A Lesson in Love
Chapter XIV: Lost Causes
By Marisa Price
(Copyright to Marisa Price, 1996, All Rights Reserved)
mdp102@york.ac.uk

Notes:
I am using, as my hypothetical timeline, that the Ranma 
manga series took 1 year, and that was Ranma and Akane's 
sophomore year and summer. _A Lesson in Love_ has been taking
place during Ranma and Akane's JUNIOR year. So:
Ranma, Akane, Ukyou, Ryouga, Akari, Shampoo, Mousse, etc.=17
Kuno, Nabiki=18 (seniors)
Kasumi=20
Happosai,Cologne=400001 (old bags) (just kidding)
****************************************************************

PART I

*Three Weeks Have Passed Since Chapter XIII*

	"Bored bored bored bored bored," Ranma kept muttering 
that mantra as he ran along the fence away from the Tendo Dojo.
He had come home from work, eager to see Akane, but he had 
forgotten that she was having all her friends over for some
school project. He had heard the giggling coming from the
living room and backed out of the house as quickly as possible.
The last thing he needed after a day filled with school and an
afternoon dealing with customers at work was to have to hassle
with a pack of teenage girls gossiping about stuff. He shuddered
as he realized that most of the gossip was probably about him.
	Ranma's stomach growled, and he grumbled to himself,
wishing he had been intelligent enough to go steal some food from
the kitchen before he had left the house. He fumbled around in
his pockets, and found some money laying around. It was enough
that he could go grab some fast food.
	Ranma hopped off the fence... and right into a puddle
from a leaky fire hydrant. She groaned in frustration.
	"Arrrgh! Why does this ALWAYS happen to ME?!" She yelled,
looking around for a possible source of hot water.
	There wasn't anything that looked promising, but there
WAS an Ice-Cream shop right down the street. Ranma looked down
at herself and decided that she might as well take advantage of
this form and get some girly-sweets.
	Ranma bounced into the shop and sat down at one of the
old-fashioned iron-rod tables, staring hungrily at the menu of
38 different kinds and styles of ice cream. A young waiter came
up and smiled at her, asking her for her order. Ranma looked
at the attentive guy, and then smiled brightly, pointing to three
or four of the pictures on the menu.
	The waiter spluttered, and then asked, "Um, excuse me
miss, but you want them ALL?"
	Ranma nodded her head vigorously. The waiter looked 
baffled, but took the order and disappeared.
	Ranma started to take apart the salt shaker, already
bored from waiting, and then idly wondered why an ice-cream place
would have salt and pepper shakers anyway.
	The couple at the table next to him were chatting 
animatedly, and Ranma casually eavesdropped. The salt shaker 
clattered to the table when she realized what was being said, and
who was saying it.
	"...So that will be 5,000 yen for the 5X7s or 7,000 yen
for the 8X10s," Nabiki said.
	"But! Why should I have to pay to gaze upon these visages
of the object of my affection?" Kuno asked, chagrined.
	"Look, Kuno-baby, I gotta earn money somehow. And there's
no way that I am going to get a job or anything. Just pick which
one you want and get it over with," Nabiki said, tired of this.
	"But!" Kuno grabbed all the pictures to him and said,
disconsolately, "They are both so lovely that I cannot decide! I
would have them both!"
	Nabiki rolled her eyes and was about to tell him to
just buy them all then, when suddenly a hand tapped her on the
shoulder.
	She turned around and looked up at a furious Ranma, and
smiled at her. She said, "Oh hi, Ranma-chan. What seems to be the
problem?"
	Ranma growled at her and then said angrily, "You are 
sitting here, selling pictures of Akane and me again, and you
ask me what the problem is?!" She was practically steaming.
	Nabiki stared innocently at Ranma and then said, "Moi?
What are you talking about, Ranma-chan? Where are these pictures
of you?"
	Ranma grabbed one of the pictures off of the table, and
held it out in Nabiki's face, shouting, "Right here!!"
	Kuno looked up at this point from his soliloquy over the
pictures in his hands and then said, "Oh. It is Ranma Saotome.
What seems to be the problem, you fiend?"
	Nabiki looked at Kuno, and commented, "Ranma-chan here
seems to think that I am selling pictures of her and Akane to
you. Can you imagine? How silly."
	Both she and Kuno laughed.
	Ranma was completely confused, and spluttered, "But..."
	She turned the picture over in her hand, and saw that it
wasn't a picture of her or Akane.
	It was one of Nabiki senior portraits.
	It was then Ranma noticed that, although she was in
her girl-form, Kuno wasn't spouting poetry to her or doing any of
his other traditional forms of worship for his "Osage no Onna."
	Ranma blinked at him and then said, "Um, Kuno? Don't you
like... I mean, don't you still have this thing for me?"
