Gundam Wing Fan Fiction / Ranma 1/2 Fan Fiction ❯ Mission: Nerima ❯ Chapter 5
[ T - Teen: Not suitable for readers under 13 ]
By: Calic0cat 
Anime/Manga: Gundam Wing Fan Fiction / Ranma 1/2 Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Angst / Romance / Comedy | Type: Crossover | Uploaded On: 03.11.2007 | Pages: 2 | Words: 3.0K | Visits: 805 | Status: Completed
Anime/Manga: Gundam Wing Fan Fiction / Ranma 1/2 Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Angst / Romance / Comedy | Type: Crossover | Uploaded On: 03.11.2007 | Pages: 2 | Words: 3.0K | Visits: 805 | Status: Completed
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Title: Mission: Nerima
Chapter: 05
Author: Calic0cat
Genre: Crossover
Pairings: 3+4/4+3
Rated: FRT (Fan Rated for Teens)
Warning: Swearing, Angst
Archives: http://www.calic0cat.net
Disclaimer: Heero and Duo and the rest of the GW boys aren't mine. Neither are Ranma and Ryoga and the rest of the Nerima Wrecking Crew. This story is. Nuff said.
Notes: Post series & Endless Waltz for Gundam Wing, post series for Ranma ½. Unless otherwise noted, all dialogue is in Japanese - so if there’s Japanese words sprinkled within dialogue, it’s because the language being spoken at that moment is something else.
'Thinking'
"Speaking"
*** Time passing or scene change
#################################################
Duo sighed and reluctantly started towards the house. He'd have much rather spent the evening with Ranma and his other new friends - he'd been issued an open invitation to help out at either of the restaurants that the group was responsible for, in exchange for food and a little mutual homework help - but he knew that delaying the upcoming confrontation would only make it even worse. Heero had scheduled a mission briefing for tonight, and missing that would only make Heero even more pissed off than the news that Duo had concealed massive educational shortcomings would have already made him.
And Duo had no illusions that Trowa wouldn't have shared that information with the others. After all, his educational shortfalls were a liability, one that he'd knowingly and deliberately hidden from his fellow pilots. Near-failing grades didn't exactly go along with laying low and keeping their noses clean.
Oh, that might not be the *only* reason that some of them would be upset - Quatre in particular might be more concerned with the fact that he hadn't asked his friends for help - but it would most likely be the main one.
Just as Duo reached for the door, it flew open and Quatre demanded, "Why didn't you tell us why you disliked school missions so much?"
Groaning inwardly, Duo squeezed past him into the narrow entryway, removing his shoes as he responded defensively, "Because you never asked." Which was certainly one reason, if not the only one. They'd drawn their own thoroughly inaccurate conclusions about his grades and his general attitude towards school, which had pissed him off enough that he hadn't felt the least bit like putting the record straight. It wasn't exactly something that he'd *wanted* to admit to in the first place, after all.
"You should have told us."
Duo stiffened at the flat reprimand from behind him. Great, Heero was right here waiting to jump down his throat too. He hung his coat on a hook before turning to find them all giving him varying degrees of accusing looks. "Fuck," he muttered under his breath. More loudly, he said, "Yeah, well, now you know." Schoolbag in hand, he continued wearily, "Look, can we just take the ass-reaming as read, and get the damn mission briefing over with, please? I've got a lot of homework to do."
"We'd be happy to help you with it."
Shaking his head, Duo said, "Thanks, Quatre, I'll keep that in mind, but I think I'm set for now. Ms. Hinako made sure I understood everything before I left." Maybe he'd take Quatre up on the offer some other time, but right now, he just wanted to drop the subject. He managed to dredge up a half-hearted grin. "I can handle it, it's just going to take me a while. So could we please get the mission briefing over with?"
"Hn." Heero turned and walked away, heading towards the small living room area. Duo decided to take that as agreement, and evidently the others did as well, since they trailed along behind him, leaving Duo to bring up the rear.
Heero remained standing while the rest of them sat. "By the numbers," he announced, establishing the order of turns before launching into his own report.
