A/N: I don't know what inspired this, but I get the chills every time I see this scene from "Reawakening Memories: Part II." FB was giving me a cramp so I took a slight detour. Well—Happy Reading!
Disclaimer: Ranma and Akane will eventually live happily ever after…but we all know that I did not write that story. ;)
A Dandelion Vow
A dark haired boy with perforating blue eyes peered ominously into the glistening pool of the lake. He sat, perched along the water's edge, an apple clutched protectively in his hand. He hadn't eaten all morning. The declining sun was an indication that his time would soon be up. Biting into the apple, juice spilled from the red skin onto the base of his sturdy jaw. Today was the day he would have to choose a wife.
-
…A week before…
Ranma had been dreaming. The details of the dream were of the fantasy sort, a subject matter he would never disclose to any of the residents of the Tendo Dojo.
One moment, his lips had been tenderly seeking out her mouth, and the next he was choking on a mouthful of water. Ranma thrashed about, attempting to right his body. With a begrudging sigh, he apprehended that the water was the reality, and the passionate images that had surfaced in the subconscious of his brain were not. He had known those lips. They did not belong to him, for he hadn't the audacity to claim them for his own. Their owner used them for an ordeal less tender than his desires involuntarily expressed. Those lips that regularly frowned or opened tautly to expel harsh words
"Get up, boy! You gonna just sit there soaking wet all morning?"
It was at that moment that girl Ranma registered the old man glowering above her.
"Pop?" So her own father was the one responsible for the sodden state she now felt seeping into her bedclothes.
"We have to talk." The round form of Genma turned from the pigtailed female, with an ever so present invitation to follow.
-
"A wife, he says." Ranma seethed with the knowledge that he was powerless to say no. To be turned out of the Tendo house, without even a selfish father for a companion, was not what he considered playing fair. Something told him to stubbornly decline, to head back to China as he had threatened to do so many times before—to forget about her…forever.
The sound of landing feet entered his ears, and it took him a second to recognize them as Ukyou's. "What's up U-chan?" He spoke with his back still turned from the girl.
"Hey sugar." She was beside him. He found her presence comforting, warm, unthreatening. Now here was a girl that was more likely to kiss you than beat you over the head senseless, he thought broodingly.
He remained silent, finishing off the fruit and tossing the core over his shoulder.
It was then that Ukyou turned to him suddenly. "Oh Ranma! Please tell me you are not going to choose that awful girl instead of me?"
Ranma was taken aback. How had she known? How could anyone know? It was a private decision, left up to the retreat of only his deliberative thoughts. The leaking of this kind of information could get ugly. Real ugly.
Ranma jumped when he felt the girl's hands place firmly onto his shoulders. Without his consent he was being turned to face her. Shaky brown eyes sought him insecurely. "Ranma," the earnestness of his name on her mouth hung in the air.
A sheepish smile curled the boyish features as he placed an embarrassed hand on the back of his head. "U-chan. What are you—?"
"Do you want to marry me? It's too late to evade it anymore, Ranma. I know you have to choose, Nabiki told me."
So that was it? He should have known the hindsight of the miserly Nabiki Tendo would somehow be wise to his secret. Ranma began to inwardly count backwards from the number six.
6
It was only a matter of time, after all.
5
If there was ever a moment to interrupt, it would be done.
4
He prepared for the screeching halt of tires.
3
His body shuddered somewhere between the idea of the shrill voice and sumptuous curves.
2
"Hiyaaaaa!"
Only a second off, thought Ranma. Not bad.
Constricting arms clung vitally to his neck. "Shampoo! What a surprise."
"Oh!" She squealed. "Shampoo knew Ranma be happy to see her."
"That's right. I'm very happy." Shampoo did not understand the sarcasm.
It was one of those rare moments when Ukyou was not blinded by her affections for the boy. She watched silently, while he laboriously tried to pry the aggressive fingers of the Amazon beauty from latching onto him.
What if? She thought. What if by tomorrow I will never be able to chase after him again? Will he even be sorry to know this—will he want nothing to do with me once he has made the decision I already see present in his heart? She gulped rather loudly.
Ranma noticed Ukyou's eyes upon him. He was shocked to see the lack of anger afflicting them. She was actually letting Shampoo discharge her ravaging embraces without a fight.
"Ranma pick Shampoo, is right?"
Ranma ducked completely from the mad workings of her thin arms and stepped away. "Look guys, I—I can't do this right now." For some reason Ranma just could not reach Ukyou's gaze.
"You no will choose stupid gorilla girl, Ranma!" Shampoo's body gracefully folded into a stance that threatened his life. Somewhere in her young years she had rid herself of all ability to be patient. Although she had a lovable personality, unlike his more violent tomboy of a fiancé, she was quite ruthless when her desires were not granted.
