Subject: [Ranma][Repost]Wasurerarenai, part 9

From: Emily Siazon <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 11 Oct 1997 13:29:55 -0400

"WASURERARENAI"(Unforgettable)
An alternative reality fic by Emily Siazon.
All characters are owned by Rumiko Takahashi.
< > are thoughts
// person talking on the phone
**********************************************************************

Chapter 9
*********

     Ryoga Hibiki frowned as he saw the huge forest before him. Now,
how did he get here? He could have sworn that when he went to sleep
last night that he was just at the edges of Tokyo.
 
     An hour of walking couldn't have taken him here, could it?

     Damn it. Of all the times he had to get hopelessly lost. He had
been looking forward to finally beating his old junior high
classmate, but it didn't look like it was going to happen anytime
soon.

     He punched a nearby tree and started to walk away. This was
somehow Ranma's fault. He was sure of it.

     Ryoga wouldn't be surprised if the jerk had planted the whole
forest while he slept to keep from getting pounded.

     He unknowingly started to walk back towards the forest, too
intent on getting his revenge to notice.

     "RANMA, YOU COWARD!"

                     *        *       *

     Ranma skipped a stone impatiently as he waited for his new
opponent to show up. He had been waiting for fifteen minutes and he
was starting to think that the guy wasn't going to show.

     <Hmph. If I knew this was going to happen, I would have stayed
for lunch.> Whatever further thoughts he had of the missed meal was
rudely interrupted by the sound of branches rustling as someone made
their way towards him.

     Ranma narrowed his eyes and stood up, waiting for his adversary
to come out and fight.

     He was about to attack when Akane emerged from the clearing.

     "W-what are you doing here?"

     "Didn't you get my letter?" she asked, running a hand through
her windblown hair while placing the heavy basket she was carrying
onto the ground.

     "You sent that?"

     "Mm-hm," Akane answered with a smile as she laid out the food she
had brought with her, careful not get the red sundress she had bought
for the occasion dirty.

     Ranma didn't notice the extra care she put into looking
presentable; he was too busy trying to figure out why he felt like
something was amiss.

     "Oh, by the way, where's Ryoga?"

     "Huh?"

     "Did you even glance at the letter I sent you?" she asked,
exasperated. "I invited the two of you here because I wanted to thank
you for all your help this week. It's too bad Kodachi got a concussion
when I accidentally hit her with P-chan, though. It would have been
an interesting fight."

     "Yeah."

     "Anyway, I hope she's okay," Akane continued as she placed some
of the sukiyaki she had brought with her on his plate.

     A look of horror appeared on Ranma's face when he finally
realized why he felt like he was in danger. She was feeding him, which
meant that she had probably cooked what was on his plate.

     Fortunately for him, Akane didn't notice his expression, since
she was busy piling food on her plate. She did, however, notice that
he wasn't eating. "Aren't you hungry?"

     He was about to say no when his stomach chose that moment to
announce just how empty it was with a loud growl. "Traitor," he
muttered while he looked down on his abdomen.

     "Did you say something?"

     He quickly snapped his head back up and blushed slightly. "Uh,
no. O-of course not! Say, how did you find out about this place,
anyways?" he asked, quickly changing the subject.

     "I found it on my second day in Nerima. I go here whenever I feel
like being alone."

     "Why did you want to meet here, then?"

     "I wanted someone to share it with."

     They sat in companionable silence for the next couple of minutes.
Akane finished the rest of her late lunch, while Ranma watched her
from the corner of his eyes.

     Finally convinced that the meal wasn't going to kill him, he
also started to eat the contents of his bowl.

     "You know what this reminds me of?" he asked in between bites.

     "What?"

     "It reminds me of the first time I saw the ocean. It was early
on in my training trip with pop. He said we were going there so he
could teach me some kind of technique." He laughed as more memories
of that day flooded his mind. "It was real early in the morning when
we got there. The sun hadn't risen yet so the water was this
beautiful shade of dark blue."

     He looked over at Akane, who seemed mesmerized at his colorful
description. "The color was almost as pretty as your hair."

     "Stop lying," she yelled, blushing furiously while playfully
punching his arm.

