Bab 144: Meet the Parents
Akane gently turned the doorknob, pulling the door to the living room open. Soun stood, turning to face the door, and gasped as he saw the second woman exit the room. "My gods! Is it…" He looked like he'd seen a ghost, if ghosts wore mint-green cocktail dresses instead of white sheets.
Kasumi squealed. "Ranma! You're okay! We've been so worried!" She rocketed out of her chair, running the few steps and wrapping her arms around the younger girl.
Ranko relaxed a bit into the hug. She really had missed Kasumi. "Hey, you. It's good to see you." Wish I could have the last time you were here.
Akane put her hand on Kasumi's shoulder to get her attention, causing the elder sister to look up from the hug. "Um, not exactly."
Nabiki smirked, not getting up from her seat. "Well, she certainly cleans up cute."
Kasumi broke the hug, and Akane took Ranko's hand again, leading her to the front of the room so their guests could see her while seated.
"Everyone, this… is Ranko. Ranko Tendo." Akane smiled brightly into her beloved's eyes.
Ranko released Akane's hands, turning to face her girlfriend's family. Looking at them again after running out the way she did, she tried to repress the one feeling she hadn't told Akane about. Sure, she hadn't been able to hide the fear of seeing them again, facing their judgment on their relationship and on her transformation both, but the shame she felt at being in their presence again – the presence of the only people outside Akane to know what she once was – that, she still bore alone. "It's good to meet you all, again." She bowed deeply, staying in that position, vividly remembering the first time she met Akane's family. My name's Ranma Saotome. Sorry about this. She felt exactly that way again.
Soun stood, walking up toward Ranko. "Akane, you… you do know this is Ranma, right?" He hadn't even spoken to the apartment's other occupant yet, even as Akane had to tap her on the back just to get her to rise from her bow.
Akane smiled proudly, looking her girlfriend over. "Not anymore, Dad. Not since the night she left home."
"I… I have a new life now, Mr. Tendo." Ranko looked down. "It hasn't been easy. But I found some people who helped me out a lot, and they took care of me until Akane found me. Well, Nabiki first."
Soun whirled to look at his middle daughter. "You knew about this?"
Nabiki grinned. "For almost a year now. Surprise, daddy!"
Turning back to Ranko, he took a step closer, looking her over. Was the boy wearing… makeup? Did he really have a bow in his hair? Oh, what poor Saotome would say if he saw this. "Ranma, son, I have to say, this isn't what I expected from you."
Ranko cringed, but Akane stepped between her and her father. "Don't call her that! Her name is Ranko, and she's nobody's son. Not anymore. That's what we're trying to tell you, Dad. She's not a boy in a girl's body anymore. She's just a girl now." She turned her eyes toward Ranko's, reading now the shame in her eyes with a sad sigh. "And she's amazing."
Kasumi stood, walking over to Ranko with the motherly smile only she could manage. "Well, I say she's just wonderful." She bowed. "It's a pleasure to meet you, Ranko."
The redhead blushed. "Thanks, Kasumi. Really."
Soun scratched his chin. "Feminizing your name I suppose I understand, but why Tendo, and not Saotome?"
Ranko blushed. She didn't think he was ready for the real reason yet, but she had one that was close enough. "I wanted to leave that name behind, sir. I… I don't want to be associated with him anymore. And besides, you and your daughters always made me feel like a part of your family, and I wanted to honor that." And I'm praying that you still feel that way now.
She looked up to Soun. "Look, Mr. Tendo, I know this is weird for you. For all of you. I've had over a year to get used to it, and it's still weird to me every day, so I get it. But… I got tired of everybody thinking I was put together wrong. The constant pity, people not knowing what to say to me. All I ever was to anybody was what I lost. I was a walking pile of expectations everybody had that I couldn't meet. I meant no disrespect when I left your house that night. I hope you knew that. I just couldn't live that way anymore, as a living, breathing disappointment. I'm not asking you to understand it, just to accept it.
