Chapter Text
The day everything changed started out like any other.
They woke up. Ate breakfast. Began their walk to school.
Halfway there, she said his name.
“Ranma.”
He looked down at her, from where he had been walking along the top of the fence. She had stopped on the sidewalk and was staring up at him, clutching her schoolbag in front of her with both hands. Her eyes were wide and her mouth seemed thin. Something serious was happening, which made him nervous.
He crouched down, resting his elbows on his knees.
“What’s up?”
“I don’t want to go to school today.”
“What?”
“I want to go to the beach. Will you come with me?”
He raised one eyebrow. Looked around. It was still the middle of spring, and the sky was white with clouds. She was still wearing the long sleeved version of her school uniform, and he was wearing his long sleeved mandarin shirt.
“It’s kinda cold for the beach, isn’t it?”
“I know. But—” She hesitated. Bit her bottom lip. “Please?”
Something was wrong. He could feel it in his spine. Normally he would want to argue, tell her it was a stupid idea. But she was looking up at him, and her eyes were shining, and she wasn’t smiling.
“All right.”
They turned down the next corner and headed for the train station. She was quiet on the train ride, even though he had a hundred questions. A thousand questions. She never wanted to skip school. She was such a good student.
Most of the shops at the seaside were still closed, not yet open for the season. The wood of the boardwalk was warped and in disrepair. The wind here was more blustery, blowing the hem of her skirt around as she stepped out onto the sand. She had taken off her shoes and socks, letting them dangle from the fingers of one hand. He took off his own shoes, burying his toes into the sand, feeling each individual grain as they flowed over his skin.
She took a seat, only ten feet from where the waves met the shore. Wind blew her hair into the sides of her face, and she futilely tried to tuck it behind her ears. He took a seat next to her, bending his knees, resting his forearms on top.
“So are you gonna tell me what’s going on?”
“I just wanted a day at the beach, that’s all.”
His heart felt tight. Fear was clouding his brain. Maybe she had finally gotten sick of him. Tired of all the misery he had put her through. This was it. She was going to break up with him, for good, and he would deserve it.
“Listen, just come out and say it—”
“Ranma. Can we just talk for a bit?”
“About what?”
“Anything. Anything! Tell me—tell me about when you were a kid. Where’s the best place you and your dad ever went?”
“I—” He tried to think. She seemed genuine. He told her about a waterfall they had found in the mountains of Hokkaido when he was ten years old. She smiled as he talked, asking questions, laughing if he said something funny. After a while, it felt like it did during all the good times they had together, when they could make easy conversation without someone coming along and interrupting it.
He tried to ask her similar questions, but she would deflect. Just wanting to know more about him. But she already knew plenty, and he ran out of material quickly.
“That’s okay,” she said. “I’d like to hear it again.”
He repeated stories. Stories he knew that she knew, stories of events she had been present for. And she seemed so happy. Just kept smiling. The smile that he had dreamed of since the very first day they met. Maybe things were all right after all.
It was nearly lunchtime when she stood, stretched, and started walking back up the beach. They ate lunch together at one of the few places that were open, a dinky ramen shop where the food was unpredictably delicious. Afterwards, they walked a little down the boardwalk, which was otherwise deserted.
At one point she paused, leaned her arms against the railing, looked out over the sea. He did the same, right next to her.
“Ranma.”
“What is it?”
“Can I ask you a favor?”
“What is it?”
She turned to face him. There those eyes were again, warm and full of tears that weren't falling.
“Would you kiss me?”
“What—what—what—”
He was blushing. His shoulders tensed up, his hands out, his fingers spread apart.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I know you don’t want to. I just—please. As a favor.”
He wanted to. He had always wanted to. But here? In public?
But there was no one else around. No one even knew where they were.
“I do. Want to. It’s just—”
“Just what?”
“I don’t know why you’re asking now.”
“I just want one day. One day of peace. Here at the beach. With you. So, please, Ranma.”
He couldn’t tell her no. Not right here. Not after everything they had been through.
Trembling, he placed his hands on her shoulders. Leaned down.
He expected something to happen. A punch from a rival suitor. An errant volleyball striking him in the head. A sudden tsunami washing them away.
There was none of that. Only them, and the wind.
Their lips touched. Lightly at first. Then when he realized that it was actually happening, that it was real, that nothing was stopping them, he pressed forward, wrapping his arms around her back as she put hers around his neck.
He didn’t know it then, but that would be the last time they kissed in her life.
They parted. She looked up at him, still holding onto his neck, smiling, still not letting the tears fall.
“Thank you.”
“You’re welcome,” he replied stupidly. He wanted to do it again. Again and again and again. He was mad at himself for never having done it before. He didn’t want to let her go.
