Author's note -
This thing is old enough to attend high school. It's hopped hard drive after hard drive with me because it never felt quite the way I wanted it to. Ten thousand edits later and one last push, and I'm actually feeling sentimental about finally fledging this and ending an era. May this feathery pseudo-crack fly free.
* Lots of things from this fandom aged badly but special warning for the 80s/90s Yikes from the Ranma 1/2 canon that aged especially badly: stereotypical accents/mannerisms/cultural depictions/speech patterns from Shampoo and Principal Kuno.
Triggers: canon-typical sexism, ableist language, objectification. Canon-typical violence, explicit and implied domestic and child abuse.
Secret Number Six
Nabiki Tendo took delicate, ladylike little sips from her straw as though she weren't a hippopotamus about to pulverize his wallet like a ripe melon. "No," Kuno said.
"You have this weird habit," Nabiki Tendo said. "You look right at me and spout all these stern-sounding Puritan things, but your hands keep fondling the merchandise like they're panties you stole off a clothesline. I'm watching you do it as we speak."
"I have no interest in purchasing such vulgarities, nor shall I take any part in demeaning your victim."
"I am literally still watching you do it."
"Did you call me out here specifically to taunt me or to appease your gluttony with my wealth?"
"Or," Nabiki Tendo said, mysterious, and then promptly abandoned option C to flag down the waitress for option A and B. "Another parfait, please," she said cheerfully. "And extra cherries and whipped cream if you don't mind. My boyfriend is feeling extra generous today."
Kuno squared a bit under the waitress's warm look of approval. It gave Nabiki Tendo the opportunity to steal his own maraschino cherry as the waitress walked away, which irritated him but indirectly. She was very good at irritating him indirectly. "Here's the skinny, baby," Nabiki Tendo said. "Not all of us sweat money. I come from a once-comfortably middle-class family who's recently fallen on hard times because our house guest brings monsoons of destruction down onto our dojo every week. I'm the only one pulling in a profit right now, which makes me the lone shark in a sea of fat fish. I could engineer Kasumi to get together with Tofu, which would theoretically lessen my financial burden, but until I can make sure that arrangement's lucrative for the rest of us I'm not going to push those pieces together too hard. That leaves expanding our safety net through other means until I can sell my sisters to the highest bidders."
"I have no interest in your immoral domestic machinations and in fact am quite horrified by you specifically," Kuno said. "You have presented me with a business deal that I find unpalatable. That is what we're here for."
"Well I find your lack of empathy unpalatable. How long have you known me. Grade school? Do you have any idea how my brain works? How dare you think I can't multi-task between larceny and gluttony. Like how literally dare."
"Two thousand is more than fair."
"Five."
"Three."
"Are you haggling?" Nabiki Tendo looked absolutely delighted. "Since when do you know how to haggle? When did this happen? None of my sources told me about this development."
"I have researched how expensive the photos are to produce. Two thousand is nearly a two hundred percent profit, let alone five. I have pity for your financial situation, but not even in my boundless charity shall I go higher than three. Press further and you will lose a valuable… client. So speaketh the Blue Thunder."
"Look at you." Nabiki Tendo whistled. She'd abandoned her dessert entirely to lace her fingers, propping her elbows, settling her chin in their cradle. She was beaming. "I think this is what mothers feel when they watch babies take their first step. This is making me weep. Fortunately for you I can multitask. You and I both know you're going to cave, so if you don't mind I actually would prefer to get this part of my day over with so I can focus on things that don't involve selling out my sister to rich perverts. Hurry up and browse."
The ice-cream shoppe kept challenging his concentration with sporadic bursts of stimuli: spoons clinking on glass, chairs barking across the floor, giggles and eruptions of loud conversations that waxed and ebbed on his periphery. He would've been able to think more clearly if they'd met at the park or the school, which was why she hadn't met him at the park or the school. Grumpy, he spread a napkin over the table in front of them and snatched the envelope away when she held it up with exaggerated tolerance. He actively loathed her as he set the photos out to review them. Akane Tendo in the dojo. Akane Tendo in her gym briefs. Akane Tendo at her desk with her hair up, pencil between her lips. Aerial long-distance footage of Akane Tendo in her bath tow—
He felt something clunk over in his brain like tumblers in a lock. "3500," he said grudgingly. "Indicating I have strict ethical and quality standards but also honor your pitiful financial predicament."
"How about five thousand indicating I'm doing you a favor by not making it ten thousand."
Akane Tendo smiled up at him in her sunflower yukata. Kuno stood to leave. "Oh, not with my merchandize you don't," Nabiki Tendo said. "Don't make me scream. I'm cute and you're huge. The scandal would ruin you."
"You are being unreasonable and I have more important matters to attend to."
"More important than Akane's chesticles or her delicate little feet peeking out of her blanket while she sleeps?"
She made four quality points unfortunately. Fourteen if you counted toes in the tally. "Yes."
"Wait, okay, wait." Nabiki Tendo straightened. "You're seriously leaving me here alone in the middle of a meal? Everyone will think you're walking out on your girlfriend. You'd really sully your honor in that way?"
"Yes, because I am not your boyfriend."
Her hand flew over her mouth as her eyes flooded with tears. "Stop it," Kuno told her.
"Oh, Tatewaki-sama –"
"Stop it."
