Chapter Text
Morning in Nerima. The sun rose above Japan, climbing up from over the edge of the earth. Its first warm, rosy fingers chased away the lingering gloom of night, a fiery glow casting itself mile by mile over the land of the rising sun.
Clouds blazed in the light of dawn.
Birdsong, soft chirrups of swallows and thrushes waking to a new morn, wafted through the air. A gentle luminescence spilled over the dojo of the Tendo School of Anything Goes Martial Arts, a scene of idyllic tranquility which belied nothing of the mayhem and zany antics that so often seemed to center around this humble abode.
From the dojo proper, quite apart from the living quarters of its owners, faint sounds of flesh striking tatami – the impact of fists on well worn training posts – muffled kiai, and feminine grunts of exertion could be heard. In the wee hours of the morning, few things were prone to stir. But Akane Tendo, who woke early every morning to practice her kata and hone her kempo, was an exception to this rule.
So was her eldest sister, Kasumi.
A demure, dutiful daughter who in every way embodied the ideal of yamato nadeshiko, Kasumi Tendo rose with the sun every morning. Many chores had to be done each day, and she was the one most apt and likely to do them, being early to bed and early to rise.
She would boil water for rice, tend to the garden, draw and heat the bath, and pick out the ingredients for breakfast before any of the others had risen. This was her habit, and self-appointed duty. Those who knew the young woman for any length of time all invariably remarked on what a splendid housewife she might make, and what a shame it was that she didn't put herself out there.
Kasumi would smile in amusement and dismiss such concerns with a wave. She had no desire to go out dating, when she already had everything she needed right here.
Whistling a cheery tune, Kasumi ignited the stove's pilot light, turning the burner's dial to about mid-way. She set a pot atop the open flame and poured in some water, then turned her attention to a cutting board and an assortment of vegetables. She grabbed a knife and set to chopping, dicing, and cubing the ingredients, listening for the hiss of steam and boiling water.
As she started the preparations for breakfast, Kasumi absently compiled a mental checklist of other tasks that would need taking care of.
I'll need to patch Akane's gi, once she's wrapped up her training. She's ripped it up pretty bad with her activities in the dojo.
Kasumi giggled, eyes twinkling.
I'll have a bath drawn by the time she's finished, and put out a few towels as well. Once I've finished cooking the rice and steaming the vegetables, I'll grab that dirty gi and set it aside to wash and stitch up later.
With a smile on her face and a skip in her step, Kasumi started cooking in earnest. She added some ingredients to the boiling water, adjusting the burner to a more appropriate level, before retrieving and preparing more ingredients while those cooked.
Her ears perked up at the sound of someone stepping in through the door, and she became abruptly aware of an absence of sound coming from the dojo.
"Oh, Akane!" Kasumi chirped, turning to see her youngest sister. "I'm surprised. You've finished up much earlier than normal."
"I was still tired from last night, I guess," Akane said, shrugging.
"Ah, so that was you, then?" said Kasumi. "I should have known. You always were a staunch believer in practice makes perfect."
"Did I keep you up? Sorry, I tried to keep it down, but..."
"No, not at all. Don't apologize, Akane. I'm the one who should be saying sorry, if anyone... I did not think you'd be finished this early, so I haven't drawn the bath yet."
This time Akane dismissed Kasumi's apology, smiling warmly and waving a hand.
"That's not a problem, I can do it myself. You already look busy enough with breakfast. Really, I should be offering to help you. Our cooking lessons have come along well, haven't they? I'll take over here and you can have the first bath. You deserve a break every once in a while..."
Kasumi's smile twitched. Her expression vacillated subtly, switching so minutely and so quickly between her own unique, nigh indistinguishable interpretations of 'knowing', 'sheepish', and 'faintly horrified' that even a mind-reading empath would have been hard pressed to catch it.
On the one hand, she had a good idea as to why Akane might want to cook breakfast herself, and the reason had very little to do with the girl thinking her big sister needed a break. On the other hand, however, Akane was a TERRIBLE chef. Curry was the only thing the tomboy could make without producing an inedible mess, and everything else she tried to cook invariably came out vile and toxic.
"N-No, that's quite alright," Kasumi said with perhaps marginally more force than was strictly necessary. "I can manage just fine, Akane. Go ahead and take a bath. I insist."
Akane frowned. "Are you sure? I'd be happy to help. Isn't there anything I could do for you?"
Kasumi relented, just a little, at the expression on her sister's face.
"Well, our handsome guest will be up shortly," she said. "He might appreciate a fresh cup of tea."
Despite her pride, Akane visibly smiled at this. Only a touch, but still.
"Do you think so?" she mused, a spark of something in her eye. "Yeah, that does sound good. Sure! I'll do it."
And she fetched the teapot, saying this.
Kasumi breathed a sigh of relief. She glanced sidelong at Akane's threadbare dogi, the training outfit virtually coming apart at the seams. A number of tears littered the fabric, rips and cuts from the very physical ways that Akane spent so much of her free time at home.
She spotted a small, new rip on the seat of the pants that exposed the slightest glimpse of plain panties if one looked from just the right angle. The chest of the gi also boasted a number of tiny tears, stretched out by hard punches and a growing bust. Nothing was really left bare, and it was only the discerning glance of a seamstress and natural mother that let Kasumi pick out the minuscule, damaged portions of her sister's training uniform, but she still frowned a little to see the state of it.
Akane wasn't especially sweaty or redfaced, considering the relative brevity of her training this morning. Still, her cheeks bore a slight dusting of pink, and a few glistening droplets of perspiration trickled from the girl's brow. Akane's gi conformed rather closely to her yet-growing body, tightly hugging an athletic form and modest curves.
