AN:So back in April I got the urge to write a Rayearth fic. And I did. And this is the strange mixed up result. Part University AU, part Coffee shop AU, all randomness. I've been trying to write Rayearth fic for years so I am kind of glad to actually write something for it. It's an anime that means a lot to me since it was the first manga and anime I owned. This fic is complete, which is why it's taken until now to post anything. There will be 9 chapters and an epilogue + extra scenes. Thanks for reading!

CHAPTER 1: IN WHICH...

Umi wants cake

College life at Cephiro University was going wonderfully for Fuu. She hadn't known what to expect really. It hadn't been the university she'd first intended to go to; she'd planned to attend the prestigious women's university her older sister was attending, but something about the small campus and its plethora of trees and flowers had drawn her in and Fuu hadn't regretted making the choice to go here instead. She had two roommates, Hikaru and Umi, who were very different from her but were quickly becoming her new closest friends. Her intro to med track classes were engaging, and there was even an archery club on campus. It was going so well that part of her couldn't help but wait for the other shoe to drop. Because as wonderful as life could be, it was never so nice all the time…

Fuu shook herself out of her musings as Umi crashed into their shared dorm room wailing.

"Aaaaaah, business is the worst major ever! I thought it was supposed to be easy! Just do some reports, yadda, yadda, have a presentation or whatever. Plenty of time for fencing tournaments and joining the baking club but no!" Umi flopped dramatically onto the common room couch. Her face squished into the pillow, muffling the rest of her rant. "There has to be a butt load of group projects."

"I thought your classes were going well," Fuu said. She turned her desk chair around to watch Umi flail a bit before coming up out of the pillow for air.

"They are. It's just that damn shorty professor gives the worst assignments." Umi sighed. "This time he wants us to work in a group and interview local businesses."

"That doesn't sound too bad."

"I'm stuck with Tarta," Umi groaned.

Ah. It seemed that at least once a week Umi had some sort of major problem in her life. Fuu wouldn't necessarily say Umi was prone to dramatics, but she was very vocal about when something had her stressed, and venting out loud seemed to be her most reliable stress relief. There were two things that came up regularly; her intro to business professor and Tarta, another girl on the fencing team. It seemed today the two were both the issue making it worse than usual.

"Is she a bad student?" Fuu asked.

"No, but she hates me, so it's going to suck." Umi sat up, using the couch like it was meant to be used. "Hopefully our other group member will smooth things out, but I still hate that I have to work with her." She shook her head. "Anyway, enough about my issues. Is Hikaru in?"

"I believe she is still at tutoring at the moment." Fuu said, glancing at her watch. At a quarter after three, Hikaru's Thursday classes would be done, and she would be seeking out the math tutor, if Fuu remembered correctly.

"Dang, I was going to invite her to come with us."

"With us?" Fuu raised an eyebrow.

Umi grinned. "To the bakery. If I'm stuck interviewing local businesses I'm at least gonna make sure they're places I like going to."

Fuu looked between the small pile of articles she still had to read and Umi's excited face. Well, there would still be plenty of time later. "We can bring her back something sweet," Fuu said.

"Yessss!" Umi bounced to her feet. "You're the best roommate. C'mon, you can scope out the best cakes while I talk to the owner!"

Fuu has a bad first impression

The Forest was a bakery on the main street off campus, tucked between a store selling yarn and knitting goods, and a tiny hole in the wall Chinese restaurant. Fuu had passed it before and thought it ostentatious for such a small town. Its storefront was painted a pristine white with silver lettering resembling trees stenciled across the front display window. The cakes on display were decorated with spun-sugar sculptures resembling a castle and a forest of cupcakes around it. All of this war perched on top of spindly silver pedestals with satiny fabric artfully ruffled at the bottom. It would have fit back home in the neighborhood she grew up in with fancy boutiques and jewelry stores, but next to a caricature of a boy holding a dumpling on the restaurant next door and the yarn store's kitschy yardstick and sweater display, it stuck out like a sore thumb.

"I've wanted to try something from here," Umi said as they entered. A bell jingled above them when the door opened. "But I hadn't really had the excuse to buy expensive cakes when I'm making my own cake every other week."

"You do make good cakes."

"I make the best cakes, but sometimes it's nice not to be the one making them."

Inside was just as overdone as the outside, continuing the white and silver theme. Fuu looked at a display of cupcakes covered in what looked like silver painted fondant snowflakes as Umi dragged her toward the main display case. How odd for there to be snowflake cupcakes in June.

"Ah, they're all so pretty!" Umi gasped, all but smooshing her face against the glass to look at row upon row of colorful, picture perfect baked goods. "They look almost too pretty to eat."

