Ranma arrived back on the roof of the Tendo dojo with no noticeable effort at all. Akane should have calmed down a little by now, and it would probably be best to get it over with.
Ranma dropped down from the roof and walked into the house. The Tendo family was gathered around a positively massive television which hadn’t been there this morning.
Akane gave him an odd look, but didn’t immediately hit him.
Ranma couldn’t know that Akane had convinced herself that she had been imagining the earlier incident, after all the door and windows had stayed closed and she had flooded the floor to check if he hiding invisibly. Plus the bucket had passed right through where she thought he had been. There was no way he could have actually been in the room. Ranma was a pervert, but she didn’t need to start imagining things that hadn’t happened to prove it.
Ranma managed to maintain his calm and not give anything away, having already prepared himself to be hit without giving anything away. “What are ya all watching? And where’d the movie screen come from?”
"Oh Ranma," said Kasumi, "a package arrived for you. Wasn't it nice of Nabiki to scratch your name out, open it, set it up, and send the registration in under her name?"
“Nabiki!” Ranma wasn’t often able to do anything about Nabiki’s machinations, and they were usually minor enough to ignore anyway, but this was blatantly illegal.
“It’s not like you could do anything with a six foot flat panel television anyway. Besides, I’m willing to forget the photo shoot this way,” Nabiki brushed it off.
“I never agreed to any photo shoot anyway!”
Nabiki withdrew a tape recorder and a piece of paper. She clicked the play button, “So you’re willing to do the photo shoot for me, for free of course?” asked Nabiki’s voice.
“Sure, whatever,” it was drowsy sounding, but unmistakably Ranma’s voice. Nabiki stopped the playback.
“That’s never going to hold up.”
“Sure it will, here’s a copy of the written version.” Nabiki handed him a sheet of paper. He skimmed it in a moment, it had to be the most screwed up contract he had ever seen, with his handprint at the bottom.
“I wondered why I had ink on my hand when I woke up this morning,” Ranma mused. “This still won’t hold up though.”
“It won’t hold up in court maybe, but what would your mother think?”
“Damn you.”
“It’s okay Ranma, the tv is fair exchange, I’ll let the matter go.”
“How do I know you won’t just break this deal too?” Ranma inquired. Ranma didn’t really care about it that much: it wasn’t like he needed a tv anyway. Even if he did, where would he put such a large one? However he didn’t want to be dealing with this same situation forever. He’d find some way to prevent her from getting more contracts this way, maybe sleep in Greece or something.
“Would I do that?”
“Yes,” Ranma said, quietly echoed by Kasumi.
“You wound me,” Nabiki said. I’ll even give it to you in writing then.” Nabiki figured the value of the tv was much higher than the photo shoot. If she went for large scale distribution she would have to present the papers at some point, and they wouldn’t hold up. That handkerchief deal had created a lot of trouble, and it was only luck that they let her off lightly.
“Who would send you such a nice tv anyway Ranma? I’ve never heard of Olympus brand, but look at how crystal clear it is. It’s better quality than if I was there, and I’ve never seen one so flat.”
“I’ve got my suspicions,” Ranma wished people wouldn’t make things quite so obvious sometimes.
“Be quiet already!” Akane screeched. “I’m trying to watch here, are you purposefully trying to be annoying?”
Ranma opened his mouth to reply, but Akane gave him a burning glare which dared him to argue.
“What are you watching anyway?” Ranma asked, never one to let common sense impair his judgment.
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(Posted Fri, 06 Feb 2009 05:12)
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