Prologue
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Akane lay awake in bed, tossing and turning, trying to find a position comfortable enough to allow her to sleep. ‘Why can’t I get to sleep?’ Akane groaned as she looked at her alarm clock and saw that it was almost three in the morning. She stretched her arms and legs. ‘I was so sore when I came to bed. And now, my brain won’t stop running in circles.’
‘Father and Mr. Saotome were so happy,’ she couldn’t help remembering. ‘After the ceremony was finished, they wouldn’t stop blubbering about how our families were finally joined.’
Akane sighed heavily as she thought about everything. ‘I don’t know what to feel. Should I be happy things turned out this way? Or am I going to regret it for the rest of my life?’ Thinking of the regret just made her flush in anger. ‘It’s your own damn fault things turned out this way!’ she told herself. ‘Why did things have to be this way? Why can’t I be happy?’ Akane wondered, only to contradict herself a moment later. ‘No! Stop it! The wedding was a good thing. It really was.’
‘Geez, I’m not going to get any sleep, am I?’ Akane asked herself rhetorically, as she just stared at the ceiling. ‘Maybe... maybe if I just sort these stupid thoughts out, I might be able to sleep.’
‘It all started the day I found out about Ryoga.’ Akane muscles tensed at that. ‘I wish he were here now, I’d love to pound his pig face into the floor. Then I’d probably make bacon out of him. To think I ever considered him a friend.’ Akane shuddered. ‘I can’t believe the way he used me, violated me! All those times he watched me change, or allowed me to tell him my deepest secrets, as if he were really just my pet. I still can’t believe he tried to blame everything on Ranma the day I found out!’
‘That day,’ Akane thought sadly. ‘Actually,’ she mused, ‘that isn’t really when it began at all. Of course, that day was when the worst of it began, when I’d felt the most hurt and betrayed, not only by Ryoga, but Ranma and father as well.’ Akane felt tears begin to roll down her cheek. ‘But things wouldn’t have been so bad that day if Ranma and I had been getting along better. When did things between Ranma and I begin to really go sour?’
‘Oh,’ she remembered sadly, ‘that day. I can’t believe I forgot about that day when I found out about Ryoga. If I’d remembered, then maybe... maybe Ranma and I wouldn’t have had to suffer so much. And maybe it would’ve changed how the wedding turned out.’ Akane’s tears began to fall faster as she thought about that fateful day.
The crash distracted Akane from the television program she was watching. It was true that such things were commonplace in the Tendo home, but one never knew if crashes were going to be followed by some enemy attacking. Akane growled as she heard what came next. “Get back here bacon breath!” the voice of Ranma yelled through the house. Akane heard someone running and also heard small grunts and squeals, so she immediately got up to investigate. ‘That baka is chasing my P-Chan again, isn’t he? I swear I’m going to have to smack some sense into him.’ As she headed into the hallway, she heard Ranma yell again. “I told you to stay out of Akane’s room.” With that, she saw P-Chan come running around the corner, heading straight for her. Not far behind him, she saw Ranma also coming around the corner, obviously chasing the little pig. |
 |
After a few moments, Ranma managed to pick himself up. “What was that for?” he demanded.
“That’s for chasing and scaring poor P-Chan, you baka,” she said.
“But that little hentai pig was sneaking into your room.”
Akane rolled her eyes. “Who cares, he sleeps in there with me anyway. Besides, he’s just a pig. He’s not like you, a real hentai who’s always trying to sneak peeks at me.”
Ranma’s face began to turn beat red, and Akane couldn’t tell if it was embarrassment or anger. ‘Damn, we’ve been getting along so well too. But I don’t want him hurting P-Chan,’ she thought. ‘And honestly, how dumb can he be, getting jealous over a pig?’
“Sneak peeks at you,” Ranma repeated. “As if. Why would I want to peek at a un-cute, sexless, macho chick like you anyway?”
‘I can’t believe he’s doing this. He hasn’t insulted me like this in a while. Okay, maybe I started it, but I’m not about to back down now.’
“And what would you know about it you sex-changing, cross-dressing, pervert.”
Ranma suddenly became infuriated, more so than she’d seen in quite a while. ‘Why is he so mad at me? It’s not like I haven’t said the same thing before.’
“Why you...” Ranma growled as he tried to make a grab for P-Chan.
Akane’s nostrils flared as Ranma’s hand flew towards her chest. She pulled back her hand and slapped him hard across the face.
