“All right, you two. What’s going on?”
“Uh, whaddya mean by that, Nabiki?”
“I mean that I want to know why you to have suddenly decided to get proactive and do something about the fiancée situation. More to the point, I’d like to know why you two have but agreed to actually marry each other, when only a few days ago you couldn’t even hold a conversation without a stream of casual insults.”
“We, uh, we didn’t say we’d agreed ta get married,” Ranma countered. “We just wanna do somethin’ about the Amazons, that’s all.”
Nabiki once again raised a skeptical eyebrow. “How about you, Akane? Don’t you have anything to say? I know you hate it when other people try to speak for you.”
“I know… but…” But that was back when I was the only one who knew what I was thinking, she couldn’t add. “I was just lost in thought, that’s all.” It was true enough. “Besides, it really is complicated. I wouldn’t want to bother you.”
Unfortunately, at that moment Akane’s sisters very much wanted her to bother them. “Why don’t you tell us?” Kasumi asked in a reasonable tone. “Perhaps we can help.”
Ranma somehow managed to hold back a derisive snort. Yeah, right. With my luck, if they got involved they’d just get dragged inta this mess with everybody else. The pigtailed martial artist felt a new wave of revulsion from Akane, and realized he’d just inadvertently posited a situation where she could theoretically end up married to her sisters. At that moment, he didn’t care how unlikely that possibility was; he wasn’t going to let it happen. “Well, uh, I can’t… I mean I… that is, we’d like ta tell ya, but we can’t get specific, because of the uh, crazy Amazon Laws an’ all that…. You ain’t buyin’ this, are ya?”
“Nope,” concurred Nabiki.
“I must admit that you seem to be floundering around. What’s really goin’ on? Surely you can tell us.”
“Well, that’s just the thing, we ain’t sure yer ready ta know what’s goin’ on.”
“By which you mean you’re not ready to tell anyone the whole story,” Nabiki replied.
“Uh…”
“We might as well tell them,” Akane said in a resigned voice. “Nabiki would find out anyway, and Kasumi probably deserves to know, too.”
“Fine,” Ranma said. “But just remember, you were the one who actually said we should tell ’em.”
“Oh, come on, Saotome, it can’t be that bad,” Nabiki replied, her voice dripping with skepticism.
Five minutes later, Nabiki found herself musing upon her extreme dislike for irony, especially when it was working against her.
“So… yeah. That’s about everything.” Ranma and Akane had just finished explaining the situation to the latter’s elder siblings. They’d decided rather quickly to give them the whole truth, partially because Nabiki and Kasumi were a little more likely to accept the arrangement than Genma and Soun, and partially because Nabiki was the kind of person who could spot a deception from a mile away. If they tried to mislead her, she’d find out, and they just didn’t want to deal with what she might do next.
Kasumi reacted to the end of the conversation rather predictably: “Oh, my.” She’d been repeating the phrase since Ranma’s description of the oil lamp he’d found, and the only variations seemed to be the intense blush that came when the pair arrived at the more scandalous parts of the story.
Nabiki, on the other hand, remained silent during the whole thing, her face an expressionless mask veiling her emotions, which was causing Ranma to get somewhat worried. “Uh, Nabiki? You okay?”
“I guess you’ve managed to work things out pretty well for yourself,” Nabiki replied in a somewhat ominous tone. “You’ve got your very own personal harem now.”
“They ain’t no harem,” Ranma said firmly. “I was never tryin’ get all the girls who were after me. I just… I just couldn’t make a decision, that’s all.”
“And as a result, Akane is now in a rather scandalous position.”
“Yeah… I guess that’s my fault, sorta. But believe me, I never wanted nuthin’ like this.”
Akane nodded in agreement. “If anyone’s to blame, it’s that stupid genie.”
“And you’re certain that there’s no other solution?”
“Well, no… we can’t be totally sure. But we’d be taking a huge risk if we decided to spend the next two weeks searching for a solution that might not exist.”
“Trust me, if we had the time, we’d be lookin’,” Ranma said. “I don’t want Akane, or Ukyo, or even Kodachi ta hafta worry about what people think, ya know?”
Kasumi was only now starting to regain some of her composure. “Well, that’s good to know… but… perhaps it won’t be that bad. After all, it isn’t as though polygamy is totally unprecedented, even if it isn’t practiced widely any more. I’m sure I could—I mean, that other people could get used to the idea.”
Akane suddenly found it difficult to look her oldest sister in the face, which Nabiki picked up immediately. “It gets worse, doesn’t it?”
“Um, yeah. Ya see, Amazon group marriages ain’t just one huband gettin’ more than one wife. It’s actually, a group marriage which sorta means that everyone’s married ta everyone else.”
Kasumi didn’t know what to make of this. “What? What does that mean?”
