He just kept collecting them, one by one, over the months. He couldn't help it. Over the course of many wanderings, he came across a lot of rural areas. Rural areas which had quite a few pig farms, filled with swine invariably raised for slaughter.
Maybe in another time and place, he would not have blinked an eye at such a thing, sighing and writing it off as an inevitability of being born upon this earth, to eat and be eaten.
He wasn't in that time or place, though. What was he to do, leave them to their fate? Piglets were blessed with sharp intuition and perception, with all the very same sense organs bestowed upon humans, contrary to the conceit of the latter. Joy and sadness felt the same, whether pig or man. He was only too aware of that.
Again, he asked, what was he supposed to do? Leave them to their fate?
He thought not.
So what if he adopted over three hundred pigs and sheltered them in his house? Anything else would be like auto-cannibalism.
"Ryoga-kun...why does your house sound so...oh my, these are so cute!" Akane picked up a tiny rusty red piglet and tickled its chin. It squealed in response and licked her fingers as she cooed.
"Ah, y-you like them, Akane-san?" Ryoga bashfully poked his fingers together and stared at the ceiling so that she wouldn't see the tears gathering in his eyes. "These...these are all rescue pigs. I saw them and I couldn't...well, I couldn't leave them to be slaughtered...because I...I know..."
What it's be like to almost be boiled alive as P-chan, but Akane-san couldn't know that he was P-chan...
Akane gazed at him through beautiful sparkling brown eyes. Then she smiled like the Mona Lisa – his heart fell and tripped over itself – and she kissed him on the cheek for the second time ever.
That cheek went to heaven. He'd never wash it.
"I understand completely, Ryoga-kun. You were thinking of P-chan this whole time, right?"
His smile turned rather strained. God, please don't let her find out my secret.
"What if these were his brothers and sisters? What if he misses his mother? He'd feel sad if they were slaughtered, and he'd be so happy you saved these little guys. Right, Ryoga-kun?"
"R-right."
Well, she wasn't wrong. To be so close, yet so far...
A/N: Inspired by real people I've met/stories I've read.
It turns out, quite a few people raise farm animals and find themselves unable to eat meat...because they can't help but be reminded of their friend. I imagine Ryoga would be the same and go out of his way to save pigs...because he's a piglet half the time...