Chapter Twenty Five – Affirmations
[TW] Transphobia, Homophobia, Deadnaming, Nudity.
Ranma
Ranma let herself into the house, fresh and energized from her walk, and took off her shoes in the entryway. She peeked into the kitchen and let out an explosive sigh of relief – Genma and Soun were both out. The only person in the kitchen was Nabiki, who sat at the kitchen table doing her homework with a bored expression, palm pressed into her cheek, chewing on the end of her pencil.
Nabiki looked up when Ranma walked in. "Hey there, Ranko," she teased, shooting Ranma a warm smirk.
Her attention snapping to Nabiki, Ranma stared at her for a long moment, a shiver running down her spine, stunned for some reason that escaped her at the casual address. It took her a long moment sorting through her own thoughts to realize why.
Nabiki had named her.
Wild Love.
Still watching her with inquisitive eyes, Nabiki's expression slipped from curious to uncertain, and Ranma startled out of her strangely delighted shock to keep her from drawing the wrong conclusion. "H-hey," Ranma stuttered, then blushed. "Um. Big sis."
Her smirk turned into a smaller but real smile. Nabiki considered Ranma in a strange light, tapping her cheek. "Hmm. Do you like it when I use your name, Ranko?" She drew out the syllables, popping the K.
The instinctive denial rushed to Ranma's tongue, but she managed to hold it back. She was a full-time girl now, damn it! And she was Saotome Ranko now, just like she was Saotome Ranma, or maybe more than she was Saotome Ranma. It was no big deal if Nabiki wanted to call Ranma Ranko. Call Ranko Ranko. Because she was Ranko. Her name was Ranko, sometimes. All the time? And if anyone should call her Ranko, it felt so right for it to be Nabiki.
Ranma Ranko blushed deeper, stumbling over her words in an uncharacteristic way. "I mean- I- It's just- Um-" She gave up and managed a mortified nod.
Nabiki made a sympathetic noise. "If you'd like," she said, "I could call you Ranko when we're alone?"
"Not just when we're alone," Ranko rushed out, not registering her words before she said them. "I mean…" She couldn't meet Nabiki's eyes, but she came into the kitchen, sinking down next to Nabiki at the table, her blush growing deeper. "You're the one who gave me the name," she mumbled. "I want you to use it all the time. If anyone should it's you."
Working up her courage, Ranma peeked at Nabiki, who was watching her with unadulterated fond softness, her normal mercenary facade nowhere to be found. "I can do that," Nabiki said. "Ranko."
"Just not in front of Pops," Ranma- Ranko blurted, jumping back to her feet, the moment grown too emotional. "I ain't ready for Pops to know, alright?"
Nabiki rolled her eyes. "What do you take me for, Saotome? I'm a professional. Go and hit stuff, alright?"
Sagging in relief at the out – she still wasn't used to all this mushy stuff – Ranko made for the dojo, but hesitated at the back porch. She met Nabiki's eyes, unsure how to put to words how much this strange new relationship between her and her fiancee's sister meant to her. Eventually, she settled for a simple, "Thanks, Nabs."
Nabiki waved Ranko off, going back to her work. "Anytime, Ranko-chan."
Ranmako
The bell rang, and the teacher rose to end class. "Alright, class," she said, knocking her stack of papers in their folder to straighten them. "Your papers will be returned on Monday. Remember to read pages forty three to sixty, and fill out the worksheet I handed out. Class dismissed!"
Ranko sighed in explosive relief, eager to get to the roof for lunch to sate her appetite; she was starving. Genma's sparring had been brutal that morning. She was sore and Kasumi's breakfast had been knocked into the koi pond with her, despite the fact that she'd already been a girl. She honestly didn't think Genma cared anymore. At this point, he was just punishing her.
Akane gave Ranko a sympathetic look as her stomach growled, reaching out to take her hand. Akane's hand was a little bigger and warm around hers. "C'mon, let's get you fed," Akane said. "You can have my pickles." Ukyo joined them from across the room, bumping into Ranko's side.