"General observations. The high school shows evidence of substantial repairs, as do many other buildings in the area. The principal is..." Heero hesitated, searching for a sufficiently descriptive term before finally settling for, "...strange... and bears further investigation.
"There seems to be a disproportionately high number of martial artists in the region, all of whom practise rather... unique... styles at rather high skill levels. Again, this bears further investigation. As does Nabiki Tendo, who has apparently researched us so thoroughly.
"The ambush. Although clearly meant to look like a normal hazing incident, that scenario is unlikely. There were too many suspects involved, and they knew too much about us. They appeared to be aware that we need to keep a low profile. Had those other students not stepped in, we would have had a serious problem; we would have had to choose between the potential negative implications of fighting all out and possibly severely injuring or killing someone, and the high risk of serious injury to ourselves if we held back. Good luck, not good planning, saved us.
"The incident should not have happened. We were careless and inattentive; that is unacceptable. It must not happen again." Seating himself, Heero gave Duo a sharp nod.
Duo dragged himself to his feet - it had been one damn long day, and it was far from over - and began, "Of our neighbours, I've met Kasumi Tendo and Ranma Saotome. She seems pretty nice, but there was no real opportunity to learn anything substantive about her. Ranma, however, is one of those highly-skilled martial artists that Heero was talking about. He's got phenomenal balance, he's strong, and he's damn fast." At the restaurant that morning, one of the customers had knocked over a cup, which had then rolled off the edge of the table. Ranma had caught it before it hit the floor, and Duo could have sworn that he'd been on the other side of the restaurant when it had started to roll.
"He seems really easy-going. Nice." Duo shrugged, and admitted, "I like him, and the others that I've met. They know who I am - what I am - and it doesn't seem to matter to them." He was a pretty good judge of character - on the streets, that was a basic survival skill - and his gut instinct was to trust Ranma and his friends. To make them *his* friends. He left those details out of his report, however, as just mentioning that he liked the other teens had been enough to make Heero scowl darkly.
"I do agree that Nabiki Tendo should be checked out, since she apparently checked *us* out so thoroughly, but I don't think we'll find a real problem there; the media published an awful lot of info about us after the first war, after all, so she could've just searched public records.
"Really, it's just too soon to have found much to go on. I think Heero covered what little we've got pretty thoroughly." Duo reseated himself, turning control of the briefing over to Trowa. He really hoped that the rest of the meeting went quickly; he had a lot of homework to get done before bed.
Trowa didn't even bother standing up. He simply said, "I concur with Heero."
"I agree with Duo that it's too soon to have made any real progress," Quatre offered. "I also agree with Heero's suggestions regarding additional investigation into certain individuals. I have nothing further to add at this time."
Wufei rose to speak. "Yuy is correct that the number of high-level martial artists in the area is exceptionally high. There were some familiar elements, but the styles exhibited by those we've seen in action were extremely unusual. This will definitely bear further research."
In other words, it was too damn soon to reach any conclusions, which wasn't exactly surprising, considering that this had been their first day in the field. Despite his impatience to get the whole thing over with so that he could go get started on his schoolwork, Duo bit his tongue and managed *not* to point out what a colossal waste of time this briefing really was.
Well, he managed it until Heero brought up the topic of his educational shortcomings again.
"05 and I will look into the martial artists. 03 and 04, check into Nabiki Tendo and Principal Kuno." Heero used their pilot numbers deliberately. Handling both a professional and a personal relationship with the same person was something that he still wasn't very good at. Relena had been trying to help him learn how to balance the two, and referring to people differently in different contexts was one of the coping techniques that she'd taught him. In a work context, she had been Minister Darlian and he had been Mr. Yuy; in private life, she'd been Relena and he'd been Heero. It didn't solve all of his issues, but it helped. "02, that leaves you free to concentrate on your schoolwork."
Duo surged to his feet, hurt and angry. "Dammit, Yuy, I'm part of this too! I managed all through the war; I can manage now. Let me do my damn job!" And they wondered why he'd never told any of them the truth before?!
