Chapter 7: Losing and Lost
By the time he got up Ranma had already left for work. It was a bit of a surprise, though Ryoga hadn't slept great the night before, so he'd been a bit behind his usual schedule. Not enough that Ranma should have been gone already on a normal, but... late enough it wasn't too bizarre. Not having to cook breakfast for Ryoga probably saved them some time.
Ryoga felt worried, but did his best to keep from dwelling on it, cooking up some instant noodles with fresh veggies and eggs to make them almost resemble something healthy. With breakfast finished a few minutes later he went up to work on writing, his first draft of his novel so close to being finished.
He found himself totally sucked into writing the climax and falling action. He only ended when he'd gotten a decent closing scene down. Final scenes were always difficult, but that was where the editor came in. That gentle massaging to turn Ryoga's wandering, but creative, prose into something truly polished. Even if he had a confidence crisis every time the suggested corrections hit something he'd thought he'd done well...
Ryoga shook his head. It wasn't time to dwell on that.
Especially not since he was starving. Checking the clock, he saw it was nearly 3pm, and he was amazed hunger hadn't distracted him earlier. Ryoga sent a quick email off to his editor about having the draft done before he would let himself wander off from the computer for the day.
It was late enough that a full meal might spoil his appetite for whatever Ranma might cook, so he headed down to hunt for leftover snack food from last night. There wasn't really enough left of the chips and potato sticks to properly fill him, but it meant he wasn't starving anymore, at least.
Rubbing his chin, wondering about what else he could grab, he remembered he'd forgotten to shave and brush his teeth, his schedule thrown off by a lack of Ranma this morning. So he decided it was best that he headed off to do that, before worrying about more food.
Which was when he noticed it. That Ranma's toothbrush and toothpaste were missing. Luckily he noticed after he'd shaved and when he was part way through brushing his teeth, so the sudden dizziness he felt at the sight didn't result in any blood.
Confused and worried, he, after some thought, decided to finish brushing his teeth before doing anything further.
Heading up to Ranma's room, he opened the door and... was at his own bedroom. Shaking his head, he left that door open and then turned around, heading down the hallway. This time he got the right room, and let out a sigh of relief when he saw that Ranma's stuff was still there. Or, at least, most of it. He didn't dig enough to try to check for any small things missing, both because he wasn't sure he'd notice and because it would be exceptionally impolite.
Maybe Ranma had just had to leave early for something work related, and so had brought their toothpaste to clean up at work? That made some sense.
He decided to retreat back to the safety of his office. There was an e-mail from his editor, an invitation to hand over a copy of the draft at lunch somewhere tomorrow. Ryoga agreed to it, feeling safe that his GPS machine could get him there. That done, he decided to spend a bit of time aimlessly watching short and silly videos online. He ended up finding an old anime he'd watched as a kid, and, even if each episode was chopped in 3 parts with iffy resolution and English subtitles he suspected were deeply flawed, he still enjoyed himself watching a few episodes.
At least until his eyes drifted to the clock on the taskbar and he realised that it was pushing 7pm. There was no way Ranma shouldn't be home by now. Ryoga hurried down, making sure he hadn't somehow missed Ranma coming home. There was no sign of them, though.
Wandering about, Ryoga eventually found his way to the phone. After a moment's debate, he decided to phone up Ukyo. She always seemed to know what was going on. After enough rings Ryoga was worried he'd go to the answering machine, she finally picked up.
"You've got a lot of nerve calling here, ya know that, you jerk?" she said.
"Pardon?" Ryoga asked.
"I have call display. I knew it was you, Hibiki," Ukyo replied.
"Why am I a jerk, though?"
There was a pause on Ukyo's end. "What you've been doing to Ran-chan."
"What I've been— I'm only human," Ryoga muttered. "I'm trying my best though..."
"Are you sure you're only human? Not still part pig?" Ukyo hissed.
"Is Ranma there?" Ryoga asked, deciding to ignore that jab.
"Yes."
Ryoga waited, and realised there was not more information coming. "Can I talk to him?'
"No."
"Is that you saying no, or did Ranma say no?" he asked, clinging onto a sliver of hope that Ukyo was just being bitter on her own.
