Title: Weekly Special
Fandom: Magic Knight Rayearth
Rating: Teen maybe
Length: 500 words
Content notes: Mention of violence
Author notes: pre-relationship Umi/Clef and Fuu/Ferio, spies!au
Summary: It was a Tuesday without a major mission on, which meant that Clef and Umi had ended up taking lunch at the same time – and, as had happened a lot through the last few months – came back into the office arguing.


oOo

It was a Tuesday without a major mission on, which meant that Clef and Umi had ended up taking lunch at the same time – and, as had happened a lot through the last few months – came back into the office arguing.

“But they aren’t, though, they don’t hold an edge for five minutes-“ Umi said, holding the door open for Clef to follow her through with one hand, making exasperated hand gestures with the other.

“They do fine for a day! Honestly, I know there’s value in having the best tools in some arenas, but this isn’t one of them. Anything adequate is adequate. These don’t fall to pieces when you hit someone with the handle, and as long as you’re not proposing to cut sashimi or something with them-“

“But if you had something like-“ Umi was pulling her phone out of her pocket, searching something up and waving it at Clef as they kept moving through the room.

“No,” Clef said, but his lips were twitching even as he said it. “There is no need for that amount of money to be wasted on a luxury item. Not unless you’re planning on funding the budget out of your own pocket? Save that kind of thing for where you actually get to appreciate the quality – not stabbing people!”

Ferio, slouched at the desk he had slowly taken over in the main room next to those that Umi, Fuu, and Hikaru usually sat at, raised an eyebrow at them as Umi huffed dramatically and dropped into her seat.

“What’s today’s special menu argument?” he asked, and grinned when they both pulled faces at him.

“Clef buys shit knives,” Umi declared, at the same time as Clef came out with “Umi wants us to buy hand-forged artisan kitchen knives for self defence.”

Ferio shook his head. “Ah, you’re both wrong – you can’t just go carrying one of those around, so a pocket knife-“

“For back-up when you’re at home,” Clef said, shaking his head, “and folding knives-“

“Folding knives are just-“ Umi shook her head, too. “No. Wrong. Bad. I’d rather have a stick.”

“And a stick’s what I’m probably going to have chucked at me if I don’t get to the senior management meeting on time,” Clef muttered, looking down the room to where Ferio’s sister was talking to one of the other agents. “You’ll have to tell Ferio how wrong he is, Umi.”

“Leave it to me,” Umi told him, with a sharp grin – one that made Clef’s parting smile get just a little brighter in response, Ferio noted, and tried to keep his own smile hidden. Umi ‘accidentally’ tailing Clef at lunch on the one day she was in the office while neither Hikaru nor Fuu were rostered in was the kind of thing which normally would have had Clef shutting it down hard. Instead he complained at her about it and then they just… ate lunch together and argued over some exceedingly ridiculous things.

Every week.

Even the ‘tailing him to find the good lunch spots’ looked like some kind of inside joke to the two of them. It wasn’t Ferio’s idea of romance… but it seemed to be working pretty well for them.

In the meantime, it meant that Ferio could invite Fuu to lunch every Wednesday so he could report back on this week’s argument, as Fuu was just as amused at their friends as he was. So Ferio was doing quite well from this, too. Certainly enough to listen happily to a rant about the pitfalls of folding knives in hand-to-hand combat – one which sounded exceedingly similar to the one Clef had given several times in his hearing.

Ferio propped his chin on his hand, and grinned, and let the words flow over him.