Debt, love… Fight!

I’m NOT jealous.

The quack from the nurse’s office in the pit tells me my nose isn’t broken, but for practical effects, same shit. The plugs in my nose prevent me from breathing, and adding to that all the punches I’ve gotten, I’m feeling somewhat dizzy.

My head is up in the clouds, walking as if I was floating, when did I let that guy hit me that hard? Thank god my head is as hard as a rock, otherwise I’d be in the hospital right about now. 

I walk the well-known path to the back room, knowing she’s waiting for me, only, upon arriving, the scene is different from the one I had in my head. Akane isn’t looking up at me, teary eyed and concerned, ready to tend to my wounds while giving a half-hearted scolding.

Instead, she rushes by me, she can be pretty quick when she wants to be. Not hard to figure out why she’s being like this, I know her M.O. 

Shampoo stares at me from the end of the hallway, daring in her eyes and ice shards instead of a heart. Fine, I think that throughout the years I’ve been polite and tolerant, everyone knows I would never hit a woman, but right now I’m more than ready to make an exception. 

“What the fuck did you do?!” I scream in chinese, to make sure she understands, while stomping up to where she is standing. The mob of women that usually harass me outside of the back room run away like rats, knowing when trouble is brewing, but this time, they have no idea what they just brought on. 

“Hello Ranma,” she answers, softening her expression, acting like she doesn’t know she can’t fool me. I know she is a wolf in sheep’s clothing. 

“Quit the bullshit, I asked you a question!” I bellow. I can barely breath, I can’t see my eyes are so swollen, but I still have enough in me to kick her out. 

“I have said nothing, I promise. She’s a very sensitive girl,” her answer, in her native tongue, is extremely calm, trying to appear sincere and upset. 

“Shampoo…” I grunt, but she saunters over to me, dragging one finger over my blood stained t-shirt, careful to avoid the big, wet, brown spots. 

“It’s very nice to see you, you are keeping busy.”

“Go. Away.” I stare, like I’ve done a million times before, but this nutjob has other things in mind. 

“I will be staying in Tokyo for a season, my grandmother has a restaurant and needs a waitress,” she winks at me, and I’m about to wring her fine neck until that smug expression in her face is satisfyingly erased while begging for mercy. “So you’ll be seeing me around”. 

“If you have spun any of your poisonous lies to Akane…”

“Akane,” she tastes the name in her mouth and scrunches up her face, like it’s rotten. “Is she your girlfriend?”

I stay quiet, watching her, stone faced. She shrugs her shoulders, like the answer doesn’t matter anyway, like she doesn’t actually care either way. Of course she doesn’t, her ego is so big she thinks she’s better than every woman out there, and apparently, worthier of my affections than everyone else. 

“I just told her not to think of herself as special because you…you know…”, she brushes her hair daintily with her hand, faking an indifference I’m pretty sure she doesn’t feel. 

“No, I don’t know. You’re gonna have to explain”. I’m wrestling with what little self-control I still possess, and grip her arm roughly, which she seems to like. She purrs with the violent contact, and struggles so I’ll squeeze tighter. Now that I think about it, if I were to wring her neck she would probably enjoy it. 

That thought makes me so uncomfortable that I release her immediately, but Shampoo seems more than willing to exploit the infinity of possibilities that is my newly discovered weak point.

“I told her that every once in a while, you fuck some random girl in the locker room”. 

A massive crack opens inside of me, from the malicious resentment woven in her words. Now I understand Akane’s reaction, full of pain. She has spat such disgusting imagery at her, feeling no guilt or shame about it. I clench my teeth, my jaw at a breaking point, and stare at her, eyes wide and breathing ragged. Shampoo blinks innocently, but also smug, daring me to deny it.

I close my fists, feeling capable of doing things I may regret, but with perfect timing, Ryu appears, seemingly reading my thoughts.

“Have you lost your mind??” he grabs me, tension apparent, “don’t fall for it”. 

I know my brother is right, but I still shake him loose. I’m trying to hold my rage back, barely succeeding, staring at her like I could pulverize her with my eyes. Shampoo doesn’t look away though, she doesn’t seem the least bit contrite.

