Title: Holding Hands
Fandom: Magic Knight Rayearth
Rating: pg
Length: 4000 words
Content notes: Post-canon by a few years and Clef seems to have unknotted some in the meantime?
Author notes: UNREPENTANT FLUFF with schooldchildren, I have no idea, WHY AM I ALWAYS POSTING IN THE LAST TEN MINUTES OF A CHALLENGE XD, written in the last three hours and basically unchecked, this is VERY MUCH flashfiction, heh.
Also for cottoncandy_bingo, 'holding hands in public'.
Summary: Clef/Umi. Five times Clef holds Umi's hand in public (and one time she holds his).
oOo

“…Ouch.” Umi said, staring at her hands. Her fingers were already a violent red, beginning to blister. She wasn’t actually feeling much yet, but she was going to, in a moment. She had caught herself on a hot cake pan more than once, in the past, and that had been bad enough.

She should be moving, she thought, mind running treacle-slow. She should get to a tap and get her hands under the cold water. Or, wait, could she summon some? Only then there were gentle fingers on her wrists, coaxing her hands over so Clef could see the worst of it; her palms, where the fireball had hit.

Clef hissed, quietly. “Sorry, Umi.” He muttered, low enough that the audience of apprentices clustered in the garden – one looking particularly guilty – wouldn’t overhear. “I didn’t spot there was anyone walking by, or I’d have held them off another minute. I swear I’m going to put warning signs up the next time I’m teaching these brats.” Umi bit down on a shaky giggle, as the deep biting ache started to reach her. By all accounts Clef had ended up with this group of children because they had managed to set their last teacher on fire – accidentally – then half drown them trying to put the fire out. Signs might be a good start. “…I need to teach you to shield. This is going to sting, I’m afraid. Unless Fuu is somewhere close by?”

“No, she and Hikaru are still in the orchards. What-“

Clef’s hands shifted until hers were laying on top of them, and the contact had her wincing – but the warning wasn’t for that, but for the magic which began to glow up from his skin a moment later. It darted through her, pins-and-needles spiking deep into her hands, and Umi had to bite down hard on her lip to keep from swearing at him. The pain was enough that static seemed to stutter out from the base of her skull, eating away at her vision and her thoughts.

Umi closed her eyes and swayed slightly; Clef stepped closer, head tilting so his forehead pressed to hers, let her rest against him as the pricking became an itch, right down in the joints of her fingers, the centre of her palm. The cool of the gem at the centre of his circlet was a welcome distraction, and she leant into it, fighting to ignore the itching.

It started to fade away a second before she would have lost control and snatched her hands back to scratch at them. She took a deep breath and let it shudder out, before opening her eyes.

Clef’s head still rested against hers. It was probably three years since he had grown, now, and still it took her by surprise sometimes – like now, his face inches from her own, eyes worried. “…Ow.” She said, softly.

His thumbs rubbed back and forth over skin newly healed and over sensitive, the touch almost ticklish. “Sorry,” he said, again. “Healing spells aren’t my best skill.” He pulled back then, and she had to grin, even while she was a little bit… disappointed?

“You’re right about that.” She said, looking down at her hands now. The skin was unmarked again; she turned her hands in Clef’s grasp so she could see the backs too, her fingertips pressing against the thin skin of his wrists; she could feel his pulse. He didn’t let go, and she didn’t pull away, even as the seconds stretched on.

“Well, lightning is better at hurting than fixing things.” Clef pointed out, with a sigh. “Do you feel alright now, Umi?”

“Yes, thank you.” She looked back up at him – and caught sight of their audience over his shoulder. There were seven of them, all in what she now knew were the robes of an apprentice mage – heavy duty and hard to burn, according to Ascot – all looking like they were in their early teens. Their actual age could have been anything… but they were all staring with unabashed fascination, and Umi coloured. “…Uh. Shouldn’t you be paying attention to your students right now?”

“Do they look suitably irritated with Aygo yet?” He asked, still not turning back. “…Or are they distracted by the Knight of Water gatecrashing their lesson?” Umi blinked at him, then laughed.

