Chapter 15. Monday, July 18

Once again, Ranma dreamed… This time her dream seemed to have been inspired by TV commercials. She came into the living room with a beaker full of thin blue liquid. “It’s a light day!” she announced cheerfully to her family. She walked to the table, where a pristine sanitary pad sat, gleaming white and flawless. She carefully poured the blue liquid onto the pad, and it was instantly absorbed, the color vanishing and the pad swelling only slightly. They all waited expectantly, and then after a few moments, the pad suddenly doubled in size with an audible “pop!”. Everyone applauded and came around to congratulate her with hugs and pats on the back. She smiled and turned to the camera, “Light or heavy, Max-Flow Pads have you covered!” She continued to beam at the camera as the scene faded to black.

* * *

Akane dreamed… She had received her report card and her exam grades. She opened it nervously, and was mortified to see that she’d done much worse than she’d expected in most subjects and had somehow completely failed chemistry. Ranma looked over her shoulder and saw her failure. She patted Akane’s shoulder supportively and with a sympathetic tone said, “Oh, Akane-chan, couldn’t you see? Chemistry is like cooking! And as women, we have a natural instinct for that!” Akane bristled at both the sexist notion underlying the comment, and the implication that if it were somehow true, that Ranma had once again outdone her at “girl stuff”.

Ranma seemed to notice something out of Akane’s sightline, then squeezed her shoulder one more time, and let go while saying, “Oh, my date is here! See you later, Akane-chan!”

Akane watched Ranma saunter off with a handsome young man. He seemed familiar, but couldn’t quite place him from his back. But then he turned back to look at her, smiling broadly, and she immediately saw he was… Ranma-kun. Wait… How is that possible…?

She woke up with a start, hungover with a tangle of negative feelings from the dream. Argh! I’m sure I did fine on my exams! she thought to herself, trying to reset her mood. And Ranma, in whatever form, wasn’t going anywhere.

She needed to pee, and so got up and headed to the bathroom. As had happened most mornings recently, it was already occupied. She could hear Kasumi and Nabiki talking downstairs, so she guessed that, once again, Ranma must be in there. She walked down to Ranma’s room to kill time and confirm her suspicions. She found the door was open and the room was empty. She couldn’t stop herself from peeking in.

Although in some ways the room was just as it had always been, there were some clear signs that a girl was now occupying the space. The makeup bag on the dresser next to her hairbrush, might have been the most obvious sign, but the pile of clothes on the floor was a big giveaway, too. While Ranma-kun had always dropped dirty clothes in the corner of the room, the contents of this pile, with Ranma’s stained dress lying on top, would have seemed extremely odd just two weeks ago. She knew that Ranma had somehow ended up with quite a number of “girl mode” outfits in times past, but she’d always sensed a furtiveness about their existence, as if she was trying to hide the evidence. Now, the girl’s clothes were just there, just part of the room’s normal state. Akane felt a pang of sympathy for Ranma; this must be so strange for her, to have her private space slowly but surely change to reflect her developing presentation as a girl. And the coup-de-grace to her old self took the form of several boxes of feminine hygiene products scattered across her futon. She’d clearly gotten them out for some reason. Reading the directions, perhaps?

She turned to go, feeling like she’d invaded Ranma’s privacy more than she should, but as she turned, she found herself face to face with Ranma, who had just come out of the bathroom.

A variety of emotions flashed across Ranma’s face as she saw Akane standing there. Surprise, embarrassment, vulnerability. Akane quickly stepped forward and gave her a hug. “Hey, Ranma-chan,” she said gently. “I was just checking to see if you were okay. I guess you were in the bathroom.” Her own need to pee signaled its urgency, but she had to downplay the idea that she’d checked the bathroom first and knew Ranma’s room was unoccupied.

Ranma looked uncomfortable. “I… I think… I think maybe it’s happening…,” she said hesitantly, her voice barely above a whisper. “I mean, there’s nothing yet, but… I think maybe I have cramps…. And I feel… different….”

Akane tried to remember her own first time. It was more than three years ago now, but she remembered how supportive Kasumi-oneechan had been. She’d explained everything carefully and made sure Akane had everything she needed. Akane wanted to do the same for Ranma. She took Ranma’s hand and led her back into the room, and they sat down on the futon together.

