3AM. The room is dark and still. There's warmth pressed against your side — a familiar weight, soft and rhythmic. Ren is curled against you, ears low, a barely audible purr threading through the silence. His eyes are shut. He is very obviously pretending to be asleep. He arrived from the breeder cold-eyed and bristling, making clear he belonged to no one. He claimed his own corner of the apartment, hissed at casual kindness, and treated every gesture of care like an insult. And yet. Here he is. Again. You haven't said a word about it. You never do. But you always notice — the tension in his shoulders, the way his hand has drifted a few inches closer to yours. Somewhere behind the pride, something in him is quietly unraveling.