2: karuna (compassion)

"Uh-uh. No. Nope. Absolutely no, no no no. You-- out."

"But—" Ryoga began.

"No! No 'buts', no nothing! I told you—didn't I tell you not to come down here already?" Ukyo glanced at the clock. Morning rush would start in no more than half an hour and here was this lost goober standing behind the counter-her counter—looking bemused and innocent and maybe a little forlorn.

The bastard.

"I told you," she gritted, grabbing his arm and hustling him up the stairs double time, "Stay outta the way!"

"But I'm bored!" he whined. Ukyo twitched.

"It's five-thirty in the damn morning! How the hell can have you had time to get bored? Shouldn't you be in bed convalescing or—or whatever!" It was too early to be clever in her haranguing. She'd try to come up with some better retorts for the next time she had to take this idiot on—maybe she'd compile a list and post it somewhere around the house. She stopped outside the room in which she'd installed the fanged maniac—not that the installation seemed to be holding.

"Hungry," he muttered, flushing all the way to the tips of his ears.

"What was that?"

"I'm hungry, okay? Jeez. If you tell me where you've hidden my stuff at least I can get something for breakfast—" he broke off at the look on her face. A moment of silence fell, and Ukyo realized she was studying floor a little too hard.

"No pack?" he asked, and when she raised her head it was to encounter an expression of someone whose entire world seemed to have dropped out from under him. Ryoga actually looked queasy.

Unsure what moved her to the action, she reached out and laid a hesitant hand on his arm.

"Sorry, sugar."

"This is just...I can't believe it." Ryoga slumped, looking defeated. His stomach chose that moment to gurgle alarmingly. Ukyo gave up.

"Okay okay," she said, planting her hands on his shoulders and gently shoving in the direction of her tatami room, "I'll...I'll bring you something up here, just get your ass back in that room and stay put, all right?."

"Thank you, Ukyo."

She sighed. "It's all right, sugar."

She had no intention of letting him come downstairs, where the customers would see him and be horrified by his unwashed appearance and permanently concussed expression. Instead she swallowed her pride and resolved to wait on him just this once, setting up the table in the corner and serving up a lovely okonomiyaki—without ham. Ryoga was very specific about that.

"I don't put ham in all my okonomiyaki, you know."

"How about bacon?"

"Um..."

"No, I mean seriously, is there some reason that every damn thing everywhere has bacon or ham in it? Because the last place I ate that served okonomiyaki served a salad first and there was a huge...a big p-pink slice of—of ham! Ham! In the salad! I mean, what the hell is wrong with people? Huh?"

He'd been frothing a bit at that point. Ukyo had offered a noncommittal shrug and beat a hasty retreat back to her counter. Maybe food mania was a side-effect of the head injury.

"Everyone I know is insane," she muttered, then raised her head with a bright smile as her first customer of the day pushed open the door.

"Welcome!"

--

Ryoga patted his stomach and leaned back. He had to admit, that girl was a mean cook—at least when it came to things that could be mixed and cooked on a griddle. He wondered vaguely what other cooking skills she might possess. At least the okonomiyaki had been all seafood and a raw egg. Ryoga liked the occasional raw egg. He knew they made Ranma gag. He grinned at the thought.

The strangeness in his head had receded for the moment. He still had a sense of…distance, maybe, as if there was something he was supposed to be remembering that wasn't important anymore, and he had an almost phantom sense of...of...

...the world at rest...

--of something he could not quite grasp, but which seemed, like a tiny voice in the very back of his mind, to whisper that every thing was going to be okay. He wondered at that, but only vaguely.

Ukyo came upstairs some minutes after the noise of the last customers departing had died away. She regarded the emptied plate and the jar of homemade sauce with a self-satisfied smile. She was a good cook but her overbearing personality could be a little too much for Ryoga to handle, especially now. He found himself involuntarily cringing as she smiled at him.

"Um...it was delicious," he said, voice cracking only slightly. "Really."

