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fan_flashworks2020-04-02 12:00 am
down) wrote in fan_flashworks2020-04-02 12:00 am
Entry tags:
Magic Knight Rayearth: Fanfic: An acceptable number of walls
Title: An acceptable number of walls
Fandom: Magic Knight Rayearth
Rating: General
Length: 3500ish words
Content notes: None
Author notes: Stand-alone but set in the random spies!au I have
Summary: House-hunting is… interesting.
oOo
"Hey, so, I was thinking," Umi said, leaning in through the door of Clef's office, her engagement ring ostentatiously flashing on her finger.
Clef looked up, and pulled a face. She still hadn't admitted they were engaged, but she was blatantly and deliberately sparkling that ring at him every chance she got, and her parents had started making noises about 'finding a venue'. So he was pretty certain they were getting married. "Yes?"
"Well, now you've gone and asked me to marry you - badly - I was thinking. I know you're pretty attached to your, uh, current arrangement, and it's not like you don't live here half the time anyway, but."
His current arrangement involved owning a flat in the apartment next-door to his, as a secret escape route, which was pretty hard to duplicate. He was pretty attached to it, but he'd also been there a while, and- "I don't live in the office," he protested. "You'd know, you're at mine most of the time anyway these days." Then he paused, and blinked. "Hang on, what are you asking?"
"Shouldn't we just move in together?"
He blinked again, and opened his mouth - then shut it.
Umi flushed. "What, you hadn't even thought about living together? You asked me to marry you!"
"You said it didn't count," Clef said, automatically. "And you're at mine so often we're pretty much living together already."
"...So you don't think it's a bad idea?"
"I don't think it's going to end in murder any more or less than our current arrangements," he said, leaning back in his chair, and the very particular creak of his office chair reminded him precisely where they were. "...Did you really want to have this conversation with the door wide open?"
"Eh, hardly anyone's in the office."
"Perhaps, but Em's right next door, and she's probably cracking up right about now." He smiled at Umi rolling her eyes and walking in, but waited until the door was firmly shut before continuing. "I have no objection to living together, but I... would prefer not to live in your apartment."
"Too few escape routes for you," Umi said, nodding sagely and trying not to laugh. "I could buy the building next door, if that would make you feel better."
"My place is also pretty small if it's meant to house both of us and your wardrobe," he continued, ignoring that. "Especially if us being all married and living together means we should sometimes have your parents over to eat a meal with us. But I've got some money - and two apartments I could sell..."
"You want to buy a flat together?" Umi perched on his desk, kicking her shoes off as she went so she could rest her feet down the side of his chair.
"I was thinking... maybe a house," Clef admitted. "Not that I've thought about it much - you keep distracting me by nearly dying, see." He frowned up at her, and it had only been a couple of weeks, barely that, since he'd nearly lost her again- "Though if we buy a house, you're going to promise me that you'll always come home and you won't get yourself dosed with nerve agents or anything-"
"I'll promise to do my best," Umi said, reaching out to thread her fingers into his hair, pull him closer. He let her. sliding the chair up to the desk and wrapping his arms about her as she leaned her head against his.
They were silent for a long few moments, but of course Umi had to break the moment. "It could be nice, I guess, to have a house. A bit more space, no one to hear us through the walls..."
"Maybe an underground garage with several exits and control of the whole building," Clef countered, and she started snickering, until leaning against her was uncomfortable enough he sat upright. "It... could be nice. And I think we could afford it, between us-"
"What, given you secretly own a bunch of flats across Tokyo because you played with the stock market during university and decided to invest with your winnings, or because my parents are ridiculously wealthy?"
"Both?" he said, wincing. It was true, they were ridiculously privileged.
Umi just shrugged. "Fair enough. We shouldn't get anywhere that big, though, we'll just argue about who has to clean it."
