Nabiki - Master of Anything Goes
Nabiki - Master of Anything Goes[R]
Niklas "Hawk" Jonsson
Summary: Ranma made another bet with Nabiki? Won't he ever learn? Well, at least this time it's a bet on an Anything Goes Martial Arts fight between Ranma and Nabiki. Surely our pig-tailed hero is capable of defeating Nabiki, 'aint he? Will this be the one time Ranma actually manages to one-up Nabiki?
Disclaimer: Ranma 1/2, the characters and whatnot are not mine, though I certainly wish they were! The story is mine though, all mine. This series deals with mature subject matters and violence. If this disturbs you, don't read. But if it does, then why the heck are you watching the show/reading the manga in the first place?
Feedback/Flames: Yes, please. Both of them are equally fun to read, although I must admit that I greatly prefer the first variety. :)
I can be found on ICQ as 21771860 or through e-mail as iamhawkyahoo.com, more stories are available at my nifty lil' site at http:www.hawksgalaxy.com or by clicking on my handle up above if you're reading this on fanfiction.net.
"speech"
emphasis/shouts/Kindred Domination/post-hypnotic triggers
/thoughts/
/telepathy/
translation
soundeffect/radio/telephone conversation/TV
Previously, on 'Nabiki - Master of Anything Goes'
Ranma's heart nearly broke as she looked up at him, a gentle smile on her lips and a broken look in her eyes. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, then opened his eyes again intending to give up his name in order to prevent this marvelous young woman from being stuck in a marriage with a man she did not love. He opened his mouth, but closed it again as Kasumi put her right index finger against his lips, silencing him before he had a chance to speak.
"Let me do this for you, Ranma." Kasumi mouthed and retracted her finger from his lips. "Please?" she mouthed again, her back blocking the view of her face from their respective families. Only Ranma could see what she was doing.
Ranma opened and closed his mouth several times, his mind a whirling mess of conflicting thoughts and emotions. He closed his eyes again, forcing his mind to focus and then opened then again. He was about to refuse again, when he happened to glance at Kasumi again and saw her eyes pleading with him as she mouthed 'Please?' again.
"In order to fulfil the agreement between the Tendo and Saotome families, I, Saotome Ranma, will accept the engagement." he announced in a clear and determined voice, though his eyes revealed that he was anything but.
Roll credits
Chapter Five:
"Why did you do it, Kasumi? What made you go along with it?" Ranma inquired, facing the woman serenely seated on the pillow opposite him. Once the deal had been made, there had been no preventing the old men from breaking out the Sake. The two of them had started their celebration instantly, chugging straight from the bottles. Akane had taken a small cup as well, though that was probably more due to wanting to drown out her sorrows then out of any desire to celebrate. Nabiki had merely smirked and congratulated the two of them on their impending nuptials, before leaving the room. Nodoka had still been in a somewhat shocked state of mind from Ranma's earlier revelation that he was prepared to give up his family, in order to get out of the engagement. She still retained enough mental faculties to serve Genma and Soun their sake, but the expression on her face was severely disturbed as Ranma and Kasumi left.
Ranma gently twirled the bottle of Sake in his hands, slowly getting used to the unfamiliar weight in his hands. He'd reached for a bottle as well, after having seen the look in Kasumi's eyes as she accepted the arrangement, he felt that he needed the alcohol, but he hadn't been able to bring himself to drink any of it yet. He and Kasumi had watched the proceedings for a while, then Kasumi had stood up and asked him to walk her back to her room. Once there, she had invited him in and locked the door behind them.
"Why did you?" Kasumi countered, but didn't wait for an answer. "My answer will most likely be the same as yours."
"I wasn't going to, but you insisted, remember?" Ranma responded, moving the bottle from hand to hand in an absent manner.
"And had I looked at you with true love in my gaze, what would your answer had been then?" Kasumi gently inquired.
"I would have accepted." Ranma replied.
"Why?" Kasumi asked. "You don't love me."
"Honor." Ranma replied after a few moments.
"Which is the precise reason why I accepted." Kasumi agreed, nodding in satisfaction.
"But, you don't love me." Ranma protested.
"And you don't love me." Kasumi countered.
"But, that's different..." Ranma tried to explain, only to be cut off with a quiet chuckle from Kasumi.
"How, Ranma? How is it different?" Kasumi inquired.
"You deserve better." Ranma groused after a few moments of contemplative silence. "You deserve to marry a man that you really love."
"Everybody deserves to marry the one they love." Kasumi agreed. "But it doesn't always work out that way, now does it? Just look at Shampoo or Ukyo." she continued and smiled a sad smile. "It would have been nice to marry for love, I guess. But I never really expected that to happen for me, not for a very long time now. Your and Akane's engagement have kept father busy, but if it hadn't kept so much of his attention, he probably would have tried to marry me and Nabiki off by now. If the two of you had gotten married, he most certainly would have directed his attention at me and Nabiki as soon as the rings were exchanged." she finished.
"I guess. It just seems wrong, for it to happen to you. You're the nicest person I know, Kasumi. I just think that you deserve better then me." Ranma commented despondently.
"Why, thank you, Ranma." Kasumi said with an honest smile on her lips. "It's nice to know that I'm so highly regarded by you." she added and then focused on him with a slightly disapproving look on her face. "But I won't stand for you talking yourself down like that. I'm not Akane, Ranma. I won't stand to have my fiancée having such a poor opinion of himself. If you truly had been such a bad person as you make yourself out as, we wouldn't be having this conversation. I could have just went along with the engagement and done my duties, Ranma. I didn't have to get out of my way to speak to you like this."
