Chapter 1 – Adjusting

Ranma Saotome loudly yawned as he finished mopping the floors of the Tendo Dojo. After sitting for several hours in a boring and confusing lecture regarding chemical reactions of substances, playing janitor for the dojo was his reward. He emptied the contents of the bucket outside the dojo before wringing the mop almost dry. He walked around the dojo to the storage room behind it, and returned all the cleaning supplies to the small room. He carefully closed the door so that he did not make any more noise than necessary, as he knew Soun had already gone to bed for the night.

Ranma tiptoed inside the house and headed straight to the living room, knowing he would find Akane buried in books for the test she had tomorrow night.

"The dojo's ready for tomorrow, 'kane," he said from the door.

Akane nodded, not taking her eyes from the book she was reading.

Ranma rolled his eyes. He looked around and saw that save the small desk lamp Akane had on the dining table, every other light inside the house had already been turned off. Ranma had nothing else to do at the Tendo home for the night, but he did not want to leave Akane just yet. He knew that she would not go to bed either until she felt confident about her taking her test tomorrow, or until she passed out on the table from exhaustion.

"Akane, it's almost midnight. You oughta get some rest."

Akane did not respond. Ranma crossed his arms as his exasperation grew. Every time she had a test, it was the same fight.

"Akane, are you even listening to me?"

Again, he could not get a response from her. "I'm gonna take a shower before I leave. Do ya need me for anything else?"

She did not even blink.

Ranma dropped his arms in defeat before walking away from the living room. He picked up his gym bag from the floor at the entrance hall and headed upstairs to take a quick bath, or so he thought. The moment the water hit him, he allowed the steam to relax him after such an especially long day.

"Every day is an especially long day."

Ever since he had made himself the promise of making something with his life, a year ago outside Dr. Tofu's clinic when Akane came back and cured him, every day had been as long and tiring as this one. Sometimes, more tiring than long.

Since neither Ranma nor Akane had been able to finish high school due to their situation, only a few weeks after she came back they had enrolled in accelerated night school to catch up. Peers their age had already finished half of college by now, so Akane felt she was extremely behind. Ranma did not care much about finishing school, but after adjusting to waitressing for months, he realized he needed something to fall back on. Besides, if having an education allowed him to provide for her, he would shut up about it and study along her side.

After Kasumi gave birth to her twins –a boy and a girl, she and the doctor moved out of the Tendo home to his own home behind the clinic. Nabiki was home only during the summer, and since she had begun her senior year in college, her internship had taken her away from her home longer than she had anticipated. Other than a few letters or random calls, Nabiki had been completely engulfed in her studies as she pushed her way through finishing her studies in international business and marketing. She had enrolled in a special honors program where she would obtain both a bachelor and a master's degree concurrently, so the closer she got to graduation, the more pressure she was placed under.

It seemed that school had been the rule around the Tendo household, as Kasumi had returned to school herself. She decided to attend nursing school to assist her husband with the clinic, and having Nodoka watch over the twins when she went to school had made it easier on her. She had been lucky that she did not have to worry about her own internship since she was already working at a clinic with doctor Tofu in order to meet that requirement of the school. She lived and worked at the same location, and relished the benefit of having Nodoka watch over her baby twins while she was away from home.

"I need some practice for when I babysit Ranma and Akane's babies, don't you think?" Nodoka had told Kasumi in front of him. Ranma had just scoffed and had walked away from the conversation with his hands behind his neck.

"If it's not marriage it's babies," he mumbled to himself.

As expected, Genma and Soun had wanted Ranma to marry Akane immediately after they saw them kiss at the clinic. Lucky for them, Kasumi and Nodoka had convinced the eager fathers to wait until the teens settled back into routine after finding out what had transpired in China to both of them. Akane had not gone into detail regarding how she escaped from Saffron, but that simple piece of information was not needed to realize how much they had gone through on their own.

"Was it too much?"

He knew how their last misadventure had affected him and his view on life, but he sometimes wondered if Akane's life had been affected to a greater degree than his had. Even if she acted like herself most of the time, he had caught her several times staring into space, and only severe shaking would get her to come around. She would always tell him that she was all right when he had asked about her wellbeing after these blackouts, but he knew there was something she was suffering from, behind his back.

Ranma closed his eyes as he considered the implications of his last thought. Maybe she was having the same regrets he had had before regarding taking someone's life. He knew living with a murderer sign stamped on your forehead was not easy, even if the murderee had it coming.

