Bentos

“Here Ranma, I made a bento for you!”

Ranma turned in horror when he heard those eight words come out of his fiancée’s mouth. If it were any of his other fiancées, he would have been overjoyed to take the offered lunch. Unfortunately, the girl in question was Akane, who had poisoned him more times than he cared to remember with one culinary disaster after another. The last thing he needed today was to spend the rest of the afternoon with his head in the toilet.

Akane rolled her eyes as she watched Ranma frantically trying to think up an excuse as to why he wouldn’t be able to eat her lunch. “Okay, I admit, my cooking usually makes better paint thinner than food, but it’s good this time! See?” She opened the box which was stuffed to the brim with a large variety of food, and popped a hotdog in her mouth. Ranma watched in amazement when she didn’t immediately keel over from tasting, and yes even swallowing her own food. He gingerly accepted the proffered box, and nervously stared at it

Akane sat down next to Ranma and pulled out her own lunch. Ranma looked over and noticed that it was identical to his own. “Did you make yours too?” he asked. It would be so much easier to refuse if it was on the grounds of being unfair since she had obviously gotten Kasumi to make her own.

“Uh huh!” came the enthusiastic answer, before she pulled her chopsticks apart and began eating her lunch with relish. Ranma watched her eat half of the box, fully expecting her to get sick at any time. Noticing, Akane rolled her eyes at him again. “Seriously Ranma, it’s not going to kill you if you eat it. In fact, it’s pretty good if I do say so myself!”

“Says you,” he muttered under his breath. Breaking his own chopsticks apart, Ranma gingerly picked out a bit of omelet, and took a small bite. He opened his eyes when he realized that, yes, the food was indeed non-toxic, and for that matter, it actually was pretty good after all. He chose a fried shrimp and tried it, wondering if the first bite was a fluke. No, that was good too. So was the rice, and the hotdog octopi. The entire meal was actually good!

“Wow!” Ranma said under his breath. “This is as good as one of Kasumi’s.” He dove into his own lunch with equal relish, not noticing Akane’s beaming face at his compliment. She felt like she was walking on air the rest of the day.

And so it went, Akane would make lunch for the two of them every day, and every day they were great. Ranma didn’t know what had caused the change, but he was ecstatic over it. No longer would he have to put up with Akane giving him the doe eyes whenever she cooked something for him, and then to watch her face fall when he inevitably said no. No longer would he have to suffer through nights of endless cramping, since he would always give in to her demands in the end. No longer would he have to hide in fear whenever Kasumi felt too sick or tired to cook dinner. Plus, if they ever did get married, now he wouldn’t have to do all the cooking!

At the same time though, Ranma was waiting for the other shoe to drop. How on Earth did Akane all of a sudden get so good at cooking? Lessons had never done anything to help her, even his own mother had all but given up on Akane as hopeless. Akane couldn’t follow a recipe if her life depended on it. She always went too fast or tried too hard, or got too creative whenever she tried to cook. He couldn’t help thinking back to the times when there was some sort of miracle change in Akane’s abilities, and the fact that each one of them, the do-gi, the super soba, and the magic swimsuit, all ended in hijinks and resulted in Akane being back where she started. After having it so good for a while now, he doubted he’d be able to survive going back to having Akane destroying the kitchen again.

He was still pondering it when he got home from school that afternoon. Akane had had to stay behind to clean up the classroom, so he had walked home alone. He’d thought about asking Kasumi if she knew how Akane suddenly found her new talents in the kitchen, and was about to go do that when Akane came bursting through the door and ran up to her room, obviously crying.

What happened? Ranma was about to go upstairs to find out when Nabiki cut him off. “Not a good idea, Saotome,” she said. “Akane had another cooking disaster at school this afternoon. Three boys had to be taken to have their stomachs pumped. She’s taking it pretty hard considering this isn’t the first time it’s happened.”

