Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Ranma is sitting on the Tendo roof. He is fighting against the compulsion to enter Akane’s room. He is staring up at the night sky, arguing with himself in his head. His heart is pounding, adrenaline is making him dizzy. He knows that if he gives in, if he enters, if he moves close to her bed and touches her forehead, if he feels that she is warm and sees that she is breathing, he will feel better. His heartbeat will slow. His breathing will even out. He will be able to leave, lie in his own bed, close his eyes, maybe even sleep.

He knows this because he does these things every night. And he tries to resist doing them because it is pathetic. He is a man. He fought Saffron and he won. He saved her like he always does. Things are fine. He should be fine too. He is fine, during the day. Maybe a little tired, since he rarely sleeps. But he can laugh, run, train, mock Ryoga, annoy Akane. He is just like before, during the day. Which proves that nothing has changed. Which proves that he should not have to see her relaxed face before he can sleep. Certainly, it proves that he should not have to see it two, sometimes three times in a single night.

Akane’s room has always held its own small mystery for Ranma. Granted, even before the Jusendo caves and the onset of his little habit, he had been in it plenty of times. He sat on the bed, the desk-chair, her floor. He trained the Umi-Sen Ken by going through her drawers. The room should feel familiar, nothing special. After all, he knows his way around it very well. He knows how to open the window from the outside without making a noise. How to swing his body from the roof onto her desk without knocking the lamp over. Which spot to land on so the planks under the carpet will not creak. He can recall the softness under his bare feet, the quiet ticking of her alarm clock. His mind plays the exact way it all feels and looks and smells for him, as if to tempt, to mock him. The room should by now be as ordinary to him as the rest of the house.

It is not. Entering Akane’s room always felt like crossing an invisible line. It means entering Akane’s territory, being surrounded by her things, her smell. The silence in Akane’s room at night is different than the silence in the rest of the house. Her presence seems to start seeping into his skin almost the second he moves through the window – or, on some occasions, the door. Before Saffron, it used to make his heart beat just a little faster, his breath just a little shallower, going in there.

Now it has the opposite effect. Every night, when he finally gives in, loses the fight against his urge to check and enters through the window – quiet, so quiet – it is as if the room wraps a blanket of calm around him. Tonight is no different. He can’t even recall himself standing up, moving across the roof until he is right above her room, sliding the window open. Suddenly, he is standing in front of her bed. There she is, breathing steadily in the low light, her hair moving very softly from the breeze coming through the open window. He can feel his mind calming, his vision, foggy with stress, begins to clear.

Ranma turns and closes the window so that the cool air will not wake her. The last thing he wants to do is explain why he is here. She hasn’t been very patient with him, since the failed wedding. She isn’t exactly different in any way that anyone else would notice. She still tolerates his presence, she still fights alongside him against idiots and monsters and monsters who are idiots. She still pummels him, and she still laughs and smiles, buys treats, trains, does sports. But she hasn’t smiled at him since he denied saying he loved her, not like that. So he is pretty sure, if she wakes up and finds him hovering, it will not go over well.

This is why the next bit is especially tricky. Because he knows he needs to touch her skin. If he wants to sleep, he must know she is warm. His mind will not let him rest until he has felt her under the tips of his fingers, until his body has confirmed that her skin does not feel clammy and cold. He carefully brushes her hair out of her face, and her warmth returns him to himself completely.

Fully calmed, he allows himself to look at her for a moment, not to make sure she is alive, but just because she is so lovely. So, so lovely to him. The line of her nose, the curve of her mouth, her brows, her lashes dark against her skin. He cannot believe he gets to be here with her. Be secretly hers. Because he is. He knows this too. Has known it for a long time. And if the terror that she might die was not there, he would still feel that weird, freeing, jittery security he had before Saffron ripped it all away. The sureness that one day, it will all come together. That somehow, she will make herself his, too. That at some point, he will be able to say what he thinks about saying all the time.

He stands there, looking at her, remembering being on outings with her. Walking next to her, shoulder to shoulder, eating ice-cream together, knowing, in his bones: Mine. And imagining the moment when that would become real. The nervous anticipation. Even when she was kicking him into the sky, his heart would reassure him that he was being kicked by his Akane. And that eventually, everything would be as it should be.

Not anymore. Now, there is always the undercurrent of worry, the fear. Sometimes, he sees images of her dead face juxtaposed over her alive face when he looks at her. It happens randomly, he cannot see it coming. He sits in class and tries to ignore Miss Hinako and then, all of a sudden, he can smell the Jusendo dust, feel the weight of her cold, unbreathing body in his arms. He has to shake himself out of it, jump out of the window and get into a fight with Kuno so that the afterimages fade.

All right. So maybe, the days are not fine either. But at least they are full of energy and distraction, at least there are ways to shake himself out of it during the day. At night, there is nothing but silence and darkness, his thoughts and, if he sleeps, his dreams.

He breathes deeply. Akane is right in front of him. He can still feel the warmth of her skin from when he touched her forehead, just now. She is sleeping soundly, her fingers curled around the edge of her duvet. She is fine. He is fine. Be calm. Calm.

Maybe, he can just sit here a little. If he leans his back against the side of her bed and angles himself just right, he can see her window and her door both. He will be between her and whatever may come through. He eases himself down, feels the hard edge of her bed against his shoulder blades. He digs his fingers into her carpet. This feels good. The night is very still, and behind him, there she is, warm and alive and safe. Heat spreads from where he can feel her presence into his bones. He feels heavy, his muscles slowly relax. Even if he closes his eyes for just a moment, anyone entering will wake him up and he will be there to protect her. Even if he rests just a little bit, she is still behind him and safe. Even if he allows himself to leave his eyes closed a while longer, to imagine what it would be like if she awoke and found him and was happy to find him …

…

Akane wakes with a start. For a second, she is disoriented, unsure where and who and what she is. For a second, she still feels the hot stiffness of the doll-limbs that occupied her dream. Then her eyes get used to the little light in the room and she recognizes the soft familiarity of her home, outlined in grey shadows around her.

It is still dark out, which means she has woken up too early. Again. She is always tired now. Unable to get to sleep, unable to stay asleep. She used to sleep through the night so easily. Used to be able to fall asleep even if, just half an hour earlier, Kodachi or Shampoo, or some tentacled crazy monster had rampaged through the house.

But then, she used to live unaware of what her own mortality meant. And she used to know the future, which she used to be sure would contain Ranma. But that was before. Now, she has died, and been called back, and been rejected by the one for whom she returned. Now, she does not sleep well anymore. She wakes up, sometimes two, three times in a night. She hallucinates Ranma by her bedside, imagines him touching her. Sometimes, she can go back to sleep. Sometimes, she lies awake, still, eyes half closed, waiting. She is not sure for what. Sleep, maybe. The sunrise. The end of the night and the beginning of the day, when she can pretend that things are fine, normal.

It has only been a month. Kasumi, who would say such things, says that she should give it time. That time will heal. Akane does not think time will heal this. Since the failed wedding, the sense of security she used to live with has left her. Maybe she has gone crazy. Maybe she really did just imagine him saying he loved her. Maybe she put on a wedding dress and made a fool out of herself for some delusion she had while her brain was dehydrated and shrunk to the size of a raisin. And if she imagined that, it isn’t too hard to believe that she now regularly imagines his presence in her room. That she has lost some important part of her mind in Jusendo, together with her ability to feel alive.

Akane turns and checks the time. 4 AM in the morning. Anger rises in her. Part of her is relieved she still feels anger, the one emotion she has always been able to count on. She will not lie here, again. Stare at the ceiling for two hours, until she can get up and go for a run, again. Tell herself the story of her own humiliation again, or relive her own death. What it felt like to die. What it felt like to burn, to slowly, slowly lose strength. What it felt like to still take pleasure in being at the center of his attention, even underneath all the hurt and the suffering and the burning, gnawing thirst. Pleasure in being tucked against his chest, held by his hands, in feeling his heartbeat all around her tiny, stiff body. And when he called her back --- I love you, Akane!

She will not. What she will do is get herself a glass of water, drink it down, go back to sleep. Then she will wake up and go to school and see her friends and be a reasonable person in control of her emotions. Akane sits up with a huff, pushes both feet out of the bed, willing herself to feed the anger. And feels her toes bump against something soft and warm.

She freezes. Fear hits her so hard, she can hear ringing in her ears. She can see black birds descending from the sky, coming towards her window to carry her to her death. Every muscle in her body flexes, forces her into a rigid, painful position. Someone is in her room. Someone is here and she did not hear them come in and she cannot defend herself and where is Ranma, where is Ranma, Ranma, Ranma, come, help, please, please… Breathe.

She forces herself to take a deep breath, to remember who she is, that she is strong. She lifts a shaking hand, moves the blanket out of the way so she can get up and into a fighting position without getting tangled in it. She forces herself to pay attention to what surrounds her, catalogue what she can know about her situation. Whoever is in her room, they are not moving. Maybe she can get away from the bed before they notice she is awake. She maneuvers herself out of the bed and then slides to the other side of the room and into a defensive stance.

The person by her bed remains still. Akane wills her eyes to focus and – oh! – it is Ranma. Ranma is sleeping on her carpet by her bed. She slumps to the floor, the anxiety leaving her almost as quickly as it came, taking her strength with it. She is suddenly so tired. For a long minute, she just sits there and stares at him. She observes his thick eyebrows, his straight nose, the color of his lips, barely perceivable in the darkness. She imagines touching his face, his hair, how his braid feels beneath her fingers. She contemplates what it would mean to crawl on his lap, curl up, fall asleep right there with him on the floor in front of her bed. The urge to touch him, be surrounded by him, is almost irresistible. But she does not move. Unbidden, the memory of his denial comes back to her, reminding her that no, he never told her he loved her. She imagined it.

After what feels like an eternity but really, the clock tells her, has been ten minutes, she picks herself up off the floor. He looks incredibly uncomfortable, half lying, half sitting, his head at a weird angle. He will wake up aching all over. She moves to her closet, pulls out a blanket, grabs a decorative pillow from a corner of her room.

With the pillow and the blanket in her arms, she stands in front of him for a good minute, nervous, unsure of how to accomplish her task. She tells herself that she is lucky he is such a deep sleeper. Slept through Shampoo crawling all over him once that she knows of, and however many times he managed to keep from her. She devises a plan, places the pillow carefully, grabs his wrist and pulls. He grunts, but he does not wake up. Instead he slides down the side of her bed until he lies stretched out on the floor, his head on the pillow, one arm smushed between the bed and his side, the other stretched out as if… as if he was inviting her in.

Akane’s eyes wander over his broad chest, his shoulders, the fingers of his strong hand, calloused, curled into a lose fist. She wants, so badly. But she doesn’t even know why he is here, and if she is entirely honest, she isn’t even completely sure he really is here at all. So she just throws the blanket over him.

Then, as if she is completely mad now, she lies down next to him, on the floor, facing him, maybe a foot and a half between them. She can smell the dust in her carpet and tugs her hand under her head. She is a bit cool in her pajamas, especially her bare feet. But she just wants to look at him for a bit longer, maybe puzzle out what it means that he is here. Maybe determine whether this is all real. If it is one of the good dreams, she tells herself, it is a little disappointing. So maybe it is real. If it was one of the good dreams, she muses, then he would wake up around now. She closes her eyes, tries to imagine what it would be like. His eyes, opening to find hers looking at him. The startling blue of them. His lips would part as if to formulate a question, but he would not say anything and then …

…

When Ranma wakes up and opens his eyes, he stares straight into Akane’s sleeping face. He can even feel her breath, very softly, reaching him. It is the first time in a month that dread does not enter him the moment he fully regains consciousness. The first time in a month he does not immediately feel the beginnings of that need to check on her, a need that will grow over the hours until he must give in to it. He feels calm. He closes his eyes again, maybe he can sleep a little longer.

This is when he realizes where he is, and the shock sends him straight upwards. His legs tangle in a blanket he did not realize was there and he falls over, face-first onto her bed. There he is suddenly, completely surrounded by her smell and the softness of her bedding. It makes him dizzy. It makes him want things. He needs to get out of here.

He frantically tries to untangle himself, making a ruckus until he remembers that she is there, and asleep. He goes still. Carefully tucks at the blanket until he frees himself. Sits up. Looks over at her sleeping form.

She looks different than when he usually comes to check on her. She does not lie quietly and demurely under her duvet, breathing softly. Instead, she has assumed a kind of star-fish position, her flat belly partly revealed by her pajama top, one hand tucked under her face, pink lips parted. He cannot prevent his mind from reminding him of the one or two times he accidentally touched the skin of her stomach. His hands can recall how soft and smooth it is, how he could feel the muscles underneath. He gasps softly. He has to leave.

He manages to get all the way on top of her desk, to slide the window open quietly, when she suddenly curls in on herself, shivering. She looks cold. She should be in her bed. What is she doing on the floor?