"Murderee," Ranma laughed. Usually, a person killed by another person, was referred to as victim, but in this case, it simply did not apply. Saffron had not been a victim; Ranma knew, and he had tried to convince Akane of such, but she would just wave him off and say she did not regret what she had done.

He knew better than that. Regardless of how difficult the training had been under the guidance of the Phoenix, and how difficult her battle had been with Saffron, nothing ever prepared anyone to cope with the consequences of ending someone's life. From all the people he knew that would have eventually snapped and were more capable at twisting someone's neck or smothering someone with a pillow in their sleep, Akane had been at the bottom of that list.

He had honestly believed that the delirious Kuno siblings would be the first to kill someone with their unwise antics. Yet, they had not. They had been sane enough to make it through school long enough to move to America for their college education. He could only hope they liked America so much they never came back, as most of his enemies had not returned to Nerima since they found out about his bedridden times.

Then again, he wished Ukyo would return to Nerima. Even if he never truly intended to marry her, and never saw her as anything more than the sister he never had, he still longed for her presence. Especially as of recent, when he felt Akane and he were just too busy for each other and spent so much time apart. Ukyo would have known what to do, and would have listened to his petty fears that he would never be good enough for her. If she was here and he could spill his heart out to her, what would she say?

"She would tell me to strap on a pair, and that nothing is wrong, and it's all in my head."

Perhaps, it was not such bad advice.

What Ranma feared the most, was giving Akane the sense that he was slowing her down. Everyone they knew was going on about their lives, following their plans as they had once hoped. His own dad and Akane's worked part-time at the dojo. Nodoka worked part-time at a daycare where Kasumi's twins went when no one could watch them. Ryouga and Akari had finally married each other, and had started a family. Even Akane's and his old friends from high school were halfway done with their education and well on their way to finding the careers they loved.

However, it all boiled down to where they stood.

They were two twenty-year-olds who were yet to finish high school, being nowhere near having college admission eligibility. They worked full time at the dojo in order to pay for school, and attended night school full time as well. Every day was the same routine. On Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, Ranma would teach in the dojo in the morning, and study for school at night. On Tuesday and Thursdays, he would attend school all day and then come home to clean the dojo, only to go to bed and teach at the dojo the next morning. At the beginning of another week, Akane would swap and she would teach in the dojo for the three alternating days of the workweek, and go to school on Tuesday and Thursdays as he would before that. Every week was the same routine: one was at work, and the other at school, and when they met again, one was studying and the other was cleaning the dojo for the next day.

Then, the weekend arrived. The dojo opened on Saturdays, making it the only day they would teach their students at the same time. At the end of the day, they would both clean the dojo and call it a night. On Sundays, they would study together for their weekly tests, and fill out college applications together before heading out to shop for supplies and groceries for the week. Since Akane was the only daughter left at home, it was her responsibility to take her of Soun. She did the best she could, and Ranma helped the most he could, but at the end of the day, the result was the same: Get up. Work. Study. Clean. Shower. Sleep. Repeat.

Sometimes, they had been lucky enough that there was not much to do on Sundays. They would rejoice for their unexpected free time, make plans to spend a romantic afternoon together, get ready to go out, and they would end up falling asleep on the floor or her couch, dressed up and all. With so much to do and so much pressure to do it, sleeping whenever they had the chance was not an opportunity they would just pass on. Ranma could not remember the last time they had had a real date since she came back.

"Oh, wait! I do! NEVER!" He thought, bitterly.

Even though Ranma lived with his parents at the house they had built when he was in la-la land, he still spent more time at the Tendo's than he did when he lived here. Before the sun was up, he was already getting ready for the day, and his mother was already busy in the kitchen making breakfast for him before he ran out of the home. He would spend the entire day away from his home and return at almost midnight to sleep for a few hours and do it all over again the next day. He spent so much time at Akane's that he had moved half of his clothes to his old room, his books stayed in her room, and had even brought his own set of spare toiletries to her house.

Today, his last set of clean clothes were going to be used to go home for the night, so he had placed all of his dirty clothes in his gym bag to take back home to wash. On top of everything they already did, he would not allow Akane to be responsible for washing his clothes, and she tended to know when he would run out of clothes before he figured it out.

