storypaint (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
storypaint) wrote2010-05-06 01:52 pm
storypaint) wrote2010-05-06 01:52 pm
[Magic Knight Rayearth] Sugar, Salt, Chalk, and Pine (Clef/Presea)
Title: Sugar, Salt, Chalk, and Pine
Fandom: Magic Knight Rayearth
Length: 4358 words
Prompt: n/a
Pairing: Clef/Presea primarily; mentions of Kurogane/Fai and Clow/Yuuko
Other: School AU prompted initially by a curse in![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
polychromatic; based in the Holitsuba universe and featuring other CLAMP characters.
Excerpt: She was in the teacher's lounge very early one morning, carefully adding salt to the sugar bowl, to taste. She was grinning to herself and mixing in a small spoonful when she heard a voice behind her.
"I suppose it's a good thing that I take mine black."
When Presea was little, she wanted to grow up to be an Olympic sprinter. That was the dream she imagined when she ran home from school every day, heart pounding in her throat, matching the smack of her steps on the pavement. She felt like she could run forever. But she couldn't run quite fast enough, so when she made it to high school and was cut from the track team, she decided to pursue other options.
There was an axiom-- those who can't, teach-- and she wasn't sure how she felt about that, but teaching wasn't a bad idea. It wasn't easy, juggling her job at the convenience store with her college classes, but she pushed through, and here she was, on the first day of her student teaching, and her heart was pounding just as much as it had on those runs when she was a child.
She had come home in triumph for a few days before the start of term. Her mother took the news with her usual calm (Presea certainly hadn't inherited her fiery temper from her mom), but one of her brothers barked out a laugh when he heard where she was to start teaching. He leaned against the doorframe, tall but slouching, and said, "One of my friends got into that school. He says they have a crazy history teacher. He's a dwarf, and it's practically impossible to pass his class."
"What does his height have to do with anything?" she asked.
"Don't you think it's weird?" he asked, and when she stared back at him blankly, he rolled his eyes and wandered off to find someone more interesting to bother.
"Do your best," Presea's mother said placidly to her daughter, and Presea nodded fervently. She didn't care if her new coworkers were odd, as long as they accepted her.
*
Gaining the principal's approval was scarily easy. She'd seemed to have forgotten she was having a student teacher at all, which at first made Presea worried. But Yuuko had called out to her secretaries, two women who might have been twins, but one in pink and one in blue, and they had the documents. They were cheerful about it, and unsurprised. Yuuko herself had just waved a hand, welcomed her to Holitsuba, and let the secretaries take care of the rest.
They summoned a student to take her to the gym (apparently Kurogane-sensei had a habit of ignoring pages from the office, from what she could gather). The boy was tall and skinny and grumbled a lot, pushing his glasses up his nose and protesting being pulled from class on one of Yuuko-sensei's errands, but he didn't seem to have any real ill will towards Presea herself. She left him with an apology on the doorstep of the gym.
When she opened the door, a basketball nearly hit her face. A dark-haired man was leaning against the wall next to her.
"Tsch," he said. "You'll have to learn to duck."
And that was how her tenure at Holitsuba began.
*
It took more than a week before Presea saw most of the other teachers. They simply had no real reason to truck out to the gym, after all. But when Yuuko announced a faculty meeting for Thursday afternoon, Kurogane spit angrily on the track and said, "I'm not going. You go for me."
Presea blinked, but nodded. Thursday afternoon found her in the teacher's lounge, milling around with the others and meeting people left and right. She smiled and bowed and did her best to retain names.
In a moment between Japanese and chemistry, she paused and heard another voice speaking, coming from a lower place than she'd expect. She looked down to see a short man in front of her. He was definitely an adult, despite his small stature; his demeanor made that very clear. He was wearing a well-fitted suit and a serious expression. His hair stuck up in odd directions, but even that seemed purposeful.
"Clef," he said. "I teach history."
"It's nice to meet you," she said, and then hesitated. With the rest, it had been a simple greeting, and then moving on. Clef looked up at her almost as if he were expecting something more than hello. And his appearance intrigued her-- not in the obvious manner, not his dwarfism-- but something else. Perhaps it was his youthful face, but she had the odd feeling that he would be handsome if she could get him to smile.
"If you need any help here, please ask," he said. She smiled, but before she could reply, the headmistress popped her head in through the window-- and then the rest of herself, and while Presea was boggling over that, everyone found their seats to listen (as if this sort of thing happened every day in Holitsuba; maybe it did. Presea would have to come indoors more often).
*
From then on, she ran into Clef on occasion. Kurogane tended to use Presea as a buffer in-between himself and the principal, sending her to do his office work when necessary, and this suited Presea just fine, though she sometimes wondered about his animosity. Sometimes she met the history teacher in the hallway, or in the teacher's lounge, and he always had a polite greeting for her. He was a little distant, but she didn't let that bother her. She was vibrant enough for four people.
She ran in to the lounge to get a bottle of water one morning and found him sitting there alone, reading a heavy volume that he was holding carefully, as not to damage the spine. It was his lunch period, she supposed, but his bento was sitting there untouched; he was absorbed.
She had a few minutes before she had to go back out and teach freshmen how to play volleyball, so she asked, "Do you mind if I sit with you?"
