On Thu, 07 Jan 1999 17:55:49 GMT, Gary Kleppe wrote:

<snip normal opening of Ranma fic>

Ranma turned around. "Oh, hi, ?????." Big eyes stared at him, with an
expresssion of worry and concern. ????? had always been the friend who
Ranma could confide in, who he could tell his deepest and innermost
secrets to when no one else would listen.

Erm... Ranma confides in someone?  Who?  Genma, perhaps?

"Akane did this to you, didn't she! I'm going to go give her a piece
of my mind!"

Okay, not Genma.

"No, don't worry about it, ?????." There wasn't much point. It
wouldn't do any good, and Ranma didn't want to take a chance on his
friend getting hurt.

Someone Akane could hurt... uh... Gosukugi?

"But she can't just keep going on like this! Can't she see how much
it's hurting you? I-- I just can't stand by and let it happen!"

"Why not?" Ranma didn't understand why anyone would be concerned like
this about him.

"All right... I'll tell you." ?????'s eyes stared down at the ground
for a moment, then lifted up to meet Ranma's gaze. "Because I love
you. I've been secretly in love with you for a long time. There, I
said it."

Aha!  It's Hiroshi!

"?????, I...."

"Don't say anything, Ranma." ????? began to step back, looking away.
"Wait until I'm gone. Then you can have a good laugh at how stupid I
am."

Ranma thought it over. He could walk away and go back to being hit and
served bad food. But here was someone who had always treated him well,
always trusted him. He had never thought of ????? in *that* way
before. But now, he wondered why he hadn't.

No!  It's Akane's evil twin, Kaneda!

"Uh, don't go. You... you ain't stupid."

"Really?" ????? turned around and looked up at Ranma with big,
sparkling eyes. "Do you mean that?"

Waitasec... that's Happosai's technique, isn't it?

"Yeah. I do. Wanna know who the stupid one is?" Ranma inched his face
closer to ?????'s. "I am. But not any more." They kissed.

A real tear-jerker if I've ever seen one. 

I wrote this as a sort of exercise, and to make a point -- which I'll
explain after I get some reaction to it. So, what do you all think?
Feel free to guess who the mystery character is.

You know, it seems like I've read this story about a dozen times before.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Josh Green, aka Pi -- SORT@BUCKET.UALR.EDU
       http://bucket.ualr.edu/~sort/fanfic/
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(Isn't it obvious?  There's only one person that really cares for Ranma
in the entire series!)