"Really?" she quirked an eyebrow, but to his surprise her expression softened slightly, losing some of the familiar sardonic expression which she typically wore when dealing with him. In spite of himself, Ryoga found himself smiling, hesitantly, and to his surprise and, he guessed, probably hers, she returned the smile.

"I'm glad you enjoyed it," she said, with typical un-Japanese candor—it would not have been unusual at that point for Ukyo to deride her own cooking, as many Japanese women did, but Ryoga supposed that sort of false humility was as alien to the girl as a skirt. He couldn't bring himself to feel too bothered about something like that. He spent most of his time out-of-doors, and squirrels and field mice were also not known for being terribly humble. Things just...were. That was normal.

Ukyo was like that (except for the bit about the field mouse, but he didn't intend to ever make that comparison within audible range anyway), just being. Except when it came to Ranma, of course, but that boy tended to warp the world and the minds of those around him like some kind of freaky human gravity well...he could hardly fault Ukyo for something like that. Even if it did make her emotionally weird.

"I can wash these for you," Ryoga said, starting to stand, picking up the plate, but Ukyo strode forward and snatched the plate and teacup from his hands before he had even risen halfway out of his seat.

"Don't be a bonehead," she snapped, "Sit down before you fall over again. "I'll wash, you just...just sit and count the cracks in the ceiling, or something."

"Uh...okay?"

He saw her visibly force her shoulders to relax.

"Seriously, sugar, I don't even think you should be up walking around. I'm..." he raised both eyebrows as he saw her bite her lip, "I mean, you should be relaxing and watching my TV or something." She waved a hand vaguely at the little black box in the corner of the room. Ryoga'd pretty much ignored it up until now.

"I don't watch TV," he said mildy curious at this apparently sudden switch.

"Ryoga! Look, I'm used to...I mean I've lived here alone for months now, okay? I'm used to doing things my way. I know. Maybe it's kind of...maybe I'm being ungracious. I don't know..." she bit her lip and looked down, shifting from foot to foot in an uncharacteristically abashed expression. "I don't know."

"Um..." he wasn't sure what sort of response would be appropriate here. He really didn't know what to make of her not yelling at him.

"I mean," she said, sticking the glass on the plate and pushing a long strand of hair out of her face, "I mean I'm s-ss-ssor—rry, okay?" she didn't look around at him at that.

"For what?" he was genuinely curious.

"For being mean! For jumping all over you like..." she hesitated, then finished, "Just, sorry, all right?"

He wanted to ask what had brought this on, but wasn't sure even how to really frame the question. So he said nothing.

"…Ryoga?" her voice was weirdly hesitant.

"Ukyo, seriously, it's no big deal. I mean, you let me stay in your place and gave me food, and even called the doctor—I'd be a big jerk to be upset at you for...er, you know. Honestly I didn't think you were being...um, mean." Which was more or less the truth. 'Mean' was not the word he usually used to classify Ukyo's behavior toward him—'psychotic' came a bit closer, but missed out entirely on the opportunity to imply the omnipresent odor of okonomiyaki sauce.

She smiled.

"All right. I need to learn to be a little nicer anyway. You know, Ranma really doesn't have enough nice girls in his life..." she was smiling as she spoke, but inwardly Ryoga sighed. He understood now the reason for her sudden Attack of Graciousness.

"He's coming by after school, is he?"

She shrugged, not bothering to look shamefaced in the slightest. It wasn't that Ryoga'd imagined for a moment she cared about him—not as a person, not as a human being like Ranma—it was just a little irritating that she was so...one-dimensional about things like interpersonal relations. It seemed to be a basic characteristic of all Ranma's fiancées—he reflected on the way Shampoo treated Mousse, and his inward sigh became an inward flinch.

At least Ukyo hadn't been smacking him around, with the spatula or without it. Reflexively his hand went to his head. He noticed Ukyo's eyes widen.

