Escapism
Damnit that hurt! Ranma thought as he dragged himself out of the crater he'd left in the sidewalk. He doubted Akane even realised it, but lately her mallet attacks had contained a hot-chi aspect that meant they pummeled and burnt him.
It figures that when Akane finally learns a chi technique she does it by accident, Ranma groused to himself as he got his bearings and gingerly began to walk in the direction of Nerima. The heat of Akane's attack left nasty minor burns that chafed under his clothing, where it wasn't burnt through, and the impact of landing exacerbated the problem.
At least I didn't have any of my college stuff with me, Ranma reflected, feeling a little surge of relief at the thought. Last week Akane had malleted him as he'd been coming home with a folder full of assignments and notes which had wound up spread across half of Tokyo when she'd launched him into the sky.
And she didn't even apologize for it! Just said it was my fault.
Oddly enough, the loss of his work had annoyed Ranma far more than any of Akane's assaults on him had.
Then she had the nerve to tell me that it didn't matter when I complained about all the work I'd have to do over. I can't believe she said my Sport Studies degree wasn't a real degree.
Ranma scowled at the memory. In his anger he'd asked Akane how she'd feel if she had to do a bunch of work over again. Akane had informed him in a superior tone that his sports degree wasn't a proper course, unlike the ones she was taking in acting.
All her insults and bad cooking and being suspicious for no reason I could live with, but this is different, somehow. It's like, I dunno, it's the real world now and I'm trying to grow up and be responsible and she doesn't seem to care at all. I'm trying to move beyond all that crap we went through as teenagers and she wants to drag it along!
It was Akane's refusal to leave old patterns of behaviour behind that really infuriated Ranma. After actually getting into college he'd begun to hope that his life might actually be changing for the better.
He'd been wrong.
He was still trapped in a web of conflicting honor agreements, his father and Tendo Soun were still trying to decide his fate to suit themselves, Shampoo and Ukyo and even Kodachi were still pursuing him and Akane was still whipping out her mallet on a regular basis. His life was in a definite rut. Actually, Akane had gotten worse, because they were going to different colleges and she was sure he was 'pestering all those poor women with his perverted attentions.'
And there's no way out.
Kami I'm tired.
The previous evening Ranma had gotten home just in time to find out that Akane had cooked dinner. Telling her he wasn't hungry, even without mentioning it was because the smell of the meal she'd prepared had killed his appetite, apparently qualified as an insult to her.
So out came the mallet.
And then Soun had declared he wasn't welcome under their roof tonight, so it had been sleep outside time. Ranma had come to suspect that Soun's overreactions in such situations were a deliberate attempt to sap his will for standing up to Akane. That realisation had only strengthened his willingness not to simply give in to her point of view, however skewed it might be. The Saotome and Tendo patriarchs might think that a marriage which was peaceful solely because one member allowed the other to get their way no matter what was wedded bliss, but Ranma disagreed. And with Kasumi married to Doctor Tofu, Nabiki boarding at her college and his mother still living in the family home there was no longer anyone around who might have been willing or able to defuse tense situations. He and Akane were arguing more than they ever had. So now here he was, trudging towards college, tired, miserable and running late.
And so caught up in his personal problems that he wasn't looking where he was going.
"Ow!"
"Oh my, are you alright?"
Ranma looked around to see a stooped old woman with graying hair and kindly brown eyes looking at him with concern. Dazedly Ranma raised a hand to his forehead and felt a wet stickiness that he recognised as blood. Looking up Ranma saw that he'd hit his head on a low-hanging sign outside a shop of some kind.
"I'm fine," he muttered absently.
"I don't think you are," she disagreed, taking hold of his elbow and ushering him inside the shop with a familiarity that suggested it was hers.
"Now you just sit down there and I'll bring you a nice cup of tea and something to clean up that blood," she told Ranma firmly as she pushed him down into a comfortable, though somewhat tattered armchair and headed into the rear of the small building. The bemused martial artist looked around curiously as he waited for the elderly woman to return and decided that he was in some kind of antiques shop. The place was filled to bursting with old, dusty pieces of furniture and weird looking knock-knacks.
"Here we go," the grey haired shop owner declared as she came bustling back into the main room holding a tray with a teapot and two cups on it, "this will make you feel better."
"Thanks," Ranma told her. "Ah . . . could you tell me your name?" he asked, feeling a little embarrassed.
"Everyone calls me Chiyo, Ranma-kun," she told him with a smile as she sat down in a wooden chair near his armchair and placed the tray on a side table that stood between them. Reaching into a pocket she pulled out a handkerchief and reached over to start dabbing at the cut on his forehead.
"You seemed awfully distracted," Chiyo commented as she cleaned the cut. "Is something wrong?"
Finished with her ministrations she poured tea for both of them and passed a cup to Ranma.
"What, oh yeah – mmm, this is nice – I've just been having kind of a rough time lately."
"I got that impression," Chiyo murmured sympathetically. "I have a feeling you could use a break from your own life."
Ranma laughed, not realising just how bitter he sounded.
"Ha! You can say that again," he replied.
"Hmmm. That bad?"
"Worse," Ranma replied, launching into the story of his life without considering the strangeness of revealing so much to a complete stranger. He spoke for the better part of an hour and when he was finished Chiyo looked at him with an expression that mixed astonishment.