Still, she’s not foolish enough to keep tempting fate, she smiles and walks away with a deadly promise in her lips, leaving behind the feeling of stones in my stomach, and the bitter sensation that she’s about to become my worst nightmare.

.

..

…

I sent the text hours ago and she still hasn’t answered. Or maybe she has chosen not to. 

This morning I finally took out the nose plugs, and after lots of ice, creams and anti-inflammation drugs I look slightly closer to a human than a walking bruise. It’s still hard to breathe like normal, so I just lay in bed, suffering in silence. 

Before going out to train, Ryu put some music on, and selected a bunch of songs by someone named Taylor Swift. He shouted, “to set the mood for your sad love life” before closing the door behind him. I will kill him, and will do it slowly. 

I make myself  some instant noodles, while her voice rings in the background, helping me wallow in my misery. 

What if he’s written ‘mine’ on my upper thigh

Only in my mind?

One slip and falling back into the hedge maze

Oh what a way to die

I keep recalling things we never did

Messy top lip kiss

How I long for our trysts

Without ever touching his skin

How can I be guilty as sin?

When she gets to the chorus, my appetite is gone, possibly also my will to live. I dump the ramen into the trash, and turn the goddamn music off before flopping onto the couch. When Ryu comes back, I glare at him. 

“Oh, it’s worse than I thought,” he says while frowning and crossing his arms, “tell me you HAVEN’T become one with the couch all day”.

I don’t answer, he just shakes his head. 

“Get up and get dressed, we are going out.”

“Where,” I grunt. 

“You are taking me to that restaurant.” 

.

..

…

I resisted with all my might, but in the end I could do nothing but give in while my brother hit me on the head and kicked my ass to make me walk. My mood’s so bad I don’t even bother to fight back. I feel like the worst loser in the world. 

“You know it’s not like she dumped you right?” he says while swinging his arm around my shoulders and pulling me close. I guess after trying to cheer me up via punching, he’s now gonna try a new technique called “being understanding”. 

“She doesn’t wanna see me,” I pout while staring at the ground. We are inching closer to her restaurant, and it’s starting to freak me out. 

“I think that’s a good sign.”

“In what universe??” my brow raises, but my brother is confidently smiling. 

“She obviously feels at a disadvantage with Shampoo, that means that she measured herself against her.”

“I guess…” I say, sharpening my gaze on him.

“She’s a proud fighter, and she doesn’t know how to handle it. That’s good!”

“You’re not making any sense,” his blabbering is making my head hurt, or maybe it’s yesterday’s fight’s fault. In anycase, I could do with some more painkillers. “And let me remind you, you are shit when it comes to women”.

“I’m shit when it comes to relationships, but a genius when it comes to women”.

“I hate you.”

“You love me.”

“I don’t really have a choice.”

We make it to the restaurant. Ryu releases me and puts his hands on his waist. 

“So this is the place…let’s go in.” 

“You go in.” I take two steps back while frowning, “I’ll go for a walk around the block.”

“Ranma, don’t be a wuss, go in there and act like a man.”

“Oh nice, talking like the old man”.

“No need to insult me,” he answers while pushing me to the door. I look daggers at him again, but I know it’s pointless. Taking a breath, my hand in my fist, hoping against hope that this works out and she doesn’t throw a ramen bowl at my head, I walk in. 

The restaurant is full, like most Saturdays, but we are lucky enough that two people are just getting up, leaving a table free. Ryu smiles and drags me to the table. We take our seats while I look around the establishment. Akane is serving someone at the counter, and jumps, startled, when she turns around and sees us. I lower my eyes, but Ryu is waving like crazy. 

“Akane, hiiii!” His waving is like a little kid greeting his best friend in school. It’s ridiculous.

I can feel her approaching, she starts to clean up the table, coldness coming off of her in waves, but my brother ignores it, and smiles like everything’s fine. 

“It smells amazing, what do you suggest we get?”, he asks while looking around and cozily settling in his chair. 

“Today’s special”, she answers while wiping down the table with one hand, balancing the dirty dishes with the other. 

“Two specials then, please and thank you”.

Akane heads back, and seeing her disappear behind the kitchen doors makes me even more miserable. 

