Disclaimer: *looks around suspiciously, a bag slung over her shoulder* Yes, I have successfully smuggled the characters of the Ranmaverse, and now is the time to cackle evilly! MUAHAHA!

Ok, so I didn't really. But wouldn't that be cool. SO they're not mine, ok? *sigh*

"The Night Before"

by Rain

Chapter Four

Tap, tap, tap.

Groaning, Akane turned over in bed and shoved her pillow over her face.

Tap, tap, tap.

"Oh, WHAT is it?!" Akane barked, disgruntled. It was bad enough she couldn't get any sleep; if Ranma had some crazy idea, she was just going to punt him out the window. She realized she hadn't done so all day.

Well, maybe not out the window… Maybe through the door into the hall…

Ranma took Akane's irritated answer as an invitation, and slid the window open, jumping down onto the carpet.

"Akane," he whispered urgently, shaking her shoulder. "Akane, wake up."

Akane made an indistinct noise into her pillow, burying her face further, trying to ignore him.

"I'm not awake, baka."

"Yes, you are, now get up." Ranma tugged on her arm impatiently.

"What is wrong with you, it's …" Akane realized the clock was out of arms reach and she felt lazy and distinctly ruffled at being disturbed at this hour, whatever hour it happened to be. "It's … late. Early. Oh, I don't know, I don't care. Come on, Ranma, let me sleep."

"Please, Akane?"

"What are you doing in my room, anyway?" Akane was apparently more awake by this point.

Ignoring the question for obvious reasons, Ranma pulled on Akane's arm again. "Come on, I really want you to see this!"

"What?"

"Come on!"

"What? What are you all worked up about?"

"This is ridiculous," Ranma mumbled. Fed up with Akane's extreme capacity for stubbornness, Ranma simply hoisted her straight out of bed and jumped back out the window. Akane "eep"ed and squeezed her eyes shut. 

Landing gingerly on the roof, a familiar spot for him, Ranma knelt down and set Akane in front of him, sitting behind her.

"Ranma, what on earth are you trying to--"

"Sshh," he said, pulling Akane back against him. "Keep your eyes closed."

Akane did as he asked, feeling slightly more awake after the unexpected leap out the window. They sat there for a while, both Ranma and Akane, for silent reasons between them, leaning into one another's warmth. A few minutes more…

"…Open your eyes," Ranma whispered in her ear.

Akane slowly opened her eyes, looked around her and gasped.

The sky was incredibly clear that night, and although Nerima had its fair share of lights at night, the stars were glittering all across the night sky.

"Oh, wow," was all Akane could say.

"That's not all I wanted to show you," Ranma added. He glanced at his watch. "It should be any minute now…"

"What?"

Suddenly, what seemed to be thousands of bright, shimmering trails of white streaked across the sky. It was almost as if the sky were hailing falling stars onto Nerima.

"Look at that, Akane," Ranma said softly, pointing. Akane couldn't say anything, but could only stare up at the meteor shower in awe.

"Do you see that star, Akane?" Ranma asked. "The really bright, winking one."

"Well, that narrows it down," Akane said sarcastically, turning her face upwards.

"Very funny. Up there, the reddish one? Here, look more to the right," he moved her hand towards the direction he was pointing out. Akane squinted, finding the red star at last.

"Yeah, I see it."

"The first time I saw that star, it made me think of you, a little bit," Ranma said, looking upwards too.

Akane's eyebrows puckered. "What do you mean?"

"Well, since it's red, the first thing I thought of, to be perfectly honest, was your temper," he laughed lightly. Akane faked a scowl. "No, no, hear me out. Then I sort of thought about it a while, and there were other things about it that reminded me of you. …It's different than all the rest of the stars, and that's what makes it unique. Like, if you look at it in comparison to the others, you might not notice it at first… But when you do see it, everything else gets kinda blurry… And then once you look at it long enough, you can't help but pick it out every other time you look up there… And the more you watch it the more you look forward to seeing it every night…"

Akane turned in Ranma's arms, looking him straight in the face. "You really mean that, Ranma?"