"And we can manage right now; you need..." Heero began. He knew that Duo could 'manage' if necessary, but there really wasn't much to do yet, and they could easily spare Duo's assistance for the moment. Duo should take advantage of the opportunity while it lasted. Frowning slightly, he searched for the right words to make Duo understand.
But Duo didn't give Heero the chance to find them. Instead, he snatched up his schoolbag and stormed out of the room, pounding up the stairs and slamming the attic door shut in his wake.
***
Standing at the window the next morning, Ranma watched as Shampoo and Ukyo took their turn at Kuno Hair Patrol control. He wasn't happy with the results of the Wrecking Crew's investigation of the previous day's lunch hour mess.
While the group had recognized a number of the individuals involved in spite of their masks, they had not been able to get much information out of them. Shampoo, Mousse, and Kodachi had tracked each of the known offenders down and questioned them, but were unable to find out anything beyond the fact that they had been offered a considerable sum of money by a stranger to show up and harass the ex-Gundam pilots. While the individuals had been quite content to face the pilots, based on the assurance that they could not fight back without causing considerable trouble for themselves, they had been much less eager to face the infamous Nerima Wrecking Crew and were convinced that they had been severely misled. They hadn't been paid nearly enough to guarantee their loyalty to their unknown employer.
Particularly since three members of the Crew that were *not* known for being honourable to the point of their own detriment had shown up at their homes to question them and make it clear that anyone who messed with the ex-pilots would be dealing with the Wrecking Crew as well. Faced with Kodachi bearing a number of new concoctions and in an experimental mood, the troublemakers had been more than willing to talk - they simply didn't have much information to pass on.
The warning tingle that always preceded trouble in Nerima was back in full force, filling Ranma with nervous energy. Though the trouble appeared for once to have been attracted by someone other than himself, he knew that he and the others would inevitably end up getting involved. It was, quite simply, what they did.
Hearing Duo's voice coming down the hall, Ranma drew away from the window. He needed to let the pilots know what they had found out from the locals, though he doubted they would give him any details about the attackers that had actually been captured. 'The students involved left at the mere mention of the Wrecking Crew. The other Nerima natives, not realizing that we're avoiding chi moves right now, ran for it when they recognized the beginning positions of a Mokou Takabisha and a Shi Shi Hokoudan. Only outsiders would have been foolish enough to hang around and actually try to fight all of us with mere three to one odds. I doubt that four to one odds would have bothered the pilots particularly either, so that leaves me wondering exactly why those people *did* stick around once the others ran off...
'I think Nabiki needs to find out some more about exactly who is stirring up the trouble for these guys at the political level. I really doubt that the two events are unconnected, which means that we're going to have to deal with them sooner or later.'
***
As the day wore on towards lunch time, Quatre caught Trowa watching him on several occasions. Towards the end of the war, he'd thought that they were getting closer, that maybe their friendship was going to turn into something more. He'd certainly hoped it was. But then the war had ended. He'd been got drawn back into WEI business and his role as 'the Winner heir', Trowa had gone back to the circus, and nothing had ever came of it.
'Maybe this mission is a good thing, since it's giving us a reason to spend time together again,' Quatre thought hopefully. He didn't intend to let one minute of that time go to waste.
"Trowa, would you like to join me for lunch? We need to talk."
***
"Ranma, you *jerk*!" Akane suddenly shrieked, startling Ranma out of his quiet contemplation of Ryoga's relaxed form, sprawled near him on the grass. With a quick flick of the wrist, she swung her bento at Ranma just as he hastily jumped into the nearest tree, his gaze following her quick glance towards the school.
'Damn, Mr. Tanaka's watching again,' Ranma groaned silently. 'He looks suspicious. Guess we've all been gettin' too relaxed with the folks away, actin' too friendly in public... Haveta fix that, he tells Akane's pop *everything*...'
"*Uncute tomboy*! What're ya tryin' to do, *poison me*! As if I'm gonna eat anything *YOU* fixed for lunch!" he shouted back, sliding into the all-too-familiar role.
