As it turns out, Ranma's limp made it hurt to walk around, but no mere limp kept Ranma from grabbing the little punk's shoulder and pulling him face to face again. "I asked you a question."
The boy slapped Ranma's hand off. "Go to hell," he said, right before he found Ranma's hand around his collar.
Ranma was too sore this morning to do anything as properly intimidating as lifting a person off the ground like he did a desk, so he settled for squeezing the collar together hard enough to cut into the soft sides of the boy's neck.
"I don't care what your problem is," he said.
Despite the situation, Ranma's face was calm. Not so his victim's.
"But as it so happens, I have a bet going on whether I'll get into a fight today. It's a lot of money, and I don't want to lose before walking four steps on school grounds. The thing is, I also don't want to win enough to let you blow me off."
The boy dropped his satchel, but even with both hands compared to Ranma's one, the pain of something digging into his neck denied him the coordination to pull free.
Ranma eased off when the boy began gasping, and glanced around. Around him, the students coming to school were still occupied with their own affairs despite the situation. It looked like they were ignoring him on purpose.
That was strange, and while that was better than people gathering to watch, why tempt trouble?
Ranma let go, and clapped the boy on the shoulder when he staggered. "Now, I hope you learned a useful lesson about not annoying random people. I'll ask again. Where's the opening ceremony?"
The boy's wide eyes showed a healthier respect for Ranma. Ranma's slight frown and curled hand on his shoulder crushed any thoughts of fleeing or calling for help.
"Stop it! That's enough!"
But apparently the boy didn't need to.
A hand was now holding Ranma's wrist. Ranma saw that it was a girl's, and it was laughably trying to make him let go of the boy's shoulder by pulling his wrist away. Ranma's grip stayed right where it was.
The girl's hand was attached to a white sleeve, white sleeve to a small girl with pigtails. Why a girl chose to step in puzzled him. Out of all these people, only her?
Ranma looked around again. Now that three people were in the confrontation, he was picking up more interest. More interest was bad.
He laid down his satchel and used his other hand to pried the girl off his wrist. "Could you tell me where the opening ceremony is?"
"Let go of him first," said the girl. Despite being smaller than both him and the boy, she had a bold presence, if only compared to the rest of the kids here.
Ranma turned toward her more fully, and she stepped back into what Ranma saw as a defensive stance. He couldn't blame her for being ready to fight, after he himself turned to violence so quickly, but....
"If I do," said Ranma, "this guy'll bolt, and if I don't get an answer from you, I'll have to chase him down. This way is better."
"For me," he said a second later.
"Will you let go of him if I answer?"
Ranma thought that question was odd—if she was so concerned about him hurting this guy, she should've called a teacher. "Depends. Are you going to answer, or are you going to point me to a shed?"
"What makes you think I'd lie?"
"No reason, but I don't know you. And drop the stance. I'm not going to hit you."
Ranma was very willing to hit the boy though, and when the boy's shoulder tensed in his hand, Ranma reminded him by pressing down hard enough to force him onto one knee.
"I don't know you either," said the girl, who saw what Ranma was doing and didn't relax the slightest. "What if you hurt him after I answer, just because he didn't answer you?"
Ranma looked around, almost hoping for some teacher to come and shout at him so that he'd have a straight answer. Alas, Ranma spotted no teachers in the courtyard. They must all be preparing for the ceremony already.
"Why would I bother?" said Ranma. "I'll never get to the ceremony if I stopped to beat up everybody along the way."
By this point, the boy seemed to have had enough of wobbling on one knee. "Okay, okay, I'll tell you!"
Ranma looked down. "Well, that's the first smart thing out of your mouth today."
But before the boy could blurt out an answer, the girl in front of him said, "Don't tell him! You'll just prove he was right to be a bully!"
That made Ranma wonder, what was this girl's problem? Clearly she wasn't helping the idiot. What's with this school that the first two people he met both wanted to get in his way? He wasn't even stealing from them yet.
"Holding the high ground," he said to the girl, "works for important things, but it's just pointless agony if a guy want directions."
The boy stared up at the girl through the pain. "Who asked for your opinion?"
That response put a glare on the girl's face.
