Chapter Twenty-Three
The first thing Ranma heard was a yell, which was normal for him in the morning, but this time it wasn't accompanied by the sensation of flying thru the air only to land in water every time. Genma tried it every morning, and so far every time he succeeded in catching Ranma off guard the boy ended up in the water. You'd think at least once he'd land on the water or even in a tree, it was a big yard after all. But no, it was always the pond, like Genma was deliberately aiming for it.
Ranma opened his eyes to see what was different this time, and as soon as he did he felt someone lay down beside him. He looked to the movement and saw Shampoo in fox-girl form laying at his right side comfortably, like she had done several times on the trip to Japan.
'Pops must have tried attacking me and she threw him out first. Again.' Ranma thought.
"Zao an Airen." Shampoo greeted, saying 'Good morning' in Chinese to him.
"Morning Shampoo." He greeted back.
"Huh? What happened?" Akane wearily asked from behind Ranma, surprising him and making him bolt upright.
"Akane?" He asked, turning to see that Akane was laying down where his left side had been, mirroring Shampoo.
"Sleep well Ranma?" She asked, rubbing her eyes and stretching.
"Yeah, but why are you here?"
"You looked really bothered by what happened last night, and after a bit I came to check on you and you, well, you looked like you were being tormented in your sleep. Shampoo was holding you and I felt maybe it wasn't a bad idea, so I joined in." Akane confessed.
"Oh yeah, last night was rough on me." He admitted, remembering what happened regarding his mother.
"You want to talk about it?" Akane asked. After they left the Fox Cafe, Ranma hadn't said a word to anyone, looking like he didn't know if he should be angry or sad.
"No, I don't." He said.
"Alright, I won't force you. When you are ready, I'll be here to help you." Akane offered as she got up and hugged him to better prove her point.
A week later there was still a lot of tension in the Tendo home, mostly because no one knew how to act around Ranma now. He refused to tell anyone what his mother had told him, but his mood showed he wasn't too happy about seeing her anymore.
She had tried to be patient but patience had never been one of Akane's strongest traits. Unable to take it anymore, the youngest Tendo went to the one person who might be willing and able to shed some light on the subject.
She went to the place where she remembered Ukyo's shop being located in her dream, and to her relief it was already there. Ukyo had stayed in Nerima in order to forge a bond with Ranma as well as have some form of independence. The shop wasn't complete yet, but ads were put around town letting them know what it offered once it was open.
When Akane got to the shop, umbrella in hand since it was cloudy and looked ready to rain, Ukyo was outside working on the store's exterior design. "Hey Ukyo, you got a minute?"
The young chef stopped what she was doing and looked to the newcomer. "Hi Akane, what brings you here?"
"I kind of want to talk to you about Ranma."
"I had a feeling that was the case. Well, start talking."
"Well, for starters, can you tell me anything about yourself? I mean, I kind of know you, but my reference material isn't exactly the most accurate around."
"Of course, it couldn't be. Prophets don't see the guaranteed future, since even looking forward risks changing it. Time isn't like a movie where you can just fast-forward to the end to see the twist ending before it happens. All we see are possibilities, albeit likely ones but virtually never anything set in stone." Ukyo replied.
"That still doesn't tell me much about you though. The Ukyo I knew was abandoned by the Saotomes, blamed Genma and Ranma for it and tried to make a spectacle out of punishing Ranma if not his father. He beat you only then to learn you were a girl all along and then Mr. Saotome finally comes clean about the engagement, once again trying to make it sound like it was Ranma who was supposed to be blamed."
"Your point being?" Ukyo asked.
Akane looked confused. "Pardon?"
"Why does this matter? If we were in a story, all you just said amounts to an origin story, not actually describing the character itself. You just revealed how I got involved in your vision, not what you learned about me."
"I don't really know much about you. You like okonomiyaki and Ranma, beyond that you really didn't show much more of what made you you."
"Funny, because all I know about you is you get angry easily and can't cook to save your life." Ukyo claimed.
"So you should see my point in getting to know each other better, especially if we're going to be around each other for the rest of our lives as Ranma's wives." Akane added.
"Then why not have a girls night? Isn't that kind of the best way to get familiar and comfortable with each other?" Ukyo suggested.
Akane blinked, then put her hand on her chin. "Actually that's a good idea. Maybe we can have a sleepover at one of our houses. Not mine though, I mean, thanks to my vision I'm a bit paranoid about situations that seem to be asking for trouble to be invited to."
