Ranma 1/2 Fan Fiction ❯ Distance ❯ Chapter 30 ( Chapter 30 )

When he pulled up in front of Akane's apartment, Kenichi left the engine idling. “You don' wanna come in, for some tea or somethin'?” Ranma asked. Kenichi just rolled his eyes.

“Yeah, at midnight? No thanks, kid,” he paused, looking at the wheel, “I think I'm gonna go get some sleep, then I'm gonna get up and call my ex wife.” And with that he drove off.

Ranma and Akane stood outside for a minute, watching the lights of his car disappear. Akane reached down and took his hand, tugging on it. “Ranma, I really, really want to shower.” She said urgently.

“Oh, uh, yeah… I guess I should get a cab…”

Akane smiled softly. “Dummy; you can sleep here,” she laughed at his happy expression, “you just saved me from my crazy ex, I think you can have the couch, at least.”

“Hey, you did some savin', too.” He reminded her. As they walked inside the building and down the foyer to her apartment, Ranma snapped his fingers as a thought occurred to him. “You gave me CPR when I was poisoned, huh?”

Akane looked back at him as she unlocked her door with a key from under their little welcome mat - Takahiro had probably divested her of her keys when he took her. “Yeah.” She was blushing a little as she swung the door open and looked inside.

Ranma moved her gently aside and went in first, flicking on the light. The room didn't look so bad - the curtains were slightly askew, and a few of the couch cushions were on the floor, but other than that, no evidence of a struggle. Ranma walked over and situated all that was out of place, then flopped down on the sofa with a sigh, only just remembering, embarrassedly, to kick off his shoes.

After a moment of hesitation, Akane walked inside and shut the door behind her, locking it with an audible click. Glancing around, her eyes fell on something on the wall, and her expression hardened. Ranma followed her gaze to the three pictures of Takahiro. She walked over purposefully, picked them up one by one, tucking them under her arm, and then walked out of the apartment. Getting up, Ranma followed her. She went out the door, across the foyer, and to a garbage chute in the wall. Then she smashed each picture on the edge of the chute, the glass and chips of wood spraying into the black abyss.

As she destroyed the physical evidence of Takahiro's presence in her life, she finally broke down and cried about her ordeal. Ranma realized that, not since Saffron, had he been worried for her life. She probably felt the same. He didn't touch her, though, just let her take out her rage and feelings of betrayal on the pictures, ripping them up when she'd gotten through the shards of glass. When they had been properly destroyed, she shut the cute with a bang and then stood there, chest heaving, sobbing sporadically.

And Ranma knew, then, that through those four years of separation, Akane had been feeling the same way he had. Maybe, when she met Takahiro, she thought things had turned around. She thought, maybe, that her life would have love in it again. She might have had her sisters and father, but it was obvious how distant she was from all of them. Isolated from them and their hatred of her boyfriend, Akane had been adrift, just like him. A sudden surge of self-loathing swelled and passed - this shared experience didn't merit Ranma getting angry at himself.

Ranma had suffered. Akane had suffered. And they did it to themselves.

“Akane,” Ranma said quietly, but it wasn't the start of anything vocal. He reached out and gathered her into his arms, and she wrapped hers around his waist, pressing her face against his chest. They hugged for long enough for Akane to start shivering in the chill of the open foyer. Ranma lead her over to the open door of her apartment and brought her inside, pulling the door closed after him.

Akane looked up at him for a moment, and then walked into the bathroom, leaving the door open. “I don't want to be alone, okay?” she said softly. Ranma stared at her and nodded, before catching himself and turning away, to stare at the kitchen.

He was just a friend. Just a friend.

The shower started after a few moments of rustling clothes, during which Ranma tried to think about anything but Akane naked just a few feet behind him. He clenched his fists by his sides, ran through kata in his head, imagining his body going through the movements. But they were quickly, almost easily, replaced with images of Akane doing the same.

Just, completely nude.

“Shit…” Ranma muttered, feeling his face heat all over again. The new pants Kasumi had bought him the other day suddenly felt small, and Ranma tried to think about unsexy things, like Cologne, or Happousai.

Anything but the beautiful girl just behind him. He was rapidly becoming a `nice guy,' and he didn't want to go there. Ranma legitimately just wanted to be her friend, until she was really ready to take it further. Not until she was vulnerable, not until she was confused or drunk or unhappy enough to settle for him. No, he wanted her to choose him because she had made the decision. He wanted her to decide, and get that look, that stance that she had when she broke up with Takahiro in front of Chez Blanc, something that seemed a million years away.

