Chapter Text
Ranma runs, chased by the ghosts of pulse alarms and flower petals.
It feels like the whole of Tokyo stands between Nerima General Hospital and the Cat Café; a glittering field of lights and noise that blurs as his feet fly along the roof ridges. Sleeping pigeons are startled into flight as he passes, strays dart behind bushes and bins as he leaps over alleys towards his home turf. The night air dries chill on his cheeks, pulse drumrolling through shaking fists.
Xian Pu knows something, and he has a chance. If he’s right…
He has to be right.
Around the restaurant, the streetlights fade into the softer, yellower glow of paper lanterns. As he closes in, he senses her seconds before seeing it: a flicker of familiar ki, then movement bursting from an upper window. Xian Pu springs to the next roof, hair snapping behind her as she sprints, stumbling when he roars her name to the night sky.
“Xian Pu! Stop!”
She recovers in a step and keeps running, and Ranma surges to follow. Somewhere in the streets below a dog starts barking, and then another; lights flick on at windows. He doesn't care. Not while Akane is lying all washed out in the blue hum of the machines, that horrible mask clamped to her face.
“I know it was you!”
“Son-in-law.” Ko Lon lands in front of him, staff extended to block his path. Beyond her, Xian Pu makes it another two roofs over before stopping, turning to watch. Even from here he can tell she’s not herself; pale-faced and anxious. Fury makes his teeth clench.
“Move it, old ghoul,” Ranma spits. Trying to get around Ko Lon in a hurry is pointless, even for him. “I mean it.”
“And why,” the elder asks, inscrutable, “are you chasing my granddaughter in such a state, and at such an hour?”
“Ask her!” Ranma glares over her shoulder. “Ask her what she did to ‘Kane!”
Ko Lon scoffs. “My granddaughter need not trouble herself with such an opponent.”
Akane is worth a thousand of your granddaughter, Ranma thinks, but saying it won’t get him the answers she needs. Needs now. “Then why is Akane cursed, huh?! She’s cursed, and Xian Pu is the only person who knew!”
Ko Lon twitches, but her stare doesn’t leave his face, even as she inclines her head backwards. “Xian Pu?”
“It no my fault!” she shouts, quick and desperate, and it doesn’t twist in his gut like it usually would, because he knows it’s a lie. She ran. “I already told stupid girl how cure!”
The word rings. Cure. There’s a cure, there is, I just have to -
Ko Lon turns her staff towards him as he steps forwards, heat swirling in his ki, anger pounding in his veins, curling in his fists. Ranma doesn’t look at her, focuses on Xian Pu instead.
“Tell me. Now. I’ll do it.” Akane can't even sit up without help, so whatever stupid task the curse requires will just have to make do with him. “The cure, Xian Pu.”
Xian Pu shakes her head jerkily, backing away, and Ko Lon cuts in.
“Son-in-law. What is wrong with the Tendo girl?”
It stings in his eyes, in his throat. “Flowers,” he whispers. Ko Lon tenses, and the words tumble like the bloody petals he watched fall from Akane’s mouth. “She keeps coughing up flowers and the doc says they’re growing in her lungs somehow and ‘cos of ‘em ‘Kane can’t breathe, so they’ve got this stupid mask on her face and they’re trying to figure out if they get rid of ‘em with surgery, but she’s so weak already she might – might not -“
He can’t finish. Ko Lon doesn’t wait, head snapping towards Xian Pu and barking something sharp in a Mandarin dialect, too quick and obscure for him to follow. There's a tremble in her shoulders, mouth working silently before answering in broken stutters. Ranma forces himself to draw air in through his nose and out through his mouth, to hold still, to master his emotions rather than lunge into the crackling, lightning tension spitting over the rooftop.
“Fool,” Ko Lon says at last. She says it quietly, but it cuts like a whipcrack all the same. Xian Pu freezes. “You should know neither fate nor the yearning blossoms work that way.”
Yearning blossoms?
“Grandmother -” Xian Pu says, pleading. When Ko Lon doesn’t immediately answer, she garbles more urgent, emphatic Chinese, eyes shining.
Ko Lon turns to Ranma, dismissing Xian Pu, and her insistence stutters out. She slumps to the tiles. He sees her face crease around tears before he matches Ko Lon's stance.
“What do I have to do to cure Akane?” he demands, glaring.