“Distracted.”

“Pity.” He said, grin flashing across his face before he finally turned back – but.

He let go one of her hands, as he turned, but the other stayed fastened on hers, pulling gently until she came with him as he walked back to the group of children, and stopped in front of them, a glare on his face. “Aygo?”

“I’m sorry, Lady Knight!” Said the boy who looked guilty – who had flung the fireball in her direction, while he was looking the other way. “I didn’t mean to-“

Clef held up his hand – the one which wasn’t still holding hers, and Umi was trying very hard to ignore that now, the way his fingers were curled casually about hers as if it was nothing.

“First rule of offensive magic.” He said, flatly.

“Always look where you’re casting!” Chorused the children, though a few more of them were looking guilty now.

“And what happens if you break the rules?”

“Sit out the lesson, write a formal apology, write an analysis and history of the spell you were casting!” They chorused again, and Aygo pulled a face at the last of that.

“It was only a fire spell! There’s hardly anything to analyse, I’ll never be able to fill out six sheets of paper on it!” He looked pleadingly at Clef, who just raised one eyebrow.

“Then it is a good thing that it happens to be such a common spell, and there should certainly be enough on its uses in history to fill out the sides you have left.” Clef stated, and the boy deflated. “…You have a full week until your next practical lesson, that should be plenty of time. And you can come to me if you get stuck, so long as you have been trying. Umi will not be here again for the same length of time, so you may take your time with the written apology, as well.” He shot a glance sideways at Umi, then. “…You are planning on visiting next Saturday as usual, are you not?”

“Yeah. Though, Clef, I don’t really need an apology- he said he was sorry, after all-“

Clef grinned sharply. “Perhaps, but he’s still going to write one. They’re enough of a pain he might actually think the next time he starts casting without looking what he’s throwing fire at. Right, Aygo?”

“Yes, Guru.” Aygo said, ruefully, and Clef nodded.

“Well, then. So long as no one else is going to own up to casting while distracted, shall we try to get some actual work done? Back to your places, go on – shoo. Evora, you were working with Aygo, weren’t you? Pair up with Demio now, please. That will leave me free to keep an eye on the rest of you lot.”

Giggling, the children – and they were children, Umi realised, not just young-looking – scattered back about the garden, and Clef drew her away and back to the path, keeping a watchful eye on the class as he did so.

“Sorry again, Umi.” He said, and now – only now – he let go of her hand. Umi pulled it back, and it felt almost cold – she shoved it into her pocket, shrugging.

“Not your fault. I was too busy watching the girl with water magic to pay attention to the rest of them. …Sorry for gatecrashing your lesson, though.”

“That’s not a problem. You’re welcome to turn up anytime you want to watch a bunch of miscreants failing to pay attention – hey!” He raised his voice, and one girl flinched visibly and dropped the small tornado she seemed to have been calling up, and threw a much simpler spell at the boy she was partnered with, much to his apparent relief as his shield reflected it away. Clef sighed, but his mouth was twitching into a smile again. “In fact, if you dare come back next week, Aygo can hand over his apology then.”

“…You know I won’t be able to read it, right?” She pointed out, and since when did Clef grin this much?

“Yes, but he doesn’t need to know that until after he has written it. …Shall I tell him to bring it then? Or would you prefer not to come – you don’t have to, it’s only a suggestion, of course. I’m sure you have better things to do-“

“I’ll have plenty of time to drop in on you.” Umi assured him. “…Same time, same place?”

“Every week.” He nodded, and then he was muttering something dark as the girl with the wind magic let her spell twist into another tornado – he held out one hand, and muttered a swift word; a far stronger shield flashed into place about the poor boy facing it down, and the tornado rebounded towards the girl, eliciting a yelp before she managed to drop it. “…She really needs to get control of that.”

