Chapter Two: The Two Stories That Were Told

Ranma worked his way through the katas with the single-minded determination that often seemed to characterize him so much. He worked, straining more than he really needed to for the basic forms, trying to clear his mind. He changed to the more difficult routines when the basics proved too simple, but it still wasn’t enough. He could still hear that voice, that damn deceptively familiar voice, talking in that damningly soft tone… about Ryouga, of all people! It wasn’t fair! He shoved that thought out of his mind, gritting his teeth and focusing once again on the form and movements of the kata.

“You’re very good.” There it was again, that soft voice. Damn it, that’s not me! Of course it wasn’t. He was Saotome Ranma, heir to the Anything Goes school of martial arts. A man among men, even if he was a girl half the time. That… other person was just someone from some freak place. A wimpy dork. Yeah, that’s all he was. A dork. Nothing like me!

“What’s wrong? Did I upset you?”

No, Ranma wanted to shout, tell the world. You had no effect on me at all. You can’t touch me, you little freak, you’re not me, go back to the world you came from and leave me alone! It’s not like I don’t have enough problems already! He didn’t speak or react beyond a tightening of his lips and maybe a tiny increase in the forcefulness of his movements. To anyone who knew him well, even this reaction would be startling. However, for all their outward similarities, Ran-kun didn’t know Ranma at all.

“I’m sorry if I did. But I don’t understand.”

Because you’re a moron, idiot. Book-smart people get confused when they don’t get something. You think you’re so smart but don’t have a clue.

“If I’m so dissimilar to you, why are you acting like this? Why do you care?”

Ranma couldn’t think of a snappy mental retort to make to that comment. He slowed down and gradually stopped the exercise. Beads of sweat made rivulets down his face and fell to the floor with splashes that seemed loud and echoing in the deadly silence of the dojo. He faced away from the intruder, breathing heavily.

“Go away.” Ranma’s voice sounded weak even to his own ears.

“I can’t do that. I can’t watch myself tear himself up like you are.”

“Damnit, I’m not you. Don’t you dare imply that again.”

“Look at me if you want to argue.”

Ranma shuddered internally, feeling sick from the contrast of the heat outside to the chill inside his body. Growling lowly, he wiped the sweat out of his eyes and tensed, but didn’t turn. “Leave, or I’ll make you.”

“Why do you care so much? I wanted to come here to see what my life would’ve been like if I had had two parents. I thought it would be better, somehow, if my father had lived. But now I see that I’m not the one who needs to see, you are. I can leave, I know how now. But I won’t until you talk to me, really talk to me.”

Ranma clenched a fist. “I warned you…” Moving faster than the other’s eyes could follow, he just seemed to vanish and reappear directly in front of Ran-kun. He grabbed the weaker boy by the collar of his borrowed pajamas and lifted him up in the air several inches. “Shut up. You have no idea what you’re talking about.”

Ran-kun seemed a little shaken by the maneuver, but still managed to answer in the same tone as before. “Maybe I don’t. But how can I if you just run away?”

Ranma’s eyes narrowed. “I’m not running away.”

“Yeah, right. You won’t talk to me, will you? You couldn’t even stay in the same room with me after I told you about Ryouga. Seems like running away to me.”

Ranma dropped him to the floor, where he landed heavily and on his back. “I’m not you,” he repeated stubbornly.

“Fine, I’ll accept that. Just talk to me, alright? It’s not healthy, what you’re doing. If it makes you feel better, remember that I don’t belong here. I’ll leave without telling anyone what you say.”

Ranma took a deep breath. The thought of letting everything out to someone who was totally uninvolved was sorely tempting, and it was true that the other Ranma didn’t even belong here… “Fine. But I won’t call you Ranma.”

“Agreed. Ran-kun works for me. Okay?”

“Whatever.” He grabbed a towel and wiped the sweat off his face. “Ran-kun.” He smiled despite himself.

Ran-kun smiled back. “Good.”

They sat across from each other in the dark dojo, silently for a long time. Finally, Ran-kun spoke. “Tell me about your life. What has happened to you differently from me?”

Ranma had to laugh at that deceptively simple question. “Just about everything. You see, my pop took me away from home when I was six; naturally mom wasn’t too eager for him to do that, so he signed this stupid agreement with her…”

Nearly an hour later Ranma had only reached his arrival in Nerima. Of course, he had included things in his narrative that he hadn’t found out about until later, such as the whole story about Ukyou and the seppuku contract, but it still astonished him what he could find to say. Ran-kun’s eyes had widened when he had described his first meeting with Ryouga, but thankfully kept silent.

