Heya.  Feeling like it's time for me to get off my lazy butt and start contributing again to the forum.  Since I haven't done any C&C in, like... forever, you'll have to excuse me if I'm not making sense at times.  Here goes:

 

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

Well After Christmas

 

--siaru 14mar02/06oct03

 

Fresh from the bath in her yukata, she looked around the tea

room and announced, "I need to attend to something; don't wait

for me."

 

Akane nodded equably from the comfort of her companion's arms.

 

Heh.  That's a nasty surprise when I got to the end.  More on this later.

 

Soun looked around, nodded, then went back to what he was doing.

The others were around the house somewhere; this would do.

 

And that was it. She went up to her room to get ready. She had

to get out.

 

While the others were wandering off to their rooms to get into

their kimonos, she was putting on the lacy black slip. Then it

was time for her to fumble deep within the closet, searching

more by touch than sight, to bring out her secret treasure, this

red dress. She slipped it on and inspected herself in the

mirror. It came down barely below the knee to expose shapely

legs in black pantyhose, with a square cut front that showed

perhaps a hint of the abbreviated bra and a little cleavage.

 

Nice descriptions from various angles.

 

While others were fastening their obis, she was tying a red

ribbon in her hair, much as she'd seen Ukyo wear to such effect.

She paused at the mirror to dab on quick touches of makeup, as

much as anything to prove that she knew how.

 

Copy-paste that last comment.  Although, the Ukyo bit threw me off a bit later on.  The problem here, I think, is that it's not stated whether Kasumi kept in touch with Ukyo over these past seven years enough to instantly recall her wearing a ribbon when she put her own on.  Could be that they just run into each other on the street from time to time, but the absence of descriptions or memories during this span of seven years forces me to have to imagine the scenes and fill in the gaps myself.  Minor nit at best - just took a while to make sense of it, that's all.  Liked that last sentence, and the fact that Kasumi's still dressed somewhat conservatively even though she's trying to let loose.  

 

Well before the others slipped their tabi socks into their zori,

she had seized her purse and was down the stairs and out the

front door, still slipping her feet securely into the heeled

shoes. Then she shrugged her coat tighter around her against the

bleak cold and bitter darkness and walked out the gate and down

the street.

 

"tabi" and "zori" are probably not on your usual fanfic readers' vocabulary list.  I'd recommend reworking to use brief descriptions instead of the Japanese names - although they give a clue to the timeframe of the story.  

 

The wind caught her hair immediately, sending it in streams

across her face. She turned to face the wind, for once, to let

it put her hair back into place. The streets behind her were all

but deserted, still: she had escaped in time.

 

Still concerned about tidiness, but not willing to do the actual work anymore - partly because she didn't have time.  Nice.  Good way of setting time on that last sentence as well.

 

She smoothed her hair down into her coat, then turned against

the wind again and walked on, taking a long stride to work off

the cold, even though she teetered occasionally on the rough ice

in her high heels. Her movements were restless in desperation,

with no more patience for patience; the shoes would have to deal

with the sidewalk, because she wasn't going back just now.

 

She bitterly thought to herself, 'Happy New Year, Kasumi. You're

one year older now.' And what did I do to deserve that, she

dully wondered, other than to survive?

 

Hmm.  First internal dialogue.  Sets the tone, but it sounded somewhat abrupt.  Again, it's throwing me off a bit, trying to picture what could have happened to get Kasumi, of all people, to sound like this.

 

When a bus paused to let a passenger out at the front just as

she arrived at the bus stop, she stepped up in the back and 

let it carry her away from her life.

 

She looked around: the bus was nearly empty as it resumed its

journey towards the great city's heart. She took a convenient

seat and stared out the window, idly watching the city slip by,

until the darkness of the closed shops and quiet houses beyond

the window made her face her reflection once more.

 

Good stuff... but she rode the bus for an entire day?  It's symbolic, yes, if you think about it - running around in circles with nowhere to go, completely at odds with the rest of Tokyo because she chose that one day to get away and dress up like a normal girl when most of everyone else got traditional.  As much an indication of her bad timing as everything else, but once again, I have to rework the image to make more sense out of this, and it's detracting from my ability to simply enjoy the piece.  Perhaps it's all just me though, since I'm not all that fast on the uptake.

