A/N: Sometimes, you really just have to slow down the pace of life and appreciate the person who is next to you all this while. Here are a few scenarios of the warmths of a long-lasting relationship.

[Couple Days]

Day 1:

Riko had a frown hung on her face when she closed the fridge door and walked from the kitchen back into the living room empty handed.

It had been too hot for them to go out on a date, and thus the afternoon had gone by slowly with her boyfriend simply engaging in his favourite hobby of reading, and she had just sat beside him on the couch watching TV. She hadn't cuddled up to him simply because the weather was too hot and her body heat alone was already enough to make her sweat buckets.

Instead of taking a seat on the couch again, though, she walked until she stood behind her boyfriend, then reached forwards and grasped his head with both her hands, tilting it back so that he would be forced to turn his attention looking up and slightly backwards at her while she bent forwards, looking down at his beautiful upside-down face.

"Answer me honestly." She said seriously at the softly smiling face of her boyfriend.

"What is it?"

"Yesterday night I picked up one of my favourite Billy Brand milk pudding. I remember putting it in the fridge when I came home yesterday night, but it is doing a disappearing act on me now. I'm pretty sure that it hasn't grown legs and walked away, and there is only one other person in the house living with me." Riko started to state her case, looking at the blank face that looked back at her. He was good at hiding things and pretending innocence, but there was only one suspect who had the hands and legs to go stealing the innocent milk pudding that Riko had been planning to eat.

"Did you check the freezer?" He asked innocently. "You accidentally forgot and put your pudding in the freezer once."

"I checked." Riko answered. "It wasn't in the freezer or any place in the fridge. Will you tell me where it has gone?"

"Maybe a cat came in from the window. We live low enough to the ground for cats to come." He suggested now.

"A cat that opened the fridge and carefully removed my milk pudding and left without a trace?"

"You will be surprised at how skilled cats can be."

"I was thinking that the culprit might be more human-like than a cat." Riko answered, knowing that her boyfriend was just trying to make her side-track so that she could forget the fact that her milk pudding had been stolen without her permission.

"It was Dante." He suggested now, and that argument might have held once, because Riko knew that Dante was a person who never asked about anything in the fridge and took everything on the assumption that it was meant for him.

"We are not living with your brother anymore." She reminded her boyfriend. "We moved out of his house four months ago, remember?"

"We did?" The shameless question and obviously faked surprise was good enough evidence for Riko to confirm her suspicions, but she would not rest until she wrenched a confession out of him.

"I won't start cooking dinner until I have the culprit found." She threatened lightly, and the effect was instantaneous.

"I did it." The reply came immediately, and though there was very little guilt in that confession, at least Riko had managed to get an acknowledgement out of him. Truly, there was nothing that squeezed the truth out of her boyfriend faster than the threat of not getting dinner. In that sense, he was almost exactly alike to his twin brother, because Dante had been equally, if not twice, as desperate to do anything as long as he received some home-cooked food on his plate.

Riko had learnt from her boyfriend that their intense desire for any form of home-cooked food was due to the fact that their mother and father had died early, and they had stopped eating home-cooked food long ago until Riko moved in to stay with them. For some reason, though, the food cooked by either brother for each other did not come under the category of 'home-cooked food'. It had to be food cooked by a third party at home for the both of them that counted as home-cooked.

"Then go out and buy one back." Riko answered, not letting her boyfriend off the hook so easily. She had really wanted to eat the cold dessert in the heat.

"I will do it tomorrow." He answered, moving his head back down so that he was looking back to his book as if the conversation was already closed.

Riko wasn't going to allow that, and used a little bit of force to force him to tilt his head again to look back up at her.

"Now, Vergil."

"Tomorrow."

"Then I will cook dinner tomorrow. We can have take-out today." Riko answered.

"I will do it later." He compromised.

"Then I will cook dinner later. I don't mind having a snack or two now before supper."

"You will get fat if you do that. We need to have proper meals." Her boyfriend said honestly, but Riko replied by squishing his face by pressing his cheeks together, forcing a funny face on him.

"You can't tell your girlfriend that she will get fat. It is a taboo."

"Dante called you fat every other day while we were still living with him."

"Dante calls you fat as well." Riko countered. "Between the three of us, he was the fattest."

