After a ten to fifteen-minute silence in the car and with Natsu asleep in the back, Ryosuke parked at the driveway of the friends’ old house. It still looked new just like how she had remembered it. The rich, green grass was neatly cut, and pots of flowers were decorated outside a lining around the cemented roadway leading to the stairs of the entrance.

She was surprised when he took off his seatbelt and opened his side of the door. “Y-you’re getting out?!” In fear of him causing trouble to whomever the new homeowner was, she followed him out of the car after confirming that her son was still deeply asleep. She ran to stand in front of Ryosuke. “What do you think you’re doing?”

“Going in?” He looked amused.

“More like breaking in!” she hissed, losing her patience and her mind. How much did her friend change? Even if he was joking, he’d never joke about anything like this.

“I’m not breaking in. I’m—”

“Ryosuke, some other family lives here now. You can’t just drop by simply for Memory Lane’s sakes!” She took him by the hand and tried to drag him back to the car, but he slipped his hand through hers and caught her fingertips to get her attention.

“Don’t you want to remember too?” He tightened his clutch on her fingers, hoping to persuade her.

She resisted and removed her fingers from him. “Natsu’s asleep, and I don’t want you—us—to get into trouble.”

“We won’t,” he strongly insisted as he searched for something in his pockets. He took it out, and a metal key dangled from his fingers. “I’ve got the keys.”

She was at a loss for words. How? Why?

“I’m the homeowner.”

*

Mirai comfortably—well, tried to look comfortable—sat down while waiting for Ryosuke to put Natsu to sleep on a couch in front of her. Her eyes were tempted to look around because everything in the room, and possibly everything in the house, was still where she had last seen them. The same old television set was next to her, the same marble dining table was neatly polished, and there was no speck of dust anywhere.

Ryosuke tucked the boy and then sat next to her, which blocked her view of seeing the kitchen and everything behind, so she immediately averted her eyes to not look at her friend. He said, “I occasionally come back to clean the place.”

For what? she mentally asked but didn’t dare to do. She didn’t even dare to think that it was for her and Natsu. Instead, she slightly nodded.

“Think I did a good job?” He added a smile, something he shouldn’t do much because it always got the best of her.

Again, she nodded. She couldn’t tell where he was going with these useless, but hurtful questions.

“Jaa, want to come back and live with me?”

Her heart almost stopped, her arms almost lunged forward to hug him, and her lips were tempted to answer yes. But the image of her smiling son flashed in her mind, and her temptations ceased.

Including her wish for Ryosuke’s happiness.

With a much lower and calmer voice, he looked down at the ground and intertwined his fingers together. “Mi-chan.”

She couldn’t help but freeze in her spot.

“I want to get one thing straight that I didn’t ask before. Because I was too scared to hear the truth.” He paused and maintained his mentality before asking, “Is it because of me that you left?”

Silence encompassed the room.

“It is, isn’t it?”

Her heart wanted her to say the truth, but her mind told her she needed to say yes.

“You can say it. I won’t get hurt.”

She stole a glance at her friend. Liar. That expression of yours, that soft, worried expression tells me you will. I don’t want to hurt you any more than this. She heaved a heavy and depressing sigh as she got up from her seat, making him flinch. She purposely stretched to show how “comfortable” she was and said, “I think it’s time we head home now. Natsu’s asleep, and—”

He stood up and interrupted her, “I know he’s always your sun. He’s the bright light you love. But, but just once, Mi-chan,” he took a step forward to her, “have you ever thought of looking back at me? I can’t be your sun, and I’m not asking to replace him, but sometimes, just even a little, I want you to look at me too.” He wasn’t asking for the world. He was asking for her. Because she was his world.

The friends continued to stand, frozen in the silence, with him looking at her from behind, and only the exhausting breaths of Natsu’s fatigue were heard throughout the room. She gave one more look around the house, and Ryosuke caught her doing so. He watched her recall memories, whether good or bad to her, and he saw her react little by little to them.