It was well past midnight before Ranma finally stopped, unable to think of anything else. The late hour, combined with the surreal experience of talking with his essential clone, was having a unique effect on him. His voice actually broke when he described Ryouga’s return, but then it also broke in many other places. “He just came out of nowhere, spinning that damn umbrella and shouting for me to die. I didn’t recognize him at first. His aura was just so dark… yeah, Ryouga was always a bit depressed, a bit temperamental, but now he was just so fiery angry that I couldn’t believe that this was the boy that I… had known before. He really pisses me off with that P-chan crap of his, too. If he likes Akane so much, he can have the tomboy, but it’s not right that she doesn’t know.”

Ran-kun didn’t speak until the entire narrative was finished. He felt astonished and sick all at the same time; he felt pity for Ranma’s troubles and envy of his power when he spoke nonchalantly of his various fights. He found to his surprise that it all seemed to even out in the end, but not without stressing Ranma perilously close to the breaking point. When the story was finished and Ranma lapsed into an expectant silence, the only thing he managed to say was, “That’s some really, really, weird shit.” And he didn’t curse lightly.    

Ranma laughed at that. Hard. He fell over, he was laughing so hard, clutching his sides and everything, but the humor was of a dark sort. “No kidding. Your turn.”

Ran-kun blinked. “What?”

“I told you my life story, now you tell me yours. C’mon, there’s gotta be more to you than what you’ve said. If ya can’t think a’ nothin’ else, tell me about…” he took a deep breath, “About you an’ Ryouga, if ya wanna. I don’t care anymore. Hell, after telling you what I did, I don’t think it matters anymore.”

Ran-kun had to agree. Ranma had confided in him greatly, he knew, telling him things that he had barely been willing to say aloud at all.

“Okay.” He took a deep breath and closed his eyes for a moment, trying to think of where to start. He opened them when an idea came. “Father died when I was very little, less than two years old. Mother refused to let me practice martial arts when I was young. I don’t really know why she did that, and I never really thought about it. When I was that little I didn’t really know or care; I was as happy to read and play the learning games she got me as I was to play sports with my friends. As I got older, I found myself centered around school, encouraged by my mother. When I found out about father and the school, I asked her why she wouldn’t let me practice. She only said that the Art had taken over my father’s life and she didn’t want it to do the same to me. So she made my studies take over my life instead. And at that point the question was academic anyway, so I accepted it. I worked out, though, and was never really a weakling. I could hold my own in a fair fight if I had to – and it happened a couple times, but was always broken up – and I could usually beat my friends in arm-wrestling. Oh yeah, my friends. I’ve been part of the same little circle of kids ever since middle school. It would change a little occasionally, but I always had a group to fall back on, however weak and looked-down upon we were.”

He paused for a moment and took a deep breath. “In middle school, I met someone named Hibiki Ryouga…”

***

Ranma barely managed to hold his position in the lunch line as the woman in charge of distributing food tossed the pieces of bread into the wild crowd. Several times he almost managed to grab one, only to have it snatched at the last minute by some luckier youth. Finally, it was down to the last one.

“Here it is boys, the last curry bread of the day!” With that shout, she tossed the coveted object in an elegant arc, over the heads of every one in front of Ranma and into his waiting hands…

Or so it was supposed to have gone, if someone from the back hadn’t jumped up and snatched it. There was a collective groan of complaint from the crowd as the lucky boy springboarded off of someone’s head to land at the back of the crowd. Ranma heard the woman call out something about jam buns, but that didn’t sound very appetizing. Besides, he wasn’t all that hungry and was curious about the boy who had stolen the curry bread. He found him leaning against the wall of the cafeteria, tearing into the food as if he hadn’t eaten in a week.

“That was pretty cool, that jump,” he commented to the boy, making him look up in a start of surprise. “Are you a martial artist?”

The boy swallowed the last bite of bread and nodded. “How’d you guess?”

“I figured it was either that or an acrobat. So, are you new here? I don’t remember seeing you around before.”

For some reason that made the other boy look embarrassed. “Um, yeah…”

“Really? Well, welcome to Kaloru Middle School for Boys. I’m sure you’ve already noticed the wonderful hospitality we give newcomers at lunch.”

