Same Time Next Year
By M. Zephyr

Disclaimer: Ranma 1/2 is a trademark of Rumiko Takahashi and VIZ Communications, and its characters have been borrowed without permission. This story was written for non-commercial purposes only.

Ranma x Akane. What if the old woman was not outdoors on the day that Ranma learned the neko-ken? Akane and Ranma first meet at age ten just after Ranma undergoes the neko-ken training and Akane's mother has died.

Chapter 3. Developments

The anniversary of her mother's death had come and gone, and three weeks had passed since. With the arrival of March, Akane's first year in middle school was drawing near its end. She was starting to get anxious that she had not yet heard from Ranma this year, even though she knew that he and his father might be off someplace where it wasn't possible for him to get away. If that were the case, it might be weeks yet before he could come. Despite the fact that the boy had returned each year so far, she had the nagging worry that he might forget her or otherwise just cease his annual visits. Her tension had mounted to the point that she could not help but make a dash for the telephone every time that it rang, and her family was starting to notice.

She was thinking about this as she heard the telephone ring yet again, causing her to leap up instantly from the table in the family room where she was working on an assignment. Fortunately, everyone else was out at the moment, but even knowing that no one else was home to get to it first did not prevent her from running to grab the telephone receiver before the second ring had finished.

"Hello? This is Akane Tendo," she said breathlessly, the receiver held in an iron grip, waiting to identify the caller.

"Hi, Akane, it's me," came the voice she had been hoping to hear. "Sorry that I'm running late this year, but I only just got out of the hospital in Kyoto a couple of days ago."

"The hospital?" she squeaked. "What happened?"

"Oh, my baka pop, naturally. A training technique that went wrong. So how soon before you can meet me at the temple?"

Akane smiled, happy about her next words. "Actually, I'm alone at home for the next couple of hours. You could just come right here, for once."

Ranma's voice sounded like he was smiling as well. "Will do. I'll see you in a few minutes. Good-bye."

"Good-bye, Ranma." Akane hung up the telephone, then spent the next few minutes rushing around. Her homework was packed up and dumped in her room, and she grabbed some food and other supplies to take down into the dojo basement. Ten minutes later she was standing at the back gate looking anxiously down the street, and her face lit when she saw the pigtailed boy turn the corner walking toward her.

Her expression changed to one of worry as she noticed his left sleeve pulled back from a cast on his arm, and the black eye he was sporting. He also seemed to be walking a little tentatively, as if he were trying not to limp. Unable to hold back any longer, she ran up to meet him, greeting him with a hug, then letting go immediately on his involuntary grunt of pain.

"Ranma, what happened to you?" she demanded, concern making her sound angry.

"Eh, like I said, a training accident," he answered dismissively, shrugging his shoulders. "Pop and I were sparring one night up in some skeleton of a building being constructed in Kyoto. You know the sort of thing, just a bunch of girders and stuff at the time. Anyway, pop landed a good one and I missed my footing and fell a couple of stories. Got banged up pretty good. Broke my arm, cracked a rib, sprained an ankle. Lots of bruises too. Less than I deserved, probably."

"The black eye, too?" Akane asked sympathetically. "You're lucky you didn't lose your eye if you hit your face in a fall like that."

Ranma turned away, embarrassed, unable to look at her. "Well, uh, actually, pop did that afterward. He was mad at me for falling."

Akane stopped, and Ranma walked on a couple of steps further before he realized that he had left her behind. He looked back quizzically, and saw her standing there, looking down at the road with her eyes hidden behind her bangs, her fists clenching and unclenching. Her mouth seemed to be moving; was she counting? He imagined that he could almost see the steam rising from her.

Ranma walked back, his expression concerned. "Hey! Are you all right?" he inquired.

Akane looked up, and the boy took a step backward on seeing the rage in her eyes. "Ranma, I swear, if I ever meet your father I may just kill him!" Almost at once, though, the rage was replaced by a look of sincere concern, and her voice turned pleading. "Won't you please consider leaving him? One of these days he's going to get you killed, either by accident or sheer idiocy, and I ... I don't want that to happen. Please?"

Ranma reached out and rested his right hand on her shoulder, looking her in the eye, and he spoke with all the confidence of the young and immortal. "Akane, I'll be all right, I promise. I'm not gonna let him get me killed, and in the meantime I'm learning an awful lot." His voice became gleeful. "Wait 'til I show you some of the new moves I've learned."