“See? It’s going great,” Ryu concludes.

Not for the first time today, I consider fratricide. 

“Seriously?!” he can’t be this obtuse/stupid. Akane comes back with a couple of glasses of water, slamming them down on the table, water splashing everywhere. She then turns around, like she didn’t just leave us soaking wet. 

She’s so subtle, so demure. My brother smiles at me as she walks away to tend to another table.

“She’s nuts about you,” he gloats while wiping his chin. 

I wipe my eyes with my sleeve, and shake out the water from my jacket. 

“I need to know what the fuck is wrong with you that you’d come to that conclusion.” I spend the next few minutes nervously shaking my knee, seeing her come and go without looking my way once. 

And then, he appears. 

Late, of course. I click my tongue, annoyed. Ryu studies him with interest. The stupid bum says sorry and starts waiting tables. When he sees me, he smiles like he plans to spit on my dish. 

“Love rival?” Ryu unashamedly points and stares at him.

“Lower your voice, asshole!!”

Ryu crosses his arms, still staring, until the object of my despair (affectionate) comes by with a tray, placing on the table two bowls of ramen with shrimp tempura, a bowl of rice, and some gyozas. My brother smiles at her again but she doesn’t respond to the gesture, I don’t dare look up. 

“I think I get it now,” he says a while later, while slurping his noodles.

My hands are in my pockets, I don’t even feel like eating right now. 

“What do you get?” I reply, bored. 

“The answer to the question. How did you find a cute, single -no suitors in sight- girl working in a restaurant? That’s pretty much impossible, believe me. So that is the reason” he points to the stupid jerkoff with his chopsticks. “He drives them away, it just so happens you are immune to his tricks”. 

“You are saying that that moron drives away the guys that go near her?”

Ryu nods.

“All of them but you”. 

I raise my brow, it does make sense, probably why he hasn’t exactly been friendly to me. 

“He’s not serious about her,” I say sullenly, my brother shrugs his shoulders. I guess that’s like what he does with women too. 

“All the more reason for you to make a move. Aren’t you gonna eat?”

I look at the bowl of ramen, and sigh, my stomach is in knots. It’s not that easy. At least for me it isn’t. Akane comes back to the table to pick up the dishes, and stops when she sees my untouched plate. For the first time since we walked in, she looks at my face. 

I try not to pout like a hurt puppy, but I can’t help it. What did Ryu say? To act like a man? At times like these, I would love for someone to explain to me what being a man is, and how it’s a good thing to act like one. 

Akane rolls her eyes and takes the plates with her. 

“Fine,” Ryu stands up and stretches, “I guess you can take it from here”. 

“What do you mean?” I frown but my brother walks away without a care. I get up to follow him but the door to the kitchen swings open and a woman I’ve never seen before rushes out and points at me with a ladle. 

“What is wrong with my food??” she asks. The room goes deathly quiet. I see Akane peeking shyly from the kitchen door, jerkface standing next to her with a huge shit-eating grin on his face. 

My fucking brother is nowhere to be found. 

“The…food?” I gulp while raising my hands in peace, genuinely afraid she’s gonna hit me with that thing. “Nothing, the food here is amazing!”

“You haven’t tasted it,” she says while still staring me down. This must be the damned Mrs. O. 

“I-I…I’m not really…not really hungry…..” The tension in the room could be cut with a knife. Mrs. O lowers her ladle and exhales through the nose. 

“To the kitchen”.

“Eh?”

“Come into the kitchen,” she orders, and for a second I think I hear her wrong. Still, dragging my feet, I walk behind her, into the kitchen, where customers really aren’t supposed to be. Akane steps aside, but the space is small and we briefly touch. 

Mrs. O tosses me an apron, points to a frying pan and then to a tray.

“You fry the gyoza today” she says. Then goes back to stirring the soups and boiling the noodles. I blink without understanding, but I’m also not brave enough to refuse, so I put the apron on, wash my hands in the sink and get to work exactly as I was told. “Put eight on each plate, make sure they don’t burn”. 

“Got it.” Time to show off my cooking skills, easily flipping a whole batch of gyozas. Mrs. O nods and gives me something akin to a small smile. At least she no longer looks like she’s about to hit me with her saucepan. 

