I Can See Clearly Now!
A Ranma 1/2 Fan Fiction
M. A. Davis, "Miko"
co-plotted with Sky Rigdon and Jeffrey Cornish
more ideas from Catbert25, Brendan, and Tom Hayes
Chapter 1: Jeepers Creepers!
Wing Ho held up the round piece of glass to the light. He studied it critically, turning it over, looking for any hidden flaws, then again peered at it through his jeweler's eyeglass. Finally he removed the eyeglass, and held the polished orb over his right eye.
Everything came into sharp focus. He stared through the front window pane of his shop, across the street, and into the window of the neighborhood fish market. Even the tiniest details, the smallest printing, could be made out easily.
There was no doubt. Wing Ho had mastered the most ancient secrets of the art of glass grinding. He, and he alone, was able to grind the perfect pair of glasses.
For a long time he sat there, staring into the fish market, watching the old man behind the counter. Wing Ho was thinking carefully. The secrets locked within his brain -- the ability to perfectly correct anyone's vision -- could buy him a fortune... but what if others learned of it? What if others read the ancient scroll describing the secret process? What if any optometrist could do what he did?
For the briefest of moments, Wing Ho contemplated a world in which everyone had perfect vision, thanks to the secrets written on the rolled parchment before him. It was a horrifying thought. How, in such a world, would a humble optometrist such as himself survive?
No! Wing Ho grabbed a metal bowl from the floor and set it on his work bench. Holding up the parchment, he produced a lighter. In a moment the parchment fed a growing flame. The lens grinder dropped it into the bowl and watched as it turned to ash.
The secret would be his, and his alone.
***
When he heard the sickening crunch, Mousse froze.
"Not again!" he muttered to himself. Kneeling, he felt the ground around his feet. Broken shards of glass greeted his outstretched fingers.
"Damn it!" he swore. "That's the third pair this month!" Standing, he reached into the breast pocket of his robe and produced a new pair of impossibly thick-lensed glasses. For no readily apparent reason, he perched these on top of his head.
He patted down the entire length of his robe, then cursed again, softly. He reached within his robes and pulled out several bladed items, all attached to long chains. He dropped these on the floor and dug deeper into his robes, producing a variety of esoteric weapons, including a duck-shaped porcelain training potty. The pile of odd devices grew around him as he continued to bring forth unusual objects of a deadly nature. Finally he stood in a pile reaching his knees. For several more moments he searched through his robes, but nothing more was to be found.
Pulling down his glasses, he knelt and examined the pile of objects closely. After several moments he grunted to himself.
"My last pair," he muttered, standing. "I guess it's about time to get some new ones, although how I'll find the money for them..."
"ORDER UP!" a voice from the kitchen yelled out. "Mousse, what are you doing? HEADS UP!"
The Chinese boy in the flowing white robe had just enough time to turn his head. He saw a large bowl of beef ramen flying across the room. It struck him squarely between the eyes. There was a bright flash of pain, and the sound of glass shattering...
***
Wing Ho walked the streets of Nerima and smoked his pipe thoughtfully. He'd been considering his impending wealth and fame all morning, and had come to one inescapable conclusion: fame and fortune could take days, or even weeks, to arrive. Who could possibly wait that long? How could he speed things up?
Advertising was the key, he surmised. One well-placed ad could reach potentially millions of people. The second problem, of course, was what to say. Simply telling people that you made great glasses wasn't enough; every lens crafter said that. Conversely, making patently outrageous claims, even if the were true, would not help him one bit, as no one would take him seriously.
What he really needed was incontrovertible proof that his product worked. If he could produce one magnificent example of the effects of his wondrous glasses, then people would sit up and take notice. What he needed, then, was not simply someone with bad vision, but someone for whom "bad vision" was a marked improvement. In short, he needed someone who was absolutely as blind as a bat. If he could give the most near-sighted idiot in Tokyo the vision of a hawk, everything else would take care of itself. He'd be a rich man in days, or even hours, rather than weeks or months. His path to riches and glory would be assured.