Akane sighed, but promised herself to renew the argument again before he left. They went in through the gate and stored his pack in the basement. Then they went up into the dojo to take advantage of the opportunity afforded by her family's absence.

Ranma took a moment before they started for a good look at his friend, noticing changes from the previous year. A little taller, a little more curved. She seemed to be growing her hair longer. Remembering last year, he remarked, "Hey, Akane, have you noticed? You're not taller than me anymore."

Akane snorted, shaking her head in mock disgust. "Honestly! Did it bother you that much?"

Ranma hung his head. "Well, yeah, kinda, a little," he admitted, a tad sheepishly. Bouncing back, he looked up again. "What's with the hair? It wasn't that long before, was it?"

Akane reached up a hand to her head, and asked shyly, "Do you like it? My sister Kasumi decided to grow her hair long, and it looks really lovely, so I thought I'd try it too. What do you think?" She looked at him hopefully, not admitting even to herself that she wanted Ranma to think she was attractive. The real truth was that Akane had noticed how much the new doctor appreciated her oldest sister's longer locks, and had come to the conclusion that men liked long hair better.

One of the many things which Ranma's father had neglected to teach him was how to politely tell a female what she wanted to hear, instead of being bluntly honest. "To tell the truth, I like it better short. You don't look right like this."

Akane was crestfallen, but turned away to try to hide it. "Oh. I ... I just thought that, maybe, it would look nice if it were longer. I guess it suits Kasumi better than me."

Now Ranma knew he was pretty clueless when it came to other people's feelings, mostly from lack of experience. On the road, it was just him and his pop, and it was always pretty clear what the old man was feeling. Still, even he couldn't miss the pain in his friend's voice, and he couldn't help knowing that he was responsible, even if he wasn't quite sure how.

"Hey, Akane, I'm sorry. I think I didn't say that in the best possible way. Your hair does look good. It even looks sorta, I dunno, pretty."

The boy started to sweat. He felt like he was heading out to sea here, without a map. But she was a girl, right? Girls were supposed to want to be pretty, right? Except she wasn't 'just' a girl. She was Akane!

"I just don't think it's quite the right look for you. A little too girly or something, in the frilly sense, if you get what I'm trying to say. You're a martial artist, and you look your best when you look, um, athletic, and energetic, and stuff. The shorter hair fits in with that. I just think you looked even better with your hair the way it used to be." Looking at her sideways, he couldn't begin to guess how she was taking this.

"I just think ... you should try to look good for what suits Akane, not good for what suits Kasumi, you know?"

Akane looked a bit dubious at the start of this speech, but she heard the sincerity in his voice and was smiling again by the time he finished. "Thanks, Ranma," she responded demurely, "though I think we should take some time during this visit to discuss the meaning of the word 'tact'."

"Uh ... what's it mean?" the boy asked, puzzled.

Akane gave a mixture of a sigh and a chuckle, shaking her head. "Never mind, we'll talk about it later. We can save long discussions for when we're hiding down in the basement. Right now, we're wasting precious time. We have the place to ourselves, so let's do something."

"Right." Ranma nodded his head in agreement. Then he held out his left arm, drawing her attention back to the cast. "Unfortunately, I'm not in any shape to spar with you this time. But you can show me what you've learned, and maybe I can give you some pointers, if you like."

They did as he suggested, Akane demonstrating some of the katas and techniques she'd been practicing lately, with Ranma offering critique, correction and advice. However, over the course of the next hour he experienced a slowly growing sense of confusion. Finally he signaled for a pause, and paced back and forth for a couple of minutes. When he turned to her to speak, it was clear that he was nervous about what he had to say.

"Akane, first off, I want to say that you are good. So, I hope you won't take this the wrong way. You've learned a lot over the last year, but not as much as I would have expected."

Despite the promise of his opening words, Akane was hurt by what had followed. "You mean because I haven't learned as much new stuff as you have? I don't have an insane man drilling me several hours a day every day without letup!"

"No! I don't mean that. I know your dad isn't as crazy as mine. But, for example ... the stuff I pointed out about how to adjust the way you move in your kata to compensate for your current height. Hasn't anyone been paying attention to the fact that you've grown over the last year?" He could see the pain blossoming in her eyes, the sight making him feel helpless. Suddenly, the hair thing seemed to assume greater significance. "Is there something you want to tell me about? Is martial arts starting to become more of a hobby than a lifestyle to you? You can be honest with me, I won't hold it against you even if it's true."