“I’ll leave you to your work, then.” Umi said, laughing, as he nodded and stalked back across the lawn. She wandered back to the castle, and tried to keep her mind away from Clef’s fingers on hers. He hadn’t meant anything by it, after all. Couldn’t have.

oOo

The next week, Umi walked through the castle gardens rather more cautiously – but when she rounded the corner to the small plain area Clef had taken over for his class, there were spells flying everywhere. She stood on the path and watched, bemused, as the children ran about throwing attacks at glimmering balls of lightning which were darting erratically through the air, occasionally flying down and chasing after one of them if they missed with a spell, and new ones forming in the centre of the area to replace those which were taken out. They were laughing, and occasionally shrieking when the light chased them over the lawn, weaving about each other and ducking each other’s spells.

It looked… like fun. And Aygo must have finished his essay well enough, because he was dashing about with the others. Clef was stood to one side, a faint flickering about him – a shield, so he could ignore the stray attacks flashing about, and keep his focus on redirecting anything which looked like it was about to hit another one of the apprentices. But he noticed Umi, this time, and walked about the edge of the battleground to her.

The flicker of the shield was letting off a low hum, and the hair on the back of her neck stood up as he got closer; it flickered only about thirty centimetres from his body, and when he held out a hand to her, he was reaching though it. Umi blinked, and stared at his hand for a moment – then shrugged and took it in hers.

There was a swift prickling, ticklish sensation as the shield expanded, pushing out to engulf her as well. “Good afternoon.” Clef said, while she was still blinking. “I see you decided to risk turning up again?”

“Yes – looks like they’re having fun?”

Clef grinned, and he was holding onto her hand again, pulling her with him as he walked back about the edge of the garden; Umi flinched the first few times a spell fizzled out on the shield by her head, but she could feel nothing through the protective spell. Even the noise of the children yelling as they dashed about seemed muted from in here.

…So the hand-holding must be keeping the shield about her this time. That made sense, right? Because even when they stopped moving, Clef didn’t let go.

“They’ve only got a few more minutes before the spell generating the targets will run out of energy. And hopefully they’ll have a little less, after charging about for half an hour. …I’d suggest you join in, but I’d like them to have some targets left to practise on without you taking them all out.” Clef told her, absently setting a shield up behind one of the children as one of Aygo’s fireballs missed its target and kept on going.

“Was that a compliment?” Umi asked, blinking.

“More a statement? …You tend to have the same issue with using too much power that Meriva has.”

Umi huffed. “Well, we didn’t have anyone teaching us what we were meant to be doing when we learnt magic.”

“…I know.” Clef said, quietly, and Umi flinched. She hadn’t meant to remind him of- well, what he hadn’t done for them.

She squeezed his hand hard enough he made a strangled noise of protest, glancing across at her. “That means you’re going to have to let us have a go at this game later.” She told him. “I bet Hikaru will want to play – we can probably talk Fuu into it, too…”

“I’m only useful for my spells, is that it?”

“Of course.” She grinned, and tangled their fingers together, less forcefully. He smiled at her, relaxing again, and they watched the end of the training session play out until the last of the targets had been hit, and the apprentices were collapsing on the floor, laughing and breathing hard.

Aygo had spotted her, though, and as he came across Clef let the shield flicker away, and – yes – let go of her. He nodded at the boy, and Umi accepted the letter she was offered with due gravity. (It certainly looked impressive, though she couldn’t read a word of it.)

“I had to ask the Guru how to spell your name, Lady Knight.” Aygo said, uncertainly. “…I hope it’s okay?”

“I’m sure it’s fine.” Umi said, grinning. “Just watch where you’re throwing your spells next time, okay? I don’t want to have to let Clef heal me again, he’s rubbish at it.”

Aygo grinned, tried not to, and then fled; Umi stayed to watch the rest of the lesson, lingering in the background, and then helped Clef herd them all back to the Castle proper afterwards before she wandered off to find Hikaru and Fuu again.

oOo

The next week… she had no excuse, but she found herself wandering down to the lesson yet again, and Clef didn’t shoo her away when she turned up. He actually smiled, and wandered over – “we’re working on shielding, this week.” He told her, unnecessarily, as each apprentice was sat in their own bubble of magic – some more spherical than others, and a few inclined to falling apart. One girl was sat looking damp and irritated, attempting to spin water about herself – Meriva was looking decidedly windswept, and Aygo just looked overheated.