"Well, I think we can have it here. Might be nice to spend my first night here with company." The okonomiyaki chef offered, then looked like she got an idea. "Hey, it's a girl's night to do some bonding right? Why not have Ranchan join us?"
Akane looked surprised. "What? Him? But it's a girls..." She trailed off when the implication hit her. "I see. Well, I can offer, but I doubt he'll agree to that. I mean, he is a man at heart."
Night came later and Ukyo was finishing up the decorations of the inside of her shop so she could open tomorrow. "There, this should be good enough." She said to herself, satisfied. A knock at her door drew her attention. "Coming." She called out, heading to it and opening.
At the door was Akane, Shampoo, and a female Ranma who looked forced to be here. "Hi everyone, come on in." Uyko greeted, stepping aside so her guests could enter. "So Sugar, how did you convince Ranchan to join?"
Akane smirked in a way one might expect Nabiki to. "I told him I'd use a little something called the Cats Tongue on him if he didn't."
"Cats Tongue?" Ukyo repeated, unfamiliar with the term.
"I'll explain later. Let's just say it's better to spend one night as a girl than receive that." Akane clarified. 'Sure, I don't know exactly how to do it, and Cologne can undo it, but for now Ranma doesn't need to know that.'
"Well I'm just glad you're all here. I've never had a girls night before."
"I'm a guy." Ranma stated.
"We haven't forgotten Ranma." Akane told her, still looking at Ukyo. "We have some ideas for things to do while we're here."
"Good, because I really didn't have anything planned other than Spin the Bottle and Truth or Dare."
Akane looked surprised. "Spin the Bottle? But-"
"It's more for Ranchan, we are doing this for him so I thought if we... gave him a good memory he'll say it was worth it." The young chef quickly answered. "Besides, we're all going to be with him in the end and you can't tell me you have no intention of ever kissing his girl form someday. How is it different when it's with us?"
Ranma looked confused. "Wait, what does spinning a bottle have to do with kissing?"
Akane looked at the redhead with wide eyes. 'He doesn't know? Boy, I really jumped the gun on calling him a pervert.'
Ukyo now was the one with a devious look to her. "You want to find out? Let's go to my room."
Moments later the four girls were in the residential portion of the building, which was small but had enough for a single person. Ukyo's room was sparse but not unlike Akane's just with a futon instead of a western bed. Overall it looked like she hadn't really finished packing yet but was at least halfway done.
Ukyo sat down and placed an empty glass bottle on the floor. "So, who wants to go first?"
"How do you play?" Ranma asked.
"We sit in a circle around it, and take turns spinning it. When it points at someone else, well, you'll see." Ukyo said. "Hey Akane, why don't you go first? Show her how it's done."
Akane blushed, knowing that if she did she had a one-in-three odds at kissing Ranma, who was in girl form. So the odds were she'd have to kiss either Ukyo or Shampoo first. "Umm... Ukyo, with all due respect, I kind of wanted to... umm..."
"No need Sugar, I understand." The chef replied. "So how about each of us girls do what she's trying to say first? Then we won't feel awkward about the game."
"Shampoo like sound of that."
Ranma looked confused. 'What are they talking about? Why do girls have to be so confusing?'
"Can he be a guy first? It's my first time after all." Akane asked.
"Sure, as long as you aren't against it with him as a girl too." Ukyo answered.
Relaxed, Akane looked to Ranma. "Ranma, be a boy again."
"Thank you." She said, turning herself back into a male. As soon as he was male again though, Akane sprung on him and planted her lips on his. He did not know what to do.
"Kiss her back you dunce." Ukyo told him in a friendly manner, patting him on the back as she did so.
Not sure how exactly you kiss someone back, Ranma did the only thing that made sense to him along those lines. He tried pressing forward, and accidentally used too much force, making Akane fall on her back with him following. Despite this, Akane made no effort to end the kiss; if anything their current position felt completely natural to her.
"Alright, come up for air you two." Ukyo told them, but Akane did not comply. "Hey Akane, save some for the rest of us."
Finally the two separated, Akane looking very pleased and Ranma looking like he didn't know what to think.
"Hope Airen not broken now." Shampoo joked.
"If he is, it's not like we can't fix him." Ukyo joked as well.