He looked up after a moment, in a manner that reminded her of someone coming up from underwater, and she saw his momentary confusion when he noticed that none of the other tables were occupied, but he nodded.
She sat down, and smiled, and after a little bit of small talk, they lapsed into silence. But it was a comfortable silence, during which Presea listened to her heart slow (she probably shouldn't jog around campus, but old habits died hard), and contemplated the back cover of the book he was reading. When she got up to leave, he looked up from his page and smiled a little. She smiled back.
It wasn't much, but it was a start.
*
After a couple of months at the school, Presea became comfortable enough to return to one of her first loves-- practical jokes. Yuuko-sensei and most of the rest of the faculty found them hilarious, except for the one time she made the mistake of accidentally upending a bucket of water in Yuuko's hair; luckily, the Chemistry teacher was right behind her. He soothed her into the girls' bathroom and fixed her bun, occasionally pausing to giggle at her predicament and then press kisses into the curve of her neck in apology. Presea had followed after hastily cleaning the floor, to see the two bent over the sink, Clow murmuring into her ear. He'd seen Presea in the reflection of the mirror and met her eyes for a moment. Presea took the hint and left them alone. The next day, there had been a bucket of vegetable oil propped carefully on the door of her own office, and she'd laughed, lingered in the shower, and still smelled like a salad all day.
Most of the faculty and students took her jokes in good grace. She never did anything that could cause real harm, after all. Kurogane, if someone complained to him enough, would grunt and make her run laps as if she were a P.E. student instead of his student teacher. She didn't mind having the wind in her hair, blowing away the detritus of whatever recent trick she'd pulled.
She was in the teacher's lounge very early one morning, carefully adding salt to the sugar bowl, to taste. Switching it entirely was too easy of a trick; it was more amusing to watch people add sugar and realize over a period of time that their coffee tasted just a little odd. No one else would be there so early, she figured, and she was grinning to herself and mixing in a small spoonful when she heard a voice behind her.
"I suppose it's a good thing that I take mine black."
She jumped and spun around to see Clef-sensei, looking up at her. She was concerned at first. After all, Clef seemed like a very serious person, passionate about his work and his books. He was probably one of the people who complained to Kurogane when she switched the names on the teachers' mailboxes or gave everyone in the kindergarten class a kazoo. But then she saw the hint of a smile on his face. He gestured at her.
"Don't let me interrupt," he said, and the smile broadened a little. "Yuuko-sensei drinks a great deal of coffee in the morning, along with copious amounts of sugar and probably a little dash of whiskey, when she thinks she can get away with it. Which is always."
Presea hadn't been long at Holitsuba before she realized how much of a temper the history teacher had, and how much the principal enjoyed aggravating it. She was pretty sure Yuuko invented a new short joke for every staff meeting, and he always rose to the bait.
He stepped past her and put his lunch in the fridge, and then veered back to check her work.
"It looks good," he said, and then he winked at her. "Don't worry, I won't spoil the surprise."
A blush rose to her face as she watched him go, and she couldn't even tell herself why. She did hear later, though, that he'd been careful to bring Yuuko her first cup of coffee that morning with some polished excuse. The idea made her grin and blush again.
Okay, maybe she did know why. But still--
It had just been a wink, a conspiratorial gesture. He hadn't meant anything by it, surely.
Surely.
*
Presea didn't go back to her university very frequently, now that she had progressed to student teaching. Still, she found herself there late one afternoon sorting out a student loan problem when she saw the flier plastered on the bulletin board. Clef was going to give a history lecture here, along with several of the professors. Her eyes widened to see the string of letters behind his name, proclaiming his educational qualifications, which were quite impressive. He could teach here, certainly. Why at Holitsuba?
She felt oddly sneaky when she showed up to see the lecture, ducking in early but sitting in the back, where she probably wouldn't be seen. The lecture hall slowly filled with students seeking knowledge (or more likely, extra credit in a class), and she waited.
He was the second lecturer, and for some reason, they hadn't prepared for him, so he waited patiently, ignoring the whispers, as someone found a box for him to stand on and adjusted the microphone. All whispers quieted, however, as soon as he began to speak.
Clef was a marvelous lecturer. He gestured and spoke, exuding confidence, catching every necessary emphasis. His hands were small, child-like, delicate, but she thought they really were beautiful, and so was his mind. With a few carefully chosen words he had pressed them all into the past, filled out the people who had lived then, and made them as real as a neighbor. The audience was silent, leaning forward to hear him speak. When he was done, it was as if a spell had broken, and Presea clapped loudest of anyone.
She slipped out before the next lecture and paused in the bathroom, where two bored-sounding undergrads were discussing the lecture-- or, actually, the teacher who had given it.
"He was cute," one said. "Like my kid brother but with more of a scowl."
"Yeah," the other answered. "Guy like that, I bet he never gets a date. No wonder he loves history so much. Everyone was shorter then."
Presea scowled. She got up and emerged from the stall, not bothering to be quiet about it. The girls traded looks.
"I think he's brilliant," she said stiffly, washing her hands and leaving, ignoring their shrugs by virtue of planning some exquisite prank to play on them.
"Where would I get that many marshmallows, though?" she mumbled to herself, and as if he'd been waiting for the opening, the person walking behind her chuckled.
