Disclaimers and random chatter:

Okay, first off, this is Jon Robertson's fault. His 'Self-Insertion Blues' kind of got me going. It made me realize a few things (thanks, Jon). I mean, how come everybody self-inserts with a big *POOF* of teleportation? Just for a minute here, let's drop the fourth wall and pretend this stuff is *real*... after all, no one has any trouble believing in it when their favorite character gets !@#$%^&*'d in somebody's lemon...

I've never posted a story here before. I sincerely hope there was no special protocol to go through for posting a short one-shot. I get the impression that trailers and synopses are for series only, but if I'm wrong please don't shoot my pets. C&C is, of course, eagerly awaited, and I promise not to be a beast about it if you don't like it. Due to mailer weirdness, all the tabs have disappeared, and my attempts to fix this manually may cause havoc. This story does contain one or two swear words; if that's an issue, I don't want to hear about it. Oh -- and yes, I *am* really a short red-haired woman, but no, I don't actually look *that* much like Ran-chan, and I'm already married so don't bother. ^_^

As always, these aren't my characters, and Rumiko-sama doesn't know me from Eve. Don't sue me, I don't have any money.

===========

The Language Barrier

	        �Good God, I�m in Japan!�
        	This had been happening every ten minutes or so since I got off the plane. I�d be studying my map, figuring out which coins were which in order to buy hot coffee out of a vending machine, riding a very clean and crowded train, and suddenly it would hit me with renewed force.
	        �Good God, I�m really in Japan!�
	        You�d think I�d be over this weirdness by this point. I�d left the airport, jet-lagged and culture-shocked, at nine AM local, and now it was -- where was a clock? There were damn clocks on damn poles and the fronts of damn buildings everywhere except where I was when I needed the damn things.
        	I reached out to tap a stranger�s shoulder. �Sumimasen...�
	        He looked at me like I was from Mars. I was pretty sure he understood my question, but I didn�t understand the answer. I thought he said it was three. But it might have been four -- I get them mixed up. I let him go with my mispronounced thanks, because I didn�t have clue one how to ask whether I was in Nerima Ward yet.
        	This was all so sudden. One minute I was applying for an art buyer job I knew I was barely qualified for, just on the offchance. Next minute, badda-bing badda-boom, there I was in Japan looking for some old Chinese lady who was rumored to be in possession of the lost paintings of Wei Xuyong, I had an unlimited expense account and about a dozen words of Japanese tying themselves in knots in my head -- and every ten minutes, my brain would run out my ears and I�d exclaim, �My God, I�m in actual ferchrissakes Japan!�
        	It was sweltering hot, and I was roasting. Sweat was ruining my silk Chinese jacket, but I didn�t like the way people crossed the street to avoid me when I took it off and showed my tattoos. Mental note: long sleeves tomorrow. And they were looking at me funny anyway, as if there was something weird about me... just because I was a gaijin? I guessed they weren�t used to seeing red hair.
	        Turns out I guessed wrong. I later learned that they were used to seeing red hair and a Chinese silk jacket, and chaos following close behind. But at this point I didn�t even know I was in Nerima.
        	I�d taken a wrong turn; a street that looked like it was going the right direction did some kind of spacewarp loop and spit me out on a residential street without a name. I stopped and smacked myself upside the head, and turned the map over. Right -- that�s the loop, and that�s the school I passed a while back, so I want to be going that way --
        	A scream split my nerves right down to the dendrites. There were words in it, but I didn�t know them. It came from behind an imposing wooden gate in an imposing concrete wall, behind which I could just see the top of an old house. The whole scene was just so Japanese I could feel my brain melting with culture shock again. It looked like the sort of place where ladies in kimonos drank tea and read poetry and never had to go to the bathroom. But what with the yelling and banging, it sounded more like the house I used to share with six punks, two dogs, and five cats.
        	I shook my head and turned away. That probably saved my eyesight, because at that moment there was a tremendous crash, something stung the side of my head, and then it was raining little chunks of concrete.
        	Of course I looked. Then I looked again. There was a gaping hole in the wall now. From which charged a...
        	Panda? 
        	A panda. Which bounced off down the street, making grummeling noises that sounded strangely gleeful.
        	Just for the record, I thought pandas were smaller than that.
	        After the panda came a girl. Now, the panda hadn�t made much impression on me, because it was just too weird to be believed. I guess it hadn�t sunk in yet. But the girl was just a girl, so my heart actually flipflopped in shock when I saw her.
        	Short. Red hair, braided. Chinese jacket. Black pants. 
	        I looked down at myself. Then back at the girl -- who was halfway down the block by now, apparently having missed me in the clouds of dust. That was simultaneously a disappointment and a relief. The former because when you meet someone who looks that much like yourself, down to her taste in clothing, there�s sort of an urge to converse. The latter because I wasn�t sure I wanted to know what she had to do with the demolition of the wall, and I was afraid if I hung around any longer I might find out.