But... Ranma could also see a small tear at the corner of her eye too.
Was she a crier? She better not be a crier. He didn't have time for a crier.
Ranma was torn between seeing the boy as ungrateful for not taking her advice and... uh, smart for not taking her advice. Then he reflected on causing all this, and decided he was the wrong person to judge anybody else here.
"Look," he said, "could any of you just tell me where the stupid ceremony is, while I can do anything with that info? Because I can't run—"
The school bell rang. Actually, it beeped, a long and electronically synthesized beep that left Ranma trailing into silence and the other students moving toward the school field. Though it was now obvious where the opening ceremony was being held, the knowledge came too late for Ranma's benefit.
The urge to punch somebody raced through Ranma's body, but he crammed it and all memory of this incident way back into the corner of his brain where he kept the other stupid situations he wanted to forget about, like the time his friend tried to give him a shiro-loli harem. Which didn't help his practice of not celebrating birthdays.
Ugh, why was he reminded of that? Ranma began limping off, away from the still-kneeling boy and the girl who thought he was a bully. Somebody said something, but Ranma was too busy scrubbing his brain clean.
Ranma took fifteen minutes to limp to the field, because in this school the courtyard was the face end and the field was the ass. He arrived five minutes late, after everybody had already lined up according to their name or height or whatever order this school used. Ranma didn't know, because the teachers yelled at him for coming late and told him to attach himself to the tail of a column like a dark blue boil.
His uniform got stares again. Sure, he realized the military-style uniform was pricier than the business-style suits other boys wore. Yeah, he had it tailored while everybody else had stock. Fine, the dark blue—almost black—fabric and the silver-and-gold buttons were so much sharper and classier than the gray-shirt, brown-pants, green-tie monsters on the field. And he didn't have an ugly school logo to spoil it.
Okay, but if the other students knew what his housing was like, they wouldn't envy his clothes so much.
"Good morning," said the principal over a microphone while Ranma was limping in. "To the new students just joining us this year, welcome to Yukichi Fukuzawa Provincial Middle School."
The man look over the kids arrayed on the school field with the sun shining down. None of them spoke or moved. Disturbance wasn't allowed when the principal gave a speech.
The principal made no impression on Ranma at all, and by the time introducing other members of the faculty was done, Ranma had started standing where his tardiness allotted him, discontent rising like lava through his throat.
"Now," said the principal, "this place is just a simple neighborhood school with none of the grandness of Mahora's main campus, but we are just as dedicated towards your education, and regardless of the usual talk you are no worse students than theirs."
Ranma felt himself start to grimace. Not only did Konoe put him a year behind, but dropped him in a school so poor their principal had no shame talking this way? He shouldn't have cut his hair for this place.
"Our school is ably equipped, our teachers well trained. We expect the best from them and from you, our students."
For angels' sake, no wonder the kids were all in awe of his clothes. They were probably poor and couldn't get into the better schools.
Too bad he couldn't ask about it, with how touchy these people were. If he had an argument when he asked for directions, how could he ask something more personal? It'd be less hassle to punch people for information.
No! No, he had to resist that impulse. With the money Konoe bet on him getting into a fight today, he could buy a working stove for the apartment.
Ranma resolved to just forget all of it. When the speeches ended half an hour later—repeat, half an hour later, after six other people blathered on about working together, achieving high test scores, not stealing the school plaque, practicing abstinence... by then Ranma's mind had wandered to a happier place full of candy. When the speeches ended, he limped back to the courtyard to find his classroom assignment on the bulletin boards that were now set up.
That distance took another fifteen minutes, and by the time he got there the boards had been kicked down and he had to ask a teacher to look it up from her binder while others chased the wrongdoers away.
Maybe those were there before with directions to the ceremony and got kicked down too? Oh well.
When the teacher said that Ranma Saotome's homeroom was 2-C, he heard somebody stumble. That girl from earlier was staring at him, and when he turned around to ask what she wanted, she turned and ran away.
The day all girls flee from his name was coming right on schedule.
Ranma limped to his homeroom, and when he got finally there the teacher marked him tardy. Ranma sighed.