"Something on your mind, Presea-sensei?" he asked when she turned. Clef had left the box on the stage, but he had several books in his arms and that kind half-smile on his face. She blushed hotly. It was strange to be called "sensei" here at university, and somehow gratifying. It was, on the other hand, a little embarrassing to be found here. Clef had his head cocked to one side in curiosity.
"You gave a good lecture," she said, because there was no use hiding the reason she was here, and why would she? It wasn't as if she were stalking him or anything.
"I'm glad you think so," he answered. "Too many people were distracted by my person."
His tone was flat, as if he were used to that, and the idea annoyed her. Who cared that he looked differently? She didn't care. The only thing that concerned her was the age difference between them. Surely he wouldn't want to date someone at least ten years his junior?
She realized, then, what her mind had run ahead of her and thought of, and that was a large distraction from the current conversation, but she managed, "Their loss," before excusing herself politely and going home.
But the next day, she noticed the window of his last classroom was open to the early summer air. She was coaching cheerleading practice in the quad and quite surprised to glance sideways (and oh, how did she know it was his room? She really had it bad, didn't she?) and realize this. Clef treasured silence and normally took the time after school when no one was around to grade papers or tests, but he couldn't be having an easy time of it with the window open and the girls shouting.
She shrugged, though, and went back to work. Perhaps he'd gone home early and forgotten the window. After a while, she began to become absorbed in the problem of Sakura, who kept dropping her baton, and forgot about it entirely.
Clef was waiting when she finally emerged onto the employee parking lot. Well, at least that was almost what it looked like, but surely not. He had another stack of books and a smile for her as they both walked in the same direction toward their cars.
"Your girls sounded good," he said, his tone almost cautious, as if he wasn't sure it was right to say.
"Oh? Oh!" she answered, surprised. She smiled. "Thanks. I think we might be okay for competition."
"An enthusiastic coach goes a long way," he said, with a brief answering smile, before getting into his car. She carried that compliment around with her all week, glowing in the words, as innocent as they might be.
*
"I am NOT doing this," Kurogane declared, and it was all Presea could do not to point out that this was the sort of thing that happened when you tried to avoid Yuuko's teasing instead of put up with it. He hadn't bothered to attend the staff meeting during which Yuuko announced her most recent idea for a festival, and Fai and Yuui's enthusiasm had impressed everyone else. Presea had voted to abstain; saying no would have done little, and saying yes would have got her running laps again.
Clef had not been around to protest either, due to an event with the History Club, so here they were. Yuuko had sent Presea to ask him to volunteer, and before she could get around to telling him exactly what he'd been volunteered for, he'd agreed.
So they were doing a maid cafe. A crossdressing maid cafe. And the teachers were going to dress up just like the students.
"Not doing this," Kurogane repeated in disbelieving annoyance, and Fai patted his back.
"You'll make a good maid, Kuro-myu-sensei!" he said, and Presea carefully stepped out of range. The fight would go on for a while, she estimated, so she ducked around the corner into the kitchen area. She'd arrived already dressed in the slim dark pants and white shirt of a butler. Admittedly, the women had gotten off pretty easily. Yuuko was here, supervising, or so the principal would say, which involved lounging on one of the student desks with her tuxedo shirt a little too unbuttoned. She was also arguing with Clef.
"Why do we have to dress up too? What does that accomplish?" he asked irritably. "We'll be mistaken for students. And how will we maintain our authority?"
"No, no, no," Yuuko answered, waving a hand. "You might be mistaken for a student's little sister. But I'm sure they'll remember how imposing you are... out of uniform."
Clef was glaring, or so she assumed by his body language, arms crossed and legs set widely. Of course, the effect was greatly lessened by the way that one of his socks was sliding down into his black Mary-Janes. Yuuko looked over his head at Presea and he turned to see what she was gazing at.
He did look unfortunately like someone's younger sister, who had perhaps had an unfortunate haircut. Presea bit the inside of her cheek to avoid calling him adorable; she didn't think he'd appreciate it. He was fuming slightly less with an audience, but not much.
"People are going to be here soon!" she said. There was a crash from the hallway. "And I think Fai-sensei is helping Kurogane-sensei get dressed."
Yuuko nodded approvingly. "Perhaps I'll help supervise," she cooed, slipping past them out of the room. For a moment, Clef and Presea stared at each other, both feeling out of their element. Presea was much more comfortable in the gym shorts and loose t-shirts she usually wore. And Clef, she was positive, was much happier in pants.
He picked up the hem of his skirt, daintily, as if he were going to curtsy, and then coughed. "What do you think?" he asked.
"You're very cute," she answered in wide-eyed solemnity, trying to keep from laughing or blushing, even though she wanted to do both. "I think I like your usual clothes better, though," she said carefully.
"Those pants are very flattering on you," he answered after a moment, ducking his head and smiling so that she couldn't help but smile back. "I doubt you're very comfortable in them either, though."
She nodded wryly. After that they spent a few minutes making sure that everything was ready to go. Students would be trickling in soon. Finally, he broke the silence.
"Yuuko-sensei used a word I'm not familiar with," he said, adjusting a row of cups. "Perhaps you'd know it."
Presea looked up in question.
"What is moe?"