Ranma felt himself dozing off inside the tub, so he decided to call it for the day before he drowned in his sleep. He got out of the tub and dried himself while the tub drained. He put on his clothes, put away the dirty ones in his bag, and brushed his teeth and put on deodorant. Once he finished, he picked up the bag and tiptoed down the stairs to the living room, expecting to see Akane holding on to the books. However, he found her asleep with her head on the table. Ranma exhaled at the scene.

He carefully placed the bag on the floor and walked up to Akane. He looked around her and found a handful of open books scattered all over the floor, papers with notes, and a pencil still in her hand. He put away the books, stacked the papers of notes, took the pencil from her, and slowly peeled her away from the uncomfortable position she had not planned to sleep in.

"Akane, you stubborn mule," he lovingly whispered to her as he carried her in his arms to her room.

Once there, he laid her on her bed before taking off her shoes. He covered her body with the only blanket he could find and closed the window to prevent the cold breeze from waking her up. He walked up to her and combed with his fingers a few rebellious hairs away from her face. He leaned closer to her and kissed her head before walking out of her room and making his way out of the Tendo home as quietly and effectively as he could with all the lights out.

xxxXXXxxx

Less than five hours later, the alarm woke up Ranma, and he thanked it for its job well done by slamming it shut with his fist. He felt as if he had just blinked and had to wake up again. He could not wait for the weekend to arrive. The winter holidays were around the corner, and he knew that this would give him a chance to take a break from school, and close the dojo for a few days. He would have a handful of days to truly rest and spend some quality time with Akane.

"If I can convince her to stop studying, that is," he thought as he remembered how last year she made them both volunteer at a shelter where they spent their days off singing to children and serving dinner to the homeless. When he had questioned her why she had chosen to spend her holidays working for other people, her answer had left him with no other choice but to follow her lead. "It looks good in a college application, for starters. And, it reminds me that no matter how bad I think my life is, I can always brighten someone who has it worse than me."

Her response, while full of common sense, had hurt his ego. Did she really think her life was bad? Did she have to go feed kids and elderly homeless people to feel better about herself? Was he not making it a good life for her? Ranma growled in anger as he remembered that moment. It reminded him that Akane would probably not feel so stuck if she had not lost those three years of her life, and she probably would have not lost them if he had not been around to ruin it for her.

"I can't change that, even if I wanted to."

He gathered the energy to pull off the covers from his body and stood up from bed. He stretched his arms and went straight to the bathroom to get ready for the day. Once he had finished, he left his mother a note that he had left earlier than usual, so she would not worry about having breakfast ready for him. He ran out his home and quickly made his way to Akane's by jumping on rooftops and running on fences. The sun had still not come up, so he did not have to worry about strangers pointing at him and wondering why he would not use the sidewalk like a normal person would.

He finally made it to the Tendo residence as he landed on the roof. He walked to Akane's side of the home and peeked over her window. She was still fast asleep and he smiled. He carefully opened the door to her room and with skills only he had, jumped over the desk and landed next to her bed without a noise. He stared at her and realized she still wore the same clothes she had worn last night. "She musta been beat."

He took off his shoes and his shirt before he slid into bed with her. He lay on his left side so that her back was against his chest. He slid his right arm around her waist and used his left arm as makeshift pillow. He felt her stomach rise up and down steadily to denote she was still asleep, her slumber not affected at all by his intrusion. He closed his eyes to enjoy her company and gain a few more minutes of sleep, but not before whispering the same statement he made to her any morning he snuck inside her room, like today.

"I love you, Akane."

He had said it; so many times, he had lost count. However, he always said it to her back, while she slept. He had been so sure of his feelings towards her when she had been gone, and when he had kissed her back in China, but he had been unable to say the words to her face, yet. He did not understand why he would stumble over his words and chicken out when he had tried since she returned. He knew it was not that he did not feel it or knew it to be true, and he was certain that she had some feelings for him too, but she had not said it either. Her lack of confessing her emotions to him made him fear her feelings were not as intense as his were, and he did not want to scare her off by screaming, at the top of his lungs, that he loved her. Even though they were, for all technical purposes, already engaged, it did not guarantee him she would choose him to whom with spending the rest of her life. It had been painful when he had realized that Akane had no obligation to him, as he had no obligation to her.