"Does it...does it hurt?" she asked, and her tone surprised him.

"I..." he hesitated, then shook his head. Maybe some of that apology had been real, after all.

Nothing hurts anymore.

"I was just thinking about...something else," he mumbled.

"Mm." Ukyo headed toward the hall. "Get back in that futon," she said over her shoulder, "I'll be back to check on you before I　leave."

--

Ryoga spent the day hanging around Ukyo's tiny two-roomed apartment above the restaurant. He tried watching the TV, but it was so unbelievably horrible he had to fight the urge not to fling the thing out the nearest window after twenty minutes. He resisted valiantly, however, as he suspected Ukyo's unusual reticence in beating him about the head would not survive the wanton destruction of her more expensive property.

He amused himself by hunting through the handful of books she owned. She was horribly practical—everything was about cooking or the restaurant business, with nary a femmy manga or bodice-ripping romance in sight. Not that Ryoga had really expected otherwise, but it would have given him an unlooked for chance to amuse himself by harassing her about something so obviously female, and he got a lovely warm glow just imagining it.

It wasn't, he reflected as he carefully and conscientiously restacked all her books as he'd found them, it wasn't as if Ukyo didn't have a personality. She did, he knew. She had it to spare, if anything. It was just that, like Shampoo and Kodachi, like any fiancée of Ranma's, she seemed to have missed out on some fundamental quality needed to really have any kind of actual relationship. Not that he was about to tell her something like that—not only would the consequences be painful, he really didn't want her spreading it around that he was more sensitive to these sorts of things than she was. It wasn't his fault that his copious amounts of free time let him muse on human relationships more than a man probably ought to.

Ukyo was complex, he knew. Just because she didn't have any books lying about which would imply some sorts of unplumbed depths didn't mean she didn't have them. She probably kept a diary, and Ryoga only hoped that the inmost thoughts recorded there were a little more complicated than, "Ranchan + Ucchan, 2gether 4ever!" or something equally nausea-inducing.

And it wasn't that he didn't like Ukyo. Well, it wasn't much like that. It was just hard to comprehend someone who was so...so narrow-minded in her pursuits and interests. Was the the entire scope of her being defined by okonomiyaki and Ranma? It boggled the mind.

Sometime after four, the shop door rattled open and knew that she'd returned. He heard her mounting the stairs and he hurriedly dove back under the futon, pulling it up to his chin and trying to look convalesced.

If that was even grammatically correct.

She came to stand in the door and regarded him silently. After a moment he heard her clear her throat delicately.

"Come off it, Sleeping Beauty," she said, "We both know you're faking."

He cracked an eye.

"I was asleep," he protested, "I mean, when I heard you coming I-I woke up, of course, but I didn't want you to be m—to worry about me, so I, I shut my eyes again, just for a moment..." he was babbling, he knew. Women, even Ukyo—in fact Ukyo possibly more than anyone else—often had that effect on him. She stood in the doorway with an inscrutable expression on her face.

"Sure, sure," she said finally, waving away his babble as he wound down, "Whatever you say." She entered the room and leaned her schoolbag in the corner. "I'm just thrilled beyond belief to see that the place is in one piece and you haven't wandered off into the wilderness or some damn thing."

In spite of himself, he quirked a smile. What was that, twice in one day? Had to be some kind of record...

Ukyo sighed internally as she regarded this ridiculous person. Since Ranma had popped his head in this morning on his way to school and announced his intentions to stop by in the afternoon, she'd been feeling a bit bad for the way she behaved toward Ryoga. Sure, the guy was a nuisance and a pain in the neck, but...her overwhelming reaction to Ranma, the sense of warmth and love and hope that had surged in her chest at the moment he looked at her, contrasted so incredibly sharply with how she felt when she talked to Ryoga that she'd felt something almost alien to her.

She'd felt guilty for beating up on Ryoga.

Because maybe, just maybe, it was unfair.

