Ranma 1/2 Fan Fiction ❯ Don't you know it's love ❯ Chapter 11

[ P - Pre-Teen ]
Eleven
"Herb, where were you?"
"Shut up," he growled.
"We were so worried."
"I'm fine. There's nothing to worry about. So shut up."
"But Herb, you could have at least told us where you were going! We thought you'd gotten-"
He gestured, stopping Mint in mid-sentence. "Well, that didn't happen. So leave me alone."
"All right…"

***

May 9
(POV: Mint)

We stopped by the Nekohanten to pick up Cologne and Perfume. At the last minute Mousse came running out yelling.
"Shampoo! Shampoo!"
"Oh fine," Shampoo grumbled. She waved a finger. "But if you come, you pay for yourself. They don't have so much money they can afford to pay for their enemies to go skiing with them."
"Oh thank you, Shampoo! Thank you ever so much I will be eternally grateful…" He said a lot of other oversugary things which I don't care to repeat.
Perfume cut him off. "Shampoo, how wicked of you!" Shampoo shrugged and smiled in response. "I'll pay for it then."
The size of Mousse's eyes multiplied tenfold. "What… Perfume…" She smiled.
"Oh fine." Shampoo's smile grew even wider, then she leaned over and kissed me.
It was really light like she'd brushed a feather on me, and I got all red. Mousse had a weird look on his face, an angry one, and for a moment I wondered if Shampoo was trying to kill me.
No way.
"Not as good as Saotome Ranma," she said, "but this will do." She winked.
We took the bus to the house we'd gone for dinner. Herb's girlfriend was in front of the house.
"Oh, hello, Herb-kun."
They hugged, and they kept on doing it until they noticed Lime and me were staring. When they took their arms off each other, Herb was really red in the face.
"Really, Nabiki," he said, "that was unnecessary."
"Well then, it was extra." She smiled. Herb got even redder and looked away.
I looked at Shampoo, and she looked away. "Forget it," she murmured, but she was smiling.
I turned back to them. "You're late," she was saying now.
"At least your watch tells time now," Herb replied.
"This from the guy who's always late."
He indicated himself. "Late? I am never late."
"What do you call arriving at eight?"
"I call it early. You would be late for your own funeral."
"They'd have to delay it for you."
I felt kind of funny inside, watching them. They worked like one person, together perfect, and I wished Shampoo and I could be like that.
"Oh, and my dear dear, I took you up on your offer to let me bring a few friends…"
As if on cue, the crashing started.
"Hey, that's MY food, you old man!"
"Ranma, quit fighting with your dad and get on with it, they're going to leave without us!"
"Oh, my…"
"Kasumi-san!" Lime jumped up and ran into the house. The next moment there was an especially loud smash. We winced.
"Oh my, Akane, that was unnecessary, don't you think?"
"Unnecessary my-"
"Really, Akane, that really was uncalled-for. Why don't you apologize?"
"Apologize my-"
"Now, Akane, Kasumi, let's get going!"
"I need to pack my shogi set!"
"Dad you moron, I tried to get you to pack it yesterday, but would you listen? No you wouldn't! Now hurry up and come on or I'll go to Tohoku myself!"
"Ranma, you sound like-"
"A GIRL, right? Well I don't give a damn! Not when my old man's a PANDA! Now take THAT!"
I noticed Herb wasn't red anymore. He was pale, and his fists were clenching so tight that I imagined his fingernails were drawing blood. "That S. O. B.…" he muttered.
"Oh, I know, Ranma's a wise guy but that's just a show…" Nabiki fluttered his fingers in front of Herb's face like butterfly wings. "Herb-kun? Earth to Herb-kun, are you there?"
He didn't answer, instead watched as the door flew open. Kasumi came out half-dragging a knocked-out Lime and some luggage. Akane came after her with a gigantic mallet held high. Then, Saotome Ranma and the panda from the dinner night.
He stopped and gawked at us for a minute. His eyes grew tremendous. "What in hell…" he started.
Herb examined, with great intensity, the tops of his shoes. "A lot of things," he said, "in hell."

***

(POV: Ranma)

How could I not have realized? Nabiki'd told me flat-out Herb was her boyfriend after all!
But then again, Nabiki has had tons of boyfriends, generally somewhat rich ones, on average lasting a week, their bank accounts anyway. I hadn't thought then that Herb was still her boyfriend when she proposed the skiing trip.
He wouldn't look at me, instead pretended to find interesting patterns in his shoes. Akane gave me a funny look. Why me? Why not Nabiki?
"So. Does this mean you're not going? It'd reduce expenses." Nabiki. Figures.
"NO!"
I turned to look at Dad, who was back to "normal." "No!" he yelled. "Don't wanna stay! No! Nononononononononononono…"
Herb had looked up and now disgust was stamped across his face. His friends (including the tiger-striped one, he'd recovered from Akane's punishment) looked somewhat shocked. I guess their fathers don't act like three-year-olds. Shampoo had her hands across her mouth. The blue-haired girl with them (she looked kind of like the wolf boy come to think of it) had her eyes big.
Kasumi was first to speak. "Oh… my."
"That's IT?" Akane snapped. "That's all you have to say?" She marched over to Dad and proceeded to stomp him into the pavement. "SHUT UP!"

***

(POV: Mint)

Perfume was quiet the whole ride on the shinkansen.
Shampoo explained that she was her loyal friend. Kind of like Lime and me. She explained this after Ranma turned to me. He pointed to Perfume and said, "Say, is she your sister?"
Shampoo broke in before Perfume or me could answer. "Ai-ya, no."
"Well, she does look a lot like-"
"She's not his sister!" Shampoo yelled in Chinese. When she saw him looking blank, she repeated it in Japanese. "Perfume not Mint's sister. She's my loyal friend. From Joketsuzoku. Is not his sister."
"Okayyy." I could tell he didn't believe her.
It was later during the ride, when we were bored, that we began to exchange birthdays. Inevitably, someone asked for mine.
"Mint, what's your birthday?"
That required some thought. My father'd told me what day I was born, but we didn't have celebrations that day or anything, so it took a while to remember…
"Perfume, what's your birthday?"
"March thirteenth, Year of the Dragon," we said at the same time, then looked at each other.
"Coincidence," Shampoo said.
For some reason I didn't believe her. Because like Ginseng, my father, said, "Remember that nothing is ever a true coincidence."

***

(POV: Perfume)

Saotome Ranma was right. Mint did look like my brother. And we had the same birthday.
Mother was going to have to explain away a lot.
She'd admitted I had a twin brother, but she said he died. Whenever I asked how he died, she always was too busy to answer, as she never had enough time to answer questions about my father.
Everyone in Joketsuzoku liked her. Poor First Sister, they said. Too bad about that fahn-tong. How brave she was, to not fall apart. Wonderful, brave, Yi-mei, Ancestor Cologne's disciple. Oh no, not in martial arts, that would be her great-granddaughter but what she is training to do is so much better. First Sister will be our historian, our best one yet; just you wait and see.
It never occurred to me to ask them. To ask, "Who was my father? Who was that fahn-tong you speak of? Was he my father? Exactly how did my brother die?" I suppose I thought that they really knew no more than what they spoke.
The only one I ever asked was my loyal friend Shampoo, and that was five years ago. And she had looked askance at me and said, "How should I know who your father was? Why don't you ask your mother?"
"She won't tell me."
"So she doesn't know either," Shampoo had said with an air of finality. "It's not so bad not having a father, anyhow. Why worry?"
And that had been the end of it. Until now. Now…