Chapter Text
"Ranma?" Akane muttered softly, her voice soft and gentle, a wonderful contrast to the normal anger that often coated her voice. He had no idea how it was possible to sound beautiful, but he knew without even opening his eyes that she would be as gorgeous as always, if not more so.
Too tired to answer properly, he just hummed in response, opening his eyes a sliver not being able to resist looking at her face; beautiful as ever, free from the strain of constant anger. He didn't want to be caught looking at her, but he couldn't stop the smile that tugged at his lips, something that could only be described as dreamy.
"I know you're staring at me, dummy." There was no malice in the jab, rather a warm and pleasant tone that could only be described as affectionate. Seeing no sense in keeping up the ruse, he allowed his eyes to open fully, his lovesick gaze settling on her. He just grinned brightly at her, a slight mischievous gleam in his eyes, reveling in her affectionately rude nickname for him.
"It's just cause you're so fucking beautiful this early in the morning." He spoke, his voice still hoarse with sleep, causing an embarrassed yet equally lovesick look to appear on her face, though she chose to look away from him, fighting the smile that crept onto her face. "You're so fucking beautiful that I chose to look at you rather than sleep." Her only response was a snort as she rolled her eyes at him.
He spoke with such admiration in his voice, that she felt drawn, compelled to look at him, to see his blue-gray eyes staring at her-the same color of clouds on a foggy day. Though for the first time in a while, they were calm and not stormy-his silly grin still on his face. She rolled her eyes, pretending to be unamused, though the enamored smile gave her away. She rested her head onto the crook of his shoulder, throwing her arm around his torso, cuddling into him, her hands instinctively going to play with the ends of his braid, while his hands instinctively began rubbing the muscles in her shoulder.
It seemed the perfect moment shattered too early, interrupted by the blaring alarm clock, Ranma's hold tightening on Akane as she moved to get up.
"Nooooo." Ranma whined, to which she giggled softly.
"Ranma, if we don't get up now the kids will make us get up."
Wait, kids?
Nevermind, not important.
"Let them then." He whined, pouting at her, to which she giggled a little.
"God, you're such a child." She giggled, sitting up and starting to pull him up, to which he responded by making his body go limp. "Ranma!" She scolded, the smile still on her face. She gently slapped his shoulder, and he continued to grin up at her, before moving to rest back on his elbows, beginning the reluctant process of getting out of bed.
"What, no good morning kiss?" He teased, pleased with the exasperated look of mock annoyance that flitted across her face.
"Oh, you scoundrel." She responded, moving to stand up, further away from him.
"Wait, no!" He whined; he didn't want her to move away from him. He sat up, quickly grabbing hold of her wrist, a look of surprise flitting across her face. His other hand gently cupped her face, rubbing his thumb gently across her cheek. He felt his mouth go dry at the prospect of kissing her, despite the fact that he was already in motion, his actions seeming habitual and new all at the same time. Butterflies danced in his stomach, and the world seemed to move in slow motion, the beeping of the alarm long drowned out. Her skin was so smooth and warm against the pads of his fingers, her face slowly getting closer to him.
Through lidded eyes he glanced at her lips, all cohesive thinking flying out the window as he caught a whiff of her shampoo. Pomegranate, and something that he couldn't identify, but that was just Akane.
He shakily inhaled her breath, her lips ghosting over his own, not even touching.
And then reality seeped in, shattering his dream.
"Ranma, get up!" Akane yelled at him, an empty water bucket in her hand, immediately feeling the change in height, his legs no longer peeking out of the covers. There was no sweetness in her voice, only anger and frustration. "We're gonna be late!" She yelled, huffing across his room, before punching the top of his alarm clock, the contraption flattening under her touch, the beeping finally stopping.
"Honestly Ranma, what's the point of having an alarm clock if it doesn't fucking wake you up!" She screamed as she left the room, stomping.
