Second chapter! Hallelujah!

I didn't think I'd even get this far, but I've decided to keep goin' with this story. I've found that's it's insanely easy to stay in character, which is way cool.

Disclaimer: I don't own any of these cool characters. This glorious anime belongs to the awesome Rumiko Takahashi and all her coolness. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

F O R G I V E
M E

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F O R G E T
M E

Chapter 2: There's something very wrong here...

The Cat Café was closed for the evening. The apron-clad, purple-haired Shampoo was busy taking several contemplating, wordless trips from the main dining room to the kitchen, hauling mountains of empty bowls that used to contain ramen to dump into the sink and wash later that evening, when she was in a better mood. Her eyes were thoughtless and gray and did not remove themselves from the floor.

Mousse watched her from behind his gigantic, round glasses, and ran a hand through his waist-length black hair. She was grabbing up several dishes and balancing them on two trays, but didn't look as enthusiastically agile as usual. As he sat at a cleared table farthest from the rice-paper entrance, he realized how entirely grateful he was for his goofy-looking glasses; they clearly stated that his darling, dearest, always sun-shiny, wonderful Shampoo was not in the best of moods.

"What's wrong, love?" Mousse asked with an adolescent twang in his voice that touched a nerve somewhere in the back of Shampoo's mind, making her wince visibly. But she knew he meant no harm by it, so she shook it off and continued on her way to the kitchen as though she hadn't heard him.

Both of his eyebrows disappeared below his glasses in a hopeless, disappointed silence. Was there nothing he could do to cheer her up? It seemed there was always -something- feeding the two-inch gap between them...

Shampoo disappeared into the kitchen, and returned to the main dining room a few seconds later without any trays or damp rags to clean the tables with. She wrestled feverishly to untie the knot of the apron, and tossed it to the floor, plopping down into a chair across from the unsatisfied boy.

Several awkward minutes passed, with Shampoo resting arm on the table and cupping her cheek in grumpy exhaustion, and Mousse sitting stoutly in his chair, wondering what on earth he was supposed to do.

Shampoo glared over at her companion as if he had suddenly popped up out of nowhere. "What you want, Mousse? Shampoo very tired now..." she stated flatly in the vague bit of English she knew.

"I... Shampoo!" Mousse exclaimed dramatically, reaching out a hand across the table in hopes that his beloved would take it. "Please! Tell me what's wrong! I love you and want to help you, Shampoo!" Shampoo slapped his hand away, unimpressed. "Oh god, no!" he cried, flattening his face on the table in defeat.

"Shampoo not feel good, Mousse," Shampoo sighed quietly. Mousse looked up from the table, his nose bright red and his glasses cracked in the corner of one lens. "Not in mood for silly business."

The longhaired boy quickly sat up straight in his chair, and combed back his messy hair modestly. Tipping his glasses down the bridge of his nose, he looked across the table to his blurry red-and-purple blotch of a companion. "I can understand that."

"Or not."

Shampoo rested her head on the table wearily, and Mousse followed close behind, trying his best to match her eyes even for just a second. With his glasses pushed up properly, the clueless Mousse watched the lovely, wistful Shampoo. There was something in her eyes that suggested much more than exhaustion.

He asked with quiet caution, "Did something happen today, Shampoo?"

"Leave Shampoo alone, airhead duck!" Shampoo warned a little harsher than was required. The glasses slid down the bridge of his nose in shock, and he stared blindly at the ferocious Shampoo, knowing he had touched a nerve.

"Was it Ranma?" Mousse asked, his anger rising. He knew the risk in shoving his nose where it didn't belonged, but he had to know...

The angered Shampoo slammed her fist down on the wooden table. It crunched in half, straight down the middle and each half fell to the floor. When the dust and debris had cleared seconds later, Mousse had very eagerly backed away. Okay, so maybe it -wasn't- the best idea to pry...

Shampoo rose from her seat and walked briskly over to Mousse, as though with a purpose. Bending down so that she was only an inch from his nose, she watched the longhaired boy blush and shake feverishly.

"Mousse too much spaz. Mousse no understand for life of him," the purple- haired girl whispered in devastating spite. Mousse, stuck to the back of his chair in fright, was on the verge of tears. Never had he seen Shampoo so angry...

Shampoo straightened up, gave her adolescent admirer a cold, scolding glare, and flipped her hair behind her shoulder as she disappeared back behind into the kitchen.

