1
December 13, 1997
12:30 PM
Brrrrrrrrrrrrriiinnngg– bop.
There's nothing quite like the pleasure of waking up late on a weekend, thought Setsuna.
There's ample time to play around with the "snooze" button on the alarm clock – an act
that she found almost addicting by now, and more than enough time to simply snuggle
into the blankets and pretend that she was still sleeping. An odd image of a polar bear
floated into her mind as she pulled the sheets over her head once more, and Setsuna
pictured herself hibernating like the warm, furry animal deep inside a cave where the
wintry gales and biting frost outside could not reach her.
Unfortunately, however, the dutiful and more responsible part of her mind informed her
that while this was technically weekend time, it was also still a Saturday. And Saturdays
meant taking Minako around for photo shoots at three-thirty in the afternoon.
She was not looking forward to the challenge.
Minako, in Setsuna's opinion, was a work in progress at best. If her road to stardom
could be called a road at all, she supposed that it would have to have been one of those
tiny dirt paths winding into the Amazonian rainforests that only the aborigines would
dare to venture. Unfortunately, the budding teenager was clearly not an indigenous South
American tribe member. She was tripping so often over every little tree branch and rock
on her way through the metaphorical jungle that it was a torture to watch at times. On
several occasions, Setsuna found herself waiting on the set or studio ten minutes after the
shoot had begun, only to find the girl joyfully marching from the entrance with yet
another autograph on the back of one of her innumerable photo collections of her idols.
And she would have to endure through the tirade as Minako ecstatically described in
detail how lucky she was to just accidentally bump into the adolescent heartthrob when
she took a break to grab some sweets from the vending machine downstairs, or ran into
the boy and his agent in the parking lot just as they were leaving after a photo session.
An especially memorable example came when once, forty-five minutes past the
scheduled starting time of the shoot, Setsuna had to leave the studio to track her protégé
down, finding her in the backstage of a boy-band concert held five blocks away. That
time, Minako had a photo out in one hand and a bus ticket transfer in the other, and her
eyes were those of a predatory stalker as she waited in a shadowy corner near the
entrance, ready to pounce on the boys as soon as they arrived. She had to be dragged
back into the studio that time, and her screams of outrage could be heard even over the
amplified speakers as the cheesy love songs played on.
They really should have hired a babysitter instead.
On a more pleasant note, however, Saotome-san had gradually become more open to
conversation over the past month. Now, more often than not, the two of them would talk
late into the night about how their days went, even if he still refused to tell her why she
sometimes found him completely soaked to the bone coming back home when there
hadn't been a drop of rain outside that day.
To put it simply, the pigtailed young man was growing on her, and she was discovering
that his music was increasingly pleasant to her ears as well despite her minimal interest in
music in general, or his claim that he was only practicing and not playing for her in
particular. In turn, she talked about her problems at work, and he would patiently sit,
either behind the piano or on the couch next to her own, listening to her complaints until
she had vented through her frustrations. It was like talking to the Gate back on Pluto, she
discovered, but much better, because neither the Gate nor the ever-flowing Time Stream
would appear to be sympathetic to her cause or commiserate with her.
For instance, Setsuna vividly recalled when, a week ago, they had somehow touched on
the subject of how they had met their respective fiancées at first…
x x x
"–and then, she clonked me over the head with a table," said Ranma with a casual shrug.
"…you're kidding me, right?"
"Naah. I wish. What about you? How did you run into Takuya?"
She thought for a moment with her head back over the cushion of the sofa, before
straightening herself, tucking her legs and crossing them underneath her, sitting up in
semi-Indian style. "Well, it's nothing quite as extreme as your first meeting," she started.
"In fact, it was really lame."
"Really lame?" He echoed.
"Yeah," she continued, the memory coming to her even as she spoke, "I was moping
around inside a café after finishing up another crap-assignment, and all of a sudden this
guy in a tux just walked up to me, looked at me with those blue eyes like yours, and said,
"Hey, you look kinda familiar. Do I know you?" And I rolled my eyes like this and
thought, boy, is he for real? That's the lamest pick-up line I've ever heard in my life."
"That was pretty dorky," he agreed with a laugh.
"Wasn't it? But somehow I kept running into him everywhere; for a while I thought he
was stalking me or something. And, before I knew what happened, we just started going
out."
He thought about that for a moment and nodded. "Yeah, I can see how he could say
something like that. It sounded pretty much like him." Then, with a gleam in his eyes,
he asked, "Did I ever tell you how I met Takuya?"
"No, how?"
"See," he reminisced, "I had just left Nerima that day and was feeling kinda down, and
somehow I'd walked all the way to Juuban without really knowing or caring where I was
heading. And I was walking down this big street when all of a sudden I heard this loud
horn blaring like there was no tomorrow. I looked up and saw him standing in the middle
of the intersection like a road-kill, and then I saw that an SUV was going to run him over
in the next two seconds if he didn't move – which he didn't look like he was going to –
so I tackled his ass and brought him over to the divider." He laughed again at the thought
of that. "I was like, geez, what the hell was this dork thinking, standing around like that?
Then he told me he was going to treat me to dinner for rescuing him, and since it was free
food I didn't turn it down." He paused briefly and shrugged even as she laughed.
"We talked a little over dinner, and it turned out that he was new to the town himself and
was looking for an apartment, and he was kind of lost and didn't know where to go when
he stopped at the intersection. He asked me if I knew of any places that were for rent,
and when I said that I didn't know, and that I didn't have a place to stay either, he just
told me that I could stay with him when he got a place to settle down. Actually," he
amended a little later, "Takuya was really insistent on that, and I was like, whatever,
since I really couldn't care either way at the time…"
"…And then?" She turned to face him expectantly after seeing that he had trailed off
once more.
"…and then he ended up renting this apartment that day, and I moved into the other
room. It was pretty easy for me, since all I had at the time was my backpack," he
finished.
She smiled wanly. "Takuya was always a nice guy. A little rough around the edges, but
still a nice guy nonetheless."
He shrugged again. "I guess. He did get me into playing the piano though."
"Oh?"
"Yeah. Said he used to be a musician, and he saw I had some pretty quick hands when I
got him out of that jam. So he suggested that since I wasn't doing anything at the time, I
might as well try to play the piano, and that it was a good art. And I did; it was a hobby
at first, but I didn't really expect how easy it was for me to memorize the pieces that I
came across. Pretty soon I got to the point where I got really into it and started playing
everyday, and when I went to a music store one day to look for some books on classical
music I played a little tune on one of their baby-grands just for fun, and a professor from
Gedai who was there at the time flagged me down after I finished and asked me to
consider applying to the school. So that's how I got in." He stopped and turned to stare
at her with a curious expression on his face. "Say, Meiou-san?"
"Hmm?" Sometime during his tale, she had gone back to reclining against the couch, her
hands folded under the side of her cheek as she leaned her head against one of the
armrests.
"Do you miss him?"
"…Yes," she said honestly. "I miss him a lot."
"Do you… hate him?"
She sat up at that, and thought hard for a response. "Yes. No. I don't know," she said
finally. "It's hard to love someone for a year and want to rip his guts out all of a sudden;
not when you start to remember all the good memories you had with that person. Like
now."
He nodded, but didn't say anything further after that.
x x x
And it was true, Setsuna found in retrospect. Sometime during that night, she found that
she no longer had the same burning hatred for Takuya that she did before. It wasn't quite
enough for her to forgive him, but she didn't feel like she had to shy away from thinking
about him for fear that she would be consumed with rage. And with each mention of
Takuya's name, and each peal of laughter she shared with Saotome-san, Setsuna felt the
pain she associated with her old fiancée becoming more and more distant. In time, she
thought, it may even fade away like all other memories she had and become nothing
except a haze of –
Brrrriiiiiiiiinnnng-riiing-ring-rriiiiiinnnggg.
Oh well, her reveries interrupted by the ringing of the alarm clock, Setsuna sighed under
the blankets and snuck a hand up to pull them to the sides, it's about time to get up
anyway.
.
.
2
December 13, 1997
1:18 PM
It was almost the same routine.
Open door. Put the jingling keys back into pocket. Close door. Step out of the shoes,
bend down, and place the shoes in the corner by the foyer. And walk into the room.
Oops.
Almost forgot the hop.
He paused, one foot hanging four inches above the ground, and adjusted his stride,
cleanly avoiding the spot where his foot was going to land. It'd been almost a month
now, but he still had to remind himself that Setsuna had placed a sticky board for
cockroaches near the entrance. Not to mention the two she put in the kitchen, next to the
sink, or the one against the bit of wall between the kitchen and his bedroom door. Or the
four behind the couch in the living room. Or the two behind the toilet in the bathroom.
The woman had turned the apartment into a virtual deathtrap for cockroaches ever since
the day she found one on her bed, and he nearly fell onto the floor laughing at the sight of
the ring of traps she had made around her room. According to the manuals he read, the
amount of sticky boards she had placed in the apartment could have easily taken care of
an outbreak in an area the size of an airplane hanger. The thing is, whenever he tried to
ask her where exactly on the bed the thing had been when she woke up, she would just
clam up immediately and walk away.
Ranma shrugged helplessly. Never could understand girls.
He had just made his way past the piano when the bathroom door on his left opened. A
wave of steam wafted out into the living room, and Setsuna walked out with a damp
towel wrapped around her hair, wearing nothing except a white, oversized T-shirt with a
picture of the Powerpuff Girls on it.
"Good morning," she said, not looking up, her bare feet making wet prints on the floor as
she fell into the sofa with a sigh. Ranma returned the greeting distractedly and sat down
on his couch, starting to sort the mail he just got from downstairs.
"Anything new?" She asked, holding the white towel with a hand and draping the back
cushion with the other. "Ooh, news." She leaned forward and snatched the papers right
out of his hands just as he was about to read them. Pausing, he turned to gaze at her with
a bit of irritation, then decided to just drop the matter and went back to browsing the rest
of the mail. He'd gotten used of this kind of stuff by now anyway.
"Hmm… what's this?" Setsuna's voice drifted off into the background as he went
through each piece of mail from the small stack in his lap, starting with the electricity
bill. "…Mysterious sickness strikes again… doctors were once more unable to discern
the reason for the four new victims who fell into a coma yesterday and taken to the
Nisseki Medical Center…" Next was a donation request from some charity organization.
He made a sour face. "…And a tragedy occurred late in the evening last night, as a
young woman was run over by an 18-wheeler while she was picking up spare change in
the middle of a road outside the Roppongi station…" Next was the water bill.
"…woman was identified as Takako Ryoko, a twenty-one-year-old tour guide working
for the…" His fingers rested on a postcard that seemed out of place. He picked it up and
flipped the card over to see where it came from, then immediately stuffed the card
underneath the other letters and stood up from the sofa.
