A Kiss to the Victor
July 5, 1999
A Ranma 1/2 fanfic by Hound & Cabbit Productions
 (David "Fido" Lindquist [fido@rma.edu] and
June "KaraOhki" Geraci [karaohki@snet.net])

Ranma 1/2 was created by Rumiko Takahashi.  We're just borrowing
her characters for a little while.

-----------------------

Forward - A Note From The Authors

The idea for this fic came from a question posed to the people
on the FFIRC: "What would have happened if Ranma REALLY kissed
Akane during the 'Romeo and Juliet' storyline? David was the one
who asked the question and June commented that she had a similar
idea.  What really got us started, though, was a suggestion made
by Gary Kleppe that we should collaborate on it.

We started gathering ideas on how to do it from there.  This
will most likely be a multi-part fic detailing a developing relationship
between the only confirmed (by Takahashi)
in the Ranma 1/2 series:  Ranma and Akane.

We also hope to address some of the true reasons behind their
reluctance to act upon their hidden feelings for each other.
Chapters 1 and 2 will deal with Ranma coming to terms with
the fact that he cares for Akane.  Chapters 3 and 4 will deal
with the repercussions of his decisions, and Akane's responses
to them.  From there, the rest of the chapters will have to do
with the effect their relationship is having on the other
characters in Nerima.

This chapter takes place during the Romeo and Juliet storyline.

We would like to thank Gary Kleppe, Brad Crawford and all the
others who helped to make this fic work.


------------------

Chapter 1


Kasumi turned off the downstairs lights, and climbed the
stairs as quietly as she could. Everyone else in the Tendo
home had gone to bed while she was finishing the rest of the
housework. She checked to see if there was any light coming
from underneath Akane's door, and sighed. If her sister had
been awake, she would have gone in to talk with her about the
way she'd been fighting with Ranma. Unfortunately, it had
taken Kasumi a long time to finish cleaning up downstairs,
and Akane was sleeping.

*I just wish those two would stop fighting* she thought.

The thought stayed with her as she undressed, and got into
bed.

*Can't Akane see that Ranma likes her? I can, just as clearly
as I can see that she likes him. They're just SO stubborn!*

Kasumi shook her head sadly, and turned off the lamp. She
sighed once more, and whispered her last thought aloud: "I
wish they would just admit it..."

And in the great workings that could be called Heaven, events
began to be set in motion.

--------------------


Sitting down at her desk, Akane Tendo could barely contain
herself.

*I can't believe that they wanted ME!* she thought. *I've
gotta write this down!* She quickly opened her desk drawer
and pulled out a locked book. Undoing the catch, she opened
it to a blank page and began to write.

"Dear Diary,

   The most wonderful thing happened today.  The Drama
   Club asked me to be in their production of Romeo and
   Juliet.  This time, it will be different.  THIS time,
   I get to be Juliet, not Romeo!  I want it to be
   perfect, Diary.  I don't want anything to spoil my
   dream--not water curses, not rival fiancees, not magic,
   and NOT RANMA!"

Akane felt a slight pang of guilt as she looked at the last
statement.  She knew it wasn't Ranma's fault that their
stupid fathers had engaged them to each other.

*If only he wasn't such a jerk!* Akane thought.


-----------------

Ranma watched from a quiet corner of the room as Akane sat
with her sisters, smiling and laughing. He'd rarely seen
her so enthusiastic. Then Akane went upstairs rather early,
leaving Ranma alone, and for some reason feeling lonely.

He sat quietly for a few minutes until he heard her door
close. Letting out a sigh, he then got up and headed  for
the closest thing he could call a sanctuary: the Tendos'
roof. Once he got there, the martial artist lay down and
began to sort out some of his thoughts.

For once, Ranma felt regret for his actions. He'd teased
Akane mercilessly about how she'd played Romeo when she
was younger. The heir to Anything-Goes Martial Arts would
be the first to admit that he didn't know much about
'Romeo & Juliet' but even he knew that Romeo was a man.
Of course, he'd paid for the remarks in a painful manner,
but still felt his conscience nagging him.

Ranma understood why it was bothering him, though. He'd
gone too far with his teasing this time. What made it worse
was the fact that, at the time, Ranma knew he was hurting
Akane's feelings, but he went right ahead and did it anyway.

