by Gie ([email protected])
*************
OI!! Oi? Is
it actually her? Is she really...alive?? Why yes, it
is, and she is! I feel really really bad
that I've not written anything
in a gosh darn long time...*winces*...since July....inspiration has struck
at an all time low--I want to do a lot of things, but I don't know how
to get it down on paper/screen. Also things in the family department
have brought me way down, too...so that doesn't help. But I promise,
I'm gonna get on track. I **want to** get back on track...just be
patient with me, please!
But for now, as I restart the ball rolling, here's a new chapter of my pet project. ATTR is my baby, Songfic series is my lover, ((Oi, baka ecchi Gie-chan!!)) but Sand is my pet. *pets it and Sand starts to purr loudly* ((I'm so weird....)) Oh welll...let me know what you think!!
Gie-chan
Sand Between The Toes:
Chapter Two
******
The pair stayed in the
water until it became too dark to see much of
anything. For the rest
of the night, though, they stayed down at the beach until
the wee hours of the morning,
walking, talking, holding hands and exchanging kisses
that were slowly, but surely,
becoming more and more natural to them.
The next morning came
all to early, and with it came the scorching heat once
again.
Kasumi and Nabiki sat
in the dining area, waving large bamboo fans, trying to
give their heated bodies and
faces some relief to the sticky air. "It's going to be
another hot one. I'm
glad we decided to stay overnight."
Kasumi nodded in agreement.
"If it is this hot here, I can't imagine what it
would feel like at home.
Maybe we should stay another?" She poured herself and
Nabiki another glass of ice
water. "Are Father and Uncle Saotome awake yet?"
She glanced over her
shoulder, and scrunched up her nose at the snores
that came from the direction
of the guys' room. "Can't you hear them? They're
dead to the world."
"So was Akane, when I
last checked in on her. Yesterday must have
exhausted her."
"Or Ranma did."
Kasumi jerked her head up, her dark eyes focusing on
Nabiki's. "Did you hear
them when they came in last night, or actually, this
morning?" She shook
her head. "Neither did I, and Seijitsu dropped me off here
well after two, and they weren't
back then."
"Sounds like you had
fun yourself last night, then." The curl of Kasumi's lips
was hidden behind the glass
of ice water.
"I had fun, I admit that."
Kasumi eyed the true smile Nabiki wore, not the
smirk she usually had spread
across her comely features. "Seijitsu knew all the hot
spots, that's for sure."
Soun and Genma stumbled
into the room, looking like they just woken up,
which they did. Both
fell into their usual positions around the low table. "Good
morning, Father, Uncle Saotome,"
Kasumi greeted them and poured each of them a
glass of the cool ice water.
"Did you sleep well?"
Soun nodded, rubbing
his eyes with one hand, while grabbing for the
refreshing glass of water
with the other. "It took me awhile to fall asleep, but
after I did, I didn't hear
anything. Nothing like the sea to sing a man to slumber,
ne, Saotome?"
The large man grunted,
squeezing several sliced lemons into the tall glass.
"Did you hear what time the
boy came in?"
"It was after two, more
like after three, since I got back at two and it took
me a bit to fall asleep,"
Nabiki answered him. Genma and Soun shared a glance
between them, and both nodded
their heads in silent acknowledgment.
Kasumi stood up.
"I thought we would have a light breakfast here, and then
we can eat on the boardwalk
again later on. Does that sound good to everyone?"
The other three murmured in
agreement. At that moment, Ranma trudged out of
the room. Kasumi smiled
at the very tired-looking young man. "Good morning,
Ranma. I thought you
would sleep later."
A large, jaw-cracking
yawn answered her. "I thought I would, too, until Pops
decided to use me as a doormat."
He leveled a dark blue glare at the larger male.
He yawned again. "So,
what's the plan for today?"
"Light breakfast here,
and then we'll have a big lunch on the boardwalk."
Nabiki re-iterated the plan
for the barely-awake Ranma. She set down her fan on
the table and Ranma immediately
picked it up and waved it in front of his own face.
"So, did you and Akane have
a good time last night?"
He lazily opened one eye and peered at the middle sister. "Hmm?"
She sighed and snatched
the fan back from his hands, ignoring his protest.
"I got back really early this
morning--and you two weren't even back yet. So, what
were you doing for half the
night?"
"Uh..." His eyes
opened wider at her implications and he shook his head
wildly at the grinning family
members staring at him. "What are ya trying ta say?
We didn't do nothin'!
Why would I wanna do anything with..." He caught the
disapproving frown spread
across Kasumi's face and closed his mouth.
"Awww...forget it."
"Nabiki, why don't you
help me set the table and bring out the rest of the
food from the kitchen.
