I...I know you are, I want your help, Atem...I always want your help. B-but...

[Being told he can be angry, or sad, it does help him too. It's not that he needs Atem's permission, but Ryou being affirmed just makes it easier.]

Months.

[He pulls back, not because he wants to breathe--he doesn't need to--but because he wants to be heard.]

It t-took me months...he knew it did, and he chose to do that anyway. He stole the collar you made me and destroyed it, and wore the collar you first loaned me, j-just so...so that I couldn't, so I wouldn't leave! Why does every part of this place choose to take from us what's most important?! If it's not something that happens in the middle of the month, it's something caused by monsters!

[Ryou should stop there. He wants to, but something in him has snapped, and he's curling clawed fingers against Atem's back, his lip curling back to reveal more of his fangs in a show that's more animalistic than this monster type should express. He's just a vampire, right?]

I want to be left alone! I want you to be left alone! It has to stop, it can't keep going like this!!

[He can't keep going like this...]