	        The final figure to emerge from the wreckage was a pretty little Japanese girl in a flowered dress, holding a humongous sledgehammer. She saw me. Her eyes narrowed. She hefted the hammer.
	        �Ranma no bakaaaa!�
         	I cringed, preparing as best I could to meet my disappointed ancestors. 
         	The girl looked harder, frowned, and lowered her wall-wrecking tool. I didn�t blame the panda and the doppelganger now -- I ran.
        	That was a mistake. By the time I figured out Sledgehammerina wasn�t following me, I was completely lost. The only way I knew I wasn�t going in circles was that none of the walls that hedged me in had fresh holes in them. These residential back streets were all damn near identical, and when I found a street sign it took me ten minutes of squinting and mumbling to determine that it wasn�t even on the map. I was absolutely and utterly and hopelessly and cluelessly lost. In Japan.
	        �Good God, Japan! I�m in Japan!�
         	�GARBLEDY RANMA GOBLEDYGOOBERY YADDA YADDA!�
         	That wasn�t what the voice actually said, of course, but I believe I�ve already mentioned I don�t know Japanese. All I knew was that someone was charging up behind me with loud, crunchy footsteps, yelling at the top of his lungs. I spun around, prepared to fling myself out of the path of some paramedics or something. Instead I saw, planting his feet in a heroic stance and pointing an umbrella at me, pretty much the cutest boy I�d ever seen.
        	�Hellooo, nurse!� I exclaimed, secure in the knowledge that nothing I said would make the least sense anyway. 
        	He did the same double take Hammerbabe had done. Slowly, he lowered the umbrella to the ground. I was distracted by the Freudian symbolism of this activity, but it�s not like I would�ve known what he was saying even if I was paying attention. When he stepped forward to peer at me, I gave him my charmingest smile.
	         With a disgusted snort, he jumped ten feet to the top of the wall -- I�m not kidding! -- and took off at a sprint. I heaved a sigh. �Ain�t that just the way. All the cute ones are gay, taken, or superheroes.� Not that I felt the disgusted snort had been justified.
         	More wandering, now in better spirits, visions of great big red umbrellas dancing in my head. I found myself passing the school again. Stopping in front of the place, I unfolded the map yet again -- and suddenly I was flying through the air.
        	I yelped. You would too, if you had been scooped up in the arms of someone who smelled like sweat and felt like steel, and were being lofted by great leaps and bounds over the rooftops of suburban Tokyo. Fortunately I was too frozen to thrash around, but I was not too surprised to howl. In fact, emitting incoherent yells was about all I could do until my abductor came to a halt, balancing on the ridge of a tile roof about three stories off the ground. He -- there was abundant nonverbal proof it was a he -- crushed me to his chest, and I felt my spine pop. 
        	When he eased up a little, I nerved myself to struggle loose, resigned to failure -- I could feel that this guy was strong, and it�s not like I�m a martial artist or anything. But pushing away involved looking up at my abductor�s face, and that caused me to consider whether I really wanted to get free.         
        �This one�s at least as cute as Umbrella Boy,� I said -- out loud, because there was no reason not to.
        	His pretty face went wooden, and his nose wrinkled. He declaimed a phrase, holding me at arms� length like a wet baby. 
	         And then he dropped me.
         	�You baastaaaard!� I screamed, sliding down the slick tiles, falling, bouncing off another roof, falling farther, certain I was going to break my neck, and landing with a crunch in a dumpster full of cardboard.
	         I sat in the dumpster for a while, being glad to be alive. Eventually it occurred to me that I could leave the dumpster any time I wanted to, so I climbed out. That was when I saw how lucky I�d been -- right next to the recycling dumpster was one full of what smelled like seafood long past its prime. I was behind a restaurant. Good -- I was sort of hungry.
	         Around that realization, a girl in an apron with her sleeves rolled up came out of the kitchen door, swinging a bag of garbage. Girl? Boy? Girl. Probably. Not wanting to be asked explain the noise on the roof or the crash of my landing, I turned to go.
        	�Ran-chan!�
        	I glanced back to see if the cook was talking to me. She was. At least she was looking at me, with her head to one side, and saying it again: �Ran-chan?�
        	�Uh, sorry, just a sec.� I hauled out the phrase book and started flipping pages frantically. Ran-chan, ran-chan... No, it wasn�t in there. She was talking again, with a sort of imperative tone, and I couldn�t pick out any of the words at all. I decided maybe I wasn�t hungry after all. �Sumimasen, uh, gotta go, sorry!� I bolted.
         	�Ranmaaaa!�
        	I made a mental note to look that up in a full sized dictionary when I got two seconds to breathe. As I skidded around the corner, something sang past my ear and stuck in the wall. I glanced back, and what I think I saw was a metal spatula, gleaming in the sun. Like a little deadly ninja throwing spatula. But that doesn�t make any sense, and I didn�t stick around to find out what it really was.
