“I still think Pops is trying something.”
“He’s trying to push his son together with his best friend’s daughter. You’re being paranoid.”
“That too, but there’s something else he’s doing. I’m sure of it.” The shorter girl pushed through the mid-day crowd into the station locker room. “Just hope it don’t get us into trouble.”
“What could he do? We won’t even be there!”
Ranma short her a sardonic glance. “Which means we won’t be able to stop him, Akane. And, no offence, I’m not confident of your father even realising he ought to. I mean, he’s the first person Pops has convinced I’m a guy since I needed to wear a bra.”
Akane opened her mouth to snap back, and visibly thought better of it. She fumbled in her schoolbag for the locker key and pushed past the redhead. Minutes later, Ranma locked both satchels into a smaller locker and shrugged on her travelling pack.
“Are you sure we won’t need anything else, Ranma? These packs are awfully small…”
“We’re only going for one night, Akane. If we weren’t so tight on time I’d have us change and leave our uniforms behind as well.”
“But you said we’re going to a bare site – not even a proper camp site! Won’t we need… extra stuff?”
“I’ve got everything,” assured the more experienced camper, patting her shoulder strap confidently. “Now let’s move, the train is due in a couple of minutes.”
Soun sat at the low table with his daughters and sighed. “I think you should serve, Kasumi,” he said. “I did rather expect Saotome to return in time for lunch, but if we wait any longer it will get cold.”
“Yes, Father,” said his daughter, reaching to the rice cooker.
Beside her, her younger sister frowned; bad enough their guest ate like the food would run away, but now he had let Kasumi cook enough for the four of them and not turned up to eat any of it. That sort of waste offended her.
“I do hope Akane is alright with Ranma,” worried their father. “She has never spent much time with a boy – what if he talks her into something?”
“I don’t think Ranma will get her into that sort of trouble, Daddy,” said Nabiki dryly.
Genma smiled broadly to himself. His plan was flawless, especially with the final polishes he was ad-libbing at the moment.
He would ‘see’ his wife while on his ‘errand’ this morning and ‘follow’ her until she arrived at the dojo, whereupon he would set out to intercept his son out in the wilderness. He knew which camp site they would be at – they could only reach the last one he had used with the boy before they got to Tendo’s place, anywhere else would be too far to walk to.
Having found the boy, he would explain the danger (exaggerating judiciously if it seemed necessary), impressing him with the seriousness of the situation by the fact that he had sought him out without returning to the dojo for supplies.
He would share the young couple’s remaining rations and return with them to the dojo, where they would wait until Nodoka was safely away before going in. Then, they would explain the situation to Tendo, who would promise to help keep mother and son apart. Hiding him as a girl would work – no one would believe that a wimpy girl like his son had been transformed into was ever a strapping, powerful martial artist.
Her letter said she was coming to the dojo after lunch, so she would be leaving her house in Sumida any time now. it would take half an hour to get here by subway, another half an hour or more to find the dojo – Japanese addresses being remarkable unhelpful when you needed to find places. She would have to rely on finding someone to give directions, by asking random people on the street. So, she couldn’t possibly arrive at the dojo sooner than an hour from now, more likely an hour and a half, and it had just occurred to him that he would need to make allowance for ‘tracking’ his son to the camp site. It would be far more impressive for him to arrive having ‘searched’ late into the night.
Of course, it would mean waking them, but that was all to the good. He had taken the precaution of removing the tent from his son’s pack; when they were caught sharing a tent, they wouldn’t be able to carry off any story about the boy sleeping ‘under the stars’. Their marriage would be inevitable.
All of which meant he could stay in this bar for at least another three hours before he set off. Maybe four. He toasted himself in the mirror behind the bar, tossed back the mug of beer, and propped a foot on his sleeping bag while he gestured for a refill.
The bell above the door jingled as she stepped into the street, and she paused momentarily to get her bearings in the sunlight. Then, with a faint but heartfelt smile on her face, she walked confidently away.
The little kissaten had been as delightful as her friend had promised, ideal for a light meal on her arrival in Nerima, and the waitress had been both helpful and informative, but she wanted to see her family.
(Posted Sat, 21 Jul 2007 18:07)
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らんま1/2 © Rumiko Takahashi
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