"Yeah, I know," Ranma told her, having interpreted her expression correctly. My life is pretty weird.
"Weird is not the word I'd use, young man," Chiyo told him wryly, "but as it happens I may be able to help. Wait here."
Ranma frowned as Chiyo disappeared into the store's cluttered depths.
What have I gotten myself into now?
She returned less than a minute later, clutching a worn looking paperback in her hands.
"Here, Ranma-san," she told him, "I want you to have this."
Ranma took the novel gingerly, his brow furrowing as he read the title.
"A Nice Normal Life? What's it about?"
"Exactly what the title says," Chiyo replied, sounding a little smug. "I think you'll really like it."
"Huh. Well . . . thanks, Chiyo-san. That's . . . wait, what time is it?" Ranma asked, suddenly panicky as he remembered that he'd already been late for his first lecture. Chiyo looked at her watch.
"About a quarter to eleven, why do-"
"Ahhhh! I'm-sorry-Chiyo-san-but-I-really-have-to-go-thanks-for-everything-bye!" Ranma exclaimed as he jumped up, put the novel in his backpack and headed for the door. Chiyo shook her head fondly as she watched him leave.
"I hope you find what you're looking for, Ranma," she murmured.
Ranma's heart sank as he approached the Tendo Dojo that evening. Since Kasumi and Nabiki had left some of the energy had gone out of the place and whatever issues that kept his parents from living under the same roof also meant there was no-one really looking after the Tendo home. Kasumi's weekly visits weren't really enough and the place was starting to look decidedly shabby. All in all, not an appealing place to return home to after a bad day. He'd been taken to task by his lecturer for being late that morning and a run in with Mousse on the way home had given him a few new bruises. Now it was looking like that wouldn't be the last problem he faced today.
THUD, THUD, CRASH!
THUD, THUD, CRASH!
THUD, THUD, CRASH!
The sound of Akane breaking bricks in the front yard was audible from halfway down the street, a sure sign that she was in a particularly bad mood.
I'm not even gonna try to talk to her tonight, Ranma decided suddenly, I''ll just go around the back, get something to eat and go up to my room. Yeah, that's a good plan.
Ranma got as far as the back door of the house before his plan fell apart.
"And where do you think you're going?" he heard Akane's voice asking behind him. Ranma swore under his breath as he turned around.
I shoulda been quieter. Nah, forget that, I should used the umisenken.
"Hey Akane. What's up?"
"What's up? WHAT'S UP?"
"That's what I said."
"You JERK! You've been fooling around with this Miyuki floozy behind my back! THAT'S WHAT!"
Ranma put his hand to his forehead and tried very hard to stay calm. Of all the people who could have called him at home, Miyuki was the worst. Not that she wasn't a nice girl, she was just . . . friendly. Friendly and effusive. Ranma was just glad that Akane never visited him on campus. Miyuki was always bugging him for lecture notes or help on an assignment or something and she didn't care much about personal boundaries. It didn't mean anything to her – hell, she had a boyfriend of her own, but the kami only knew what Akane would have made of it. And now she'd called him at home. She didn't know anything about his personal life, so he shuddered to think how that conversation had gone with Akane at the other end of the line.
I should not have given her my number, Ranma reflected, knowing that this was another example of a mistake he'd recognised too late to do anything about.
"She's just someone I know from college, Akane," Ranma said, hoping against hope that Genma and Soun were out.
"Oh like I believe that," Akane spat, before she stormed past him and headed inside.
The worst thing, Ranma decided as he followed her in, isn't even that she misjudges me, or that she won't listen to me. The worst thing is that I think I don't even care anymore.
It was not a happy thought.
Hey, this is pretty good, Ranma thought as he turned another page of A Nice Normal Life. After dinner, which he'd cooked for himself, as he usually did these days, Ranma had retreated to his room to study. When he dumped the contents of his backpack onto the floor the novel Chiyo-san had given him had fallen out as well. Deciding that he needed to relax after his latest argument with Akane Ranma had picked it up to see if it was any good. After five minutes he was hooked. He couldn't have said what it was about the story hat he liked so much. Nothing really seemed to be happening and the characters were fairly dull, even if the writing was good. It was just pleasant to read for some reason. Yawning, Ranma realized it had gotten late while he'd been absorbed in the story.
"Time to turn in I guess," he observed.
Thinking about the day he'd had – and the fact that he was probably going to have a lot more like it – gave Ranma a strange thought as he lay down on his futon and dragged the covers over himself.
Sometimes, he thought, it might be nice to have a plain old ordinary life like the characters in that book.
Ranma had left A Nice Normal Life lying open to the last page he'd read. In the early hours of the morning the letters began to glow with a soft, silvery grey light. The glow strengthened and for a moment flashed so bright it lit Ranma's room like day, then vanished.
As did Ranma.
"You're going to be late, you idiot!" Akane exclaimed as she barged into Ranma's room later in the morning of the same day.
"Alright, where is he," Akane grumbled when she saw that his futon was empty. When yelling his name at the top of her voice got no answer and a quick look around the house revealed no trace of him she assumed that he'd already left for college.
If Akane had looked down she might have noticed the worn paperback lying on the floor. The title now read: Ranma Saotome's Nice Normal Life.