Late summer is a nice time to be in Seattle. The weather is mild, people are generally cheery, and the rain is still relatively warm. Children take advantage of the last of their freedom before being herded back to school, and teachers begin to stockpile their Rolaids. Late summer in Seattle is a hard time to be depressed.
In a mall, a man in his mid twenties walked down the rows of shops, looking for a certain restaurant he had heard about. He had dark hair, was dressed in a business suit (complete with handkerchief in the pocket), carried a briefcase in one hand and an umbrella over the other arm. In short, he looked like many of the young executives that frequented this particular mall in Seattle.
When he found the restaurant, he was mildly surprised. It was traditionally Japanese, a contrast to the shops to either side of it. The front door slid to the side instead of opening one way or the other, and lacked an automatic mechanism. Curtains abounded on the outside, and a traditional multi-paned window sat to one side of the door. A sandwich board with the day's special in english stood right next to a traditional shop curtain that had been translated into english as well. It said "Closed".
With a sigh, the young man turned away, only to be stopped by a faint sound. He listened for a moment, then turned back and opened the door.
Ukyou never heard the door behind her open and close she was crying so hard. She sat at one of the tables facing away from the door, towards a wall with pictures on it. The wall was behind her massive okanomiyaki grill and displayed pictures of her friends. People she hadn't seen in years. In front of her was a newspaper with the photo of a car wreck on the front. The lurid headline read "Man dressed as woman killed when hit by drunk driver!". The date was a week ago.
The man stopped and looked at the woman for a moment. Before he could announce himself, she began to speak, loudly, but to herself.
"First I lost Ranma when he married Akane and I told them I never wanted to see either of them again. Then Shampoo and Mousse married and went back to China. Ryoga wandered off and was never heard from again, and Tsubasa took that job here in America. Konatsu was all I had left. My last friend, now he's dead!" With a sob Ukyou buried her head in her arms.
She jumped an instant later when a sympathetic hand came down on her shoulder. Before the owner of the hand could react, she was out of her seat and twirled around, unlimbering her mega spatula. "Who are you!" She screamed.
"Easy, Ukyou. I'm a friend." He tried to smile a disarming smile, but knew his small fangs ruined the effect.
"How do you know my name?" She asked, still brandishing her unusual weapon.
"Well, I could lie and say that I looked at the name of the restaurant, but the truth is I've known you for a long time."
"I don't recognize you at all! You better get out of here before I get angry!"
The young man held up a hand. "Just a minute, maybe this will help." He sat down his briefcase and put his red umbrella on top of that. The sight of the bamboo umbrella triggered something in Ukyou's mind, but as depressed as she was it didn't connect with the right parts of her memory. The young man then reached up and took the yellow and black 'handkerchief' out of his pocket. With expert motions he formed it into a bandana and tied on his head. "Does this help at all?"
"R...Ry....Ryoga?" Stuttered Ukyou.
"Yes, I'm Ryoga. I've known you moved your restaurant to Seattle for a while, but didn't have time to stop by. When I heard about Konatsu this morning, I decided to see if you needed a friend."
With Ryoga's pronouncement, Ukyou flung herself into his arms and began to cry again. Ryoga just held her and comforted her the best he knew how. They stayed that way for a long time.
Finally, Ukyou disengaged herself from Ryoga. "Sorry about that, Sugar. I didn't mean to come apart like that."
"No problem. That's what friends are for. Just do the same for me sometime."
"Yeah." The two found chairs and sat silently for a few minutes. Again, Ukyou broke the silence. "I don't mean to sound rude, but you are the last one I figured to be cheering someone else up. I mean, you are always depressed."
"Not anymore. After Ranma and Akane got married, I took a long walk to absorb things."
"I'll say," interrupted Ukyou, "you were gone over six months when I left Nerima."
"I got back shortly after you left. I was very badly depressed and started drinking and doing some other very stupid things. One day Ranma found me and took me to his mother's house. He swore her to secrecy to keep my sorry state from Akane, and helped straighten me out."
"Ran-chan helped you out? Since when do you let Ranma help you?"
"Since then. I had no other friends to turn to. You, Mousse, Shampoo, everybody had left. Ranma was my last friend in the whole world."
"I see. I think I can relate to that, Sugar."
"Anyway, he taught me a few things to help me out, and did everything a friend could. I found out later he spent a lot of time with Doctor Tofu just to learn what he could do to help me. I almost went into depression again when I found out what lengths he went to to help me. I thought of all the times I had tried to break him and Akane up, or beat him up, and here he was helping me."
"Wow, that's pretty incredible."
"I went back to school, and started dating Akari. Finished school and broke up with Akari when I decided that being a part time pig wasn't the greatest, but running a farm full of sumo pigs was a whole lot worse. Went to work for a company that makes navigation devices as a testing engineer."
"That makes sense!" Giggled Ukyou, smiling for the first time since she got that phone call from the police a week ago. "If you can't get lost using their stuff, nobody will!"
"That brings us to today. My company is based here in Seattle. I had heard you had a restaurant in town, but I was real busy. When I heard about the accident, I came over as quick as I could."
"Thanks, Ryoga, I appreciate it. Still it doesn't change the fact that I have no one now." Ukyou's eyes began to tear up again.
Ryoga shook his head and looked Ukyou in the eye. "Wrong. I'm here, and there are others you can call friend if you just pick up the phone and say 'hi'. Ranma and Akane would love to hear from you." Ryoga slid a piece of paper with a phone number on it across the table. "You have friends even if you don't know it. Nobody can bring Konatsu back, but you can move on with your life."
"I suppose, but it's so hard......"
"True, but there is not enough darkness in the world to extinguish the light of a single candle. Your soul is much brighter than any candle."
Ukyou looked at Ryoga with a stunned expression. "That's beautiful. Where did you hear that?"
"Ranma told me that after I tried killing myself by challenging him to a duel with the intention of losing spectacularly."
"Huh." Ukyou was silent for a few moments. "Will you help me?"
"Yes, I will. Now, I believe you have a phone call to make."
"You're right." Ukyou stood and started towards the phone next to the cash register.
"You forgot Ranma and Akane's phone number here on the table."
"No, I didn't. I'm not calling them."
"Then who are you calling?"
"The travel agency. I think I need a vacation. Want to come?"
Author's Note:I tend more towards humor than introspective, but I wrote this while listening to Meatloaf's "I'd do anything for love" and having just seen the one candle quote on a bulletien board. Go figure!