He hesitates. He knows what he wants to do, but the risk seems incredibly high. What if she wakes up? What if she catches him touching her, in her pajamas, in her bedroom? He moves off the desk, to the floor, crouches down besides her. He cannot help himself, he runs his fingers through her hair. It is soft, like silk. He moves her so that he can pick her up, then he brings one arm under her knees and slowly, carefully, pushes the other beneath her shoulders. When he lifts her, he notices again – for the hundredths? Thousands? – time how easy it is to carry her, how soft she is, how she smells, how she fits into his arms so perfectly.

He moves to the bed, stands on one foot to push the duvet to the side with the other. Carefully maneuvers her down, his hand beneath her head to position her on the pillow, the fine hairs tickling his fingers. When he lets her go, she makes a small sound and reaches for him. He almost loses it, almost gives in and lets himself hug her. But he manages to get himself away, to tuck her in without touching her again. He hops on the desk, swings out the window, closes it carefully. Sits on the roof.

He realizes that since he has woken up, he has not thought about Saffron, or her death, or her cold dead body. As long as she was with him, close, as long as he could touch her, he had been back in that space of comfortable longing that he had occupied before Jusendo. Where all he was afraid of was getting caught. Where that fear was mixed with some kind of strange wish to be caught, to see what would happen then. He can see the sun breaking the sky’s darkness right at the horizon and finds that he is smiling. He had a good sleep. And the night is over.

Chapter Text

Akane is about to do something completely insane. Two things, actually. But the first is worse. The second, at least, makes some kind of sense. The first is just … mad.

She is sitting on her bed, staring at her floor where the blanket and the decorative pillow have been lying all day. Exactly as she found them when she woke up in the morning. (In her bed! How?) She has been tiptoeing around them, making sure not to disturb them, not to change their position even the tiniest bit. She has been keeping her bedroom door tightly closed, terrified that someone might see them. As if Nabiki would be able to deduce that Ranma slept in Akane’s room last night from a scrunched up blanket and a slightly out-of-place pillow on her floor. Ranma. Slept in her room. Last night.

But did he? She woke up in her own bed, not on the floor. And she distinctly remembers that she was lying on the floor last, studying his sleeping face. She remembers holding herself back from reaching out. How did she get in her bed? Maybe she dreamt the whole thing, just like she imagined his confession at Jusendo, just like she keeps imagining him by her side late at night. Silly, sad Akane and her silly, sad feelings.

Akane gets up, paces the room in a complicated dance around the blanket and the pillow, her bare feet carefully avoiding them. But! But. The blanket and the pillow. They are proof that something happened last night. She very much doubts that she is out of it enough to get up in the middle of the night and arrange a bed for an imaginary person.

Which is why she is about to do the first insane thing. It was surprisingly easy to swipe Nabiki’s polaroid camera; she had left it lying around in the kitchen and gone out with her friends. Akane made a point of remembering how it was positioned on the counter so she can put it back exactly as it was. Now, she picks the camera up off her bed, raises it to her eyes and frowns. The view is not very good. She climbs on top of her bed, attempts to capture the picture from above. Still not good enough. In the end, she balances on her desk and shoots. The polaroid appears, and she frantically shakes it until the picture is clear. There they are. The blanket and the pillow, on her floor. The pillow even has a head-like indentation. Proof. It happened.

Akane hides the polaroid between the edge of the mattress and her bedframe, on the wall side, right next to her pillow. Where she can easily reach it, where no one will see it. Then she leaves her room with the camera.

When she reappears, she notices that she did not draw her curtains and for a moment, she stands, staring into the night outside her window, mortified. What if someone saw her? What if Ranma saw her? Balancing on her desk, photographing her floor? Could he guess what she was doing? Her heart is hammering, she is feeling slightly sick. She can hear his mockery in her mind, feels the shame, the humiliation, like static clouding her thoughts. But through the buzzing, like a bright and happy light, shines determination. And hope. Akane recognizes those feelings from before Saffron and she is willing to bet everything on them. Because they are feelings belonging to the old Akane. And she wants to be the old Akane again.

Or so she has decided while thinking about it during class, instead of learning about World War II. All day, she has not thought about anything else. Ranma sleeping in her room. Ranma leaned against her bed, in her room, as if on watch. She has not been able to look at Ranma without blushing wildly, so she had to avoid looking at him at all. Except that she looked at him all the time, her gaze drawn to him as if by some foreign force. Her willpower used up in the effort to look away again. To frown. To cross her arms and turn from him.

But all that rumination has resulted in a plan. A plan that requires her to move the blanket and the pillow, to destroy the evidence she has been clinging to since this morning. Which is why the polaroid was necessary.

Akane kneels down next to the decorative pillow, smooths her yellow pajamas. It is strange, she thinks, how avoiding to touch an object imbues it with a kind of aura. How now it is hard to touch it. It is an innocuous pillow with a duck on it, similar to the one that hangs on her door. The duck is why Nodoka bought it for her, or so she said. Akane reaches out, places her hand on the duck. Takes a deep breath. Then she gathers pillow and blanket in her arms, stand up, throws both on her bed. For a second, she contemplates it, the bedding he slept in on the bed she sleeps in. Touches her lips absentmindedly. Hugs herself. What it would be like …

She shakes herself out of it. She has things to do. She picks up the blanket, folds it neatly. Places it on the floor and adds the pillow, above it. She steps back and assesses her work. There. It looks like a bed, right in front of her bed.

There is a term that Nabiki likes to use: Plausible deniability. Akane frowns. This has no plausible deniability at all. If he comes in tonight and sees this, there is no denying that it is an invitation. There is no blocking the blows from his jokes and insults. She needs her invitation to be plausibly deniable. Clear. Inviting. But deniable. She needs to be able to claim that she was just tidying up.

So, she folds the blanket one more time, into a square. Places the pillow on top. Moves both so that the little pile lies in front of her bed, close to where her own pillow is. She hops back on her desk and makes sure that it is easily visible, right away, by someone coming in from the window.

Now that she has done the second thing, she realizes that potentially, it is the worse thing. At least taking the polaroid will remain her secret. And even if someone found it, she can claim it was an accidental picture. Why would anyone take a picture of a slightly cluttered floor? An accident. This, on the other hand, is meant to be discovered. The whole idea is that Ranma will find it and … what?

Decide to stay. That is what. Akane sits back down on her bed, hides her face in her hands. She makes herself think it. The reason she did all this is because she wants Ranma to sleep in her room with her. Because last night, she slept better than any night after Jusendo. Because his presence took all her fear away, made her feel calm and content. Because his body lying a feet away from hers made her feel want in such a sweetly painful way. Because if he comes into her room at night, and if he sees her invitation and takes her up on it, then he feels something for her. Something bigger than mild concern and vague friendship. Because if she did not dream last night, then maybe she did not imagine all the other instances when she could sense him in her room, when she felt his fingers ghost over her forehead. Then maybe she did not imagine … the other thing either.

Akane --- I love you!

Akane lets herself fall backwards onto her bed. Her whole body is tingling. She feels almost exactly like she does before they hand a test back in school that she is pretty sure, but not entirely sure, she did well on. But the feeling is much, much bigger. And it concentrates in … other… parts of her body.

She rolls onto her stomach, inhales the scent of her bedding. Then she crawls under the duvet, switches the light off. Her room, bathed in yellow light before, becomes a place of soft shadows. She stares at the ceiling. For a whole month, the lines up there seemed hostile to her. For a whole month, her room had remained just the scene of her abduction, a constant reminder of how weak and easily abused she is. Today, the ceiling is just a ceiling. And her room is a place where Ranma may come to sleep. Her heart is beating and beating.

Maybe she did imagine it. Maybe he wasn’t there yesterday, and she dreamed it all. She decides it won’t hurt to check, and her fingers search around between mattress and wall until she feels the sharp edge of the polaroid. She pulls it out, stares at it until her eyes get used enough to the low light that she can see the outlines of the pillow and the blanket, strewn across her floor, as if by accident. She corrects herself: It was a very good idea to take the picture, not crazy at all. She stuffs it back between her mattress and the bedframe and closes her eyes.

And then she allows herself to do something that she used to do all the time but has not done since the failed wedding. Since he denied his confession. Since the horrible, empty feeling settled in her stomach and she struggled to fake high-spirited annoyance and anger until she was alone to cry.

Akane thinks of Ranma. At first, she imagines his face. The intense blue of his eyes, looking at her. The curve of his mouth, the carefree smile. The unruly black hair, the pigtail peeking out. Then she moves on to his hands. Strong, and long-fingered, calloused. Up his arms, his shoulders. She calls back the feeling of being held against his chest, of being pressed into him. She attempts to imagine how it would feel with no danger, not falling off of the snout of a monster, or a ravine, for example. It isn’t easy, but she has plenty of practice. She allows him to loosen his grip so she can move slightly away from him, look up, meet those intense eyes with hers…

…

Except for a slightly bedraggled bird, the Tendo roof is entirely empty. From down in the dojo, there are noises of intense training. It is the kind of training that, this late at night, occurs only when someone has something they need to work out. It has been going on for a while, and the reason why the bird looks so bedraggled is that it usually sleeps in the dojo. It watches as the last bits of grey in the sky turn into dark blue, and still the dojo remains noisy and bright. Only once all the stars are out and the night grows cold does the annoying thumping and huffing finally stop. A long silence follows. The bird hops expectantly to the edge of the roof, and when the light finally goes out in the dojo, it leaves to go to bed.

It is almost immediately replaced by Ranma, who, though he tries not to think it explicitly, is on his way to Akane’s room. He has trained to exhaustion and still he cannot identify what it is that he is thinking. Or better: And still he cannot stop thinking several things at once, none of which quite fit together.

The first, as always now, is the terrifying undercurrent of intrusive whispering that maybe, Akane has died in her bed, has returned to the dull, cold, dead body he knows she was for minutes? An hour? Too long. That maybe he is alone in the world and nothing will ever make sense again.

The second is the intermittent boasting of his ego. His ego tells him that there is no way that Akane could have rolled out of bed and ended up next to him on the floor accidentally, no matter how much of a klutz she is. Because his body was between her bed and where he found her. Because she would have fallen on him, and that would have woken him up. So she saw him sleeping there, and she decided not to wake him, and she intentionally moved her own self onto the floor next to him. And she put a blanket on him. And that means she wanted him there. And that, in turn, means she is entirely smitten with him. No wonder, after all he is …

But his ego only gets so far, because at this point his insecurity interrupts and points out that she has been acting strange and avoidant all day, turning away from him whenever he tried to meet her eyes. She might have been incredibly annoyed when she found him there. Maybe, she only allowed him to stay because she did not want the entire house to know, and suffer the consequences of such knowing. Maybe, she was on the floor because she thought he was a pervert and decided to keep an eye on him from a less vulnerable position than the bed, and then she just fell asleep. The blanket might have been because she is kind. Always so kind. Kind, cute Akane, whose sleeping form is imprinted on his mind, the slightly open lips, the way her pajama revealed the shape of her body, the sliver of skin at her belly …

And that is the fourth thought. The fourth thought, which is not even really a thought. A need. A need to know, to see what happens if he returns. To see if he can repeat it, sleep on her floor again, sleep so well again that when he wakes up, there is no headache. See if sleeping next to her will quiet the fear and the dread like it did last night.

Ranma approaches Akane’s window, hangs upside down off the roof, has one hand already stretched out to slide it open, stops, interrupted by the fifth thought. This is the thought that has kept him in the dojo for so long. The thought that has made him lose the last piece of grilled fish to his father at dinner.

This is the thought that she knows. That she might still be awake in there, waiting for him. She definitely moved herself to the floor, so she definitely realized he was there. Whether she liked that he was there or not - what if the thing awaiting him in there is not peace and calm and being allowed to sleep in her presence but … a confrontation? A talk? The last talk, the one they had at the failed wedding, did not go so well. He avoids thinking about it, because every time he does, he feels bile rising in his throat, and tears in his eyes and he needs to go for a run or get into a fight to make it stop. Men do not cry. Not about feelings.

He has trained so hard to get rid of that last thought that he can feel it in his muscles when he swings himself back up on the roof. That is how exhausted he is; that he can feel it when he moves from hanging head-down by his feet to standing up on the roof.

Maybe he will just sleep up here. If he sleeps up here, above her window, he will still be able to intercept anyone or anything that may come for her. He can still protect her, and he does not need to risk having to talk to her.

But then he sees it. His mind shows him both of it at once. Akane, cold and dead and still in his arms, Akane who does not wake up, whose skin is ashen, whose jaw is slack, who does not breathe, does not move. And, at the same time, Akane, in starfish position, rosy, alive, filling the room around her with a smell of shampoo and girl-body, her breath tickling his nose, Akane’s arms reaching for him briefly as he lies her down in her bed.

