27 May 2021: I'm posting parts 5 and 6 today, so if you haven't read chapter 5, you might want to go back and read it before this chapter.
From Guru to House-Husband
Story 6: Close Quarters
Part 6: July
Waking up in the living room after their night out embarrassed Clef to no end - not just because of the headache he thoroughly deserved, but because of the muddled mess of memories he had of the night before. He'd crossed a line by propositioning Umi when he could hardly even stand on his own - that he'd propositioned her in advance for the next day didn't help.
When he tried to apologise to Umi, she insisted she had no idea what he'd said because he'd been rambling in Cephiran. Which was entirely possible, but the way she blushed when she said that made Clef wonder if she was telling him the truth.
Either way, Umi shook her head, laughed at him, and handed him a dose of a painkiller for the headache then continued on as if nothing had happened. She didn't send him back to Tokyo, and she still expected him to sleep in their bedroom the next night.
She didn't ask him a single question.
He didn't know how to take that. But how could he ask if she was rejecting him if he'd never actually expressed his feelings for her to reject them?
Umi still held his hand when they walked together, and she happily curled up with him on the sofa, playing games and watching dramas. Sometimes she blushed and bit her lip if the two of them ended up leaning on each other while they watched a movie or argued about where to plant trees on their tiny digital island, but was that any different to before?.
It was easiest to just put the whole episode aside, especially when Umi spent most of the next week in pain with her period, and he was busy filling hot water bottles and fetching painkillers and tea for her around getting things sorted for Lantis and Hikaru's imminent visit.
A visit here took a lot more effort than inviting a guest to stay in Cephiro - even before he'd lived in the Castle it had been easy enough to summon up some extra furniture and rearrange things, and he'd had access to communal kitchens nearly his entire life. Here, there were futon to rent, menus to plan, and food to purchase.
Whatever strangeness might or might not be between him and Umi, it could be worked out later, when they were alone again and he wasn't worried about convincing Lantis that he was well and settled in this strange world. Of all his friends, Lantis was the one who knew intimately how hard it could be having to leave Cephiro and try to make a life somewhere else.
"Do you need me to pick up anything on my way home?" Umi asked, the morning of their friends' arrival.
Clef pulled a face at the borrowed futon in the corner of the room. "Hopefully not, but if I've forgotten anything, I'll let you know."
"Okay. I'm going now." She waved as she grabbed her bag and dashed out the door.
Clef cleaned up the breakfast dishes and walked the whole apartment, double-checking everything was in its place. The shoes were actually put away on their shelves in the genkan, not piled on the floor where Umi had abandoned them. Guest slippers were ready and waiting. No papers or books were scattered about on the tables. The little collection of herbs and plants slowly growing on the balcony and the windowsill were all watered and happy,
Keeping house was currently his job, and he wanted to do it well. He also wanted the first impressions of the apartment to live up to the images he'd shared on InPic, given Hikaru would definitely have seen those, and Lantis probably had too.
Lantis and Hikaru arrived a little before lunchtime, Hikaru texting Clef just as their taxi pulled up outside so he was downstairs and ready to let them in just as they picked up their luggage, and then Hikaru set hers down to hug Clef, beaming, before refusing to let him carry anything for her and picking her bags up again to follow him upstairs.
Clef gave them a brief tour of the apartment while the kettle boiled, taking full advantage of the fact Umi wasn't there to just speak in Cephiran. Hikaru enthusiastically peered at everything, claiming that the InPic photos didn't show the details and she was curious. She stopped in front of the bookcase, picking up the framed photo of Clef and Umi at the afterparty.
"Is that the photo you shared after the wedding?" Hikaru asked.
"It is. One of Umi's friends sent it to me. I think it's my favourite of the photos - the official ones are lovely, but…"
"It's beautiful," Hikaru said. Setting it back down, she glanced up as the wind chime above her jingled. "This is one of the wind chimes you two painted, right?"
"Yeah. That one's mine. Umi's is in the bedroom if you want to see it," Clef said, sliding the shoji open to continue the brief tour.
Hikaru stepped out of her slippers and disappeared over to the sliding glass door at the back of the bedroom. "Oh! It's much cuter than she said it was!"
"Good luck convincing her of that," Clef said with a laugh.
