Hi Minna! Back with chapter 2! Hope you like it! I really want to thank everyone how took the time to review…you all made me so happy! Okay enough talk, on with chapter 2! Enjoy ^_^
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Startled, Akane slowly looked up from her fiancé's chest to look into his confused and slightly dubious eyes. She smiled at him convincingly. "Oh, nothing important." She said as she tried to quickly walk around and past him.
Seeing Akane's strange reaction only caused Ranma's suspicion to rise. He jumped in front of her to block her way. "If it's something that you're keeping from me, then it has to be important." He reasoned, looking down at Akane distrustfully.
Akane gave a little defeated sigh. "Fine, we were discussing plans for your next birthday." Akane said a little too hopefully. "Now that you have your answer, would you mind letting me by?" She said sweetly.
Ranma blinked confusedly. He seemed to accept it a moment; all of a sudden, his eyes darkened with mistrust. "My birthday just passed a month ago." He growled, angry that she was lying to him.
His persistence was really starting to bother Akane. "I said MO-, I mean…please let me through. I want to get by." She finished, vainly trying not to growl.
This startled Ranma even more. Since when did she ever start asking him to move? Why didn't she just push him out of the way like she would have usually done? Ranma thought completely taken aback.
She watched as Ranma silently tried to make sense of her strange behavior. He looked…well, dumbfounded to say the least. As if pigs had learned to fly.
Watching his behavior only served to irritate her even more. 'Well, at least he forgot about it.' She just had to get away from him, and quickly. "Never mind. I'll just be going to my room. Good night Ranma-chan!" She said in false cheer, her face screwing up in what should have been a joyful smile as she headed the opposite way to her room.
Ranma merely watched her as she went to her room, silently closing the door behind her. 'Was she being…NICE to me!? She must really be mad at me if she's beyond anger.' Ranma thought sullenly, still stuck on his spot. 'Aw, well. I'll apologize to her tomorrow.' He thought as he headed toward his own room.
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That jerk, jamming her up like that. She should have malloted him. The bet wasn't even effective until tomorrow; so she had just been experimenting with it. It bothered her that Ranma was so surprised that she didn't hit him or yell at him. 'Am I really that bad?' Akane thought worriedly.
As soon as the question popped in her head, she immediately rejected the fact. 'If he wouldn't make me so mad, then I wouldn't hit him. Because it's certainly not because I have feelings for him.' She thought vehemently, getting ready for bed.
'And because I don't have feelings for him, then this whole stupid bet will be a piece of cake.' Akane thought satisfied as she laid her down on her fluffy white pillow.
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'Piece of cake, my ASS!!' Akane fumed silently, flopping on her bed dejectedly, after her dreadful day of being "nice" to Ranma started to slowly come to an end.
*flashback*
Akane awoke early that morning with one purpose in mind: to win the bet. With this solitary purpose in mind, she quickly grabbed a change of clothes and headed for the bathroom to shower.
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Unbeknownst to Akane, someone else was up also. Ranma, who had not gotten much sleep the night before, decided to call it quits and just get up.
Ranma slowly got up from his futon, heading out the door with Akane still fresh on his mind.
Why the tomboys unusual reaction bothered him so much, he didn't know. Heaving a sigh actually part yawn due to his lack of sleep, he exited the room and started for the bathroom.
Finally, at his destination, the pigtailed boy opened the bathroom door, ignoring the fact that the light was already on.
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Akane, who had just gotten out of the shower, quickly grabbed a towel and fixed the intruder with an outraged glare.
"A-Akane! I can explain!" Ranma sputtered Frantically, even thought it wouldn't help him. Nope…he was a dead man.
"Ranma." Akane growled, slowly pulling out Mallot-sama, ready to execute her now repentant fiancé.
Ranma, who was still rooted to the spot throwing out explanations, noticed that when she was mere inches from bashing his brains in, she stopped. As if remembering something, she drew back the mallot slowly, returning it to mallot land.
Presuming that she would snap and kill him, her next reaction surprised him.
"Just go…" She nearly whispered, turning her gaze to the ground, for fear of seeing his face and finishing what she had first intended to do.
As shocked as Ranma was, he didn't have to be told twice. He quickly exited the bathroom to assess her reaction elsewhere. Once out of the bathroom, he did just that. 'No ranting, raving, or hitting!?' Ranma thought incredulously. Ranma shook his head slowly. 'Man I really need to get some sleep.' He thought as he walked back to his room still quite puzzled
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"Ranma no baka." Akane growled lowly as she emerged from her room later that day after the bathroom incident.
