Chapter Text
Ranma Saotome cursed as he realized his greatest secret was finally out.
When he and his dad arrived at the Tendos, they all sweated over the bad omen of the curse they’d brought back from China. After all, having one of your two masters of Anything-Goes Martial Arts cursed to turn into a panda was nothing short of humiliating. It was why Genma had sworn not to talk about the intimate details of their journey though the Chinese Wilderness, and their time at the mystical springs of Jusenkyo.
Of course, only Ranma knew that the true reason for his father’s secrecy was that his violent fall into the dreaded Spring of Drowned Panda had also knocked him out for a week, so the man being entirely unconscious when his son dropped into a nearby spring and became his daughter.
The girl-boy was willing to carry his newly-panda’d father as dead weight if it spared him the disgrace of his new form. Being a panda was one thing, being a woman was a lot scarier. He had resolved to bury this secret shame with him, never let a single soul outside of China discover it, not the Tendo girls he was to be engaged to, not anyone at his new school, and definitely not his father.
Ranma sat on the forbidden knowledge of his time in China, he fed all the answers his father wanted to hear as if on command. But that didn’t seem to matter when his curse fought to reveal itself at every turn. Akane had complained on end to their dad about Ranma disappearing on some of their walks to school and showing up late. It was an inevitability when walking beside a river with a hot-headed tomboy and passing an old woman who seemed compelled by the ancient curse to direct her cold water at the nearest person every day. He opted to walk with Nabiki going forwards, she didn’t seem to care so much if he made it on time. Ranma was lucky then, but this time he made this mistake of thinking he’d be safe to practice after a rainstorm.
He trained with his father as usual, steering the fight away from the koi pond at all costs, but his cockiness got the better of him, the boy lost balance on the wall, and slipped face-first into a cold puddle.
Now here he sat, clothes soaked, red hair in his eyes, and his father looking right at him. It was over, he’d be an outcast and the Tendos would put them back on the road. It was all his fault for slipping up.
“Say, you haven’t seen my good-for-nothing son Ranma around here, have you, girl?” his father asked. Genma smiled at this young woman, despite being completely soaked, she looked more put together in his eyes than Soun’s dainty and regular daughters. He didn’t understand why, but he felt a slight connection to this girl.
Ranma froze, feeling the weight of his father’s staring. He sensed a touch of sickness creeping its way into his chest. It felt perverse, standing in front of his dad with this secret cursed form, lying to him with every second of omission.
“Actually, sir…” he began, before pausing. “I think your idiot son is the jerkoff that tossed me into the puddle.” Ranma slapped himself internally. Why did he have to give his ass of a teacher more of an excuse to slap him around in training later? Ranma would already be having the worst afternoon training of his life because of this little stumble. Surely it wasn’t too late to resolve this, right? He’d just slip away and change back, drop the disguise of a random girl. Then his dad would go back to treating him like regular old Ranma.
“Yeah, that sounds like my son,” Genma replied, casually looking around the rooftops for an ambush that wasn’t coming. “Seems like the boy ran off!” Genma announced, trying not to look too annoyed. If Ranma was going to have learned anything from his father, it’d be how to disappear without a trace at the first sign of trouble.
“Why don’t I help you look for him?” Ranma said, resisting the urge to punch himself.
What was he doing? Why couldn’t he resist the temptation? In this moment, his curse felt less like the fact that he turned into a girl, and more that he was the son of the king of all bottom-feeding cheats, Genma Saotome. Why else would he still be running his mouth? It had to be hereditary. “I’d like to beat some sense into him myself!” He punched his palm for emphasis.
If nothing else, he seemed to be pretty good at playing the part. Maybe that just came from channeling some of Akane’s attitude that he had to put up with every morning on the way to school. Ranma was so focused on his automatic performance that he almost didn’t notice his father’s unexpected nod.