Ranma sighed heavily as Nabiki walked away. So there it was, he knew it was too good to be true. If he ever found out which god was up there messing with him like this, he’d have to have a few words with the guy before he totally beat his ass.

The next day, Ranma was nervous as he watched Akane approach him at lunch holding two bentos. He didn’t say a word when she handed his to him, but refused to open it until he watched her take a bite. She was fine. What? What had happened between yesterday and today that she had lost and regained her ability to cook? Ranma shrugged and opened his box. Maybe there had just been an accident, some cleaner dripping in to her food from a leaky bottle without her noticing or something. Yeah, he was sure that was what had happened. You didn’t just lose your ability to cook overnight like that. He paused. On the other hand, you didn’t just gain your ability to cook overnight either.

Ranma couldn’t sleep. This thing with Akane’s cooking was still on his mind. Tonight she’d attempted to make a side dish for dinner. Kasumi had been hesitant, but had allowed her to make a salad, figuring that it was awfully hard to mess that up. Akane proceeded to prove her wrong. Thankfully, she hadn’t insisted on serving the disaster.

Why could Akane cook the bentos, but not anything else? It wasn’t even that the bentos were the same every day, she always made sure to make different dishes, rarely making the same lunch twice. Obviously she was capable of making more than just one dish, why was it she could only sometimes do it?

Suddenly he heard a noise out in the hallway. Someone was walking down the hall, trying to be quiet. He would have ignored it but whoever it was, was heading towards the stairs, in the opposite direction of the washroom. He looked over at the clock on the wall. It was too early for it to be Kasumi going down to start breakfast, and too late for anyone to be getting themselves a midnight snack. Maybe it was a burglar?

Ranma decided he’d better find out. He silently got up from his futon, and crept out into the hall. He stood still for a moment to allow his eyes to get used to the pale moonlight coming in through the window, before stealthily going down the stairs.

There was a light on in the kitchen, and he heard and smelled something being cooked on a frying pan. Ranma sighed in relief. It’s probably just Kasumi getting a head start on breakfast. Well, maybe he’d join her in the kitchen for a while. They could figure out this Akane thing together, and if nothing else, he’d get a snack out of it.

Ranma froze, standing in the doorway. His jaw dropped at the sight. He couldn’t speak, he couldn’t move, he couldn’t do anything. Kasumi wasn’t the one cooking in the kitchen, it was Akane. That in of itself wasn’t that odd, it explained why nobody had seen her cook the meals Ranma had been eating for the past couple of weeks. No, what was so startling about it was what Akane was wearing: her birthday suit.

Suddenly Akane turned her attention from the omelet she was frying on the stove to something down the countertop. Ranma quickly jumped to the side of the doorway and hid against the wall. What the hell was going on? Why was Akane naked? Not that he minded seeing her like this, he’d never really thought he’d get another chance since the last time he’d seen her like this way back when they first met, but still, why naked?

Lying flat on his belly so that she wouldn’t turn around and see him, Ranma took another look. Oh man, this was an even better view. He shook his head hard, trying to clear it of all of the raging hormones, and trying to concentrate on just watching her. She was so intently focused on the task at hand that he doubted she’d notice him if he walked up right behind her. Her face was a mask of concentration, but there was something else there. Was it… fear?

Well, now he knew why she could his bentos, but nothing else. For some strange reason, Akane had to be naked to cook anything edible. But why? And how had she come up with such a crazy idea in the first place?

Ranma watched from his prone position on the floor for a few more minutes before he slithered back away from the door and stood to leave. It was then he realized he’d been lying on his erection, and how painful it had been. He tried a few deep breaths to calm down, but it was no use. He wasn’t going to be getting any sleep tonight. Figuring he may as well make the best of it, he snuck one last peek around the door at the nude cook. Getting one last good long look at her, he saw the light glistening on the inside of her thighs. So not only was she cooking naked, but it aroused her that much? Oh gods was he not getting any sleep that night.