Disclaimer: I don't own these characters. Well, I own the old man, but only because he is such an uninteresting character no one else wanted him.
Chapter 6
Trees, bushes, and distant buildings flew by, outside the window of the train. Akane leaned against the window, watching her reflection pass over all the green landscape. Their fathers had arranged for them to go to a hotel on a beach, which Akane wasn't precisely grateful for. After all, it was the middle of April, the water would be cold and it was so close to the end of the year. . . She shuddered to think about the homework she was going to have to make up. What had prompted their fathers to send them to a beach, anyway? What was so romantic about a beach that was too cold to enjoy?
As for Ranma, he was staring blankly at a manga. He wasn't all too sure which manga it was, as he wasn't reading it. Occasionally he'd turn a page, just to keep up appearances. He was running out of pages. When he did, he wasn't sure what he'd do. If he started staring out the window like Akane, she might want to talk about the scenery. He really, really was not up for a conversation. Just what had that dumb panda been thinking? Didn't he know what the kids at school were going to say about this little honeymoon? And what would their fathers say later, when he and Akane announced they weren't actually married, that it had all been a hoax to get them off their backs. . . what would they say then? He could just imagine the rock they'd tie him to before throwing him in the ocean. At least now that the old ghoul had reversed his curse, he'd get to be drowned as a guy.
His mother's parting words echoed in his mind. She'd made it quite clear that everyone in the house thought he was some kind of eunuch or something, which he WASN'T, damnit, and that if they didn't start to hear some wall-pounding soon she was going to start agreeing with them. As much as it hurt his pride for people to think he was some sort of coward, he would survive. He wasn't really sure he would survive his mother thinking he wasn't enough of a man. In fact, he was almost sure he wouldn't.
He thought back to the original reasoning for this plan. Everyone was supposed to leave him alone. Everyone was supposed to be giving him room to make his own damn choices. And the more he tried to get free of them all, the more he was trapped. Under normal circumstances, he might have liked the chance for a week with just Akane. No meddling fiancés, no meddling fathers, no dirty old freaks. . . but now that he knew what awaited him at home, he couldn't enjoy it. Couldn't. When they got back, everyone would assume he and Akane had. . . well, on the other hand, if they thought the deed was done they might not make him and Akane sit through any more "lessons."
He stole a glance at his so-called wife. She looked like a cute little city girl, with her long skirt and white straw hat. The hat was resting on her lap, under her folded hands that had those ridiculous little white gloves on them. He looked at her left hand speculatively. If they were supposed to be married, shouldn't they have rings? He had a sneaking suspicion Nabiki had made Akane wear the gloves to hide her bare hand. After all, what would the hotel owners think about an unmarried couple of kids staying together for a week? During school, no less.
"What are you staring at?" Akane asked. Ranma blushed and looked away. She was about to call him a pervert again, he could just hear it coming.
"Your hands, neither of us have rings," he explained, deciding the truth was better than any lie he could think of.
"Well, of course we don't. We aren't actually married," Akane reminded him. He frowned at her. She was being uncharacteristically calm. Too calm. Something was up, and that never seemed to bode well for him.
"Yeah, but we are pretending to be," he replied, sighing. "I don't want people to think we're doing something wrong, people like the folks at the hotel."
"At the risk of sounding like Nabiki, we don't have money for rings. Stop worrying so much, this is going to be rough enough," Akane scolded. Ranma sighed and leaned back, tucking his hands behind his head. Yep, she was definitely up to something. He glanced over at her, careful to only turn his eyes, not his head. She was looking out the window again. Honestly.
He stared at her out of the corner of his eye for a while. She was acting too nice. Way, way too nice. What could she be plotting? As the miles flew by, he got more and more nervous. At last, he couldn't take it any more. He had to find out what she was plotting. She hadn't said a cross word to him since they'd left the house, not even when Kodachi had shown up for one last, desperate try. Either someone had drugged her, or she was plotting his demise. He suspected the former, but the latter was nowhere near an impossibility. He decided he'd have to test her, see if there was ANYTHING that would get her mad. He braced himself to fly through the roof, and stood up.
