Disclaimer: Let me tell you story. *takes a drag on my cigarette* So one morning, my friend (whose name might possibly begin with an R and end with an Yoga Hibiki, but who's asking) and I decided we weren't going to do anything that morning until we had a thousand brown M&M's in a wine glass. So we were told of a little sweet shop down the street. Well, little did we know, it was guarded by a bengal tiger. We took care of THAT fine, but the owner and his son were a different story. . . *gazes out the window* . . . I had to beat them to death with their own shoes. . .

. . .

. . . anyway, we got the M&M's fine, and the rest of the day was just. . . peachy.

Oh, and if you're wondering, no I don't own these characters. ^_^

Rating: Nice and G. People who know me well, run. Run as fast as you damn well can.

Author's Notes: This is a bit of a deviation from me, as this centres around Ranma and Akane. I hope you guys like this. . . Firewind, I know you do. ^_~ Kudos to you for listening to my endless jargon and babble. Danke. ^_^

Summary: Ranma finally gets up the nerve to tell Akane, once and for all, how he really feels. . .

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Honesty is the Best Policy

~*~

He sat on the wooden floor of the dojo, fiddling with the fabric of his pants. Biting his lip, he looked anxiously from the doorway, to the ceiling, back to his pants, then to the door once more. While the sliding paper door held just a smidgen more interest to him than the cloth covering his legs, it still didn't quite do the trick. She wasn't here yet. He had told her to meet him here, but still. . .

Pulling his pigtail down, he played with it, as he normally did when he became so utterly overcome with nervousness; and as he would tell you, it wasn't that often it happened. He found his feet bringing him around the dojo, pacing, trying to expend some sort of energy as he awaited her arrival.

Ranma Saotome had faced many things in his life; crazed martial artists were most common, but there were all these different types of them. There was the rival, which he had many; the fiancee, again, which he had many of as well, although the latching onto-ness of it all was usually exponential in number to that of the previously mentioned rival. Oh yeah, there were also insane dictators, magical people. . . actually, anybody he's ever met who's Chinese, for that matter. I mean, he really had nothing against Chinese people in general (you couldn't by their sheer numbers alone), because damn when you had some of that dim sum or chow mein, you just can't stop! Sure, the MSG was a big factor, and maybe it's not pork or chicken on your fork but a fat Siamese cat, but they deep fry it so you can't tell. Tasted good, anyway. Chickity China, the Chinese chicken, ya have a drumstick and your brain stops tickin'. . .

"Ranma?"

Damn their Chinese tricks once more! They had filled Ranma's brain with the thought of their savoury food so much that he hadn't even realized she'd entered the dojo with him! He jumped up at the sound of her voice, scuttling very much like a crab with mental issues to the other side of the room.

Akane Tendo blinked a couple of times, looking at him with a shocked and slightly bemused expression. He'd been acting so jumpy around her lately, she wondered what was up with him. Then, he tells her to meet him in their dojo and to make sure she was alone. Most girls of this day and age would have assumed the worst in such a situation, like having a strange man with long hair and the Nazi swastika tattooed on their forehead asking you to come to a secluded part of the mall with them.

Sure, it had only happened *once* to her, but still.

The blue haired girl shook her head. Clearing her mind of such random distractions, she focused on Ranma, who had called her to the dojo with a purpose in mind. Whatever that purpose may be, she would find out. Akane coughed politely once. She would handle this with dignity, and feminine grace.

"Ranma you jerk! Why'd you call me out here? It's getting late, and I have homework to do, you stupid idiot!"

Yes. That sounded about right. She always managed to deal with Ranma on a certain level of tactful elegance; why he never saw it was anyone's guess, however, that was not the topic at hand. Speaking of which, said martial artist was now inching closer towards Akane at the very moment.

