Title: Lingering Symptoms
Rating: Teen
Length: 975 words
Content notes: Vague mentions of the existence of a sexual relationship?
Author notes: This is sort of related to The Guru Flu over on magicknightrayearth.
Summary: (Umi/Clef) Clef's third visit to Tokyo is far worse the previous two. He wants to blame the cold he'd had last month.


It was Clef's third visit to Tokyo.

Each visit before had been punctuated by the stretch of magic in his chest, like a tightly pulled tether tugging him home, but this one was by far the worse. Perhaps it was the lingering cold - the first he'd had in decades - that was making breathing even more difficult and everything else uncomfortable. Or it could have just been the sheer number of people doing his head in. The first visit had been full of startled amazement and meeting Umi's parents and all manner of excitement to distract from the discomfort.

The newness hadn't quite worn out on the second visit, and Umi's parents had travelled to Cephiro by then, so there was plenty to talk about.

But the third visit was something else entirely. Clef doubled over when they made it to Tokyo Tower. It felt like all the air had been pulled from his lungs with that jump. He hadn't had a spell slam him so hard since his training days. Not even trying to hold an entire castle together against the raging force of Cephiro's crumbling could hold a candle to the weight of the distance on him.

A cup of tea in the cafe was followed by a cab ride and another cup of tea once they reached Umi's house.

The heat of the mug was grounding, cradled in his hands, a sensation he could focus on while ignoring the sharp ache in his chest. The meal that followed was more quiet and subdued than it had been the previous visits, and it did little to ease the discomfort. If anything, it made it worse. This was an important visit - Umi was moving to Cephiro soon - and he should still be trying his best to make a good impression, and yet he was being an absolute drag.

Afterward, Umi had taken his hand and led him upstairs to her room, and set about distracting him as thoroughly as possible, and it was several hours later when Clef untangled himself from a contently sleeping Umi and climbed out of her bed.

Clad in his own crumpled clothing, he was very conscious of how he and Umi had passed the time and the fact that Umi's parents were still very much at home. It wasn't that they didn't have some idea that he and Umi were sleeping together; it was just that the past two visits, he and Umi had gone elsewhere to do so - like a hotel - or at least waited until they were the only ones in the house.

The house was quiet when he made his way back downstairs. It took a moment to remember lights came on with the flick of a switch, not the wave of a hand or the mutter of a word, but he made it to the kitchen with little difficulty.

It was easy enough to work the kettle. Umi had explained how it worked on his first visit, but she and her parents had been so attentive during his visits, that he hadn't actually needed to use that knowledge until now. He filled it with what as hopefully an appropriate amount of water and put it on while he located the mugs, of which he chose the largest most comfortable one. He'd half debated on a full teapot, but that seemed a step too far, and a mug seemed to fit better in the crockery cleaning contraption they had under that one corner of the worktop.

The biggest problem came when he tried to work out the tea. He had some idea what options existed, and was rather fond of 'Breakfast', 'Earl Grey', and 'Peppermint', but when faced with the actual boxes, he had no idea what he was looking at. Every last one of them - ten in total - had the same gold stripe with words across the top, which presumably said 'tea'?

Then there were the colours and pictures which were absolutely useless for decoding what was in each. Was 'Earl Grey' a type of tree? Which one was the leaves? There was one that looked like it had that tiny version of puragu in it. Then there were just some strange geometric patterns and decorative writing that he could not read. It was the script Umi said wasn't even from her country, but another one that they imported these from.

In the end, he started opening the boxes and smelling them until he found the one that smelled most like 'Peppermint' and plunked that into the mug before covering it with boiling water. He was pretty sure that wasn't one of the wakeful blends, or at least he hoped it wasn't. He'd probably work that out soon enough, at least.

Taking his steaming mug into the sitting room, Clef dropped down onto the sofa was a sigh.

If the strain was getting this bad, how were visits going to work in the future? Umi would go home to visit, certainly. He would feel an obligation as her partner to go as well, at least sometimes, but what fun would that be for anyone if he was this uncomfortable and uneasy?

Maybe he was just getting too old to be this far away from Cephiro. Hadn't he always been told that mages found their magic more tightly bound to her as they aged? Or was that just an old superstition?

He breathed in the steam, the crisp smell lighting his senses while also reminding him of the lurking headache that was sitting right behind his eyes. Hopefully, this was just the lingering symptoms of the cold, and Umi could actually show him more of her world without him being a miserable sod the entire time.

"Please let it be the dratted cold," Clef muttered, because he'd very much like to see more of the world she came from.