It's a peaceful, quiet night. For once, none of their neighbours are being loud as usual, and the weather outside is nice. The window of the bedroom is open — since it's summer and as a result too stuffy in the apartment to sleep comfortably with the window closed — so it's obvious there's no storm outside; the air is cool and peaceful.

It's a night where everything is right.

Ryo is lying on his side, facing inwards the bed, one arm under his pillow, the other hand resting on the bed near his chest.

He's had a rough few days because of work, and because of the apartment's uncooperative heating system. So tonight, he basks in the peace. Breathes it in, lets the calm fill him, breathes out his troubles, and he relaxes. In a repeated pattern like this, he takes full advantage of the peaceful night.

But he's Ryo, so of course he's not allowed to relax.

He hears a sniffle.

Or rather, he thinks he hears a sniffle. He chalks it up to his nerves being higher strung after the week he's had, dubs it an auditory hallucination and relaxes again.

He hears it again.

This time, he peels his eyes open.

Rika is across him, lying in a way that she is mirroring him almost exactly. But where he has one arm under the pillow, she is resting her cheek on her hand, the other hand wiping her eyes.

Her watery eyes, tears mapping her cheeks, wet where they'd passed and red where she was rubbing her face.

It takes him a second to register that she's crying.

"Rika?"

She tries to take a deep albeit shaky breath, but it comes out as a choked sob.

He reaches a hand out to rub her upper arm, dragging his hand up and down, in some kind of hopefully soothing motion.

"Hey," he asks gently, because Rika doesn't cry at anything that isn't close to life changing, "What's wrong?"

She takes a full minute to calm her sobbing, so she can reply, but her words still come out in hiccups and shaky breaths.

She manages to get two words out, but they only confuse Ryo more.

"What do you mean?" he asks, straining to recall if there's something he's missed during his past rough week, "Why are you sorry?"

He doesn't know how long it takes her to reply, but he knows that it's longer than it took her before.

When she does speak, her words aren't riddled with hiccups or sniffles, but her voice is so low that Ryo strains to hear her, even in the dead of the night.

"You want a family," her voice is so low, he thinks that it's because if it were any louder she'd break out into a sob, "but I'm taking that away from you."

He's still in the middle of registering her words when she lifts her gaze and meets his eyes.

"I'm making you wait—"

She stops talking in a way that he doesn't know if she cut herself off or if that's the end of her sentence.

Ryo himself doesn't notice that the arm that had been rubbing Rika's in a soothing motion had stilled.

Maybe it's how tired he is from the past week, or maybe it's the dead of the night and he's still half asleep, or maybe it's the weight of the topic, or maybe it's all three — but Ryo loses track of how long it takes him to reply and—

Oh.

Did this still bother Rika?

She's been hesitant with relationships and commitment since the very start— since they'd been kids, so Ryo knows. He still isn't sure how he has managed to get her to stay with him for so long; how he had even convinced her to marry him.

He's always known how scared she is, how deep her fears run, and given her family history he doesn't blame her, so obviously he's fine with waiting — he's always been fine with waiting.

He believes he's made that more than clear to her, but apparently, he still hasn't gotten through to 3AM Rika.

But that's fine too, because he'll reassure her as many times as she needs it.

The still hand resting on her arm, he wraps around her and pull her close, and she sniffles into his chest.

"You're not making me do anything, okay?" He finally says, "Whether you call it taking our time, or waiting, or whatever else — we're doing it together, okay?"

"But—"

"It's true. I do want a family sooner," he doesn't stop to let her interrupt, "but the family I want is one I want with you."

He can't hear her sniffling, but he knows she isn't sleeping either. So, he goes on.

"That means it'll be your family too. And you have as much right over them as I do." He adds, his tone changing so it sounds more like he's telling a bedtime story of sorts. He supposes he is, in a way. "So, if you want to wait, I'm more than okay with that. And if our family come tomorrow or even in twenty years — that's just another thing about them I already love. They're just as much as your family as they're mine, and it doesn't matter how long we take, they'll be more than worth the wait."

For the longest time, she doesn't say anything.

Then, she digs her face deeper into his chest and wraps an arm around him too, to clutch the back of his shirt, and that's all the reply he needs.

He drifts off into a peaceful sleep, knowing that whatever family he has with Rika, and whenever they have them, they'll be more than worth the wait.

Everything with Rika always is.