Fire, Blood and Stars

Chapter 31

"It's amazing, Gray-sama! The curves, and the scars, and the crack in the middle-"

"I meant the town, not my butt!" Suddenly, Gray remembered something.

"Oh no. I have to get to Galuna island." He gave a dazzling smile to Juvia. "Wait for me, okay?"

"Yes, Gray-sama!"

After Gray ran off, Juvia sighed.

"So cool!"

Natsu was deep in thought. How did he broach the topic of her being his mate? How would Zeref help?

"Hey, Natsu. You're back. This must be your mate."

Yep, that'd do it.

He looked at Lucy. His heart was beating. Not that it didn't beat otherwise, but it was faster now.

His magic was also stronger. Huh. It made sense, he supposed, because blood was flowing faster, but it hadn't happened to him before.

"Okay", she said.

Okay? She said okay? Now what?

"You're not, I don't know, surprised or anything?" Natsu asked, confused.

"Wait", Zeref interjected. "Did he even tell you about it?"

"This looks private", Jellal whispered to Erza, who pulled him through the door to explain to her friends how she was not a villain.

"Uh, I may have put it off a bit. I swear I was gonna do it, but I was scared.."

"I'm not surprised that much, because Mira told me you were definitely going to tell me something like that-"

"I was planning to!" Natsu protested.

"Look, Natsu, I like you-"

"But?" Natsu prompted. Lucy looked confused.

"What? There's no but. I like you. I thought you didn't." She laughed. "Seriously, how cliché is this?"

"If I may interject", interjected Zeref, "This would not have been a cliché if Mister Never-Ask-Anything here had asked me the mechanics of soulmate-ism."

"What do you mean?" It was Mavis who asked this.

Zeref let out a long-suffering sigh.

"If you have a mate, they aren't going to say no."

"You mean there's no choice? That's a horrible system."

Zeref shook his head. "It's not that there is no choice. Don't misunderstand. It's the prediction of the choice that will be made. If there was a scenario where she would have said she doesn't want to be with you, she wouldn't have been your mate at all."

Natsu nodded wisely, and Zeref sighed in relief. I'm glad he understood. I was afraid-

"Huh", was what Natsu finally said. "That's confusing."

Zeref's hand came up to his face.

"Forget it."

Lucy nodded in understanding.

"So, it isn't like I can't say no, it's that if there had been a chance of me saying no, I wouldn't have been his mate in the first place."

"Exactly!"

"I mean, you aren't suddenly going to go all mating season on me, right?"

"Uh, no. I really don't think so."

"Cool."

There was silence for a few minutes.

Then Lucy looked at Natsu and said, "You know I'm not going to intentionally going to walk into a cliché, right?"

"What do you mean?"

"I'm not going to ask you what's next."

"Oh."

There was some more silence.

"Hey guys, I'm here!" And that was Gray.

Natsu jumped in front of him to make sure he didn't say anything incriminating.

"Hey, Gray! Glad you're here. So great of you to do that very important job at the guild!"

Gray frowned in confusion and turned to Zeref.

"Hey, sorry for being late. I was with a fan and lost track of time."

Dammit.

When Vlad came down to the hall after waking up, he had expected the talking to stop partially, or become quieter. He had expected them to look at him, note his presence, see if he had anything to say. Then they would go back to their conversations.

He had not expected the one thing that he felt a man should never be subjected to.

The Giggles.

Everyone he looked at turned the other way, watching him out of a corner of their eyes. But they were giggling. He wanted to know why.

His sister patted him on the head and his hair fell over his eyes. He brushed it aside, and suddenly noticed something. Holding a strand of his hair up for inspection, he frowned.

"Who dyed my hair into a rainbow? If you confess, you may live."

Soren laughed. "It does look funny, doesn't it?" Vlad immediately stalked over to him.

"You. You must have done it." Through subtle use of his power, he made the air itself press down harder on Soren.

Soren chuckled nervously. "I-it wasn't me, Vlad."

"Oh yeah? Then who was it?"

"B-Beth! It was Beth." Vlad immediately cut off his power as he started to laugh.

"You know, if you need someone to put the blame on, you could at the very least pick someone more believable."

If anybody had been looking, they would have seen Helena take out hair dye from Beth's pocket, show it to her, and raise her eyebrow. They would have also seen Beth sweating and squirming like a child caught replacing the cream in Oreos with toothpaste.

No one was looking, so they didn't see any of that.

A/N Also, a rant of sorts. I have been in a romance anime craze. Specifically, yuri. Because yaoi anime is okay, but always with a top  and a bottom, which is not realistic, the male protagonists is straight romances are PRICKS (Looking at you, Usui Takumi), and yuri is the only wholesome thing I can find, like Bloom Into You, Konohana Kitan, and YuruYuri.

Funny story, I asked my friend for yuri recommendations, wanting something wholesome to watch. She recommended Citrus. I got through half an episode of it, and I have only one thing to say. No matter how good it is... Not. Wholesome.