*Why did I do that?* he thought, as he watched the star-filled
sky. *Why is it that I always have to insult her? She can't
help it if she's an uncute tomboy.*

"Stupid uncute tomboy," he muttered as his eyes got heavy...

"You always call me uncute," a familiar voice called out.

Ranma turned and looked at sound of the voice. He saw Akane
standing there, with an expression of hurt mixed with anger
on her face. What struck him as odd about her appearance
was that she was wearing her school uniform.

"If that's the way you feel," she continued, "then why
did you kiss me?!?"

"T..that wasn't really ME!" he stammered out as he stood up.
"I was in the Neko-ken!  It was the c..c..cat!"

"Riiight! Sure it was!" she replied sarcastically. "Only
one problem: we both know for a fact that the Neko-ken only
suppresses your inhibitions!"

Ranma watched as her face turned red. "You wanted to kiss
me
and I want to know why!!!"

"Why would I even WANT to kiss a tomboy like you!!!" Ranma
shouted back.

"Oh?  You don't want to kiss me, right?" she replied.

"Right!" Ranma said.

Suddenly, Akane's form began to shift. Her face contorted in
an angle impossible for a human to do without serious pain.
The effect also seemed to extend to her body and clothes.
Ranma stared in shock at the now almost unidentifiable form
in front of him. After a while, the figure took on a
recognizable shape.

"Ranma maybe kiss Shampoo, then?"

"N-now wait a minute here..." Ranma stammered out.

Shampoo's form shifted again, changing to Kasumi.

"Would you like to kiss me, Ranma?"

"Uhhh...I...don't..."

Another shift.

"What about me, Ranma?  I wouldn't mind if you kiss me...
Of course I'll have to charge you for me to keep quiet
about it afterwards," Nabiki chimed in.

Ranma backed up, and would have come close to falling off the
roof, but he bumped into something. Spinning around, he stared
into an old withered face.

"Well, I don't think you want to kiss me, do you, Groom?"
Cologne said.

"AHHHHH!"

A ribbon wound around Ranma's waist, jerked him off his feet,
and away from Cologne. He suddenly found himself much too
close to Kodachi's lips. "Will you kiss me, Ranma-sama?" she
asked.

"No!" he replied, working his way out of the ribbon. He spun
away from her, only to notice that all the girls had surrounded
him, each asking, in their own way, the same question: will you
kiss me?

All of them, except one.

Akane stood at the same position she had been in when she told
Ranma about the Neko-ken.  She was silent and motionless, save
for a single tear that rolled down her cheek. Ranma froze as he
saw her. Then she whispered a single word.

"Why?"

For Ranma, the word was like an explosion. He suddenly saw
three beings standing between him and Akane. Each one looked
somewhat like Ranma. The first one was small: almost a child.
He looked like he was mashed between great forces.

"Because I will not be forced into anything by anyone!!" the
small Ranma said defiantly.

Ranma then looked at the second version of himself. This one was
about his size but looked like a half man/half woman he had once
seen on a tv show about circus freaks.

"Because you deserve to be kissed by a whole man," it stated,
not even trying to keep the despair out of its voice.

The third Ranma was huge. He was easily twice Ranma's size,
or would have been, if he wasn't sitting there with his knees
crunched up to his chest, and his arms locked around his legs.
Even though he was gently rocking back and forth, Ranma could
clearly see the look on his face. Fear. The kind of fear Ranma
imagined his own face looked like whenever he saw a c...c...cat.

"Because," the third Ranma said, "I'm afraid that I'll let you
in and be hurt when you leave."

Akane looked at the four Ranmas standing in front of her, and
asked: "But do you WANT to kiss me?"

The original Ranma found himself saying the answer in unison
with the other three.

"Yes..."

Ranma woke, to find himself still lying on the roof, feeling
cold, tired and confused. He climbed down to his room, and
let himself in.

*Well...that was...weird.  Must have been something I ate.*

-----------------

Akane couldn't relax; she was too excited about the play.
Tomorrow the club would hold tryouts for the role of Romeo, and
she wondered who would be playing opposite her.