Ryoga heaved an almost inaudible sigh before vaulting to his feet and taking up his part in the act. "*Saotome*, how dare you insult the fair Akane! Prepare to die!"
'Damn - am I ever getting tired of this,' all three friends thought as they continued the never-ending charade.
"How long till Ranma and lost boy get together?" Shampoo wondered quietly to the others as they waited to see if they would need to take a turn in the rapidly-escalating "argument".
"My money's on two weeks," Ukyo said.
"I think it will be longer. One month," the spectacled Chinese youth declared.
"By the end of the weekend," Kodachi said firmly, drawing surprised glances from the others. She knew what she was talking about, though. Having friends was still a novelty to her, and she spent a great deal of time and energy observing all of them.
Since the beginning of the week, Ryoga had stopped hiding his appreciative gazes from Ranma, so obviously Ranma had finally told him that he was gay. 'About time too,' Kodachi thought. 'Poor Ryoga's been mooning over him since before the wedding fiasco. Only someone as entirely unaware of his own appeal as Ranma could have missed it.' And she hadn't missed the increasingly speculative glances that Ranma had been directing in Ryoga's direction over the last few days either.
With a shrug, Kodachi explained, "Ryoga already knows what he wants, he's just waiting on Ranma. And Ranma does *everything* at top speed - he's thinking about it already, so he'll realize what he wants by then and won't waste any time going after it."
"Shampoo - sorry, forgot - *I* think Kodachi is right," the Amazon agreed. Speaking Japanese properly still required considerable conscious effort. *English* was much easier to learn as far as she was concerned. Maybe because Ms Hinako had made her speak it properly from the very start, so she didn't have a lot of bad habits to break. She had started off speaking broken Japanese in part to create a misleading "pretty but vapid" image in the eyes of her rivals, but had ended up regretting it greatly as both the image and the speech pattern had proved surprisingly difficult to vanquish when they became disadvantageous.
As the bell signalled the end of lunch, the unlikely group of friends turned to enter the building.
"Almost forgot," Mousse said, smacking his palm to his forehead, "'Dachi, can you help at the restaurant after school? Ranma's got a meeting with Ms Hinako and can't make it."
"Certainly," the Kuno girl answered eagerly. Maybe the novelty of helping her *friends* - she couldn't quite contain a delighted shiver at that word - would eventually wear off but, at least for now, working at Ucchan's and the Nekohanten held an incredible appeal for her.
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Title: Mission: Nerima
Chapter: 05
Author: Calic0cat
Genre: Crossover
Pairings: 3+4/4+3
Rated: FRT (Fan Rated for Teens)
Warning: Swearing, Angst
Archives: http://www.calic0cat.net
Disclaimer: Heero and Duo and the rest of the GW boys aren't mine. Neither are Ranma and Ryoga and the rest of the Nerima Wrecking Crew. This story is. Nuff said.
Notes: Post series & Endless Waltz for Gundam Wing, post series for Ranma ½. Unless otherwise noted, all dialogue is in Japanese - so if there’s Japanese words sprinkled within dialogue, it’s because the language being spoken at that moment is something else.
'Thinking'
"Speaking"
*** Time passing or scene change
#################################################
Duo sighed and reluctantly started towards the house. He'd have much rather spent the evening with Ranma and his other new friends - he'd been issued an open invitation to help out at either of the restaurants that the group was responsible for, in exchange for food and a little mutual homework help - but he knew that delaying the upcoming confrontation would only make it even worse. Heero had scheduled a mission briefing for tonight, and missing that would only make Heero even more pissed off than the news that Duo had concealed massive educational shortcomings would have already made him.
And Duo had no illusions that Trowa wouldn't have shared that information with the others. After all, his educational shortfalls were a liability, one that he'd knowingly and deliberately hidden from his fellow pilots. Near-failing grades didn't exactly go along with laying low and keeping their noses clean.
Oh, that might not be the *only* reason that some of them would be upset - Quatre in particular might be more concerned with the fact that he hadn't asked his friends for help - but it would most likely be the main one.
