Ranma 1/2 Fan Fiction ❯ Distance ❯ Chapter 20 ( Chapter 20 )

As he lay in bed, sweat from their sparring session and the heat cooling against the sheets, Ranma felt … distracted. Sparring with Akane, watching her wander around in her tiny yellow shorts had made things stir in him. His sweatpants were uncomfortably tight, and his stomach muscles felt like they were trying to do somersaults without the rest of his body participating. He tossed and turned, trying to ignore his raging hard-on. Masturbating in Makoto's room seemed sacrosanct, so he pinched his cheek until it hurt enough to make his pants loosen.

Even after that, it was almost two in the morning before Ranma finally drifted off to sleep. And his sleep was restless. He awoke feeling sorer than he had in a long time. Groaning, he glanced at the clock on Makoto's desk; it was eight-thirty on a Wednesday, and he was late for nothing.

Slipping out of bed, Ranma grimaced at the feeling of his filthy body, wishing he hadn't bypassed the shower last night. He stood and stretched some of the acid-burn feeling out of his muscles, briefly happy that there weren't any residual ill-effects from the poison that morning.

Happiness turned quickly to rage.

Ranma clenched his fists and stood in the dim room, breathing heavily until he calmed himself down. Takahiro would be punished, and so would Ichiro. Kenichi would see to it, Ranma knew, but that didn't make him want to deliver some old-fashioned justice to the two of them in the form of a very sound beating.

Stepping out into the living room and shutting the door behind him, Ranma looked around and saw no sign of Akane. Shrugging, he walked over to the bathroom, eager for a shower.

The door swung open at his gentle insistence, and too late he realized that Akane might be in it. But he was met with the disappointing sight of an empty bathroom. Smiling at the thought of Akane cold-cocking him and calling him a pervert for wanting a peep at her, he stepped fully into the bathroom. He looked around for the shirt he'd tossed into the bathroom last night, but it was absent - he wondered guiltily if Akane was doing his laundry, hoped she wasn't.

He stripped and turned on the shower and waited for it to heat up, looking around the Western-style bathroom out of idleness. His eyes fell casually on the small green trashcan and he spotted a familiar little foil packet and his stomach lurched.

A condom, a used condom. He gagged openly, surprised at the violent reaction he had at the thought of Akane with someone else - or maybe it was just Takahiro. “Fuck you, asshole,” Ranma groused quietly, stepping into the shower and almost slamming the sliding glass door closed.

Akane was a grown woman, she could sleep with whomever she wanted to, but Takahiro… “Murderer…” Ranma growled, even though he was, literal, living proof that Takahiro was particularly bad at that profession.

He scrubbed off viciously and then yanked at the knobs until the shower turned off, and dried himself with a towel. Wrapping it around his waist, he stepped out into the living room. A tiny squeaking sound surprised him, and he looked up and to the right through his wet bangs at an unfamiliar woman coming through the door.

“Uhh…” he said intelligently.

The woman was about his age, with long black hair tied back into loose ponytail, and bright black eyes. She was very pretty, and she was staring, open-mouthed, at his bare chest, and her eyes trailed down for a moment before she tore her gaze back up to his face, her own red.

Ranma's towel might as well have been a postage stamp.

“I- I should… uhm,” the woman put her hands over her eyes and just stood there, “can you… get dressed before I smack you and start yelling?”

“Makoto! You're back early!” Akane's shouted reached them just a few seconds before she slid to a stop in front of the doorway, just behind Makoto. She, too, blushed at the sight of a damp Ranma clutching his towel like it was a life preserver.

“I'll go get dressed.” Ranma squeaked out, watching as the women's eyes followed him, Makoto's peeping out from between her fingers. He slipped into her room and shut the door, just barely suppressing a smirk - Akane's face was worth the embarrassment.