It is too much. The two images together disorient him, push all reason from his mind. He is through her window before he can stop himself, squatting on her desk. His own actions surprise him. His hands go clammy, his heart hammers in his chest. He cannot believe himself. But also, and strangely at the same time: He knew he would do this all along. He knew that all the training was only delaying the inevitable. He needed to find out. It just isn’t like Ranma Saotome to let anything rest.

To his relief, she is asleep. She lies entirely still under her duvet, her fingers demurely curled around the edge, her eyes softly closed, her breathing very, very even. She looks beautiful to him. He admits it to himself by thinking her cute.

He hops to the floor in a very practiced move, lands in entire silence, not even his shirt rustles. Approaches the bed. Maybe, he can just make sure she is ok, like he always does, and leave again. That would probably be best. No need to risk anything by staying. Most likely, if he does not sleep in his bed again, his parents will notice. They all share the guest room after all. If he stays, she might wake up and force him to talk to her then. Better not risk it.

His fingers are an inch from her forehead when he notices the bundle by her bed and his mind just ceases working via explicit thought altogether. His first reaction is to jump backwards, away from it, as if it was a slumbering kitten lying there beside her. But he is terrified for just one second. Because for one second it means to him only that yes, she definitely knows that he slept in her room, and she definitely thought about it. But then that second is over and the shock is replaced by something else, much warmer. Crouched down in a corner of her room, in between the wall and her dresser, he eyes the blanket and pillow carefully. Excitement runs through him like a current. Because he recognizes what this is. An invitation. She wants him to stay. He just knows it.

Carefully, because he still does not want to have to confront her about it, he approaches the blanket and pillow, lying there on the floor. He sits in front of them. And for the second time tonight, the little decorative pillow with its little duck is surrounded by an aura of importance. His hand shakes a little as he grabs it. His mind is entirely blank as he brings it to his nose, inhales deeply. He looks up at Akane, her still face, her closed eyes, the steady, quiet movement of her chest under the duvet. A brief memory of how her hair felt when he ran his fingers through it. He unfolds the blanket, lies down on the floor, closes his eyes. Thinks of her. Falls asleep, thinking of her wanting him there, wanting him to sleep in her room, wanting him.

…

Akane is not asleep at all. The noises coming from the roof above her were enough to startle her, no matter how quiet. She is a martial artist after all, and nowadays one perpetually terrified of being kidnapped at that. Any noise anywhere near her has been waking her up for weeks. Also, once she had set her trap (invitation!), part of her mind remained alert even when she fell asleep, waiting. Woke her up the moment there was anything happening.

She listened to him moving up and down the roof, watched through her lashes as he entered the room. As he jumped from her desk to her floor in one smooth, quiet motion, in complete control of his body. She smelled the sweat on him, the cold night air, the woody dust of the dojo. Mustered all her concentration to keep her breathing even, her form still under the duvet as he approached, in spite of what all this did to her pulse, her palms, every nerve in her body.

Heard the thump against her dresser when he jumped backwards. A sudden panic making her go rigid, the taste of rejection already in her mouth. Pleaded: She was just tidying up, she just forgot to put the blanket and pillow back, it meant nothing, nothing at all, go away Ranma, just leave! If he leaves she could maybe steady herself by the morning, face the world with some of her pride intact…

But then she heard him approach again and she found the strength to breathe deep and steady, relax her muscles, smoothen the frown that had settled on her brows. She heard the rustling of the blanket unfolding, the soft movements of his body settling down beside her.

Since then, she has been trying to get to sleep. Because that is what she wanted. To have Ranma in her room so she could sleep peacefully. And yet, again, she is lying in the dark, awake, with her heart thumping in her chest and her breathing unsteady, feeling slightly sick. Her thoughts racing.

She is so tired now that her eyelids hurt. So tired that the air around her seems heavy, that her limbs seem either too small or too large for her body. She wishes she could sleep. She wishes she could be closer to Ranma.

Ranma has been breathing steady for a while. At first, she was waiting for him to fall asleep, sure that her nerves would calm once there was no longer the possibility of a confrontation. But he has been making the small, unconscious noises that only sleeping people make for a long time. And still, she cannot calm down. She cannot rest.

With a sudden movement, Akane sits up straight in her bed. She will just take one look at him and lie back down. Just to make absolutely sure he really is there. (Just to give herself something to think about.) She looks down to the side of her bed, but from where she is sitting, she can only see one relaxed hand lying on her floor, calloused palm up.
She moves closer to the edge of her bed, peeks again. Leans slightly out of her bed. Finally sees him lying there, the blanket kicked halfway off him, arms and legs every which way, completely relaxed, in his workout clothes. He looks warm and strong and peaceful. She wants to touch him. She thinks, delighted: Oh, he wasn’t even changed, but he stayed anyway! And falls right over the edge of her bed.

There is a short panicky moment when her entire body attempts to defy gravity and maneuver her back from past the point of no return, her arms helplessly flailing about. But she is so tired and so surprised and so mortified and there is already so many strange feelings cursing through her blood. Her mind is unable to pull off any martial arts tricks and there is no chance she will manage to regain balance.

Her elbow is the first thing to make contact, and it lands in Ranma’s relaxed stomach. He makes a noise that sounds like surprise and pain and then -

For a split second, his body feels warm and almost soft as she falls on him. Then suddenly it turns into steel. With a movement so quick that she has no time to even understand what is happening, he is kneeling on top of her, her hips between his knees, both her wrists in one of his hands, his grip tense and painful. His other hand raised in a fist above her.

There is some part of her own body, the part that reacts purely to what he does, that wants to fight back. Her leg twitches as if to knee him. Her hands, already tingly from lack of blood flow, curl into fists and strain against a hold that is entirely unbreakable.

But another part, the part that reacts to who he is, realizes that he is still asleep. This part does not even feel fear. The man above her is Ranma. Ranma does not hurt those who do not fight. And Ranma does not hurt Akane.

So Akane lies still. Akane says, in a voice that is almost a whisper, and that has a slightly annoyed tinge to it: “Ranma. Wake up.” He blinks, comes to. His face moves through fear, recognition, relief. “Akane” he breathes. Then, suddenly, fear again. He scrambles backwards, hands frantically waving. “I didn’t… I wasn’t … Who would even want …”

Akane sits up, blinks. Strangely, even in this situation, her body regrets the loss of his touch. He looks utterly panicked, and utterly adorable, his hair sticking out every which way, his clothes disheveled, the imprint of his pillow still on one cheek. He seems so helpless that somehow, all the adrenaline leaves her, and she feels … safe.

She gets up. He stops stammering, tenses, seems to prepare himself. She looks right into his eyes, waits until he returns her gaze. Then, hiding her embarrassment and her astonishment at the sheer audacity of what she is doing, buzzing out of her skin with outrage at her own actions, she just turns and slowly climbs into bed again, covers herself with her duvet. Rolls onto her side, so she faces Ranma’s makeshift bed on the floor and very demonstrably closes her eyes.

She breathes, in, out. Once. Twice. Please…

And hears him return to the warm spot on the floor next to her. She swears she can feel his body settling down, the energy in the room shifting. She is dizzy with the success and, because the old Akane seems to be in control and the old Akane takes risks, she does the third (forth? fifth?) utterly insane thing of the night. She pushes one hand out from under her duvet so that it hangs over the edge of her bed where he can see it. Plausible deniability, she tells herself. You can still pretend it means nothing.

Then she feels his fingers around her own. Cool, a little unsure, trembling slightly. Their hands move against each other as they both attempt to find a comfortable position from which to maintain the contact. It sends shivers through her curled-up body, despite the warm pajamas and the heavy duvet. She can feel that his skin is rough, especially his palms, and that his hand is so much larger than hers. Finally, he settles down, his grip light, careful, but secure.

She lies in a cocoon of warmth and safety, in the dark. For a long time, she thinks nothing, exists almost exclusively in the small touch between her and Ranma. When she finally hovers between wake and sleep, the intrusive thought of her own death comes to her, as it always does. But it does not manage to scare her away from slumber this time. Her frightened mind just turns to where Ranma is anchoring her and the thought vanishes. Akane sleeps.

…

Ranma awakes at first dawn to the sound of very light snoring. His hand is asleep all the way up his elbow, still propped up in an awkward position against the side of Akane’s bed, still holding on to Akane’s fingers. He very carefully disentangles himself, inhales sharply as the painful tingling starts. Sits up, waits until the worst of it is over and the feeling returns. Studies Akane. She is on her stomach, her head halfway under her pillow, one foot dangling over the edge of her bed to match her hand. The other pushed securely against the wall. Her duvet is almost entirely on the floor at the foot-end of her bed. Her hair is a tousled, black-blue mess. Her pajama top twisted around her body and scrunched up to reveal, this time, a good part of her back. Soft skin over relaxed muscles. It is a miracle that she managed to move so much without ever letting go of him.

He picks up her duvet and carefully covers her with it, allowing himself to bend over her slightly, touch her hair with his fingertips, inhale her scent. He smiles. He thinks that in his entire life, he has never seen anything as cute or alive as Akane now. Her body seems to call out to his, he can almost feel how it would be like to just shove her to the side a little, lie down beside her, have those arms draped over him. Her warmth seeping into him. Her smooth skin under his hands… But enough of that. He needs to go.

It is almost physically painful to turn away from her, to leave. But, he reasons, if he wants to be able to come back in the evening, no one can know, and he cannot be here for people to find him. So he takes the route over her desk, through the window, onto the roof.

He will need to get changed into pajamas and manage to get into his own bed before his parents wake up. He can already hear noises from the bathroom; Kasumi. He figures he has about twenty minutes before the smell of cooking will start to stir people. Enough time. He already misses the night, her room, her.

But then, he will see her at breakfast. And it might be a good day today.

Chapter Text

Akane’s room smells of pond water. This is because her hair smells of pond water. And her school-dress, discarded in a wet pile in a corner. Akane herself is shaking. The funny thing is: She did not start shaking until she got warm. She was perfectly calm when Kasumi came to her room with her, offered her some tea. She was still calm when she carefully peeled herself out of her drenched clothes and put her pajamas on instead. Calm when she sat back down on the chair, turned to her desk, directed her eyes out the window to the rapidly darkening sky.

Only when the tea warmed her from within and she heard the house quiet down beneath her did the shaking start. And it hasn’t really stopped since. She glances at her clock. It has been twenty minutes of shaking now. She is being ridiculous. Nothing even really happened.

Ranma is off on a date with a noble koi spirit that apparently has lived in the Tendo koi-pond for more than one hundred years. The koi spirit claims to have been in love with at least three generations of Tendo women. Ranma figures that his red hair, ample bosom and irresistible charm can sway the spirit’s affections and appease it. Also, so he actually said out loud, in front of everyone, he practically belongs to the Tendo family. And fluttered his long, girl-Ranma lashes. Akane’s heart leapt in her chest when he said it, but she reminded herself that he would say almost anything to win a challenge and that had calmed her back down.

Akane suspects the koi spirit will be willing to take Ranma as a substitute and be appeased in the end. These things tend to work out for Ranma, at least on the second or third try. And going on the date is the third try. He is willing to use his girl side’s special advantages in a challenge, but he isn’t eager to. So they tried to fix today’s mess in other ways first.

At first, it was a lot of fun. The koi spirit had said something about the pearls he would heap on the head of his beloved, so Nabiki had agreed to a date that would put him at peace. Ranma and Akane followed the couple around, hiding behind bushes and under tables, bumping into each other, blushing, bickering, trying to stop Nabiki from spending too much money on trinkets and treats. It had been like before Saffron. It had been like Akane hoped it would be when they took over the dojo and made a living monster-hunting. Camaraderie. Figuring things out. An exciting form of chaos that fills her with bright energy. She had even dared to think those thoughts. That is how much two nights of Ranma in her room had gotten to her head.

But then it had turned out that the “pearls” where really just white pebbles from the bottom of the Tendo pond and Nabiki’s interest vanished instantly. She just wandered off. Leaving behind an enraged koi spirit. Not that the spirit really posed a challenge for Ranma. Not even Ranma in his girl form. Not after Saffron. Probably wouldn’t have before Saffron.

The thing fought by conjuring bubbles of pond water out of thin air, entrapping its opponents. Not a very good trick. Ranma could just swim out of them. But then… Akane got caught, high in the air, in a bubble of water smelling slightly of fish. And Akane, in spite of her repeated attempts to improve, cannot swim out of anything.

It was less than a minute. But she remembers all off it, the panic, the water pressing in on her, the seagulls flying towards her, attracted by the smell. Birds coming for her and the feeling of being submerged. Cold water and feathers. And flashes of the Jusenkyo ponds and the bird woman Kima following her as she runs, not even really trying to catch her.