"Akane," he said, as if issuing a challenge. She looked up at him, a small smile on her face. He knelt in front of her, taking the hat off her lap. He leaned towards her, meeting her amused gaze. That wasn't right. Akane was often confused or infuriated by him, but hardly ever amused. She knew something he didn't.
He looked at her, leaning closer, his eyes on those brown eyes and the curving pink lips below them. Close, now. Now was when people always interrupted. Now was when something always went wrong. And he suspected that if he actually tried this, he'd get the reaction he'd always come to expect from Akane. After all, the other two times she'd been dazed, from his so-called admission of love and from the truth about Ryouga. She wasn't dazed this time. He paused, his face so close to Akane's that he could feel her breath on his face. From here, her eyes faded in and out, sometimes she was a cyclops and sometimes she looked normal, everything in between a blur that dizzied him. He was about to pull away, chicken out, when the most astonishing thing happened.
Akane sighed, her warm, moist breath hitting his lips as she closed the distance between them. Her lips brushed his, the very first touch, the lightest touch, and it sent a jolt of shock through him. Warm and soft, she was suddenly in his arms, her own gloved hands on his shoulders. He pulled her closer, his lips crushing hers until they opened to him.
He felt the shock of her mouth under his, not a shock of surprise this time but something else. . . it went all the way down to. . .
With a gasp, Ranma tore himself away from Akane. They stared at each other, speechless, for what seemed an eternity. ::What was that all about? I felt like I was made of fire! What WAS that anyway, chi kissing or something?:: Ranma thought. At long last, Akane smiled at him. The smile sent a shock through him almost as violent as that last one. She'd started that. Akane had. . . had kissed him. His head was spinning. He wasn't entirely sure he could process that information.
And she was DEFINITELY plotting something!
He realized that they were still only a few inches apart, and he jumped backwards. In the process, he hit his head on the edge of a seat across from Akane, and he swore, loudly. He opened his eyes to the sound of her laughter. He scowled at her.
"What was that?" he asked, for lack of something better to say. Akane just laughed harder at him. He felt like his pride, which had been inflated by the kiss, was being cut to pieces.
"Well, if we're pretending to be married we ought to at least be able to kiss!" Akane laughed, picking up her hat and twirling it in her hand. She fixed him with a triumphant smile. He blinked at her. Was she. . . had she won something? Sometimes he wished women would just start speaking Japanese!
"Akane, just what are you so smug about?" he asked, finally giving in and just ASKING. She plopped the hat down on her head and smiled at him, a sweet little smile that reminded him of just how her lips had felt on his. He blushed.
"Well, after a kiss like that, I'm sort of insulted that you aren't!" she replied. He blushed even deeper, and she laughed at him. "Hey, what sort of food do you think they'll have at this hotel? I think it's in a real small town, they might not have any good places to eat!" she said rapidly. Ranma blinked at her, and his blush faded. Food. He could handle food.
Akane wasn't really listening to him stutter some inane reply, her mind was too full of the glow of victory. Nodoka had been right! The older woman's parting words echoed in her head.
You can't compete with my son in martial arts or domestic arts, so stop trying to win that way. I know, I know, you don't think you have anything to prove but from eh way you act something in you disagrees. The only way for you to defeat my son is for you to take up your role as a woman and a wife, confuse him with kindness and persuade him with passion.
And she had thought it wouldn't work! But there he was, the cool little martial artist, stumbling over his words and unable to make the blush fade completely. He was outwitted, outmanned, outkissed. She had won her very first battle ever with Ranma Saotome.
And the beauty of it was he was completely ignorant. As usual.
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"They didn't send us here, surely!" Akane gasped, looking at the old hotel they were standing in front of. It was built in the western style, with an old wooden porch out front covered in swings and rocking chairs. She thought the place might have been nice and unique- thirty years ago. What was more, they were in a section of the beach that wasn't beach at all. All there was between them and the ocean was a bunch of rocks, covered in ocean spray.