Lantis meanwhile was looking around the main room, nodding slowly. "When you said it was small, I imagined something much smaller than this. This is a nice size for two. Obviously not as large as your rooms in the castle, but it's not bad."
Clef laughed. "Yeah. Maybe it's not so small as it might be, but it's definitely a little short on space at times for the two of us. But it's more space than I'd have had on Autozam, I'm sure"
"Far better in other ways too," Lantis said, a smile lurking in his expression, and Clef had to turn away, his cheeks heating.
Fortunately, the kettle whistling saved him from having to respond. "I'll make tea and you can settle in while I get lunch ready," he said, heading thankfully back to the kitchen, ignoring Hikaru's giggle from the bedroom.
If this was any indication, the next few days might be very long indeed.
oOo
Umi rushed home after fencing club for the first time in weeks, bursting into the apartment and all but falling out of her shoes in her hurry to throw her arms around Hikaru, who laughed and hugged her back hard.
This had to be the longest stretch of time they'd gone without seeing each other since they'd first been summoned to Cephiro, and she didn't like it..
The two of them bounced around in a circle until Clef called out from the kitchen.
"Think of our downstairs neighbours!"
"Fine!" Umi cackled, letting Hikaru drop laughing on the sofa and heading across to where Clef was doing something food-wise, waving hi to Lantis on the way. There were other ways they could celebrate their friends' arrival. She pulled open a cupboard door and reached in to fetch the bottle of wine Caldina sent them.
She hadn't even got it off the shelf before Clef was reaching in to set it back down.
"Not that." He reached past it and pulled out a small bottle of sake instead. "If you really want a toast, how about this? Though it might be best to leave it until after dinner. We could go buy some tempura from that little shop down the road and bring it back to have with it, that could be nice?"
"But-" Umi stared at him. Had she misremembered him saying to wait until they had other people to share it with? Or was it something else?
"Now's not a good time for that one." He shut the cupboard.
"So when-"
"We can talk about it later. Would you grab the plates? Then you can relax while I finish here."
"Okay?" Umi swallowed her questions and headed back to actually say hi to Lantis.
"Good afternoon," Lantis said carefully in Japanese.
"Good evening," Clef called out, followed by a few words in Cephiran that were probably an explanation for the correction.
Umi pulled a face. She'd forgotten how annoying it had been not being able to talk directly to her other friends - how frustrating it was to have to talk through a translator. She'd worked hard on her languages in school so she didn't have to go through small-talk through a translator at her parent's parties. Maybe she should have Clef teach her Cephiran - she hadn't really thought about it before, but this might be her only chance to actually learn it, while the translation spell wasn't working on her.
By the time they all sat down to eat, Umi found it easier to get Hikaru to repeat her words. Not just because Clef stumbled as he switched between languages, but also because every time she looked at Clef she wanted to ask him about the wine Caldina had sent them.
Why wouldn't he want to celebrate? Was he afraid of getting drunk again? Didn't he know she wouldn't let anything happen? If they ever actually had sex she wanted to know for sure it was that he wanted her, and it wasn't just an alcohol-driven urge, and she would never take advantage of him like that.
But maybe it was what the wine represented that he didn't want to celebrate: the relationship they didn't have.
Hikaru poked her cheek. "What's that look for?"
Umi shook her head and made herself smile. "Nothing. So, how did your brothers take you having Lantis to stay?" Which proved a good distraction for herself as much as Hikaru.
oOo
That night, Hikaru suggested that she and Umi take the bedroom and leave Lantis and Clef the main room. "So they can talk about secret Cephiro stuff," she said with a laugh.
Umi was embarrassingly reluctant to be parted from Clef - She and Clef had only slept the one night apart since they'd moved to Kyoto - but she liked getting to chat with Hikaru while they fell asleep for the first time in ages, so she helped lay out the futon before taking her turn in the bathroom, and when they were both ready for bed Hikaru slid the shoji shut and turned to look at Umi.
"Okay. What are you worrying about?" Hikaru asked, voice low enough it probably wouldn't carry to the other room, where she could hear the different rhythm of Clef and Lantis's conversation in Cephiran..
Umi dropped onto her futon and sighed. "It's complicated."
"Is it about Clef?" Hikaru sat across from her.