"I had to try to find something I could call normal, whatever that meant. And believe me, sir, I crawled through the dirt to do it. But, I found this incredible family, and they took care of me and gave me a job, and taught me so much. They made me who I am, and I'll forever be grateful for it. I'm doing so much better, sir. I have a career, I have friends, I'm doing well in school, and I have people who love and support me." She looked up at Akane with a smile. "I couldn't ask for anything else."
Soun nodded. It certainly was a lot to take in. But as he looked into the eyes of the beautiful, shy young woman in front of him, he knew that what she was saying was true. Whatever had become of Ranma, he wasn't in there anymore. "Tell me, son. Are you happy?"
Akane started to correct him again, but Ranko put up her hand. Ranko needed him to see her stand her own ground. "Yes, sir. I truly am. More than I can ever remember being. But I respectfully ask that you please stop calling me that." Daughter, I wouldn't mind.
Soun nodded slowly. "I… I'll try." His face was one of shock and discomfort. He didn't seem upset necessarily; it was more as if he'd suddenly woken up in some sort of alternate universe and was still trying to come to grips with its rules.
Ranko smiled sincerely. "That's all I ask. Believe me, I know how hard it is to break habits like that. It even took Akane a little while to get completely used to me being like this." And once finally she did, sir, she hasn't stopped having to scrape me off the ceiling a few times a week since.
The Tendo patriarch turned to Akane. "How could you have kept this from us for so long? From his… her… father? You had to know how worried we all were!"
Akane sighed, bowing her head. "I know, Dad. I'm sorry I lied to you and hid her from you. All of you. We just didn't know how you'd deal with all of this." She looked over at the redhead standing to her left. "Ranko is a lot different than the Ranma you remember, Dad. It's not just the dresses and stuff. She's… She's been through a lot. She's a little bit fragile sometimes right now. I didn't want to see her get hurt, least of all by people I love."
Ranko blushed at the description, looking down at her hands.
Kasumi smiled warmly. "So, Ran…ko, you're in school again?"
Ranko nodded, flushing. She much preferred to talk about her new life rather than the ashes of her old one. "Yeah! I'm a junior. Yui - that's one of my new sisters - helped me with a bunch of work to help me catch up on some classes I missed out on when I was traveling with Pop."
Soun nodded. "And you're going to school… as a girl? I remember that upset you so much, back at home."
Again, Ranko nodded. "Yes, sir. Like Akane said, a lot has changed for me since then. It's far from perfect, but I'm more comfortable in my skin now than I've been since before China. You'll never believe this, but I'm a cheerleader."
Nabiki groaned. "Why the hell could you not have told me that when I was still in the business of selling pictures to Kuno? We'd be having this conversation on my private island right now!"
Kasumi reached out her hand for Ranko. "Tell us all about this new family of yours."
Ranko smiled widely, taking the hand Akane's sister offered her. Them, she could talk about forever. "Oh, they're just the best, Kasumi. There's Hana, she owns this little bar I work at called the Phoenix. She's like the mother none of us girls had. She's so wise, and caring. She seems to know what I'm feeling before I do, and always knows how to deal with it. She listens. She's so, so strong, but she's so gentle, too. Like cotton wrapped around concrete. All us girls - there's five of us now, including me - ended up there at one time or another when we were down on our luck, and Hana took care of us.
"Then, there's Ayako - she lives out in Yokohama with her husband now. He works for some big media company somewhere. We don't see her much these days, so I don't really know her as well as I wish I did. And Yui, she's the manager and bartender. She's so great, Kasumi. She's smart as a whip, and hilarious, and she takes no crap off of anybody. She's been so protective of me, even when it's my own mistakes she's protecting me from." She turned a bit to her left with a smile. "Reminds me a lot of you, Nabiki, actually."
Ranko walked closer to Kasumi, taking the hand that was offered. "Then, there's Izumi. Izzi, we call her. Gods, she's something else. Kasumi, you think you tried hard to get me in dresses, whoa boy. She's almost ready to graduate with a fashion design degree, and I'm pretty sure I've been her living mannequin for a year now. She just got married - can you believe I pulled off being a freaking bridesmaid?! - and she's pregnant now. She has an older son, too. His name's Hoshi. He's almost nine now. Gods, I love that little guy.