The hotel itself had once been painted blue. Akane wasn't sure precisely when it had been painted blue, but she was fairly sure that was the original intent. The hotel was only two stories tall, and most of the windows were dark. She doubted very much if they were even open.
"Well, howdy!" a voice range out to her left. She turned to see an old man walking towards them, dressed in old jeans and a flannel shirt. She suddenly felt very out of place, with her white gloves and pretty hat. She heard a grunt as Ranma shifted some of the bags behind her. There were only four, a good martial artist like him should not even be breaking a sweat for four bags. Regardless of size.
"Hello there. Are you the proprietor of this place?" Akane asked politely. Ranma groaned again behind her, but she did her best to ignore him. The old man nodded, and his face broke out into a smile that creased his entire head.
"You two must be the newlyweds! Come on in, your room is all ready. Can't say as I was fixin' to open the place so early in the season, but there was a very persuasive woman talking to me," he chuckled at the memory. Akane remembered Nabiki's rage at the expense of a honeymoon, and she wasn't surprised that Nabiki had somehow persuaded this man to open his hotel early. Anything to save some yen. She was just surprised Nabiki had ever heard of the place. Akane and Ranma followed the old man to their room, smiled and nodded at his behest that they ask him for anything they needed, and watched the door shut.
"Just what in hell is in all these bags!?" Ranma hissed, once the door was safely closed. "Only one of them is mine!"
"Don't be ridiculous, only one of them is mine! The other three have to be yours!" Akane hissed back. They stared at each other for just a moment, then each grabbed one of the extra bags and opened it.
"Dear Akane, thought you might get bored," Ranma read aloud, handing the note at the top of the bag to Akane. She read it, then tossed it behind her, nonchalant. Ranma, however, was going to have a long time before he could be nonchalant ever again.
The bag was full of whips, handcuffs, even a few bodices. And just what was that big purple stick for? He could see a lot of little strange devices he could not devise a use for. He turned to Akane, blushing for all he was worth. She leaned over and read the letters taped to the inside of the upper flap of the bag.
"Do not break, most is borrowed?" she read aloud. She looked with apprehension at the huge purple stick. Just what was borrowed?
"Akane, what was in your bag?" Ranma asked, his voice annoyed and curious. Akane picked up the flap of her bag. It was the smallest bag they'd brought. On the inside of the top flap was another note.
"Wedding gifts to keep," Ranma read aloud, somewhat stunned. The bag was full of tiny bottles, condoms. . . he felt anger rising in him until he saw the boxes. After all, two bags of sex accessories are not good wedding gifts! But also inside the bag were two ornate boxes, one the size of a garlic clove and the other the size of a softball. Akane picked up the larger box first, and Ranma leaned over her shoulder to see what was in the box.
"Oh, hell," Akane muttered, pulling a tiny ceramic turtle out of the box. Tears began to well in her eyes. Ranma looked down into the box, and all he saw was a half-empty container full of old broken toys and little slips of paper.
"What's that?" he asked. Akane wiped her eyes and put the turtle back in the box. She closed it, and set it aside.
"My mother kept little memory boxes for all of us when we were babies. She put all the toys we outgrew in there, and all her wishes for us. Mine is the most empty, because she had less time to fill it," Akane replied, quietly. "I'd rather look at that alone."
"If you want," Ranma said lightly, frowning furiously into the box. What was a dead mother's memory box doing in a bag full of sex stuff? He was going to have to get Nabiki for this when they got back.
He picked up and opened the smaller box with a sigh, expecting something equally sacrilegious. Instead, there were two simple, plain, sliver rings. He stared at them.
"Hey Akane, take a look," he said, shoving the box under her nose. She gasped, taking the box from him.
"Rings!" she said. Inside the box were two plain, simple silver rings. She picked up the smallest one, and held it up to the light. "Silver for purity," she said softly. Ranma snorted.
"More like silver for cheapskates," he said, taking the small ring from her. He took her left hand, and slid the glove off it. Akane looked down, suddenly shy, as he slid the smaller ring onto her left ring finger. "With this ring, I thee wed," he smiled, jokingly. They stared at each other in silence for a long moment, then shared an uncomfortable laugh.
