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YOUR BODY, MY MIND
Chapter Three
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Akane took the steps two at a time, angrily
brushing a stray tear off. She twisted the knob to her room and
let herself in, banging the door closed so hard that the wooden
"Akane" sign fell off. She threw herself on the bed, squeezing
her eyes shut. "Idiot!"
Suddenly, she realized she wasn't
alone.
She looked up to find a startled Ryoga
gaping at her.
"Ranma! What are you doing here?!"
She cursed herself mentally. Damn it! Of
course she was
still trapped in the idiot's body. "Well...wh-what about you?"
she stammered back.
Ryoga looked down, a flush stealing across
his face. "I,
uh..." He unexpectedly threw himself at her feet, making her jump
back in surprise. "I need to know, Ranma! Has Akane found out?"
he cried in anguish. "She's been acting cold and distant. First
she made that pig remark...then the fiance one." He begin to
writhe in anguish, and Akane began to seriously worry. Ryoga
wasn't mentally unbalanced right?
"Oh...if she knew....my heart of glass
would break into a
million pieces!!! I would have nothing left to live for!"
Frightened by his hysterics, Akane nervously tried to calm him
although she had no idea what he was referring to. "There, there.
I'm sure Akane doesn't know that...um...er... well...you know."
He upturned his tear-stained face.
"You think so?" His eyes darkened
threateningly. "You sure
you didn't betray me?" His suspicious tone implied what would
happen if she had.
"Absolutely not," Akane reassured him. But
curiosity got the
better of her and led her to ask, "Er - it would help if I knew
which - ah - secret you're talking about."
Ryoga stared at her as if she'd lost her
mind. "Are you
nuts??? I only have one secret I hide from Akane." With a
sidelong glance he added, "I'm not like you."
Now he really had her attention. "Yeah?
Like what?"
"For instance, remember that day I found
you at Ucchan's?
You confessed that you'd pretended to eat Akane's cooking. Driven
by your hunger, you lied to her about having to meet with Hiroshi
and Daisuke for a school project. Then you snuck over to Ukyo's."
Ryoga stopped, a frown furrowing his brow. "What's the matter?"
Akane had gripped a soda can from her
dresser and twisted it
into a shapeless mass of aluminum. "Tell me more," she said
through clenched teeth.
Ryoga shifted his body into a more
comfortable position, as
if settling down for a long ordeal. "It would be my pleasure."
Ranma muttered an oath under his breath as
he got the plates
from the china cabinet. Kasumi had innocently roped him into
setting the table by reminding him that it was Akane's nightly
duty. "She sure got a bargain out of that wish thing. I wish I
did something while I was still in my body so she'd be
suffering too. But no...I'm doing all the work..."
Suddenly, the hair on the back of his neck
rose. By the way
the "impending danger" alarm in his head was ringing, he could
tell that she was standing right behind him. And she was
very upset. He slowly turned around to face her, arms
raised in defense. "I'm sorry I beat you," he whispered raggedly,
mistaken about the cause of her grievance against him.
Her eyes flamed with fury. "I'm going to
kill you!!!" she
shrieked, mallet already in hand.
Ranma jumped onto the kitchen counter,
trembling in
terror. "Please, Akane! What was I supposed to do?! Lose
on purpose?!"
She swiped at him and missed. "Idiot!
That's not what I'm
angry about! Ryoga's told me all about your escapades!"
==SWOOSH!!!==
==SMACK!!!==
"Ryoga?!" Ranma cried. "The guy's so
melodramatic he blows
things way out of proportion. I bet he told you about the time
when Shampoo snuck into my room wearing nothing?"
Akane paused, mallet hovering in midair,
looking quite
uncannily like a medieval warrior princess. "Ah, I think he did-"
Ranma smiled in relief."-NOT!" The mallet came flying down, and
Ranma prayed it would be over soon. He braced himself for the
impact...but it didn't come.
Ranma opened an eye cautiously, still
cringing at the
thought of how that mallet would have tasted. Akane's eyes were
narrowed to slits and she was breathing heavily. "I...just can't
do it. My body..."
Ranma smiled in relief, letting out the
breath he'd been
holding. Maybe this body-switching thing wasn't so bad after all.
At least Akane was showing some sense. Her body was already out
of shape...she couldn't very well debilitate it.
Akane glared at him, reading his thoughts.
"You just wait
till we're back to normal, Ranma Saotome." Her gaze was so
menacing, Ranma didn't doubt for a moment she wasn't bluffing.
"But right now..." She perched on the edge of the counter beside
him. "What's Ryoga's big secret?"
Rivulets of sweat began to run down Ranma's
face. "I - uh -
it's - it's not really m-my place to say."
She frowned, and ran her fingertips along
the wooden handle
of the giant hammer.
Ranma turned his head left and right,
looking for a mode of
escape. "I - uh - Why don't you ask him yourself." He waved
someone over behind Akane. "Yo, Ryoga!"
Akane turned her head, but found no one. "I
don't see..."
She faced Ranma again....or more accurately, where Ranma had
been.
"Ugh!" she grunted in disgust. "There's no
one quicker when
it comes to running away!" With brisk, tense steps, she strode
over to the sink and smashed the faucet. Water spurted out,
turning her back into a girl. "Wait till I get my hands on you,
Ranma!!!" she muttered stalking out.
Under the kitchen sink, cramped inside the
cabinet, Ranma
Saotome heaved a big sigh of relief.
Ranma softly crept up the stairs and into
Akane's bedroom.