	Nabiki and Kuno laughed even harder, and Kuno gasped, 
"Nabiki-chan, did you hear that? Ranma actually believed I had a
thing for him."
	They chuckled.
	Ranma realized that Kuno was calling her by her name. But
that meant...
	Nabiki stood up before Ranma could open her mouth and
grabbed Ranma's arm, pinching her in such a way that she knew she
should keep her mouth shut. Nabiki turned to Kuno and smiled, 
saying, "Tatewaki-kun, I have to go chat with Ranma-chan for a
minute. You decide on those pictures, OK? I'll be right back."
	Kuno nodded and went back to his portraits.
	Nabiki led Ranma outside and finally dropped his arm. She
turned on him and said acidly, "I swear Ranma, if you screw this
up for me I will make the rest of your life a living hell."
	Ranma blinked at her, and then said, "What??"
	Nabiki shrugged, sitting down on a concrete planter box
which stretched out from the building. She looked up at Ranma 
and said, "Haven't you figured it out already? Kuno knows. I was
finally able to knock some sense into him when I sat down and
EXPLAINED the situation to him. No one had ever bothered to do
THAT before!"
	Ranma leaned against the wall and protested, "Yeah, but
we SHOWED him a million times, and he never got it!"
	Nabiki glowered at Ranma and then said, "He was convinced
that girl-Ranma was trapped in the same body that you were, and
that you and the girl were separate people. He knows now that she
is you and you are her. Or whatever."
	Ranma gave a low whistle and thought aloud, "Geeze. Seems
like my suitors are dropping like flies."
	Nabiki shrugged again at that comment and added, "You can
think I did it for you, but I didn't. I did it because I decided
that Kuno needed a break."
	"You like him, don't you? How long has this been going on?"
Ranma said, the light dawning on her like a ton of bricks.
	Nabiki nodded and said casually, "We are going out, I
guess. Didn't you notice he hadn't been bugging you lately? It's
been a few weeks now. I mean, I still think he's an idiot most of
the time, but he can be a really sweet guy and, of course, he has
those loads of lovely money."
	Ranma giggled, "You WOULD think of that."
	Nabiki let her laugh without comment.
	Finally Ranma stopped laughing and said, " I guess I've
been too busy with Akane too really notice much about what was
happening with other people."
	There was silence.
	Ranma decided just to say it. "So... What was all that 
about him never having had a thing for me?"
	Nabiki stood and looked at Ranma, her eyes intense, and
she slowly said, "Ranma. Kuno's pride is too great to admit that
he had been in love with a guy. So, as soon as he knew the truth,
he blocked out any memory of what he had done. And Ranma," this 
she said fiercely, "I want YOU to forget about it too. Just leave
Kuno and I alone."
	Ranma nodded and backed away from Nabiki. She promised,
"I will. I wouldn't stomp on a guy's pride like that. 'Sides, you
did me a HUGE favor by getting him off my back."
	Nabiki smiled at Ranma, one of the first sincere smiles
she had seen from Nabiki in a long time.
	Ranma added as an afterthought, "I wonder how to get rid
of Kodachi."
	Nabiki slapped Ranma on the back and laughed.
	Ranma looked at her blankly.
	She smiled and said, "Ranma, I wouldn't worry about that
idiot. I guess you owe me for that too. She was starting to 
interfere with Kuno's and my relationship, so I had her packed 
off to a prominent gymnastics school... in Siberia."
	"What?!" Ranma said, shocked.
	Nabiki nodded, chuckling, "And it has been better for
everyone since she left. Kuno was getting the guinea-pig 
treatment with her poisons and potions, and he never even knew
it. He has really become a lot more normal since that stopped.
And, you never know. Japan might have a winning gymnastics team
in the next Olympics because of it."
	Ranma smiled back at Nabiki, and then, on impulse, she
gave her a hug.
	Nabiki froze, unused to open affection. Finally she let
her arms drop around Ranma's shoulders and she hugged her back.
A feeling of warmth flowed through Nabiki, a feeling that had
been missing for a long, long time.
	Ranma looked up at Nabiki with shining eyes, and said,
"Thanks, Nabiki. I'm really glad that you're gonna be my sister-
in-law someday."
	And then Ranma was gone, bouncing off into the sunset.
	Nabiki smiled to herself, holding the warmth inside, and
felt better about who she was, and she suddenly knew what she 
wanted, and it wasn't -JUST- money.
	She walked back into the shop and sat with Kuno, who took
her hand and squeezed it. She glowed at him and said, on impulse,
"Kuno-sweetie, the pictures are all yours... for free."
	The waiter stood at Ranma's former table, with a banana
split, a hot-fudge sundae, a vanilla milkshake, and a lemon
sherbet, wondering where his cute-but-hungry pigtailed customer
had disappeared to.

