It was an elegant solution to their problem of how to claim this man. None of them were particularly endeared of Genma Saotome, but they knew what made him tick.
A promise of free food was enough to get him to their specially prepared front. There they would ply him and his son with all the food and drink that they could take. That the food would be of the sort that would push one to be tired. Then the elder martial artist would be given as much liquor as he could take. With an additive that would send him off to a dreamland, it'd make the process of carrying him off into something very easy to handle.
And Genma Saotome fell for it hook, line and sinker.
However, it turned out that his son was not present with him.
Keitaro Urashima hadn't quite sure about all the fuss that had been made over him. He knew that he'd nearly died, but it seemed to be a bit much when he was constantly watched over. But he had put it down to people being worried, though he did understand how they liked him. After all, some of the doctors had been happy when they saw that he'd not been about to die. That didn't make much sense to him, but he didn't understand grown ups sometimes.
What he did know is that he had liked the fact that his two friends were still around to play with him. His parents had liked that as well, and they'd gone and talked a lot with their parents. Soon everyone was sitting together and the talk of the promise that the little trio had made had gone into something else.
That was how he'd found out that he was supposed to marry Naru and Mutsumi, and he'd been understandably shocked. It put a whole new spin on their games of 'house', and he'd discovered that he was now going to have a very definite reason for being with the two of them.
However, to a high school student like him, the idea that he was soon to marry two girls was something rather... unbelieveable. It was one thing to be told of it when he was a kid, but now that he understood a bit more of what it would be like all too soon, he had no choice but to be nervous. After all, he'd seen how guys had to handle their attractions to girls, and a lot of them were bearing hormone filled grins, and thought to make lecherous comments and suggestions when it was just 'the guys' there. But he knew that he would be expected to marry his two childhood friends very soon.
"I wonder how they're doing..," he murmured to himself as he looked out the window of the cram school class he was attending.
"Yu-ki-na-ri!"
Blinking to himself, Yukinari Sasaki turned to face the girl standing there with her hands on her hips. "Kirie..."
"Did you forget again?"
"Forget what?"
"You did forget..," the shorthaired brunette muttered as she put a hand over her face. "We were supposed to walk home together, remember?"
"Oh. Yeah... That. I was... There were these girls, and they needed to go somewhere, so they told me to clean up the class..."
"Don't you know how to say no?"
"Well... They were insistant, and when I tried to say something, they got mad, so I..."
"'Caved in.' We're junior high students now. You've got to stop being so afraid and stand up against them!" Kirie told him.
"I know, but I've never been good about that, and since I'm so short..."
"They bully you. All that's happened, and they still do that. Still, you have to get a spine sometime."
Yukinari tactfully didn't mention the fact that she pushed him around a bit herself, but she'd been his friend since childhood. Sure she could get loud and violent, but she seemed to have some wish to help him too. And things were a lot better than when he was little boy, and the girls had regularly beaten him up. Now a lot of them were trying to overcome what they'd helped to create, but he still knew that a lot of girls were downright mean.
And Kirie's bossiness was a whole lot better than some of what he got.
"Put that mop down, and let's go," she instructed.
"But I'll get into trouble..," he protested.
"Then tell them to come to talk to me if they bother you. Got it?"
"Umm... Okay..."
"Good. I'd prefer to get home before nightfall."
"Sure..."
Kirie looked at the nervous looking boy and fought a sigh. She knew that he had trouble with girls, but this was just ridiculous. He could have simply told those girls off, but he'd merely buckled under their pressure, which she didn't like at all. It was hard enough keeping how she really felt for him under wraps, but when he acted this way, she just got furious, both at the girls, and at him. Was it too hard a thing to wish for the boy she liked to get and have respect?
For Ranma, part of the worst thing about going to school wasn't the schoolwork. Rather, it was the routine that his father would put him through when he got back from class. The old man would start belittling him as soon as he'd get there, then attack him in a 'test of skills', and barely let him get refreshed after his return. Then he could change, practice a whole lot, and hopefully get enough time to do his homework so that his teachers wouldn't bitch at him.
So, coming to find their latest campsite empty was a bit of a surprise.
"Pop? Where'd ya go?" the pigtailed boy asked as he looked around, finding no sign of his parent. It wasn't unusual for his father to run off to do something or the other, but usually he told his son where he was going. There was a possibility that his Pop had decided to find out why his son was late, but he sort of doubted that. This wasn't the first time that he'd had detention, and the old man had simply sat and gotten mad every other time that it'd happened.
Wondering what could have happened, Ranma sat down on a nearby log, never realising that his father was snoring in the cargo section of a plane already taking off.
Instead, he prepared to wait until his father came back, and when it was clear that Genma wouldn't be, he:
(Posted Mon, 28 Mar 2005 22:02)
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