Title: Too early
Fandom: Magic Knight Rayearth
Rating: General
Length: 1200ish
Content notes: None
Author notes: Modern day/mundane AU - marriage of convenience. Umi/Clef
Summary:After a few months living together, Umi's starting to feel just a little awkward around Clef.

oOo

The sunday of Hikaru's moving-in party, Umi woke up with a groan as her alarm clock went off, and thumped it until it went silent. She knew she needed to get up and get on with decorating the cake she'd baked yesterday, but her bed was so warm, and so comfortable, and she just wanted to drift off to sleep again.

The cake wasn't all she'd baked the day before. Having someone there to help her with the baking was... nice. Especially when she talked Clef into doing the really boring bit of standing there and stirring the jam in progress for ages. But his face when he realised she'd made him scones to go with it was...

Her whole chest had kind of clenched up at the smile he'd given her. It did it again now, just thinking about it, and a kick of adrenaline came along with it. She shoved herself over in bed, rolling onto her other side and yanking the covers over her head. "Stop it," she muttered to herself, and took a deep breath. "You live with him. Don't go making it all weird."

Of course she lived with Clef because she was married to him, as she couldn't help but think, and that was just-
Her alarm went off again and she rolled over, hissing and slamming her hand down on it firmly enough it stung her fingers.

She was still glaring at it when a quiet knock on her bedroom door startled her enough she shot upright, clutching the bedcovers to herself. "Huh?" she called - very coherent.

"There's tea waiting, if you're getting up?" Clef said through the door, and she stared at it like if she looked hard enough it would melt away and she would be able to see through it.

Instead, she just said 'huh?' again.

"...I'll leave it in the kitchen," Clef said, and she could hear his footsteps moving away.

Umi lay there a little longer, then dragged herself out of bed, and peered out of her room. There was a mug sat on the kitchen island as promised, but she couldn't see Clef. Padding across the room, she wrapped her hands about the drink and cradled it to herself.

A few minutes of breathing the steam and sipping at it, and she was feeling a little foolish. It wasn't like Clef could magically tell that his smile made her feel weird, after all. She had a pretty good idea where he'd gone, so she headed around the back of the house, and sure enough he was sat on the veranda by the fish pond, curled sleepily about his own mug of tea.

He heard her coming and looked up smiling, and her stomach clenched again. Which was so stupid. She'd been living with him for two months, there was absolutely no need to start getting nervous about him! Especially not when he was sat in ancient pyjamas which had faded from being washed too many times, his hair sticking out in all directions.

"Hey," she said, dropping down beside him. "You're awake early."

"Morning," he said, and yawned. The fish were swirling lazily in the water below, flashes of bright orange and white standing out in the early sunlight. "Couldn't sleep. I kept worrying I'm going to forget all my Japanese this afternoon and stand around like a- an awkward banana."

"...An awkward banana." Umi's lips twitched.

"Don't you think bananas are awkward? Uh. I was making tea when your alarm went off, anyway, figured I'd make you one while I was there."

"Thanks." She raised the mug to him, and took a sip. "Anyway, I'm sure you won't forget all your Japanese. You've been learning really quickly, it's impressive."

"Well, I don't have much else that I have to be doing, and every time I step out the door turns into a lesson. I'm just trying to absorb as much as possible," he said, with a sigh. "It's going to take so long to get near your level in English. Have I mentioned recently how impressive your language skills are?"

She couldn't help feeling pleased. "I did live in English-speaking places for a good few years as a child," she pointed out.

"Yes, but you've kept it up, and I doubt I'll be up to 'having a real conversation' by the time I've been here a year."

"You might be surprised." She shrugged. "If you want to, when you're ready we can speak Japanese at home, you can always switch or substitute a word in English if you need to. That would be more practise without having to stress about it, as you know you can always change if you need to?"

"Thank you." He scattered a little fish food in the pond from the container at his side, smiling at the swirl of fish. "Are you decorating the cake this morning?"

"Yeah, I'll pull it out in a few."

"I can make breakfast in about twenty minutes if you want to eat first?" he offered. "Then maybe I can help? Well. Fetch things for you, anyway."

"...You want to watch me decorate a cake?" she asked, mystified.

"It's fascinating?" He looked down into the pond, very specifically not looking at her, and there was absolutely something more. She wasn't sure she wanted to know, though, and let it go. How important could it be? Maybe he just wanted to see how she liked to decorate food so he could do something similar with their meals, who knew.

She shrugged. "Breakfast would be nice."

"I'll start, then," he said, and unfolded himself. His knees clicked as he went, and he pulled a face as he vanished about the side of the house and vanished.

By the time she finished her tea and was back in the house, food was on, and Clef had an apron over his nightclothes, and it looked amusing enough to make him look less-

Less like he'd just rolled out of bed and could be happy being pushed back into it any moment.

She went to get dressed, which would hopefully stop her thinking about getting back into bed, and sure enough, after breakfast, he helped slice fruit and watched as she stacked the cake, stuck it together with jam, and decorated it.
It should probably be weird, having someone in her space, helping out - she'd always kicked everyone else out of the kitchen when she baked, so she could make as much mess as possible. But he was, actually, helpful - and impressed. Which felt... nice.

She definitely wasn't going to mess things up by getting weird at him. Whatever she was feeling lately, she was sure it would go away if she just ignored it.