Ranma 1/2 Fan Fiction ❯ Phoenix: Reignited Edition ❯ 2.03: Daydreams and Diesel Fumes ( Chapter 27 )

Akane stared forward blankly, idly fiddling with the black plastic band of the Casio digital watch she wore on her left wrist. Her mind raced with a flurry of new realities. Not only had she learned, after months of worry, that Ranma was alive, but that he - she, Akane reminded herself - was actually thriving! 

When she had last seen the person she now knew as Ranko, that night at the dojo, her once-betrothed was so depressed at the idea of having to live life as a woman that Akane had legitimately feared for Ranko’s life. So many nights since, Akane had looked up at the stars out of her second-story bedroom window and prayed that she was safe, both from any number of attackers who could have preyed upon the vulnerability presented by the Full-Body Cat’s Tongue, and from the very real threat that a despondent and hopeless martial artist could have posed to herself. That somehow, some way, the person with whom Akane’s destiny had once been entwined could find a way to make peace with the new circumstances she had found herself living with. 

And yet, after all of that, when Nabiki had finally found her by random chance, it had been with pierced ears, painted nails and a closet full of dresses, singing onstage for strangers! Calling herself sister to people who had been strangers a month ago! And somehow, she was happy about it! It was all almost beyond Akane’s comprehension.

Akane looked up, just for a moment, as she felt the brakes of the bus release with a loud hiss. The vehicle lurched forward, direly in need of maintenance as it was, but Akane was already lost in her thoughts again. She barely reacted in time to pull her knee out of the aisle and allow the pair of twenty-somethings in business skirt suits that had boarded at the Shinjuku stop to pass. “Sorry,” she muttered, wincing as the woman in front nearly fell forward with the sudden jerk of the bus’ automatic transmission.

What am I gonna say when I get home? I can’t tell anyone at home about Ranm – Ranko! Shit. I gotta remember to be careful and keep that straight. Nabiki said it really hurt her when she messed up and used the old name. Only Nabiki and I know where she is, and Ranko made it abundantly clear that she didn’t want anybody else to find out about her. Our fathers and Happosai are definitely out, and nothing good will come of it if the Kunos or Ryoga or any of those people figure out where she is. That’s the last thing she needs right now, when she’s trying to get established with a whole new identity.

I mean, maybe I could trust Kasumi with it. Then again, Kasumi kind of sucks at keeping secrets. She doesn’t mean to, she’s just too kind-hearted to be able to convincingly lie. If she finds out, she’ll spill the beans to Dad within a week. 

No, I think I’ve gotta go with the ‘nugget of truth’ approach here. I went to visit a girl I went to Furinkan with last year, who moved to Tokyo before the start of the new school term. I gotta come up with a name to give in case they ask questions. Ranko is too close, and they might guess. Can’t take the chance. Maybe… Yoiko? Akane smirked, chuckling quietly to herself as she watched the Shibuya skyline whiz by the window to her right. No, That’s silly. Nobody would name a girl that. If she were a puppy, maybe. How about… Rima? That could work, I guess. I don’t know. It’s really pretty, but it’s kind of close to Ranma, too. She grinned at her faint reflection in the bus window as the vehicle zoomed past a towering red sign for a restaurant situated just off the highway. Aiko’s Teppanyaki House. Perfect! Aiko it is!

Akane rolled her eyes, glancing down at her wristwatch. I imagine that this is the same sort of delicate dancing around the truth Ranko has to do every day, now that she’s got people involved in her new life, asking questions and stuff. It’s definitely not easy. I don’t envy her one bit for it.

What about Ukyo? Maybe I should tell her. I know she’s been super worried, too. Ranm… fuck! Did it again! Ranko said Ukyo gave her some money when she ran, and never said anything about it to me or anybody else. So, maybe she could be cool, if she knew. But, then again, Ukyo also wasn’t much better than Xian Pu and Kodachi and… 

She winced, shaking her head sadly as her mind returned to the intrusive thought that had festered in her mind on repeat since the night fate had chased Ranma from her home, and from her life. 

I wasn’t any better. I was cruel, too. All of us girls were so focused on what we wanted with Ranko that nobody ever really even thought to ask her. Nobody gave her a chance to speak for herself. Those other girls, they all had their reasons for the things they did, but I should have been different. I should have been the one to take her side. I should have been the one she could count on.

At least now, however weird her new situation is, it seems like Ranko’s getting to make her own decisions. Maybe that’s part of the reason she seems so much happier. So, I don’t know if Ranko would even want Ukyo to know. I can’t take the risk - however small - that I’d mess up a good thing for her now that she finally has a life she’s proud of. 

