Chapter Text
The first time it happens, Akane’s almost late for homeroom.
Halfway down the path beside the storm drain her chest tightens, constricting as if she were trying to hold back a sneeze. A fluttering rises in her throat, and she finds herself half-skidding to a stop, barely getting a hand over her mouth before the coughing starts. Big, chesty coughs, coming abruptly to a halt when something wet lands in her palm. Gross.
Akane lifts her hand away to shake it off, fumbling for a handkerchief, and stares at a tiny pink flower, barely budding, glistening with spit.
“’Kane?” Light-footed as ever, Ranma jumps smoothly from the fence to the pavement, peering at her. “You okay?”
Puzzled, she nods. Finally wipes her hand, her lip. “I’m fine. I think a flower must have blown into my mouth?”
Ranma blinks. It isn’t even windy today, sun warming the back of her neck and casting gold light over his bemused expression, bright flecks in his eyes. Finally he turns on his heel, school satchel bouncing off his shoulder as he shrugs.
“You are such a klutz.”
“And you’re a jerk!” she bites back instantly, scrunching the handkerchief and forgetting about the crushed petals.
The second time is more than a week later. Akane wakes up wheezing, chest clenching and cramping like there’s a boot against her ribs, thrashing out of cotton sheets to sit up in bed with shaking shoulders.
There’s something in her airway, sticking to the sides and jittering with her faltering breath. Akane pitches forwards, feels her diaphragm spasm as her body tries to get it out get it out get it out – she struggles for calm, the mastery of herself she’s so carefully learned, to force the panic down and away. Heaves deep coughs into her clasped hands. Feels something slippery and smooth, several somethings, tumble past her teeth.
Wide-eyed in the dark, Akane gropes for her bedside light.
Flowers. Five or so small, crinkly-petalled clusters are spattered across her hand, one more on the bedspread. Even like this, damp and battered, they look familiar; though she can’t name the type, or even say where she’s seen them before.
But how could they be inside her?
Akane hugs her knees, pretending she isn’t trembling. Her chest still hurts. Achey, like she’s recovering from a long cold. That’s familiar too. She’s felt something like it most of the afternoon, after Ranma ditched her on the way home to go stuff himself at Ukyo’s place, then slunk back and tried to copy her English notes like nothing happened. Picked a fight when she said no.
Thinking of Ranma, Akane casts her eyes at the ceiling, towards his favourite spot on the roof. If he is up there, he’d have heard her coughing, see the light glowing through her curtains. She’d left her window open, ready for when he came to make up. Except he hadn’t, and he doesn’t come poking his head in now, either, despite maybe listening to her hacking her guts up in the middle of the night.
What would she even say?
I’m coughing up flowers and I don’t know why?
I think I might be sick and it’s really weird, even by our standards?
Ranma, I’m scared?
Akane's jaw clenches.
Anger is easier, safer, so she lets it pop and fizzle in her veins and snatches a tissue from the box on her nightstand. She pulls too many, and the box topples to the floor when she jerks them loose, but she scrubs the offending flora into a wadded ball, tosses it towards the bin, flicks the light off and buries herself back in her bedclothes before she runs out of irritable steam.
Fortunately, it's Friday. Tomorrow, she’ll go and see Dr Tofu, and he’ll be able to sort it out. He’ll give her some medicine or do some funny acupuncture or whatever and that’ll be that, and nobody else will have to know or tease her for being frightened of some little plants, of all things. If the other fianceé's found out, she'd never live it down.
It’s a long time before Akane’s breathing calms, before her fists slacken their grip on her sheets.
Of course, that’s when Ranma finally shows up, not knocking but slipping fluidly through the open window. Facing the wall, eyes scrunched shut, Akane only knows he's there from the whisper of cardboard against the carpet as his foot nudges the fallen tissue box. He’s suppressing his ki. When he doesn’t say anything, doesn’t make any attempt to check if she’s awake, Akane quickly rolls and hits the light on again.
And there he is - hovering by her desk with one hand holding her school bag and the other clutching her English notes.
“You cheating little sneak-thief!”
“Sshhh!” Ranma hisses, too late. Rapid knocks shake the wall Akane shares with Nabiki.
“Can’t you two lovebirds get it on quietly?” her sister taunts, acid-sweet.
“OUT!”