“That sounds like a good idea, kiddo. If there’s one thing I’ve learned in life, never get in the way of a lady and her revenge,” Genma laughed. Laughed? And it wasn’t at Ranma’s expense? After so much time spent training or arguing with his dad, Ranma hadn’t even noticed how strained things were.
His dad’s positivity was almost infectious, and he decided to keep that momentum going as they were already heading off in what must have been the right direction, Ranma dragging him off so confidently that he never even questioned the narrative of if they were heading in the direction of his son.
Genma and the redheaded girl searched all throughout Nerima, and Ranma was good at presenting the illusion that they were always one step behind his cowardly son, after an hour Genma seemed to begin to slip and his senses dulled. Ranma could tell his father was starting to give up on the chase, but he felt a compulsion to keep this little game going. For some reason it just felt wrong to go back to normal Ranma so soon, so he slipped his Student ID out of his pocket and flicked it up just so that it would seem like it fell on his father’s head from the rooftop above.
No matter how much the pair searched, Genma couldn’t get a lock on Ranma, but strangely, he was sure he could sense his son’s ki. It was distant, different, like trying to see someone through an out of focus lens. Genma simply chalked it up to the the Tokyo smog.
It would be late in the afternoon that Genma stopped. It was clear to him that his son had won the game, escaped his daily training, and worst of all, he made his poor father miss Kasumi’s home cooking!
“Hey miss, why don’t we stop and get some food?” He offered, and Ranma led him towards a ramen shop he’d stop at often after classes. The redhead was almost excited before he remembered this was Genma Saotome, and he was almost certainly planning to bail and dump the bill on this random girl. His old man was such an ass. To his surprise, however, Genma was already pulling out the cash before they’d even sat down.
“I’ve started this job recently at a clinic. It’s given me an opportunity to eat out more often,” Genma told her, and Ranma turned away to roll her eyes at the implication. He knew his dad was just there to sweep the floors, but Genma was banking on the implication to let this random girl think better of him.
Ranma saw who was about to take their order and grinned. Daisuke Kichi, the boy who’d complained his ear off every lunch break about how much he hated working at his grandfather’s noodle shop. He was a nice guy, Ranma would even call him a friend, but he was also an opportunity.
“So, what can I get for you two today?” the Kichi boy asked, his eyes clearly on the pretty young redhead he’d never seen before. If Genma had been in his panda form, Ranma doubted the guy would have even noticed while he, or that is, while she was around. Ranma steeled herself to play the role, but that ended up being so easy that she slipped into a giggle. Ranma Saotome, man amongst men? Giggling? Why, of course not, she was just the mysterious redheaded girl.
“Hey, aren’t you that guy on Furinkan High’s baseball team?” she asked him in return, noticing a blush on the poor boy’s cheeks. Hook, line, sinker. Genma seemed bored by the high school flirting at first, but he quickly realized this boy was the weak link that could bankrupt his grandfather in a week if the right girl tugged on his heartstrings.
Ranma feverishly gobbled at her free noodles, hardly a model of femininity, but that didn’t stop Daisuke from staring at her with his head in the clouds. She only paused as she noticed her dad breaking into a guffaw. She immediately paused, looking up in confusion.
“Oh, oh I’m so sorry kid. I shouldn’t have laughed, it’s just… Oh, you reminded me of my wife. Why, she would eat noodles just the same way back when I was in high school. It was always funny seeing someone as proper as Nodoka demolish a bowl. Her grandfather was always furious!” Genma said, halfway lost in his own memories of the years before he took off with his boy.
Ranma paused. She had never known her mother, so the mention took her totally off-guard. She felt some begrudging sympathy for the old man. He’d been raising Ranma on his own his whole life. Sure, he was kinda shit at it, but what other choice was there, right? She decided not to dig into the subject too much, fearing it was too touchy.
Eventually, the Saotome duo would finish their meal, and Genma grumbled about how unfair it was that he had to pay for his. Ranma gave a flirty wave to her classmate and smirked.