"And then, there's Mei. She's so much fun, you guys. She's always cutting up with us, and she's so, so supportive. She's the reason I have a career now. She basically put me on her back and made it happen. I'd kill for that girl." In fact, I damn near did, once.
"Present company excluded, a girl couldn't ask for better sisters. I love them all so much."
Soun walked up to her again. He kept… looking at her. Ranko wasn't sure what to make of it. It didn't feel disrespectful, or lecherous, or even disapproving. It was like he was looking for the zipper that he could open up and dump the real Ranma out of the costume, and not finding it.
"You work in a bar? Dressed like that, I presume?"
Ranko blushed deeply. "Not exactly. As a girl, yeah, but, a little less formal. You get the good stuff, Mr. Tendo."
"Do I even want to know what you do there as a girl," Soun asked, a judgmental tone in his voice.
Akane gasped with an angry growl. "Dad! Don't you dare assume that about her!"
Ranko swallowed her disgust at the insinuation, and chased it with the shame she felt at how little he must have thought of her to suggest it. Her stomach turned at the idea that Soun thought she'd lower herself to taking her clothes off for strangers. Admittedly, the first day she had walked into the Phoenix, she had been desperate enough that she wasn't entirely sure she could have said no if it came to that.
Ranko straightened her posture, breathing through her hurt and trying to reply in a respectful manner. She remembered the serene way Akane had to act when her students talked down to her. "I wait tables, and… I sing. It's not much, but I'm proud of it, and it pays the bills." Most of the time. I promise, sir, I'd sell my soul itself to take care of Akane. Don't worry.
Akane nodded, stepping up behind Ranko. "She's underselling herself, Dad. She's incredible on stage. She packs that place almost every night. She's got a published single already that she wrote by herself, and is working on a whole album with her band." She reached around Ranko's hip, taking her hand. "She's a star." She's my star.
The redhead blushed and started to say something, but a loud beep from the kitchen interrupted her. "Oh, excuse me. I need to go check on that." She slipped around the half-wall, looking over the various pans she had going in the little oven through its glass front.
Kasumi blinked, speaking quietly to Akane. "She cooks?"
Smiling proudly, Akane bobbed her head, answering almost in a whisper. "She cooks, she does laundry, she cleans, she goes to school and gets pretty decent grades, she works, she sings, she writes her music, she does her cheerleading. We had to make her drop some other things too, because she was working herself to the bone. She's just awesome. Kasumi, you'd be so proud of her. I know I am."
"I do have to say," Soun said, an impressed tone in his voice, "whatever you're doing in there smells wonderful, Ran…" He sighed.
Ranko turned, having not heard the last half of his sentence. "Akane, this is ready to come out of the oven. Would you mind?"
Soun made a little grunt of acknowledgement as Ranko exited the narrow kitchen to make space for Akane. There really wasn't room for two people in the little alleyway between the counter and the stove, unless of course, one of them happened to be seated on the countertop. "The Cat's Tongue?"
With a smile, Ranko's "roommate" slipped into the kitchen, putting on a pair of oven mitts and pulling the steaming dish onto the trivet on the counter. Ranko barely resisted the urge to kiss her as she passed.
Ranko nodded. "It never wore off. But I'm careful, and people help where they can. The ones who know, anyway." She bowed her head. "I haven't been… what I was before… since last November, not even for a minute." She couldn't bring herself to say the word boy, as if she were afraid to give him any alternative lens to see her through than the one with which she now presented herself.
Nabiki smirked, having left her seat at the table and taken a place leaning on the wall within view of the kitchen. "I gotta tell ya, Ranko, I'm impressed. You've done more to figure out this girl thing in a year than Akane has in nineteen."
Ranko shook her head. "I wouldn't be anywhere close to where I am without Akane." She's my everything.
Kasumi looked around the little room as Akane closed the oven, a puzzled expression on her face. "Ranko, just a quick question." She pointed to the rightmost door on the east wall. "I know that one's the bathroom, and the one next to it is Akane's bedroom; she showed it to me when I was here last time. So, where's yours?"
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