The shower cut off and Ranma fidgeted. He heard the whisper of a towel against skin, Akane sniffling. A hand on his shoulder made him jump a little. “I'm gonna go change… wait outside my door?” He nodded, not looking at her. She moved away, there was the sound of a door opening and closing, and he let out a breath he didn't know he'd been holding.

Obediently, Ranma moved over and sat down on the sofa, watching her door. Makoto still wasn't home, yet, but maybe she was in the hospital. He frowned at that; hopefully Toya and her were alright.

“Hey, Akane?” he called through the door.

“Yeah?” the sound of her voice was dampened by the door between them.

“Y'think I should call the hospital, make sure Makoto an' Toya are alright?”

There was a pause. “I can't believe I forgot!” her shout was followed by several stumbling sounds and then she burst out of the door. “Oh my god, I can't believe this…” Akane ground out as she ran into the kitchen to the phone on the wall. She was dressed in a pair of gi pants and a red tank top. She stretched, arching her back as she dialed the phone and put it to her ear. Ranma was fascinated by the three-inch section of skin revealed as her tank top rode up. “Hello, yes, um… This is Akane Tendou. I'm calling about two people who might have been admitted this evening…” Ranma was only half-listening to her conversation with the hospital. The other half of him was listening to the blood rushing through his ears.

“Okay, yes, yes thank you so much.” Akane was smiling now, hanging up the phone, and Ranma tore his eyes away from her, not willing to be caught ogling her. “They're alright,” she was actually giggling a little, “they're going to keep them overnight to make sure whatever is in their system is out, but other than a few bruises they're fine.” She sat down next to him on the sofa and sighed, sounding relieved.

“I'm tired.” She said after a long pause. Ranma looked over at her and smiled warmly.

“Y'been through a lot tonight,” she stood and stretched again, sensually, grunting quietly in the back of her throat, “you should get to bed.”

Akane turned and looked at him out of the corner of her eye, facing her door. She looked down at her hands, twisting through the ties of her gi pants. “I'm… weirded out… sleeping alone…” she trailed off and blushed.

Ranma cleared his throat before he spoke, because if he didn't he knew his voice would croak. “Um, yeah, well, I can always sleep with you,” he bit his lip at how that sounded, “like, maybe I can move Makoto's futon in there, um, an', y'know, sleep on that.” He finished breathlessly.

“My futon's big enough.” She said without looking at him. Ranma registered her words in pieces, because his brain was rapidly trying to derail.

“Uh, okay, lemme just… get a quick shower.” He said awkwardly, standing up on legs that suddenly seemed very weak. Akane nodded and moved into her room, turning on the light and getting her futon arranged.

He breathed out, heavily, and moved into the bathroom, shutting the door.

“Okay,” he whispered to himself, “calm down.” He turned on the shower, not bothering with the hot water. “You're just gonna sleep,” he stripped and stepped into the cold spray, gritting his teeth against the icy pangs of his body adjusting to the temperature, “you're just gonna sleep.” He soaped up on principle - he wasn't going to sleep next to Akane for the first time in… well, ever, smelling like he'd just run a marathon.

After he was done, he dried off with the other towel and then realized, belatedly, he had no clean clothes. “Please, please don't let her think I did this on purpose…” he whispered, wrapping the towel around his waist.

He took small steps over to Akane's room, willing the towel to stay up, relieved that, at least, he didn't have an embarrassing bulge. “Uh, Akane…” she was lying in her futon, no blankets on her, just staring at the ceiling. When she saw him in the towel, her eyes widened a little and she sat up on her elbows. “Ain't got no clean clothes…” he muttered, gripping the towel.

“Oh! Uh… hold on.” She went over to her dresser and dug around, coming out with a pair of what looked like men's boxers. Ranma scowled at them.

“Okay, I'd rather sleep naked in a snowstorm than wear Takahiro's jockeys.”

Akane burst out laughing, and Ranma's scowl deepened. “Ranma, they're mine!” she finally got out. He raised an eyebrow and she rolled her eyes at him. “I wear them to sleep sometimes, silly.” She held them out.

“Oh…” he took the boxers; they were yellow, and patterned with orange slices and green apples. Not exactly his taste. “I'll be right back.” He started to leave the room, but Akane simply turned around.

“Go ahead, I won't peek.” She said quickly.

Ranma took stock of this, and then shrugged and shucked off the towel, laying it on top of hers over the back of her wooden desk chair. He slipped into the boxers, relieved to see they had a false opening in the front, not so relieved to note that they were a little tight on his hips, and clearly outlined his secondary sex characteristics.