Ranma, could you please go and wake up Akane. Can't let
her sleep the day away."
Kasumi stood up and disappeared into the adjoining room.
"You're lucky this time,
Saotome." Nabiki grinned evilly. "Next time,
though..." She let the threat
hang in the air as she stood and followed her sister
into the kitchen.
Ranma grumbled to himself
as he stood up as well, leaving the fathers to
mumble to themselves.
He moved down the short hallway to the girls' room, talking
quietly to himself.
"Why does Nabiki have to make accusations like that? Always
trying to make somethin' outta
nothin'." He knocked on the door quietly. "Akane?
Are you awake?" He opened
the door a crack and poked his head through the
opening. "Time to get
up, Akane."
The sleeping girl murmured
to herself and flopped over, her back facing the
pigtailed boy. He sighed
and opened the door further, and entered the room. He
knelt next to the lightly
breathing girl and took the opportunity to study the girl
that he was promised to.
His eyes traveled over her small frame, barely covered
with a light sheet.
His gaze started at the slender curve of her shoulder, rolled
down the gentle slope of her
trim side and climbed back up the swell of her hips,
sliding down the straight,
creamy line of her muscled legs, and then retraced its
steps back up to her mess
of blue hair. He let a small smile escape at the beauty
of his betrothed. He
didn't get many chances to study Akane in such a way, since
things were never this peaceful
between them, even when they did get along.
There was always a father
ranting something about joining the schools, or a
fiancee/rival knocking over
the door. The chaos never went away--it just varied in
level.
He waited another minute,
just watching her side move in rhythm with her
breathing before shaking her
shoulder lightly. "Akane, wake up."
A small moan escaped
her. "Leav...lon...mann...ng." She grabbed the sheet
and pulled it over her head.
He blinked a few times,
trying to figure out what she said before shaking
his head. "C'mon, Akane,
it's time to get up. I'm hungry."
"Don't wanna..." he watched as she clutched the sheet tighter.
An evil smirk made his
lips curl as an idea came to him. He leaned close to
where her ear would be.
"If you don't get up now, you'll be sorry."
The sheet stirred and
a blurry brown eye peeked out from under the fabric.
"What are you going to do?"
He shrugged his shoulders.
"Who knows?" He moved to the door and stuck
his head out before coming
back in, shutting the door firmly behind him. He came
back to where Akane still
lay, wrapped up in the sheet and knelt over her. "I just
might have to resort to this."
He gently pulled the cloth out of her slack grip,
exposing her face. He
leaned in, pressing his lips to hers. His eyes drifted closed
as he savored the softness
of her lips as they meshed in perfect unison. When
they pulled away, he opened
his eyes again to find two half-lidded pools of
chocolate staring back at
him. "G' mornin', Akane."
A slow grin transformed
her sleepy face into a ray of glorious sunshine. "G'
mornin', Ranma. That's
the way you make a girl sorry?" A sound outside the door
made both snap their heads
in its direction.
Ranma quickly stood up
and backed away from the prone Akane. "I'll let you
get dressed." He slid
open the door and peeked outside, but found no one listening
in the hall. "No one's
out here."
Akane sat up. "For once."
"Yeah." He turned
back to her and gave her a smile. "Hurry up, tomboy."
She stuck her tongue out as
he slid the door closed behind him.
*****
After making a stop in
the bathroom and then the bedroom, Ranma entered
the family room with everyone
looking expectantly at him. "What?" he said as he
sat down in his usual spot.
"Took you long enough."
"What?" he said
defensively, crossing his arms. "I also used the bathroom
and changed into different
clothes." He took a sip of the water in front of him.
"It's not my fault that the
tomboy can't wake up in the morning."
"Sure, Ranma,"
Nabiki drawled, rolling her eyes. "I think he doth protest
too much."
"Doth what?"
She waved her hand in
dismissal. "Never mind, Shakespeare." She glanced
up as Akane entered the room.
"It's about time, sleepy head. One would think that
you stayed out all hours of
the night."
She frowned, leveling
a glare at her sister as she sat down next to Ranma.
"Shut up, Nabiki. You're
one to talk. You also came home fairly late, yourself."
"And how would you know that?"
She pointed up.
"We were on the roof." She leaned in and gave her older
sister a rarely-seen evil
smirk. "So, is Seijitsu a good kisser?" Ranma mirrored his
fiancé's expression.
The pair of fathers gave each other identical looks of
surprise. Kasumi hid
her giggle by starting to pass out bowls of rice.
This time, Nabiki was
the one to blush. "Never you mind, Akane." She
grabbed her bowl from the
quietly laughing Kasumi. "You keep to yourself, too."