"Then, why are you?" Ranma inquired curiously.
"Because I like you, Ranma." Kasumi instantly replied. "I even love you, in a way. Not the marrying kind of love or even boyfriend-girlfriend kind of love, but I do love you. Neither of us really deliberately picked this engagement, but since we're both in it, we can make an effort to turn it into a workable one. Perhaps, one day, our feelings will change and we might grow to love each other. Or perhaps we'll never be more then friends who happen to be married to each other. One never knows. But unless we try to make it work, we'll never even be that."
"I guess you're right, Kasumi. Like always." Ranma replied with a faint smile on his lips.
"Wives and wives to be always are, you know. You would do well to remember that." Kasumi commented with a faint giggle, causing Ranma's faint smile to turn wider and more honest. "Ranma, can I ask you a question?" she inquired.
"Sure thing, Kasumi. You needn't even ask." Ranma assured her.
"I'm glad." she commented and the smile vanished, a more serious look appearing on her face. "Your announcement took me by surprise, I'll admit that. But seeing how well you've gotten along with Nabiki lately, I can't help but wonder one thing. Why didn't you ask her?"
"I did ask her. I told her yesterday what I would do this morning. She wasn't all that thrilled with the notion of getting engaged to me." Ranma understated with a wry smile.
"Oh..." Kasumi responded, then plastered a smile on her lips. "Her loss, I guess."
"Yeah." Ranma agreed with a fake smile. /Your loss, more like. Poor Kasumi./ Ranma thought. She really did deserve better then this, better then him.
Nabiki looked at the books with a pleased smirk on her face, the figures for the last month were the best ever. She had made more money running the parlor for three weeks then her best two months doing her 'regular' business. Giving that up had been an easy choice, considering. Granted, she had to work almost as hard to keep the parlor running as her betting rings, extortion schemes, information trades and selling things, pictures and services. It wasn't quite as much fun, but it was easier and more profitable.
She guessed that she might come to miss seeing the terror in peoples eyes as she did business with them and knew that she would miss the respect it garnered her, but the figures spoke for themselves. She chuckled at Ranma's naive belief that he had come out on top in their agreement, had won something by getting her to give up her business. She couldn't have kept it up anyway due to lack of time, since the parlor took up so much of her time. Or at the very least not to the extent that was required to make it successful.
She put the books on her nightstand and rolled over in her bed, looking up at the roof as she crossed her arms behind her head. She was slightly disappointed that she hadn't made use of the opportunity to lower Ranma's fee in return for her 'agreeing' to drop her dirty business. She shook her head, blaming it all on the slight stomachache she'd been suffering from in the last couple of days. No doubt that was responsible for causing her to loose her edge.
/Ranma.../
If anyone had told her a month ago that she would go easy on him in a deal, she would have laughed them in the face. It was odd, how the unsophisticated lout had managed to get under her skin in the last month. She almost, heavens forbid, considered him a friend at this point! Granted, he was trouble on two legs and couldn't maintain an interesting conversation to save his life, but somehow, he'd managed to grow on her none the less.
Not enough to make her seriously consider accepting his offer to get engaged with him, of course. But it was quite an accomplishment, considering the others in the very small group of people whom Nabiki considered her friends. She was close enough to three of her associates to consider them friends, as opposed to minions or associates. There was a fourth in her tennis class. That was it. That was the amount of people Nabiki in private would refer to as friends.
In public, the amount was slightly larger, but that was mainly because it was good business for her to do so.
Every single one of those four were, like her, highly intelligent, suave and blessed with a dark sense of humor. They just clicked and had done so ever since their first meeting. They were truly five of a kind.
Ranma didn't fit that mould at all, he was as far from her other friends as he could possibly get and not only genderwise. Well, at least whenever he wasn't in his cursed form. And yet, he'd somehow managed to get under her skin and slither through her defenses.
The past month had actually been fun! She just couldn't get over that fact. The first week, she'd nearly run Ranma into the ground, sending him on grueling and largely pointless tasks, mainly for her own amusement. Then, she'd discovered a better use for him. She supposed that was the turning point, by finding something about him that she enjoyed more then humiliating him, she'd unconsciously upgraded him from useless freeloader with astounding humor potential to somewhat useful freeloader with astounding humor potential.
She still didn't know what had possessed her to start giving him pointers and shaping him into a different person, however. Getting him to lay off with the insults, she knew. Not only was her special nutcracker technique satisfying as hell to use, but his constant bitching and off-hand insulting comments had been grating on her nerves once he directed them at her. But whatever in the world had caused her to help him develop an actual spine? Whatever had caused her to teach him the finer points of teasing? Whatever had made her want him to be able to stand up to women, in a non Martial Arts kind of way?
Well, other then for the fun of it all, of course. She still couldn't help but smile whenever she thought of just how many times she had caused him to blush or stutter during training, it was almost... Cute. She had always found him gorgeous, he was a delicious example of a man and if he'd only been blessed with a better personality, she might not have been quite as quick to foist him off on Akane as she had been when he first arrived. But cute? That was a first.
Nabiki didn't do 'cute', didn't appreciate 'cute'. She had always gotten 'beautiful', 'sexy', 'gorgeous' and 'studly', but 'cute' was something she hadn't been able to appreciate for a very long time now. She just didn't understand the seeming obsession most people seemed to have with 'cute'. Not everyone was as bad as Azusa, but most people she knew still seemed to get all gooey-eyed at 'cute'.