“Son-in-law -“ Ko Lon stops. Sighs, long and withered. “Saotome.” Behind her, a gasp becomes a thin wail. “My granddaughter has made a mistake. You must reattach the red thread.”
“Red – what? What’s thread got to do with Xian Pu cursing –“
“You know of the red thread, boy,” Ko Lon says, implacable. “It connects those destined for each other, tied to their little fingers.”
He knows, of course he knows. And he always thought it sounded like girly crap, just another thing out to control him and make his choices, and he has enough of that in his life already. His curse, his Pop, Ukyo, Xian Pu. He never even got to choose ‘Kane for himself, and now she’s paying for it regardless. He won’t let her. He can’t. So he bites and holds his tongue through Ko Lon's explanation.
“Fate’s red thread might stretch and tangle, but does not snap, cannot be cut. However, with the right spell –” she looks heavily at Xian Pu, who has her arms wrapped round herself, as though to hold the tears in, “- it can be untied from a person’s hand.”
“And that - what? Makes flowers grow inside them?”
Ko Lon pauses. “Not always. If the subject has no destined partner, or has not yet met and bonded with them, they simply live out their lives as everyone else does, untroubled by fate. That is how the spell is meant to be used,” she adds sternly, voice rising slightly for Xian Pu’s benefit. “Our people created it so that those who wished to dedicate themselves wholly to the art might do so, without distractions. The yearning blossoms come only if fate’s work is denied.”
Cryptic. She’s always so damn cryptic, and he has no time - Akane has no time. “Can’t you just make sense!”
She meets his glare unblinking, unhurried despite his tone. “If the spell is cast after the subject has fallen for their intended, untying the thread leaves those feelings nowhere to go. Then, the flowers root.”
Ranma stares as Nerima shrinks around him; a clutching, curling thing sliding heavily into his stomach. “That’s… you’re sayin’-”
Ko Lon doesn’t answer, waits for him to work up to it. The feeling coils, pins him to the spot like a lead grip around his ankles.
“- ‘Kane is - she got sick ‘cos - she’s in love?”
“And the spell has severed her connection to her fated partner. Yes.”
But that means -
“I told violent girl to stop!” Xian Pu bursts out. Underneath them somebody starts yelling, more lights spill into the street. She’s looking at him, desperate, but he’s not really there. He’s alone, pinned to a roof plummeting through the dark. “I tell her truth, that she give you up she be fine! Girl stubborn! No my fault!”
“But it’s not me,” Ranma says. Putting the thought to the air causes the winding, strangling thing inside him to crystallise. Crack.
“Oh?” Ko Lon’s surprise draws his eye away from Xian Pu’s twisting expression. “What makes you say that, boy?”
“I don’t - the flowers,” he realises too late that he’s clenched his hands, a fist closed around his little finger. There’s nothing there. “You said - when the connection is broken - but I’m not growing flowers. So it can’t be -”
It hurts, it hurts, but -
It’s not me. Akane loves someone else - is meant for someone else.
Tofu? But she said… it can’t be Ryoga?
No. No, it - it doesn’t matter. As long as I can help - as long as she lives!
It feels like twisting off a limb. Severing part of his soul with clawed hands. But Ranma wrenches his breaking heart aside and advances over the shattered pieces towards Xian Pu. He can fall apart later. When Akane’s safe. “Fix it,” he demands, voice rasping. “Undo the spell or tell me the cure - quick!” He’s stopped by pressure against his chest. Ko Lon’s staff. He hadn’t even noticed her move. “Please,” he begs. “I can't… please, Xian Pu. I’ll do anything you want, I swear.”
“Even if the Tendo girl is destined for another?” Ko Lon presses. Ranma glares, because what kind of question is that? Akane doesn't deserve this. Akane is brave and kind and generous and beautiful and everything, whether or not she’s his. As if he’d let her die just because -
“Anything. Tell me already!”
Ko Lon’s mouth twitches. She lowers her staff. “Only her fated partner can save her.”
No no no no no
“No. No! There’s a cure, there has to be, you said -”
“Look around you, boy!” Ko Lon snaps. “Do you see anyone else here pleading for her life? Willing to do whatever must be done? Who else would her fated partner be, if not you?”
Please
“I - obviously I do, but the flowers -”
“The yearning blossoms aren’t growing in you because your end of the thread is still tied.”
