Title: Revealing
Fandom: Magic Knight Rayearth
Rating: General
Length: 1100ish words
Content notes: None
Author notes: Umi/Clef, modern day/mundane AU - marriage of convenience. Just a snippet of 'oh, oh no'. Because I went elsewhere with the prompt so I could write fluff XD.
Summary: At the end of the Board meeting Umi smiled casually about the room, told them all she would look forward to seeing them this evening – oh, and her husband would be coming along, too.

The looks on their faces were so worth going through with this whole thing.

oOo

Umi introduced her husband to the company – well, to the Board – a little more than a month after they’d filed the paperwork for the marriage. There was a fancy evening party they were all supposed to attend, the opening of a branch; at the end of the Board meeting the same afternoon she smiled casually about the room, told them all she would look forward to seeing them this evening – oh, and her husband would be coming along, too.

The looks on their faces were so worth going through with this whole thing. (…Though part of her was starting to think that Clef himself might have been worth doing this for, even without the trophy-husband thing. It was just… it was nice, having a friend to spend her time with, one who had a dry sense of humour and wasn’t afraid to argue with her on occasion.)

“Oh,” she said, as several of them audibly spluttered. “He doesn’t speak that much Japanese though, I’m afraid, so I’ll be sticking with him all evening. It seems mean to abandon him.”

She wasn’t in other words, going to shoo him away so she could talk business like half the men in the room did to their wives.

Sitting back, she smiled as the room erupted about her, thoroughly enjoying the feeling of finally having won control of events.

#

She got home a little later than she’d intended – half the Board had been trying to catch her for ‘just a moment’, ask if she was serious – so by the time she made it in the door and kicked her heels off in the genkan there was a delicious smell wafting through the room, and Clef looked around from the kitchenette as she padded across the floor.

He smiled, just seeing her, and Umi grinned back.

“How did it go?” he asked, turning back to the stove and doing something to the saucepan there.

“It went great, I just wish you could have seen their faces – I mean, I guess I could just have walked in with you tonight, then you could have-“

“I’m sure the impact of telling the whole room at once was worth it. You’ll just have to describe it to me.” He hummed softly, and by the time she’d made it across the room he was dishing up something – rice, first, then ladling something over it into the bowls - it looked like he’d made oyakodon. “I figured after what you said about all the alcohol and tiny bits of food at these things that this might suit?”

“It smells great, thanks,” she said, and couldn’t stop grinning as he slid the bowls across the island to the side with the two tall stools. “Yeah, they never have enough food at these things, and even if there was people just keep on talking to me half the time, I never get to actually eat.”

“Best make the most of it now, then.” He handed her a small plate of salad and came to sit down beside her, and Umi still marvelled at how he’d never even eaten half of these dishes a couple of months ago, and now he was making them, and- she stared at the bowl. “This tastes exactly like Mama makes it.”

“That’s because she taught me how to cook it for you,” Clef said, with a laugh. “It was a bit of a vocabulary lesson, too – that first week you went back to work, before we found this house? The ingredients are all pretty straightforward, chicken and eggs and rice all seemed pretty important words to learn.”

“Huh. Well, it’s good. Thanks.” She concentrated on eating; they had to get changed and get across half of Tokyo within the next hour.

Her dress was hanging ready in her room, a deep blue shot with silver threads in a pattern that almost looked like scales when it caught the light, and she’d worked out years ago how to twist her hair up in a way which looked pretty fancy but took less than five minutes to actually secure in place; redoing her makeup took longer than anything else. She changed her earrings out from the little sapphire studs she usually wore, grabbing the neat dangly enamel ones which looked like a waterfall or maybe a dragon’s wing, and then tried to get the matching bracelet to fasten about her wrist.

The clasp was hard to do one-handed, and she gave up after a few frustrating attempts. After all, she had someone she could ask to help – she headed back out of her bedroom just as Clef’s door opened.

“Hey, Clef, this bracelet’s being a nuisance, could you-“ she looked up, saw him, and lost her train of thought entirely.

She’d seen Clef in a suit before. She’d bought him one for the wedding, but that had been… a little less formal. A little less fitted. This was an even deeper blue than her dress, and it hung neatly over the shirt and waistcoat, over slim hips, and-

He’d almost managed to tame his hair, but not quite – it was still curling about his face, and the sudden urge to bury her hands in it, mess it up, wrap her arms about him under that jacket…

Umi swallowed, cheeks heating.

Clef, meanwhile, looked up from his own wrist with a grin, seemingly oblivious to the way she’d frozen. “Can we trade favours? I can’t get this watch to tighten as much as I’d like – here, I’ll get yours first.”

He reached out and took the bracelet with one hand, pulling her arm gently towards him. His thumb slid over her inner wrist, and she couldn’t work out how he’d not felt her pulse thump under his touch.

Careful, clever fingers worked the catch on the bracelet, fastening it securely about her wrist.

“Thanks,” she murmured, pulling her arm back and resisting the urge to rub at it, skin tingling with something not quite an itch.

“If you could just get this…” he held his own arm out, and Umi took a breath, but reached over and tightened the watch until he made a happier sound.

“That’s better, thanks. Are we ready?”

No, she thought, looking at him and biting at the inside of her cheek. No, she wasn’t sure she was.

He offered her his arm, with a smile. “Come on. Lets go distress your company’s Board of Directors when they realise you’ve absolutely won this round; I’m ready to be perfectly ornamental and thoroughly useless to them.”

It was the high of the moment, had to be. That and a good suit made anyone look good, and – well, it didn’t matter. Clef was turning into her partner, the one who helped her, supported her, in ways the Board could never imagine. She wasn’t going to wreck that just because she’d got good taste in suits.

“Yep. I’m ready - let’s go.”