"I hear there are robots to do the hoovering at least, these days," Clef told her, trying to emanate seriousness, and got thumped on the shoulder for it. "...If you come over tonight, we could have a look at what kind of areas we might look in?"
oOo
By that evening, of course, a minor crisis had come up, and they eventually got back to his place after Umi peeled him out of the office at 1am. They didn't start looking at real estate after that. She just got him out of the office, and out of his clothes, and then worked on relaxing him enough that the five and a half hours of sleep he had time for were good quality ones.
It took a week or so, in fact, before they had a chance to look at things - ignoring the set of emails with them arguing over what they should set as a budget for looking for a place - and a really long list of things Clef wanted in a house which he sent to Umi one night at about three in the morning when he didn't manage to get out of the office (team working overseas) and didn't remember half of by the time she started laughing at him about it the next day.
In the end, though, and despite the attempts of a number of real estate agents to drag them out to ridiculously large places - wasn't it enough to be buying a house in the Tokyo area at all? - they found someone who was willing to show them houses they wanted to see, mostly by just not telling her Umi's name. (How was that so hard?)
Clef flatly refused to buy a place he hadn't seen. He wouldn't rent one, either. Not all the pictures in the world could help - nor Umi going on her own, because he loved her dearly, but in some things they had wildly differing opinions. So they had to fit around his schedule, and then Umi was sent off to Europe for three weeks, and by the time she was back he was pretty certain the estate agent had given up on them.
He still managed to get hold of her, last thing on friday afternoon, Umi laughing and raising a glass of non-alcoholic beverage in the main room as she and Fuu toasted their triumphant return without impinging the painkillers that both of them were taking - something about hang-gliding into a cliff in order to follow someone, he had been too busy trying not to shriek 'why does this spy movie nonsense always happen to you!!' aloud to pay that much attention.
"Would it be possible to set up a number of viewings over the next two days?" he asked.
"I can try approching sellers to see if they would be ameanable," the poor confused woman said. "Do you have a list of the houses you wish to see?"
"No. At this rate, I think we need to just start viewing properties - at least then we will be able to see what kind of features we can actually agree on. You have the parameters we sent through, could you see if you could just... find some places that fit them?"
"...Yes?"
"I'm also sending you the details and some information for the two flats which I will be looking to sell once we have a house agreed. I would like to engage you to help with that," he said, ruefully. At least if she had some idea he was serious, she would hopefully be less confused. "I bought them a number of years ago, as an investment. I would like your assistance in working out if they should be redecorated or modernised in any way, as I've not had much done with them, though they have been leased out occasionally."
He could almost hear the pause as the phrase 'investment' did its nice soothing work - this probably wasn't some horrible scam, he was just a weird foreign businessman.
"I will do what I can, and have an email to you with details within two hours. Would that be suitable?"
"That would be excellent, thank you very much for your help."
She was as good as her word; in an hour and a half he got an email with eleven viewings planned over the next few days, links to the houses - all of which, from a very quick glance at the details she had attached, looked reasonable - and a suggested start of nine at her office. He pinged off an acceptance and then turned his attention back to the somewhat rowdy celebration going on around him in the izakaya.
At eight the next morning, Umi was less impressed with the plan than she had been the night before. "We were out drinking last night with everyone, and you want me to get up and leave this bed? No!"
Clef settled back down beside her, setting a mug of tea on the bedside table and sipping from a second, amused. "It was your idea to get a house. Anyway, you were drinking fruit juice."
"Until one in the morning!"
"Well, I guess you'll be in the right mood to make quick decisions over what you want to do." He took another drink. "If we don't just go look at places, we're never going to pick. Oh, and I made breakfast, if you want any."
Umi pulled her head up and looked at him suspiciously. "By breakfast, you mean..."
"Eggs, chips, fried mushrooms, fried tomatoes, toast. And the last of the stash of baked beans. We've still got some marmalade left, too."