When she as halfway down the stairs, a knot of nervousness and unease started to slowly form in her belly.
'Can I really pull this off?' she questioned herself suddenly, insecurity momentarily getting the best of her, remembering the occurrence earlier.
However, as quickly as the feeling made its appearance, it was quickly replaced by a competitive adrenaline rush. 'I WILL win this bet.' She thought as she pasted on a smile and started down the stairs one again.
As she made her way down the stairs and into the dining room, she was greeted by the sight of her family and her fiancé seated at the table, ready to partake of their breakfast.
"Ohayo, Minna!" Akane chirped with uncharacteristic cheerfulness, walking over by her fiancé and taking a seat. After being seated, she fixed Ranma with a big smile despite the anger she still held inside for him. "Good morning Ranma. You look…" She stopped to think for a moment, not wanting embarrass herself and say handsome. "Well." She finished oddly.
Ranma's eyes mirrored both shock and suspicion as he gazed back at her. 'Did she just…Compliment him!? After what had happened?' He thought, unable to speak for he was struck speechless.
During his stupor, Kasumi had already arrived with their breakfast setting it on the table. The soft clank of one of the dishes hitting the table brought Ranma out of his stupor, breaking Akane's gaze and quickly reaching for a rice ball off of one of the plates.
Noticing that the plate was slightly out of Ranma's reach and that she was closer to it, she picked it up and placed it near Ranma's face, prompting him to take one.
'Take one!?' Ranma thought wildly, staring with befuddled eyes at this person who simply must be an alien impersonating the Akane he knew. There was no other explanation. Unless…
"Did you make these?" Ranma asked suspiciously, looking from the plate and then back at Akane. That's what was going on. She must have cooked them for him for punishment for the bathroom incident. She was just being nice to him to get him to eat one of her "rice balls of death."
Akane's smile faltered somewhat at Ranma's accusation. "Ranma, I just came downstairs so I couldn't have possibly cooked these. And even if I did, they're just rice balls." She halfway growled, starting to become angry. Taking a minute to regain her composure, she again encouraged him to take one. "Ranma-CHAN, my arm is getting tired. PLEASE take one." She repeated gritting her teeth in anger, eyes starting to alight with their familiar unholy light of fury. 'Before I shove this whole plat of rice balls down your throat,' she added to herself.
This did not go unnoticed by Ranma. Maybe he had just been exaggerating her sudden kindness…she could be just having a super good day, even thought it didn't make much sense. He had clearly seen the anger in her eyes, which had thankful brought a degree of normalcy into this morning's activity. While he didn't like being used as a punching bag by his violent fiancé, he didn't like the weirdness of the morning. This decided, he went in for the kill.
He took one of the rice balls from the plate popping it in his mouth. "This is good…which means you couldn't have possible made it. Or else I'd be pushing up daises as we speak." He chuckled, eyeing Akane to measure her response.
The fury in Akane's eyes grew as she stared at Ranma as he turned back to his breakfast. Pulling out her trusty mallot, the bet momentarily forgotten, she was prepared to annihilate her fiancé. When the mallot was about 2 inches from Ranma's poor head, Nabiki broke into her raged reverie.
"Akane-chan, were you just about to hit poor Ranma in the head?" She questioned innocently, victory shinning in her eyes already beginning to see how easy she would win this bet.
This comment immediately brought Akane back to earth. 'What am I doing!? I can't lose!!!' She thought frantically. "Of course not…I just saw a bug." Akane said smiling calmly, desperately trying to gain her composure back as she tapped the mallot on an imaginary bug on the table. "Okay, there, it's dead." She replied smiling convincingly and returning the mallot to mallot land.
The pigtailed boy glanced over at Akane. 'She didn't hit me.' Ranma thought dazed, even as he watched Akane grip the edge of the table hard, as if it was the only thing keeping her from killing him. Unbeknownst to him, it probably was.
' When this bet is over, I'm going to kill this jerk,' Akane thought irately. Being next to him made her even angrier. Her grip on the table became so intense that seconds later, it broke off leaving Akane with a chunk of wood in her hands.
The other occupants at the table sat by stunned at this mornings exchange. This was one hell of a weird breakfast.
*End of flashback*
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After this morning's weird activity, Ranma was nearly running to the training hall. 'What the hell just happened?' thought Ranma as he sat against the wall trying to make sense of Akane's strange behavior.