Just as Duo reached for the door, it flew open and Quatre demanded, "Why didn't you tell us why you disliked school missions so much?"
Groaning inwardly, Duo squeezed past him into the narrow entryway, removing his shoes as he responded defensively, "Because you never asked." Which was certainly one reason, if not the only one. They'd drawn their own thoroughly inaccurate conclusions about his grades and his general attitude towards school, which had pissed him off enough that he hadn't felt the least bit like putting the record straight. It wasn't exactly something that he'd *wanted* to admit to in the first place, after all.
"You should have told us."
Duo stiffened at the flat reprimand from behind him. Great, Heero was right here waiting to jump down his throat too. He hung his coat on a hook before turning to find them all giving him varying degrees of accusing looks. "Fuck," he muttered under his breath. More loudly, he said, "Yeah, well, now you know." Schoolbag in hand, he continued wearily, "Look, can we just take the ass-reaming as read, and get the damn mission briefing over with, please? I've got a lot of homework to do."
"We'd be happy to help you with it."
Shaking his head, Duo said, "Thanks, Quatre, I'll keep that in mind, but I think I'm set for now. Ms. Hinako made sure I understood everything before I left." Maybe he'd take Quatre up on the offer some other time, but right now, he just wanted to drop the subject. He managed to dredge up a half-hearted grin. "I can handle it, it's just going to take me a while. So could we please get the mission briefing over with?"
"Hn." Heero turned and walked away, heading towards the small living room area. Duo decided to take that as agreement, and evidently the others did as well, since they trailed along behind him, leaving Duo to bring up the rear.
Heero remained standing while the rest of them sat. "By the numbers," he announced, establishing the order of turns before launching into his own report.
"General observations. The high school shows evidence of substantial repairs, as do many other buildings in the area. The principal is..." Heero hesitated, searching for a sufficiently descriptive term before finally settling for, "...strange... and bears further investigation.
"There seems to be a disproportionately high number of martial artists in the region, all of whom practise rather... unique... styles at rather high skill levels. Again, this bears further investigation. As does Nabiki Tendo, who has apparently researched us so thoroughly.
"The ambush. Although clearly meant to look like a normal hazing incident, that scenario is unlikely. There were too many suspects involved, and they knew too much about us. They appeared to be aware that we need to keep a low profile. Had those other students not stepped in, we would have had a serious problem; we would have had to choose between the potential negative implications of fighting all out and possibly severely injuring or killing someone, and the high risk of serious injury to ourselves if we held back. Good luck, not good planning, saved us.
"The incident should not have happened. We were careless and inattentive; that is unacceptable. It must not happen again." Seating himself, Heero gave Duo a sharp nod.
Duo dragged himself to his feet - it had been one damn long day, and it was far from over - and began, "Of our neighbours, I've met Kasumi Tendo and Ranma Saotome. She seems pretty nice, but there was no real opportunity to learn anything substantive about her. Ranma, however, is one of those highly-skilled martial artists that Heero was talking about. He's got phenomenal balance, he's strong, and he's damn fast." At the restaurant that morning, one of the customers had knocked over a cup, which had then rolled off the edge of the table. Ranma had caught it before it hit the floor, and Duo could have sworn that he'd been on the other side of the restaurant when it had started to roll.
"He seems really easy-going. Nice." Duo shrugged, and admitted, "I like him, and the others that I've met. They know who I am - what I am - and it doesn't seem to matter to them." He was a pretty good judge of character - on the streets, that was a basic survival skill - and his gut instinct was to trust Ranma and his friends. To make them *his* friends. He left those details out of his report, however, as just mentioning that he liked the other teens had been enough to make Heero scowl darkly.
"I do agree that Nabiki Tendo should be checked out, since she apparently checked *us* out so thoroughly, but I don't think we'll find a real problem there; the media published an awful lot of info about us after the first war, after all, so she could've just searched public records.
"Really, it's just too soon to have found much to go on. I think Heero covered what little we've got pretty thoroughly." Duo reseated himself, turning control of the briefing over to Trowa. He really hoped that the rest of the meeting went quickly; he had a lot of homework to get done before bed.