"Um, yeah, about that," Ranma began, looking in every possible direction except Akane's, "it's, uh, just that I have to say something to ya." He paused his somewhat erratic movements, just for a moment, and he forced himself to look at Akane. The girl looked a bit perplexed; although, based on previous experiences, this was not an uncommon look for her.

Ah, sweet, sweet, awkward silence, how we loathe thee.

". . . and?" Akane prodded. She noticed that Ranma was doing an applause-worthy impression of a fish flopping about on land with no hope of returning to water as he, doing what he does when he wants to avoid something or isn't quite complacent about a situation, scurried about the room, jumping on walls, did push-ups, etc.

"Stop that!" she yelled, stomping over to Ranma, bringing down the ever popular Mallet of Doom upon his head, to cease and desist his ridiculous actions. Oh, and how he did sprawl on the floor, like some sort of person attempting to become a piece of abstract art, but failing miserably. Grumbling under his breath, he glanced up at Akane, rubbing his head where a welt was merrily forming.

Akane was absurdly close to his face, their noses almost touching. Ranma's eyes locked with Akane's; for the first time, he noticed that they were the sort of colour a person gets when they're painting their room, and they have all these different kinds of paints, and then they run out of paint so they mix the little bits of paint they have left from their other cans into one can to make some sort of SUPER PAINT that turns out to be this weird, sluggish, grey colour. Not smokey grey, not cobalt grey, but some sort of off-grey that was, now that he examined it, stupendously ugly.

Despite this, both their faces became a fetching shade of beet red, and they quickly turned away from each other.

"S-so, what did you, ah, wanna tell me?" Akane inquired once more, however in a severely less violent tone. In fact, the blushing girl sounded almost meek.

'Do it Ranma. You called her out here, and you knew she was gonna come. Stop acting like a complete idiot, and just tell her! You can do it!' yelled the little voices of cheerleaders living inside his brain.

"Rah rah. Rah. . ." he mumbled to himself. Taking a deep breath and steadying his shaking nerves, he took his imaginary cheerleader's words to heart, and once again turned his head to look at the girl before him. With her face slightly bowed, she really did look pretty. Gulping once, exhaling breath, and steeling himself, he knew it was going to be done.

"Akane, I have to tell you this!" he exclaimed, grabbing her shoulders in a soft-yet-insistent way. Although a bit taken aback, Akane decided not to lash out in her usual manner. Whatever Ranma wanted to tell her, he was very serious about it.

'Could it be that Ranma. . .?' she thought, her paint-can eyes beginning to feel a little moisture prick at them. After all this time, could he honestly be trying to say what she'd been thinking he'd been thinking but trying to say yet unable to so she thought? Akane gasped, almost inaudibly, at the thought running through her mind.

"Akane," he began, forcing his gaze to keep that of the girl's before him, "this is really important. I need you to listen to this, okay?"

"Okay. . ." she replied, in something of a daze. 'He's going to say it! He's going to actually say it! All the times I've beaten on him have finally paid off!'

"We've had a lot of interesting times together, and I know we haven't always communicated real well. Others always got in the way, and I guess I was just - well, afraid." At this, he let go of her shoulders, looking down slightly.

"Oh Ranma. . ."

"But I can't run from this anymore! I've been a coward and a fool, Akane. I've said and done things that I never ever meant, and, well, I want to set the record straight, once and for all," he proclaimed. Akane felt herself freeze up completely. This was what she was waiting for; finally, he was actually going to say those three little words!

"Oh Ranma. . ." she breathed, looking at the handsome boy before her. She licked her lips in anticipation, awaiting his next words.

Ranma inhaled deeply. Sparkling blue eyes met dull, paint-canny grey ones.

"Akane, I. . ."

"Yes. . .?

"I. . ."

"Yes??"

"I. . .!"

"YES?!?"

"I HATE YOU!"

Now this was a shock. Akane stood there, completely shocked by what he had just said. Did he just say that?? No, no he couldn't have. It was a mistake! She heard wrong! Of course that was it.