But she pulled away. Walked back down to the beach. Only made it a few feet before she sunk down into the sand, pulling her knees up to her chest and burying her face in her arms.
He followed after her. Sat next to her again.
“Please tell me what’s wrong.”
She didn’t look up.
“Ranma.”
He could see her bury her fingers into the sleeves of her dress, clutching tightly at her arms.
“Ranma, don’t be so kind to me.”
“I don’t get it. You want me to be mean to you?”
“No, I just—I just— She looked up. She was crying now. Letting the tears fall, finally.
“What’s wrong?”
She took a deep breath in. Voice shaking, she said, “I went to the doctor yesterday.”
It was bad news. Very bad news.
He listened. She hadn’t told her father yet. She hadn’t told her sisters yet. Only Ranma, and only just now.
He didn’t know what to say. He put his arm around her as the sobs wracked her body. She screamed into the wind. He wanted to scream with her, but he knew she needed him to be strong. But he didn’t know how long he could be strong.
That was his job, though. To be the strong one. It always had been. He would be strong for her. There wasn’t anything else he could do. This wasn’t a monster he could fight.
He held her hand on the train.
He surprised himself when he asked her, “Do you want to get married?”
“No.”
The answer came almost instantly. He felt a little heartbroken.
“Oh.”
“Just because--I don’t want to get married just because I’m sick.”
She could be stupid sometimes.
“Okay then,” he said. “When you get better though?”
She smiled weakly, staring straight ahead. “When I get better.”
She never got better.
She got weaker and weaker. It wasn’t long until she was nothing but skin and bones, her hair falling out, her face hollow and tired constantly. She wanted to stay at home, until the end, like her mom had. He and her sisters took turns caring for her, even as things grew harder.
She made him promise that when she was gone, he would look after her family. He promised he would try his best, but he didn’t know what he would be able to do for them.
He didn’t know what happened to the other girls, the ones that had fought for his affection so hard. They seemed to fade away, perhaps out of shame, or realizing that he was truly devoted to one person only and would never bother to give them the time of day.
The last day, it was his turn to check on her. He had knocked on her door, opened it, tried to give her a cheery greeting, tease her a bit. But she was barely breathing. He held her, cried. Screamed her name over and over.
And then he felt her life pass out of her. Her body go still.
Her family was there, but he was selfish. He didn’t want to let her go. It wasn’t until her oldest sister placed her hand on his shoulder that he looked up, saw that she looked as heartbroken as he was, that he finally loosened his grip. Let her family mourn as he crumpled to the bedroom floor, his mother rubbing his back.
He didn’t leave his bed for weeks. Only for her wake, and then the funeral the following day. Her family was similar, her sisters staying secluded in their rooms, her father not leaving his. And her father, for once, wasn’t crying at her services. He looked lost, his eyes far away. His wife, and now his daughter. Both gone the same way.
It was his own mother that held the house together, and surprisingly, his father. His mother cooked them meals that they mostly didn’t eat. His father, helping with the housework, however poorly. Slowly, they all seemed to heal together. Eventually they all were eating their meals together in the living room, attempting to make conversation.
He was always silent. The seat next to him was always empty.
On the forty-ninth day, they interred her ashes. And he knew he had to leave.
“I’ll come back,” he told them. “I’ll visit. I’m not leaving forever.”
His mother begged him not to. It hurt to refuse her, but he couldn’t explain how he just couldn’t be there anymore. How he couldn’t live there anymore. Without her, the house was empty, no matter how many people lived there.
He did come back, over the years. His parents moved out into a place of their own. Her eldest sister got married, had children. Her other sister went to university, became a successful businesswoman. They always seemed glad to see him, when he came around. Even her father.
It had been nearly six years since she died when on one of his visits back, he asked her father about the dojo. He had shut it up, simply saying that it was his daughter’s place, where he had trained her and raised her to be a brave and strong martial artist.
Ranma wanted to open it again. Wanted to teach classes, train new students. Her father refused. There was no point to carry on their school without her.
He left again. He ran into an old friend, on the road, several times. A boy that had loved her nearly as much as he did. His friend moved on, though. With another girl, they got married, and he went to their wedding. Put on a happy face. Tried to be strong. Made it the whole way through and didn’t cry once until he got back to his hotel room.
She would have wanted him to be happy. She would have danced with him at that wedding.
As he neared thirty, he got tired. He rented a small, tiny really, apartment above a restaurant where he picked up work as a fry cook and bar back. He went to work. Drank a lot at the end of every shift. Would climb the stairs to his apartment, drink more if he had beer in his house, and pass out. And do it all over again the next day.
Until one day, when everything changed again.