Akane braced her knee against the seat in front of her as the bus hit a bump in the road, rocking it forward a bit. 

And her new life! Wow. Working in a freaking bar, with three other girls that call her their sister? Akane smiled, remembering Ranko’s excited retelling of her first interactions with the other women who called the Phoenix home. No, four! I forgot, there’s the oldest one, that Ranko said doesn’t work there anymore. Ayako, I think she said her name was? 

She grinned brightly, remembering her brief introduction to the older woman who ran the bar. Hana. She was really nice, too. Didn’t even charge me for my food. Akane sighed, beaming as she recalled the abject reverence in Ranko’s eyes whenever she looked at the bar’s proprietress - the one her once-betrothed called Mama. 

Gods, Ranko, it’s so good to think of you finally getting to have a mother figure in your life - at least, one that’s more than two years older than you. You deserve it. I wonder how much easier it would’ve made… everything you’ve been through since Jusenkyo. 

“Nakano Station, now arriving,” came the driver’s announcement through the crackly public-address speakers positioned throughout the bus. “If this is your destination, please gather your belongings and exit through the doors at the center of the bus. If not, please clear the aisles to make room for boarding and disembarking passengers. Thank you.” 

Akane looked up as the bus shuddered to a stop. Her cheeks flushed as a young woman with a bright pink shock of hair passed her in a flowy white sundress and a matching wide-brimmed hat despite the chill of that early afternoon in December. For the briefest of moments, she thought it might have been the beautiful redhead she’d left in an empty bar room in Minato, having thought better of letting her go home alone. She sighed softly at the thought.

Everything about her is so different now. Is it even still the same person I used to know?! I mean, she sings! In public, for strangers, multiple times a night! Like, without having to be threatened! 

And, like, there wasn’t that cocky, alpha-male jerk attitude anymore. The confidence is still there, I think, but there’s a timidity, a shyness, behind it now that I never saw before. She was… kind. She was sweet, and considerate. Maybe she learned better while she was on her own. While she was… 

Akane frowned, a sadder sigh escaping her lips. While she was homeless and alone. I hate that she went through that. Nobody should ever have to… She must have been so scared. I hate that she didn’t feel like she could stay with m… with us. But, before she left, she was so sad. So desperate. 

Even before the whole thing with the Cat’s Tongue and the Phoenix Pill, I guess she was always a little disconnected. She never really seemed comfortable in her own skin, even when she was in boy mode. If I had to guess, I’d say it probably started about the time a certain cursed spring in China gave her the skin she’s wearing now. I tried to reach out to her, but she always kept me, and everyone, at arm’s length. She didn’t ever really want to talk about her feelings. After having spent so much of her childhood traveling alone with the father of the century that Mr. Saotome was, I doubt she ever really learned how. 

Maybe she would have stayed with us, if I could have found a way to be more supportive. If she didn’t feel like she was going through everything all alone. I tried, but I just didn’t know how to get close to her. It always got so awkward and weird, and I’d get to feeling things, and one of us would get flustered, and she’d say something rude, and I’d just… hit her, or yell at her, or storm off in a huff. I wish I could have been better at talking about stuff with her. She wasn’t blameless either, but… Akane scoffed slightly under her breath. We both really suck at this, don’t we, Ranko? 

Of course, it was nothing Akane hadn’t thought a hundred times, in the months since her erstwhile betrothed had fled their home in the middle of the night. All the conversations I wish I could take back. All the things I should have said differently, or not said at all. All the times I should have just shut up and… listened. And not stopped listening until she said what she needed to say.

Thinking about it now, I’m glad she left when she did. If she’d have stayed in that dark place she was in after she lost the Phoenix Pill, with Dad and Mr. Saotome and everybody always talking about her like there was something wrong with her that would never be fixed, who knows what would have happened. Nobody could live like that forever. Besides, she’d never have had a chance to build a new life while she was still surrounded by the ruins of her old one. I hate that it was necessary for her, but it likely was. I don’t have to like it to understand it.

With another loud hiss, the brakes released and the bus resumed motion, quickly merging back onto Tokyo Metropolitan Road Route 318. 

But, what am I gonna do now, Akane wondered. Now that I know where she is? Now that I know she’s okay? I had a plan. I rehearsed it in my head all week. I was gonna go over there after school, and see her one last time. Just see with my own eyes that she’s alive and kicking, so I could sleep at night, and say my goodbyes. I was gonna tear her a new asshole for storming out on us like that, and throw every single mean and scary thing I’ve thought for the last two months in her face and make her choke on it. 

