First off, let me say one thing. THANKS FOR THE REVIEWS! You have no idea how much I appreciated them. I never expected this many, so much thanks. I put this in my profile, but I think I should say it here too. I know next to nothing about psychology, and as far as I'm concerned, psychiatry is even harder to understand. If something here doesn't make sense, it's probably because I really don't know what I'm talking about. Sorry for the inconvenience it could cost, but just go with it for the sake of my sanity. Now for replies-
Vaniah: Thanks! I really haven't thought of Akane's wages, but I think they should be pretty high because shrinks do get paid a lot. Besides, she's working for a rich company. Anyway, I've never The Manchurian Candidate and frankly, I don't even have a clue what it's about (no, I don't live in a cave). If this story reminds you of it, I'll go rent it and watch it. Maybe it'll give me some ideas.
Rubberneck: That's why you read the next chapter, silly. Enjoy!
Ijustcrashed: I read your comment right after I finished the first half of this chapter. I think you'll be pleased.
Teresa3: I read your profile and apparently you're Hispanic. I just finished Spanish 3 and one of my Mexican friends keeps on telling me that my skills are diminishing, so I have to say that I'm pretty excited when I understood a good portion of your profile. Just thought you should know because that totally made my day.
Ace: Thanks for the faith! To be completely honest, I really haven't thought as far as the whole patient/doctor relationship yet. But by my tentative plot line so far, it'll probably work out. And if not, well... We'll see.
Ice Dagger: Okay, I admit. I'm biased towards Shampoo because I'm Chinese myself, but her character is rarely explored. I really do like her though.
Konton: Of course he needs a hug! Poor guy. Even I feel bad for him. But yes, I wonder where this story is going too. ;P
Disclaimer: I own none of the characters that you recognize.
Today we don't know who we are
Ashamed, hiding behind the scars
Too many times we let the things we feel
Get in the way of letting us heal the wounds
That open in the dark
Did you ever feel sunlight on your face?
Did you ever taste clouds?
Did you ever touch space?
Did you ever feel sunlight on your face?
Did you ever truly live?
So walk, in time to life's refrain
Relax, don't do it to yourself again
Decaying yourself with all the love you won't give
Killing yourself about the way you don't live now
'Cause you're not gonna live forever
Did you ever feel sunlight on your face?
Did you ever taste clouds?
Did you ever touch space?
Did you ever feel sunlight on your face?
Did you ever truly live?
--Natalie Imbruglia- Sunlight (really now, I don't listen to most of her stuff..)
Lost: Chapter Two
-Oleander-Tea-
Ranma coughed. Akane kept on reading the computer screen, typing on her keyboard, and shaking her head. He coughed again, louder this time. Akane glanced at him. Ranma was curled in his chair with a manga in hand. Reading the cover, she noted that it was Mars. Mars was Akane's favorite series by far and she had loaned it to him to help him improve his language and communication skills. The man's attention, however, was on the young woman before him. He met Akane's eyes and pointed at her bright sunflower clock on the wall. Following his gesture, Akane looked and found that her old fashioned clock read 8:50. She blinked. Had her report really taken her twenty minutes already? She didn't eve have two paragraphs completely done! Well, she would just have to continue later.
"Okay, okay," she said getting up. "But next time it might help if you said, 'Look, Akane, it's time to go to the gym.' I mean, how do I know you just don't have a cold or something?"
Ranma followed her out of the office wordlessly. She really hadn't expected him to say anything. The past few times she had zoned out and forgotten the time, Ranma had done the same thing. Of course, Akane also reminded him all those times that it would be easier if he had just told her instead of pointing and making noise like a caveman. She wondered if he even knew what cavemen were. It would make for an interesting conversation topic later.
"So you really like the idea of going to the gym, huh?" she asked; Ranma nodded.
It was a rather new development in their routine. It had started after Ranma had moved in with her and she noticed (granted, after a while, a long while) that Ranma would get up an hour early every morning and disappear until her alarm clock rang. It had taken Detective Akane longer to finally follow him out of her apartment building into a small, cramped yard next to it. That morning by the light of dawn, Akane had been mesmerized by Ranma as he went through kata after kata, opposite muscles moving in perfect harmony, tiny beads of sweat barely able to reflect the minimal morning light. The sight was a cold hard negative of the turmoil and strife in Ranma's mind that Akane couldn't get the images of her mind for a few days.
