All three of the teens completely froze.

Ranko was the first to move, bringing her hand to her mouth in shock. “Akane…!”

Ranko -- no, Ranma couldn’t explain it, but he had an intuitive understanding of how precious a girl’s hair was. Why wouldn’t he? As a man amongst men, he was versed in women’s woes so he could live to serve. That was his role as a man, to make sure no woman would come to harm under his watch. So of course he understood! ...The fact that Ryoga seemed to understand as well, as he was also staying silent, eluded him, though.

“‘Kane…” he repeated, slowly approaching the catatonic girl…

Akane lifted up her hand far above her head.

A sharp slap rang out throughout the park.

Ranma held his hand against his bruised cheek as Akane walked towards a shell-shocked Ryoga.

Another slap.

Akane walked away.

“...We should probably stop fighting,” the bandana boy said.

“Let’s,” Ranma replied. He looked around for a place to sit, and made his way to a bench he spotted, Ryoga following him.

“So… cold water turns you into a… a girl?” his friend asked while sitting down.

“That it does.” Ranma dropped himself into the seat, resting his arm over the back of the bench.

Ryoga choked up. “You’ve always been the lucky one out of us two, huh?”

“‘scuse me?” Ranma asked.

“Don’t play dumb, you know what I mean.” Ryoga replied.

“Yeah, right, what kinda man would wanna be a g—” Ranma stopped himself, remembering Kasumi’s storybook. “Okay, maybe some other guys would wanna be girls, but not me. I’m a man amongst men, y’know!”

“Cast pearls before swine...” Ryoga said, casting his head downwards.

Ranma shrugged. “It’s what it is, Ryoga. I ain’t chose my curse.”

“Can you please not call it a curse?” Ryoga snappily replied, his head still pointed towards the ground.

Ranma squinted, bending forward to try to catch a glance of his friend’s face. Was he… crying? His heart swelled with memories of the two of them curled up against a wall, somewhere in Matsuburi Buta Junior High. Talking about how girls had it easier, or something of that nature. Typical teenage boy thoughts, but… Well, had it meant something deeper for Ryoga? “I’m sorry if the question is weird,” he started with a soft tone, trying to comfort his friend, “but do you wish you were a girl?”

Ryoga jolted out of his seat, the pupils in his eyes narrowing. “What!? No! Why would I want that!?” He breathed in and out a few times, looking away with the barest hint of a blush on his face. “I mean, more than anybody else that is. Like, who isn’t curious?”

“That is fair enough.” Ranma relaxed himself back into his earlier position. “I still couldn’t tell ya if I’m honest. Like, even with the girl body I got Pops and my fiancée treating me like a boy, sometimes it’s like the only thing that's changed is my hair color.”

“Fiancée?” Ryoga asked, turning his head towards Ranma.

“Akane, who, huh… just stomped off since her hair got cut.” Ranma and Ryoga exchanged a guilty glance, staying silent for a few moments. “Didn’t choose it. ‘nother of Pops’ schemes.”

“Say, Ranma, are you still doing your breathing exercises?” Ryoga asked.

“Huh? My what now?” Ranma replied.

“You know, breathe in, breathe out…” Ryoga illustrated the action by waving his hand above his chest. “You used to do them a lot back in school when you were feeling down. You said it cleared your head.”

Ranma snapped his fingers. That did ring a bell! “Oh wow, that’s a blast from the past. I ain’t done that in years!” He turned towards his friend. “Where did ya end up while ya were trackin’ me down?”

Ryoga grumped. “...I don’t want to talk about it.”

“C’mon, we’re friends, I ain’t gonna judge ya.” Ranma gave Ryoga his biggest grin, elbowing his friend’s arm. “Did ya get yourself to France again?”

Ryoga shook his head. He lifted up his umbrella and looked at the damage on its handle. “Crap! I busted the opening mechanism!”

“I don’t suppose ya have a spare in that gigantic bag a’ yours?” Ranma asked.

“No…” Ryoga replied with a frown.

“Well, tough luck then, seems you’re gonna have to do without.” Ranma stretched and bounced onto his feet, standing up.

Ryoga didn’t take off his eyes from his umbrella. “I can’t.”

“Hmm? Why not?” Ranma asked. “A lil’ rain can’t kill ya, can it?”

Ryoga glared at Ranma.

“Oh. Oh no. Don’t tell me you went to Jusenkyo.” Ranma said in a mortified, higher pitched voice. Ryoga’s silence spoke for itself. “What spring did you fall into?”

“It wasn’t that simple.” Ryoga looked up at the sky and grimaced at the growing mass of clouds above.

 

Akane walked home and holed herself up in her room. Stupid Ranma and stupid Ryoga and stupid everything.

She wanted to cry, but she felt too numb to do so.