Ranma closed the dojo early in order to surprise Akane by picking her up at school. He ran up to his old room to gather clean clothes, showered, and changed back into clean clothes in record time. He jumped on rooftops as fast as he could but careful enough so that he did not sweat too much. The last thing he wanted was making Akane pass out with his odor. Finally, after a few minutes, and after stopping to pick up some flowers for her, he arrived at the entrance of Furinkan High. Lucky for them, the night courses were offered at their old high school, so they did not have to travel too far to complete the program.

He walked inside the school and headed straight to the classroom in which he knew she would be. The class had not yet ended, and in order to prevent any distractions, he sat on the floor underneath the windows, next to the entrance of the room. He waited there for a few minutes until the bell rang. The varied population of students –ranging from people their age to much older adults, made their way out of the classroom and disappeared around the corner of the building, closing the classroom door behind them. Ranma did not see Akane out yet, and was going to make his way in but her voice stopped him in his tracks.

"Satoshi, thank you for lending me your notes today. I can't believe I fell asleep during break. How embarrassing!"

"Don't sweat it, Akane," a male voice responded. "I know you've got things to do with your dojo and all. When are you getting it certified, anyway?"

Akane frowned. She had no idea how she was ever going to pull that off. The amount of money needed to get the dojo certified under the national registry was ridiculous. It would take her and Ranma years to gather the funds to get the paperwork underway. She hoped once they finished college –if any college even bothered to accept them, they would have the funds or at least the means to obtain a loan to begin the long process of certification. It did not matter how good their Dojo was, without certification, they could not fully operate as a business, and would never make a living out of it.

"Certification is not in our plans as of yet. We need to get the structure in order first, you know."

"I understand. My dad took five years to certify his dojo, and even then we haven't been able to entice enough good sensei to come teach at it."

"Tell me about it, sometimes I feel like I'm running the damn thing all by myself!"

Ranma flinched. He had been doing his best to run the dojo when she was at school, but he was still learning and he would forget important aspects of it, sometimes, such as collecting the monthly tuition -twice.

"Well, if you ever get tired of it, remember that the offer still stands."

Ranma perked at this. He wanted to walk in there and confront them both but he remained hidden behind the walls.

"Your offer, it's extremely generous. But, I've already told you this is my family's legacy. I can't just abandon it like that."

Ranma heard footsteps and he assumed he was getting closer to her. He took a quick peek from his current location and saw that he had been correct in his assumption. Satoshi had walked closer to Akane who was still putting away her belongings. He stood there and admired her until she finished. Once her bag was packed, he grabbed her left hand and stroked her knuckles.

"You wouldn't be abandoning it, you know? Just…making it easier for you and your Dad. It must difficult to try and manage a new dojo and come to school. I could make it easy for you, if you'd let me."

Akane slid her hand away from him and walked around him, heading out as she spoke. "Satoshi, we've been through this, I'm engaged. And, while I'm flattered by your offer, I must decline yet again. Ranma and I are learning to run the dojo together, and one day we will be as settled as your dad's dojo is. We just need time."

Ranma made a mental small celebration when he heard her tell him off.

"I hear what you say, but I will continue to ask."

Akane was getting annoyed, more than she already was. "And why would that be?"

Satoshi shrugged. "It seems like the right thing to do. You claim to be engaged to this guy, but he hasn't even bothered putting a ring on your finger. How serious do you think he really is with you? How do you know he's just not following along because he has to?"

Akane was not able to face him. She had thought about wearing a ring as part of their engagement, but Ranma had not talked to her about making it official to the world, so she refrained herself. "You don't know him like I do. Ranma is in this as much as I am."

"Then why do I keep hearing he keeps making mistakes that you have to fix?"

Ranma waited for her to answer but she did not respond. What could she say? That it had been only one mistake? No, he had made a lot. That the mistakes were insignificant? No, he had forgotten to collect the funds they needed for school and almost got dropped out of the program because of it. He was slowly learning, and while Akane had been upset at his mistakes, he had made sure he did not repeat them more than once.

At least, for the most part he tried.

"Look, Akane. One day you'll realize what I tell you is the truth. That guy, whether he tries or not, he isn't good enough for you. All I've heard from you and others is that he caused you nothing but trouble. What is it going to take for you to finally open your eyes and leave him? Are you waiting for him to almost kill you?"

Both Akane and Ranma froze. If only he knew what he had just said. If only he knew how close, he was, to the truth.

"Has he even told you that he loves you?"

Ranma could not take it anymore. He stood up behind the closed door and crushed the flowers he was carrying before tossing them on the floor. He ran back to Akane's home to pick up a couple of his books before he ran to his home as fast as he could. He knew Akane would be cleaning the dojo today, and he needed to study.