“Yeah yeah I’m going!” Ranma snaps, springing across the room and into the tree outside, leaves rustling as he bounds off.
It’s only after Akane has slammed the window shut that she realises he took her schoolwork.
“Flowers?”
Akane's fingers tighten on her teacup, squeaking on the ceramic. She nods without meeting the doctor's eyes. “Yes. Pink ones. And I'm sure I didn’t eat anything like that, so I don't know…” she trails off. Swallows. It feels tight, but surely that's just nerves. Embarrassment. Hopefully. “So I thought I should come and see you, Doctor,” she finishes, louder than she intended, her smile a bit too stiff.
Tofu doesn't answer at once, and the quiet calm of his office - usually a refuge, at least when Kasumi isn't there - starts to feel oppressive instead, weighted and sticky.
“And… has this ever happened before?” he asks at last. He isn't making notes, just watching her cautiously. That feels worse.
“Once, last week. But there was just one flower then, and I was outside, so I thought it was an accident or something.” It has already crossed her mind that this might be some sort of prank. Perhaps another horrid scheme of Kodachi's, given the flowers. But there hasn’t been sight or sound of a leotard or wicked laughter for weeks, and something in her - something deeper than the new pressing pinch in her chest - tells Akane this is different. Wrong. “There were about six last night.” And it hurt more.
“Did you happen to keep any of them?”
“Sorry, no.” She hadn’t wanted to look at them. “I didn't think to. They're small, pink, kind of crinkly looking? Next time I -” and she stops, because she doesn't want to interrogate the instinct telling her there will be a next time. That they aren't gone.
Tofu's hand settles on her knee. He's wearing that smile - the one she fell for as a little girl, wide and gentle and patient in a way precious few people in her life ever are - and holds her gaze.
“It must have been frightening."
She bites her lip. Barely nods. She doesn't want to cry. Tofu takes a deep breath.
“I can’t say I know what caused this, Akane. But I promise I will do everything I can to figure it out.” He withdraws his hand, and she gulps her tea to wash away the lump in her throat, the memory of petals. “For now, we'll do a proper examination and checkup,” Tofu continues, “and after that, I'll have a look through my books and contact some friends of mine, alright? It may take a while, but try not to worry.” Another smile. “You're one of the strongest people I know. You'll beat this, whatever it is.”
She manages to smile back. Hearing such from him isn't bittersweet anymore. “Thankyou, Doctor.”
By the time Akane leaves the clinic, it's almost noon, and Nerima’s streets are flooded with blazing sun. Squinting, Akane doesn't see the red-haired girl until she's out the gate.
“Hey, ‘Kane.”
“Ranma,” Akane greets. He - or rather she, currently - has one of Akane's sun hats on, along with a pretty top and skirt pairing Akane’s not seen before. It suits him, as a her. “What are you doing here?”
“Kasumi sent me after you. You forgot your money, doofus.”
“Oh. Thanks.” Flushing, Akane accepts the purse, tucks it into her bag as she steps smartly away from the clinic. To her surprise, Ranma walks with her, head pitched to study Akane’s face from under the wide brim of the hat.
“What?” she asks, when the staring is too much, heat threatening to boil in her cheeks.
“So… you went to the clinic?”
“Yeah, and?”
“Are you… alright?”
Akane doesn't miss how Ranma's eyes flit over her exposed arms, legs, across her shoulders; lingering on the fading remnants of the cut and bruises Xian Pu gave her after the festival bust up, a couple of weeks ago. She hasn't been in anything approaching a real fight since, but Ranma has always been touchy about her getting hurt.
The pinch in her chest tightens. She swallows, tries to ignore the ticklish, scratchy feeling in her throat. “Yep. Fine. Just had a checkup.”
“Right.”
Akane turns into the next road, towards the station, and they keep pace with each other without speaking. Ranma keeps looking askance at her: quick, sneaky little glances over a chewed lip, almost a pout. Akane makes a point of catching and holding the sixth or seventh look, raising a brow.
“S’nothin.” Ranma says quickly, turning to examine a garden wall, then her own hands. She mumbles her question to twitching thumbs. “Just curious if this means you’re like, totally over the doctor now, or…?”
Her chest and throat tighten again, but Akane still manages to roll her eyes. Boy or girl, Ranma is ridiculously obtuse. “Obviously, duh. I got over that whole thing ages ago.” But it’s kind of sweet of him to worry. “Not that it’s any of your business, Mr Three-Fiancée’s-and-Two-Kuno’s.”
