Disclaimer: I don't own the characters from Ranma ½.
"I realize a lot of you are just out of high school, and you can't really appreciate this yet," the professor smirked, passing out syllabi. "But writers, just like all other artists, get good through practice, and practice alone. Since this is an intro class, a lot of you may be expecting to waltz through it. You won't." He flashed a charming grin at one of the girls up front, causing her to blush. Iris chuckled behind me. "We're going to be in here every day, writing. And you're going to spend a good portion of every evening, writing. That is, if you want to pass my class.
"You'll notice, on the syllabus, that there are no scheduled tests. I don't believe in tests, I think they give some people an unfair advantage. You will, however, have to turn in forty pages of text, revised and edited, in any form you wish." A low groan rumbled through the room, and the grin on his face widened. "Forty pages of poetry! Forty pages of essays! Forty pages of fiction! The list goes on and on, my friends, feel free to mix and match.
"With that sort of goal in mind, I think it fitting that we begin writing. . . right about now, wouldn't you say? Get out some paper and a pen. No pencils, mind, just pens."
In the rustle that followed, Iris leaned up close behind me, under the pretext of getting something out of her backpack.
"You need to talk to him after class," she whispered.
"The professor?"
"No, idiot! Mickey Blue-eyes over in the red shirt. Talk to him."
"No chance," I hissed back. She was going to say something else, I could tell by the way she sucked her breath in—all indignant and demanding. She seemed to think better of it when the professor turned his cool, amused gaze to us.
"Write about a place you know. Your room, your kitchen, your favorite trysting spot. No people, no action, just a place. You have five minutes," Professor Byrnes informed us, settling back on his desk. I stared at the blank paper in front of me.
'My room used to be pink, with little roses on the walls,' I began, to the sound of sixty pens scratching. "My mother painted them there, when I was very young. I was afraid to paint over them for years, as though if I just kept them there, if I just held on a little longer, she would stay with me. Or a part of her, anyway. It felt like picking off a scab, the day I finally did paint over the walls. I thought, then, that since I was able to paint over the roses I would be able to let go of a lot of other things, too.
'I started painting the day after my fiancé told me he loved me.'
I stared at the paper for a moment, aching ice taking over my stomach. Slowly, I lifted my hand and crossed out the word 'fiance.' He certainly wasn't that anymore.
I painted over my mother's roses for him. He said it wasn't healthy, to hold on to the past so hard that I forgot to tend to the future. He said he wanted to be in that future. He asked me what our children would say if they saw their mother crippled by a memory. And then . . . and then . . .
There was still a tan line on my left hand where the ring used to be. I wasn't rid of him, there were still so many marks he had left on me. Scars he had left on my soul.
"All right, then, pens down," Professor Byrnes said, the sound of his voice cutting through me like a hot knife through lard. It pulled me out of my own world and into a room full of red plastic chairs and scarred wooden tables, a room with cinderblock walls and a clean, bright green chalkboard. He stared at me expectantly, and a feeling of dread quickly joined the sadness.
The bastard was going to call on me.
And no wonder. I could feel the blood on my face, pounding against me in the lids over my eyes, pulsing through cheeks and over my nose. I wasn't crying, was I? I wiped at my eyes, just to make sure. No, not crying, not yet.
Oh yeah, I'm fine. I got rid of Jordan and his damn engagement ring and I'm peachy freaking keen, that's what I am. I'm so well-adjusted to the idea that I'm having a breakdown in class.
"Miss. . . .? Would you like to share what you've written? It seems to have struck a nerve," Professor Byrnes said, gesturing toward me. As one, all eyes in the room turned to rest on me.
And I thought my blood was pounding in my face before.
"Tendo, my name is Akane Tendo," I told him, my voice sounding hoarse and harsh in my own ears. "I don't really want to read, if that's all right."
"Oh, don't be shy. We're all writers here, we're here to support and encourage one another. Please, read for us. Maybe you have an idea for a story already blooming in your mind," he said, opening his arms wide as if to embrace all of us.
"I'd really, really rather not," I demurred again. He looked as if he were about to insist, but someone cut him off before he could. A savior. A knight in brightly polished armor.
"I have something to read, f she doesn'a want to," said the red-shirt clad stranger, coming to my rescue yet again. He was smiling benignly at the teacher. Plainly, he had something rather spectacular to say, or so his stance proclaimed. I stared at him, torn between the desire to gush gratitude and throw a book at his head. Of all the people to rescue me from having to read, of course it had to be him. . . . not some random stranger, but him. . . .
"My English is a little unstable, but I think this is okay," he continued, in his strange accent. Professor Byrnes squinted at him, as if trying to determine what planet he'd dropped off of.
"Is English not your first language?" he asked.
"No, I just moved here from China," he replied. There was a moment of silence before Professor Byrnes replied, as if that had never occurred in his classroom before.
"Well, then, tell us your name and read what you wrote," he said at last, almost dismissively.
"Ranma Saotome." Ranma settled back in his seat, holding the paper out in front of him. "It's silent-that eerie, blue sort of silence you only find in the mountains. Over the next ridge, in a valley of grass and grey rocks, there are hundreds of springs. You can look down to them, from the top of the rise, and see them stretching out almost into forever. They're littered with bamboo poles, sticking up out of the ground and from the middle of pools. Each pole is crusted with blood at the top, the marks left by feet that have been running across rocks. This is a place of death, where the strong are punished under the guise of training. They are brought here, to be cursed, to bleed onto the poles and drown in the pools. And over it all lies the concealing smoke mountains breathe, blue-grey and forgiving as stone."
He put the paper down, and waited for the teacher to respond. Professor Byrnes looked stunned. He cleared his throat at long last and nodded acknowledgement to Ranma.
"Excellent. What place were you describing?"
