When Ranma returned to the Nekohanten, he found Mousse sitting at a table, running his fingers through his long-black hair. His Coke-bottle glasses were nowhere to be seen. “Hey,” Ranma said as a greeting.
“Hey,” came Mousse’s equally terse reply.
“Cologne and Shampoo said you had a lot to tell me.”
“I guess I do, now that we’ve dropped most of the pretenses. So, how much do you know already?”
“Apparently, you’re an actor in the village’s theater troupe, which I assume means you don’t hate me nearly as much as you’ve claimed in the past.”
“You could put it that way,” Mousse replied with a smile. “I do have a reputation of being a talented actor.”
“And I see you’ve got an ego to match.”
“You of all people should know how advantageous self-confidence is. But I digress. You know how the Amazons have a ‘special relationship’ with the Taiyohime, correct?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Well, we’re basically obsessed with your predecessors—folks want to hear their stories over and over, which means that everyone loves Taiyohime plays. And with you being a particularly unique one, it obviously required the most talented actor we had.”
“So what happened to that guy?” Ranma asked with a smirk.
Mousse rolled his eyes. “Since I’m the obvious choice to play you in any future productions we have, I wanted a chance to meet you—and because of the bizarre situation that took place after Shampoo’s visit, such an opportunity presented itself. So, here I am.”
“So, your glasses…”
“Don’t need them. In fact, my vision’s worse with them on, since I had to use real lenses, or you would have noticed something.”
“So that’s why you refuse to wear them.”
“Right. Of course, whenever I realized I was in public without them, I had to do something stupid to keep my cover, like treating inanimate objects as though they were human.”
“And the duck curse?”
“Got it by accident just before I left China the second time, and when you saw me transform, I had to keep it. Um, you don’t mind if I get it cured now, right?”
“Nah. I mean, I’m a little pissed that you guys were, like, trying to keep me from getting cured, but my Mom complicates everything.”
“You don’t know the half of it. She told us that it was really, really important that you be cured by Amaterasu and not the Nannichuan.”
“And you believed her?”
“Given that she was cashing in a favor, whether we believed her was inconsequential. Tribal honor sometimes dictates that we ignore common sense, no matter how annoying the consequences are.”
“Funny how honor gets people to do stupid crap like that. But anyway, you are really a Master of the Hidden Weapons style, right?”
“I’m not a Master, I’m the Grand Master of the style—the youngest Grand Master in the history of the Tribe, which gives me an automatic seat on the Council.”
“I thought your society was dominated by women.”
“It is. But I’m the Grand Master of the Hidden Weapons Style, which has such a long and storied tradition that none of those who object to my Y chromosome has the guts to claim I shouldn’t be there.”
“Sticking it to the Woman, huh?”
“You could say that—although I’ve basically been functioning as a courier between the Council and the Matriarch recently. That’s why I’m only here ‘part-time.’”
“Okay… so, I guess that leaves one question.”
“And that is…?”
“Why the heck did Shampoo and Cologne want you to tell me this? I mean, it doesn’t seem like some deep personal revelation.”
“Well, to be honest, even though ‘studying’ you was the official reason I showed up to help you out, pretty much everyone in the Village knows that I didn’t need to come back a second time, particularly since I’ve got my duties as a Grand Master to deal with in addition to my acting. But, well… I was willing to latch on to any excuse to give me a semi-legitimate reason to be here. I mean… when you want to be around someone…”
“Oh, right. Shampoo.”
Mousse took several deep breaths. It seemed that the moment of truth was at hand. “Shampoo’s a really nice girl, don’t get me wrong—it’s not at all difficult to play the part of someone in love with her. But truthfully, she’s… er… not what I’m looking for in a long-term relationship.”
“What do you mean?”
The Amazon sighed. “You know, you really should learn to pick up on verbal subtlety. It makes things so much less awkward.”
Ranma nodded. “Yeah, I know. So how about cutting me some slack? What don’t you like about girls like Shampoo?”
“The fact that she’s a girl.”
“Oh…. Wait a minute, aren’t you a little old to be worried about cooties?”
“Yes, I am.”
“Huh? What’s that supposed to…” Ranma’s voice trailed off as the realization hit him. “You… you’re not really saying ya don’t like girls with her personality. You’re saying you… you don’t like any girls… that way?”
“Pretty much.”
“You… you’re gay?”
“Bingo.”
“So the person you’re interested in being around isn’t a girl.”
“Um… well… sometimes….”
Ranma winced and put his hand on his forehead. “Mousse, please tell me you don’t stay around Nerima because you’re in love with me.”