“It’s not like I asked for any of them,” Ranma grumbles, then smirks. “Besides, you’ve also got a Kuno.”
“Kuno-senpai wishes.”
That makes Ranma laugh, and for a second Akane feels almost normal again. “So…” she starts, looking for something to say, unwilling to let the good mood slip. They so rarely get time alone, uninterrupted. “What are your plans today?”
Ranma shrugs. “I dunno. Where are you going?”
“Shopping with Ayumi.”
Akane thinks she sees disappointment flit over Ranma’s face, quickly turned away. Does he - she - want to hang out? Is that why she’s being escorted to the train station? Or is she just getting her hopes up again?
…Worth a try.
“Actually -” Ranma turns back so quickly Akane nearly starts, and her hopeful expression makes warmth bloom in Akane’s stomach. She tries to keep a smile off her lips. “I’ve got time to kill before meeting her. We could probably go check out that new ice cream place on the corner. If you wanted.”
Ranma’s grin feels like sunshine, and maybe it’s a little annoying that his girl form is that pretty, but mostly it’s really, really cute.
“Last one there treats the other!” Ranma declares, bounding off and sticking a tongue out at her protests.
Akane loses and Ranma teases her about it, but she manages to hide how much her chest is burning behind her sundae.
Days pass with no answers from Tofu. He rings with reassurances, promises to keep looking.
Worry settles under Akane’s ribs, a weight against the constant, aching pressure in her chest. She finds herself panting after practice, winded and gasping before she’s finished half her usual morning jog. Sometimes she tastes pollen on the exhale.
The next flowers appear all too soon.
The shrill sound of a bicycle bell rings through the street. Akane peels away from Ranma, giving them both room, instinctively slipping into a ready stance. The last time she saw Xian Pu, the warrior girl took exception to Akane and Ranma walking back from a festival together, laughing and sharing takoyaki, and Akane hadn’t been quick enough. She’d managed to dodge the bike, the clubs, and half a dozen overarm watermelons, but not the Cat Café takeaway box. The dramatic bloom of blood through her cotton yukata was enough to spook Ranma into scooping her up and yelling at Xian Pu to knock it off, sending the amazon storming away. Akane doesn’t doubt that vengeance is large on Xian Pu’s mind.
“Ni hao, airen,” Xian Pu declares, heedless of the poor pedestrians she’d sent flying. She ignores Akane – which is probably better than the alternative, but still irritating - and smiles sweetly up at Ranma. He looks as wary as Akane feels, holding his ground with arms folded truculently across his front, at least until Xian Pu retrieves a basket of still-steaming meat buns from that same dented delivery case. Akane can practically see his nostrils quiver.
Xian Pu flutters her lashes. “You eat these now and I forgive you,” she says, like it’s a favour. As if she didn’t start it by lobbing things at Akane’s head without a by-your-leave, ruining what had almost, almost felt like a date.
Akane’s gut twists. She feels something wet flutter low in her throat.
Ranma’s arms unfold. Hesitantly, he reaches for the basket, takes a precautionary sniff. It wouldn’t be the first time a so-called fiancée tried to dose him with something. Xian Pu pushes the food all too eagerly forward, smile broad and now broadening as he reaches to take one. With her nodded encouragement, he pops it into his mouth. Chewing suspicion gives way to gleeful enjoyment.
“Hey, these are great! Thanks Xian Pu!”
Idiot, Akane thinks, and then her chest cramps. A lump like a wad of soggy tissue rises painfully towards her mouth. More flowers, and this time worse.
She can’t stand for Xian Pu to see this.
Akane turns on her heel and darts for an alley behind the butchers. If Ranma says anything she doesn’t hear it; pulse throbbing as her teeth clench, panic making her limbs jerky. She barely makes it, stumbling over a drain cover, hands slamming flat against the wall as she doubles over, back heaving to cough and cough and cough, sharp and excruciating. Tears spring into her eyes.
It lasts minutes. Hours. She isn’t sure, but when she is finally able to unscrew her eyes again there is a mess of pink blossoms on the paving by her feet, red speckles over the petals and dotting her shoes. Iron in her mouth.
The trembling doesn’t stop. Her elbows quiver as she stares at the mess on the ground.