"...Okay, I guess I'll get up," she muttered, claimed her tea, and grumbled her way out of bed to the table that she'd turned up with a couple of months back to supplement the awful lack of furniture in his place. He laughed, and went to the kitchen to fetch food. He didn't cook very often, and he didn't often cook a full english breakfast (...okay, this was like a quarter english breakfast and mostly happened because he wanted to use up the mushrooms he'd bought on a whim three days ago when Umi was away) but Umi was surprisingly easily bribed with a cooked breakfast of most kinds.
...She didn't like porridge though.
They headed out to meet the estate agent, who looked relieved to see they actually existed, but a little less enthusiastic about the bruises blatantly visible over Umi's entire left arm and the bandaging about her shoulder. Umi just laughed, introducing herself with a wave at her arm. "I'm Ryuuzaki Umi, I've been away at a fencing competition, and let's just say I didn't win every round."
"Fencing? With swords?" The estate agent looked very polite, which probably meant she was still very wary, and from the look she shot Clef's suit he suddenly saw them from her point of view and tried very hard to neither start frowning or to start laughing ridiculously hard.
"Yes!" Umi smiled at her. "I started in high school, and I'm still pretty into it. But I've got a gym I go to for practice, so there's no need to worry about fitting my hobby into a house!"
"Did you have a chance to look through the listings I sent through?" she looked between the two of them, and Clef nodded slightly.
"We had a brief look last night, but I'm afraid we haven't been able to work out precisely what kind of a home will work for both of us, and we dedided we need to just start walking around places together and see what we think of them. So I'm afraid this may be a bit of a discovery mission as much as anything else."
The agent nodded, and went to fetch her coat and bag, and Clef waited until she was out of earshot before leaning over to Umi. "You realise who she thinks we are, right?"
"She hasn't had time to look me up on the internet, and I don't think she recognised my name - it's not like I'm in the society things that much."
"No, but that means we have mysteriously large amounts of money, and you look like you got into a fight, and - just look at us!" He waved at the large mirror which sat on the back wall of the office, lightening the space a lot as there was very little light in here. "We look like criminals!"
"...Huh." Umi's lips twitched. "I guess maybe we do. You'd be a terrible criminal, though."
"Thanks, I suppose."
oOo
The first house they went to, they turned up, walked up the drive, and before they even got to the door Umi was frowning.
The estate agent started talking, cheerily. "So this house has three bedrooms, a large downstairs for the location, a surrounding garden as well as a garage which is tucked down there at the bottom of the garden-"
"I don't like it," Umi said, and Clef couldn't help it - he started laughing. Umi thumped him on the shoulder, flushing hard. "Sorry - I'm sorry, we should look inside." She waved the bewildered estate agent to the door.
"Do you - is there something in particular you dislike about the outside? Many things can be changed."
"No, it's not-" Umi waved a hand, then shot a pleading look at Clef, who knew exactly what she meant, and exactly why she couldn't explain it to the poor woman showing them about. There was a convenience store opposite with a roof just the right height to see over the garden wall, and enough built onto the roof that would shelter and disguise someone staking out the house opposite that both of them would have a screaming case of nerves the whole time.
But that wasn't something normal home owners would have to worry about.
"I think we've both started thinking about a garage that's attached to the house," he said, instead. "Umi was pointing out to me - quite loudly - that if we do have a car and go out in it while it's the rainy season, she doesn't want to get soaked getting between the car and the house - especially not if we're going to one of your parent's parties if you're in one of those fancy dresses," he said, with a shrug at Umi. "I guess it's more important to us than we realised when we wrote the list of requirements, but then, that's what today is about, I think. Finding out what we actually care about when we're here."
"Yes," Umi agreed, pretty fast. "I mean, I was only complaining about it last night because we got soaked getting back to your flat from the office, but looking at it here I think I really would like that."
The estate agent looked between them. "Do you still want to look inside?" she asked. "You might like it enough to compromise on that point?" She didn't sound very certain.