"Oh god." Nabiki Tendo covered her face and began to heave against her palms. It was unfortunately an excellent mimicry of human emotion. "Oh god, not here, not in front of everyone. Oh, please, Tatewaki-sama—"
"Stop it." Eyes were beginning to turn in their direction. Kuno tried not to get flustered. "I am not obligated to fund your deviances—"
"Please don't give me up for those other women! I promise I'll talk back less. I'll do even more of the chores than I already do. I don't mind being your slave, Tatewaki-sama, as long as I can be with you. Oh, I'll be the perfect girlfriend, p-please just give me another ch-ch-chance."
Kuno felt some of his sanity hitchhike off with some passing glares. "Fine," he snapped. He shoveled himself back into his seat and curled a hand around his temple to hide his eyes a moment. "Enough with your puling. Four thousand. No higher."
Nabiki Tendo blubbered pitifully between her thieving fingers. "Here you are." The waitress' smile was careful. She set the parfait down in front of Nabiki Tendo, then eased the emptied tray flat against her body as she let her gaze roam freely between them a moment. "Can I get you anything else?"
"No," Kuno said shortly. "Thank you."
"Are you sure?" the waitress asked Nabiki Tendo.
A single tear escaped from under Nabiki Tendo's hands. She shook her head miserably around a hiccup.
The waitress' expression sharpened into unblinking reptile eyes.
"Fine." Kuno gave up and buried his own face. "Five thousand. You win."
"Nope, that should do it!" Nabiki Tendo told the waitress, beaming up at her beatifically. "I'm just crying because my boyfriend is so generous and lovely to me. I have to be the luckiest gal in the whole world."
Kuno kept his head in his hands while Nabiki Tendo snarfed her parfait like a rapacious barn goat. "You know, I'll admit to one thing," Nabiki Tendo said. She licked the spoon clean and waggled it at him. "All jokes aside, I've known you for a long time. When you fixate on something you tend to stick with it for the long haul. You've been stuck on Akane for going on half a decade now and no amount of non-Akane boobs I've thrown at you has ever budged the needle. What about the pigtailed girl gets you so riled up, anyway? A year ago you wouldn't have bothered to haggle for these prints of Akane and now it's like pulling teeth."
"Do not slander me with unseemly accusations," he said tiredly, not lifting his head. "I am devoted to Akane Tendo with the same fervor as I ever was."
"Except this year you're a dirty scheming two-timer who's making me bend over backwards to sell you prints of the girl you supposedly worship."
"I am but a humble servant of Eros. Wherefore must I discriminate? There is room in the soil of my fertile heart for two flowers to grow."
"Because believe it or not, I have scruples or whatever and it bugs me, that's wherefore," Nabiki Tendo said. "Not financially, that part's great. Just puts a little bee in my little bonnet."
Kuno kneaded his forehead with his thumbs.
Nabiki Tendo watched him for a long time. Her tongue curled around her spoon as she visibly mulled it over. "Unless," she said eventually, as if genuinely realizing this for the first time and coming to an opinion on it, "you have the same suspicions that the other guys at school do about the pigtailed girl, in which case I understand why you're gunning from both decks."
Kuno tented his hands at last to study her from under them. Nabiki Tendo tongued her maraschino cherry off her whipped cream and waggled it at him lasciviously. "No," Kuno said, instead of sitting on his bokken and using it to violently rearrange his organs. "I have no such improper designs."
"Oh sure you don't."
"Not without the rightful ceremonies. I am no boor."
"You're a boor and a boar and occasionally a bore, but mostly you're a teenage boy and right now you're full of crap," Nabiki Tendo said. "You really think you're going to scandalize me by admitting you've pictured my sister naked or tried to get the pigtailed girl to put out?"
Kuno looked at her. Her hair was in a barrette today. Combined with the minimal makeup she looked several years younger than her actual age, which was almost certainly calculated considering the scene she'd just made. She'd engineered her entire wardrobe today around a solitary hustle of 5000 yen and he couldn't tell if that disturbed or impressed him or maybe neither. "No," he said eventually.
"No to which."
"No to both."
"So you've never–"
"No."
Nabiki Tendo's tongue slowly conveyer-belted her second maraschino cherry back out towards him. "Love is patient, as am I," Kuno said, ignoring it with an effort that nearly unbraided an aneurysm in his head. "Akane Tendo's love is clean; the pigtailed girls' love is bright. I am willing to preserve their mutual purity – even in my thoughts – until the proper time comes to claim it for myself, as society expects."
"God that's sexist and gross, even for you," Nabiki Tendo said, pulling the cherry back into her mouth and making quick work of it. "You realize 'purity' is a marketing gimmick, right? Marriage is economic. Even if purity were an actual thing, girls aren't any more pure than you are. We're just better at hiding our grunge."
"Even were that true, Akane Tendo is the exception."
"And so you celebrate that by constantly trying to get her to put out without committing to her first."
He stared at her. "Seems to me that you're in your own way, Tatchan," Nabiki Tendo shrugged. "Because a girl like my sister… she doesn't like competition. She really doesn't like second place. And if you were serious about her the way you say you are, I'd think that little detail would matter to you just a little bit more. Especially now that Ranma's in the picture."
Kuno opened his mouth and closed it. "Anyway, so what'll it be." She spooned up the rest of her ice-cream with brisk little clinks. "Take it or leave them. Final offer. This manslayer has other mans to slay."