"Shampoo, I'm not gonna fight you," he said as if he were speaking to a child. "You know that. And don't you dare threaten to kill anyone 'cause that's not happenin' either."
Her maroon eyes wavered with his determination. "So—you no want love Shampoo? Is dat it? You care for dummy who no can cook!"
Ranma felt something similar to outrage processing. "I didn't say that!" His body tensed without thought. "I don't want to marry anyone! When will you finally understand that? Not you—not her—and…and…," he peered at Ukyou," but the sullen expression left him nearly incapable of denying her. "I just—I'm just so tired of being everyone's fiancé."
"You jerk!"
Ranma felt a crushing object that he recognized to be a giant spatula. It pummeled against his chest along with the workings of Ukyou's feelings of betrayal. A normal man would have been crippled for life, but the Jusenkyo-cursed teenager only had the wind knocked out of him as he landed on his back.
"U—"
"Save it!" She pinned him with the icy quality of her voice. "If it's what you want." He watched as her lips trembled. "Then I don't care."
"What in the hell are you talking about!" He roared, consciously rubbing the area of assault.
"I can't believe you are just going to deny the woman you love, Ranma! I've never seen such a coward in my life!"
"But I didn't—" His assertion died slowly when he saw her standing in the shadow of the nearly invisible sun. Ranma detected crystalline objects at the corners of each eye, but before he could react to them, Ukyou had used her training to disappear in one swift leap. Her departure hung in the air almost as prevalently as if she were still there.
"What you do to spatula girl to make her leave?" Shampoo accused, almost fearfully.
"Damn you, Nabiki!" Ranma had half a mind to drag the conniving girl out to that very spot and drown her in the lake.
Shampoo was overcome with uncertainty. She had never seen Ranma filled with so much emotion. Sure there was the usual anger that lodged from his grievances with her, but never did she see him so abundant with feeling.
The sun was fading, and Ranma wanted to physically take it into his hands with the aim to impede it from motion. Out of time, he thought desperately.
Ukyou's face danced before his thoughts. She was more of his type, right? Although she had pretended to be a man for much of her life, there was an elegance that even her make-believe could not hide. She can cook—and very well at that. Perhaps even better than Shampoo and her grandmother, he realized. More importantly, she had endured the hard life on the road, much like him. He felt akin to her almost, like she was—a…sister.
"I'm sorry U-Chan." The words whispered inaudibly to the approaching night.
"Ranma?"
The pig-tailed boy looked up.
"Ranma." She hesitated. "I go."
He nodded, ready to pronounce a thank you.
"Back to China."
Ranma faltered on his words, struggling not to choke. Was it a trick? He wondered.
"If you no choose Shampoo," she said sadly, "then she have no reason to stay."
"But—"
Shampoo's soft hand had found his chin, and a glimmer of something passed in the intricate depths of her eyes. "Wo ai ni, Ranma." She alleged in a solemn vow that unbound him to her. "Is all Shampoo can do…for—for always."
Ranma's mouth fell open as he watched her take her exit into the darkness and a cold feeling crept into his heart. Either this was for real, or tomorrow morning she would show up on his doorstep with a smile, brandishing some new trick in that pretty little head of hers.
But if she was serious…
Then that meant—this…
This would be goodbye, he thought.
Ranma fell backwards into the soft, chilling grass. He allowed it to cushion his body as his limbs stretched out to the entirety of their length.
Did he love…her? He didn't really know.
He had come close to thinking it, and even saying it once or twice. But was it really love—or was it merely the fear of being without her? What did his anxieties truly imply for his sentiments toward her? Did it mean that he had grown accustomed to having an address and that he was now so indolent that he would ask a girl's hand in marriage just for the sake of a place to call home? Or did it mean something else?
Ranma sat up, recalling a time when he would have given anything to leave that house. Anything. There had been so many moments—he had tried to leave. But something always brought him right back to the doorstep.
If he said goodbye—if he left, would she even care? Whenever Ranma had not watched over her, she had managed to find herself in the most uncompromising of situations. There was constantly some guy—some profligate man trying to win her affections. And if it was so easy for them to accomplish the conquest, didn't it mean that Ranma was just in the way?
"Shinosuke." Ranma said under his breath, unable to control the charge of self-doubt that inhabited the pace of his heart. "You really loved her, you fool…didn't ya?" Ranma's thoughts were made present by sound as if he could not control them. "She would have been happier with you…because you made her laugh when I could only make her cry."
-
"Akane." Ranma let her name tumble out with a defeated air.
He had just witnessed another man telling his fiancé that he loved her. On top of that, the twerp had gone so far as to inquire whether his affections could be returned.