Their prices more than matched the time and effort it would take to get such perfect, near identical sweets. It was a good thing Hikaru hadn't come along. She wouldn't have been able to afford any of it and would have felt too guilty to let Umi or Fuu buy her anything even though money wasn't an issue for them. As Umi drooled over a blueberry cream cupcake with a fondant dragon coiled on top, Fuu eyed a cookie frosted with green and yellow swirls.

"Welcome," a woman said, entering from the back room. "How can I help you?" She was tall with long black hair pulled back in a braid. She dressed like the shop décor, elegant and expensive, in a blouse and skirt despite how the tailored clothing couldn't be practical for baking in. Fuu could tell at a glance that this had to be the owner. She elbowed Umi.

"Eh?" Umi jumped, looked up. "Oh! Right. It's just everything looks so good!" She smiled at the woman and the woman smiled politely back. "Hi, are you the owner of this shop? I'm Ryuuzaki Umi, a business student at the university. Would you be willing to answer a few questions about your shop?"

"Of course," the woman said with a smile.

Umi grinned and got down to business as Fuu perused the sweets. She was pretty sure Umi would go for the blueberry cream one, and Fuu was leaning toward the cookie, but choosing something for Hikaru was harder to decide. She went through each baked good in the case, weighing them. She was torn between something light and full of fluffy cream or something chocolate and rich. Hikaru seemed to like anything with sugar in it regardless of quality, but that didn't mean she couldn't put some thought into it.

Fuu debated over a delicate square of chocolate-raspberry cheesecake as the door chimed again. She didn't think much of it until someone beside her said, "If you're planning to get cheesecake, this is definitely not the place to get it."

"Excuse me?" Fuu said, looking up to find gold eyes and a scarred face far closer to hers than she was comfortable with.

The boy smirked, pointing to the cakes. "These. Very pretty, little works of art. Taste? Mediocre. If you want good baked goods, try Escudo. They're not statement pieces, but they can't be beat flavor wise."

The boy—or young man really; he looked to be around her age—looked scruffy with his hair barely long enough to tie back in a tail, worn sweatpants and t-shirt, and beat up sneakers. The facial scars and earring only added to his disheveled appearance.

"I know a guy who could get a pretty girl like you a discount there too," he added with a wink.

He must have that look work on a lot of girls because there was nothing but confidence in the expression. The assumption that she would fall for it as well was rather annoying. Fuu stared him down for a beat before looking back at the cakes. If her non-reaction discouraged him, he didn't show it.

"Are you from around here or…?" he trailed off.

Fuu was saved from the decision of whether to answer or not by Umi bouncing back to her side.

"I've got the interview, now on to the cake!" she said, tossing an arm around Fuu's shoulders. "Who's this?"

The boy straightened, putting on a charming smile. He opened his mouth, but the shop owner cut him off.

"I told you you're not welcome here," the woman said at him, her earlier professional smile a deep frown of distaste.

"Your exact words," he said brightly, "were that I wasn't allowed to waste your time window shopping. I'm here as a legitimate customer."

The woman narrowed her eyes. "Then pick quickly and move on."

"Wow, Alcyone, great customer service skills. Ten out of ten, would recommend," the boy drawled.

"Like you are any better," she said coolly.

"I'll have one of the mini cupcakes," he said, pointing to the cheapest items in the case. "Chocolate."

Tongs grabbed the confection a bit more violently than necessary before shoving it into a small paper bag. "Four hundred yen," Alcyone said.

The boy handed over his money and strolled out the door. Alcyone frowned after him.

"I apologize that you had to witness that," she muttered. "Was there anything you wanted to order?"

Umi rattled off a few different cupcakes and cookies, and Fuu got her cookie and the strawberry cream cake for Hikaru. The cakes were boxed up—much more care being given for their condition—the bill paid, and they were back on their way. Somehow Fuu wasn't surprised to find the boy lingering outside waiting for them.

"Hey," he said with a grin, shifting out of his lazy slouch against the wall to wave. "Wow, you sure stocked up."

"Is that supposed to be implying something?" Umi asked, narrowing her eyes.

"No, no! Clearly you're both women who can appreciate the finer things in life."

"If you're trying to mooch a cookie off us, that's really not the way to do it," Umi said.

"No?" He grinned. "But I'm not interested in the baked goods; Alcyone's stuff is more sugar than taste if you know what I mean."

"I'm not so sure you have any taste," Umi shot back. "I mean who goes into someone's store and starts insulting what they're selling?"

He shrugged and didn't answer her, instead looking at Fuu. "So, you never answered. I'm guessing you're from the university?"

"None of your business!" Umi growled.

