Scarlet Letters
One. Two. Three. "Kiiiyaaaaaaaaah!"
Akane wiped her forhead. Nothing better for relieving tension than
smashing a brick or three. Only breathing slightly heavier than normal
now, she looked up at the doorway.
"No wonder the boys think you're weird," commented Nabiki.
Akane rolled her eyes. "I told you, sis, I have no interest in boys."
"Whatever. By the way, Daddy's about to hold a family meeting. I'd get
my sweet ass out of the dojo if I were you."
Akane sighed. "In a minute . . ."
The family meeting, it turned out, was Soun Tendou's method of
informing his daughters that he had arranged a marriage for them
before Akane was even born. The concept was met with worry on Kasumi's
part, anticipation on Nabiki's and total indifference on AKane's.
While her middle sister questioned their father on the proposed
fiance, Akane let her mind drift in the direction of the radio. The
usual stream of J-pop was being interupted with a news bulletin about
possibly feral pandas roaming the streets.
Akane was jerked back to reality by the sound of her father and Nabiki
running to meet someone at the door. Curious in spite of herself,
Akane followed them after a moment's hesitation.
Well, that explained the whole panda thing the announcer had been
babbling about. "I'm Ranma Saotome," said the other visitor. "Sorry
about this."
Akane raised an eyebrow. Ranma was quite short and slight -- very
feminine looking. In fact, if AKane didn't know better... suddenly she
felt much better about the whole engagement mess.
Both her father's fainting and Nabiki's prodding of Ranma's breasts
only served to confirm Akane's suspicion. Once Soun was revived and
the fuss died down, she tried talking to her would-be fiancee. "You're
a martial artist, right? Would you like to spar with me in the dojo?"
Ranma nodded.
"Great! I'm Akane -- want to be friends?"
Ranma managed a slight smile. "I guess."
It took no time at all for Akane to show Ranma the dojo. After the
other girl's cursitory examination, the two faced each other and began
to spar.
Akane was in awe of Ranma's skill. The other girl was fast, very fast.
Somehow she managed to avoid every one of Akane's punches and kicks.
And then, somehow, she vanished...
A few seconds later Akane was slumped on the ground, remarkably
unhurt. Ranma was bent over her with an anxious expression on her
face. She was almost close enough to kiss.
"Don't worry," Akane said, "I'm fine. I'm just glad you aren't a boy."
A worried look crossed Ranma's face. "Umm... do you have anything
against boys?"
Akane shrugged. "Yeah. The ones at my school, anyway. They keep
challenging me every morning and I'm frankly tired of it. But I'm
proud that I've won every match."
"Oh." Ranma nodded, almost as if she understood.
Akane decided to chance hinting. "Besides, I'm not interested in guys.
So when you turned out to be a girl after Father told us about the
engagement I was... well, overjoyed probably isn't too much of an
exaggeration."
Ranma laughed. "I'm not interested in boys either."
Oh, this was too much to hope for! Akane smiled happily. "Really? Hey,
do you want to wash up so we won't stink up Kasumi's dinner?"
"Um... sure." Ranma replied, frowning just a little. "Kasumi was the
one with the soothing voice, right? Not the one who was poking me in
the chest..."
Akane blushed in lieu of her sister. "Nabiki's not usually like that."
Ranma snickered. "What? Is she even worse most of the time?" Akane
just blushed deeper. "Oh man... this is not going to be good..."
------------------------------------------------------------
For some reason Ranma seemed reluctant about bathing with Akane.
They'd gotten past the disrobing part with only a little cajoling on
Akane's part and the rinsing off with cold water had posed no problem,
but now that it was time to actually enter the furo, Ranma was
refusing to even put a toe in.
The situation had basically devolved into a sort of tug of war with
Akane trying to get Ranma into the bath water and Ranma intent on
staying on dry land. It was a true test of strength -- Nabiki had once
commented rather rudely that Akane had the strength of a gorilla but
Ranma had to be at least as strong as an orangutan. Finally, however,
Akane started to win. And with a loud splash the two tumbled into the
water...
That's funny, Akane thought, Ranma seems to be larger underwater...