 

The reflection in the window showed a woman in her late

twenties, a woman of beauty. Yes, beautiful, she could see that,

but she had domesticated that beauty, plowed it under for the

sake of her precious calm and harmony and stability. It was all

she had then; it was all she had now, and it wasn't enough. 

 

Boy, Kasumi sounded even more bitter now.  It's good narration, but I'm once again hesitant to accept this as Kasumi's voice.  

 

Now that she thought about it, it hadn't been enough even then.

Though the people around her, driven to change and grow out of

necessity, might wonder what was being done to them by rude

circumstance, she didn't have to think about that then. She had

her work. The work did not change and neither did she. It was a

simple form of stabilization... of protection... of

self-imprisonment. She had done this to herself, she knew.

Others had helped, but it had really been Kasumi who had

shackled herself to the mundane until it was too late for the

unusual to successfully catch her up and carry her away into her

dreams.

 

Rationalization is getting heavier ^^;  If there's more lead-up to why she felt how she felt at this point, it would be a lot easier to swallow.  I think you've got the descriptions down pat, and instead of showing her thoughts here, you can probably work another imagery in to replace the thought.  At least, I'd try to shorten this bit.  Even this would probably suffice:

"She had her work."

"Then, an odd thought struck her: she was her own work."

And, maybe extend the bus scene a bit, giving the readers a feel that she realized her bus-trip felt like a mouse running on a wheel who found itself unwilling to continue, but unable to stop, because she'd technically done the same thing again to herself when she decided to ride on the bus.  Dunno whether that'd work better, but it's just a thought, because I think the internal dialogue's too long and heavy here.

 

It was well after Christmas for her; the present she had was

what she could expect from the future, unless she was willing to

bargain. Out here on this night there must be someone equally at

a loss for a family within which to fit. Someone, anyone would

do, as long as he was warm.

 

If she met a man now and he took her only for the night and then

threw her away, she would at least have that private memory to

warm the rest of her nights spent with no one; she would have at

least had that, which was more than she had now.

 

I would suggest toning this part down a bit as well.  Not that they're not well written, but with a piece like this, extraneous show of rationalization or openly expressed emotions will only hurt.  Like I said, you've done a wonderful job at the opening bits putting her thoughts into actions.  This part, I think, can be handled just as well in that fashion.

 

Eventually her bus reached the end of its route. She had hoped

to reach the bustling heart of Tokyo, but that was too big a

journey for one bus to make with her aboard. Rather than

transfer to another seat with another reflection beside it, she

decided to walk.

 

She soon realized that it had been a mistake. The streets were

just as cold, just as near-deserted except near the shrines, and

there was no place warm and inviting where she could fend off

some of this chill with a cup of hot tea. The storefronts all

had their festive lights lit, but nothing was open.

 

She halted, stunned, as she realized that, then grimly went on

anyway. She hadn't expected this in her haste to get away. There

must be someplace that was open, someplace where there might be

other people, people other than her family. She didn't want to

spend this evening alone by herself, but she didn't want to spend

it alone with them either.

 

Once again, solid writing, but a bit more melodrama than necessary, I think.  ^^; If you're looking for place to trim, I'd suggest considering here as well.

 

The pointed high heel of one shoe skidded on ice, then she

slipped on the snow and went down, somehow remembering enough of

her early training to avoid coming down on her knees and running

her hosiery.

 

Think you meant "ruining".  Funny image though, that.

 

Sprawled on her side, feeling the barely-melted snow seeping

into her dress, she shuddered, then artlessly raised herself to

her feet. There were no strong hands come to help her up.

 

She had been the strong hands in her family for so long; when

was it her turn? Did the world expect her to somehow provide

that service for herself as well?

 

Nice.

 

Didn't she, though? Where had her dashing hero gone, after all?

 

Mmm, the transition here seemed rough, although the follow-up was good.  I'm of two minds about this.

 

She didn't need to ask why he had never arrived. He _had_ arrived,

and she had rejected him as too much work on top of the work

she had already assigned herself.

 

'Too boring'; what a laugh. If there was one thing Ranma Saotome

was not, it was boring. But he wasn't perfect, either, and she'd

been wishing and praying for a handsome prince to rescue her

from her life.