"Lets have a look," Clef said, before Umi could blurt out anything else. "Come on, Umi, we should see what we can disagree on in terms of kitchens and bathrooms and all that."
oOo
They could, it turned out, disagree about a lot. Umi didn't care too much about the kitchen aside from needing space for an oven to be added, one large enough for a lot of baking - despite Clef protesting she hardly ever had time to bake and he was the one who did all the actual cooking.
"You're British, don't you want an oven? You can cook me a roast something," Umi retorted.
"I've lived in Japan for twelve years and I'm perfectly happy with just a microwave, thanks," Clef told her. "But I would like a dishwasher."
"...Ah. Yeah, there's not one of them, is there."
"No, and I can't work out where I'd put one."
Umi tilted her head at the room. "...No. And I don't think we want a maid."
Clef pulled a face at her. "No, thank you, no."
"But I do like this main room!" She walked into the living area, spreading her arms in apparent enjoyment of the space - only for Clef to snort.
"The age of this building, no heating except for the aircon, and this large a space with all those windows? It'll be chilly as anything in winter."
"That's what blankets are for!"
oOo
The second house Clef privately hated, though he could barely articulate why, and Umi didn't like the bathroom anyway. The third had no garage at all and had lovely traditional construction which Clef realised he should have put down as a deal-breaker as soon as they reached the neighbourhood, let alone the house. Too flimsy when dealing with intruders inside the building. The fourth was surrounded by other buildings leaving only one way off the premises, and the fifth Umi vetoed because it was too fancy. By the end of the day, the estate agent was valiantly struggling on, though Clef was fairly certain only a hefty commission could make dealing with them reasonable.
But she got them back to her office, and sent them off with a promise to meet them at ten the next morning.
oOo
When they got up on Sunday, Clef felt about as enthusiastic as Umi had the day before - perversely, she had apparently enjoyed deciding what was wrong with everything they looked at, and was raring to go.
"Why?" He demanded, as she stuck a glass of orange juice in his hands. "And stop trying to give me all the healthy vitamin-y foods."
"Maybe I want you to be healthy," Umi retorted, grinning as she did so. "But no, it was just fun, trying to imagine us living in all those houses. Waking up together all the time, not having to go back to my place when I run out of the clothes I want."
"...I guess." He couldn't really complain about that. He didn't even want to, but he didn't want to give up his grouching about morning yet, so he just drank his juice instead of speaking.
oOo
The first couple of houses they saw again were somehow 'wrong' in several ways, though a little less so. But then the estate agent paused, as they had a little time planned for lunch, and looked between the two of them in a way which had Clef standing up straighter.
"I did make a couple of calls last night," she said, slowly, "once I had a better idea of your requirements. There's a house - it's not quite on the market yet, and it's a little over the budget that you stated, but..."
"The budget was made up," Umi said, perking up. "Where's this house?"
"It's fairly close, actually, and they said that we could drop by to have a look - I have the keys..."
"We may as well," Clef said, trying not to be a terribly suspicious person. He didn't like changes of plans. But it was unlikely one night was enough to set up a trap that they wouldn't spot, if anyone had found out they were house-hunting and got to this woman.
So they got back on the move, instead of eating, and when they got to this new house neither of them had anything to say about the outside at all, which was a first. It had a perimeter wall with a couple of exits, both sides of the premises, and there was an underground garage, in a nice residential area, and...
The kitchen was nice. More than nice, it already had a space for a dishwasher and an oven, and it was well insulated, good solid construction...
The only thing either of them could find to complain about was the colour of the walls, which were a dusky orange.
"I guess paint exists," Umi said, slowly, looking about. "That could be fixed. But the bathroom is really nice, and..."
"Yeah," Clef said, looking out of the window of the main bedroom. He had a good view of the neighbourhood, and a little park, and... it was nice. "Some paint on the walls, and some new furniture, and..."
Umi came over, leaned against his side. "Are we buying a house?" she asked, sounding bewildered as he felt. "In two days? We found a house?"
"We could go around again, see if we can find something else wrong?"