She tried to scream, inhaling the water, her lungs suddenly burning with it, the feeling of drowning…

Ranma burst the bubble by jumping through it, landed softly on his feet with her drenched form pressed against his girl-body. Always, even when he is much shorter and smaller than her, he can carry her without a hint of effort. He did not put her down right away. Just stood there breathing for a few heartbeats. But the koi spirit was after them and caught up quickly, angry, orange and gold sparks flying around him.

So Ranma placed her on the ground. Then, pushing her behind him with one arm, he took a fighting stance. They stood there, waiting for the koi spirit. Akane should have just wrung out her skirt and found a place to watch the fight. Maybe get a snack. But she was so panicked and upset, and the images from Jusendo kept forcing themselves into her head, she couldn’t help it. A sob escaped her. She could see it in Ranma’s shoulders that he heard it. Something seemed to just … leave him. When the koi spirit was in front of him, he didn’t fight. For the first time in her life, she heard him say (and mean it): “I give up. How about I go on that date with you?”

And that is what he did. Brought her home. Made sure Kasumi knew what had happened. Put on a cute outfit and left on a date with the man-shaped fish that had just tried to kill them both – even if it was a hopeless attempt.

Akane glances at the clock again. It is late. Much too late for a date-and-appeasement gone well. What if something happened? The koi spirit did not seem like he could cause Ranma any real trouble, but then Saffron had started out as a weak little brat too. If only the shaking would stop. If only she could calm herself down.

She could open the window. It is still getting cold at night, the summer is not in full swing yet, so keeping the window open will mean that she will be cold. But he will see it when he comes back, and he will know to stop by. Maybe he will even stay. Maybe that will allow her to breathe. Also, if the window is open she can see outside better, even with the light on. And somehow, right now, she cannot get herself to turn the light off.

Just as Akane slides the window open, Ranma pulls himself up from below. Suddenly, her nose is only two inches apart from his cute little girl-nose. He is so surprised, he almost loses his grip. But he catches himself and elegantly moves his petite body through the opening Akane has created. Then he stands on her carpet, his date-clothes in tatters, dripping on her floor, the smell of pond water intensifying in her room. He does not look seriously injured to Akane, but he is covered in scratches and light bruises. Something went wrong, but not very wrong.

His presence, and that he is fine, has an almost magical effect. Everything in Akane settles down. She no longer shakes, and while her heartbeat is still odd, it is now an entirely different kind of odd. She manages to regard him with an expression somewhere between reprimand and amusement. She crosses her arms. Sniffs. Says: “And what in the world happened to you?”

“Aww, somewhere in the middle there, someone dropped hot tea on me. The spirit didn’t take it well. And the stupid miniskirt made things awkward. He got a couple hits in before I managed to concentrate.”

“You’re a girl now.”

“I wasn’t going to walk home like that.”

The bruises show more on his girl skin than they would if he was a boy. Because his girl-skin is so soft, whispers something in her mind. She shoos the thought away. Busies herself by getting her first-aid kid out of the closet. “Sit” she says, matter-of-factly. As if she wasn’t already giddy at the prospect of touching him with good reason.

“You got something I can dry off with?” He asks, removing his wet top, the ripped mini-skirt. He is wearing boxer shorts underneath; they are barely shorter than the skirt. Always with the boxer shorts. At least they are almost dry.

She throws him a towel and one of her old t-shirts. Tries to appear disinterested as she watches him dry himself off. When he has put on the shirt and is halfway decent, he sits down and looks at her expectantly. They have done this before. Many, many times. She reminds herself that before Saffron, she was bandaging him up as a matter of course. And never did her hands shake at the thought of coming into contact with the warmth of his skin.

So she joins him. Assesses a small cut above his eyebrow, applies a band aid. Even with the pond water, his female smell is almost overwhelmingly lovely this close. She needs to concentrate. Be methodical. Work efficiently. A minute or so passes. She notices that he has closed his eyes. He must be tired. Her room is very quiet and from outside, there is only the whispering of the wind in the trees.

“Why did you agree to go on that stupid date anyway? You could have won the first time you fought.” she suddenly asks. She has no idea why. Why can’t she just let it rest? Wasn’t she feeling better? Did she have to remind herself, and him, of what happened? What did even happen? Nothing. It was nothing. She was being silly. That is all.

He stutters around a little before he manages to answer. Then, because of course he knows what she is really asking about and maybe also because they are entirely alone, he says: “You needed to get out of there. So I needed the fight to stop.”

He opens his eyes and looks at her. His expression makes her hold her breath. He looks worried, pained. But there is also something else in the way his jaw is set. She thinks that it shouldn’t be possible for someone to look loyal. “Loyal” isn’t a facial expression. But that is what she sees in his face. Loyalty. A look as if of course her needs are his goals. As if there just isn’t a distinction between the two.

She feels the blush rising in her own face and, to ward off the awkwardness of the moment, she slaps on another band aid, maybe a little too enthusiastically. He winces. Says “Ouch.” And “Be careful, you klutz.”

She huffs. “Idiot.” And as if that is not enough, she adds: “What I needed has never bothered you in a fight before.” Of course that is not true. But usually, her needs must be a little more urgent before he reacts. Like, she is falling off something, or unconscious. Not some little sob, barely audible, escaping her involuntarily. So, she thinks, the remark is fair enough.

He stands. Seems upset. For a moment, she is afraid he might leave. She almost says something to appease him. Then, as if it was the most normal thing in the world (except that he is turning bright red as he does it), he grabs the pillow and blanket that are sitting beside her bed and starts making himself a place to sleep.

Happiness rushes through Akane with tingling intensity. She is almost giddy with it. Suddenly, she cannot wait to turn off the light, lie in the dark, listen to him breathing. Out loud, she just says: “What if someone saw you come in? My lights were still on. I am not sure Nabiki has gone to bed yet.”

He contemplates that for a few seconds, then he nods, walks out of her door. Akane gets into her bed and waits for the second time this evening. Feels the bedding around her go from pleasantly cool to comfortingly warm. She is not shaking, and in her head, there are no dark thoughts. Only the image of Ranma, making himself at home, getting ready to go to sleep. His smell. His soft skin, his unruly red hair, his strong little body. She waits for about ten minutes, then he is back in her room, now in his male form and in pajamas, through the window.

“Everyone is asleep.” He informs her. Lies down, arranges the blanket. “Turn off the light. I’m beat.”

…

Ranma sees Akane’s face, under water. Her hair is a floating halo around her. Bubbles in front of her. A piece of pond plant. And then he sees her screaming. Eyes wide and full of panic, teeth bared, nostrils flaring. She chokes, the water enters her throat, her nose, her lungs. Pain, all over her features, she tries to cough the water up but can’t because every time she attempts to draw air, there is only more water. The terror makes her scream again. Silent, the sound drowned out, all of it erased but a quiet kind of wailing that reaches his ears, freezes his insides, rips him apart.

Then, from one moment to the next, he is awake, sitting up on the hard floor, catching his breath, surrounded by darkness. He shivers, sweat cooling on his skin now that the blanket has slipped off. It takes him a moment to orient himself, to realize that the sound did not stop when the dream ended, that the eerie wailing is still all around him.

It is coming from Akane in the bed beside him. She is moving in little hectic bursts, drawing in air through her open mouth in sudden, large breaths, emitting desperate, quiet cries. His body moves him close to her without giving his mind time to interfere. Sitting on her bed, he can see her face glistening in the soft grey of her dark room. Her cheeks are wet from tears, the rest of her is bathed in sweat, her hair sticking to her forehead. Her hands make desperate grasping motions, fingers clawing the duvet. He feels pressure behind his own eyes, his throat constricts. He needs to wake her up, he needs to make whatever she is going through disappear.

He reaches for her shoulder and shakes her carefully. But the moment she feels his touch, she starts to scream. A high pitched, anguished keening. Loud. So, so loud that his very first impulse is to clamp his hand down over her mouth and make her stop. Because no matter how much he must help her out of her nightmare, he must also preserve whatever secret it is that has settled itself between them, whatever magical thing has allowed him to go to sleep next to her tonight.

She bites down on his hand, hard. The pain is sharp and sudden, and her teeth break skin immediately, almost effortlessly. He flinches but manages not to make a sound. She wakes up with droplets of his blood on her lips, blinks, she goes absolutely still. Then she suddenly pushes herself backwards, against the wall, the blind panic of her dream still clouding the brown of her eyes as she stares at him, uncomprehending. She pants, sputters, spits. His blood, mixed with her saliva, on her chin, dripping down onto the front of her pajamas.

His hand stings, but weirdly it is almost not painful, not compared to what his chest is doing. He needs to reach her, to get her out of it, to make her come back into the safety of her own room, back from wherever it is that she still believes herself to be. He can hear her fingernails scratching on the wall, her fingers moving across it as if they are searching for something to hold on to. He feels an overwhelming need to be that something.

“Akane…” he hears himself say, watches himself reach out to her as if he isn’t even really involved, as if this is all happening just an inch to the side, just a second later than now. But then, when his uninjured hand makes contact with her bare forearm, he is suddenly thrown back into his body. The world shrinks down to only her, only her terrified face, only the clamminess of her skin where he is touching her, only the sound of her shallow breathing.

“Akane.” He says again. “Snap out of it. You hear? You’re fine.” Her eyes focus, meet his. Her fingers pause. Her shoulders relax. “There you go…” he says as if he is speaking to a shy animal, as if he is coaxing a lost dog out from under a bush. He wipes his bleeding hand on her duvet, a dark smear, the contact sends sharp pain up his arm, strangely welcome, grounding. She looks down on the stain, stares. He gives her arm a squeeze, unable to take his hand away, unwilling to break the contact. “Hey…” he tries. And then she starts to cry.

It is not a pretty cry. The tears come like a flood, squeezing out from under closed eyelids. She seems unable to control them. In seconds, her whole body is in movement again. Sobs rack her, she uses her duvet to wipe snot off her face. Rubs her eyes with closed fists, shaking off Ranma’s hand. Hiccups. Ranma sits, entirely frozen, hands useless on his knees, heart beating out of his chest, terrified. Watching her cry for minutes. Between hiccups, she apologizes. “Sorry” she says, “’m sorry”. And: “Ranma, ‘m sorry, please. So sorry.”

Hearing her speak his name returns some control to him. What can he do? He carefully takes her wet, clammy wrists in his hands, forces them off her face. “Hey …” he tries again, it is the only thing he can think to say. Her hands are shaking in his. She is shivering, every muscle tense. She refuses to look him in the eye. He pulls her wrists closer to his body, and her whole sobbing self follows, just sinks into him, her face against his shoulder now, leaving wet spots on his shirt.

He lets go of her hands, and for a moment frantically moves his own through the air around her, trying to decide what to do with them. She cries and cries. Finally, almost mechanically, he moves one arm around her waist, the other under her knees. He draws her into him until she is completely surrounded by him, curled up inside his embrace. Now each movement of her body moves his too, and together they sit, let whatever this is wash through her and also through him, waiting it out. It is all he can do. It feels horrible. It feels wonderful. She is so soft. She smells so good.

An eternity passes. Her breathing slows. Her tears ebb. At some point, he does not know how, it is over. She becomes calm. A shiver runs through her. She lifts her head, looks up to his face, then down to her waist, where the blood from his hand has produced a nice dark stain on her yellow pajamas. He carefully lets go of her, turns the hand so they can inspect the bite together. It looks angry, but it isn’t too large a wound.

“You’re feral, tomboy.” He offers with a chuckle. She manages a weak smile. Carefully moves off his lab, leans over to turn on the light. Gets up from the bed on wobbly legs, draws the already drawn curtains closer together. Looks around. “What are you searching for?” he asks.

“The first aid kit.” She says. She sounds stuffy from crying, her voice isn’t fully under her control yet. He wants her back in his arms. He hates that she is moving around in the room, hates every inch between them.

“Over there” he says, he can hear that he sounds grumpy. She picks it up and returns to the bed, sits down next to him. He holds out his hand, suddenly eager for any kind of contact, under any excuse. She takes it in both of hers, small and graceful, nails trimmed short, callouses from breaking blocks. Goosebumps move up his arm.

She applies disinfectant, a sharp pain, then wraps gauze around it, from his knuckles to his wrist. She does it slowly, as if she is moving against resistance. When she is finished, she contemplates it, his hand in hers, palm up. His pulse is irregular, he tries to steady himself, staring at her red-rimmed eyes, the blotches all over her face, her nose, runny. She is the definition of beauty, somehow, it makes no sense.

Then, moved by some weird impulse, she brings his hand to her face, places it against her cheek, closes her eyes, just a moment. He holds his breath, does not dare to move. What is she doing? He does not understand what is happening to him, what in all the world is going on. He is overcome with desire. At the same time, with the impulse to flee.

She lets him go, positions herself so that she is sitting on her bed with her back leaning against the wall. Looks at him, he cannot read her expression. But he finds that he is incapable of moving away from her. He his caught. So he sits next to her, shoulders almost, but not quite, touching.