The director of the play had given Akane a booklet with various
photographs of costumes for Juliet, and had asked her to look
them over. She sat at her desk, chin in her hands, and imagined
herself in the costumes, acting the role of Juliet.  The book
also contained pictures of costumes for Romeo, but at this point
in Akane's mind Romeo was just a figure in a costume--a figure
without a face. Akane closed her eyes and let her imagination
take over. The figure's face became clear, and it was...Ranma?

Akane's eyes snapped open.

*Why did I think of HIM?* she thought, her face getting hot as
she blushed. *I don't want that BAKA to be in MY play! There
must be dozens of boys who would do a better job.*

She suddenly remembered that three of those 'dozens of boys'
that wanted the role were Tatewaki Kuno, Happosai, and Hikaru Gosunkugi. The
youngest Tendo daughter shivered.

*Not one of them.  Please.*

--------------------------

"Come on boy, training time!"

Ranma slowly stirred at the sound of his father's voice. He
didn't really need this at the moment but knew that if he
didn't get up, he'd be getting a different wake up call.
A wet one.

"Yeah...yeah...I'm up," Ranma grumbled as he rose from his
futon.

"You look like you haven't slept, boy," his father said.
Then Genma looked at him with a sly smile. "You know, you'll
sleep a lot better when you're married."

The sound of his voice had barely died when Genma found himself
sailing out the window and towards the Tendo pond. *Well, his
reflexes are okay,* was his thought just before he hit the
water.

---------------------------

Akane woke, and stretched. The sun was already streaming in
through the window, and she smiled.  *What a beautiful
morning,* she thought.

Her smile faded when she sat up, and caught a glimpse of her
desk. Her completed homework sat there, along with her diary,
and a little booklet. Seeing the costume booklet caused Akane
to remember the previous night, and her fantasy of Ranma in
the Romeo costume.

*I can't keep thinking about that* Akane thought as she got
up, walked over to the desk and put her diary away.

The sound of a splash made her look out the window. A damp
panda was making his way out of the pond. Moments later,
Akane saw Ranma land on the grass near his father and start
throwing a barrage of kicks and punches at the panda. Genma
was able to block most of them, however, and launch a
counterattack, but Ranma dodged it easily.

As the two martial artists fought, it soon became obvious to
Akane that Ranma was far more focused and determined in this
'sparring match' than usual. He was also winning quite easily.
A tiny feeling of jealousy suddenly crept into her thoughts.

*I wish he would fight me like that some time* she thought.
Sighing, she turned away from the window and prepared to get
ready for school. A few seconds later, she heard the familiar
sound of a splash coming from outside.

----------------------


Ranma was more than a little annoyed at his father. It wasn't
being woken up by him earlier, nor was it his comment about
how he looked that had caused the annoyance. For this morning,
all it took was him pushing about marrying Akane, again! The
young martial artist was determined to punish his father by
giving him more than one dunking today.

"Old man," he said as he connected with a punch. "You're getting
slow!"

Following up on the opening created by the punch, Ranma grabbed
his dazed father, and prepared to toss him into the pond.
Suddenly, his instincts told him that someone was
the fight. He looked up to see that Akane was watching their
battle.

The moment he saw her, an image popped into his head. It was of
the two of them locked in an passionate embrace, with their lips
touching in an equally passionate kiss. Normally, this image
would've created a slight feeling of enjoyment, only to be
instantly smothered by denial that he would even WANT to kiss
her.

This time though, it was different. He didn't feel the denial.
As a matter of fact, he didn't feel any negative emotions at
all. Only the enjoyment of the imagined kiss.

Akane left the window, and Ranma continued to look up.
Unfortunately for him, he didn't notice the pair of wet
paws grabbing his shirt until it was too late.

With a tremendous throw, Genma flung his son towards the pond.
As the young martial artist flew through the air, he knew why
he had messed up. He'd gotten distracted, and now he was going
to pay for it.

SPLASH!

A drenched, female Ranma cursed as she slowly dragged herself
out of the pond. A part of her wanted to place the blame for
the loss squarely on Akane's shoulders. It was her fault she
had gotten distracted! She directed a glare in the general
direction of Akane's window. A few seconds later though he
shook it off. *Don't blame her for your screw-ups,* Ranma
thought as she squeezed some of the water out of her shirt.
*You know better!*

Sighing, Ranma ignored Genma-panda as he admonished her for
losing her focus, and headed toward the bath. She had no
intention of going to school smelling like the pond.