"Why're we giving Ranchan extra food?"
"Genma." "Pops."
"Right," Ukyo scowled. "One panda skin rug it is."
"Saotome!" the teacher called from the front of the room. "Come here! Tendo, Konji, out!"
Ranko groaned in despair, sagging, and Akane leaned over to give her a sympathetic kiss on the cheek. At least now that she was out – Ranko liked the fancy newfangled words Ukyo got sometimes from Konatsu – she didn't have to hide her woes, curse or otherwise, from her friends. Having Akane's open love at school went a long way, no matter how many of the dumb guys she'd used to have gym with liked to tease them for it. She really didn't care if it meant she got to kiss Akane at school. Hell, if she was gonna be a full-time pervert (that word felt so gross, lately) then being a lesbian was really the least of it.
"Tough luck, sugar," Ukyo said, tugging Akane away. "Find us on the roof!"
"Yeah, I know…"
Kobayashi-sensei watched Akane and Ukyo go with a crinkled nose, a vague disdain that lingered when she turned her attention back to Ranko. Ranko's confidence shrank a little at her teacher's visible disapproval; sometimes it felt like being a girl was chipping away at her ego, little by little. Being a man-among-men made it easy to be brash, but Ranma- Ranko was beginning to think that maybe she hadn't actually been confident.
Maybe she had been arrogant. It wasn't a pretty look, Ranko began to realize; a thought nearly as shocking as the fact that she wanted to be pretty. She wanted Akane to see the cute girl she saw in the mirror sometimes every day, even when Ranko didn't. Just like Ranko always wanted Nabiki to call her Ranko and like she wanted her Pops-
"If you must kiss Tendo, Ranko," Kobayashi-sensei began in a disapproving tone.
"My fiancee."
Kobayashi-sensei raised an eyebrow. "Your cousin's fiancee, Saotome-san."
"Erm." Ranko floundered.
"It is not my place to question your… tastes, but you will not do it in my classroom, is that understood?" Kobayashi-sensei said coldly, then carried on before Ranko had a chance to respond. "I don't care what goes on in your personal business. You have shown little appetite for my class and you make passable grades. But don't take me for a fool, Ranma. You have been my student for almost a full semester and I turn a blind eye to your situation, no matter how poor a job you do at keeping your stories straight. It's not my place to interfere in the affairs of spirits. But changing your name again goes a step too far."
She placed his latest test on the desk and jabbed a finger at her name, written with the new kanji.
"Explain."
Ranko stared at her new name, her name, with a sinking feeling in her gut, feeling very alone in front of her teacher, who wasn't on her side. "It's, um…" You can't lie – tell the truth! "I was raised on the road with my Pops," Ranko said, wincing. "I didn't learn to write or any of that until after we left my mom. And it turned out that Pops is an asshole-"
"Language," Kobayashi-sensei snapped.
"-and he taught me my name wrong. But we found my family registry and that's how Ranko is supposed to be written and I ain't gonna keep using the wrong version when that's what my name's supposed to be."
Kobayashi-sensei gave Ranko a dead stare. She pulled the test back and set it back on her pile. "As long as your performance is not affected, Ranma-"
"Ranko," Ranko corrected quietly. "My name is Ranko."
"And what happened to the brash loudmouth who demanded we all call her Ranma?"
For some reason, the question inspired a deep sadness within Ranko, uncomfortably so. It was a downside of her female form, that she had a harder time ignoring all those unhelpful emotions that she could shove aside easily as a man. She swallowed, trying to ignore it. "He went away."
Ranko couldn't meet her sensei's eyes. Kobayashi-sensei let out a sigh; when she spoke again, she was still stern, but less harsh. "I won't pry," she said. "You are a perfectly normal young girl, Saotome-san, and I will turn a blind eye to anything that would suggest an alternate explanation. But keep it and that out of my classroom."
