Disclaimer: Guess what, my homework still ain't done, and I still don't own Ranma
Ranma sighed again, after Ukyo had calmed down and left the room, Nabiki explained herself. The so called 'ceremony' was just the families way of buying time. It wouldn't be a real, binding ceremony, just a "play-act" one or at least that is what Nabiki kept on insisting.
"This is getting way too complicated." the pigtailed boy muttered, expecting a snappy remark from the other occupant of the bed. After a few ticks of nothing but silence was all there was. Sighing again, the boy, without thinking, flipped over on his side, facing his wife and she turned out to be a LOT closer than he thought.
He never knew fear like Akane's calling him a pervert and malleting him fear. Why was he so fearful? In flipping over on his side, his arm ended up over her stomach as she lay on her back. Flicking his blue, and worried eyes from his arm to her face, Ranma started to move his appendage away from the danger zone.
He should have moved faster.
"P-chan," Akane whispered, grabbing his arm and tugging it with her as she too turned on her side.
//I am going to die.// were the words racing around in the panicking martial artist's head. There was no way to pull away from her now. Akane's mule like strength had a firm hold on it, and didn't show any signs of letting go. After waiting a good thirty minutes, sleep became too much of a friend with the tired young man's eyes, and he considered that he had had a good life, and then fell asleep.
It was only until an hour later when Akane smiled again in her deepest sleep, drew the captured arm tighter around her, and consequently the body that was attached, and whispered, "Ranma."
Ukyo was upset, and when Ukyo was upset, she cooked.
At lunch, the lunch ladies were thrilled that they didn't have to fight off the hungry tigers who were usually well mannered boys for once over breads. In fact, Ukyo earned more in one day when she was upset, then she normally would at her beloved Uk-chan's.
She swore never to cook again, but it was either cook her Japanese pizza, or put Ranma on the grill instead.
How could he HONESTLY choose Akane over her? Wasn't *she* the 'cute fiancée'? Isn't hat what he told her?
The more she thought about it, the faster she turned the dishes out. By the time ten minutes had passed, the boys were only nibbling, instead of inhaling what Ukyo cooked.
And then! Ukyo's mind battled, Nabiki asked her to be AT the wedding! Part OF the wedding in fact! There was no WAY she was going to miss this wedding, but also Ukyo held fast to her belief that there was no WAY she'd be Akane's maid of honor! The middle Tendo girl had a sick twisted humor about her.
Cologne didn't look upset, and Nabiki didn't look like she was bothered by it. By looks, as the quote says, are deceiving. The troublesome middle Tendo kept her 'ice queen' mask on and was ready for any type of movement from the older lady.
But nothing came.
Just a smile as the short, wrinkled Amazon leader handed back the stack of stapled papers.
"Nabiki," Cologne started, jumping on her stick and started towards the kitchen, "if you ever get bored of this life, you should come to my village. You have all the basic instincts and determination of the finest Amazon born woman."
Nabiki smirked.
"This ain't real." Ranma repeated those words for the hundredth time as he and Akane sat down at the desk that day's homework.
"I KNOW, Ranma," Akane growled. She was really starting to get irritated with him saying that every two seconds.
"Glad to see both of you as loving and caring as always." Turning, the couple wasn't so surprised to see Nabiki standing in the doorway as they were Kasumi who was with her.
"What now?" Ranma asked, his eyes flattening with sarcasm.
Nabiki tsk-tsked him, "Why, I'm insulted! And here I came to *help* you to!"
"Help?" Akane asked, and then her temper came up, "Like how you *helped* us into this whole mess?"
"Now Akane, you should really thank Nabiki for preventing Ukyo marrying Ranma, I know how depressed you get when those others girls get too close."
Akane went beat red, she really had to teach her sister about why it was *not* nice to say those things in FRONT of Ranma. Ranma, for his part, looked over at his wife, and made a noise of surprise.
"The ceremony is in two days, and you two *better* not ruin it!" Ranma and Akane both forgot about the 'innocent' comment Kasumi had made and were in 'fear thy mistress middle sister' mode. "That's why I've asked Kasumi to help you two with a very important part."
"What's that?"
"The dance, don't give me that deer in the headlights look Ranma, you two are suppose to be married, and how is it going to look to everyone if you are bumping into each other and are all uncomfortable? Nope, this is a essential part of the reception, because if you don't get it right, Ukyo will know something is up."
Kasumi, smiling the way she always did, waited till her sister left before pulling a cd from her apron pocket and placing it Akane's cd player. After locking the door, the older sister sat down on the bed and began to instruct the couple as in what to do.
