Ranma 1/2 Fan Fiction ❯ Distance ❯ Chapter 1 ( Chapter 1 )

The morning air gave Ranma a rush as he stepped out of the Maison Ikou, the apartment building that had served as his home for the last week. Kaibutsu was practically trying to wriggle out of his own fur as the two of them trotted down the steps together. Sometimes, Ranma wanted to let the dog off of his leash, so that he could run all over town, but Kaibutsu was an overly-friendly animal, and some people didn't appreciate being doused by dog-spit early in the morning. They had to wait until they hit the woods.

“Ho, there, boy. We'll get goin' in a second.” Ranma reached down and situated his running shoes a little better, wincing at the snug fit; a gift from his mother for his twenty-first birthday two weeks ago, he hadn't quite broken them in yet. He tugged the little canvas tag out of the back of the shoe so it wasn't rubbing against his heel anymore, and smiled down at his dog. “C'mon, what're you waitin' for, slowpoke?” Kaibutsu barked defiantly and started running, Ranma close behind. He kept a slower pace that normal to let his body wake up some more before he and Kaibutsu really took off.

The streets of his home were quiet; it was nine o'clock on a workday, and most people had already funneled into the larger businesses that stood seven miles outside of the residential area of Nerima Ward. Ranma lived at the farthest end of the residential district, by Furinkan High School, and away from the shops; the residential area was more familiar than the much-changed shopping center.

He smiled around at the familiar houses. He had been living away at a junior college in Osaka for two years before coming back to his home. His mother and father had tried to get him to move anywhere else other than his teenaged home, but he couldn't. Nerima was just that: his home. Even though it had changed, and the city had moved in a little more, it was still one of the more rural areas of Japan.

“But,” his mother had said over the phone, “other places have gone back to a more traditional way, Ranma! You should move to Kyoto, with your father and I; we have plenty of space, for you to use while you find a place of your own.” Ranma had inevitably declined, promised to visit, and gotten an apartment in the Maison Ikou, the only apartment building to, so far, move into the residential district.

As he ran with Kaibutsu through the once-familiar streets of Nerima, Ranma felt nostalgia nipping at his heels. The canals still zigzagged through the streets, but the chain-link was replaced with a more traditional, nicer-looking low wooden fence. The electrical systems in the area had failed three years ago, and the government had set about replacing a lot of the outdated equipment; as a result, power lines no longer crisscrossed the sky so oppressively, opening it up for him to appreciate. Solar panels even glinted off the roofs of many of the nicer, and even some of the smaller, homes in the area, subsidized by a greener Japan. There were three new parks, and a Western-style coffee house and bookshop on the corner of his street, where there used to be just an empty lot. Streets had been repaved. Sewer systems had been renovated. The air smelled cleaner.

It was not exactly the Nerima he had left at seventeen, but it was definitely still his home. “Good morning, Mrs. Suzuki!” he called, waving at an old woman, Reiko Suzuki, ceremonially washing her front porch. She looked up, blinking small black eyes and smiled at him from her old, bent position.

“Oh! Good morning Mr. Saotome; out for a run? Hello Kaibutsu!” Ranma paused in front of her, jogging in place whilst she fed a panting Kaibutsu a piece of homemade salmon jerky that she always kept in her pocket for him. Reiko then held out her bucket and let Kaibutsu drink from the bucket with a laugh. “He's such a good dog, Mr. Saotome.”

Ranma smiled proudly. “Thank you, I've tried to keep him trained well,” he paused, smiling, “he really hated Osaka.”

“Oh, yes, that's no place for any energetic young person,” she smiled at him and patted his hand that held the leash, “you go on with your run, he looks impatient.” Ranma smiled and bowed to her.

“Thank you, Mrs. Suzuki - you have a good day!” he waved to her as she bowed and watched him jog off. Her smile was broader as she continued to wash her front walkway, and Ranma hummed to himself and turned just in time to dodge a recycling bin on the sidewalk.

The streets became a little emptier of buildings as he headed into the wooded area that still resided just outside the residential area. It was protected land, several hundred acres untouchable by the city. Kaibutsu loved running through the woods, and Ranma had to adjust his grip on the leash as the two of them tunneled under the trees. Ranma's breath still came out in rhythmic puffs, and he unclipped the leash from Kaibutsu's collar and let him sprint off through the trees like an uncoiled spring, knowing the dog would come back.

Ranma watched his dog's retreating back for a minute and then faced a nearby tree. Taking off his junior university sweater, barely grazed by his sweat, he wrapped it firmly around the tree trunk, bowed to his sparring partner, and set off into a few easy exercises, the tree shaking with the impact of this fists and feet.

Settling into his routine, Ranma's mind wandered. The forest around him was cool and quiet, save for the broken noises of Kaibutsu barking at a rabbit or the crash of the dog jumping into bushes after a squirrel or some other terrified animal. As it always did, Ranma's mine wandered to Akane.

Tears stung his eyes, much to his surprise; he hadn't cried over her in a year, and the sudden rush of emotions left him slightly breathless. He paused mid-kick and lowered his leg, sweat beading across his bare chest, which heaved with the force of his labored breathing. Akane's face replaced the vision of the stained sweater wrapped around the tree to protect it from his pummeling blows. Her face was smiling, it always was, and he wondered if she was as happy in real life as she was in his mind.