Akane couldn't help herself, she started crying, and quickly turned around so that her friend couldn't see her face while she tried to wrestle her feelings back under control. It proved more difficult than she expected, and after a moment she felt Ranma's hands on her upper arms. Akane realized that he was worried about her, but that he didn't know what to say. A wall suddenly crumbled that she hadn't even known was there, and she spun around and grabbed hold of the front of his shirt while she started sobbing into his shoulder. Ranma looked around a little wildly, then tentatively put a hand on her back, holding her, and tried to make noises which he hoped sounded soothing.

After what seemed like an eternity to Ranma, Akane's sobs slowed down into sniffles, until she pulled back from him and wiped furiously at her face with her sleeves. She slipped down to sit on the floor, exhausted by the release of a couple of years of pain, grief and uncertainty all at one time. Ranma joined her, still unsure of what to do or say. Akane gave him a very crooked grin, and in a slightly broken voice said, "I'm sorry about that, Ranma. I ... I don't know what got into me. I just ..." She sniffed, hard. "My sisters know that martial arts is important to me, but they can't truly understand how important, not like you can."

"Huh? What do you mean?" he asked, sounding confused. "What do your sisters have to do with it?"

Looking down at her feet, her voice a trifle hoarse, she softly said, "There hasn't been anyone I could talk to about it. Not even Kasumi. I mean, she would have made soothing noises, but she wouldn't have truly understood what was wrong. I've been acting like everything is okay ... but it isn't."

She gave a little hiccup and went on. "The problem is that I do look on the art as a lifestyle, not just a hobby. But daddy ..." Pain twisted in her voice, and she continued in a whisper. "Daddy doesn't have any students anymore, other than me. The last of them quit in disgust. And he won't even train with me much now. Lately, I can only get him to work with me for a few hours on Sunday, just once a week. I still make sure to practice every day, but ... I have to do it by myself." Fresh tears welled in her eyes. "I guess I haven't let myself realize how much his lack of attention hurt. I'm sorry. This is so unfair to you." She pulled her knees up and hugged them tight, carefully not looking at him. "I wouldn't blame you if you decided not to come around anymore, the way I'm behaving."

Ranma reached over and brushed a few strands of hair away from her eye, some instinct telling him such was a comforting gesture. "I'm real sorry to hear that, Akane. Our fathers are quite a pair, aren't they? My pop teaching at a level of intensity that's just nuts, and your father not wanting to teach at all." He sighed, dropping his eyes, then looked up again, determination firming his lips. "Akane, last year I suggested that after I've learned what pop can teach me, I could leave him and come here to stay, and teach you everything I learned. If you want, I'll make that a promise, and I never break my promises." ‹Not like pop,› he thought to himself.

Akane looked up, new hope dawning in her eyes. She still wished that she could talk him into leaving his father now, but this was better than nothing. And this offered a real opportunity to continue learning martial arts to the degree that she desired, even if it might mean having to wait a few years first. "How long, Ranma? Can you tell me how long I'll have to wait?"

Ranma thought it over. "A couple of years should be enough, I think. By that time we'll be nearly sixteen and," he chuckled, "that seems like a good age to settle down. I'll probably be getting tired of being constantly on the move by then. So, okay ..." Ranma took a deep breath. "I promise that in a couple of years, by the summer of that year at the latest, I'll leave my pop and come here, to stay. If your father will let me, anyway. And I'll teach you everything I've learned - or, at least, what you're willing to learn. I'm pretty sure you won't want to learn the neko-ken, for instance."

Akane had to smile at that. "No, I don't think I really want to be thrown into a pit of starving cats, wrapped in fish sausage."

Ranma smiled as well. "In the meantime, there's probably a lot of stuff I can tell you or show you to work on, in order to get as much benefit as you can out of practicing alone. If you're feeling up to it, we should get started on that now. It probably won't be long before someone comes home."

Akane acknowledged this with a nod, they both stood, and she listened intently as Ranma began to explain.

The next day the two teenagers were down in the basement, discussing some points of Japanese history which Akane had been studying in school. From there the conversation moved into school gossip, and a recent scandal about one of the teachers in the next grade who had resigned in shame after discovering she was pregnant, while her husband had been on an extended stay in Europe for his company.

