A LESSON IN LOVE 
By Marisa Price

PART 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!"



End of Part I