“Uh….”
“Oh, come on! Do I have some sort of curse that just makes people fall in love with me on top of everything else?”
“I wouldn’t say I’m in love with you, Ranma. It was more like an infatuation—a man-crush, really. When I first met you, you were so… intriguing; I had to come back for seconds, as it were. And with you being you, things rather quickly snowballed from there.”
“Right, just like all the girls who crush on me, only with anal.”
Mousse chose to ignore Ranma’s rather coarse choice of language, figuring it was more the result of stress than anything else. Rather than get off on a tangent by informing the young Japanese man that he personally preferred oral sex with his partners, he returned to Ranma’s question. “As far as whether this is yet another curse, if you can call having two terrific-looking bodies and an engaging personality a curse, then so be it. There aren’t many people who wouldn’t find one of your forms attractive, if not both.”
“Who the hell is interested in both?”
“Kuno, probably.”
“Are you smoking something? He hates my guts!”
“No, if my instinct is correct, he hates the fact that he finds your male form attractive, and clings to his equally intense attraction to your female form as a way of validating his alleged heterosexuality.”
“So, he’s, uh…”
“Bisexual—maybe. I don’t know for sure, since he’d deny it if anyone ever suggested it. But it does explain why he keeps talking about your forms as if they’re separate people—if folks think he’s too dense to realize what’s patently obvious to everyone else, then he can get away with openly pining for the redheaded girl, even though she’s really male.”
“Super. And I suppose Kodachi’s the same way?”
“Possibly, though I think she may actually be nuts. Though, really, it isn’t as though the theories are mutually exclusive.”
Ranma sighed. “Isn’t there anybody who doesn’t wanna get in my pants?”
“Well, there’s Ryoga.”
“Really?”
“Oh, yeah. He’s definitely straight, and he knows you too well to ignore the fact that the cute redheaded girl is actually male. Besides, he only has eyes for Akane.”
“Well, that’s one person who isn’t completely insane, at least.”
Mousse let out a puff of frustration. “Look, Ranma, I don’t particularly want to feel this way, okay? There are few things more miserable than pining after someone when you know he’s psychologically incapable of returning the favor.”
“So why not find a boyfriend?”
“Well, for one thing, I thought I was in love, and that kept overruling the part of my brain that knew I probably didn’t have a chance with you. Also, for a while, it seemed like you’d never seriously thought about your sexuality, so there was always the possibility you might experiment a bit.”
“No, there wasn’t.”
“Hey, I know that now, but at the time, I really, really wanted the fantasy to be true. But, really, the main reason I kept coming back is that… well…”
“Well, what?”
“Well, we’ve all basically assumed that when you did learn about the Taiyohime, you’d be gung-ho about it, since we thought your mother couldn’t possibly mess that up, what with the whole ‘best magical girl of all time’ thing she had going.”
“Clearly, you overestimated my Mom’s ability at anything not directly related to demon hunting.”
“Right. But, if you had been willing to jump right in, that would have meant you’d me keeping your curse for a while… and when people have gender-swapping curses for a long time, they occasionally… um… expand their tastes, if you catch my meaning.”
Ranma’s eyes narrowed. “Why the hell would turning into a girl make me bi?”
“Well, if your female body was straight, and you let it surface when you were in that form, some of that attraction to men could eventually bleed over into your male body. It wouldn’t replace an attraction to women… just add to it.”
“What?!”
“It doesn’t always happen—in fact, most of the time, it doesn’t. But, for all I knew, there was still a chance—but that seems really unlikely, now.”
“Now there’s an understatement. So, why are you still hanging around?”
“Two reasons. One, my troupe decided that I should be the one to actually adapt your exploits into shows for the stage, so I need to stick around to learn what those exploits are. And two, I like you.”
“I know. We just got done with an awkward conversation about it.”
“I don’t mean infatuation, I mean that I genuinely like you as a person. Let me put it this way: Since having you as a significant other isn’t going to happen, I’d like to have you as a friend. Platonically.”
“Platonic… that’s the kind without all the emotional romantic crap, right?”
“Right.”
“You really think you’re gonna get over your crush just like that?”
“I’m already over it, Ranma.”
Ranma mulled this for a while, before coming to a conclusion. “Sure. Let’s give it a shot. It might be nice to have an actual friendship with another male martial artist—I got more than enough rivals as it is.” He held his right hand in front of him, and Mousse gladly accepted the handshake.
“I won’t let you down.”
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(Posted Thu, 17 Feb 2011 07:10)
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