---------------------

Akane was sipping her tea when the now-male Ranma came in and
sat down beside her. Suddenly, Akane had a terrible time holding
the cup steady, so she put it down as casually as she could.

For one brief instant, she had seen Ranma in Romeo's costume
again.

*What is the matter with me?* she thought.

Not sure whether to be amused or angry at herself, Akane tried
to chase away the mental image of Ranma standing below her
balcony, and picked up her rice bowl.

She felt herself blushing, and tried to suppress the warm feelings
that the image sparked.

*Just eat your breakfast, and STOP thinking about it!* she
mentally told herself. She then took a glance at Ranma.

*Stupid idiot!* Akane thought angrily. *This is all your fault!!*

----------------------

Ranma was shoveling in his breakfast as fast as he could, while
trying to prevent his father from taking any of it.

Then for, the second time that morning, Akane distracted him.
He stopped short, chopsticks halfway to his mouth, and took a
good look at her.

*Oh, great!* he thought as he noticed the red coloring of her face.
*I wonder what she thinks I did this time?*

Ranma mentally sighed as he returned to his meal. It took him a
few seconds to realize that his food had disappeared. He glared
at his father, who was innocently staring off in the opposite
direction and attempting to whistle. Since he was still in
panda-form, his efforts came out sounding like heavy breathing.
A few seconds later, Genma-panda turned to his son and held up a
sign.

(What?)

Ranma just shook his head and sighed.

*This* he thought as he got up and went to check his book bag,
*is going to be a looong day.*

-------------------------

Akane finished her breakfast a few minutes after Ranma had left.
She was starting to get up when Kasumi stopped her.

"Are you feeling well, Akane?"

"I'm fine, Sis," she curtly replied. "Excuse me, I have to get
ready."

"Are you sure?" Kasumi said. "You look rather flushed. Let me
check and see if you're running a fever."

Akane's face became several shades redder.

"I SAID I'M JUST FINE!" she yelled. "DON'T BABY ME!"

Akane stopped short, and looked at the faces around the table.

Soun looked at his daughter in disbelief, while Nabiki seemed
amused. Mr. Saotome had already risen and shuffled off,
apparently wanting to stay as far away from the problem as
possible.

Akane looked at Kasumi last.  Her sister looked confused and
hurt, and Akane instantly became consumed with guilt.

"I-I'm sorry, Sis," Akane stammered out. "Guess I'm more nervous
about the play than I thought. Excuse me."



-----------------------------

>From then on, the rest of the day went just like usual, with
few exceptions. First of all, Ranma and Akane didn't speak to
each other at all. Secondly, Ranma was staring at Akane more
but trying not to let her know it. Finally, Akane was staring
at Ranma, trying to do so without letting him notice.

Needless to say, the other students soon became witnesses to
the first Martial arts 'staring without getting caught'
contest, some of them wondering who would win while the
others wondered who would get whiplash first from all the
head movements. Finally though, the time for the tryouts came,
without either one of them getting caught by the other.

Some of the students were interested enough in what was (or
wasn't) going on between Ranma and Akane to follow them to
the tryouts for the play.

The first thing Akane noticed when she got to the audition
was that there were a lot of male students there. She overheard
them reading various parts of the play aloud. Akane's spirits
started to rise higher when she realized that most of them were
reading Romeo's lines.

*There sure are a lot of people trying for Romeo*, she thought.
*Maybe one of...* The rest of her thoughts were interrupted
suddenly when some of the male students began to be tossed
around.

Over the commotion it caused she could clearly hear a voice
shout out:

"Away, vermin! None of you are fit to be Romeo!! Only I,
Tatewaki Kuno, am worthy to be the fair Akane's Romeo!"

As she watched him tear through the assembled boys, Akane's
spirit started to plummet.

Its descent slowed slightly when something hit Kuno so hard that
he fell over flat onto his back. The hesitation was short,
however, when she realized what had hit him.

"No way! I'm going to be Juliet's main squeeze!" Happosai shouted.

Akane's spirit went from plummet to total freefall.

Happosai jumped over Kuno's body and made a beeline towards Akane.

"Cmon, sweetie, time for rehearsal.  Let's start with a lov--"

Happosai's words were cut off when a foot embedded itself right
in his face.