Disconcerted, confused suddenly, Kuno looked down at the array. Akane Tendo shrugging on her gi. Akane Tendo surrounded by violets, lifting the hem of her shirt away from her bare stomach to wipe away her sweat from the garden's heat. "I despise you," he said presently, figuring out his dysfunction.
"My wishes have been granted," Nabiki Tendo said. "All that's left in my genie-less world is for you to pony up seven thousand yen. Chop-chop. I'm leaving."
"What—" he was halfway into his wallet and did a double-take. "You said five."
"That's all in the past. And in the time it took you to decide whether or not to spurn that generous offer, the pictures became valued antiques." She held out her hand. "Chop-chop."
… he probably should've seen that coming.
.
He brainstormed that night in the bath and afterwards hung up his very expensive new collage amidst his assortment of pressed flowers on his wall, and this unfortunately was emblematic of his main problem: he was his own main problem, both non-specifically but also specifically.
Non-specifically: Kuno was an expert in delivering internal monologues to himself that he didn't actually listen to. Living life as himself was a lot like being onstage with the lights off and the mic cut. He navigated by feel and more often than not that got him where he was supposed to go. The world wanted performance art, not stage directions.
Specifically: Kuno was his own problem because he had six specific secrets he'd gladly die for rather than admit to, and that made him easy for the Nabiki Tendos of the world to leverage. He wouldn't be emasculated by society for wanting to hang up sweaty portraits of Akane Tendo. He would be emasculated by society for the dried flowers he'd arranged around her sweaty portraits because he himself had pressed them. His expertise in horticulture had been nurtured by his very dead mother but that didn't matter. Memories could be exploited, so his dead mother and her flowers stayed locked in his head. They were Secret Number One.
Notepads weren't large enough to contain his revelations, so he helped himself to a banana and locked himself into his room to tear down the enormous kakejiku that hung behind his futon. He wrote out the list he'd brainstormed in the bath directly onto the wall with blue ink.
.
Akane Tendo, maiden of the dojo, conveyor of concussive force; she of the sunshine daffodils and of the rain that groweth them:
- is clothed usually
- pink lip gloss that smells of reddish fruits
- can toss a barbell over ten meters; could easily carry children?
- kind to small animals and lost causes
- is not indifferent to my blood loss
- looks excellent in all shades of yellow
- does not monetize suffering
- lives in a Nerima dwelling with numbers on it
.
It was past ten in the evening. He set the swan quill aside and surveyed his list for a very long time.
He picked up the goose quill and retrieved his red ink.
.
Pigtailed girl, goddess of discord; she of the vanishing winds and of the mountains that eddy them down from the peaks:
- seldom wears clothes
- redolent of mystery; disappears frequently
- healthy and boisterous beauty; could easily carry children?
- performs an excellent spinning back kick in restrictive clothing
- performs an excellent spinning back kick in no clothing
- performs
- is often
- can make
- lives
.
"I wish very much that you wouldn't write on the walls, Tatewaki-sama," Sasuke said at his door.
"I have come to a momentous decision, Sasuke." He was busy. He took out his handkerchief and rubbed stray specks of ink off his skin. "You will mark it on my calendar."
"The bird calendar or the one with the sonnets, young master."
"A new one."
Sasuke left and returned with a seasonal calendar of Mt. Fuji. "I have decided to marry," Kuno said. "Mitigating factors have presented themselves and I realize I must make haste to secure the future she so richly deserves."
Sasuke's quill was already scratching busily. "What mitigating factors, young master."
"Finances, and the presence of Ranma Saotome."
"Shall I kill him?"
"He is beneath me," Kuno dismissed. "I will no longer suffer him in my thoughts. All my energies from this point on shall be devoted to wooing the object of my affection."
"Shall I bring the object of that affections here?"
"Nay, I shall win her fairly. I have realized the problem, Sasuke. Before she can return my ardor, she must be taught she can express her desire for me without fear of me seeing her as unmaidenly. She must also see me as monogamously faithful. Once these hurdles are addressed, she will have no choice but to swoon into my arms, and marriage will follow immediately."
"And to be clear, is this the young lady whose existence you can't prove, the young lady from whom you procure your pictures, or the young lady who sends you home with hairline fractures, sir?"
Kuno debated how on the planet to possibly address that. It was very late. "All things change with time. What matters now is that I present Akane Tendo with a proposition she would be foolish to refuse. I plan to do so this upcoming week, but will need you to prepare my proposal stallion."
Sasuke's expression was very hard to read, which was unusual. Sasuke was an excellent gardener, a passable bodyguard, and a consummately terrible liar. When he looked up it was with a gap-toothed grin that Kuno wasn't nearly stupid enough to mistranslate. "You do not approve," Kuno said.
"It is not my place to approve, Tatewaki-sama," Sasuke said. "Only that your wall had featured both women for so long – why, I'd just assumed you'd lay claim to both. I am pleased you've selected which one is worthier of your sacred time."
"The pigtailed girl is a temptation," Kuno admitted. "But I am not the man I was yesterday, and am twice the man I was the day before that. The truest arrow is the arrow that flieth by day. I shall aim straight and strike but one target, and in doing so lay undisputed claim to my prize."
Sasuke beamed. He dropped the calendar and reached out his hand, and Kuno clasped it tolerantly. "Shall I send out the proposal stallion?"
"Later this week, once all other preparations are complete."