 

Fixated on that mythical perfection, she wasn't willing to

accept a prince who was a part-time princess with a guttersnipe

mouth and feral ways, someone with rough edges to be smoothed

before he'd be ready for that princely role, and she'd fended

him off towards Akane. She'd known within a week that she'd made

a mistake, but she didn't ever realize the magnitude of her

error until... Until he was gone for good, though nobody knew

it at the time.

 

She looked down at herself and something, an imperfection,

caught her eye. Her fall had somehow torn open the hem of her

dress a little ways. It was like a final gesture of

condemnation, labeling her as unfit even for this much festivity.

Hesitantly, she worked at the frayed seam, finally bringing away

the obvious offender, a long red thread. She idly wound that

around her finger as she trudged on, unwilling to let it go for

fear that the illusion of beauty she had wrapped around herself

would fall apart if she discarded it.

 

Nice again.  Although, that last sentence concealed the symbol of red thread tying into love and relationship because it shifted the emphasis onto Kasumi's fixation on perfection.  Don't know if that's intended.

 

She turned the next corner, and leaked misty breath up through

her grateful smile. There _was_ someplace open, a Macudonarudo.

It would have to do. While her family was gaily traipsing up the

streets to the red torii of the shrines to be blessed, for those

who felt unworthy or who resented the emptiness of the purity

and peace that was offered, there was this shrine of the 

mundane with its golden arches, and its blessing, empty food.

She reached the door and stepped in, already eyeing the numbered

meals.

 

Misty breath - heh.  And the McDonald's was artfully ironic.  

 

As she sat with her own meal she noticed a small woman with long

black hair who was seated facing out the storefront window

several tables away. She and a rough-dressed man sitting at a

counter and staring at the wall were the only other diners.

 

The man was in his early or mid thirties. She eyed him

speculatively, taking in his sturdy build, his stoic expression,

his large hand that seemed to envelop the small hamburger, and

his posture which showed fatigue but not defeat. He looked like

a physical laborer or someone who worked with his hands. Perhaps

that strong rough hand could be gentle at times, such as when it

touched her.

 

Then the other hand came up to help dip his food in sauce, and

she noticed a plain gold band on one finger. Disappointed, she

turned her attention to her meal.

 

Damn, Kasumi's really desperate ^^ Good tie-in with the details on the hands with earlier though.  

 

The small, almost tasteless meat in the bun was hard to swallow,

just like her life now. There was almost nothing there. The meat

of it was missing, or easily missed, it was so bland. But that

was what the sticky-sweet bubbly drink was for: to wash it down.

Just like her smile.

 

Probably just stylistics, but I'd use a semi-colon before the "it was so bland".  Otherwise, I wouldn't change a word ^^

 

She hated her involuntary smile by now, her practiced smile

that denied everything, forgave everything and betrayed nothing

except everything. It was all she had, though, really, except

for this unpleasant food. This was palatable food to some

people, she knew, but, having cooked, she knew better.

 

Again, excellent here.  Although, that last sentence sounds like it's trying to say something else.  I'm not sure what it is though - it doesn't quite fit if she's comparing food to either love or her life; since she's trying to get out precisely because she felt she hadn't found her love or lived her life, the metaphor didn't make sense.  Either I'm not seeing the connection, or I'm reading too much into this.

 

Even as she reached into the little bag to pull out another

tasteless limp stick of deep-fried potato, idly wondering what

part of her life that symbolized, she paused to look at her

fingers. They were a woman's fingers, tapered and graceful and

delicate in shape. Callused as they were by work, though, were

these the hands of an attractive woman, now, or something less?

Were these strong hands rough? Who cared, though? If nobody else

did, she could not afford to.

 

She pulled her fingers back and wiped them on the paper napkin.

She'd reached the end of her tolerance for the meal anyway. It

was as tasteless as Akane's current cooking had been for a long

time, she noted with a bitter little laugh, and so much better

than what Akane had cooked before, before it was too late.

 

She'd seen it coming, too. She'd come out of her damaged kitchen

just in time to see Ranma, rather greenish and holding his

stomach, gasp out, "That's it, Akane. Next time you do this --

Parley Du Foie Gras. You have been warned."

 

Heh.

 

He'd done it, too. The next time Akane got creative in the

kitchen, everything she put on his plate ended up in her mouth.

Soun came home furious from seeing Akane admitted to the

hospital for systemic shock and internal burns after her stomach

was pumped in ER.