Ranma groaned, letting his head fall back to the pillow with a thud, and pulling the covers over his face, listening to her stomps descend the stairs. When he could no longer hear footsteps anymore, he groaned in frustration once more, swiftly standing up. He quickly changed into his clothes for the day, not caring that his skin was still slightly damp from the water. He was almost always slightly damp now.
He quickly jumped down the stairs, hearing Akane running around angrily, and he managed to grab the kettle, his mass and height changing once again, and shoveling a bowl of rice into his mouth, before Akane grabbed his arm, dragging him as she began running towards school.
It took Ranma about a block to orient himself, managing to loosen his grip from Akane's arm, running beside her. He had long ago mastered running in stride with her, and she with him, as was their usual routine. Another block passed, the fence next to the canal appearing, and instinctually Ranma hopped onto the fence, landing gracefully, still matching Akane's stride.
The problem with instinctual routines is that it gave Ranma a chance to think; something that always bordered on dangerous territory. He quickly glanced over at Akane, before immediately looking away, feeling as if he had been punched in the gut. His face visibly deflated, and he stumbled, losing his balance nearly falling into the canal. He managed to shift his weight, maneuvering himself to land on the pavement, his ankles hitting the ground with more force than he had anticipated, causing him to wince briefly, only falling behind Akane by a step.
"Why are you so out of it this morning?" Akane questioned, her voice exasperated, with still an edge of anger, and something else that Ranma could only think to identify as embarrassment? He was at a lost, unsure of what he could have done so early in the day to get her so pissy, though knew better than to comment on it.
"Didn't get a lot of sleep." He muttered out through gritted teeth, his eyes flicking over to momentarily glance at Akane, trying to gauge her reaction, hoping that she wouldn't sense the slightest bit of mis-truth in his statement. Looking at her again triggered another reaction, though his body didn't react quite so violently, but rather he was immediately plagued with memories of his dream.
He clenched his eyes shut, as if to banish the images from his brain, before opening the quickly, forcing his brain to loudly think of anything to counteract his current thoughts.
***
Ranma was having a bad day.
By all means he shouldn't have—it was a relatively quiet day in Nermia; it seemed that it's wacky residents had enough respect for the upcoming holiday to not stir up trouble, and most residents seemed content with the quiet. There were no fights that turned every street into a warzone, there were no two feet old people jumping around and wreaking mayhem. The only thing that remained was the hooligan that walked on fences, but otherwise the day was perfectly quiet.
Judging from the glower on the face of Ranma Saotome, the fence-walking hooligan himself, one would not have guessed about the rather good day.
He sank deeper in his chair, completely ignoring the teacher who was writing the lesson up on the board. He instead looked at the ceiling, counting and recounting all of the tiles, now counting all the tiles that had water stains. He couldn't be bothered with looking at the front of the room, no, all his attention had to be focused on anything other than the blue haired girl that sat at the front of the class.
He glanced at the clock, groaning internally at how he still had to be in classes for another two hours. He didn't often wish for the craziness that followed him, but he was desperately hoping for someone, anyone to come and either challenge him or claim him as their fiancee. The one time he needed them to be there, and of course they didn't follow through. He was so grotesquely bored that he wished one of the Kunos would bother him, but no, the three of them had to conveniently be out of town at the same time.
Actually... maybe that wasn't so bad.
It didn't really matter, his eyes flitting back to the clock to see that less than three minutes had passed, and he couldn't help rolling his eyes. He glanced back at the board, more notes that he should be taking, written on the board. It didn't really matter though, he could always get the notes he needed from Akane or Ukyo. If he was truly desperate he could copy off of Hiroshi and Daisuke.
Akane.
It was annoying really.
Just one thought of her name, and once again the unwanted memories of his dream came pouring over him. His scowl deepened as he shook his head violently, as if to rid the images from his brain. It of course didn't serve it's intended purpose, but rather put him on the radar of his teacher. His lack of notes—his lack of his notebook on his desk, really—was all that was needed for his teacher to send him into the hall, a bucket of water in his hand.