"If he gets any fatter, he will have to end up rolling over the demons to kill them." He answered, and looked down again as if trying to end another conversation. He would have been rather successful at the topic-changing and conversation-closing if not for the fact that Riko had dated her boyfriend for 5 years by now, and she knew her boyfriend's tricks and habits like the back of her hand.

This time, instead of pulling his head up to look at her, Riko leaned down and draped her arms over his shoulders until her face was right beside his. Giving him a soft kiss on his equally soft cheek, she made sure to keep her face close to his as she whispered in his ear in a move that was strategically seductive.

"If you buy the pudding now, I will put more meat on your serving later."

There was honestly nothing that got the Sparda brothers moving faster than the promise of meat. They were almost literally carnivores –their intense hatred for vegetables was amusing in its own right. One thing that Riko completely could not understand was how the two men had grown up so beautifully without a healthy balance of vegetables and meat to their meals.

Closing the book that he had been reading almost instantly, Riko's boyfriend turned his head to give her an equally soft peck on the tip of her nose as if to return the gesture of her soft kiss.

"I will be back soon." He promised, and Riko straightened as he stood up and made quickly for their room to grab his essentials.

With a victorious grin, Riko wandered back into the kitchen and back to the fridge, beginning to pull out the ingredients in preparation for dinner. The stew would take an hour to brew to its full flavour, and it would be for the best that Riko started the fire now so that her boyfriend wouldn't have to wait for too long after he returned to start the meal.

She was in the middle of portioning the meat when her boyfriend passed the kitchen to make for the front door of their apartment with his phone, keys and wallet in hand. Riko was mildly appreciative of the loose, sleeveless singlet that he was wearing to fend off the heat since it gave her –and the public –a good show of how muscled his arms and chest were. Back when they had first started dating, Riko had been wary whenever her boyfriend showed off his muscles, because she had been afraid of a woman cuter and more loveable than her throwing herself on Vergil and taking away all of his love for Riko.

But now that they had 5 years between them, Riko was more or less sure that Vergil was dedicated to her and her only. It was only a matter of time before either of them decided that it was time to pop the question and start wearing a ring on their fourth fingers.

"Vergil," Riko called, suddenly remembering a detail that she assumed that her boyfriend probably did not know. Putting her knife down, she hurried out of the kitchen and into the main corridor where her boyfriend had paused in the middle of putting his shoes on, waiting patiently for her instructions. "You know my favourite brand of milk pudding, right?"

"It's Billy's, isn't it? You complained when I bought Lid's pudding the other time." Her boyfriend answered, continuing to put on his shoes now.

"Yes, but do you know where to get Billy's pudding?"

"The convenience store down the street?" Riko knew her boyfriend was just chancing a guess by his questioning tone of voice.

"The convenience store doesn't carry Billy's pudding." Riko answered with a smile. "You have to go out to the supermart opposite from the station."

"That's four streets away!" He protested, looking as if he regretted agreeing to buy the pudding now so easily.

"I'm sure you have walked much longer than that trying to catch a demon." Riko said as she stepped forth and made a shooing gesture at him. "And this is what you get for stealing my pudding."

"How about I go out to get it when it is less hot outside? I promise I will go out once the sun sets." He tried to bargain once again despite the fact that he was already at the door, all dressed and ready to go.

"You know, I can always just put the meat back in the freezer until the sun sets. I hate sweating in the heat just to cook dinner." Riko suggested, and once more, the threat of no dinner at dinnertime was the perfect motivation for her boyfriend.

"I'll be back soon!" He promised quickly, and was out of the door in a wink as if he could not stand the thought of a delayed dinner without meat.

Riko laughed to herself, shaking her head as she made back to the kitchen.

Vergil deserved a little bit more meat for his errand today; she decided.

________________________________________________________________________________

Day 2:

Riko knew that this moment had been coming ever since she woke up, but she had been dreading it all this while even as she prepared breakfast and sat down at the dining table to share the meal with her boyfriend.

"Thank you for the delicious meal." He announced, pushing his empty dish forwards in a signal that he was done cleaning his plate. After 5 years of dating, Riko was no longer surprised at her boyfriend's appetite. She would normally be worried about the household expenses that would undoubtedly be incurred when supporting for someone with such a voracious, meat-fuelled appetite for every meal, but the both of them were working adults without children. Even after taking in account rent, utilities, phone bills and taxes, the two of them still had enough income to sponsor for his diet and have a comfortable well of savings.