Trowa didn't even bother standing up. He simply said, "I concur with Heero."
"I agree with Duo that it's too soon to have made any real progress," Quatre offered. "I also agree with Heero's suggestions regarding additional investigation into certain individuals. I have nothing further to add at this time."
Wufei rose to speak. "Yuy is correct that the number of high-level martial artists in the area is exceptionally high. There were some familiar elements, but the styles exhibited by those we've seen in action were extremely unusual. This will definitely bear further research."
In other words, it was too damn soon to reach any conclusions, which wasn't exactly surprising, considering that this had been their first day in the field. Despite his impatience to get the whole thing over with so that he could go get started on his schoolwork, Duo bit his tongue and managed *not* to point out what a colossal waste of time this briefing really was.
Well, he managed it until Heero brought up the topic of his educational shortcomings again.
"05 and I will look into the martial artists. 03 and 04, check into Nabiki Tendo and Principal Kuno." Heero used their pilot numbers deliberately. Handling both a professional and a personal relationship with the same person was something that he still wasn't very good at. Relena had been trying to help him learn how to balance the two, and referring to people differently in different contexts was one of the coping techniques that she'd taught him. In a work context, she had been Minister Darlian and he had been Mr. Yuy; in private life, she'd been Relena and he'd been Heero. It didn't solve all of his issues, but it helped. "02, that leaves you free to concentrate on your schoolwork."
Duo surged to his feet, hurt and angry. "Dammit, Yuy, I'm part of this too! I managed all through the war; I can manage now. Let me do my damn job!" And they wondered why he'd never told any of them the truth before?!
"And we can manage right now; you need..." Heero began. He knew that Duo could 'manage' if necessary, but there really wasn't much to do yet, and they could easily spare Duo's assistance for the moment. Duo should take advantage of the opportunity while it lasted. Frowning slightly, he searched for the right words to make Duo understand.
But Duo didn't give Heero the chance to find them. Instead, he snatched up his schoolbag and stormed out of the room, pounding up the stairs and slamming the attic door shut in his wake.
***
Standing at the window the next morning, Ranma watched as Shampoo and Ukyo took their turn at Kuno Hair Patrol control. He wasn't happy with the results of the Wrecking Crew's investigation of the previous day's lunch hour mess.
While the group had recognized a number of the individuals involved in spite of their masks, they had not been able to get much information out of them. Shampoo, Mousse, and Kodachi had tracked each of the known offenders down and questioned them, but were unable to find out anything beyond the fact that they had been offered a considerable sum of money by a stranger to show up and harass the ex-Gundam pilots. While the individuals had been quite content to face the pilots, based on the assurance that they could not fight back without causing considerable trouble for themselves, they had been much less eager to face the infamous Nerima Wrecking Crew and were convinced that they had been severely misled. They hadn't been paid nearly enough to guarantee their loyalty to their unknown employer.
Particularly since three members of the Crew that were *not* known for being honourable to the point of their own detriment had shown up at their homes to question them and make it clear that anyone who messed with the ex-pilots would be dealing with the Wrecking Crew as well. Faced with Kodachi bearing a number of new concoctions and in an experimental mood, the troublemakers had been more than willing to talk - they simply didn't have much information to pass on.
The warning tingle that always preceded trouble in Nerima was back in full force, filling Ranma with nervous energy. Though the trouble appeared for once to have been attracted by someone other than himself, he knew that he and the others would inevitably end up getting involved. It was, quite simply, what they did.
Hearing Duo's voice coming down the hall, Ranma drew away from the window. He needed to let the pilots know what they had found out from the locals, though he doubted they would give him any details about the attackers that had actually been captured. 'The students involved left at the mere mention of the Wrecking Crew. The other Nerima natives, not realizing that we're avoiding chi moves right now, ran for it when they recognized the beginning positions of a Mokou Takabisha and a Shi Shi Hokoudan. Only outsiders would have been foolish enough to hang around and actually try to fight all of us with mere three to one odds. I doubt that four to one odds would have bothered the pilots particularly either, so that leaves me wondering exactly why those people *did* stick around once the others ran off...