Setsuna took note of his sudden movement and stopped reading. "What are you doing?"
"Um," he faltered, "I, uh, I'm just going back to my room, why?"
She eyed him suspiciously. "What's that in your hand then?"
He hid the hand holding the stack of mail behind his back, and headed for his room
without bothering to reply.
"Wait, give me that!" She threw the papers aside and rose up to intercept him; the towel
fell by the wayside and damp green hair tumbled down her back as she lunged. She
managed to catch an arm just before he could open the bedroom door. "It's from
Yamaguchi, isn't it?" Her eyes bore into his in accusation.
"No, it's just the bills."
"I don't believe you!"
He turned his back to her and tried to get to the door, but Setsuna tackled him from
behind and reached around his waist with her right hand to take the mail. Ranma
struggled even more when he realized that something soft and supple was mashing into
his back, making his skin quiver and his face flush. At last, her fingers caught a piece of
the postcard at the bottom of the stack, and realizing that this must be what he was trying
to hide, she pulled on it with all her might.
The postcard tore into two pieces, and she stumbled away from him due to the
momentum of her force, nearly falling onto the ground. She glared at Ranma for a
second, then trained her eyes on the part of the card in her hands.
It wasn't the gold rims framing the card that she cared about. It wasn't the tiny pink
hearts glued all over the card that she cared about either, or that the post stamp on the
corner told her the card came from America. What she cared about was what was written
on it:
"From… Takuya and Tri–" she read to herself and broke off when the last part was
missing, then continued on to the next line. "…Great News!" And the line after that.
"…We're getting m–" That was as much as she find, but her mind had figured out the
rest of the message.
He eyed her with a sinking feeling in his stomach, already knowing the content by heart.
"M…?"
Setsuna gawked at the text for a long time. "M…Ma…Ma…Married?" She shrieked
suddenly, the hand holding the card trembling as her grip on it tightened, draining the
color from her knuckles until they turned as pale as her face.
Ranma bit on his lower lip and turned away.
"Married…" she breathed, unwanted tears welling in her eyes.
Unable to bear the note of desolation in her voice, Ranma thought fast and hard and tried
to remember what little he could from old English lessons with Hinako-sensei, berating
himself all the while for falling asleep in her class every time. Finally, he found an
alternative. "Um," he swallowed a little more, then told the lie. "It… it could be
'murdered', you know?" He suggested.
Tears and message nearly forgotten for an instant, Setsuna looked up at him in surprise.
Then her anger exploded.
"Who the hell would send a postcard telling people that they're getting MURDERED?"
She screamed as she marched towards him, hands held at her sides and balling into small
fists. "And with little pink hearts glued onto the background no less!" Then, locking
onto the other piece of the card still in his hand and realizing that she could settle the
matter with it instantly, Setsuna made a dive for it again.
"Gimme that!" She yelled in frenzy, grabbing onto the hand holding the bit of postcard.
Then, before she could bring both her hands around again to wrestle the shred away from
his fingers, he crumpled the thing in his palm, opened his mouth, and promptly
swallowed the ball of paper. Lips parting silently, she stared at him in shock, a finger
waving and pointing at him in the air.
Then, suddenly, her legs gave out on her, and like a puppet with its strings cut, she fell to
the ground in a boneless heap. "No…" she whispered, then looked up hatefully when
Ranma squeezed past her and walked into the kitchen.
"What are you doing?" asked Setsuna, disheartened, devastated, still a tiny bit curious.
He came back out with a glass of water in his hand and took a swill. "I've had to eat a lot
of bad cooking in my life," he said, swallowing, "but I've never had paper. I'm just
trying to chug it down with water." He upended the glass, and his expression turned
thoughtful. "Hmm," he informed her at last, "not bad. Tastes like chocolate."
.
.
.
.
TIMED VACATION
.
.
Chapter Four
.
Opening Theme: Close to You (Instrumental)
Composed by: CAGNET
.
.
3
December 13, 1997
3:37 PM
In front of her, there were lights.
Between the lights, towards the center, there was the camera. Shutters were pressed,
pressed, and pressed some more. The photographer coaxed, coerced, grimaced, smiled,
pulled out a few strands of flaky hair and nearly kicked away the tripod holding the
camera, then finally went back to coaxing the subject inside the view of the camera lens
once again.
In front of her, to the distant, there was the backdrop: a picture of a western-styled
redbrick house with a fat, snow-tipped chimney and a sloped roof that was equally laden
in fluffy white against the black canvas that was the night.
In front of the backdrop, a young girl posed in a Santa-getup in which the only thing that
kept to the original was the red hat and the large white bag over the shoulder. The rest of
the outfit, from the extra-tight, traffic-stopping red leather corset with its front lace
ending just above a bare navel, to the matching low-rise, high-cut leather shorts with
white-rimmed edges and just a hint of lace shown behind the top of the front zip-line, and
all the way down to the red cowboy boots with six-inch lace-up shafts and padded collars,
would have Santa wheeled into a hospital for frostbites and hypothermia within ten
minutes had he been able to wear it to work.
In front of her, bathed in the lights, there was Minako: light-blue-eyed, long-blond-
haired, doing photos for a cell-phone advertisement in a costume just a tad less revealing
than those on the cover of a special Christmas edition of Playboy.
Normally, in cases like this, Setsuna would have been jumping up and down, waving her
arms about frantically, smacking a palm into her forehead, or doing anything to clue her
protégé on the set to fix that smile of hers that was making her look like she just went
through root canal. Or Setsuna would have been performing the various poses on the
sidelines to match the those that Minako had been asked to posture – winking, strutting,
jutting her hips, or blowing a kiss to an imaginary recipient – to show the young girl how
modeling was not the same as imitating a dilapidated tree. She would have even bothered
to think up some sharp comments to reflect how today, unlike most days, Minako was
displaying all the hyperactive energy of a sloth trying to take a dump after accidentally
eating some hard and knobby twigs.
Then, after the painful session was over, she would have chided the girl about the various
small cuts and bruises on her limbs that the makeup artists had to dress over, and Minako
would probably have shot back about how she could take care of herself perfectly fine,
and that it was healthy for a teenage girl to be as involved in sports as she was. In the
end, Setsuna would have come back to the office, marched straight to her boss's office to
complain about how the company was exploiting children by agreeing to let Minako wear
the flimsy outfit she had on, and her boss would have just shrugged with a look on his
face that said, "What do you expect?"
Instead, all Setsuna did was sit in her chair, a fair distance to the side and behind the
photographer, watching Minako flounder around and nearly drop the cell-phone in her
hand several times – and looking straight past her.
A photo session, even one with Minako in it, could go by amazingly fast when you're
still in shock.
.
.
4
December 13, 1997
3:37 PM
"Saotome-san!" A voice called out to him as he walked out of the building. He turned.
"Oh, Sensei." He looked at the man who was holding the glass door open. Same old
dusty English suit, same old brown tie hanging down the pressed oxford shirt, and same
old dark eyes that shone a kind light from behind the glasses. "Staying late again today?"
The man shook his head as he let the arm drop and the door close behind him. "Actually,
packing and cleaning up my office before the winter break hits is more like it. I just saw
you leaving when I was taking some empty boxes out of the room." He laughed with a
bit of embarrassment. Then, in a more delicate tone, "Did you figure out what I meant by
expressing your feelings through songs yet?"
Ranma thought hard. "Just a little," he said at last. "I've tried a lot lately, but I still can't
see the difference. Is it really that noticeable?"
The professor looked down at the ground, a thumb rubbing against the fingers on one
hand. "Think of it like an invisible wall," he looked up after a minute and said. "You
can't touch it, and you can't break it down with your fists because it's not really there.
But when you play a song without any emotions, the audience feels like you've erected a
wall between you and them, and they can't get the full experience of the songs that way."
Pausing again, he sighed, adjusting the glasses a little. "I'm not sure if I'm explaining it
correctly, or if I'm just confusing you even more."
"No, it's all right, Sensei," Ranma replied haltingly, chewing his lips, "I think… I think
I'll think about this some more."
The older man nodded. "Keep at it." He looked at his watch. "Well, I better head back
to clean up then. Break through that wall, Saotome-san!" Then he turned around and
headed back to the door.
Ranma stayed and watched as the professor went inside the building once more. Then,
suddenly, he remembered something he had wanted to ask the man for a while now.
"Um, sensei?"
The man halted and looked over his shoulder. "Yes, Saotome-san?"
"When did you start wearing glasses anyway?"
Startled, the professor took a moment before replying. "Oh, this?" He grinned. "Why
do you ask?"
"Um… my old roommate used to have a pair just like those," Ranma said, pointing.
"Ah. I doubt it," the older man chortled, taking the pair of thin glasses off his face and
holding them out in front of him to give his student a better look. "This pair's fake," he
continued. "There's really no power behind the lenses. My girlfriend just thought I'd
look cool with glasses, so I bought myself a pair the other day." Then, still laughing, he
turned and walked away.
x x x
On the sidewalk, a few blocks away from the campus, Ranma stopped in front of an
intersection, waiting for the light to turn green. While he waited, the conversation he had
with his sensei earlier returned to the surface of his mind. He had to hand it to the man,
though; not many people could make him do a double-take like that outside Nerima.
He thought back to the earlier parts of their talk, and stayed on the side of the road even
as the light turned. Heedless of the few passers-by walking past him, he closed his eyes
and focused. An invisible wall, his sensei's voice seemed to drift into his ears and
reminded him. Break through that wall.
Faster than lightning, Ranma let loose a punch. Straight, precise, deadly.
It did not connect.
He let his eyes open slowly and lowered the fist, before bringing it up again to examine
the clenched fingers. They held the same power as before. Whatever, he decided finally,
still looking at his hand, just when someone called his name from across the street.
"R…Ranma?"
That voice. He'd recognize it anywhere. He looked up instantly.
Eyes wide, lips open, bangs parting in the breeze, standing not thirty-feet away: Akane.
Her hair's longer now, he realized, right as she spun and took off in the opposite
direction.
.
.
5
December 13, 1997
4:02 PM
There's a whole lot of nothing you can say to someone you haven't seen for more than a
year, Ranma discovered.
The coffee shop was of a modest size, mostly consisting of a lengthy bar-like counter
inside, and a single row of four-seat booths lining along a file of glass windows. The
décor was simple and clean, but not overly cheap, as the pinewood flooring and walls
could attest to.
When the two of them had arrived a few minutes ago, the shop was nearly full with the
afternoon rush – mostly company employees just finished with work, or students wishing
for a snack before heading to cram schools. He had followed Akane all the way to the
corner, and took his seat only after she had taken hers.