"Yeah, I guess so."
oOo
They moved in two months later. In the end, they spent longer arguing about the paint colour for the walls than they did about buying the house itself.
Fandom: Magic Knight Rayearth
Rating: General
Length: 3500ish words
Content notes: None
Author notes: Stand-alone but set in the random spies!au I have
Summary: House-hunting is… interesting.
oOo
"Hey, so, I was thinking," Umi said, leaning in through the door of Clef's office, her engagement ring ostentatiously flashing on her finger.
Clef looked up, and pulled a face. She still hadn't admitted they were engaged, but she was blatantly and deliberately sparkling that ring at him every chance she got, and her parents had started making noises about 'finding a venue'. So he was pretty certain they were getting married. "Yes?"
"Well, now you've gone and asked me to marry you - badly - I was thinking. I know you're pretty attached to your, uh, current arrangement, and it's not like you don't live here half the time anyway, but."
His current arrangement involved owning a flat in the apartment next-door to his, as a secret escape route, which was pretty hard to duplicate. He was pretty attached to it, but he'd also been there a while, and- "I don't live in the office," he protested. "You'd know, you're at mine most of the time anyway these days." Then he paused, and blinked. "Hang on, what are you asking?"
"Shouldn't we just move in together?"
He blinked again, and opened his mouth - then shut it.
Umi flushed. "What, you hadn't even thought about living together? You asked me to marry you!"
"You said it didn't count," Clef said, automatically. "And you're at mine so often we're pretty much living together already."
"...So you don't think it's a bad idea?"
"I don't think it's going to end in murder any more or less than our current arrangements," he said, leaning back in his chair, and the very particular creak of his office chair reminded him precisely where they were. "...Did you really want to have this conversation with the door wide open?"
"Eh, hardly anyone's in the office."
"Perhaps, but Em's right next door, and she's probably cracking up right about now." He smiled at Umi rolling her eyes and walking in, but waited until the door was firmly shut before continuing. "I have no objection to living together, but I... would prefer not to live in your apartment."
"Too few escape routes for you," Umi said, nodding sagely and trying not to laugh. "I could buy the building next door, if that would make you feel better."
"My place is also pretty small if it's meant to house both of us and your wardrobe," he continued, ignoring that. "Especially if us being all married and living together means we should sometimes have your parents over to eat a meal with us. But I've got some money - and two apartments I could sell..."
"You want to buy a flat together?" Umi perched on his desk, kicking her shoes off as she went so she could rest her feet down the side of his chair.
"I was thinking... maybe a house," Clef admitted. "Not that I've thought about it much - you keep distracting me by nearly dying, see." He frowned up at her, and it had only been a couple of weeks, barely that, since he'd nearly lost her again- "Though if we buy a house, you're going to promise me that you'll always come home and you won't get yourself dosed with nerve agents or anything-"
"I'll promise to do my best," Umi said, reaching out to thread her fingers into his hair, pull him closer. He let her. sliding the chair up to the desk and wrapping his arms about her as she leaned her head against his.
They were silent for a long few moments, but of course Umi had to break the moment. "It could be nice, I guess, to have a house. A bit more space, no one to hear us through the walls..."
"Maybe an underground garage with several exits and control of the whole building," Clef countered, and she started snickering, until leaning against her was uncomfortable enough he sat upright. "It... could be nice. And I think we could afford it, between us-"
"What, given you secretly own a bunch of flats across Tokyo because you played with the stock market during university and decided to invest with your winnings, or because my parents are ridiculously wealthy?"
"Both?" he said, wincing. It was true, they were ridiculously privileged.
Umi just shrugged. "Fair enough. We shouldn't get anywhere that big, though, we'll just argue about who has to clean it."
"I hear there are robots to do the hoovering at least, these days," Clef told her, trying to emanate seriousness, and got thumped on the shoulder for it. "...If you come over tonight, we could have a look at what kind of areas we might look in?"
oOo
By that evening, of course, a minor crisis had come up, and they eventually got back to his place after Umi peeled him out of the office at 1am. They didn't start looking at real estate after that. She just got him out of the office, and out of his clothes, and then worked on relaxing him enough that the five and a half hours of sleep he had time for were good quality ones.
