“Well, that’s the last of it, I guess,” Ranma said as he closed the final cabinet. He looked around the now-clean kitchen. “Definitely looks better, anyways.”
“I suppose so…” replied Kasumi, who was still melancholy over what had happened.
Ranma did the best he could to raise his wife’s spirits. “Hey, I know that this room means a lot ta ya, and I ain’t tryin’ ta brush of what my Pops and yours did, but what’s done is done, ya know? There really ain’t that much ya can do, except clean up and look ahead. And we already did that first part.”
Kasumi smiled—from anyone else, those words might have sounded insensitive, but she knew that her husband was really trying to help her get through this difficulty. “I guess it is a little silly—”
“I didn’t say that. There’s nothin’ silly ’bout wantin’ ta keep yer memories of yer Mom special. What I meant is that ya can’t let setbacks like this get ya down, or you’ll never be able ta move on.”
Kasumi walked over to her husband and hugged him tightly. “I know, it’s just… I still feel like I’ve lost something. Something that should have been ours.”
“Well, I really don’t know what ta say ta that. I mean, Pops has meddled in my life so much that I’m pretty much used ta it by now.”
“But why would you let him do that?”
“I dunno. I guess it’s ’cuz mosta the time what he wants for me lines up pretty well with what I want, especially where the Art’s concerned. Besides, with him, the line between ‘parent’ and ‘sensei’ can get real blurry sometimes, an’ a lot of things that’d be bad parentin’ decisions can actually be pretty good trainin’ exercises. I guess what I’m sayin’ is that I’ve usually been willin’ ta give him the benefit of a doubt. But this—I mean, he ain’t your father, and he ain’t your sensei, so there’s really no reason he could have for tryin’ ta mess around with your life.”
Kasumi didn’t respond to this, so Ranma elected not to speak either. Instead, they just continued to hold each other for several minutes—until a gurgle came from Ranma’s stomach. “Um….”
Kasumi sighed yet again. “I guess all of this hubbub has really thrown me off schedule.”
Ranma nodded. “You still feel like makin’ dinner, or should we order some Chinese?”
“We’d better order out—I don’t think I’m ready to make food for them just yet.” It was perfectly obvious who Kasumi meant by “them.”
Nabiki sighed as she laid back on her bed. When she’d first made the decision to contact Nodoka, she’d thought it would be relatively easy to convince the Saotome matriarch that her spouse might need specialized medical help. What the middle Tendo daughter had forgotten, however, was that Nodoka was a very traditional person, and as such, she had a tendency to view much of the mental health profession with a great deal of skepticism—and she was clearly worried that the Saotome clan’s reputation might suffer if it was learned that Genma received that sort of treatment.
After all, the panda’s doing wonderful things for his family’s reputation now, Nabiki thought sarcastically. Still, she supposed she could understand Nodoka’s plight. She’d just been confronted with the possibility that her husband might have ADHD, a disorder commonly associated with unruly children, rather than full-grown (and allegedly responsible) adults—that couldn’t be good for anybody’s self-esteem.
This was not good—if Nodoka didn’t think Nabiki’s theory had any merit, then the chances of convincing Genma to seek the advice of a medical professional so he could be accurately diagnosed were practically reduced to zero. Fortunately, Nabiki had managed to convince Nodoka to at least consider the possibility, if only for Ranma and Kasumi’s sakes. But at that moment, she was in the unenviable position of not having a clue where Nodoka stood, which would make it much more difficult to determine what course of action to take next.
I just hope she makes up her mind before something else happens.
Genma was extremely excited by the prospect of teaching Akane the Bakusai Tenketsu, but there were some major obstacles to be overcome—the most obvious of which was that the girl would actually have to agree to learn the technique before he could teach it to her. Yet Genma was so confident that he could convince her that he set about working on some of the other details, scrutinizing the scroll’s diagrams to make sure he could get everything he needed.
Let’s see… I’m definitely going to need a lot of rocks to do this right. I’m pretty sure that there was an abandoned quarry near the city limits I could use, so that would take care of that—though I’m not sure how I could hang her up properly. Maybe there’s a crane there I could borrow. On the other hand, maybe it would be best to find some woods somewhere where I can just hang her from a tree, and then go off searching for some suitably large rocks… but if I couldn’t find any, then I would have spent all that effort tying her up of nothing. If there was one thing Genma hated, it was putting forth unnecessary effort. Hmmm… I’ve got it! I’ll just go to the quarry, get all my rocks, and move them to the woods—even better, I’ll get the boy to move all of the rocks for me! It’s been a while since he’s done some good old-fashioned strength training anyway—it’s like two training exercises for the price of one!
Genma was quite pleased with his astounding smartness, until he realized that Ranma might not be too happy about Akane’s training. This stumped him for a while, until he realized the solution was simple: If he didn’t tell the boy about Akane’s training, the boy wouldn’t have any reason to interfere. He’d get Ranma to set everything up for him, and then he’d have Akane come to the woods for her training, while Ranma was off doing other things (preferably producing an heir with his wife, but even Genma was smart enough to know that it would be a while before he could bring that up again).
It was all so perfect—there was no way this could possibly go wrong. Right?
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(Posted Thu, 14 Sep 2006 07:05)
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