Chapter Text
“I’m telling you for the last freakin’ time! I don’t want no damn Fiancées!” Ranma bangs his hands against the table and stands up in outrage. Akane does her best to ignore the past half hour of familiar arguing, just trying to focus on dinner. Who cares if Ranma doesn’t want her? Who. the. hell. cares?
Nobody! Nobody cares. Certainly not Akane, no sir!
Genma takes the opportunity to steal some of the katsu from the boy’s plate, talking and eating at the same time. “Now now, son, there’s plenty of time for you and Akane to warm up to each other. She’ll make a wonderful wife for you someday! I’m sure you’ll appreciate your engagement in time!” Soun nods along.
Nabiki sits to the side, filing her nails. “Any other boy would be ecstatic about all the beautiful women clamoring to jump your bones, Saotome.”
Akane is not clamoring to ‘jump his bones’ thank you very much.
The pigtailed boy only seems even more frustrated, fists clenched to his side.
“I don’t care what other boys think, I don’t care if they’re beautiful! I don’t want a wife! I don’t wanna be anyone’s husband! I don’t want any of these stupid engagements! Why can’t anyone understand that!?” He stops for a moment, eyes slightly watery.
“I don’t want Ukyo. I don’t want Shampoo. I don’t want Kodachi. And I definitely don’t want Akane!” Her chopsticks snap. “Why can’t you all just leave me the hell alone!?” Ranma storms out of the room, making sure to stomp as loudly as possible.
Akane grabs a new pair of utensils and continues to eat very calmly. Why wouldn’t she be calm? Whatever Ranma wants is none of her business. They might as well be strangers.
Dad pats Genma on the back. “He’ll understand some day, old friend. Just be patient.”
“I just don’t get it, shouldn’t he be happy? A teenage boy like him should be over the moon…” Genma sulks.
…He really should be, shouldn’t he? She sighs. After over a year of adventure after escapade after scheme, Ranma doesn’t really seem… happy. Especially not with his troupe of fiancées. It’s pretty clear at this point that he holds little love for Shampoo, straight up hates Kodachi, and only sees Ukyo as a good friend. Akane still isn’t quite sure what his feelings for her are, but she doesn’t really think it’s love. It’s hard to deny at this point that he really doesn’t want any of them.
Oh sure, she gets after him constantly. Every time she catches him in the bath with another girl or in some other compromising situation, she beats the hell out of him with a mallet. But Akane is a big girl, and she can admit when she’s wrong. Begrudgingly. Not once has she caught him doing something with another woman and it not be either a coincidence or forced on him.
Not. once.
It almost looks like… well, sometimes it looks like he’s gonna throw up whenever one of them gets too physical with him.
Dad and Genma are both crying and getting weirdly touchy feely again and Kasumi is picking up plates from the table.
Nabiki finishes polishing her nails up, holding them in front of her face and inspecting her own work. Her face screws up a little, like she’s picking apart a particularly difficult puzzle. That’s not a good face for Nabiki to have- it means she’s found something troubling that she doesn’t know how to make money off of yet. Nabiki’s smart, so if there’s something she doesn’t know how to handle? It’s going to be a problem for everyone.
Akane braces for the worst. “Uhm, Nabiki? Something on your mind?”
Dad, Genma, and Kasumi all turn their attention toward the mercenary, just now noticing her dangerous state.
Nabiki just looks at her hand for a few more seconds, probably thinking of how to word this new problem.
“When’s the last time anybody’s seen Ranma, Y’know, actually show interest in a girl?”
The table is silent.
“Any girl? At all? Ever? No magic or stupid bullshit like that?”
Huh. Akane’s brain isn’t quite sure how to process the question. Of course Ranma’s shown interest in girls, right? right? Women are all over him!
She flips through her memories of the boy and digs up… not much? If you don’t count all of the times he’s been fed a love potion, or pounced on in the bath, or forced on a fake date…
Everyone else at the table is similarly wracking their brains for some memory of Ranma not under magical persuasion…
“Ah, well… there was that time… hmm. No, that was blackmail…”
“Oh, what about the time he…! Or, I guess not, that was an attempt at that nannichuan packet…”
“He’s snuck into the women’s locker room several times! …Well, I suppose that was for the Japanese spring… and then for stopping Happosai…”
…No, that can’t be it! Ranma isn’t…
Akane, now that she really thinks about it, remembers exactly one time Ranma showed interest in a girl!
“He called Ukyo cute! W-when Ukyo revealed that she was a girl, Ranma called her cute!”
“That’s it, then? He called Ukyo cute, what, once?” Nabiki doesn’t look convinced. She lets the moment hang for another minute, nobody quite sure what to say. “How many times has Saotome posed as a girl for basically no reason? How many times has Ranma put on a cute dress and grabbed one of his ‘rivals’ for a date instead of literally any other solution, when he avoids even fake dates with girls like the plague?”
Unlike the previous question, Akane’s mind supplies her with a litany of examples of her fiancé dressing up, grabbing a boy by the arm with the happiest little smile, and dragging them off for something. So, so many examples of him dressing up in cute ensembles and bunny suits and putting on make-up and women’s underwear at the drop of a hat.
When he was Yoiko, pretending to be Ryoga’s Fiancée, Ryoga’s girlfriend, Ryoga’s girlfriend again, and again…
That time Ranma went full girl and declared the intent to grab a nice husband.
That one time he declared Ryoga to be his one and only true rival.
Whatever weird secret he and Ryoga are keeping from her, and all the time they spend on the roof at night talking.
…It sure does seem to be Ryoga a lot, huh? Not that he’s the only boy Ranma’s done that sorta stuff with.
Typically, when Ranma is presented with a problem, being a girl is the first thing that he thinks of to solve that problem. When that problem involves a male rival… his first thought is to take that rival on a date about it.
Akane suddenly feels a little stupid. All those times Ranma has vehemently denied any interest in his fiancées…
Both fathers seem to come to the same conclusion as her, and their faces go pale. Kasumi puts a polite hand over her mouth. “Oh my.”
Genma raises a hand slowly. “I did, ah, find Ranma and the Hibiki boy together in the bath once… it was a rather compromising position and I didn’t want to disturb them, so I pretend I never saw it, but… they didn’t come out for some time. I have also, from time to time… seen them exit the bath together since then.” Soun nods his head, confirming that he’s seen something similar.
In hindsight, it makes a lot of sense. It really does. What’s going to happen to the engagement? Shouldn’t Akane be angry? She doesn’t feel as angry as she thinks she should be.
Kasumi looks at Ranma’s father with worry, speaking up for the first time since before the pigtailed boy left the room. Something about Kasumi’s too sweet smile is terrifying, almost threatening. No, definitely threatening. “Mr. Saotome, I do feel like I have a pertinent question given what Nabiki has… brought to light.”
Genma’s posture tightens in fear. “Yes, Kasumi?”
“Would you be willing to accept Ranma in the event that they are attracted to men?” She bluntly asks, not a single minced word.
Everyone at the table is acutely aware that, should Genma answer incorrectly, there will be awful, terrible consequences for the panda man. There’s an audible gulp.
“I… w-well, If that’s what m-makes him happy…” He stutters out.
Kasumi claps her hands together and smiles, the oppressive atmosphere disappearing in an instant. “Wonderful!”
The fiancée wars would certainly be shaken up soon.