It took a week or so, in fact, before they had a chance to look at things - ignoring the set of emails with them arguing over what they should set as a budget for looking for a place - and a really long list of things Clef wanted in a house which he sent to Umi one night at about three in the morning when he didn't manage to get out of the office (team working overseas) and didn't remember half of by the time she started laughing at him about it the next day.
In the end, though, and despite the attempts of a number of real estate agents to drag them out to ridiculously large places - wasn't it enough to be buying a house in the Tokyo area at all? - they found someone who was willing to show them houses they wanted to see, mostly by just not telling her Umi's name. (How was that so hard?)
Clef flatly refused to buy a place he hadn't seen. He wouldn't rent one, either. Not all the pictures in the world could help - nor Umi going on her own, because he loved her dearly, but in some things they had wildly differing opinions. So they had to fit around his schedule, and then Umi was sent off to Europe for three weeks, and by the time she was back he was pretty certain the estate agent had given up on them.
He still managed to get hold of her, last thing on friday afternoon, Umi laughing and raising a glass of non-alcoholic beverage in the main room as she and Fuu toasted their triumphant return without impinging the painkillers that both of them were taking - something about hang-gliding into a cliff in order to follow someone, he had been too busy trying not to shriek 'why does this spy movie nonsense always happen to you!!' aloud to pay that much attention.
"Would it be possible to set up a number of viewings over the next two days?" he asked.
"I can try approching sellers to see if they would be ameanable," the poor confused woman said. "Do you have a list of the houses you wish to see?"
"No. At this rate, I think we need to just start viewing properties - at least then we will be able to see what kind of features we can actually agree on. You have the parameters we sent through, could you see if you could just... find some places that fit them?"
"...Yes?"
"I'm also sending you the details and some information for the two flats which I will be looking to sell once we have a house agreed. I would like to engage you to help with that," he said, ruefully. At least if she had some idea he was serious, she would hopefully be less confused. "I bought them a number of years ago, as an investment. I would like your assistance in working out if they should be redecorated or modernised in any way, as I've not had much done with them, though they have been leased out occasionally."
He could almost hear the pause as the phrase 'investment' did its nice soothing work - this probably wasn't some horrible scam, he was just a weird foreign businessman.
"I will do what I can, and have an email to you with details within two hours. Would that be suitable?"
"That would be excellent, thank you very much for your help."
She was as good as her word; in an hour and a half he got an email with eleven viewings planned over the next few days, links to the houses - all of which, from a very quick glance at the details she had attached, looked reasonable - and a suggested start of nine at her office. He pinged off an acceptance and then turned his attention back to the somewhat rowdy celebration going on around him in the izakaya.
At eight the next morning, Umi was less impressed with the plan than she had been the night before. "We were out drinking last night with everyone, and you want me to get up and leave this bed? No!"
Clef settled back down beside her, setting a mug of tea on the bedside table and sipping from a second, amused. "It was your idea to get a house. Anyway, you were drinking fruit juice."
"Until one in the morning!"
"Well, I guess you'll be in the right mood to make quick decisions over what you want to do." He took another drink. "If we don't just go look at places, we're never going to pick. Oh, and I made breakfast, if you want any."
Umi pulled her head up and looked at him suspiciously. "By breakfast, you mean..."
"Eggs, chips, fried mushrooms, fried tomatoes, toast. And the last of the stash of baked beans. We've still got some marmalade left, too."
"...Okay, I guess I'll get up," she muttered, claimed her tea, and grumbled her way out of bed to the table that she'd turned up with a couple of months back to supplement the awful lack of furniture in his place. He laughed, and went to the kitchen to fetch food. He didn't cook very often, and he didn't often cook a full english breakfast (...okay, this was like a quarter english breakfast and mostly happened because he wanted to use up the mushrooms he'd bought on a whim three days ago when Umi was away) but Umi was surprisingly easily bribed with a cooked breakfast of most kinds.
