Ryoga had been walking for ages, but at long last he was within sight of the Tendo dojo. Akane was raking leaves into a tarp in the back yard while Ranma was trying to pry himself out of one of Shampoo's crushing hugs. "Aren't you supposed to be helping me?" Akane asked flatly. "You think I'm enjoying this?" Ranma snapped back. Shampoo gazed up at him dreamily. "Ranma work too too hard all day for violent Akane. Is time for relax and play with Shampoo." she sighed. "Why don't you two just get a room already?" Akane fumed. The handle of the rake was cracking in her hand. Ryoga didn't like what he was seeing. "Ooh! Shampoo so glad that Akane finally accepting her chance with groom is gone!" Shampoo squealed happily and started to drag Ranma off by his ponytail. "W-wait! Don't I have a say in this?" he cried. He could protest harder if he wanted! That animal! Ryoga thought. Akane was shaking with rage. "Ranma! You... you...!" "...You PIG!" Ryoga finished as he sharply sank a foot deep into Ranma's face. "I won't stand by and watch Akane's feelings be hurt by a cad like you!" "And just who are you... calling a PIG?" Ranma demanded, shoving Ryoga back hard enough to crack the garden wall. "Eh, P-Chan?" "And just where do you see P-Chan out here?" Ryoga shouted. The two boys furiously traded punches while the ladies looked on with only mild interest.
"You want we go get some bake sweet potato?" Shampoo asked with a yawn. "Don't you have somewhere to be?" Akane sighed. Shampoo slapped her fist into her other hand with a soft pap. "Aiya! Great Grandmother is need help with big catering job tonight! You come date with Shampoo after work, Ranma!" she called behind her as she crashed through the stone garden wall. Walking around it would have wasted too much of her valuable time. Ranma was a little too busy in the tussle with Ryoga to notice. Not that he would have bothered to return her farewell. She didn't seem to mind. Surely it was implied and she had only missed it.
Ranma was having a really difficult time handling Ryoga today. Ranma was fast, and really very strong, but Ryoga was sturdy. Whenever their fights involved Akane, his strength was monstrous. Be that as it may, Ranma was always just slightly ahead of him, and he forced eventually Ryoga to the ground. Ryoga allowed the fall, using the momentum to bring a foot up to catch Ranma under his ribcage and fling him into the coy pond. Ranma felt the swell in his chest as the breasts began to fill in, and the uncomfortable shift in his pants as his manhood disappeared. He hated the transformation into his female self. It was downright humiliating! He popped back above the surface of the water in a fury, dragging a tidal wave fueled by his enraged chi with him. Ryoga had foolishly turned his back on the pond to gaze lovingly at Akane. Before he could think of something manly to say, the cold shower of pond water and surprised coy rained down on him.
No. This isn't happening. It can't happen this way! Akane... I'm so sorry! Ryoga thought desperately. But no amount of panic or prayer stopped the shift his body was making into P-Chan's tiny form. Ranma's face revealed shock and guilt. He hadn't meant to splash Ryoga in front of Akane. What would she do when she realized the the piglet that had been her pet was Ryoga? She'd probably think he was some kind of pervert!
Ryoga forced himself to look up at her after a long moment of wishing very hard to disappear. As much as he wanted to run, he was paralyzed with fear. Her expression was like a Noh mask. It was impossible to read. Ranma cautiously put a hand on Akane's shoulder. "Akane... don't be mad, okay? I know it's a shock, but he never meant to hurt you. Ryoga's just a..." "Do you actually think I didn't know? Just how dense do you think I am?" Akane demanded. Ranma backed up in horror. "You knew? You knew this whole time? He's been sleeping in your bed!" Ryoga couldn't believe what he was hearing! She had known... but... "Do you know what a pain it's been covering this up? Why didn't you say anything?" Ranma cried. "Maybe I was waiting for you guys to be honest with me! Maybe I was giving you a chance to come clean on your own! Or maybe... I liked having him with me. Ryoga's always treated me with respect and appreciation. He's a perfect gentleman, unlike someone I could mention. I feel safe around him." she answered. Ranma's face contorted with jealousy. "You... feel... safe...eh?"
Akane lifted the piglet gently from the mud and cradled him gently in the crook of her arm. All this time, Ryoga thought, she wanted to be with me. Oh, Akane... He nuzzled into her chest and breathed in her sweet scent. Akane... "Um... Excuse me, but that's entirely inappropriate." Ryoga started at the sound of Akane's voice. It sounded exactly like an old man.
Reality snapped back into focus, and Ryoga realized he had been dreaming... and also snuggling into the flabby chest of an eight-five-year-old man with a deadpan face. "B-keeee!" he squealed in terror as cold shivers passed through his body. Why, God? Why?