"Jusenkyo Springs. I haven't been there since I was five, but I dream of that place every damn day," came the soft reply. I looked at him sharply. A man with a past, then.
Was it just me, or had I recently been jettisoned into a bad romance novel? A dark-haired stranger comes out of the night to save the heroine, love blossoms from the ashes of their initial mutual distrust. . . oh, for heaven's sake.
No more late-might chick flicks for me.
More people were invited to read their scribblings, and before I knew t, class was over. Iris poked me hard in the back of the neck with a pencil, just as Professor Byrnes was wrapping up the writing session.
"Thank him the instant we get out of here or I'll thank him for you, and you won't like what I have to say to him," she threatened. I closed my eyes briefly, wondering if I could pray for strength, and actually get an answer.
Give me a band of thugs to fight, give me six term papers on a two week deadline. Anything but the aftermath of what Jordan and I were. I was just beginning to see what an immense wreckage this was going to leave in my life, and I hadn't even told my father yet.
Heaven help me when I go to tell my father.
Faced with the prospect of Iris telling the Saotome boy that I was desperately in love with him—or worse, angels fear to tread on the toes of Iris Gerbowski when she's on a mission to embarrass—I swallowed my pride and chased Ranma out of the classroom. And I do mean chase. The boy shot out of there as if the hounds of hell were snapping at his heels.
"Ranma, wait!" I yelled, as soon as we were outside the classroom. He turned, the light, graceful turn of someone with perfect balance. A martial artist, maybe?
More likely a ballerina, based on his build. He was barely taller than me.
"Aye? What would ye be wantin' with me?" he asked, in that odd accent of his.
"I. . . I wanted to thank you," I muttered, drawing closer to him. He raised a black eyebrow at me, snorting.
"Now you want to thank me? Last night you just wanted to insult me," he pointed out.
"Well, you did try to break several of my ribs, what did you expect?"
"A thank you!"
"Well, I'm trying to thank you now!" I snapped, glowering. He looked at me for a moment, before he let loose a big breath and the tension flowed out of his shoulders.
"Dinna mention it," he said, lightly, and turned to walk away. I watched him go, a cold feeling in the pit of my stomach. So he really was just being nice, both times. I'd almost thought maybe he was trying to be nice and win me over, or something. I'd almost thought he liked me, sort of. Why else would he have intervened in English class?
Or, maybe, he just wanted to read what he'd written. Maybe my ego was getting the best of me. After all, I was obviously not pretty enough, or smart enough, or sweet enough to keep the attention of Jordan. What made me think anyone would . . . oh, hell.
I still have to tell my father.
-
The day dragged on forever. Every minute of every class was torture, sitting still was just not working for me. I tried to focus, but all my mind could hold was static, and the look on Jordan's face when he saw me walk through the doors of the jail. Releived. He had been counting on me.
And I walked out on him.
I tried all afternoon to sit still and work on homework. I tried to take a nap. I tried to watch a movie. I tried to help Kodachi with her culinary experiments. But by the time ten o'clock rolled around, it was plain to see that static electricity had replaced all the blood in my veins, and the only thing for it was action.
So, at ten o'clock, I put on my shoes and I went out in search of trouble.
There are only a few places in town to find trouble, and not very many of them are exactly hopping on a Monday night. Frat houses, most of them. A girl can almost always count on a drunken frat fight to alleviate her nerves. There are a few local dojos, too, one of which my father actually owns. None of which would be open to challenges tht late at night. It was too late for legitimate trouble, and too early for drunken fights. So, what's a girl to do?
Head out into the mountains, of course. Find some coyotes. Find a bear. Kick the ass of something. Something big.
So I hiked up into the dark woods without a flashlight, without so much as a match. Electricity was humming through my veins and I wanted to fight something. Sometimes, the only emotion you have room for is rage.
When I was younger, before Jordan came to my house and wrecked my world, I used to go outside and break cinderblocks whenever I got upset. If I was sad, I would funnel it into rage. Into martial arts. Then Jordan came, and every time I was sad, he was there to make me smile. Whenever I was dejected, he was right there with a back rub or a freshly backed plate of cookies. He became my new focus, the emotion I funneled all fo my negative energy into was love.
And then we came here to school and everything fell apart.
So I was faced with a choice between doing something girly—crying and eating chocolate until my veins burst—or letting my testosterone take over and doing something stupidly reckless. I've always been the tomboy type.
I ran off the trail, between trees and over bushes, trusting in my less prominent senses to keep me from running into a tree. I was halfway up the mountain when I did run into something, and it wasn't a tree. It was a bear.
In my defense, the bear dropped right out of the tree in front of me, and I didn't have time to swerve. It batted me away, making a strange grunting noise. Without thinking, I rushed at it. A punching bag at last!
My fists and feet sunk into the startled creature, and it was a few moments before it thought to do anything back. But what it did do shocked the ever-loving hell out of me.
It kicked me.
Bears do NOT kick. Or, at least, they don't do scissor kicks at people's stomaches. The blow knocked me back, into something else that was squishy—something that had arms, arms that locked around me and refused to let me go. I kicked at the attacker, but he didn't seem affected.
No, wait, she didn't seem affected.
"Oyaji!" came a startled, female voice from behind me. Then, in English. . .
"Would you stop kicking already? It won't do you any good," the girl holding me warned. I realized, belatedly, that she was shorter than I was. I tried to lift her off the ground by bending forward, but she stayed put.
"There's a bear out here, idiot, and it kicks!" I snarled.
No my best dialogue, but hey, I wasn't exactly in a position to compose sonnets at that point.
"Stop kicking or I'll knock you out!" the voice warned. I kicked her in the shins, hard, and the night rushed up around me, embraceing, smothering, all-encompassing.
