Ranma 1/2 Fan Fiction ❯ Fugue ❯ Chapter 5

It was a beautiful day in Nerima. The sky was free of clouds, the birds were singing happily, and Hibiki Ryouga was lying naked (except for a bandanna about his head) on a picnic table in a park. This wouldn't be overly noteworthy, except he was currently in human form. He was also lying in front of Tendou Nabiki and just starting to realize he was no longer a cute, black piglet. He quickly looked at Nabiki in a vain hope she hadn't noticed his transformation; the sight of her glaring at him quickly killed that hope.

“It's not what it looks like!” he cried while desperately trying to cover himself. Anything further he was going to say was cut off by a cup of ice water in the face. A moment later, the piglet he'd become was picked up by his bandanna and held before Nabiki's face; he couldn't help but notice that her eyes looked much bigger and much angrier from this perspective.

“Hibiki,” growled the owner of the eyes, “we need to talk. Where are your clothes?”

“Bwee,” the pig answered unhelpfully.

“Right... Are they someplace I'm familiar with?” Ryouga nodded. “School?” Ryouga shook his head. “My home?” she asked, her eyes narrowing. Ryouga gave a mournful squeal and nodded slightly. “What a pleasant concept,” drawled Nabiki as her mouth twisted with distaste. “Well, let's go,” she said, gathering her book bag in her free hand and setting out for home.

*

Fifteen minutes later, Nabiki arrived home with the now-dry piglet once again concealed in her book bag. After a quick check to confirm neither Ranma nor Akane were around, she went up to her room and released Ryouga from her bag.

“Ok, where are your clothes—and if the answer is 'here', our next stop is the butcher.”

Ryouga frantically squealed a denial while rapidly shaking his head from side to side. A moment later, he walked over to the door and gave a little snort.

“You don't honestly think I'm stupid enough to follow you somewhere, do you?” Nabiki asked. “Are they in the house?” The piglet nodded. “Ok, since you need hot water to use them ... the furo?” Ryouga blinked, then nodded.

“Ok, back in the bag,” Nabiki ordered. With a weary sigh, he crawled back into the bag he was truly starting to hate, and a minute later he was dumped into the bathroom.

“Go change. I'll wait out here,” Nabiki said as she closed the door.

Like a doomed man walking to the executioner, Ryouga slowly trudged toward the furo. Silently, he cursed his luck—of everyone in the world, Nabiki was the second to last person he'd want to find out about his curse. And considering that he'd just been in a dressing room with her while she was trying on clothes, she wasn't a very distant second. Well, no use putting it off... He climbed into the furo and changed. After a minute to dry off, retrieve his pack, and dress, he returned to Nabiki, who promptly dragged him back to her room and closed the door.

“Sit,” Nabiki commanded, pointing to her desk chair before taking a seat on her bed. Ryouga put his pack down and sat where instructed. “Now,” continued Nabiki, “explain just how it's 'not what it looks like.'”

Ryouga opened his mouth, then paused. “Uh, what did it look like to you?”

“It looked like my little sister's pet pig, whom she takes into her bed, changes in front of, and probably pours her heart out to, if I know my sister, is really you with a Jusenkyou curse. Furthermore, in addition to however else you use your curse to take advantage of people, you also used it to worm your way into a changing room with me.” Nabiki folded her arms and waited for Ryouga's response.

“I didn't want to go into the changing room with you! I just wanted to find out what you were doing—I didn't look at you when you were changing!”

“Oh, so in other words, you'd sooner claw your eyes out than see me naked,” Nabiki offered brightly.

“Exactly.” As silence descended on the room, the small portion of Ryouga's brain that kept track of what had been said recently noticed something and desperately tried to get the attention of the rest of the brain. Four seconds later, it succeeded. “No!” Ryouga cried while frantically waving his hands in negation. “I'd love to see you naked!” From the way Nabiki's eyes narrowed, he concluded that wasn't the right answer, either. With a sigh of resignation, he closed his mouth and stared at the floor.

“Done?” inquired Nabiki politely. Ryouga nodded. “All right. Here is what's going to happen: first, you are going to stop taking advantage of my sister. 'P-chan' is going to develop a strong aversion to being alone with her behind a closed door.”

“Uh, how would we explain that?”

Nabiki arched an eyebrow. “P-chan is a pig—there's nothing to explain. Whenever he finds herself alone with her and the door is closed, he will squeal frantically while clawing at the door. She'll get the idea quickly enough.” At Ryouga's nod, she continued. “You'll also refrain from snuggling or nuzzling any parts of her that you would be hesitant to touch as a human. If you break either of these rules, I'll inform her of your curse immediately.” Ryouga swallowed, then nodded again.

“Now,” said Nabiki, holding out her hand, “your money, please.”

Ryouga started to dig in his pack. “How much?” he asked as his hand closed on his hidden stash of money. When no answer came, he glanced at Nabiki to find her looking at him as if he'd asked a stupid question. After a moment's reflection, he decided he had, and placed all of his money into her waiting hand. “That's my life savings...” he said mournfully.

