Disclaimer: Ranma ½ and all its characters are the property of Rumiko Takahashi and have been used without permission. This fanfiction was written for personal enjoyment, and hopefully the enjoyment of the readers.

Key:

"speech"

::thoughts::

flashback

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Usotsuki

by Rain

Part Five.

Ranma sits in his room, packing shirts into his old rucksack, the room looking cleaner than usual without the usual clutter, which has already been packed away.

::I thought about her tonight. All night. In every small motion I made and every robotic gesture. In every forced word and ever poker-faced smile. And even in all that time and all those incidences I could only think of one thing, and that was how sorry I am that I married her at all. How could she ever be happy this way?::

Ranma folds the last shirt, tucks it into the backpack, and sighs resignedly, leaning back against the futons in the corner. Pulling his knees to his chest, he stares at the bag.

::Looking back, the whole thing was so fake and forced, I have to wonder if the others could tell, or if they just ignored it on purpose. It's only now, sitting in my room alone, in the middle of the night, that I realize it was supposed to have been my wedding.::

Ranma almost felt like laughing out loud, for no reason at all.

Although, in retrospect, he couldn't remember if he had, or if he had ended up crying instead.

*           *           *

Akane, now dressed in pajamas, her elegant hairstyle falling out of it's pins, her face washed, and all the general flashiness removed, padded down the stairs at 3 am.

::Something hot to drink sounds nice.::

After making herself a pot of tea, she sat awhile and drank some. She didn't finish. It had gotten cold anyway.

She shuffled back up the stairs to return to her room.

Akane felt her way blindly down the hall, feeling rather dejected, and altogether tired. Not tired like she needed more sleep, she had been trying that for the past few pointless hours; tired. Tired of the fights, the bickering, the stupid misunderstandings. Tired of resisting. Tired of pretending. Tired of running away. Tired of getting angry because it was easy.

Tired.

Unconsciously passing the guest room where Ranma and his father slept, Akane would have kept walking if a small, muffled sound hadn't caught her ears.

::What was that?::

She now noticed the door was slightly ajar. Opening it, she peeked inside, not making a sound. There was something about the room that didn't look quite right.

Ranma's father was absent from the room, but that was because he was out with her father, the hapless pair no doubt out getting hopelessly drunk at any local sake bar likely to admit a panda and a walking, talking leaky pipe. There were more in Nerima than a normal person cared to know.

Being so emotionally exhausted, and just as fed up with just about everything, it took her a minute or two to actually put her finger on it.

The room was immaculately tidy, something Kasumi would have done, if she ever did that sort of thing in the middle of the night. Saotome-san's things were all in place, he chose to be a slob elsewhere in the house, but it was Ranma's things that first caught her eye. What few belongings he did have were packed into his familiar rucksack, the one he always brought on those bizarre training trips. Aside from that she could see there were none of this other things spread around the room that looked so foreign now that it looked as it had before Ranma had come stumbling awkwardly into her life.

He usually left most of it behind, because there's no use to take everything when you're coming back.

But she knew that everything was there, in that worn bag.

Trying to ignore the nagging feeling that sight had instilled within her, Akane scanned the rest of the room. Her eyes fell on Ranma. She hadn't even noticed him before then.

If she had still had that cup of tea, she would have dropped it.

Ranma was in a corner of the room, by the stacked futons, his knees pulled tightly to him, arms around them, chin resting on his arms. He was almost curled into a ball, just sitting there, everything in his posture shouting at her to do something, anything but just stand there like a gaping idiot.

She made a motion as if to move forwards, to cross the room, but she stopped when she heard his voice. He still didn't seem to have noticed her.

"Baka," he whispered to no one in particular.

Akane tensed. ::Honestly, after all that, he still has the gall to insult me?! Ranma no-::

"Baka," he said again, finishing her thought. "I'm such a stupid, stupid baka! Why can't I ever think before I open my stupid, big mouth? I'm such an idiot, and she hates me for it. Honestly, can I blame her for it? No, I'd hate me too. I treat her like crap, and I always expect "it was just a joke" to fix everything. I'm just a lost fool and I can't get over her no matter how hard I try."

::Get over me? Does he really think I hate him? No, Ranma, I don't… Don't think such a sad thing…::

"Coward…" it was such a small whisper, she could barely hear him. His shoulders were shaking now, he was holding something back. His voice was so tight, she could tell he was doing his best not to cry. He moved his hands to bury his forehead in his palms, his elbows on his knees, raking his fingers through his bangs feebly.

"I'm such a coward."

For the first time since Jusenkyo, and only the second time since he came to live with the Tendos, Ranma cried.

Akane heard the tears hitting the tatami mat and nothing else. Ranma didn't make any sound, just shut his eyes tightly, trying to block out the fact that, in his mind, he'd given in to some dark weakness.

Akane moved a trembling hand to reach for the doorway, missed twice, and finally got a hold of it, pressing her back against it, looking at Ranma's curled form.

Finally, she heard Ranma make a small, muffled choking sound, and hearing the pain in it, Akane arched her back, feeling the same within her, and not knowing why. She slid down the door, her view of his back blurred and swimming with her own tears.

Neither of them was exactly sure why they were crying, but they did just the same. Although they were sitting feet apart, it was the closest they had come since Akane entered the room just hours before. Before everything somehow was lost along the way.

Although Ranma wasn't aware that Akane was behind him, she felt just as alone as if he weren't there at all. Akane didn't understand why he felt so alone.

::I'm still here, aren't I?::

But upon recalling the previous events of that evening, she realized the flaw in that.

The two of them sat on the floor for an indiscriminate amount of time.

Akane only stirred when Ranma tucked her covers around her shoulders later that night, laying a handwritten note beside her head on the pillow.

It was only then that Akane reached a small hand groggily up to touch his face; how she was even aware he was there, Ranma couldn't tell. Her eyes still fluttered softly between sleep and awareness, and Ranma closed his eyes and turned away.

Her fingers only brushed against the cold night air that seeped through the crack in the window.

End Part Five.

I'm really sorry to have to say this, but the crazy site wouldn't let me update to include part 4, so I ended up having to delete the whole thing and repost all over again. So that's why the reviews disappeared and the publish date changed. Sorry for the confusion, but I hope it'll let me post this one! Damn computer! *whacks it*

But I digress.

I know, that was a shit-load of flashback, but it's finally over! *does the wave for no good reason*

Ok, sorry about that. But I was hoping the narrative loop wouldn't confuse people, I start in present, shift to flashback, then looped back around to where I started and picked up from there. Why I always do whacked out things like this, I really couldn't say.

Sorry for all the trouble, it sucked.

Until my next post; next day delivery or sooner, guaranteed!

::Rain

P.S. Contact me at creepyoldmanwink@yahoo.com

I am not a creepy old man. I am a teenage girl. It's a joke with a friend. So there. ^_~