She kept on looking at the roof, enjoying the relaxed way she felt. Those massages truly were heavenly. She had been under a lot of self-imposed stress for years now. These last couple of weeks were the first ones she could remember since her mothers death that she hadn't been tense as a coiled spring, just waiting to burst or snap, whichever came first. She had unwound somewhat during their infrequent vacations, but never as much as she had lately.
Come to think of it, she hadn't gotten her daily fix and it was way past time to get that corrected. She reached for her cellphone on the nightstand, only to see the beeper she had lent Ranma lying next to it.
/Oh, right... His month is over.../ she thought and sighed. They had yet to come to an agreement about payment for her own continued massages. She rubbed her temples and flopped back onto the bed, staring at the roof. If she had accepted the engagement, she might have been able to persuade him to do it for free. After all, she was his fiancée, wasn't she? She somehow didn't believe that future sister-in-law would be enough to get him to part with those divine treatments, at least not any longer. He knew better then that, now.
Not that letting him slip through her fingers had been a mistake, of course. He was more trouble then he was worth, no doubt about that. She felt a twinge of guilt for dumping him on Kasumi, just as she had at first when she dumped him on Akane. But even if she loved her sisters, it wasn't enough for her to want to put up with him and all his flaws. There weren't quite as many now as when they first met him, much thank to her working him over in the last couple of weeks, but there were still quite a lot of them.
The fact that she had gotten started on him for Kasumi, eased her guilt somewhat and she decided to let it go. At least Kasumi had gotten off to a better start with Ranma then Akane had. And Kasumi could be quite persistent whenever she wanted something. No doubt she would want finish off the work that Nabiki had started and turn Ranma into a respectable young man. It might take her a while, quite a while, as a matter of fact. But Nabiki had full confidence in her older sisters ability to do so.
Kasumi could do everything, once she got really determined, she didn't stop until she'd succeeded to her own satisfaction. At first, her own modest efforts as a cook had been nearly as bad as Akanes recent performances, but she had persevered, studied, asked questions and now, she was a highly accomplished cook. At first, she had just barely been able to tell one end of a broom from the other and the washing machine had been a nearly unsolvable enigma, but she was now a perfect housekeeper.
Granted, Kasumi had to give up on a lot of things to accomplish this, but that just showed how determined she was, how much she was willing to give in order to reach her goals.
"Hey, 'Kane." Ranma greeted Akane as he joined her in the couch, his gaze heading for the TV. Akane glanced away from the TV program she hadn't really been watching anyway and instead directed her gaze at her ex-fiancée. He looked... Drained. He didn't have any of his usual energy, arrogance or confidence. It was usually apparent no matter what he did. Even when doing something as calm as reading or sleeping, he somehow managed to radiate energy and cockiness. But now, he seemed merely a shell of his former self, listless and devoid of energy.
"Hey." she responded in kind, then turned her gaze back towards the TV. She didn't quite know how to act around him now, how the two of them were supposed to interact. When Ranma snapped at school, she had rapidly came to the conclusion that things would never be the same ever again. She just hadn't been quite sure just what sort of changes would come about from their argument. She had suspected that Ranma breaking the engagement might be part of it, but hadn't been really sure until his announcement at breakfast.
She had actually been sort of surprised that Nabiki hadn't snatched him up, considering how tight the two of them had seemed lately. Apparently, he'd spoken with Nabiki sometime before breakfast as she recalled him saying something about knowing Nabiki answer already.
She guessed that she really shouldn't have been surprised. Nabiki wasn't fond of much, and loved even less. Akane guessed it had been foolish of her to assume that Nabiki would feel anything other then possibly mild fondness for Ranma.
She very nearly wanted to laugh at what she had first thought was going on when she discovered Ranma giving Nabiki a massage.
Either that, or cry.
To think that she had actually thought that there was something going on between the two of them! The Martial Art fanatic and the money-grubbing fanatic! One didn't notice anything that wasn't related to Martial Arts and the other didn't notice anything that wasn't related to something she could earn money on. Of course, since there was very little Nabiki couldn't make money off, it was very few things that she didn't notice.
If any.
It was remarkable how much mental clarity she had gained since the engagement went into the crapper. Not being a part of it any longer, and knowing that she probably never would again unless some sort of miracle took place, had given her an objectivity to it all that she had lacked ever since first meeting Ranma. In hindsight, many of the things she had said and done made her want to cry her heart out in frustration. Not all her actions had been horrible, cruel or awful, not even a majority of them as a matter of fact. But there were still far to many examples of her being horrible towards poor Ranma for her own peace of mind.
Granted, he hadn't always been a sterling example of good behavior either, but it was herself that she was most disappointed in. She had believed herself to be a bigger person then she had actually been towards Ranma. Looking back on it all now, she had reached the conclusion that she was taking out all of her confusion, frustration, insecurity and feelings of inadequacy towards both herself and the mess she'd somehow wound up in, against Ranma.
Instead of actually dealing with things, she had shoved them all aside in favor of lashing out towards Ranma as a way of distracting herself.
The Akane sitting in the couch at this moment, had experienced more mental and emotional growth in the last day, then she had in the entire last year!
And she now regretted not having done it before, before it was too late.
She glanced over at Ranma again, allowing her gaze to drift over him from head to toe. She could admit to herself, now, that she had loved him, that she had been in love with him. Perhaps she still did and was, in a way. She would certainly take him back right now, had he been willing to take her back. But she knew that he wasn't and so, had decided to move on. Or at least, try to do so. She had a feeling that getting over Ranma, would be one of the hardest things she had ever been forced to do.