"Yup, from the university." He crossed his arms behind the back of his head. "Geeze, why'd you pick The Forest if you're uni students? That witch bleeds your pockets dry."

"Why did someone who looks a step away from being a bum buy something from her shop?"

"Umi-san," Fuu sighed.

"He does!"

"Oh, you got me! I'm just a poor nearly-homeless bum one meal away from starvation," the boy said in the same flippant tone he'd used the whole time. "Clearly I'm barely educated and only have weird knowledge of baked goods."

"You're weird all right."

"Ouch. Insult after insult."

He was still smiling for some reason. Normally Fuu wasn't the type to get annoyed by strangers, but he was getting on her nerves in record speed.

"Umi-san," Fuu repeated.

"You know what?" Umi pulled out one of the cookies she'd bought. "You're gonna be a weirdo mooch, have a cookie and go!" She tossed it at the boy's head.

He caught it, laughing. "Why thank you. Just what I needed, sugar with my sugar."

"Go!" Umi made shooing motions. "You've been fed, go bother someone else."

"Fine, fine." He gave a theatrical bow. "My gratitude for the baked good. May you lovely ladies have a wonderful day." He aimed his smile in Fuu's direction before walking off in the opposite direction of campus, munching on his cookie.

Fuu frowned after him as Umi put her bag of baked goods back in order. "Umi-san, in the future if someone is bothering us, we should just keep walking."

"Well, yeah." Umi huffed, rolling her bag shut. "But he wasn't bad on the eyes, just a jerk. Why do all the hot people have to have shitty personalities, Fuu?"

"Umi-san, your priorities are skewed." Of course Umi was paying attention to his looks even as she traded insults. Sometimes Fuu wondered if she should worry about if Umi ever chose to date.

"Well if he was going to be rude and creepy, I was at least going to appreciate something about him. And he left rather than following us, so all good." Umi slung an arm around Fuu's shoulder. "Forget about the weirdo though. I got my interview and we've got cake to eat! You can have a bite of the stuff I got and we can compare what's best for next time. Ooh! And we'll save some for Hikaru too. Maybe I'll get some ideas for what to bake next!"

Fuu let Umi pull her along towards campus as she enthused about the sweets.

She was disappointed with her cookie later though; the boy had been right that it mostly just tasted like sugar.

Ferio goes to work

Ferio was humming by the time he got to Escudo. The sugar he'd consumed was part of it; it was hard to not be buzzed after an afternoon filled with sweets. Mostly it was because he was in a good mood.

"Someone's happy," Caldina teased as he walked through the door. She must be hanging out with Lafarga again watching him prep some of the doughs for tomorrow's baked goods.

"Ran into some pretty girls," Ferio said with a grin. He liked Caldina. She was like a nosy cousin in the best ways, only thankfully nothing like his actual cousins since they were sticks in the mud.

"Flirt," she said grinning back.

"So, got some intel on the bakeries in the area," Ferio called to Lafarga as he dug out his work clothes from the over-stuffed closet that collected odds and ends from employees over the years.

"And mixed business with pleasure," Lafarga commented. "What have I said about flirting on the clock?"

"Keep it professional and impersonal," Ferio said. "Like it doesn't bring more customers back." Caldina cackled. Ferio winked at her, switching his shirts. "And I'm not even on the clock yet."

"You were doing work for me, you're on the clock."

"It's more part of my rent agreement than for the shop." His voice was muffled by the closet door as he switched out the rest of his clothes out of Caldina's sight. She might not care if he was half naked in front of her, but he still had a bit too much propriety drilled into him to strip to his underwear in front of his boss's girlfriend.

"Speaking of, your payment for this month is coming up. You want to pay me or would you rather I took it from your next paycheck?" Lafarga had his eyebrow up meaning he was judging Ferio for changing in the closet again, but that was fine. He'd rather be comfortable and have to change than go around in his work clothes before he had to.

"I'll pay you." Better to do the finances himself and make sure he had what he needed for school first, then go from there. Lafarga would just have him work extra if he was a bit short, but university wasn't quite so forgiving.

Lafarga nodded. "So, what did you get when you weren't flirting?"

"Well," Ferio said, feeling like humming all over again, "for one Alcyone's barely changed her stock and is still going with her ice theme even though it's summer. She did change her chocolate cake a little—frosting's richer, but still not as good as yours. Cookie was vanilla and sugar. Pretty much all you could taste, just with a buttery after note and then more sugar because she frosts the things. They really don't need it." Ferio washed up and jumped in with prep work, stirring so Lafarga could move on to the next batch. Looked like this was for one of the doughnuts. "Might want to send someone else to check on Alcyone next time though. Thought she was going to literally kick me out of the shop for a minute there."

"I'll have Lantis scope her out next time, then."