     "It's true. Pop never did teach me anything that day. I spent
it wading in the water and burying him while he pretended to have
fallen asleep."

     "It's sounds wonderful," Akane stated wistfully. " I wish I
could go there."

     "You mean you've never seen it?"

     "No. This is the first time I can remember being out of
Ryugenzawa."

     "Then I guess I'll have to take you."

     "What?!"

     "Two weeks from now. I'll show you the ocean."

                         *       *       *

     //Don't forget about it. do you hear me?//

     "Yes, I hear you," Shinnosuke answered, rolling his eyes as he
listened to his grandfather repeat the same thing for the hundredth
time that hour. "I really have to go to the bathroom..."

     //Just make sure you don't...//

     "Forget. I know. Stop worrying, will you?"

    //All right, then. I guess I've repeated myself enough,//
Grandpa said a bit reluctantly. With the boy's memory, he honestly
didn't think anything short of tattooing it on his grandson's
forehead will make him remember.

     "Honestly, what kind of idiot does he take me for?" Shinnosuke
grumbled after he sat down the phone and started to walk down the
hall.

     He glanced up at the midday sun as he passed by the window
and started a conversation with it that worried more than a few of
the pedestrians. "Can you believe it? He doesn't think I can
remember something as simple as... as... What did he want me to
remember again?"

                        *       *        *

     When Akane had managed to stop gaping at him, Ranma noticed that
the sun's glare, which he normally encountered when talking to her
during the day, wasn't there.

     He looked for the culprit, the delicate necklace she always wore,
and was surprised to find that it was gone.

     "Hey, since when did you leave home without it?"

     "Huh?"

     "Your necklace. I thought it was superglued to your neck."

     Akane let out a horrified gasp when she reached for it and
noticed that it was indeed gone.

     "No," she said, her voice so low that Ranma had to lean forward
to hear it. "It can't be!" This time, her voice was much louder and
Ranma was forced to move away a couple of feet to regain his hearing.

     "Geez, Akane," he complained while gingerly rubbing his ears.
"There's no need to freak..."

     "I'm sorry. It's... It's just that, it's very important to me."

     Before she could run off in a state of panic, he grabbed her by
the arm and tried his best to look confident. "Don't worry. We'll
find it."

                         *        *        *

     Ranma had lost his positive attitude as he made his way back
to the river side a couple of hours later. They had spent the whole
afternoon looking for Akane's necklace and they were no closer to
finding it.

     Irritably brushing away a nearby branch, he almost ran into her
motionless form.

     Akane was sitting on the riverbank, her arms wrapped around her
legs as she stared at the water, unseeing. Not once did she appear
to notice the fiery red of the setting sun, or the kaleidoscope of
colors in the tears that gently rolled off her cheeks.

     Ranma could only stare, mesmerized as the fading light
accentuated the deep blue of her hair, the same color as the ocean
at dawn. The cool breeze tousling it only enhanced the image,
ruffling her hair in such a way that it looked like waves.

     Tentatively, he placed a hand on her shoulder and sat down
beside her.

     "W-why is it so important to you?"

     "It was a present from my mother. I-I promised to take care of
it for her." She laughed, but it was so filled with self-loathing
that for a moment, Ranma wasn't sure it came from her. "I couldn't
even do that, could I?"

     He wiped away her tears while trying to hold back the moisture
from his eyes that threatened to overflow. "That's not true," he
whispered. "It wasn't your fault."

     "It was. That necklace was one of my last remaining links to
my real family, and now..." Suddenly feeling overwhelmed by the
day's events, she grabbed his outstretched arm and held on to it,
never wanting to let go. "Now I feel like I've lost them forever."

                   *        *        *

     Kasumi Tendo hummed a catchy tune as she prepared dinner. If
someone had looked closely, they would have noticed that she was a
bit distracted, her thought on what had happened at the clinic
earlier.

     <He's so silly,> she smiled, remembering some of Dr. Tofu's
antics, like dancing around his office with the plastic skeleton he
had named Betty.

     Her thoughts of the handsome young doctor were disappointingly
cut short when Ranma entered the kitchen.