Then -
His heart leaps back into his chest, starts beating again. With it, the city rushes in; hot lungfuls of dirty air, humming sound. A car alarm is going off. Several voices are yelling for them to get off the blasted roofs, that the police are on their way. It feels like all of Tokyo is between him and Akane and he has a chance.
“What do I do?” he asks, ki spinning, rushing around his head like a whirlwind.
Akane, hold on. I’m coming.
“You must reattach her end of the red thread,” Ko Lon answers, unhelpfully.
“How? I can’t even see the damn thing!”
For a second, she stares. Then she throws back her head and cackles, actually cackles, before grinning at him like a demon. “The same way the rest of us forge bonds, foolish boy! You talk to her! Tell her how you feel, and keep telling her until she believes it! Now get a move on!”
“Right!”
And Ranma runs, chasing a crimson spectre back the way he came.
Akane’s window is shut. Ranma slips in through a side entrance, dodges the staff. Inside, the hospital is the same. Too bright in the dark, hushed but not quiet enough for truly restful sleep. Full of blinking lights and chemical smells.
He creeps across the upper floor, towards the corridor with Akane’s room, pulse in his mouth. Ordinary visiting hours are long since over, and the doctors want to keep everyone out, away from her, worried about contagion. He can’t do this through a paper suit and mask, nurses hanging over his shoulder. He’s nearly there when a hiss makes him jump.
“Where have you been?”
Nabiki. She seizes his wrist, drags him into a side room. How she got there, or why she was allowed to stay, he has no idea. Guess even the public health office can’t tell Nabiki what to do.
“I had to find Xian Pu, I -”
“Now?” Nabiki glares, venomous as a viper. “My sister is dying and you went to visit your side chick?”
“No! No Akane can’t, that’s why - I can fix this!” She’s studying his face, and he doesn’t even try to hide how desperate he is; not now, here. “‘Kane’s not sick. It’s a curse, and I know how to lift it, but it’s gotta be me and I gotta talk to her for it to work, Nabiki. Right now.”
She takes a deep breath. “You swear?”
“On everything I have.”
Which is nothing at all without her.
Nabiki narrows her eyes for a second, calculating. Ranma doesn’t dare blink. Her mouth becomes a flat line. “Fine. They put a guard outside after you snuck in last time. Give me five minutes and I’ll distract him.” She moves out, pauses in the doorway. “This one is on me.” Then she’s gone.
When he sticks his head round the corner barely two minutes later, so is the guard. Better still, the door isn’t locked.
“‘Kane…?”
She doesn't answer, but how could she? It takes him three strides to reach her bedside, join the crowd of machines gathered where her family should be. Akane is lying on her back, laid out like a resus dummy, arms straight beside her over the covers. The top blanket has been changed, yellow now instead of blue. Her hair and mask have been rearranged. There are faint reddish streaks on the inside, near her nose. She doesn’t stir.
“Hey. It's me. You're awake, right?”
No response. Ranma perches on the bed, gently touches her shoulder, feels warmth through the flimsy hospital gown. Sets the other hand lightly on her head.
“Wake up, ‘Kane, come on. I - I gotta talk to you.”
Ko Lon’s words linger in his mind, almost mocking.
‘Tell her how you feel… until she believes it.’
I should have told you a hundred times already.
It feels cruel to wake her. Exhaustion is written into her face in shadows and lines; tear tracks across waxy skin. He strokes her hair, thumb sweeping over sweat-sticky strands until Akane's lashes flutter. They peel open as though half stuck together with glue, gaze steadying as it settles on his face. She makes a sound that might be his name, but it’s too faint and muffled by the mask for him to be sure.
The look in her eyes, though. Relief too pure, too honest to mistake for anything else. It knocks the wind out of him.
“I'm back,” he says finally, shakily. The same tremble in his mouth as he attempts a smirk. “I promised, didn't I?”
He can just make out a smile. Half-lidded, she lifts her chin, nudges further into his touch. His pulse leaps higher than the race across the rooftops of Nerima drove it.
I just gotta say it.
“So I, uh. I found Xian Pu. And Ko Lon.”
Akane's eyes widen fractionally, her shoulders tensing. The instruments beep.
“They told me what happened. They… told me everything.”
Her face crumples. Fear and shame and something horribly, searingly like guilt twist her beautiful features around the plastic and straps, things that make no sense and don’t belong there, not ever. Still, she doesn’t look away. He owes her the same, right? Even if it feels like ants crawling over his cheeks.