"Ranma said no."
Ryoga stumbled a bit, grabbing onto a wall for stability as he felt the room spinning around him. He'd rarely felt his sense of direction abandon him so fast. He found himself struggling to even remember what room he was in.
"Why?" he asked softly.
"You're hopeless," Ukyo said, before hanging up.
Ryoga stared at the phone, no idea what he could do. Looking up, he also realised he had no idea when he'd ended up in the kitchen. He'd been hungry before, but now... now he didn't really care. He probably deserved to go hungry after whatever he'd done to Ranma.
He'd tried so hard to be respectful, and... and Ranma had been the one who'd tried to sleep with him.
Did Ranma forget about passing out, maybe? What if Ranma thought that he had taken advantage of them that night? The idea made him shiver. But, why would Ranma then act so feminine, if they'd been so offended by that idea?
He didn't understand any of it. Ranma had been wearing eye catching outfits, and, surely, they knew that? All Ryoga had done was look, and not even that much.
There was beer in the fridge. That could make the questions stop for a bit. Ryoga decided that would be the best way to silence his confusion.
The distant, but constant, squawking of two different alarm clocks woke Ryoga up. He'd ended up falling asleep on the couch, mindless late night tv having helped the beer to fill his mind with inane and simple thoughts.
Finding the bedrooms on his own would have been tricky, but following the alarm was easy enough. He found it odd that Ranma had left their clock on, if they'd been planning to leave, but, then again, they'd left most of their stuff too.
Not wanting to deal with more confusion, Ryoga retreated to his own bedroom for a bit, debating a nap. At least until he remembered he had to talk with his editor today. Cursing his own foolish confidence for making a next day appointment, he scrambled about, hunting for a tie and dress shirt that looked reasonably presentable. Yellow tie and black shirt it was. He figured that would look snappy.
Grabbing some pants that were reasonably dark, and the minor things, he bundled them into his arm and then headed off towards the bathroom. Of course, that was easier said than done, something he realised when he found himself walking up stairs, despite starting on the second floor and aiming for ground level. He had a few other wrong turns before he finally found his way, knowing that this was a bad day for directions. With a little more time his mood might settle, but he didn't have time.
At least the furo only had one door in and out, and he'd never climbed out a window without realising it, even back during the divorce. Well, unless you counted the one time at that fancy hotel, but those were french windows, which he was pretty sure technically counted as a type of door.
He wasn't an architect or an interior designer, but he did think they should make a clearer definition on what was a door or a window.
He was also doomed, if his mind was going to keep wandering like this. He'd end up in Nagano as soon as he stepped out the door. He shook his head and got dressed, deciding to focus only on the immediate. That meant getting up to his office.
The office was up. He just needed to take one set of stairs. Repeating that information to himself, he made it fairly quickly (by Hibiki standards). Then he popped in a memory stick to transfer the manuscript. His editor liked physical transfers, and he couldn't argue that they felt more substantial, when he was able to do them.
Now he had to find his GPS device. That was... near the front door. Right. The logical spot for it.
It took spinning around a few times (and ending up in the dining room for a moment), but he found the device eventually. He plugged a pair of headphones into it, put in his destination, and set off.
The device provided near constant auditory inputs on his travel. He got his left and right mixed up a couple of times, but the machine had infinite patience and left him feeling less self conscious. His heart still felt torn asunder, unsure why Ranma had abandoned him so, but... that could wait until after his appointment.
After two trains (okay, three trains, because he got on the train going the wrong direction for a couple stops at the transfer) Ryoga had made it to the restaurant. He was only 10 minutes late, which was basically on time for him. Walking in, he found his silver haired editor waving him to a booth.
"You look awful," the man said, as Ryoga sat down.
"Pardon? Is... does the shirt and tie combo really not work?" Ryoga asked, feeling self conscious.
"No, no, the clothes are fine. It's the bags under your eyes that I'm really noticing. And how you look on the edge of tears. Don't tell me he dumped you?"
"It... things never got close to romance," Ryoga muttered. "He caught me checking him out... well, you know how I used to have that pig curse?"