Ranma looked a bit taken aback. Ok, obviously not a good idea to ramble, who knows what I'll end up saying, he thought. "Well, something like that, yeah," he said sheepishly, looking back up to the sky.

Akane turned back to the stars as well, smiling to herself.

Ranma, watching Akane while she was preoccupied, could see the shooting stars reflected in her large brown eyes as she gazed up at the sky. He couldn't help but think how beautiful she was, more so right then than he had ever allowed himself to think.

After a while, Akane closed her eyes sleepily, leaning her head back on Ranma's shoulder. Holding her closer to him, Ranma whispered after a minute or two in her ear. "Akane… Hey, Akane." She appeared to have drifted off. "We should go in."

"Just a bit longer," she whispered, surprising him. She had looked as though she were sleeping.

Ranma later blamed it on crazy impulse. But at that moment, for reasons Ranma himself wasn't even so sure of, he leaned forward just a fraction and kissed Akane's cheek. She stirred slightly, but didn't say anything more.

Ranma breathed a sigh of relief. What in the name of Kami am I doing? Trying to get myself killed? He supposed he was smiling because of something else, as he gently lifted Akane off the roof and followed the familiar route back down to the house. Swinging down neatly from the roof's drainpipe, as usual, he landed softly on Akane's windowsill.

Stepping gingerly into her room, Ranma laid Akane down on her bed, covering her with the down comforter to block out the cold of the winter night.

"Ranma," Akane said suddenly. Ranma started, on his way to the door, thinking she had been asleep.

"Yeah."

"Why did you kiss me? …Up there, on the roof." Akane was very still, her voice soft and quiet, and Ranma found himself wondering if she wasn't talking in her sleep.

He walked over beside her bed again, and looked down at her, to find a pair of large, bright brown eyes staring back up at him. Ok, so she isn't asleep after all. She had somehow fooled him a second time. How the hell does she do that?

Ranma didn't answer right away. Akane blinked up at him. Ranma took a deep breath.

"That wasn't a kiss."

"What?" Akane had expected him to deny anything, like he usually did, and she was just a bit confused by this point.

"Well, it wasn't exactly a real kiss, I mean, I just kissed you on the cheek," Ranma said, fidgeting.

Akane didn't say anything. What is that supposed to mean? He didn't have any intention of kissing me? But a kiss on the cheek is still a kiss… sort of…

Ranma leaned over Akane, and placed a hand on her pillow, the other on the edge of her bed. To Akane, he looked extremely uncertain, as if he weren't sure of what he was going to say or do next.

"Akane, don't hate me for this," he said shakily, looking boyishly nervous.

"What are you--" Akane started, more confused than ever. She didn't finish. Ranma moved his hand from her pillow to her chin, closed his eyes, and tried not to miss.

Akane's eyes widened as Ranma's lips brushed lightly against hers, then pressed gently into a very soft, very sweet kiss.

Akane found she couldn't keep her eyelids from fluttering closed; couldn't keep her hand from reaching up to touch Ranma's face. He slowly pulled away, looking right into her eyes.

"That was a kiss."

AN:

BWAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!

*ahem* Sorry, couldn't help myself.

I figured in my other fics, I always made Ranma so shy with Akane. Which is all fine and dandy, but if I plan on making it back around to TMA in five chapters… *cough* Also, I figured that when left to their own devices, Ranma and Akane would probably be fairly comfortable in each other's presence, they do know each other pretty well. Hehe, I'm SO evil! I love it!

Final chapter comes out tomorrow! IF the site will stop being such a b*tch! ARGH! If it'll let me, don't miss it!

Domo arigatou gozaimashta for all the lovely reviews! And for putting up with the site being like this. No, I'm not dead, it's ff.net, I swear! Every review makes my day, and I'm dragging this damned story over five days to get them, so… yeah. Thanks! Love ya!

::Rain