“Ryosuke,” she softly muttered, and he expected to hear something good from her. “Natsu may have always been my sun, and he’ll always be, but... When I left you, reality hit me, and I missed you like crazy. I even thought, ‘to damn with this’.”

He smiled but knew it was too soon to celebrate.

“At the time, even if the seas separated us, even if heaven drew a line for us, as long as we’re still on the same Earth with you… I…” wanted to be in your arms. She didn’t speak for a while. She couldn’t complete her sentence. She was afraid that if she did, he’d hear her true feelings, and when he knew of it, she couldn’t deny them, and when she couldn’t deny them, he’d want her, and when he wanted her, she’d want him, and when she wanted him, she couldn’t protect what she needed to protect. It was a bad domino effect.

He knew she wouldn’t finish her sentence, so he hugged her from the back to show how much he yearned for her. He then hid his pleading expression on her shoulders. “I don’t care if we’re on the same Earth separated by seas, or heaven, or even fire for that matter! I want to live under the same roof with you and Natsu!” He wrapped his arms tighter around her, and she felt his warm body along with the silent but painful pleas from him.

She knew he was sobbing, and she couldn’t bear to hear him cry alone, let alone seeing him cry. The gentle falls of his cold tears stung her like fire, and without a moment to lose, she flipped around and wrapped her arms around his neck as she hugged him back. “Baka, since when did you become such a crybaby?!” She simultaneously laughed and wiped his tears. “Even Natsu didn’t cry this much when he was a baby.”

“Jaa, shut me up.” It was a shy mutter as he was buried in her embrace.

“...Eh?”

He pulled away, stared straight into her dark, brown eyes, and saw that she was trying to resist looking like she was crying too. He wiped the damp parts of her face and gently caressed her cheeks. He then moved his gaze from her eyes to her pink lips. “My heart hurts, and like a wounded kid who needs their mom to kiss the pain away, a man needs his girl to do the same. Will you?” He hinted to her what her magic was by continuously caressing her bottom lip.

Although they were crying moments ago, she felt the urge to laugh but knew it wasn’t the appropriate time to do so, so instead, thanks to his annoying finger by her lip, she nipped his thumb.

He pulled back in shock and exclaimed, “What’d you do that for?!”

She proudly and victoriously smirked. “That’s for last time.”

“Last time?” He thought, hard, about what he had done to her that had made her do this atrocious act to him.

She pointed at him. “You called me a ert!”

He laughed to himself. “Oh! I should’ve known!”

“What’s so funny? I don’t want to be called a ert, especially not in front of Natsu or your brother.”

He closed the distance between them again, which she didn’t seem to mind. She even allowed him to wrap his arms around her waist again as he sweetly looked at her. With a soft and sultry voice, he quietly whispered to her, “I forgot you like it .”

Before she knew it, one of his hands tipped her chin up to him as he tilted his head down for a kiss, and momentarily, she closed her eyes and let her emotions take over.

*

“…great …dad.”

Still half-asleep, Mirai’s ears perked up to the subtle chit-chat from outside the window.

It sounded like Natsu was conversing with someone.

Not wanting to get up, she turned to the opposite side and tried to go back to sleep. Due to the laughter from her son and an extra voice she couldn’t make out, she got up only to see that the bed she was on wasn’t hers. In fact, the entire place wasn’t hers! She then recalled that she had slept at the one place she never thought she’d ever step foot in again.

She couldn’t believe that Ryosuke had kept everything she had left behind for him still in its place, let alone cleaning them once in a while. She had assumed that once she left him, he’d move out and would want nothing that contained memories of her and Natsu. Who would’ve thought he’d be sentimental enough and courageous enough to hold onto it?

She gently glided a hand over the mattress and painfully smiled.

He wasn’t the coward. She was.

He was strong enough to stay in the house that mocked him for his loss just for the one glimmer of hope he had believed that they’d come back to him.