It hurts.
I hate this.
What is happening to me?
Now, more than ever, she misses her mom.
“It curse.”
Akane starts, stares down the alley. Xian Pu stands at a distance; as coldly beautiful as ever and no hint of a smile on her face. Not even to gloat.
“Wh- what?”
“You have curse,” she repeats, succinct. She lifts her chin, haughtily stares off to the side rather than face Akane’s. “I read it in Grandmother’s books. Yearning blossom curse. It happen when red thread no attached.”
Her red thread? That red thread? But that -
“Akane love who you no can have,” Xian Pu says, bald and accusatory. “His thread no on your finger. When they no love you back, you grow flowers inside lungs until you choke.”
I’m dying?
Dying because… because…
“You get it now, violent girl?” Xian Pu demands, finally taking a few steps towards Akane, and this time, she can’t move, can’t prepare herself. She can barely stand. “Curse say so. My airen not meant for you. You give up on Ranma now, or you choke and die.”
“No -” Her voice doesn't sound like her own anymore. Scratchy, faint. Petals and bile rising up her throat. “That can’t be right, I don’t -”
“Stupid girl!” Xian Pu hisses, leaning so close Akane can almost feel it on her skin. “Flowers will kill you! And Ranma no want you, so give him up and live instead.”
And she wants to argue - wants to spit venom and fire back because she doesn’t and she can’t be - and petals come instead. Akane retches, splutters. Flowers stick to her tongue, her tonsils. She doubles over, hacking and heaving and coughing, pain lancing up her chest. Wet, bedraggled flora tumbles over her toes. A red stain soaks into one sock.
When it finally stops, Xian Pu is gone.
Akane sinks into a crouch in the alley, hugging her aching torso, and cries.
She doesn’t want to believe it. But the ache doesn’t stop and her chest clenches and twists tighter and sharper every time she looks at him, and she knows.
For a little while, Akane pretends.
She goes to school as normal. Starts leaving the house a bit earlier, to make up for being forced to stop and cough on the way. Ranma grumbles about being left behind, but always catches up. He doesn’t notice the ruined handkerchiefs bundled into her pockets.
She ditches P.E. class for the first time ever. Stops getting up for a jog, focuses on only the simplest kata in the dojo. They hurt, rattle petals from her torn throat into trembling hands. But she loathes not moving and training her body almost as much as not being able to trust it anymore. Shame and frustration crawls across her skin every time she falters, when even cleaning the spit and flowers off the boards leaves her wincing and breathless. She can’t let the art be taken from her too.
She cries in private. Keeps her tears silent.
Ranma starts frowning when he thinks she can’t see. Spends more time than usual on the roof above her room, tiles creaking. He always seems to be around to watch her come and go from the dojo - every practice shorter than the one before. Once, he even tentatively asks if she’d like to spar with him in girl form, and Akane’s soul rips. Before, she’d have given almost anything to have Ranma treat her as an equal opponent. A real practice partner. But one glance at her form and he’ll realise that something is wrong.
“...I’m taking a rest today. Next time?”
He scowls, gives her a single sharp nod before turning away. Doesn’t argue. Akane escapes to her room, and the comforting idea there will be a next time.
When Dr Tofu calls to report no progress, she thinks about telling him.
Xian Pu says I’m dying. That I’m cursed because I fell for someone I’m never meant to have. It’s not exactly the first time, but I suppose this is the one that matters. Yes, it’s Ranma. Guess our fathers will have to give up on the engagement after all.
In all this time, Tofu hasn’t been able to remove Ranma’s curse. The heavy, scratching feeling deep in her torso tells her she cannot wait for long.
Akane thanks the doctor for his efforts and leaves it at that.
Anger comes suddenly, loudly, in bursts. Rage thrashes in her chest like a caged animal, ribs tight around her failing lungs, snarls caught behind clenched teeth.
It isn’t fair it isn’t fair it isn’t fair
Xian Pu has to be wrong
Tofu has to find something
I don’t deserve this
Flowers and fury dust her tongue, petals heaving into her mouth as she covers it with a palm. She forces herself to swallow them, itching and scraping and clinging as they go down, and throws them up later in the trash.
A few days and a lifetime after Xian Pu told her about the curse, Kasumi slips into Akane’s bedroom and gently shuts the door behind her.