“Can we stay like this for a while?” she asks. He remembers how she asked this before, on the park bench after the disaster with the power-suit. So he says what he said then, hoping she will recognize the meaning, the repetition. “Doesn’t matter to me.”

She moves imperceptibly, now their shoulders are touching. He closes his eyes, lets the warmth from that tiny point of contact enter his body, breathes her scent, the scent from her bedding. Feels under him her mattress, her duvet under his fingers. Against all odds, and underneath the bone-deep exhaustion, he feels a strange kind of happiness.

…

Akane awakens slowly, and only halfway. Under her head, Ranma’s chest. She does not need to think to recognize it, somehow his heartbeat is so familiar that she knows immediately. She still smells pond water, but also dried sweat, and blood, and Ranma. Her eyes are crusty, there is the shadow of a headache forming from all the crying. She is warm, surrounded by the living heat produced by bodies wrapped up in each other. She moves her fingers and they touch his skin. She moves her toes and they touch his leg through his pajama-pants. She feels his belly rising and falling against her.

She contemplates lifting her head so she can see the clock and find out what time it is. But his hand is resting in the nape of her neck and she does not want it anywhere else. Also, he might wake up, and then this might end. Whatever this is.

There is some light in the room, but it is greyish and weak. It can’t be later than five AM, at most five thirty. Still some time. Akane breathes deep, concentrates on the scent, on his steady heartbeat under her cheek. Falls back asleep.

Wakes up hours later, the light in her room now a subdued kind of yellow, sunshine playing on her walls, sneaking in where her curtains leave a little space. She can hear voices from downstairs. For a moment, nothing registers and she is tempted to just let herself sink down into his embrace again, where sweet slumber waits for her. But then: They must have noticed he has not slept in the guestroom by now!

She jumps from the shock of the realization, and immediately she is scared of losing the promise of him, in her room, again, tonight. If they find out!

Her movement wakes him up. She can feel him coming to underneath her, realizes fully what it means that she is draped over him like a second, smaller duvet, that literally every part of her body is touching some part of his. She scrambles away from him, tries to pretend as if her skin isn’t complaining with every loss of touch, every inch they separate.

He sits up, rubs the back of his head. “Sorry.” He says. Then: “I wasn’t…” but he does not seem to know how to continue, because rather obviously he was. And she was too.

She stares at his face, tries to come up with something to say, something that makes last night seem normal, or at least manageable. She realizes there is nothing. So instead she whispers: “How are you going to explain that you didn’t sleep with your parents in the guestroom?”

She expects him to look worried, but instead he grins. A beautiful, cocky grin, lopsided. The grin she knows from when he has outsmarted an opponent, has the winning card in his back pocket.

“What do you think why I found that stupid magic koi food?” He says, the grin broadening, lighting up his whole face. “I told pop I can’t stand sleeping with my folks anymore, they’re too loud, its too crowded. I was cleaning out the storage closet in the dojo. They think I am sleeping there. No one knows nothing!”

This, of course, is the exact moment when Kasumi gives a polite little knock and enters the room with a tray. “I thought after the rough day you had you might want a little … oh my!” she chirps and almost drops the tray. Ranma flies out of Akane’s bed so fast, her hair moves a little from the breeze.

Kasumi just stands there, very still. Looks from one to the other. Her gaze wanders to Akane’s puffy eyes, Ranma’s bandaged hand, the blood on it, and on the duvet, her sister’s pajama top, smeared over her chin. The pillow and blanket on the floor. The incredible mess. She sniffs the air, wrinkles her nose. The silence is thick and heavy.

“Well.” She finally says, quietly. “If that is how it is.” And then louder, very cheerful: “If you don’t feel well, Akane, stay in bed for a while. I think Ranma is on a run, we haven’t seen him yet. But he did come home yesterday, so everything is fine. We will see you later!” Then she hands Akane the tray and closes the door as she leaves.

It takes Akane a bit to reach a point at which she feels able to move. She just sits and stares at the tray, at the food on it. Eggs, a bowl of rice, fruit cut into lovely little slices. Kasumi food. Kasumi, who rarely ever says anything of substance. Kasumi, who keeps her mouth shut and does what needs to be done. Kasumi, who just might keep the secret.

So she puts the tray down and looks at Ranma. His cheeks are deep red, his eyes wide and a little shocked, but there is a kind of smile playing on his lips. He looks incredibly beautiful to her, the broad shoulders, the arms that held her so tight, surrounded her entirely. And she wants to touch him again so badly that it almost feels as if something is physically pulling her towards him.

“You want some?” she whispers.

“Ya.” he says, and he crosses the room again, closing the distance between them. Sits down next to her on the bed. She tries to determine whether or not he sits a little closer than he would really have to. She cannot decide. She hopes.

They share the food. Its taste is weirdly intense, strangely delicious. When it is gone, they both get up off the bed awkwardly. Stand there, opposite each other. “I will have to get all my bedding washed.” She says. Then she looks at him, gestures at his hand. “Does it hurt?”

“Naw. T’is fine. You ok?”

“Sure” she says.

She hesitates, and she can feel him hesitating. She knows, and knows that he knows, that he has to leave. Leave now. She also knows what she wants to do, but it seems incredibly difficult. There is something like a boundary around him, making it almost impossible to just reach out and touch him. She wonders why that is.

She makes a tiny movement towards him, with her arms. Notices it mirrored in a small shift of his own position. So she gives him a quick little hug, nothing untoward, like she might give a friend, she thinks.

Or she intended it to be a little hug. Because almost automatically, he draws her in, whole body pressed against him through thin pajamas. She can feel every part of him, she is very aware of how strong he is, notices how he is reacting to her. She makes an effort not to give it any conscious thought, but it fills her with something warm and lovely. Then, he lets her go.

“See you tonight?” he says, his voice somewhere between hopeful and see-if-I-care.

“Ok.” She answers imitating his tone and watches him disappear through her window. Immediately, her room feels very empty without him in it.

The day ahead of her seems difficult to tackle. She will need to make herself presentable, face Kasumi, find out whether she is keeping quiet.

But after the day, there will be the night again. And during the night, Ranma. The weird, new Ranma that can be touched, and held, that hugs her back, if she is careful. She doesn’t even just hope for it anymore. She is sure now.

Chapter Text

It is getting late. Ranma does not know where Akane is. He has searched for her, has run all over the neighborhood, has scoured Nerima, the rooftops, the streets, abandoned lots, the shops, the school. Nothing. With nowhere left to look, nowhere to go, he sits on the Tendo roof and waits.

He stands up, jumps down into the yard, is almost on his way again, stops himself, gets back on the roof, sits restlessly. He does not dare to enter her room, so he listens for any noise from down below. Waits for light to shine from her window into the evening. But her window is dark. The house is quiet. He only hears Kasumi, moving around.

She could be anywhere, she could be nowhere. She could be completely fine. So he tells himself. She is probably fine, alive, just angry. Just shocked. She is most likely not dead. Most likely, nothing has happened to her while she was out of his sight, out of his earshot, somewhere alone where he cannot protect her. She is not dead, he repeats to himself. She is ok, she just needs space, she’s just upset. He does not believe a single word. The fear hums through him, the tension makes his head hurt. He is going insane. There is no reason to think she might be in danger.

And yet. For more than a month now, he has always known where she was. Since China, there has not been a single hour unaccounted for. Even when he had to leave her alone, he made sure someone was with her, was watching her. Usually Kasumi, sometimes her dad, someone who would let him know if anything went wrong. He has not made the mistake of leaving her without protection. Not after what happened when he left her behind the last time. He has made sure he knows who is with her, that she is fine, safe, not dead. Not dead. Oh, please, he will give everything if she is just not dead.

It is almost dark now. It has been many hours since Akari Unryu came out of the house and walked past him while he was training in the yard. It was hot, the sun was high in the sky. Her steps had been a little too determined, a little too fast, her face a little too closed off. He hadn’t paid it any heed, at first. He didn’t even know what had happened between her and Akane, at that point. The girl had shown up looking for Ryoga and Akane asked her in for tea.

Things had been fine before that. Better than fine. Akane seemed collected, happy even, had seemed that way all day. And so he had been happy too. The night, with all its mess, had left them in a hopeful kind of agreement. High spirited, both of them, fighting happily with each other. He teased her over breakfast, they bickered on the way to school, she swung her bag at him, almost hit him, but not quite. He would have let her if she had really tried. He felt as if they were moving according to the same rhythm. As they approached the school gate, their feet hit Kuno’s face at the exact same time. It filled him with joy.

So when Akari left suddenly, he didn’t think anything of it. Something in him had just assumed that nothing bad could happen today. Not after the night. Not after the hug in the morning, and the promise of another night. But then, ten minutes after Akari, Akane jumped out of her own window. Walked across the yard without looking at him, into the street and started running.

Ranma just stood there, for precious seconds, doing nothing. Frozen to the spot. Too confused to follow right away. And then when he did…. Nothing. Gone. As if the earth had opened up and swallowed her hole. As if birds had swooped from the sky and carried her away. As if she had vanished into thin air. Again.

She may be fine. She may be alive. Probably just upset. Probably just needs some time. Cold. Still. Birds from the sky, empty clothes, fire all around her. Dead, dead in his arms.

He needs to breathe. He needs to just wait for her. The night around him has grown cold. The sky is almost completely black. Thick, angry clouds are blotting out all the stars.

Ryoga had shown up maybe an hour after Akane left, in a kind of weird panic, dragged into the yard by Akari. Akari, whose sweet face had lost all its sweetness. Ranma ran into him as he circled back to the dojo to see if Akane had returned. The pig boy was stammering things, crying, the overdramatic jerk. Claiming he needed to explain. Asking where Akane was. How should Ranma know where Akane was? He was searching for her himself.

And then, looking at Akari, at her expression like stone, Ranma understood. And felt the guilt, like a knife through him. And then, right away, the rage, like a burning hot needle stitching him back together. He allowed the rage to take over, it was the easier feeling, one he could deal with.

“You told her about Ryoga. You told her about his curse.” He said quietly to Akari, ignoring Ryoga’s blabbering. She nodded, her lips pressed together, her expression composed in a dangerous sort of way.

“Take him away from here.” He said.

She did not move.

“And do not come back.” He added. And then, yelling, “Now!” And she did. She grabbed the pig-boy by the arm and left.

That was the last he heard of them. He does not care what happened to Ryoga. He does not care whether Akari knows that Ryoga slept in Akane’s bed as P-Chan, let her kiss him, hold him.

In Akane’s bed. Where Ranma slept last night. Where her body and his body had fit together so closely that everything seemed worth it, for just a few minutes there, in between short, sweet periods of deep sleep. Where she had let him calm her, comfort her, take some of her pain out of her and into himself, just as he should. His Akane.

My Akane. Mine. Please, please bring her back to me. I promise, I will do anything.

And then, like an answer to his pleading, finally, yellow light from her window. Shining into the yard, brightening everything. His heart jumps, he is on his feet immediately, loudly. How did he miss her coming into the house?

He cannot wait to see her, he needs to speak to her, right now. Needs to make sure she can deal, see how she is doing, how she is feeling. See that she is ok. Part of him is full of guilt, expects her to be angry at him. Part of him is just glad she is back. Part of him is strangely elated. The pig is out of the picture for good.

He swings himself down to her window, hangs head-first from the roof. He is so relieved; there she is, her back turned to the window. He will talk to her, explain. Maybe he can apologize, maybe she will even let him stay. They will be fine.

She turns around, their eyes meet, and things go dark inside him. Her face is so pale, her eyelids red, her mouth a thin line. She holds his gaze, but her expression is tired and there is no fire in it. Everything is all wrong.

Still, when she approaches the window, he expects her to open it. He prepares himself for her yelling. He tells himself he will listen, and he will tell her he is sorry, and he will try not to defend himself. Surely, now that she is safely back, things will turn out all right.

But all she does is draw the curtains, shutting him out. The yard is immediately dark again, the yellow light from her window all but gone. Ranma is left hanging upside down, suddenly the whole world seems packed in cotton. Everything as if from far away, the sounds of a car going by, the cold air, the slight strain of keeping his feet secured to the roof, all of it feels as if it does not really concern him.

Finally, slowly, he pulls himself up, sits back down on the clay-tiles. He ought to go, he thinks to himself. He should sleep in the dojo’s storage room, in his fake-alibi-bed. He knows she is fine now, after all. And she does not want him in her room. Does not want him close by. So he ought to leave.

But he can’t. His body won’t move. His feet won’t obey him.

He lies down on the roof, right above her room, where he guesses her bed is, as close to her as he can be. There is pressure behind his eyes, his throat hurts, he keeps swallowing.

The thought he has kept at bay all day invades his mind: He should have told her about Ryoga.

