Title: Unexpected sweetness
Fandom: Magic Knight Rayearth
Rating: General
Length: 800 words
Content notes: None
Author notes: Modern day/mundane AU - marriage of convenience. Just a stand-alone snippetty fic of Clef running into a tombola.
Summary: "Um," he managed, his mediocre Japanese trying to abandon him in the face of the unexpected. "What is this?"


oOo

Clef was uncertain what was going on, when he went into the grocery shop down the road to buy some pre-made tempura and some ingredients for dinner, only to be met with even greater enthusiasm than usual and a box with a hole in the top being thrust across the counter at him.

"Um," he managed, his mediocre Japanese trying to abandon him in the face of the unexpected. "What is this?"

When the owner answered him with a lot of detail and at a happy speed Clef did not manage to follow, his face must have given it away, as she waved her teenage daughter over. Clef knew the daughter had the occasional after-school shift helping out; because she was learning English at school, not only had she been stuck trying to help him translate his request when he came in with a blinding headache in search of painkillers not long after he and Umi moved here, but her parents had nudged her into asking him for a few minutes help with her English homework a couple of times. He felt that was a fair exchange for her help when his language skills had failed out, and English was such a nuisance language he was very glad he wasn't learning it.

She tapped on the top of the box now, and waved a hand at her mother's continued determined attempts to explain. "For a prize," she said. "Inside there are balls. The colour is the prize." And she pointed at a notice stuck to the front of the box, which had a series of coloured circles on it, each with an excited bit of text next to it - clearly, now he knew what he was looking at, the guide to what prize each colour ball meant. The top one appeared to be gold, and there were pictures of palm trees and ocean waves and did that mean that one was a holiday?

He didn't expect little grocery stores to be sending people off on holiday even in a special competition prize. But the box actually had the name of the road on it, he realised, written down the side of the guide in large and important looking grandure. "Is the whole road taking part in the competition?" he asked, pointing to it, then gesturing along in the direction of the street outside for good measure. There was a whole little selection of independent shops here, and the girl - he really needed to learn what her name was, but he felt so rude asking after all this time (now he actually knew how to ask), and she had a name badge, he just couldn't read it - nodded with a smile.

"Yes! Our festival. On Saturday, there will be music, and food, and more competitions."
"It sounds fun," he said, and she translated back for her mother, who beamed at him. "I take a ball from the box?"

"Yes," she said - and then her mother butted in with a very clear instruction in Japanese to not look, which he agreed to, all the while hoping very much that whatever he pulled out, it wasn't going to be anything fancy like that top description implied. After all, this entire year was pretty much a holiday for him, and Umi could pay for them to go on a trip anytime even after buying the house, it would be far better if it was won by someone who actually needed to win it for a worry-free holiday without financial hassle.

The ball he pulled out in the end was orange, which was third from the bottom. His prize turned out to be, in fact, a couple of oranges, which was welcome, and appropriate, and he thanked them both very much and headed back out, making a note to himself to put Saturday on the calendar and ask Umi about it.

It being a mental note, he completely forgot for two days until Friday evening, when Umi picked up one of the oranges. "Are these for something particular, or shall we have one for dessert?"

"Oh! They were a prize - apparently the street is having a festival, and there's things going on tomorrow? It's fine to eat, that would be nice, actually."

"Huh." She started peeling it, leaning on the kitchen counter as the smell of the orange started to waft through the air. "Must be a shopping district thing, I guess. What kind of things?"

"I was going to ask you," he laughed. "Guess it's a bit late now. Did you want to go find out tomorrow? There should be food, at least, I know that much."

Umi grinned at him, shaking her head. "Sure. It's a date."

"It's - yeah."

He flushed, and ate his half of the orange while Umi told him all about the very irritating meeting she'd had that day and the revenge she planned to take (it had been a member of the board being deliberately obnoxious, so revenge was called for,) and quietly looked forward to the next day. Whatever it was, with Umi, he was pretty certain he was going to have fun.