I'm back. I don't own Ranma ½. My cat had a chipmunk, but then she found out they were crunchy.
"Well? I'm waiting..." Akane was starting to get slightly impatient. Ranma's been stalling for ten minutes and counting.
"Did you know Riboflavin is one of the B Vitamins? Why do they number the same letter of vitamin? Instead of calling it vitamin B12, why not call it vitamin 12 or something? I'm running out or ideas. Oh well, all good things must come to an end. I didn't know I knew this much stuff! School must be doing something! Oh no! What if I run out of room in my brain from learning too much in school?! Will I start to forget martial arts techniques? Wait, that's not possible, the old fossil knows a lot and knows a ton of martial arts secrets and she doesn't act full. If I make Akane wait any longer, she'll get angry at me and I don't like it when she's angry. I get hurt when she's angry." Ranma was starting to panic. Again.
"I'll make you a deal. If you tell me, I promise I won't get angry or hit you. Consider it a freebie."
"Well, ok, but just don't take it the wrong way." He sighs and continues, "There are certain...things...in the book that if done wrong could reeeeeeeeeeally hurt, but if done right apparently feel reeeeeeeeeeeeeally, um, good. Since I figured we're going to be doing...things...in order to produce an heir, we might as well, you know, have fun. I thought since I have absolutely no experience in the field of...that...my first partner might have to be more tolerant and patient with me. Wow, Akane's really cute when she's embarrassed! Her cheeks are really red! Maybe if I keep up this line of talk I can turn her purple! No, wait, purple means she's suffocating and I don't want that. Maybe I could tell her of the dream I had the other night? No, that would just get me murdered for being a pervert. It's one thing to have a dream of your wedding night, but it's a totally different thing to get ideas from it! We did things that weren't in any of the Anything Goes Marital Arts manuals! I got her! Her entire head is blushing! This is fun, and I don't care if she smacks me. Since I don't want to physically hurt her or embarrass her in public, I'll have to settle for this. It was weird though, we didn't do any stretches before hand and I've never seen anyone contort themselves like we did! Uh oh...battle aura blazing...back off ...this may hurt for a while, but it was worth it." Ranma ducked onto his knees and covered his head with his hands.
'I promised not to get angry or hit. I promised not to get angry or hit. I promised...wait' Her inner chant was interrupted with a rather embarrassing realization. "Ranma, you mean to tell me you've been...dreaming about me...us...doing that! What put that idea in your hormonal little brain?" Her battle aura vanished due to the shock.
"Well, after seeing Ukyo and Ryoga together, I knew the fiancée wars were over. You were the official winner in my mind, so for the first time I got to thinking about how the future would play out. I started thinking about the wedding as I was heading to bed, and I guess I just didn't stop thinking. I am kinda disappointed, though. I had a whole speech prepared asking if ya' would marry me and everything and wanted it to be a surprise, but too late now. Well, since you already know what I was gonna ask, can I have an answer soon? If you want time to think, I could always do something that requires my complete and total concentration to give you some silence or at least you'd know I wasn't paying attention to you thinking. Did that make any sense to you?"
"Could I hear that speech anyway? It might help me make my decision a little faster." Akane was blushing, again, and was playing with her fingers.
"I don't know why. I mean, you already know what it's about and stuff. Can't we just skip that and save me a lot more embarrassment? What difference would it make?"
Akane's blush disappeared as she clenched her teeth and closed her fists. "Well Ranma, a girl just needs to hear certain things!" She had her fake smile on, showing her clenched teeth. Ranma knew that look meant pain in the near future. He frantically searched his clothes.
"Since you put it that way, here it is!" He pulled out a large sheet of very crumbled paper. "Ahem. Akane. We both know I'm no good at this kind of thing but I'm trying my best. I know we fight a lot and I call you uncute and tomboy and poke fun of your fighting skills. I know the past few years have been difficult for you with me and my father barging in unexpectedly and you having to deal with an engagement neither one of us wanted. I know I make you angry when I refuse to eat your food. I know when we first met we hated each other. But slowly that changed. It started when I was under the influence of the Nekoken in the schoolyard. From what I understand, I kissed you. When I'm a cat, my feelings towards individuals is shown. That's why I clawed Kuno and my old man. When I heard I kissed you, I was scared. I didn't know if you cried because you were embarrassed or if I was really a bad kisser. That was the very first time I initiated any kind of kiss. Sure, Shampoo tried to suck the air out of my lungs through my lips and for some reason I'm having faint flashbacks of some blue-eyed freak, but I wanted no part of either of them. During the Romeo and Juliet performance at school, I was so hesitant to kiss you because I was afraid if we started, I wouldn't want to stop. When Ukyo came back into my life, I could tell you were a little jealous of how close me and her were. All I considered her to be was my best friend. Nothing more. I mean she's tried kissing me a few times, but I really didn't want that. I'd feel like I was cheating on you although we would admit there was nothing going on between us. Well, I'm tired of denying it. I know if I say it, our fathers will manage to mess things up worse than they already have. Nabiki will have us in debt forever and word will spread around school. The Kunos and Amazons will get more aggressive in their attempts to break us up. I don't care anymore. They are nothing that can't be dealt with later. What I'm trying to say is I love you. I'm not sure when exactly I realized it, but I think it was while the Oorochi kidnapped you. I knew if he wanted to hurt you while he had you, I couldn't do a thing about it. It nearly drove me insane till I saw you were pretty much ok. I never want to leave you and let that happen again. There's only one way that can happen. I know technically we're engaged already and it seems like we've accepted that. However it still feels forced and the last thing I want to do is force you into something you have no desire to do. I'm already the cause of too much stress for you and your family. But, I like it here and want to keep calling this place Home. I know we may not get along all the time. I'll still call you uncute and tomboy, but when I say those things I really don't mean it. It's just to get you riled up. I think you're very cute, especially when you smile. Anyway, I'm done stalling. Here I go. Akane, will you marry me?" Ranma put the paper away and looked at Akane.
Her eyes were flooded in tears as she gave her response.
Well, that was the first piece of mush I have ever written. I tried to make it as in character as possible. It was harder than I thought it would be. Remember he wrote this the day before this all happened. I'm off to bed now. R&R!
Author notes added after posting this chap since I'm not allowed to devote a chapter to them: Coming up I will be having some medical proceedures done. I also have some other things to deal with and I won't be able to write a satisfactory conclusion for a few weeks with these distractions. I promise we'll see P-chan again, although I can't promise he'll be rescued. I like him with Azusa. Ranma will get even with Akane. It won't be a purely violent revenge, although Akane will just wish for Ranma to burn the rest of her wardrobe. Sorry if Ranma didn't seem angry enough, but like I've said before, this is fan fiction. OOCness is inevitable, although I tried to keep it down to a minimum. Eventually I plan to rewrite the whole story. I know I said I planned to post a re-edited chapter 7 (I think it was 7), but I kept finding little things that bothered me in other chapters. There won't be any major plot changes, although I will have more questions asked, which makes for a longer story and hopefully more babbling by Ranma. It's pretty easy to write the rambling parts. When I was a Sophomore at my community college, I used to sit infront of the screen and write my thoughts as they came. I had well over 60 pages single spaced before my floppy died. Anyway, thanks for reading! The final chapter should be up sometime late this month.