"Mhm? Then your friend brought some of that... whatever water and fixed you?"
"Yeah. Well, Ranma... he's got a curse too, and he's never bothered to get it fixed. He's stays human, so I guess he figures it's not too bad," Ryoga said, feeling nervous about admitting this.
"Wait, is he the one who inspired that story with the character who changes sexes you did a while back?"
"Y-yeah. And... well, for some reason he's been wearing tight jeans and short skirts and low cut tops and... well, my eyes may have wandered a bit. Apparently I made him more uncomfortable than I realised by doing that, and now he's stormed off," Ryoga explained, sighing and sinking into his booth seat. "His cursed form is gorgeous, so it really shouldn't come as a surprise that a guy would get distracted..."
"Maybe he was trying to test if you were gay or not?" the editor offered.
"He knows I like women already," Ryoga replied, a bit sharper than he intended. "S-sorry. I just... I didn't sleep great."
"I'd surmised as much," the middle aged editor replied.
Any further conversation about Ryoga's complete failure at romantic endeavours was temporarily interrupted by the waitress arriving and getting their orders. Ryoga picked a couple small sides, not feeling hungry enough for a proper curry.
Ryoga passed his memory stick over once the food had arrived, and the pair exchanged some details on the novel. The editor also pressured Ryoga into ordering some dessert, insisting that he'd not eaten enough.
"I do wonder, do you think there's any chance your friend Saotome has decided to want to be a woman?" the man asked, while Ryoga was part way through his ice cream.
"What? No. Definitely not... the way he'd react back in high school if people thought he was actually a girl... I'm surprised no one got any broken bones from how much it ticked him off," Ryoga replied, waving a hand dismissively. "Besides, he was still spending time as a guy, just... not around me."
"Well, you know him better than I do, but he does sound like an interesting person. Wouldn't mind meeting him," the man replied, before stretching a bit. "Well, I'll get to work on reading your novel. We'll see how much rambling I can shave, shall we."
The last bit was said jokingly, but Ryoga was not in the best place to handle teasing, so just muttered indistinctly before shoving more ice cream in his mouth.
"Do take care of yourself, Hibiki. You really are my favourite of the author's I work with," the man said, before waving and heading off.
Ryoga waved back, though couldn't shake the feeling that the last part had been a lie to make him feel better. He finished the last little bit of ice cream in silence, before heading to the cash to pay up.
He headed out and set off towards the train station. It took a few moments for him to realise it was much quieter than the walk over.
The GPS unit! He'd left it in the restaurant. Spinning around, he tried to see if he could find the restaurant again, but saw not a sign of it. Grasping for any landmarks he cursed how little he knew Shibuya. Well, he thought he knew the route he'd taken from the restaurant.
A few minutes of retracing his steps he had to admit, he was now even more lost than he had been. Well, if he found a police koban, he could probably get help... as deathly embarrassing as that would be for a grown man to have to beg for.
Assuming he'd not wandered too far from the restaurant already. The area was looking rather residential and low density compared to where he'd started.
He'd left Tokyo now, he was sure of it. It was jarring, he'd been walking down busy city streets and now Ryoga found himself in the middle of a dense forest. On a better day he'd probably have worked out he'd wandered into the wooded area around the Meiji shrine, that he'd not been distracted long enough to get from Shinjuku to the forests beyond Tokyo, but today was not a better day. So he traipsed through the undergrowth with ever growing fear and a spiralling sense of uselessness.
He was sure Ranma hated him, and he was sure he had good odds of being gone in the wilds of Japan's mountains long enough to make any apology stale and useless. He remembered he had a phone on him, but there was no way there'd be cell coverage out in the mountains. So he kept walking, wondering if he should embrace retreating into the woods. Maybe he could grow a beard and be mistaken for a cryptid or a yokai... it would certainly be less embarrassing than returning and admitting to Ranma he didn't understand what he'd done wrong.
Probably a good 35% less likely to see him seriously injured too. He was less clumsy than he'd been as a kid, and the skill gap between him and Ranma was so big these days... he'd definitely take his chances with the mountains.