“Hey, hey no. Stop that, dummy. You don’t have to feel bad or anything. You’ done nothin’ wrong.”
I’ll make this right. I’ll make up for all of it. Gimme time.
“I’m not - I’m not mad, ya’know? I get why ya wouldn’t -” tell me, ask me, believe me “- but it’s okay. It’s good! I know now, and…”
Me too. Me too, ‘Kane!
“... and it’s so good. It’s great. I’m glad.”
I gotta be the luckiest guy in the world. Fate gave me you.
“You… you get what I’m tryin’ to say, right?”
But she doesn’t, not yet. He can see it in her creased brow; eyes wreathed around the edges with watery pain and regret. He’s seen it too often. Should have spared her from it.
If I was better at talking and less good at running my mouth, maybe that stupid thread couldn’t have come undone. Maybe it’d have just tied itself back round before ya ever got sick.
His body is fluent where his tongue is clumsy. He doesn’t let himself think about it when his hand slips from her shoulder down the blanket to clasp hers, nudging the oxygen monitor on her index as he laces their fingers together. Squeezes.
“‘Kane…” she squeezes back, and it’s weak, too weak. She used to break bricks with these hands. The thought betrays his tongue, unravels what he meant to say. It’s a moment before he can knit more words together. “‘Kane, the curse… You don't have to worry about anything, okay? Especially… ‘specially not that. I’d never… You can get better. You're gonna get better. I promise.”
Hair slides smoothly under his palm as Akane shakes her head. She's shaking her head, it’s not working, this isn’t how it was meant to go. He shifts closer on the bed, leaning forward onto his elbow so he’s mere inches over her, his fingers trembling as they brush strands away from her temple.
“You will, ‘Kane,” he insists. Tears are welling in her eyes, panic flooding his chest. Her grip on his palm is so light it feels like she’s disappearing right there in front of him, shrinking under his touch. “That’s what I’m sayin’; there’s no reason for you to be sick. That stupid curse didn’t change nothin’, not for me. I’m not going anywhere. I’m stickin’ with ya, even if ya get sick o’ me.”
The blueish glow shines in the tracks that start down her cheeks, misery bleeding through the creases beside her eyes. She doesn’t believe him, she still doesn’t understand - crap -
“You gotta trust me, ‘Kane! You still trust me, don’t ya?”
It’s the wrong thing to say. A racked sob escapes into the mask. Then a cough starts low in her chest. He can feel it shaking her torso underneath him, and his gut clenches.
“No - no, please. I’m sorry ‘Kane, I didn’t mean ta -”
To hurt you. To make you feel like this.
He’s hurt her so much. So often. Not on purpose - except when it was. Because he didn't know what else to do, to say, because at least if she was mad at him she was still thinking about him and isn't that just pathetic -
I always wanted you to know the truth. I just couldn’t make myself say it.
Her shoulders jerk as she fights the heaving, the flowers, tears freely trailing into the pillow now. Around them, the regular beeping of all the machinery speeds up, and Ranma spares a glance to see numbers changing, lights flashing. Will the doctors come?
He’s gotta get this out. They’re out of time.
“I know I didn’t ever make it easy - I’m just not good with words, ya know?” he says, voice climbing as the coughs get louder and take over; horrible, raspy things that feel like a serrated edge under his ribs. His hand shifts round to help support her chin, touch delicate as she shakes, fingertips brushing soft skin and slippy plastic. He needs her to see his face for this. To see that he means it. Her eyes are wide, startled. Pained.
This is it. Kami, please.
“But ya gotta know I - I care about you, ‘Kane. So much. An’ I get this ain’t exactly how I shoulda - I mean, this probably ain’t what you had in mind. But it still counts, right? It’s still real.”
She heaves underneath him. Wet crimson spots the inside of the mask. A couple of flowers stick.
“Akane!”
Her whole body spasms, chest bumping against his as another cough leaves her, a splurge of colour against the plastic. She pulls her hand from his grip, oxygen monitor wrenched off her finger, and scrabbles feebly at the straps, trying to free herself. Without thinking he moves to help, skin crawling, arms aching to wrap around her shoulders and pull her close. His nails slip under the elastic, lift the mask away from her mouth and nose, and flowers - those awful crinkly pink flowers, slicked scarlet and limp - spill over her cracked lips and onto her chest, tumbling to the blanket and sheets.
