The Rune's Shadow

20. (Part One)

Sorry for the very long wait. School has begun, and my inspiration and motivation both decided to take a vacation for awhile.

:/

'Today is the day...'

Laxus sat at the kitchen table deep in thought, waiting for the other's to wake up. 

'Yep, today I'm going to tell Freed-'

His train of thought was broken by a sleepy voice behind him, "Good morning Laxus."

Freed was still wearing the clothes from the day before, but he had used his red coat as a pillow, which left him with his white undershirt. His green hair was messy, and his sleepy face cuter than ever.

'...Nope. Nevermind. Forget it.'

As Freed sat down beside Laxus, another pair of footsteps sounded from the stairs above them, and a moment later Kiba appeared in the doorway. He stretched with a small groan and plopped down in the seat across from Freed. 

Freed looked up and stared for a moment, then turned to glance at Laxus. "Who is this? I don't believe I have met him."

Laxus snorted, "I'll let him introduce himself." 

Kiba gave an exaggerated huff, "WOOOOW Freed. You don't recognize your dear older brother? Hm? Am I THAT easily forgotten?"

Freed choked on the tea that he had made and after managing to swallow it, gasped both in shock and from lack of air, "Kiba?"

"The one and only."

Freed quickly ran around the table to tackle his brother in a hug. "Where have you been all this time?!"

Kiba wheezed, "Don't squeeze me to hard, I might puke." 

Freed let go of him, but his questioning look remained.

Kiba took a deep breath before answering. "Yeah I've been traveling around, you know? Seeing the world. Stuff like that." He added after seeing that Freed's curious expression hadn't left, "And I almost puked just then because I might be a little, I mean just a LITTLE BIT-"

"He's hungover."

Awai walked into the room after stating that, and poured himself some tea and set a glass of water in front of Kiba before sitting down beside him. 

"I'm not THAT hungover though..."

Awai sighed, but didn't reply. 

Kiba sat up after a moment, "I'm going to go refill the water bottles, see you in a few." 

Before he left, he kissed Awai lightly on the cheek, and laughed at the result. Awai immediately slammed his head into the table top and covered his face, as silent as ever.

As Kiba left, Bixlo walked in and took a seat beside Laxus, who turned to give him a very confused look. 

"What?"

"What do you mean 'what'? WHAT JUST HAPPENED? WHAT DID I MISS?"

"Oh." Bixlo laughed, "You mean that? That is the result of Kiba drinking a bit too much last night and confessing to Awai." 

"...I actually missed that...?"

"Yeah you did."

A moment of silence passed before Freed spoke up. 

"My brother is gay...I knew it."

Bixlo nodded solemnly, "I think we all did, Freed."

 🌸

The six of them were beginning to approach the road that would lead them back to town, and then back to Fairy Tail. During this time, Freed was catching up with Kiba and Awai.

But the dragon slayer was deep in mental battle, trying to gain up the courage to tell Freed. 

...It wasn't going too well.

His train of thought was interrupted by Bixlo shouting over his shoulder, "HEY LAXUS!!!"

'Dear God...'

"...What do you want from me?"

"Knock knock."

"Get off my doorstep before I make you."

"...Fine. JEEZ!"

. . . 

"What did the dog say to the-"

"No."

"Ok, do you know why the chicken crossed the-"

"Shut up."

"-road."

"Stop."

I know the chapter is SUPER short, but I didn't know where to go with this and I wanted to publish something to let you guys know I'm not dead. 

So I recently discovered that I CANNOT write love confessions all that well. 

I'm guessing that some of you want to read when Laxus finally tells Freed he likes him, so for now, I'm going to skip forward and write when it finally happened, awhile into their journey. Sorry for the skip, but I needed to do it before I quit.