     He looked a bit preoccupied and only waved at her half-heartedly
on his way to the living room.

     "Ranma, dinner is almost ready. Can you please call father in?
He's at the family altar."

     "Hmm? Uh, sure."

                        *        *        *

     Ranma, seeing the shoji screen partly open, entered the room
without knocking. He found Soun kneeling on the floor, unusually calm
as he talked to his deceased wife.

     Ranma blushed at having intruded on something so personal. "I'm
sorry. I didn't mean to be rude, but Kasumi wanted you to know that
dinner's almost ready."

     "No, it's all right. I was just leaving."

     Ranma was about to follow when a familiar shade of blue caught
his eye. He walked back towards the row of pictures and quickly found
the face that had always made him happy and terribly insecure at the
same time. It was a picture of Akane.

     She still had long hair in the photograph. The contented smile
on her face was a painful contrast to her expression earlier.

     She looked like she didn't have a care in the world. A look he
knew he would do anything to see again.

     Ranma didn't know how long he stood in the room, his index finger
tracing her face, never wanting to forget that image of her.

     The sound of someone clearing their throat informed him that he
was no longer alone. He placed the photograph back down and but didn't
turn around to face Kasumi.

     "What is Akane's picture doing here?"

     "What?" she asked, sounding perplexed.

     "Her picture."

     Kasumi walked in and looked at the picture he was pointing at.
"That's not Akane."

     Seeing his bewildered expression, she decided to elaborate. "It
was a picture of my mother before she... left. I guess it's the main
reason why we like having Akane over so much. It's like having mother
back with us, even for a little while."

     Not wanting to see Kasumi get depressed, Ranma decided to change
the subject by pointing at the other smiling face in the picture.

     "Who is she? She's a very cute girl."

     "That was my other sister. She died shortly after mother did."

     "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to..."

     "No, it's okay. It was about time I told someone this, anyway."
Kasumi took a deep breath and started her story.

     "It was a couple of weeks after mother died. Father was a wreck,
so all the responsibilities of taking care of the household went to
me. A relative of ours suggested that it might be a good idea to go on
vacation, so we could find time to cope."

     "Shortly after we got there, my sisters started to ask where
mother was." She looked pleadingly at Ranma, as if begging him to
understand. "Father was starting to get hysterical again, so I
explained to them that mother was dead. She was never going to come
back to us. I-I should have known that they were too young."

     "My youngest sister ran off, crying. She called me a liar and
said she didn't want to see me again. I tried to catch up, but she was
too fast..."

                       *        *        *

     A couple of hours after dinner had ended, a much calmer Kasumi
was getting ready for bed. After years of keeping those fears and
anxieties bottled up, it felt good to finally let it go, secure in the
knowledge that what had happened was an unfortunately unavoidable
confrontation, and that the whole thing wasn't her fault.

     Kasumi was about to walk towards the dresser when she noticed a
very tired looking piglet she recognized as Akane's pet wander into
her room.

     "P-chan, what are you doing here?"

      She quickly scooped it up before it could run off and was
about to head next door when she noticed that all the lights were out.

      "I guess you're staying with me tonight," she informed the
piglet before she sat back down and continued to brush her hair,
carefully putting P-chan right next to her.

      Her mind automatically wandered from the mundane task, and she
couldn't help but think of the tender look Ranma had given the
photograph. She had never seen him so happy and was a bit ashamed that
part of her was envious that he had found someone.

      Her brushing slowed to a stop as she wondered aloud, "Do you
think anyone could ever love me like that, P-chan?"

     Whatever answer she was waiting for never came forth. The piglet
was already fast asleep.

**********************************************************************
AUTHORS NOTES: This chapter was supposed to be totally serious, but I
couldn't help myself ^_^
Now that this chapter is done, maybe I can finally read through my
huge backlog of mail. Then again, I just managed to harass one of my
friends to lend me his EVA tape, so... ^_^
I'd like to thank Scott for prereading this for me and Gary for the
help with the grammar stuff. Remember, with only one c&c per fic, you
too can help my ego grow. So please, send those comments now ^_^