Akane walks into the kitchen and blinks a few times when she sees me twirl the chopsticks in my hands and plate two whole dishes, fried to perfection. She takes them, looks at them, and looks back at me. I blush a little.

“At home, I’m in charge of cooking,” I try to explain while focusing on the new batch. 

She walks out of the kitchen, looking a little less tense, or so I’d like to think. 

“She’s a good girl, but she has a tough time opening up to other people” Mrs. O says, making me turn around surprised. The fact that she’s casually talking to me about Akane means she at least knows who I am. “You need to be patient”. 

Is this love advice? Incredulous, I blink, can’t help the smile forming on my face. I nod in response. Mrs. O doesn’t say anything else, and I work diligently through the rest of the shift. By nightfall I’m hungry and exhausted. 

Akane has been serving the dishes I’ve been cooking, and at some point, no longer looks at me with contempt. Can’t say the same about her freeloading ass of a coworker. Every chance he gets he’s complaining about my presence, or that the food is too greasy, but I just smile and nod, until he gives up. 

Mrs. O hands me three thousand yen “for the trouble”. If this is what a shift pays, I now get why Akane takes on other jobs. I thank her, she smiles and serves me a new ramen bowl that she leaves within my reach with a stern stare. 

“We don’t waste food,” she warns.

“Understood,” I answer, taking some chopsticks and grabbing the bowl, finishing it in record time while standing, right there in the kitchen. 

She starts gathering and washing all the frying pans, the saucepans and the pots, I roll back my sleeves and get to it. Physical labor is comforting, it helps me not overthink things, like the fact that there’s no more sound coming from the dining area. Even the leech has gone, a few minutes ago, after glaring at me, but he knows his shit doesn’t work on me. 

Finally, Mrs. O leaves and it’s just me and Akane. My heart is leaping out of my chest. She’s fussily wiping down the tables, they almost shine from the effort. I grab a broom and start sweeping the floors. 

It’s pretty clear she doesn’t want to speak to me, but I guess I have something to say about this whole thing. Placing my hands above the broom handle, I watch her work for a whole minute until I gather the courage to speak. 

“Are you going to answer my texts?”

She stops for a minute, like she didn’t expect the interruption, then carries on without looking at me. 

“You only sent one”.

“Ah, so you did see it”, I reply, trying not to sound hurt. 

“I’ve been busy” she starts wiping down the chairs. If she keeps this up, she’ll even make the walls shine. 

“Maybe…maybe I should have told you more about the place,” I whisper, holding my breath, and hoping she’ll turn around and look at me with her attentive and bright eyes, with care, like she always does. But she keeps going, like she’s not listening. “I wasn’t trying to hide anything”. 

Her shoulders tense up, she drops her cleaning rag and finally turns. It’s not even twenty four hours and I’ve fallen into a pit of despair thinking she hates me, hard as it may seem. Her face shows no signs of wounds, her pouty mouth and frown facing me, and I’ve never felt more relieved.

“You didn’t tell me about her. You don’t know the cruel things she said,” her brow furrows even more, and she starts blinking fast. For a second, she looks like she’s about to cry. She inhales deeply and wrings her hands, like she misses her damn cleaning rag. 

“I never thought she’d come back, especially so soon,” I answer honestly, putting the broom away and slowly walking towards her. 

“Is she…like your girlfriend or something?”

“No.”

“Was she?”

“No!”

“And the others?”

“Do you really wanna know?”

“No, I guess I really don’t.”

I can feel her stress, her discomfort run through my skin and settle in my chest like a heavy weight. She crosses her arms and looks away. The silence becomes ominous and terrifying. 

“I want to fight her,” she says suddenly, startling me. I just look at her like she lost her damn mind. 

“No way.” 

“Why? Do you think I can’t beat her?”

“Beat Shampoo? Yeah no, you can’t”

She stares silently at me, and I get that she feels betrayed by me and humiliated by her.  Akane is a proud person, one of the things I like about her the most, but also, she’s not that strong yet. 

“Haven’t you been training me for this?” she stubbornly insists, and she could not be more wrong. 

“You speak Chinese,» she says in a low voice. I raise my brow, that caught me off-guard.