A hot blush crept over Umi's skin. It was silly to be embarrassed by thinking about him - Hikaru probably thought they were sleeping together now, if she believed they hadn't been before they'd got married and moved in together.
"Is everything okay with you two?"
"I don't know," Umi admitted.
Hikaru dropped her voice. "You're not pregnant, right?"
Umi gave up on trying to be quiet and threw her pillow at her. "Don't you start too!"
"Hey, it's a possibility for why you two might be acting a bit weird!" Hikaru argued. "It's definitely not something you'd want to get back to Cephiro right now - not that Lantis or I would say anything without permission."
"I'm not pregnant, and I'm not acting weird." Umi crossed her arms, wishing she had another pillow to throw. If she could start a pillow fight, at least this conversation would end for now.
Hikaru hugged Umi's pillow, keeping it well out of her reach like she knew exactly what Umi was thinking. "You and Clef hardly said a word to each other this evening."
"We talk to each other every night. We haven't talked to you and Lantis for months!"
"And you're not worried about anything?" Hikaru raised her eyebrow. "You didn't change the subject half a dozen times this evening?"
"Well-"
"You're not good at keeping secrets."
Umi reached over and grabbed her pillow, dragging it back into her arms and hugging it to her chest. "I'm just so confused. He's made comments about our future children like it's a given they'll exist, but we've never had a single conversation about children. I don't even know if he wants children! I don't even know if I want children. I know that's something you know about someone before you marry them - I guess even if you just marry them for a visa. I haven't even thought about the possibility of us having children until he said something!"
Hikaru nodded, slowly. "If he's exiled for the next two decades, he might be your only chance to have children, if you decide you do want them."
"Maybe! But I'd like to talk about it before we make any plans," Umi said, flailing an arm before realising she'd raised her voice a little too loud. "I don't even know if he actually wants to have sex; he's only ever come on to me when he was drunk."
Hikaru sat up straighter, asking, "What happened?"
"Nothing! He started babbling in Cephiran and kissing my neck, but I won't take advantage of someone who's drunk, so I made him drink some water and sent him to bed."
"Did you talk about it at all?" Hikaru leaned forward, shuffling closer.
Umi shook her head. "He apologised for 'his conduct'. I told him I didn't even understand what he asked me, but he didn't tell me what he'd actually said."
"Do you remember any of the words?"
Umi thought a moment then hesitantly repeated one of the words he'd lingered on. The way he'd purred it in her ear was burned into her memory. Her face burned hot; if it was too explicit hopefully it wouldn't translate. Or maybe the translation spell wouldn't work when she didn't know what she was trying to say.
Hikaru asked her to repeat it a second time and hummed. "Do you remember anything else?"
Swallowing, Umi tried to pronounce a few more words.
A bright flush rushed up Hikaru's cheeks as she started giggling. "Yeah, I think you guessed right."
"What does it mean?"
"Something about having a taste of you - maybe wanting a taste of you?" Hikaru stifled another giggle.
Umi hugged the pillow tighter and pulled her knees up. "But he's never said anything before! I know he thinks I'm attractive, but I don't think he really wants me like that."
"I doubt he'd have said it if he didn't mean it."
"He was drunk."
"Which just means that he was uninhibited," Hikaru said, glancing at the shoji before leaning in toward Umi. "I don't believe for a moment that Clef only agreed to marry you just because Japan was a nicer alternative to Autozam."
"Clef hates Autozam. The atmosphere makes him feel ill, of course he'd take the first offer of somewhere other than Autozam."
"But he didn't, he chose you. Last-minute, no plan. He agreed to marry you and spend the next decade or two with you, because you asked." Hikaru looked at her steadily. "Autozam's not the only place he could have gone, not really."
"He should have said something sooner, then it wouldn't have been all last minute like that! I almost lost him for who knows how long because he didn't tell me!" She was still irritated that Clef put off telling her for so long; she wouldn't have forgiven him for leaving without letting her know. "If he had, I'd have gone to Autozam to yell at him about it. I guess that could have been an adventure," she muttered.
Hikaru giggled, but let the subject drop when Umi asked her pointedly how she was doing, and they stayed up later than they should have done catching up.
oOo
Clef woke in the dark to the sound of Umi's distressed whimper. It wasn't the first time - he groggily sat up, murmuring, "It's a dream, it's okay, Umi-" But when he reached out a hand to comfort her, he remembered the person lying beside him was Lantis, not Umi.