Living with him and going to school with him, wouldn't make it any easier.
"How are you feeling?" she inquired and blinked at his humorless chuckle.
"Don't know yet." he admitted with a shake of his head. "I think I'm still in shock. Ask me again in a week." he continued, leaning his head against the back of the couch. "You?" he inquired.
"The same." she replied as she pondered his answer. It appeared as if she wasn't the only one who had done a bit of growing in the last day. Of course, Ranma had spent the last couple of weeks growing, but it appeared as if the last day had provided him with additional opportunities to do so. "How's Kasumi?" she inquired, knowing that he had spent the better part of the day cooped up with Kasumi in her room.
The old Akane would have busted in on them and clobbered Ranma for being a pervert trying to take advantage of her sister.
The new Akane knew that Ranma would rather cut his own throat before harming Kasumi in any way. She kept him fed, clothed, fed, always had a smile for him, fed him, cleaned the guest room and, once again, fed him. For someone who had been on the road for most of his life and lived under harsher conditions then Akane had ever heard about before, Kasumi was probably viewed by him as some sort of saint or a benevolent goddess of generosity and kindness.
"Self-sacrificing, kind, benevolent, hard-working and the most amazing person it has ever been my privilege to meet." Ranma responded with a sad smile. "And unfortunately, she's now stuck with me." he added and wiped at his eyes with the back of his left hand, before any tears had the opportunity to emerge.
"She didn't have to do it, you know." Akane reminded him, about to venture forth her opinion that Kasumi might like him.
"No, she had to. We all forced her hands." Ranma commented before she could speak up. "When I refused you and Nabiki refused me, she was the only one left. If she had refused as well, the agreement would have been broken. I've spoken more with her today and heard her talk more today, then I have in all the time since I first got here. I understand her a little better now. We talked a lot about honor and she takes it just as seriously as I do, perhaps even more so. I never really understood that about her before, but I do now. With you and your sister out of the running, she had no choice but to accept." Ranma went on and raised his gaze to the roof. "At first, I thought she did it out of kindness for me, so that I wouldn't have to give up my name, my family. But I don't think that was ever a part of why she did it. Or at least not the main reason."
"I value my honor so greatly because that's just about all I have that's my own. Before today, I never would have suspected that the same was true for Kasumi as well." Ranma finished.
"I... I thought she liked you." Akane said, looking with wide eyes at Ranma.
"And she does. She just doesn't love me." Ranma responded.
"Can... Can I ask you a question, Ranma?" Akane eventually asked, after a long period of silence.
"Sure, 'Kane." he replied, shifting his attention from the roof to her.
"Did you?" she asked.
"Did I what?" Ranma asked, his eyebrows furrowed in confusion.
"Did you ever love me? Were you ever in love with me?" she clarified.
"I... I don't know. Perhaps. Perhaps I did, perhaps I was. I just don't know." Ranma replied and pondered the matter for nearly half a minute. "I think I did love you. No, scratch that. I did. And I still love you. I just don't know if I was ever in love with you." he finally admitted.
"Why didn't you ever say anything?" Akane inquired, feeling as if her heart was about to break all over again. /He loved me! He still loves me!/ "If I'd just known..." Akane said, but couldn't bring herself to finish. /If only I'd known, I wouldn't have felt so damned insecure! I would have treated you better!/
"I didn't know if you felt the same way. I guess I needed to hear you say it first." he finally responded.
"Yeah. Me too." Akane admitted, shaking her head. "We really were too perfect for each other, weren't we? Two of a kind. Two insecure oafs too proud to ever admit that we needed the other." she continued with a humorless chuckle, wiping a few tears from her eyes.
"I guess." Ranma agreed. "Of course, our fathers didn't exactly help matters." he added with a derisive snort.
"Nor your other fiancées." Akane added with a shake of her head. "Or Nabiki."
"I can't exactly bring myself to be mad at either of those, however. Not after getting to know Nabiki and after my conversation with Kasumi before. They all had their reasons for what they did." Ranma said and reached into his shirt, withdrawing the still unopened bottle of sake he had snatched up this morning.
"Do you drink, Ranma?" Akane asked in surprise, trying to recall if she had ever seen him drink any of his own before, without being forced to it by the situation or by someone actually physically forcing him to drink.
"No. But today, I think I'll make an exception. Things seem calm enough today that I might be able to get away with not being at 100% for an evening." Ranma eventually responded, before looking over at her. "Do you want any?" he inquired and she nodded after a brief hesitation, reaching for her empty cup on the table and holding it out towards him.
"I think I'll join you." Akane said as Ranma refilled her cup, then chugged straight from the bottle, wheezing and coughing as he finally removed it. "Careful with that, Ranma." she advised him, as she carefully sipped from her own cup. "You know that you can't handle alcohol very well." she added, well remembering the mess he had made of himself in the past whenever he'd gotten drunk for one reason or another. She actually laughed as she remembered the school play and his drunken performance there.
"Heh, I guess you do have a point." he slurred, his low tolerance already rearing its ugly head. "Here's to broken engagements, may it at least lead you to the life you deserve." he toasted and clanked the neck of his bottle against her cup, before he started drinking straight from the bottle again.
"To broken engagements." Akane agreed and downed the contents of her cup in one go. "And being married to Kasumi will probably make you happy, Ranma." she admonished him.
"Not to mention feeling guilty for ruining her life, undeserving of my happiness and most of all, undeserving of someone as wonderful as Kasumi." he admitted in a drunken slur.
