A LESSON IN LOVE 
By Marisa Price
marisa@gladstone.uoregon.edu

A Ranma ½ Fanfiction


Chapter I
The Wedding Fiasco

	Furinken High, never the ideal educational establishment, felt particularly
strange to Ranma and Akane on the day after what everyone in Nerima was
referring to as the "wedding fiasco." All in all it was a quiet day: not a
squabble, obsessed maniac, or martial arts duel to be seen. Anyone who lived
in Nerima knew that the quiet itself made the day especially bizarre. Ranma
and Akane had run to  school together, late as always, and everything seemed
to being going well between them. Akane was being nice to him and Ranma
hadn’t said anything stupid for at least an hour.
	Things were just not normal. Something was just BOUND to happen.
	At lunch the hot gossip was that Akane hadn’t beat up Ranma all day. The
explanation, including Ranma’s trip to China, Akane’s near death, and the
failed wedding, was still hush hush around the Furinken campus. No one
wanted to be on either Ranma OR Akane’s bad side at the moment, and they
knew that ANY mention of any of these subjects was probably going to put the
unlucky person into the hospital.
	So, when you can’t get the information from the source, go to your
second-best resource. In this case, the most reliable (but also the most
expensive) source of information was none other than Nabiki Tendo. It was,
to say the least, one of Nabiki’s more profitable days.
	Akane sat under a tree with her two friends, Sayuri and Yuka, eating lunch.
They knew better than to even MENTION the "R-word", and never spoke about
Ranma unless Akane brought him up in a conversation. So, for the moment,
Akane was having a peaceful lunch.
	Akane was thanking the powers that be that her friends hadn’t said anything
about the "fiasco"; Akane didn’t even want to have to think about it. Ranma
had the chance to admit how he felt; Akane had assumed he would be honest
with himself. Instead, he chickened out. Akane stole a glance at Ranma, who
sat about 20 feet away on some benches talking to his friends, Hiroshi and
Daisuke, and a few other guys. Akane saw him get up and demonstrate a move
to the other boys.
	"What a show-off," Akane thought, thoroughly disgusted.
	Ranma was doing a good job of ignoring the whole wedding disaster himself.
He had admitted to himself that he did love the kawaiikune tomboy when he
held her in his arms, thinking that he had lost her. However, when faced
with her in a bridal dress and impending marriage, he wasn’t able to get the
words out. 
	"Do you love me, Ranma? Can't you say it?" Akane had asked.
	And Ranma realized he didn’t know. He didn’t really know what love WAS
exactly, or if the feeling he had for Akane was the kind of sentiment that
led to taking her down the aisle, into his heart, and into his arms, FOREVER.
	Ranma was so lost in his thoughts that he didn’t hear Daisuke asking him
something. Finally, after being  cuffed on the back of his head, he noticed
the group of boys staring at him.
	"What?!" Ranma asked.
	All the boys glanced at each other, and then Daisuke repeated, "We just
wanted to see that move you were talking about last week, you know the one
to avoid being hit when someone tries to punch you."
	"OH!" Ranma said, and gave a nervous laugh. He stood up and began to
demonstrate, his face a little redder than usual.
	Both Akane and Ranma were totally oblivious to the crowd encircling Nabiki
on the other end of the lawn. Nabiki was detailing the events that occurred
after the wedding, and, for a fee, telling people that, yes, Akane and Ranma
were still engaged, and no, the date was not yet certain. She also proffered
some pictures of Akane in a wedding dress and Ranma in his tux to interested
parties.
	"Too bad you couldn’t get pictures of the wedding NIGHT!" someone chuckled
in the group around Nabiki.
	"People, people!" Nabiki smiled, "When and if those pictures become
available, you KNOW who will have them!"