Akane walked out of the classroom and saw the crushed flowers on the floor. She picked them up and wondered if Ranma had been there just now. She shook her head of such a silly notion and threw the flowers in the nearest trashcan she could find. That night, Ranma studied at home while Akane cleaned the Dojo alone.

"I never forgot to collect the tuition after that, though."

Ranma dozed off for a few minutes before Akane's alarm woke up both of them. He reached out and silenced it, and waited for Akane to realize he was there. He did not want to scare her as he already had a few of the previous times he had arrived to her room, unannounced. The first time he did, he ended up pinned between the floor and her desk she had used to beat him to a pulp with before she realized it was just him.

Akane tried to stretch but quickly realized there was a presence behind her. She tensed for a moment but when she was able to smell his familiar scent, she pressed her back closer to him. He responded by uttering a moan of approval and rested his face between her shoulder and neck. She, in turn, placed her right hand on his, which still surrounded her waist. She closed her eyes, enjoying in silence the much-needed physical contact. A spike of guilt ran through her when he began placing kisses on her neck. It was obvious Ranma felt the same emptiness she felt. They had been so busy for the last few months; they hardly ever spent time showing each other how they felt.

She allowed him to continue his ministrations, shamelessly responding to them by moaning whenever he kissed the right spot on her neck, blushing every time he did. Ranma's body began reacting to her invitation, but he knew that this was not the time to go down that road again. Last time, it had not been pleasant, and they had not been able to face each other for days. He decided to end both of their torture and opted to simply hug her with both of his arms and whisper in her ear.

"Good morning, tomboy. Sleep well?"

Akane wrinkled her nose at the never-absent nickname he had for her. She wondered if it would kill him to have a normal nickname for her, just as every other guy out there had for their respective girlfriends. She knew, however, that Ranma was new to the realm of serious relationships, just as she was. This did not mean, though, that he did not utter his unusual affectionate nicknames for her with the utmost love and respect. "I did. You're here early."

"Yup. Didn't even wake up mom or anyone. Just wanted a few minutes of peace, alone with you, you know?"

Akane nodded before a big grin appeared on her face at the revelation. She knew he was going to decline her invitation, but she ventured it, anyway. "I guess that means you will be having breakfast with me?"

Ranma flinched. How was it that this woman never learned? Every morning she would try to coerce him into eating her breakfast, but he was still afraid to eat anything she made. He loved her more than any words could describe, but he also knew that in order to be with her, he had to remain alive. Every time he ate her food, he took a closer step to his grave, suggesting a counterproductive approach to his goal of remaining alive.

"I'm not even hungry, really" he lied to her just a second before his stomach, argued back.

"Damn."

Akane laughed at his pathetic attempt to avoid the subject. "Don't even think you will get away with not letting me make breakfast today!" she said to him as she tried to make an escape to the kitchen.

Ranma hugged her tighter, knowing what she had in mind.

"Wait a minute! You knew what I was thinking? I didn't know you were a mind reader, Akane. Is that a Phoenix-given gift?"

Akane chuckled. "If only he knew how many gifts from them I still have left."

"Maybe, maybe not?" she told him before she pushed him off the bed, making him land on his back on the floor, next to her bed. She knew it had not hurt him, and he knew she knew it as well. She jumped over his body and walked up to her dresser, pulling out clean underwear. She then walked to her closet and grabbed a pair of lose pants and a tank top. She still had a few hours before she left for school, so she did not see the need to dress up just yet.

"That's a little revealing for winter, don't you think?"

"No, I don't. Maybe I need to show off a little bit more of skin to advertise the dojo; drag some potential students with me during my morning jog."

Ranma snorted. "As if I'd let you go out like that."

Akane stood in front of her closet, deciding what her actual set of clothes would be for the day as Ranma stood up and walked up behind her. He held her from behind and nibbled on her ear as he whispered. "Akane, why don't you read my mind right now?"

Akane closed her eyes and pulled him closer by holding on to the back of his head with her arm. He accepted her invitation and began running his hands over her hips. "Let me see," she began as she turned around to face him, holding him by his neck. "I sense a need…"

Ranma nodded as he leaned in closer and placed a quick kiss on her lips. "Yup, I need you…"

She responded with a light chuckle. It never ceased to amaze her how Ranma could ever be this affectionate after all the fighting they had done in the past. "I sense an action…"

"Yes, I'd like some…" he said before kissing her again.