“It’s okay, Ranma-chan,” Akane said soothingly. “The first day probably won’t be too bad. And you might be wrong; it might not be today.” She surveyed the boxes on the bed and selected one of the smaller packs of pads. “But just in case, let’s get you ready for it. It looks like you’ve already been reading the instructions?”

Ranma looked shy and extremely vulnerable. “Uh, yeah, a bit,” she admitted. “I… I wanted to be prepared.”

“And that’s good!” Akane replied. She opened the box, tilting it so Ranma could see its contents. “They’re all individually wrapped, and these ones are small and folded in on themselves so you can be pretty discreet about carrying them around even without a bag; like into a bathroom at school.”

Ranma’s discomfort wasn’t getting better. She was pretty sure that Akane was about to give her some sort of demonstration to show her how to peel off the backing and stick the pad into her underwear, and, well, somehow that would be just too much.

“Um… Thanks, Akane-chan,” she said quickly, grabbing the box and, standing up. “I think I can manage from here. I’ll just go sort it out.” She disappeared back to the bathroom.

Akane sat there, still needing to pee. Damn it. But Ranma should be quick, so she just waited. She thought about what Ranma must be going through. If, as she knew, deep in Ranma’s core, she was really Ranma-kun, then this must be a really difficult experience for her… for him. On the other hand, she thought cattily, most men she’d encountered had basically zero understanding of what periods were like, and maybe it would be good if there was at least one in the world who actually did. That was one positive way to spin it, at least. Ranma’s return startled her out of that chain of thought. She realized Ranma had been away for a lot longer than she’d expected.

“Those things are not well designed!” she announced, sounding frustrated.

Akane tilted her head quizzically, inviting Ranma to continue.

“Like, okay, I get that they need to be absorbent and all, but why do they have to be so bulky? And the adhesive is way too strong! I had to practically wrestle with it just to get it off the backing paper! And then I had to reposition it three times before it was remotely in the right place,” Ranma huffed, crossing her arms.

“And,” she continued they say ‘you’ll never notice you’re wearing one’,” her voice rising slightly. “Lies! I can totally feel it! It’s like having a diaper stuck to my underwear!”

Akane couldn’t help but smile at Ranma’s passionate rant. There was something so adorable about the way she was gesturing as she spoke. “Well, they’re designed to stay in place, that’s for sure. But, yeah, I get what you mean. They can be a bit much.” She tried not to think too hard about what Ranma might come out with after trying a heavy-flow pad—Akane thought those were just too much, and they were the main reason she preferred tampons.

Ranma’s expression told her that she might start up again, and she really needed to pee, so she took advantage of the silence, stood up, gave Ranma a look of what she hoped came across as female solidarity, made the universal gesture for needing to pee, and rushed off before she had an accident.

By the time Akane had washed up and gotten dressed, Ranma was already downstairs picking at her breakfast, modeling a “sulky girl with cute hair” look. For some reason, Akane was reminded of the grumpy but adorable bear she’d gotten from her claw-machine session at the arcade the previous weekend.

“Doing okay?” Akane asked gently as she sat down.

Ranma looked at her with an expression that screamed, Don’t you DARE mention any of this to anyone else at the table! I would LITERALLY DIE of embarrassment!

Akane held up her hands in a placating gesture. “Easy day at school today,” she pointed out, changing the subject. Since they’d finished all their actual classes and exams, their teachers were working frantically to get their final grades in by Thursday. So whatever they were assigned to do in class would be “fun” (or boring) things meant to keep the students busy—and quiet—too. There was also time set aside for club meetings, and another extended PE session.

Kasumi held the door for them as they headed out for school. She patted Ranma-chan lovingly on the head as they passed. “Have a good day at school, Ranma-chan,” she said warmly.

“You didn’t tell her, did you, Akane?” Ranma hissed under her breath as they made their way to the high school.

“I promised you, Ranma-chan, I won’t say anything to anyone,” Akane replied softly. “Kasumi-oneechan just cares about you like she does about all of us.” It was an evasion. She hadn’t told Kasumi, but she didn’t doubt that Kasumi knew. Kasumi always knew. It was like a kind of magic powered by love, and it could be off-putting at times.