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Akane opened the cracked wooden door that led from the bathroom to her room. Well, not her room, more like their room. Ranma was already lying on the only bed, spread out on his back. His eyes were closed. Akane stood in the doorway for a moment, her hair wet from the shower she'd just taken, unsure of what to do. No matter if they were supposed to be married, no matter if she could feel the ring heavy on her finger, they weren't REALLY married and a large part of her was really uncomfortable with this.
Besides, if he already had the bed, where was she going to sleep? Fair was fair, and she supposed she had a few nights on the floor coming for all those nights he'd spent on hers, but. . . oh, well. She'd survive a night away from nice, warm, soft beds. If Ranma could do it, she certainly could.
She wasn't tired yet, and she wasn't really sure how he could be. All they'd done was eat and look out the window at the ocean. She could still hear it, beating the black rocks below their window. Their window. Their room. Hell.
She picked up the clothes she'd worn into the bathroom, hanging them up in the small closet. She stood there, fiddling with the buttons on her pajamas, unsure of what to do. Then she remembered the memory box. She picked it up out of the bag it was still sitting in, tucked away in a corner of the room. She sat down on the floor, and opened it slowly.
Hesitantly, she picked up the small ceramic turtle again. She remembered this toy, at least. When she was very small, she used to talk to it, carrying it around with her everywhere in her tiny, pudgy fingers. It was tied so closely to a memory of her mother's face, one of the few clear memories, she had. That was the day Nabiki had broken all the eggs in the refrigerator, because someone had told her eggs contained candy and money. Her father had yelled at her, but their mother just laughed at them all and explained that only special, plastic eggs could contain candy and money, and that those belonged to a holiday they didn't celebrate too often. Then, still laughing, she'd made Nabiki clean everything up. Not just the eggs, but the entire kitchen. It took her all day, since she was so young. She couldn't have been older than five. Akane could still remember the look on her sister's face, could still remember telling her that the turtle thought she looked very silly. Nabiki hadn't taken that well.
Akane put the turtle back, and picked up one of the slips of paper. It was just a ragged sheet with rough edges, ripped off something else. She unfolded it.
I wish for Akane to grow up to be a world-class chef, the paper read. Akane laughed out loud. Just how young was she when her mother wished for that? She picked up and unfolded another piece of paper.
I wish for Akane to have seven daughters, every one of them as stubborn and rough as she is, the paper read.
I wish Akane would fall in love with a man I can approve of. I know Soun has some silly idea about one of the girls marrying the Saotome boy, but I am so afraid he will grow up to be like his father! Poor, poor Nodoka. If only her mother had known. If only her mother could see, right now, her youngest daughter in a hotel room with that very Saotome boy! What would she say?
On the other hand, Ranma wasn't quite like his father. He wasn't worthless, and he wasn't a coward. And in his own way, he could be very sweet. . . Could be. And he was honest, he was handsome, he was. . . a sex- changing jerk that always had other girls hanging all over him. But he was putting a stop to that, wasn't he? By pretending to be married to her, by sleeping on her floor every night, he was saying he chose her over everybody else. Despite her lack of cooking skills. Despite her stubbornness, her roughness as he mother had put it. Despite their fighting.
But, given a real choice, who would she have chosen? She'd never really had that choice, not the way Ranma did. All the women chasing him were nice to him. All the men who had chased her were trying to beat her up. Trying to "win" her by beating her into a bloody pulp, the way she had to beat them. And then Ranma had shown up, Ranma who so obviously could have "won" her if he wanted to. But he'd never tried. He'd never participated in Kuno's sick little fighting game.
At first, she'd thought that it was because he really hated her. Because he really did think she was ugly, too rough, too macho, too much of a tomboy. But, he didn't hate her. He didn't think she was ugly. Maybe he had at one point, but. . . he obviously didn't anymore. She'd always felt so blasted intimidated by him. He was the better fighter, the better cook, the better freaking everything except student. That was what had prompted Nodoka's advice to be sweet and passionate with him, it was the only way she could gain equal footing. Really, since she was expected to inherit a training hall, who cared what sort of grades she got? She had no real, pressing desire to go to college.