Akane giggled. "I see you…and me…"

"Yeah…"Ranma moaned.

"Alone…"

"Man, you are good at this mind reading…" he said.

"In the kitchen…" she led on.

"I'd like it in the kitchen…"

"Making…"

"Making what?" he said in between kisses.

"Breakfast!" she said a little bit too loud for his liking.

"Ugh! Akane!" He groaned, allowing her to push him away. "I'll be down there in no time," she said as she made her way to the bathroom, clean clothes in hand.

"Do you need some help with that?" he asked as she left. A loud laughter was his answer before he closed the closet door for her, just a tad harder than needed.

"Every time."

Ranma took deep breaths to calm his hormones, before turning around and making the bed for her. Once he was satisfied with completing his task, he sat on the bed and spent a few minutes making sure there were no traces of Akane's earlier teasing. After he felt better, he jogged down the stairs only to trip on his gym bag.

"Son of a…! I can't believe I forgot it!"

He kicked the bag closer to the door so that he would not forget it again. He heard Akane walk down the stairs, drying her hair with a towel.

"So, wadja want for breakfast?"

Ranma tensed. There it was again. Was there no one around there to save him?

"Good morning!"

Ranma let out a sigh of relief. The front door opened behind him to reveal Kasumi walking in with a basket in her hands. "Oh! Ranma! You're here early."

"So are you!" He said as he hugged Kasumi to thank her for appearing just in time, praying the basket contained what he hoped were ingredients for breakfast.

"Glad to see you, too!" she said.

"Kasumi! What a surprise! Dad will be very happy to see you!"

Kasumi nodded. "I haven't seen him in a while. Thought I'd bring breakfast for everyone."

"YES!" Ranma shouted, earning him a slap on his arm from Akane.

"Oh! Quiet, you!"

Kasumi laughed at their antics, and they both followed her to the kitchen where she began cooking. Akane sat at the table with Ranma just before Kasumi noticed that he was not wearing his shirt or shoes, and that Akane seemed as if she had just woken up and showered. Kasumi gave them a questioning look before addressing Ranma again.

"Did you spend the night here, Ranma?"

Akane laughed at her sister's implications. "He wishes. He just got up really early and sneaked into my room, trying to stop me from making that," she answered her as she pointed at the basket of food.

Ranma stuck his nose up in the air, obviously offended that she could not believe he had just honestly wanted to spend some time with her. "I never said that, Akane."

"But you thought about it."

"Feh, that you read my mind for…"

Kasumi, sensing a fight was about to start, decided to jump in to the middle of the conversation and stop more damage from occurring. "Ranma, sneaking into a lady's room so early in the morning is not very honorable."

"Sorry Kasumi," he said, meaning his apology. However, his good intentions were immediately wiped out with the rest of his response. "I will wait until 8 from now on."

Akane threw her arms up in the air. "Wonderful! I won't have to kick out my other boyfriend in such a hurry, now."

Ranma's head snapped to face her with the most hurt look she had ever seen on him.

"That's not funny, Akane."

"What? Are you the only one allowed to have a handful of fiancées?"

Ranma slid back on the chair before standing up and pointing at her.

"Had. Had. HAD!" he said, raising his voice with every word.

"Besides, I didn't ask for them…they just…appeared. Who are you to judge me, anyway? You had all the boys at school following you, asking you for dates every morning! You forgot about that? Uhm? Kuno, Ryouga, even that freak Gosunkugi!"

Akane stared at him without saying a word, digesting the words he had just said. She saw them for what they were: words of a jealous man, words that he had not been able to utter back when they were younger. She decided to make things right again. She walked up to him and held him closer to her. He did not hug her back but his breathing began calming down with her touch.

"I'm sorry, Ranma. I know you didn't like any of those girls. And I promise you are the only boyfriend I have."

Ranma did not look at her, but stared straight in front of him at something only he could see. "It still hurt."

Akane nodded in agreement. "I'm sorry; I'll make it up to you, OK?"

Ranma's interest was piqued, finally being able to look down to stare at her.

"Really? How?"

Akane smiled. She leaned up and kissed his cheek before whispering to him.

"I will make you breakfast today."

"Fuck."