There it is, the guilt he has painted over first with rage, then with worry and fear. He should have told her, and yet he didn’t. At first, because he had promised it on his honor. Then, because he was afraid of what she would do if she found out that he had known all along.

Maybe also because he was jealous and angry at Ryoga and at Akane, for sharing something he could not have. The closeness. The snuggling. He remembers, in a flash, how it was to sleep in her bed with her, with her body on his, how soft she was, how good she felt. How warm he had been. Not even a whole day ago. And now –

The roof is cold. The wind is cold. Ranma feels cold.

…

Akane draws her blanket up to her chin, tries to get the chill out of her bones. She stayed outside for too long, only returned when it got too cold and windy for her in her shorts and her little t-shirt, when she could smell the rain coming. The blanket is too thin, she has brought it to her room from downstairs.

She couldn’t sleep in her dirty bedding, not with Ranma’s blood still on it. Not with the memory of last night assaulting her constantly, unbidden, when all she wants is to be angry and sad and disappointed in an uncomplicated, undiluted sort of way.

Her duvet, her pillow, the blanket Ranma slept under, the pillow with the duck, all of it in a crumbled heap by the laundry, where Kasumi will find it first thing in the morning. She wants it all washed, all cleaned, she wants the last bit of his scent out of her room.

She wants him back.

She never wants to talk to him again, to see him again. She cannot believe he betrayed her. And of course he did! She cannot believe he could let her think that Ryoga was her pet, cannot believe he allowed her to take the pig to bed. She remembers all the times he hit and kicked and stepped on P-Chan, how he tried to get the creature out of her room. How he yelled and fought and pouted. But he never told her. The coward. Never …

She wishes she could cry in his arms about it, could let her sadness melt into him and then away. She keeps thinking back to last night, can still feel herself small and curled up in his embrace, surrounded by his arms, every one of her sobs running through him as well. Her body’s need for him feels like an insult to her now.

She turns in her bed, imagines him above her on the roof. She can hear him there, intermittently moving. The isolation is not very good in the old house, every time he changes his position, she perceives it. Knowing him so close makes it impossible for her to rest. Every time she forces her thoughts away from him, the memory of how he feels against her returns, over and over. But it brings her no joy because with it, now, also comes disgust.

Beneath the anger, the sadness, the disappointment with Ranma, beneath all of it, she feels disgust. Disgust at Ryoga, at her room, at every inch of the house where she held, and cuddled and played with the pig. Disgust even at her own body, her own hands that picked him up, pressed him against her. The feeling has driven her all over Nerima, running almost without pause for so long that her legs are full of dull pain.

She cannot stand it. Cannot permit her mind to accept that Ryoga touched her without her knowing, without her allowing it. That he slept in her bed, received her affections, circumvented her will, submitted her to his nauseating wishes. Her lips on him, the shape of her body available to his mind whenever he wants to call it back. She wants to shake herself out of her skin, leave her body behind, the body that wasn’t Ryoga’s to enjoy and that he …

She hears rain against her window. It is a soft noise at first, but soon it grows angry, loud. A storm outside and a storm inside. A small part of her, the part that is not submerged in sadness and anger and repulsion, welcomes the way the weather mirrors her mood. She hears the wind rattling the shutters downstairs. The house is old, the heating has been turned off for the summer, so the temperature in her room drops perceptively. She shivers. And thinks of Ranma on the roof.

It serves him right.

He probably left when it started raining.

It’s his own problem if he gets cold up there.

Without making a conscious decision, she gets up, climbs on her desk, finds herself squatting there, pulling the curtains apart, opening the window. The wind immediately drives the rain inside, like needles on her face. She gets up, leans out the window, her hands securing her to the frame, trying to see what is on the roof. She sees nothing, the rain stings her eyes, soaks her hair, her shoulders.

She pulls herself up onto the roof, already shivering, careful not to slip. She will just make sure that he isn’t up here anymore. Then she can get back inside, dry off … there he is.

He is a pitiful little pile of wet misery, curled in on himself, his short girl-arms wrapped around his tiny girl-frame. His teeth are chattering intensely. His eyes are shut tight, his red bangs plastered to his forehead, his red shirt completely drenched. He looks like a wet cat, of all things. He has not noticed she is there.

“Ranma.” She shouts against the wind. He opens one eye, then both. Lifts his head. Gets into a sitting position, slowly, as if he finds it difficult to move. Tries to wipe the water out of his eyes, with no success. Pouts. She cannot believe him.

“Go inside!” she yells, and turns to leave, making her way back down the roof with slow, careful steps. But she has to look at him again when she prepares to swing down to her window, and he is still sitting there, dripping wet, looking wretched.

“Go inside!” she yells again, angry now. He answers something, but the wind carries it away. She cannot understand him. So she returns to him. “You will catch your death!” she shouts, straight into his ear.

“I can’t leave, you idiot!” He yells back. He sounds utterly defeated. His little hands are performing a complicated dance in his lap, and he is staring down at them.

“What in the world is that supposed to mean?” she asks, but she knows that her voice is too quiet for him to hear over the storm. She doesn’t really want to know the answer. If there even is one.

She reaches out and grabs his wrist. She makes sure her grip is hard, she wants him to feel that she is angry. She gives him a pull. He looks up at her with his big eyes and his pouty mouth.

“Just come on then!” she yells. He gets up, seems unsure what to do.

“Get in there!” she gestures at the beam of light coming from her room. “You will catch your death, you idiotic idiot!” It feels good to be angry. Angry and alive. The ice-cold rain makes her skin tingle.

He just looks at her for what feels like an eternity. Then he grabs her around the waist and, with a couple of jumps and an acrobatic twist, he has moved them both into her room. The moment their feet land on her floor, he lets her go. The sudden change from howling storm to yellowish quiet is disorienting.

He is staring at his feet. She distracts herself by finding him dry clothes in her closet, making sure that her whole body radiates annoyance so he does not get any wrong ideas. She throws them at him, then she picks out a new pajama for herself. “Get yourself changed.” She says and leaves her room to dry off.

When she returns, he is wearing her clothes. Otherwise, it looks as if he hasn’t moved at all. He is still standing in his old spot, still studying his own naked feet. His wet, red pigtail is soaking one shoulder of his otherwise dry t-shirt.

“What now?” she asks, in an accusatory tone.

“Why did you run off?” he suddenly snaps, looking her straight in the eyes, outraged. “What were you thinking, just disappearing like that?”

Her anger turns into white hot liquid, a buzzing tension in her entire body. She feels the color rising in her cheeks. Her hands clench into fists, her shoulders straighten. She takes a step towards him, towers over his small girl-frame. She opens and closes her mouth twice, tries to stop herself from screaming the entire house together. Finally, pushing the words out between clenched teeth: “And why do you think you get to ask me that?”

He meets her glare, returns it. “What do you mean? I’m…” but she does not let him finish.

“You’re what?” she spits. “You’re my fiancé?” She takes another step towards him. “You didn’t even tell me about the PIG!” She shouts the last word, yells it straight into his face. She feels tears burning in her eyes, but she is too enraged to let them fall.

For a second, it looks as if he is going to defend himself, fight back. But then his posture collapses, his shoulders slouch. He avoids her eyes again, looks to the floor. “Sorry, Akane.” He whispers. “Please, I…”

“What?” she snaps, but she can already feel the anger leaving her. His apology is sincere, she can sense his presence getting smaller in her room, as if he is retreating into himself. He looks up at her, his long lashes still clumped together from moisture.

“I didn’t know whether you were ok.” He explains, and there is so much strain in his voice that it cracks in the middle of the sentence.

It deflates her. Suddenly, she is so tired. All she wants to do is lie down, close her eyes, let the day end. She turns away from him, takes the two steps to her bed, sits down on it.

“It’s not ok.” She tells him. “But.” she doesn’t know how to end the sentence. There are so many things she could say, all of which are true, none of which she feels capable of saying.

But it will be ok. But I will forgive you. But I love you. But I need you, right now, here with me.

He is watching her intently, frozen on the spot. She lies down, turns her back to him, scooches over until she is close to the wall, with plenty of space on the mattress next to her. She can feel the empty space, waiting to be filled. She cannot understand why she is making herself vulnerable yet again, why she is giving him another opportunity to hurt her. She just does. Her need for him is greater than her need to protect herself.

Finally, she hears him approach. “D’you …” he begins, trails off, then seems to decide on what he wants to ask. “D’you want me to get hot water?”

“No.” She covers her face with her hands. “Not today.”

“Right.” His voice is hesitant. She feels the mattress move as he sits down. “Is … is this ok?”

She squeezes her eyes shut, nods. He settles himself down beside her, very carefully, very slowly. A deep sigh, then he sniffs. Once, twice. Clears his throat. What is he…?

She turns halfway around, looks at him. He is wiping his eyes, but the moment he feels her gaze on him, he lowers his hands, stops sniffling, lies there very still. She thinks he is holding his breath.

So she turns back towards the wall. Closes her eyes, tries to relax her muscles. Heat is radiating from him. The storm is howling around the house. He reaches towards the lamp, turns off the light. Long, long seconds of nothing. She tries not to think about Ryoga. She tries not to think about Ranma.

Then, so unexpected that she jumps a little, his small hand against her shoulder. She breathes, collects herself, turns around under the blanket. He is looking right at her, his cute, girly face only a few inches from hers.

“What is it, Ranma?” she says, she tries to sound irritated, but it comes out all wrong, making her sound sad. He uhs and ahs a little, closes his eyes, seems to be concentrating. When he finally answers, he is so close that his breath tickles her skin, that she feels what he says as well as hears it: “You are my fiancée, though.” She does not know what to answer, her heart thumps in her chest. He cannot hold her gaze, averts his eyes. And adds: “And I’m yours”.

The longing goes through her like a wave, washing her against his body. Suddenly her arms are around his little form, drawing him into her with urgency. He feels small against her, and very rigid. He makes a surprised sound.

She does not let him go, she needs him close to her too badly. Then she feels him relax. His arms around her waist. His legs against her legs, his little feet cold against her shin. He buries his face in her neck, she can feel him breathing her in. His red hair tickles her nose.

“You’re right.” She says. Somehow, his touch seems to remove the traces of Ryoga that she felt on herself all day. “It’s ok.”

She closes her eyes. She is so tired.

…

Ranma studies Akane’s sleeping face, then glances at her clock again. Fifteen more minutes, maybe, then he must go. Light is already sneaking past the curtains into her room, painting bright little patterns on her walls.

He does not want to leave. His body is pleasantly tangled up with hers and he finds it hard to believe that it already doesn’t feel surreal anymore to be this close. Finds it equally hard to believe that he does not mind being a girl while cuddling with her in bed. It is strangely pleasant and comforting to be slightly smaller than her, to have her arms wrapped around him protectively. He stopped actively disliking his curse a long time ago, and he loves dressing his girl-side up, putting on disguises, getting free food. But he cannot think of many times when he enjoyed being small like this, when it brought him comfort, put him at ease.

He wants her to wake up. Somehow, it feels wrong to leave without her knowing, sneak out of her bed silently while she is still asleep. He does not know why, but the thought of doing anything behind her back right now seems discomforting. Also, he just wants to see her looking back at him the way she does when she is happy with him.

“Hey Akane.” He tries and carefully gives her shoulder a small poke. “Hey, wake up.”

She mumbles something, tightens her grip on him, smiles. Then she sighs and goes still again. Ranma frowns, carefully untangles himself a little so he can move better. This time, he gives her shoulder a shake. “Akane!”

She responds with nothing more than a grumble and the attempt to burrow deeper under the flimsy little wool blanket she has on her bed instead of her duvet. But Ranma does not fall for it. She is awake. She just doesn’t want to be.

“I know you ain’t sleeping Akane, come on, wake up!” He gives her another little shake. This time, Akane doesn’t even move. She just breathes deeply and evenly. But for a fraction of a second, he can see the corner of her mouth twitch. She is suppressing a smile.

That does it. If she wants to play, he can play. Little, mischievous sparks of happiness rush through him. He can feel the big smile on his face. He positions his hand right over the spot where the beautiful curve of her waist meets her ribs, extends two fingers.

“Oh, Akane…” he says in a sing-song voice. She has no idea what is coming for her, or she would not ignore him. But she just keeps breathing evenly, though the corners of her eyes crinkle, and her mouth twitches again.

So he pokes her right where he knows it tickles her most. And then three things happen in very quick succession.

The first is that she lets out a high-pitched yelp and curls up around him with almost violent abruptness, hurting the hand with yesterday’s bite in the progress, which causes him to move it slightly downwards.

The second is that he goes completely red when he realizes that their combined movements have made her pajamas hike up, and that he is now touching the soft, smooth skin of her side with one hand, and her warm, muscular back with the other.

The third is that while he is distracted by the sudden contact with her naked skin, she starts a counterattack.