Mousse toppled numbly from his seat, unable to work out coherent sentences.

~~~ "Cellophane, Mister Cellophane... Should I bend my name? I'm Mister Cellophane... 'Cause you could look right through me, walk right by me... And never know I'm there." -Chicago (Mister Cellophane) ~~~

"Ryoga?"

Ranma gave a start, as his beloved fiancé sobbed with an unintentional dramatic hiccup. Nodding uneasily, Akane slowly sat up on her bed, crossing her legs, and wiped her eyes on her sleeves. "How could that be, Akane? Ryoga wouldn't hurt a flea... H-He couldn't -catch- a flea, at that!"

Akane parted her lips to respond, and fell silent, her eyes unfocused on the rug floor. More tears bubbled up, temporarily impairing her speaking abilities, and she gave a hearty gasping sob.

Ranma's heart plummeted to the bottom of his stomach as he watched his friend's tears deepen the color of her rug. Never had Ranma seen anything like this, nor did he want to ever want to see Akane cry again... She was always so strong, so unfeeling. Who knew she could even produce tears, let alone unleash them in front of an inconsiderate bastard such as himself?

"A... Akane..." Ranma whispered up from his place on the floor. He searched the floor desperately for a clue, for something to cheer her up, but nothing came. Unknowingly, he shifted his gaze to the large shelf behind him, and found something that made his heart stop in his chest:

Ryoga's bandana.

He looked up at it in a fearful silence as it hung down from one of the topmost shelves. It was dangerously close to slipping off the wood piece and floating into the wastebasket right underneath. Had she put it there for a reason?

Ranma shook his head, unable to ask his troubled friend about it. The last thing he wanted was to deepen the morbid gash in her heart.

Desperately troubled eyes looked up at the hopeless Akane, and the dark- haired Ranma began to wonder how long she had bottling up these kinds of emotions...

'Why?' he screamed to himself mentally, 'Why is Akane so sad? If Ryoga hurt her...'

Alas, there were no visible scars on her body. She didn't seem physically distraught, but the tears were definitely taking a toll on her sanity. There had to be an answer...

'... I'll never forgive him.'

Ranma grumbled angrily to himself, locking his jaw in contemplation. A small, audible tearing noise sounded from the side of him, and he snatched his eyes to his left. There was a large, gaping tear in his shirt where he had been unknowingly tugging at it.

This wasn't cool on any level.

Akane sniffed, "Should I patch that up for you?" Her voice was a little lighter, a little more cheerful, than it had been prior to certain unknown events.

'Wha... What?' Ranma breathed to himself. How could she possibly be thinking about his petty needs when she was in so much deeper?

The dark-haired boy made an exaggerated move, straightening up and swinging a clenched fist by his side. "No! Absolutely not! I don't need your help, Akane, so just forget it!" - Outside the door, Nabiki slapped a hand to her forehead, and slumped into her shoulders with her back against the door. 'Well, it's all down-hill from here...' - Obviously, that had come off the wrong way. Ranma pursed his lips together, his eyes wide and unbelieving as he stared up at Akane. The blue- haired young girl scooted back an inch, her shoulders dropping. Wide, wondering eyes blinked away tears as she stuttered a quiet, "W-Well... uh..."

Ranma stuttered as well, "A... Akane, I didn't mean..."

Akane's thin eyebrows lowered dangerously. Ranma gulped, and slowly, cautiously, lowered his fist. Here is comes.... - Nabiki plugged her ears with her fingers, and curled up into a ball. - Several innocents on the street below stopped suddenly. The sound of shattered glass and a young boy's frightened screams broke the calm atmosphere, as an injured Ranma went soaring out of a second-story dojo window and landing in a nearby tree. Shards of glass and wood littered the yard.

Akane stuck her head out the window, screaming furiously to the smoldering Ranma, "YOU IDIOT! SEE IF I EVER OFFER TO HELP YOU AGAIN!" With that, she disappeared behind her curtains, most likely never to be seen again.

-^^-

"Ryoga, you say? What about him?"

Mousse was flat on his back on a cold counter in the kitchen; shirtless, with tissue stuck up his nose to stop the bleeding. After the fifth time Shampoo had punched him in the face for prying into her life, she had finally come to terms with the fact that Mousse was not going to stop bothering her until she elaborated.

The sassy young Shampoo was sitting upright on the counter across from his, reluctantly taping Mousse's glasses back together. She grumbled in an irritated manner, "You really want know?"

"Why would I ask you if I didn't?" he asked in a more sarcastic tone than he had intended. Shampoo looked up from his glasses, locking eyes with her companion. The pair of glasses in her hand seemed to spontaneously crunch in her grasp, and the dark-haired young man made a desperate squeaking noise in the back of his throat.

After a minute or so of this awkward, vengeful silence, the young Chinese girl went back to fixing her admirer's glasses. Mousse extended a sigh of exasperation, thankful that Shampoo had stopped staring at him as though he were just another head to chop off.

"Anyway..." Shampoo continued, eyes focused on the glasses in her hands, "If Mousse shut up, maybe Shampoo tell him what wrong..."

Looking up, Shampoo found Mousse nodding feverishly with his lips pursed together tightly, and thus began in the calmest voice she could muster, "Shampoo make delivery early today, and on way, came 'cross park on far end of town." Mousse was nodding lightly, hanging onto every word. "I see pervert Akane-girl and Ryoga talking by fountain, Ryoga dripping wet, and something odd happen then!"

Shampoo turned to look her friend in the eyes, with a wide, wondering expression. "Mean Akane-girl slap poor Ryoga and run away like being chased by Dogs of Hell!"

Mousse cocked his head to the side with an unbelieving look in his eyes. "Akane slapped Ryoga? Why on earth would she do that? She's normally such a sweet girl..."

Shampoo went back to the glasses, shrugging indifferently, "Shampoo don't know. Even stranger, Ryoga come to café two hour after incident to tell Shampoo and great-grandma... that..."

Shampoo pursed her lips, debating whether she should finish her sentence. Mousse sat up slowly, his head pounding, and hunched over as though he had never used his body before. He found the confidence to look her in the eyes, although painfully aware that he would probably receive a new nosebleed. "...What? What did he say, Shampoo?"

Shampoo took her eyes to the floor, no longer even fumbling with the glasses, and said in a slow, mournful tone, "... That he leaving for China tonight... that he not coming back."

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That's not a very good cliffhanger, but whudeva, ya know? Now, don't forget to leave a review for me! I would MUCHO appreciate it! ^.~