"Poor Ryoga," Akane called him. Well, Ukyo had never thought of him that way—the guy was tough as...well, tougher than anything human had a right to be, tougher than any living thing really had a right to be. And therein was the conundrum, because internally he was probably the most fragile, sensitive person she'd met in her entire life.

It was possibly what drove her to such lengths of violence when dealing with him, as a matter of fact. Ukyo thought of her own inner-being as stone-hard, a kind of emotional counterpart to Ryoga's physically unbreakable form. She was tough and capable, independent and fierce, a survivor who didn't take crap from anyone and wasn't afraid of pain or violence, and could give as good as she got in the matter of pursuing her true love, if it came to a conflict of wills or a test of martial capacity. A person as emotionally delicate as Ryoga was almost...offensive to her. She had a hard time not bullying him.

But it was bullying, wasn't it?

Well...maybe. But she didn't react this way to Ranma or Akane or anyone else, and no matter how much he got under her skin simply by existing, it didn't seem entirely fair. And Ukyo liked to think of herself as basically a good person.

That was what it came down to, really. Not for Ryoga, but for herself. She could learn to be nicer.

It would only be for a day or two, right?

"So," she queried lightly as she unhooked her work clothes from the door of her closet, "Did you have a nice day?"

Ryoga stared at her in utter incomprehension. Ukyo sighed. She hadn't really been so bad that simple conversation left him flat-footed, had she?

"It's a simple question, boyo," she stated flatly, one hand on her hip, the other holding her okonomiyaki uniform just above the floor. "Yes? No? Maybe? Did you have a good time rummaging through my things?"

"Er—" Ryoga couldn't hide the telltale flicker of his eyes, and Ukyo, in spite of all her best intentions, felt a stab of anger.

"You actually rummaged through my things? What are you, a trainee Happosai?"

"No! No, I didn't, I just," he held up one hand in a warding gesture, and waved the other vaguely at her little bookshelf in the corner, "I just looked at some of your books, is all."

"Oh." She deflated a bit. "Okay." She didn't want to admit to feeling slightly miffed that her most intimate possessions held no interest for the young man currently occupying her futon—the other having proved too dangerous with its wandering tribes of dust bunnies to really be any good for sleeping, and which was now airing on the balcony. And she felt annoyed with herself that nothing the boy did sat quite right with her. Jeez, was she really that snippy and unreasonable?

"I'm going to go downstairs and fire up the grill," she said, trying to maintain a level tone and not let the usual edge of irritation she typically spoke with when talking to Ryoga creep into her voice. "You can...you can come down, if you want. I mean, we don't want you getting bedsores, do we?"

Ryoga made a face at that, and Ukyo silently congratulated herself as she exited the room for having successfully completed an entire conversation without resorting to violence or even any real insults.

Really, it was an aspect of herself she didn't like at all.

Ryoga watched her go, feeling a bit gob-smacked. He wondered if his head-wound was acting up again. What other possible explanation was there for Ukyo's sudden niceness?

Oh, wait. That's right—Ranma was coming by. Ryoga debated going to bed for real this time, but considered that some other company would be welcome—a man could only tolerate Ukyo's dulcet tones and gentle ways for so long before going completely off the deep end. Ryoga threw off the futon and got up, standing only a little unsteadily, spreading his toes out and tying to get a feel for being fully upright. He still didn't feel completely normal, somehow. He wasn't sick, he was just...something felt off, still. For a moment the world seemed strange and far-away, and Ryoga's vision blurred slightly. He blinked hard.

...the stars remain...

He went downstairs and found Ukyo chatting with a young, dark-haired girl. Ukyo turned when she saw him come downstairs, and the other girl also looked at him, smiling brightly.

"Ryoga," the girl said. He gave a slightly hesitant smile of his own. The girl was kind of pretty, in a very ordinary way, with big eyes and pale skin. She wore the uniform of a Furinkan High student and had her hands folded under her chin, elbows resting on the counter.