...She didn't like porridge though.
They headed out to meet the estate agent, who looked relieved to see they actually existed, but a little less enthusiastic about the bruises blatantly visible over Umi's entire left arm and the bandaging about her shoulder. Umi just laughed, introducing herself with a wave at her arm. "I'm Ryuuzaki Umi, I've been away at a fencing competition, and let's just say I didn't win every round."
"Fencing? With swords?" The estate agent looked very polite, which probably meant she was still very wary, and from the look she shot Clef's suit he suddenly saw them from her point of view and tried very hard to neither start frowning or to start laughing ridiculously hard.
"Yes!" Umi smiled at her. "I started in high school, and I'm still pretty into it. But I've got a gym I go to for practice, so there's no need to worry about fitting my hobby into a house!"
"Did you have a chance to look through the listings I sent through?" she looked between the two of them, and Clef nodded slightly.
"We had a brief look last night, but I'm afraid we haven't been able to work out precisely what kind of a home will work for both of us, and we dedided we need to just start walking around places together and see what we think of them. So I'm afraid this may be a bit of a discovery mission as much as anything else."
The agent nodded, and went to fetch her coat and bag, and Clef waited until she was out of earshot before leaning over to Umi. "You realise who she thinks we are, right?"
"She hasn't had time to look me up on the internet, and I don't think she recognised my name - it's not like I'm in the society things that much."
"No, but that means we have mysteriously large amounts of money, and you look like you got into a fight, and - just look at us!" He waved at the large mirror which sat on the back wall of the office, lightening the space a lot as there was very little light in here. "We look like criminals!"
"...Huh." Umi's lips twitched. "I guess maybe we do. You'd be a terrible criminal, though."
"Thanks, I suppose."
oOo
The first house they went to, they turned up, walked up the drive, and before they even got to the door Umi was frowning.
The estate agent started talking, cheerily. "So this house has three bedrooms, a large downstairs for the location, a surrounding garden as well as a garage which is tucked down there at the bottom of the garden-"
"I don't like it," Umi said, and Clef couldn't help it - he started laughing. Umi thumped him on the shoulder, flushing hard. "Sorry - I'm sorry, we should look inside." She waved the bewildered estate agent to the door.
"Do you - is there something in particular you dislike about the outside? Many things can be changed."
"No, it's not-" Umi waved a hand, then shot a pleading look at Clef, who knew exactly what she meant, and exactly why she couldn't explain it to the poor woman showing them about. There was a convenience store opposite with a roof just the right height to see over the garden wall, and enough built onto the roof that would shelter and disguise someone staking out the house opposite that both of them would have a screaming case of nerves the whole time.
But that wasn't something normal home owners would have to worry about.
"I think we've both started thinking about a garage that's attached to the house," he said, instead. "Umi was pointing out to me - quite loudly - that if we do have a car and go out in it while it's the rainy season, she doesn't want to get soaked getting between the car and the house - especially not if we're going to one of your parent's parties if you're in one of those fancy dresses," he said, with a shrug at Umi. "I guess it's more important to us than we realised when we wrote the list of requirements, but then, that's what today is about, I think. Finding out what we actually care about when we're here."
"Yes," Umi agreed, pretty fast. "I mean, I was only complaining about it last night because we got soaked getting back to your flat from the office, but looking at it here I think I really would like that."
The estate agent looked between them. "Do you still want to look inside?" she asked. "You might like it enough to compromise on that point?" She didn't sound very certain.
"Lets have a look," Clef said, before Umi could blurt out anything else. "Come on, Umi, we should see what we can disagree on in terms of kitchens and bathrooms and all that."
oOo
They could, it turned out, disagree about a lot. Umi didn't care too much about the kitchen aside from needing space for an oven to be added, one large enough for a lot of baking - despite Clef protesting she hardly ever had time to bake and he was the one who did all the actual cooking.
