“Stupid little stuck-up pervert,” Akane groused to herself as she approached Ranma and Ukyo. It was meant for her ears only, but sound doesn’t necessarily follow the laws of physics in a dream world, which was why her statement got Ranma’s attention.
“Lemme guess. It’s Kodachi, ain’t it?”
Akane sighed and nodded. “I just don’t see how I’m going to be able to deal with her. She actually had the gall to tell me to my face that she expects to turn me gay!”
“Um, actually, I think she just wants ta turn ya bi.”
“Whatever. It’s creepy.”
“Hey, I don’t pretend ta understand why Kodachi gets weird ideas like that. I’ve just been doin’ my best ta ignore them.”
“Just how do you do that?”
“It’s pretty simple. I just don’t care.”
“If it makes you feel any better, she gave me pretty much the same spiel,” came a new voice.
“Oh, hi, Ukyo. Um… how are you doing with the… um…”
“The lucid dreaming?”
“Uh, yeah.”
“Well, it sort of depends. I’ve kind of been slipping in and out of lucidity all evening. But Ranchan’s been a big help—so far, I think I’ve only woken up twice tonight.”
“Oh… is there anything I can do to help?”
“No, I’m okay.”
“If you say so. So, you say Kodachi’s trying to get you in bed, too.”
“Akane, if she had her way, she’d have all of us in bed. At the same time, at that.”
Akane reacted to this possibility the way she did to any suggestion of kink; with feelings of nausea and disgust.
Ukyo sighed. “You’re really going to have to get over that, Akane. You know that people are going to be saying things like that when they find out about this. Hell, they were probably saying that we do stuff like that before this telepathy mess happened.”
“I know… it’s just… I don’t want them to be right.”
“Akane, I don’t think anyone’s going to force you to do anything.”
“Anyone? You mean you’re interested too?!”
“No… I’m not saying that at all. It’s just that I’ve never really given the matter much thought.”
“That doesn’t mean it’s true.”
“That’s not what I was getting at either. I guess what I’m saying is that once all this settles down, and if it looks like this group marriage thing really is going to last the rest of our lives, I might be willing to… experiment a little bit. Who knows? Maybe the Amazon view of sexuality in general will make it more palatable. Or maybe Kodachi’s right about everyone being bisexual.” Ukyo glanced up to see a rather familiar expression on the youngest Tendo’s face. “Don’t give me that look, Akane. I’m not suggesting that you should do the same thing. I’m not even certain that I want to do anything like that myself.”
“I know… I just wish something around here would be normal.”
“Normal?” interjected Ranma’s voice. “Sorry, Akane, but I just don’t do normal.”
“Oh, sorry, Ranma. I forgot you were there for a minute.”
“Actually, I wasn’t there—I had ta break up a fight between Kodachi an’ Shampoo.”
“Shampoo’s here?”
“Uh-huh. An’ Kodachi apparently gave her the same talk she gave ta you two, ’xcept she obviously thought Shampoo would be more open ta her ideas.”
“You mean she isn’t?”
“Nope. Apparently, she ain’t as easy as Kodachi thought she’d be. Shampoo doesn’t have any interest in consummatin’ her marriage with Kodachi at the moment.”
“Why not?”
“Don’t know, though I think Akane’s name came up in their conversation—that’s what attracted my attention, actually. I sorta broke it up before it could go any further.”
“So, where are they now?”
“Oh, they’re still talking, but they’ve agreed to try an’ keep things civil. I left ’cuz they’re startin’ ta get inta the really abstract stuff like ethics an’ psychology an’ other stuff that just goes right over my head.”
Akane sighed once again. “Who’d have thought that those two would end up being the most intelligent ones out of all of us?”
“Well, Kodachi always struck me as bein’ smart—just outta touch with reality. I gotta admit that I never expected that sorta thing from Shampoo, though.”
“I guess cultural differences are more confusing than we ever thought,” Akane concluded.
“You know what else is confusing?” Ukyo asked. “Phone booths with botanical gardens inside.”
The non sequitur took Akane by surprise. “Um, Ukyo, are you okay?”
“What? Did I say something strange? Because phone booths with botanical gardens are pretty damn confusing, though admittedly not as confusing as the North Korean purple-flecked nose weasel.”
“Huh?”
Ranma leaned over to Akane and whispered into her ear: “She’s forgotten that she’s dreamin’—she might not make much sense for a while.”
“Hey, do you really think we should be standing around here? The Jabberwocky could show up at any minute.”
“Uh, yeah, ya gotta point, Ucchan. Ya’d better turn off the lights so it can’t see us.”
“Good idea.” The okonmiyaki chef stood up and headed off towards the nearest light switch.
This did not alleviate any of Akane’s confusion. “Lights? What lights?”
“The ones in this room, obviously.”
“Room? Ranma, we’re in a for—” Akane looked around and realized that they were no longer in the forest clearing, but were instead in a bare, unfurnished room with white walls and hardwood floors. “What the heck happened to the forest?”
Ranma again leaned over to whisper in his fiancée’s ear. “This is a dream, remember? We can change the setting pretty easy. I just moved us inta this room so Ukyo can get lucid again.”
“How?”
“Simple. A lotta times when yer dreamin’, light switches don’t work.”
“That also happens when a bulb burns out.”
“Yeah… but what if the light switch won’t turn off a bulb.”
Ukyo interrupted this conversation by calling out to her best friend: “Um, Ranchan, is this the right light switch? Because it isn’t working.”
“No, that’s the right switch, Ucchan.”
“So why aren’t the lights going out? It doesn’t make any sense.”
“Nope, it don’t make no sense, does it?”
“Ranchan? What does… wait, I’m dreaming again…”
“Ucchan… ah, crap. An’ I really thought she’d gotten the hang of it.”
“The hang of what?”
“Keepin’ her lucidity without wakin’ up. Guess she still needs some more practice.”
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(Posted Thu, 14 Jun 2007 20:02)
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