The other boy laughed at that. “Yeah, I know. It’s crazy, ne?”

Ranma nodded. “Yep.” Suddenly a loud buzzing told them that lunch was over. “Well, I’ll see you around, then…”

“Hibiki Ryouga.”

“Ryouga. I’m Saotome Ranma, by the way. I’ll see you around?”

“Yeah.” And with that, Ryouga proceeded to dash off to class… directly into a storage closet.

***

Ran-kun laughed at the memory. “I helped him to his class, and eventually it became a regular thing. A couple days later he was absent from school for a whole week, and when he finally came back I started to walk him to school as well. We became good friends almost out of necessity. He needed me to help him around – I also tutored him, it was amazing how far he had fallen behind with his chronic absences – and he was a refreshing change of pace for me. He was so different from all of my other friends… so fascinating to be around. He’d traveled a lot, even compared to an adult, and he was only twelve! He got into the same high school as me, and we kept it up. My other friends thought he was a bit strange, but still cool, so now he had a lot of friends. It overwhelmed him I think but he matured a lot. Occasionally he would vanish for a while but never more than a few days, a week at most.”

Ran-kun paused again, eyes focused on something very, very far away. “I don’t know when exactly it was that I wanted to become more than friends. I’d figured out I like boys a while before, but kept it kinda quiet. My friends were good friends, but I wasn’t sure what they would think of me. But I guess I wasn’t good at hiding as I thought, because one day… let’s see, it was only last year, actually…

***

I was walking him home from school, just like I did everyday. He was talking… I think it was about his most recent trip to Chikoku, he ended up there a lot – but I wasn’t really listening to him. Well, not his words, anyway, just the sound of his voice. He’s got a very lovely voice – but I’m getting off the subject.

He trailed off, eventually stopping entirely until we were walking in silence, which wasn’t usual at all. But I barely noticed, I was too enthralled by just looking at him walking slightly ahead of me. When he stopped walking as well I nearly crashed into him.

“What’s the matter?” I asked, a little worried. He was usually eager to get home; before I started guiding him around he had hardly ever seen the place.

“I’m fine,” he answered, turning and looking at me. I didn’t know what to make of his expression, to this day I don’t know what he was thinking right then. “Ranma,” he kept going, a little hesitantly, “Do you consider me your best friend?”

I didn’t know what he meant by that, but my heart jumped to conclusions and skipped a beat. I answered as fast as I could, but I could tell that he noticed my hesitation. “Of course, Ryouga.” Maybe I said it a little breathlessly. I don’t know.

“Really, Ranma… what do you think of me? I can’t be much of a friend, getting lost all the time…”

I don’t know where he got the idea, but he seemed to think that he was a burden on me. I hate to think of what he must have gone through before I met him if even after three years he still wasn’t sure of my friendship. This was the immediate connection my brain made, and I acted on the fright that he might take it to his head to leave. “Ryouga, if I cared about a stupid thing like a sense of direction, I wouldn’t love you as much as I do.” Don’t ask me how that was supposed to get him to stay.

He just stared at me and I felt like sinking into the ground. Had I actually said that? I couldn’t believe that I had just blurted that out. For a long time he didn’t say anything, and then he turned around again and left.

I was frozen to the spot, so shocked and appalled with myself that I couldn’t even bring myself to follow him, just watch him leave and get horribly lost.

***

Ran-kun stopped in his narration, obviously a little pained by the memory. “He didn’t come back the next day, or the one after that. I found out later that he made it all the way to Hokkaido before he returned three days later. But at that point, I didn’t know if he was ever going to come back, or if he’d hate me when he did. I tried not to be too obvious about it, but I’m afraid I moped around for a while…

***

“Hey, did Ryouga get lost again?”

“Huh?” I had been lost in my thoughts again, unsurprisingly about the very person who had just been asked about. I think the only reason I even noticed that Sano had spoken to me was the fact that his question was on the same subject as my thoughts. “Yeah, I guess so.” I answered with a suppressed sigh.

Sano just raised an eyebrow. “It’s not your fault, you don’t have to get all defensive on me. Hell, that kid takes three hours going to the bathroom if you don’t lead him there.”

I sighed again, unable to stop myself. “Yeah, I know, but it’s not his fault and I shouldn’t have let him go on by himself…” I started to drift away again, and my friend noticed.

