I smiled as I sat down on our old tiled roof. I patted the surface a little so that I could comfortably sit down and watch what was going on down below. There was always something, you know? Always something happening in our house.

But not right now. The neighborhood was quiet for once and I just sat here with my hands hugging my knees. Nothing too special. I just liked the breeze flowing through the contours of my face and body. I felt free, or rather more relieved than usual. I could actually breathe with no one next to me and trying to attack me or something of that kind.

I glazed my hand lightly over the dark blue roof and gave a sad smile. There was time to think now. My only time to think. And I wondered how in the world did I actually get time to myself and for myself. Not attending to some stupid jerk's injuries or getting kidnapped.

Always getting into trouble: Kunou wants to date me and his 'pigtailed goddess'; Ranma getting jealous of P-chan; not understanding what Ryouga wants to say to me; getting challenges from Ukyou and Shampoo and that Black Rose. Sheesh, that girl still gave me the chills. But the list goes on and on.

And in the end, Ranma's to blame. Always getting me into his troubles.

No, maybe I wanted to be in trouble a little. Just a little. Getting so worked up over worrying that I make it my sworn mission to seek out where that baka was or how he's doing. I'd never admit it though. No matter how many times he says, "You're jealous." Well, who would be?! Hee hee. Who wouldn't be?

There, I started to laugh a little. Maybe it wasn't so bad. Maybe Ranma's outbursts and his ego were too much to handle; and maybe he does insult me all the time. Well, it's not like I don't do the same to him, but I've got a privilege! He can be so stupid sometimes! No, make that all the time...

...but that's just it. His stupidity gives him rotten luck. And then he uses his strength with some sort of borrowed shrewdness to find himself the winner of every challenge. His stupidity got him to do crazy things.

And that's when I begin to smile more. No matter what, when it came right down to it, he always saved me. He always protected me from any kind of danger. Though, I always misinterpreted it into something hentai or shouted back with anger in response to it.

Maybe it wasn't so bad having all the havoc in the house. There was always something to do and something to see. It wasn't so bad having Ranma and his dad here after all.

I began to wipe away a happy tear and laugh to myself. It wasn't so bad at all...

...because even if I couldn't go to sleep tonight, guess who just walked up to the roof to see if I was okay?

Ranma just stood a few feet away from me. I looked behind of me to smile into his face. "Thanks, Ranma."

He gave me this perturbed look and appeared as if he were going to slip. "You okay? You're acting weird."

I looked away and shook my head. Never mind, Ranma.

This is something you might always misunderstand about me if I told you.

--

Author's note: I don't know where I'm going with this fanfic. But I just wanted to delve into a number of characters of the Ranma-verse and get a better look at them. Originally, this was supposed to be called, "Akane's Mind". But then, I changed my mind because even if this is repetitive of many things within Ranma 1/2, I wanted to really capture each character's personality, even briefly.