Ranma had been proud of her enhanced proprioception, but now, as she walked to school, she wished she didn’t know exactly what was touching her and where. Perhaps other girls couldn’t feel the added bulk between their legs, but she couldn’t help but be aware of it. She tried to focus on other things, but it was hard to ignore the sensation for long.

* * *

Kasumi had noticed Ranma’s mood swings on Saturday, and had an inkling of what might be going on. She’d also noticed that Ranma had only shown up for meals on Sunday, and had looked uncomfortable and unhappy. The way she seemed to be carefully avoiding Akane-chan was a big clue, too—she’d done her best to just stay out of the way and do the things she needed to do without too much interaction during her own periods.

But the interaction between the two girls at breakfast told her everything she needed to know. Akane’s look of concern and support for Ranma warmed her heart. Neither of them had come to her, so she hoped that Akane was helping Ranma-chan the way she’d helped out her younger sisters during their first periods.

At least now she knew one thing they’d be having for dinner.

* * *

Shampoo was at the school gates and pranced over to them enthusiastically. “Oh, Ranma-chan! Akane-chan! Good news! Great-grandma soon ready for rematch!” She beamed at them. “Defeat her, get Phoenix Pill, and chance to be boy again! Being girl not so fun anymore, no?”

Does Shampoo know, too? Ranma wondered, feeling a wave of anxiety wash over her; she really wanted the fact that she might have to deal with menstruation while at school to be something only she and Akane knew, and here was Shampoo dropping hints. Maybe she was being a little oversensitive and reading too much into Shampoo’s taunt, but Ranma couldn’t help feeling like her secret was dangerously close to becoming public knowledge.

Maybe she could defuse the situation. “ ‘I feel ready to take on the day, no matter what’,” Ranma told the world in an overly feminine flowery tone, mimicking a line from a tampon commercial that had been playing on repeat in her head.

Akane grabbed her arm and pulled her along before she could see Shampoo’s reaction. “Come on, Ranma-chan,” she said, “let’s get to class before we’re late.”

As they’d expected, their morning math class was taken up with several mathematical puzzles on the board to choose from, while their teacher tried to dig himself out of his grading backlog. Ranma, Akane, and several others worked together on a particularly tricky problem involving a series of geometric shapes and their areas. Ranma found that she was able to focus pretty well, but her attention was still pulled away occasionally by two things, one was a mild cramping sensation in her lower abdomen that came and went erratically, and the other, of course, was the constant reminder of the pad between her legs and her worries about just what was going on down there.

Ranma’s many fights had taught her that body fluids are at body temperature and thus can be quite hard to detect when they first start leaking. She might not have had a period yet, but she had experienced discharge and knew how annoying it was to pull your underwear up only to discover a cold spot and realize what had transpired. If she went to the bathroom, she could check, but if she kept going and checking every half hour, everyone would wonder what her deal was. So she just sat there, feeling awkward, trying to focus on the puzzle and the classmates around her.

When break time finally came, she made a beeline for the bathroom. She was sure, given the cramping sensations she’d felt, that she’d find she had things to take care of, and was careful to bring a new pad in with her, just in case. But there was nothing. It wasn’t pristine, but there was no sign of any blood. She considered changing it anyway, but decided not to; if she kept doing that, she might run out and then not have any when she really needed them. She cleaned herself up and headed back to her classmates before the bell sounded for classes to resume. She wasn’t sure whether she should be relieved or disappointed.

This ritual repeated itself several times over the course of the day. She’d feel cramping and would be sure that she was going to find blood when she checked, but each time there was nothing. As the day wore on, she was starting to feel a little frustrated. Was this all in her head? Was she just imagining the cramps? Could they be caused by something else? She felt like she was in limbo, waiting for something that had to happen but seemed like it never would.

She got three graded exams back over the course of the day, English, Mathematics, and Chemistry. English was the one where Ranma-kun’s inattentiveness in the preceding weeks had cost her most dearly; she’d only managed to get 70%. She wasn’t surprised that Akane had done much better. In contrast, her last-minute cramming had helped with math; she’d learned a thing or two doing the practice exam with Akane and the actual exam was similar enough that some of her weaknesses weren’t exposed. Akane beat her again, but Ranma didn’t think Akane’s results were a fair measure of her obvious skill, either.