“Akane? Can I have a word?”
Akane stops, sets down her pen. She’s been staring at her homework for hours, not reading it, too tired and empty to really think. She tries to find a smile for her sister, but it comes out wonky.
“Sure, Kasumi. What’s up?”
“Well…” Kasumi hesitates, then reaches into her apron and produces a bloody handkerchief. One of Akane’s handkerchiefs, a little yellow duck in the corner whose bill is now rust-coloured. She must have left it in a pocket when her clothes went to the wash. She bites her lip, eyes creasing. This is it, and she’s going to cry. Kasumi’s face remains gentle, rounded with concern, her voice soft. “I was hoping you might tell me that.”
“Sorry, Kasumi,” Akane whispers, because her throat is tight and Kasumi shouldn’t have found out through the laundry, of all things, and what else can she say? “I… I’ve been feeling unwell for a while.”
Kasumi sits down on the bed, bringing herself to eye level. “Unwell? You’re not injured?”
It’s natural for her to think that, Akane supposes, what with all the fights and general craziness. “I’m not injured. Just… sick.”
Cursed.
She can’t pretend anymore. Not to herself. But she can’t tell Kasumi, either. She’ll tell Papa, and he’ll tell Uncle Saotome, and then both of them will berate Ranma over it and try and make him do something about it, and that…
…that won’t work. Because you can’t force anybody to love you, and you can’t force yourself to stop loving them.
Or at least, she can’t.
The tears come, and Kasumi bustles and shushes, wiping them away with her own clean handkerchief and stroking Akane’s hair. “There, there. Let’s get you checked out, and take it from there, alright? I’ll give Dr Tofu a call.”
“I - I saw him already,” Akane says. “He said - well, he’s not sure what it is, but he said he’s looking into it and not to worry.”
It’s not exactly a lie, but her conscience squirms regardless as Kasumi’s face brightens.
“Oh! Well, if Dr Tofu says so, I’m sure it’s in hand. He’s a very good doctor, despite being so silly.” She smooths Akane’s head. “Even so, I think you should take the day off tomorrow. Why don’t you get ready for bed, and I’ll bring you a snack?”
“Thanks, Kasumi. That sounds great.” Akane chews her lip until her sister has a hand on the doorknob. “Um, Kasumi?” She smiles, waiting. “Could you maybe… not tell Ranma? I don't want to worry him.”
Kasumi’s gaze softens, and Akane wants to kick herself for giving so much away. “He’s already worried, dear. He’s been pestering me for over a week now, asking if something happened to you. He even tried asking Nabiki.” She meets Akane’s stare levelly. “He’s a great deal more sensitive than he likes to pretend,” she says beatifically, and leaves Akane with a clenching heart as well as chest.
One day off becomes two. Three. Tofu visits to examine her again, and the others conspire to keep Kasumi out of the way long enough for it to go smoothly. The doctor speaks confidently, soothingly, but she’s aware enough to see the grim twist of his mouth. He takes some of the flowers away with him in a bag.
They come every day now. She sleeps terribly, jerking up to cough and splutter soggy lumps into a tissue multiple times a night, waking to find more petals scattered across the pillow, sticking to the sheets. She gathers them up in the morning to sweep into the bin, goes back to bed when even that small thing leaves her gasping.
Late on the third day, someone knocks on her door. A moment later, Ranma opens it, hovering just outside with a hand rubbing the back of his neck. “Hey, ‘Kane.” He sounds small, uncertain, eyes roaming the room, to and from her face. “Kasumi says if you’re up to it, you should come down for dinner? She’s made your favourite dumplings.”
She isn't. Her whole body feels bruised and sore, battered by the constant struggle to keep her airways clear, torso muscles wrung out and spongy from all the hacking and heaving. But three days in bed is enough to make her want to claw out of her own skin, and she’s coughed up so much flora today she doesn’t think there can be room inside her for another petal.
And maybe, something horrid inside her whispers, this’ll be the last time you eat Kasumi’s dumplings with him.
“Yeah,” she says, voice cracked. “Yeah, I’ll come down.”
Ranma perks up, hand falling, only for his eyes to widen as he watches her slow, wheezing efforts to rise. She looks away before she sees pity in his face.