"Hello," he said, settling on a stool, "Are you a friend of Ukyo's?"

The girl's smile froze. Then she looked at Ukyo, who seemed temporarily robbed of her powers of speech—if such a thing were even possible. Ryoga looked back and forth between them, hesitant smile still in place, wondering what the problem was.

"Have we met?" he asked, wondering if that was the problem—there were so many girls at Ranma's school, and Ryoga had spoken to a few of them before, but had hardly been able to learn all or even most of the names. He scooted a little closer on his stool. "I'm Hibiki Ryoga. It's nice to—"

"Tendo," the girl from Furinkan croaked, "T-Tendo Akane."

"Well," he said, smiling a little more broadly, "It's nice to—"

"Tendo Akane !" She slammed a hand down on the counter for emphasis, and the various condiments and napkins jumped with the force of her blow. Ryoga jumped too, leaning back slightly.

"Um, that's...n..." he trailed off, unsure what to say. He had the sense he was committing some terrible blunder here, but for the life of him he couldn't imagine what it was. He looked helplessly at Ukyo, who regarded him with wide eyes. He saw her eyes flicker, just for a moment, to the bandages around his head.

He licked his lips.

"Um," he said, "Um, I'm...sorry, I hope I haven't upset you in any—" but he broke off as the girl pushed away from her stool, almost stumbling as her feet met the floor, reaching down to grasp her bag and backing toward the door in one motion.

"Excuse me!" Tendo Akane blurted, and rushed from the restaurant. Ryoga had risen halfway from his own seat and he paused, now, for a long moment before settling back down.

He looked at Ukyo again. The girl didn't seem to have moved since the last time he'd glanced her way.

"What just happened?" he asked.

--

Akane sat on the bench and wiped at her eyes, again and again. She didn't know why she was crying. She just didn't know . It was...it didn't make sense. Seeing Ryoga like that...obviously something had been wrong. Of course something was wrong. She didn't even need to see the white bandages, wrapped around his head, half-concealed by his thick hair like some ugly mockery of his usual bandana. Just catching his gaze was enough.

Something was wrong. Something deep and fundamental was hideously, hideously wrong.

It wasn't, Akane knew, as if you could really see a person's soul mirrored in their eyes. That kind of talk was just stupid, poetic nonsense, a kind of shorthand for describing how things were in real-life by reducing them to metaphor. But there'd been something in his face, in his voice, in his posture...or rather there hadn't been. Something. Something basic and fundamental to her friend. Some missing spark, some point of focus, had vanished from the depth of his being. When he'd looked at her, there's been a quality of distance to his gaze she didn't remember ever seeing there. In anyone.

She wiped her cheeks again with the back of her hand and rummaged angrily for her handkerchief. She dabbed at her eyes as she thought about it.

No. It wasn't simply a change in the way he'd looked at her. It was there when he turned his eyes to Ukyo, it was there when he jumped with the force of her blow on the counter. It was something real. It was…

What was it?

She swallowed, then stood, brushing off her skirt and clenching her fist around the handkerchief. Then she turned, to the direction opposite Ucchan's, and walked away.

--

"I what?" Ryoga's incredulous voice was followed by a sound Ukyo couldn't remember having ever heard before—not when it wasn't in some way maniacal, or cracked around the edges.

Ryoga was laughing. It wasn't overly loud—it seemed natural, almost, and dissolved from amused genuine guffaws to quiet chuckling as he played with the sticks of sugar in the drinks condiment holder closest to him.

"You do," Ukyo insisted, feeling more than a little ridiculous for even having this conversation, "You love her, you goob, you've been in love with her for...well, for as long as I've known you."

Ryoga grinned at her. Ukyo almost flinched in the radiance of his expression. It didn't suit him at all. He pointed the sugar stick at her.

"You're messing with me."

"I most certainly am--"

"You completely are! Ohh, let's screw with the poor amnesiac, he won't know the difference. C'mon! It'll be fun!" His grinned broadened, showing both sharp fangs, and Ukyo fought a sudden urge to step back. Gritting her teeth, she stepped forward instead.