Kaibutsu's frantic barking cut through his reverie, and Ranma turned around, fists instantly coming up on instinct at the panicked noise of his best friend. “Kaibutsu? What is it, boy?” Ranma called, leaving his sweater behind and taking off in the direction of the barking.

As Ranma approached his animal, he heard whispered curses under the sound of Kaibutsu growling menacingly. “What is it Kai— oh, whoops, sorry.” Ranma muttered, embarrassed at the sight of two male teens in a tangle of clothes and an afghan in a small, shallow ravine just a few feet below his barking dog. “Dammit, Kaibutsu!” Ranma cursed, tugging his dog away and pulling the leash out of the pocket of his track pants to clip it on again. “Sorry, sorry, guys, go back to uh… whatever you were doin'…” Ranma averted his gaze as the two teens scrambled together and cursed loudly.

Ranma walked away with his excited pet before he could embarrass himself further. The students were on summer vacation from Furinkan, and had no-doubt snuck out after their parents left for work. Two years ago, the sight of two boys tussling together in a ravine would have made him gag, but Osaka had exposed him to too much to be disturbed by the sight. It wasn't any of his damn business, anyway, but it still made him a little grossed out. “Hey, man!” Ranma turned abruptly as one of the youths made it out of the ravine, twigs and leaves in his hair but his pants, thankfully, up around his hips. He couldn't be older than sixteen, and he looked so mortified Ranma had to feel sympathy for him.

“Uh, yeah?” he asked awkwardly as the other red-faced kid stumbled out of the crevasse, the blanket they had been using wrapped around his shoulders.

“Don't uh… don't tell anybody, okay? We don't want anyone finding out about our spot.” The first boy said, rubbing the back of his head awkwardly. “You know how hard it is to find some… uh, privacy.”

Ranma shrugged and gave them a little half-bow. “Your secret is safe with me.”

The boy in the blanket's eyes widened suddenly, and he let the blanket slip to his waist so he could point at Ranma. “Hey! You're that guy!”

The first boy looked at his boyfriend and raised an eyebrow. “What are you talking about, Toshi?”

Toshi's mouth was gaping and Ranma began to realize what was going on. He groaned. “No, no, kid, I ain't… I don't do that shit anymore, okay?”

“But— you were so cool! I tried to learn all your moves!” Toshi punched the air a few times and Ranma rolled his eyes irritably. “Sato, this is Ranma Saotome, the Red Dragon!”

The “Red Dragon” was the name given to Ranma when he'd competed in martial tournaments in Osaka. It was all on the up-and-up, and he'd only done it to earn money to go to university, but the whole thing had made him a little queasy; violence for the sake of violence was not the way of the fist. His mother hadn't approved, either, and Ranma really didn't like disappointing her, especially when it came to his training.

“C'mon, guys, I don't do that no more; it was just… look, you guys don't say nothin' about me, I don't say nothin' about you, deal?” he held out his hand that wasn't on Kaibutsu's leash, and the boys looked at each other for a minute before shrugging and taking turns shaking it.

“Can you at least show us some stuff?” Toshi asked shyly, flushing. Sato looked jealously between the two of them and Ranma sweated a little, conscious of his bare chest and Toshi's wandering eye.

“Maybe some other time, I've got to get home guys,” he tried to smile at them, and was relieved when Sato visibly relaxed; he didn't need to make enemies of anyone his first week back in town, “have… uh… have fun!” and then he ran off, Kaibutsu leaping to his paws and careening through the forest with him.

Ranma barely paused to unwrap his sweater from the tree before he ran all the way back to Maison Ikou. Barreling through the front door he narrowly avoided running into the janitor for the main floor, Atsuko. He called an apology over his shoulder, knowing that he was being rude, and ran all the way to his apartment, leaving his shoes in a small wooden cubby by the inside of his door. Kaibutsu ran circles around their one-room apartment, excited by their run, and eventually settled in front of him, panting eagerly.

Eventually, Ranma's heart stopped thudding so loudly in his chest, and he crouched down and petted his dog, running his hands up and down his furry neck. “Hey boy, guess news travels fast, huh?” He was embarrassed about the tournaments, and didn't really want a bunch of people in Nerima knowing about it. He had no way of knowing if the boys would say anything, but he was pretty sure they wouldn't be able to keep their mouths shut; they were teenagers.

Sighing resignedly, Ranma stood up and set about getting a shower. It was almost ten o'clock, and this was his last day off before he started teaching summer classes over at the dojo that had opened up in the last year. All the money from the tournaments was for university, so he had to have a job to pay the bills, and for his apartment. He really, really didn't want his new boss finding out about the tournaments, though; it had the potential to hurt his chances at maintaining a good teaching position.

If he had the dojo he'd been promised by Akane's family, he wouldn't even have to think about those tournaments ever again.

Wearily, Ranma ran the hot water in the shower and stepped into the spray, wishing he had a bathtub to soak in. It would be nice to just daydream.