Kami there are so many please please don’t -
The moment Akane manages a breath - a scraping, rattling thing before the next lurch - he seizes his chance. He clasps the sides of her face, lifts her gaze away from blood and petals towards salt and sincerity and desperation. He wants to shake her. He wants to kiss her. He needs her to understand - to listen for once please listen -
“Don’t ya get it, tomboy? I’m sayin’ I love ya, right, I’m in love with ya!” Like a dam breaking, the words pour out of him, rushing and reckless as white water. His voice shakes with the force of it, spits with the fear clinging to his skin. He can feel her shivering under his palms, damp clinging to his thumbs. “Always was and didn’t need some dumb thread to say so either, an’ if it never did it would still be you. I don’t even care ‘bout fate or that our Pops started things without askin’ us or any of it, ‘cos it’s you. An’ I can’t - not anyone else. Ever.”
It was always you.
Please Akane. Live.
She stares at him. Wide, blurred, bottomless.
Ranma feels like wreckage in the flood’s wake. Broken and scoured through, raw to everything around him. The smell of antiseptic and iron. The high-pitched, uncomfortable whine of the alarms. Each individual whorl on his fingertips dragging against her clammy skin. Fighting to hold her gaze, willing her to believe.
And then -
Like a veil lifting, Akane’s eyes change. Something vast and warm, like coming home, like the feeling in his chest when she smiles, sweeps through the tears and doubt and guilt and swells in their place, ripe and bursting with affection. With love. It’s beautiful; she’s beautiful.
“I love ya, dummy,” he mumbles. It’s almost too much to bear, all at once. Like having the whole sun pointed at you after a lifetime in freezing rain.
She spasms.
More flowers burst out of her mouth, splatter across the blanket. A red stain soaks through the weave. Akane’s legs bump into him as she rolls onto her side, hacking and spluttering, a cascade of flowers and spit and blood onto the lino floor. The machines around him start screaming, blaring; a rising electronic wail that doesn’t quite drown out the slam of the door bursting open.
“Akane!”
He can hardly hear himself. Suddenly, there are rushing people everywhere. Figures in blue, voices muffled behind visors, shapes blurred and crumpled by the paper suits. Calling out numbers, pushing him off the bed, back, out the way.
“Akane!”
Gloved hands on his shoulders, tugging. Pulling. A garbled voice near his ear.
“Sir, you cannot be in here. This is a quarantine room, not even the family -”
“Shove off!” he twists out of their hold, lunging back towards the bedside. Bodies form a wall between him and her. Is she still coughing? Why are there still flowers, how -
“You are in real danger!” The voice insists. Ranma glares, shrugging off another attempt to grab him. It’s a man, one of the doctors that spoke to Akane’s pop earlier today, he thinks. “Her condition may be contagious -”
“It’s not contagious, it’s a curse, an’ it should be broken! I can still break it, just get outta the way!”
“She’s stabilising!” calls a voice from the bed, and that’s a good thing, right? That sounds like a good thing -
The doctor seems to think so, stare jumping sharply towards the screens and scanning over them, frown easing before he switches back to Ranma. Straightens up. “Sir, whatever your beliefs, you cannot be in here. This is a quarantine room, and the patient requires specialist medical care, not -”
“It's a curse, I'm telling ya!” He takes another step towards her beside, and the doctor tugs his elbow.
“Sir really, there is no such thing -”
“You don’t believe me, here!” Ranma shrugs out of his grip and darts around the seething crowd, grabs the pitcher of water he found for Akane earlier.
“Security are on their way. Please don’t make this more difficult -”
The water is tepid, but cool enough. His body ripples as it changes, and the doctor’s protests are cut off by a terrified yelp.
“It appears that there are no more flowers in Ms Tendo’s lungs.”
Relief breaks across the tiny waiting room like a glass shattering. The doctor - a different one, the other is still gibbering - seems as bewildered as she is pleased, confusion evident in her tired squint even as she smiles around the room. Soun’s white-faced sobs become loud ones, soaking through the shoulder of his Pop’s gi. Kasumi’s hands clasp in delight, and even Nabiki grins, quickly turning her face away before anyone can see.
Ranma does, and he’s pretty sure Nabiki notices the damp clinging to his girl form’s longer lashes, too. But neither of them say anything, each turning instead to stare at a different patch of wall.
Thank the Kami.
Kasumi takes over the talking. “That is wonderful news, doctor! And do you believe they will stay that way? Our Akane-chan will recover now?”