That morning, she had settled into a comfortable nap against the tree trunk and when she woke up again, she was in her own bed smelling of fresh, morning grass and Ranma's sweat.
"You do martial arts in there, don't you?" Akane was talking to Ranma through their mutual understanding that he would not reply. "You know, I grew up in a dojo and in Nerima, I was pretty good. The best, actually. Daddy trained me and then I met Shampoo, she's my best friend, remember?"
Ranma's eyes flickered with faint recognition as Akane smiled. They had been introduced over a year ago and hadn't been together again since. She was glad in knowing Ranma remembered.
"Well, Shampoo moved to Japan when I was sixteen years old and she's really good at martial arts so I begged her train me and stuff," Akane explained with a smile, then a hint of pride. "I'm still no where near as good as her, but I can beat up a considerable amount of people. I wonder who taught you all this stuff. I mean, from what I've seen, I don't think many people can beat you. If any."
She looked at Ranma and saw that he wasn't about to answer her question. From her files, Akane knew that Ranma was sold to Hito at the age of seven. It must have been him who trained Ranma into such a skilled fighter.
"You know," she started talking again, "we've been going to the gym for two months now and I must say, I'm impressed."
Ranma shot her a curious look, but kept silent.
"I was nervous about it at first because I was afraid that you would forget where you were or what you were doing and attack people," she shook her head regretfully. "I'm sorry for thinking that at all, I really am. But you know, it's the most in peace I've ever seen you, Ranma. You really love martial arts, don't you?"
The man nodded and paused in front of the door to the men's locker room. Before Akane could say her usual goodbye, he turned to her and waved his own goodbye. Akane smiled, "Have fun, Ranma. I'll be back for you at 10:30."
For someone with such a horrid sense of the past, present, and future, Akane thought, Ranma sure had an uncanny biological time stamp. He could function by hours and minutes almost perfectly without a clock or watch. If he was told to be out of the locker rooms at 10:30, he most certainly would. Akane had always found it amazing, though biological clocks, circadian rhythms, and photoperiodism weren't unheard of in everyday humans. Then again, Ranma wasn't the person who popped into your head the fasted at the first mention of "everyday human".
Shaking her head, Akane got changed for her defense class and left thoughts of Ranma behind in the hall.
In the room next to the women's locker room, Ranma slipped into another Chinese shirt and black sweatpants. Akane was right: he did love martial arts. It was the one little piece of constant in his life that had kept him sane. He remembered learning the basics of martial arts when he was very young, before Hito (Ranma gave a small shudder), from a fat man with no hair. He supposed that it was his father. It was really the only memory he had of the old man so far. Whoever it was, he had planted a seed of deep love in Ranma. True, Hito (a bigger shudder this time) had taken part in the majority of Ranma's martial arts training, but he hadn't been able to destroy the love that Ranma harvested for it. Though Ranma never thought of this, it was probably due to that love of the arts that allowed him to survive Hito's brutal training program.
Leaving behind the locker rooms, Ranma walked stealthily through the gym floors. Akane's defense class was running laps around it for warm ups. He waved as Akane rushed past his side with a smile and breathy, "Hey!" He had once stayed to watch them for a bit and after assessing their skills decided that he could beat them all to a messy, squished pulp in three minutes flat. Of course, he never voiced this hypothesis, but he was fairly sure it was accurate. A good martial artist should know his own skills, but also that of his opponents. Ranma, needless to say, was a beyond excellent martial artist.
As he watched Akane sit down for stretches with her friend Shampoo, her words drifted back to him. Now Akane talked a lot to Ranma, but he always paid attention though most of what she said was all extremely irrelevant to him or (in his humble opinion) down right pointless. Even though that was the case, he liked that she was always talking to him and that she didn't seem to care if he talked back. He liked the feel of her voice. Akane's voice always, no matter how angry she was, offered hospitality.