"Yes, sensei."
"Your lifestyle choices are to be kept outside of Furinkan. You will pass that along to Tendo-san and the rest of your group."
Ranko swallowed her resentful thought that Kobayashi-sensei had never had an issue with her and Akane when she had been a man. "Yes, sensei."
"Also, you got a 73 on that test," Kobayashi-sensei sniffed. "I expect you to bring that up on your next exam. Understood?"
"Yes, sensei."
"Get out of my classroom."
Ranko looked down at her feet and went. She kept going, trailing up the stairwell past her classmates, until she got to the roof, where she stopped in the doorwell, staring at her little group eating together by the corner. Akane, Ukyo, Sayuri, and Yuka were eating and laughing, all carefree, all without anything like a curse wearing them down, or the awful feeling the last conversation had inspired within her. She crossed her arms tight under her breasts, kicking her foot against the ground, suddenly itching to punch something.
They all acted like it wasn't a big deal that suddenly Ranko knew she didn't want to be a guy anymore. But it was a big deal, it was a really big deal, she was a completely different person than who she thought she had been. So what if they'd all figured it out before her? She'd been a guy, now she was a girl. It wasn't right.
Maybe Kobayashi-sensei was right. Maybe she really was just a spirit.
Pushing off of the wall, Ranko plastered a big fake grin onto her face and sauntered over to her friends, putting that little sway into her hips like she'd seen people do at the mall. Akane blushed when she looked up and caught Ranko's eyes – Ranko plopped herself down right next to her fiancee and gave her a big fat kiss on the lips. Take that, sensei! I'll a lesbian-among-lesbians, you'll see!
"Woah there, tiger," Ukyo said, and Yuka laughed.
Akane searched Ranko's face, unable to keep her own smile off her face. "Well, then," she said. "What did Sensei say to you? Not that I'm complaining?"
"Oh, you know," Ranko lied. "Nothing important."
Ranko
Akane and Ranko sat together on Akane's bed, Ranko cross-legged in front of Akane, who was brushing her hair. They both had their pajamas on, getting ready for bed. Akane ran her fingers through her hair, considering the well-kept red strands, and Ranko hummed in satisfaction.
"Your hair is so beautiful," Akane murmured, the tines of the brush massaging Ranko's scalp. Her back gave a little involuntary arch, which surprised Ranko, but she learned into it. Her body surprised her in all kinds of ways now that she was paying attention to it. "Have you ever thought about wearing it down?"
Ranko looked down at her hands in her lap, fiddling with her fingers. "Yeah, kinda," she said. "But I can't, cause if I get changed back and I don't got my dragon's whisker on, then I could go bald, and I think then I'd really go off the deep end. Can you imagine? I'd look like Pops."
"True," Akane considered, tapping her cheek. "We'd find you cute wigs."
"Where'm I gonna find a wig that looks anything like my hair? Red and straight?" Ranko protectively grabbed one of her locks. "I don't wanna look like a prostitute or a European or nothing."
"And what if it looked like your other side's hair?"
Other side, huh? Ranko frowned at the image of her male form, but…
Her long black hair fell over her broad shoulders, her breasts thick with muscle, giving a flirtatious wink toward Akane with her normal eyes as Akane went to- woah!
Ranko shuddered, shaking her head wildly. "I don't want to be a boygirl!"
Akane's brush stilled. "Huh?"
"I'm not a transvestite!" Ranko exclaimed, scrambling back from Akane. "I got a perfectly good girl body and I don't need to- to- I just want the other- the- him to go away, okay?! I don't wanna do nothing like that!"
Akane stared at Ranko. "What are you talking about?"
"I like my hair, okay! It's red and his is black and that's that!"
"It was only an idea!" Akane shot back. "Don't bite my head off about it! And where do you get off, calling yourself things like that? I thought you said you wanted to be a girl."
