Disclaimer: Ranma 1/2 does not belong to me. It´s Takahashi-sama's

Warning: This is a yaoi fic, thus has rather explicit content and situations, strong language and male/male interaction. Also, this is a rather angsty fic, so don't expect much of the usual comedy from the canon.
If you feel offended, you can always hit the "back" button.

A tale of how Ryoga Hibiki always got lost to the lies he told to himself.

OOO

This fic is a prequel and a sidestory to Where I end and you begin (The Midnight Cowboy).

The title comes from "Where I end and you begin" from Radiohead.

Then, on with the show.

Where I end and you begin

(The Day Tripper)

Lifeline

"Nothing will not be more electric to me
than to give you a taste of the love that I hide
In my condition I'm totally lost
Tell me what have you done with my pride?"

Save me now – Andru McDonalds/Erick F. White

~Unryuu's Sumo Wrestling Pigs Dojo.

Ryoga Hibiki was watching the practice of the Sumo Pigs, with Akari by his side.

"They are getting really good, aren't they, dear?" The soft voice of his girlfriend – much more like steady, really – interrupted the attention he was paying on their exercise. "It's so good to see how good you are helping them to be."

"Yeah, yeah; a thrill". A distant part of Ryoga's shot back, but the thought never reached his mouth. She was his Akari, the woman he chose to devote his life to – and no one could say it wasn't working, right?

"It'll work until she asks you to turn into the damn pig to better train them yet again. Then the fun will reeeeally begin…"

"They are, dear." He brushed the sardonic line off his head as turned to face the petite girl; her big brown eyes facing his own. She was happy, and nothing made him happier than see her happy as well.

"Except training pigs. That would be the highlight of my day anytime, huh-huh". Again, the thought was strangled at birth. However, the discomfort lingered, and he stood up to seek something else to occupy his thoughts on.

"Where are you going?" Her soft voice asked, a bit of strangeness on the otherwise innocent tone. "They aren't finished yet, are they?"

"I have some homework to do." He gave her a peck on her cheek. "Have a lot of catching up to do."

"Oh, okay!" She beamed, smiling back at him. Always smiling, loving, and cheering him up. He didn't deserve that much, really.

Then why the stupid voice in his head, this one scolding the pigs – and her too, at some extent - didn't shut the hell up?

Sure, he did not like pigs. Not that he hated them – now it felt on him like a begrudgingly pacific coexistence, actually – but he couldn't bring himself to share with his girl the fierce love she had for them; no matter how hard he tried.

Or maybe, just maybe, he wasn't trying hard enough.

Lost in his thoughts about Akari and the pigs and the farm and his life, he found himself walking through the barn, already out of the house where he was supposed to find his room. "Shit", he thought as he turned back to see where he should've been going if his sense of direction wasn't the wreck it was. A very familiar sense of dread filled him, building up the fear of wandering away from his love, his present life, everything he had now. He hated, he just hated how his sense of direction often remembered him of how utterly useless he was. Hell, he couldn't even wander away from her house and take a walk, let alone…

He clenched his fists, trying to steady himself and follow the straight line to the house, reaching the wall and touching it with his fingers while he walked around the sides to get to the front door. "Like a blind man would do", he thought while considering that was actually a very fit comparison, since his eyes and the sense of direction of his own certainly were worse than lack of sight. The faint humorless smile on his face, brought by the memory of his former acquaintance Mousse, disappeared as he saw his body impelling himself straight forward, away from the wall he was supposed to follow and away from the turn to the right he was supposed to take and get to the front door.

"You can't get lost, moron" He muttered to himself, taking steps back to touch the side wall of the house again. "You just can't afford to get lost this time." His hands reached its goal, and he emptied his mind while walking to the front door again.

He opened the door. "Go upstairs. Through the hall, turn left and it's the brown door to your right". He reached the handrail with his left hand, and slowly walked one step of the stairs after another. In the hall, however, the oh-so-familiar sense of despair filled him again as he couldn't tell right from left, but then his left hand reached the wall without his conscious will. And after some other steps touching the wall, he could tell left from right. A few steps after and the brown door of his room was just before his eyes, and he sighed in relief.

The relief was short lived, though. He sat in his bed, yanking away his bandanna and entwining his fingers on his bangs, resting his forehead on both his palms. The sense of dread came back with friends: Despair and self-loathing. How the hell was he supposed to live a normal life – like everyone else – if he couldn't bring himself to find the right path to the very room he was living at currently? How he could expect, his love, to put up with someone like him, who could very well be gone missing at the moment he'd get out for a walk? How to compare his nuisance toward pigs to put up with someone who turned a pig himself? There he was – cursed to be a pig when wet in cold water, and unable even to attend school as any regular boy of his age without being guided there by Akari…

His books were lying on his desk, with the charts he was supposed to fill in and send to school. And he was behind schedule already, wasn't he?

"Ryoga dear?" Akari's voice rang in his ears, and he tilted his head to meet her eyes. "You took a little while to get here…"

He winced, disgust plain on his face; but she smiled and sat by his side, her fingers touching his hair in a soothing manner. As she turned herself to him, he rested his head on her shoulders, letting himself go in the sensation of her caresses in his hair. "It's okay, dear", she soothed him, "there's no problem." She kissed his forehead, then the bridge of his nose; he reached her lips with his own and let himself go in her kiss. She loved him, she said she did, she loved him despite everything; getting lost all the time, cursed piglet and all. She was there to save him, she would be there for him, like no one ever was. Neither Akane, nor his other friends ("friends?"), not even his parents…

He was lucky, that's what he was: Even as lost as he always had been, he found her. Actually, she found him. She loved him! And it was worth any sacrifice of his part to keep that, to keep her…

"It's okay, my dear…" She breathed as they parted the kiss, a bit chaste one for a teenage couple; his face cupped on her hands while he kept his eyes shut and submitted to her will, as tame as he was expected to be. "Don't you worry, Ryoga, I don't mind..."

"But I do".

OOO

To the footnotes and author rambled reports:

This fic is actually a sequel and a sidestory to Where I end and you begin - The Midnight Cowboy. It is Ryoga-centric and in his POV, but it won't be narrated the same way as his sister fic. However, they're supposed to be read together, since after a while both of them will show the same sequence of events, but from different points of view.

Human Being, 01/19/2014