“Do you… wanna hand?” he offers warily, like he's afraid of the answer. Or that she'll lash out at him for asking; another flashfire argument. Fighting, always. How much time had she wasted fighting with him? Maybe that’s why he… Akane shakes her head and makes her way downstairs herself, one tender step at the time, Ranma a silent shadow behind her.
The rest are assembled at the table, greet her with smiles and well wishes. But a hush falls in the wake of them, as if they were all just talking about her and are now stuck for another topic. Akane tries not to think about it as she settles into her usual place, Ranma to her left and looking over too often. Conversation slowly resumes as Kasumi bustles through serving dinner, setting the dumplings conveniently near Akane's plate. A shadow falls over them as Genma's wide hand stretches towards the platter.
“Itakidama-”
His chopsticks click together as Ranma whisks the dumplings out of reach, glaring at his father. “Hey! Kasumi made these for ‘Kane, ya’ greedy old sack.”
“Don't you take that tone with me, boy, or I'll -” Genma starts, looming over the table in the manner that usually ends with one or other Saotome taking a dip in the pond. He stops only because her Papa, eyes fixed on the pair of them, elbows Genma hard in the ribs. Nods meaningfully in their direction. She doesn't even have the energy to roll her eyes.
Sorry, Papa. There'll never be a wedding.
“Oh. Right, uh… you first, Akane-chan. Good thing Ranma is looking after you, eh?”
Her throat itches. She makes herself smile anyway, transferring three dumplings to her plate while Ranma trades protests and heated barbs with his father. She breaks up the bickering by nudging the platter between them. Two dumplings are in Genma’s mouth and half the remainder are tipped onto his plate in seconds.
“Isn’t Akane generous, Ranma?” he presses, spring onion clinging to his teeth. Ranma scowls, and Akane applies herself to trying to eat something without wincing. The egg rolls are deliciously light and soft, and if she chews enough they don't bother her raw throat as badly as Genma’s heavy-handed hints. “What a wife she’ll make, eh?”
“Save it,” Ranma growls, and Akane accidentally stabs through her dumpling, dipping it generously to soften. Kasumi’s cooking never disappoints, but she can taste iron and pollen alongside the citrus and savoury pork.
Genma grins viciously at his son, and her Papa clears his throat. “Perhaps when you’re feeling better, Akane, we should all take a trip?” he ventures, hopefully.
Too late for that, she thinks, as Genma immediately suggests half a dozen places famous for weddings with a gleeful cackle. Soon, the two fathers are arguing about the relative merits of a western or Japanese style ceremony. Akane opts to ignore them, turning her eyes to her plate and going for another dumpling.
There are three.
Akane blinks, wonders if the pain and lack of sleep is getting to her, if she imagined eating one just now - but no, she can still taste ponzu sauce, yet there are still three dumplings on her plate. After another blink, there are four, and she just catches some chopsticks moving out of sight.
Ranma. He doesn’t quite meet her eye - just kinda smirks slyly around it - and waits until his father is distracted to swipe another dumpling from under his nose to set beneath Akane’s.
It’s so silly. It’s so thoughtful.
She sees the first drops dot the crockery before she realises she’s crying.
“‘Kane?” Ranma sounds horrified.
A sob rattles, sticks in her throat as a soggy mass pushes the other way. Akane drops her chopsticks to cover her mouth, bracing against the table with the other hand. It’s huge this time, and she can feel the trailing ends catch and tear the sides of her gullet as they force their way up.
“Akane!”
The coughs come like gunfire, bursting out of her chest. Wet sticky lumps hit her palm, start to slide between her fingers, and this time they don’t stop, don’t seem to end; her vision crumbling into grey at the edges, fuzzy as static.
Movement explodes around her, the world swimming, reeling off its axis as her body heaves. Bloody, flesh-tearing spasms throw her forwards towards the flowers, rushing pink and red. Akane falls in every direction at once, grey bleeding to black, and the last solid thing she feels is a pair of wide, warm hands on her shoulders.
Akane wakes to the smell of antiseptic and bleached cotton, the scent of her mom’s last days. Hospital.
Blearily, she looks around, tries to orient herself. It has to be the middle of the night. The fluorescent strips overhead are all off, the room bathed in pale blue, pulsing flickers of red and green indicator lights. She can hear the hum of the machines they're attached to, beeping monitors. Her heart rate, she supposes. Mostly she hears her own choked breathing, echoing too loud inside a plastic mask. The pain behind her ears is the elastic, digging in. Her hand feels heavy, clumsy, as she lifts it to loosen the band.