 

That it was Akane's own cooking, intended for Ranma's

consumption, made no difference: Soun and Nabiki had driven

Ranma out of the house, while Genma softly grunted his animal

noises as he rearranged the shogi board. Soun had meant it to be

for a short while, just to 'teach Ranma a lesson'... but the

lesson must have been learned all too well. Ranma never returned

and was never found no matter how many resources Nabiki put into

it.

 

And Kasumi had had her chance to intervene and had done nothing,

cowed by the limits of her own role. Now all she could do, once

Akane was discharged and plaintively asking her to teach her to

cook, was to grimly take her sister step by step through basic

cooking procedures, now that she was willing to learn at last,

and keep her own tears locked up in her bedroom. She couldn't

even display her anger and grief: she knew from listening that,

many nights, she and Akane cried a duet into their respective

pillows.

 

And now, seven years later, the strain of keeping it all in was

again more than Kasumi could bear. She huddled over the last of

her fried potato sticks, letting her hair drape to hide her

face, trying to sniffle silently and letting her tears wash away

the caked salt beneath them. She clenched her hands in silent

anguish, then noticed that something was missing from one of

them.

 

The red thread had loosened from her finger and slipped to the

floor. Hastily, Kasumi leaned down, wiping her eyes to spy it

out among the black lines of the tiling and pick it back up: it

would not do to leave it lying around.

 

Niiiiiice.

 

As she straightened up, she noticed a hint of red in what had

been her periphery. How odd -- the woman a few tables away had

red roots in her glossy black hair. They were just beginning to

show: the woman would need to touch things up soon.

 

Kasumi idly surveyed the woman, who was calmly and obliviously

eating a hamburger. She had on a thick practical coat, but

Kasumi could pick out hints of an office-lady's outfit. The

hemline was right, anyway.

 

The woman had her purse slung under her shoulder by its strap,

clenched tight by her elbow, but Kasumi could see, peeking from

the top of the purse, a sports bottle, which was curious in

itself: why would a working woman carry water in the dead of

winter?

 

She idly took in the woman's face, with its pert nose, its

stubborn chin, its thick lashes with, from this angle, hints of

red among the mascara...

 

Shaking, Kasumi stood, clumsily grasping her purse as she rose,

and went around the tables to look at the woman more closely. If

she was wrong about this, it would be an unacceptable intrusion

on another's privacy, but at this moment she didn't care.

 

The woman was sipping at her drink, now, while her free hand

toyed with something wrapped around her finger. It was a red

hair. She might have plucked it on noticing that it had escaped

dyeing. That shade of red...

 

Kasumi bowed and asked, "I beg your pardon, Saotome-san?"

 

Badly startled, the woman cringed, then visibly steeled herself,

looking up, saying, "Ain't no Saotome--" She caught sight of

Kasumi and froze with a stunned look, then slumped and finished,

"--here." Then she just stared up as if at her doom.

 

^^

 

Kasumi looked at her for long moments, trying to make sense out

of this event now that it was upon her, then whispered,

"Ran...ko?"

 

She didn't realize that she was faint until the woman was up and

at her side, helping her into a facing chair. As Kasumi

recovered her wits, she felt a strong hand ease away from her

arm; then the woman was once more seated, openly watching her.

 

You probably meant "fainting".  Although, why she chose to faint at that moment, I'm still not understanding.  If she addressed Ranko as "Saotome", she probably wasn't that shocked.  She'd even rationalized to herself right before actually deciding to head over to confirm her suspicions, so why would she faint now?

 

As Kasumi realized that her purse was now in her lap and glanced

down at it, the woman nodded once, then pulled out a small

celphone from her purse and dialed a number. Kasum heard tones

give way to the garbled insect buzz of voice in the tiny

speaker, then the woman spoke: "Hi, I'm uh, not gonna be able to

make it tonight."

 

"cell-phone?"  Or was it a portable phone that was cel-shaded? :P  Also, typed too fast - left out the "i" in the second "Kasumi" there.

 

The woman listened to the buzz, then scowled. "Yeah, well,

something important came up."

 

The scowl gave way to a too-familiar smirk. "Can't tell ya."

 

Then, suddenly irate and a little hurt, the woman said edgily,

"_No_, it's not another guy!"

