Ranma 1/2 Fan Fiction ❯ Don't you know it's love ❯ Chapter 2

[ P - Pre-Teen ]

AUTHOR'S NOTE: "Fahn-tong" is a Chinese word meaning roughly the same as "retard" or "idiot", somebody who can only eat (rice). I really didn't have time for it.
Sometimes I think Lime is totally senseless. He forgets that Mint is not the child he was years ago, and he forgets that Mint is now fifteen and perfectly capable of taking care of some Joketsuzoku maniac. Sometimes, he forgets my gender.
What an idiot.
"But Herb, I'm telling you-"
"Yes," I cut him off, "you are telling me, and I think you are being perfectly ridiculous."
"But Herb… he was running away, I saw him, and-"
"Oh fine," I grumbled, "but if Mint's beaten him by the time we get there…" "Die! Die! DIE!"
I dodged the flying chains like they were deliberately thrown in a different direction though with his rotten aim he probably would have hit me if he really was directing them away from me. "Is that the best you have?"
"THAT DOES IT YOU DIE!"
I bounced off the roof of one of the houses and landed behind him. During the fight we'd somehow moved to the housing part of Nerima. I tried to find a public wall so I wouldn't have to deal with an angry homeowner after I pinned this idiot to it.
I finally saw one. It was cement and crumbling. Nobody would notice a few more holes in it. I got my blades ready.
It happened so quick I didn't have time to stop.
One second Mousse was right in front of me, the next second I was cartwheeling over something or someone-I wasn't still long enough to tell right then. I hit the pavement holding the knives away from me-I definitely did not want to spike myself. The next second, something else landed on me. Something hard.
"OW!" "Do you see?" Lime was almost sobbing-it was just like him to do that.
At first all I saw was someone I might have seen before but I couldn't identify him just then. His hair was so long I bet I could've mistaken him for a woman if I'd seen him from the back. He was standing in the middle of the sidewalk with his mouth open.
Then I saw Mint.
I only recognized him from the blue and white jacket sleeve sticking out from under a bike with "Nekohanten Delivery" printed on the basket. There was a takeout case lying innocently nearby, split wide open. As I watched, Mint pulled the bowl off his head, leaving chicken and ramen and a fish cake in his hair. I almost laughed at the sight. Then I began to wonder.
"Lime. Was he…"
"No." For some reason he was whispering. "He wasn't riding any bike."
"So who WAS?"
"I…"
Mint answered the question for me. If he hadn't cried out and run over to her I never would have noticed the girl sprawled in the street. It all made sense. She probably had a delivery to make around here, and therefore was in the wrong place at the wrong time.
I kind of carried her out of the road. "Kind of" because she was a little bit bigger, and heavier, it seemed to me. Once I slipped and her hand came up and touched my cheek really quick, and I kind of got red and almost dropped her.
Mousse tried to kill me the minute I got to the sidewalk.
"WHAT DID YOU DO TO SHAMPOO YOU TWISTED EVIL-"
I kicked him in the chin, and he did a backward somersault into the wall. I put her down, what else could I do after all?
"Fahn-tong," I muttered. Why did he have such a vendetta against me? Did the Joketsuzoku have the same law for men like it did for women? I remembered a little bit of it, something about chasing to the end of the earth and killing.
"Mint?"
I turned. Herb and Lime were there. They'd probably seen everything. I got red again.
"Mint…" Lime seemed to forget his next words, but if that was the case, he remembered after a bit. "You beat her." I gave him a look, and he restated it. "I mean, in combat."
Herb looked annoyed at Lime for a bit (he does that a lot with Lime and me) and then his eyes got big. "But then that means…"
I remembered the other part of the Joketsuzoku law.
"I'm-I'm to marry her?"

"NO!"
Shampoo turned away from her great-grandmother, trying to put on an attitude of being final. "I'm already engaged to Saotome Ranma. I will accept nobody else!"
Cologne sighed. How to go about this… "Shampoo, nothing says you can't marry both of them. He beat you. And he is an outsider."
"He's a child!"
"He's fifteen." Another sigh, as dramatic as if it was cued. "That's not so young. He's just a little bit… short."
"He didn't even really beat me! It was an accident!"
"By those standards, your engagement to Ranma is also invalid."
Shampoo paused to come up with a response. Cologne took the opportunity. "Regardless, great-granddaughter, I have a suggestion."
In spite of herself, Shampoo looked interested. "Suggestion?"
"Nothing in the laws prohibits a divorce."
Purple-red eyes lit up. "A divorce?"
"Just get the ceremony over with, Shampoo, then divorce him and marry Ranma."
Shampoo shrieked in delight. "Thank you, great-grandmother?"
"Don't mention it. I do want a son-in-law that's at least a little older than fifteen."
The chimes at the door tinkled. Shampoo and Cologne both turned. They both started.
Gold silk glinted under the lamplight.
Shampoo was the first to speak. "Perfume?"