Soun looks up from Genma’s shoulder, stare limpid and pleading.
The doctor seems wary under all the scrutiny. “It is difficult to say, ma’am, given the… unknown nature of Ms Tendo’s ailment.” She looks askance at Ranma. “But, based on what we do know… we have no reason to suspect otherwise.”
Ranma’s chest rises around a deep, steadying breath. A quick look at her hand shows no red thread, but then it never did.
I’ll tell her again if I have to. As many times as it takes.
It’s more than a week before Akane comes home. Before he gets to see her again.
He tried to visit, but he's been banned from Nerima General Hospital. Both versions of him.
When the taxi finally rumbles to a stop outside, Ranma’s watching from the roof. He thought about playing it cool, strolling in only when she settled in the family room, a casual ‘hey ‘Kane’ on his lips… and gave up on the idea the second Uncle Tendo left for the hospital, nervous tension filling his limbs with the need to move. Now her pop makes a show of jogging round the vehicle to open the door for her, a hospital bag slung over his shoulders.
Ranma loses his breath when Akane climbs out.
She seems stiff. Slow. The doctors told Kasumi and Soun that while every scan since was clear of flowers, the damage they left behind was severe. It would take time to completely heal, and there may be scarring. She might never return to her full strength.
‘Course, Akane insisted she’d be kicking Kuno around in days.
She takes her father’s arm to walk into the house, but then she looks up. Shading her eyes from the sun, they find him in a second, direct as a punch.
She smiles, and he barely gets himself back together enough to wave.
Akane heads inside, and Ranma flops down on the roof and presses his fists against his eyes.
He can’t wait to see her alone.
The opportunity doesn’t arrive until late, long after a tide of well-wishers has come and gone, the neighbourhood settling into sleep and stars into the sky, pale pinpricks against the glow of Nerima.
Akane had retired early, citing poor rest on the ward, and the idea that she might be hiding pain again had seized his heart and driven him back to the roof. The tiles are still warm, having baked all day in the summer sun, and thankfully not once in the hours he’s been up there has he heard her cough. As the evening finally darkens, yellow light paints the leaves of the tree outside her window. It’s open, and he slips inside.
“Hey.” Akane is not only still awake, she’s sitting up against the headboard, arms folded on her raised knees, tenting the blankets.
“He-hey,” he says, rubbing his neck. “I was just -” But there’s no point pretending he’s here for something else, not when she was so obviously waiting for him to turn up. Besides, does he need to anymore? After what happened, maybe they’re past pretending now?
It’s both a terrifying thought and a relief.
“I wasn’t - you know. Tryna intrude or nothin’.” Not that it ever stopped him before. “I was just - they wouldn’t let me back in the hospital after that, so I couldn’t - they said you’ve gotta take it easy for a bit still, right? So I thought I’d just… check. That you’re really okay, I mean.”
“My chest still hurts a bit,” Akane replies bluntly, making him wince. “But it’s getting better. I’m okay, I promise.”
“Well - good. Yeah. Good.”
Silence, awkward and laden. He studies the carpet. There’s a little faint stain where she dropped something near the bed. Or spat up blood.
“...Ranma?”
“Can I stay?” he blurts. Glances up in time to see her eyes widen. “Not ta - I’m not gonna try anythin’!” Dammit, he’s blushing. He can’t even turn away now, trapped in her stare like a pebble sinking into dark water. “Just. Just for a bit. Maybe until you're asleep?”
Akane looks at him, really looks, like she can read his mind behind the boiling cheeks. Staying put and letting her feels like the toughest battle he’s ever fought. Then all at once she shifts, holds the blankets open.
“Get in.”
“Wha -”
Okay, so technically he was on the bed with her before, but that was in hospital. And on top of the covers, not actually for real in bed with Akane.
“Just get in,” she hisses. It’s hard to see in the lamplight, but she’s blushing too.
She’s so pretty.
He nearly trips on the single step. The mattress dips low when he slides in, making Akane wobble. He mimics her pose, upright with his knees raised, trying to give her space and ignore her heat blazing against his hip. Akane drops the blanket over his lap. Wordlessly, she leans into him, propping her legs against his and tucking her head against his shoulder. Most of her thighs are bare in her short summer pyjamas.
Ranma holds his breath, waits for her to shift back to sit side by side. But she doesn’t, actually snuggles closer instead. She’s bathed. Her hair doesn’t smell like sterile rubber and boiled cotton anymore, but familiar citrus shampoo. He doesn’t even know when he memorised the scent.
