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The sweetest apparition, such a pretty vision
The rain never seemed to stop.
It meant no signal fires. It meant no way to spot any ships, and a very slim chance of any ships or planes or much of anything else spotting him. It also meant that he would have to wait to try out his newly-crafted fishing spear, as the waters were too tumultuous to snag himself any dinner.
Which meant more fucking papaya.
Ryoga sat hunkered inside his palm-tree shelter, grouchily chomping into what felt like his millionth papaya.
It had been eight days. He was surprised there was even any papaya left on this damned island. Not that he was keen on running out of food any time soon, but he was getting pretty sick of it. It could be worse, he tried to tell himself. At least he wasn't starving.
But that didn't mean he wasn't constantly daydreaming of the Nekohanten's steaming hot ramen. If he closed his eyes, he could see the golden yolk of the soft-boiled eggs oozing out into the broth when he carefully cuts them open with a delicate pinch of his chopsticks…
Ryoga took a large chomp out of his papaya, but it sadly still tasted like a papaya, and not miso broth mixed with egg yolk and green onions.
He also thought about the okonomiyaki from Uuchan's. Especially the deluxe seafood combo with extra squid and sauce.
Ryoga wasn't usually very adventurous about add-ons when ordering food, as it felt like extra work for the one serving him, and Ukyo was a friend so he wanted to inconvenience her even less. But after a particularly brutal venture out in the bush and finally managing to stumble back into town, Uuchan's Okonomiyaki was the first familiar place he'd managed to find—actually, he'd collapsed right at the front door from exhaustion, disrupting Konatsu's sweeping.
When he'd come to, the first thing Ukyo did was ask what he wanted to eat, and for some reason the first thing that came to his mind was that particular order.
It was Ranma's usual. He's not sure how he had managed to rattle it off the top of his head, especially after being practically delirious after four days without food. Maybe it was for that reason that it was the best damn okonomiyaki Ukyo had ever made him, because just about anything can taste good when you're starving. Even papaya.
Or maybe Ranma just knew how to make an already good thing even better.
Suddenly, on the next bite into his papaya, Ryoga got a mouth full of seeds. It may as well be like eating a bunch of slimy, sour peppercorns. With a groan of disgust, Ryoga willed down the knee-jerk reaction to spit the seeds out. If food weren't a luxury, he would have in a heartbeat. But the seeds were just as edible and nutritious as the flesh, so he forced himself to swallow.
"Blech," Ryoga gagged, scowling down at the accursed fruit.
Maybe if he stared at it long enough, it would turn into a deluxe seafood special okonomiyaki with extra squid and sauce.
He glowered at it for a full minute. Two.
His stomach grumbled in protest.
The papaya remained a papaya.
Ryoga sighed, and took another bite, this one much more tentative than the others to avoid the seeds.
Thirteen days.
The rains, thankfully, had ceased. The skies cleared, the tides settled. Monsoon season was finally approaching its end.
Ryoga had built several more small shelters in different spots around the island, all with a small stash of food. Now that the weather was agreeable, he was also able to assemble and light multiple signal fires, sending thick black smoke billowing into the clear blue skies above.
There had been one plane, just three days ago. And, of course, it was a day when the clouds were particularly thick and fluffy. Normally a pretty sight, but not ideal when trying to be spotted from below.
It was no use. The plane was high above those thick clouds, and Ryoga was merely a speck in a sea of brilliant cerulean blue. A few puny trails of black smoke billowing into the air weren't going to be enough, even without the dense cover of clouds. He watched wistfully as the plane streaked through the sky, leaving nothing but a white trail and a feeling of failure in its wake.
Ryoga took his frustration out while fishing. He had to be careful not to break his fishing spear again.
The fish got no such mercies.
There was a ship.
A speck in the distance. At first, Ryoga thought it must have just been a trick of the light. A mirage. Maybe just a distant rock he had never noticed until now.
Ryoga stood on the shoreline and stared at it unblinkingly.
It was moving.
He wasn't imagining it. It was really moving.
There was a ship.
…There was a ship…!
He started hollering. He sprinted for the nearest signal fire as he waved his arms through the air and yelled at the top of his lungs. He grabbed a bunch of leaves and branches as he stumbled across the sand towards the crackling fire.
"OVER HERE!" Ryoga shouted, "OVER HEEERE!"
He managed to get the leaves and branches he gathered to catch fire, and then he ran back to the shoreline, still yelling like a madman the whole while. He held the branches and leaves high above his head, shaking them around frantically. Embers flickered about, thin wisps of smoke flutter into the air. And Ryoga kept on screaming, and running, and jumping.
His voice went hoarse and his scream cut off with a crack. He stopped jumping around in the surf for a moment and scrunched his eyes as he strained to look into the far horizon. It took him a moment to find the ship again, and his already-hammering heart kicked into double time as he thought for a horrid moment that he had lost it, or that it was already gone. Then, he spotted it, and relief washed over him like the tide at his feet.