Slipping out from the covers, Clef got to his feet and crept to the bedroom, quietly sliding the screen open just far enough to see Umi pushing her covers aside.
"Sorry. I didn't mean to wake you," Umi whispered, sniffling and wiping her eyes on her covers.
"Hey, it's okay. You can always wake me if you need me," Clef murmured, mindful of Hikaru asleep just across the room. He knelt beside her and reached for the tissue box to offer her, and rested a hand on her knees. "Do you want a cup of tea?"
Umi shook her head.
"Do you want to talk about it?"
"It was just a dream, but - you left. You went back to Cephiro with Lantis and Hikaru, leaving me here all alone." Fresh tears ran down her cheeks.
"I won't leave you unless you ask me to." Clef wrapped his arm around her shoulders.
Umi leaned into him. "Promise?"
"I promise. I'm not going anywhere without you, not unless you want me to." Clef rubbed his hand over her arm.
Umi leaned her head against his shoulder and turned far enough to wrap her arms around him, only to pull back when his shirt grew damp from her tears. "Sorry," she muttered.
"Hey, isn't it my job as your husband to hug you when you have a nightmare?" Clef said, pulling her back into his arms, and Umi pressed her face into his shoulder as she started crying all over again. His heart ached. He knew things had been a little strained for a few days, but he hadn't realised that could make Umi think she might lose him. "I'm here. I'm not leaving you - I made you a vow, remember? I don't swear vows I don't mean to keep."
For a while they sat in the dark wrapped together, Umi's tears slowing and her breathing evening out slowly as the minutes passed. But even when she'd calmed down enough to start yawning, Umi didn't let Clef go, grasping his arm when he tried to leave.
"Stay with me?"
"Of course." Clef slipped under the edge of Umi's duvet, and Umi curled carefully against him as he got himself under the single cover until there was no draft against his back. Clef absently pressed a kiss to her forehead before wrapping his arm a bit more comfortably about her and closing his eyes.
oOo
Clef woke to the touch of Umi's fingers brushing his hair out of his face. Light was filtering into the room; their eyes met, and Clef's heart tugged in his chest. Umi's eyes were still slightly swollen from crying, but she smiled across at him.
"Morning," she said, fingers lingering on his cheek.
"Good morning." Clef smiled back at her. "Did you sleep alright in the end?"
Umi nodded, and Clef slowly woke up to how close she was, how tightly he held her. He swallowed, realising she must feel him pressed against her. But instead of pulling away, her gaze flickered to his mouth.
Breath catching in his chest Clef cupped her cheek, thumb brushing over her soft skin.
It was Umi who moved first. She leaned tentatively forward - painfully slowly, like she was afraid he would panic any moment. Maybe she was right; his heart was thumping in his chest, but he didn't dare move. He glanced past her, belatedly remembering their guests, but Hikaru was gone and the shoji was closed; he couldn't hear anything from the main room, either. He and Umi seemed to be alone with each other.
They should talk. They really should stop - whatever this was, and talk, but he still couldn't work out how to start a conversation.
Maybe... they were both better with actions than words, sometimes. Maybe this was actually the way to start actually communicating - or maybe he just wanted an excuse to do what he wanted to so badly.
But with Umi leaning in, looking at him like that - wasn't that clear enough to start with?
Umi shifted a fraction closer, and he moved to meet her.
Their lips brushed once, then again, then pressed together more firmly as Umi curled tighter against him, her fingers combing through his hair.
He'd dreamed this so many times he was half-convinced he was still asleep, but Umi's lips were warm and soft, and they opened to the tentative touch of his tongue. Clef tilted his head for a better angle - it had been so long since he'd properly kissed someone, he'd almost forgotten how to do it.
Umi made a little plaintive noise as her hips pressed more firmly against his. Clef wrapped an arm about her as he twisted onto his back, and she came with him, laying against his chest and their legs tangling together, shoving the covers away and kissing him again as he tugged her as close as possible-
A loud rattle heralded the apartment door opening in the other room and they startled apart to the sound of Hikaru and Lantis coming in, Hikaru saying something about melon bread accompanied by the thump of her shoes being abandoned in the genkan.