Akane didn't have an answer for that, so she settled for letting Ranma refill her cup and keep him company as the two of them made short work of the bottle, as they drowned their joint misery in an alcoholic haze.
The End! ( For now... )
Niklas "Hawk" Jonsson
Disclaimer: Ranma 1/2, the characters and whatnot are not mine, though I certainly wish they were! The story is mine though, all mine. This series deals with mature subject matters and violence. If this disturbs you, don't read. But if it does, then why the heck are you watching the show/reading the manga in the first place?
Feedback/Flames: Yes, please. Both of them are equally fun to read, although I must admit that I greatly prefer the first variety. :)
I can be found on ICQ as 21771860 or through e-mail as iamhawkyahoo.com, more stories are available at my nifty lil' site at http:www.hawksgalaxy.com or by clicking on my handle up above if you're reading this on fanfiction.net.
"speech"
emphasis/shouts/Kindred Domination/post-hypnotic triggers
/thoughts/
/telepathy/
translation
soundeffect/radio/telephone conversation/TV
Ranma's heart nearly broke as she looked up at him, a gentle smile on her lips and a broken look in her eyes. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, then opened his eyes again intending to give up his name in order to prevent this marvelous young woman from being stuck in a marriage with a man she did not love. He opened his mouth, but closed it again as Kasumi put her right index finger against his lips, silencing him before he had a chance to speak.
"Let me do this for you, Ranma." Kasumi mouthed and retracted her finger from his lips. "Please?" she mouthed again, her back blocking the view of her face from their respective families. Only Ranma could see what she was doing.
Ranma opened and closed his mouth several times, his mind a whirling mess of conflicting thoughts and emotions. He closed his eyes again, forcing his mind to focus and then opened then again. He was about to refuse again, when he happened to glance at Kasumi again and saw her eyes pleading with him as she mouthed 'Please?' again.
"In order to fulfil the agreement between the Tendo and Saotome families, I, Saotome Ranma, will accept the engagement." he announced in a clear and determined voice, though his eyes revealed that he was anything but.
"Why did you do it, Kasumi? What made you go along with it?" Ranma inquired, facing the woman serenely seated on the pillow opposite him. Once the deal had been made, there had been no preventing the old men from breaking out the Sake. The two of them had started their celebration instantly, chugging straight from the bottles. Akane had taken a small cup as well, though that was probably more due to wanting to drown out her sorrows then out of any desire to celebrate. Nabiki had merely smirked and congratulated the two of them on their impending nuptials, before leaving the room. Nodoka had still been in a somewhat shocked state of mind from Ranma's earlier revelation that he was prepared to give up his family, in order to get out of the engagement. She still retained enough mental faculties to serve Genma and Soun their sake, but the expression on her face was severely disturbed as Ranma and Kasumi left.
Ranma gently twirled the bottle of Sake in his hands, slowly getting used to the unfamiliar weight in his hands. He'd reached for a bottle as well, after having seen the look in Kasumi's eyes as she accepted the arrangement, he felt that he needed the alcohol, but he hadn't been able to bring himself to drink any of it yet. He and Kasumi had watched the proceedings for a while, then Kasumi had stood up and asked him to walk her back to her room. Once there, she had invited him in and locked the door behind them.
"Why did you?" Kasumi countered, but didn't wait for an answer. "My answer will most likely be the same as yours."
"I wasn't going to, but you insisted, remember?" Ranma responded, moving the bottle from hand to hand in an absent manner.
"And had I looked at you with true love in my gaze, what would your answer had been then?" Kasumi gently inquired.
"I would have accepted." Ranma replied.
"Why?" Kasumi asked. "You don't love me."
"Honor." Ranma replied after a few moments.
"Which is the precise reason why I accepted." Kasumi agreed, nodding in satisfaction.
"But, you don't love me." Ranma protested.
"And you don't love me." Kasumi countered.
"But, that's different..." Ranma tried to explain, only to be cut off with a quiet chuckle from Kasumi.
"How, Ranma? How is it different?" Kasumi inquired.
"You deserve better." Ranma groused after a few moments of contemplative silence. "You deserve to marry a man that you really love."
"Everybody deserves to marry the one they love." Kasumi agreed. "But it doesn't always work out that way, now does it? Just look at Shampoo or Ukyo." she continued and smiled a sad smile. "It would have been nice to marry for love, I guess. But I never really expected that to happen for me, not for a very long time now. Your and Akane's engagement have kept father busy, but if it hadn't kept so much of his attention, he probably would have tried to marry me and Nabiki off by now. If the two of you had gotten married, he most certainly would have directed his attention at me and Nabiki as soon as the rings were exchanged." she finished.
"I guess. It just seems wrong, for it to happen to you. You're the nicest person I know, Kasumi. I just think that you deserve better then me." Ranma commented despondently.
"Why, thank you, Ranma." Kasumi said with an honest smile on her lips. "It's nice to know that I'm so highly regarded by you." she added and then focused on him with a slightly disapproving look on her face. "But I won't stand for you talking yourself down like that. I'm not Akane, Ranma. I won't stand to have my fiancée having such a poor opinion of himself. If you truly had been such a bad person as you make yourself out as, we wouldn't be having this conversation. I could have just went along with the engagement and done my duties, Ranma. I didn't have to get out of my way to speak to you like this."
"Then, why are you?" Ranma inquired curiously.