"This unworthy servant can only offer you his most heartfelt congratulations, Tatewaki-sama." There were tears in Sasuke's eyes. "Would you allow me to commence your nightly shadow puppet show to send you off to sleep?"
"I will allow it." Kuno changed for bed and then spent the next half hour drowsily watching giraffes and zebras outwit crocodiles at a watering hole, and thought tangentially about living life onstage with the lights off and mic cut. He dozed and woke near two to find Sasuke gone and a candle lit in his place, which was kind but not new. The enlarged portrait of the pigtailed girl throwing a breathless grin at him over her shoulder was impossible to ignore and this was nothing new either, unfortunately.
.
"Okay, what," Nabiki Tendo said. "I just saw you, like, yesterday. When did this happen?"
"The arrow of Eros strikes without warning. A man must obey its piercing truth and act upon his masculine instincts ere he may call himself—"
"No, shut up, I mean it," Nabiki Tendo said. "For real, when did this happen. You haven't even had a first date yet and you've been fixated on the pigtailed girl for months. Are you drunk?"
"First dates are for children." The morning sun was blinding in the fog over the school grounds, creating tawny spots in his vision every time he blinked the humidity from his lashes. Nabiki Tendo's books for first period sat neatly piled on the upper left-hand corner of her desk, currently acting as a prop for her abacus. She'd actually paused mid-calculation to stare at him, which was to this day unprecedented. He'd seen her fleece customers underwater with it during swim class. "Duties of the heart supercede societal norms. I tarry only to give her the respect she deserves as a maiden, not because my feelings are fairweather."
"Kuno, I'm normally one hundred percent behind your shenanigans because shenanigans make up forty-eight percent of my monthly income, but this is out there even for you," Nabiki Tendo said. "You realize I was just messing with you yesterday, right? Like it's one thing to have an unrequited crush and buy pervy photos to act out your sweaty fantasies, but to seriously make a formal proposal? To sink actual money and paperwork and prestige into it? That's different."
"You have known my intentions for years. It should come as no surprise to you that I'm arranging the marriage."
"No, there's a difference. There's… gradient. Come on," Nabiki Tendo said. "Kuno, turn off your brights. Just be human for two minutes. You already know what her answer is going to be. Honestly, you'd have more of a chance doing all this with the pigtailed girl. She at least would play along with you for the money. Hell, I'm still not even convinced it'd take money. Just good food. Just keep shoveling something French into her until she busts out of her top and then you'll actually have some kind of reward to walk away with."
Kuno masterfully didn't think about even a single ounce of that. "I assure you that your sister will come to no harm with me. Joining our houses will also have the added benefit of improving your meager finances."
"How little do you think of me that you'd believe I'd actually sell my sister to the highest bidder?"
He sharpened his pencil. "Okay, fine, I would," Nabiki Tendo gave up. "But you don't have to right to call me on it. It's family business."
"And you will be my family. Rejoice in your hereto undeserved fringe benefits," Kuno said. "There is of course the outstanding matter of that tacky hovel you call a dojo, but I will remedy the eyesore within the first month. Saotome of course would have to be evicted."
"You know what? Good luck with that. Sincerely." Nabiki Tendo went back to her calculations, unpolished nails bouncing with typewriter clicks off the beads. A strawberry wafer went into her mouth and bounced on her lower lip like a cigar. "Sometimes I forget what an idiot you are. This has been clarifying."
"There is also the benefit of your interests becoming my interests. Once you are married into my family, I will no longer hold you legally and financially responsible for the damages I have incurred at the hands of your boorish house guest. This I think should please you most of all, as the damages amount to several hundred thousand yen. I will expunge the debt provided you sponsor Akane Tendo with whatever large savannah animal she specifies for our wedding procession through Nerima."
Nabiki Tendo choked on the wafer. Her hand flew over her mouth to hold it in while she bawled with laughter. "It may not be an animal from the savannah specifically, though that will be encouraged," Kuno said. "I am aware her favorite animal is the giraffe, but I will also be just as willing to accommodate elephants as long as they are bejeweled and color-coded depending on their position in the line."
"Stop."
"Should she desire lions or other large predators, they will need to be escorted by skilled trainers and whatever apparati would be necessary to contain their ferocity and limit casualties."
"It's only Tuesday, you're going to kill me."
"Of course, should she want both giraffes and lions, there may be some logistical difficulties," Kuno said. "I will need you to address those. There will be a vigorous vetting process—"
She slapped at him weakly until he stopped. She covered her ears and wheezed against her desk when he tried to continue, so he instead devoted himself to finishing his incomplete schoolwork with his freshly sharpened pencil. Other early students were starting to trickle in now as the morning fog continued to dissipate off the grounds; he could hear the doors down the hall slide open with rasps of wood on wood as classrooms continued to fill. "Okay." Nabiki Tendo straightened and wiped her face off with her wrist. She was hiccupping a little. "Okay. You win. Okay. I'm actually excited now. Let's do this."
He was sore. "No."
"Come on, why not."
"You have made a mockery of my intentions."
"Of course I did, your intentions are stupid. You're stupid," Nabiki Tendo said. She was digging into the last corner of her packaged wafers she'd been nursing during their study session. "But now I realize that both they and you are actually my kind of stupid, and that muddles things. Look, my resources vastly exceed your resources, let's not pretend. You've got the money; I've got the acumen. You want my sister, you're going to need a lot more than dough. She doesn't care about that. Work with me and we'll both get what we want. Comprendé?"