Clef scrambled to his feet and out of the bedding, breathing hard, his face burning hot. "Sorry," he whispered, unable to look at Umi, reaching down to bundle the futon up in his arms.
That had definitely been communication, of a kind, but not the sort that would give him any sort of certainty about this - them. About what Umi wanted from him, and whether that matched what he wanted at all, and he was too old to go about being so distracted by attraction that he let it mess with his judgement!
Sure, that might actually make Umi ask him what he was thinking, but the start of a week with their friends here and no real chance to have a private conversation was the worst possible time to try and start something, or sort things out, or-
"Clef-" Umi started, before a knock on the shoji made them both jump. "Yeah?"
"Oh, good, you're awake - Lantis and I went and bought us all breakfast, so come out whenever you're both ready!" Hikaru called through the door. She was far too chipper, but Clef was grateful for the unintended interruption before things could get too out of hand.
"I should have a shower," Clef muttered at the floor, roughly folding the futon to shove it in the corner and scurrying off to the bathroom.
oOo
Umi swallowed as she watched Clef disappear, and pulled the rest of the abandoned bedding towards herself, wrapping her arms about it. She must have overstepped - that had escalated far faster than she'd expected when she got it into her head to just - kiss Clef good morning, just a brief thing, not pinning him down to the mattress and-
It was barely more than six months since Clef was exiled. He probably needed more time than that to work out what he wanted to do with himself right now, and the last thing he needed was Umi awkwardly trying to seduce him.
Hikaru peered around the screen that Clef had left open as he escaped. Whatever Umi's expression was, it was enough to have Hikaru crossing the room and crouching down beside her, keeping her voice low. "Did we interrupt something?"
"I don't know," Umi said. Her heart was still thundering in her chest, only rather than the excitement of a few minutes ago, her blood was full of dread. Please let her have not ruined everything with her impulsiveness.
But he kissed her back! Umi touched her fingers to her lips. That had to mean something, didn't it?
"Why don't you get dressed. We can go out and leave the boys to talk super-secret Cephiro stuff, while we talk about whatever's making you look like that?"
Umi hesitated, but Clef had vanished into the bathroom, and Lantis wouldn't understand a word she said, anyway. Though he would understand Hikaru…but only if he heard her, and Umi could hear the water running in the kitchen so he wasn't right outside the bedroom or anything...
"Clef kissed me." Umi blurted. "I mean, I started it, I think, but he really kissed me. Not a quick little peck like at our wedding, but an actual kiss. And he kept kissing me until you and Lantis came back. Then he apologised and ran away. I don't know what to do!"
Hikaru patted her on the shoulder. "I think you two need to talk."
"How?" Umi waved a hand in the air. "Every time I try to talk to him about - things like that, things get weird and then he thinks I'm panicking or something and lures me into playing video games for hours and you can't have a serious conversation with someone you're arguing with over whether you should decorate your digital island like it's a funfair!"
"Just tell him what you told me. That you're confused and you want to know what he wants. Sex, children, whatever." Hikaru said. "Hasn't he always answered your questions when you ask them? Actually ask, not hope he guesses what you want him to talk about?"
"It's hardly the same as asking if Mokona had a family, or- or how to work a shield spell."
"No. It's like asking him to marry you and move to Japan."
Umi pulled a face at Hikaru. Okay, maybe that should have been an awkward conversation - but it hadn't been. She'd just up and asked him to move, entirely on impulse, and he'd said yes!
If they'd talked about things a bit more then, things probably wouldn't be this weird right now. Though if they'd talked then and Cled panicked and ran away from her, he'd have probably gone to hide on Autozam, not just in the bathroom. So maybe it was best they hadn't tried any deep conversation about how they felt about each other back then. Here, no matter what happened, they could fix it. Right?
"You could write him a letter, or send him an email," Hikaru said, then patted her on the shoulder. "But I'm only giving you until the end of the summer to do it. Otherwise, I'm coming back down here and making you two talk to each other like I did Eagle and Lantis."
Umi spluttered into laughter. She'd almost forgotten about Hikaru playing mediator before Eagle went back to Autozam. "And how'd that really work out? I'm guessing Eagle's not back in Cephiro, or he'd have come with you."