*
The year passed away faster than Presea would ever have expected. The incident of the maid uniforms (which were carefully never spoken of again, until Yuuko had the idea to add a picture into the school brochure and the whole campus nearly revolted in protest) solidified her relationship with Clef into something special, but never quite defined. Sometimes they flirted, or at least, that's what she tried to do, but she was never quite sure whether he was playing along politely, or actually interested in her.
When the cheerleaders took third place in competition, Clef was in the audience. When Clef gave another lecture, at a different university, Presea went to listen. They agreed to be the sponsors for a Literature Club, when Yuuko passed the responsibility on to them (and from the way she grinned at Presea, Presea was worried that her feelings for Clef were a little too obvious, but Yuuko, surprisingly, said nothing about it).
And once it was determined that everyone could wear clothing that they were actually comfortable in, they agreed to help out for the New Year's festival. It was Presea's last event at the school before she went back to university to take her final exams and graduate. She wore a nice orange kimono and pinned her hair up carefully. Clef almost didn't recognize her at first, she thought, from his reaction. He was quiet and distracted for most of the night, which honestly made her a little sad, not that she let it show as she watched the crowds around her, the couples getting fortunes together and everyone wishing for new year's luck.
Clef's shift ended before hers, and she knew that he knew she wasn't coming back to the school tomorrow, but he disappeared with hardly a sound. It honestly irritated her as much as it made her sad; she'd thought they were friends, if nothing else.
He returned, though, with Clow-sensei, who cheerfully agreed to take the rest of her shift. Confused, Presea let Clef take her hand and pull her into the noise of the festival.
An hour later, he'd treated her to food and she was holding a bagged goldfish, bemused. They found a quiet place to sit, at the end of one of the rows of booths, and then Clef became restless. She watched him pace back and forth for a moment before asking, "Are you all right?"
He shook his head, and looked up at her, and then at his feet again.
"Clef-sensei?" she began, but he shook his head.
"You don't have to call me that anymore. We won't be working together, after all."
She nodded miserably. She knew that all too well.
"I'll miss you," she burst out.
He met her eyes again. "I don't want to miss you," he said, sounding almost nervous.
She lifted a hand to tangle it in her hair and ward off confusion, but her hair was pinned up and instead she pressed her palm to her neck, feeling her pulse race. It was stupid to be hopeful, to interpret what he was saying the way she wanted to interpret it. Wasn't it? But her heart disagreed, to judge by the way it was pounding.
"What do you mean?" she began, at the same time he started to say something; they both jerked to a stop and stared at each other awkwardly before Presea began to laugh. Clef looked utterly nonplussed. She set the bag with the goldfish down carefully and got up from her seat. She could hear the blood rushing in her ears, but she was still laughing-- she couldn't help it.
She leaned down and kissed him softly on the cheek, lingering only a moment to shut her eyes and inhale: an almost floral smell, sweet pine with an edge of chalk that she associated with the school.
When she stepped back he looked stunned, and all the misery came crashing down on her again. She shouldn't have done that: what if he reported it to Yuuko-sensei? What if she couldn't find a job because of "inappropriate involvement?" What if he'd just wanted to be friends outside of school? What if--
But then he was pulling on her hand, tugging her down almost roughly, and she didn't try to resist, slipping onto her knees (not caring about the kimono for the moment, even though it was her nice one) and letting him kiss her lips. His lips were warm and dry and firm and perfect. When they broke the kiss, he placed a hand on her cheek.
"That's what I meant, exactly," he said.
Suddenly, Presea didn't feel like running anymore-- possibly ever. She could sit here with her knees pressed into the gravel for a decade, as long as his fingers rested there on her skin. She smiled-- she grinned, and though his response was only a small smile, it lit up his whole person.
So she shut her eyes, and kissed him again.
*
"Keep up, keep up!" she teased, looking down at her companion, who just rolled his eyes at her and continued running. When they paused at the corner to catch their breath, he spoke sardonically.
"Not all of us are blessed with youth and long legs, my dear."
"No excuse," she said cheerfully, ruffling his hair.
"That sounds like a perfectly good excuse to me," he complained in return, but she thought most of it was posturing. Clef had gotten a lot better at running over the past few years. He hadn't been terribly out of shape before, but it did take a while to build some endurance. At their halfway mark, here, he was only breathing a little harder than usual.
"Maybe if you're into excuses," she retorted. "Don't make me treat you like my track kids."
"Heaven forbid," he answered in mock horror. "I've heard the creative and disturbing threats you use on them."
She winked. "It's a good motivator."
By unspoken agreement, they started jogging again. Learning to run with Clef had been like learning to run all over again-- she had to cut back her strides to accomodate his pacing a little, and that had in turn awakened the long-distance runner in her. Most days, they ran three miles before school, enjoying the pink of the sunrise and the silence of a sleeping city. Then it was back home to clean up and get ready for school. The middle school where Presea taught PE was only a few miles from Holitsuba. (For some reason, Kurogane-sensei was sticking it out, grimly counting down the days until retirement and freedom from crazy science teachers and principals with crossdressing fetishes. Clef had stayed too; he was used to the chaos.)
Today neither one had to teach, or even be up early, but here they were anyway, feet pounding down the road. The sun painted Clef's pale hair gold, and Presea thought he looked rather like an angel, except, perhaps, for the sweats. The thought made her smile anyway.
