Chương 72: Homecoming
Ranko rubbed her bleary eyes, shaking her head vigorously to try and wake herself up. She needed to be sharp today.
She'd arrived back in Nerima late yesterday evening on one of the last trains. She had her whole speech rehearsed, wherein she would explain to Akane that what had happened with Crash wasn't what it looked like, and she'd marched right up to the outer wall of the Tendo residence to deliver it. And then, she couldn't make herself knock.
To do so would have alerted everyone in the family to a variety of truths that would have been uncomfortable for both of them, chief among them being Ranko existing at all, and Akane being in a relationship with her. She'd considered hopping over the wall and sneaking up to Akane's bedroom window, like she often had done to try and extract a certain perverted piglet out of Akane's bed after she'd gone to sleep. That all felt like another lifetime ago, and she guessed it technically was. But, she also remembered that Akane was prone to screaming when someone entered her bedroom window unannounced, so that put the stop to that plan.
In the end, she decided the safest way to approach was to wait until Akane left for school the following day. She found a quiet corner of her old school's unlocked sports equipment storage room to catch a few hours of sleep in, and now, it was just down to waiting. Ranko smoothed out the wrinkles from the yellow dress she still wore from yesterday, praying that Akane wasn't so upset that she called out sick from school.
The first chime from Furinkan's bell tower rang. Knowing Akane's school routine better than nearly anyone else, that would have put her walking right past Dr. Tofu's. Perched stealthily on the roof of the chiropractor's clinic, she looked carefully around the street, making sure her hair was tied back as tightly as possible and donning her sunglasses. There was one person in Nerima she wanted to be recognized by, and about a thousand she didn't.
There, turning the corner right on schedule, was a girl in a Furinkan uniform with cropped black hair. Ranko's heart leapt and sank at the same time. She quietly hopped down to the patch of grass between the clinic and the ice cream shop next door, waiting until her quarry passed to confirm it was, indeed, her.
She stepped out into the street just a step behind her girlfriend. At least, she hoped Akane was still her girlfriend.
"Akane, hey."
The schoolgirl whirled in surprise. "Ranko?! What the hell are you doing here?! Are you crazy?!"
Ranko bit her lip. All the words she'd rehearsed, all the apologies she'd carefully crafted, and all the pleas for forgiveness she'd concocted vanished from her mind the second she saw Akane's face. "I… I just had to see you, okay? I know what you saw yesterday."
Akane scoffed angrily. "Oh, you do, do you? And what do you suppose that was, you two-timing jerk?!"
The redhead raised her empty hands in surrender. "Akane, I'm begging you to hear me out. It wasn't what you thought, I swear."
Akane glowered, putting her bag down in the middle of the street and crossing her arms defiantly. "Okay, let's hear it then. And it better be good, Ranko!"
Ranko took a deep breath. For one, she'd half-expected Akane to call her by her former name, just to hurt her. She was grateful that she hadn't, at least. The last thing she needed was the name Ranma echoing through the streets ten minutes before school started. Beyond that, though, the only way this was going to work was complete honesty, and there were some parts of that which weren't going to be especially easy to say out loud. Especially not to her.
"Okay. First things first, yes. Crash kissed me."
Akane groaned. "Well, thanks for clearing that up, Doctor Obvious."
Ranko sighed. "I didn't ask him to. I didn't know he was going to kiss me. It all happened so fast. He touched me and… you know, with my thing, it made me freeze up. I could barely even talk. But the second he kissed me, I told him to stop and he did. I told him I was seeing someone, and he apologized and he left."
An eye roll and a dark snicker came in reply. "Seems awfully thin to me."
"Akane…" She swallowed hard. "You know how hard it is for me to admit this, but… yeah. I'm not gonna lie, what he did felt good. Really good. He touched me the way I've been hoping you would for months now, and my body reacted. I'm beyond ashamed that it did, but I couldn't help it. I thought he was just being sweet and I guess he read something that wasn't there, and the next thing I knew, he was kissing me. But as soon as he did, I told him to stop, and he fell all over himself to apologize. He's a really great guy, Akane, and a good friend. But I swear to the gods, that's all he is. He wanted more, but when I told him I was with you he was nothing but respectful."
"And why should I believe you," Akane asked, searching Ranko's face for any sign of deception.
A tear rolled down Ranko's cheek. This was something she'd wanted to say for a long time, and had never risked it. Akane would never have believed her -- back when she was still Ranma – and there just hadn't been much point. But Akane had gotten to get a lot of her old hurts off of her chest, and now there was nothing to lose.
"Akane, all the times you got mad at me when Shampoo or Kodachi or somebody came onto me, I never invited that. Ever. Those girls were freaking crazy. Hell, look at how Kuno came after me! I hope you at least believe me that I didn't want him! I tried to tell you, and you never believed me. You think I've got this horrible track record of messin' around on you somehow, but I don't. I know what you saw with Crash looked bad. Hell, I knew I didn't ask for it, and I still felt scummy about it!"
Ranko motioned her arms to their surroundings. "Look at where we're standing, Akane. You know what I'm risking being here, for both of us. This is the last place on Earth I want to be. But I came because I couldn't bear the thought of losing you again. I spent a long time looking for a way to be happy, and I couldn't find one that didn't include you."
Ranko wiped her eyes, sniffling back the flood and doing her best to retain her composure.
"These last few months, I've asked you to fight for me. I've asked you to lie to your family for me. I've asked you to forgive me for being a coward and running away. I've asked you to throw away everything you knew about me and start over. The ultimate clean slate. Maybe I shouldn't have asked all of that, but I did, and you came through every time. Now I'm asking you to do the one thing that might be even harder than all of that for you. I'm asking you to trust me. I'm begging you to trust me, Akane."
Akane took a step forward, and then another. Ranko wasn't sure if she should get ready to block, or to run away, but she stood her ground. If she was going to ask for trust, she had to be prepared to give it. Akane closed the last two steps at a run, almost tackling Ranko in a hug. "You'd better not be lying to me."
Ranko squeezed her back. "I'm not. I promise."
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