Katou (katoustheshit) wrote in valarlogs, @ 2015-06-06 10:29:00 |
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Entry tags: | ranma saotome, yue katou |
Who: Ranma and Katou
Where: School of Anything Goes Martial Arts studio
When: Recently
What: Katou and Ranma meet face to face.
Rating/Warnings: Low / None
Status: Complete.
That particular evening, Ranma could be found lounging on a rather tall fence to the side of the dojo. To most it was a difficult place to reach, and that was exactly what he wanted. He wanted to rest and watch the sun set in peace. Peace was nearly an impossible thing to find inside the family home, the dojo was his best bet. Akane was busy teaching a class, and one of the students swept the grounds. Ranma did nothing. He was no teacher and never claimed to be, he didn’t want a class to teach-but he was looking out for Akane. Not that he’d admit it. Ever.
He had the end of a yellow plant in his mouth, and his eyes were half closed as he soaked in the last remaining warm rays of sun. Being high up was calming to him in the chaotic world he lived in. He wore a red chinese shirt, it seemed he shared that taste with his dream self. Chinese clothes were comfortable. He hadn’t quite found a place to fit in with the western style.
Katou had kind of shown up unannounced, but if he was good at anything, it was showing up to things on his own time and demanding people pay attention to him. He certainly hadn't been expecting Akane to be teaching a class, when she could instead be teaching him math or something. He didn’t plan on waiting around for her though, because he had more important things to do. Like play his guitar or try to find a good, secluded area to practice flying.
Or like bothering the kid who was sitting on top of a fence looking like he wanted to be left alone. Dollars to doughnuts, that was probably that Ranma kid, and Katou got a kick out of him on the net.
He deftly climbed up the fence a little ways away from Ranma, and perched on top of it. "Yo. Ranma, yeah?"
The last thing Ranma had expected was someone else to bother joining him on the fence. Usually most just refused. He peered open an eye at the new guy. “Who fucking want to know?” His English was terrible but he seemed to get the idea behind the thing he’d been taught. Helpful internet was helpful and all.
He’d stopped using that word a bit after offending Kasumi, but Kasumi wasn’t there.
Oh man. It had stuck. Katou couldn't help but laugh, but he managed to stifle it behind his hand before he choked it back. He didn't want to give the game away now.
"Katou Yue," Katou said. He had only just started introducing himself with his given name. He still wasn't especially fond of it, especially with it being a girl's name of all things, but he didn't hate it quite as much as he had a couple months ago, at least not to the extent where he purposefully kept it from people. "We met on the net."
Most other people had reacted with shock or a double take when he said things so casually like that. Katou didn’t. A hint of recognition appeared in his face. “Ah, net guy.” He repeated but this time in Japanese and a bit easier then. He often found himself struggling to stick with just one language, but Katou seemed to speak it so it shouldn’t matter much. He sat up on one of the posts looking a little more interested.
“What’re you doing here?”
"Akane said she'd help me with my homework," Katou said, switching to Japanese. It probably wasn't going to help Ranma at all with learning English, but talking to people face to face who barely understood English was a pain in the ass, and really, what did Katou care if Ranma learned to speak fluently. "Thought I'd show up out of the blue but I guess she's busy."
“She has little brat class right now.” Ranma added. “Should be out in an hour or so unless she decides to be a slave driver again.” Ranma looked dangerously amused at the memory and was glad she wasn’t his instructor. “She’s good with them though I suppose. As good as Akane can be.” The dark haired teenager said with a shrug, raising a newly bandaged arm to attempt to scratch at the wound irritatedly. It was driving him insane, Ranma wasn’t exactly known for being patient with these sort of things either. “Thought maybe she conned you into trying her class or something.”
Katou snorted. “Naw, I don’t need to take any martial arts class. I got the whole fighting thing down.” He’d been in plenty of street fights throughout all of his life, and in his dreams he was getting ready for a war between Heaven and Hell that was brewing. “She is a pretty good teacher.” Katou had only had a couple of tutouring sessions with her, but he was already understanding his biology and math homework better.
“You get that there in the attack?” Katou asked, referring to Ranma’s bandaged arm. Akane had mentioned there had been an attack at the gym. Katou assumed it was probably the same creepy vampires that he had faced not long ago - he himself had a couple of scrapes on his forearms from when he got thrown into some cement, but it wasn’t anything worth getting bandaged up over.
“Hmm.” Ranma was curious of his supposed fighting skill, maybe one day he’d test it. But that day wasn’t today. Today he felt lazy as all hell and just wanted to be in the sun like a lizard. “Eh, she’s okay.” Ranma rarely agreed to things when it came to Akane. Their relationship was a bit rocky these days. He didn’t hate her, but he didn’t like the situation they were forced into. It made things rough on both ends.
“Yeah. Didn’t have anything but my arm to guard with at the time. “ Now he was paying for it. The damn thing annoyed him with it’s itching. “ Akane got the worst of it, this is just annoying.” He admitted with a blase attitude toward the injury. “I shoulda been faster.” But those things were inhuman fast. There hadnt been much he could have actually done.
“Eh, can’t beat yourself up over something like that. You guys both made it out alive, and that’s gotta count for something.” Katou gave a shrug. “I mean, blood-thirsty vampires wandering around is pretty fucked up, so you can’t really blame yourself for not being fast enough or whatever. I mean, they’ve got that whole superhuman thing down.”