Ranma could detect the faint aroma of coffee lingering in the air like an aftertaste, joined
by the scent of tea, hot cream, and freshly-baked pastries. Out of the corner of his eyes
he witnessed a couple in the booth to his left busily sharing a glass of lemonade with two
straws. He could tell, from noise and smell, that the person sitting at his back was letting
his espresso cool and reading newspapers. Two booths over and behind, he learned from
a group of gossipy teenage girls that some wimpy guy called Yoshikawa from class three-
four went to a summer-festival at night with some girl named Uehara. There was a lot of
giggling and table-slapping as the information was dispensed, discredited, and debated.
And, throughout all this, he could not find a word to say to the girl sitting three feet away,
opposite to him, with her back to the wall.
By now, the couple to his left had abandoned the pretense of the shared drink, and, with
their eyes closed, inched their heads forward and prodded on towards the center of the
table where an intangible dividing line lay. They seemed to cross that divider in the air at
the same time, connected, and tasted the sweet lemon on each other's lips. In contrast,
Ranma shifted backward into his seat, and Akane did the same, their heads down. It was
like an interrogation scene at a police station, except that on both sides of the table sat the
suspects, and the cop was missing.
Akane put the time they spent not conversing to good use by studying her cup of coffee.
She examined first the ear of the cup, then the etchings on the sides, then the plate
underneath the cup, and finally found the spiraling cream in the coffee fascinating and
chose to make it a thesis.
In the meantime, Ranma noted the color of the beverage in his glass gradually taking on a
lighter tinge, and saw the straw with the chew-marks on the end. He wiped off some of
the condensation on the glass with a wet hand, looking like someone who just found out
that this was not his cup of tea, in more ways than one.
He did, however, utter the first word since their arrival just before the ice-cubes in his
drink had completely melted. "Um…"
"Yes?" Akane interjected at once, looking up from her cup.
"How's everyone doing?" He brought his head up as well, just to catch her stiffen
slightly and avert her gaze to the side.
"They're fine." She said tersely. "Kasumi's still in the house, Nabiki's still at college
studying finance – but you knew that already. I'm not sure about your folks because,
well, Dad wasn't happy after you just up and left that night, so…" she fidgeted and
trailed off, but he got the idea anyway.
"And you?"
"…I'm attending Keio. Probably going into sports management or something along the
line."
"Ah." He nodded, and took a deep breath. "Listen, Akane, about that day –" he began.
"It's not your fault." she cut in again just as fast as before. "You did the right thing.
Listen," she said, rising from her seat, "I've gotta run, Ranma. I was going to meet up
with a friend, and I'm late already." She picked up her backpack from the empty seat
next to her and hooked the straps over her shoulders. "Thanks for the coffee."
"Wait!" He grabbed her by the wrist and held her back. She looked back at him,
shoulder-length brown hair spilling as her head turned. He took time to note that she had
light makeup on her face, and stood a little taller than he remembered. The yellow and
green sweater under her coat was something he'd never seen her wear either. "You look
different," he said softly, searching to make contact with her eyes. He failed.
"…I've changed," Akane said with a smile that could be called uplifting only if she was
suffering from clinical depression. Then she did a quick inspection of him in return.
"You still look the same."
"I know." Rising as well, and still not releasing her wrist, Ranma swallowed hard, and
forced the words out of his mouth with a ferocity that surprised even himself. "Can I –"
he started, then switched the question and his tone. "Can we talk again?"
"I –" Akane started to shake her head, but took note of the hand still attached to her wrist.
She struggled for a moment, sighed, and at last gave the barest hint of a nod. "Not at the
dojo though," she stated firmly.
"Here?" He offered, and she nodded again after a bit. "Next… Saturday night?"
Another slight nod. "Eight-o'clock, then," he said swiftly. She did not refuse.
Ranma let go of her hand, and watched her almost flee out of the store. He found it
ironic that asking her out would be so much easier only after he had left her, and would
have laughed at himself if he didn't find the taste of irony insipid, just like the watered-
down ice tea still left mostly untouched in his glass.
.
.
6
December 13, 1997
6:18 PM
"I'm home," Ranma called out customarily as he stepped through the doorway. The light
was on in the living room, but there was no answer. He looked down, started to count,
and then realized that he really couldn't tell whether Setsuna was home yet by the
number of shoes on the floor.
He walked into the living room. Sure enough, there was Setsuna sitting primly on her
couch, hands on her knees, looking straight ahead at some fixed spot on her bedroom
door.
Ranma sat down on the left end of his sofa, and scooted forward. He waved a hand in
front of her face. "Hello?"
Setsuna blinked. "Oh, you're back," she said, not really paying him attention.
He snorted. "You noticed," he said. Then, after a pause, he added, more calmly, "I saw
Akane today."
It only took five seconds for Setsuna to respond this time. Brought out of her trance, she
turned to him, hesitating as she asked. "You mean… your old fiancée?" Seeing a tired
nod, she continued inquisitively. "What happened?"
"Nothing," he said, holding a hand to his forehead and running it up through his hair.
"We barely talked at all. It was as awkward as you can get." He sighed. "I don't know
what came over me in the end though, asking her to meet me like that… but, I guess,
we're going to see each other again next weekend."
Setsuna nodded. "Do you… miss her?" She asked slowly.
Are you kidding? That kawaikune tomboy… "I guess," he said honestly, after realizing
that there was no point to lie. "Yes."
Setsuna nodded again, a finger to her lips. This conversation was too much like déjà vu,
she decided, but went ahead with the question anyway. "Do you… love her?" She asked
again, even more carefully this time, as if she was trying to wade through a minefield
without a detector.
Ranma's whole body went rigid. "I –" he began, but fell silent again. He looked down at
the ground. "…Yes. No. I don't know anymore," he confessed. "I just locked up when
I saw her, and I don't even know what I'm going to say to her when I see her next week,"
he said agitatedly, but calmed when he felt a slender hand on his shoulder.
Fingers drumming on his collarbone, Setsuna closed her eyes for a moment. When she
opened them again, however, they showed a strange determination.
She withdrew her hand and waved it in front of his face, telling him to move over. He
obliged, and found Setsuna plopping herself down to the spot where he had just occupied.
Instinctively, Ranma tried to move away to put a more comfortable distance between
them, but Setsuna was having none of that, and grabbed him by both of his arms before
he could escape.
"Wh – what are you doing?" He asked, quite alarmed now. To his surprise, she smiled –
a first for the whole day, and it lit up the room. "Showing you what you need to do to
your fiancée, Saotome-san," she replied in a rich, sensuous voice that nearly made his
pigtail stand on its end.
"Watch carefully," she said, still holding him at arm's length. "Big sister Setsuna is only
going to demonstrate this one time. I'm going to pretend that I'm you, and that you're
Akane, okay?" She eyed him carefully, making sure that she had his undivided attention.
Ranma goggled at her instead. "Big… big sister Setsuna?"
"Just nod your head and say 'okay'," Setsuna commanded.
Ranma nodded. "Okay," he said.
Then, before he knew what happened, he found himself looking at her dark green tresses,
his chest pressed against her bosom as her arms circled around him, hugging him for all
she was worth. "Don't leave me," Setsuna whispered into his ear, clutching at him with
the desperation of someone drowning, and sent a flush all the way from his earlobes
down to his neck. Ranma gulped, and decided to focus his senses elsewhere… like the
strange fragrance in the crook of her neck and in her hair.
And, just as suddenly, Setsuna released him from the embrace, pushing him back to an
arm's length away. Ranma hoped that it was purely his imagination when her smile
widened as she saw his flaming-red face. "You got that?" She asked.
"Um, yeah, I, I got it, I think."
"Good," she said, sounding like a school teacher praising a student for being not
completely brain-dead. "Now, you practice it on me."
Ranma pointed a finger at himself, then drew a straight line across and pointed at her.
"I'm practicing on… you?"
"Yeah," Setsuna nodded matter-of-factly. "You just be yourself this time, and pretend
that I'm Akane. Let's go." She sat up and prepared herself.
To his shock, Ranma saw that she was really taking this whole thing seriously as he
looked into her red eyes. Finally, he mustered up his courage, and held his breath as if he
were going for a dive. "It's just pretend," he said self-assuredly. Then he moved.
"Don't leave me," he said, gathering her in his arms, holding her with the fervor he used
on a reversal-jewel controlled Shampoo, and with the reverence he had for the cask of
Nannichuan water lost to Happosai during the failed wedding. If Ranma had his eyes
open at the time, he would have seen a stunned Setsuna with her eyes fluttering open for
a moment before gently closing them again. He did, however, feel her going limp briefly
in his arms, before she snaked her arms out of the hug, circled them to his back and laid
her hands against his shoulder-blades.
She feels so incredibly soft, Ranma thought, then tried to drive the thought away
immediately. And she's really beautiful. Like a burst dam, other parts of his mind
started to add even more details to his opinion of Setsuna. And kind. When she's not
pissed off, that is.
Ranma knew he was losing the battle when he started to remember about the time he
accidentally saw more thigh than he needed way back when he first met her. Just as
undesirable was the memory of their second meeting, when his eyes lingered just a
moment too long on her shapely derriere, but that came back to him as well. And the
smell of her too; kami, it reminded him of –
"Um, Meiou-san?" Unable to stop himself, Ranma asked, his head still on her shoulder.
"Mmm?" She murmured lazily.
"Um, I dunno how to say this…" Ranma said hesitantly, dislodging himself until they
could see eye-to-eye… and this time he stopped completely, the words he was going to
say fell soundlessly past his lips.
Long, mesmerizing eyelashes framed twin orbs of red. He had seen them a long time
ago, he suddenly recalled, while he was still on the road with Pops. Deep in the heart of
China, surrounded by a set of precipitous ridges, a lake at night: against the satin sky, a
pale moon gleamed back at its double in the middle of the pool; except that there were
red petals in the water, under a sheet of gossamer mist, and the petals, somehow,
converged into the center and stained the fake moon a mysterious crimson, making it
outdo the splendor of the original by far. He had stood near the banks for hours that night
thinking that he'd never see something like that again for the rest his life.
He was wrong.
This time, in her eyes, he had to contend with two of those moons. The mist parted for
him, and suddenly, it was just the red moons and he, peering at one another with naked
honesty, the slight ripples in the limpid ponds inviting him to come just a tiny bit closer.
He could see himself in those crimson moons, he discovered in wonder. He wanted to
come closer, to see even better, to reach into those moons and –
Not used to such close scrutiny, Setsuna turned her gaze away reflexively and broke the
spell. "S- Saotome-san," she stammered, a small blush creeping into her cheeks, "What
were you going to say?"