“Yeah? In case you haven’t noticed, almost all the fighters are Chinese. I know a lot of bad words,” I give her a sideway’s smile, feeling like everything is a little lighter, like the mood has become clean, almost breathable. 

“She said if I ever came back, she would kill me,” she’s still looking at me with her huge brown eyes, I feel gravity pull my stomach followed by a fireball settling inside of it. I don’t want to let her go, not now that I finally have her so close.

“If she lays a single finger on you…” I grunt, feeling rage all over again. Akane stands aside, releasing my hands, with a determined look on her face. A deep hole opens in my chest. 

“You have to train me.”

“Akane…”

“So I can face her.”

“…please don’t…”

“I’m a fighter too, and I’m going to make her eat her words.”

I groan, out of sheer frustration. It can’t be done, not even possible in the long term, and I don’t know how to explain it to her. That she has the same odds against Shampoo that a first year karate student has against me.  

“I’ll train you, but you have to promise me that you won’t accept any challenges from her until I say so.”

And I hope that day never comes. She won’t answer, damn her. My hands on my hips, I look up to the ceiling and inhale deeply. I don’t think I can talk her out of this, can’t take her away from that godforsaken place, I can only watch as she destroys herself. 

Is this my punishment, for everything I’ve done?

The challenge has lit a fire in her eyes, her wounded pride bursting from between her fingers, wound into tight fists. It’s no longer about the money, and that’s a problem. 

We finish cleaning up and lock the restaurant. Walking the well worn path, with the mandatory stop at the bath house, now more than I ever do I understand the feeling of getting rid of the sticky left-over feeling from the kitchen, from the deep stench of the frying pans and the soups.

Akane walks out drying her hair with a pink towel, she smells sweet, like vanilla. 

“Your boss is quite the character”, I say while walking to her place, she nods.

“She hates food going to waste, and loves clients that lick their plates clean. She almost lost it when I walked back into the kitchen with your ramen bowl intact,” she laughs a little, and that sound fills my heart.

“Lesson learned, and she paid me…kind of.”

“She paid you?”

“I hope your wage is better than this,” I pull out of my pocket the three thousand yen, and show her, making her laugh out loud. 

“Oh, you truly upset her.”

We make it to the guest house where she stays, for the first time I linger for long enough to take note of the rotten wood on the frame, the chipped floor beneath us. A guy comes tumbling out, he must be around fifty years old, and drunk as a skunk. 

“Akane, sweetheart, just getting home? I’m going to the combini, want a beer?”

He reeks, and not just from the alcohol. I give him my iciest glare and he steps back, taking the long way around us and walking away fast. What the hell…

“They probably had another sad divorcee meeting”, she says while shrugging her shoulders, like she’s used to dealing with such fine specimens on a daily basis. 

“Is his room close to yours?” my eyes glued to the place from where he fled. 

“Yeah.”

“And does your door have a lock?”

She raises her eyebrow.

“He wouldn’t hurt me.”

“Is that a no?”

We stare at each other, darkness around us. 

“Good night,” she says walking through the door, but I grab it before she can close it behind her, hitting me with it. 

“You should find another place to live.”

“Sure, when you find somewhere else in Tokyo for less than thirty thousand a month, let me know.”

I just can’t help but think of my place, where an empty room sits, stuffed with boxes and junk, a safe space for her, with a bathroom and a closet that could get filled with her vanilla scent. 

I’m not crazy enough for that yet…am I? The words get caught in my throat, and this time, she does close the door on me, without saying goodbye or good night. 

.

..

…

I’m back bright and early, seven am, about to knock on the door but it’s open. Do they forget to close it behind them? I walk in, for the first time ever, and dodge some cardboard boxes haphazardly stacked in the hallway. The whole place reeks of mold, and looks like it’s about to fall down any minute.

There’s at least twelve rooms. I counted the windows yesterday. I was pacing outside last night and realized the light on the room all the way to the left on the second floor lit up shortly after Akane went inside, so that must be her room.  There’s no way to scale the building, so I quickly dismissed the idea of ​​climbing up there to check it out.

And now I don’t have to look like a thief, I can conveniently walk around the building and assess all potential dangers. 