Sat like this, she might hear his heart pounding.
He’s gotta get a grip. She just got outta hospital. She’s still hurting. But she’s also warm and soft and so, so close, and he’s healthy and reacting to that because he's not some monk. And if Akane notices, she’ll punt him through the ceiling.
It’s weird, but he’s almost missed that.
Speaking feels like a risk, but hearing his own pulse thunder between them is unbearable.
“Ya know if our pops catch us like this they’ll have a wedding hall booked for the morning,” he murmurs, a fraction above a whisper.
He feels her shrug against his arm. “We can just run away.”
Heh. He likes that. Likes ‘we’, as if the pair of them could simply take off, escape their fathers and school and the rest. Likes that she still isn't moving away, either.
Seems they really are past pretending.
In this position, his left arm is already half behind her. Slowly, just in case he’s read this wrong, or she’s in more discomfort than she’s letting on, he tucks it round her waist, rests his cheek against the top of her head. Akane makes a small, contented sound and curls even closer, and then there is a lump in his throat.
“I, uh…” I was so scared I’d lose you. “I’m really glad you’re home,” he murmurs into her hair. Akane shivers, and his fingers on her waist tighten without conscious thought, dangerously close to the hemline.
“Me too,” she says. Her hand ventures across to rest on his chest. As if, close as they are, she still wants to be closer. Feel more. “I missed you.”
His pulse skips. Is that how it’s gonna be with her now? Like he’s dancing on the edge of something giddy, missing every fourth step? “Yeah. Yeah, I missed you too.”
I’m glad you know now. That we can do stuff like this.
He can feel a tremble in Akane’s knuckles. Her voice is tiny. “On my own, I couldn’t stop thinking about everything. I’d try and sleep, but then I’d remember how close it was and -”
“Hey,” he interrupts, because he doesn't want to hear it, think about it. Ever. “Let’s not - you’re gonna be okay. Don’t - try not ta -”
“I know,” she says, curling her hand into the shirt fabric, stilling the shake. “I know I shouldn’t, but I can’t help but worry. What even happens now?”
“You mean… with us?” Ranma asks, carefully. Because he thinks this whole cuddling thing is a really great start, personally, but there’s still their fathers to deal with and Akane is a girl and probably has expectations for this kinda stuff and he can’t stand to disappoint her any more than he already -
“Yeah,” she admits, breathy and uncertain, and his heart pinches. “I - I know you love me now, but what happens when… when you find her?” His collar digs into the back of his neck as she clutches his top like the last handhold on a cliff. He can’t even ask what she means before she stumbles on, words cracking, rasp audible around the corners. “Will the flowers come back? Is - is the plan to be together until one of us meets whoever we’re actually meant to be with? Because -” her voice breaks, bleeding with grief and hurt and he doesn’t understand, what the heck is she - “I don’t think I can do that Ranma, whatever fate says I don’t think I can give you up now that we’ve -”
“Akane!”
She gasps as he grasps her wrist, uses it and the hand on her waist to steer her into facing him. The tears lining her eyes are littered with gold spots from the bedside lamp.
“What the heck are you talking about?” he growls. “Who is ‘her’ and why should you give up anythin’?”
You can’t give up on me now!
Akane glares, but it’s wet and crumpled. “You know what I mean! I’m asking what we do when you meet whoever your red thread is attached to!”
Unbelievable.
“That’s you,” he says flatly.
“What? No, it -” the words slow even as she speaks them, figuring them out. “It can’t be. Xian Pu told me I don’t have your thread. That’s why I got cursed, because you’re meant for someone else and I love you anyway.”
She loves me. He knew already, but hearing her say it is something else. Akane loves me.
And still, somehow - after everything he did, everything he said - she’s got it all twisted up.
“‘Kane, she lied. You only didn’t have my thread because Xian Pu untied it with a spell.”
She stares. Frustration sparks and stirs high in his chest. Is this what she thinks of him, really? That he’s that fickle, his feelings so flimsy? That the terror he felt when she collapsed into flowers and blood, the plunging panic as the doctors explained her chances, was all over something temporary?
How can she still not realise that nothing - fate, magic, whatever - could keep him from her?
He barely manages to keep his voice down. “Get it now? It was always meant to be us, ‘Kane! We’re tied together, alright? You and me. Whether you like it or not.”