Ranma blinked. "Um, heh, right…" he responded just as eloquently. Then, taking a
quick sniff of the air, he remembered. "Oh, that's right, I was wondering…" he peered at
her once more, but tried to stay clear of meeting those red eyes again. "Meiou-san," he
started, his pigtail itching to be scratched again like a bad habit, "I know you hate
cockroaches and all, but…"
"But…?" Setsuna echoed, not understanding where he was going at all.
"But," he continued, taking another whiff of her, and looking more embarrassed for her
than for himself, "even so, do you have to sprinkle insecticide all over yourself?"
Whatever romantic mood Setsuna had been in leapt from the top of a skyscraper and
plunged toward the ground and a gory death.
.
.
7
December 15, 1997
9:14 AM
"…so he thought the 'Desire' you were wearing was bug-spray? Wahahahaha!"
Momoko burst into laughter, holding her stomach with a hand and nearly falling off her
chair. "How the hell could anyone be so dense?" Then, seeing the poker face Setsuna
had carefully set up to conceal the look of annoyance in her eyes, she sat up again,
managing to tone down her voice. "But, you're right though, Senpai. I guess people like
Saotome-san really are disconnected from the rest of the society, just like you said, if he
couldn't tell perfume from pesticide."
"Tell me about it," the green-haired woman muttered, looking away, her chin propped up
by an arm planted on her desk. "But, he was a nice guy though, Momoko-chan," Setsuna
amended grudgingly. "He got me out of my mood when I read that postcard."
The brown-haired girl pushed a stray lock back from her forehead and paused. Then,
gauging her friend's expression carefully, she wet her lips. "Say, Senpai…"
"Hmm?"
"Have you, like, actually thought about getting together with Saotome-san?"
Setsuna whipped her head back so fast that it nearly hurt. "What are you talking about?"
She asked, stunned.
"I mean, you just defended him, and he really sounds like a pretty nice guy… and kind of
clueless too, and wasn't that what you liked about Yamaguchi-san anyway?"
Setsuna's lips parted, then she quickly swallowed what she was going to say. She tilted
her head to one side, contemplating. "You must be kidding me," she said finally, looking
at the younger girl with an askew glance. "I'm not falling for Mr. Raid."
.
.
8
December 15, 1997
7:29 PM
"I'm home!" Ranma called out customarily as he stepped through the doorway. This
time, Setsuna responded as usual. "Oh, welcome back," she said from her habitual spot
on her sofa. He took off his shoes and headed towards her.
"Want one?" She said, wearing a familiar red silk blouse under a white jacket and a pair
of tight jeans, holding up a bottle in one hand. Ranma took a look at it and shook his
head.
"I don't drink, Meiou-san," he said. "What's the occasion anyway? This looks
expensive."
"It is," she said, waving a hand. "But I've got more where that came from." She pointed
to the ten crates by the bathroom that Ranma had almost forgotten had stuff in them, as
they had been left there untouched ever since she moved in. "Those were all vintage
champagne and Bordeaux bottles that my relatives brought for me to celebrate the
wedding. Now that Takuya's remarried, I'll just finish all of these without him." She
looked down to the ground for a second, as if examining her legs. Then she turned to him
instantly, wearing a sweet smile on her face. "Saotome-san, are you sure you're not
going to have some?" She asked even as she downed another glass. He declined.
Setsuna pouted slightly, a hint of red showing on her cheeks. "Ooh, you're no fun. But,
here," she said, grabbing another bottle from behind her back, "at least open this for me,
please?" Unable to refuse a simple request like that, Ranma took the bottle from her
hand and uncorked it, when a jet of bubbling champagne caught him square in the face.
"Got you! Ahahahaha–" Setsuna laughed, falling back into the couch as she kicked her
legs up and threw her head back against the cushion. Her laughter, however, was short-
lived when she saw a wet Ranma-chan stare back at her in a dumbfounded manner. "I…
I can explain this, Meiou-san," she said, holding her palms out in front of her in a
placating gesture, "really, I can."
Setsuna, however, was not open to explanations. She kicked her couch back and dived to
the side until her back was to the piano. "Y-youma!" She accused. Then, before
Ranma-chan's eyes, the green-haired woman stood up triumphantly and shouted.
"Pluto Planet Power, Make-Up!" A flurry of poses ensued for nearly half a minute as
Ranma-chan watched on agog. When it all ended, however, Setsuna paused in a stance
that she always secretly thought was a bit grandstanding, before exploding into action.
She was about to start her attack when she saw the redhead holding her stomach and
rolling on the floor laughing. She halted.
Strange, she wasn't supposed to do that, Setsuna thought, looking down at herself to see
what could possibly garner such mirth from the daemon girl. She froze instantly as she
figured out what went wrong.
Slowly, an inch at a time, she turned her head to the side and looked up at her hand. Oh,
that's why, a little part of her mind voiced out.
Setsuna dropped the champagne bottle in her hand that she'd been waving around like a
henshin pen. "Oops," she said sheepishly at the redhead, and started to scratch the back
of her head with a hand.
.
.
9
December 15, 1997
10:49 PM
"…so, you turn into a girl with, um, cold water?" Setsuna asked slowly in a raised voice,
her back slumped partially against his as she sat on the couch at an outward angle. "And
you've fought a… dragon and, hmm, a demigod? And traveled through time with a – uh,
mirror?" She could feel him lethargically tilt his head in a slow, exaggerated nod.
"Ain't no demigod," said Ranma, stopping for a hiccup. "'Scuse me. Anyway, he's just
a stupid overgrown bird. Cologne – remember the old ghoul I told you?" He rambled
on, lolling his head a little, "See, she – she said that the Amazons used to, uh, set up
ambushes during winter, after they found out that a lot of them phoenix liked to migrate
south with the ducks when the mountaintop got cold."
Setsuna barked a laugh.
"…and anyway, you said you, like, um, used to be one of them re-reincarnated magical
girls?" Ranma countered. She nodded back. "On a s-sentai team that, eh, battled evil
from, like, beyond the universe?" he asked sluggishly, trying to keep his head up so it
wouldn't fall onto her shoulder. Another nod. "In mini-skirts and training bras?" The
last was conveyed with a raised eyebrow that took some effort to maintain in place.
"The bras were only for Hotaru-chan and Small Lady," Setsuna clarified in a surprisingly
lucid tone, taking the time to pronounce the words clearly. "We had to buy one for, um,
Hotaru-chan, and Small Lady was using hand-me-downs from her mom."
The two fell silent again, and turned to face each other after a moment. They laughed as
one.
It was probably best left unmentioned that around them there were already more than
three crates worth of empty wine bottles at this point.
Setsuna was the first to recover from their drunken laughter. "So that's why you
sometimes come home all drenched," she said, eyeing him with an enlightened look on
her face, her mind skipping back several parts of the conversation. He nodded. And just
as suddenly, something came to Ranma.
"Say, S…Setsuna-san?" He asked through another hiccup.
Setsuna turned even redder, even though she knew he probably wasn't aware of the
familiar tone he'd taken with her. "Y…yes?" She asked, her heart thudding wildly
against her chest, sending the warmth she felt from the alcohol down to her limbs in
waves and making them feel like putty.
"I just remembered something. Just… just a second," he said as he rose and staggered
away into his bedroom, knocking over several empty bottles on the ground as he did so.
A few minutes later, he drifted out from the room with a worn-out looking backpack in
one hand, and fell into the sofa unceremoniously. He untied the strings on the top and
upended the bag, shaking all the contents out.
"W-What are you doing?" Setsuna asked, intrigued. Ranma didn't reply, choosing to
focus on his search as his hands deftly went through the pile of belongings on the
cushion, temporarily fighting off the effects of the wine. Finally, he found what he was
looking for. "S…Say, Setsuna-san, you were like, the Senshi of Time, or something like
that, right?" He asked again.
She nodded.
"And, like, you could, you know, control time?"
Another nod. Ranma took on an excited expression at that, looking at her hopefully.
Blushing furiously under the close scrutiny, Setsuna turned away and stammered
uncharacteristically again. "W…What?"
"Can you fix my watch?" Totally forgetting that just a short while earlier, Setsuna had,
hemming and hawing, just informed him that she had lost all her powers, Ranma asked,
depositing a cheap, digital wristwatch into her hands. She turned the thing face-up
reflexively, and saw the numbers reading "21:35" – almost an hour ago, she thought as
she verified the time with her own watch. Just as suddenly, she realized the absurdity of
his request, and Setsuna looked at him with a poleaxed expression. Her jaw fell open,
and she stared at Ranma just as she had done when she witnessed, for the first time, a
Brumdah beast on the deserts of Io back in the Silver Millennium, kill itself by actually
forgetting how to breathe. Then her temper ignited through the haze of alcohol and drove
her into sobriety in almost an instant.
"You –" she started, waving a shaking hand at him, watch included, "you –" she huffed,
groping for words to describe his stupidity, and failed. She settled for glaring at him, but
then discovered that his expectant and trusting look was absolutely driving her up the
wall. Setsuna debated whether it would be more satisfying to laugh at him, or just
throttle him to death. Choking won.
She closed in on him, and was about to clamp her fingers around his neck and squeeze
painfully when her movement sent a gleaming object falling out of the pile of clothes and
onto the floor. Surprised, she put her anger on hold and picked the thing up, and her eyes
widened in shock as she thought she felt tiny, invisible sparks of time magic dancing on
her fingertips when they touched the object. "Say, is this…"
Ranma stared at it with an equally stunned expression. "…a piece of the Nanban
mirror?" He nodded, mouth going dry all of a sudden. How in the world did a piece of
Nanban get into his stuff, and he didn't even know about it until now?
"This… this is the one where you shed a tear, and you can wish on it to go back in time?"
Setsuna pressed on, growing more and more exhilarated by the second.
Ranma confirmed absently with another nod. Then, realizing that Setsuna was clutching
the large shard of Nanban in her hands and dropping a tear onto its surface, he queried
weakly as a sense of dread filled him. "Um, Meiou-san, what are you doing?"
Setsuna thought for a second before she replied. "I'm fixing your damned watch, that's
what." Then, before he could realize what she meant, Setsuna danced away from him,
holding the piece of mirror high in the air as she made several pirouettes. "Mirror,
mirror, on the wall," she stated grandly, "I wish you'd take me back to the time when I
was still Sailor Pluto!"
Ranma gaped. Then, without knowing exactly why, he lunged for her. "Wait, Setsuna!"
Light burst forth from the fragment of the Nanban, inundating the room and nearly
blinding him. "No!" He yelled, turning his head to the side and holding his hands in
front of his face as it engulfed him like a tidal wave.
And then there was only white.
.
.
(END CHAPTER)
Special Thanks to: Figment, as usual, for pre-read proceedings and excellent advice, as
well as Thermopyle for suggestions on how to further torment Setsuna.