Kuno sharpened his pencil again and eyed her. Her face was still pink and she was still beaming, but the larceny in her eyes was elemental. "You are in favor of the idea," he said dubiously
"Oh, god, yes, are you kidding? I had plans to instigate a student riot in the art wing to make ends meet this week, but this is so much better. What do you plan to do? How will you start?"
He finished the last problem and dated his schoolwork. Empty save for them only half an hour earlier, their classroom now had nearly filled back up to its seams, cacophonous with slamming books and the rasp of desks being jolted over the tile. Despite himself he was sorry as always at the loss of atmosphere. Early mornings with her tended to be the few moments of peace he saw in the day. "Did you space out just now?" Nabiki Tendo said. "I didn't think you could do that."
"I am thinking."
"I didn't think you could do that either."
Without looking, Kuno reached over and plucked the last wafer out of her hand before it could reach her mouth. It crunched deliciously between his teeth. He chewed, swallowed, and stopped.
"Or that," Nabiki Tendo murmured, sounding very worryingly and genuinely titillated.
"I missed breakfast," he realized.
"Probably because you're too busy soliloquizing on the toilet to take care of your dietary needs. That'll be a hundred yen."
"You and your family owe me hundreds of thousands of yen in medical damages."
"Fine. Ninety yen."
"Help me wed your sister and you will never need to grovel so pitifully over wafers again."
"Tempting." Her tone was dry and she didn't seem particularly upset about the wafer. He'd be more worried about the implications of this save for the fact that if she'd had another wafer, he'd have likely stolen that as well. Larceny as it turned out was delicious. "And just how do you plan to get that done."
"I will prepare as I always prepare for such things."
"Planned a lot of weddings, huh."
He shot her a genuinely mystified look as he located his eraser. "Yes."
"I meant the ones outside of your crazy head."
"Non-fictional."
"Akane is very shy and delicate, you know. She'll want you to do all the work. Choosing the theme, the colors, the flowers, the scents. And of course handle all the fees. She'll only marry a man who takes her firmly by the shoulders and tells her to her face what she is and isn't allowed to do with herself and her money. In fact, she only wants a man who orders her to never use a single yen of her own money ever again. She finds it irresistibly sexy to be bossed around."
"Then naturally, as a man, I shall endeavor to give her what she desires."
"God you are something else." Nabiki Tendo whistled in a low register as she turned her attention to the board. "And here I thought this week was just going to be more black market pork buns and bathtub gin. Serves me right for wallowing in my pessimism. Keep me updated."
He forewent practicing his calligraphy at 21:30 that night to make the first of his lists with soap on the steamy bathroom mirror post-bath.
- poetry
- invitations (cream or eggshell)
- potpourri (lavender, jasmine)
- Echinacea and chamomile for topical application in event of swelling
- tiny bottles with miniature sh
He ran out of space. He toweled off, donned his bathrobe, retrieved his calligraphy brush and a bottle of blue ink, and went to work in his room.
- ips
- an assortment of daffodils, bred for pallor and purity
- one pony per household in attendance
- three dozen turtle doves
"Master, I truly wish with all my soul that you would stop writing on the walls," Sasuke said at his doorway.
"Sasuke, I have arrived at a decision." He was distracted. He scraped the bottom of the pot to pick up the dregs of ink. "Several in fact. You will mark this down."
"The decisions or the fact you have made decisions?"
"The latter."
Sasuke retrieved the Mt. Fuji calendar. "I must ask you a question," Kuno said. "I will know if you lie to me, so if you value a roof and a warm bed tonight—"
"You give me neither of those things as it is, Tatewaki-sama."
"Don't interrupt," he said. "Answer me truthfully. Have you ever been in love?"
Sasuke shifted his weight. "Ah hah," Kuno said triumphantly, studying him. "And what came of this love?"
"It was not to be."
"Why."
"They loved another."
The neutral pronoun made him pause but not for particularly long. Secrecy was the bread and butter of the Kuno household and there were depths Kuno in all honest decency refrained from plumbing. "Then you know the fragrant winds that fan the flames of passion – the honeyed sting that makes the heart swell?"
Sasuke's eyes were strangely tender. "I believe I do, young master."
"Normally the planning of a wedding is a woman's jurisdiction, but is it not also masculine and appropriate to step in should that woman be too delicate to shoulder the burdens of such heavy decisions?"
"It is, it is."
"Because I speak as but a man, Sasuke, humbled by what responsibilities destiny has given me. I will wed Akane Tendo, and it will be with daffodils, and I shall plan it myself. Flowers and all."
Sasuke's notepad was already out. "How many daffodils, sir."
"Two hundred thirty-seven."
"And the complimentary color?"
"Ivory. Daffodils and ivory shall be her banner, for the sunlight in her smile and the purity of her heart."
"That is quite poetic," Sasuke said, maybe a little quietly. "Indeed, this wedding would be a poor mockery without them."
"Then it is settled." Kuno slapped his hands together briskly. "We shall begin the wedding itinerary immediately. Sasuke, fetch the purple ink. This is to be an occasion to mark in royal hues."
"Yes, sir. May I suggest we use a large pad of parchment to—"
"And fetch me a stool. We shall begin at the top of the wall, where there is room."
Sasuke wilted. "Young master."
.