"You have to stand up, no Ranma put your hands on her waist, Akane you put your hands on his shoulders."
Clicking down the moments until his death via mallet to brain, the black haired boy slowly obeyed his 'sister-in-laws' instructions. As soon as his hands were placed her hips, Akane went stiff. The girl would have felt partly ashamed because of her unconscious reaction, until under her hands, Ranma's muscles tightened.
"Don't be so scared of each other." Kasumi added, and leaned over to press 'play' on the stereo. "Here let me show you."
It was an hour and a half later before Akane and Ranma had finally stopped moving like robots, and added some much needed grace to their dancing. Kasumi insisted that they keep on practicing and that neither move from their current 'hold' until they could prove to the panel (Nabiki and Kasumi) that they *looked* like a couple familiar with each others movements.
Ranma tugged on the 'restraints' placed on his hands, which was Akane's gi belt that prevented him from taking her hands off of her waist, the only movement allowed was to get *closer* and that wasn't going to be happening anyday soon.
"Ow!" Akane grumbled, "that HURT ya know!"
"It wasn't like I did it on purpose!" Ranma shot back, though not loud enough to be heard of the music by anyone who might (and probably was) listening at the door. "It's not like either of *do* this often."
Akane's protest that she *did* do this often were stifled with one 'yeah-right' look from Ranma. Instead, she got her own silent revenge in the pettiest way possible, not by stomping on his foot just as she had done to his, but searching out his pigtail. When her hair was long, there was two things Akane couldn't stand, 1. Being compared to Kasumi's hair length, and 2. Having her hair taken down or messed up without her consent.
"Gee thanks." Ranma said flatly as his dark hair loosened itself from the pigtail he kept it in. Akane smirked as he shook his head to hurry the process up. Dropping the band which held the boy's hair in place, the girl realized she might have annoyed him for a moment but she was going to be the one that was suffering longer.
All the fallen hair did was make it harder to ignore his gorgeous blue eyes, simply because his jet black hair now framed his face, and unless she wanted to look like she was avoiding looking at him, she couldn't look anywhere else.
"This is stupid." Ranma spoke up, feeling slightly nervous.
No response.
He started to fidget, and without his hands, it seemed with the twitches that he was about to sneeze, "Uh, so, have you seen P-Chan around lately?" This would usually be the end of end, considering her way of jumping to conclusions when ever her precious piglet decided to get 'lost'. But again, there was no response and all she did was continue to *stare* at him.
"Ya know, I was thinking about running away with Shampoo and becoming the father to twenty or so kids." No response, no flinch, no reaction, no anything!
He was officially creeped out. Akane should have put him in the hospital by now, but all she was doing was *staring* at him, and then Ranma, being the detective he was came to the conclusion to why.
It was her own personal challenge! Weird and awkward as it might be for both of them, Akane staring clearly, at least to Ranma, stated that she intended to have a staring contest with him! It was childish and immature, but with a smirk on his face, the pigtailed boy just couldn't resist!
So there they stood, staring at each other, each for a different reason and both without knowing the other ones cause.
Slowly, they both started to let something different sinking in.
Ranma began to get nervous, but not in the bad way nervous, more of a shy nervous which left his stomach in knots. Maybe it wasn't a staring contest? What if she was really looking at him, just to look at him? Maybe she liked it? Then his ego promptly added, 'and who wouldn't?' but the boy shuddered as images of him sounding like Kuno flickered in his mind. Maybe, possibly, Akane even---liked him?
It was at this time when Saotome was starting to relax and become use to the idea of 'staring for staring pleasure' that Akane's mind wrapped the words Ranma said around her logic. And in less then a second, the mood was broken with a loud, heart stopping shout, "YOU ARE GOING TO DO ~WHAT~ WITH SHAMPOO!"
Ukyo couldn't help but raise an eyebrow when Ranma and Akane finally made it down to dinner. The girl had her nose raised a bit in defiance, and the boy was sporting a reddening cheek which still had the hand print embedded in it.
"Another day in paradise?" The girl asked sarcastically handing the abused boy his bowl of rice.
"Couldn't be better." Akane replied coolly. And to think, she was actually *staring* at him, it wasn't her fault, it was his, no, wait, it was her sisters. But then again, through a chain of events, she went back to her original conviction, oh yeah, it was Ranma's fault. It always was.
Kiss or not, there was still a chance for a lie to be the truth.
And this hope made Ukyo smile.