 

The buzz responded and her expression visibly relaxed into

something halfway between wistful and sardonic. "Yeah, have

fun!"

 

She rolled her eyes and drummed quick rolls of her fingertips on

the tabletop. Her painted tapered fingernails made it sound like

a tiny machine gun duet with the buzz. Finally she jerked her

hand up, reaching for the phone as she said, "Okay, bye."

 

Grimacing, the woman thumbed the celphone, then folded it up and

put it away again in her purse. She looked up at Kasumi a little

bit defensively and drawled, "Yeah, that was a guy, okay? My

boyfriend, kinda."

 

Hmm... maybe "celphone" is an English-English spelling then?  I've not seen it spelled like this here.

 

Kasumi hesitantly found her voice again, aided by the woman's

pungent informality. "Kinda?"

 

Word choice - minor nit, but I grow apprehensive whenever I see the words "woman" and "pungent" placed side-by-side.

 

The look she got was somewhere between disappointment and

deadpan as the woman said, "Yeah, he's good for fun and giggles

and that's pretty much it. As far as I know, that's what he

thinks of me, so we're even, but we keep each other from getting

lonely sometimes."

 

Kasumi colored and looked down, willing away the image of this

woman in the same bargain of intimacy that she'd set out from

Nerima to find, then focused on those blue eyes instead, seeking

where a man must still be hiding. "Ranma."

 

The woman shook her head, causing her straight black hair to

shimmer. "Ranko. You got it right the first time: I go by Ranko

now, and I'm not a Saotome anymore."

 

Then Ranko settled back to look at her evenly, shifting her head

to the side from time to time to take in something she evidently

saw in Kasumi's eyes or expression. It was impossible for Kasumi

to make out what was in her expression, though, it was so

guarded. Finally she whispered, "What do you see, Ranko?"

 

Love this bit.

 

For a long time Ranko still stared back at her in silence, her

eyes flickering over Kasumi's face and occasionally dipping to

take in her figure under the coat, and, Kasumi could tell, the

hint of cleavage. Finally she blushed and lowered her eyes, and,

in an unwilling tone, said, "I, um... I see somebody I usedta

care about back when I was a guy."

 

Kasumi started, swallowed against the painful lump in her throat

and half-whispered, "Why didn't you say something?"

 

Ranko looked up at that, fresh hurt in her eyes, and answered,

"Well, you kinda made it clear that first day, din'cha? 'Oh, he

wants Akane'. 'You're in luck, Akane, 'cuz he's only half a

man'. Well, now I ain't even that." She stared out past Kasumi

and shrugged, and her expression took on a bitter fatalistic

calm. "I crossed over, Kasumi, I'm registered as a girl now. It

took some doing, but I got that, same time as I got my new name.

Ranko ain't even my name anymore, it's just a nickname I use."

A little smirk came and went. "Heh. Like it always was."

 

A little hurt made Kasumi's voice perhaps a little sharp in her

turn as she asked, "Why are you here tonight, then? Why are you

not with your boyfriend? It is a special time, after all."

 

"Because..." And here, Ranko broke off, visibly tensed, and then

stared straight ahead as she spoke in a dry voice, steeled to

forbid emotion: "Because you're somebody I never got a chance to

say thank you, or I love you, or anything like that, back when

it mattered. So I'm saying it now. Back when I was Ranma, I

loved you. And, thank you, for all things you did for me back

then when you didn't hafta, when I was just a burden. Thank

you."

 

This can probably cause a bit of confusion.  Maybe a tad more clarification - that Ranma-chan's carefully choosing her words here instead of voicing out her own discomfort with spending a special night with her "boyfriend".  As it is... I'll take this part at face-value, but it still feels a bit abrupt, even though it's logical that thinking about her own "bargain" of a life would let her guard down enough to express what she felt about Kasumi.  Yeah, I think just a bit more clarification will bring this out better.

 

For Kasumi, it seemed that the world once again reeled in shock

around her. She drily swallowed and managed to say, "You loved

me?"

 

"dryly", I think.

 

Red-faced, Ranko stared down at her empty bags of empty food and

slowly nodded, and murmured, "Yeah... I did, really. I didn't

think I should say anything about it, 'cuz of Akane, so I

didn't, but..."