"Do you really have to go?" Riko asked forlornly as she collected their dishes, leaving them in the sink since she had more pressing matters to do now before washing them clean. Her boyfriend had already left the dining table, and Riko jogged quickly back to their bedroom to find him standing in front of the wardrobe.

"I have work to do, Riko." He answered evenly, drawing out a pair of fitting black trousers, then pairing it with a light blue dress shirt. Then, picking out another two articles of clothing from the wardrobe, he turned to Riko with a silently questioning look in his eyes. They had gone through this long enough for Riko to understand his question, and she began to judge quickly.

"The blazer looks better."

"It is still hot outside." Her boyfriend answered, clearly favouring the vest in comparison to the blazer due to the lack of sleeves.

"You can leave the blazer at the office. Don't you always roll up your sleeves and take off your outer wear anyway while you're working?" Riko answered, watching as he seemed to weigh his options in his mind while staring at the vest and blazer alternatively. The girlfriend's advice clearly weighed heavier, and Riko smiled internally as she watched him return the vest back into the wardrobe, then began to undress.

5 years of dating and 2 years of living together had made the both of them completely unembarrassed to appear completely naked in front of each other. Besides, being naked on the bed was one of the best activities that the both of them enjoyed at times. Riko had normalized living with her boyfriend so much that seeing him in all his glorious nakedness (actually, he still had his briefs on) did not do much effect on her at all.

She did, however, sneakily put her hands into the pile of clothes that he had left on the bed to be worn while he undressed, drawing an item out when he was not looking.

"Can you please not go? Pretty please?" Riko asked again as she watched her boyfriend collect the clothes he had just been wearing a second ago, then dump them into the basket she had left beside the wardrobe in a domesticated move.

When she had first moved in with the Sparda brothers, she had been rightfully terrified at their idea of neatness. While she did not demand a dust-free environment, she had put her foot down and insisted that they at least put their dirty clothes where they belonged rather than on the ground.

"I told you; it's work. I am not going out to have fun, Riko."

"But I will be lonely!" She whined when her boyfriend moved back to the bed and began putting on his new set of clothes. On came the fitting trousers that she had bought for him on Christmas, and even though she had literally been seeing glorious butt just a moment ago, Riko still took a moment to admire the godly-crafted shape of her boyfriend's behind accentuated in those trousers. The pants might have been a present for him, but the gift was very much for her eyes as well whenever he put those pants on.

"Be good." He replied as he zipped up, then reached for his shirt. "The day will be over before you even realise that I was gone."

"You're literally going to be gone in ten minutes!" Riko complained. "It's going to be the start of a loooooooooong day without you."

"You complained about your days getting shorter whenever you are working, didn't you? Now you have a long day to do whatever you like without anyone disturbing your peace." Her boyfriend answered mildly. She was very sure that he knew her perspective and feelings towards his leaving her alone in the house well, but the cruel man was ignoring it at the moment.

"Can't you do this job when I'm working as well? We only have the weekend to spend for each other!" Riko continued to whine, rolling on the bed like a little girl playing tantrum. She usually wasn't such a childish person, but whenever she started to whine about something, Riko always ended up resorting to taking up the acts of a little girl on a tantrum.

Most times, however, the tantrum didn't get to her boyfriend.

"We did. Yesterday."

"All we did was watch TV together!"

"It was a good time spent. Just you and me." He answered, stuffing the ends of his shirt into the hem of his pants and flattening the material over his hard chest and abdomen.

Riko was proud to say that her boyfriend pulled off the business casual look completely effortlessly with his rock-hard abs and chest that betrayed no single inch of flabbiness. Over 5 years, to make sure that she looked worthy to walk down the street proudly beside her boyfriend, Riko had worked hard and dieted hard to get rid of all excess fat, achieving a healthily thin shape.

"It's been ages since we last went on a date!" Riko would have stomped her feet if she was not already rolling on the bed and making a mess of the sheets.