With the sun setting he'd scrambled to pull together a shelter. It had been a rather basic lean-to, but it worked to keep him warm enough for the night. He should have brought his tent with him, but... he'd been too confident. Too soft thanks to technology. He'd slept like garbage, but he'd still managed to sleep a bit.
Stretching as he woke up, Ryoga figured should gather firewood for the next evening. It was still fairly warm at night (as proven by the previous night), but he'd probably need to get thinking about food. He'd not seen much wildlife so far... was he just too loud these days? No longer in touch with the wild?
At least he never went anywhere without a box of meal replacement bars, so he could last a few days without any hunting luck. Hopefully he'd find a small town before things got too desperate.
A few hours of wandering about, with the sun now high overhead and his backpack full of kindling, he stumbled across a railroad track. Well, several railroad tracks running in parallel. Maybe he wasn't that deep in the woods after—wait! Looking up, no longer as focused on hunting for firewood, he realised there seemed to be a town across the rail lines.
If he could just get past the busy rail line he'd be set, back in civilization with a chance to find his way back to Tokyo. He couldn't cross over the tracks, though. They were much too busy.
He could go under, though. It had been years since he'd done any proper bakusai tenketsu tunnelling, but... what choice did he have?
He called out the strike and blew a whole in the ground ahead of him. The flying debris scraped his face and arms, but he'd survive. He just had to get a bit deeper, and then he could use a directed shishi hokodan for cleaner tunneling. Trying to point the chi technique down always risked turning it into a full cratering version.
Battered and bruised by flying pebbles, but several metres below the surface now, Ryoga stumbled forward, feeding on the sense of hopelessness in his gut to fire off a bolt of sickly purple chi. He followed the tunnel he'd made until he hit the end. Sure that he'd easily gone far enough to cross under the tracks he then began digging himself out with further breaking point strikes, tearing up his shirt until the ground above collapsed down on him. Struggling his way out of the loose soil he saw sunlight and scrambled up onto the surface.
Unfortunately, he seemed to have overshot the town, and was now in another wooded area. This one was sparser, but he still saw no significant signs of civilization jump out at him. There were some paths and bridges though, so he couldn't be too far. Limping slightly, due to the battering he'd taken tunnelling, he hoped one of these paths would lead him to the town he'd overshot.
Wandering for some time, he'd lost the path a few times, but was finally back on it, when he saw another pair of travellers. The two young women looked at him nervously, and he was sure he appeared to be more than a bit of a disaster, but he gave them the friendliest smile he could.
"Hi, I'm trying to make my way back to Tokyo. Could you two help show me to the nearest village?"
The women stared at him a moment, before whispering something between each other that he couldn't catch. Finally, the taller one, with long darker hair, turned back to him with a polite, but confused looking, smile.
"I am sorry. I do not understand," she said, with an accent Ryoga could easily tell was Korean.
Had he managed to tunnel that far? He was pretty sure he'd never gotten to Korea on his own before... he'd wandered onto the wrong ferry that one time, but tunnelling across the Sea of Japan?
He tried not to hyperventilate, and fought down the way his long dormant instinct to perform a shishi hokodan was flaring up again after being recently awoken. He barely noticed as the two women pulled out a map and began consulting it.
"Is there a Tokyo Ward too?" the woman asked, her Japanese slow and careful. "I see that the Shinjuku Ward as a Shinjuku Neighbourhood... is it like that? Is there a Tokyo neighbourhood?"
"Pardon?" Ryoga asked, now feeling the confused one.
"We are in the city Tokyo, no?"
"We're in a forest?"
"We are in Shinjuku Gyoen Garden?"
Ryoga blinked. Of course! Shibuya and Shinjuku both had some rather extensive parks... he still had a chance!
"Thank you!" he blurted, bowing deeply.
He just had to pick a direction and go straight. He'd be back in the city in no time.
Going straight was not one of Ryoga's strong points. And not just because he was a disaster bisexual.
Still, he finally stumbled his way out, onto the streets of Tokyo, some hours after night had fallen. He was starving as he wandered the city streets, looking for an open restaurant. He'd find food first, then hunt of a subway station later.