"Because I like you, Ranma." Kasumi instantly replied. "I even love you, in a way. Not the marrying kind of love or even boyfriend-girlfriend kind of love, but I do love you. Neither of us really deliberately picked this engagement, but since we're both in it, we can make an effort to turn it into a workable one. Perhaps, one day, our feelings will change and we might grow to love each other. Or perhaps we'll never be more then friends who happen to be married to each other. One never knows. But unless we try to make it work, we'll never even be that."
"I guess you're right, Kasumi. Like always." Ranma replied with a faint smile on his lips.
"Wives and wives to be always are, you know. You would do well to remember that." Kasumi commented with a faint giggle, causing Ranma's faint smile to turn wider and more honest. "Ranma, can I ask you a question?" she inquired.
"Sure thing, Kasumi. You needn't even ask." Ranma assured her.
"I'm glad." she commented and the smile vanished, a more serious look appearing on her face. "Your announcement took me by surprise, I'll admit that. But seeing how well you've gotten along with Nabiki lately, I can't help but wonder one thing. Why didn't you ask her?"
"I did ask her. I told her yesterday what I would do this morning. She wasn't all that thrilled with the notion of getting engaged to me." Ranma understated with a wry smile.
"Oh..." Kasumi responded, then plastered a smile on her lips. "Her loss, I guess."
"Yeah." Ranma agreed with a fake smile. /Your loss, more like. Poor Kasumi./ Ranma thought. She really did deserve better then this, better then him.
Nabiki looked at the books with a pleased smirk on her face, the figures for the last month were the best ever. She had made more money running the parlor for three weeks then her best two months doing her 'regular' business. Giving that up had been an easy choice, considering. Granted, she had to work almost as hard to keep the parlor running as her betting rings, extortion schemes, information trades and selling things, pictures and services. It wasn't quite as much fun, but it was easier and more profitable.
She guessed that she might come to miss seeing the terror in peoples eyes as she did business with them and knew that she would miss the respect it garnered her, but the figures spoke for themselves. She chuckled at Ranma's naive belief that he had come out on top in their agreement, had won something by getting her to give up her business. She couldn't have kept it up anyway due to lack of time, since the parlor took up so much of her time. Or at the very least not to the extent that was required to make it successful.
She put the books on her nightstand and rolled over in her bed, looking up at the roof as she crossed her arms behind her head. She was slightly disappointed that she hadn't made use of the opportunity to lower Ranma's fee in return for her 'agreeing' to drop her dirty business. She shook her head, blaming it all on the slight stomachache she'd been suffering from in the last couple of days. No doubt that was responsible for causing her to loose her edge.
/Ranma.../
If anyone had told her a month ago that she would go easy on him in a deal, she would have laughed them in the face. It was odd, how the unsophisticated lout had managed to get under her skin in the last month. She almost, heavens forbid, considered him a friend at this point! Granted, he was trouble on two legs and couldn't maintain an interesting conversation to save his life, but somehow, he'd managed to grow on her none the less.
Not enough to make her seriously consider accepting his offer to get engaged with him, of course. But it was quite an accomplishment, considering the others in the very small group of people whom Nabiki considered her friends. She was close enough to three of her associates to consider them friends, as opposed to minions or associates. There was a fourth in her tennis class. That was it. That was the amount of people Nabiki in private would refer to as friends.
In public, the amount was slightly larger, but that was mainly because it was good business for her to do so.
Every single one of those four were, like her, highly intelligent, suave and blessed with a dark sense of humor. They just clicked and had done so ever since their first meeting. They were truly five of a kind.
Ranma didn't fit that mould at all, he was as far from her other friends as he could possibly get and not only genderwise. Well, at least whenever he wasn't in his cursed form. And yet, he'd somehow managed to get under her skin and slither through her defenses.
The past month had actually been fun! She just couldn't get over that fact. The first week, she'd nearly run Ranma into the ground, sending him on grueling and largely pointless tasks, mainly for her own amusement. Then, she'd discovered a better use for him. She supposed that was the turning point, by finding something about him that she enjoyed more then humiliating him, she'd unconsciously upgraded him from useless freeloader with astounding humor potential to somewhat useful freeloader with astounding humor potential.
She still didn't know what had possessed her to start giving him pointers and shaping him into a different person, however. Getting him to lay off with the insults, she knew. Not only was her special nutcracker technique satisfying as hell to use, but his constant bitching and off-hand insulting comments had been grating on her nerves once he directed them at her. But whatever in the world had caused her to help him develop an actual spine? Whatever had caused her to teach him the finer points of teasing? Whatever had made her want him to be able to stand up to women, in a non Martial Arts kind of way?
Well, other then for the fun of it all, of course. She still couldn't help but smile whenever she thought of just how many times she had caused him to blush or stutter during training, it was almost... Cute. She had always found him gorgeous, he was a delicious example of a man and if he'd only been blessed with a better personality, she might not have been quite as quick to foist him off on Akane as she had been when he first arrived. But cute? That was a first.
Nabiki didn't do 'cute', didn't appreciate 'cute'. She had always gotten 'beautiful', 'sexy', 'gorgeous' and 'studly', but 'cute' was something she hadn't been able to appreciate for a very long time now. She just didn't understand the seeming obsession most people seemed to have with 'cute'. Not everyone was as bad as Azusa, but most people she knew still seemed to get all gooey-eyed at 'cute'.
She kept on looking at the roof, enjoying the relaxed way she felt. Those massages truly were heavenly. She had been under a lot of self-imposed stress for years now. These last couple of weeks were the first ones she could remember since her mothers death that she hadn't been tense as a coiled spring, just waiting to burst or snap, whichever came first. She had unwound somewhat during their infrequent vacations, but never as much as she had lately.
