find out, you'll discover it too late."
* * *
After getting his (now normal) daily checkup at Dr. Tofu's, Ranma headed over to the Nekohanten. While he devoured a goodly helping of ramen, Cologne looked him over for any changes. "Ranma, you seem quieter than usual. Has anything happened today, that I should know about?"
"I've just been spending the day thinking in the park. There is something that you should know. You must have heard about my trip to the Amusement park with Akane and Ukyou. Shampoo asked me if I could do the same thing with her. I've thought of a method to spend more time with Shampoo, but it will fail if anyone tries to take advantage of the situation. I want to run it by you and see if you think it is worthwhile, even if it doesn't lead to a formal marriage ceremony. If you oppose it, it wont work anyway."
"What did you have in mind?"
* * *
Ranma comes up to talk to Shampoo when she's alone. "Shampoo, I've thought of something so that we can go have some fun. But I don't know if it would work. You might find it too difficult."
"Tell me how! I am an amazon. I succeed at nearly everything. I fight past any obstacle."
"The obstacle is you. For this to work, you have to do some difficult things. Three of us are going to go out as friends. None of us are going to talk about love, or marriage. Everyone must have a good time, and we must treat all of us well; no one should be excluded, or feel left out."
"That sounds OK. Why is it so hard? Who is the third person? Kodachi? Ukyou?"
"No, it would be Mousse. You'd have to treat Mousse the same as me. The three of us would do things together. The hard part is that it wont work if Mousse feels like he's second-best, or acting just as a chaperone. But if it works, all three of us can have a good time together."
"Your right. that is hard. I need to think about it, but I think I want to try it."
"I'll talk to Mousse about it. He'll have to promise to treat you as a friend, and not shout about his love to you. That will make it easier for you too."
* * *
As evening approaches, Ranma heads home, and enters the dojo. Akane is already there exercising, and soon the two of them fall to talking while performing katas.
"Where were you all day? No one's seen you since breakfast."
"I spent a lot of time just thinking. And enjoying the quiet in the park during the rain. I also spent time preparing the roots for transplanting. I'm trying to find an alternative to being ambushed, and pestered to go on dates. I think my biggest problem right now is figuring out how to convince my mother that magic isn't just from stories or in the distant past, but a bloody nuisance on a daily basis for a lot of us."
"You're going to have to get Mousse or Shampoo to transform for her. You and your father can't right now."
"Yeah. Mousse would be easiest. If that doesn't work, I'll beg Cologne for more of that one-shot nanniichuan. You can't disbelieve in magic when you watch your gender change in the bathtub."
"You'd curse your mother?"
"I'd never curse my enemies, much less my mother. But the one-shot version wears off so quickly. If you tried it, you might not be so quick to call me a pervert."
"I'm not enough a pervert to want to turn into a boy in the bath. Keep your powder."
"Be glad you get a choice in the matter. You don't realize what a pleasure it is not to change form, until you regain your stability. It might be worth the one year death sentence. You don't know what this last week was like for me. My mother and my death by seppuku are rolled together, and cooking dinner with Kasumi. My manhood and my death in a year are combined in this coin stuck to me. I can now outfight everyone, so now I find myself sparring mentally with everyone. I have one foot in the grave, and I've never felt so alive. Never felt so tired."
"Tired?"
"Exhausted. Not physically tired, I could sprint to school and back, but I'd rather just relax. Yesterday was great. I wish there were more days like that where we could set aside this endless conflict, and just relax together. I wonder what it'd be like to get lost like Ryouga does. Maybe someday I'll take a few weeks off, spend one week getting as far away as possible, one week traveling randomly, and leave a week to get back. Three weeks without plots, deceptions, misunderstandings, and unreasonable expectations sounds like heaven now."
"It hasn't been that bad around here lately, has it?"
"No, but all of the problems remain. They just aren't calling for attention now. Sometimes I feel like everyone is waiting for me to make decisions, and not only do I have no idea what I ultimately want, I can't even think about it dispassionately, because everyone else is so anxious to influence my decision. Everybody around seems to have pinned their hopes to my future; if I do die in a year, I wonder how everything will be resolved."
* * *