But it was their Chemistry scores that almost caused a fight between the two of them. Ranma just beat her with 80% to Akane’s 79%. Akane seemed to be taking it well, until Ranma made a joke about it being like cooking. Akane snapped back with, “Apparently so!” and then ranted about how that was such a predictable barb. Ranma was thrown by Akane losing her cool, but in Akane’s mind, her grade felt like a double injustice—she’d dealt with this nonsense in her anxiety dream this morning and now it had played out again in real life. It hadn’t been funny the first time.

The day wrapped up with PE again, and once more people wanted Ranma to be team captain. She tried to encourage someone else to do it, but the broad consensus was that she should lead. Akane was on the opposing team this time, and without her help in persuading the team to pick someone else, she had to accept.

The class took place outside, of course, and the heat seemed like it was particularly oppressive. Today’s game mostly involved running in relays, so she and the others spent much of the class standing around or waiting to be tagged between rounds of trying to run flat out. At the start of class, she was anxious about having some kind of wardrobe malfunction, but everything held together.

As the games went on, she started to feel a little light-headed from the heat and exercise; her cramps came back, more intense than before, and she began to wonder if she was going to have to deal with her first period right here, right now, in the middle of PE. She thought about just slipping away and getting out of the sun, but as her team’s captain, she felt like she’d be letting down the whole team, and she wouldn’t let herself do that. With no other options, she just gritted her teeth and watched the clock, urging it to go faster and bring the class to an end.

Finally, the bell rang, and Ranma headed straight for the bathroom. She’d almost made it there when she realized she needed to turn back. She was in her PE kit and didn’t have any supplies with her. She went back to the changing room, palmed a pad from her bag (her PE kit was free of any actual useful pockets! Why?) and hurried to the bathroom. She locked herself in a stall and took a deep breath before checking.

It had happened. Maybe. It was more pink than she expected, but there was definitely something there. And yes, there was some redder stuff, too, somehow on the edges of the pad. How? As she removed it and disposed of it, she saw that a little blood had managed to stain her underwear. It was just a drop or two, but wasn’t the whole point of wearing these stupid bulky pads to prevent that? She wrestled the new pad into place and tried to calm down and recenter herself. It was much cooler in the stall than it had been outside, but not cool enough to really recover from the heat she’d built up during class. Other girls were probably taking cool showers in the changing room. She could do that, too, except that her mind helpfully provided her with glimpses of a few vividly catastrophic scenarios. So, no. She just wanted to go home.

Apparently this had been the rite of passage she’d been imagining since Akane brought up the topic—which, she realized, had only been the day before yesterday—and it was massively anticlimactic. She’d built up her vague idea of what it would be like into a dramatic event, and now it turned out that it came down to nothing more than a used sanitary pad in the trash. Annoying and gross, but not such a huge deal in the grand scheme of things. She felt a little let down.

* * *

Outside the changing room, she met up with Akane for the walk home.

“Hope you don’t mind that my team won,” Akane teased her.

“What?” Ranma realized that she’d been so caught up in her worries during PE that she hadn’t even noticed which team had won. “Oh, no, not at all,” she covered, trying to sound enthusiastic. “Congrats, Akane-chan!”

Akane took note of Ranma’s slightly distracted demeanor. “Did it, uh… happen?” she asked gently.

“Yeah… It was… um… not really a big deal,” Ranma replied, trying to downplay it. “Just a bit of spotting, I think. Nothing major.” She wasn’t even really sure what spotting was, if she was honest, but she’d heard other people say it and it seemed to fit. She didn’t want to seem like she was totally clueless; especially since she kind of was.

Akane hugged her. “I’m proud of you, Ranma-chan! You’re a real woman now!”

Oh, no. Akane had realized that she was about to deploy the clichéd phrase that people used to mark someone’s transition into womanhood, but she’d already started speaking and couldn’t stop herself from finishing, and it was too late to take it back now. She was angry at herself for, once again, forgetting that underneath all the magic of the Jusenkyo curse, a stressed and miserable Ranma-kun was trying to survive this ordeal. Once again she’d inadvertently denied his very essence. Damn. She had to hope that Ranma wouldn’t take what she’d said the wrong way.

“At least kinda,” she added with an awkward laugh, trying to lighten the mood.