Come to think of it, she hadn't gotten her daily fix and it was way past time to get that corrected. She reached for her cellphone on the nightstand, only to see the beeper she had lent Ranma lying next to it.
/Oh, right... His month is over.../ she thought and sighed. They had yet to come to an agreement about payment for her own continued massages. She rubbed her temples and flopped back onto the bed, staring at the roof. If she had accepted the engagement, she might have been able to persuade him to do it for free. After all, she was his fiancée, wasn't she? She somehow didn't believe that future sister-in-law would be enough to get him to part with those divine treatments, at least not any longer. He knew better then that, now.
Not that letting him slip through her fingers had been a mistake, of course. He was more trouble then he was worth, no doubt about that. She felt a twinge of guilt for dumping him on Kasumi, just as she had at first when she dumped him on Akane. But even if she loved her sisters, it wasn't enough for her to want to put up with him and all his flaws. There weren't quite as many now as when they first met him, much thank to her working him over in the last couple of weeks, but there were still quite a lot of them.
The fact that she had gotten started on him for Kasumi, eased her guilt somewhat and she decided to let it go. At least Kasumi had gotten off to a better start with Ranma then Akane had. And Kasumi could be quite persistent whenever she wanted something. No doubt she would want finish off the work that Nabiki had started and turn Ranma into a respectable young man. It might take her a while, quite a while, as a matter of fact. But Nabiki had full confidence in her older sisters ability to do so.
Kasumi could do everything, once she got really determined, she didn't stop until she'd succeeded to her own satisfaction. At first, her own modest efforts as a cook had been nearly as bad as Akanes recent performances, but she had persevered, studied, asked questions and now, she was a highly accomplished cook. At first, she had just barely been able to tell one end of a broom from the other and the washing machine had been a nearly unsolvable enigma, but she was now a perfect housekeeper.
Granted, Kasumi had to give up on a lot of things to accomplish this, but that just showed how determined she was, how much she was willing to give in order to reach her goals.
"Hey, 'Kane." Ranma greeted Akane as he joined her in the couch, his gaze heading for the TV. Akane glanced away from the TV program she hadn't really been watching anyway and instead directed her gaze at her ex-fiancée. He looked... Drained. He didn't have any of his usual energy, arrogance or confidence. It was usually apparent no matter what he did. Even when doing something as calm as reading or sleeping, he somehow managed to radiate energy and cockiness. But now, he seemed merely a shell of his former self, listless and devoid of energy.
"Hey." she responded in kind, then turned her gaze back towards the TV. She didn't quite know how to act around him now, how the two of them were supposed to interact. When Ranma snapped at school, she had rapidly came to the conclusion that things would never be the same ever again. She just hadn't been quite sure just what sort of changes would come about from their argument. She had suspected that Ranma breaking the engagement might be part of it, but hadn't been really sure until his announcement at breakfast.
She had actually been sort of surprised that Nabiki hadn't snatched him up, considering how tight the two of them had seemed lately. Apparently, he'd spoken with Nabiki sometime before breakfast as she recalled him saying something about knowing Nabiki answer already.
She guessed that she really shouldn't have been surprised. Nabiki wasn't fond of much, and loved even less. Akane guessed it had been foolish of her to assume that Nabiki would feel anything other then possibly mild fondness for Ranma.
She very nearly wanted to laugh at what she had first thought was going on when she discovered Ranma giving Nabiki a massage.
Either that, or cry.
To think that she had actually thought that there was something going on between the two of them! The Martial Art fanatic and the money-grubbing fanatic! One didn't notice anything that wasn't related to Martial Arts and the other didn't notice anything that wasn't related to something she could earn money on. Of course, since there was very little Nabiki couldn't make money off, it was very few things that she didn't notice.
If any.
It was remarkable how much mental clarity she had gained since the engagement went into the crapper. Not being a part of it any longer, and knowing that she probably never would again unless some sort of miracle took place, had given her an objectivity to it all that she had lacked ever since first meeting Ranma. In hindsight, many of the things she had said and done made her want to cry her heart out in frustration. Not all her actions had been horrible, cruel or awful, not even a majority of them as a matter of fact. But there were still far to many examples of her being horrible towards poor Ranma for her own peace of mind.
Granted, he hadn't always been a sterling example of good behavior either, but it was herself that she was most disappointed in. She had believed herself to be a bigger person then she had actually been towards Ranma. Looking back on it all now, she had reached the conclusion that she was taking out all of her confusion, frustration, insecurity and feelings of inadequacy towards both herself and the mess she'd somehow wound up in, against Ranma.
Instead of actually dealing with things, she had shoved them all aside in favor of lashing out towards Ranma as a way of distracting herself.
The Akane sitting in the couch at this moment, had experienced more mental and emotional growth in the last day, then she had in the entire last year!
And she now regretted not having done it before, before it was too late.
She glanced over at Ranma again, allowing her gaze to drift over him from head to toe. She could admit to herself, now, that she had loved him, that she had been in love with him. Perhaps she still did and was, in a way. She would certainly take him back right now, had he been willing to take her back. But she knew that he wasn't and so, had decided to move on. Or at least, try to do so. She had a feeling that getting over Ranma, would be one of the hardest things she had ever been forced to do.
Living with him and going to school with him, wouldn't make it any easier.
"How are you feeling?" she inquired and blinked at his humorless chuckle.
