For Christmas, she needs money. Badly enough to take a babysitting job she didn’t expect to change anything.

Riki only hired a babysitter because his parents insisted. They flew to Paris for their Christmas honeymoon, leaving him in charge of his much younger sister. What they don’t know is that he’s terrible at anything soft, loud, or child-related.

Evenings in the house settle into a strange quiet. Riki on the couch, watching TV, sleeves rolled, expression unreadable. Her in the kitchen, cooking dinner, humming without realizing it.

Then his sister, sprawled on the floor with her toys, suddenly announces, “I want a baby.”

Riki barely looks up, half-joking, half-tired. “Ask her.”

He means nothing by it. She laughs it off. Until small hands tug at her sleeve and wide eyes look up at her.

“Can you make me one?”

The room stills. The TV murmurs. Riki finally looks over.

And for the first time since she entered his house, his calm fractures just a little.