******

	Ryouga sat at a table in the dining room of Ucchan's
Okonomiyaki-ya, puzzling over a particular math problem. He groaned in
frustration, and dug his hands into his hair.
	He HATED math, and that was all there was to it.
	He started to think about Ukyou, who was out in the back yard
practicing. He wanted to go out and join her, but the rule was that one
had to finish their homework before they could go practice. It was
SUPPOSED to be a good incentive, but Ryouga felt like it was a death
sentence.
	Ukyou had, of course, finished her problems an hour earlier, and
therefore could go out.
	Ryouga sighed. By the time HE finished, she would already be
done practicing.
	Ryouga idly started to think about how she looked when she was
swinging her spatula at the fighting-dummy, in the tight sleeveless
outfit she wore to practice. It was supposed to be a sports-bra type
thing, but it showed quite a bit of cleavage, even if it DIDN'T
bounce...
	Ryouga started to feel his nose heat up, and tried to steer his
thoughts AWAY from that sort of stuff. Over the past three weeks Ukyou
and Ryouga had settled down again into the ordinary routine of sleep,
school, work, homework, practice, sleep, and as much time as they spent
doing all that kind of stuff left little time for Ryouga and Ukyou to
actually get CLOSE.
	Ryouga twiddled his pencil and sighed again. He wondered, as he
always wondered, if he had just imagined that there was anything between
them besides friendship. He thought about Akari, who was openly
demonstrative with her affections, and wondered why Ukyou wasn't more
like that.
	Of course, that always got him to the answer that she just
WASN'T interested.
	The back door slammed open and Ukyou stormed into the room.
Ryouga was so surprised that he dropped his pencil on the ground. As he
reached down to pick it up, Ukyou came over to stand by him and look at
his homework.
	Her eyes widened and she said, "You're STILL on problem #4?!
You've been working on that for an hour!!"
	Ryouga sat up and gave her puppy-dog eyes, sadly saying, "Well,
it's a difficult problem..."
	"Difficult my ass," said Ukyou, unsympathetically.
	Ryouga looked up at her and mused, "I'm just not any good at
this stuff, Ukyou. It takes me a LONG time."
	Ukyou sighed and pulled up a chair next to him.
	"I'm getting sick of having to practice by myself, and you are
going to end up out of shape, so I guess I'll just have to start
tutoring you."
	"T..tu..tutoring?" he asked, blankly.
	"Yeah," she said, moving the math book a little closer to her.
She leaned over to look at it, and started to write out the problem on a
blank piece of paper.
	Ryouga stared at her. By leaning over in that practice outfit of
hers, she was giving him QUITE an eyeful of what he had been thinking
about not but five minutes earlier. His head began to swim as he stared,
she looked so...
	"...and you subtract the coefficient from..." Ukyou  looked at
the enraptured Ryouga and grumbled out, "Ryou-GA! You aren't even
LISTENING..."
	Ryouga interrupted her by finally getting the nerve to lean
toward her, putting one arm on the back of the chair she sat on and the
other reaching for her hand. She froze, wondering if he was actually
going to do it.
	She had been waiting for a long time...
	Ukyou closed her eyes and started to lean forward also, their
breath intermingled...
	Suddenly, just as their lips were about to touch, a HUGE white
pig bounded into the Okonomiyaki-ya, and knocked the two apart. The
giant pig pinned Ryouga to the ground, and started to lick his face.
	Ryouga gasped in surprise, and Ukyou fell off the chair and onto
the floor with a thump. She stood up and looked down at the pig and
Ryouga. Then she started to laugh.
	She gasped, "HAHAHA!!! Is this a FRIEND of yours, Ryouga? Should
I be jealous?"
	Ryouga glowered at her between licks, and tried to escape the
overly-friendly pig and what he knew was soon going to follow.
	But there was no escape.
	"KAT...SUN...NI...SHI...KI!!!" someone shouted.
	Suddenly, a cute teenager ran into the shop, dressed in bright
plaid of pink and grey, and started apologizing profusely for the
intrusion of her pig.
	Then she noticed who her pig had found.
	"RYOUGA-SAMA!!!" Akari shouted with joy, and bounced over to
pull the pig off of him and then she started to shower him with her own
kisses, as he spluttered.
	Ukyou tried not to crack as she saw the easiness with which
this GIRL lavished herself all over Ryouga. It was obvious that the two
of them were WELL acquainted.
	Ukyou stormed over and looked down at them, saying, "Well.
Obviously you are familiar with my EMPLOYEE, Ryouga. Might I be so
privileged as to know who YOU are?"
	Akari stood up and brushed herself off, apologizing and bowing
to Ukyou before saying, "I'm Akari, and I'm Ryouga-sama's fiancee!"
	Ukyou stiffened and said, "Ah. I see. WELL. I assume that you
must want to be ALONE after your LONG separation, as Ryouga has been
HERE for what... THREE WEEKS now?"
	Akari giggled and smiled at her darling Ryouga, who sat in a
daze, and then said, "Poor sweetie just got lost again, didn't you
Ryouga-sama? But I found you!"
	Ukyou decided she knew who SHE wanted to get lost, and finally
turned to walk into the kitchen. She needed to get out of there, to
somewhere where she could THINK. She threw over her shoulder, "Well. I
will just leave you two LOVEBIRDS alone. Maybe I'll make a snack for
you."
	And she was gone.
	