 

Now Kasumi was fighting tears. "Ranma, I loved you--"

 

Ranko grimaced and waved her off and growled, "You're better

off. I'm... I'm a killer, Kasumi. I had to kill someone in China

to save Akane. And now I don't trust myself anymore. I didn't

then, that's one reason I left."

 

She leaned forward with her elbows on the table and looked up at

Kasumi, with utter conviction in her gaze and helpless anxiety

in her hand movements. "I put Akane in the hospital with her own

food. I nearly put Ryoga in the morgue when he found out about

it and came after me. I just... got fed up. With all of it. I

*couldn't* go back. Not to more of the same. It woulda just got

worse and worse until I killed someone I cared about, and I

couldn't _stand_ that."

 

Her voice got softer and smaller as she finished, "That's a big

reason why I'm a girl now: so people won't make me kill 'em.

'Cuz it's just too easy for me, even now, even like this." She

dropped her chin into her hands.

 

"So you're never going back." It was a finality that Kasumi

didn't want to hear, much less speak, but it had to be asked and

answered. Back to what, was understood.

 

Ranko showed a lost look. "I _can't_, Kasumi." The one

supporting hand now gripped her long hair tight, while the other

was on the table. She looked down and started tapping emphasis

of her points on the tabletop with a fingernail. "If I went back

to being a guy, it'd all start all over again. I'd be having to

be a 'man among men', and I'd get judged on that.

 

"I'd be expected to marry a Tendo, and unite the two schools,

and take over the dojo.

 

"I'd have Akane pissed at me again because they'd be shoving her

at me trying to make us get married because she's the martial

artist.

 

"I'd have Nabiki pissed at me again because she wouldn't be in

charge of the dojo anymore, I would be, and she can do a better

job of running a business like that and I know it as well as she

does.

 

"I'd have Ryoga jumping me all the time trying to prove himself

by beating me, or to get revenge for whatever I've done to upset

him now, or... whatever.

 

"I'd have fighters showing up just cuz they heard about the big

bad Ranma Saotome and wanted to prove themselves against me, and 

if I didn't wanna fight they'd find some way to _make_ me fight, 

like Pantyhose did.

 

"It'd all be just... _No_ way. I ain't gonna go back to being a

guy, even if I can, which I don't admit. While I'm like this, I

own myself, and if I went back to being a guy I wouldn't own

myself anymore." She drew back in her seat and folded her arms

tightly across her chest.

 

Five points to make; five fingers.  How nicely they all work out in the end :P

 

Wincing at the vehemence, Kasumi quietly asked, "I notice you

didn't include any of your other suitors in your list. What

about Ukyo?"

 

Ranko squinted at recollection, then answered in an offhand but

clipped manner. "We're friends. We don't talk much, but we're

friends. She was at a dead-end anyway because of her father. She

couldn't marry me when I was a guy, because legally she was one.

Now that I'm a girl all the time, she doesn't want to marry a

girl."

 

"Shampoo?"

 

Ranko shared a conspiratorial smile as she raspily whispered, "I

beat her ass real good, gave her back that Kiss of Death..." She

grinned again and continued in a clear voice, "_And_ it turns

out that's what I shoulda done right back at the beginning, in

her village. She got some of her honor back, anyway, so she went

home."

 

Don't have a dictionary offhand, so can't verify, but I really don't know the adverbial form of "raspy".  Dictionary.com doesn't turn up a valid entry for "raspily" though.

 

Kasumi looked at her a moment, then said, "So... You already

know what I do, but what do you do these days?"

 

"You're still at the house, right?"

 

Kasumi silently nodded, praying inside for this moment of casual

intimacy to continue. She had so missed this relief from

formality and the crushing weight of tradition, of just

conversing without caring about their respective roles. And

Ranma.

 

"Well... At first it was real hard. I couldn't teach, couldn't

go to school, couldn't get much of any job, 'cuz I didn't wanna

be a guy anymore and I didn't have any papers for this form. I

woulda died, maybe, but some people took me in."

 

Kasumi looked carefully at the woman in front of her. There were

fatigue lines under the makeup, chap lines under the lipstick,

and all of the baby-fat padding had disappeared from that face.

Even allowing for her now being in her mid-twenties, whatever

Ranko had gone through, it had not been easy.

 

"Then I took some courses. It was a struggle, but I made it: I'm

a secretary. For a few years that was my big ambition, y'know. I

had to stop sponging off other people before I did anything

else." She looked at Kasumi and laughed. "And hey, I can type

_real_ fast!"