The rest of the family
dropped all relationship matters as they ate
ravenously. Soun sighed
as he put his bowl down. "Something about the smell of
salt in the air gets a man's
appetite working into high gear, ne, Saotome?"
"Indeed, Tendo, indeed,"
Genma agreed. "The fresh smell of the sea in the
morning does wonders for the
soul." Soun made a noise of agreement.
Kasumi smiled at the
fathers and turned her attention to her youngest
sister, who was looking at
the local paper. "So, Akane, did you get your swimming
lesson last night?"
Akane jerked her head
up, and focused on her sister. "What did you say,
Kasumi?"
"I asked you if Ranma gave you your swimming lesson last night."
A quick glance at the
blush across the cheekbones of the male next to her
made the faint pink turn into
a flaring red. "Yes, I did. He taught me how to float!"
Her excitement was obvious
in her bright eyes. "It was fun, just rocking along on
the top of the water, letting
the waves carry me back to shore."
Soun gave Akane a large
smile, nodding. "Very good, Akane! Floating is one
of the first steps in learning
how to swim. Especially since your main problem was
that your muscle was weighing
you down. Good job, Ranma. You'll make a fine
sensei." The boy in
question just mumbled and turned his head away in
embarrassment.
Akane blinked. "What do you mean, Dad?"
"About Ranma being a
teacher? Well, when you and he finally take over the
dojo..."
She shook her head. "No, Dad, I mean about muscle weighing me down."
"I told ya you were built
like a brick, Akane." Ranma ducked the punch
meant for his head.
"What he means, Akane,
is that muscle is more dense than fat," Nabiki
interrupted the little spat,
"so the more muscular you are, the better chance you
have at sinking." She
winked at her. "Now all this time you thought Ranma was
insulting you with that comment.
He was complimenting you!" She grinned at the
heavy blush that spread across
the pair before her. "Or he could have meant that
you have a body shaped like
a rectangle." Her smile got wider. "Either or."
"Nabiki, stop teasing
them. Ignore her, Akane, she's just trying to goad you
into reacting." Kasumi
shot the middle sister a glance and Nabiki shrugged genially,
and left the room to change.
She shook her head and turned back to the table.
"Father, Mr. Saotome, why
don't you gather all of the beach gear while Akane
helps me clean the breakfast
table. Ranma, could you tidy up your bedroom, and
ask Nabiki to clean up in
that one, too? Checkout time is in two hours, and we need
to make sure that everything
is in the same state as how we arrived."
********
By the time they were
done cleaning and putting everything back where it
belonged, it was well into
mid-morning, and the early morning heat had turned into a
sauna. They quickly
made their way back to the shoreline. And when they got
there, they discovered the
were even more people there than they day before.
Akane gingerly stepped
on the rare spots of sand inbetween the sea of
multicolored towels and bared
bodies. She put a hand up to shade her eyes from
the burning sun. "Can
you see anywhere to set our stuff down? I think every open
space is completely covered."
She picked her way farther down the beach.
"Well, we would have
been here a lot earlier if certain someone's didn't get
lost for two hours in the
bar." She leveled her squinted glare at the two fathers.
"Have a heart, Nabiki,"
Soun turned a watery gaze to his middle daughter,
"it was hot in the rooms."
But before Nabiki could
further berate her father, Akane shouted, "There's
an open spot over there!
Ranma, go!"
"I'm on it!" The
pigtailed boy leapt into the air, vaulting off various picnic
baskets, coolers, and the
occasional beach ball. When he landed in the open area,
he quickly laid out the towels
in his arms, marking their claim. The others slowly
picked their way through the
masses.
Kasumi set down the picnic
basket in her arms. "I will stay here for awhile,
and read, if everyone else
wants to go enjoy the water. I'll watch our things."
"Are you sure, Kasumi?"
Akane asked, shoving a beach umbrella into the
sand, and opening the brightly
colored cloth with a push of a switch. "I can stay
here, if you want to go swim."
She shook her head, pulling
out a large container of ice tea. "I'm fine,
Akane." She pointed
in the opposite direction they came. "Besides, I think you and
Ranma are needed somewhere
else."
When Akane turned around
to see what her sister was talking about, she
smiled at the large group
of small children from yesterday running in their
direction. "It looks
like we might need to make repairs on the city, from last
night's tide." She turned
to Ranma, a wide grin on her face. "Ready for more sand
between the toes?"
He grinned back.
"And in the ears and up the nose." He held out his hand,
and she immediately took it.
"C'mon, let's go meet 'em half-way."
The others watched the
pair of martial artists stirred up a sand storm as
they met the happy children,
who immediately surrounded them, dragging them off
to play once again.
Nabiki shook her head. "Do you think they realize what they
just did?"
