.

He can't let them see. Can't let them see what the spirit has done to him by leaving - which, somehow, is even worse than what he was doing to him when he was there. Can't let them see that, no. He was a tyrant. A criminal. A madman drunk in his desire for revenge. Missing him is no healthy sign. Not something acceptable. Not logical, and certainly not something expected from nice boys like Ryou.

But the spirit was more than that. Ryou knows, but he can't let others know. That knowledge is all he has left. He can't let others take that from him and taint it with their concern and their logic and their stupid psychological terms and things like 'you're so much better off without him' and 'you look better, Bakura-kun' and that wretched 'time heals all wounds'.

Time heals all wounds. He has lost count of how many times he has heard that. There was a time when he believed it, too, back when he hadn't really known what it was like to have such wounds - what it was like to have so many of them.

Everybody else still looked like they believed it, though. Everybody kept repeating it like a mantra. Everybody, except a few old lyrics in a song he can no longer listen to.

(it rings too much like truth)

.