*******

	Lunch was over, and everyone filed back to their classes. Akane had just
sat in her seat, thanking the powers that be that she had survived lunch
unscathed for once, when the girl in the desk next to her asked, "So, Akane,
is it true that you and Ranma are still getting married?"
	Akane turned bright red and her eyes bugged out a bit. She stuttered out,
"Uh... well... not exactly.... I... I mean Ranma and I... I mean NO!... my
father..."
	"Yeah, whatever, Akane," the girl said, smirking.
	Akane stopped and blushed furiously.
	Another group of girls joined the rapidly gathering crowd around Akane. One
asked, "Did you really almost die in China, Akane? And Ranma saved you?"
	Akane looked as if she would have liked to sink into a hole in the ground.
The boys were starting to enter the classroom too, and, as Akane looked over
and saw a sputtering Ranma surrounded by a crowd, she got some small
satisfaction out of the fact that he was probably being interrogated too.
	Akane began, "I don’t see how this is any of your business..."
	A girl, Miki, said, "Oh come on, Akane! We were all invited to this ‘big
wedding for Ranma and Akane’ and we were basically gypped!" Everyone nodded,
and the girl continued, "I mean, the least you could have done was still had
a reception, and, if not that, at least given us an EXPLANATION!"
	Yuka came to Akane’s defense, saying, "Come on! Leave Akane alone! You know
it was all Ranma’s fault! It always is, isn’t it, Akane?!"
	Akane nodded, and everyone else in the group sighed.
	"I suppose so," Miki finally said, "that guy is SUCH a loser Akane! I mean,
he is a good martial artist, but he is a terrible boyfriend! Why don’t you
MAKE him love you, or dump him!"
	Akane rolled her eyes and commented, "Love. Right. Whatever."
	Akane just looked at the ground. The crowd continued talking and Akane
began to look more and more troubled. Akane figured Ranma loving her and
admitting was, at this point, just a fantasy.
	She thought to herself, "I know he cares about me... but he has never
OFICIALLY said he loves me. Not even when he thought I was dying..."
	Akane looked over at the baka, impossible to miss in his red satin shirt in
the crowd of black and white school uniforms. He sat at his desk, looking
furiously at the group of boys who surrounded him. Ranma, of course, hadn't
seemed to notice the crowd around her.
	"Oblivious idiot!" Akane muttered.

*****

	Ranma’s interrogation was a bit more personal than Akane’s. A guy, someone
Ranma didn’t know very well, commented, "So, man, that whole wedding thing
was a big no go, eh?"
	Ranma groaned, "Come on man. Ain’t nothin personal?"
	Daisuke elbowed Ranma and asked, winking his eye, "So... dija do... ‘it’..
yet with Akane? I mean since you thought you would be married and all...."
	"Yeah," another guy added, "I mean is she as violent between the sheets as
she is regularly? Heh! Now that would be interesting!"
	"Well, she DOES have a great body," Hiroshi smiled, a dreamy look on his
face, adding, "What I wouldn't give to be her fiancee. You lucky dog, Ranma."
	At this point Ranma was totally pissed off, embarrassed, and confused.
These guys were touching on a subject Ranma felt VERY uncomfortable about.
Ranma jumped up, and, as usual, opened his mouth without thinking and
shouted, "Lay off man! Like I would do that with an uncute tomboy like Akane
anyway!!"
	Akane, and everyone else, stiffened as they heard Ranma’s shout. Everyone
turned to Akane to see what she would do. Akane looked furious. This, in
addition to the questioning she had just endured, was too much. Akane got up
and stomped over to Ranma and hit him on the head shouting, "Ranma no....
Ranma no.... Ranma no BAKA!!!!!"
	Then, tears filling her eyes, she turned and ran out of the classroom. Just
then the bell rang.
	Ranma, a bit catatonic from Akane's clobbering, still saw the tears and
thought, "Me and my big mouth," before getting up to run after her.
	Unfortunately, he didn’t hear the bell (because the ringing in his head
from Akane’s hit was already pretty loud) and ran straight into Miss Hinako
as he flew out of the classroom.
	"And where do YOU think you are going, Mr. Saotome?" Hinako asked,
childlike, but looking furious and dangerous all the same.
	"Uh..." Ranma muttered, looking down at the pint-sized disciplinarian, and
then said, "To the, uh, bathroom?"
	"Go sit down!" Hinako shouted, adding, "You should have taken care of that
at lunch!"
	Ranma sighed, turned, and went back to his desk, thinking, "Maybe she will
have cooled down some by the time I get home."
	He cringed.
	"Then again, maybe I'm dead...." Ranma thought.
	The tittering in the classroom hushed, not wanting to face Hinako’s wrath,
but someone in the back commented loudly, when Miss Hinako went to close the
classroom door, "Well at least things are back to normal!"

*****

NOTE: stuff surrounded by ** means it is in another language, i.e. Chinese.