"Not on the outside,
I don't think," Kasumi mused. "But inside, I think they
are fully aware. It's
good to see."
Genma and Soun exchanged
a knowing glance. "It's about time they finally
admitted their feelings out
loud. Took them long enough." Genma pulled out a large
binder overflowing with paper.
"So, Tendo, what do you think of a fall wedding?"
The dark-haired male
nodded gravely. "The leaves turning would make an
excellent backdrop."
"Father, Uncle Saotome,"
Kasumi admonished them, "are you forgetting your
promises? You agreed
that if they admitted their feelings before they graduated,
you would let them go at their
own pace, and set the date."
"But Kasumi, they don't know that." Soun whined.
"Daddy, think about it,"
Nabiki crossed her arms. "Would you rather have
Ranma and Akane be happy on
the most important day of their lives? Or would you
want them upset, being forced
into something they aren't ready for? You do
remember what happened at
the last attempt forced upon them."
"But, the schools..."
"The schools will be
united, Father," the eldest daughter patted her father
on the shoulders, comforting
him. "They're still too young to be worried about such
responsibilities. Give
them a few years to mature a bit more."
Soun glanced between
the two opposing sides: his daughters and his partner
in plotting. Then he
thought about each case scenario.
He sighed, his eyes become
wet with moisture. "I think it would be best to
let them decide."
"Good decision, Daddy,"
Nabiki drawled. She looked around and her eyes
brightened when she caught
sight of a familiar face. "Well, I'm off to see if
Seijitsu actually knows CPR."
She waved as she strolled down the beach, in search
of her intended prey.
Genma put an arm around
his sobbing friend. "Cheer up, Tendo. Looks like
we have some spying to do."
The crying male perked up at the suggestion, and soon
they disappeared in the same
direction as the middle daughter.
Kasumi sighed and picked
up the large binder shaking her head as she hid it
back in the picnic basket.
"Well, that was a close call." She picked up her book and
enjoyed the faint breeze.
********
Further down the beach,
Ranma and Akane were just finishing up with the
repairs to their sand-made
town and were in the midst of a sandball throwing
contest with the kids.
Which actually meant that everyone was ganging up on the
hapless Ranma.
Akane giggled as the
pigtailed boy fell under the pressure of four kids
clinging to his legs.
She moved close to his head and pinned his shoulders down.
"I'll hold him down so you
bury him, okay?"
"Akane! Aww, no fair!"
She stuck out her tongue,
looking at him upside down. "Is too fair, for the
drowning earlier."
"Well, I'm not goin'
down by myself!" Before she could catch on, he pushed
his body up with one leg,
and grabbed the shocked girl with his arms, flipped her
around midair before catching
her against his chest as they landed in the shallow
pit made earlier from their
digging. The children, now realizing they had two big
kids to bury, instead of one,
quickly doubled their pace, squealing in laughter at the
feeble protests that spurted
in-between heaping pailfulls of wet sand.
Then they ran away, leaving the pair of buried teenagers to their own means.
Akane spat out a mouthful
of wet sand, grimacing at the taste. "Where'd
they go?" She tried
to look around, but she couldn't bend her head back far
enough to see around her.
It also didn't help that she was buried face down, so all
she saw was Ranma's grinning
face. 'Well, maybe not that bad of a view,' she
thought to herself, a cheesy
smile forming over her features.
Ranma was thinking along
the same lines. They were buried fairly deep, but
not too far down, so they
couldn't get out by shifting around a few times. He was
enjoying the close and intimate
position they were in, but the wet sand was doing
nothing to cool his inner
core as it heated hot with her proximity. He took
advantage of how close their
mouths were, pressing his lips to hers. He savored
the taste of her, the salt
from the seawater mixed in with the slightly sour taste
of the lemon from the ice
tea. He let a groan escape as her tongue brushed against
his, the pliable muscle dancing
across sensitive taste buds. He tightened his grip
around her, crushing her muscled
body to his as lusts quickly overrid the thought
of being in a public place.
Akane was also lost in
the heady sensation of his warm chest pressed
against her own. Her
fingers curled around the end of his pigtail, tugging slightly
when she broke their liplock.
"Ranma..."
"What?" He breathed
heavily, catching up on lost air. His blue eyes were
almost purple with barely
restrained emotion. They roved her face greedily,
devouring the heated blush
that turned her lightly burned cheeks a darker red.
"Why'd you stop?"
She let her head drop
slightly, and nipped his chin, following the strong line
of his profile with light
kisses. He closed his eyes, groaning at the assault.
"Ranma...we're in the middle
of a beach, remember?. A public beach."
He groaned again, shifting
slightly, creating cracks in their hard sand shell.