End of Part I	


	

	
	 
 
	 
A Lesson in Love
Chapter XIV: Lost Causes
By Marisa Price
(Copyright to Marisa Price, 1996, All Rights Reserved)
mdp102@york.ac.uk

This part is dedicated to:
Christopher Willmore ^oo^ buki! buki!
^_-

PART II

"She's so nice!" Akari commented.
	Ryouga nodded, his head spinning, thinking that Ukyou was
ANYTHING but happy. Ryouga managed to stand, and looked down at the
adorable girl in front of him. He had forgotten how cute she was.
	Akari, as if on cue, smiled up at him and stood on her tiptoes
to give him a kiss. She said, softly, "I missed you so much! Why didn't
you CALL if you had found your way back to civilization?"
	"I, um, l...lost the number," he lied lamely, trying to buy
himself time.
	A few loud bangs came from the kitchen.
	Ryouga sat Akari down at the table, and she looked up at him,
finally noticing his mood and wondering what was wrong.
	"Ryouga-sama? Is there something wrong?"
	Ryouga sighed for the fiftieth time that day and sat down next
to Akari, taking her hands in his.
	He finally managed to say, "Akari. I didn't get lost. Well," he
amended, "Actually, I DID get lost, but only after leaving your house
purposefully."
	She stared at him blankly, and then said, "You mean..?"
	Ryouga nodded and added, "I just needed some time to think; you
see, there was this girl that I had a crush on for a long time, and I
felt like I needed to tell her how I felt."
	Akari's eyes melted, and she hugged him, saying, "Oh,
Ryouga-sama. I KNEW how you felt about Akane, you thought you were in
love with her. But... you DO know that she and Ranma-kun belong together
now, don't you?"
	Ryouga stared at her and gulped, about to tell her that he
WASN'T talking about Akane, when suddenly Ukyou stormed back into the
room. She was dressed in her male cooking outfit, and slammed down two
okonomiyaki on the table in front of them.
	She said, with a wicked grin, "Enjoy. -I- am going to bed."
	Ryouga grimaced, and looked down at the okonomiyaki. She had
drawn little pigs with hearts and the words "Akari and Ryouga" all over
them. He mentally groaned, but started to eat it anyway.
	Akari also took a small bite and commented again, "Gee, your
boss is SO nice!" Then she realized.
	With a tiny scream Akari dropped the okonomiyaki down on the
table and said, "Ryouga, don't eat it!!!"
	Ryouga had just polished his off and looked at Akari in
surprise, asking, "Why?! What's wrong!"
	Akari looked horrified, and she was pale. She said, quietly, "It
was PORK okonomiyaki."
	Ryouga suddenly felt a bit sick, and then had a sudden,
irrepressible urge to burst out laughing.
	Point to Ukyou, he thought.
	Ryouga looked at her and said, "Oh... Well... I guess it's too
late now..."
	Akari shuddered and asked, "But... don't you feel like you...."
	He interrupted and said, "Well, I ate pork before I became a
pig, and I suppose I can still eat it. It doesn't bother me much as long
as it's not ME that's being..."
	Akari put her hand over his mouth and said, horrified, "Don't
even SAY it!!"
	Ryouga again suppressed an urge to laugh, she looked so upset.
	"Akari," Ryouga said, taking her hand off of his mouth, "We need
to talk."
	She finally tapped down her bile, and nodded. Ryouga took her
out to the front porch, Katsunnishiki tagging along behind. They sat
down, and Ryouga looked up at the waning crescent moon. He almost
flinched as she leaned her head on his shoulder and whispered, "Oh
Ryouga, I missed you so much..."

*****

	Ukyou looked down at them and tried not to cry. Here she had
thought that she and Ryouga had been building up to something together,
and then this little hussy comes along and says that she is his fiancee.
	She stiffened as she realized that she must feel like Akane did
when first Shampoo and then Ukyou had burst into her life, claiming to
be Ranma's fiancees.
	She wondered though. Unlike Shampoo or herself with Ranma, this
girl actually seemed to have received Ryouga's affections in return.
	But, if he did care for Akari, why was he living at HER house?
Why was he going to kiss HER? WAS he going to kiss her, or was she just
misinterpreting?
	Ukyou thought back to the scene at the table earlier and shook
her head. No, she definitely HADN'T been imagining things.
	Which meant that Ryouga was a two-timer.
	What a baka, hentai, JERK!
	She pulled the curtains closed and sat down on the bed, vowing
to throw him out on his arse as soon as possible.