	        Several minutes later, gasping and faint from heat exhaustion, I stumbled around a corner and found myself looking at exactly the kind of street of small businesses I�d been looking for all this time. I leaned against a telephone pole to catch my breath and produced the map for the zillionth time. As I did, I realized with a sinking feeling that I made a pretty poor showing for the gallery at the moment. I was sweaty, dusty, red-faced, covered with little shreds of cardboard, there were packing peanuts in my hair, my eighty-dollar silk pants had a hole in the knee, and somewhere along the line I�d picked up a bunch of bloody scratches, maybe from the exploding wall, maybe from staples in the dumpster. I looked like hell. And though the old lady knew enough English to be intelligible on the phone, I didn�t think it was enough to understand an explanation of my state. In fact, I didn�t think my own mother would understand any explanation I could produce at this point. 
	         At the corner of my sight, something tall and white moved toward me. Slowly. It was such a relief to have anything move slowly at this point that when I turned toward the movement there was a big smile on my face.
        	The smile didn�t last long. Not because there was anything to frown about, but because looking took all my attention, and I had none left to maintain my expression. I think my jaw might actually have fallen open.
        	Cute Boy #3 of the day was absolutely the cherry on the pie. Tall and slim, he had long hair like a waterfall of ink, and was wearing some kind of white robe that put me in mind of ancient Chinese scholars. His huge, dark eyes seemed to stare right through me. Delicious shivers crawled up and down my back unimpeded for a good ten seconds while he walked slowly toward me.
        	He spoke. I didn�t even bother with the phrase book -- I already knew this word wasn�t in it. Besides, maybe if I was quiet he�d talk some more. His voice was too deep and rich for the youth of the face it came from. It was shivery, and he was yummy, and I didn�t have a snowball�s chance of doing a damn thing about it on account of not knowing any useful Japanese.
        	The bishonen stranger (I know �bishonen�, of course, but not how to ask one out) aimed a finger at me in a way that struck me as a little threatening. �Ranma!� he said again, and then some other stuff that definitely sounded annoyed. The faintest hint of a clue began to dawn. The meaning of the word �ranma� was just on the tip of my brain. Which was funny, because I was sure I�d never heard it translated. And what it had to do with how mad this gorgeous boy was getting was entirely opaque to me.
         	�Sumimasen,� I began, my all-purpose word for �take pity on a poor stupid foreigner.� I didn�t get any farther. The boy reared back and raised his arms like a magician doing a trick -- or like the crane stance from �The Karate Kid,� I realized, a moment to late to dodge.
          	His arms shot forward, and chains -- I�m serious, chains! -- flew out of his sleeves like whips. I could only stand there aghast, thinking stupidly, �there wasn�t ROOM for those in that coat!� while the cold metal wrapped me up like a corn dog.
          	With a triumphant yell, he jerked the chains, and I went sprawling. �Ow! That hurts, dammit! You jerk!� I struggled to get my arms free, but he took in the slack, reeling me in. �To think I thought you were cute! Help, somebody!� 
	         Nobody helped. People were avoiding my frantic eyes, as if this were a familiar and embarrassing scene instead of some prettyboy in a wedding dress dragging a screaming foreigner around with two-inch-thick steel chains. My eyes rolled back to my assailant�s face, which was lit from within with a horrible triumph. He dropped an arm, and with a metallic sigh a barbed spear slid into his hand. As he raised it to turn me into raw yakitori, I did the only thing there was left to do. I screamed. 
         	I screamed long, loud, and high, just like in the horror movies. It was something I�d never had occasion to do before, and I astonished myself with the volume I achieved. I half expected plate glass windows to shatter all down the street.
         	The boy froze, eyes snapping wide, as if he�d expected some other reaction. That surprised me enough that I forgot to keep screaming, but I must have screamed sufficiently already, because he dropped the spear and let go of the chain. Without his strength pulling it tight, the heavy chain fell around my knees, and I climbed backward out of it. The boy was fumbling inside his robe, and I really didn�t want to know what else he had in there, and I really meant to run, and for some reason I just wasn�t running. Maybe sunstroke. I believe, in any case, that I had adequate reason not to be real coherent at that point.
	         �What,� I gasped, �did you think you were doing, you psycho?� Then it hit me again: �Aw, shit. I�m in Japan.� Not that yelling at a nutcase is generally useful even when he speaks your language. My knees wobbled, and I remembered about running... and about all the running I�d already done. I realized it was too late to run anywhere. I was exhausted. �Help?� I said in a small voice, and sat down on the sidewalk.
           	�Aha!� said the boy, and whipped his hand out of his robe, holding... a pair of glasses. I involuntarily giggled with relief. Slamming the specs onto his face with one hand and holding back his hair with the other, he bent down to stare at me. �Kore... kore wa... ?�
         	�I know �kore,�� I giggled inanely. �That�s �what.� It�s a useful word to know today.�
        	He reared back as if I�d sprouted horns and a tail. �Nan da yo?�
         	I couldn�t stop giggling. �I know that one too. Keep going, I�m on a roll.�
        	The pretty boy (note that once he stopped trying to kill me, he was pretty again) put his head to the side like a puzzled kitten. He spoke in a questioning tone. The word �ranma� leapt out of the sentence at me, and suddenly understanding snapped into place. 
          	Ranma was a name. The name of the girl who looked so much like me. All these frightening people yelled it at me when they confronted my similar back -- or didn�t have their glasses on, as the case may be -- and changed their tone when they got close enough to see the freckles, or the nose ring, or whatever it was that tipped them off. This whole bizarre sequence was a case of mistaken identity.
        	Which didn�t explain these people�s super-powers or why they were trying to kill her, but there wasn�t time to think about that, because the yummy lad was bowing in profuse apology and I had to reassure him as best I could that I wasn�t going to press charges. When he offered a hand to help me to my feet, I gave him a smile that should have made it abundantly clear he was forgiven.
         	He laughed nervously, putting a hand behind his head. Funny, I never noticed what a charming gesture that was. I laughed a little too, to put him at his ease. He touched a scratch on my hand with a question. I understood: are you hurt? I smiled, swallowed my heart, and shook my head: really, it�s nothing. He bowed again: I�m so sorry. I touched his elbow: all forgiven, let�s be friends, okay? He brushed his hair back and looked at the ground: I don�t know, you�re a stranger. I smiled and shrugged: I�m harmless, I�m not mad, you didn�t really hurt me, let�s go to bed right now this minute, okay?
	          His face brightened. He gave a little wave and turned away.
          	Damn. I guess we didn�t understand each other after all.
           	I watched his back retreat, and for every step he took my heart dropped another notch. This was no fair! There must be a way to pick somebody up without knowing the language; I gather sailors do it all the time. Was I going to let the cutest of the cute boy parade just walk away because I couldn�t be charming in sign language?
	          No, I decided, I was not.
         	I jogged after him; he turned to the sound of my limping run. �Wait! Just a second, matte, please!�
          	He paused, attentive, waiting. Stage fright struck, and I began spewing out all the Japanese I knew. He fought a visible battle for control of his face, and finally burst out laughing. I joined in, though there was a desperate edge to mine.
         	�Matte, um, do you know where, um, kore wa, aw damn, I�m looking for Nerima, um, Nerima wa, um, buggrit, just a sec...� I fumbled for the phrase book.
         	�Nerima? Hai.� He nodded, moving a hand to indicate the street.
          	�You mean I�m there? Thank God. Um. Domo. Arigato gozaimasomething. Okay... hang on...�
         	�Okay!� He grinned.
           	I grinned back. We were making progress. �You know �okay�? Well, everybody knows �okay.� Then I need to find, um...� I dug out the scrap of paper on which I�d written my destination. �I need to find the... ah... Nekohanten? I have to talk to a lady named, um, Ku Lon? Ku Long? Something like that...� I faltered, but he was already nodding. He gestured for me to follow and took off down the street.
         	He didn�t lead me by the hand, unfortunately, but I�d heard the Japanese were shy about that. I jogged along beside him, glad to the bone, plotting how I was going to keep him from wandering off while I conducted my business. Maybe I would just make a note of the location and do this deal tomorrow. Dedicate the rest of the day to learning a few new vocabulary words. I was sure I�d learn quickly from such an attractive teacher -- after all, he already had my full attention.
         	Alas, it was not to be. We reached the restaurant, but he barely paused to speak an affirmative phrase before plunging inside. As I entered, he shouted something toward the counter.
         	Then he broke my heart.
          	�Shun Pao!� he cried, or something like that, and with his face all lit up with adoration he made a beeline for a Chinese girl every bit as beautiful as he was. She had her arms full of dishes and turned a theatrical cold shoulder, but anyone could see they were an item. If not from the blatant hard-to-get she was putting on, then from the careful way he took the dishes from her, as if he couldn�t bear to see her get her hands dirty.
          	I couldn�t help sighing. I couldn�t help sagging in disappointment. I suppose it wasn�t necessary to flop into a chair and put my head in my arms, but you have to admit it had been a hell of a day.
          	I missed the first couple rounds of throat-clearing. Only when a bony finger poked me in the shoulder did I realize I was being addressed.
         	�Sorry?� I looked up and saw no one. Then I looked down and found her. She was... really short. I�ll just leave it at that.
        	�You are being art buyer from United States?�
        	�Oh. Yes. Yes, ma�am.�
        	�I expected. Tea is make. You eat already? No? I make lunch for you. Then I show paintings.� She gave a crinkly smile. �Wei Xuyong very special artist. You not be disappoint, I think.�
        	I meant to nod, but it came out as a bow. �Thank you, ma�am. Thank you very much.� For the tea. For the food. For being here when I arrived. For not mentioning the state of my clothing. Most of all, for speaking English. �Thank you.�

         	I passed a pleasant hour talking shop with a fellow art collector, and after the tea ran out she practically gave me the paintings. She wouldn�t take half what they were worth. In the end, I just agreed to her price and wrote the check for twice what she asked. When she looked at it, she laughed her peculiar laugh: �Hah.� As I left with the paintings rolled in bamboo tubes tucked under my arm, I began to feel that the day hadn�t been a total loss after all. 
         	But as I cast a last longing glance at the long-haired boy -- who was busy casting longing glances at the waitress -- a sound began to intrude on my reconstructed composure. A sound like... a stampede. Getting closer.
         	I threw myself out of the way just in time to avoid a collision with my doppelganger as she charged headlong into the restaurant, scattering chairs, provoking a (curiously joyful) squeal from the waitress. With desperate glances behind, she called out, presumably to the old lady, as the rest of the herd burst in.
         	There was umbrella boy, and hug boy, and the cook, and hammer girl, and the panda (!), and a girl in a leotard, and then the waitress threw herself into the fray, and my lovely near-murderer dived in after, and I swear there was a literal cloud of dust and flying fists just like in the cartoons.
          	Hugging my precious paintings, my back to the wall, I watched, open-mouthed. The red-haired girl was jumping around like a pinball, and nobody was even scoring a touch. Now it all made sense! They weren�t trying to kill her after all -- they knew she could dodge, and they didn�t think they�d really hit her! It was all a contest, a game!
	        �Aha!� I cried joyfully. �I understand!�
	         That may have been a mistake, because, one by one, they all stopped fighting and looked at me.
         	And looked at the girl named Ranma.
        	Then back at me.
        	�Er. Hi.� I felt my ears get hot. �You must be Ranma.�
	        Ranma gave me one hard look, and shrugged. She said a word that I�m dead certain means �whatever.� While everyone who�d been attacking her continued to stare at me, she turned her back to me and gave her full attention to the old Chinese lady. The old lady was offering a teapot. No cups, just the pot. Was Ranma a waitress too? 
         	If so, she was going to get fired, because she lifted up the pot and poured the steaming liquid on her head.
	         And turned into a boy.
         	I swear to God.

        	I spent the rest of my visit in the hotel, with the blinds pulled. 

        	And this account, Mr. Schleppe, should be useful to you when you have to explain the curious incident with the Wei Xuyong paintings and the disturbed gallery guards last week. You may also find in it my reasons for requesting a personal leave so early in my employment. 
        	If you have any questions, you will find me at my mother�s house, wearing bunny pajamas and drinking heavily.
        	Sir, I respectfully suggest, next time you require a trip to Japan, you can go your goddamn self.

Sincerely,



Jesse Hajicek * Art Propulsion Laboratories * St. Paul, MN
* Part of this nutritious breakfast! *