But where to find such a person?
"Excuse me, good sir, but could you direct me to the nearest optometrist?"
"Why, certainly," Wing Ho said, glancing up. He paused.
Before him was a young Chinese boy, tall, handsome, and well-muscled, dressed in a long robe of white. He was facing a utility pole. He was, in fact, talking to the utility pole.
"Thank you very much," the boy said politely. After a moment, he added, "Is it this way?"
Wing Ho watched as the strange boy pointed to a wall not ten feet behind him.
"No," the lens grinder said. "I'm over here, by the way. You're talking to a post."
The boy turned to face a mailbox. "Oh, I'm sorry. Without my glasses, I guess my vision isn't so good."
"No. Over here."
The boy turned to face the wall.
Wing Ho leapt forward and grabbed the boy's wrist in a tight embrace. "Let me lead you there!" he exclaimed, eagerly.
"Oh, no, thank you, I can find my way..."
"Don't be daft, boy! I'm going to help you out! You have no idea how much I'm going to help you out! And, in exchange, you'll be doing me a favor, too..."
***
Mousse adjusted the strange wrap-around goggles and looked about the small office. His likeness stared back at him from a mirror on the far wall, and he studied it critically.
*If I were a foot taller, and bald,* he thought, *and black instead of Chinese... I might look like that famous basketball player from a decade ago. What was his name again? Cream? Yeah, that was it. How strange, to be named after a skin care product!*
"How does it feel?" the optometrist asked.
"I don't know," he said. "This strap feels strange. I've never needed anything like it before."
"Tell me again how many pairs of glasses you've broken this month," Wing Ho replied. "What was it? Four? Five? I can imagine that you've lost or misplaced your glasses at least ten times as often. And didn't you say you were a martial artist? No, my friend, the strap is absolutely necessary. Don't you see? You need never be embarrassed about your eyesight again!"
"Great," Mousse said, "I can rest comfortably in the knowledge that I look stupid all of the time, instead of just when I'm talking to rocks."
"Now, now," the lens grinder replied, "it'll take some getting used to, but I think you'll find the advantages far outweigh the disadvantages. Just remember, they're free; all you have to do is demonstrate them in public for me. Now, have you noticed the difference yet?"
Mousse looked about the room again. "Well, I have to admit, things do look a lot clearer. But if these things are so great, why can't I read your sign?"
The man's brow furrowed. "Sign? Which sign are you talking about?"
Mousse pointed to the eye chart on the back wall. "That one. Did you just put that up? It wasn't there when I came in. EDFVUZA? I keep trying to read it, but it makes no sense whatsoever."
"That's an eye chart," the craftsman replied. "It helps me to know if you can see well."
Mousse thought about this a moment. "Ah, I understand," he said. "When people can't read it, you tell them that they need glasses."
"Yes, essentially."
"Very clever indeed," Mousse said, "but what if they realize that it's a trick? I mean, they could stare at it all day and it's still not going to make any sense."
Wing Ho frowned in confusion. "I don't think you understand..." he began, but by then Mousse was staring out the window in fascination.
"That tree, across the street!" Mousse said, excitement building in his voice. "I can't believe it! I can see leaves!"
"I know," Wing Ho replied. "Most people with new glasses are amazed to be able to see individual leaves."
"I didn't know leaves came from trees!" Mousse exclaimed. "Who would have imagined it? No wonder trees are all green at the top!"
A large sweatdrop appeared on Wing Ho's head. "Exactly how blind were you?" he asked, half to himself. The Chinese boy wasn't listening to him anyway.
"Look! On all of the street posts! I've never seen anything like it!"
"You didn't know the signs had writing on them?"
"I didn't know there were signs on all of those posts!" Mousse exclaimed excitedly. "I can't believe how much I was missing!" He spun suddenly and grasped the craftsman's hands, shaking them vigorously. "I can't thank you enough, Sensei! Your glasses are going to change my life! I'll never remove them! Never!"