She turned, bewildered. "R—Ranma."
He hesitated. Could he really do this? With a small shake of his head, Ranma spoke, a laugh of nonchalance his only defense. "If he makes you happy, I won't get in your way, Akane." His features-hardened to reveal indifference, but he feared it was unconvincing given that he could barely meet her eyes. No, he had to. For her happiness—she had to understand that this would be fine with him. But still—he needed to know. Ranma's stubborn jaw raised and he focused steadily on Akane. "But first—first tell me why?"
"Ranma," she said again disbelieving. The fluttering of her wet lashes against the ashen cheek tore at something deep inside him.
"Tell me! Tell me right now why you're choosing him instead of me!"
Akane tried to speak, but wavered, for her vibrating lips would not permit it. Her brain was working overtime; her fingers were twitching with the fury of her thoughts; her eyes grew firm only to glaze over again as she struggled with her emotions internally.
Ranma heard the guy she called Shinosuke speak directly to him. "That's enough! Can't you see that you're hurting her?"
It was like a slap in the face. Even worse. It was the humiliation of being defeated in combat. His insensitivity—it was always that part of him, hurting her, making her cry as she did now. Why the hell hadn't his Pop taught him tact?
And that was when he realized…He can love her better than I can.
Ranma's throat opened with resentment. "Stay the hell out of this!" He threatened.
"Do I have to teach you a lesson?"
Ha! He thought he could beat him. Now this was his territory. "You're move." And with confidence he promised everything he had. "But I know something you don't know. Akane is mine!"
And then it was over. The quintessential battle of his life. The conflict to overpower his heart. He had lost.
"Noooo….don't!" The words cut into him with all the accuracy of a knife. " Noooooooooooooooo!"
But the reality had already materialized like an infection to his brain.
Ranma Saotome loved Akane Tendo.
He could not allow any other man to claim that for himself. I will pulverize you Shinosuke, he thought with assurance—for thinking that Akane is deserving of your love.
But she countered the blow—more delicately than Ranma had ever seen her formation.
"Akane?"
A small tremor. "T—Try to understand." It was more of a question.
Ranma sighed with the heavy realization. "I understand alright." The words he had never meant to speak formed with acidity on his tongue. "Goodbye Akane."
-
Ranma stood up, trying to gather his thoughts concerning the task ahead. Try it aloud, he commanded himself. His lips parted with indecision. "Akane…will? Uh—would you—um? What I'm trying to say is—" But it was of no use. He was no use. A failure at love. How was it that he could see through an illusion of fire, but he could not follow his own heart?
Ranma's brow creased with renewed tenacity. You can do it, his mind willed. With great ease, Ranma Saotome lowered himself onto one knee toward the lakeside. He gazed out upon the ripple less surface as if it were Akane herself. "Akane Tendo," his voice rose clearly. "Will you—will you marry me?" He held up a small dandelion to the sky in offer of a promise.
"Ranma?"
The earth seemed to crumble beneath him as the temperature of his body climbed to dangerous heights. The seconds dragged on for what felt like the total of his eighteen years and then some. Slowly, he turned around. She stood there with the tears only he could be the cause of already glistening her cheeks. The intense dark eyes found his tentatively.
I cannot keep denying it, Ranma thought. I love this woman.
I can't believe you are just going to deny the woman you love, Ranma! I've never seen such a coward in my life!"
Ukyou. She had been talking about Akane—not herself.
A trace of a bittersweet smile formed on Ranma's face. Thank you, U-chan.
"Akane."
"You've said enough."
The vacillating look that stung her eyes injected a sense of foreboding into his blood. He felt the panic rise within him, massaging its way into the shaking muscles that detained him where he kneeled.
He heard the sound before he felt the contact. There was an achingly long pause before he comprehended that she was holding him, or more so—she was allowing him to embrace her. Ranma pulled her in more tightly. There were so many things he wanted to say, so very many things he wanted to do for her. But most of all…he did not want to make her to cry anymore.
He cleared his throat. "Akane—I—"
"Yes—Ranma—yes," she interrupted.
He peered down at her with befuddlement.
"Yes." Her lips quivered as she took the blue eyes into her soul completely. He really does love me, she realized. "I will marry you."
Akane laughed heartily—and the recognition that he had been responsible for that sound soared somewhere in his heart at an alarming rate.
Yes, he thought again. I love this woman.
Akane's laughter clung to the summer air with the tangibility that would now and forever be at his fingertips.
A/N: I think for most of the characters of Ranma ½ the finale will be about submission—finally giving into reality. I know that it seems Shampoo and Ukyou did not put up much of a fight, but I honestly believe that sometimes we are so powerless that we just have to let go…I hope you think it works!
PLEASE R/R!