"You said it yourself; the weather is too hot for dates nowadays. You can't stand the idea of having to dress up nicely to go out on a date if you're going to sweat in clothes that do not involve sleeves tanks and mini shorts." He replied evenly, moving to stand in front of the mirror to check his appearance.

"I know what I said!" She pouted. "I changed my mind; I want a date! We can go somewhere cool and have tons of ice cream."

"You will get fat if we do that."

"You can't tell your girlfriend that she will get fat!" Riko whined again. "I wanna go on a date! You've been so unromantic these days; I feel like I'm dating a piece of wood!"

"A piece of wood that you think is hot." He corrected knowingly. They had dated long enough for him ignore being bothered with her insults. "A piece of wood that is going to be late and not get paid if he doesn't leave soon. Give me my belt, Riko."

She clutched tightly to the belt that she thought she had secretly stolen away from his stack of clothes when she thought he wasn't looking. Apparently these things did not escape his attention, but it did not mean that she was about to go down without a fight.

"I know you only have this one belt that matches that black pants nicely. I'm keeping it captive so that you can't go out to meet your client."

"Come on, Riko. I promise I will go on a date with you tomorrow."

"Tomorrow is Monday! I have work tomorrow, and you know it!" She protested.

"Fine, I promise to go on a date with you next week. Give me the belt."

Still a little bit sore, but knowing that this was probably the best that she could wrench out of her boyfriend at the moment, Riko grudgingly extended the belt back into his reach, watching as he expertly threaded it around his waist and buckle quickly in place to complete the look.

"Do you really have to go?" She continued to whine, following her boyfriend out of their bedroom.

"Yes, I do. You are too old to be scared of being left alone in the house, Riko."

"I'm not scared!" She protested, diverging from following her boyfriend's path to the mantle in the living room. Vergil's display stand stood on top on the mantle, and she carefully lifted the weapon off its stand. Years ago, her boyfriend had showed her how sharp his sword was usually maintained, and she didn't want to accidentally harm herself, even if it was currently safely sheathed. "I just haven't gone out on a date with you for so long; I think I'm losing my market value in your eyes."

"Yes, I would be indifferent between buying you and meat at the supermart." The honest reply that came back was not romantic at all, but they had honestly spent too long to be exchanging sweet love-nothings to each other. Of course, her boyfriend was neither the type to whisper sweet things into her ear. His displays of love were sparse, mostly physical, and extremely heart-warming whenever he did them.

"I can't believe you are comparing me to meat! You terrible man!" Riko cried her protest as she turned back to the main corridor to find him already putting on his dress shoes.

"Don't be mad. You and meat are my top 2 favourite things in the world." He replied with such evened honest tone that Riko wasn't sure to be upset or not. She didn't doubt that meat was truly on the list of his top few favourite things, but being on the same category as meat in her boyfriend's ranking system was a strange feeling. "Besides, weekend dates are expensive. A plate of pasta at in the restaurant we went the last time to celebrate Christmas costed enough for two meals full of meat. And it wasn't that good."

"Don't be such a penny-pincher. You are not supposed to be thrifty when it comes to dates, especially if we're having dates only once a month. If I don't keep up at it, you're going to bring me out on a date every three months! I'm sure of it."

"That sounds like a good plan." He replied, standing up now that he had his shoes tied nicely. "More home-cooked food and less wastage of money. The crowd outside on a weekend is terrible as well. I prefer the ambience of food eaten at home."

"You're so unromantic!" Riko complained, as she handed the weapon in her hands over to her boyfriend. He was probably the only person she knew that dressed up in a business casual attire, but reported to work without a professional-looking briefcase, but with a sleek-looking sword for accessory.

"You still love me." One thing Riko both regretted and did not regret at the same time was letting her boyfriend know how much she loved him over the years. At moments like these, she greatly regretted not keeping the extent of her love for him a secret, because he knew exactly how to make the most of her love for him.

"Fine." She pouted, folding her arms as she watched her boyfriend all dressed up and ready to leave her alone for the whole day again. Whenever he went out taking up jobs from a client, he always came back home in the late of the night. It was fine if he took jobs only on weekdays, but it was days like these where Riko had to spend her weekends alone and missing him. "Maybe when you come back, I will have fallen in love with someone else."

It was impossible, but still an extremely light threat.