"Don't know yet." he admitted with a shake of his head. "I think I'm still in shock. Ask me again in a week." he continued, leaning his head against the back of the couch. "You?" he inquired.
"The same." she replied as she pondered his answer. It appeared as if she wasn't the only one who had done a bit of growing in the last day. Of course, Ranma had spent the last couple of weeks growing, but it appeared as if the last day had provided him with additional opportunities to do so. "How's Kasumi?" she inquired, knowing that he had spent the better part of the day cooped up with Kasumi in her room.
The old Akane would have busted in on them and clobbered Ranma for being a pervert trying to take advantage of her sister.
The new Akane knew that Ranma would rather cut his own throat before harming Kasumi in any way. She kept him fed, clothed, fed, always had a smile for him, fed him, cleaned the guest room and, once again, fed him. For someone who had been on the road for most of his life and lived under harsher conditions then Akane had ever heard about before, Kasumi was probably viewed by him as some sort of saint or a benevolent goddess of generosity and kindness.
"Self-sacrificing, kind, benevolent, hard-working and the most amazing person it has ever been my privilege to meet." Ranma responded with a sad smile. "And unfortunately, she's now stuck with me." he added and wiped at his eyes with the back of his left hand, before any tears had the opportunity to emerge.
"She didn't have to do it, you know." Akane reminded him, about to venture forth her opinion that Kasumi might like him.
"No, she had to. We all forced her hands." Ranma commented before she could speak up. "When I refused you and Nabiki refused me, she was the only one left. If she had refused as well, the agreement would have been broken. I've spoken more with her today and heard her talk more today, then I have in all the time since I first got here. I understand her a little better now. We talked a lot about honor and she takes it just as seriously as I do, perhaps even more so. I never really understood that about her before, but I do now. With you and your sister out of the running, she had no choice but to accept." Ranma went on and raised his gaze to the roof. "At first, I thought she did it out of kindness for me, so that I wouldn't have to give up my name, my family. But I don't think that was ever a part of why she did it. Or at least not the main reason."
"I value my honor so greatly because that's just about all I have that's my own. Before today, I never would have suspected that the same was true for Kasumi as well." Ranma finished.
"I... I thought she liked you." Akane said, looking with wide eyes at Ranma.
"And she does. She just doesn't love me." Ranma responded.
"Can... Can I ask you a question, Ranma?" Akane eventually asked, after a long period of silence.
"Sure, 'Kane." he replied, shifting his attention from the roof to her.
"Did you?" she asked.
"Did I what?" Ranma asked, his eyebrows furrowed in confusion.
"Did you ever love me? Were you ever in love with me?" she clarified.
"I... I don't know. Perhaps. Perhaps I did, perhaps I was. I just don't know." Ranma replied and pondered the matter for nearly half a minute. "I think I did love you. No, scratch that. I did. And I still love you. I just don't know if I was ever in love with you." he finally admitted.
"Why didn't you ever say anything?" Akane inquired, feeling as if her heart was about to break all over again. /He loved me! He still loves me!/ "If I'd just known..." Akane said, but couldn't bring herself to finish. /If only I'd known, I wouldn't have felt so damned insecure! I would have treated you better!/
"I didn't know if you felt the same way. I guess I needed to hear you say it first." he finally responded.
"Yeah. Me too." Akane admitted, shaking her head. "We really were too perfect for each other, weren't we? Two of a kind. Two insecure oafs too proud to ever admit that we needed the other." she continued with a humorless chuckle, wiping a few tears from her eyes.
"I guess." Ranma agreed. "Of course, our fathers didn't exactly help matters." he added with a derisive snort.
"Nor your other fiancées." Akane added with a shake of her head. "Or Nabiki."
"I can't exactly bring myself to be mad at either of those, however. Not after getting to know Nabiki and after my conversation with Kasumi before. They all had their reasons for what they did." Ranma said and reached into his shirt, withdrawing the still unopened bottle of sake he had snatched up this morning.
"Do you drink, Ranma?" Akane asked in surprise, trying to recall if she had ever seen him drink any of his own before, without being forced to it by the situation or by someone actually physically forcing him to drink.
"No. But today, I think I'll make an exception. Things seem calm enough today that I might be able to get away with not being at 100% for an evening." Ranma eventually responded, before looking over at her. "Do you want any?" he inquired and she nodded after a brief hesitation, reaching for her empty cup on the table and holding it out towards him.
"I think I'll join you." Akane said as Ranma refilled her cup, then chugged straight from the bottle, wheezing and coughing as he finally removed it. "Careful with that, Ranma." she advised him, as she carefully sipped from her own cup. "You know that you can't handle alcohol very well." she added, well remembering the mess he had made of himself in the past whenever he'd gotten drunk for one reason or another. She actually laughed as she remembered the school play and his drunken performance there.
"Heh, I guess you do have a point." he slurred, his low tolerance already rearing its ugly head. "Here's to broken engagements, may it at least lead you to the life you deserve." he toasted and clanked the neck of his bottle against her cup, before he started drinking straight from the bottle again.
"To broken engagements." Akane agreed and downed the contents of her cup in one go. "And being married to Kasumi will probably make you happy, Ranma." she admonished him.
"Not to mention feeling guilty for ruining her life, undeserving of my happiness and most of all, undeserving of someone as wonderful as Kasumi." he admitted in a drunken slur.
Akane didn't have an answer for that, so she settled for letting Ranma refill her cup and keep him company as the two of them made short work of the bottle, as they drowned their joint misery in an alcoholic haze.
The End! ( For now... )