Baby Momma

Chapter Twelve

"Wait, you want to start that girlfriend competition again?"

Was Lucy hearing Mira correctly? Probably. This was Mirajane we're talking about. The matchmaker of Fairy Tail, so it should be no surprise that she wants the competition to continue.

"Yeah! We never did get to finish it, but now that the requests have calmed down, we can see who is the winner!" Mirajane explained. Though she was talking to Lucy, her blue eyes were trained on a certain Iron Dragon Slayer that was in current possession of Hikari. She found it funny that for such a burly and brash man he was super caring and sweet when it came to certain things and Hikari was one of those apparently.

The long haired man had figured out long ago that Hikari was a hair puller, so now whenever he held the usually giggling tot, he had his thick mane pulled back into a ponytail. Now, he held the young boy in one arm as he played around with the stuffed dragon that Hikari was seemingly obsessed with, and he earned several loud laughs of delight from the baby.

"I mean, I guess so. I'd like to know what the prize is finally." Yes, it has been a year since the competition started and Mira still refused to give any hints about what this special reward could possibly be. That in itself frustrated Lucy to no end. She had even gone as far as going up to Laxus and asking him to distract Mira and extract the information for her.

What she got instead was a smirking mage patting her head as he told her any attempt like that was futile and that he would rather not die at such a young age. Not an answer she'd expect from Laxus, but then again Mira was called the She-Devil for a reason.

"Guess you'll have to win to find out." Mira said cheekily as she leaned over the bar to place her elbows on the wooden table. The takeover mage was excited to finally get this competition rolling again, and even more excited to see her couples in action once more, fighting to see who was the best. It was just a bonus that the last week of the competition that she had planned was also the day she bet in the Nalu pool that they would finally get together.

And yes, she did know that they were lying about dating. Normally, she would either rip them a new one or let Erza do that, but she can get them to actually date by the end of this! This offer was too good to pass up, even the scarlet haired Titania could agree with her on that.

"Natsu! Come over here, there's gonna be a contest!" Mira called the Fire Dragon Slayer over from her position behind the bar. Natsu's attention was immediately caught as he gave Elfman a final punch before jumping out of the brawl that he had started with several of his guild mates. Even Cana was in it! Her drink had been knocked out of her hand at some point during their fight, which led her to join.

Lucy shook her head at her pink haired idiot of a best friend. It didn't matter how many times she warned him about fighting around Hikari, but it was to no avail. She was just glad that they didn't involve Gajeel or else she would have really rained hell down on the place. Call her overprotective, she didn't care. She wasn't taking the chance of letting her adoptive son getting hurt.

"Yo!" Natsu greeted the two girls, leaning against the bar next to Lucy, an arm draped over her shoulders. "What's up?"

"Mira wants to start up that competition again." Lucy said, shrugging his arm off so she could drink her strawberry milkshake. Natsu just looked at the blonde in bewilderment.

"Competition?"

"You know, the one about who the best couple is!" Mira exclaimed, clasping her hands together. No look of realization dawned on Natsu's face, but he shrugged and agreed with it anyways.

"As long as I get to kick someone's ass, I'm in."

"Well," Mira dragged out as one of her famous evil smirks appeared on her face. "Maybe not kick, but you could slap Lucy's."

Natsu looked at Mirajane in confusion as Lucy's face burned an extremely dark red at the barmaid's words, coughing up the pink milkshake she had been drinking.

"Why would I wanna slap Luce's ass? She's my friend. I'd much rather kick Gray's."

Ouch. That one stung a bit. The word friend echoed inside Lucy's head, and for some unknown reason to Lucy, it hurt her a lot more than she'd like to admit.

It wasn't that she was in love with him or anything, no. Sure, she found her best friend attractive and everything but there was no way that she could see him as anymore than that. A friend. So why did it hurt so bad when he called her that?

Then, she remembered that she and Natsu were supposed to be 'dating' for this contest, and he had just spilled the beans to Mira that they were just friends.

Lucy shrugged it off as Mira seemed to either not care, or didn't notice so she tuned back into the conversation Mira and Natsu were having just as Gray came up to them.

"Hey Flamebrain! What'd you say?" Gray hollered as he approached them, pushing Natsu back and away from the bar.

"I said I'd rather kick your ass, Ice Princess!" Natsu retorted as he shoved him back. Then, the thirtieth brawl of the week broke out, dragging Jet and Droy in as well as Elfman and Wakaba after someone broke his pipe.

Lucy just sighed in annoyance as she tried to sort out the weird feelings she was previously dealing with.

"Lucy, are you okay?"

"Hm?"

Mirajane glanced down at her friend in worry as she saw the blonde's brows draw in just the slightest. It was clear that Lucy was used to hiding emotions that she didn't want others to see, but that was always what gave it away. Mira had noticed that a few years back as well.

"Are you okay?" A smile was placed back onto Lucy's face as she looked back up at the white haired mage.

"Yep! Just worried about Gajeel getting into the fight while having Hikari, that's all." She didn't need to worry about. Lucy was sure that a goodnight's sleep would wipe away whatever it was. "Thanks though."

She spoke with a smile, but her eyes told a different story.

Ooo! I'm looking forward to the next couple of chapters because I have a Gajeel and Lucy brotp moment planned out!

Until next time, peace!