“So what happened?” he asked, settling himself into the seat next to me, making his intention to stay clear.

“He wandered off on the way home yesterday.” I tried to say it nonchalantly, but even I could tell the attempt failed, and miserably. Kinda like how I was feeling at the moment.

“Is that so? Not like you, just to let him leave like that.”

I couldn’t answer that. Really, what could I say? ‘Oh, yeah, I just told my best friend that I loved him so now he thinks I’m some sort of pervert and probably doesn’t want to come back’? Yeah, right. That would just drive Sano away, too.

“…but it won’t do anyone any good for you to keep moping over the kid like some kinda lovestruck butterfly.”

“What?” I couldn’t believe what I had just heard. Surely, in the noise of the cafeteria, the sound had been distorted… right?

“You heard me. Oh, what, did you think you were fooling anyone, much less me, with that ‘I don’t care’ act? You get depressed whenever he goes on one of his trips – hell, sometimes you get mopey when he’s just not in the same room as you – so I know somethin’s up. But you’ve never been this depressed before. So, speaking of which, what happened?”

I was speechless for a moment, then tried to laugh a little. “Sano, you’re even crazier than I thought.”

My friend let out a huge huff of air in exasperation. “Ranma, face it, you can’t act. So, lemmie take a wild guess as to what happened… you finally told him you like him, didn’t’cha? And he didn’t take it too well and ran off.”

I stared at him for a minute, and I’m sure my eyes were popping out of their sockets. He really did know… eventually, seeing he wanted an answer, I nodded reluctantly, mutely. Damned if I’d say another incriminating word.

Sano sighed in what seemed to be relief, to my considerable surprise. “Well, then, he took it better than I thought… maybe there’s hope for you yet.”

“Huh?” I looked up sharply at my friend, who looked dead serious.

“He just walked away, right? What did he say to you?”

“Nothing.”

Sano nodded, as if he had suspected as much. “So he was too surprised to do anything but what came naturally – get lost. Give him time to think. He’ll be back soon.”

I just looked back down at the table, miserably. “Yeah right.”

Even though I wasn’t looking at him, I could hear the grin in Sano’s tone. “Yeah, I am. Even if he doesn’t like you like that, he’ll be back. And if he does -” the grin audibly widened – “He’ll be back within the week.”

***

He did come back quickly, two days after that, for a grand total of three days missing. How he made it to Hokkaido and back in that time I’ll never know, but I’m digressing again… He showed up to school that day – it was a Friday, I think – about halfway through classes, after lunch, or at least that’s the first time I saw him. I didn’t take my usual job of guiding him around, so I supposed someone else – I guessed Sano, the meddling idiot – did for me.

“He’s back,” the aforementioned idiot announced in a smug tone, having spotted me after the last class.

“I know.”

“Well, what’s the matter with you? Go on, say hi to him!”

I didn’t move. I did want desperately to see Ryouga, but every muscle in my body seemed to be frozen. I didn’t speak.

“Arg! Ranma, you insufferable…” If I had been looking at Sano I could have dodged it, but I was to lost in self-pity to notice him until I felt a hard shove to my back that sent my stumbling forward, plowing through several people in my attempt to regain my balance before finally crashing into someone who didn’t move.

“Sorry…” I mumbled as I regained my footing, not really looking at the person I had nearly knocked over. I turned, ready to yell at Sano, but then…

“It’s okay.”

I froze at the sound of the voice and turned around again slowly, pausing only a moment to curse Sano mentally for doing this on purpose. I knew he did it on purpose.

“Ryouga? You’re back?” I tried to sound surprised… like I really hadn’t seen him.

He laughed weakly and raised one hand to rub the back of his neck. I’d never seen him do that before, I realized. “Um… yeah, I guess I am. Erm… do you think you could walk me home? Sanosuke said he didn’t know the way, and…”

So it had been Sano after all. I didn’t know if I was angry at him for being so meddlesome or ecstatic that I was talking to Ryouga again at last. “Of… of course I will.”

“Thanks.” He rubbed the back of his neck again, obviously a nervous gesture.

“Just let me get my backpack…”

“Sure.” I noticed then that he was still wearing the huge pack that he carried for traveling. He had stopped carrying it everyday a while ago, so I knew this meant that he had just stumbled upon the school, not been led to it. Somehow this made me feel better. I made my way to my locker automatically, making sure that Ryouga followed me. I needent have worried. He kept his eyes locked on me, I could practically feel his gaze drilling into my back.