"Look, you," she growled, "Why would I lie about something like that? And why would Akane go running out of her like that, if she wasn't upset about something?"

"She knows I 'love' her?" Ryoga asked, eyebrows raised and invisible under his heavy bangs. Ukyo hesitated.

"Well, no..."

"Then why would she be so upset?" He waved a dismissive hand. "She probably--she probably left the toaster on or something. I mean, I think if I was in love with someone, I'd damn well remember. Jeez."

"Idiot!" Unable to contain herself, she reached across the counter and flicked his ear.

"OW! Hey!"

"Oh, I'm soo sorry. Does the amnesia patient with the gaping head wound have something to say?"

"I'm fine," Ryoga growled, massaging his offended ear, "I don't have amnesia."

"Uh, duh, what about that missing month?"

"That's different. That's—I was probably abducted by aliens or something! That's the kind of thing that happens to me all the time. And there's no such thing as—as selective amnesia anyway!"

"Oh, so? And would you care to show me your university degree licensing you to practice as a doctor specializing in neuropathology? No? Oh, that's right, you don't have one. You don't know jack about shit, buddy, admit it!"

"What does that have to do with anything? Just because I don't know everything there is to know about—about brain science doesn't mean I don't know my own mind! If I say I've never seen her before then—"

"Do you think she's pretty?" Ukyo said softly.

"I—what?"

"Akane. Did you think she was pretty, when you saw her just now?"

Ryoga shrugged. "I barely saw her for ten seconds. How should I know?"

"Think, dammit! You saw her just now, what was the first thing you thought? Did you think she was pretty?"

Ryoga looked up at the ceiling, eyes squinching half-closed as he thought.

"I just--she seemed average. Just...average. Normal. You know?"

"You've spent the last eight months chasing around after her."

"Bull."

"Oh yes! It's true! Whether you believe me or not doesn't make it any less true, so you'd better just accept it!"

"No! This is stupid!" Ryoga stood up at the stool, leaning forward with his hands pressed against the wooden section of the counter. "I can't have just forgotten—just forgotten one person! How could that even happen? I remember you! I remember Ranma, and I remember...I remember Shampoo, and even Kodachi, and, and Kuno and Cologne and Mousse, for crying out loud, I can remember all these other people—how could I just forget some—some girl I'm supposed to be in love with? You must really think I'm the stupidest person alive!"

Ukyo bit back her first response. She clamped her jaw shut and narrowed her eyes at Ryoga. His cheeks were flushed and his eyes were bright, but the rest of the color had pretty much gone from his face, and if he collapsed Ukyo didn't think she could make it across the counter in time to catch him before he hit the floor.

"Sit down," she said in a low voice, "before you rupture something." Ryoga glared at her for a moment.

"I'm not in love with her," he muttered as he finally, blessedly, resumed his seat. Ukyo took a few cleansing breaths.

"I don't even know her," Ryoga went on. Ukyo pinched the bridge of her nose.

"I," she told him, "Am not going to argue with you about this right now. In fact," she went on, coming around the counter, "I'm escorting your lost butt upstairs and back to bed for the time being."

"'M fine," Ryoga mumbled, staring at the counter, head lower than it would normally be, and Ukyo smiled grimly, without a trace of amusement.

"Come on," she said, tugging him by the arm. He got unsteadily to his feet and Ukyo reflected that it was probably sheer stubbornness that kept him from swaying even slightly.

"Lean on me," she said.

"I don't—"

"Do it!" She didn't shout, but filled her voice with so much sheer granite resolve that Ryoga did as she'd said without another word. She let out a faint "uff!" as his arm contacted her shoulder; he was heavy, but she'd expected no less.

"I'm putting you to bed," she said simply. "And then I'm calling the Doctor."

Ryoga had his eyes shut, and this time he didn't argue with her.