******

	Ryouga sat at a table in the dining room of Ucchan's
Okonomiyaki-ya, puzzling over a particular math problem. He 
groaned in frustration, and dug his hands into his hair.
	He HATED math, and that was all there was to it.
	He started to think about Ukyou, who was out in the back
yard practicing. He wanted to go out and join her, but the rule
was that one had to finish their homework before they could go
practice. It was SUPPOSED to be a good incentive, but Ryouga felt
like it was a death sentence.
	Ukyou had, of course, finished her problems an hour 
earlier, and therefore could go out.
	Ryouga sighed. By the time HE finished, she would already
be done practicing.
	Ryouga idly started to think about how she looked when
she was swinging her spatula at the fighting-dummy, in the tight
sleeveless outfit she wore to practice. It was supposed to be a
sports-bra type thing, but it showed quite a bit of cleavage, 
even if it DIDN'T bounce...
	Ryouga started to feel his nose heat up, and tried to
steer his thoughts AWAY from that sort of stuff. Over the past
three weeks Ukyou and Ryouga had settled down again into the
ordinary routine of sleep, school, work, homework, practice,
sleep, and as much time as they spent doing all that kind of 
stuff left little time for Ryouga and Ukyou to actually get
CLOSE.
	Ryouga twiddled his pencil and sighed again. He wondered,
as he always wondered, if he had just imagined that there was
anything between them besides friendship. He thought about Akari,
who was openly demonstrative with her affections, and wondered
why Ukyou wasn't more like that.
	Of course, that always got him to the answer that she 
just WASN'T interested.
	The back door slammed open and Ukyou stormed into the
room. Ryouga was so surprised that he dropped his pencil on the
ground. As he reached down to pick it up, Ukyou came over to
stand by him and look at his homework.
	Her eyes widened and she said, "You're STILL on problem
#4?! You've been working on that for an hour!!"
	Ryouga sat up and gave her puppy-dog eyes, sadly saying,
"Well, it's a difficult problem..."
	"Difficult my ass," said Ukyou, unsympathetically.
	Ryouga looked up at her and mused, "I'm just not any
good at this stuff, Ukyou. It takes me a LONG time."
	Ukyou sighed and pulled up a chair next to him.
	"I'm getting sick of having to practice by myself, and
you are going to end up out of shape, so I guess I'll just have
to start tutoring you."
	"T..tu..tutoring?" he asked, blankly.
	"Yeah," she said, moving the math book a little closer
to her. She leaned over to look at it, and started to write out
the problem on a blank piece of paper.
	Ryouga stared at her. By leaning over in that practice
outfit of hers, she was giving him QUITE an eyeful of what he
had been thinking about not but five minutes earlier. His head
began to swim as he stared, she looked so...
	"...and you subtract the coefficient from..." Ukyou 
looked at the enraptured Ryouga and grumbled out, "Ryou-GA! You
aren't even LISTENING..."
	Ryouga interrupted her by finally getting the nerve to
lean toward her, putting one arm on the back of the chair she
sat on and the other reaching for her hand. She froze, wondering
if he was actually going to do it.
	She had been waiting for a long time...
	Ukyou closed her eyes and started to lean forward also,
their breath intermingled...
	Suddenly, just as their lips were about to touch, a HUGE
white pig bounded into the Okonomiyaki-ya, and knocked the two
apart. The giant pig pinned Ryouga to the ground, and started to
lick his face.
	Ryouga gasped in surprise, and Ukyou fell off the chair
and onto the floor with a thump. She stood up and looked down
at the pig and Ryouga. Then she started to laugh.
	She gasped, "HAHAHA!!! Is this a FRIEND of yours, Ryouga?
Should I be jealous?"
	Ryouga glowered at her between licks, and tried to escape
the overly-friendly pig and what he knew was soon going to
follow.
	But there was no escape.
	"KAT...SUN...NI...SHI...KI!!!" someone shouted.
	Suddenly, a cute teenager ran into the shop, dressed in
bright plaid of pink and grey, and started apologizing profusely
for the intrusion of her pig.
	Then she noticed who her pig had found.
	"RYOUGA-SAMA!!!" Akari shouted with joy, and bounced over
to pull the pig off of him and then she started to shower him 
with her own kisses, as he spluttered.
	Ukyou tried not to crack as she saw the easiness with 
which this GIRL lavished herself all over Ryouga. It was obvious
that the two of them were WELL acquainted.
	Ukyou stormed over and looked down at them, saying,
"Well. Obviously you are familiar with my EMPLOYEE, Ryouga. Might
I be so privileged as to know who YOU are?"
	Akari stood up and brushed herself off, apologizing and
bowing to Ukyou before saying, "I'm Akari, and I'm Ryouga-sama's
fiancee!"
	Ukyou stiffened and said, "Ah. I see. WELL. I assume that
you must want to be ALONE after your LONG separation, as Ryouga
has been HERE for what... THREE WEEKS now?"
	Akari giggled and smiled at her darling Ryouga, who sat
in a daze, and then said, "Poor sweetie just got lost again,
didn't you Ryouga-sama? But I found you!"
	Ukyou decided she knew who SHE wanted to get lost, and
finally turned to walk into the kitchen. She needed to get out
of there, to somewhere where she could THINK. She threw over her
shoulder, "Well. I will just leave you two LOVEBIRDS alone. Maybe
I'll make a snack for you."
	And she was gone.
	
End of Part I