Ranma rode an emotional rollercoaster in that brief moment. When Akane said “You’re a real woman now,” she felt a swell of pride and happiness. As clumsy and awkward as this whole experience was, it was the strongest evidence yet that she was no longer play-acting, but finally embodying the whole experience of being a woman. That validation felt amazing.

But then the second part of Akane’s comment hit her like a ton of bricks. “Kinda?” Was Akane saying that she still wasn’t really a woman at all? That she was still just pretending? That he was still there, lurking under the surface, and that her whole experience was nothing but a charade? Ranma felt a wave of anger rise up in her. “‘Kinda’!?” she repeated, her voice rising along with the prickle of tears in her eyes. “I’m sorry if this,” she angrily gestured to her body, “isn’t good enough for you, Akane-chan!” The tears were starting to overtop her eyelids. “Maybe I should just— I should just— I don’t even know what!” The tears started to run down her face in earnest, and she turned away from Akane, struggling to compose herself.

Akane was horrified. She hadn’t meant to upset Ranma. If she needed to play the role straight, to method-act her way through it all, she couldn’t undermine her process. She had to do better. She took herself in hand and stepped closer, reaching out to gently turn Ranma back towards her. She put her hands on Ranma’s shoulders and looked her in the eyes. “I’m sorry, Ranma-chan. I wasn’t trying to diminish you or what you’re going through. I really do just want to be here for you. As your….”

She stalled out, feeling like she’d managed to dig herself into yet another hole. If she tried to express how she really felt about Ranma-chan, just how totally adorable she was and how she worried that she could lose her, well, that would be another case of saying the wrong thing. Ranma-kun would justifiably feel like she was rejecting him; like she was choosing Ranma-chan over his true form; like she never wanted him back. She remembered the covered mirror, showing his rejection of his female form, and the clearest evidence of his utter devastation after failing to obtain the Phoenix Pill from Cologne. She struggled to find a word that would express her support for both Ranma-chan and Ranma-kun, without accidentally suggesting a preference for either. She sorted through various possibilities, and finally settled on, “…bestie.”

Ranma was still simmering. She’d almost felt better until Akane’s hesitation. She could see Akane was searching for the right words, trying to avoid saying the F-word—“friend”—because that would just drive home the fact that as Ranma-chan that was all she could ever be. It wasn’t even the particular word she’d settled on to obfuscate that harsh truth, just the hesitation that tainted it.

“‘Bestie’,” Ranma repeated, her eyes still shining with tears, but her voice dripping with angry sarcasm. “Yeah, sure, Akane-chan. I’m your ‘bestie’,” she said. She turned away from Akane and strode away rapidly. Akane was left on her own, caught up in a churning eddy of confusion, guilt, and helplessness.

* * *

By the time Akane arrived home, Ranma was already in her room with the door closed. She thought about knocking, but she was sure their argument would just start up again, but probably even nastier now that Ranma had had some time alone to build the whole thing up into something even worse. She fretted for a while, but in the end she decided that the best she could do for now was to try to let some of her emotions out by doing some training in the dojo. She had to hope that Ranma-chan would cool down and realize that they’d both gone too far. She didn’t work out for long, as it would be dinner time soon and it was still pretty hot, but she practiced some of the moves she’d worked on with Ranma-chan recently and felt some of her darkest imaginings burn away.

As she was finishing up, she noticed that Ranma had slipped in silently and was watching her. “Hey,” Akane said, a little surprised. “I didn’t hear you come in.”

“You’re pretty good, you know,” Ranma said, quietly. “Sorry I flew off the handle earlier. Maybe we can blame PMS?” she laughed weakly.

Akane thought about mentioning that PMS was really for before the period, but decided not to. But “PMS” triggered a flurry of memories of Saturday. Oh, now I see…

Pushing her realization away for now, she said, “It’s okay, Ranma-chan. Want a hug?” She opened her arms.

Ranma hesitated for just a moment, then stepped gratefully into the embrace, clinging to Akane like she might disappear. She heard a muffled, “Thanks, Akane-chan,” from down around her chest where Ranma’s head was. One of the dumber parts of Ranma’s mind wanted to point out that Akane probably didn’t give hugs like this to her other “besties”, or “friends”, or whatever, but she knew it would just make things worse again. She needed all the comfort and support she could get right now.