She surfaced, spluttering water. And stared. And stared. And then
stared some more. Where Ranma should have been was a boy. A rather
good-looking boy if Nabiki's magazines were to be trusted, but still a
boy. A boy who was naked in the furo with her. Akane evaluated her
options quickly: either scream and raise the whole house or clock this
mystery boy upside the head before he tried anything.
Akane chose the second option. She was getting ready to repeat her
choice when the boy caught her hand midswing. "Jeez, first you try to
pull me into the damn water and then you try to beat me up? I'm
starting to think I should take my chances with Nabiki!"
Akane blinked. "Ranma?"
The boy who was Ranma rolled his eyes. "Who else?"
Akane frowned. "But... aren't you supposed to be a girl?"
"No, I'm supposed to be a guy. I just got hit with this Chinese curse
a couple months back and now I switch." He hoisted himself out of the
furo and filled the bucket again. "See, I'll show you..." He poured it
over his head. "Girl again." He dipped the bucket into the furo. "Boy
again." Again with the faucet. "Girl again." Ranma sat down with a
thud and sighed. "I guess you think I'm some sort of pervert now..."
Akane felt near to crying... "Oh Ranma, of course I don't!"
Ranma looked at Akane like she was some sort of Alien being. "You
don't?"
Akane shook her head. "Maybe I would have a year ago or even a few
months ago, but now you're no more perverted than I am, Ranma."
She could see Ranma's jaw start the dropping process. "I'm not?"
Akane pulled herself up next to Ranma. "No. Because when I said I
wasn't interested in boys I meant that I was interested in girls.
That's why I was so happy that Father's prospective fiance turned out
to be a girl."
It was Ranma's turn to be stunned. "You mean... you're a
whaddyacallit? A lesbian?"
Akane nodded. "Yeah. I've known I was one for about six weeks now. So
I think I've got you tied for weirdness, hmm?"
"Yeah." There was a silence, then Ranma's body got even more tense
than it had been before. "But it isn't like you're still interested in
me now that you know I'm a boy, right?"
Akane hugged the other girl, lack of clothing be damned. "Well, the
thought of doing some stuff with you as a boy does bother me a bit,
but otherwise you're still the Ranma I wanted to be friends with. It's
just that I'm only attracted to you as a girl."
Ranma shivered. "I hate being a girl."
Akane raised an eyebrow, like she'd seen Mr. Spock do on daytime
television. "Oh? And what's so bad about being a girl?"
"Because I'm not!" Ranma said with conviction. "I'm supposed to be a
guy, not some silly girl who wears dresses and drools over SMAP!"
"Not all girls are like that!" Akane argued. "Take me, I mean. I don't
even like SMAP! Ayumi Hamasaki, though -- she can give me a private
concert anytime..."
"Me too," Ranma agreed.
"Anyways," Akane continued, "not all girls are so... well, girly. Some
of us are downright tomboyish in fact. I know I am just a little. And
you are very much one when you're a girl..."
From the expression on her face, Ranma seemed to be in doubt of what
Akane was saying. Akane sighed, "Look, I can prove it to you that
being a girl part of the time isn't the end of the world. Just give me
a little time to work on it, okay?"
Ranma snorted. "I'm sure we'll have plenty of that. The old man
actually seems serious about getting me hitched to one of you."
Akane got an idea. A wonderful, awful idea. It would involve some
deception on behalf of the rest of their families and some persuading
of Ranma, but it just might work...
"Why don't we decide to honor the engagement then? We can always break
it once we turn twenty, I mean. And as long as you use cold water at
the right times I don't think I'd mind so much..."
Ranma grinned and Akane thought the impish light in her fiancee's eyes
must have mirrored her own...
------------------------------------------------------------
At first Ranma and Akane's announcement met with a general outcry of
"who said you got first dibs?" from her sisters but after Ranma
demonstrated his gender changing abilities all protests were
withdrawn, to Akane's general satisfaction. Akane's father was so
exstatic that it took a long half hour of bargaining for him to
postpone the otherwise immediate wedding to when Akane and Ranma would
gain their majority.
Still, Akane couldn't help being amused when Ranma returned Kasumi's
warning of "Akane's really a nice girl -- she's just a violent maniac"
with, "I knew that already, actually."
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