The main problem is easily found on the ground floor. There’s a bunch of drunken and hungover men littering the hallway, snoozing between cans of beer. I peek into the room where most of the bodies are coming from, and step away in disgust. At least another four unconscious men are in there. 

I thought it before, but I’m absolutely sure now, that this isn’t a good place to live for anyone, least of all a girl, even a stubborn one like Akane. 

A slightly more normal looking man comes out of a room on the second floor, looks at me funny, but doesn’t ask questions. I keep snooping until I’m outside of what I’m pretty sure is her room. Don’t know if she’ll consider it as a huge breach to her personal space if I wait by her door, but honestly, I don’t give a fuck. 

I hear noises inside, I pull out my phone to be sure. 

I wait a few seconds and hear her notification sound for incoming messages. Akane curses, the sliding doors are super thin, almost like paper. 

“That asshole, thinks he can bully me so early…”, she complains and I have to hold back my laughter. “What do they see in him, with that dumb braid and always looking beaten up.”

“Low blow,” I whisper into my sweatshirt. Inside, she’s still rambling on. 

“He’s not that good looking, and thinks waaaay too highly of himself. Shampoo can keep him, I don’t care!”

Blinking, I’m not sure how to feel about this, but I can feel myself blushing a little. Is Ryu right?! Is she…is she jealous??

A small light flares up within me, soft and warm. 

“AAAAAHHH!! Nooooooo!!” she suddenly yells, and I can hear stuff falling down. The phone vibrates in my hand. 

Well, how does she know? I wait a few more minutes, curiosity killing me. Maybe I should go in? Akane suddenly steps out, like a bright tornado. She’s holding her sneakers in her hand, and pulling her thin gym bag over her shoulder. She stops dead in her tracks when she sees me standing there, I show her my phone. 

“What ‘something’?” I ask again, and she frowns. If she keeps it up, she’s gonna get a lot of wrinkles. 

“How did you get in?”

“You live with a bunch of drunken losers that leave the door open, what ‘something’?”

“How long have you been standing there?”, her voice high, her pupils dilated, and breathing nervously. 

“I just got here,” I lie. “What ‘something’??”

She breaths in relief. 

“My shoelaces snapped. I can’t run like this.”

 I look at the sneakers dangling from her hand, the soles are worn out and the laces on the right sneaker are torn in half. 

Pointing at them, “how have you been running in these?” she raises her chin, daring me to say another word about her old sneakers. 

“I just need new shoelaces. Wait for me in the gym, I’ll be there in half an hour,” she walks down the hallway, I follow her. We walk down the stairs together, she puts her sneakers on loosely on the ground floor and walks to her trusty combini down the street. Always open and with everything you could possibly need. She quickly walks out with orange colored laces, to replace the broken ones. I bend down beside her, she’s back to ignoring me. Standing up and looking at me until her laces are properly tied off. 

After hanging her sportsbag across her chest she says, “ready”. 

We run less than half an hour, until we reach our usual gym. I open the door and switch on the lights. After so much use lately, it’s a bit messy and dirty, maybe after training I’ll do some cleaning. 

Akane leaves her shoes by the door, and her bag too, immediately sitting down and stretching on the mat. She opens her legs and folds herself forward, keeping that position for a few seconds. 

She’s very…flexible. I should not be having these kinds of thoughts. 

I tell her to work on her speed for fifteen minutes, practicing wing chun. She’s gotten faster, in just a few weeks. She’s a good student, attentive and alert. 

When she’s done she looks flushed, wiping off her sweat with a towel, then tightening her hair in a ponytail.

“Is Ryu coming by today to beat the shit out of me?” she asks while glancing at the door.

“No, today that’s my job,” I reply by pointing to the fighting area. “We are practicing holds today.”

“Fine by me,” she smiles pretty confidently. 

“Prove it,” I dare her, and we start to circle each other, she’s taking it far more seriously than I am. I’m just watching her, trying to figure out her attack. 

She knows I’m bigger than her, but that’s one of the best things about her, she’s not afraid of a challenge. 