*Thank goodness* Akane thought.

"Hey, Director," Ranma called out, his foot still placed firmly
on Happi's face, pinning the old hentai to the ground. "You let
old geezers like this try out?"

"SAOTOME!!  YOU WILL NOT TAKE THE ROLE OF ROMEO
FROM ME!!" a recovered Kuno yelled as he charged at him.

Ranma stood there as the kendoist raced towards him, wildly
waving his bokken. Just as it looked as if Kuno would strike
him with it, Ranma sidestepped him, and the blows meant for
Ranma rained down on Happosai.

Kuno stood triumphantly over his fallen foe, while Ranma stepped
back a few feet just to get out of Kuno's vision.

"At last, Saotome, you know the full wrath of the Blue Thunder
of Furinkan High!"

"You really got him this time, did you?" Happosai said as he
perched upon Kuno's shoulder.

"Aye," Kuno responded.

"Only one problem," the old pervert said.

"Eh?"

"THAT WASN'T RANMA! IT WAS ME!" Happosai replied. He then began
to show Tatewaki Kuno just exactly why he was a master.

WHACK! BASH! CRUNCH!!

Despite the punishment Happosai had given Kuno, his single-
minded ambition to be Romeo still motivated him. He raised his
head, and looked directly at Ranma.

"You will NOT take my place as Romeo in this play!"

"Who wants to be in this dumb play, anyway?"

Ranma felt something big hit him from behind.

"Then what are you doing here?!?" Akane screamed, letting go of
the balcony she'd hit him with.

"I didn't think you'd want the old goat to grab you!" he replied, rubbing
his head.

"I could have handled him, you know!" Akane said.

"Ah...fair Aka...OOF!!" Kuno said as Ranma's and Akane's fists
connected with his stomach simultaneously.

"Against him?!?" Ranma replied, pointing at the old pervert as
he downed a bottle of sake. "You can't even beat Shampoo!"

Knowing he had won the argument, Ranma turned towards the boys
who had stayed.  Suddenly, he saw them all begin to slowly back
away from him.

 *Huh?* he thought, a little confused at their actions.

"RRRRAAANNNMMMAAA!" Akane roared.

*Oops!*

Fifteen minutes later...

Akane stood in the recently replaced balcony and  looked down at
the area they had set aside for the tryouts.

*This is it!* she happily thought. *I'm finally going to play
Juliet!*

Crunch....

*No one is going to ever say I'm better as Romeo again!*

Crunch..

Irritably, she glanced up at one of the higher branches of the
tree where the balcony had been placed and scowled. There, she
saw a very bruised Ranma eating some crackers.

Ranma soon noticed that she was staring at him.

"Want some?" he asked.

"Idiot" Akane muttered as she turned her attention back to the tryouts...

Ranma continued to munch on the crackers while he watched the
tryouts. He'd quickly come to the conclusion that most of the
guys wanted to play Romeo because Akane was Juliet.

*Why would they want to be in a play with Akane? She's so violent
that if they make a mistake, she'll pound them. I just don't know
what they see in that uncute girl.*

Uncute.

Ever since this morning, every time he had thought of her as that
it had bothered him. The worst part was he really wasn't sure why.
He knew it had something to do with that strange dream. Why did he
want to kiss her? Could it be that Akane really was cute?  All the other
guys at school kept saying that she was. As Ranma stared at
the Tendo girl, he had a revelation.

There had been moments where he had thought she was cute. However,
each time it happened, either he would chalk it up to him being
sick or one of them would do something to mess it up. Or more
accurately, he would do something to mess it up. Suddenly, the
words the third Ranma said played through his mind.

*I'm afraid that I'll let you in and be hurt when you leave.*

*Is that it? Do I call her uncute because I'm afraid to let myself
like her? NO WAY!  Ranma Saotome isn't afraid of ANYTHING!*

*Akaneiscute.... There! I admit it.* Ranma thought. *Now, so long as
I don't have to let her know about it until I'm ready, there won't
be a problem.*

Ranma pushed the thoughts aside, and looked down from his perch.
The director had finally brought the group to some semblance of
order, and was having the students do brief readings from the
play.