After a few minutes, Kasumi-oneechan announced that dinner was ready. They untangled themselves and Ranma started to head for the dining room, but Akane stopped her, moving to look her directly in the eyes. She looked very serious, and drew a breath before saying, “Ranma-chan, before we go in for dinner, there’s one thing I want you to know.”

Oh, Kamisama, what now? Ranma looked at her expectantly.

“Whatever Kasumi-oneechan does tonight, it wasn’t me, okay? I never said anything to her about… you know.” Akane wanted to make sure Ranma knew that she was on her side.

Ranma had hoped for something different, even imagining briefly that Akane might tell her that she accepted Ranma as she was, but knowing that Akane had her back was something. “Thanks, Akane-chan,” she said softly. “I appreciate it.”

When they reached the dining room, Ranma immediately saw what Akane was warning her about. Kasumi-oneechan looked at her with a knowing smile, and on the table was a large bowl of sekihan—red bean rice, a popular dish for all sorts of celebrations, but also, Ranma knew, the traditional dish for celebrating a girl’s first period. Her face flushed with a mixture of embarrassment, gratefulness, and love. She smiled awkwardly and quickly checked the expressions of the others seated around the table as she took her place. Nabiki gave her a look as if to say, Nothing to do with me, I swear! and Akane smiled back awkwardly, knowing that Ranma probably didn’t want the attention, especially in front of their fathers, but also that it represented Kasumi-oneechan’s genuine love and concern for her.

She was relieved to see that Kasumi-oneechan’s gesture appeared to have gone over the heads of their fathers, at least for now.

“If we’re celebrating the end of exams, it’s a bit late, isn’t it? Or maybe we need to celebrate before we get the report cards, eh?” ventured Soun, trying to make sense of the girls’ glances at one another.

Ranma saw his confusion and jumped in with an enthusiastic, “Yeah, uh, that’s it! Exams are over, and we can all relax now!” Looking directly at Kasumi-oneechan, she continued forcefully, “It was my idea, and Kasumi-oneechan agreed to help out. Everyone likes sekihan, so she made enough for us all to celebrate!” She hoped the fathers would accept her explanation and turn their attention away from her. She’d make it up to Kasumi-oneechan later.

The fathers dug into the sekihan like it was any other dish. She should have felt a wave of relief, but instead a wave of cramps hit her. These were worse than the ones at school, and she guessed the stressful situation at the table wasn’t helping. She tried to focus on her breathing and ignore the sensation as best she could, hoping her face didn’t give her away.

The conversation was light and she mostly tuned it out, concentrating on getting through the meal without incident. At one point she was yanked out of her focus when Genma uttered the phrase “the boy”. Here she was, sitting at the same table and enduring period cramps, and the man was still completely in denial. She let it go. She just didn’t have the energy for another argument, and it wasn’t worth jeopardizing the détente they’d maintained thus far.

After dinner, she went to change her pad again and things were… worse. Or maybe better, in a sense. There was no doubt that she was experiencing a real period now. There was more blood, and it was a much darker red, not just the pinkish tinge she’d seen earlier. And, unfortunately, her cramps were also much worse. She gritted her teeth against the pain, but she felt like curling up in a ball. She wondered how the other girls endured this pain every month.

When she finally returned to the living room, she found Akane waiting for her. “How are you feeling, Ranma-chan?” she asked gently.

“You… I… I…” Ranma struggled to find the words. The cramps were making it hard to think straight. “I think I need… I think I need to lie down.”

“Take some ibuprofen first, okay?” Akane said, getting up and going to the kitchen to get some water and the pills. She handed them to Ranma, who took them gratefully. She curled up on the couch, and Akane sat beside her, rubbing her back soothingly. “There, there, Ranma-chan. It’ll be okay. Just rest for a bit.”

They watched some TV together, Akane keeping her hand on Ranma’s back the whole time. After a while, the cramps started to ease off, and Ranma felt a little more like herself again. “Thanks, Akane-chan,” she said softly. “I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

In the end, she decided to get an early night. She opened up a different box of pads, intended for heavier flow and overnight use, and put one in place before heading to bed. The pad’s bulk was disconcerting, but she was past caring at this point. She just wanted the pleasant grip of sleep. She worried she might spend the whole night wrestling with the pain, but she’d cuddled Mr. Bunny for only a few minutes before she was asleep.