Ryo Ashihara had seen a lot in his life. He had been a lot, for that matter. To say he had lost a lot, well, that would just be an understatement. He had no family to speak of, he could count the amount of friends he had on a single hand, his former dream of being a star swimmer was dead and gone, most people who had known him while he had been "normal" were either dead as well or feared him, and in fact he had been more or less dead himself before. To say that he had lived a rather unique would be the understatement of the century.
When it came down to it, he didn't have many people to turn to. He could certainly look those few friends he had, but they had their own worlds, their own lives to be concerned with. Shouichi had opened a restaurant while Hikawa had returned to life as a normal member of the police force. They had their own circles of friends and families outside of Ryo.
That wasn't to say that if he were to drop by, they would think of him as a bother. Not at all. They would treat him in the way they always had. Ryo would even stop by to see them occasionally, peek into their lives, but every time, it was clear to him that there was a drastic difference between them. Between those two and him.
They had their homes all made for them and they were quite happy with them. He wandered from place to place without any real home to speak of.
At the end of the day, he realized that even with their differences, Ryo didn't mind it. He didn't need a single, special place to settle down, and while his current "family" wasn't particularly large, it did have at least one other person besides for him in it, and that one person was all the family he needed.
... Well... They were a person in a manner of speaking. It depended on how one defined "person." Ryo certainly thought they applied. Besides, it wasn't like too many people considered him a person anyway, so it seemed all the more fitting for his family to be in a similar situation.
When they had met, the person had only been a baby. It might have seemed unlike him to take in a baby off of the streets like that, but something about this abandoned child called to Ryo. So he took the baby in. Now, here they were, such a long time later and still together. They made a bit of an odd team, but Ryo was happy and the baby seemed to be pleased with the arrangement, so was there any problem?
Of course, the fact that the baby was in fact a baby dog might change the way one looks at that story somewhat. One thing remained true all the same: This puppy, this dog, was Ryo's family now, and in turn, he was family for the little canine too.
Some might call it strange for a man's only family to be his dog. Ryo was a fairly attractive young man, not to mention quite athletic; surely he could get out there and get himself a pretty girl to marry in no time at all if he wanted to.
Ryo felt rather differently about the whole thing. Rather, he just didn't particularly want to, at least not right now.
After everything he had seen and everything he had lost, after everything he had been through and everything he hadn't, he had come to find himself with a great appreciation for the simple things in life. He had chased for so much, for so many different things, and where had it gotten him? Nowhere, really. He was just lucky that he was even alive.
But he was still alive. If he couldn't appreciate that, when so many others did not have what little he did have in this life, did he deserve it at all?
He didn't know. He didn't think so.
He did know one thing for sure, though.
At the end of the day, there was nothing else he could really think of appreciating more in his life than simply relaxing on the side of a hill with his loyal dog at his side.
It may not have been the same as opening a five star restaurant or solving case after case for the police, but it didn't matter in the end.
Those afternoons on the hill were just fine with him.