"It went fine. They talked about what they both actually want and made a ten-year plan to try and get there, rather than brooding and deflecting." Hikaru patted Umi on the arm. "Though I'm going to end up hopping off to Autozam to give Eagle a stern talking to if he doesn't start writing again. You can't get very personal when all the comms are in public rooms, and they're both being cagey again." She sighed, over exaggerating, and poked Umi. "So you need to talk to Clef, or I'll have to start charging you all for my travel, going here to Autozam and back again!"
Umi snorted. "Shidou Hikaru, intergalactic relationship fixer?"
"That's me!" Hikaru posed like some shounen hero for a moment, then they both burst into giggles.
oOo
Clef took his time in the bathroom. He wasn't exactly hiding, but he also wasn't ready to face Umi. He knew she'd have questions about what just happened, and he wasn't sure how he wanted to answer those - Umi's patience being what it was, he was fairly certain she wouldn't wait for Hikaru and Lantis to leave at the end of the week before cornering him.
But Umi wasn't waiting for him. Lantis was alone at the dining table, the teapot and two cups in front of him, and no one was in the bedroom.
"Uh," Clef blinked as he realised Lantis must have woken up to find Clef had vanished in the middle of the night. "Good morning? Are the others…"
"They went out for the day," Lantis said. He poured a second cup of tea and slid it across the table toward Clef. "Shall we talk about what happened this morning?"
"I don't need another warning about the stability of Cephiro." Clef dropped into the chair across from Lantis. "I doubt things would have been any better if I went to Autozam."
"Clef, that's the last thing I would be saying to you, and you know it. Going to Autozam would have made you and Umi both miserable."
Clef stared at him.
"It's awful to be separated from the person you love, especially when you don't have an end date. I thought you came here so you could be together and have the normal life you're fighting for others to have, but you're dragging your feet. I don't understand what you're afraid of."
"I'm not-" Clef stopped. That wasn't true; he was terrified. He'd never felt so out of control of himself as he was about Umi.
Taking a breath, he wrapped his hands around the cup of tea. "I don't know what to do. I've never felt like this about anyone before."
"I'm not the best person to give relationship advice, but you should talk to Umi. Work it out together."
"I know, but Umi has exams coming up. I don't want to be a distraction."
"And what will be your excuse once she's finished with those?"
Clef pulled a face into the cup of tea. "I'm sure I'll think of something," he muttered - then pulled the face at Lantis directly when that got him a distinctly disapproving look.
Lantis managed a few moments before his lips twitched. "Or you could talk to her."
"Like you talked to Eagle?"
"Well, Hikaru is only visiting for a short time, so you'll need to be quick about getting her to intervene. But I'm sure she'd be happy to help if you ask her," Lantis deadpanned.
Shaking his head, Clef sipped the tea. Hopefully, it wouldn't come to that. "Meanwhile, I'd like to show you around where we're living, if you'd like to come see some of the city?"
"I would like that very much."
oOo
By the time she and Hikaru got back to the apartment that day, Umi had decided it would be best to wait until they didn't have guests before she made Clef sit down and talk things out. Even though she just wanted to know what was going on inside his head, who knew how long that conversation would take.
Or, given the morning's events, what it would lead to. She wasn't going to start making out with Clef when their friends were right in the next room, and the wall between them was just a thin screen!
It was frustrating, but having Hikaru and Lantis with them was too nice to waste fretting over what Clef might be thinking. If nothing else, he had promised he was staying with her. As long as he stayed, they had time to work things out.
In the end, she couldn't help feeling disappointed at how quickly the week flew by even with the background tension lurking between her and Clef. It didn't help that even though she'd taken time away from fencing club she still had classes to attend most days. She knew this visit was more about Lantis visiting Clef than them visiting her, but she still wished they all had more time together. It was good to see Lantis managing to relax too, even if she couldn't have a conversation with him unless Hikaru or Clef was there to translate for her, and she'd missed Hikaru more than she'd realised.
"You have to come visit during a holiday," Umi insisted to Hikaru when they said their goodbyes that last morning. As it was, they weren't likely to be in the same place again until at least New Year - when they would both be busy visiting their families in Tokyo.
