Disclaimer: The playground is by Rumiko Takahashi, I'm only swinging on the monkey bars. Remember to leave the grounds cleaner than you found them and please don't feed the Trolls. This story is archived at http://www.kawaiikunee.com/slp/ Release 0.2 (January 25, 2001) ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Ninjoubanashi (just a few old-fashioned love stories) ----------------------------------------------------------------------- (8 years after the manga) (Ranma + Ukyou) ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Family Values ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Earlier, there had been noise and confusion. The bleed-over from the arena had rocked the walls, and the hustle of rapid cookery had filled the small service kitchen. But that was earlier. Now, Saotome Ukyou practiced her Art in another manner. With loving care, she was preparing what would later be okonomiyaki. In all solemn truth, this was what she preferred to the hustle and bustle. Once she had taken considerable pride in how fast she could prepare an okonomiyaki from scratch, in how many things she could make into okonomiyaki toppings, in the many secret sauces and recipes she had mastered. But that, as they say, was then. And this is now. They were a simple recipe: her basic batter, onions, cabbage, pork and squid, with a simple soy sauce. But when she got done they were going to be _perfect_. If you're good enough, you don't need the secret sauce. And nothing but perfection was really good enough for her Ran- chan or the kids. That was Then. And this is Now. And never the twain shall meet. Except sometimes, when Then walks through the door. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- "Ukyou-san?" Ukyou looked up in startlement. Hardly anyone except Ran-chan and her kids came down here to begin with and that had sounded a lot like ... "Akane-chan! How are you, Sugar? Come in." "Umm." Akane looked around nervously, "I hate to intrude, but I was looking for Ranma. I don't want to be a bother ..." Ukyou stood uneasily for several seconds. She was all too aware that the kawaii-factor had shifted. Drastically. Akane had shed her baby-fat and was in, basically, the best shape of her life. Once, despite Ran- chan's protests, she had been very cute. Now she was stone cold, drop dead _gorgeous_. Whereas Ukyou herself ... guiltily, she resolved to spend more time in her kata and lose the incipient chubbiness that working her Art had brought. If Akane was here now in some kind of plot to lure Ran-chan back ... But no, she thought. Tendo Akane might have been many things, but sneaky and dis-honorable were not among them. And neither was her Ran- chan. She wouldn't dishonor him by not trusting him. Without a lot of evidence, anyway. "No problem, Sugar. Come in and have a 'yaki," she said with a smile. Akane smiled a little weakly as she crossed to the counter, "Actually, Ukyou-chan, I'd just like a little tea, please. I had some food," she waved a hand vaguely, "earlier." Ukyou raised an eyebrow as she fixed the cup, "Nervous, Sugar?" Akane suddenly gave her old sunshine smile, "Actually, yes. But not a lot. I'll be _really_ nervous before the finals." "Confidant, huh?" Ukyou said, teasingly. "I've seen the seedings," Akane smiled, "no problems 'till then, unless someone from the unseeded challengers makes it ... which is why ...." Akane bit her lip, "Actually, there was a question I wanted to ask you, too, now that I think of it." "Shoot." "Why are you ... why are you _here_? Like this? You're almost still living out of your yattai, and back in Nerima ..." "... I had a restaurant?" "Yeah. I would have thought you'd have a whole chain by now, as good a cook as you are. What happened?" "Well, I don't deny that I'd thought about it, Sugar. And I think that I _could_ have had a chain by now if I'd tried. But ..." Ukyou shrugged, "I _am_ a cook, you see? _That's_ the core of my Art. And if I wanted to run a _chain_ of restaurants I wasn't going to have time to cook in them. "Worse than that, I wasn't going to have time for Ran-chan, or to teach Ichiro or Ranji-chan, either. "And then, Ran-chan, you know, _needs_ to go on the road every so often, or he gets stale about the Art." The door opened. "Whose Art gets stale, Ucchan? Heya, Tomboy." Akane turned around as Ranma and a pair of small blurs came in. Ukyou looked up from the boys at her feet, and caught the smile Ranma gave _her_, as it shifted from the one he gave Akane. It was number three (Just for Ucchan, 'cause I love her) and she nearly melted on the spot. The