The group of Romeo-wannabes had dwindled considerably. Most of
them decided it would be much healthier to leave than try to
compete with Kuno, Happi or possibly Ranma. Of those that
remained, some of the boys found themselves completely tongue-
tied when it was their turn to read, mostly due to the glares
from Kuno and Happosai. Others, once they got near to Akane
and realized they were supposed to read romantic lines to her, just
went to pieces. Soon the only ones yet to read were Kuno, Happosai
and Gosunkugi.

To everyone's amazement, the self-styled voodoo priest had
stuck it out. Well, to the amazement of everyone who noticed
him, that is.

Hikaru was ready to begin reading, when someone roughly
pushed him aside.

"Stand aside!  I shall go first!"

Kuno stood straight, held out his book, and began to recite. It
didn't surprise anyone that he was letter-perfect. After all, he
spoke as though he was in a Shakespeare play every day of his
life. The only problem was that he was reading the wrong part,
from the wrong play, and it wasn't even written by Shakespeare.

Happosai walked around Kuno, and gazed up at Akane.  His intense
stare made her very uncomfortable.

"I'm the only Romeo for you, sweets!"

He immediately opened the script he had 'found' during his morning
raid of the girls' locker room, turned to a random page, and
began to read. Unfortunately, he'd had a little too much to drink,
and what he did read came out rather mangled. It also didn't help
that he was reading Juliet's lines. When the director tried to
correct him, he found himself flat on his back.

Kuno grabbed Happosai by his shirt, and shouted at him. "You
dare befoul the immortal words of Shakespeare?"

Before he could continue. Happosai had flung him up into the
tree, where he narrowly missed landing on Ranma.

By this time, the director had picked himself up, and was bewailing
his bad luck. "This is terrible!  How can we find a Romeo this way?"

He flung down his copy of the play, and softly muttered another complaint.

"Now our poor students will never get to enjoy that invitation to
see China."

Ranma's eyes went wide. *See China?!?*

Images of him taking various transports back to the country that
lodged perhaps the only known cure to his curse, flooded his mind.
No matter how he went, it all ended the same. Him at Jusenkyo and
bathing in the spring of the drowned man. Then the image shifted,
showing him returning to Nerima, a full man and holding Akane in
his arms....

*I've got to win this contest!*

Ranma quickly shoved Kuno out of the tree, and used him as a
'pillow' to land on.

"Did you say CHINA?" he shouted towards the director.

The director nodded.

"You got yourself a Romeo."

------------------

Ranma's words rang in Akane's ears. Her daydream was coming
back to haunt her.

*What am I going to do? I can't play Juliet to Ranma's Romeo. I
can't do it......Can I?* Her thoughts were interrupted by a couple
of shouts.

"NEVER!!!"

"NO (hic) WAY!"

Ranma ducked under Kuno's bokken swing just in time to see an
angry Happosai begin his attack. Thinking fast, Ranma grabbed the
middle of Kuno's bokken and used it as a lever to block, and then
threw Happosai up in the tree. Almost instantly after Happi had
been launched, Ranma kicked Kuno square in the chest, knocking
him out.

Just as the battle was winding down, Akane saw Gosunkugi  shout,
"STOP THE MADNESS!" and charge towards the back of Ranma,
armed with his voodoo spike. She was about to shout a warning to him
when she saw Ranma turn and catch the spike between his fingers.
--------------------------------


"Huh?" Ranma replied casually, the spike still trapped between
two of his fingers.

Despite the casualness in his voice, Gos could see the anger in
Ranma's eyes.

"Ahh...I-I mean, since this is a play..." he stammered out, hoping
to distract Ranma from doing very grevious bodily harm to him. By
now, Ranma had broken the wooden spike in two, and grabbed Gos by
the shirt. The look on his face said simply: YOU'RE NEXT!

"...We should settle this on the stage."

By this time, Kuno had recovered enough to comment.

"Hmm. . .an amusing thought. Then the last one left standing on
stage, will be the one true Romeo!"

The director nodded enthusiastically in agreement because,
quite frankly, he liked not being beaten into a bloody pulp.

"A battle Royal? You're on!" Ranma replied.

None of them noticed Gos shaking his head in disbelief.

"That's not what I meant," he mumbled.

