Ranko took a deep breath, exhaling slowly as she looked over the teeming masses gathered in the school cafeteria. She wasn’t sure how she was going to do what needed to happen next, but another three hours’ worth of hearing the rumors and the whispers around every corner had given her a reservoir of anger she could use for the scene she had to play.
What she was doing had to be loud, and visible. It had to be undeniable. She was only going to get one shot at it.
Smoothing out the skirt of her cheerleading uniform - not that there was all that much of it to wrinkle - she clenched both her fists until her fuschia-lacquered fingernails bit into her palms, letting the pain of it build up in her. Use it.
Growling under her breath, Ranko stormed out into the main cafeteria, stalking her way to the table near the center where the basketball team congregated. “Eiji Kanda, I cannot believe you!”
Heads started to turn from every direction to see what the commotion was about. For the first time in two days, it was what Ranko wanted.
Eiji stood up, holding up his palms. “Whoa, easy, Ranko! What’s the matter?”
Good boy, play your part, Ranko thought. “We’ve been engaged what, a week?”
Don’t get sick, Ranko. Don’t get sick. It’s all an act. Five more minutes, and it’s all over.
“I told you I wanted to wait until we were married! But you?! Trying to force me into bed with you already?! You fucking pervert!”
That’s about the worst thing you can call a guy, right, Akane?
Eiji blinked, stammering as he reeled from her yelling. Nearly every eye in the cafeteria was on Ranko now. This is not what we rehearsed. “Yeah, about that, I, uh…”
“I mean, honestly, Eiji! Did you seriously think I was going to let you put that tiny little thing in me anyway? Like, dude, come on, now, that’s just sad!” A cavalcade of giggles set off around the room.
“And to top it off, you try to apologize by taking me to some shitty cut-rate sushi restaurant that got me so sick I can barely stand up straight, and then I have to listen to half the school saying you got me pregnant because I’m puking my guts out through my Japanese quiz? And you sit here and laugh it up with your asshole friends while everybody’s calling me a whore and you don’t even stick up for me? Can you name even one person you told the truth to about everything they’re saying about me?!” I know I can’t.
She whipped her head around to his cadre of shell-shocked teammates. “Hey! Hachiro! You’re his best friend. He’s supposed to tell you everything. I bet he even let you think he was…” She shuddered. “... getting physical with me. Didn’t he?!”
Hachiro could only nod.
She swallowed hard, willing her breakfast to stay where she’d put it. “Thought so. And then, you didn't even call to check on me last night?! Let me guess, a princess in one of your dumb video games needed saving, and so you ignored the girl in trouble that you had right here! Do you even care about me at all, or am I just some trophy you can put on your shelf next to all your other conquests?! Do you have any idea how disgusted I am with you right now?!” That part, at least, wasn’t an act.
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A chorus of giggles erupted from the hundreds of students surrounding Ranko. Yeah. Laugh at the boy for a change, bitches. This was all his idea. Besides, Eiji hadn’t figured it out yet, but Ranko was actually trying to do him a favor. If she made him sound undesirable enough as a partner, he could still avoid being pursued as much without having to fake a relationship. And, of course, it was the best way she had been able to figure out to loudly deny the fact that the two had been together physically, and hopefully help bring an end to some of the other vicious rumors that had been floating around.
Eiji flushed as even the basketball players started to look at him mockingly. Ranko wanted to be glad that, for the first time in their sham of a relationship, some of the shame of it was falling on his shoulders for a change. She’d carried it exclusively for far too long. But, looking at him and watching his popularity recede in real time, she almost pitied him. Almost.
“Well, I, um… Ranko, I…”
Ratcheting back into her enraged voice, Ranko stomped her foot with a growl. “And besides! You made me follow you around like a puppy everywhere, and never even listened to what I had to say. Like, if you want a girl to like you, maybe, I don’t know, let her talk once in a while?! Show some interest in things that are important to her, or at least don’t treat her like an idiot when you’re talking about things she knows about too?”
Eiji’s friends laughed, but she turned on them as well. “Oh, don’t even, guys. You jocks just love having the cheerleaders at every game to jump around in our short skirts and tell you how great you are, but then you talk about your sports constantly and when we try to join the conversation, you treat us like we don’t even understand them. Like, do you think we just sit there and do our hair while the game is going on? It’s a miracle any of you insensitive, dismissive fucks can ever get a date!”
Eiji put up his hand. “But, Ranko, I…”
Ranko growled loudly at him. Shut up. My turn. “Eiji Kanda, you are, without a doubt, the worst boyfriend I have ever had!” Not that there was especially steep competition.
“I… I just don’t think this is going to work out!” She sighed. This was going to be the hardest part. She reached down, pulling the ring Akane gave her off of her finger and holding it up to him. “I’m sorry, I just can’t do this anymore!”
A chorus of gasps and chatter sprung up from all around them.
Eiji nodded slowly. “If that’s really the way you feel about it, okay, Ranko. You should keep the ring, though. It looks good on you. And I really am sorry it didn’t work out between us.” And he was, just not in the way it sounded to the hundreds of onlookers.
Ranko nodded. “Thank you. Goodbye, Eiji.”
As Ranko turned to walk away from him, she heard chairs scraping across the floor as the rest of the basketball team slowly backed away from their eviscerated captain. Out of the corner of her eye, Ranko could have sworn she saw Kumiko smiling from their usual table where she currently sat alone. As soon as the dust settles, Kumi, I’ll explain everything. Or, at least try to. Promise.
She turned the corner into the hallway, leaning against the wall in a gap between two banks of lockers. She opened her left fist, the fingers of which were still locked tight around the most precious three grams of matter in her universe. She took the ring in her fingers, sliding it back onto her trembling left hand and exhaling slowly. Somehow, just seeing it on her hand again made her feel calmer. Safer, as if somehow normalcy and good and light was returning to the world.
She strained to listen to some of the banter coming from the cafeteria. She couldn’t make out much, but what she did hear sounded as if the message had been received. Hopefully, the new story would spread as quickly as the old one had, and by the end of the week, the popular cheerleader and singer with the cute red bow in her hair who was once a dour, unpopular boy named Ranma Saotome could walk through the halls without being called a slut again.
Seated at the table closest to the lunch counter, a deviously excited grin cracked across the face of a giant of a senior boy with a black flat-top. “You hear that, boys?”
Saburo Kimura turned to his wrestling teammates, rubbing his palms together excitedly. “Looks like Ranko Tendo’s back on the menu. And with the way she just humiliated Kanda… whoever gets with her is gonna be the new king of the school.”