As an icebreaker, everyone stood and told the class his name, and then spent a minute talking about himself.
Ranma stood up. "My name's Ranma. I've been traveling since I was a kid, so I'm not from anywhere specific. In this lifetime I have only one goal: to live forever."
The declaration met polite silence, with maybe two small smirks among the stares. Wow, this was one humorless class.
"I also want to rule the world," he said anyway, because he had been using this introduction for years and wasn't changing it for these pricks, "but that's more of a stretch. My hobby is lying, but I also like gardening, and girls call me a pig because I always rate them on looks, so this is fair warning."
His judgmental gaze scathed over all the gray skirts in the room, and nobody responded. That wasn't great; Ranma was ready for a crier this time and had hoped somebody would sniffle, and then he'd look even more an asshole, but the girls in the class looked merely disgusted. That wasn't great, but it would keep them away and that's all he wanted.
"Well Mr. Saotome," said his new teacher. "At least today you won't be swamped after school by girls who like your brilliant personality. Since nobody has been assigned to the end-of-day cleanup yet, I'll give that to you. That'll keep you out of trouble with the ladies."
Ranma ignored the snickers and looked at the man. "When I rule the world," he said, then stopped.
When he ruled the world, this teacher and this class and this entire city would be first on the chopping block, but why should he deprive people of peaceful illusions? No, that'd be cruel.
"You know what?" he said. "When I rule the world, I won't remember you anyway. Forget it."
And besides, Old Man Konoe wanted him to avoid a fight in school today, and backed that challenge with fifty thousand yen, which Ranma needed to furnish his new basement. Since he already skidded off the curve by almost fighting this morning, he couldn't afford to mouth off on his teacher just for kicks... at least until the end of the first day.
Ranma sat down and school continued. Yeah, shutting up and not pissing people off would be the plan. That plan went well with the aura of unapproachability his introduction created, and Ranma stayed un-bothered through the morning as teachers cycled in and out of the room each new class period.
His morning classes were all humanities: world history, English and Japanese language, things like that. They were all subjects that Ranma wanted to forget as soon as he learned, and he spent the break between classes filling the homework sheets with no thought of correctness so that he wouldn't have to take them or his books home.
Lunchtime came, and Ranma decided the food at this school was awful, as did the boys from his class who were sitting at the same long table in the crowded cafeteria, complaining that this year's selection was worse than the last's. Ranma didn't care about selection, but the bowl of white noodles in front of him tasted bitter, and Ranma sloshed some onto the table as he stirred his bowl to even the flavor out.
"You guys, you gotta help me!"
Ranma looked over to where another of his classmates, a boy, was stumbling to the table. "What's the problem?" he said since he was closest.
"There's some third-year kids going around trashing rooms. They're coming here too!"
Ranma looked around to see the response of the other kids at the table. They had looked up too, but no one seemed concerned, so it must be a common problem. "Trashing rooms," he said after turning back to the boy, "like what? Pushing desks around?" Ranma recognized the wrinkles of a grabbing on the boy's jacket. Seems he wasn't the only one doing that today. "Shoving?"
Another kid from Ranma's class started talking as he ate. "Look, you're new here right? Stuff like that happens a lot. Just stay out of their way."
The boy stared. "But that's wrong! Shouldn't we do something?" The boy looked at all of them, then at Ranma.
Ranma thought about it, but if bullies were too petty a problem even for the other guys in his class, he certainly wasn't going to make trouble for himself by getting involved and risking needed money, and besides he had the limp.
Dealing with problems at a school was the job of the teachers, so Ranma shrugged like the others.
"Don't worry about it," said the kid who was eating. "There're guys who take of creeps like them. What you need to do is keep your head down."
"Then I'll go get a teacher," said the boy, showing he did think of that after all. The boy turned, but the kid who was eating turned and grabbed his jacket.
"Don't do it," the kid said, and this time his voice was harder. "The teachers aren't gonna help you and you're gonna get us in way worse trouble if you go to them. There are other people who handle this. Just sit here until everything blows over."
All the veterans of the school nodded, but Ranma frowned. If the teachers weren't handling problem kids, then students are deal with it? That's vigilantism, and while he was all for that, wasn't this school big on rules?