------------------

Akane couldn't believe it! In mere minutes, her dream of playing
Juliet was turning into a nightmare! All because of that stupid
 pervert! Rolling up her script, she leaped down from the balcony
and swatted Ranma with it.

"IDIOT!" she screamed as she felt the tears well up in her eyes.
"We're supposed to be doing a play, not a massacre!!

If she hadn't been so upset, she would have noticed the look of
hurt on his face.

"Akane, I..." he replied.

Now crying, she slapped him across the face.

"Now you've ruined everything!"

As she ran away, all of Akane's thought revolved around one
question. *Why? Why does he always have to ruin everything for
me!?!*

-----------------------------

Ranma eyes followed Akane as she fled the tryouts. He'd hurt her
again. The heir to Anything-Goes martial arts could have shrugged
it off except for one thing.

He'd made her cry.

As he clenched his fists and lowered his head, he tried to control
the swirl of emotions the incident had ignited in him.

"Damn," he whispered.

---------------------------------

That evening after dinner, Ranma quietly crept into the kitchen.
He noticed that Kasumi was still washing the dishes, so he decided
to wait until she was finished before he would bother her.

He'd arrived home a few minutes before dinner and had just enough
time to ask his pop about who Romeo was. His response about him
being from Krypton didn't make much sense to the martial artist.
He decided afterwards that it might be a good idea to ask someone
else about it. Almost instantly he ruled out asking Soun, the
question would have brought on a torrent of tears about how his
daughter's fiance wanted to be in the play. He thought about
asking Nabiki but realized that he probably couldn't afford the
money she'd charge him for the information. That left either Akane
or Kasumi but the way Akane glared at him during dinner pretty
much ruled her out.

Noticing that Kasumi had put away the last dish, Ranma spoke.

"Kasumi, got a minute?"

"What is it, Ranma?"

Ranma shifted nervously from foot to foot, then just before he
spoke, he took a big breath.

"Do you know who Romeo is?  Pop says he's some guy from Krypton,
but I don't think that's right."

Kasumi couldn't help laughing.

"Ranma, that's Superman," she said, still giggling. Then she shook
her head.  "Don't you know anything about Romeo and Juliet?"

"Well...um...I know Romeo is a guy," he replied sheepishly.  "Isn't
it a Samurai drama about a father and his daughter?"

"Here" Kasumi said. Walking over to the counter, Kasumi picked up
a book and handed it to the confused Ranma.

"This is a copy of the play. When Akane told me you were trying out
for the part, I got this out of my room."

Kasumi noticed Ranma's face falter slightly at the mention of
Akane. Akane had told her sister what had happened at the tryouts,
but she knew that her sister had a tendency to blame everything on
 Ranma.

*Ranma looks upset. I wonder what really happened at the
tryouts.*

Brushing aside her concern, Kasumi smiled slightly. "I figured you
would need it."

"Is she okay?" Ranma asked, taking the book from her.

"The last time I checked on her, she was still a little angry," she
responded.

"I noticed," he said. "Well, thanks for the book, Kasumi. This is
exactly what I needed. Good night."

As he turned to leave, Kasumi gently grabbed his arm. "Ranma, this
play is very important to Akane. Please don't ruin it for her."

Ranma looked into the pleading eyes of the eldest Tendo daughter.

"I..I won't," he stammered out.

After Ranma left the kitchen, Kasumi took off her apron.  She was folding
it up when she started to giggle.

*Superman?  Poor Ranma.  Wait 'til he finds out what the play is
REALLY about.*

------------------------

Ranma fled to the sanctuary of his bedroom, and began reading.

*Huh?  Where are the samurai?*

*Romeo's NOT Juliet's Dad?*

*Waitaminit! This is a LOVE story!!!*

A few minutes later, the book flew across the room, and hit the
wall.

Ranma decided it was time for bed.  His mind kept returning to the
same thought. Romeo loved Juliet. Romeo kissed Juliet. Therefore,
Ranma would have to kiss Juliet...err...Akane.

*Could I do that? Yes I could, but I won't do it to win that contest!
I don't need to!!*

Even as he lay down on the futon, he was trying to convince himself
that he could win without kissing her.

It was going to be a long night.


 -------------------

Comments welcome - send to the list, or to either (or both) of us
David Lindquist - fido@rma.edu
June Geraci - karaohki@snet.net