The pigtailed goddess was soaked one hundred percent of the time he spotted her by chance, and this was not Secret Number Two. Secret Number Two was that Kuno was supernaturally adept at bargain shopping and in fact enjoyed it so much he would make excuses to do it himself despite Sasuke's insistence he not debase himself. The pigtailed goddess' nudity and his shopping acumen only happened to collide because she smashed through the roof of a fruit vendor's kiosk and sent melons rolling everywhere. "My boisterous beauty, are you injured," Kuno breathed, gathering her in tenderly. "Pray direct me to the beast who mistreated you so cruelly and I shall—"
Her foot found his face. She was brilliantly flexible. He tuned back into his head in time to hear her say, "—off me, stupid ass, I'm busy. I ain't got time for this."
"Whyever— "
A displacement of air clued him into whyever. He jerked his chin back in time to get a clean shave from a passing chui. A girl in Chinese traditional clothing crashed like hail through the jagged hole the pigtailed goddess had made and together those two angles of attack just didn't correlate at all. Kuno was terrible at math and even he knew basic enough geometry to question how that'd just happened. "You no can escape me," she told the pigtailed goddess grimly. "Is no matter what shield of meat you use."
"Oh, Kuno-sama!" The pigtailed girl's turnabout was instant. Kuno stumbled under her sudden onslaught as she converged on him. "Oh, Kuno-sama, thank goodness you're here—"
"You no escape from me, fiancé!"
Still sobbing, the pigtailed girl shoved Kuno towards the incoming thrust of a spear. Kuno sacrificed a package of tofu to avoid being disemboweled and pushed off the melon cart with his foot, scooping the pipgtailed girl up in transit as he backflipped out of range. The foot she smushed into his face didn't help at all. "You stupid dumb ape boy," the Chinese girl snapped to him impatiently. "Stay out of way if you wanting limbs still attach to body."
"I know not what your quarrel is with my goddess, but you shall desist immediately." He was extremely cross about the tofu. He could afford another but he doubted he could haggle the shop owner down a second time. "I am loathe to strike a woman but if needs must, you shall be taught your place."
"Oh, Kuno-sama, how manly." The pigtailed girl clung to Kuno and all in all she was quite damp as usual. "My love, please protect me, I can't talk sense into her."
"Why does she pursue you?"
"I know not why, only that I can't return her affections, as they are indecent and I am but a pure maiden of saintly virtue."
"Stain upon womankind!" Kuno thrust his bag of groceries out towards the Chinese girl because his bokken was currently trapped under the pigtailed girl's clinging embrace. "You would dare try to defile her so publicly?"
"Am not sure what dumb flapping gums saying." The girl was flat. In contrast to the pigtailed girl's hysterics, she'd subsided to watch their display, leaning against the haft of her spear like there wasn't an entire marketplace scurrying away from them. She eyeballed the pigtailed girl with disbelief. "You serious right now?"
"She's t-trying to hurt me." The pigtailed girl's hot breath was on his jaw and she sounded choked with tears. Kuno was extremely worried that his libido was responding because it was impossible to know which was titillating him, and one of them was bad. "She r-ripped my clothes off my body and… oh, Kuno-sama. I'd always h-hoped it would be you, but then she did it and the entire time I knew this would make me unworthy of you, and—"
"You actually serious right now," the Chinese girl said.
"Remorseless desecrator!" Enraged, Kuno thrust the pigtailed girl safely behind him. He flipped his bokken up from his sash and took stance. "How dare you strip her so fetchingly!"
"You know I kill you, right?" the Chinese girl was curious. "Without blink? Shampoo will kill so quick you still think you am alive while already in hell."
"If I must die to protect such purity, then it is a death I accept with open arms!"
The pigtailed girl bawled and clung to him.
The Chinese girl looked skyward for an extremely long time. She was extraordinarily lovely and the part of Kuno that wasn't occupied with ruined tofu and half-naked redheads wished he had a bit more time to multi-task. "You lucky I no want people to see me chasing naked girl," she told the pigtailed girl irritably. "Fine. You have your way for now. You, I kill later," she added to Kuno. "Maybe soon, maybe in while. Depend on my mood. Watch you back, fiancé. I everywhere."
Kuno opened his mouth, but between blinks she was gone. The tumble of scents she left in her wake was intriguing but not enough to stick around for the police to show up. Without asking permission, he scooped the pigtailed girl up along with his bags of groceries and swiftly relocated them all several blocks away from the scene. "My dear, you are shivering," he murmured tenderly, peeling the pigtailed girl off him and smoothing away her tears. He shrugged off his uwagi and draped it around her. "Pray do not despair over that desecrator trying to purloin your skin dowry. I am now here; reveal yourself to me at your please so that you no longer feel robbed of the opportunity to—"
Her foot found his face again. She was brilliantly flexible and also a natural redhead. "Thanks for the intervention," she said, hopping up and dusting off his uwagi. It looked regrettably just as fetching on her as nudity. "I might be able to outfight her but I can't outrun her, and I don't like hitting girls."
"Such odd chivalry," Kuno said, kind of occupied by the overall spectacle of her but also a bit worried about Secret Number Two now that the crisis had passed. This was a remote mart a good distance away from Furinkan High and he hadn't anticipated running into anyone he knew. "By what means did you arrive here?"