"You're British, don't you want an oven? You can cook me a roast something," Umi retorted.
"I've lived in Japan for twelve years and I'm perfectly happy with just a microwave, thanks," Clef told her. "But I would like a dishwasher."
"...Ah. Yeah, there's not one of them, is there."
"No, and I can't work out where I'd put one."
Umi tilted her head at the room. "...No. And I don't think we want a maid."
Clef pulled a face at her. "No, thank you, no."
"But I do like this main room!" She walked into the living area, spreading her arms in apparent enjoyment of the space - only for Clef to snort.
"The age of this building, no heating except for the aircon, and this large a space with all those windows? It'll be chilly as anything in winter."
"That's what blankets are for!"
oOo
The second house Clef privately hated, though he could barely articulate why, and Umi didn't like the bathroom anyway. The third had no garage at all and had lovely traditional construction which Clef realised he should have put down as a deal-breaker as soon as they reached the neighbourhood, let alone the house. Too flimsy when dealing with intruders inside the building. The fourth was surrounded by other buildings leaving only one way off the premises, and the fifth Umi vetoed because it was too fancy. By the end of the day, the estate agent was valiantly struggling on, though Clef was fairly certain only a hefty commission could make dealing with them reasonable.
But she got them back to her office, and sent them off with a promise to meet them at ten the next morning.
oOo
When they got up on Sunday, Clef felt about as enthusiastic as Umi had the day before - perversely, she had apparently enjoyed deciding what was wrong with everything they looked at, and was raring to go.
"Why?" He demanded, as she stuck a glass of orange juice in his hands. "And stop trying to give me all the healthy vitamin-y foods."
"Maybe I want you to be healthy," Umi retorted, grinning as she did so. "But no, it was just fun, trying to imagine us living in all those houses. Waking up together all the time, not having to go back to my place when I run out of the clothes I want."
"...I guess." He couldn't really complain about that. He didn't even want to, but he didn't want to give up his grouching about morning yet, so he just drank his juice instead of speaking.
oOo
The first couple of houses they saw again were somehow 'wrong' in several ways, though a little less so. But then the estate agent paused, as they had a little time planned for lunch, and looked between the two of them in a way which had Clef standing up straighter.
"I did make a couple of calls last night," she said, slowly, "once I had a better idea of your requirements. There's a house - it's not quite on the market yet, and it's a little over the budget that you stated, but..."
"The budget was made up," Umi said, perking up. "Where's this house?"
"It's fairly close, actually, and they said that we could drop by to have a look - I have the keys..."
"We may as well," Clef said, trying not to be a terribly suspicious person. He didn't like changes of plans. But it was unlikely one night was enough to set up a trap that they wouldn't spot, if anyone had found out they were house-hunting and got to this woman.
So they got back on the move, instead of eating, and when they got to this new house neither of them had anything to say about the outside at all, which was a first. It had a perimeter wall with a couple of exits, both sides of the premises, and there was an underground garage, in a nice residential area, and...
The kitchen was nice. More than nice, it already had a space for a dishwasher and an oven, and it was well insulated, good solid construction...
The only thing either of them could find to complain about was the colour of the walls, which were a dusky orange.
"I guess paint exists," Umi said, slowly, looking about. "That could be fixed. But the bathroom is really nice, and..."
"Yeah," Clef said, looking out of the window of the main bedroom. He had a good view of the neighbourhood, and a little park, and... it was nice. "Some paint on the walls, and some new furniture, and..."
Umi came over, leaned against his side. "Are we buying a house?" she asked, sounding bewildered as he felt. "In two days? We found a house?"
"We could go around again, see if we can find something else wrong?"
"Yeah, I guess so."
oOo
They moved in two months later. In the end, they spent longer arguing about the paint colour for the walls than they did about buying the house itself.