"Come, I will make sure you don't fall in love with anyone else while I'm gone." He beckoned her to step closer, in which she did cautiously. What would he do to make sure?

The grouch that she had been having for the entire time he had taken to dress and get ready for work was gone in an instant when his free hand caressed the back of her head, tilting it slightly downwards, and soft lips pressed on her forehead. Her inner thoughts about how heart-warming it was whenever her boyfriend displayed his actions of love came back again, and her blush rose faster than the tides.

"Meet me outside the station at 7 tonight, and dress nicely. I don't care if you don't like to sweat in the heat, because we are going for a dinner date, and you can't say no." He moved his lips quickly from her forehead to beside her ear, his low voice whispering seductively in her ear making her shiver and her toes curl.

Then, quick as it happened, he let her go and stepped out of the door as if they had just bade their farewells like normal people.

Riko stood at the closed front door for a minute, brain slow on the uptake. Once the meaning of her boyfriend's words set in, however, a grin drew across her face and Riko had a bounce in her step when she turned back and made towards the kitchen to wash the dishes from breakfast.

Her day without Vergil was going to be long, but as long as she had a promise for a dinner date, she was willing to wait.

________________________________________________________________________________

Day 3:

Riko regretted her tantrum very much now that she was alone in the dark night. She had turned off the lights outside of the bedroom, but it seemed as if the darkness was making her loneliness even more real. Where she had always looked forwards to the weekend so that she could spend her time with her boyfriend, she completely hated the fact that it was the weekend now because he was not at home.

To be very fair to her boyfriend's case, he had already told her about the demon hunters' conference a month ago, but it was her fault that she had completely forgotten about it. Now that she thought back for the past few days, she realised that he had been trying to give her clues about his need to leave her alone in the house, but she had just ignored all those signs.

Why had she ignored all those signs?

Because of a stupid little argument three days ago that Riko severely regretted now. It was just the common household argument that couples inevitably had whenever they stayed together. Riko and her boyfriend were no exceptions to that, and the topic of argument this time was about Vergil being painfully honest about telling her that she was getting fat. It was just the usual Riko trying to pick on him on his lack of romantic ideals, and though she knew that 5 years had already passed between them, she still wanted Vergil to continue complimenting her every now and then to keep her happy.

But Riko had been petty, and for the next few days, she had refused to talk to him or cook dinner for him. He, in all honesty, had adapted well to the life without her because he simply ended up buying take-outs before coming home from work. But it was also that independence that pissed off Riko even more because it only showed that the man didn't seem to really need her in his life at all. Unlike how her boyfriend was such an important character in her life, he had acted as if he was indifferent, and that his normal daily lifestyle had not been affected at all after their argument and Riko's cold war.

She had wanted to end the cold war this weekend, and she had even prepared a whole potful of meat ready to make into a good stew as apology for being petty for so long. She had planned to treat her boyfriend like a prince to make up for the days' worth of ignorance, but that had all gone down the drain because Vergil had packed his bags and left on Friday morning, leaving him a note to tell her that he was gone for the 5-day conference, and that she had probably forgotten about it.

She had been so pissed off that she had not sent her boyfriend off with a loving kiss that Riko had cried. Of course, she was also suffering from PMS, which made the emotions even worse, and she had ended up sitting on the couch eating ice cream and crying herself to sleep that night.

But now it was Saturday night, and Riko had somehow made it through the day by keeping herself completely busy cleaning up the house. It was much more spotless than it had been for the past few months, but Riko had no satisfaction because she still had 4 more days to go without her boyfriend.

Worse still, she could not even get past the night now without him.

Checking her phone for the millionth time, there were no new mails from her beloved. Annoyed, but knowing that her boyfriend really frowned upon using his phone during work, Riko threw her phone on the bed in frustration, grabbing a pillow and screaming her frustrations into it. Inside her was an ugly mixture of anger, frustration and loneliness that had coiled up and built up over the entire day while she had been cleaning the house up.

Was he really that busy in the conference? What could he possibly be doing so that he didn't even have a single moment to call her? Surely, he had gone back to the hotel room and have had a nice shower? No matter how busy she knew her boyfriend would be at the conference –since he and his brother were actually very esteemed guests in the demon hunting circle –surely, he had the time to step out and give her a call at the very least?

