To start with, Nabiki came down to breakfast wide awake. There wasn't any of her normal zombie look while she fumbled blindly for a cup of coffee. Instead, her younger sister calmly walked down the stairs and took her usual seat and started eating. Add in the fact that she was dressed neatly in her school uniform, her hair already brushed, and her light makeup already applied.
Then there was Ranma. He too was ready to go, not that it was anything unusual. No, the different thing about him was that he was dressed in black silk nowadays rather than his trademark red shirt. Oh, the style was the same, but the colors had changed. Also, unless the oldest sister had missed her guess, there hadn't been a sparing match between the boy and his father.
The biggest thing, though, had been his attitude. Normally, he was confident to the point of arrogance. This morning, however, he radiated power in a way that she had never seen before. His movements were calm and collected. He took the time to savor his food instead of simply inhaling it at light speed. And he was talking calmly.
Usually when he talked at the table during mealtime, he wound up insulting either his father or her younger sister. Instead, he was making polite conversation with Nabiki about nothing in general while ignoring Akane. Now THAT was sufficiently abnormal as to get her internal radar twinging. But when Akane had insulted him... twice... he had simply looked at her with disdain in his eyes while his face remained carefully blank. Just that one look before returning to his meal and prior conversation with her mercenary little sister.
Akane, on the other hand, was getting more and more frustrated as the meal progressed. She wasn't the center of attention for her oft abused fiance', and it was driving her anger higher and higher. Kasumi knew that she should say something to calm her sweet but violent sister down, but her mind was still trying to puzzle things out.
Needless to say, by the time breakfast had been completed, things were about ready to blow. Nabiki had taken off early citing something important that she had to do before class, but not releasing any details about it. That was okay, though. Kasumi had gotten rather used to her sister not telling her things. Ranma had finished his meal, stood up, slung his school bag over his shoulder, and walked out the door. He didn't yell out where he was going. He didn't wait for Akane, who had to scramble up the stairs to retrieve her own bag. And he didn't pause at all when the panda had finally shown up and tried to challenge him. Instead, he had shoot his father a cold look and never stopped walking out the door.
When Akane had run back down the stairs, she had been muttering something about pounding that 'baka' for not waiting or something like that. Kasumi thought briefly of warning her youngest sister, but then changed her mind. After all, what would she be warning her about? Ranma being polite? Nabiki finally getting up in a pleasant mood? No, there wasn't anything that she could point to, but some hidden sense was fairly screaming at her that her world had changed. But it had changed in some way that she couldn't identify.
Shrugging her shoulders, she turned back to the table to remove the last of the breakfast dishes when she saw the panda sit down in his usual place and look bleakly about the table at the empty dishes. Stepping forward, she made sure that her brightest smile was in place. "Here you go, Panda-san." She said cheerfully, placing a platter of sliced bamboo shoots on a healthy bed of bamboo leaves, all sprinkled with several herbs and spices that were gauranteed not to upset a panda's stomach. She ignored the panda's bleak expression as she returned to her earlier task.
Oh, well. She'll figure out what was wrong and fix it later.
In the meantime,
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(Posted Tue, 27 Jul 2004 20:02)
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らんま1/2 © Rumiko Takahashi
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