Hikaru laughed and hugged her. "Well, if you weren't going to be in Okinawa on my birthday..."
"Hey! I'll send you presents!"
"Don't forget to talk to him," Hikaru said, pulling away. "Just get it over with tonight, then you don't have to fret anymore."
"I'll do my best," Umi promised.
Clef stuck his head around the door and she flushed, but all he said was "The taxi is downstairs."
She helped carry the luggage down - now increased with a good number of gifts for people back in Cephiro - and saw them into the taxi, waving one more time as it pulled away before bolting down the road in the other direction to make it to class on time.
By the time she got home that evening, however, there was a slightly more pressing immediate concern - namely all the work she'd put aside while their friends were visiting. She'd not thought too much about it until one lecturer reminded them that they had an essay due in tomorrow, and another that they had a test the next afternoon - and when she actually sat down and worked out a list of the work due in over the next week, the rush of adrenaline was almost as strong as the one from falling through the sky into Cephiro.
She raided the library and sent a quick apology to the fencing club as she rushed home, excusing herself for another week - she was going to need it. As soon as she got in, Umi cleared everything else from the kotatsu and dumped all her papers and books across it and the surrounding floor before firing up her laptop and settling in.
Clef eyed the papers. "Dinner will be ready in about half an hour."
"Yeah," she muttered, flipping through the first of the library books to find the section she needed. "You go ahead and eat, I'll grab something when I have a moment."
"...Did you get a new assignment today?"
"Misremembered a deadline. Or two."
"Ah."
He didn't say anything more just then, but half an hour later he startled her by putting a bookmark into the book she was reading and shutting it in front of her. "Dinner's ready. Come and eat."
Dinner was set out on the dining table, and it smelled wonderful - her stomach growled audibly. But she hesitated, looking down at her notes. "I just- I should keep going a bit more-"
"Who is it who always tells me I'll work faster afterwards if I take a break to eat dinner?" Clef asked, pointedly, and she flushed - he was copying her with the bookmark, too, and no wonder he glared at her when she made him take a break, the feeling that she needed to just keep going was so strong-
If she ignored him now, he was never again going to listen to her telling him to take a break. That, more than anything else, got her to growl and give in.
Clef watched her almost inhale her food. "I'm sure Lantis and Hikaru wouldn't have minded if you spent an hour each evening keeping up with your work, rather than leaving all of it until they left," he said, mildly, and Umi would have snapped at him if she wasn't busily eating everything he'd cooked. But that one comment about her putting everything off was all he said.
After dinner, Clef settled onto the sofa with a book while Umi got back to work, and every hour or so a new cup of tea and a snack would arrive on the kotatsu, tucked among the papers.
It was well into the night when Umi sat back and stretched, yawning, a rough but complete draft of her essay finally done. "Hey, Clef, do you want another cup of tea?" she asked, turning around - then freezing.
Clef was fast asleep, propped in the corner of the sofa with his head pressed into the cushions and his glasses sliding down his nose. The book was still open in his hands but dangled precariously over the side of the sofa, threatening to fall to the floor.
Umi first eased the book out of Clef's grip, using the bookmark he'd stuck in her text earlier to mark the page that he'd been holding it open to before she set it aside, and then carefully took Clef's glasses.
"Silly old man," she said aloud, unable to keep from smiling at him. "You should have gone to bed if you needed to sleep."
When Clef didn't stir, Umi coaxed him a little further sideways, tucking one of the throw cushions under his head so he wouldn't be at such an uncomfortable-looking angle before fetching a light blanket to drape over him.
So that night wasn't going to work for talking, and she didn't want to snatch a tense five minutes between all these nuisance bits of work for what was going to be a long conversation because of the awkwardness, if nothing else. The next week looked like it was going to be awful… but the end of the semester was imminent, and that meant the same was true for their 'honeymoon trip'..
In just a couple of weeks, she would be in Okinawa with Clef, in a hotel with pools and beaches and romantic restaurants to explore - and, more importantly, without reports, exams, or fencing club to distract her from asking what he wanted their relationship to look like.
If she waited until then… if she waited, and he said yes to the kinds of things she wanted…
Umi thought about the images she'd seen of the suite they'd booked; the large bed, with soft-looking sheets, and blushed hard.
Maybe that was a good plan.
To be continued...