*****

	Ryouga knew he had to make a decision: here, now, immediately.
	He thought about how he had felt living with Akari, and tried to
sort out his feelings for her. He was attracted to her, and she was a
sweet and wonderful girl; she would make a perfect wife. But... He had
been so much happier living in Nerima, with Ukyou, even though her
affections were hidden. He just felt a certain SPARK with Ukyou, a spark
that Akari didn't summon.
	How to tell her?
	He slowly pulled away from Akari, and she sat up, her eyes
bright. She reached a hand up to touch his cheek and said, sweetly, "You
are so handsome in the moonlight..."
	"And you are beautiful... But, Akari..." he moved her hand down
from his face and continued, "I... I don't love you, Akari. At least,
not the way that I should. That's why I left."
	Her eyes filled with tears and she looked away, patting the pig
that slept at her side. She said, quietly, "I thought it might be that,
but I didn't want to believe it. It was because I was so pushy about the
training when you were there, right? You aren't ready to settle down and
learn how to train the pigs. I should have known that... I know you need
more time."
	"Akari," Ryouga said, frustrated, "It ISN'T about the pigs.
Well, actually it is. I HATE pigs. I didn't like them much before I
became one, and now that I -AM- one I REALLY can't stand them. And I
DEFINITELY don't want to spend the rest of my life training sumo pigs!"
He felt a bit cruel, and ammended with, "I'm sorry...."
	Akari stiffened and then shouted, throwing her arms  around him,
"I'll give them up! I would give them up for YOU!"
	Ryouga held her for a minute, and then pushed her away again,
looking into her eyes and saying, "Akari. You can't do  that. You
SHOULDN'T do that! Martial arts are my life, and they are your life too,
except you train others and I train myself. I wouldn't give that up for
the world, and neither should you. Not for me, not for -anyone-."
	She started to cry again and protested, "But!"
	He shook his head and reached down to lightly kiss her forehead
before saying, "Akari, you are so sweet and wonderful, I really wish
that we had more in common. But, as much as I LIKE you, I just can't
love you..."
	She asked, somberly, "And you don't think you ever could? Not
even with time?"
	"Akari..." Ryouga apologized, "I'm so sorry... But I'm in love
with someone else... And it isn't Akane."
	"Oh Ryouga-sama, no...!" she cried, and then pulled away from
him, standing up, and then ran away from the restaurant, her pig close
at her heels.
	Ryouga stood, wondering if he should go after her. He turned and
noticed that the light was still on in Ukyou's room, and her shadow
showed through the curtains. Suddenly he knew, he knew that she loved
him too. And he let Akari go.
	He managed to make it inside and bounded up the stairs by twos,
not even getting lost as he made it to her room. He didn't get lost
because he had finally found what he was looking for. 	Ryouga opened
the door, not bothering to knock, and walked into her room. She turned
to look at him, and he could see the pain in her eyes, the pain HE had
caused.
	Ukyou said, dejectedly, "Well?"
	"Ukyou... I thought I was in love with her once. I was with her
during the time I disappeared. But... When I left her, I had one reason
for coming back to Nerima. And that reason was YOU. I finally figured
out that I DIDN'T love Akari, my mistake was not making that clear to
her before I left." Ryouga looked at Ukyou with intense eyes.
	She whispered, "And?"
	Ryouga gave her a wan smile, and said, "It's you I love. Not
her. I love you, Ukyou. She's gone."
	Suddenly Ukyou was in his arms, holding him tightly, as if she
never wanted to let him go. She looked up at him with joyous eyes and
said, "Oh Ryouga, you idiot. I love you too, though god only knows
why..."
	Ryouga smiled and teased, "It's because I am such a great guy."
	"You're a pig," she giggled, sticking her tongue out at him.
	He laughed and said, "Well, that too. But not for long."
	Ukyou smiled, and said "Well, somewhere along the way I found I
liked fangs and bandannas."
	Then she tweaked his nose and said, calmly, "Should I pinch this
for you?"
	Ryouga looked blank and asked, "Um, why?"
	She smiled at him and said, "Because I don't want you to bleed
all over me when I kiss you."
	Ryouga became intense suddenly, and pulled her toward him,
noting that they fit perfectly together, and looked into her beautiful
dark eyes.
	Softly he said, "I wouldn't worry about it."
	"Mmmm?" she asked, looking happily at him.
	He leaned down and kissed her, fumbling at first, but then
gradually figured out what to do, and she pulled him down to her bed,
enjoying the sensations.
	A little while later, Ukyou reached her hand over and turned out
the light.


End of Chapter XIV

Note: This Also brings a close to the first part of _A Lesson
in Love_. Next part: China!

P.S. no they don't do "it"

--Excerpt from _A Lesson in Love_ Chapter 14 by Marisa Price