“Well, considering that I'm saving your life by not telling Akane, it's only appropriate,” she replied while estimating the value of the surprisingly large wad of notes. “Here,” she said, peeling off a few and returning them to him.

Ryouga looked at her in confusion. “What's this for?”

“Hey, I may think you're an honorless pig who takes advantage of everyone around him, but that doesn't mean I want you to starve to death. Oh, that reminds me—don't think I won't tell Akane about you in an instant if you try to take advantage of anyone in my family in a way I haven't specifically mentioned.”

Ryouga flushed in a mixture of anger and shame at Nabiki's description of him, then shook his head and sighed. “It's not like that... Ok, I've used my curse to make Ranma jealous and get him in trouble—but he deserves that and more for ruining my life! Akane's a sweet, wonderful, caring person, though. I never looked at her when she undressed, and I'd never do anything to hurt her. I know I shouldn't have let her make P-chan her pet, but you don't know how it feels to be lost and alone, with no one to care about you—and then to finally find someone who treats you with kindness and affection...” Ryouga's voice trailed off, and after taking a deep breath, he softly finished, “It's just really hard to turn away from that, even if you know it's wrong.”

Nabiki gave him a long, thoughtful look for several moments before quietly saying, “I think I understand. When you find someone that special, you'll do just about anything to stay with them—cross oceans, fight with all your might, even disguise who you are and why you're really there so you can be with them longer.” Ryouga sighed to hear his own feelings spoken so clearly. Maybe Nabiki really did understand him.

“It's pretty obvious why you fell in love, too, when you think about it,” she continued. “That generous heart—helping people in trouble, even if they don't deserve it...”

“Like Ranma,” Ryouga thought while nodding.

“That incredible determination and fighting spirit...”

“That's right—she never hesitates to stand up to Ranma,” Ryouga thought, again nodding.

“That amazing physique and classic beauty...”

“Ranma doesn't deserve her!” Ryouga mentally declared with a scowl.

“That cute little pigtail...”

Ryouga sighed, thinking about how it looked against those red Chinese shirts. A moment later, several parts of his brain started clamoring for attention. “Pigtail?!” he cried, jumping to his feet. “You were supposed to be talking about Akane!”

“Why would I be doing that—she isn't the one you followed all the way to China on the flimsiest of excuses—”

“He ran out on our man-to-man duel!” interrupted Ryouga. “That's why I was hunting him down!”

“Uh huh... So if you had a fight scheduled with, say, Mousse, and he wasn't there when you finally showed up, you'd run off to China to punish him?”

“Uh...”

“And isn't it interesting that once you found Ranma, you just happened to fall for the one girl whom pursuing would guarantee you stayed near Ranma and were constantly on his mind?”

“Damn it—it's not like that!” Clenching his fists and gazing heavenward, he cried, “Ranma, this is all your fault!”

“And as always, you come back to Ranma,” remarked Nabiki, totally unfazed by the shouting. “Tell me, when I was describing 'Akane', how many times were you actually thinking of Ranma instead?”

Ryouga paled and stared at Nabiki for a moment before shaking his head and gritting out, “I don't think of Ranma like that! I hate him!"

“Calm down, Hibiki. I didn't say you wanted to jump his bones—there's such a thing as brotherly love, too, you know.”

“Don't be ridiculous—he insults me whenever he sees me and has made my life a living hell.”

“Sounds like a brother to me,” Nabiki said as she picked up a nearby emery board and started to file her nails.

Ryouga just stared at her with a shocked look on his face for a long moment before picking up his pack and leaving the room without a word. A minute later, Nabiki looked up from her nails and asked the empty room, “Was it something I said?”

*

Nabiki felt light-headed as she stared at the glowing green numbers on her calculator. Taking a deep breath, she cleared the display, re-entered the numbers and hit the equal sign. The result was the same.

“After so long...” she breathed. With a huge grin that few people would ever expect to see on her face, she picked up the money she'd taken from Ryouga earlier that afternoon and hugged it to her chest. When she'd first looked at the money, she'd figured it was about twenty or maybe thirty thousand yen, but during his many years on the read, Ryouga had learned the value of not looking too well-off and kept his larger bills deeply buried among the smaller. The actual value of his life savings had been approximately ninety thousand yen. With a little giggle, Nabiki decided she should have 'accidentally' spilled something on the pig months ago.

The sound of her giggle quickly brought Nabiki back down to Earth. “Don't lose it now, Tendou,” she mentally admonished herself as she restored her usual poker face and neatly placed the money in an envelope which she locked in her desk. “It's still not too late to screw everything up, and skinning the pig any earlier would have risked that. In any case, delivering the money too early would be almost as bad as too late.” She took another deep breath and forced herself to relax: after all, it wasn't as if she hadn't expected tomorrow to be the big day, it was just suddenly getting the last of the money she needed like that had caught her off-guard. Calmer now, she turned off the calculator and decided to spend some quality time with her family—just in case things didn't go well tomorrow.