Fifth chapter, bless your heart!
Hello once again, fan fiction readers. It's time for another brain-numbingly pointless chapter of Forgive Me, Forget Me. I love you all. Please review.
Disclaimer: You know I don't own Ranma. You –know- I don't own Ranma.
FORGIVE ME
-
FORGET ME
Chapter 5:
Snapshots and Lover's Tiffs
The red headed Ranma woke up under thin white blankets, with a damp rag across her forehead to soothe the pain of her hangover. The dark ceiling, which blurred in and out of focus as she came to, did not process in her memory bank. Even the subtle sound of logs cracking in a low fire helped to send chills creeping up her spine.
Ranma grumbled, turning her head slowly to better observe the dark room.
She found herself resting upon a tall four-poster bed, in a dark room she had never seen in her life. Two chairs big enough to eat an entire man were cat-cornered to a blazing fire that crackled humbly across the room. Warm light spilled across the wooden floor and up to her bed, but not strong enough to penetrate the corners of her room. A small table next to her bed held a steaming bowl of broth that looked utterly tempting - something nice and warm to soothe her stomach. The rest of the room was shrouded in darkness.
Someone really had been watching out for her.
Ranma lifted a heavy hand and placed it uneasily onto her face, massaging the corners of her eyes. As thankful as she was for whomever's fantastic display of hospitality, she could not resist a grumbled, "What the -hell- is going on…?"
She strained her washboard stomach in an attempt to lift herself to a sitting position, but to no avail. The attempt itself wore her out, draining the aching redhead of her last bit of energy. She gave a heave and rolled over onto her side, rolled again…
PLOP!
Ranma crashed loudly to the floor, giving herself a horrible case of whiplash in the process. The ceiling looked so tall from down there, she realized in a disconnected manner, then proceeded to raise herself into a sitting position and promptly rested her weight on the side of the bed. She listened to the dull sound of rushing blood in her ears before getting to all fours and crawling drearily to the door. She slunk into the red-carpeted, dimly-lit hall, using the sparkling brass doorknob to brace herself as she stood.
Stepping lightly down the hall, the ill redhead poked around for any sign of a restroom. Not only did she faintly smell of sake, but her fantastic tumble to the floor and constant movement thereon had tested the overall might of her cast-iron stomach. It growled every now and then.
The redhead stopped suddenly, feeling her own heart lurch, freeze over, and pound loudly in her ears. Every fiber in her body tingled in a disgusted manner as she placed a shaking hand to her chest and grabbed at the loose cloth at her left breast. Instinctively, she searched the hall for any clue as to what had brought about this sudden wave of emotion.
She shook her head, still feeling rather ill, and continued down the hall.
A small camera, hidden with the dark corner of the hallway, relived her every movement.
Silent as a statue, Shampoo unpacked her things into a large oaken chest, and reveled in the humble feeling of her suite. The air conditioning was like an oasis in the desert, and she found herself tumbling onto one of two queen-sized beds in a state of numb exhaustion.
Mousse entered quietly through the door, barren of luggage aside from a small white ice bucket; he had gone down the hall to the ice machine per Shampoo's request to fill it. His perplexed expression did not phase the tired Shampoo; in fact, she had barely come to grasp with his sudden appearance until the unusual sound of plastic being set upon marble reached her ears. Opening one eye, Shampoo's critical gaze melted into one of deepening confusion.
The reflection of his eyes in the dressing room mirror was dark and foreboding, stringy black hair forming a silk curtain around his shoulders, his strong hands still tight around the rim of the bucket. With his large glasses perched in his hair, the young girl wondered if he was contemplating running into a wall or if it was something more…
Graceful as a bull in a china shop, Shampoo asked dryly, "What wrong with you, Emo Boy?"
… No response. Not even a single blink.
Shampoo mentally grumbled. She said in a fiercer tone, "You listening at all? I said-!"
Mousse flipped his glasses down, spun on his heels, and flung open the door to the suite. Shampoo watched in confused shock.
'What the…?'-
"I'll be back in a few minutes, Shampoo. Get some rest."
The door closed softly behind him. Shampoo, her hands laced behind her head, stared at the door for what seemed like eternity. The chill in his voice… the impatient air of his heavy stride…
The purple-haired girl sat up (much to her displeasure), grumbled, and went to the marble counter in the dressing room. Looking into the small icebox, she found it bare.
