AUTHOR NOTES: I wrote this for the fandomsecrets crossover meme on livejournal. Someone requested Ryoga and Hatsuharu getting lost together. I haven't seen Ranma 1/2 or Fruits Basket in years, sorry.
Traveling Companions
It wasn't that Ryoga didn't occasionally stop and ask for directions. It was simply a talent in his family. Some well-meaning local would point him west and he'd head West only to find himself in Hokkaido which… wasn't west.
He was underneath a dancing crab sign when he asked a black-and-white haired young man for directions.
"I don't know," said the boy in the motorcycle jacket. "I'm lost too."
Somehow they found themselves cooling down in a cafe. This is where they exchanged brief stories: Hatsuharu's family was not cursed with ill-direction, though the subject of curses did seem to make him a little skittish. Instead, the man just seemed that unlucky. They had some iced coffee, got a little turned around on the way to the men's room and both ended up in the women's, then went their separate ways.
Ryoga arrived to a large sprawling family compound marked Sohma, and Hatsuhara happened upon the Tendo household.
After that, he began to see Hatsuharu now and again. It was nice to see a familiar face amidst the strangers, someone just as lost as he was. Across street-markets their eyes would meet and they'd exchange a private nod. Sometimes they would stop at a cafe or whatever the local equivalent was (Starbucks was pretty good. Starbucks was omnipresent) and exchanged their tales of woe ("One time I got so lost I missed…").
Things came to a head when they were stuck in a chalet in the Swiss Alps during a blizzard, their English pretty much terrible, and their ability to explain just how the hell they got here almost nonexistent. So they did what anyone does when they're stuck in Europe: They drank too much wine.
This is how a rather inebriated and… Inuzzly/I Hatsuharu came to put his arm around Ryoga.
"What… are… you… doing?" Ryoga stammered, red in the face. He drank more wine to calm himself.
"We're traveling companions, aren't we? Don't you think we should get to know each other better?"
Ryoga looked out the window. The snow was still coming down. Akane was a distant memory. He couldn't see her face in the dark patches of sky like he usually did.
"Traveling companions? But we…"
"Are, aren't we?" Hatsuharu bit Ryoga's neck. The distinguished, bandanna'd martial artist let out what can only be described as a Isqueak/I.
"I suppose we are," said Ryoga after a moment.
Later, they got lost on their way to the bedroom.