“You done?” Akane asked archly.

“Uh, yeah.” He tried to place his hands as casually over the bulge in the shorts as he could as Akane turned around. She smiled, and then turned around again and crawled into the futon. She held up the blanket for him, and he flicked off the light next to him and paused, letting his eyes adjust to the dimness before he moved over and got inside the blankets.

“Why are you so cold!?” Akane gasped out as he slid into the blankets, brushing his feet against her legs.

“Uh, I dunno.” Ranma responded quickly. “Shower was, kinda cold, maybe.” He finished lamely. Akane chuckled and shifted around in the dark next to him.

“Thanks for staying.” She said softly.

“Hey, anytime sissy— ow!” he smiled and rubbed his shoulder where she'd punched him.

They lay quietly side by side for a time, Ranma doing everything in his power to keep his body away from hers. He could feel the heat from her seeping across the futon, hear her quiet breathing. His heart was jumping in his chest like a jackrabbit, and he squinted his eyes shut as if to block out the images of what he'd rather be doing other than sleeping.

It wasn't working.

Sitting up, Ranma brought his knees to his chest. He felt so antsy he wanted to jump out of his skin. “Ranma, what's wrong?” Akane whispered, even though they were alone in the apartment.

“Nothin', just um, thinkin'. I ain't goin' nowhere, go to sleep.” It came out sharper than he'd intended. He heard her breath catch a little, and then she spoke in a low, almost angry voice.

“So was I wrong? Do you just hate being close to me?”

Ranma felt the sudden urge to shake some sense into her, but quickly squashed it. “No, I like bein' close to you.” A little too much, he decided not to add.

“Oh,” he almost heard her anger deflate, “then what is it? Are you worried about Yamato?”

He'd told her about Yamato and the tournaments on the ride home to her apartment, and now he was glad he had. It was a good excuse. “Yeah.” He said firmly. “Very.”

Akane sat up and he felt her reach around him. There was a soft “click” and then a light momentarily blinded him from her desk. He turned, blinking his eyes rapidly, and looked at her.

She was scowling. “Liar.”

“It's true!” he tried to feign innocence, but it had never worked with her even when he was telling the truth.

“Why are you lying? I thought… I thought we were friends.” Akane looked away, and then she stood up, stomping off of the futon and narrowly missing his toes as she left the room.

“Where're y'goin'?” he asked, his voice almost a whine as he got up to follow her. She had dislodged her pillow as she stood up, and he caught the barest glimpse of his tank top, and something surged in him.

“I'm, just… I'm really confused, Ranma,” she was storming around her living room, her breaths coming out in heaving gasps as she visibly fought back tears, “you were always so confusing!” she shouted at him.

Ranma looked away from her and shut his eyes. “I jus'… I wanna be yer friend. I don' want you to think I'm tryin' t'be somethin' you don't want, Akane.” Clenching and unclenching his fists by his sides, Ranma took a deep breath, let it out slowly, surprised when his voice didn't shake. “Yer pretty confusin', too, ya' know.”

“I know.” She said quietly. Ranma looked up at her as she walked into the kitchen, switching on the light and casting the apartment into a soft blue glow. She got a glass of water and drank deeply, gasping when she stopped, setting the glass down on the counter. “I know I am.”

Ranma spun around and flopped angrily down on the sofa. “I don' wanna think that ya' owe me, y'know?” he was being vague, he knew, but he didn't know another way to discuss them at the moment. “Just `cause we was engaged, don't mean we gotta be…” he trailed off with a sigh.

Akane walked over to the sofa and knelt down in front of him, taking his hands into hers and looking up into his face. He remembered the sight of her kneeling in front of Takahiro, looked at the bruise on her face, the split in her lip. Gripping her hands tightly, he wondered what he had done to her in the time between the kidnapping and her rescue.

“Ranma, I know that… what happened was both our faults,” she was referring to him getting kicked out of the Tendous, he realized, “but Daddy didn't have to act that way, either.” Why was she talking about this all of the sudden? Wasn't it behind them?

She looked at his hands, brushing her fingers across his knuckles. “When he refused to renew the engagement, I was so angry at him,” she whispered, “I've barely talked to him since, you know. I don't even know if he knows you're… back in my life.”

“Whoa, really?” he asked, surprised. Ranma had always thought she had a good relationship with her father.

“Yeah,” she smiled a little sheepishly, wincing when her lip split open a little. She sucked on the wound a bit before speaking again. “he'll find out sooner or later, though. I told him Takahiro and I broke up, at least. He was pretty mad.”