Akane had looked like she was just dying to kill him but… something seemed to hold her back. Instead of actually hitting him, she had just been breaking things all that morning. Like 3 plates, 4 cups and the side on the wooden table, almost each time claiming to have killed some kind of imaginary bug. Everyone including him had thought Akane had gone crazy. Everyone except Nabiki; she seemed to hold a look of glee in her eyes every time it looked as if Akane would snap any moment.
'Maybe someone else besides me has done or said something to Akane.' Ranma pondered thoughtfully, desperately trying to rationalize the unusual behavior that Akane was displaying, because…quite frankly, it scared the hell out of him.
After ruling out the first possibility because she didn't go out that day, Ranma came to the conclusion that she was either PMSing or going crazy. Sighing audibly, he leaned back against the wall of the dojo, gazing at the ceiling. Suddenly, a possibility came to mind. What if Akane was just being nice to him to catch him off guard so that she could poison him or something for being mean to her yesterday? She had seemed to take it awful hard. Had he finally crossed the line?
Ranma jumped up immediately after having that thought. "Now I'm going crazy." He said wearily. Akane would never do anything like that. She might be angry with him a great deal, but she would never stoop so low.
"That uncute tomboy!" Ranma yelled irritated, getting up to ask perpetrator herself what was going on with her.
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'I came extremely close to losing the bet,' she thought distressed. What was she going to do?
Turning her attention to P-chan, who had shown up shortly after the breakfast incident, she brought him up to her face. "You don't think I'm mean, do you, P-chan?" She questioned, suddenly feeling slightly insecure.
P-chan shook his head from left to right vehemently, clearly showing his difference of opinion on the subject.
Smiling at his reaction, she gently placed him back into her lap. "Well, Ranma seems to think so. Just because I act nice to him, he thinks I'm acting strange. I'm not mean to Ranma all the time, am I? So Ranma can just-" Akane stopped looking down at the little object in her lap. Was it her imagination or did P-chan growl every time she mentioned Ranma's name?
"I mean Ranma's not-" *growl*
"Ranma." *Growl*
Akane finally burst out laughing for the first time that day, causing the piglet to glace at her with confusion. 'This is priceless,' she thought, picking P-chan up again. She needed a good laugh today. Putting P-chan back on the bed, she made for the bathroom.
She was halfway there when her sister Kasumi approached her. "Akane, I need to talk to you." She told her as she led them to her bedroom.
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"Akane, are you okay?" Kasumi said worriedly, sitting down on the bed once they were in the bedroom. Soun had practically begged Kasumi to talk to Akane to see what was wrong. He had said the house wouldn't last if this kept up, referring to the things she broke today. However, she had already known what was wrong with her younger sister.
"Yeah, I'm fine." Akane said with false confidence, already knowing to what Kasumi was referring to. Akane groaned, putting her head in her hands. "Kasumi, who am I fooling. At the rate I'm going, I lose the bet by tomorrow." She groaned defeated.
Kasumi looked at Akane's bowed head somewhat disapprovingly. "Akane, I've never seen you as one to give up so easily. You haven't put up much of a fight." Kasumi said truthfully.
Akane looked back up quickly at her sister's words. "I have been trying." She growled.
"Not hard enough. Why don't you try to use your girlish charm?" Kasumi smiled.
Akane could only stare at her sister as if she had grown two heads. "What?" She squawked.
Kasumi merely smiled. Then she started to tell Akane just how to do it.
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Akane looked at her sister in amazement. Why didn't she think of doing that before? Maybe Ranma would respond to her better if she looked prettier, even thought Kasumi had assured her that she was pretty enough but it just needed to be brought out.
"Good thinking Kasumi! I'll be so sickeningly sweet to him, that I'll KILL HIM with it." She said, voice rising on "Kill him."
When she was halfway out of the door, she turned to Kasumi. "Thanks." She said sincerely, fixing her with her first genuine smile that day.
She opened the door with an exuberance that she did not usually possess, stopping momentarily as it seemed to have jammed. She just pushed harder and it opened all the way. "This house must be getting old." She grumbled, going to her room, not noticing the audible "ouch" or the pigtailed boy who was behind the door clutching his aching head.
Ranma watched Akane saunter to her room in what seemed like good cheer. 'Kill him!?' As if she could, he mentally scoffed, his early thoughts on her behavior instantly starting to fill his head. She would try to do that, would she? Well they would just see wouldn't they?
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Oh, I smell disaster. Anyways, what do you think? Like it, hate it, or just plain confused? Be sure to review and tell me so that I know what I did wrong or right.
Also, if you want to be notified when I update, please leave it in a review or e-mail me at breezbox6@aol.com. Thanks, for reading and I hope to see you next chapter! ^_^.