"I hopped on top of a commuter train to hitch a ride home, but she kicked me off the roof from behind and I landed here. Honestly, though, none of this looks familiar so I think I might've accidentally hopped the wrong one. I got distracted by someone else trying to kill me."
"It happens to you so frequently?"
"I'm used to it. It's toothless mostly, ain't nothing I can't handle."
Kuno thought about the spear that had nearly overshared his innards with his outsides. He was about to suggest summoning Sasuke and his horse to escort her home when he saw her eyes zero in on his grocery bags. "Come to think of it, what are you doing out here," she said, perplexed. "Don't you live like all the way across town? There are closer shops to where you are, right?"
"I am merely taking over my sister's feminine duties," Kuno said quickly, a cold stab of alarm quickening his pulse. "As head of the house I am tasked with the brunt of the responsibilities. It is very masculine that I be doing this."
"Kuno, I sincerely give no shits that you're out grocery shopping like a normal human. Just curious about the frilly crap in your bag. What's with the bouquets and the… are those stuffed animals? How are you even carrying this much shit by yourself?"
"I am tremendously strong, as is appropriate for my sex. I am very masculine. Pray allow me to give you a direct demonstration and sweep you off your feet to carry you home in your vulnerable state so that others not take advantage of your trusting nature."
"Why did I ask." The pigtailed girl was talking to herself. She looked both puzzled and amazed by herself. "What am I doing. Screw this."
"Wait." Kuno parsed the closest bouquet in his collection and emerged with the pinkest flower. "You must take this as a token of my affection. While it is true I desire your body no more, perhaps this shall be an adequate parting gift so that you may remember me fondly."
The pigtailed girl actually did pause at this. She'd been halfway up the side of the building, hand on a protruding window ledge. She jumped back down and didn't break either ankle from the tremendous height. "You what," she said.
"I am to wed Akane Tendo and therefore must stop formally pursuing you. Know that I hold your ardent love fondly in my heart, however! May it forever bloom in the rich soil of what might have been."
"So Nabiki was right." The pigtailed girl looked more interested than distressed. "You really don't like me anymore?"
"Please do not take my rejection too harshly."
"Not even a hair?"
"It would be uncouth to pursue you now that I am betrothed to another."
She opened his uwagi and displayed her homewreckers. "Not even when I do this?"
Several shoppers and one teenage boy once again stopped to goggle at them. Kuno felt something start to slither from his nose. "Regrettably, no."
Her face crumpled. The transformation was so instant that Kuno had to take a step back. He was then forced to take another when she abruptly launched herself against him, nearly sending the rest of his groceries flying. "If that's truly your intention, Kuno-chan, I'll abide by your decision," she sobbed. "If you truly love Akane... oh, Tatewaki-sama. Oh, it's so bitter. Why does it hurt so much?"
His arms closed around her to deliver strictly platonic reassurances. "No." The pigtailed girl shook her head against him vigorously. "I will gracefully step aside! I will even set aside my grief; grief is the enemy of beauty. I will keep myself pure for you in case you ever change your mind. Oh, please remember me fondly, Tatewaki-sama. Goodbye forever."
For god's sake. Kuno's heart broke. He caught her chin and tilted it up, blinking back his own tears. "A kiss, then, to seal our passionate promise of mutual frien—"
Her foot found his face. It was nearly dry now and stuck the landing solidly. "I'll get this back to you," she said of the clothing, halfway up the building again and ascending rapidly. "Later. Sorry about the tofu. Thanks for the assist."
Kuno looked down at his various scattered bags and wondered if he should bother trying to continue shopping at this market today or ever again. He had a great deal of money and the vendors were aware of this, but they had also just seen him threatening to assault a petite young foreign girl with a bokken and then get rejected by a naked young foreign girl now running off with half his wardrobe.
"By the way."
Kuno glanced up as he retrieved his spare white uwagi from his satchel. The pigtailed girl was sitting on the edge of the roof of the post office, bare heels thumping the brick. She wasn't smiling. "I'd lay off Akane if I were you, just saying," she said. "She's really pretty gross, so I'm not even sure what you see in her, but even if she wasn't, she's just not into it. At this point I ain't even sure she's into dudes. Not like I care if you get your teeth mashed in, but you're not gonna get anywhere with her."
Her speech was incredibly rough even by tomboy standards. "I must live authentically, as must she," Kuno said. "To live other than as one's true self is a perversion of one's nature. Tis in ourselves that we are thus or/ thus. Our bodies are our gardens –'"
A roof shingle found his face. He wasn't aware the roof of the post office was shingled. "Just give it up," the pigtailed girl said. "She's engaged anyway. You're so big on this 'honor' thing, maybe you should honor that or whatever."
"It is a farce set up by two drunkards. Now that she has found true love, she will cast off those cruel expectations and embrace her destiny."
"And what about Ranma Saotome?"
"Should that boor try to interfere, I shall put him in his place."
The pigtailed girl had a peculiar expression on her face. "It ain't even fucking noon," she said to herself, standing. "What is my life. Why am I here."
He returned his attention to his bags once she'd put several rooftops between them. The stuffed giraffe beamed up at him and this was another unfortunate byproduct of Secret Number Two: he wanted one, he knew where to find it, and he had no self-control.
He doubled back to buy one for himself and began writing down his next order of business as he waited in the checkout line.
.
"Is this the residence of Nabiki Tendo?"
"What?"
"Also Akane Tendo."
"… … what…?"
