#3 am category five disaster pining fic my beloved dghk

[canarymemories]

future lover

rating: general audiences

archive warning: no archive warnings apply

relationship: narukami arashi/sakuma ritsu

additional tags: fluff, pining, 3 am category five disaster pining to be exact, sharing a bed, literal sleeping together, pre-relationship

published: 2023-09-15

words: 1316

summary: sometimes the words i love you seem so ready to fall from his lips.

for naruritsu week day 6: napping/acceptance

here on ao3

as ritsu feels himself waking up, he pushes his face into his pillow, not wanting to be awake yet. he peeks an eye open after a minute or so to see that the room is still dark, faint moonlight outlining the curtains in front of the window. he quietly huffs. it’s been a while since his more nocturnal instincts made themselves known, waking him up in the dead of night and keeping him awake for no good reason.

he settles, pulling the blanket up over his shoulder when he hears a faint noise in front of him. it’s then that he remembers that he isn’t alone.

with mika out of the country to visit shu, ritsu had managed to convince arashi to stay the night with him. it’d taken some pouting and puppy dog eyes and him saying, “but nacchan, i’ll be so lonely without mikarin here,” for arashi to fondly roll her eyes and finally say yes. it’d taken a little more to convince her to share his bed once she came back, having gone down the hall briefly to her own dorm to run through her nighttime routine.

she gave in easily to that as well, most likely having expecting it all things considered.

ritsu latched onto her quickly once she sat on his bed, wrapping himself around her as they go back to watching the movie that had been on before she excused herself to her room. the last thing he remembers is the two of them laying down, arashi jokingly nagging at him as she said she didn’t want to be stuck sitting up with him passed out on her all night.

once laying down, he’d snuggled up to her back, half asleep, and slung an arm over her waist. arashi had paused for a second before leading his arm closer to her, leaving his hand by her chest. “good night, ritsu-chan,” she whispered.

ritsu hadn’t replied in anything more than an incoherent mumble, sliding close enough to press his forehead to her back to block out the light in the room. he must’ve fallen asleep not long after that.

seeing that she’s now facing him with enough distance between them that ritsu hadn’t noticed her at first, arashi must’ve wiggled her way out of his grasp at some point.

he can tell he won’t be able to go back to sleep anytime soon, so ritsu moves closer to her. arashi is peacefully asleep, a hand curled under her cheek that leaves her mouth slightly ajar in a way that doesn’t look very comfortable, but who is ritsu to judge? he’s fallen asleep in plenty of strange places in equally strange ways over the years.

her hair is tousled with sleep, falling across her forehead in a way that’s oddly captivating to him. though ritsu’s fingers twitch with the urge to fix it, to carefully brush the strands back behind her ear where they won’t stay, he leaves it be. it’s not that often that he gets to see the imperfect side of arashi, the side of herself that she seldom lets others see.

though the room is dim, he can make out the dusting of freckles across her cheekbone and up over the bridge of her nose. normally, they’re dutifully covered up by her makeup. would she let them show more if he told her they’re beautiful?

he’s told arashi that she’s pretty plenty of times among countless other words that mean the same, so he adds that compliment to a future list of things he’ll tell her when they’re awake.

arashi will probably huff and deny anything he throws her way when it comes to what she considers to be imperfections, which is a shame when he truly means every word of it. ritsu likes to think that one day, he’ll break through that wall she has up, get through to her in some way. maybe that day will be sooner rather than later seeings as he trusts him enough to be comfortable without makeup around him. it’s not the first time he’s seen her without it, cheeks littered with freckles and tiny acne scars, eyes not popping quite as much without the liner, and her lips without their eternal shine.

he treats each of those moments as if he’s been entrusted with some well kept secret that he’s sworn to keep until the day he dies, and treasures them all the same.

aside from that, arashi trusts him to sleep so soundly in front of him, vulnerable as she nuzzles into the pillow under her head. ritsu smiles as he watches her. he's fallen asleep in front of her countless times, on her just as many. he trusts her to watch over him, though there's hardly any danger he has to be protected from, and the way her fingers card through his hair as he dozes with his head in her lap serves as a reminder that she'll be there once he wakes.

ritsu wants to be that for her too: a loyal protector, a knight for his queen. arashi is far from a damsel in distress no matter how often she likes to play as one, but he wants to be there for her then. to be able to stand by her side for all the highs and lows, to hold her close and wipe her tears when she's sad, to hold her hand and look on when she shines brighter than any star in the sky is all he wants.

he wants to see all of arashi. ritsu has seen behind her mask before, mostly in fleeting moments, but he wants to be there for it all, for all the happy parts or the ugly parts or whatever she wants to give him. he'd willingly take it all.

sometimes the words i love you seem so ready to fall from his lips.

it would be easy to whisper them now in the quiet of his dorm, but that wouldn't be fair to arashi. ritsu wants to tell her when they're both awake so she can't laugh off his confession as some pleasant dreams of his bleeding into reality. he knows well enough the way arashi's cheeks flush a faint pink, the way the tips of her ears go red, the way she gets just a tiny bit bashful when their normal playful flirting turns more serious. he wonders what she'll look like when he tells her his feelings.

it'd be easy to whisper those words now, but ritsu needs her to know just how much he loves her, has loved her this entire time. and for that, he can wait — has waited — for the right moment so they can live their happily ever after together. until then, he'll stick by arashi's side, content as they are for the time being.

ritsu softly yawns, drowsiness starting to pull at his eyelids, making them wang to stick together as the familiar draw of sleep pulls him back under. blinking his eyes back open, he sees arashi once more. he can smell the faint remains of her usual perfume and something as small as that puts him at ease as if he hadn't already been.

a sleepy smile tugs at the corners of ritsu's mouth as he carefully places his arm around arashi's waist. not wanting to disturb her sleep, especially when she's been gracious enough to let him snooze in peace for years at this point, ritsu decides against pulling her in against him. he instead settles in with his head on the same pillow as hers.

his eyes close once more, no longer fighting the sleep for one final moment of admiring arashi. assured that she will still be there in the morning, ritsu drifts off for the second time that night with the thought that their right moment is one day closer floating around in his mind.

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end notes: what is sleep if not an eight hour nap slkdgh sometimes self care is writing something so soft you have to look away from the screen for a minute