--
"My plane should be here soon."
"Uh-huh," Ken thrust his hands deep into the pockets of his gray sweatshirt, and looked out the window.
"Hey Ken..." began Ryu.
"What is it?" Ken looked over at him.
"I'm not sure, but I think we're missing something here."
"What do you mean?" asked Ken.
Ryu shrugged.
"Do you ever get the feeling that you're supposed to be somewhere, and you can't remember where that is?"
"All the time," Ken replied, carefully.
"That's what I mean."
"..." Ken looked out at the plane drawing up to the gate in front of them, and back at Ryu. "Screw this. You can always catch a later flight, right?"
"Actually my ticket-"
"I can fix that. Ryu, come on."
"Okay." Ryu nodded.
They left.
--
Nobody spoke on the way down to the parking garage, and it was not until they had put at least sixty miles behind them that Ryu broke the silence.
-The way Ken drove, it hadn't seemed long at all.
"Ken, where are we going?"
"That's the question, isn't it," agreed Ken, obtusely.
"Stop the car."
"Why?"
"Because I want to get out."
"No," Ken narrowed his eyes on the road ahead of him.
"Come on, man!" Ryu eyed the trees speeding by, and then aimed a punch at Ken's head.
Ken blocked it, then slowed down and pulled over.
Ryu got out, slung his travel-bag over his shoulder, and looked back at Ken uncomfortably.
"Do you want to fight?" Ryu asked.
"Yeah," Ken left his jacket on the seat of his car, and together they made their way into the trees by the side of the road.
--
About twenty yards away from the yard, they came upon a shallow ravine, choked with pebbles and mud from the last rainstorm. They didn't speak, just looked at each other for a moment, and began.
The weatherman of a nearby town was puzzled by the thunder he had to report that afternoon, but near sunset, the rain caught up with it.
In the ravine, Ken and Ryu were still fighting. The rain drenched them both, which did little aside from washing some of the mud off. A small stream picked up in the bottom of the ravine, filling the craters left in the bed of the ravine by dodged attacks. They fought to a standstill, then caught their second wind, and did it all over again. By the end of the fight, both were exhausted. Ken sat partway up the ravine's side, back to the gravel bank, hair hanging wetly past his eyes. Ryu knelt at the bottom of the ravine in six inches of running water, face upturned towards the rain, eyes closed.
He was happy.
--
After a time, Ryu joined Ken on the gravel bank.
Ken reached over and ruffled his friend's wet hair. Ryu pushed his hand away, which lead to yet another round, which was more of a wrestling match. It ended with Ryu getting Ken in a head lock.
"You never give up," observed Ryu, "-I'm glad that hasn't changed."
"Thanks," Ken twisted his head sideways, and punched Ryu's elbow.
Five minutes later, they were at the bottom of the ravine again.
"Matae," Ryu said after a long silence, "-what's eating you?"
"You're going to disappear again," Ken told him.
"I'm just going back to Japan."
"Yeah. And every time you do that, I don't hear from you for the next four or five years."
"..."
"I don't like that," Ken continued.
"What are you saying?"
"I get bored when you're not around. And you get bored when I'm not around, or you wouldn't keep coming back. So what I'm saying is, why leave at all?"
"Wouldn't we get sick of each other?" Ryu pointed out.
"Have we ever?"
"Hmm. -Good point."
"Just give it a try. If it doesn't work out, you can always go back to Japan, or Cambodia, or wherever the hell you keep disappearing to."
Ryu considered.
"I'm not used to staying in one place for any length of time. But I will give it a try."
"Good. I wasn't going to take 'no' for an answer anyway."
"Oh you weren't?"
"Nope," smirked Ken.
"Confident, aren't you? What makes you think you can HANDLE living with me?"
"Who said anything about living with me?" Ken asked, pretending to be surprised.
"What? Ah... That is..." Ryu fumbled.
"Just kidding."
"Arrrragggghhh!" Ryu pounced.
--
Sometime later, they staggered back to the car. Ken said some choice words about rain, convertibles, and leather upholstery. Ryu laughed at him. They put the top up, got in, and drove back to Ken's place.
Ken's home was several miles off the main road, on a hillside. The rain-whipped trees all around gave off a sound like that of a ship and the ocean: waves, and water, and creaking wooden beams. Through the darkness up ahead, a pair of amber lamps revealed several buildings, one of which Ryu thought was a dojo. Ken drove into a garage underneath the largest building, and the garage door shut behind them.
Out of the rain, the car was suddenly silent aside from a few ticking noises as the engine cooled itself off.
"Whew."
"Yeah," agreed Ryu.
Ken got out of the car, and shook the water off of his hair onto everything else. Ryu stood up and stretched, looking around the garage curiously. The place was big enough to fight in, and the walls were clean, white-painted cinderblock. Off to one side was a shelf of car-related things, and there were two doors, one in a side wall and one in the back. Ken opened the one in the back.
"Are you coming, or what?"