Kasumi smiled absentmindedly, watching as Akane filled the teapot and set it to boil. Her baby sister was growing into a fine, strong young woman. To think, she was already...
"ohhh..."
The sound of a moan, faint and barely audible, cut into Kasumi's internal monologue. She inclined her head, mildly surprised. Another moan drifted to her ears, sultry and low, laden with the scarcest trace of a husky, growling purr. Louder, there came another moan, and sooner than the last one, followed shortly by another and another, steadily rising in frequency and volume.
There was no mistaking the voice, husky and womanly as it was. Not as it reached a point where they could clearly make out what few words were being gasped out between those howling, wailing groans.
"Ohhh, yes...! Right there, handsome!"
Akane frowned, listening as she steeped some leaves in the boiling water.
"Hmph. She's too loud, that Nabiki..." she huffed. "Especially for this early in the morning."
Kasumi giggled. "Ah, methinks your jealousy is showing."
Akane crossed her arms over her chest.
"I'm sure I have no idea what you mean," she said airily, in spite of the slightest redness.
It continued to build, these noises coming from the guest bedroom. Male grunts and groans could be made out now, too, breathless and frantic. The moaning reached a fever pitch, very much identifiable as sounds of pleasure in the heat of intercourse. It could not be mistaken for anything else.
Two voices cried out in climax. Then they went silent.
Kasumi hummed to herself with a knowing smile. She continued preparing breakfast, wholly unperturbed by the ruckus that had just been coming from their guest's room. Nabiki loved to start her day with a "good fuck", as the middle Tendo daughter put it, and she did not much seem to care who heard her.
"The walls are paper-thin, anyways," she was prone to say. "I'm not gonna muffle myself just to keep from bugging other people. Not for free, at least."
And as none of the inhabitants of the Tendo dojo (aside from the... entrepeneurial Nabiki) really had any money to burn, these noises were practically a daily fixture, and not going anywhere any time soon.
Not all of them had acclimated to it, though.
"Guh, dammit..." Ranma Saotome grumbled, stumbling bleary-eyed into the kitchen. "Too loud. That woman is too damn loud... ugh. Pisses me off." He grimaced. "Any grub ready, yet? I'm starving."
"Not yet," Kasumi said cheerfully. "It'll be another ten or twenty minutes, so you might as well go take a bath."
Ranma sniffed, looking instead over at where Akane was making tea.
"Hey, that actually smells kinda good," he said. "I'll have a cup."
"It's not for you Ranma," Akane said tersely, giving him a stink eye. "It's for Shu."
The martial artist scowled.
"Oh," he muttered. "I see." And he turned on his heel. "Well. Maybe I will go take a bath, after all."
With a sniff, he stalked off...
...and walked smack dab straight into another young man in disheveled pajamas, brown-haired and crookedly grinning, as he came into the kitchen. His cheeks held the lingering flush of recent activities, and the open front of his shirt showed a light sheen of sweat on a smooth, lean chest. His hair fell over his eyes, obscuring them from view.
Next to the young man was Nabiki, in similarly bedraggled dress. She was smirking at him, digging the fingers of one hand quite possessively into the seat of his trousers, flexing and squeezing a firm, tight buttock.
The Saotome style heir was dazed for just a moment, looking dumbly at the guy Nabiki was groping.
"You're going to take a bath, Ranma?" the fellow said, his features comely in a very general sort of way. He spoke casually and with a hint of laughter in his tone, like he had just heard a mildly amusing joke. "Maybe I should join you. I can wash your back, if you'd like."
The offer was polite, noncommittal, but Ranma's face reddened fiercely. He spluttered incoherently for a moment.
Nabiki smirked, looking slyly from Ranma Saotome to Shu Jinko.
"I'd pay to see that," she commented. "Hehehe... the two of you soaping each other up and going at it in the bath. Pictures would probably go for a mint."
Kasumi giggled sweetly, looking up from the rice and steamed vegetables. Akane coughed and looked away, trying to hide the blush that erupted across her face.
Ranma stared at Shu. His face reddened deeper yet, and he audibly swallowed.
His mouth worked soundlessly open and shut for several seconds.
He choked.
Spinning on his heels, Ranma dashed in the opposite direction of the bathroom, hunched over and beetroot red. Nabiki chuckled, watching him go. Kasumi frowned mildly.
Akane, however, smirked and poured a cup of tea, mostly just glad for the interloper's departure. Covertly, she fiddled at one or two of the rips in the front of her gi, carefully lengthening and widening them. The slightest hints of soft, creamy flesh were made visible.
Then she took the teacup, turned, and carried it over to Shu.
With all the subtlety of a stampeding herd of elephants, she pretended to trip right as she reached him, willfully spilling hot tea all over his pant legs.
"Oh, no," she said in monotone, acting that a three year old could have seen through. "I've spilled this tea all over your pants. You'd better take them off before it stains."
A playful smirk gave the game away the instant she looked up at him, conspicuously arching her back and puffing out her chest to let a modest bosom strain against the strategic rips in her dogi. Twinkling eyes raked down over Shu's exposed chest, to the sizable bulge in the crotch of his trousers.
Nabiki laughed amusedly, and winked knowingly at her little sister.
"Oh, yes!" she cried, a maudlin, overdone sigh that registered as the polar opposite of Akane's acting. "Hurry, take them off before something terrible happens!"
Kasumi raised a hand to her mouth and giggled.
She watched intently as Akane and Nabiki promptly and aggressively "helped" Shu out of his trousers. It was obvious that this was all just a pretense, but Kasumi saw no reason to intervene (and, indeed, many reasons to let it carry out).
Shu simply went with the flow.