And then, dread.
It was getting smaller.
He had not been seen.
They were leaving.
No. No, no. Nonononononono—
"NO!" Ryoga screamed, "NO, WAIT! COME BACK! OVER HERE, OVER HERE, I'M HERE! PLEASE! TURN AROUND, COME BACK, PLEASE!"
The small speck of gray that was once just a trick of the light, then a mirage, then a distant rock, then the first glimmer of hope in days, then a ship—
—disappeared into the horizon line, and was gone.
The horizon went blurrier and blurrier, and it took a moment for Ryoga to realize that was because his eyes had filled with hot, angry tears.
There was a sudden sharp pain as an ember from the burning branches fell down into Ryoga's bare, already-sunburnt shoulder. He hardly felt it.
Ryoga hurled the burning branches and leaves into the waves with a frustrated shriek, and then crumpled down into the sand. He beat at the ground with his fists, splashing up water each time the tide rolled in and lapped gently at his hands and knees.
He screamed until he tasted copper in his throat.
It had been a month.
He had been coasting along on the inertia of optimism that curing his curse had given him. He'd been gripping on to every small victory, no matter how miniscule, just to keep it up just that little bit longer. It was like he had been desperately batting at a balloon that only had a few puffs of air left in it, and if he left it unattended for even a second, it would plummet right to the ground.
Ryoga promised himself he would not give up. He promised himself that he was going to get off this island no matter what.
But, he was only human.
Small fish, the odd crab, papayas, coconuts…it was enough to keep him alive, sure. But he was not giving his body anywhere close to the amount of calories it was accustomed to, let alone just what it needed in general to maintain his current weight. And considering how busy he needed to keep himself day-to-day on the island in order to survive—and stay sane, because it was good to have a routine, he told himself—he was burning even more calories than he usually did.
There were obviously no scales nor mirrors, but he didn't need those to know he was getting thinner. His tank top was getting loose around his middle, and it seemed like he was cinching his pants tighter and tighter every morning.
He had to dig down deep for a scrap of energy to accomplish even the simplest of tasks. He started feeling so weak he couldn't even crack coconuts apart bare-handed like he used to, and had to use a flat sharp rock to cut it open instead, which was so tedious that he would be sweating buckets and it wouldn't even be close to open yet.
Then there were splitting headaches, so brutal that they felt like he'd turned that rock on himself and had tried to crack open his skull like a coconut.
When he finally did get a coconut open, or scrounge up another damned papaya, or spear a fish, he would spend over an hour nibbling on it slowly. Every bite was a battle. He was starving, and yet he had no desire to eat. And what he did manage to force down, he had to keep down, and that became a battle in itself.
Sometimes he would feel horribly cold, even when he was sitting shirtless under the baking midday sun.
Sometimes he would spend almost the whole day sleeping under a tree or inside his shelter, too weak to do much of anything else.
Sometimes he would wonder if he should just stay put, and wait to see what would kill him first.
He sat on a small rock, hunched low over a young green coconut.
It was the dry season. There hadn't been a drop of rain for weeks, and all of his coconut-made-canteens were dry as bones. And he would be bones himself if he didn't get a drink of water soon.
He really ought to have figured out something he could use as a container for seawater which could be boiled above a campfire–it's certainly not something he has the brain power to come up with now. So cracking open a coconut it is.
He was dizzy. It felt like he would faint before he could get the fucking thing open. He wasn't even sure if it would have any water in it. Ryoga had spent hours getting into coconuts that wound up only having a few drops inside, just enough to drip onto his tongue but not soothe his parched throat.
As he reeled back his arm, flat stone in hand, to give the coconut what he hopes is the final blow, black stars burst across his vision. His arm swung forward, sloppy and off-course but still with all his weight—what was left of it, at least—behind it.
If he had missed, he probably would have pitched forward and fainted right there on the sand. But instead, the thin edge of the rock buried itself into the side of his thumb where it was still gripping the coconut.
Ryoga's eyes shot open as he dropped the stone into the sand in shock. The pain didn't hit him right away, and that was not good. That meant it really, really hurt, and—
"FUUUUCK!"
There was the pain.
It hit him like a goddamn bus, and zeroed in on his hand, which he clutched to his chest as he doubled over and let out a howl that was a mix of pain, and exhaustion, and frustration all in one.
He stayed in that position for a while, because he was not ready to check the damage yet. What if he chopped his damn thumb off?
Ryoga took a deep, deep breath in. Through the nose, out through the mouth. The pain was still there, but bearable. Just a dull throbbing as his body went into overdrive to cut off the pain receptors in his nerve endings, showing him what little mercy it could.
Slowly, he pulled his hand away from his chest, and his heart jumped at the blood. He was not a squeamish person, but it was…a lot of damn blood. Ryoga scrunched his eyes closed tightly. He took another long breath in through his nose. Out through the mouth. He takes a few more, for good measure, and then finally cracked one eye open and looked at his hand proper.
