Title: Early start
Fandom: Magic Knight Rayearth
Rating: General
Length: 1000ish words
Content notes: None
Author notes: Modern day/mundane AU
Summary: It felt like yesterday they'd first spoken

oOo

Ryuuzaki Umi woke up flailing at her alarm clock, thumping at it until she managed to hit the button and then glaring blearily at the time.

Why on earth had she set an alarm for six o'clock? She was never up this early! Not unless she was about to head off on some conference or trip, anyway, and she wasn't going anywhere. She wasn't even due in to work all week.

It took five minutes glowering at the numbers before she woke far enough to remember that though she was going nowhere, she'd collected her future husband from the airport just yesterday, and he - being jetlagged - was likely going to be awake either pretty early or pretty late. So she'd set an alarm so she could be up in case he needed help finding breakfast.

"Shoulda just written him kitchen notes," she muttered, rubbing at her eyes. But remembering the man's ruffled confusion when she'd shown him about the place yesterday, she wasn't sure he'd be able to find the kitchen again. He'd trailed after her around her bit of the house, hair flicking out in all directions even worse than it had before he'd had a nap

He'd looked adorable, actually. Which wasn't a word she'd really expected to apply to the man she'd first spoken to only a couple of months ago, if that. It felt pretty much like yesterday when she'd double-checked the time difference and called him, yet somehow he was now here?

The first ten minutes of that first call, she'd started thinking there was no way this could actually work - well.

She'd started the call thinking this was the most ridiculous idea she'd ever had and it couldn't possibly work, but what did she have to lose just talking to the guy once? Plus, he'd apparently been one of Emeraude's friends since they were born, and she wanted to know more about the woman her best friend was dating. But how did you start talking to someone who'd basically been volunteered to marry you?

Awkwardly, it turned out. They'd both started off with the kind of stilted polite introductions Umi associated with the first day at a new school. Until she'd shrugged and leaned back in her chair, and asked "So, is Emeraude the kind of person who normally comes up with schemes like this?"

After a moment's pause, he'd snickered. "She would say no, but everysooften she does have a moment. To be fair, we were both pretty trashed by that point - which doesn't happen often. I think that's the first time either of us had had a drink since new year, and that was the first since last new year, at least for me. Probably why we were total lightweights that evening."

They'd been drunk? Umi blinked. The message she'd got through Hikaru had been pretty exuberant, but she hadn't known that. "You were at a wedding, right?"

"Yeah. Lantis's wedding - Em and I walked him down the aisle and spent the whole day having far too many emotions while Ferio laughed at us. That's Emeraude's little brother, he's been living with me for a while, we've been at the same University."

"You've a doctorate, yes?" She'd been imagining him as this quiet, studious person who would vanish into an office somewhere and maybe appear to share meals with her in the evening. Not as someone who got emotional and drunk at weddings. "You must be very dedicated."

"Honestly? I mostly didn't know what else to do with myself. Still don't." The image was grainy, but his expression was - nervous. "It took me a couple years more than it should have to finish the phD, and now it's done, I don't actually have a plan. I think that's why Em thought it might be a good idea, to have some time to try and work that out. So that's what I'd be getting from this - time to figure out what I want to do with my life."

"I don't want to marry any of my friends. There's a couple that would probably say yes, but they would be thinking, deep down, that this might turn into a romance. They'd be expecting things. Or at least, I'd suspect them of it, and I don't want to wind up hating any of my friends. That's why a stranger seems like a better plan.

After that first frighteningly honest bit of conversation, they'd stalled again, until someone - presumably Ferio - shouted 'where's the ice cream?' from the next room loudly enough she could hear it.

Clef, rolling his eyes, had called back "In the store, waiting for you to buy it!"

"You bought some on the weekend!"

"I also ate it!"

"What, all of it?" a disgruntled-looking face appeared around the door in the background, and then blinked at Umi on the computer.

Clef spun back. "It was mine! You distinctly claimed you weren't going to want ice cream for a month after the amount you got through at the wedding. Anyway, you're interrupting. Ryuuzaki Umi, this is Ferio - Emeraude's brother. Ferio, this is my fiancee."

"I thought you and Em were joking about that," Ferio said, blinking. "Now I need ice cream. You need anything from the shop?"

"No, thanks."

"Cool. Nice to see you're a real person, I guess," he said to Umi, and vanished.

"Sorry about him," Clef said, turning back to the screen.

Umi nodded. "I take it you will need an ice cream allowance?" she asked, and got a laugh.

"I'm worse with books, but as I won't be able to wander into a bookshop and find something I can read quite so easily, that shouldn't be so much of a problem."

"What do you like reading?" she'd asked, and the conversation had started really flowing - he was obviously enthusiastic about a lot of books.

From the weight of his suitcase, he'd brought a fair number of them with him.

…And he might well be wandering around the house even now. That was so weird,the thought of him being here.

Umi shoved herself out of bed, grabbed an oversized jumper to pull on, and headed downstairs. Maybe she should take him to get ice cream later, whenever he actually woke up. For now, something a little more respectable for breakfast was probably a good idea.