[He stands there with the tears pouring over; it doesn’t feel like they’re going to stop. The jagged edge of whatever is coming into him is so painful and raw, amplified over his own terrible feelings.

Ryo doesn’t move, and the lack of it feels like every other time he has wanted the confirmation there was a reason to move for him. The whole discord of trying to use his brain instead of his heart to look at how Ryo was as a person, trying to offer Ryo the baton for it to fall onto the ground.

Maybe that was his downfall. He didn’t do what he said. He didn’t listen to his heart about Ryo at first.

How did they get here? he wonders. What did he do wrong to get them here at this agonizing place when he has only ever told anyone else he wanted Ryo to be happy, and then they told him he should be happy too.]

I’m where you put me, Ryo.

[It isn’t a blame exactly, just a statement. He is here at the end if the dock because Ryo kept closing him off again and again in some unintentional way.]

I kept trying to reach you, and you would step back more and more. [Ryo wanted him to follow, but he wanted Ryo to meet him halfway.] I waited on you… I waited for you to give me back what I gave you, but I never saw it.

You were always so far away from me, Ryo.