He heard a door open and close across the room. "Mikhan? I'm back! I couldn't find anyone out there, so I guess someone just left all their stuff here by mistake. I guess we can just hang onto it for now." Lum stripped off her long trench coat and galoshes by the door. Ryoga recognized her as the young woman from the river. He took the opportunity to look around the room, anywhere but at her. He was still embarrassed to have seen her in barely a bikini. The fact that she was now dressed in jeans and a fuzzy sweater didn't matter. There wasn't much left to the imagination at this point, and he couldn't block it from his mind. They lived in a moderate sized house, from what he could guess. They were in a living area currently, kneeling by a roaring fire. In the back of the room, there was a Western-style sofa and a television playing a bright cartoon show where six small children were sprawled out on pillows, watching with rapt attention. Beside it there was a hallway entrance that Ryoga assumed led to the bedrooms and bathroom. More-so in the middle of the room was a traditional kotatsu that was set up with dishes for dinner. The opening for the kitchen was directly across from the fireplace, and the delicious scent of potato leek soup wafted gently throughout the house. All of the wall space in the rest of the room was taken up by bookshelves and pictures of various smiling strangers. It was all very homey, Ryoga thought to himself.
In his observational daze, he hadn't noticed that Lum had come up to kneel beside the old man and was looking directly the little piglet. She smiled sweetly. "All warmed up, little one? Ha! Why are you blushing?" "He seems to have taken I shine to me, I think." Mikhan said with a laugh. Ryoga groaned and rolled his eyes in despair. "Maybe so. Well, in any case, you're going to be staying with us until your owner comes back. Is that okay with you?" Lum asked in a rhetorical tone. Ryoga retreated a little into the old man's side when she reach over to pat him on the head. She seemed a little hurt by this. "I'm not going to hurt you, sweetie. Come on. It's dinner time." she announced. The piglet's stomach betrayed him with a responding rumble. Lum lifted him from the safety of Mikhan's arms and set him down gently beside the table. He was then presented with a hot bowl of soup and a bit of bread. He didn't want to be rude, and he was very hungry after all, so he obligingly ate while everyone else tucked into their own meals.
The children kept stealing glances at him throughout the meal as though he were a new toy, and it made Ryoga very uncomfortable. The soup was delicious, though. If he tried to focus on eating, it was a little easier to block out all the stares he was getting. There was a movie playing across the room, but it was really just ambient noise because the group of people were talking amongst themselves cheerily. From what he was able to gather, Mikhan ran a home for orphaned children in the area, so all the children were currently between families. Lum was an art teacher in town that had agreed to help out with the home in exchange for a place to stay. This was somewhat surprising. Aside from Miss Hinako at Ranma's high school, most of the teachers he had known were middle aged. If he had to guess, Lum couldn't have been more than twenty or so. They all seemed so happy together. Ryoga felt a twinge of jealousy. He never really had any proper time with his family like this. Sure, he and his parents loved one another, but they all had such appalling senses of direction, they were only very rarely in the house at the same time. Even if he was an outsider, it was a very warm thing indeed to be in a home like this.
As Lum cleared the table and washed the dishes, Ryoga allowed the children to play with him. No sense in drawing attention to himself. Once everyone was asleep, he would make his exit. He couldn't be sure exactly where he was, but that left him in no different position than where he had started earlier that day.
After cleaning up, it was bath time. Mikhan offered to bathe the children to give Lum a break, but within moments there were naked little bodies running in a defiant sprint all over the place. Mikhan hobbled after them as fast as he could, insisting that he could handle it as Lum looked on with a bemused expression. Ryoga smiled to himself and came to stand in the middle of the room as a distraction. When the children ran up to him, they found themselves plucked up and carried off two at a time by Mikhan back to the bathtub. "Thank you very much! You're quite the little helper!" Mikhan called over his shoulder as a child named Nami laughed and screamed, "Mutiny! The piggy betrayed us!" Lum laughed to herself and settled herself on the sofa with a book, her feet tucked to one side of her. Ryoga wasn't used to seeing people sit quite so casually, but then, his family was very traditional and formal. Unsure what to do with himself, he sat down beside his backpack against the wall and pretended to be asleep. The farce didn't last long, though. The warmth of the crackling fire and the soft patter of rain on the windows soon soothed him into a light doze. This place wasn't so bad.
When Mikhan and Lum had the children all tucked into bed for the night, they decided to enjoy a cup of tea together before turning in themselves. Ryoga didn't notice Lum running water into the kitchen sink, making a miniature bubble bath for the piglet while the kettle was warming up. He didn't notice being lifted into her arms and carried across the room. He didn't notice being lowered into the shallow bath. But he absolutely noticed when Lum began to scream at the teenage boy that was now scrunched up naked in her kitchen sink. Panic seized his heart and he also began to scream as Mikhan looked on with only a raised eyebrow changing his normal deadpan expression. Lum went on the offensive and grabbed a shotgun from one of the high cupboards. Ryoga bolted out of the sink and did his best to cover his unmentionables while trotting clumsily backwards towards his pack. "I... I'm sorry! I can explain! Please!" he cried. "What the hell are you? Some kind of demonic pervert?" Lum demanded. "No! No, not at all! Please be reasonable!" Ryoga pleaded while trying to struggle into his pants. It would be easy enough to overpower her, but he didn't want to hurt her, and he sure didn't want to try while he was naked. "Be reasonable?" Lum asked. "Y-yes? Please?" Ryoga replied. "That's not an answer." Lum said in a low and threatening tone. Her finger moved to the trigger. Speed wasn't really a strong point of Ryoga's. He would probably survive solely from his abnormal toughness, but nobody really appreciates a buckshot to the face. Irrespective, he only had seconds to make a decision.