 

There was an impish grin, then, a flicker of the Ranma she had

come to stealthily admire, and then Kasumi inwardly flinched at

the thought of what Cologne's reaction might be to seeing the

Kachuu Tenshin Amaguriken being applied to something so

subservient by a woman.

 

Hah!

 

The grin faded back into evident fatigue, and Kasumi watched it

and ached inside as she thought about the greatest martial

artist of a generation being reduced by circumstance and her own

inaction to someone whose greatest ambition was to be a typist

and tea-lackey... a role all too close to her own. What had she

done to her prince? She whispered, "And now?"

 

Ranko slumped a little and said, "I dunno. Haven't really had

time to think it out, y'know? Working takes up a lot of time,

and then I gotta get _some_ workout so all this doesn't go to

fat like a certain panda that I could name... so that's as far

as I've got so far."

 

"How did men come into it?"

 

Ranko waved in an offhand way as if declaring the subject of no

great import. "Well, after a coupla years of living this way, I

stopped lying to myself. I'm still a guy inside, but I'm a girl

too. And I'm a girl on the outside, so I checked out that side

of myself, and, yeah, I like it. I know a few guys that I

wouldn't mind spending the rest of my life with. They don't know

I used to be a guy, so I don't push it, 'cuz I'm not about to

tell them that... But it's enough just for me to know that I can

handle that. Makes it all a whole lot easier."

 

"And if a girl wanted to be with you? How would you respond to

that?"

 

Ranko shrugged. "I dunno. The ones that knew me before don't

wanna be stuck with me if I'm stuck this way. The ones that know

me now don't wanna get close 'cuz we're both girls. Well, most of

'em, and the others I don't care for."

 

"_Are_ you stuck?"

 

"Well..." Ranko visibly considered the thought, then leaned

forward a little and, in a confidential voice, said, "Nahh, not

really. I use the soap a lot, but... Jusenkyo musta given up on

me, I guess, once I decided to be a girl. It doesn't throw hot

water at me anymore, anyways. So nobody knows I can still

change. They think I'm locked and that suits me fine."

 

She gave Kasumi a long warm smile, sharing the little joke with

her, and Kasumi warmed inside, surging with a sad sort of hope

at how easy it was to feel the connection once more. She cocked

her head and smiled warmly back as she thought. 

 

To make conversation, Kasumi said, "Akane is seeing that Kuno

boy now."

 

Ranko snorted a laugh. "Yeah, I know. I heard. They might even

be good for each other. They're sure a lot alike." She

elaborately shrugged, stretched, and closed her eyes. "They'll

fight a lot, and she'll always win because he'll always hold

back. Maybe I shoulda never got in their way." She looked up,

suddenly concerned. "She didn't feed him any of her cooking yet,

did she? Well, you said she's seeing him, so he's still

alive..."

 

"Actually, Akane's cooking is quite bland now. Rather tasteless,

but healthy."

 

Just like her life, eh.  But, still, sudden jump from her "crying into her pillows" over Ranma's decision to leave to resigning herself to be stuck with Kuno.  

 

"So... Well, maybe that's one thing I did right..." She pursed

her lips and stared down at the wilted lettuce remains of her

meal. 

 

Kasumi watched the play of emotions across Ranko's face. None of

them were guarded, and it was almost a mimed recounting of the

last days of Ranma Saotome. But the fact that it was open...

 

The caring was in the air. In this somber harmony, now, of two,

Kasumi could feel it deep within her center. The caring was

still there, the caring that they had shared but never dared to

express: old coals, banked low, now perhaps blown alight by the

chance breeze of their chance meeting.

 

Ranko looked up at her from time to time as she thought, not so

much monitoring as checking to be sure that she was still there,

still open herself, and a little half-smile came and went each

time she did so.

 

Ranma had never been this open with strangers; something was

still between them, and it wasn't their old roles of older woman

and younger boy. Time had erased the time between them; could

Ranma see that? Or did Ranma even see that that ought to matter?

 

"In this shape... how do you _feel_... about women?" The

question had already been answered, inferred, anyway, but Kasumi

needed a more explicit answer before she could summon her

audacity.

 

Ranko looked thoughtfully at the red hair around her finger and

frowned a little. "I, uhh... I like 'em okay."