I grabbed my stuff and headed out with him. I think I was blushing from the way he didn’t take his eyes off of me, but then he would always watch me closely, so he didn’t lose me in the crowd.

We started towards his house, and when we reached the emptier, quiet streets of the residential area he started to talk. Not about anything in particular, mostly his travels but he seemed to jump from one story to another like a grasshopper, just trying to fill the silence with anything at all, or at least that’s how I felt. I was careful to listen to what he was saying, and I was very glad he was talking. I don’t think I could’ve taken a silent walk that day.

We reached his house and he was still talking. I hadn’t said more than simple agreement every now and then. Suddenly he does a gigantic leap of subject and goes from talking about how cold it was in Hokkaido last winter to inviting me into his house. I nearly jumped ten feet in the air when he said that.

I blinked at him, still processing the question. “Uh… sure.”

He nodded, and smiled slightly, in relief I think. I was a little confused at the moment. He was acting normally, as if three days before had never happened, almost… but he couldn’t have forgotten. I briefly entertained the thought that maybe he had. I almost hoped he had.

I was thrown off by the smile just enough, and he was just better enough than me that I didn’t notice his stopping and turning towards me just inside the door, and I walked right into him. I stumbled a little, and he caught me by the shoulders. I heard the door slam behind me.

I opened my mouth to apologize, but…

“I’m sorry, Ranma.”

I just look at him in confusion.

“I’m sorry I walked away from you…” I caught my breath when I saw how close our faces were. He was inching closer to me so slowly that I could barely see the movement. “I’m sorry I got lost…” Suddenly the slowness changed to blinding speed and the distance was reduced to zero. I think I blacked out for a moment, because I have no memory of how long the kiss lasted, or what I did… I just remember it being almost physically painful when he stopped. I felt twin tears dropping from my eyes. I was certain that this was a dream, it couldn’t possibly be true. I know it sounds so cliché, but I was so positive that I was depressed again. Like your Ryouga, he’d had a crush on Akane for a while… I knew that he liked girls, he couldn’t like me. Then I felt the gentle touch of his lips to my cheeks… he was kissing my tears away.

“I’ll never leave again,” he said in a comforting tone, drawing me into a close embrace. “I love you,” he whispered into my ear. That did it. I totally broke down, and just sobbed into his arms, no longer caring if this was a dream, or a hallucination, because I didn’t want to wake up, I didn’t want to snap out of it, because I couldn’t deal with that possibility.

But it wasn’t a dream.

***

Ran-kun trailed off, his glassy gaze refocusing onto his wide-eyed, shell-shocked twin. “So, jealous?” he teased, trying to snap Ranma out of it.

The martial artist just looked supremely confused. “No, of course not,” he answered halfheartedly. “We’re completely different people.” But then why do I feel jealous?

Ran-kun just grinned slyly. “Are you sure about that?” At Ranma’s sputtering reply, he laughed. “I’m just joking. If you don’t want Ryouga…” he shrugged, “That’s your own loss, not mine. But you said talking about that was alright, and personally I find those to be some very pleasant memories.” That made him recall something. “Yours certainly didn’t seem to be too happy. For a guy with four girls after him, you sure seem to be miserable.”

Ranma couldn’t find anything to say to that. “Well? Is that all that’s ever happened to ya?”

Ran-kun just grinned again. “What, you want to hear the dirty stories?”

“What? No! Just… there’s gotta be somethin’ else ya can talk about…”

The other boy sided up to him with a serious expression that was belied by his practically glowing eyes. “Wanna hear about the first time we made love?”

Ranma’s face ran through the entire spectrum of colors before he managed to form the words to answer that suggestion. “No! Geez, you’re a pervert!”

Eyes twinkled even more at that answer. “Are you sure? Don’t you want to hear about how it felt when he…”

“Shut up,” Ranma suddenly commanded. Ran-kun was about to admonish him for being so rude, but the look on his face convinced him otherwise. He was serious, there was some reason that he needed to be quiet.

“What is it?” he whispered.

“Someone’s sneaking in,” Ranma replied, and stood. “Excuse me, I hafta take care of this.” He walked out. “Stay in here, okay?”