She had taken so long to grow her hair out, and yet it ended up right back where it was when she was seven. When the world was simpler and she was getting called a boy rather than a tomboy.

At some point, the way her classmates looked at her had changed. It was important that they knew, and that she knew, that no matter how boy-like she acted, she was a girl. They weren’t wrong per se, she was one, she did feel like a woman, but it was the way she had to adhere to femininity or get shunned that she loathed.

Maybe it was for the best that her hair got cut. She hated having to pretend to be feminine, and it got in the way when fighting.

She laid her head down on her desk and dozed off to the sound of a growling storm approaching.

She was woken up a half hour later by the sound of rain and a knock at her… window?

She pulled her head off of her desk and rubbed her eyes open. Oh. It was Ranma. Of course it was Ranma.

She opened the window and glared him down, while he awkwardly poked his fingers at one another. “Thought you’d be catching me in the middle of crying?” she asked.

“Well… kind of, I mean, I would be crying if I were in your situation…” a switched Ranma replied.

Akane sighed. “What are you doing here? Is the door downstairs closed?”

“Is it okay if I ask that you close your eyes for a minute?” Ranma asked with a tiny voice. “We just need to head to the bathroom.”

He couldn’t have said a more suspicious sentence had he tried. Akane crossed her arms, unimpressed.

“Aka -- ‘Kane,” Ranma pleaded, switching back to his heavy accent, “s’bout a man’s honor here!”

She felt her anger rise. Stupid Ranma caring about stupid pointless things again… No. She had to be better than this. She closed her eyes. “Urgh. Whatever. Go through my room, I’m going downstairs anyways.” Akane stood up and stomped off, not wanting to care about what Ranma’s machinations could possibly be.

Following the pleasant smell of cooking, she headed to the kitchen in search for Kasumi. She found her sister deeply focused on the stove, cooking vegetables in a pan while rice slowly cooked in a big pot next to it. “Big sis, where’s Nabiki?”

“Hmm? I thought you wouldn’t be back in time for dinner!” Kasumi replied. ”She went to the library, I believe...” She turned her head for a second to smile at Akane, only to jump in surprise at her haircut, almost dropping the pan’s contents to the floor.

“No need to overreact, sis, it’s not like I never had short hair before,” Akane said.

“What happened to your hair?” Kasumi asked, putting the pan back on the stove and turning down the heat to its minimum.

“Oh, I just wanted to change my style, nothing more,” Akane replied, making up the lie on the spot rather convincingly. “I cut it myself, but I kind of made a mess. Do you think you could even it out for me?”

 

Ranma and Ryoga ran through the house, heading to the bathroom before anybody would spot them. Ranma ran in first and turned on the hot water, then jumped in without wasting a second, turning himself back into a guy.

“You put it on the highest temperature, right?” Ryoga asked from the other side of the thin door separating the laundry and bathing areas.

“I’m like a lobster boilin’ alive in here!” Ranma replied, pulling his reddened arm out and looking at it with a grimace.

A shadow threw the door open and jumped into the bath immediately. Ryoga pulled himself back to the surface, touching his nose in relief. “Thanks, Ranma. I owe you one.”

“How did you end up with it if you didn’t fall into a spring ‘nyways?” Ranma asked, already leaving the bath before the heat started to hurt him too much.

Ryoga’s barely restrained rage competed with the water for the superlative of most boiling. “I walked through all of China trying to find you. Day after day of having to ask for unhelpful directions, of trying to find where you could be in the massive mainland.

“One day I found myself at a strange place of numerous springs and bamboo poles. I didn’t know back then that this place would spell the most awful day I have ever lived.

“It started with a painful injury as a strange girl running after a panda knocked me off a cliff and made me plummet to a hundred meters below. I was out cold for hours.

“When I finally came to, I could barely see where I was going due to the concussion. I just remember a shrieking voice with a heavy Chinese accent… They were talking to someone else about their next meal, I think…

“‘Oh! Maybe we use water from drowned pig pond to cook in! That way, we have pork even if we catch only bug!’” Ryoga repeated, doing his best impression of the voice that haunted him.

“And in my attempts to find where to even head to… I ran straight into the pot, burning myself to a pulp, and receiving… and receiving…! My body was changed into something disgusting, a disfigurement in guise of curse…!!” Ryoga slammed his fist on the side of the tub, leaving a thick crack snaking through its entire width. “And now…! If I get into contact with any water of any temperature…! People flee my monstrous, unsightly appearance…! And only water hot enough to burn skin off can even revert it! Do you understand now why you ruined my life!? Without the desire you created in me to see you again, I would’ve never gone to China, and I would’ve never gotten a body I wish to tear the skin off of me!”

Ranma frowned, placing his hands on his hips. “Oi, oi! If anything you should be blamin’ that strange girl and her panda, not m— not…” His expression softened in realisation.

Oh no.