 

The other diner had long since left. Now the store manager was

turning off the front lights one by one, making the clack of the

switches echo around the empty dining area. Kasumi knew that

they would have to leave soon... and, as things stood, that was

likely to be that. She had no way to make contact again, not

even a name to search for; they had each brought their own half

of a broken thread. There was only now, and beyond that the

silence of a lifetime.

Nicely done here, refitting the thread symbol.

 

Somehow there was enough courage born of desperation for Kasumi

to make that small move which put her own hand lightly on the

other woman's. Ranko looked up, her blue eyes again warily

neutral, and Kasumi forbade herself not to meet her gaze while

she sought within herself for guidance.

 

If this was as close as she could ever get to having her own

man, the man of her dreams, it would have to do. She would have

to learn to like it, to see past the body to the soul inside as

Akane had done in her time without ever admitting it, to make

herself want this woman in front of her for the sake of the man

which she had almost managed to remain. For the sake of the one

that got away because Kasumi let him have to.

 

Kasumi knew better than to spurn this obvious divine response to

her inner cry. The kami did not give second chances lightly and

they always made you work harder for them. So it would be for

Kasumi. If she could make that desperate leap from her

self-inflicted stasis, that is, because from Ranko's caution her

actions so far were not explicit enough.

 

"Ranko..."

 

Kasumi stood and took the startled smaller woman in her arms,

pulling her up from her seat, and looked deep once more, then

closed her eyes as she leaned in for a kiss. For a moment those

chapped lips resisted, but then they softened and Ranko returned

the kiss, gently, desperately unsure. Perhaps as desperately

unsure as Kasumi, who was now savoring the soft strangeness of

the kiss and thinking that, if this was how it would be, it

would have to do.

 

^^ 

 

She eased back and opened her eyes. Ranko looked up at her from

within her arms, her stormy blue eyes wide, with unshed tears

glistening at the edges. Hesitantly, she whispered, "You're

sure..."

 

Not trusting herself to speak over the knot in her throat,

Kasumi nodded, then found her voice and tremulously added, "I'm

sure."

 

Ranko's face eased into a wry crooked smile which ignored the

tears now starting to flow, unremarked, down her face. She

nodded a little, and roughly said, "Then... Okay, I guess I can

be a guy for you sometimes when no one's looking."

 

Kasumi looked over Ranko's shoulder, to see the manager now

standing crossarmed, patently impatient for them to take their

public yuri display elsewhere. Ranko turned, saw, nodded, and

picked up Kasumi's purse from the table and handed it to her.

Taking her other hand in her small one, she led Kasumi out

through the door into the cold night, then started to pull her

along with her in a new direction.

 

Well after Christmas indeed, but not too late for a New Year.  

Overall, I like this very much.  It's easy to enjoy the mood and the subtle actions if I stop to think about it and try to fit the image of Kasumi and Ranma to what they're like in this story.  It's logical, yes, but it took a bit of time for me to adjust, but I don't see how you can or even want to address this without going through the backlog of seven years.  In any case, thanks for a wonderful story.  I've had a lot of fun trying to think about it - and it's high time that I stop thinking and simply enjoy the nice prose and the story itself.  

Oh, one last thing before I go - I guess this is necessary to drive the point across, but McDonalds' in Japan are much nicer than the ones over here at the States.  I'm not sure if you realize that somehow, like a cockroach, the corporation managed to adapt as it spread across the globe.  (In some parts of Europe, they serve beer; in Canada, they serve pizza.  In Japan, they have yomogi - sagebrush - gyro rolls, and probably other area specialties.)

So, my final question is, if Kasumi hated burger-meat so much and want something warm, why didn't she pick out something else - like a ham salad muffin, teriyaki burger sandwich, or even a chicken filet, with a bowl of hot Minestrone soup on the side? :P  

Just kidding.  

 

 

Best Regards,

 

- ukie



---------------------------------
Do you Yahoo!?
The New Yahoo! Shopping - with improved product search


             .---Anime/Manga Fanfiction Mailing List----.
             | Administrators - ffml-admins@anifics.com |
             | Unsubscribing - ffml-request@anifics.com |
             |     Put 'unsubscribe' in the subject     |
             `---- http://ffml.anifics.com/faq.txt -----'