December 13, 1997
12:30 PM
Brrrrrrrrrrrrriiinnngg– bop.
There's nothing quite like the pleasure of waking up late on a weekend, thought Setsuna.
There's ample time to play around with the "snooze" button on the alarm clock – an act
that she found almost addicting by now, and more than enough time to simply snuggle
into the blankets and pretend that she was still sleeping. An odd image of a polar bear
floated into her mind as she pulled the sheets over her head once more, and Setsuna
pictured herself hibernating like the warm, furry animal deep inside a cave where the
wintry gales and biting frost outside could not reach her.
Unfortunately, however, the dutiful and more responsible part of her mind informed her
that while this was technically weekend time, it was also still a Saturday. And Saturdays
meant taking Minako around for photo shoots at three-thirty in the afternoon.
She was not looking forward to the challenge.
Minako, in Setsuna's opinion, was a work in progress at best. If her road to stardom
could be called a road at all, she supposed that it would have to have been one of those
tiny dirt paths winding into the Amazonian rainforests that only the aborigines would
dare to venture. Unfortunately, the budding teenager was clearly not an indigenous South
American tribe member. She was tripping so often over every little tree branch and rock
on her way through the metaphorical jungle that it was a torture to watch at times. On
several occasions, Setsuna found herself waiting on the set or studio ten minutes after the
shoot had begun, only to find the girl joyfully marching from the entrance with yet
another autograph on the back of one of her innumerable photo collections of her idols.
And she would have to endure through the tirade as Minako ecstatically described in
detail how lucky she was to just accidentally bump into the adolescent heartthrob when
she took a break to grab some sweets from the vending machine downstairs, or ran into
the boy and his agent in the parking lot just as they were leaving after a photo session.
An especially memorable example came when once, forty-five minutes past the
scheduled starting time of the shoot, Setsuna had to leave the studio to track her protégé
down, finding her in the backstage of a boy-band concert held five blocks away. That
time, Minako had a photo out in one hand and a bus ticket transfer in the other, and her
eyes were those of a predatory stalker as she waited in a shadowy corner near the
entrance, ready to pounce on the boys as soon as they arrived. She had to be dragged
back into the studio that time, and her screams of outrage could be heard even over the
amplified speakers as the cheesy love songs played on.
They really should have hired a babysitter instead.
On a more pleasant note, however, Saotome-san had gradually become more open to
conversation over the past month. Now, more often than not, the two of them would talk
late into the night about how their days went, even if he still refused to tell her why she
sometimes found him completely soaked to the bone coming back home when there
hadn't been a drop of rain outside that day.
To put it simply, the pigtailed young man was growing on her, and she was discovering
that his music was increasingly pleasant to her ears as well despite her minimal interest in
music in general, or his claim that he was only practicing and not playing for her in
particular. In turn, she talked about her problems at work, and he would patiently sit,
either behind the piano or on the couch next to her own, listening to her complaints until
she had vented through her frustrations. It was like talking to the Gate back on Pluto, she
discovered, but much better, because neither the Gate nor the ever-flowing Time Stream
would appear to be sympathetic to her cause or commiserate with her.
For instance, Setsuna vividly recalled when, a week ago, they had somehow touched on
the subject of how they had met their respective fiancées at first…
x x x
"–and then, she clonked me over the head with a table," said Ranma with a casual shrug.
"…you're kidding me, right?"
"Naah. I wish. What about you? How did you run into Takuya?"
She thought for a moment with her head back over the cushion of the sofa, before
straightening herself, tucking her legs and crossing them underneath her, sitting up in
semi-Indian style. "Well, it's nothing quite as extreme as your first meeting," she started.
"In fact, it was really lame."
"Really lame?" He echoed.
"Yeah," she continued, the memory coming to her even as she spoke, "I was moping
around inside a café after finishing up another crap-assignment, and all of a sudden this
guy in a tux just walked up to me, looked at me with those blue eyes like yours, and said,
"Hey, you look kinda familiar. Do I know you?" And I rolled my eyes like this and
thought, boy, is he for real? That's the lamest pick-up line I've ever heard in my life."
"That was pretty dorky," he agreed with a laugh.
"Wasn't it? But somehow I kept running into him everywhere; for a while I thought he
was stalking me or something. And, before I knew what happened, we just started going
out."
He thought about that for a moment and nodded. "Yeah, I can see how he could say
something like that. It sounded pretty much like him." Then, with a gleam in his eyes,
he asked, "Did I ever tell you how I met Takuya?"
"No, how?"
"See," he reminisced, "I had just left Nerima that day and was feeling kinda down, and
somehow I'd walked all the way to Juuban without really knowing or caring where I was
heading. And I was walking down this big street when all of a sudden I heard this loud
horn blaring like there was no tomorrow. I looked up and saw him standing in the middle
of the intersection like a road-kill, and then I saw that an SUV was going to run him over
in the next two seconds if he didn't move – which he didn't look like he was going to –
so I tackled his ass and brought him over to the divider." He laughed again at the thought
of that. "I was like, geez, what the hell was this dork thinking, standing around like that?
Then he told me he was going to treat me to dinner for rescuing him, and since it was free
food I didn't turn it down." He paused briefly and shrugged even as she laughed.
"We talked a little over dinner, and it turned out that he was new to the town himself and
was looking for an apartment, and he was kind of lost and didn't know where to go when
he stopped at the intersection. He asked me if I knew of any places that were for rent,
and when I said that I didn't know, and that I didn't have a place to stay either, he just
told me that I could stay with him when he got a place to settle down. Actually," he
amended a little later, "Takuya was really insistent on that, and I was like, whatever,
since I really couldn't care either way at the time…"
"…And then?" She turned to face him expectantly after seeing that he had trailed off
once more.
"…and then he ended up renting this apartment that day, and I moved into the other
room. It was pretty easy for me, since all I had at the time was my backpack," he
finished.
She smiled wanly. "Takuya was always a nice guy. A little rough around the edges, but
still a nice guy nonetheless."
He shrugged again. "I guess. He did get me into playing the piano though."
"Oh?"
"Yeah. Said he used to be a musician, and he saw I had some pretty quick hands when I
got him out of that jam. So he suggested that since I wasn't doing anything at the time, I
might as well try to play the piano, and that it was a good art. And I did; it was a hobby
at first, but I didn't really expect how easy it was for me to memorize the pieces that I
came across. Pretty soon I got to the point where I got really into it and started playing
everyday, and when I went to a music store one day to look for some books on classical
music I played a little tune on one of their baby-grands just for fun, and a professor from
Gedai who was there at the time flagged me down after I finished and asked me to
consider applying to the school. So that's how I got in." He stopped and turned to stare
at her with a curious expression on his face. "Say, Meiou-san?"
"Hmm?" Sometime during his tale, she had gone back to reclining against the couch, her
hands folded under the side of her cheek as she leaned her head against one of the
armrests.
"Do you miss him?"
"…Yes," she said honestly. "I miss him a lot."
"Do you… hate him?"
She sat up at that, and thought hard for a response. "Yes. No. I don't know," she said
finally. "It's hard to love someone for a year and want to rip his guts out all of a sudden;
not when you start to remember all the good memories you had with that person. Like
now."
He nodded, but didn't say anything further after that.
x x x
And it was true, Setsuna found in retrospect. Sometime during that night, she found that
she no longer had the same burning hatred for Takuya that she did before. It wasn't quite
enough for her to forgive him, but she didn't feel like she had to shy away from thinking
about him for fear that she would be consumed with rage. And with each mention of
Takuya's name, and each peal of laughter she shared with Saotome-san, Setsuna felt the
pain she associated with her old fiancée becoming more and more distant. In time, she
thought, it may even fade away like all other memories she had and become nothing
except a haze of –
Brrrriiiiiiiiinnnng-riiing-ring-rriiiiiinnnggg.
Oh well, her reveries interrupted by the ringing of the alarm clock, Setsuna sighed under
the blankets and snuck a hand up to pull them to the sides, it's about time to get up
anyway.
.
.
2
December 13, 1997
1:18 PM
It was almost the same routine.
Open door. Put the jingling keys back into pocket. Close door. Step out of the shoes,
bend down, and place the shoes in the corner by the foyer. And walk into the room.
Oops.
Almost forgot the hop.
He paused, one foot hanging four inches above the ground, and adjusted his stride,
cleanly avoiding the spot where his foot was going to land. It'd been almost a month
now, but he still had to remind himself that Setsuna had placed a sticky board for
cockroaches near the entrance. Not to mention the two she put in the kitchen, next to the
sink, or the one against the bit of wall between the kitchen and his bedroom door. Or the
four behind the couch in the living room. Or the two behind the toilet in the bathroom.
The woman had turned the apartment into a virtual deathtrap for cockroaches ever since
the day she found one on her bed, and he nearly fell onto the floor laughing at the sight of
the ring of traps she had made around her room. According to the manuals he read, the
amount of sticky boards she had placed in the apartment could have easily taken care of
an outbreak in an area the size of an airplane hanger. The thing is, whenever he tried to
ask her where exactly on the bed the thing had been when she woke up, she would just
clam up immediately and walk away.
Ranma shrugged helplessly. Never could understand girls.
He had just made his way past the piano when the bathroom door on his left opened. A
wave of steam wafted out into the living room, and Setsuna walked out with a damp
towel wrapped around her hair, wearing nothing except a white, oversized T-shirt with a
picture of the Powerpuff Girls on it.
"Good morning," she said, not looking up, her bare feet making wet prints on the floor as
she fell into the sofa with a sigh. Ranma returned the greeting distractedly and sat down
on his couch, starting to sort the mail he just got from downstairs.
"Anything new?" She asked, holding the white towel with a hand and draping the back
cushion with the other. "Ooh, news." She leaned forward and snatched the papers right
out of his hands just as he was about to read them. Pausing, he turned to gaze at her with
a bit of irritation, then decided to just drop the matter and went back to browsing the rest
of the mail. He'd gotten used of this kind of stuff by now anyway.
"Hmm… what's this?" Setsuna's voice drifted off into the background as he went
through each piece of mail from the small stack in his lap, starting with the electricity
bill. "…Mysterious sickness strikes again… doctors were once more unable to discern
the reason for the four new victims who fell into a coma yesterday and taken to the
Nisseki Medical Center…" Next was a donation request from some charity organization.
He made a sour face. "…And a tragedy occurred late in the evening last night, as a
young woman was run over by an 18-wheeler while she was picking up spare change in
the middle of a road outside the Roppongi station…" Next was the water bill.
"…woman was identified as Takako Ryoko, a twenty-one-year-old tour guide working
for the…" His fingers rested on a postcard that seemed out of place. He picked it up and
flipped the card over to see where it came from, then immediately stuffed the card
underneath the other letters and stood up from the sofa.