	Of course, things really weren’t back to normal, but everyone wanted to
believe they were. The scene at the Nekohanten was familiar at least... but
a certain unfamiliar feeling ran through Shampoo.
	Mousse had done it again. Shampoo sighed as she placed a cool wet cloth on
his bruised and bleeding forehead and securely tucked the sheets around him.
	Mousse was knocked out cold, or else he would probably be raving something
about her great beauty or his joy at her "tender" ministrations. Shampoo
sighed again, pulling off Mousse’s glasses. She held them up to the light,
and the myriad of cracks and chips caused a prismatic light to glow through
the thick glass, leaving a rainbow on the nearby wall.
	"Great-grandmother," Shampoo turned and yelled to Cologne, who was busy in
the kitchen creating her special Amazon-style ramen for their dinner.
	"Yes Shampoo?" Cologne asked as she hopped in on her giant staff, her
gnarled body wrapped around it like monkey grabbing at the limb of a tree.
Long swirling white hair, the only remnant of her 275-year ago Amazonian
beauty, swirled around her like a cape. She looked down at Mousse, the blood
from a cut on his forehead running on her recently cleaned pillows.
	"I see Mousse won’t be working today," Cologne smirked.
	Shampoo just frowned and said, *Can you sew him up?*
	"What happened this time, Shampoo?" Cologne asked, as she shuffled around
in a cabinet for medicinal supplies. She was always prepared to be amused by
this obsessed would-be-fiancee of her Great-granddaughter’s. 
	Shampoo threw her hands up in the air, and then crossed them against her
chest. She adopted a perturbed look and began, *Well today when I was making
a delivery, two men tried take the ramen. . .*
	Cologne nodded in encouragement for her to go on.
	*And, as usual, stupid Mousse appeared and tried to stop the men. He never
realizes that I can defend myself!*  she grimaced in exasperation, her hands
falling to her sides in clenched fists, before she continued, *Mousse got
wet, when he fell into a puddle he didn’t see, and became a duck. He knows
he isn’t as strong in his cursed form, but he STILL tried to defend me! He
is so stupid!*
	Cologne grimaced, her eyes narrowing as she considered the situation, and
then she finally said, "And did they get the ramen, Shampoo?"
	"Aiyaa!" Shampoo said, slipping into Japanese."Yes they get ramen because
Shampoo have to run back and save Mousse. Stupid, stupid, Mousse," Shampoo
stood and walked into the kitchen, opening a sizable drawer. She pulled out
a pair of glasses, a particularly strong pair, from the large assortment
collected there for "accidents."
	Shampoo sat down again, placed the glasses on Mousse’s face. She dropped
her hands into her lap and stared at the floor. Cologne was amused. She
shook her head as she walked out of the room, sensing that the ramen was
ready, chuckling. She thought, "That Mousse just tries too hard. That one
has been trying too hard all his life, poor fool." Out loud she said, "I
will come back to stitch him up in a while, I have to prepare the materials."
	Shampoo looked at her hands, still folded in her lap, time passing without
notice. She was startled when she realized Mousse had been staring at her
for several minutes, and one of his hands now covered her own. 
	Mousse smiled at her, a tight pained smile, and said, "You stayed, Shampoo.
You took care of me. Thank-you. I only wish I could have..."
	Shampoo stood up quickly, pulling her hands from Mousse’s. She shouted at
him, "How many times Shampoo need tell Mousse no need protect Shampoo!"
	Mousse tried sitting up, causing blood to start trickling from his head
again, and he looked more than a bit dizzy. He said quietly, "I am sorry,
Shampoo. Shampoo, I was only doing what I thought was right."
	"Right for Mousse, not right for Shampoo."
	He began to look pale and started to fall sideways.
	"Mousse!" Shampoo shouted, catching him before he could fall off the bed
and then laid him back against the pillow. *You stay in bed Mousse! The cut
is deep! Great-grandmother will give you stitches soon.*
	He just smiled that sad smile again and said, *I’m all right now, Shampoo.
Honestly I am. And I am sorry if you don’t want me to defend you. I... I
just can’t seem to help it sometimes... you see... as the one you have chose
to defend you, that cursed Ranma Saotome, has left you time and time again
to save that Akane Tendo... someone else has to...*
	Shampoo cut him off, *Ranma doesn’t love Akane! They fight! Ranma will
realize soon that I am better, just you wait Mousse. You leave Ranma and I
alone!*
	*Will he defend you in the crucial moment, Shampoo?* Mousse smiled, and
added, *as I would?* And then, his eyes growing heavy, he sank back down on
the bed and fell asleep.
	Shampoo remembered the battle against Monlon when Ranma had left her to
fight and had gone on himself to help Akane. She had survived, and won, but.
. . he had left her behind. However, Ranma could defeat those that Mousse
could never even contemplate, such as Kirin and Saffron and others. Bah,
Mousse was nothing compared to Ranma. Shampoo needed a strong warrior,
someone who COULD protect her, or at least that she wasn’t constantly trying
to rescue as she had to do for Mousse. Mousse was sweet and caring, but his
obsessiveness drove her insane. If but one time he let HER decide how she
felt, she might feel differently.
	Shampoo frowned at that thought and stood, upset now, and strode out to the
front of the Nekohantan, going to unlock her bicycle. Cologne called from
the kitchen, "Where are you going Shampoo?"
	Shampoo poked her head back in the cafe and said to her great-grandmother,
fury still lighting her eyes, *I am going to see Ranma.*
	Cologne smiled again at this development. She called after Shampoo, "Tell
my future-son-in-law I said hello!"

Marisa Price
marisa@gladstone.uoregon.edu
Anime Page!!! includes my Ranma and MI picture pages!!
http://gladstone.uoregon.edu/~marisa/
Mermaid Saga Web Page!!
http://gladstone.uoregon.edu/~marisa/mermaid.html
Member of COR and UDIC.
Anime otaku forever! Medieval Studies and English major.