“Guess you got a point.” He frowned a bit and leaned his bandaged hand on one of his knees looking rather put out. “Still..I ain’t about to let anything happen to her if I can help it.” He frowned. He picked on her constantly, but that didn’t mean he hated her. “She’s my fiance. I’ll kill anyone who tries anything with her.” The threat was not empty, Ranma was fiercely protective of her. He would be the same with any of his friends, and so he looked slightly embarrassed for a moment. “I’d do the same for anyone of my friends though so...” He included Katou in that group now, though they’d only talked a few times. The guy amused him.
If Katou had been drinking anything at the time, there was about a 99% chance that he would have just spit it all over the place. “Fianceé?” he asked, eyebrows shooting upward. “Like, engaged to be married fianceé? Death do you part and the whole nine yards? You guys gotta be like, my age. Ain’tcha?” Maybe he was wrong in that regard, but he was usually a pretty good judge of age.
He was fairly glad they hadn’t been eating or drinking anything judging by the look on Katou’s face. Ranma looked awkwardly away and rubbed at the back of his neck in embarrassment. “..I’m seventeen. And yeah..well, our parents decided for us.” He sighed in slight annoyance. It really wasn’t the best situation ever.
“Yeah, my age,” Katou said. At least he hadn’t been wrong in that regard. “Can parents just decide shit like that?” he asked. “Shit.” He rubbed the side of his head, messing up his hair just a little. “That’s rough. I mean, not that Akane’s not alright and all that shit, but I wouldn’t wanna get tied down right now. Why don’t you tell your folks to shove it?”
“Apparently.” Ranma made a face and agreed entirely. “I don’t..hate her or nothin, but the whole damn thing pisses me off.” He made a ‘tch’ sound of frustration as he looked off at the dojo. “Makes me wanna go back to Japan that much more, but we stay here maybe we gotta chance to get out of it.” Ranma leaned back on one of the small posts that stuck out of the fence. “We’re supposed to go to college and delay the whole thing, but I duno how much good it’s gonna do. Pops is pretty determined when it benefits him.” Ranma knew it couldn’t have been arranged with his best interest at heart, that just wasn’t how his old man operated.
Katou frowned. “Maybe you can put it off long enough that they forget the whole thing,” Katou said. “I dunno, I kind of think marriage is a crock of shit on the whole, but I imagine it’s even shittier if you have to get married to someone you didn’t choose.” He rummaged through his jacket pocket, and pulled out a bag of Hershey’s kisses. “Kiss?” he asked. It wasn’t much to offer, but he liked Ranma so far, and he figured hearing that the dude was being forced to marry someone, even if she was okay, kind of deserved something.
“Doubt it. Dad is kinda persistent when it comes to certain things.” It sucked extra hard because of the circumstance. “When we were growing up we were friends, and now it’s all fucked up.” He said with an annoyed frown, if their parents hadn’t gotten in the way who knew what could have happened- but now neither one of them wanted anything at all to happen. “What’s that?” He raised an eyebrow, he’d never seen those before. Sure they had chocolates but most were in bar form. Or fancier dessert form. It at least seemed to de-sour his mood a bit. Food often did.
"Well then you guys should just be friends and not worry about the stupid marriage thing," Katou said, popping one of the Kisses into his mouth. "And if you do end up needing the get married, there ain't no reason it can't just be a piece of paper. See other people if you want and all that shit." You maybe couldn't change destiny, but you could mold it around yourself as you saw fit, Katou was learning. "It's chocolate. Pretty good, if I do say so myself."
“Kinda hard to when you’ve got parents breathing down your neck at every turn.” He shrugged and made a face. “We try sometimes, but it gets lost in the mix more often than not.” Ranma peered over at the candy and snagged one. “Maybe..” He didn’t like the idea of anyone else seeing Akane either. “It’s all just fucking frustrating.” Ranma pushed a braided ponytail away from his face as it threatened to interfere with chocolate eating thanks to the wind.
“I haven’t had that problem in a while,” Katou admitted. Before his father died, he had only seen him once in the five years since he left home, and that had been two years ago. He’d only seen his mother twice in the last five years as well. “But parents can be fucking pains, I know. Still, parents or not, you shouldn’t let no one force you do to shit you don’t wanna do. Live life with no regrets.”
“No regrets huh.”He liked the idea of living like that, but it was the execution that was a problem. He had two families with high expectations breathing down his neck. Damn father of his making his decision for him. Ranma leaned back on the fence post behind him, idly munching on his share of the chocolate. “Stick around for dinner, I think Kasumi’s making Chicken Katsu.”
“No regrets,” Katou repeated sagely. He could almost pretend that his life wasn’t completely out of control until only a couple of weeks ago. “I ain’t had chicken katsu in years,” he said. “Fuck yeah, I’d love to stay for dinner.”
Ranma mulled that over in his head and liked the sounds of it. "Heh. You're in for it good then, she's damn good at cooking. " He side eyed Katou and gave him one very good bit of advice if he wanted to continue being a healthy adult. "Don't ever accept cooked food from Akane. Just trust me on that one, but yeah. Stick around. It'll be a hell of a show. " Katou was about to learn the real fear of the Saotome/Tendo dinner theater.
Oh well, no regrets right Katou?