"Why are you remindin' me?
You're the one kissin' me, now." She lifted her head
and he opened his eyes.
"Why'd you stop? I didn't say I minded."
"Ranma!" She rolled
her eyes and let her head flop back down next to his,
gaining a mouthful of sand
in the process. She turned and spat it out again.
"Stupid sand." She focused
her eyes on his profile, his cheek within inches of his
own. "What if someone
saw us?"
"Like who?" He
looked at her out of the corner of his eye. "I don't care if
some stranger sees."
"I do! Or what if it's our fathers? We'll be married by the end of the day."
He sighed and looked
back up into the sky. The few puffy clouds that
floated in the blue expanse
slowly turned into the faces of their fathers leering
down at them. A hard
shiver quivered throughout his body and he quickly sat up,
breaking their cocoon of sand.
"Ugh, I just got an awful image."
"Of what? Me in
a wedding dress?" Akane growled, pushing her way out of
his grasp. She stood
up and rubbed herself down, trying to get all the sand off.
She growled again and stomped
down the beach to the water, intent on getting
clean from the sand.
"Akane, stop!"
He stood up quickly, ignoring the sand pouring from him and
bolted after her. "You're
jumpin' to conclusions! That's not what I meant!"
"Then what did you mean?
That I'd make a horrible wife? That your life is
over?" She stomped into
the water, causing bigger waves than what was crashing
upon the shore. She
waded out to about chest deep and plugging her nose and
closing her eyes, dunked her
head under the water. After a moment, she came
back up and shook her short
hair free of excess water. "That you'd be better off
with another of the girls?"
He moved in front of
her, grabbing her shoulders so she couldn't turn away.
"Where in the hell did that
all come from? Damn it, Akane, are you going to let me
explain, now?" She glared
at him, tears clouding up the corners of her eyes, but
she said nothing. He
sighed and lowered his hands to her elbows, bringing her
closer to him. "You're
blowin' everything outta proportion, like normal." He let go
of one arm and poked her in
the nose. "Just listen. What I meant is that I
pictured out fathers leerin'
down at us while we were lying there. Nothin' about my
'life being ruined' or anything
stupid like that. I haven't even given any of the other
girls a thought for a long
time." He smiled down at her. "My mind has been
completely focused on you,
for some silly reason."
She sniffled. "Ranma..."
"I'm yours, Akane, and
you're mine. No one else can fit into this, okay?" He
wiped away the mixture of
tears and seawater from her cheek. "Okay?" His grin
got bigger when she nodded.
"Alright. Now, I think it's my turn to be comforted,
since you accused me of thinkin'
weird stuff." He closed his eyes and faked a
sniffle.
She rolled her eyes.
"I'll give you a comfort, all right." She pushed him
backwards and laughed as he
floundered around, trying to regain his balance and
finally fell over backwards,
disappearing under the surface. She stopped laughing
when after a few moments,
he didn't come back up. "Ranma?" She looked around,
trying to spot him amid the
murky water. The ground had been stirred up by their
movements and made the once
clear water cloudy with sandy bottom. "Where'd you
go?"
A slight tickle on her
ankle made her start. "Wha..." was all she got out
before she was pulled under
the water. A second later she re-emerged, spluttering
out a mouthful of water.
"Ranma! Get up here, now!"
Laughing blue eyes surfaced
on her command. "That wasn't funny!" she
accused him, wiping the stinging
saltwater from her eyes. "I could've drowned!"
"Then I could give you
CPR," he slowly rose from the waves, mere inches in
front of her. "You know,
that mouth to mouth lifesaving thing." He moved closer to
her, wrapping his arms around
her, pulling her unresisting frame into his embrace.
She snorted, her dark
eyes rolling around at his phrase. "That's a real
technical term. 'Lifesaving
thing.' You should be a doctor." She leaned forward,
kissing him soundly.
"Maybe I better show you how in case you would have to use it
one day." She wrapped
her legs around his waist, returning the embrace.
"Maybe you better."
Ranma chuckled deep in his throat as he enjoyed her
lips on his. He lowered
them into the water so everything but their heads were
submerged, becoming two dark
dots bobbing in the gentle waves.
*****
The rest of the morning passed uneventfully. Then came the afternoon...
*****
Everyone regathered early
in the afternoon at their spot of sand, ready and
eager for lunch. Especially
Ranma, who was pacing back and forth in anxiety.
"Where is she? I'm starving!"
"Calm down, baka,"
Akane snorted, brushing out the tangles in her wet hair.
"She's only a little bit late."
"Well, it's a little
bit too long." He stopped pacing for a moment to stare at
the back of his fiancé,
watching as she carefully picked at a snarl, pulling out a bit
of green seaweed. He
grinned as she made a disgusted sound, then resumed his
pacing. "Come on, Nabiki!