With a smooth, quick swipe, he finds himself beneath her, pinned to the mattress by her legs and hands. She grins down at him. “Too slow.” She taunts. He stares up at her. Her black-blue hair is sticking out in every direction. Her eyes, still a little puffy, are excited and bright. The neckline of her top is a bit off-center, revealing even more skin and her collarbone. She is smiling, pink lips open, slightly chapped. She licks them, and he is mesmerized by it.

“What are you going to do now?” She giggles. He swears, it is the most wonderful sound in the entire world, and he is the only one lucky enough to be there for it. He thanks the heavens he is in his girl body while she is sitting on him like this.

“Why you little …” he pants and wiggles around, trying to fight while holding back his own strength. He does not really want any of this to end. So instead of throwing her off him, he just frees his hands from her grip and tries to grab the pillow that he knows is somewhere above him.

With his arms above his head, he is a perfect target for tickling, and somehow there is so much joy in the air and so much comfort between them that she attacks him like a little child. He laughs and squirms, his fingers desperately searching. One of his hands slips in between her mattress and the wall, he touches something smooth and cool with a sharp edge, grabs it, pulls.

She gasps when she sees what he has found, immediately moves off him, retreats to the foot of the bed. The sudden loss of contact confuses him, it is almost painful not to feel her anymore. He sits up gracelessly, scrambling around, trying to get his arms and legs in order. Then he looks at the polaroid in his hand.

It is a picture of her rug. Her little pillow with the duck is lying right next to what he guesses must be the edge of her bed. Beneath it, twisted and wrinkled, a thin, light-blue blanket, almost just a sheet. And that is it. A picture of the floor, with a pillow and a blanket.

He looks up at her and sees only shock and panic in her face. Looks down at the picture again. Comprehends nothing. “What …?” he starts, but she just shakes her head, her eyes big and round in her face, her cheeks rapidly losing color.

And then he understands. And somehow, understands far more than just that the picture he is holding in his hand is, strangely, a picture of him. In an overwhelming rush, he understands his place in her life, the degree to which they are depending on one another. The pain he has caused her by denying his confession of love. Why he gets to be here, in her room, in her bed, a day after she found out about Ryoga. Why he gets to hold her, hug her, feel her skin under his hands. What it really means, the possessive “Mine!” that asserts itself in his mind every time he sees her. And what it means that this thought is always matched with another, an equally confident complement: “Yours”.

It floods him, leaves him buzzing and dizzy and terrified. His hand with the polaroid is shaking slightly. He can see his own emotions reflected in her pale, tense face. They sit in a long moment of fearful silence, suddenly so scared of each other. She speaks first. “Ranma…” she tries, her voice thin and unsure. “That is …” but she does not continue. She just gives up, falls silent again.

And he just cannot deal with the enormity of it all. He knows he should stay, but it is too much. So he does what he always does. He says “I got to go.” and flees through the window, the polaroid still in his hand.

Chapter Text

The polaroid is smudged around the edges and creased along several lines. Ranma has taken it out of and stuffed it back into his shirt all day. Stared at it. Contemplated the implications. Fretted about it. Considered what to do about it. The only thing he has thought about more is the fact that Akane is not coming out of her room. Or letting him in.

The roof is hot, the clay tiles are still giving back the heat they have been baking in all day. The sun is barely setting, just starting to touch the horizon, turning the sky bright red. All day, it has felt as if the heavens have been trying to make up for last night’s stormy cold with blazing heat. If Ranma had poetic inclinations (and he most certainly does not, he is a man after all), he would think it fitting: Turmoil during the night, then hell at daytime.

He wonders how Akane is feeling below him in her room. Usually, when it is hot like this, she keeps her window open to let in the breeze. But today, she has not even opened the curtains. She must be cooking in there.

Kasumi says Akane is sick. The oldest Tendo has sought Ranma out more than five times over the course of the day. Every time, she has announced herself with a polite little cough. And then she has said, giving him a look, that Akane is sick, sick to her stomach, and that she, Kasumi, sincerely hopes that whatever is making Akane sick to her stomach will soon be resolved.

At least, Kasumi will leave him alone for the rest of the evening. About two hours ago, she went up to Akane’s room with some lemonade, stayed almost twenty minutes and came out sighing. Then she announced that she would begin to prepare dinner. She walked into the kitchen, moved around in it for maybe five minutes, then a loud noise and a clang. She appeared again to announce that due to an unfortunate accident, the stove was broken, and the family would have to eat out. Except for Ranma. Ranma could stay and have leftovers and make sure poor Akane and her upset stomach would not come to any harm.

Ranma would not have wanted to go out anyway. He cannot fathom leaving. He feels as if an invisible string ties him to Akane’s room. What if something happens to her? What if she dreams again, and he is not there to wake her? Going to school today felt near impossible. When he finally did, he was filled with jittering anxiety so intense that he was unable to enjoy the huge fight that Happosai and Principal Kuno got into over the appropriate swimwear for the Furikan High student body.

Ranma stares down at the polaroid again, studies the little pillow with the duck and the blanket on her floor. Tries not to be overcome by the memories of sleeping on that same floor, of holding her hand, of hugging her crying form, wrestling her in her bed. He remembers how she felt during the night, her body against his body, her breasts against his breasts, her legs against his. He remembers her face when she was pinning him down in the morning, the overwhelming happiness and beauty of it, her body on his, the weight of her on him.

He is so full of want and need, it scares him. The smoothness of her skin keeps reappearing in his thoughts, he swears he can still feel it under his hands. If he closes his eyes, he can recall exactly how she looked, how she smelled. He can conjure up every detail of those few moments when they were playing and tickling, right before everything went wrong. He sees before him the movement of her hair, the way she licked her lips, feels again the pressure of her legs against his side, the sound of her giggling. He is obsessed with those moments, is embarrassed by them, wants to live in them.

But his mind will not let him. It forces him to revisit what followed, and it replays him his own flight from her room. As he was climbing through her window, he caught a glimpse of her face. Maybe, he thinks, there is an image worse than that of her dead. Maybe, it hurts even more to see Akane heartbroken, crushed by his own cowardice.

He has knocked on her window, five, six times. Nothing. No movement. No sound. Nothing indicating she has even heard. He has knocked on her door. Silence. Sat in front of her door, waiting for her to go to the bathroom. She didn’t. Then, when he gave up and left, he heard her tiptoe through the hallway. He didn’t dare to return. She had been so careful to avoid him. But it was so hard not to corner her and make her talk to him.

The sun is nearly gone now, and with the light, the heat is leaving too. Ranma rests his back against the rooftiles to warm himself, lifts the polaroid above him in the air. He is trying not to think the thing that has been swimming around in his mind for hours now: That it is unfair how he is holding her feelings in his hands and she has nothing. That as long as he does not set this right, she will not speak to him. That he would not be able to bear it either. The imbalance of it. He would avoid her too.

There. He will think it: He needs to give her something in return. Maybe then she will let him back in. Let him be with her again.

As if to provide the last bit of motivation he needs, he hears Akane moving around beneath him, in her bedroom. She is opening and closing drawers, loudly. Might be getting ready for bed. Preparing herself to sleep without him. If he wants her to allow him into her room, he has to act now. He marvels at the fact that in the span of a few nights, he has come to depend on her for the night, has admitted to himself the need to have her close while he sleeps. He contemplates this for only a moment. Then he gets up and swings himself off the roof right above Nabiki’s window.

…

Akane knows, but does not want to admit to herself, why she has decided to leave her bra on under her pajamas. But here she is, in her prettiest pajamas, with a bra underneath, sitting on her desk-chair. Dressed up in both invitation and protection. She is enjoying the breeze cooling her down, now that she has opened the window and the sun has set. The cool air ruffles her drawn curtains.

She is tense with the anticipation for … something. There is a feeling in her belly like a rubber band, stretched until it will either break or snap back. She has not spoken to Ranma all day, has ignored all his attempts to make contact. At first, out of pain and shame and horrible self-doubt. But then… she admits to herself that it might have been strategic. Kasumi’s little talk made a difference, though she did not let her older sister see it.

Kasumi had entered the room, placed lemonade on Akane’s desk, sat down next to her on the bed, rubbed her back and waited for Akane to stop hiding her face in the pillow. It took a long time, but Kasumi had always been patient. She just sat, and rubbed, and waited. When Akane finally faced her, the oldest Tendo offered her the lemonade, watched as she drank. Then, with a little smile, she said: “Whatever it is with Ranma this time, I think you should consider that he is a very shy boy. He’s just an egotistical jerk who cannot make a move unless he thinks there is a challenge to win.” And then she left, closing the door behind herself.

Akane had stared at it for a long while. Then she had opened it again, just a tiny bit, so she could better listen to what was going on downstairs. When she realized that everyone was gone, except for Ranma, who was moving around on the roof, she decided to change into nicer pajamas. And to leave her bra on. Just like that. For no reason. None whatsoever.

She knows, of course. Knows that she expects him to try one more time, and also that she is going to let him in, and that she …

The last bit, she cannot even think.

She hears footsteps in the hallway. Akane freezes, feels her entire body go very still, breathes three shallow breaths. Then, as if against great resistance, she turns around in her chair. Whatever will happen, she thinks, it is going to happen now.

The footsteps stop, she knows he is right there, on the other side of the door. But he does not knock. And he does not barge in. Annoyance creeps into Akane’s mind, her hands curl into fists. She cannot open the door for him, she knows her pride will not allow it. She feels caught between what she wants and what she cannot want.

Then, a small black square with a white edge is slipped under her door. She stares at it on her floor. A polaroid, turned so the picture does not show. What in the world? Her heart beats an unsteady rhythm, her throat feels tight.

He brought it back. She thought it meant something that he kept it, and now he has brought it back. Tears well in her eyes. She desperately wants it to vanish, is tempted to just leave it there, go to sleep, refuse to face the world ever again, or at least until she cannot avoid it anymore.

But she can’t. She can’t leave it on her floor to mock her, to be found by Kasumi or Nabiki or whoever comes in next to check on her. She needs to get rid of it. So she gets up. Stands there for a few seconds, willing herself to move forward. As she bends down, a first tear falls on the floor. She hates herself for it, for being so weak. She grabs the small, black square, stands with it in her hand. The floorboards on the other side of the door creek. Ranma is still there, waiting for who knows what.

She does not know why she turns the picture around. She could have just thrown it away without looking at it again; she expects nothing but pain from it now. But she does, and she sees what it shows.

It is a photograph of a cardboard box, open, on the wooden floor in the guestroom where Ranma and his parents sleep. In the box, a bundle of blue-black hair, held together by a ribbon. A tiny chocolate heart, wrapped in tinfoil. A dried branch of bamboo, some of the leaves disintegrating, with “Ranma” and “Akane” papers attached to them. The picture of Akane that Ryoga, and then Ranma, carried around in China. A cookie in the shape of a poorly executed bunny, dried and crumbling around the edges. And Akane’s polaroid, with the pillow and the blanket.

Akane blinks. Tries to steady her hands. Feels her heart beating in her fingertips, her lips, everywhere. She realizes that she is holding her breath. Something inside her says: Now!

So she opens the door.

Ranma is so tall, he almost fills the entryway out entirely. He must have been so close to the door that his face almost touched it. Trying to listen, she thinks.

He radiates nervousness. He is staring at the floor again, his hands moving rapidly from his pockets to his elbows, up his arms and back. A deep blush on his cheeks. She can smell, faintly, that he is sweating. But she can also smell his scent, and feel the way his body changes the air around him, and it fills her with a slow kind of heaviness.

“Ranma” she says and drops the polaroid. It flutters to the floor, but she pays it no attention. Her hand, now empty, moves towards him. She watches herself reach for him, and some small part of her worries. But she cannot stop herself from touching him any more than she can stop her own heartbeat.

Her fingers find his wrist, stopping his restless movements. He looks up, she sees that his eyes are wide and fearful. But they are also incredibly blue, and there is something like hope in his face. So she takes hold of his hand, gives him a careful tug. She takes a step backwards. He follows her lead easily, almost obediently, his gaze fixed on her face. She takes another step back, moving them both to the middle of her room.

They are maybe two feet apart. He looks at their linked hands. “Akane…” he says, it is almost a whisper, his voice is unsteady. “I- can I?” She feels his fingers tighten around hers. It is all the encouragement she needs.

She lifts herself to her tiptoes, reaches for his shoulder with her free hand, finds his pigtail, tugs again. His hair is smooth and soft, the nape of his neck warm. Again, he lets her guide him without resistance, bending down a little, reducing the gab between them. Her face inches from his, she closes her eyes. Blindly moves a little further forward, stretches her body a little more. Anxiety overtakes her entirely. Anxiety and anticipation.

Then, strangely startling, the soft, warm touch of his lips against hers. Just that. It is like thunder going through her, running into her body like electricity, like liquid, like hunger. He gasps into her mouth, and under her hand, she feels the muscles in his neck tighten. But he does not move away.