.
The distant sound of a bubbling river, and finally, a bridge. It was clear in her view now, a large cement arch over a rushing river that was chipped from years of weather. It glistened in the gorgeous afternoon sun like an ancient pyramid. Stopping a few yards before her destination, Akane put her hands to her knees and took a well-deserved breather. The grass beneath her slippers glimmered with dew, moving and twitching with life. Her short blue hair was raked back with sweat, tangled in a wild and somewhat appealing manner.
Regaining her fighting spirit, the determined young girl took a few skipping steps through the prickly grass and bare patches of earth, and stopped abruptly. Her irises dilated; the air caught in her throat. The sun suddenly burned much brighter.
"-R… Ryoga…!-"
Lightning fast, she ascended the arch of the bridge and skidded to a crumpled heap of a boy known as 'Ryoga', whose eyes were closed tight and whose limbs fell limp against the ledge of the bridge like a rag doll. A thick stream of blood trailed down his face, rusted-red in the sun. Akane leaned down, hushing the breath in her throat and the throbbing of her panicked heart, and listened for any breath the beaten boy possessed; -barely- brushing her cheek, but it was there.
Peering from right to left for some sign of relief, the young girl tore away from her friend, taking several dangerous bounds to the edge of the river. She tore off her sleeve with white, shaking knuckles, and dragged it under the water. She hurried back up to her friend's unconscious form, held him in her cradling arms, and gently wiped the dirt and dry blood from his face; an unnaturally maternal gesture.
Ryoga made a near-audible grumble, his eyes screwing up in a masked terror that only he could see. Her brow lowered in a worry unsurpassed by any she had ever suffered in her lifetime.
At least he was alive.
"R-Ryoga… Wake up. You -have- to wake up!" she exclaimed under her breath, then clenched back threatening tears. She could not afford to lose her composure, not now, not when her friend needed her the most. She also had her tough-guy image to maintain; if not for Ryoga, then for her own self-esteem.
'Oh, wait. I was the one who got him into this whole mess. It's my fault he's lying here.'
Her rag-clad hand stopped over his cheek, dark brown eyes glazing over in a realization that should have taken her much less time to comprehend.
'Good job, Akane,' her inner self said dryly. 'Just be quiet and fix this.'
Another louder groan broke the blue-haired girl from her state of self-hatred. Calculating eyes soaked in the fact that the bruised and beaten boy in her arms was finally coming to. Akane broke into a crooked, teary smile as his eyes slowly opened to find her…
"R… Ryoga…?" she cried, heaving on a sudden wave of emotion.
"A… Akane?"
She pulled him into a desperate hug, her voice jittery and lined with laughter. "Y-You're alive! Oh, thank goodness!"
Ryoga blinked once. His eyes were blank, and his arms remained limp by his side, so as to not return the hug. He heard Akane sobbing and laughing into his shoulder as he slowly positioned himself against the railing of the bridge, but it was gargled as he slowly clenched and unclenched one of his hands. He smiled widely to himself, his marred features disturbingly ambiguous.
Her sobbing-laughing-hiccupping burble solidified into individual phrases that could almost be interpreted by human standards. His hands lifted from their place and began their steady journey across her back, making sure not to touch the skin.
Akane winced inwardly at his touch.
"Akane…" - he was shocked at the sound of his own voice; was it really that high? – "… Don't cry. I'm okay, really! See?" His voice was jovial and bouncy; he learned quickly to use this to his advantage. "Come on… dry your tears…"
She sniffed, gave an encouraging laugh (not because she found anything particularly funny, but to keep herself oblivious of her state of depression) and nodded once.
He was okay… By the way his head was bleeding, she was sure he had been left for dead… but how? Ryoga was clumsy, that was easy to say, but this seemed more than just a coincidence. The wound was too deep to have been self-inflicted, and it was at a particularly odd angle. As she pondered this, Akane fretted the higher possibility of the woods they resided in being filled with all kinds of unknown predators…
"Let's get you home, Ryoga," Akane said assuredly. She stood up, stumbling just a bit, and helped a tired Ryoga to his feet. He kept his eyes to the ground as he held her hand tightly, expecting her to blindly follow.