Setsuna took note of his sudden movement and stopped reading. "What are you doing?"
"Um," he faltered, "I, uh, I'm just going back to my room, why?"
She eyed him suspiciously. "What's that in your hand then?"
He hid the hand holding the stack of mail behind his back, and headed for his room
without bothering to reply.
"Wait, give me that!" She threw the papers aside and rose up to intercept him; the towel
fell by the wayside and damp green hair tumbled down her back as she lunged. She
managed to catch an arm just before he could open the bedroom door. "It's from
Yamaguchi, isn't it?" Her eyes bore into his in accusation.
"No, it's just the bills."
"I don't believe you!"
He turned his back to her and tried to get to the door, but Setsuna tackled him from
behind and reached around his waist with her right hand to take the mail. Ranma
struggled even more when he realized that something soft and supple was mashing into
his back, making his skin quiver and his face flush. At last, her fingers caught a piece of
the postcard at the bottom of the stack, and realizing that this must be what he was trying
to hide, she pulled on it with all her might.
The postcard tore into two pieces, and she stumbled away from him due to the
momentum of her force, nearly falling onto the ground. She glared at Ranma for a
second, then trained her eyes on the part of the card in her hands.
It wasn't the gold rims framing the card that she cared about. It wasn't the tiny pink
hearts glued all over the card that she cared about either, or that the post stamp on the
corner told her the card came from America. What she cared about was what was written
on it:
"From… Takuya and Tri–" she read to herself and broke off when the last part was
missing, then continued on to the next line. "…Great News!" And the line after that.
"…We're getting m–" That was as much as she find, but her mind had figured out the
rest of the message.
He eyed her with a sinking feeling in his stomach, already knowing the content by heart.
"M…?"
Setsuna gawked at the text for a long time. "M…Ma…Ma…Married?" She shrieked
suddenly, the hand holding the card trembling as her grip on it tightened, draining the
color from her knuckles until they turned as pale as her face.
Ranma bit on his lower lip and turned away.
"Married…" she breathed, unwanted tears welling in her eyes.
Unable to bear the note of desolation in her voice, Ranma thought fast and hard and tried
to remember what little he could from old English lessons with Hinako-sensei, berating
himself all the while for falling asleep in her class every time. Finally, he found an
alternative. "Um," he swallowed a little more, then told the lie. "It… it could be
'murdered', you know?" He suggested.
Tears and message nearly forgotten for an instant, Setsuna looked up at him in surprise.
Then her anger exploded.
"Who the hell would send a postcard telling people that they're getting MURDERED?"
She screamed as she marched towards him, hands held at her sides and balling into small
fists. "And with little pink hearts glued onto the background no less!" Then, locking
onto the other piece of the card still in his hand and realizing that she could settle the
matter with it instantly, Setsuna made a dive for it again.
"Gimme that!" She yelled in frenzy, grabbing onto the hand holding the bit of postcard.
Then, before she could bring both her hands around again to wrestle the shred away from
his fingers, he crumpled the thing in his palm, opened his mouth, and promptly
swallowed the ball of paper. Lips parting silently, she stared at him in shock, a finger
waving and pointing at him in the air.
Then, suddenly, her legs gave out on her, and like a puppet with its strings cut, she fell to
the ground in a boneless heap. "No…" she whispered, then looked up hatefully when
Ranma squeezed past her and walked into the kitchen.
"What are you doing?" asked Setsuna, disheartened, devastated, still a tiny bit curious.
He came back out with a glass of water in his hand and took a swill. "I've had to eat a lot
of bad cooking in my life," he said, swallowing, "but I've never had paper. I'm just
trying to chug it down with water." He upended the glass, and his expression turned
thoughtful. "Hmm," he informed her at last, "not bad. Tastes like chocolate."
.
.
.
.
TIMED VACATION
.
.
Chapter Four
.
Opening Theme: Close to You (Instrumental)
Composed by: CAGNET
.
.
3
December 13, 1997
3:37 PM
In front of her, there were lights.
Between the lights, towards the center, there was the camera. Shutters were pressed,
pressed, and pressed some more. The photographer coaxed, coerced, grimaced, smiled,
pulled out a few strands of flaky hair and nearly kicked away the tripod holding the
camera, then finally went back to coaxing the subject inside the view of the camera lens
once again.
In front of her, to the distant, there was the backdrop: a picture of a western-styled
redbrick house with a fat, snow-tipped chimney and a sloped roof that was equally laden
in fluffy white against the black canvas that was the night.
In front of the backdrop, a young girl posed in a Santa-getup in which the only thing that
kept to the original was the red hat and the large white bag over the shoulder. The rest of
the outfit, from the extra-tight, traffic-stopping red leather corset with its front lace
ending just above a bare navel, to the matching low-rise, high-cut leather shorts with
white-rimmed edges and just a hint of lace shown behind the top of the front zip-line, and
all the way down to the red cowboy boots with six-inch lace-up shafts and padded collars,
would have Santa wheeled into a hospital for frostbites and hypothermia within ten
minutes had he been able to wear it to work.
In front of her, bathed in the lights, there was Minako: light-blue-eyed, long-blond-
haired, doing photos for a cell-phone advertisement in a costume just a tad less revealing
than those on the cover of a special Christmas edition of Playboy.
Normally, in cases like this, Setsuna would have been jumping up and down, waving her
arms about frantically, smacking a palm into her forehead, or doing anything to clue her
protégé on the set to fix that smile of hers that was making her look like she just went
through root canal. Or Setsuna would have been performing the various poses on the
sidelines to match the those that Minako had been asked to posture – winking, strutting,
jutting her hips, or blowing a kiss to an imaginary recipient – to show the young girl how
modeling was not the same as imitating a dilapidated tree. She would have even bothered
to think up some sharp comments to reflect how today, unlike most days, Minako was
displaying all the hyperactive energy of a sloth trying to take a dump after accidentally
eating some hard and knobby twigs.
Then, after the painful session was over, she would have chided the girl about the various
small cuts and bruises on her limbs that the makeup artists had to dress over, and Minako
would probably have shot back about how she could take care of herself perfectly fine,
and that it was healthy for a teenage girl to be as involved in sports as she was. In the
end, Setsuna would have come back to the office, marched straight to her boss's office to
complain about how the company was exploiting children by agreeing to let Minako wear
the flimsy outfit she had on, and her boss would have just shrugged with a look on his
face that said, "What do you expect?"
Instead, all Setsuna did was sit in her chair, a fair distance to the side and behind the
photographer, watching Minako flounder around and nearly drop the cell-phone in her
hand several times – and looking straight past her.
A photo session, even one with Minako in it, could go by amazingly fast when you're
still in shock.
.
.
4
December 13, 1997
3:37 PM
"Saotome-san!" A voice called out to him as he walked out of the building. He turned.
"Oh, Sensei." He looked at the man who was holding the glass door open. Same old
dusty English suit, same old brown tie hanging down the pressed oxford shirt, and same
old dark eyes that shone a kind light from behind the glasses. "Staying late again today?"
The man shook his head as he let the arm drop and the door close behind him. "Actually,
packing and cleaning up my office before the winter break hits is more like it. I just saw
you leaving when I was taking some empty boxes out of the room." He laughed with a
bit of embarrassment. Then, in a more delicate tone, "Did you figure out what I meant by
expressing your feelings through songs yet?"
Ranma thought hard. "Just a little," he said at last. "I've tried a lot lately, but I still can't
see the difference. Is it really that noticeable?"
The professor looked down at the ground, a thumb rubbing against the fingers on one
hand. "Think of it like an invisible wall," he looked up after a minute and said. "You
can't touch it, and you can't break it down with your fists because it's not really there.
But when you play a song without any emotions, the audience feels like you've erected a
wall between you and them, and they can't get the full experience of the songs that way."
Pausing again, he sighed, adjusting the glasses a little. "I'm not sure if I'm explaining it
correctly, or if I'm just confusing you even more."
"No, it's all right, Sensei," Ranma replied haltingly, chewing his lips, "I think… I think
I'll think about this some more."
The older man nodded. "Keep at it." He looked at his watch. "Well, I better head back
to clean up then. Break through that wall, Saotome-san!" Then he turned around and
headed back to the door.
Ranma stayed and watched as the professor went inside the building once more. Then,
suddenly, he remembered something he had wanted to ask the man for a while now.
"Um, sensei?"
The man halted and looked over his shoulder. "Yes, Saotome-san?"
"When did you start wearing glasses anyway?"
Startled, the professor took a moment before replying. "Oh, this?" He grinned. "Why
do you ask?"
"Um… my old roommate used to have a pair just like those," Ranma said, pointing.
"Ah. I doubt it," the older man chortled, taking the pair of thin glasses off his face and
holding them out in front of him to give his student a better look. "This pair's fake," he
continued. "There's really no power behind the lenses. My girlfriend just thought I'd
look cool with glasses, so I bought myself a pair the other day." Then, still laughing, he
turned and walked away.
x x x
On the sidewalk, a few blocks away from the campus, Ranma stopped in front of an
intersection, waiting for the light to turn green. While he waited, the conversation he had
with his sensei earlier returned to the surface of his mind. He had to hand it to the man,
though; not many people could make him do a double-take like that outside Nerima.
He thought back to the earlier parts of their talk, and stayed on the side of the road even
as the light turned. Heedless of the few passers-by walking past him, he closed his eyes
and focused. An invisible wall, his sensei's voice seemed to drift into his ears and
reminded him. Break through that wall.
Faster than lightning, Ranma let loose a punch. Straight, precise, deadly.
It did not connect.
He let his eyes open slowly and lowered the fist, before bringing it up again to examine
the clenched fingers. They held the same power as before. Whatever, he decided finally,
still looking at his hand, just when someone called his name from across the street.
"R…Ranma?"
That voice. He'd recognize it anywhere. He looked up instantly.
Eyes wide, lips open, bangs parting in the breeze, standing not thirty-feet away: Akane.
Her hair's longer now, he realized, right as she spun and took off in the opposite
direction.
.
.
5
December 13, 1997
4:02 PM
There's a whole lot of nothing you can say to someone you haven't seen for more than a
year, Ranma discovered.
The coffee shop was of a modest size, mostly consisting of a lengthy bar-like counter
inside, and a single row of four-seat booths lining along a file of glass windows. The
décor was simple and clean, but not overly cheap, as the pinewood flooring and walls
could attest to.
When the two of them had arrived a few minutes ago, the shop was nearly full with the
afternoon rush – mostly company employees just finished with work, or students wishing
for a snack before heading to cram schools. He had followed Akane all the way to the
corner, and took his seat only after she had taken hers.