"What was that?" Ranma asked.
"Oh, you mean this?" Ukyo asked, then grabbed him and pulled him in for a kiss too. "That's how you play the game Ranchan." She said when she pulled away. "You spin the bottle, and kiss whoever it points at."
"My turn." Shampoo said happily, then went for the pigtailed boy too. By now Ranma should have been able to react and avoid if he wanted to, but he didn't. Maybe he didn't really want to avoid this after all.
"Ain't this fun Ranchan?" Ukyo said with a teasing smirk when he came up for air.
"Um... what happens if one of you spins the bottle and it points to another girl?" He asked.
Ukyo had a mischievous look to her. "The same thing."
Ranma looked more confused. "But... two girls can't kiss."
"Oh we can't can we?" Ukyo asked. "Girls?"
Akane did nothing, too nervous to, but Shampoo was playful and went along with Ukyo, resulting in the two girls kissing right in front of Ranma and making a show of it.
Ranma was wide-eyed, seeing something that up until now he thought would never happened. Granted he didn't believe there was some kind of force that made it physically impossible for the lips of one female to make contact with another female, but he had always been under the impression that such an act was just one of those things that simply did not happen. Now, he was seeing it, and for reasons he did not understand he liked it.
The two girls parted and gave the boy coy looks. "See Ranchan? This game will be fun."
"If this is the gist, and there are no other guys involved, I'm all for it."
Akane snapped her fingers. "I've got an idea to make this a little more fun. When it's our turn to kiss Ranma, we get to choose what gender he is. When it's his turn to kiss us, he gets the choice of kissing or touching our chests for a minute." She blushed to say this, but Ranma wasn't the only one getting worked up in the room.
"Shampoo like." The Amazon said, unbuttoning the first button on her top to show a little skin.
'I hope this all works.' Akane thought, briefly glancing at her favorite male in the world. 'Ranma has never been good at opening up to anyone, even us. If we can remove some of the boundaries between us, hopefully he will be able to relax enough.'
The four teens spent the next hour playing the spin the bottle game, and by the end each one of them had been on the giving and receiving end of some intimate contact with the others. They had only stopped long enough for Ukyo to get them dinner, which had been American pizza she ordered.
"Wow, if my pre-dream self knew what I had done tonight she'd beat herself with a mallet." Akane said to herself when they had decided they had enough of it.
"Well can you say the plan didn't work?" Ukyo asked, eating a slice of pizza. 'Not as good as okonomiyaki but I am biased.'
"Oh no contest. Hard for us to have any tension left over after all that." Akane replied. "So what's next?"
"One of the best slumber party games ever. Truth or Dare." Ukyo answered. "I'll start. Ranchan, truth or dare?"
"What do I do?" Ranma, in female form, asked.
"You don't know this game either?" Akane asked.
"Maybe this will make the night easier. The only game I do know is Stop the Mule From Killing Me." The redhead explained.
"Well, you ask or get asked truth or dare. If you choose truth, you have to honestly answer any question they ask. If you choose dare, you have to do any task they give you. If you decline either, you have to do something embarrassing that's pre-decided by the group." Ukyo explained.
"Alright, I'll take dare." She said, choosing the option that felt more familiar to her.
"Alright, I dare you... to switch clothes with Shampoo. Without either of you going into a separate room."
Ranma blushed, but Shampoo smirked and pulled her cheongsam over her head, revealing underwear that was a shade somewhere between red and pink. "Here you go." She said, holding out her Chinese dress to her fiancee.
"Fine." Ranma said, not wanting to back out on her first turn of the game. She took off her Chinese shirt, revealing bare breasts, then her combat pants revealing boxers, and passed them to the Amazon. The two girls then put on the new outfits.
"Looks good on you Ranma." Akane said, slightly teasing in a friendly way. "Now you get to ask one of us except the person who asked you truth or dare."
"Then you Akane, truth or dare?"
"I'll take... truth."
"Alright, who do you think is the prettiest girl in this room?" Ranma asked. Ukyo and Shampoo leaned in slightly closer, curious to hear this.
"Well, it would be vain for me to say myself, so I'd have to say Shampoo. I mean, from what I recall of my dreams Shampoo was the only one of us that ever really tried to look hot. Ranma only used her sex appeal when she absolutely had to, and I don't recall Ukyo ever doing so. Not off the top of my head at least."