Akane seemed further disturbed by his forwardness. She stared curiously at the union of their hands. "U-Uh… Ryoga?"
"What is it, Akane?"
She stuttered on word progression. "C… Can you let go? Of my hand?"
"You wouldn't happen to have anything on you, would you?" he blabbed, completely oblivious to her question. Akane scowled curiously. "These woods are -crawling- with bandits. The kind that will pick their teeth with your -bones-."
A little switch flipped on in the back of her mind. Ryoga was not one to be so blatant, physically or verbally; especially around her, she noticed. He was always stumbling over words and giggling about things that simply did not exist. What happened to her Ryoga?
"I… I'm fine. Please… let go!" she cried timidly, snatching her hand back and giving Ryoga a scornful, inquiring glare.
He turned to her with a strange ferocity bubbling underneath questioning brown eyes. "Don't be that way, Akane. I'm just making sure we don't get separated."
It was a lie, and Akane knew it. The Ryoga she knew was not at all forward (if anything, he was a bit backwards), and the piercing confidence in his gaze and the knifelike charm of his grin deeply startled her. Her gaze darkened.
"Who are you?" she stated, more than questioned.
The young boy smiled in return, but it was crooked. "Hibiki Ryoga, last time I checked."
"Where have you taken him?"
There was a long pause. Ryoga smirked, placing a dust-ridden hand on his hip. He questioned in a condescending manner, "Akane, are you feeling alright? You don't look so well…"
Akane felt herself inwardly tearing up at the belittling expression her perky friend was giving her. There was something devious and cruel in his eyes that the blue-haired girl did not conceive was a possible expression for him.
She snarled heavily, her impatience climbing higher and higher by the second; she rationalized the outcome of knocking Ryoga into a tree for answers. She balled her white-knuckled hands into fists by her side, and yelled as though thoroughly offended by the entire incident, "I'm FINE, Ryoga. Simply and absolutely PEACHY."
"Good," he said sweetly, turning back around to the path. "Let's go then." He grabbed her arm and yanked her along with a sadistic amount of force.
Akane yanked her arm away into the air, barked "BACK OFF!" and in one swift downward motion, struck Ryoga violently across the face with an open palm.
The trees around them exploded into the sound of thousands of wings flapping in an excited and frightful manner. Black masses of crows ascended from every tree into the air, painting the sky the color of a thunderstorm for several frenzied seconds until the last lagging one of them was but a speck in the horizon. A moment of silence was passed between the two. Akane stumbled back a few paces.
"I… I'm sorry, Ryoga."
Ryoga remained completely silent, his cheek red and still at the angle Akane had put it in. Side-swept black locks hid his eyes from view. Akane's rackety breathing gradually broke the perfect silence of the woods that encased them.
"No…" Ryoga said, his voice gentle and passive. "No, Akane. It's not your fault. I'm sorry. I had no right to be so forceful with you. I'm just worried for your safety, and I didn't want things to be… awkward. Between us."
Akane watched, hooked by his dramatic change in character like a bored bystander watching a sudden fire-enveloped traffic accident from the sidewalk. It was almost a tragic thing to watch, made more so by the way he presented the notion of an earlier conversation that left both of them equally shattered and disgusted in spirit and self-image.
Ryoga lifted his head, smiling friendly, fresh tears streaking his baby face. "I just want things to go back to the way they were. I'm sorry."
Akane turned away, her shoulders shaking, clutching desperately at the tears forming in her chest. Words caught inside of her that died on the journey to her vocal cords. Her fists tightened as she grasped for air to calm her frothing emotions. She breathed out several times, wiping her eyes with her sleeves, and turned back to Ryoga. She smiled warmly, hands behind her back, busty figure adventurous and welcoming as usual. "Let's forget that. It's in the past. All that's left is to tell the others and… get home, I guess."
"Where are they?" he asked, a childish curiosity in his voice.
"We found a hotel and hot springs –randomly- in the middle of this forest about seven miles east of here. Strange how convenient it was…" she sighed, an unconcerned smile gracing her features.
She strode daintily past him, leading the way. Ryoga smiled strangely, and followed quietly behind.
A/U: Sorry the chapter took so long - writer's block like a mother. I love reviews like a fat kid loves chocolate.