Ranma could detect the faint aroma of coffee lingering in the air like an aftertaste, joined
by the scent of tea, hot cream, and freshly-baked pastries. Out of the corner of his eyes
he witnessed a couple in the booth to his left busily sharing a glass of lemonade with two
straws. He could tell, from noise and smell, that the person sitting at his back was letting
his espresso cool and reading newspapers. Two booths over and behind, he learned from
a group of gossipy teenage girls that some wimpy guy called Yoshikawa from class three-
four went to a summer-festival at night with some girl named Uehara. There was a lot of
giggling and table-slapping as the information was dispensed, discredited, and debated.
And, throughout all this, he could not find a word to say to the girl sitting three feet away,
opposite to him, with her back to the wall.
By now, the couple to his left had abandoned the pretense of the shared drink, and, with
their eyes closed, inched their heads forward and prodded on towards the center of the
table where an intangible dividing line lay. They seemed to cross that divider in the air at
the same time, connected, and tasted the sweet lemon on each other's lips. In contrast,
Ranma shifted backward into his seat, and Akane did the same, their heads down. It was
like an interrogation scene at a police station, except that on both sides of the table sat the
suspects, and the cop was missing.
Akane put the time they spent not conversing to good use by studying her cup of coffee.
She examined first the ear of the cup, then the etchings on the sides, then the plate
underneath the cup, and finally found the spiraling cream in the coffee fascinating and
chose to make it a thesis.
In the meantime, Ranma noted the color of the beverage in his glass gradually taking on a
lighter tinge, and saw the straw with the chew-marks on the end. He wiped off some of
the condensation on the glass with a wet hand, looking like someone who just found out
that this was not his cup of tea, in more ways than one.
He did, however, utter the first word since their arrival just before the ice-cubes in his
drink had completely melted. "Um…"
"Yes?" Akane interjected at once, looking up from her cup.
"How's everyone doing?" He brought his head up as well, just to catch her stiffen
slightly and avert her gaze to the side.
"They're fine." She said tersely. "Kasumi's still in the house, Nabiki's still at college
studying finance – but you knew that already. I'm not sure about your folks because,
well, Dad wasn't happy after you just up and left that night, so…" she fidgeted and
trailed off, but he got the idea anyway.
"And you?"
"…I'm attending Keio. Probably going into sports management or something along the
line."
"Ah." He nodded, and took a deep breath. "Listen, Akane, about that day –" he began.
"It's not your fault." she cut in again just as fast as before. "You did the right thing.
Listen," she said, rising from her seat, "I've gotta run, Ranma. I was going to meet up
with a friend, and I'm late already." She picked up her backpack from the empty seat
next to her and hooked the straps over her shoulders. "Thanks for the coffee."
"Wait!" He grabbed her by the wrist and held her back. She looked back at him,
shoulder-length brown hair spilling as her head turned. He took time to note that she had
light makeup on her face, and stood a little taller than he remembered. The yellow and
green sweater under her coat was something he'd never seen her wear either. "You look
different," he said softly, searching to make contact with her eyes. He failed.
"…I've changed," Akane said with a smile that could be called uplifting only if she was
suffering from clinical depression. Then she did a quick inspection of him in return.
"You still look the same."
"I know." Rising as well, and still not releasing her wrist, Ranma swallowed hard, and
forced the words out of his mouth with a ferocity that surprised even himself. "Can I –"
he started, then switched the question and his tone. "Can we talk again?"
"I –" Akane started to shake her head, but took note of the hand still attached to her wrist.
She struggled for a moment, sighed, and at last gave the barest hint of a nod. "Not at the
dojo though," she stated firmly.
"Here?" He offered, and she nodded again after a bit. "Next… Saturday night?"
Another slight nod. "Eight-o'clock, then," he said swiftly. She did not refuse.
Ranma let go of her hand, and watched her almost flee out of the store. He found it
ironic that asking her out would be so much easier only after he had left her, and would
have laughed at himself if he didn't find the taste of irony insipid, just like the watered-
down ice tea still left mostly untouched in his glass.
.
.
6
December 13, 1997
6:18 PM
"I'm home," Ranma called out customarily as he stepped through the doorway. The light
was on in the living room, but there was no answer. He looked down, started to count,
and then realized that he really couldn't tell whether Setsuna was home yet by the
number of shoes on the floor.
He walked into the living room. Sure enough, there was Setsuna sitting primly on her
couch, hands on her knees, looking straight ahead at some fixed spot on her bedroom
door.
Ranma sat down on the left end of his sofa, and scooted forward. He waved a hand in
front of her face. "Hello?"
Setsuna blinked. "Oh, you're back," she said, not really paying him attention.
He snorted. "You noticed," he said. Then, after a pause, he added, more calmly, "I saw
Akane today."
It only took five seconds for Setsuna to respond this time. Brought out of her trance, she
turned to him, hesitating as she asked. "You mean… your old fiancée?" Seeing a tired
nod, she continued inquisitively. "What happened?"
"Nothing," he said, holding a hand to his forehead and running it up through his hair.
"We barely talked at all. It was as awkward as you can get." He sighed. "I don't know
what came over me in the end though, asking her to meet me like that… but, I guess,
we're going to see each other again next weekend."
Setsuna nodded. "Do you… miss her?" She asked slowly.
Are you kidding? That kawaikune tomboy… "I guess," he said honestly, after realizing
that there was no point to lie. "Yes."
Setsuna nodded again, a finger to her lips. This conversation was too much like déjà vu,
she decided, but went ahead with the question anyway. "Do you… love her?" She asked
again, even more carefully this time, as if she was trying to wade through a minefield
without a detector.
Ranma's whole body went rigid. "I –" he began, but fell silent again. He looked down at
the ground. "…Yes. No. I don't know anymore," he confessed. "I just locked up when
I saw her, and I don't even know what I'm going to say to her when I see her next week,"
he said agitatedly, but calmed when he felt a slender hand on his shoulder.
Fingers drumming on his collarbone, Setsuna closed her eyes for a moment. When she
opened them again, however, they showed a strange determination.
She withdrew her hand and waved it in front of his face, telling him to move over. He
obliged, and found Setsuna plopping herself down to the spot where he had just occupied.
Instinctively, Ranma tried to move away to put a more comfortable distance between
them, but Setsuna was having none of that, and grabbed him by both of his arms before
he could escape.
"Wh – what are you doing?" He asked, quite alarmed now. To his surprise, she smiled –
a first for the whole day, and it lit up the room. "Showing you what you need to do to
your fiancée, Saotome-san," she replied in a rich, sensuous voice that nearly made his
pigtail stand on its end.
"Watch carefully," she said, still holding him at arm's length. "Big sister Setsuna is only
going to demonstrate this one time. I'm going to pretend that I'm you, and that you're
Akane, okay?" She eyed him carefully, making sure that she had his undivided attention.
Ranma goggled at her instead. "Big… big sister Setsuna?"
"Just nod your head and say 'okay'," Setsuna commanded.
Ranma nodded. "Okay," he said.
Then, before he knew what happened, he found himself looking at her dark green tresses,
his chest pressed against her bosom as her arms circled around him, hugging him for all
she was worth. "Don't leave me," Setsuna whispered into his ear, clutching at him with
the desperation of someone drowning, and sent a flush all the way from his earlobes
down to his neck. Ranma gulped, and decided to focus his senses elsewhere… like the
strange fragrance in the crook of her neck and in her hair.
And, just as suddenly, Setsuna released him from the embrace, pushing him back to an
arm's length away. Ranma hoped that it was purely his imagination when her smile
widened as she saw his flaming-red face. "You got that?" She asked.
"Um, yeah, I, I got it, I think."
"Good," she said, sounding like a school teacher praising a student for being not
completely brain-dead. "Now, you practice it on me."
Ranma pointed a finger at himself, then drew a straight line across and pointed at her.
"I'm practicing on… you?"
"Yeah," Setsuna nodded matter-of-factly. "You just be yourself this time, and pretend
that I'm Akane. Let's go." She sat up and prepared herself.
To his shock, Ranma saw that she was really taking this whole thing seriously as he
looked into her red eyes. Finally, he mustered up his courage, and held his breath as if he
were going for a dive. "It's just pretend," he said self-assuredly. Then he moved.
"Don't leave me," he said, gathering her in his arms, holding her with the fervor he used
on a reversal-jewel controlled Shampoo, and with the reverence he had for the cask of
Nannichuan water lost to Happosai during the failed wedding. If Ranma had his eyes
open at the time, he would have seen a stunned Setsuna with her eyes fluttering open for
a moment before gently closing them again. He did, however, feel her going limp briefly
in his arms, before she snaked her arms out of the hug, circled them to his back and laid
her hands against his shoulder-blades.
She feels so incredibly soft, Ranma thought, then tried to drive the thought away
immediately. And she's really beautiful. Like a burst dam, other parts of his mind
started to add even more details to his opinion of Setsuna. And kind. When she's not
pissed off, that is.
Ranma knew he was losing the battle when he started to remember about the time he
accidentally saw more thigh than he needed way back when he first met her. Just as
undesirable was the memory of their second meeting, when his eyes lingered just a
moment too long on her shapely derriere, but that came back to him as well. And the
smell of her too; kami, it reminded him of –
"Um, Meiou-san?" Unable to stop himself, Ranma asked, his head still on her shoulder.
"Mmm?" She murmured lazily.
"Um, I dunno how to say this…" Ranma said hesitantly, dislodging himself until they
could see eye-to-eye… and this time he stopped completely, the words he was going to
say fell soundlessly past his lips.
Long, mesmerizing eyelashes framed twin orbs of red. He had seen them a long time
ago, he suddenly recalled, while he was still on the road with Pops. Deep in the heart of
China, surrounded by a set of precipitous ridges, a lake at night: against the satin sky, a
pale moon gleamed back at its double in the middle of the pool; except that there were
red petals in the water, under a sheet of gossamer mist, and the petals, somehow,
converged into the center and stained the fake moon a mysterious crimson, making it
outdo the splendor of the original by far. He had stood near the banks for hours that night
thinking that he'd never see something like that again for the rest his life.
He was wrong.
This time, in her eyes, he had to contend with two of those moons. The mist parted for
him, and suddenly, it was just the red moons and he, peering at one another with naked
honesty, the slight ripples in the limpid ponds inviting him to come just a tiny bit closer.
He could see himself in those crimson moons, he discovered in wonder. He wanted to
come closer, to see even better, to reach into those moons and –
Not used to such close scrutiny, Setsuna turned her gaze away reflexively and broke the
spell. "S- Saotome-san," she stammered, a small blush creeping into her cheeks, "What
were you going to say?"