She folded the paper back up, and closed the memory box. She wasn't in the proper frame of mind to look through it anyway. She might stumble across something about her and college, and she didn't really want to think about that. What would she do in college, what would she study? None of her schoolwork really interested her. She was much, much more interested in the dojo, that was why she was the logical choice to inherit it. Nabiki would do so well as a businesswoman, and Kasumi seemed happiest just being a homemaker.
But who would she have chosen? She forced her mind back to that topic, sensing that it would nag at her until she figured it out.
For quite some time now, she'd spent most of her waking hours with Ranma. She hadn't even thought about it, but it was true. He was the person she asked to go shopping with her, the person she saw the most movies with, walked home most with, had little adventures most with. And whenever they fought so much they wouldn't speak to each other, or whenever he was away to train, she felt his absence strongly. She missed him even when he was only gone for a few days. Honestly, she probably missed fighting with him the most. Fighting beside him, not with him. That was fun, and a nice release, and no one fought back quite as well as Ranma. . . but still.
She realized with a start that the one choice she thought was her own, and only her own, wasn't under her control at all. She'd thought that, no matter what her father wanted, no matter what she was forced to do, she could govern her own heart. But she'd been wrong. For the entire time she'd known Ranma, her heart had quietly been making her choices for her. Very quietly. So quietly she hadn't really noticed it was happening, but now that she thought about it. . . That was why she always got so jealous, that was why she always worried over him, the ignorant, inconsiderate ass. She was in love with Ranma. There. She'd said it, if only in her own head. And she was definitely not happy about it. Of all the men to fall in love with. . .
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Ranma woke up the next morning in a big, empty bed. He stretched, yawning, and sat up. It took him a moment to realize where he was, and with who. He looked around the room for her. She hadn't joined him in the bed, the other pillow was still round and fluffed. He wasn't really surprised. But where was she? She wasn't in the room, and the bathroom door was open. He hopped out of bed and changed quickly. Stupid Akane, not letting him know where she was, anything could happen to her. . . He slipped on his shoes and ran out the door.
Down the stairs, the old man who was in charge of the hotel was nowhere to be seen. Neither was Akane, but then he hadn't expected her to do something sensible like stay where he could find her. What was she thinking, going out without him in a strange place! Who knew what sort of people lived around here! He left through the front door, forcing himself to walk.
The old man was on the front porch, reading a newspaper in a rocking chair.
"Have you seen my. . . wife?" Ranma asked, stumbling over the word. The old man gave him a sly look, and pointed towards the beach.
"Little lady went out about an hour ago. Said she was having trouble sleeping," he said, winking at Ranma. Ranma took off running toward the rocky beach. She was such a klutz, she'd probably slipped on one of the rocks and fallen into the ocean.
He got to the black rocks, and skidded to a stop. No Akane. He looked up and down the beach, his eyes scanning for anything that could possibly be Akane. He caught a flash of dark blue, and went running towards it. A scarf. The flash of blue was Akane's scarf. He picked it up, his hands shaking now. The little idiot really had fallen into the ocean.
"AKANE!" he screamed, looking out over the rough waves for her. No sign of her. No more flashes of color on the beach, no dark-blue head bobbing in the water. She was gone. She was absolutely gone. He sat down on the black rocks, not even noticing the salty spray that splashed on his face. She was gone. Akane couldn't swim even in a pool, there was no way she could swim in this.
Glaring out at the ocean, he tossed the scarf down and dove into the white-flecked water. He opened his eyes underneath, ignoring the sting of the salt in his eyes, and searched for her. Anything, even a still body, would have been better than nothing. He searched underwater for her until his lungs felt like they would explode, came up for air, and searched for her again. He lost count of the times he went back down into the cold, dark, salty water.
Eventually, he gave up. He crawled out onto the black rocks, crying through eyes blinded by the salt water. The silver ring felt like it weighed a thousand pounds. Noon had long since come and gone when the old man found him by the ocean, still crying salted tears.