Ferio opened his mouth to say that Lantis might not be a good choice either, but what the hell, Alcyone didn't hate him like she hated Ferio. If anything she projected Zagato on him, and while it was pretty creepy, if Lantis had a problem with it he could take it up with Lafarga himself.

"Anything else?" Lafarga prompted.

Ferio went through his usual list of places, and Caldina chimed in from time to time with things she'd tried recently at one place or another. He and Lafarga moved around the kitchen without stepping on each other's toes and the doughs were set aside and tomorrow's cakes set to bake.

By the time Lantis poked his head back to swap who was working the counter, Ferio's good mood was still going strong.

He would blame the extra sugar from that last cookie, but at the end of the day he'd always gotten more of a boost from people than sugar. He kind of hoped he'd run into those girls again sometime.

Hikaru makes a new friend

There was always someone in the classroom when Hikaru arrived for her class. It was in the science building, and it was the only class she ever got to early, so for all Hikaru knew, more classes had people lingering and shuffling things around in the time between classes. He was older than most of her classmates. He always had a small smile on his lips when he noticed her like he was inviting her to share a secret but he never spoke to her. He completed whatever it was he was doing and left. Hikaru had had quite a few class meetings here now and he'd been there every time. If he wasn't going to speak to her, she supposed she would just have to talk to him.

So this time when she walked into the classroom Hikaru asked, "What are you doing?"

The man gave her his usual smile, but Hikaru thought it looked more pleasantly surprised than secretive today. "I'm cleaning up from an earlier lab and preparing for the next one," he said. He had a soft voice, but it suited him.

Hikaru set her bag down and wandered over to watch him prepare slide after slide. They were all thin cross sections of different plant parts, she noted, in line with the lesson plan for the day according to the syllabus. "You're here even when we don't have a lab day."

"You're right." He set a finished slide in a holding rack. "But there are a lot of classes that have labs in a week and only a bit of time to prepare for them."

"Oh. I guess that makes sense." It was repetitive and soothing to watch him work. "My name's Hikaru. What's yours?"

"A pleasure to formally meet you, Hikaru-san. You can call me Eagle."

"Nice to meet you," Hikaru said back. She looked at the slides. "Is setting up labs a lot of work?"

"Sometimes," Eagle said. "But I do get paid for it, so it's not that bad."

"Oh, so it's a job! I kind of wondered."

"I'm a teacher's assistant. Technically, I'm a graduate student and this is just one more way to help pave the way to my end goal."

Hikaru nodded. There had to be some value in working behind the scenes even if it was only helping to pay tuition costs. "And what is your goal, Eagle?"

Eagle hummed, finishing up the last slide. "I wonder… I want to change things and leave an impact on the world. Getting my biochem degree was the first step."

"I see," Hikaru said.

"And you, Hikaru-san?" Eagle asked with an enigmatic smile.

"I don't know yet!" Hikaru had met people who looked scared or upset when they said those words, but as for herself, not knowing wasn't a big deal. It meant that there were any number of possibilities still open just waiting for her to commit to them. She kind of liked that. "I think I'd like to help people be happy though. Not as a doctor like Fuu-chan. I don't think I'm good enough with that kind of stuff to help people that way, but I'd like to make people smile, you know?"

"That's as worthy a goal as any," Eagle said. "Here's to vaguely defined goals." He raised the dish of plant cross sections in mock toast. "Let's both do our best to make them come true."

Hikaru giggled and was pleased to see a smile on Eagle's face in return.

Eagle packed everything away where they needed to be for the next class before nodding Hikaru's way. "I'm afraid I'll have to get to my next class now. Thank you for the company, it's made the work go faster."

"Any time!" Hikaru said, meaning it.

As Eagle left, Hikaru decided she'd take the chance to talk with him before every class from here on out. He seemed like he'd be an interesting friend. She grinned to herself as people started trickling into the classroom.

o~O~o

AN2:Okay. So. This fic is a bit different from how I normally write. It's written in shorter snippets. These snippets range through multiple viewpoints, might be back to back continuous scenes, or they might be large jumps in time. They might be random and silly or they might further the loose arcing plot. This might annoy some people, but I found that that was just about the only way that this story was going to be done in a reasonable amount of time (read, not half a decade like my other ongoing longer works). Basically every chapter is going to consist of 4-5 snippets. Each chapter will further Fuu and Ferio's relationship in some way, as they are the main pairing. Most chapters will have one Fuu and one Ferio perspective. Some will have more, some will only have Fuu's perspective. The rest will range between other characters and further their personal plot lines. It's a little chaotic and a little weird. I hope that it's fun all the same. I had a lot of fun working on this and coming up with random head canons.