The door lead up a short flight of stairs, to a tiled area with laundry facilities on one side, and a large shower on the other. A wooden bench ran down the center of the room, several damp towels draped over one end of it.
"Make yourself at home," Ken indicated the room with a sweep of his hand, then stripped out of his wet clothes, and disappeared into the shower.
Ryu put his travel bag down, and dumped it out on the bench. About the only thing in it contained besides extra clothes and a roll of money was his passport, and everything was wet.
-Not that anything in the bag hadn't been wet before.
Ryu put his wet clothes in the dryer, guessed at a setting, and pushed 'start'. He changed out of his gi, laid it out on the bench to dry, and looked around for a fresh towel.
"Hey, Ken?"
"Yeah?" Ken called back, over the noise of the shower.
"Where do you keep the towels?"
"White cabinet on the left wall, bottom couple 'a shelves."
"Got it."
Ryu looked in the cabinet, and found the towels. He also noticed the shelf above was for gi's. There were four red ones, but one on the far right was white. ...In other words, it was his.
Ryu closed the cabinet, and joined Ken in the shower. Ken looked up when he came in, but didn't seem surprised.
"How long have you been planning this?" asked Ryu.
"I wasn't, but after your 'doesn't it feel like you've forgotten something' speech at the airport, it was this or go absolutely crazy," Ken told him, dryly.
"Hmm," Ryu frowned, thoughtfully.
"Shut up and enjoy the water," Ken advised.
"Hmph."
Ken finished rinsing off, and left the shower to Ryu. Ryu stayed under the hot water for a long time, letting the warmth seep into every bruised or tense corner of his body.
--
The morning dawned brightly, sunshine coming in through the skylight, hitting Ryu right in the eyes and waking him up. A few feet away on the other futon, Ken's face was conveniantly hidden in the blankets. Ken's hair glowed warm bronze against the sheets. Ryu stretched, then rolled his blankets down to the end of his futon, and sat cross-legged on it. This so-called bedroom was not a bad place to meditate.
--
...If one was clear-headed enough to meditate, that is. Ryu could not get his thoughts together. Anywhere else, thinking about fighting with Ken usually focused his thoughts enough to block out whatever else he was thinking about, but here Ken was four feet away, and asleep. His attention ended up being divided between focusing on fighting the Ken that was in his mind, and awareness of the Ken who was asleep right next to him. And Ryu could not get focused.
/Alright, look/ he thought, /If Ken's here and focusing on him isn't working, focus on something else./
That worked. Ryu thought about the road that stretched from a certain town in northern Japan, all the way down to Kobe. It was a very long road, and was mostly bordered by farms and suburbs until the last thirty miles outside of Kobe. Ryu thought about that road, and how the first time he had walked it's length, there had been a day when his imagination had convinced him that he would never come to the end of it. That it would go on for ever, always one more rise, one more turn, one more valley. Instead of defeat and futility, though, he had felt... peace. He had almost felt disappointed when he finally came to the outskirts of Kobe. He could have walked along the side of that road forever, and never needed anything more.
He hadn't always felt that way, though. Once, he'd thought of Japan as home, and he'd never thought of leaving it. Then Ken had sent him the letter, and Ryu had gone to San Francisco, getting his first memorable taste of a foreign city. Then had come the quest, but after Barcelona, Ryu had felt strangely out of place wherever he went. He'd been on the move ever since, trying to find other fighters, and himself in the process. Something about agreeing to stay here in Seattle with Ken for the time being set off a familiar alarm bell in the back of Ryu's mind... But this time he found himself looking for an excuse to stay rather than one to start traveling again.
A 'try', for example, usually consisted of more than a day or two.
Still... this was different than anywhere else he had paused for a while, because Ken was here. Ken had changed everything. Five years ago, he'd changed the rules of international street fighting, by putting a group of exceptional fighters in contact with one another. In a way, he'd FORMED the Bison-Sagat-Vega-Balrog team that he, Ryu, and Guile had defeated on the Laotian border a few weeks ago.
-Things tended to happen awfully fast when Ken was around. The 'flaming dragon' indeed. Foxfire, perhaps?
/So basically I want to stay, but I'm not sure if I'm willing to let Ken turn my life upside-down again./ thought Ryu. /And I know he will. I don't know HOW yet, but if I stay, it's just BOUND to happen.
Shit.
Do I hate my life so much that I want it destroyed and replaced with anything, or am I trying to re-make it into something better by staying here?
Both?
...Since when have I not liked my life? I like wandering around without a fixed destination... don't I?
HORSEshit.
I haven't felt like I was home since the LAST time I fought Ken.
Is that what Ken is to me... ...home?/
Ryu sighed, and rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands.
Ken had changed position since Ryu started meditating, and was now lying on his back with one arm over his eyes. In the quiet of the high-ceilinged bedroom, the only sound Ryu could hear was Ken's deep, slow, breathing.
/So what if he is?/ Ryu thought, with a smile.
-end-