Title: greenery
Fandom: Magic Knight Rayearth
Rating: General
Length: 900ish words?
Content notes: none
Author notes: Snippet of post-canon by several years pre-relationship Umi and Clef. For pin, also for customs for ffwks bingo.
Summary: Clef wasn't falling off the ladder until Umi startled him.

oOo

Most of the way to the ceiling on a ladder was not the best place to be startled, especially when not entirely used to the newly extended length of one's legs, but that was exactly where Clef was when someone spoke up behind him, his hands full of pins and greenery.

"What are you doing?"

Clef yelped, dropping everything he'd been holding and grabbing onto the bookcase as the ladder wobbled underneath him. It tilted slightly sideways- and then slammed back into the bookcase with force. "What the- Umi?"

"You nearly fell off!" Umi snapped at him, from her position as she held the ladder steady. "Why are you using a ladder without anyone to steady it, you could get hurt!"

"What are you doing sneaking up on me!" Clef snapped back at her, still clinging to the shelves, his heartbeat refusing to slow down. "Why are you even here today? Uh, watch you don't step on any of those pins."

"University isn't running this week, it's a holiday, so we decided to come a day early - look, can't you come down from there? This is a bit awkward."

Clef stared down at her, and then flushed when she waved a hand at his rear, which was about the same height as her head. "I didn't ask you to come hold the ladder!" he snapped, taking a couple of steps down it - which left him bracketed awkwardly by her arms, and suddenly remembering the pins on the floor.

"No, you were just going to fall off it." Umi let go of the ladder with one hand, and the prickling sense of how close she was to his back faded as she shuffled to Clef's side instead.

"Not until you startled me - look, my shoes aren't that thick, are any of the pins where I'm likely to step on them?"

Umi looked down, frowned, then scraped the floor a few times with her boot. "You should be good now."

"Thank you." Getting his feet on the ground didn't fix Clef's equilibrium as much as it should have. Umi was still far too close, and he was far too aware of it. He glanced at her, then down, and pulled a face at the mess of scattered leaves and sharp metal on the floor. "…Would you like a cup of tea?" he asked, feeling in need of one himself at the very least.

"Please."

He had a small kettle on the other side of his study, and abandoned the mess to go make them a drink. But by the time he had finished, Umi was on her knees on the floor, making a pile of the leaves as she picked the pins up.

"Were these meant to be stuck together somehow?" she asked, waving a leaf at him.

"They were braided into garlands. Like the others." Clef waved a hand at the top of the three bookcases he had already decorated, the ropes made of interlinked leafy branches hanging about the top shelves. There were little white flowers tucked in here and there, but they were added after the structural bit was up - which worked better when all the leaves hadn't fallen off after falling six feet to the floor. Umi sat back on her heels and looked up, tilting her head slightly, and he flushed. "It's for the spring holidays," he said, quickly. "It's lucky to decorate."

"I know - I've been coming here enough years to know what happens at the spring festivals," Umi told him, enough of a laugh in her voice that he blushed harder. "But I've never seen you decorate before. You don't even wear a flower for the celebrations."

"Well, a lot's changed this past year." Clef waved a hand at himself, biting on the inside of his cheek when Umi grinned at him and his lengthened form. It had been almost a third of a year, and he still wasn't used to it. Or the way that Umi looked at him now. The wreakage which had been intended as decoration was fortunately an easy distraction from thinking about that. "As you have helped make these sticks rather less festive than intended, I don't suppose you're willing to help me make new ones to replace them? Once we've finished our tea."

"Tea first, of course," Umi said, grinning again. "I don't know. Does it involve you going up any ladders? If so I'd better help before you fall off again."

"I didn't fall off anything!"

"And of course," she continued to muse, looking about the room and the two bookcases yet to be decorated, "we can't keep it half-done like this. That really wouldn't be lucky. So I suppose I had better help."

Shaking his head, Clef turned to his drink, and tried very hard not to notice the warmth in his chest at the prospect of spending the afternoon together. After all, he'd intended to use whatever was left of the garlands to hang over his windows, too. Putting that much greenery together was sure to take several hours. That Umi knew as well as he did that there were ready-made garlands for people to take in the great hall, which the gardeners put together every year… that just meant she knew he was a traditionalist. Handmade was always a better charm.

(If handmade with the ones you cared for was the best charm of all; he was absolutely not letting that thought even cross the edge of his mind.)