Ryo knew it long before anyone else did.
His heart was never made to last. Each passing day presented a new challenge - would he live to see it through, or was it meant to be the end? All he could do was withdraw himself from everyone and become a person that was easy to hate, because losing an enemy was easier than losing a friend. And somewhere, deep within him, there was still a piece of himself that never wanted to hurt anyone. If he hurt people, he was not who he used to be. If he hurt people - his brother, Sho; his best friend, Edo; his old friends, Judai and Asuka, he deserved to die.
But Edo was too stubborn to run away. Ryo did everything he could to push him away, but he could never stamp out his own allure that kept Edo sticking around. He was a drug, an addiction, and Edo could not break away. As time went on, Ryo's fear grew ever worse; the more Edo tried to fix him, the more open he became to getting hurt, and Ryo could not let himself see that come to light. He knew that dying would be the ultimate pain, but he could still stay, he thought, stay and haunt Edo and keep watch over him for the rest of his days. He could keep him safe from the other people who were like himself, drugs to society.
Ryo shuffled through his deck idly. A mellow sigh passed through his parted lips and his fingers skimmed gently overtop of his cards, feeling each of them pulse with the dark strength that corrupted him to begin with. This power once made him think he could live forever, but he found that, with each duel, his desire to live forever waned. He knew his time was drawing near, and soon, he would be gone. He had made his peace with it. Ryo didn't want to live forever. With the taste of power he'd sampled, he knew how hollow an eternal existence would be. He had to use the rest of his time to get Edo to run away, to find a better life without him in it. If he couldn't do that, he ached to think what might happen when he finally vanished.
On the table next to him sat a pack of cigarettes. Ryo was not a smoker, but with his limited time, he saw no reason not to indulge. The lighter clicked metallically in his hand as he lit it, taking a long, sullen drag from his cigarette before exhaling a thick cloud into the room. It floated around his head like an aura, like a halo. So it was supposed to be today. He was already gone.
With a grunt, Ryo clambered to his feet, staggering a little more than he wanted to. This would be one of the hardest things he had to do.
But he had to say goodbye.
