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Kazumi is a recluse, a wildcard, here one day and gone the next. He’s constantly moving, shifting, having nothing to keep him around. But Ryuga can see the pain in his heart, his burning passion not dimmed but lit even lighter, his body boiling with raw strength.
He sees it in the way Kazumi fights, the rattling of the three dog tags around his neck subtle, but loud enough to hear. He’s different when he’s Grease, his filter gone and replaced with everything he wants to say. But Ryuga still sees it, the way he falters when friendship is mentioned, his steps pausing, the enemy getting a clear hit on him at his weakest.
Despite both of their tendencies to distance themselves from any indication of emotion, he knows what’s boiling deep within his heart. They’re similar after all, the Hokuto trio drifting away with the same pained gracefulness that Kasumi did, their existences fleeting into nothing but broken shards of light.
But they’re both scared. Ryuga’s heart, closed off and blackened since Kasumi left, continues to beat, like a fragile baby bird not quite ready to leave the nest. He knows that deep down, Kasumi would want this. He shouldn’t spend his life entrapped by the guilt of moving on. He knows that Kazumi is there, alive, dealing with the same issues he is, acceptance of the past eating him up with the same strength as Ryuga’s broken heart.
The war is ongoing, threats against their lives day in and day out a sign of the evanescent length of life. Ryuga is terrified, each time Kazumi gets knocked to the floor his heart stops, his brain picturing Kazumi dying in his arms, the feeling of his puffy army jacket dissipating into green specks above his head. He knows that every opportunity he misses, every time he falters, too obsessed with the flimsy sustainability of humanity to take any chances, he’s dragging on the inevitable.
They’re all going to die someday, be it now or 60 years in the future. Kazumi’s soft remarks, laced with a hint of venom that isn’t with intent to hurt as much as to playfully sting, ring in Ryuga’s ears, the thought of fingers interlaced while laying on the floor of Nascita, how Kazumi never takes it too far when they fight, careful that the struggle to remain strong enough to stay alive doesn’t lead to their own downfall.
Ryuga knows that life is fleeting, and that any moment Kazumi could turn into remnants of light, his dog tags dropping to the floor with a loud clunk.
He knows that the feeling of Kazumi’s warmth pressed against his back is not eternal, that one day his soft breaths will cease to never be heard again, but that just gives him even more reason to savor it.