Ranma just stared at her blankly. "So what was so scandalous? Wouldn't her husband be happy they were gonna have a kid? Of course, I guess he'd want to come home for it."

Akane pursed her lips. "Don't you get it, Ranma? Her husband hasn't been home in half a year, and the way I heard it, she was about four months pregnant."

Ranma shrugged, baffled. "So?"

"So they hadn't been together, Raaanmaa." She drew his name out with an exasperated tone. "He wasn't the father."

Ranma's look of bafflement grew. "But it's going to be their baby, isn't it? Why wouldn't he be the father?"

Now it was Akane's turn to stare. "Ranma? You do know where babies come from, don't you? Didn't they do a class about that while you were attending school last year? Or maybe your father, um, gave you the talk?"

Ranma shook his head, completely and sincerely puzzled. "Uh, no, I got no idea what you're talking about. I, uh, miss a lot of school, the way we move around. I told you those books you gave me were the only reason I've been able to keep up."

Akane contemplated the image of herself explaining the facts of life to Ranma, and blushed bright red. ‹Uh uh, no way,› she told herself. Still, she couldn't in good conscience leave him in ignorance. She thought she remembered where the book was that Kasumi had given her to read, a couple of years ago, when her sister had explained these things to her. It was written for girls, but if she remembered correctly, it did cover everything pretty thoroughly, if a bit clinically. "Um, we've got a book that might help explain matters. I'll bring it to you later on." She firmly turned the conversation back to history.

True to her word, Akane snuck the book out to him after supper, and Ranma spent the evening hours reading it by flashlight. The next day started out rather awkwardly, as Ranma found it all but impossible to look directly at his friend. He'd known that she was growing into a young woman, but now he knew exactly what that meant. Akane was unnerved as well, as she knew what Ranma was thinking about each time he gave her one of those sidelong glances. Still, they both did their best to ignore the resultant awkwardness in order to concentrate on martial arts conversation and "safe" subjects. By the time Akane had to return to the house to rejoin her family, things were almost back to normal between them.

But climbing into bed that night, Akane found her thoughts turning once more to Ranma and the way he had kept looking at her. She felt a slightly hollow, fluttery feeling inside at the memory. It was the first time he had seen her not just as a girl, but as someone who would one day be a woman. This in turn caused her to think about the fact that someday Ranma was going to be a man. A hot flush filled her from head to toe as she unaccountably found herself wondering what it would feel like to kiss him. She had a hard time falling asleep that night, and when she did, her dreams were filled with images of the pigtailed boy.

She wasn't the only one having difficulty sleeping that night. Ranma had been very embarrassed by the subject matter of the book Akane had given him to read, and he had a little trouble coming to grips with the idea that men and women did those sorts of things. On the other hand, things that he'd been overhearing for years suddenly made a lot more sense in view of this new information. He had been seeing Akane in a new light all day long, and it made him feel weird. He just hoped that she hadn't noticed, but it hadn't been easy to control. He wasn't quite sure what he had felt when he looked at her, except that it had made him feel awkward, and hot, and shaky. He spent a couple of hours after midnight silently running through a kata in the dark dojo over and over again, seeking fruitlessly for a semblance of calm.

The next day the two of them had the place to themselves again, and they put it to good use up in the dojo. Most of the training went very well, but as Ranma showed Akane the things he wanted her to practice while he was gone, he had to put his hands on her from time to time to correct her position or to show her the way he wanted her to move. This was all innocent enough, mostly involving her arms and legs, but each time he grew more nervous and tentative about it, and eventually began to stutter his explanations. He also noticed that Akane was starting to blush each time his hands came into contact with her. After a couple of hours they took a break and collapsed to the floor.

Akane sat there, her hair plastered to her head with sweat, and wondered what she could say to Ranma to get him to start behaving naturally again. She understood that he had been feeling flustered being around a girl after reading that book, but thought he had pretty much recovered by last night. Yet now he was acting increasingly jittery as their practice session went on, and this in turn was causing her to react in ways she didn't quite understand. Working up her determination to ask him about it, she turned to him, only to find Ranma turning his head to look at her at the same moment, and their eyes locked together. The hesitant question which emerged from her mouth was as much of a surprise to her as it was to him. "Ranma, do you ... like me?"