She reached down and took his hand without breaking stride, and on they went.
Fandom: Magic Knight Rayearth
Length: 4358 words
Prompt: n/a
Pairing: Clef/Presea primarily; mentions of Kurogane/Fai and Clow/Yuuko
Other: School AU prompted initially by a curse in
polychromatic; based in the Holitsuba universe and featuring other CLAMP characters.Excerpt: She was in the teacher's lounge very early one morning, carefully adding salt to the sugar bowl, to taste. She was grinning to herself and mixing in a small spoonful when she heard a voice behind her.
"I suppose it's a good thing that I take mine black."
When Presea was little, she wanted to grow up to be an Olympic sprinter. That was the dream she imagined when she ran home from school every day, heart pounding in her throat, matching the smack of her steps on the pavement. She felt like she could run forever. But she couldn't run quite fast enough, so when she made it to high school and was cut from the track team, she decided to pursue other options.
There was an axiom-- those who can't, teach-- and she wasn't sure how she felt about that, but teaching wasn't a bad idea. It wasn't easy, juggling her job at the convenience store with her college classes, but she pushed through, and here she was, on the first day of her student teaching, and her heart was pounding just as much as it had on those runs when she was a child.
She had come home in triumph for a few days before the start of term. Her mother took the news with her usual calm (Presea certainly hadn't inherited her fiery temper from her mom), but one of her brothers barked out a laugh when he heard where she was to start teaching. He leaned against the doorframe, tall but slouching, and said, "One of my friends got into that school. He says they have a crazy history teacher. He's a dwarf, and it's practically impossible to pass his class."
"What does his height have to do with anything?" she asked.
"Don't you think it's weird?" he asked, and when she stared back at him blankly, he rolled his eyes and wandered off to find someone more interesting to bother.
"Do your best," Presea's mother said placidly to her daughter, and Presea nodded fervently. She didn't care if her new coworkers were odd, as long as they accepted her.
*
Gaining the principal's approval was scarily easy. She'd seemed to have forgotten she was having a student teacher at all, which at first made Presea worried. But Yuuko had called out to her secretaries, two women who might have been twins, but one in pink and one in blue, and they had the documents. They were cheerful about it, and unsurprised. Yuuko herself had just waved a hand, welcomed her to Holitsuba, and let the secretaries take care of the rest.
They summoned a student to take her to the gym (apparently Kurogane-sensei had a habit of ignoring pages from the office, from what she could gather). The boy was tall and skinny and grumbled a lot, pushing his glasses up his nose and protesting being pulled from class on one of Yuuko-sensei's errands, but he didn't seem to have any real ill will towards Presea herself. She left him with an apology on the doorstep of the gym.
When she opened the door, a basketball nearly hit her face. A dark-haired man was leaning against the wall next to her.
"Tsch," he said. "You'll have to learn to duck."
And that was how her tenure at Holitsuba began.
*
It took more than a week before Presea saw most of the other teachers. They simply had no real reason to truck out to the gym, after all. But when Yuuko announced a faculty meeting for Thursday afternoon, Kurogane spit angrily on the track and said, "I'm not going. You go for me."
Presea blinked, but nodded. Thursday afternoon found her in the teacher's lounge, milling around with the others and meeting people left and right. She smiled and bowed and did her best to retain names.
In a moment between Japanese and chemistry, she paused and heard another voice speaking, coming from a lower place than she'd expect. She looked down to see a short man in front of her. He was definitely an adult, despite his small stature; his demeanor made that very clear. He was wearing a well-fitted suit and a serious expression. His hair stuck up in odd directions, but even that seemed purposeful.
"Clef," he said. "I teach history."
"It's nice to meet you," she said, and then hesitated. With the rest, it had been a simple greeting, and then moving on. Clef looked up at her almost as if he were expecting something more than hello. And his appearance intrigued her-- not in the obvious manner, not his dwarfism-- but something else. Perhaps it was his youthful face, but she had the odd feeling that he would be handsome if she could get him to smile.
"If you need any help here, please ask," he said. She smiled, but before she could reply, the headmistress popped her head in through the window-- and then the rest of herself, and while Presea was boggling over that, everyone found their seats to listen (as if this sort of thing happened every day in Holitsuba; maybe it did. Presea would have to come indoors more often).
*
From then on, she ran into Clef on occasion. Kurogane tended to use Presea as a buffer in-between himself and the principal, sending her to do his office work when necessary, and this suited Presea just fine, though she sometimes wondered about his animosity. Sometimes she met the history teacher in the hallway, or in the teacher's lounge, and he always had a polite greeting for her. He was a little distant, but she didn't let that bother her. She was vibrant enough for four people.
She ran in to the lounge to get a bottle of water one morning and found him sitting there alone, reading a heavy volume that he was holding carefully, as not to damage the spine. It was his lunch period, she supposed, but his bento was sitting there untouched; he was absorbed.
She had a few minutes before she had to go back out and teach freshmen how to play volleyball, so she asked, "Do you mind if I sit with you?"
He looked up after a moment, in a manner that reminded her of someone coming up from underwater, and she saw his momentary confusion when he noticed that none of the other tables were occupied, but he nodded.