Where are you?"
"I'm right here,"
the one in question replied, arms crossed as she smirked.
"The question is, where are
you? I thought we were going to meet on the
boardwalk. Seijitsu
is waiting there for us."
"Finally! I'm starving!"
He grabbed Akane's hand and started to run to the
strip of restaurants, dragging
her behind.
"What's his hurry?"
she asked as the fathers walked in front of her and
Kasumi.
Kasumi smiled and shook
her head. "I think he worked up an appetite playing
in the sand with Akane earlier."
She giggled. "Did you see them get buried by
their little friends?"
Nabiki shook her head.
"I haven't seen them since we got here. I was with
Seijitsu the entire time."
"Will he be joining us
for lunch? I thought he was working today?" Kasumi
gave her sister a knowing
smile. "Did he teach you CPR?"
She nodded, ignoring
the look and the last question. "He is working, but it's
his break right now."
They reached the spot
where Seijitsu, Ranma, and Akane waited for them.
"Where are we gonna eat?"
Akane pointed down the
strip. "What about the seafood place around the
corner? I'm in the mood
for crab legs." Everyone agreed and as a group, they
made their way to the restaurant.
But when they rounded the corner, a swimsuit-clad figure waited for them.
Everyone stopped suddenly,
surprised by the arrival of the familiar face.
"Hello, Ukyou," Kasumi
smiled at the dark-haired girl, "are you here to enjoy the
cool breeze as well?"
"Something like that,"
the girl ground out between clenched teeth. "Ranma,
I'd like to talk to you, please."
He glanced at Akane,
who shrugged, and they watched everyone else go in.
Ranma growled when Nabiki
called over her shoulder that they weren't going to
wait for them to order.
When it was only the three of them, he asked impatiently,
"What is it, Ucchan?
I'm kinda hungry."
She crossed her arms. "I thought you were going to Point Beach?"
"Uh," he glanced
at Akane again, but she just rolled her eyes. He wasn't
going to get any help from
her. "I don't remember telling you where we were
going."
"You didn't. Nabiki
said you were..." Ukyou sighed, rubbing her eyes in
realization. "Well,
I just answered my own question, didn't I?" She looked around.
"When I realized you weren't
at Point, since it was closed for a party, I went to
some other beaches, thinking
that maybe you changed the location. I even came
here yesterday, but I couldn't
find you. So I went back to Nerima, thinking that
maybe you went home, but you
weren't there either."
Ranma chuckled weakly,
"I guess not." His stomach growled loudly, bringing
his attention back to the
main task at hand. Food. "Is there something you
wanted, Ukyou? 'Cuz
I think my stomach is gonna start eating my guts if I don't
get some food in me soon."
Akane rolled her eyes again.
"Wanted? I,
uh..." she blinked a few times, her frustration slowly clearing
her sight. She looked,
really looked at the position of Ranma and Akane, how close
they were standing next to
each other, and then her attention was drawn to their
clasped hands. "What...what's
going on, Ranma?"
"Going on?" He
followed her path of sight to his hand holding Akane's, and
he swallowed hard. "Um...what
do you mean?" He started to let go of her hand, but
Akane refused to let him,
tightening her grip on his fingers.
"Mean? What do
I mean? Stop acting like a girl!" Ukyou's anger returned
full kilter. "Don't
tell me you've finally grown some balls and decided!"
Ranma's face reddened
at the insult. "Who are you to say anything about
what I decide? It's
just that--my decision!"
"And does your decision
end with wanting to be 'just friends'?" she sneered
at the lame line. "I
don't want to hear any crappy excuses, Ranma! You owe me
everything, are going to marry
me, and only me!"
"Want? You want?
I owe...?" His anger started to get the better of him.
"Do you want the truth?
You know what? I do owe you something, and it's the
truth. I have decided!
And it's Akane--it always has been. Not you, not Shampoo
or any other girl that thinks
they can decide my fate for me. And do you know
why?" Ukyou started
to answer, but he cut her off with a sharp arm movement.
"It's because Akane never
demanded or forced anything from me. She never
demanded I become her husband.
She never forced me to come back to her village.
Never tricked me with stupid
plots and magic tricks. The only thing she asked of
me was to be her friend.
Something I thought I already had with you."
Ukyou's face had gotten
paler and paler with his tirade. "But we've been
friends..."
"You mean when we were
six years old? When I thought you were a boy?"
He snorted. "Things
change and people change, Ukyou. I have never thought of you
as anything other than a friend,
Ukyou. Have I ever said that I want to date you,
or get closer in any other
way than bein' friendly?"