Ranma blinked. "Um, heh, right…" he responded just as eloquently. Then, taking a
quick sniff of the air, he remembered. "Oh, that's right, I was wondering…" he peered at
her once more, but tried to stay clear of meeting those red eyes again. "Meiou-san," he
started, his pigtail itching to be scratched again like a bad habit, "I know you hate
cockroaches and all, but…"
"But…?" Setsuna echoed, not understanding where he was going at all.
"But," he continued, taking another whiff of her, and looking more embarrassed for her
than for himself, "even so, do you have to sprinkle insecticide all over yourself?"
Whatever romantic mood Setsuna had been in leapt from the top of a skyscraper and
plunged toward the ground and a gory death.
.
.
7
December 15, 1997
9:14 AM
"…so he thought the 'Desire' you were wearing was bug-spray? Wahahahaha!"
Momoko burst into laughter, holding her stomach with a hand and nearly falling off her
chair. "How the hell could anyone be so dense?" Then, seeing the poker face Setsuna
had carefully set up to conceal the look of annoyance in her eyes, she sat up again,
managing to tone down her voice. "But, you're right though, Senpai. I guess people like
Saotome-san really are disconnected from the rest of the society, just like you said, if he
couldn't tell perfume from pesticide."
"Tell me about it," the green-haired woman muttered, looking away, her chin propped up
by an arm planted on her desk. "But, he was a nice guy though, Momoko-chan," Setsuna
amended grudgingly. "He got me out of my mood when I read that postcard."
The brown-haired girl pushed a stray lock back from her forehead and paused. Then,
gauging her friend's expression carefully, she wet her lips. "Say, Senpai…"
"Hmm?"
"Have you, like, actually thought about getting together with Saotome-san?"
Setsuna whipped her head back so fast that it nearly hurt. "What are you talking about?"
She asked, stunned.
"I mean, you just defended him, and he really sounds like a pretty nice guy… and kind of
clueless too, and wasn't that what you liked about Yamaguchi-san anyway?"
Setsuna's lips parted, then she quickly swallowed what she was going to say. She tilted
her head to one side, contemplating. "You must be kidding me," she said finally, looking
at the younger girl with an askew glance. "I'm not falling for Mr. Raid."
.
.
8
December 15, 1997
7:29 PM
"I'm home!" Ranma called out customarily as he stepped through the doorway. This
time, Setsuna responded as usual. "Oh, welcome back," she said from her habitual spot
on her sofa. He took off his shoes and headed towards her.
"Want one?" She said, wearing a familiar red silk blouse under a white jacket and a pair
of tight jeans, holding up a bottle in one hand. Ranma took a look at it and shook his
head.
"I don't drink, Meiou-san," he said. "What's the occasion anyway? This looks
expensive."
"It is," she said, waving a hand. "But I've got more where that came from." She pointed
to the ten crates by the bathroom that Ranma had almost forgotten had stuff in them, as
they had been left there untouched ever since she moved in. "Those were all vintage
champagne and Bordeaux bottles that my relatives brought for me to celebrate the
wedding. Now that Takuya's remarried, I'll just finish all of these without him." She
looked down to the ground for a second, as if examining her legs. Then she turned to him
instantly, wearing a sweet smile on her face. "Saotome-san, are you sure you're not
going to have some?" She asked even as she downed another glass. He declined.
Setsuna pouted slightly, a hint of red showing on her cheeks. "Ooh, you're no fun. But,
here," she said, grabbing another bottle from behind her back, "at least open this for me,
please?" Unable to refuse a simple request like that, Ranma took the bottle from her
hand and uncorked it, when a jet of bubbling champagne caught him square in the face.
"Got you! Ahahahaha–" Setsuna laughed, falling back into the couch as she kicked her
legs up and threw her head back against the cushion. Her laughter, however, was short-
lived when she saw a wet Ranma-chan stare back at her in a dumbfounded manner. "I…
I can explain this, Meiou-san," she said, holding her palms out in front of her in a
placating gesture, "really, I can."
Setsuna, however, was not open to explanations. She kicked her couch back and dived to
the side until her back was to the piano. "Y-youma!" She accused. Then, before
Ranma-chan's eyes, the green-haired woman stood up triumphantly and shouted.
"Pluto Planet Power, Make-Up!" A flurry of poses ensued for nearly half a minute as
Ranma-chan watched on agog. When it all ended, however, Setsuna paused in a stance
that she always secretly thought was a bit grandstanding, before exploding into action.
She was about to start her attack when she saw the redhead holding her stomach and
rolling on the floor laughing. She halted.
Strange, she wasn't supposed to do that, Setsuna thought, looking down at herself to see
what could possibly garner such mirth from the daemon girl. She froze instantly as she
figured out what went wrong.
Slowly, an inch at a time, she turned her head to the side and looked up at her hand. Oh,
that's why, a little part of her mind voiced out.
Setsuna dropped the champagne bottle in her hand that she'd been waving around like a
henshin pen. "Oops," she said sheepishly at the redhead, and started to scratch the back
of her head with a hand.
.
.
9
December 15, 1997
10:49 PM
"…so, you turn into a girl with, um, cold water?" Setsuna asked slowly in a raised voice,
her back slumped partially against his as she sat on the couch at an outward angle. "And
you've fought a… dragon and, hmm, a demigod? And traveled through time with a – uh,
mirror?" She could feel him lethargically tilt his head in a slow, exaggerated nod.
"Ain't no demigod," said Ranma, stopping for a hiccup. "'Scuse me. Anyway, he's just
a stupid overgrown bird. Cologne – remember the old ghoul I told you?" He rambled
on, lolling his head a little, "See, she – she said that the Amazons used to, uh, set up
ambushes during winter, after they found out that a lot of them phoenix liked to migrate
south with the ducks when the mountaintop got cold."
Setsuna barked a laugh.
"…and anyway, you said you, like, um, used to be one of them re-reincarnated magical
girls?" Ranma countered. She nodded back. "On a s-sentai team that, eh, battled evil
from, like, beyond the universe?" he asked sluggishly, trying to keep his head up so it
wouldn't fall onto her shoulder. Another nod. "In mini-skirts and training bras?" The
last was conveyed with a raised eyebrow that took some effort to maintain in place.
"The bras were only for Hotaru-chan and Small Lady," Setsuna clarified in a surprisingly
lucid tone, taking the time to pronounce the words clearly. "We had to buy one for, um,
Hotaru-chan, and Small Lady was using hand-me-downs from her mom."
The two fell silent again, and turned to face each other after a moment. They laughed as
one.
It was probably best left unmentioned that around them there were already more than
three crates worth of empty wine bottles at this point.
Setsuna was the first to recover from their drunken laughter. "So that's why you
sometimes come home all drenched," she said, eyeing him with an enlightened look on
her face, her mind skipping back several parts of the conversation. He nodded. And just
as suddenly, something came to Ranma.
"Say, S…Setsuna-san?" He asked through another hiccup.
Setsuna turned even redder, even though she knew he probably wasn't aware of the
familiar tone he'd taken with her. "Y…yes?" She asked, her heart thudding wildly
against her chest, sending the warmth she felt from the alcohol down to her limbs in
waves and making them feel like putty.
"I just remembered something. Just… just a second," he said as he rose and staggered
away into his bedroom, knocking over several empty bottles on the ground as he did so.
A few minutes later, he drifted out from the room with a worn-out looking backpack in
one hand, and fell into the sofa unceremoniously. He untied the strings on the top and
upended the bag, shaking all the contents out.
"W-What are you doing?" Setsuna asked, intrigued. Ranma didn't reply, choosing to
focus on his search as his hands deftly went through the pile of belongings on the
cushion, temporarily fighting off the effects of the wine. Finally, he found what he was
looking for. "S…Say, Setsuna-san, you were like, the Senshi of Time, or something like
that, right?" He asked again.
She nodded.
"And, like, you could, you know, control time?"
Another nod. Ranma took on an excited expression at that, looking at her hopefully.
Blushing furiously under the close scrutiny, Setsuna turned away and stammered
uncharacteristically again. "W…What?"
"Can you fix my watch?" Totally forgetting that just a short while earlier, Setsuna had,
hemming and hawing, just informed him that she had lost all her powers, Ranma asked,
depositing a cheap, digital wristwatch into her hands. She turned the thing face-up
reflexively, and saw the numbers reading "21:35" – almost an hour ago, she thought as
she verified the time with her own watch. Just as suddenly, she realized the absurdity of
his request, and Setsuna looked at him with a poleaxed expression. Her jaw fell open,
and she stared at Ranma just as she had done when she witnessed, for the first time, a
Brumdah beast on the deserts of Io back in the Silver Millennium, kill itself by actually
forgetting how to breathe. Then her temper ignited through the haze of alcohol and drove
her into sobriety in almost an instant.
"You –" she started, waving a shaking hand at him, watch included, "you –" she huffed,
groping for words to describe his stupidity, and failed. She settled for glaring at him, but
then discovered that his expectant and trusting look was absolutely driving her up the
wall. Setsuna debated whether it would be more satisfying to laugh at him, or just
throttle him to death. Choking won.
She closed in on him, and was about to clamp her fingers around his neck and squeeze
painfully when her movement sent a gleaming object falling out of the pile of clothes and
onto the floor. Surprised, she put her anger on hold and picked the thing up, and her eyes
widened in shock as she thought she felt tiny, invisible sparks of time magic dancing on
her fingertips when they touched the object. "Say, is this…"
Ranma stared at it with an equally stunned expression. "…a piece of the Nanban
mirror?" He nodded, mouth going dry all of a sudden. How in the world did a piece of
Nanban get into his stuff, and he didn't even know about it until now?
"This… this is the one where you shed a tear, and you can wish on it to go back in time?"
Setsuna pressed on, growing more and more exhilarated by the second.
Ranma confirmed absently with another nod. Then, realizing that Setsuna was clutching
the large shard of Nanban in her hands and dropping a tear onto its surface, he queried
weakly as a sense of dread filled him. "Um, Meiou-san, what are you doing?"
Setsuna thought for a second before she replied. "I'm fixing your damned watch, that's
what." Then, before he could realize what she meant, Setsuna danced away from him,
holding the piece of mirror high in the air as she made several pirouettes. "Mirror,
mirror, on the wall," she stated grandly, "I wish you'd take me back to the time when I
was still Sailor Pluto!"
Ranma gaped. Then, without knowing exactly why, he lunged for her. "Wait, Setsuna!"
Light burst forth from the fragment of the Nanban, inundating the room and nearly
blinding him. "No!" He yelled, turning his head to the side and holding his hands in
front of his face as it engulfed him like a tidal wave.
And then there was only white.
.
.
(END CHAPTER)
Special Thanks to: Figment, as usual, for pre-read proceedings and excellent advice, as
well as Thermopyle for suggestions on how to further torment Setsuna.