“...’Kane?”
Ranma.
Akane looks down herself to find him staring; head lifting off arms folded on the blankets near her hip. There’s no chair; he’s kneeling directly on the floor. And he looks wrecked. Not in the way he does after a tough fight; more like he does after hiding from his mother. Like it's his insides that were torn to pieces. His skin is blotchy, shadows around his eyes, bangs sticking every which way. Her fingers twitch with the impulse to smooth them out. He blinks, frowns.
“Don't just collapse on us like that, idiot.”
Typical. She's in hospital, she’s… in this state, and he still can't say anything nice. She shifts, tries to roll away from him, but her body feels like lead and his surges up over her.
“Hey, don't move. Don’t move, okay?” he says quickly, wincing. “I’m sorry. Just… you scared the others to death, y'know?”
She knows. She can remember some of it: Kasumi going pale, her Papa's shout. Even Nabiki panicked, she thinks. But mostly she remembers Ranma; the look on his face as he dived after her. And here he is, same face all puffy, chewing his lip.
He's still handsome, and she's too tired to be annoyed about it.
Stiffly, she works a finger under the mask strap and pulls it away, Ranma’s scowl returning.
“Hey, don't - you're not s’posed ta -”
“Thirsty,” Akane whispers. She isn’t trying to: that’s all she can manage, all the breath she can force out of her clogged lungs.
“Right, right.” Ranma casts about, darts out of her view. Akane tries to sit up, her arms feeling weak beneath her, sliding against the hypoallergic sheets. He reappears with a filled glass, stalls for a second when he sees her struggling. Then he bends, pigtail slipping over his shoulder, and Akane feels his arm slide behind her back, gently ease her upright. His skin is fever-hot against the strip left bare by the hospital gown, scalding compared to the tepid glass he brings to her mouth.
She whimpers when she swallows, sip trickling down her raw throat. The water in the glass turns a bit pink, and she thinks the surface ripples as Ranma pulls it away. He hesitates - so fractional she wouldn't have noticed if it weren't so unlike him - and then moves to lie her down again. But then he'll let go. Akane grasps a handful of his shirt, sees his eyes go wide.
“‘Kane?” He’s whispering too.
She tugs, insistent. Talking would hurt too much, she wants to save words for now, needs him to get it. Ranma’s eyes rove her face before fixing deliberately on the glass in his hand.
“Do you want me to change first?” he asks, slow and careful. The sweetness of the thought makes her eyes damp.
Akane shakes her head, the tube from her dislodged mask swaying. Honestly, she couldn’t care less what form he is in right now, as long as he’s here. She does her best to wriggle sideways, make room for him, and that seems to jerk him into action. She hears the glass chink against the floor, the mattress creak, and she sinks with it as he crowds onto the bed beside her. Their knees knock together.
Akane still has her knuckles wound into his tank, and she wheezes through a sigh as she curls towards him, pain lancing throughout her abdomen. He's so much broader than she is - when had that happened? He's always been athletic, sure, but wasn't he shorter than Ryoga, than Kuno? His hand hovers over her shoulder.
“Hey. Lemme just -”
What little breath she has left catches as his fingers brush her jaw. Awkwardly, he slides the mask back into place over her mouth and nose. It doesn't help much. She watches his Adam's apple bob as he swallows, tilts his chin up to rest on her forehead.
“Okay, okay,” he mutters, just to himself. He doesn't seem to know where to put that hand now, the other folded awkwardly under his head. Finally, finally, he rests it gently on her waist, over the covers.
For a while, Akane just lets herself enjoy the warmth, the feeling; just the solidness of him around her. This would have been unthinkable before, but now…
“Where - others?” she asks at last, raspy in the mask. They're so close she feels his chest move as he answers.
“They're here. In the hospital, I mean. Just not allowed in the room.”
Akane frowns, pulls at his shirt again, nudging her head up to try and catch his eye. Ranma ignores it.
“I snuck in,” he admits, and Akane's heart swells so much she thinks it might just burst out of her chest before the flowers in her lungs kill her.
“They said -” Ranma starts and stops, voice shuddering. The fingers on her waist flex. “The doctors said they don't know what's wrong, might be contagious.”
