"Of Loose Gi's and Lost Focuses'
Chapter 2
Akane just ran out of the dojo blushing furiously, almost fuming rage and embarrassment. How could he? She had always known he was a pervert but this...
She rushed through the house, luckily not coming across anyone, reached her room and slammed the door shut. She sit on her bed while still repeating to herself "How could he?!" and mumbling "baka" every now and then.
After a few minutes she heard a knock on the door, and immediately after, a voice saying: "Akane, can I come in?"
"Go away!" She wasn't ready to face him yet.
"Please, Akane, I need to talk to you."
"No! You pervert! Just leave me alone!" she yelled obstinately. She had to think this through first. But he wouldn't let her.
"I'm not a pervert!" Ranma protested as he slowly opened the door, as if he was testing if any immediate danger was hiding behind it. She hadn't locked it, he thought.
Good omen.
"I said go away!" Akane yelled, but she didn't raise from her bed and didn't sound too convinced either. She was kind of curious actually. What was it that he wanted to say, and why was it so important that he would risk being malleted for it?
"No. I want to talk to you."
"Well, then, what do you want to say?" she asked defiantly.
Ranma looked at the floor.
"I..." he staggered at a loss.
"Well?" she prompted, impatiently, after he remained silent for a moment.
"I wanted to apologize to you for... what happened... earlier," he finally managed to say, blushing.
"I don't know how it happened..." he went on, slowly. "I mean... I know... it's just that... I felt... and you...you were... so... and besides there wasn't much I could do about it... I mean... one can't control it... it just happened... I didn't even really noticed until you..."
Akane went from fuming to confused to completely lost. Her mind unlocked completely for the first time since the accident and things finally started to fall into places. But she kept quiet.
Ranma, surprised at not having been clobbered yet, noticed the change in Akane's attitude, though he didn't quite understand what she was feeling. So he went on, trying to be absolutely clear. Well, at least as clear as he could get.
"So... I want to say... I'm sorry... though I'm NOT a pervert. I mean, I didn't even touch you, you were the one who fell onto me. And wearing that gi so loose... look at yourself..."
Akane looked down and blushed noticing that her top was indeed quite loose, too loose actually. She hastily rearranged it, while Ranma continued.
"... and I told you I don't fight girls but you wouldn't stop and... I don't want you to get hurt, do you understand that?... that's why I don't fight you for real... but today... I kind of lost focus... and you hit me... and we fell..."
"Ranma", Akane interrupted. He wasn't looking at her any more. It made him to nervous if he looked at her while he spoke.
"What?"
He turned to look at her eyes. Those beautiful eyes.
She was not mad any more, he could tell by her softened expression.
Akane, on her part, didn't really know what to say.
"I... you're not a pervert, you're right. I'm sorry for saying that. I... it's ok, I'm not... I was shocked... more than anything else. I get angry when I'm shocked. You know that," she smiled sheepishly. He smiled, too, just a little nervous grin.
She spoke shyly and almost in a whisper. She had been only half listening to his stammering, but something got through her: he noticed her loose gi. He got excited.
Lost focus, as he put it. Over her? Or was it just a hentai thing? She needed to know.
"Ranma, did you... did you become... uhmmm... like that ... because of me? Or you just...?" She couldn't finish. Her embarrassment was just too intense.
Ranma, too relieved seeing that she wasn't angry any more, didn't really understand the question. He blushed furiously too, though.
For once in his life, he didn't put his foot straight in his mouth, he did the right thing: he thought about what he was going to say. And seeing that he didn't have a clue as to what she wanted to know, he just asked.
"What do you mean, over you?"
And Akane, becoming even redder, if possible, and looking extremely vulnerable, tried to explain better, as well as she could.
"I mean.. do you... does it happen often to you...with the girls...?"
He stared at the floor. Then he looked up again, a strange light in his eyes. He did understand now, and he wanted so much to make her understand too.
"No. Never. I mean, I hate it when they hang all over me. It's just so..." He sighed.
"So you ... uhmmm... got excited... over me?" Akane asked tentatively.
"Yeah... I mean... not that I like you or something..." he blurted in his usual self-defence mode, but seeing her eyes go from happy at his "yeah" to sad and angry at the rest, he realized what he had said and added hastily, "I mean, you know I do care about you, why would I save you all these times otherwise, anyway? It's just..." Oh, god! Did he just confess that he cared about her? He went silent and pale, waiting for her reaction.
'Oh, god!' Akane thought. 'Did he just confess that he cares about me?'
She couldn't believe she had got that right.
"You do?" she asked staring in his blue-black eyes.
He tried to look away but couldn't. He sighed.
"Yeah, I do. I'd die for you, you know that," he said quietly.
She smiled one of those smiles. His knees trembled. But he had something else to say.
"I just don't know... you... how... and then you know my father... and the other girls would kill you... and I couldn't get you hurt... I couldn't live... "
He scratched the back of his head frustrated, not finding a way to tell her, to make her understand. She was standing there, smiling happily, blushing slightly, way beyond cute to his eyes. He was loosing focus again. But he tried to go on anyway.
"I like sparring with you, a lot. But I don't want to hurt you. And I like it when your gi gets loose... Damn it, maybe I am a pervert after all... I still remember the time you first met me as a boy..."
Akane blushed, remembering. But this time she didn't get angry. How odd, he thought.
"The fact is... I l-l-like you ... a lot. Even when you are uncute, when you clobber me or when you cook for me... I still like you a lot," Hey, the second time it was much easier to say: like you. He smiled. She smiled too. But she still didn't speak. Did that mean she didn't like him? She didn't feel the same way? He got scared at the thought. He had exposed himself so much this time, she could destroy him with one word. He retreated a bit towards the door.
She noticed his movement and the change of expression on his face. She snapped out of her blessed state and looked at him questioningly.
"What? What's wrong?"
"You... haven't said a word yet. You don't l-l-l...?"
Hard to say again. He couldn't pronounce the word again. It hurt too much.
But she understood it anyway. She rushed toward him, arms stretched, held him so tightly that she'd put to shame the best Shampoo's hug ever, and pressed her face to his chest.
"I love you," she said quietly, to his shirt.