Ranma reached the door to his "dojo" and entered the code to enter. She had said that she almost didn't trust him to not hurt the other people present. He frowned. Didn't she realize by now that he would never hurt her? He couldn't say with certainty for the other people about, but he wouldn't do anything without provocation. Ranma sighed and evened his breath for warm up katas. He was a little miffed that she couldn't even trust him for that, but gave up that train of thought.
He was a weapon after all. He was a trained fighting machine whose sole purpose in life was to kill. He was lucky that she even put up with him that long. Without her...
No. Akane couldn't leave. And if she did, he would make her stay.
All stretched out, Ranma cleared his mind and immersed himself in a kata. Kung fu, this one was.
"How are things with Ranma?" Shampoo whispered during stretching.
Akane grinned at her little victory from earlier that morning, "Good, actually."
She went through a quick explanation of what had taken place, and as expected, Shampoo gave her a blank stare. Akane almost sighed.
"You've been working too hard," the Chinese girl said resolutely. "Take a break. Go to Singapore..."
"No!" Akane shook her head. "Don't you see? He wanted to talk to me. There's no way I'm leaving now; I am really close to a breakthrough."
Shampoo frowned, "The last few times you said that, well, here you are, living with a crazy man." She then said something in Chinese and jumped up with the rest of the class.
Akane followed and shot her friend an irritated look, "Besides, you remember what happened when I visited Shinosuke? You can't tell me that was a good thing."
An uncertain wave passed by Shampoo's beautiful features before a definite look took over. Akane almost smirked. Shampoo had been passing by when Ranma went ballistic looking for her. There weren't many people who could fairy defeat Shampoo in fair combat and Ranma had knocked her out so easily... The event, Akane knew, unnerved her friend more than she would ever dare to admit.
"Still, you can't plan your life around Ranma."
"I know, I know," Akane sighed as she and Shampoo paired up for a sparring session. "It's just...I don't know. Ranma needs me," she finished lamely, barely dodging an uppercut from her partner. She responded with a low roundhouse kick to Shampoo's shins.
This class was for the highest level of fighters in the company. Most, like Akane, were trained in some sort of dojo and were black belts. Shampoo was easily the best of the class even without her trusty bonboris. It was a tough class to take for these martial arts champions because the fighting style was so different. Their teacher taught them a form of self-defense close to street fighting where there aren't any rules to abide by. Regulations in martial arts tournaments had distinct boundaries of where to fight, strict rules forbidding anyone from grabbing an opponent's limbs, and some even limited attacks to the head and/or groin. However, in a real world fight for your life, those rules didn't apply. Students were allowed, even encouraged, to go for anything that would ensure victories. It had been terribly uncomfortable for Akane, and though she still wasn't particularly used to it, it had become easier.
Besides, there weren't as many rules to remember.
"Well what about you?" Akane countered back. "You haven't taken a break since the last time you visited China. And that was three years ago!"
Shampoo feigned an attack to Akane's knees and as Akane leaned for a block, swept her foot across Akane's legs and gave her shoulders a hard shove. Lucky for Akane, she knew how to fall properly and hit the back of Shampoo's knees from the ground. Shampoo's stance, however, prevented the balance problem and she spoke while Akane got to her feet again.
"But my job doesn't stress me out like yours does. All I have to do is spy for a while and then beat down a few ugly men. It's not hard."
Akane snorted as she aimed a jab-kick-jab combo at Shampoo, "Not hard. Right. That's why you got surgery to take out three bullets from your shoulder. Every month! And don't get me started on the rest of your scars..."
Akane was on the offense. Punch, blocked. Kick, dodged. Elbow, blocked again. A quick countering roundhouse punch to the ear from Shampoo and Akane had her chance. Pulling on her arm with one hand and with the other, Akane pushed on her neck to fall. A quick snap kick to the legs and Shampoo's already imbalance body went down. Quickly shoving her arms in front of her, elbows bent, the purple haired ex-Amazon tumbled. Akane growled as Shampoo was gracefully on her feet again.
"Good job, ladies," the instructor commented making his rounds. "Wonderful improvement, Akane."
