Ranma sighed, picking up another stone as he practiced an activity he was getting far too used to doing.
Brooding.
<skip><skip><skip><skip><ka-plunk>
Right now he was brooding on his least favorite subject to brood upon - his relationship with Akane.
After the bombed wedding things had started going right for them. His mother made absolutely certain his father couldn't try pushing them together anymore, and without his father's influence around, Soun was sticking to his promise to give them space to sort out the fiancée situation.
Cologne had, figuratively at least, torn into Shampoo. He didn't hear the argument, but he understood the results well enough. Shampoo was now attending Kolkhoz High School which meant she little time to spend chasing him. And what little time she did have, she didn't spend chasing him. Mousse, despite Shampoo's efforts to the contrary, had informed him that Cologne ordered Shampoo not to chase after him any more. He didn't say why, but it didn't matter to Ranma much anyway. He wasn't terribly interested in seeing much of the bouncy Amazon after what had happened.
And after two weeks of ignoring Ukyo, she'd finally come around to the Tendo dojo and apologized to everyone. They're friendship was strained to the breaking point, he could tell, but it hadn't quite broken yet, and he was doing everything he could think of to repair the damage done without letting her think she somehow had any chance of being his wife. No small task considering how quick she was to twist any complement he threw her way into a declaration of love.
<skip><skip><skip><ka-plunk>
Ryoga was no longer chasing after Akane, but hunting for Akari's farm. He'd apparently decided to take his relationship with the pig-farmer seriously, and when Akane had spotted him in pig form a week ago, he used the superior speed of his current form to take off before Akane could catch him.
Only the Kunos were still being a nuisance, but they were only minor irritants at best without everyone else backing them. Akane was more than skilled enough to deal with either of them.
<skip><skip><skip><skip><ka-plunk>
So, free of interference from loony fiancées, nutty rivals, and moronic parents, he and Akane had gone about trying to actually have a relationship. They'd gone out dating a few of times, and had even gotten so far as to kiss - intentionally, purposefully kiss - once or twice.
<skip><skip><skip><skip><skip><ka-plunk>
Nothing was happening, though. They weren't any closer after those dates than they had been a month ago. Or two months ago. Or, well, practically since they met really.
Even as bad as he was at all things social, he could tell his engagement with Akane was a dead end street.
He hadn't said as much openly, and neither had Akane, but he could tell she saw the same thing he did. And while she'd managed to keep her frustration in check so far, he suspected that if something didn't change soon, Akane would just blow up at him, and that would really be the end of their engagement.
<skip><skip><skip><ka-plunk>
<skip><skip><skip><ka-plunk>
With a sigh, Ranma stood. It was getting late, and it was probably time he headed back to the dojo.
Engaging Ranma to Hotaru was not going to be easy.
No, scratch that. 'Engaging' Ranma to Hotaru was trivial. The boy's father had a tendency to loose his moral code whenever presented with a large enough amount of food or wealth, and his mother would not have seen a problem with her manly son sleeping with half the women in Japan. Creating an engagement though the bounds of honor would be easy.
Getting Ranma to fall in love with anyone was going to be difficult. The boy had no good examples of 'love', and as such didn't subscribe to the idea that 'love' could bring about joy or pleasure. The only joys he'd known to this point were good food and triumphant victories in his Art. 'Love' for him was something that brought pain, misery, and conflict.
And Hotaru, as much as she would consciously despise using an engagement to bind someone who didn't want to marry her to her, would nonetheless do so to stem the tide of loneliness that was always about her. Setsuna knew she'd do the same thing if she had an honor engagement.
The last thing Ranma needed was someone latching on to him for the sake of nothing more than honor.
Thus the problem: how to get Hotaru into Ranma's life without letting either of them know about the engagement? She had no intention of forcing Hotaru to marry Ranma, even if that meant defying Neo-Serenity, so once she gave them an excuse to spend time together it would be up to Hotaru alone to snare Ranma. But she knew it would take a lot of time for that to happen even under the best of circumstances; Hotaru kept herself protected by her own set of emotional walls, just like Ranma did, and would be hard pressed to take down her own walls, much less work her way through Ranma's. Loneliness and hope would be more than sufficient reasons for Hotaru, and maybe even Ranma, to try, but they still needed an excuse to do so.
So she had to give them a good excuse.
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See other episodes by Brian Drozd
(Posted Tue, 29 Jul 2003 01:45)
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