“Perks of being a girl,” she said, before cringing at her words. Step one of pretending to be a girl: Don’t make it sound like a gimmick. If she’d put a neon sign on her head saying “boy”, it still probably would’ve been less suspicious. Luckily for her, her father didn’t seem to have a nuanced understanding of the feminine psyche. That, or he was just too focused on the yen he spent.
“I’ve gotta admit, you’re a natural scam artist, girl. Don’t think I didn’t notice how you sized up that boy,” Genma complimented. At least, she was pretty sure it was a compliment to be called a scam artist in his eyes.
Before she could ponder it further, the lights over Furinkan began to dim, and it seemed like it was time for their little game to wrap up.
“Well, girl. It’s probably time we head our separate ways. I know my son, and he doesn’t have the guts to stay out all night by himself,” Genma proclaimed. “Besides, your parents probably want to make sure you’re safe.”
“Yeah, heh… P- Ma’s probably been looking all over just to make sure I get home safe,” Ranma said awkwardly. She hated to admit it, but she felt like a total jerk. What was the point in lying to her dad except to give him two different teenagers to worry about today?
She- No, not she. He was just bullying his dad. Before now, he wasn’t even sure it was possible to bully Genma Saotome, but now he felt tangled up and twisted. It was better to cut things off here.
“Well, you have a good night Mr. Saotome!” he said, backing away, trying to escape his father’s watch before he could even suggest walking her back to her non-existent house.
“W- Well, I guess I’ll see you around, right?” Genma asked, and Ranma almost thought he saw a glimpse of sadness. There was no chance, right?
“I, uh, I guess? My ma keeps me pretty busy, but I like to hang around the river and some of the ponds when I’m free,” he lied, fading from Genma’s view. Though, she felt like it was a pretty good lie. After all, wouldn’t this give him an excuse if he ended up in a compromising situation? Besides… He couldn’t lie. It was really fun to play the normal girl routine. Everything just came so much more naturally this way.
That was his last thought before stealthily entering the bathroom of the Tendo household and changing his form back to its default, masculine state. He shuddered slightly, assuming it was just from the fear of getting caught.
“Ranma, where have you been, boy?! You missed all of your after-school training for the day!” He heard his father shout. He stepped downstairs, having narrowly arrived back in time to seem as if he hadn’t just arrived.
“Been waiting back here for you all day! Jeez, you take a lap and suddenly your dad travels half the country looking for ya!” he complained. His statement caught a weird look from the Tendo sisters, but only Nabiki seemed to actually care. As soon as Ranma had arrived, the two were packaged together by their fathers. He couldn’t tell if she resented the situation as much as he did, but she was more than willing to exploit it to her own benefit. It didn’t help that Ranma was basically always training outside of school, so his supposed fiancée was barely more than a stranger in the two weeks he’d been here.
“What are you talking about, Ranma? You were-” The brunette’s statement paused as Ranma slipped out all the yen in his pocket, it passed over to Nabiki within the blink of an eye, and she continued, unphased. “-Upstairs studying with me, of course. I know you’re embarrassed about nearly failing your first test, but you should be sure to give your dear father the whole truth.”
For once, Ranma was thankful for Nabiki’s bottomless money pit that substituted her heart. But he knew he wasn’t out of trouble yet. Nabiki gave him a look that told him he’d have to give her some sort of satisfying answer later.
By the time he made his way to bed in the guest room, the whole event had been put behind him. Still, something was wrong. Ranma could tell he was enjoying this whole scheme way too much.
A newfound sense of freedom threatening to crack his hardened core. His whole life, he’d been pushed to the limits of human potential, every day was adversity and struggle, but nothing was more challenging than looking his dad in the eyes everyday and being told that this was all that there was to life, to being a man.
As long as he was Ranma Saotome, this was what his life would entail. But now? With this shameful curse, she was just a regular girl to Genma Saotome. And maybe, just maybe, Ranma preferred the woman she got to be. But she wouldn’t admit that tonight.