“Why?” Ranma asked, feeling a little put-upon. He had approved of that scumbag, but not Ranma?

“`Cause he was rich, and Daddy wanted me to be well-taken-care-of.” She said simply.

“Pfft, you can take care of yerself, I think.” Ranma retorted, rolling his eyes. She smiled softly at him, and he found that he was relishing the feeling of her small, calloused hands on his.

“Yeah, well, I let him make a lot of my decisions for me,” she said quietly, “but since you came back, it's been different.” Akane slowly rose to her feet, sliding her knees, first one, then the other, onto either side of him on the sofa. Ranma gulped, almost audibly, and leaned back as she straddled him on the couch, letting go of his hands to put hers on his naked chest.

Akane's breath was hot on his face, and despite her cuts and bruises, she was still impossibly beautiful. He fisted his hands against the sofa cushions as her strong legs flexed against his thighs, making all of the hairs on his legs stand on end. “Since you came back, I want to make my own decisions, for myself. My last rebellion was going away to college. I want to rebel again.” She whispered. And then she kissed him.

It was soft, because her lip was injured, but it was enough to make Ranma groan slightly against her closed mouth. He lost himself momentarily when she put her tongue in his mouth and moved against him, rubbing her chest against his and gripping his shoulders, keeping the juncture of her legs off of his crotch. Ranma gripped the sofa cushions and ripped his mouth away from hers as gently but firmly as he could.

“What's wrong?” Akane asked breathlessly, managing to convey hurt despite the fact that she was having trouble breathing.

“I can't do this,” he said, wanting to say three very different words. Carefully, he put his hands on her waist, not looking at her lest he lose his nerve, and tried to move her off of him.

“Wait, no, I'm sorry, talk to me.” Akane whispered quickly, hugging him. Ranma grit his teeth when her breasts flattened against his chest. It had been way too long since he'd been this close to a woman, especially this one. “What'd I do?” she asked.

It was so unlike her, to not be angry, he realized that this was the exact time he didn't want this to happen: she was vulnerable. “Akane, I want to be with you,” her body tightened against him, “I care about ya' too much, though, to let you do this when you jus' wanna lash out.” He also didn't want to be a rebound or a fling to hurt her father.

Akane was shaking. “I'm sorry,” she whispered, and he closed his eyes resignedly, “I'm always lying to myself; always. I'm sorry…” she pulled back and forced him to turn and look at her. He opened his eyes, and saw that she wasn't crying, at least. “Ranma, I don't just want to lash out. I want to…” she trailed off, stroking his cheek with her small hand, “I want to be with you. All I've thought about these last few years is how much I wish you were back in my life.”

Ranma felt like lashing out a little bit, but he kept his anger in check. “But, why didn't ya' call me?” he asked sternly.

“Because I was scared! And why didn't you call me? You stumble back into my sisters' lives and never contact me?” her voice was rising in volume.

“`Cause I was scared, too! I thought you hated me! Ya' practically said as much the last time I saw ya'!” He ground out through his clenched teeth.

Akane glared at him, and he saw the scar on her throat shimmer in the light as she shifted to fold her arms over her chest. “You lied to me.” She said stiffly.

“Yeah, an' I tried t'make it better!” he folded his arms over his own chest and stared her down.

“Well, maybe I was really mad!” Akane spat out.

“Yeah, an' so was I!”

“Well fine!”

“Fine!” they both huffed and looked away from each other.

“Ranma?” Akane said after a moment. “Ranma, look at me!” she grabbed his chin and tugged until he was looking at her. He didn't much feel like it, he was feeling hurt - acknowledging how much of their… break up was her fault, too, had made him feel righteously angry, which was the stickiest kind of anger. “Look, we apologized for these things already. We were both at fault. You shouldn't have lied, but I shouldn't have kicked you out,” she paused when his expression softened, “and Daddy shouldn't have been so cruel to you.”

He nodded. She was right. They were only arguing because they didn't know how to behave otherwise. “Akane, I just really, really want you in my life.” He said softly. “That's it, no matter in what capacity.”

“I'm not leaving,” she said softly. Ranma smiled up at her and hugged her to his chest, stroking her hair. “Let's go try to get some sleep, hm?” he nodded against her and she stood up, holding out her hand. He grasped it, and she hauled him to his feet. She went over and turned off the kitchen light, then grabbed his hand and led him into her room. They lay back down together, Ranma wrapping himself gingerly around her this time.