She knew she could never do that. She wouldn’t have the courage to. Let alone Natsu, if Ryosuke ever left her without notice, she’d have no meaning in life and nothing would matter to her. She wiped away a fallen tear and hurriedly got off the bed to go to where her son was. Passing by the mirror, she saw her messy bed hair, so she fixed it before leaving the room. Reaching to the bottom of the stairs, she made a left and saw the two boys playing a small game of catch outside through the sliding door.

From outside, Natsu saw his mother, so he shouted for her and stopped the game to run inside to give her a morning hug as Ryosuke followed him in and closed the sliding door behind him.

“Morning, sweetie.” She tightly hugged her son and glanced at Ryosuke, and the friends sent a telepathic morning greeting to each other.

“I’ve made breakfast for him already,” said Ryosuke. Coming to the duo in front of him, he tussled the young boy’s hair. “You can take a bath upstairs.”

Natsu sent Ryosuke a nod and ran up the stairs.

“Be careful, Natsu,” said Mirai, watching him with a bit of worry.

When Natsu was halfway up the stairs, Ryosuke instantly pulled her into a hug and moved them into the kitchen area in case Natsu came back downstairs.

“What are you doing?” she quietly asked, still encaged in his arms.

“Giving you my morning hug,” he answered with a satisfied grin. “And my morning kiss.” He stole a kiss from her before she pinched him to be free from his grasp. “That hurt,” he said, putting a hand over the wound.

She quickly changed subjects to hide her blushing. “Did you have a good sleep?”

A wide smile slapped across his face, and he held her hands. “If you cared so much for me, why didn’t you let me sleep with you and Natsu?”

She had broken up last night’s kiss because she was reminded of Natsu sleeping on the sofa, and since it was late—more like Ryosuke didn’t want to take them home—Ryosuke had them used their old bedroom. He wanted to sleep with them like old times, but due to Natsu’s grown height and body figure in comparison to when he was just a hand-sized baby, the bed was too small for three figures, so he had slept in his old bedroom.

“Baka, why would we sleep together?” She took this chance to check the place where she had pinched him. “Sorry.”

He gave her a soft peck on her forehead. “It’s okay. The next time we sleep together, I want it to be when we’re a family again.”

She slowly looked up to him because she knew it wouldn’t happen, but he faithfully believed so.

He pinched her cheeks. “I’ll make breakfast for us while you check on him and get ready for later.”

“Later?”

“Let’s show him the memories we shared.”

*

Mirai would’ve denied and objected to Ryosuke’s idea of spending a day in their old neighborhood to walk on memory lane with Natsu, but she couldn’t find the courage to do so. Ryosuke’s shimmering eyes sparkled and begged for her compliance, and she lost to it. At first, she had thought it’d be a bad idea and that something would go wrong, but she had found herself enjoying it.

If it weren’t for Ryosuke, she wouldn’t have known that the park had been rebuilt for safety issues and concerns; the library was close to shutting down; and the local department store had been renovated four times after she left.

But what was most surprising was the unchanging daycare center she, Ryosuke, and Natsu had frequented.

“This was my old daycare, Mom?” Natsu asked in amazement while eyeing every single space of the center. He couldn’t recall such a place because the only daycare center he knew of was the one he currently attended.

The old center was much smaller in comparison, but it was much cleaner. There were hardly any toys on the ground, and everything was neatly placed in its appropriate area. Everything looked sanitary, and the little children in the center hardly made any kind of ruckus. They seemed to enjoy the center as much as Natsu liked the place.

At his current daycare center, the kids younger than him would make a fuss if any kind of media or entertainment wasn’t something they knew. He had once witnessed a boy younger than him wail on the floor with a flushed, wet, and red face because he wanted to listen to “The Wheels on the Bus” instead of “Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes.”

But here, the background music was a subtle, gentle, and soothing instrumental, and the kids paid no attention to it. Even when a kid was sitting on t