She sat down, and smiled, and after a little bit of small talk, they lapsed into silence. But it was a comfortable silence, during which Presea listened to her heart slow (she probably shouldn't jog around campus, but old habits died hard), and contemplated the back cover of the book he was reading. When she got up to leave, he looked up from his page and smiled a little. She smiled back.
It wasn't much, but it was a start.
*
After a couple of months at the school, Presea became comfortable enough to return to one of her first loves-- practical jokes. Yuuko-sensei and most of the rest of the faculty found them hilarious, except for the one time she made the mistake of accidentally upending a bucket of water in Yuuko's hair; luckily, the Chemistry teacher was right behind her. He soothed her into the girls' bathroom and fixed her bun, occasionally pausing to giggle at her predicament and then press kisses into the curve of her neck in apology. Presea had followed after hastily cleaning the floor, to see the two bent over the sink, Clow murmuring into her ear. He'd seen Presea in the reflection of the mirror and met her eyes for a moment. Presea took the hint and left them alone. The next day, there had been a bucket of vegetable oil propped carefully on the door of her own office, and she'd laughed, lingered in the shower, and still smelled like a salad all day.
Most of the faculty and students took her jokes in good grace. She never did anything that could cause real harm, after all. Kurogane, if someone complained to him enough, would grunt and make her run laps as if she were a P.E. student instead of his student teacher. She didn't mind having the wind in her hair, blowing away the detritus of whatever recent trick she'd pulled.
She was in the teacher's lounge very early one morning, carefully adding salt to the sugar bowl, to taste. Switching it entirely was too easy of a trick; it was more amusing to watch people add sugar and realize over a period of time that their coffee tasted just a little odd. No one else would be there so early, she figured, and she was grinning to herself and mixing in a small spoonful when she heard a voice behind her.
"I suppose it's a good thing that I take mine black."
She jumped and spun around to see Clef-sensei, looking up at her. She was concerned at first. After all, Clef seemed like a very serious person, passionate about his work and his books. He was probably one of the people who complained to Kurogane when she switched the names on the teachers' mailboxes or gave everyone in the kindergarten class a kazoo. But then she saw the hint of a smile on his face. He gestured at her.
"Don't let me interrupt," he said, and the smile broadened a little. "Yuuko-sensei drinks a great deal of coffee in the morning, along with copious amounts of sugar and probably a little dash of whiskey, when she thinks she can get away with it. Which is always."
Presea hadn't been long at Holitsuba before she realized how much of a temper the history teacher had, and how much the principal enjoyed aggravating it. She was pretty sure Yuuko invented a new short joke for every staff meeting, and he always rose to the bait.
He stepped past her and put his lunch in the fridge, and then veered back to check her work.
"It looks good," he said, and then he winked at her. "Don't worry, I won't spoil the surprise."
A blush rose to her face as she watched him go, and she couldn't even tell herself why. She did hear later, though, that he'd been careful to bring Yuuko her first cup of coffee that morning with some polished excuse. The idea made her grin and blush again.
Okay, maybe she did know why. But still--
It had just been a wink, a conspiratorial gesture. He hadn't meant anything by it, surely.
Surely.
*
Presea didn't go back to her university very frequently, now that she had progressed to student teaching. Still, she found herself there late one afternoon sorting out a student loan problem when she saw the flier plastered on the bulletin board. Clef was going to give a history lecture here, along with several of the professors. Her eyes widened to see the string of letters behind his name, proclaiming his educational qualifications, which were quite impressive. He could teach here, certainly. Why at Holitsuba?
She felt oddly sneaky when she showed up to see the lecture, ducking in early but sitting in the back, where she probably wouldn't be seen. The lecture hall slowly filled with students seeking knowledge (or more likely, extra credit in a class), and she waited.
He was the second lecturer, and for some reason, they hadn't prepared for him, so he waited patiently, ignoring the whispers, as someone found a box for him to stand on and adjusted the microphone. All whispers quieted, however, as soon as he began to speak.
Clef was a marvelous lecturer. He gestured and spoke, exuding confidence, catching every necessary emphasis. His hands were small, child-like, delicate, but she thought they really were beautiful, and so was his mind. With a few carefully chosen words he had pressed them all into the past, filled out the people who had lived then, and made them as real as a neighbor. The audience was silent, leaning forward to hear him speak. When he was done, it was as if a spell had broken, and Presea clapped loudest of anyone.
She slipped out before the next lecture and paused in the bathroom, where two bored-sounding undergrads were discussing the lecture-- or, actually, the teacher who had given it.
"He was cute," one said. "Like my kid brother but with more of a scowl."
"Yeah," the other answered. "Guy like that, I bet he never gets a date. No wonder he loves history so much. Everyone was shorter then."
Presea scowled. She got up and emerged from the stall, not bothering to be quiet about it. The girls traded looks.
"I think he's brilliant," she said stiffly, washing her hands and leaving, ignoring their shrugs by virtue of planning some exquisite prank to play on them.
"Where would I get that many marshmallows, though?" she mumbled to herself, and as if he'd been waiting for the opening, the person walking behind her chuckled.