You're safe, she wants to say. I won't hurt you. But she knows it will, when it happens. She can feel the tremble in him now.
“You're gonna be fine, though,” Ranma asserts, despite it. “You're gonna get better, and come home, and probably punt me through the cieling over nothing again. You're gonna be fine, ‘Kane.”
By all the Kami she wishes she would be. But she can taste pollen and petals along with the sterile plastic of the mask, feel them sticking in her windpipe. Slowly, she shakes her head.
“Yes. Yes ya are, ‘Kane,” he insists, jerking his head down. Holds her eye, water and flint in his. “You are,” he repeats, when she doesn’t nod. His mouth twists when she still doesn't. Then his hand leaves her side to cup her cheek instead, rough thumb stroking her cheekbone. He curls towards her until their foreheads are almost stuck together, and there's no way she could breathe now even if she wasn't suffocating. “Why didn't you tell me you were sick, Akane?” he demands, voice cracking. “I was right there outside the clinic, I coulda - I could've -”
Pain erupts under Akane's ribs; her back heaves and surges. She doesn’t even realise at first that she's laughing, or trying to, and Ranma just looks stricken, hand leaving her cheek. Her first attempt at words disappears to nothing, the second scrapes out as a thin whisper, muffled by the mask.
“You can't beat up a curse, Ranma.”
Ranma goes completely still. “Curse?”
Shoot.
She feels his chest tense against her knuckles, pressing against them as he shifts, lifting off his elbow. “Whaddya mean, curse?”
Akane shakes her head, weakly. Even that leaves her dizzy, tube bumping against her arm. Ranma's eyes darken as they focus, flint giving way to steel as he props himself up, looking down at her.
“Akane. How’d ya know it’s a curse?”
She knows this look. She's seen it before; every time he hits a block trying to master something new, or decides to do something stupid and dangerous just to win; hard and determined and beyond listening to reason. She can’t even get her breath back to try through the soggy weight in her throat.
“Xian Pu told me,” she admits eventually, muffled through the mask. Blood flecks onto her tongue.
“Xian Pu…” Ranma's eyes narrow. She can only watch as thoughts race behind them, realises too late what he's bound to ask:
“How did you get cursed?”
I fell for you, she thinks, the words impossible even if they weren't full of petals and longing and hot salt blood, dripping down her throat, staining her teeth. You’re reckless and selfish and incredible and I fell for you when I never meant to, and I don't think even knowing it’d kill me could’ve stopped it.
He leans so close she could count his eyelashes, frozen instead in the heat of his stare. His voice comes thick and dark. “I know curses, ‘Kane. They come from somewhere. And I know you didn't fall in a stupid spring or touch a weird relic or tick off a ghost, ‘cos I've been right there with you the whole time. So how did you get it?”
He can’t know. It’d be cruel - too cruel to both of them. Neither her pride nor his conscience can take it, and he'd have to live with it after. So she stays mute, and his face crumples.
“You can't tell me?”
Tears start to slide down her face, soaking into the elastic.
“’Kane...” She doesn’t get to hear the rest. It trails into nothing, and his jaw sets around the silence. He sits up, swings his legs from the bed. She nearly cries out as her hand falls pathetically from where she'd clutched his tank. And then she's looking at his back; catches him scrub his eyes with a wrist, fists clenched.
“I’m gonna fix this.”
It rings loud in the nearly empty room. She tries to sit up, to snatch hold of him again, but he's already striding across the room and she's slipping and falling against the covers, clutching at nothing, and her chest burns.
“If you can't tell me, I'll ask Xian Pu. And then I'll fix it.”
There are things that can't be fixed.
“You just stay -” She hears his breath catch, sees him falter through the tears gumming up her lashes, “ - stay here, and I'll be back, right?”
Don't go. I don't want to be alone for this.
He's at the window. Cold air spills across the room as he slides it open.
“I'm coming back,” he breathes into the chill. “Wait for me, okay? Promise.”
And then he's up on the windowsill, and she gets only one last fleeting look at Ranma's face before he leaps into the dark.
Akane sobs once, reedy and thin, and her chest constricts to a pinprick. Flowers surge up her throat, jam against her tonsils and into her nose. Pink petals push past her teeth and don't stop; swelling into the mask until it's pushed off her face to make way for more.
Too late, dummy.
Bye, I guess.
… love you anyway.