She pounces on me and tries to grab me by my t-shirt, twisting herself to make me lunge forward. It’s not hard for me to take a step back and grab her by the waist, raising her and placing her over my shoulder, making her hold her breath. I drop her on the mat with a smile.

“Try again.”

She grits her teeth, and this time comes at me swinging, hoping that I’ll raise my arm to block her. She grabs my arm, trying to throw me off balance, but she can’t move me. I grab her by the waist, like she weighs nothing, and raise her above me, she keeps pulling my arm, making me stumble lightly. 

Akane wraps her legs around my waist, and tightens her heels on my back. She’s tensing up in my arms, struggling uselessly, she can’t drag me down in this position and she knows it. 

She should let go, or maybe I should release myself. I can’t help it, I grab her legs, I can’t contain this impulse, it’s overpowering. 

“They wait outside for Ryu,”  I raise my eyes to meet hers, she looks confused, “they know I don’t care about them.”

“I don’t care!” she yells, but her cheeks flush and she struggles harder. She manages to get loose, and looks at me, stubborn, furious. 

She attacks. 

Her punches are powerful and fast, her reward for dutifully training, her reflexes are sharper now too, I block and dodge, because I know where to hit her now. 

“They aren’t there for me, they are there because they are dead inside and they want to feel alive, if just for a second. They think we are dangerous, and for some unknown reason, that turns some of them on.”

“Do you really think I wanna hear about your love life??!” she screams while kicking me on the side, it’s not hard for me to grab her leg and dig my fingers into her thigh. I step forward, and she stumbles. She tries to grab me and I let her, we fall and roll on the mat until I’m flat on my back, and she pants threateningly, raising a fist, headed straight for my face. I dodge by moving my neck, never losing eye contact. 

“Shampoo is the worst of the lot, she’s obsessed and took it out on you.”

“I said SHUT UP!!!”

I grab her arm and easily flip us around. She complains and tries to wriggle out of it, but she can’t stop me from resting the weight of my hips between her thighs. She gasps helplessly, knowing she can’t escape, and I stare at her, more exposed than I’ve ever been in my life. She doesn’t understand that I’m vulnerable to her words, to her anger, to that smile I love so much.

“You have no reason to be jealous,” I speak slowly so she’ll understand me, she looks at me like I’ve just lost it. 

“I’m not jealous about you, you idiot!!” she yells while punching my shoulders so I’ll get off of her, but her hands are shaking and she’s blushing hard. She looks adorable. 

“Fine, you are not jealous,” I concede, raising my eyebrow and smiling slightly. 

“Of course I’m not,” as always, raising her chin, full of pride. 

“Because my braid is dumb, because I always look beaten up, I’m not that good looking and think too highly of myself, did I get it right?” I repeat her exact words, this time I can’t help the massive triumphant smile that forms on my face. 

“You were listening??!!” She twists and turns. Oh how she twists. I get off, for my own sanity, and take an elbow to my already damaged nose in the process.

The pain makes me cry out, curled up on the floor, hands to my face, trying to come back from the punch. It may actually be broken now. But she doesn’t seem to care about my well being, hell, even if I am bleeding again. She howls something at me, grabs her gym bag and leaves me to my fate, alone in the gym. 

So subtle. 

.

..

…

AUTHOR’S NOTE:

This chapter was very easy for me to write. I always enjoy how naturally Ranma’s character flows in this story, especially his way of speaking—with absolutely no regard for anyone. It’s incredibly refreshing to give him a voice, and it makes writing this fic a super fun and stimulating experience. I can’t thank Isabel enough for creating the art and concept of this fic, and for encouraging me to join in.

There are many people who help make this project happen, and I want to give a special shout-out to our lovely and hardworking translator Danisita, who absolutely nails all those Spanish insults (Effort x1000), and whose results are simply flawless.

Also to SakuraSaotome and Lucita-chan, because I’m driving them crazy with so many chapters to proofread, haha.

And to you, for reading.

Lum

ILLUSTRATOR’S NOTE:

One of my favorite chapters—I’ve loved all their interactions and the growing closeness between them.

I hope you liked the illustrations! I gave it my all to publish this before the end of the month. I didn’t want to fall behind again but… adult life, you know.

See you in the next chapter.

Kisses, bye bye.

Isa