‹Oh my God,› the girl thought in panic. ‹Why did I ask him that?› She could feel her face turning red, but was unable to look away from him. Instead, it was Ranma who broke the contact, his eyes dropping to look at the floor.

"I, uh ..." Ranma had no idea what to say next. ‹Why did she ask me that? She's my friend, ain't she? But ... she means more than that. Does she want me to like her? Do I like her, as more than a friend? Is that why I'm acting so odd?› "Um, well, we're friends, and, uh ..." The boy was starting to feel panicked.

Akane interrupted him hurriedly. She wasn't really ready to hear his answer, whatever it might be. "I'm, uh, sorry, Ranma. I don't know why I asked that. I shouldn't have. Can we get back to training? I think I've almost got that flying kick." Ranma jumped up gratefully, helped Akane to her feet, and they returned to the comfortable and well understood setting of martial arts.

When Akane showed up in the basement after dinner, Ranma was surprised to see that her hair was short again. When he didn't say anything, but just sat there staring at her, she brushed her hand across the back of her head, asking, "Like it? I decided you were right, short suits my life better after all." She bit her lower lip, waiting for his response.

"Um, yeah, I do. Ah, it looks ... you look a lot better like this," he answered her. "But I thought you liked it long."

Akane pouted. "Well, I was thinking about what you said the first day. Besides, I thought that daddy might think I wasn't serious about martial arts if I look too much like a girl. So I asked Kasumi to cut it for me. I think it turned out pretty good."

The boy nodded. "It did. You look great! Really." Akane was satisfied, and knelt to show him the books she had brought for him to take this year, and they spent some time discussing them before she went back in.

Ranma spent one last night in the dojo's basement, and the next morning's dawn found him standing outside the back gate, his large pack on his back. He and Akane were looking at each other, neither one wanting to say good-bye, but neither were they entirely sure what they did want. They moved together for a parting hug, and held each other fiercely, looking down the street over the other's shoulder. They pulled their heads back before letting go, and looked into each other's eyes from a distance of mere centimeters. Although there did not appear to be any conscious decision behind it, Ranma's head slowly moved forward, and Akane's lips opened slightly. In a moment which bewildered, frightened, and electrified both of them, their lips pressed together briefly before pulling back to share the wonder that they had dared such a thing.

They moved apart quickly in embarrassment, and Ranma walked backward down the street, keeping his eyes on her and waving good-bye, while Akane raised a hand and touched her fingers tentatively to her mouth. All too soon, Ranma reached the corner where he always disappeared from her sight. He hesitated, and they stared at one another wordlessly, as if they were trying to memorize the other's appearance. Then necessity pulled at the boy, and he slipped out of sight for another year.

A couple of months later, when Akane turned fourteen, she was still thinking about that kiss. She wished that Ranma could be there at her party with her other friends. At that particular moment, the boy in question was standing in an icy mountain stream, naked, and most of his thoughts were on his father who was sitting warm and dry on the bank "observing" Ranma's endurance training. He did, however, recall that this day was Akane's birthday, and wished that he could be in Nerima to celebrate with her. His own fourteenth birthday had passed a couple of weeks previously, with nothing special to mark it. The freezing water faded into the background of his consciousness as he wondered, if he were in Nerima to share her birthday, would Akane let him kiss her again?

Akane continued working out on her own, trying to follow the training program Ranma had outlined for her. In particular, he had emphasized the need to increase her speed and improve her balance. It became a common sight in the neighborhood to see her leaping up on top of brick walls, running along them, on her way to and from school and while she was out on errands. On those days when she was alone in the dojo, she practiced katas which her father had never shown her.

As the months passed, both teenagers frequently found their thoughts turning to the other, and the memory of their parting kiss was often taken out, contemplated, and put away again, leaving a warm glow behind. Whenever either experienced a day which was in any way different or special, be it the Tendo's trip to the beach, Ranma's arrival at a new dojo, or a holiday such as Christmas or New Year's, they would find themselves wishing that the other could be there to share it.

The days, weeks and months rushed by, and suddenly it was February again, with Ranma and his father camped in sight of Mount Fuji. Ranma's scheme to get an entire case of sake for his father paid off, and the man passed out in his tent. Ranma wrote a brief note that basically explained nothing except that he was gone and would come back, hefted his pack, and headed north for Tokyo.