I could tell that’s what she thought was gonna happen, too, given how scared she looked when she first saw me in the alley. I guess she thought I was hiding back there waiting to ambush her. I didn’t have the guts to tell her I was just sitting there trying to work up the courage to walk in the front door and see her again after all that time.

Of course, my brilliant plan lasted until the moment I saw her face, and then, all I could do was smile like a big goofy idiot. Nothing else mattered anymore, and I felt stupid for thinking it ever did. I just wanted to give that great big dummy a hug and tell her I was relieved she was okay, and that she’s finally starting to find something approaching happiness for once in her life. 

And she was so sweet to me last night. The way she looked after me all night while she was working, letting me have the bed, making me breakfast this morning… Akane smiled as she thought of the way it had felt to be taken care of in that way by her former partner, even if it had something as simple as a fried egg and a bowl of rice. 

I always figured, if we ended up together, I’d have to do all the domestic stuff. That’s what Kasumi was always saying, anyway. Like, I was the girl, and so I was the one that had to master cooking and cleaning and all of that crap, whether I’m any good at it or not, and I’d never pull off being in a relationship until I figured it out. She could have done bridal training with me until I was sixty, and I probably still wouldn’t be able to fry a fish filet worth a damn. Poor Ranko, she got sick so many times off of crap I fed her, but even when she complained, she always tried it. She knew how scared I was that nobody would ever want me because I wasn’t cut out for all of that homemaker shit. But, there was so much pressure to get it right, so I kept trying, and I got so mad and frustrated when it went to hell every time. 

And… I saw it as the pressure was all happening because I was engaged… and so, I took it out on the person I was engaged to. As if she asked for the engagement any more than I did. 

Gods… I took so much out on her.

Forget how much I had to forgive when I saw her last night. How could she ever… forgive me? 

Akane shook her head, her shoulders slumping as she crumpled to her right in her seat and curled up against the sidewall of the bus. She grimaced, inhaling sharply through her gritted teeth as the metal armrest jabbed into her ribs through her teal Furinkan pinafore.

She’d never. Not all the way. Not enough to… Her eyes widened and her breath caught in her throat as she realized what she was considering. Am I actually thinking about… with her? With… a girl?! I… I couldn’t! Not in a million years! I just couldn’t…

… could I?

Besides, there’s no way Ranko feels that way about me. Not after everything that’s happened between us. I mean, hell, she barely understands herself right now, let alone being in a position to be in a relationship with anybody else. I can’t even dare suggest it. I’d just look like a total freaking idiot. I’d embarrass us both. All she wants in the world is for her life to get simpler, and here’s me rolling into her life unannounced with my big dumb idea that’s way too little, way too late. The last thing she needs is that complexity in her world right now when she’s still trying so hard to figure herself out.

But then… what the heck am I gonna do? I can’t just… not go back. I promised her I would, and she looked so happy when I did. Maybe it’s best to just pretend I don’t feel anything. Keep my mouth shut. Ignore it until it goes away. It’s a silly, stupid thought anyway. There’s no way it could work. She’s a girl now. It’s wrong. 

But then why does it feel so… 

I mean, she’s still got all the things I liked about Ranma before. She’s still strong, and brave, and loyal. She’s determined and she’s fierce. But, she’s softer now, too. Kinder. Sweeter. Happier. All the stuff that made me want to punt Ranma into the sun is just… gone, and in its place…

The raven-haired girl beamed, remembering every detail of the young woman she shared a bedroom with the night before as if she had been someone Akane had met for the first time, and not at all the same person her father had forced into an engagement with nearly two years ago. Remembering how she moved in that adorable white lace dress. Remembering how her pulse quickened when Ranko bent over to roll up her sleeping mat and Akane had caught a glimpse of her underwear. Remembering the way Ranko’s eyes brightened at the sight of Akane’s smile when she clipped that lace bow in her hair.

The high schooler rested her temple against the cold glass of the bus window. She bit her lower lip as she realized that her cheeks were likely warm enough to melt away the fog forming on its outer surface. 

The way she smiles now. Gods… She was…

Her introspection was interrupted by a tinny, crackly chime emitted from the public address speakers overhead. 

“Nerima Station, now arriving. If this is your stop, please gather your belongings and exit through the doors at the center of the bus. If not, please clear the aisles of your personal effects to clear the way for boarding and disembarking passengers. Thank you for riding with us, and have a pleasant rest of your day.” 

The brakes gave a loud, shrill squeak as the dilapidated bus jerked to a stop. Akane stood, smiling shyly at her flushed reflection in the frosted-over window pane. 

She was… perfect.