"You said...you said I was cute..." her voice started to tremble.
"So what?" His
arms flailed around, and Akane had to duck to avoid getting
whapped in the head.
"Does that mean I'm madly in love with you? If I think a dog
is cute, does that mean I
want to marry it? Of course not." He sagged, seeing his
friend near tears, anger rapidly
deflating. "Relationships aren't based on such
shallow things, Ukyou.
They're made from things that are...that are indescribable.
Things that make your stomach
twist, and your heart race. People who force you to
actually remember to breathe.
Your insides ache when they are in sight, and
they're all you think about
when they are gone."
He sighed and shook his
head. "Go home, Ukyou. Go home and find the one
that makes you feel that way,
and do those things. Find someone who will care for
you in a way that I will never
be able to."
"But, I love you, Ranma." Tears fell down her cheeks.
"No, you don't, Ukyou.
You love...you love the idea of me. How can you go
from hating me for ten years,
to love in a heartbeat? Because I said you were
cute? It's not possible."
His voice was an earnest whisper now. "Go home, Ukyou.
Please."
The darkhaired chef stared
at the pigtailed boy and the shorthaired girl for
several heartbeats, then burst
into a torrent of tears. She turned and bolted away
from the pair, a sand storm
swirling in her path. When the dust settled, and the
air was clear, Ukyou was gone.
*****
They were silent for
several moments, staring off into the mass of brightly
colored sea of cloth, loking
for any sign of the ponytailed girl. Finally, Ranma broke
the silence with a loud sigh.
"I hate myself."
"Don't say that, Ranma,"
Akane leaned against his arm, clutching it tight to
herself. "She needed
to hear it that way, or she would have never listened. She'll
be better off in the long
run."
"I should've done it
a long time ago," he sagged against her, curling his arm
around her body, taking comfort
from her presence. "But I sounded so mean.
She's my friend; I never wanted
to hurt her."
Akane didn't know what
else to say, so she just held him as he mulled over
his outburst. But their
attention was brought out of their musings when Ranma's
stomach reared its ugly head
again. He groaned and rubbed the offending spot. "I
think I'm gonna die if I don't
get some food in me soon!"
Akane chuckled softly,
and pulled out of his embrace. "Come on, then. Let's
go feed the monster."
She gave his hand a squeeze and led him inside.
But as they passed the
threshhold, he paused in the doorway, giving the
beach one last search before
following his fiancé inside.
*******
Lunch passed fairly quiet,
since just about everyone in the restaurant and
the surrounding area heard
the fight. No one commented on it at the table, which
was a relief to both Ranma
and Akane. They really didn't want to explain the
details of the confrontation,
and get the fathers in the mood to discuss wedding
plans. The fathers,
for once, ignored the relationship of Ranma and Akane.
Instead, they grilled the
newest person at the table, Seijitsu.
The poor boy wasn't prepared
for the interrogation, and instead of dying a
quick death by questioning,
he excused himself early, explaining he had to return to
his job of lifeguarding.
He did, though, get a public promise from Nabiki to stop by
his station to say goodbye
before they left.
Akane and Kasumi immediately
teased their sister, taking advantage of the
blush that highlighted Nabiki's
high cheekbones.
After lunch, they decided
to take advantage of the time they had left
before they needed to meet
the train for the ride home. Kasumi and Nabiki
wandered over to the shops,
and the fathers headed straight for the large
umbrellas set up near a portable
bar.
Akane mentioned that
she really didn't know how to swim yet, so grudgingly,
Ranma agreed to give her the
next lesson.
"But first, I gotta change," he said, pointing to his clothes.
She was confused. "Change into what?"
"I think the soap is
about to wear off," he explained, heading towards the
bathrooms and changing area.
They stopped by the female side. "Can you check
and see if anyone is in there?"
Akane went inside to
check, and discovering no one in there, she motioned
for him to enter. When
he went into a shower stall, she left the building to guard
the door.
A few minutes later Ranma
emerged, wet and female; the same green and
black-striped swimsuit covering
his generous frame. A quick look around noted no
voyeurs, so he leaned over
to peck Akane on the cheek. "Thanks. C'mon, let's go
teach you how to swim."
As they made their way
into the water, Ranma explained what he was going
to do. "Okay, we're
gonna do this in baby steps, alright? First, show me how you
can float on your back, without
my help." She nodded and did so on the first
attempt, her legs and arms
barely sinking under the surface.
"Good!" he beamed
at her, proud of his student. "Okay, now stay floating,
and I'm gonna pull you out
into a little deeper water. Just under the chin, so don't
panic, okay?" Akane
nodded slightly, not wanting to lose her concentration. She
could feel the water separating
around her head as Ranma towed her out into
deeper waters by her shoulders.