"Wh. . . what?" she asked, in something of a dazed state. Ranma glared at Akane intensely, biting his lip, his hands balling into fists.

"I said I hate you Akane!! I loathe you, I detest you, I would rather chew on tin foil and drop bowling balls on my feet than spend time with you! I've always hated you, and it hasn't changed, despite what Mr. Tendo and my stupid old man thinks!!" he yelled, breathing heavily. After his tirade, he looked as if some sort of great weight had been lifted from his chest.

Now, on Akane's part, she certainly was NOT expecting this. Ranma could *not* hate her; someone was putting him up to this, like that hussy Shampoo, or that insane Kodachi. . . yes. . . it was someone else's fault! Why would Ranma hate her, Akane, his fiancee, the one who was always looking out for him?

"You don't know what you're saying!" she cried, sounding helpless, but also beginning to feel that ever-present anger flare up, like a fire that had just been doused with a healthy dosage of gasoline.

"Hell yes I do! Anything I've ever done, you've found something wrong with, for starters. You're controlling, manipulative," he began, counting off Akane's offenses on his fingers, "not to mention selfish, petty, and completely inhumane! You always jump to conclusions, and lay the blame on me, even if I haven't done anything wrong!!" At this, he began stalking forward.

"But Ranma. . .!"

"Then if I try to defend myself, you just hit me to shut me up! Well, not this time! Our engagement is OFF! I hate you!" he shouted, obviously very wound up, but immensely relieved.

The only sound in the dojo for some time was their breathing.

"But. . . what about all those other times! We'd look at each other and blush, a-and when you'd defend me, and," Akane stuttered, trying to find something to cement the love that was between them but Ranma just wasn't seeing, as per usual, "and JUSENDO! What about Jusendo? You said you loved me then!"

"I was distraught! I didn't know what I was saying! Besides, you were all dead and limp in my arms. I thought, maybe if I said that to you and if you came back, you'd at least stop hitting me. . . but no. You never did, did you? You never thought about *my* feelings!"

"I never thought about YOUR feelings?!" Akane screamed back, allowing the anger to overtake her once more, "I always tried to protect you from your other crazy fiancees and rivals!"

"You weren't protecting me! You were just staking ownership on me, like I was some sort of object! You never cared about me, you were just too damn controlling and stubborn to allow me to associate with anyone else. In fact, you've completely turned me off of women - for good!"

Now, despite the fact Akane was, at that moment, very comparable to a raging bull on steroids, that one comment certainly got through to her.

'Turned him off of women? He can't mean. . . no. . . he CAN'T MEAN. . .'

"You. . . you sick, perverted FREAK!" she shrieked, finding her mallet once more, "AND HERE I THOUGHT YOU WERE COMING HERE TO TELL ME YOU LOVE ME!"

"Akane, you've read one too many poorly written WAFF fanfics. And where would you get the idea I love you? Honestly, stupid AND blind. . ." he muttered darkly.

The enraged Akane, her mallet raised, and her sluggishly grey eyes now tinged with a hint of fire, charged at Ranma who, much to his chagrin wasn't looking.

Up, up and away went Ranma, straight through the roof, up into the upper stratosphere of the earth, thanks to a well-placed mallet whack by Akane. She watched him sail upwards, panting heavily, her mind still swimming with anger.

Akane felt safe in the knowledge that NONE of this was her fault. Violent, was she? Pah, only when needed. Controlling? His own damn fault he couldn't control himself around those other hussies! Ignorant? She wouldn't even go into that.

Away she stalked, ready to break down and cry in her room, because she was, as she repeated to herself over and over again, the innocent victim in this scenario.

~*~*~*~*~

Hee. Different, eh? Rushed too. Not to mention inspired by one too many terribly written R/A WAFF fics. Honestly, neither Ranma or Akane are perfect. . . sheesh. Anyway, any sort of review is welcome. ^^

~Chibikat