“So I see.”

“Do you want to have a go? I did say I should teach you shielding, and I don’t need to keep as close an eye on this lot this week. Even Aygo is only going to get himself in trouble.”

Umi blinked, but nodded. She’d always wanted to be able to pull this off, like Fuu and Clef could. “I’ll have a go – what should I do?”

“Come off the path, for one thing. The gardeners are charging me every time they have to come in and fix it.” Clef said, and he smiled – again – and Umi knew that the main reason she kept coming back wasn’t really that Clef kept holding her hands. (Even though she shivered as he did it again to lead her across the lawn to a free space, and, well, she wasn’t complaining about that bit. Touching him was… just a little addictive, when she could get away with it.) It was that this was the first time she’d seen him so openly happy since she had known him, and every time he smiled at her it felt like he was inviting her to be a part of that with him.

Now, he pulled both her hands up to face him, palms flat, and then let go and walked about her. “Keep your hands like that, to start with.” He instructed, as Umi turned to watch him – and she wasn’t going to sigh at his letting go, really. “You should concentrate on pushing the magic out from your hands and letting it curve back into a circle behind you – don’t try to send it all one way just yet, that’s harder to keep balanced. Just a tube, too, no need to make it a sphere; let go of it when it touches itself behind you, or we’re going to get splashed.”

…Wait. We’re going to get splashed?

She twisted to look just as Clef stepped close behind her, arms wrapping about her and his hands resting on her forearms. “Imagine what you want the magic to do, before you call it.” He said, calmly, though Umi’s heart was racing twice as fast as usual. “You haven’t got such a strong goal as you did learning the rest of your spells, it’ll be a bit different, but you need to find words in that same way – visualising what you want to do should bring them up.”

“Hey!” One of the older girls called, grinning. “How come she gets special tutoring?”

“Did you all do the reading before you got here this week?” Clef called back, and there was a chorus of affirmation, a few fervently nodding heads – Umi ducked her head and tried not to laugh, wondering what the punishment was for not doing the reading. Even more reading, probably. “Well then, you shouldn’t need any special treatment!”

“She could do the reading though, couldn’t she?” The youngest of them all asked, wide-eyed; his shield fell apart while he was talking, and he ruined the impression of innocence with the way his nose wrinkled at that.

“The Lady Knight is from a land where they use a different system for writing, so no, actually, she can’t.” Clef told him – and ignored Aygo’s sudden betrayed comment about his ‘painstaking apology’. “Get on with it, all of you. You’ve shielded before, anyway – don’t you want to say you were better than a Magic Knight at a spell?”

There was a thrum in the air as seven people redoubled their efforts to hold a shield together. Umi gave up, and laughed, slumping back against Clef’s chest – and he didn’t back away, just let her stay there. It was strangely comfortable, all her tension bleeding away as she laughed. “You’d better give them a run for their money now, or they’ll be awful next week.” He told her, cheerfully.

“You bet I will.” Umi promised, and it took her the entire rest of the lesson – and both she and Clef were rather damp by the end of it – but she could just about hold a sphere of water about herself by the end of it.

(And the success – and inadvertent soaking she’d given herself – proved a good excuse to give Hikaru and Fuu every time she started grinning at nothing that evening,)

oOo

The forth week she went along to the lesson, she found Clef watching from a perch on the back of his Griffin friend, which was curled on the floor watching in apparent amusement as the apprentices watched Ascot demonstrating how to summon creatures. One Umi recognised – Yaris, she thought, who was bipedal but mostly bird-featured (and also enormous), was sat on the ground with three of the apprentices perched on his legs already, and Merida giving his shoulder a contemplative look when she thought no one was looking.

“Ooh, summoning!” She said, stopping beside the Griffin and speaking for Clef’s benefit. “I can do this!”

She raised her hand, mostly in jest – she was wearing her gauntlet today, had started putting it on when she came along to the lessons just in case – and suddenly Clef was beside her, grabbing her hands and dragging them back down again.