hug she gave him wasn't _quite_ an Amazon Glomp, but it was close. And if Akane's smile was somewhat pained for a moment, neither of them was watching her to note it. Ukyou came back to the counter, followed by Ranma, "In the end, I didn't want to take the time away from my family. The money wasn't worth it." ----------------------------------------------------------------------- As Ukyou finished, Akane sat silently for a time, sipping her tea. The two children got their okonomiyakis and went off to sit and eat, while Ranma sat with Ukyou. He was finishing his meal when Akane said, "So, what about you, Ranma? Are you going to be competing, today?" Hastily, he swallowed the last of the food, "Nah. No reason to." Looking down into her cup, Akane softly asked, "But why, Ranma? You were the best. You could have gotten _here_ a lot sooner. Why did you give it up?" Looking up, she saw Ranma's face darken briefly, and hurried on, "I'm not questioning _what_ you did! It's your life. But I ... I guess I'm just at the point that I need to look back. I know a lot about _what_ happened, but I don't know why." Ranma bit his lip briefly, "Mmm. It's hard to explain. But ... this tournament out there. 'World's Greatest Martial Arts Tournament.' Supposed to find the World's Greatest Martial Artist, ne? But th' thing is, back then, I already _was_." Akane raised an eyebrow. Ranma reddened, "I mean, not _literally_ maybe, but as far as _I_ was concerned. I mean, sure, there was maybe people out there who were better, but _I_ didn't know who they were, and they didn't know me, so as far as _I_ could see .... You see?" Akane nodded and Ranma went on, "An' ya know what? I didn't care, really, either. I still loved the Art. I still _do_ love the Art. But bein' the best had stopped bein' the important part of it, ta me. "And y'know, marriage is ... it's about family. It's about makin' a family an' keepin' it together. An' it's a lot easier ta keep together, if you're all goin' the same way. "So what did you all want in a family? Kasumi wanted Dr. Tofu. Nabiki wanted ta make a lot of money. You wanted ta be a better martial artist, which is why you're here, now. Shampoo wanted me ta be a fighter for her village. Kodachi wanted ... well I don't know, but I doubt I'd have liked it. "An' alla that's fine an' good, but what _I_ wanted was a family. The family that I never got before 'cause Oyaji an' me were on the road so much. An' I wanted the Art. "An' that, it turned out, was what Ucchan wanted too, so ..." Ranma tugged at his pigtail, "I guess you could say that I got hit with a case of family values." Akane and Ukyou giggled in unison, and there was silence for a while. Then Akane said, "Okay." and got up to go. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- As she reached the door, Akane turned and said, "Ranma? Do you have any ... regrets? About what you could have had?" Ranma gestured, encompassing Ukyou and his children and the fittings of his life, "Do you?" Akane's eyes took on a far look for a moment, "Not seriously, no. But maybe small ones." She gestured with her fingers a tiny space apart, "A little." Ranma nodded, "Yeah, that's about it. Small ones." His fingers, too, were a small space apart, "A little." As Akane turned to the door he spoke again, "Hey, tomboy. Good luck." As she went through the door, Akane looked back over her shoulder and winked, "Not luck. Skill." ----------------------------------------------------------------------- As the door closed behind her, Ukyou looked at her husband, "Family values, huh?" Grinning impishly, Ranma gazed back, the look in his blue eyes causing her to catch her breath. With a slow grin of her own, she said, "Y'know Sugar, business won't pick up for another couple of hours. If we hurry we should have _just_ enough time ..." Ranma scopped her up in his arms, "Lets hurry." They did. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- As the door closed behind them, the older boy, Ichiro, said, "Mush!" His younger brother, Ranji, looked up from a small toy horse, "Oniichan?, I thought that when they talked about 'Family Values' on th' TV it meant _not_ mush?" Ichiro looked down at his sibling from the security of a whole ten months greater age, "Dope." ----------------------------------------------------------------------- I don't really know what to say about this one. I sort of wrote it backwards. Perhaps someday I'll think of something. If anyone wants to do anything else in this universe, by all means do so, just end me an email first. 'Till next time, Eric Hallstrom, 01/25/2001