"Well I'll have to change that." The okonomiyaki chef commented.
"Alright Ukyo, truth or dare?" Akane asked, getting a slice of pizza.
"Dare."
"I dare you to put on the sexiest thing you own. And do it in another room so you can surprise us." The Tendo heir said.
"Better get some tissues for Ranchan's nosebleed." Ukyo said, grinning and going to her closet. "No peeking." All three of the others turned away. "While you're waiting, Shampoo truth or dare?"
"Truth."
"Did you ever like a boy before you met Ranchan?" Ukyo asked, then left the room with her surprise attire.
Shampoo's eyes widened, then she looked away, but once she did she didn't look embarrassed, but more hurt. "I change mind. Dare."
"What's wrong Shampoo?" Ranma asked, concerned for his friend.
"Not something Shampoo want talk about." She told him.
"Does it have something to do with Mousse?" Akane asked. 'She always acted like they never had anything between them before. Is it possible they did once and he hurt her? And that's why she couldn't stand him?'
"Sort of." Shampoo said, then sighed. "You really want know?"
Akane felt a lot of sympathy for the Chinese girl, knowing what it was like to have a skeleton in your closet. "It's alright, you don't have to say anything if it's that hard for you."
"No, if we all together this need be said. I must stop running." Shampoo claimed, steeling herself for her confession.
"So, how do I look?" Ukyo said in a sultry tone, making them look towards her. Ukyo stood there in the doorway posing seductively against the frame, wearing a black lace set of underwear, including a strapless bra.
Ranma blushed a lot. "I cannot believe I ever thought of you as a boy Ucchan."
Ukyo just giggled then sat back down in her original seat. "I don't really blame you on that. It's not like I ever actually said I was a girl, and knowing how your old man raised you I get the feeling back then you didn't know how to recognize a girl by anything other than what she wore. To you if a kid wasn't wearing pink or a dress it couldn't have been a girl."
"That's... pretty much what I knew about girls at that age." Ranma admitted.
Ukyo then looked to the Amazon. "What did I miss for your answer?"
Shampoo took a deep breath. "This something Shampoo do few years ago, it was big mistake. This one boy, Mousse, really annoy Shampoo. He like wooden sword boy Akane have deal with. I try get rid of him, by pretend date another boy."
"This is new to me." Akane said softly.
"For some time, I be around boy named Razor, think hopefully Mousse get hint. Razor was just some guy, no interested in him at all. But he..." Shampoo paused for a moment. "He try take thing too far. Shampoo own fault, never tell him it was no real."
"He didn't hurt you, did he?" Ranma asked.
"After two weeks, Mousse still no stop. Seeing plan not work, I end things with Razor. He... not take it well. Try to force himself on me."
Everyone was surprised to hear this, but none more than Akane. 'A guy actually tried to force himself on her? I never would have guessed given how she acted in my dream. Did it just never happen there? Like how in my dream Mrs. Saotome never knew Ukyo?'
"What happened?" Ukyo asked.
"Shampoo fight him off, wasn't as good as am now but still good enough fight off dumb boy. Never told anyone, not want admit boy nearly do that. Train better to get stronger. Razor still try get back at me until I leave village. No Shampoo never have chance to be with boy before Airen."
"Well I never saw him in my vision so it's safe to say he won't ever come here." Akane said to comfort the girl.
"No offense Sugar, but your vision isn't exactly the most reliable source." Ukyo said.
"None taken, I know that better than anyone. But what's the point in me having it if we can't learn from it?" Akane said back. "Alright Shampoo, you're turn."
"Hmm... Airen, truth or dare?"
"I'll try truth this time."
"What mother say to you week ago?"
'Dang, I was hoping to ask him that.' Akane mentally rued.
Ranma looked hesitant to answer, and had Shampoo not just admitted something personal and embarrassing she would have switched her choice to dare. But now she chose to just come clean.
"She said to her I'm doing everything wrong. Everything I know and everything I want is wrong."
"Really?" The three fiancees asked.
"Did she say why?" Ukyo asked next.
"Just that she doesn't want me, but some kind of perfect me instead. And she acted like she knew what was best for me even though she pretty much threw me away." Ranma answered, in a hurt tone that almost made her sound like she was pouting.
Akane, Shampoo, and Ukyo looked at each other, thinking the same thing. They needed to talk to Nodoka and quickly.