Ranma stopped dead in his tracks. He looked at Akane, his face a mask of confusion and anger. Finally, he just took a step back from her and only the anger seemed to remain.
“Fine,” he said. “I was only trying to protect you. But if you want to sleep with that pig, I’m not going to stop you.”
‘What is this morons problem?’ she wondered. “I can’t believe you’re jealous over a pig. Besides, it’s not as if you like me or anything anyway.”
‘Maybe that last part will get him to slip up and give a little confession,’ she hoped.
“Ya know what,” Ranma said, his voice suddenly cold, “you’re right. And it’s not as if you care about me anyhow. So you know what, I’m just sick of caring. You do whatever you want, I don’t care anymore.” With that, Ranma turned around and left, leaving a bewildered Akane behind.
‘I can’t believe how stupid I was!’ Akane thought to herself. ‘The only thing that accomplished was to drive Ranma away. He just ignored me after that, and boy did that piss me off! I can’t believe I decided I’d rather have him insult me than ignore me. It just added fuel to the fire.’
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Akane saw Ranma eating his lunch by himself under one of the trees on the school grounds as he’d been doing since their fight. He was staring down at his food and picking at it absently, and didn’t notice her coming. She cleared her throat, which caused Ranma to look up, stare into her eyes for a moment, and then look back at his food again. Thus it was that he missed the scowl that appeared on Akane’s face. ‘Why is this bothering me so much? You’d think I’d be happy,’ she thought to herself. Akane than sat down next to him and began to speak, “Ranma, will you stop acting like a child and talk to me?!” |
Reaching into her backpack, Akane pulled out a lunch package that she’d made for him. ‘Now I know this will get some kind of response from him.’ Akane opened it up and handed it over to him. “Here, I made this for you.”
“I don’t want it,” was all Ranma said in reply.
‘That’s it? That’s all the reaction I get? I at least expected him to accuse me of poisoning him.’ Rather than give up, Akane pushed the lunch under his nose.
Suddenly, Ranma looked up at her with an angry expression. He took the box, looked her in the eyes, and flung it away. “I said I don’t want it,” he growled.
“Do you know how much trouble I went through to make that?” Akane demanded. ‘I didn’t expect the baka to eat it, but he didn’t have to be so rude about it!’
“I told you the other day, I don’t care anymore!” With that, he got up and started to head back to the school.
“Listen,” she replied, “if you’re still mad about P-Chan, don’t worry. He disappeared again and probably won’t be back for a while.”
“You just don’t get it, do you?” he asked, turning to face her. “I have my reasons for wanting to keep that pig away from you, but I promised someone, on my honor, that I wouldn’t tell you what they are. Why the hell won’t you just listen to me? I’m just trying my damnedest to protect you! Why won’t you trust me when I say you shouldn’t keep him around? Instead you have to be a stubborn, thick-headed baka!”
‘What the hell kind of nonsense is this?’ Akane wondered to herself. ‘There’s no reason for me not to keep P-Chan around. This is just some ploy of Ranma’s because he’s jealous. What a baby.’
“You know what Ranma?” Akane said, “You’re right. I don’t trust you. That’s the biggest load of bull I’ve ever heard. If you’re just jealous of P-Chan, just come out and say so. You don’t have to go making up all this stuff.”
Ranma just shook his head in disgust. “You really are dense, aren’t you?”
“What did you call me?”
“Dense. I could say stupid too. While I’m at it, I could throw in pissy, petty, masculine-” Whatever else he was going to say was lost as Akane hit him across the school yard and turned to go to class.
‘Well, at least I can say that my plan worked. He certainly started insulting me again after that,’ she thought with regret. ‘After that our fights just seemed to take on a life of their own. He only ignored me or insulted me. The friendship we’d seemed to develop before all this had happened just began to evaporate over the next several months. It was like we went back to how we were in the beginning.’
‘Because of that, when I finally discovered Ryoga’s secret, things got out of hand. I simply felt too angry and betrayed. Of course, Ranma and I did eventually make up, but how much pain could’ve been avoided if I’d just trusted him in the first place?’
With a sigh, Akane looked at the clock and found that it was almost four. ‘Damn, I can’t do this anymore, I have too much to do tomorrow.’ With that, she rolled over and looked at the other side of the bed.
Thank you for taking the time to read Aijou & Aitou. I hope you have enjoyed yourself. I would love to hear all feedback, positive or negative (as long as it’s constructive). Please take the time to leave a review on fanfiction.net or send me an email letting me know your opinion. Thanks.
