One of the important issues had to do with the ownership of child slaves. This was something that could have been rife with abuses of all sorts, and most of those involved had realized that they would have been derelict in their duties if they didn't act upon it. Not that there was a movement to totally outlaw the possibility of having such slaves. It could provide for a secure home for that kid, and the chance to learn a trade through actual experience and apprenticeship was seen as a benefit. Adults were expected to be responsible, and it wasn't unheard of for authorities to stop in and check to make certain of the status of the child's situation. As for when a child was an owner, it was still the same as for an adult slave. The adult in charge of the child owner was expected to be a guiding hand for responsibility at the very least, and possibly even be in control of the young slave in every way but name.
Needless to say, Genma Saotome hadn't exactly been the most... focused individual in regards to those sorts of expectations.
Not that he was totally remiss in his duties, as there were things that simply had to be done if he was to have two children with him, no matter if one was owned by the other. It was just that he wasn't exactly prepared for raising a girl, which wasn't helped by the fact that his child rearing skills were already suspect. Added to his way of behaving about everything that didn't have to do with the Art, it made for a rather lacking authority figure.
Fortunately, the children themselves were sell sufficient enough to handle themselves in a lot of ways. Even without book smarts, Ranma was quite resourceful, and could live with very little in the way of supplies. With Nabiki's ability to plan and make every yen count, they managed to get by. Besides, neither one was of the sort that would get into too much trouble... at least, nothing that they hadn't managed to get out of.
The pigtailed boy wasn't exactly sure when he'd first noticed that she really was a girl though. Oh, he'd known it intellectually, but even if they bathed separately, she had never been an overly sensitive sort. Being firm and in control was sort of her trademark, and he knew that his grades wouldn't be quite so... acceptable if her help hadn't been there.
Yet, although he knew that she was getting older, his memory couldn't quite see when he'd started looking at her differently. It was almost as if he had accepted the way that her chest started pushing the front of her blouse out, or that her backside really began to look good in those shorts that she favored. As she grew older, he began to recognize that she wasn't just his slave, but was a really attractive girl who was going to be a babe later on.
Then again, he wasn't exactly sure that he had the same sort of... understanding about feminine physiology that other guys did. They looked at a full set of breasts, like the ones that Nabiki had, and he remembered the twitching he'd done when he'd taken her to get her first bra. Other boys would give lecherous smiles as they talked about sex videos, and he would forever have the memory of asking that really nice woman if she could help Nabiki when a certain... time started happening. They'd had the fortune of not having to deal with all the 'human' bits of being intimately aware of a girl, to which he knew had caused him to be somewhat... dismissive and disgusted with that sort of behavior.
Of course, that didn't mean that he was immune to her charms. It was one thing to know that it was his childhood companion leaning in to give him help on a math problem, but it was quite another to feel her body curve up along side him. With them having spent so much time together, he'd gotten plenty of compromising looks at her as it was. Her teasing attitude didn't help matters either, since she knew that she could make him flush with a simple sentence.
Still, he wasn't about to treat her as some living sex toy, even if he probably wouldn't have much trouble getting access to her body. Had she become his to simply give him a girl to test out and explore sexual matters, it wouldn't have mattered. She was his, and for someone who had as little as he did, that was damned important.
No, wherever he went, he was going to drag her along with him, while:
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(Posted Sun, 01 Jun 2008 02:28)
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