"Like a curse," Ranko insisted. "Like- like- like I ain't supposed to want to-"
"Want what?"
Ranko gave a twisted scowl, her face burning with shame. "I got this body," she snapped. "And you shouldn't say things that make me want unnatural things."
"Oh. Oh! It's my fault!" Akane exclaimed, storming to her feet and throwing the hairbrush onto the comforter. She glared at Ranko. "I don't even know what you're talking about, you- you- What is wrong with you?"
"I bet you would be happy that your fiance turned out to be a pervert, ya tomboy freak," Ranko spat, unable to control her vitriol or the broiling shame in her gut or the way it pricked her eyes.
Akane's face shuttered.
"Fine."
She stormed out of the room, slamming the door behind her, leaving Ranko to curl up in a little ball on her bed in her wake.
Akane
Ooh, that jerk! Akane launched a target halfway across the dojo with a side kick. She makes me so mad! I thought we were- Why would she say that?
"'Kane?" came Ranma's vulnerable voice, sounding as small as she'd ever heard it. Akane whipped around to glare at Ranma, who shrank back, pressing herself to the side of the dojo entrance. Seeing the fear in Ranma's eyes was enough to get her to back down, but Akane still couldn't full contain her irritability.
"What?" she snapped.
"I'm sorry," Ranma said. "I didn't- I didn't mean what I said about you."
Akane glared at Ranma for a long minute, taking deep breaths, slowly forcing her fists to unclench at her side. She sank to the floor of the dojo and beckoned Ranma over. "Come here."
Ranma came.
"I want an explanation."
"It wasn't you. You just- You were talking about my hair and suddenly I was thinking all of these awful perverted thoughts-"
Akane felt that same rush of anger at hearing Ranma use the word 'perverted' that she'd felt when she'd called herself a 'boygirl' earlier. "That's not good enough," she said firmly. "I want to know exactly what thoughts made you be mean to me. And if you use that word-"
"Which word?"
"If you call yourself a pervert one more time, Ranma, I swear-"
Ranma flinched, looking away from Akane, and she scoffed in confusion. What did I say now?
"Ranma-"
Another flinch.
"...Ranko?"
Ranma whipped her head around to stare at Akane so fast that she backed away from her, blinking in surprise. To her mortification Ranma's eyes began to water.
"It's stupid," Ranma said, swiping her palm over her eyes. "I'm being stupid. I'm sorry."
"Since when do you apologize for being stupid?" Akane demanded. Ranma gave a choked laugh. "You're the most unapologetic dumbass I know." She paused, then tacked on the end tentatively, "Ranko…?"
Maybe it was Nabiki's new version of Ranko, Akane mused. Either way, using Ranma's fake name a second time seemed to jolt her out of her sudden misery, like a ray of hope on a sunbeam. Ranma gave her a terrified look, shrinking back.
Akane leaned forward, taking Ranma's hand. "Tell me what you thought that made you do that, Ranko," she commanded, meeting her girlfriend's eyes.
"I…" Ranko said feebly. Her face colored. "You were saying all that about hair. And I was thinking about my other body, and I thought that- I imagined that-"
"Imagined what?"
"That I was a girl then too," Ranma whispered, trying to pull away. Akane didn't let her. "Not natural like I am now, all unnatural-like, like I had, I was a guy but I had…" Her whisper dropped even further. "Breasts, and long hair, and…" Her eyes filled back up with tears. "And you were touching me but it didn't feel wrong, like I was a girl even when I was a guy. And I don't want to feel that. I don't understand why it's not enough for me to have this stupid curse, I don't understand why I gotta feel shitty about my other body too when this one's fine. Why isn't this enough?"
Akane stared at Ranma. She exhaled. What was she supposed to say to that? Wordless and lost, she pulled her into a hug, and managed the only coherent question in her mind.
"Do you want me to call you Ranko now?"
Ranma shook in her embrace, but managed a tiny nod.