"Also on occasion Ranma Saotome. Though I do not call to speak to him!"
"Kuno, it's three in the morning. Please seek psychiatric attention."
"I require your assistance."
"Go away."
He re-dialed when she hung up. She picked up on the seventh ring. "It is imperative you speak to me. I shall only be a moment."
"Be a moment less and call me in the morning. Or better yet…"
"It is a matter of the utmost importance!"
There was a long pause. Something rustled – sheets probably. She had turned over. When she spoke again it was clearer and resigned. "This better be extremely good."
"I am drafting a proposal for your sister. So far there are sixteen variations; I have narrowed it down to four. I would read them for you now as you are on occasion a woman and can assist me in my hour of need."
"Your hour of need is my hour of sleep."
"When one day a man deigns to love you and your pitiable dysfunction, you will come to understand that sleep is the first casualty in the face of true love."
She hung up. He called her again. "I will only be but a moment."
"I can tell you right now that all four of your winning proposals sound exactly the same. I'm even doing you a favor by telling you this ahead of time because you know I charge extra after hours."
"The first poem is fifteen stanzas and will be using the imagery of a lonely swan on the water during a vicious storm, during which a wealthy gander shepherds her to his nest. The second is twenty-six stanzas and relies on the imagery of flowers on the lip of the water during a vicious storm, during which a wealthy gardener shepherds her into his seaside hut. The third is seventeen stanzas and relies—"
She hung up. He called her again. "The pigtailed girl said something unusual today," Kuno said. "I was not in fact aware that she knew you, or you her."
"I know everybody."
"You exploit everybody; it does not mean you know them personally. It would be quite difficult to know everyone in Nerima."
"Kuno, have you taken a look at those knockers? You know what I do for a living. Of course I know the pigtailed girl. Fifty-two percent of Nerima is infatuated with the pigtailed girl and the other forty-eight percent of Nerima is in denial. I make bank selling photo books and dartboards alike."
"That is heinous," he frowned, distracted.
"You have bought literally fourteen volumes of those photo books you absolute hypocrite—"
"I sup on the bounty of her skin to ensure she is keeping herself in peak condition. I care for her health, unlike you, who merely exploit it."
"So I can take that to mean you've burned them all now that you've pronounced yourself engaged to my sister?"
"That would be both wasteful and disrespectful. I carefully peruse them each night to bolster my conviction that her nudity no longer provokes a visceral response from me."
"How dashing," Nabiki Tendo said. "You're an icon. A hero. I'm going now."
"You have not listened to any of my proposals!"
"Well then listen to mine. I'm going to sleep. You, actually, are going to sleep too. Why? Because when you stay up all night it ruins your skin, and the photo books I sell of you take a dip in quality. I have a reputation to keep and your Shakespearean puling costs me honest yen."
"You used 'puling' in a sentence." He had to pause as he was honestly quite charmed. "So you in fact can be taught."
"Stand next to a waterfall of pretension and you're going to get wet whether you like it or not. Good night, idiot. I'm done with this conversation and you are too."
He watched the wall for a while after she hung up, thumbing the cord on the phone.
This time she picked up with a yawn and a burp. "If one had to tell their father that they were getting married, how might they go about it?" Kuno said. "Hypothetically."
"Depends on the father."
"Hypothetically a bad one."
"A bad father is only as good as his wallet," Nabiki Tendo said. "If we're talking about yours, I'd say don't bother. Just leave him out of it. Your sister will be hard enough to sell this to."
He watched the shadowed outline of Akane Tendo's mural on the wall.
"I take it you haven't told Kodachi," Nabiki Tendo said.
"She will be included in my nuptial bliss, naturally."
"Just not right now."
"I would not like her to be disrupted from her schoolwork."
"You would not like her to violently beat you in front of witnesses."
Kuno very carefully considered nothing at all for a while. "Kuno, bottom line, you are asking me for advice on how to present a fictional wedding with a girl who despises you to a deranged man who also despises you," Nabiki Tendo said. "If it were up to me, I'd present the news to your dad in a way most likely to cause a heart attack. But I'm a humanitarian that way, I like to work for the good of the people. Kodachi is her own animal. I'd say screw that too. Just marry under their noses, present it to them as a done deal afterwards, and hopefully neither one of them will leave lasting marks gruesome enough to send your future children screaming into the night."
"I can see that this was perhaps a mistake," Kuno said.
"I would love to know what your first clue was."
"Is your father home between the hours of nine and eleven?"
"Yeah, he's home pretty much all the time. Why? Are you going to propose to him too?"
"If not my own father's, I desire his blessing."
"Seriously? You've been harassing Akane for years and all of a sudden now permission becomes important to you?"
"I will put forth every effort to adhere to tradition and decorum."
"Oh god, this is so good," Nabiki Tendo sighed. "Why are you like this. Yes. Yes. By all means. Just let me set up some security cameras so I can get it on tape. When can I expect you?"
"Next week perhaps, after the preparations are complete."
"If he's stubborn, ply him with nara pickles. A couple of those and I'm pretty sure he'd give you permission to marry the dojo."
"One final thing," he said, before she could hang up.
"What?"
Kuno reviewed poem number four. "What is a word that rhymes with 'fervent'."
"'Perv-ent'," and Nabiki Tendo hung up.
Kuno scratched his quill behind his ear, dipped it in his 18th century inkpot, and started on stanza sixteen.