"All right. Now,
stand up, Akane, I want you to watch me do this first. This
is called the dead man's float.
It's basically the same thing, but the other way
around, with your face in
the water. All ya do is lean forward a bit, with your arms
loose in front of you and
push off gently from the bottom, so your legs dangle in
the water. Like
this." He demonstrated the float for her, letting his legs dangle
underneath him and his arms
float in front of his head.
Akane watched him rock
upon the waves for a monent, then tapped him on
the shoulder to come back
up. "I think I got it," she said. "Like this?"
Slowly, she
stretched herelf out on the
water, and with a big gasp of air and a little push of
her feet, she sank her head
and hoisted her legs off the sandy bottom. She did it
for a few seconds before she
started to turn to the side. Immediately she flipped
herself into an upright position,
sputtering a mouthful of water as she resurfaced.
"Was that right?"
Ranma laughed, bouncing
on his toes in excitement. "Yes, yes! That was
great, Akane! I can't
believe you got it on the first try! Awesome!"
She beamed at him, excited
to get something right. "It was easy! I just
kept thinking I was in the
bath, and not in the sea. It made it a whole lot easier to
concentrate. Can
we do something else?"
"Sure! I think
we can move on." He looked around and spotted something on
shore. "I'll be right
back, I'm gonna go get a prop. You practice floating, okay?"
She watched with envy
as he dove under the water and swam rapidly to the
shore. "Someday, I'll
be that fast," she vowed to herself. "But first things first:
floating." Again, she
cleared her mind and thought herself in the bath as she
dunked her face into the water.
She got so relaxed she
barely felt Ranma tap her on the shoulder. "And I
was just having fun!"
She stared at the large piece of white...foam? "What's
that?"
"This is your learning
prop," Ranma explained. "It's actually the top to a
styrofoam cooler, but it will
work just as well as anything." He let it go and they
watched as it bobbed along
with the waves. "See, it floats." He grabbed it before
it got away. "Now, I'm
gonna show you how to kick."
"I already know how to kick."
He rolled his eyes.
"But this is different. This is kicking so you can propel
yourself in the water, which
is completely different than anything else. And now
your floating lessons are
going to come in handy. That's why I taught that to you
first."
For the better part of
the day, Ranma progressively taught Akane the
different parts of swimming,
not moving on to the next step until she completely
understood and performed the
task. After awhile, the crowd got thinner and
thinner, and soon they were
the just about the only ones left in the water. But
they did have an audience
of four on the shore.
Soun was creating his
own lake to swim in as he watched Ranma patiently
showing Akane how to coordinate
her breathing with her arm strokes. "My little
girl has finally learned how
to swim. What a proud day this is!"
Nabiki glanced at her
wrist, checking the time. "If we don't hurry, we're
going to be late for the train.
We already missed the first two back to Nerima.
The next one leaves in less
than an hour."
"I suppose it is time
to go." Kasumi walked up to the edge of the water and
cupped her hands to her mouth.
"Ranma, Akane, it's time to go home, now."
Both looked up at the
voice and waved their hands. "Hang on a sec," Ranma
called back. He turned
to Akane, and she nodded her head. Ranma yelled out,
"Okay, everyone, watch this!"
Five pairs of eyes watched
with growing excitement and pride as Akane
slowly, but surely, did a
very splashy front crawl to the shore; Ranma side-crawling
next to her. And as
they reached the end of swimmable water, everyone splashed
into the shallows, encircling
them both with hugs and congratulations for a task
once thought impossible to
complete, but now concquered with impossible spirit and
determination.
*******
As they settled into
their seats on the train ride home, Akane snuggled into
Ranma's shoulder, wrapping
her arms around his once again male form. "I can't
believe I was swimming!
You don't know how much I was both dreading and
anticipating this."
He nodded his head, smiling
down at her. "But you did it. I'm real proud of
ya, Akane. You did good."
She grinned back at him. "I had a good teacher, too."
"Well, I told ya Saotome
Ranma never loses, ne?" They both laughed at his
ego.
Akane rubbed her face
against the warmth seeping from his white tank top,
yawning tiredly. "Maybe
someday I'll be able to go out for the swim team. This
time, on my own merit."
"Someday, maybe,"
he agreed with his own jaw-cracking yawn. "You'll have
to practice a little bit more,
though."
He ran his fingers through
her still damp hair, a silly grin on his face as he
remembered just all that went
on in the past two days. "And you didn't want to
come to the beach."
********************
There's chapter Two! I don't know if I want to do another--it seemed like a good ending, ne? Maybe if inspiration hits me at some point. **thwack**
^_~ ......ouch..........
Gie-chan