“No. ” He told her, trying not to laugh. “We’ll let Ascot handle this. I don’t think we need a dragon turning up in the middle of the lesson, thank you – they’re distracted enough already!”

“Spoilsport.” She told him, grinning back. She pulled one hand away to pat the griffin on the beak, though; he closed his eyes and pushed into the touch, knocking her backwards into Clef, who caught her and laughed.

“Stop that, you.” He said, affection clear in his voice as he reached past her to scratch the downy feathers at the base of that wickedly curved beak. His other hand was on Umi’s waist – and when he pulled away, he offered it back to her, nodding to the griffin’s back. “Want to stay and watch anyway?”

“…Okay.” She said, and let him help her up, though it would probably have been easier without.

And if his hand stayed over hers, pressed into the soft fur of the griffin’s back as they sat next to each other, well. That was just because they were sitting close enough their shoulders were almost touching. It had to be, because Clef still didn’t seem to think it was unusual, although it was driving Umi insane now. She wanted… more than this.

But how would she ever say that? Clef just hadn’t noticed what he was doing, that had to be it, because he wasn’t doing anything else.

Just… holding her hand, in public.

(The children were used to this by now. Ascot gave them an odd look, which Umi ignored with far less grace than Clef managed.)

oOo

The last straw was dinner, the same night. The Knights reached the doors to the hall at the same time as Clef arrived; he waited politely for them to go through, and Umi dropped back to let Hikaru and Fuu lead; only two would fit comfortably through the doors. She smiled at Clef as he stepped up beside her – and as they walked across the threshold, he reached across absently and tangled their fingers together.

Umi froze. Clef stalled, next to her, and then blinked down at their joined hands, and flushed. He tried to let go, but Umi wouldn’t let him – she held on tighter, and then turned on her heel, ignoring his protest – and the startled calls of her friends – to tow him right back out of the room.

“Umi, where are we going?” He asked, plaintively, though he had given up on trying to get away without actually trying hard at all. Umi shrugged, staring into the rooms they passed, dismissing them all – there were people in them.

“Somewhere we won’t be overheard.” She muttered back at him, and the next door she yanked open was a large storage cupboard, lined with shelves holding boxes of rocks labelled in Presea’s handwriting. “…This will do, come on-“

She pulled him inside, and then pulled the door shut. There was a window high on the back wall, slanting late afternoon light down over them, making it light enough she could see his expression when she pulled their joined hands up between them.

“You keep doing this, Clef. You keep holding my hand, like it’s nothing, and I can’t – why? Why are you doing this?”

“…I’m sorry.” He said, quietly. He looked away, into the shadows lining the room. “I hadn’t realised I was – I will stop. I am sorry for bothering you-“

“That’s not it!” She snapped, and he glanced back at her, uncertain. “It’s not…” She bit her lip, shoulders sagging a little. “But, Clef… does it, uh. …Does it mean anything? Because it feels like… it should, and if it doesn’t-“

“…What do you want it to mean?” He asked, softly, and he was turning back towards her now, his free hand hesitating in mid-air. When she didn’t flinch away, he reached out, slowly, and took her other hand.

“…Something important.” She muttered, and she knew she was flushing, couldn’t do anything to stop it – she looked away, suddenly feeling too exposed under his gaze, and he let go of her hands; well, there it is, she thought, closing her eyes and sighing, letting her hands drop to fist at her sides. He doesn’t want…

Clef’s fingers turned her face back towards him as his other hand came to rest gently at her waist. Umi’s eyes shot open to stare as he stepped forwards, hesitated, then leaned down towards her. “…Something like this?” He whispered, in the heavy space between them, and Umi was still shivering from his words ghosting over her lips when his mouth met hers.

There was a pause for a moment as they both stood there, just barely touching – then Umi whimpered and reached out to pull him as close as she could. The kiss accelerated with a rush, and she barely knew what she was doing – but he could teach her this, too.

She was more than willing to practise with him.

oOo

When they walked back into the hall half an hour later, slightly dusty and a little bit dishevelled, Umi had Clef’s hand in her own and she wasn’t letting go.

oOo

end

oOo