All five fingers intact.
A thick breath of relief rattled out of him.
His thumb wasn't cut off, but if he wasn't so weak right now and pulled the same stupid slip, he absolutely would have. A small shiver slid up his spine at the thought, but he quickly shook off the unpleasant feeling to try and focus at the task at han…
Nope, too easy.
Stupid puns like that were Ranma's wheelhouse, anyway. If he were here right now, he probably would have said something quite similar to try and ease the tension. Or just to piss Ryoga off. Moreso the latter.
Okay, okay. Time to make sure he didn't bleed out or whatever.
Looked like it was time to sacrifice his shirt. It was over by his shelter, flapping in the breeze where it hung from a branch. Ryoga staggered over, squeezing his hand tight to staunch the blood flow the best he could. With his undamaged hand, he dragged his shirt off the branch. He couldn't rip the fabric two-handed, not with his messed up hand. He wound up awkwardly shifting his grip on the shirt until he found the collar, and then while holding his bloodied hand away, he brought the shirt to his mouth and got a solid grip between his teeth.
He knocked his head backward and yanked the shirt forward at the same time, trying with all the might he had left in him to get a tear in the fabric. Ryoga sent a fervent thank-you to his parents for giving his prominent canines—even when it felt like he had the weakness of a baby, his sharp teeth aid in getting the fabric pulled into more manageable strips in short order.
Ryoga wrapped a few of the shirt strips around the wound, tugging them as snug as he could. Once that was done, he walked to the shoreline and crouched down to carefully wash off the blood that was all over both his hands, his chest, and running in rivulets down his left arm. Then, robotically, he headed back for his shelter and crawled inside.
He should probably keep monitoring himself for a while, to make sure the bleeding stopped. That he didn't lose too much blood.
Instead, he fell asleep within minutes.
When he woke up a few hours later, he was disappointed that he woke at all.
He was usually a fast healer, but he was malnourished, so it took twice as long before his skin finally started scabbing over properly. It didn't help that it probably needed a stitch or two.
It would probably leave a scar, but that would depend on if he lived long enough for that to happen, which he doubted. It was more likely that he would rot first.
There was another plane, just as far away as the last one had been.
It didn't matter. Ryoga was sleeping when it passed by.
He was honestly a little surprised his brain still had the capacity, but when he slept, he dreamed.
He saw a puppy in his mother's arms. A surprise for his twelfth birthday. She's perfectly black on one side, white on the other. He names her Shirokuro, and she's the first friend he ever has and the only friend he has for many years after that.
He saw a long black ponytail billowing in the air before the one who wore it landed softly to the linoleum floor and spun around— a curry beef bun, Ryoga's lunch, hung out of Ranma's mouth. His second friend, although he would refuse to admit this fact for many years after that.
He saw Akane smiling sweetly down at him before she leaned down and kissed the tip of his nose. Well, it was actually his snout, because he'd been a pig at the time, but to him it still counted. She was his first kiss.
He saw Akari.
He saw her the most. He saw her smile, he heard her tinkling-bell of a laugh, the adorable way her cheeks would flush dark pink at the slightest thing. If their eyes met, if their hands brushed as they walked side-by-side, or when he brought her souvenirs from his travels.
He should have kissed her. He's an idiot.
It was December.
At least, he was pretty sure it was. He's not all that confident in his math, anymore.
It was the middle of April the day he left Nerima, just hours after the failed wedding.
It took him until near the end of August to get to Jusenkyo. It took almost a month to get from the Qinghai province to the shores of the sea. He swam for three days.
He woke up on this island on the 25th of September.
Today was, probably, December 4th.
His nineteenth birthday. He'd spent plenty of birthdays alone before, but this one was the worst of all.
He'd been on the island for seventy days.
He was one year older. He was literally growing older here, all alone. How much older would he get, before he made it home? How many more days would he be stuck here? How many years would he waste, when he should be home, holding Akari tight and never letting her go?
He really should have kissed her. He's a fucking coward.
And that's enough.
That simple boyish desire is enough of a tether to keep him from slipping into despair.
He can't die here. He can't do that to her, just vanish and never return without showing her the love she deserves.
He had to keep living. He needed to live, so he could get home. Home to Akari, to his friends, his family.
He had to live. He had to.
For the first time in weeks, he woke up, and he was glad he didn't die in his sleep.
When he crawled out from his shelter, he was glad to feel the sun on his face. The salty breeze in his hair, now a few inches longer. Ranma would make fun of him for looking so haggard, if he could see him now.
The thought of Ranma's incessant ribbing actually made him laugh a little, a soft scoff more than anything, but it was something.
It was the 18th of April.
Ranma and Akane's absolute shitshow of a wedding-that-never-was, happened on this day, one year ago.
It's the same day Ryoga had left home.
He'd been gone a whole year.
He had been on the island for two hundred and five days.