Is that it? part of himself he prefers to ignore whispers. She loves you, but wishes it was someone else, in the long run?
“What did ya think that whole speech when I came bustin’ into your hospital room meant, anyway?” he demands, barreling through his fear, her stunned confusion. “I told ya all this! Weren’t you listenin’?”
The glare comes back full force. Akane tugs at his grip, but he doesn’t let go. “Well excuse me for not picking up the details,” she hisses, dripping sarcasm. “I was kind of busy dying at the time!”
It lands like a blow. His torso goes rigid and airless, and his face - he’s not sure, but Akane’s falls, stricken.
“Oh - no Ranma, I wasn’t… I’m sorry, I shouldn't have said that.”
He lets out a breath, long and slow, and releases her wrist only to wrap his arms around her shoulders instead, pull her closer like he should have from the start, maybe right from the beginning. “Don’cha apologise,” he mutters thickly. He’s not sure whose heartbeat is thunderous between them. Maybe both, in perfect time. “None of this is your fault. I shoulda -”
“It’s not your fault either,” she supplies quickly, arms lifting to hug him back. The angle is awkward, bodies twisted round like the blankets, but it’s still wonderful. How the heck is she so soft, with muscles like hers? He listens to her breathing for a while - steady, alive - and feels her inhale against his ribs before she speaks again, light and nervous. “If anything, it sounds like it’s mostly Xian Pu’s fault? Remind me to smack her when I see her.”
He flinches. “You won’t. She’s gone back to China.”
There was no goodbye. Ukyo had come to tell him that the Cat Café was closed and empty, had been for days. To ask him why. The memory of that conversation still turned his stomach.
Talkin’ ‘bout stuff does seem to work, but it sure ain’t easy.
Ranma pulls back just enough to press his forehead to Akane’s, eyes closed against the mess in his head. Xian Pu’s tears, Ukyo’s anger, Akane’s wan face in an oxygen mask. “She finally gave up. And… and I ended up tellin’ Ucchan that she should, too.”
He hears Akane gasp.
“Oh… oh.” Her arms tighten around him. “Then…” He cracks an eye open, meets hers. They’re filled with a strange kind of wonder. “… You’re really, actually mine?” she asks shyly, like somehow she’s the lucky one here, and he’s smirking before he knows it; warmth blooming in his chest.
“Always was, ya’ idiot tomboy.”
Her grin sears into his heart like a brand - but he hardly has time to think about it, because then the mattress is dipping and there’s a hand pushing his knees down and she’s climbing onto his lap. He can feel silk skin and smooth heat through his thin trousers. Where the heck should he put his hands? He can’t even blush because all the blood in his body is rushing elsewhere.
Akane pauses. Her thigh muscles tighten around his. “Ranma.” Oh Kami. “Is that -”
“It’s normal, okay?!” he says desperately. “My cute fiancee just climbed on top o’ me, what d’ya expect ta -”
“- you think I’m cute?” she interrupts.
Is she trying to kill me?
“I - yeah?” he admits, almost wheezing as all the air in the room threatens to flee with what remains of his sanity. “Obviously you’re cute, I’ve got eye -”
Akane kisses him.
For a second, he’s too stunned to move. Then instinct takes over. His body surges into motion, hungry for hers. Electricity pours through his veins, crackles in his fingertips as he slides them into her hair and around her hip, fizzing and jumping where their chests are pressed close. She feels… there aren’t words for how she feels, the way her mouth moves. Her lips are chapped and rough under the balm she’s put on. It’s strawberry flavoured; he can smell it more than taste it, and that’s her tongue and this -
They should have done this ages ago. Kissing her for the rest of his life ain’t gonna be enough.
When she finally pulls away, breathless and pink, he chases her mouth like a magnet drawn by another. Her tongue flicks out to touch her shiny bottom lip, and want swoops low in his belly and coils tight.
“Sorry,” she whispers, which is ridiculous. “Was… was that okay?”
The only answer he can give is a strangled whine. Akane blinks. Then her expression lifts into glee, and smug is a really, really good look on her. His grip flexes greedily.
“Are you actually speechless?” she asks, too delighted for the taunt to sting.
His first attempt at a reply fails, more noise than word. He swallows - with effort - and tries again, surprised by how rough his voice sounds. “If - if I say yes, are you gonna tease me, or can we do that again?”
She opts for both, and it feels like winning.