Ran-kun nodded, almost frightened now. Ranma left, and there was the sound of fighting outside, along with some incoherent shouting. A fight, he realized somewhat abstractly. Someone was trying to sneak into the house, and Ranma was fighting him. His eyes grew wide. Finally there was a large splash, and a dripping wet girl with red hair tied back into a familiar pigtail entered, casually carrying a small black pig by some sort of ribbon tied around its neck. Ran-kun’s eyes widened. He’d been told about Ranma’s cursed form, of course, but actually seeing it was a different story.
    
“Ranma? Is that you?” he asked hesitantly, just to make sure. The ‘girl’ sighed heavily.
    
“Yeah, sure is,” he – she? answered, sounding sick and tired of the whole thing. She gave the pig who had been growling at her and struggling ineffectively in her grasp a violent shake. Instinctively, Ran-kun called out against that.
    
“Hey, what are you doing? It’s just an animal, poor thing must be so cold…”
    
Ranma stared at him for a moment, then started to laugh so hard she had to sit down. The pig, for it’s part, looked at him for the first time with wide eyes, and was currently looking back and forth between the two at a frantic pace. It squealed in confusion, drawing Ranma’s attention.
    
Finally Ranma caught her breath and held up the animal. “Don’t’cha remember? This ain’t no ordinary pig.”
    
Ran-kun gasped. “You mean it’s…” he held out his hands and was casually given the piglet in question. He held it up and stared right into its eyes, which looked back in wide confusion. “Yep, it’s him alright. The eyes are still the same.”
    
Ryouga bwee’d loudly in confusion, and continued on with a few choice comments in the porcine tongue about Ranma’s parentage, but was cut off rather abruptly by a gentle kiss on the snout. Sheer shock made him quiet, and Ranma laughed again briefly.
    
“I’ll leave you two alone for a minute while I get some hot water,” she said, standing and leaving.
    
Ran-kun looked at the pig. “So you’re this world’s Ryouga, huh?” A few surprised squeals confirmed it. “I’m another Ranma, from a different world. They call me Ran-kun. I must admit,” he continued, “It’s pretty weird here, all these curses and stuff.”
    
Ryouga bwee’d rather weakly in agreement. Ran-kun laughed. “Did you just say ‘No kidding’? Funny, that just what Ranma said too…” Ryouga looked surprised for a moment and then nodded. That was what he had said.
    
Ranma, male once again and in dry pajamas, came back quickly with a kettle of hot water and a bundle of clothing. Ryouga squirmed out of Ran-kun’s grip and made a flying leap for the water, but was easily caught by Ranma.
    
“No funny stuff,” he said sternly to the animal, and was answered with a glare. He didn’t loosen his grip. “You heard me. Truce. He don’t fight.”
    
Reluctantly the pig nodded, and Ranma set him down and dumped the kettle on him. Ran-kun gasped as he grew nearly instantaneously into a heavily muscular – and naked – Ryouga. A little different from the one he knew, but close enough to be recognizable. He was a bit disappointed at how quickly the lost boy dressed, but that didn’t make him miss the red shade that Ranma’s face turned for a moment before he looked away. Ran-kun smiled to himself. He hadn’t bothered to avert his eyes.
    
Ryouga looked very, very tired. Dark circles ringed his eyes and he listed slightly to one side when he stood, but anger still flashed in his brown eyes as he confronted the Ranma that he knew – at least he was pretty sure it was the right one, as they were dressed identically now – and paused, uncertain as to what to do with his anger. “Ranma?” he asked.
    
Ranma smirked. “Yeah, it’s me pig-boy. You can sleep here, ya look half-dead. We’ll fight in the mornin’.”
    
Ryouga nodded, the anger draining out of his expression. “Where did he come from?” he asked, pointing over his shoulder at Ran-kun.
    
“I think I’ll let him tell you that…” Ran-kun started to speak, but was cut off, “In the morning! Geez, it already is the morning. Lucky that tomorrow’s Sunday. But I’m going to sleep! Goodnight.” He strode out of the dojo.

Ran-kun followed quickly, but turned around in the doorway. “Sleep well, Ryo-chan!” he said cheerfully, grinning widely, then turned and ran to catch up. Ryouga just blinked in surprise and set up his sleeping bag in the middle of the dojo floor, falling asleep almost immediately. Ryo-chan?

***

~Mordain

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