"Something on your mind, Presea-sensei?" he asked when she turned. Clef had left the box on the stage, but he had several books in his arms and that kind half-smile on his face. She blushed hotly. It was strange to be called "sensei" here at university, and somehow gratifying. It was, on the other hand, a little embarrassing to be found here. Clef had his head cocked to one side in curiosity.
"You gave a good lecture," she said, because there was no use hiding the reason she was here, and why would she? It wasn't as if she were stalking him or anything.
"I'm glad you think so," he answered. "Too many people were distracted by my person."
His tone was flat, as if he were used to that, and the idea annoyed her. Who cared that he looked differently? She didn't care. The only thing that concerned her was the age difference between them. Surely he wouldn't want to date someone at least ten years his junior?
She realized, then, what her mind had run ahead of her and thought of, and that was a large distraction from the current conversation, but she managed, "Their loss," before excusing herself politely and going home.
But the next day, she noticed the window of his last classroom was open to the early summer air. She was coaching cheerleading practice in the quad and quite surprised to glance sideways (and oh, how did she know it was his room? She really had it bad, didn't she?) and realize this. Clef treasured silence and normally took the time after school when no one was around to grade papers or tests, but he couldn't be having an easy time of it with the window open and the girls shouting.
She shrugged, though, and went back to work. Perhaps he'd gone home early and forgotten the window. After a while, she began to become absorbed in the problem of Sakura, who kept dropping her baton, and forgot about it entirely.
Clef was waiting when she finally emerged onto the employee parking lot. Well, at least that was almost what it looked like, but surely not. He had another stack of books and a smile for her as they both walked in the same direction toward their cars.
"Your girls sounded good," he said, his tone almost cautious, as if he wasn't sure it was right to say.
"Oh? Oh!" she answered, surprised. She smiled. "Thanks. I think we might be okay for competition."
"An enthusiastic coach goes a long way," he said, with a brief answering smile, before getting into his car. She carried that compliment around with her all week, glowing in the words, as innocent as they might be.
*
"I am NOT doing this," Kurogane declared, and it was all Presea could do not to point out that this was the sort of thing that happened when you tried to avoid Yuuko's teasing instead of put up with it. He hadn't bothered to attend the staff meeting during which Yuuko announced her most recent idea for a festival, and Fai and Yuui's enthusiasm had impressed everyone else. Presea had voted to abstain; saying no would have done little, and saying yes would have got her running laps again.
Clef had not been around to protest either, due to an event with the History Club, so here they were. Yuuko had sent Presea to ask him to volunteer, and before she could get around to telling him exactly what he'd been volunteered for, he'd agreed.
So they were doing a maid cafe. A crossdressing maid cafe. And the teachers were going to dress up just like the students.
"Not doing this," Kurogane repeated in disbelieving annoyance, and Fai patted his back.
"You'll make a good maid, Kuro-myu-sensei!" he said, and Presea carefully stepped out of range. The fight would go on for a while, she estimated, so she ducked around the corner into the kitchen area. She'd arrived already dressed in the slim dark pants and white shirt of a butler. Admittedly, the women had gotten off pretty easily. Yuuko was here, supervising, or so the principal would say, which involved lounging on one of the student desks with her tuxedo shirt a little too unbuttoned. She was also arguing with Clef.
"Why do we have to dress up too? What does that accomplish?" he asked irritably. "We'll be mistaken for students. And how will we maintain our authority?"
"No, no, no," Yuuko answered, waving a hand. "You might be mistaken for a student's little sister. But I'm sure they'll remember how imposing you are... out of uniform."
Clef was glaring, or so she assumed by his body language, arms crossed and legs set widely. Of course, the effect was greatly lessened by the way that one of his socks was sliding down into his black Mary-Janes. Yuuko looked over his head at Presea and he turned to see what she was gazing at.
He did look unfortunately like someone's younger sister, who had perhaps had an unfortunate haircut. Presea bit the inside of her cheek to avoid calling him adorable; she didn't think he'd appreciate it. He was fuming slightly less with an audience, but not much.
"People are going to be here soon!" she said. There was a crash from the hallway. "And I think Fai-sensei is helping Kurogane-sensei get dressed."
Yuuko nodded approvingly. "Perhaps I'll help supervise," she cooed, slipping past them out of the room. For a moment, Clef and Presea stared at each other, both feeling out of their element. Presea was much more comfortable in the gym shorts and loose t-shirts she usually wore. And Clef, she was positive, was much happier in pants.
He picked up the hem of his skirt, daintily, as if he were going to curtsy, and then coughed. "What do you think?" he asked.
"You're very cute," she answered in wide-eyed solemnity, trying to keep from laughing or blushing, even though she wanted to do both. "I think I like your usual clothes better, though," she said carefully.
"Those pants are very flattering on you," he answered after a moment, ducking his head and smiling so that she couldn't help but smile back. "I doubt you're very comfortable in them either, though."
She nodded wryly. After that they spent a few minutes making sure that everything was ready to go. Students would be trickling in soon. Finally, he broke the silence.
"Yuuko-sensei used a word I'm not familiar with," he said, adjusting a row of cups. "Perhaps you'd know it."
Presea looked up in question.
"What is moe?"