As if the gods had conspired to create a cosmic joke of the most perfect timing with Ranma as its fool, Genma in his panda form opened the sliding door to the bathing area, and stopped dead in his tracks as he spotted the two teens. He pulled out a wooden placard that read ‘Apologies…’ and closed back the door, patiently waiting his turn from the laundry area.

“P-p-panda…” Ryoga muttered, before turning his head towards Ranma and squinting.

Ranma took a step back as his friend pulled himself out of the tub, grabbed a plastic bucket he filled with cold water using the shower head on the wall, then threw its contents on Ranma.

“...Izit too late to try to play innocent?” Ranma asked in a falsetto, striking the most cutesy pose he could muster.

“I’M GOING TO KILL YOUUUU!!” Ryoga roared, giving chase as Ranma ran out of the bathroom.

 

Akane didn’t like the shout she had just heard. At least Kasumi had just finished touching up her hair. The big sister shared the same worried look as her on her face, and they headed out the living room to see what the commotion was about.

Ryoga chasing Ranma while both were in the nude was definitely not the sight she had expected.

She huffed and chased after them as well. “Put on some clothes, you idiots!” She went up the stairs and saw that they had headed into Ranma’s bedroom. Following in, she was relieved to see they had at least each thrown on a shirt and boxers.

“RANMAAAAAA!!” Ryoga headed in with a punch.

“Look, man, I’m sorry! I didn’t even know I’d done that!” Ranma leaned backwards, blocking the hit with his leg.

“RANMAAAAAAAAA!!” Ryoga repeated, throwing another punch. Ranma dodged by jumping to the other side of the room and Ryoga ran straight into the wall, crumbling it into shards.

The storm outside poured in, drenching Ryoga.

Akane saw a black little spiral tail pop out above his underwear.

When he turned around, he had a cute little pig snout in guise of a nose and floppy black ears under his bandana.

“RANMAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!” He screamed again, aiming another strike. Enough was enough. He had already destroyed one wall. Akane intervened and pinched Ryoga’s snout while grabbing Ranma by the breast. Both fighters were rolling on the floor in pain in seconds.

 

“I’m… I’m home!” Nabiki yelled from the entrance, shaking off the water from her raincoat and heading into the living room… only to find her family convening around the dining table with an extra face in the crowd. A mildly piggish one at that.

 

Akane was seated between her fiancée and the pig boy, her huffing keeping them docile for now. She nodded to Nabiki as she sat down and grabbed herself a bowl of rice. “Nice hair, Akane.”

“Thanks,” she replied. If she was honest, she’d really thought earlier today that she would end up crying over it. She had considered going to Dr. Tofu’s for a supportive shoulder to weep on, yet in the end, once she got her haircut from Kasumi, all the desire to do so disappeared. She must’ve disliked her long hair more than she’d thought.

Nabiki threw a glance across the table and Akane followed her gaze. Kasumi and the two dads were in their own discussion, their father and Genma praising her cooking. Ranma and Ryoga had their nose and snout turned down towards the food in shame.

Nabiki bounced her eyebrows twice at Akane and slid her a piece of paper. It read ‘First hint is free of charge’. “Hey, Ranma, can you give me the salt?” she asked, prompting the teen to attention. “Ryoga, hand me the sauteed vegetables please. Oh, and, Ranko, I’d like the pepper as well!” Akane tilted her head in confusion.

“Sure,” Ranma replied on her left, taking each shaker in one hand and handing them both, while Ryoga gave the vegetables plate wordlessly.

Nabiki beamed, picking a few vegetables with her chopsticks and adding them to her rice. “Thank you~! Gosh, the things you learn by just looking in the right book. You know, I’ve heard there’s this ‘internet’ thing that’s starting to happen over in the States, I wonder how it’ll change libraries once it makes its way to Tokyo! Imagine being able to read a book that’s on a computer on the other side of the world!”

Hmm. As cryptic as ever. Akane threw a glance to her fiancée; he had already dipped back into his food, munching wordlessly. She turned her head to Ryoga. “So are you spending the night here, then?”

“If you can tolerate a sight as unsightly as me, and forgive my wretched self for the property damage…” Ryoga muttered in reply.

“Tolerate? Ryoga, your little pig thing is cute. Honestly, it suits you,” Akane said.

Ryoga turned his head away a bit too late to hide his blush. “I get treated like a pigman freak wherever I walk, people fleeing me on sight.”

...He was not aware of his own strength, was he? Of course anybody would flee someone that can take down an entire wall with a single punch.

“Well, one way or the other, you two are sleeping in the dojo, because we don’t have any more spare bedrooms and yours in not in a usable state,” Akane stated.

Ryoga and Ranma shared an uneasy glance.

 

(A teary eyed panda lifted a placard that said “What about me?”, but as we all know, animals can sleep very comfortably outside.)