The answer came in the form of a halting reply from Akane. “It means… it means that I’m… if it works out, I’ll be married to Ranma, but… but I’m also going to m-marry….” Try as she might, Akane couldn’t finish the sentence, her words trailing off as tears started welling up in her eyes again.
Fortunately, Nabiki was both insightful and unflappable enough to finish for her little sister. “You’re going to have to marry Ukyo, Shampoo and Kodachi.”
Kasumi still didn’t seem to understand, though it might have been more accurate to say that she desperately didn’t want to understand; her views on sexuality were nearly as conservative as Akane’s, after all. “Wait… what?”
“It means that in addition to her heterosexual union with Ranma, Akane’s going to be in three same-sex unions with the other women in this group of telepaths.”
“But… but that’s… Akane, you’re not—”
“No, I’m not a lesbian, or bisexual. I’m not even curious. But… but I had to do this. It was the only way.”
“Surely there was something else—”
“I love him,” Akane abruptly interrupted, tears beginning to escape from her lids. “I… I love Ranma. I can’t imagine a life without him, and I… I don’t care what I have to do to stay with him.” She grabbed her fiancé and buried her face in his shoulder, sobs coming freely now.
Kasumi was still speechless. “But…”
“She don’t hafta have sex with the other girls,” Ranma said in an effort to assuage Kasumi’s clear reluctance. “At least, that’s what Shampoo says.” Akane don’t gotta do that, right?
That is correct, Airen. Nor would I want to force her to do so unless she desired.
She may not have to, but I say some experimentation can only do her good.
I wasn’t talkin’ ta you, Kodachi.
Ranma’s answer seemed effective enough to calm Kasumi down somewhat. “I… I suppose that’s good to know. But still, it’s so… strange. Aren’t you concerned about what other people might think?”
“Of course I am,” Akane replied as she attempted to wipe some of her tears away. “But… but Ranma’s more important to me than that. I… I only wish it hadn’t taken this to make me realize it.”
Nabiki decided to enter into the conversation again. “I don’t think it will be that bad, Kasumi. The Amazons might consider your group marriage to be polyamorous, but whatever arrangement the Japanese government has will probably be polygynous,” she explained. “After all, no form of same-sex union is recognized in this country.
“But even if that were the case, I’d still support you. Of course, I’m also the most libertarian member of this family, so I can’t speak for everyone….” Nabiki looked over at her older sister.
Kasumi sighed. “I suppose I shall have to support you. You are my sister, and even if you had entered this situation willingly, I would never stop loving you. As it stands, I take you at your word when you claim that this was your only viable solution, and trust that you are not jumping into this without thinking about the consequences.”
“Believe me, Kasumi, I can hardly think about anything but the consequences.”
“When are you two planning on telling our parents about this?” Nabiki asked.
“After it’s all said an’ done, an’ it’s too late for them ta do anythin’ about it. Cologne’s gonna get the forms related ta that loophole in Japanese law I told ya about tomorrow morning, and the five of us’ll do it then, I guess.”
Kasumi was trying her best to regain her composure. “I… I hope you know what you’re doing.”
“I hope we know, too,” Ranma replied.
“Look, enough about this sordid group marriage business, alright?” Nabiki said. “Let’s talk about something else — like this telepathy thing. Just how much access do you have to each other, anyway?”
“I dunno… I’ve never really pushed it, but I suppose I could listen ta everything Akane’s thinkin’, or Ucchan, or Shampoo, or Kodachi. An’ they can listen ta everything I’m thinkin’.”
“So, what, those three are eavesdropping on this conversation?”
“Well, my half of the conversation, at least — an’ that’s assumin’ that they pick up somethin’ they find interestin’. Like I said, we’ve been too busy ta try an’ figure out its limits just yet.”
“So, you don’t have any privacy.”
“Well, no. I guess we don’t. Not among the five of us. I mean, that’s kinda what got us inta this situation, after all. It’s ’cuz Shampoo ain’t gonna be able ta keep her secrets forever, even with that memory shampoo stuff. I mean, if we had some sorta privacy, we could almost keep goin’ like it was normal.”
“Normal?”
“You know what I mean.”
“I’m going to bed,” Akane said abruptly.
“But you haven’t had dinner…”
“Thanks, Kasumi, but I’m not really that hungry.”
“Oh — of course. I’m sorry.”
“You didn’t do anything, Kasumi. There’s nothing for you to be sorry about.”
“I’m still sorry for you…” the eldest Tendo spoke under her breath as her little sister climbed the stairs to her room.
See other episodes by Kwakerjak
(Posted Sat, 28 Apr 2007 06:51)
Questions? Problems? Suggestions?
Send a mail to addventure@bast-enterprises.de
or use the contact form.
らんま1/2 © Rumiko Takahashi
All other series and their characters are © by their respective creators or owners. No claims of ownership of these characters are implied by the authors of this Addventure, or should be inferred.
The Anime Addventure is a non-profit site.