Stupid Vergil. Stupid Vergil for not being beside her right now when she really needed him the most. Stupid Vergil for not trying harder to tell her that he was about the leave for a conference so that she would forget about their tiny argument and give him a big loving meal, hug and kiss before he left. Stupid Vergil for not calling when she really missed his voice now. Stupid Vergil for being so far and not able to hug her when she really wanted to smell him now.

Riko rolled so that she now laid on her boyfriend's side of the bed, burying her face in his pillow instead and taking a deep breath. It smelt like him, and even though the scent was not as strong as the man himself, it was still a comforting smell.

If she hugged his pillow, maybe she might actually be able to fall asleep.

Three hours later of tossing and turning and messing up the sheets around her legs, she regretted ever thinking that falling asleep was a possible option while her boyfriend wasn't beside her. Riko had gotten so used to having him beside her that she had long forgotten how cold it was to sleep without someone blocking the air from her side.

"Argh!" She exclaimed angrily as she kicked at her covers, sitting upright and grabbing her phone off the bedside table. She really needed to hear his voice right now.

But she was angry at him for not calling her and not thinking about her (even though she knew he was the type to put his all whenever he was at work and not spend time thinking about anything else). And so, instead of calling her boyfriend, she called the closest substitute she could find.

The phone call rang a few times, but connected through in a surprisingly short time.

"Riko...?" A sleepy voice asked through the phone. "Why are you calling me at this time?"

"I'm sorry, I just wanted to hear your voice." She said apologetically, but the satisfaction she thought that she would have didn't come at all. She really couldn't stand hearing anyone else's voice other than her boyfriend's one, huh? Not even Dante sufficed.

"Isn't that something you should be saying to Vergil?" Dante asked sleepily, ending his sentence with a loud yawn.

"I'm angry at him for not calling me." Riko complained. "If you guys are already free enough to go back to your rooms to sleep, then he should have called me by now."

"I don't know about that." She heard soft grunts of her boyfriend's brother shifting his position on the bed. "He isn't back in the room yet. He could still be busy at the conference. Today's meeting is over, but he took a lot more projects than I did, so he might still be down there. I came back to sleep because I was dead tired, and you're not helping."

"How do you know if he's back in his room? He could be having his fun with a lady in his room right now." Riko sulked despite the fact that the both of them knew that her boyfriend was probably the last person in the world who would think about cheating on her.

There was a disbelieving snort that Riko couldn't blame coming from Dante.

"If he does that in the room, I will murder him for waking me up. We are sharing rooms, Riko. They put us together because there weren't enough rooms to go around for everyone. It is easier for them if they have the two Spardas in the same room anyway. Verge's not in his bed, and I don't hear any sounds from the toilet."

"Okay." Riko answered, because there was really nothing she could do if her boyfriend was still hard at work at the conference. "I'm sorry for disturbing you, Dante. Please go back to sleep soon."

"Really, you and Verge are glued together with something damned strong, aren't you? I have you calling me just to hear his voice, and him working himself to the bones so that he can finish everything he's supposed to do so that he can go back earlier to see you." The sleepy man complained –not that Riko had any rights to blame him because she had literally woken him up from his sleep.

"What; he is overworking? For me?" Riko could not help her exclaim in surprise. Was Vergil actually really thinking about her?

"I don't know what other reason he can have for pulling an all-nighter yesterday and probably today as well. He's the only person in the entire conference that hasn't had a minutes' rest ever since he arrived. They're saying that only a Sparda can do it, and it's putting unfair pressure on me. Control your boyfriend, Riko, or I'm going to cut him up to pieces and send him back in a luggage." Dante said, and another explosive yawn interrupted her imminent reply. "Alright, I need my beauty sleep before Verge decides that I've slept enough. Call him if you really want to talk to him. He will definitely leave some time for you."

"Goodnight, Dante." Riko bade, and heard a loud yawn that she assumed acted as a wish for her good night came before the connection was cut.

Left alone again in the silence of the dark night, Riko stared at her phone, not feeling any better despite having talked to Dante and learnt a little bit more about the situation over at the conference. In fact, his words might have given her even more worries about her boyfriend given the way he seemed to be overworking without care for his health. Had he eaten well since leaving the house? Was he too stressed up at all his projects?