Biting her lip, thinking harder than she usually could think, Akane rocked Ranma on the dojo floor, hating the silence too much to leave it empty. "I love Ranko," she said slowly, trying it out. "Ranko is the most beautiful girl in my world. There is- There is nothing wrong with Ranko wanting to… to be herself. Either way."
It seemed to be too much for Ranma, who pressed her head into Akane's shoulder and started to cry. "I don't deserve you," she whispered. "Who wakes up from a coma and suddenly they've got this- this-"
"Shh," Akane said. "We can thank Daddy later. No credit to your stupid father."
Ranma gave a watery laugh, which was when Akane realized she would have to start thinking of her as Ranko. The thought made her sad. She knew Ranko wanted to be a girl but there was a part of her that knew Ranko probably better than Ranko did, and that part said there was more to it that Ranko was letting herself feel. She remembered the back and forth days, the flip-flopping that seemed to have been muted under the weight of her gender crisis. Part of her couldn't help but wonder if that would return. And her Ranma was still Ranma, no matter what form she was in. It didn't matter which way her name went, she was Ranma. Her Ranma. Akane didn't want to let Ranma go.
"Ranko?"
"Yeah, 'Kane?"
"I'll beat the shit out of anyone who calls you the wrong name," Akane whispered. "And I wouldn't ask for anyone else. But sometimes, when we're alone, can I still call you Ranma? Not all the time. Just when it feels right."
There was a long and strained silence as Ranko visibly thought through the request. Akane almost relented. But she felt like she had to do this for Ranko, for Ranma – it felt right.
"Okay," Ranko finally whispered back. "But only sometimes. And not in public."
Akane kissed Ranko.
"Good. We can do that."
Ranko
Ranko leaned back in the bath, staring up at the ceiling, the warm steam rising up around her. She was overwhelmed by sensation. Every time she moved her arms, they seemed to be guided back to her very male body, so she let them float in the water. But even though she was hyperaware of herself, her body wasn't giving her the curdling discomfort she felt sometimes in her male form. Even though she was a girl. But she was a guy. A manly guy girl.
Groaning, Ranko sank further into the bath up to her nose. It's kinda stupid, huh? she realized. It's all real dumb.
When she was a girl, she never touched her body unless she was washing. She never touched her body period, not really, but as a guy she at least had a better sense for it. So it somehow felt less taboo when she pressed her hands flat to her pecs, shivering at the flatness of them, then pulled them back, cupping imaginary boobs in the water. She mimed squeezing, and made a noise that was uncomfortably close to a giggle, which was not flattering in her male form. She didn't dare wander any lower.
I thought giving up on being a man-among-men was supposed to be simple, Ranko whined to herself. Why's this so much more complicated? Why don't I feel like crap as a man right now? I definitely felt like crap as a man this week.
It was all simpler before Nabiki had made her realize that she had a name. Ranma's existence was simple. Fight good, curse bad, manly man. Ranko was living an incredibly confusing new life, one that she scarcely understood as she was living it. Maybe a spirit really had replaced Ranma in his coma, leaving Ranko behind. Ranko certainly didn't feel like she remembered Ranma feeling.
Probably.
She thought.
Her brain was maybe trying to tell her something, so Ranko made a valiant, successful effort at ignoring her own thoughts.
The furo door slid open, and Ranko almost rushed to cover herself before she saw that it was Akane and relaxed. Akane stepped into the room and saw Ranko in the tub. Her eyes flicked to her lower regions, which responded, and they both blushed. "Hey," Akane murmured, letting her towel fall from her chest, revealing her breasts. "Do you mind?"
Ranko wordlessly shook her head.
The next few minutes were occupied by the two teens stewing in their embarrassment, doing their best not to acknowledge each other. Ranko stared furiously at the wall, his face burning, and he tried really, really hard not to think about how cute Akane looked when she sat down with her legs pressed together on the washing stool, or how the way her rear end moved when she walked. In the course of his not thinking, it occurred to Ranko that she was an absolute master at the art of not thinking. A not thinking maestro. She should open the Saotome School of Not Thinking About Your Problems or Feelings. They could have contests to see who could repress their issues better.