'I think Nabiki needs to find out some more about exactly who is stirring up the trouble for these guys at the political level. I really doubt that the two events are unconnected, which means that we're going to have to deal with them sooner or later.'
***
As the day wore on towards lunch time, Quatre caught Trowa watching him on several occasions. Towards the end of the war, he'd thought that they were getting closer, that maybe their friendship was going to turn into something more. He'd certainly hoped it was. But then the war had ended. He'd been got drawn back into WEI business and his role as 'the Winner heir', Trowa had gone back to the circus, and nothing had ever came of it.
'Maybe this mission is a good thing, since it's giving us a reason to spend time together again,' Quatre thought hopefully. He didn't intend to let one minute of that time go to waste.
"Trowa, would you like to join me for lunch? We need to talk."
***
"Ranma, you *jerk*!" Akane suddenly shrieked, startling Ranma out of his quiet contemplation of Ryoga's relaxed form, sprawled near him on the grass. With a quick flick of the wrist, she swung her bento at Ranma just as he hastily jumped into the nearest tree, his gaze following her quick glance towards the school.
'Damn, Mr. Tanaka's watching again,' Ranma groaned silently. 'He looks suspicious. Guess we've all been gettin' too relaxed with the folks away, actin' too friendly in public... Haveta fix that, he tells Akane's pop *everything*...'
"*Uncute tomboy*! What're ya tryin' to do, *poison me*! As if I'm gonna eat anything *YOU* fixed for lunch!" he shouted back, sliding into the all-too-familiar role.
Ryoga heaved an almost inaudible sigh before vaulting to his feet and taking up his part in the act. "*Saotome*, how dare you insult the fair Akane! Prepare to die!"
'Damn - am I ever getting tired of this,' all three friends thought as they continued the never-ending charade.
"How long till Ranma and lost boy get together?" Shampoo wondered quietly to the others as they waited to see if they would need to take a turn in the rapidly-escalating "argument".
"My money's on two weeks," Ukyo said.
"I think it will be longer. One month," the spectacled Chinese youth declared.
"By the end of the weekend," Kodachi said firmly, drawing surprised glances from the others. She knew what she was talking about, though. Having friends was still a novelty to her, and she spent a great deal of time and energy observing all of them.
Since the beginning of the week, Ryoga had stopped hiding his appreciative gazes from Ranma, so obviously Ranma had finally told him that he was gay. 'About time too,' Kodachi thought. 'Poor Ryoga's been mooning over him since before the wedding fiasco. Only someone as entirely unaware of his own appeal as Ranma could have missed it.' And she hadn't missed the increasingly speculative glances that Ranma had been directing in Ryoga's direction over the last few days either.
With a shrug, Kodachi explained, "Ryoga already knows what he wants, he's just waiting on Ranma. And Ranma does *everything* at top speed - he's thinking about it already, so he'll realize what he wants by then and won't waste any time going after it."
"Shampoo - sorry, forgot - *I* think Kodachi is right," the Amazon agreed. Speaking Japanese properly still required considerable conscious effort. *English* was much easier to learn as far as she was concerned. Maybe because Ms Hinako had made her speak it properly from the very start, so she didn't have a lot of bad habits to break. She had started off speaking broken Japanese in part to create a misleading "pretty but vapid" image in the eyes of her rivals, but had ended up regretting it greatly as both the image and the speech pattern had proved surprisingly difficult to vanquish when they became disadvantageous.
As the bell signalled the end of lunch, the unlikely group of friends turned to enter the building.
"Almost forgot," Mousse said, smacking his palm to his forehead, "'Dachi, can you help at the restaurant after school? Ranma's got a meeting with Ms Hinako and can't make it."
"Certainly," the Kuno girl answered eagerly. Maybe the novelty of helping her *friends* - she couldn't quite contain a delighted shiver at that word - would eventually wear off but, at least for now, working at Ucchan's and the Nekohanten held an incredible appeal for her.
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