He had always considered it an unusual punishment, but in the year or so since his curse, it seemed outright cruel. Of course, the holding the bucket for the remainder of the hour didn't bother him in the slightest, it was rather knowing that should something go wrong-and something always does-he would be in a very easy situation to become a girl yet again.
"Argh!" He grunted aloud, his mood souring even more as his worries about transforming reminded him of the unpleasant way he had woken up in the morning.
Oh, she was so uncute!
His dream be damned, Ranma with resounding resolute began wracking his brain for every single moment of uncuteness that had befallen his fiancee, Akane Tendo.
Unfortunately for him, he could only think of one.
His mind suddenly swirled with the memories of the play, how Akane's face had turned angry with pain at how he had no idea that he had had lines.
It pained him, but even in this memory she hadn't been uncute, an uncomfortable feeling of guilt settling upon his chest, as her look of pain flashed before him. He had never really realized before, but he had seen that look a lot, especially when he had first become a part of her life. He had always assumed that the anger on her face always had an edge of pain, but now that he knew her, truly knew her he could see the pain.
He shook his head, as if to shake these thoughts from his head.
Something was wrong with him. Something had to be.
He knew he was pretty stubborn, and he knew that he could often force perspectives into his mind, no matter how he felt in the moment. But for some reason, the idea that Akane was uncute-an idea that he could often make himself believe because of her perpetually angry face-would not stick.
Instead he felt uncomfortable feelings of guilt; something he was not used to, and something that he decided he didn't care much for. His brain was forced into an unwanted memory, his last big screw-up: when Gosunkugi was taking pervy pictures and Akane got hurt.
Wait what?
Ranma had never truly blamed himself for that before, no that was something that he knew he had been in the right in. It had had little to do with Akane's honor being on the line, but rather from his own experiences when Nabiki profited off of pictures she had sneaked of his girl form. Although, upon reflection, perhaps it had a little to do with Akane's honor, because he knew that if it were a different girl his reaction would've been the same, though his actions would've been more calm and collected, not as violent and thoughtless as they had been.
But now, here he was, feeling guilt for the situation?
His mind wandered a little more, the memories of his stupid, stupid daydreams coming back into his mind, and before he could banish the thought, he felt the warm feeling wash over him that he had felt in the almost-kiss in his dream and the kisses in his daydreams. He yelped slightly at the unwanted thoughts, his arm jerking slightly, the water splashing over him.
No longer could he hold it in, he bellowed in anger, though it lacked the punch that it did while in his male form.
"Ouch!" He yelled out, turning quickly towards the window of the classroom, seeing that the two students closest were closing the window adjoining the classroom and the hallway. Akane had thrown his bag at him without looking away from her notes, her hand still up from the motion. It was moments like these that reminded Ranma of what an accomplished martial artist Akane was; she had the coordination, strength, technique, and awareness to be able to throw the bag at him.
His moment of awe, did nothing from putting him in an even worse mood. He glared at Akane, and flipped her off, and without even look back at him, she flipped him off.
His anger festered for a moment, before the bell rang, and Akane came out to meet him with an annoyed look on her face.
"There's a kettle in the bag, dummy!" She snarled, pulling out the kettle.
Dummy. The word pulled him back into his dream yet again, remembering the way she had said it with such love, not the malice her voice was edged with now. For some reason, it made his heart hurt.
He must've been staring off into space, because when he focused back on her face, she was glaring at him, hands on her hips."Did you hear a word I said, Ranma?" She asked, forcefully. It seemed that she wasn't having too much of a good day either.
He knew better than to lie, but he also knew better than to tell the truth. "...No?"
She rolled her eyes at him, but there wasn't much anger left in her eyes, rather exhaustion. "I said, you go change back, and I'll cover for you." And with that she turned away from him, heading towards their next class.
And for some strange reason as she walked away, he an uncomfortable sensation bubbling in his stomach.
He never did end up going to the last class.