Lucky for Ranma, Kasumi was just finishing making breakfast as the scene unfolded in front her. She smiled to herself, grateful that her prayers had been answered, and that the couple behind her had been able to open up to each other, at last.

Seeing Kasumi was done preparing breakfast, and hearing Soun walking around in the living room, Ranma and Akane decided to help Kasumi serve the food. As they took turns taking silverware and dishes to the dining table, Kasumi remembered the errand Nodoka had asked her to run for her. She dug into her apron and took out the letter she had brought with her.

"Ranma! When I dropped off the twins at your mom's today, she told me to give you this."

Ranma stopped just long enough to grab the letter from Kasumi and continued preparing the table for them to eat. He put it inside his pocket and decided to read it after they had eaten. After a good meal and even better conversations, Soun left the room to open the dojo, allowing Ranma a few extra minutes with Akane. Kasumi headed to the kitchen to clean up after herself, while Ranma and Akane stayed behind to read the letter he had.

"Who's it from?"

"Doesn't say on the envelope."

He tore the side of the envelope and two pieces of paper came out. One was a regular sheet of paper, and the other was a poorly folded flyer. Ranma took the sheet and opened it while Akane unfolded the flyer to read it herself.

"That's strange," he said. "It's just a note."

"What does it say?"

"It says: Thought you might be interested."

"That's it?"

Ranma nodded. "What do you have?"

Akane flipped the flyer and skimmed over it. She was not sure she understood what the flyer was trying to advertise, but after a few tries, she gasped and handed it to Ranma.

"Ranma, am I reading this right?"

Ranma took the flyer from her and read it aloud.

"The National Registry of Dojos invites all non-registered dojos to its first Annual Registration Tournament, or ART."

He looked up at her and she just shrugged, being as confused as he looked. He returned his gaze to the flyer and continued reading.

"As an incentive for unlicensed dojos to join the association, the NRD is hosting a tournament in which the prize for the winning dojo would be a chance to register, free of charge."

"What?"

Ranma read the rest of the flyer before looking up to her. "It says here that the dojo that wins the tournament will be able to go through the registration process for free. If you bring your dojo structure and business plan to them, they will review it free-of-charge throughout the tournament, giving you the opportunity to fix it on the spot. If, at the end of the tournament, your dojo wins against their highest ranking registered dojo, the registration of the dojo is complete."

"Ranma…do you know what this means?"

Ranma smiled. "Yes, we have to enter, Akane! This would help us a lot."

Akane nodded, the excitement filling her body as well. "We'll have to amp up our training, but we can do it!"

"Of course we can! No one stands a chance against us!"

Akane's smile suddenly fell. Ranma frowned at her change in mood. "What's wrong?"

"Do you think your mom sent this to us?"

Ranma shook his head. "She wouldn't need to seal it. And this is not her handwriting. But, what does it matter? They are doing us a big favor letting us know."

"I guess," she stated, still unsure of its origins. She shook her head of any unreasonable thoughts before standing up. "Anyway, I gotta go. I have a test to take in a few hours."

Ranma's happiness deflated a little, knowing she was correct.

"OK. See you later tonight?"

"Yup."

He suddenly got up and ran behind her. She was almost at the stairs when he pulled her arm and pressed her against the wall next to the stairs. "Akane…"

She stared at him with a huge smile, waiting for his next words. Ranma swallowed hard, trying to gather the courage to finally tell her how he felt. He opened his mouth a few times but noting came out.

"Ranma, is everything OK?"

Ranma nodded and tried again, but he began shaking in nervousness. "Akane…I…"

Akane gave him a few more moments to get out what he wanted, but when he did not say anything more, she leaned in and kissed him. "Be careful. See you later."

Ranma could only nod as a response as he watched her walk away from him. He turned around and saw his gym bag was still on the floor, so he decided to pick it up and do his laundry while he was already here. He knew Soun could handle the dojo for a few hours without him, and he did not feel like teaching anyone just yet. He had just lost another opportunity to tell Akane how he felt, and nothing ever made his anger cling to him like that.

That night, Akane returned from her test to find the dojo already cleaned for her. The dojo would be closed for the next five days, so she rejoiced in taking a long warm bath as she saw that there indeed was light at the end of their dark tunnel.

A/N: That was long! Get ready for more chapters like this. Last time I wrote a trilogy, the first story had 35K words, and the last story ended up with 180K+. Hope you are ready for it! One question for everyone out there reading this: what majors do you think Akane and Ranma should go for in college?