For just a second or two she loses control of herself, unable to break the contact, allowing the kiss to linger. Feels herself reduced to the touch between them. Nothing remains of her but her mouth on his, her hand on his nape, her fingers entwined with his. The rest of her body gone, dissolved into heartbeat and tingling urgency. Her thoughts extinguished in a current of pleasure, all through her.

The air between them is unbearably empty, everything inside her screams to close the distance, to open up and take him in. Instead, she moves away again, allowing their lips to part as softly as they came together. Her hand lifts from his neck and falls to her side. She takes a step back, looks up at him, into his face. Avoids his eyes. His cheeks are pink, his mouth slightly open. He is motionless, his breath comes in deep, heavy bursts between long pauses.

She feels her cheeks burning, her lips still tingling. She lifts a hand to them, traces them with her finger, absentmindedly compares the feeling to the way it felt to kiss him. She squeezes her eyes shut, retreats into darkness for just a moment, then she forces herself to meet his gaze. His eyes seem unfocused, dazed, their blue dark. Then, suddenly, they capture her, sharp. A small sound escapes him, like a sigh: “Hah.”

And then he takes her to him. It feels as if he has not moved at all. In an instant, his hand is on her waist. He pushes her into him with so much controlled strength that some small part of her startles. She feels that even if she wanted to, she could not stop him. The contact floods her senses, his warmth suddenly all around her, his scent, his unyielding body, hard beneath soft, pressed against her, overwhelming her much smaller form. His large hand travels from her waist to her upper back, guiding her upward, back on her tiptoes. His other hand in her hair, lifting her face to his. She follows his every movement easily, like he followed hers moments ago, guided by his fingers.

His mouth almost on hers, he stops himself. “Is this ok?” he whispers. She can feel his breath on her lips, it teases her. She hears vulnerability and worry, effort and restraint in his voice. The desire in it makes her body move on its own, pressing her further into him. She feels the need for him in her skin, her chest, between her legs.

“Mhm.” She cannot speak, but it is answer enough, and he is kissing her. Not soft. His mouth on hers with burning hunger, his hands pressing her forward, closer, closer, as if closer was possible. She responds by clinging to him, by allowing her legs to give in. She relies on his arms to keep her upright, relinquishing all control so she can concentrate on the feeling of him on her, around her, against her, so she can pour herself into the sensation. Her hand flies to his neck again, pulling him down. Her other arm around him, her fingers in his shirt. It isn’t enough, she needs more.

A noise escapes her, her lips part, she feels the moisture of his mouth. Chases it with her tongue. The taste of him, he opens up for her, she finds his tongue, slightly rough, then smooth, hot against hers. At the same time, his calloused hand under her shirt, on her waist, cool against her feverish skin. His hard chest against her breasts. She feels his teeth, traces them. He allows her to explore him, his lips soft, just for a bit. Then he moves towards her again, demanding. She opens herself wider, invites him in, arches her back, offers herself up, feels him all over. Still not enough.

Without letting him go, without taking her mouth off his, without opening her eyes, she stumbles backwards, her hand tangled in his shirt, pulling him with her. When she feels the resistance of her bed against her calves, she lets herself fall backward, into the soft coolness of her bedding. He follows, landing on her carefully, controlled. His weight settles on her, heavy and reassuring, one of his legs between hers, her entire body beneath him, singing, her heartbeat everywhere. She opens her mouth again, runs her tongue over his lips, asks for entry, sighs when he grants it.

Her fingers tug on his shirt until she finds bare skin, smooth and warm over hard muscles. His hands on her naked belly, her ribs, then they retreat, move on top of her shirt, on her stomach, up, up, he hesitates. She hums her assent into his mouth, smiles into his kiss. Then, his hand on her breast, she feels his touch like electricity, in spite of her shirt and her bra between them. He moans. The sound is a spark inside her, it fills her with delicious heat. She wants still more.

But he breaks the kiss, pushes himself up on his arms, looks at her through half lidded eyes. His pigtail is a mess, his bangs unruly. His lips swollen and pink. He breathes heavily, his eyes wander all over her face, and down to her body, laid out on the bed before him. “Akane…” he breathes, and then, suddenly fearful: “Are you still mad?”

She shakes her head, the space between them has allowed bright happiness to move into her, take its place next to longing and lust. “No.” she says. She lifts her hand to his shoulder, tugs at his shirt. “Ranma, please” she asks. He kisses her, carefully, without settling his weight on her again. She closes her eyes, abandons herself to him the moment he touches her. Then, suddenly, a coherent thought. She turns her head, and as he loses access to her mouth, he kisses her cheek, her throat. Every peck sends shivers through her. “Ranma”, she giggles. “The door.”

“Can you get it?” He asks. “I can’t get up.”

….

Ranma watches Akane struggle to get up off the bed, tries to calm himself while there is distance between them. Sits up and arranges the freshly washed duvet carefully over his lap. He is not ready for her to notice what is happening to him, what her body does to him.

She closes the door, turns, looks at him. She is flushed, radiates happiness. She tries to straighten her pajamas, her hands run through her hair. Her whole body seems to be smiling, seems to invite him. He cannot do anything but sit still on her bed, waiting for her to return. She does, sits opposite him, one leg tugged under, the other anchoring her to the floor.

He wishes she would kiss him again, wants to feel her against him again. She seems shy, suddenly, all her bravado gone. He watches her carefully reach out, watches her study his face while she does it, as if she needs to make sure he won’t withdraw. She takes one of his hands in both of hers, lifts it into her lap. He is in awe. He wants to pull her back into him, but then she turns all her attention to the hand she has captured, runs her fingers over it, touches his knuckles, one by one. She traces one of his nails with a fingertip, turns his hand around, explores it, examines the scabbed-over wound where she bit him. Her touch makes his skin tingle, he feels that she is changing him, transforming him.

It is as if she is taking possession of what finally belongs to her. And he wants to tell her. He has wanted to tell her so often that he isn’t even sure anymore what it is that he wants to say. There are so many things, layered one over the other. There is “I love you”, but it seems small and insignificant compared to the whole, complicated collection of truths he wants her to know. He loves her, he belongs to her, is defined by her, he makes a claim on her. Mine. Yours. And really, it both means the same thing.

He finds it difficult even to think of himself without her. Now that they have broken the invisible boundary that kept their bodies apart, it seems impossible even to draw a clear line around himself. Her hands on his hand, wandering up his arm now, feel at the same time exciting and obvious. Because of course she gets to touch him, gets to map him. Its her right to know him, every inch of him.

It terrifies him, he wants to run away. It makes him intensely happy, he never wants to leave. His pulse is so rapid, he is getting dizzy. He watches her hands run along his forearm, her fingertips tickle the inside of his elbow. The need to speak, tell her something, becomes overwhelming.

“Akane …” he begins, but he does not have the words. The truth exists in him only as an unspeakable enormity. So he settles for: “Can I stay?”

Her hands stop, she lets him go, looks up at him, her eyes hypnotic. “Yes.” She says. Then, her voice unsure in spite of everything, “Do you want to?”

And it gives him an excuse. He can say it all, just by answering her question. All of it in one word. She has made it so easy for him. “Always.” He answers.

She smiles, and he can no longer control his need for her. His hand, free now, grabs her upper arm, draws her into him. He is astonished by how easy it is, how willingly she comes to him. Her body in his arms, much smaller than his, makes him feel big, expansive. She lifts her face to his, he kisses her, feels her lips soft under his, her tongue responding to his. Then her hands on his shoulders, pushing him down onto the bed again.

He can feel how strong she is, how that small body holds so much force, such power. She settles on top of him, kissing him, her hands on his forearms, supporting her weight. She is so light, his hands around her ribs, suddenly she seems fragile, her bones like a bird. The contradictions in her.

He seeks out her skin again, under her shirt, runs his fingers along her spine, up, up. The edge of her bra, he draws back, there is a boundary there still and he will respect it. But he takes whatever she allows him, claims it all, guided by instinct, her kisses drown out his thoughts. He feels her hands on him, ghosting over his skin, leaving a trail of goosebumps, delicious fire. They roll onto their sides, pause, lie looking at each other.

He studies her face, the face he knows so well, all new because it now belongs to him. Her eyebrows, the curve of her nose, the brown of her eyes, the bitten pinkness of her mouth. She runs a finger over his lips, he bites at it playfully, she gasps, closes the gap, hot, urgent kisses. Their bodies as close together as possible. He kisses her face, her neck, she runs her fingernails across his back, sighs his name into his ear. “Ranma …” He responds, whispers “Akane...”.

Time loses all meaning, he feels lost, he feels unmoored, anchored only in her. He feels he is different, will never be the same. There is no regret in it. He leaves himself behind without mourning, embraces whatever it is that he is now.

Finally, between kisses, she stifles a yawn. He laughs, quietly, a chuckle. “What time is it?” she lifts herself up to see her clock, one hand on his chest, crushing him a little. “Ack, tomboy, careful!” he pokes her side, makes her topple over with laughter. She tickles him back, they wrestle, it is so easy to touch her now, so comfortable. She yawns again. Says “Its late.”

He can feel it too, the tiredness, accumulated from nights and nights of interrupted sleep. He sits up, searches for the duvet that lies crumbled on the floor. He pulls it up on the bed, arranges it, lies back down, looks at her expectantly. She smiles, snuggles into him, her head on his chest, her hand on his belly, her fingers playing with the hem of his shirt. “Night” she mumbles. He wraps his arms around her, carefully, wiggles around until he is comfortable. “Night”. He says.

He does not close his eyes for a long time. He lies in the dark, looking at her ceiling, breathing in the scent of her room, of her hair, of her skin. He tries to commit everything to memory, tries not to miss any detail. He pays attention to the way her body relaxes as she falls asleep. He hears their families return, loudly arguing about something, their voices drifting up through the floor, muffled, comforting. He feels entirely safe and warm. At last, he gives into his exhaustion, falls asleep.

…

Akane wakes up because Ranma is kissing her cheeks, then her chin, her eyelids. Strangely, there is no moment of confusion. Her body knows immediately that he belongs there, next to her, touching her. She cannot believe that there is a boy in her bed, his arms around her, his hand on her naked skin, kissing her while she sleeps, and there is no fear in her, not the slightest bit of apprehension. She opens her eyes, he draws back, smiles his crooked, confident grin. “Hey.” He says. “You snore!”

And for no reason she could name, she answers, mimicking his tone: “Hey. I love you!” And laughs. It is so easy, so effortlessly given away. She delights in how it makes him blush, how immediately shy he is, how it wipes the grin of his face and replaces it with a look of vulnerability so intense, it makes her ache. She reaches out for his cheek, cups it, runs her fingers into his hair. “It’s ok.” She says, feeling generous, and it isn’t even a lie. She realizes, she needs nothing more than what he has already given her. All she really wants is to kiss him again, lay her claim to him again with her body.

But he draws away from her, breaks the contact. It hurts for only a moment, then she sees that he is fidgeting. His strength and confidence collapse, his tall, powerful body somehow looks small and helpless. He stares at his hands in his lap. He has to start several times, opens his mouth but produces no sound, croaks. But he does say it. Whispers it so quietly, she can barely hear it.

“Akane --- I love you.”

She is stunned. She wants to listen to it again, but he looks at her so proudly and he seems so relieved that she knows it would be greedy to expect more. She feels the smile on her face, radiating through her whole body. She can’t even move, she just sits there, motionless, looking at him, equally frozen. Grinning from ear to ear, both of them, like two idiots, staring at each other. It seems to her the room is getting brighter just because of their happiness. As if the golden sunshine coming through the cracks between her curtain and her wall has its origin inside her chest.

Then the world finally decides to assert itself again and she hears Kasumi clanking pots together in the kitchen. She glances at the clock, it is past seven. Sunday, thank the heavens, but they must get up regardless. Ranma has started moving too, getting up off the bed. She watches him, hoping for a good-bye kiss before they have to face the day, wait for the next night.

He moves towards her desk, is already halfway on it, then he stops. “Let’s …” he begins, pauses, looks at her nervously.

She gets up, stands before him, curious. “What?” she asks and gives him a reassuring smile.

“We could, I mean, if you want. We can…”

“Ranma, what is it?” she is impatient now, can feel a light, happy kind of annoyance creeping up in her.

“…use the door.” He finishes, and looks as if he expects to get pummeled.

“What?” she is dumbfounded. Her heart will explode. She will die in a shower of golden light.

“I mean… if it’s a bad idea, I can…” and he is already up on the desk, opening her window, flustered and embarassed. But somehow, she feels she has lost all fear, of everything. He has kissed it all away, changed her into a stronger, more assured version of herself.

“Sure.” She says. “What really could anyone do, against the two of us together?”

And they leave her room, through the door, into the day.