The dark haired 'lady' beamed, though she noticed a small frown on Shampoo's face. Her pride at her own progress dimmed and was overcome with concern for her friend. It was imperative as the company's number one secret agent that Shampoo's skills elevate. Or at least stay on the same level. However, it was impossible for her to improve when there was no one better to practice with. The Chinese girl was already doing everything she could and Akane could tell that the Shampoo from high school would be able to level the woman today. It was a dilemma in which the solution was still elusive.
Ranma had been waiting three and a half minutes when Akane emerged form the locker rooms. His sharp senses told him that she had just switched to a citrus shampoo from an old lilac one. It smelled wonderful. Though it was a change from familiarity, there was still the same underlying scent. She smiled at him running a brush in her still damp locks, yanking hard at a knot.
"Hi," she said.
He gave her an acknowledging nod and started on the way back up to the fourth floor. The short trip had been taken in silence, the two parties involved in simply enjoying the other's presence. Instead of heading for Akane's office, they went past it to what seemed to look like a small classroom. There were lengthy tables lining most of the room with chairs behind each row. Twenty people could comfortably be seated in there at once. There were white boards spread across the front and back of the room. The small makeshift classroom lacked a teacher's desk, or even a podium in which the instructor can stand behind.
Akane and Ranma seated themselves at the left end of the second row as more people file in slowly. At 10:45 the entire class had arrived. There were ten people total and Akane stood and walked to the front of the class.
"Hello everyone; as you all know, I'm Miss Tendo. Today we're starting with biology," she said. "Now, who can tell me what our last lesson was over?"
A hand went up. Ranma recognized her as a young woman named Rouge. Akane nodded in her direction with a gentle smile.
"The circulatory system."
"Good. Let's trace the path of blood starting from the right atrium. Where does it go next? Yes, Sanosuke."
"The right ventricle from the tricuspid valves. Or bicuspid?"
"Tricuspid. You'd think it's bicuspid because it's going to the lungs, wouldn't you? But it's not. Good job. So the big question now is how does it get there?"
Sanosuke Sagara. Even Ranma knew what was wrong with him. The man had grown up in a sick experiment believing that he still resided in the Meiji era. He was trained in the arts too, though he didn't do anything with chi. He was new and he needed to be educated for the modern world. Ranma wasn't particularly worried about him though; he was smart, he could do it.
The pigtailed man watched as certain people responded (mostly with the right answers) when Akane called their names. She didn't call on Ranma though. She would quiz him later by giving him a diagram and having him label everything, including the path as well as whether the blood was oxygenated.
Why wasn't it enough to just know that blood was best it can't be seen?
After her class was over, Akane gave Ranma worksheets over the circulatory system, the heart, and the lungs. As he worked on them, she skimmed through the lesson plan for tomorrow. The digestive system. She quickly wrote out a few vocabulary words and briefly outlined what she was going to say.
Ranma finished his worksheet in thirty minutes and Akane checked over them. Though none were perfect, when she told him the number wrong on each page, he corrected them in no time. It was 12:30 when they finally went down to lunch.
Although he wasn't technically nervous in company of many people at once, Akane noticed that Ranma was more withdrawn. His movements were mechanical and his eyes vacant. When Akane talked to him, he seemed to filter through her words for useful information, whatever that might be. Since she noticed the behavior, they had taken lunch upstairs.
In her office, Akane would turn on the radio to a news station so that they could be kept up to date of important events. After an hour lunch break, Language Arts class began and Akane sat next to Ranma as a colleague read from a book. Even Akane had to admit it was boring and she couldn't blame Ranma when his eyes glazed over and rested his head on his arms. For once, she didn't wake him. Maybe he wasn't the best speaker, but he was still human.
And their afternoon one on one session definitely needed Ranma's cooperation more.
A/N: Okay, I realize that this chapter and the one before it are pretty uneventful, but I needed to develop the characters. Next chapter should be interesting though. I already know what I'm planning and all I'm going to tell you is that Ukyo is involved and you guys get to find out why Akane chose to pursue a career in psychology, because as we all know, she's not much into listening to people.
But the most important thing, if you really want to know, review! I have a hit counter, you know, and I know how many people clicked on this. Even if one out of every twenty actually read the story, I should have more reviews. Don't be afraid to give a negative comment because in all honesty, those are helpful. They help with plots and if written well enough, they help develop writing skills. So click that button and tell me what you think!