He looked around the small, homey room, touches of his fiancee
everywhere he turned. It felt strange to be here when Akane
wasn't; he felt like an interloper. His eyes lingered on the bed
a moment longer. He felt a tingle in his spine when he thought of
lying there...where Akane did every night.
Distracted, he started to pull his shirt
out of his pants,
then stopped himself just in time. Akane'd kill me if I
undressed, he remembered. He smiled a little recalling the time
when Hiroshi had asked him how he managed to stay faithful when
there were three willing girls running after him. He'd laughed
and answered that he just imagined how Akane would work him over
when she found out. He glanced at his clothes ruefully, wishing
that he'd picked something a little more light and
comfortable.
Resigning himself, he lay down on top of
the bed, trying to
settle into a more comfortable position. It was weird to be
sleeping on a bed after all these years, yet he knew it wasn't as
much a sensation as it would have been if Akane's body didn't
automatically adjust to the softer surface. Still, he couldn't
help starting once and a while when he felt like he was
sinking.
All sorts of thoughts raced through Ranma's
head. The day
had been hectic - even by his standards - and now was the only
time he'd found to think things through. The day had been
emotionally harrowing for him. Every time he'd gotten a glimpse
of Akane his system was jarred - and one time he'd seen his
reflection and almost screamed his lungs out at the sight. He
began to worry how Akane was holding up...he at least, had some
sort of experience with this kind of thing. But Akane...
He sighed. She would never admit to feeling
weak. Which was
why it had come as a shock to him when he found out that Akane
had made the wish that had brought them into this mess in the
first place. Sure he was her physical superior...but she'd never
indicated being seriously envious or threatened by it.
All night long Ranma drifted in and out of
sleep, haunted by
these questions. He wondered, and dreaded at the same time, what
the next day would bring.
"Wake up boy!!!"
The wads of cotton Akane had stuffed in her
ear to block out
Genma's snoring was no match for his yell. She sat upright at
once, eyes instantly alert for danger. But all she found was
Genma perched on the edge of the covers. He shook her by the legs
roughly. "Get up! It's time for our workout." He bounded off and
outside.
Akane sighed and plopped back down. It had
been hard for her
to fall asleep, not surprisingly. Thank goodness there was only
one more day left. She shut her eyes, thinking how nice it would
be to be nestled back in her own bed, in her own room... She
opened them again, getting up groggily. Just one more
day...
She glanced down at her rumpled clothes in
disgust. She too
had slept fully dressed; after all Genma was a man and not even
her father. She quickly pulled the clothes off and traded them
for another red shirt and blue pants. You know, she thought
amused, those Chinese stuff were pretty comfy. They smell of
Ranma, a little voice in her head whispered, and she blushed.
Genma was impatiently waiting in the
backyard when she
appeared. "Let's get a move on," he snapped, simultaneously
dousing her with hot water. She flinched as the water hit her,
thinking at the same time that this was something she would not
miss when she and Ranma returned to normal.
But when Genma launched herself at him and
she was able to
dodge to the left in a fluid motion, she admitted that this was
something she would regret losing. It was amazing really...how
quickly her reflexes reacted. She shook her head as if to clear
it from those thoughts, her body was surely capable of the same
things too. She just hadn't learned how that was all.
For the next few minutes she put her heart
and soul into her
match with Genma. She concentrated on reading his moves and
deciding a counterattack...and she was not at all disappointed at
how she was faring. She at least wanted to beat this overweight
and older man... yet he was still a force to reckon with. Who
would have thought that such an oafish and clumsy-looking man
could be so agile and dodge her attacks so well? She supposed she
shouldn't have been so surprised. After all, this was the guy who
had instructed Ranma from the start.
She was doing well and thought, with a rush
of exhilaration,
that she might actually gain the upper hand...until the heel of
her foot caught on a rock jutting out of the ground. She fell on
her back and had the wind knocked out of her. Her eyes darted to
Genma in alarm and he grunted in triumph.
He started to run and she knew that he was
gaining momentum
so he could launch a kick at her. She closed her eyes and prayed
it would be over soon. Why, she could hear the bells in heaven
tolling already... She flinched and waited.
Nothing happened.
She cautiously opened one eye. All she
could see was a white
blur. Then it started to shrink and she discovered it was the
back of Genma's gi. He was bounding as fast as he could toward
Kasumi, who, with a gentle smile on her face, was holding the
breakfast bell. "Time to eat!" she called cheerily.
Akane sighed in relief. Saved by the bell.
Literally! She
got up and started to wipe the dust off her clothes. She paused,
sensing someone watching her. She looked up, tensed for
action.
Ranma was leaning on the door frame. He
shoved himself off
and approached slowly.
She resumed dusting off. "Don't you dare
say it," she
mumbled irritably.
He hovered beside her. "Say what? I thought
you did pretty
well."
She couldn't have been more caught by
surprise. She turned
her head to eye him sharply.
"Well...considering." He started to draw
circles on the dirt
with the sole of his slippers. "I win over Pop five out of seven
times, which aren't great odds in the first place, and most of
that stems from the fact that I've had all these years to grow
familiar with his techniques and strategies. You don't have such
experience. So that's why I think you conducted yourself OK.
Considering."
Akane couldn't help dart him a suspicious
glance. "Well I
never thought I'd hear you say so!"
He flushed. "Hey," he began angrily, "just
because I don't
pay compliments often doesn't mean I don't know how!" He strode
towards the house with quick, jerky steps.
She fell into step beside him. "You could
have fooled me."
Then she smiled and shook her head. "Thanks. I'm glad I didn't
ruin your famous reputation."
He flashed her a ghost of a smile. "Naw. I
never go all out
on Pop anyway." He just managed to avoid getting socked.