*
The year passed away faster than Presea would ever have expected. The incident of the maid uniforms (which were carefully never spoken of again, until Yuuko had the idea to add a picture into the school brochure and the whole campus nearly revolted in protest) solidified her relationship with Clef into something special, but never quite defined. Sometimes they flirted, or at least, that's what she tried to do, but she was never quite sure whether he was playing along politely, or actually interested in her.
When the cheerleaders took third place in competition, Clef was in the audience. When Clef gave another lecture, at a different university, Presea went to listen. They agreed to be the sponsors for a Literature Club, when Yuuko passed the responsibility on to them (and from the way she grinned at Presea, Presea was worried that her feelings for Clef were a little too obvious, but Yuuko, surprisingly, said nothing about it).
And once it was determined that everyone could wear clothing that they were actually comfortable in, they agreed to help out for the New Year's festival. It was Presea's last event at the school before she went back to university to take her final exams and graduate. She wore a nice orange kimono and pinned her hair up carefully. Clef almost didn't recognize her at first, she thought, from his reaction. He was quiet and distracted for most of the night, which honestly made her a little sad, not that she let it show as she watched the crowds around her, the couples getting fortunes together and everyone wishing for new year's luck.
Clef's shift ended before hers, and she knew that he knew she wasn't coming back to the school tomorrow, but he disappeared with hardly a sound. It honestly irritated her as much as it made her sad; she'd thought they were friends, if nothing else.
He returned, though, with Clow-sensei, who cheerfully agreed to take the rest of her shift. Confused, Presea let Clef take her hand and pull her into the noise of the festival.
An hour later, he'd treated her to food and she was holding a bagged goldfish, bemused. They found a quiet place to sit, at the end of one of the rows of booths, and then Clef became restless. She watched him pace back and forth for a moment before asking, "Are you all right?"
He shook his head, and looked up at her, and then at his feet again.
"Clef-sensei?" she began, but he shook his head.
"You don't have to call me that anymore. We won't be working together, after all."
She nodded miserably. She knew that all too well.
"I'll miss you," she burst out.
He met her eyes again. "I don't want to miss you," he said, sounding almost nervous.
She lifted a hand to tangle it in her hair and ward off confusion, but her hair was pinned up and instead she pressed her palm to her neck, feeling her pulse race. It was stupid to be hopeful, to interpret what he was saying the way she wanted to interpret it. Wasn't it? But her heart disagreed, to judge by the way it was pounding.
"What do you mean?" she began, at the same time he started to say something; they both jerked to a stop and stared at each other awkwardly before Presea began to laugh. Clef looked utterly nonplussed. She set the bag with the goldfish down carefully and got up from her seat. She could hear the blood rushing in her ears, but she was still laughing-- she couldn't help it.
She leaned down and kissed him softly on the cheek, lingering only a moment to shut her eyes and inhale: an almost floral smell, sweet pine with an edge of chalk that she associated with the school.
When she stepped back he looked stunned, and all the misery came crashing down on her again. She shouldn't have done that: what if he reported it to Yuuko-sensei? What if she couldn't find a job because of "inappropriate involvement?" What if he'd just wanted to be friends outside of school? What if--
But then he was pulling on her hand, tugging her down almost roughly, and she didn't try to resist, slipping onto her knees (not caring about the kimono for the moment, even though it was her nice one) and letting him kiss her lips. His lips were warm and dry and firm and perfect. When they broke the kiss, he placed a hand on her cheek.
"That's what I meant, exactly," he said.
Suddenly, Presea didn't feel like running anymore-- possibly ever. She could sit here with her knees pressed into the gravel for a decade, as long as his fingers rested there on her skin. She smiled-- she grinned, and though his response was only a small smile, it lit up his whole person.
So she shut her eyes, and kissed him again.
*
"Keep up, keep up!" she teased, looking down at her companion, who just rolled his eyes at her and continued running. When they paused at the corner to catch their breath, he spoke sardonically.
"Not all of us are blessed with youth and long legs, my dear."
"No excuse," she said cheerfully, ruffling his hair.
"That sounds like a perfectly good excuse to me," he complained in return, but she thought most of it was posturing. Clef had gotten a lot better at running over the past few years. He hadn't been terribly out of shape before, but it did take a while to build some endurance. At their halfway mark, here, he was only breathing a little harder than usual.
"Maybe if you're into excuses," she retorted. "Don't make me treat you like my track kids."
"Heaven forbid," he answered in mock horror. "I've heard the creative and disturbing threats you use on them."
She winked. "It's a good motivator."
By unspoken agreement, they started jogging again. Learning to run with Clef had been like learning to run all over again-- she had to cut back her strides to accomodate his pacing a little, and that had in turn awakened the long-distance runner in her. Most days, they ran three miles before school, enjoying the pink of the sunrise and the silence of a sleeping city. Then it was back home to clean up and get ready for school. The middle school where Presea taught PE was only a few miles from Holitsuba. (For some reason, Kurogane-sensei was sticking it out, grimly counting down the days until retirement and freedom from crazy science teachers and principals with crossdressing fetishes. Clef had stayed too; he was used to the chaos.)
Today neither one had to teach, or even be up early, but here they were anyway, feet pounding down the road. The sun painted Clef's pale hair gold, and Presea thought he looked rather like an angel, except, perhaps, for the sweats. The thought made her smile anyway.
She reached down and took his hand without breaking stride, and on they went.