A second desire became apparent within her, something she felt more in her chest, like when Akane said she loved her, than between her legs. Ranko turned in the bath to look at Akane, who blushed deeper and modestly covered her breasts, giving her a contemplative look.
"Wh-wh-what is it?" Akane stammered. "I love you Ranko but I don't think I'm quite ready for- for that."
"Hah?" Ranko's face flamed. "No, no, no, that's not it- I- I mean-" Her gaze accidentally slipped lower, and she covered her face in embarrassment. "Not that I don't want that! With you! I mean – augh, I'm sorry! It's not that, even though I can't say I don't… don't love looking at you."
She slowly dropped her hands. Akane was still watching her, but her hands had fallen back to her sides. She looked at Ranko with a strange expression Ranko had never seen before, something that made her feel hot and strange and made the pressure between her legs come roaring back. "You… You can look, if you want," Akane said. "I don't mind."
She rose from the stool, and Ranko gaped at her. Akane blushed, offering him a sideways smile. She went for her towel.
"Akane, wait," Ranko said before she knew the words coming out of her mouth. "Come here."
Akane stared at her, but slowly, approaching her in the nude, she came to Ranko's side. It was a mortifying experience, but not bad or uncomfortable, for Akane to be standing there exposed to him. They waited a moment, soaking each other in. Akane kept stealing little glances lower. "Yeah?" she asked, rubbing at a droplet on her neck.
Ranko rose to her feet, the water spilling off her shoulders. She stepped out of the tub, almost close enough that their bodies would touch in an adult way, and kissed her slowly, using the height of her male form to draw her in. When they broke away, Akane gave her a dazed look of amazement. Even Ranko could see that Akane had liked it.
"What…" Akane blinked away her sudden haze. "What was that for?"
Ranko shrugged, stepping back into the tub and sitting back down. She was so good at not thinking. She really ought to get a medal. "I had to know."
[A/N] THE NOVEL IS DONE
I would apologize for not updating for eleven months but honestly I'm so happy I completed my chonker of an original project, which may or may not be 660k words, that, oh well. It's not like I haven't been working on this fanfic since 2017. Plus I'm posting this chapter a literal day after finishing so y'all know I thought about this fic first :)
Also, like, coronavirus and college and fun stuff like that, but who's counting?
In which Ranko realizes that her new name is actually a really big deal, and has lots of Feelings that she is excellent at ignoring. Also, the eighties were a great time for not having the vocabulary to describe trans issues. That slow creeping realization that the 'curse' of wanting to be a girl might actually have more to do with herself and less to do with Jusenkyo is a fun time too.
Thanks for two hundred reviews, guys, and a shoutout to Herofire, elusivetruth, Katt1848, Lukkai, DianaBialaska, tomhclare, Lord Jerad, Mizuno Tenshi2, The Keeper of Worlds, and DrYuriMom for reviewing!
Something I've been thinking about for a long time while writing this fic is how much the feedback I get from people who relate to the events of this lil fic and share their life stories means to me. As a young trans woman, it's really incredible hearing all of your shared experiences and thinking about the power that fiction has to lift our voices and stories – which is obviously not a radical concept in the modern discourse, but participating in it drives home for me how empowering it can be. I had a moment this year when I realized that I've really not read much published fiction by trans authors about trans experiences (and proceeded to binge read Detransition, Baby and Nevada and some others). But I always think back to this fandom, and fandom in general, and realize that even as I'm angling my writing toward original fiction and away from fanfiction, that I've gotten something here from interacting with other trans writers that I'm not going to find in the publishing world. I think that's really powerful.
Anyway next time dastardly schemes and Amazons! Tell me what you thought!
Much love, Allie