He didn't get to protest.
A third-year with a wrinkled uniform walked across the lunchroom towards the table and Ranma saw that boy point at him. "Is he the one," the third-year asked a similarly dingy group some distance away, "you're looking for?"
From the twitch on the first boy's face as he backed away, Ranma figured this must be the group he was talking about, and his eyes narrowed as the group approached him while spreading out and hemming him in.
From what he could see, their uniforms were messy not because they had been roughed up like his classmate, but because none of them had ever heard of an ironing board.
When Ranma saw the guy who he roughed up this morning among them, realization flashed in his mind.
Ah, grudges.
Ranma decided that boy would representative of this group, and on a corkboard in the hallway of his mind, he pinned a picture of the boy's most distinctive feature, and scrawled the label "Wrinkles" under it.
Ranma thought Wrinkles would be too wimpy to try anything, but it looks like the school wasn't that spiritless. Even though he figured people were too apathetic to help each other out, some seemed to band together if only to avenge each other, and this sort of confrontation must happen often, because although everybody else at the table started fidgeting as if they wanted to bolt, they all stayed in their seats.
The boy from his class tried to get past the wall of upperclassmen, but he couldn't sneak through and had to sit down. His movement wasn't spared a glance by the upperclassmen, who were all focused on Ranma.
Outwardly, Ranma continued to sit there eating lunch as if nothing was wrong, but inwardly he groaned. He'd have a big problem if this group started a fight, since he couldn't fight here without losing Konoe's bet. Should he run away despite his limp? Should he call for adult help despite what the other boys in his class said and even though doing so was really pathetic?
Ranma glanced around for a teacher.
Teachers had a lounge for meals, so they wouldn't eat in the lunchroom with the students and because of that the only teachers around were....
...talking in the hallway, quite a distance and with an open double door separating them from the room.
Ranma sighed with his chin on one hand, and flicked away a small piece of noodle from the tabletop with the other as the third-years approached.
The guy from this morning nodded when he identified Ranma's clothing, and the larger first kid dragged Ranma to his feet.
Around him, other students stared but the noise in the lunchroom didn't abate, as if this was a perfectly normal show.
Ranma's face contorted from the pain of tender bruises under his shirt, but he said "Hi" as if being dragged to his feet was a perfectly normal greeting. After all, there wasn't all that much wrong with it. He used it often.
"What's the matter?" said Wrinkles from his place standing behind the others. "You're not so tough now?"
Hah. If they thought he was being gutless, then the students here must be easily frightened. Ranma smiled instead, while putting a hand on his side to keep the pain down. "Why should I act tough? I told you I didn't want any problems."
Wrinkles glared, and asked, "You mean you piss off the wrong people, but you don't want problems?
Ranma shrugged. "Not today anyway. Ask me tomorrow."
"Not a smart answer."
Wrinkles nodded to the rest of the guys with him, and they stepped closer to Ranma in a childish kind of intimidation. Ranma felt insulted. Intimidation needed credibility—for example, Ranma would've hurt his target first, then threatened. Didn't Wrinkles learn anything from this morning?
"I don't know how it felt to have a girl protect you," Ranma said without acknowledging their gesture. "Did pushing people in my class around make you feel better?"
A wave of muttering spread audience at this information, and the rest of the group glanced at the guy with dark annoyance for staining their tough and manly reputation.
These idiots were so easy to read.
Wrinkles's glare became harder and he began to say stupid things. "Maybe it did. I think I should do it more."
Ranma's smile widened. "I don't think the teachers would like that."
At Ranma's threat to involve the adults, many regular students nearby stiffened, but the boys confronting him didn't look bothered so that didn't work. He didn't think he'd escape trouble just by mentioning the teachers anyway.
At least he could tell Konoe he tried.
Wrinkles laughed and stepped closer, into Ranma's punching range. "You think they'll notice? That's the stupidity of you new kids. Dressing up nice and depending on the adults, like that's gonna help in this place. But when you do that stuff like this happens."
He reached around, picked up Ranma's bowl, and dumped it onto the front of Ranma's jacket.
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(Posted Sat, 15 Nov 2008 00:05)
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