Speaking of which; why did esteemed guests of the demon hunting circle have to take up so many projects? Riko didn't have a very clear idea of the details of her boyfriend's jobs, but the main gist of their industry was that they got rid of demonic things at a price, wasn't it? Was there really so many 'projects' for her boyfriend to do, and if so, why wasn't Dante asked on the same projects as well?

After fretting about things for another long half hour, Riko took a seat on the living room couch –having given up on trying to fall asleep on the bed –with a mug of warm milk. It might still be the hot summer, but the cold night temperature still made it comfortable for warm beverage. Then, because 5 years was honestly long enough for the two of them to get over Riko's petty anger at her boyfriend for not calling her, she opened up a new text box and typed her message.

Are you busy now? I heard from Dante that you haven't slept. Please don't push yourself. I'll be waiting for you to come home.

After pressing the send button, Riko decided that sleep was just not going to come to her naturally and thumbed the button on the TV remote. If she wasn't going to sleep naturally, then she just had to watch late night shows until she forced herself to sleep. There had been days of insomnia like these previously as well, but the only difference was that she had always woken her boyfriend up, made him sit with her at the couch and snuggled up against him. Most times he just dragged his ass to the couch and fell asleep there, but it was always his presence that lulled her to sleep the fastest.

After one boring episode of a variety show that included putting an amateur actor through embarrassing situations, Riko was unfortunately not anywhere close to Dreamland when she thumbed the remote again to surf through the channels.

The sound of her phone chiming was loud in the relative silence of the house, and there was only one person who would text her so late at night.

Are you asleep?

No.

Almost immediately, Riko's phone rang, and this time the screen lit up with her boyfriend's name.

"Hello?" She almost couldn't wait to hear his voice again –despite the fact that she had heard a similar one just almost half an hour ago.

"Can't sleep?" Riko never thought that 2 words could make her entire day, but now it was coming true as the coldness of the night was suddenly chased away by a warmth that started from deep inside her.

"I've been trying."

"You're watching TV now, aren't you?"

"No." Riko lied guiltily, thumbing the mute button of the remote quickly. "Are you busy?"

"I'm on a toilet break at the moment. I will need to go in a short while."

"How have you been?" The question was mundane, but it was honestly the first thing that came to her mind.

"I've been busy."

"Liar. Dante said you took lots of projects and you haven't slept a wink since."

"Dante is a liar. I slept for five minutes during lunch today."

"That's not a lot."

"Enough for me. I'm almost done with most of my projects."

"Take your time, Vergil. You need to sleep."

"I can sleep when I get back. I will try to finish this as soon as I can."

"If Dante isn't doing anything, just throw one or two to him. Come back soon." Riko said, then hesitated for a short while before deciding to heck it. He was her boyfriend, after all. He had to accept whatever she said to him. "Come back soon, because I can't sleep without you."

"Yeah, I know." The reply held a hint of a smile, and Riko knew that he had to be smirking.

"And I'm sorry I played a tantrum before you left."

"I got the idea that you forgot about my conference when you still ignored me on Thursday night."

"I wish you told me sooner so that I could make you a good dinner before you left."

"You can make me a good one when I come back."

"Count on it."

"I have to go soon, Riko."

Riko immediately felt a small sense of dread, even though she knew that it was impossible for her boyfriend to keep on the line forever. She tried to imagine her boyfriend sitting on top of the toilet seat in a dark lonely cubicle in the washroom, holding a phone to his ear and talking with his gentle smile. She loved that mental image regardless of how stupid it looked in her mind.

"Good luck with your projects. And please go to sleep once you can."

"I'll try. But I can't sleep with Dante in the room."

"Why? I don't remember him being a snorer."

"He doesn't smell like you."

"Of course, why would he smell like...?" Riko paused. "Wait, do you mean you can't sleep without me as well?"

"I have to go, Riko. Good night."

Expectedly, her boyfriend did not allow her any time to protest before the call hung up. This time, however, Riko was no longer angry at him. Instead, she only found herself smiling stupidly at her phone.

He had told her good night.

She unmuted her television and relaxed into the couch, feeling much lighter than she had in the entire day.

Riko fell asleep in the next 5 minutes, the smile still gently hung on her face.