Wing Ho only smiled broadly.
***
Mousse walked back to the Nekohanten in a blissful daze.
Everywhere he looked was beauty, in sharp, colorful detail. The birds high overhead fascinated him. As a bird himself, able to soar, after a fashion, he'd watched other, more graceful birds, and imagined that he was somehow special for being able to fly with them and watch them swoop and soar. Only now did he realize that any normal person could watch the same thing from the comfort of the ground.
` Somehow he'd never realized how many different kinds of cars there were. He studied the sleek, curving lines of a passing Honda Prelude, then the arrow-straight, all-business lines of a Mercedes Benz. He was surprised that each car had it's name somewhere on it. What else had he been missing?
He studied the clothing of the people he passed, amazed at the patterns and designs that he'd never noticed before. He glanced in shop windows, finding, for the first time, real meaning in the phrase "window shopping". What a strange and wonderful place the world was!
He reached the Nekohanten and stepped inside. "Shampoo!" he exclaimed, coming to a halt.
There, before him, was the love of his life. Muted sunlight danced across her hair, bringing out a thousand subtle shades of blue and violet. The soft silk fabric of her top slipped and shifted across her body as she moved, creating shadowy folds and shiny creases of red and yellow that dazzled his eyes. Her eyes... he'd never realized how beautiful her eyes really were. Their depths held shades of dark blue and violet and black that he'd never even imagined before. They sparkled with life, and yes, with anger.
He'd never seen Shampoo like this before. Even the smallest details about her were beautiful beyond belief. In his wildest fantasies, he'd never imagined Shampoo looking this indescribably beautiful.
"It's like I'm seeing you for the first time," he said. Tears flowed from his eyes, gathering in the lower half of the face-hugging goggles.
"MOUSSE!" Shampoo shouted. "Where you been? Is dinner rush, and you leave Shampoo all alone!"
"I'm sorry, my love," Mousse said, grinning foolishly. "I'll never, ever leave you again, I promise!"
"Stupid Mousse! You is talking crazy talk. You help clean up now." The Japanese-challenged girl paused, looking at Mousse more closely. "Where you find ugly goggles, Mousse? It make you look even stupider than usual."
Mousse opened his mouth to reply, but caught a flash of movement from the corner of his eye. He turned and easily snatched two flying metal trays from the air.
"I expect you to be here during dinner rush!" Cologne growled. "Stop gawking and get back to work!"
Mousse stared at the shriveled old ghoul behind the counter, and a shiver ran down his spine. He'd known she was ugly, but now every detail of her ugly, wrinkled face was clearly evident to him, for the first time. It was a hundred times more horrible than anything he could have imagined; he couldn't bear to look another moment.
"Aaaaaaaaaigh!" he screamed, running into the store room.
Once inside, he paused, panting heavily. He moved to the corner, where a battered futon and a cage sat. He tore the goggles from his head and threw them down on the futon.
"So horrible!" he said, shuddering. "I never imagined how truly awful she looks.... she really is a ghoul! Brrr! I'll never wear those goggles again as long as I live! It's not worth the price!"
Mousse flopped down on his futon and stared at the ceiling. After a few minutes he began to feel about on the futon. His hands found the object, made of smooth glass and clear plastic, and he held it up and stared at it.
An image of Shampoo filled his vision. She was so much more beautiful when you could actually see her. He'd known she was beautiful... but he'd never really seen that beauty in the way others did. His vision was so poor that even with his old glasses, he had to get close to something to really see it at all well, and Shampoo normally didn't allow him to get that close. It was, in many ways, amazing that he could interact with people at all, let alone become a top-notch martial artist.
Shampoo... Mousse sighed and slipped the goggles back over his head. Anything was worth being able to see the love of his life in all her glory. If it meant having to see the ghoul in all her ugliness as well, then so be it.
With his new goggles securely fastened, Mousse headed back out into the Nekohanten, ready to get back to work....
***
I Can See Clearly Now Chapter 2
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