All that you are is all that I'll ever need
-Ed Sheeran
Year x791
"Ugh!" Natsu groaned, lying on the ground with books littered around his. "This is so boring! Why do we have to clean the library?!"
"He's right. This is boring!" Gray complained, letting out a small cough when he shut a book closed and the dust hit him in the face.
Asami sent them a bemused look, placing one of the many books back on the shelf. "You two decided to take your fighting here of all places and made Master angry by dropping all these books."
"She's right. This is supposed to be your punishment." Lucy said, giving them an annoyed expression. "You should be grateful that me and Asami decided to help you guys clean up."
"We are but, there are so many books that we'll probably be here for hours." Gray pointed out.
"Yeah, ice stripper is right. Happy and I were supposed to go fishing today." Natsu complained.
The blue exceed raised a paw. "Aye!"
"Yeah, well we were supposed to go to the new candy store they opened." Haru muttered, referring to him, Asami, and Gray.
Asami's shoulders slumped. "And afterwards I was going to join Erza on a job but, since we got stuck here cleaning, she decided to take Wendy, Carla, and Cana with her." She trusted that both Erza and Cana would make sure that Wendy was safe especially since they both cared about her sister.
"Well, I'm glad Erza's gone." Natsu shivered.
"Me too." Gray shuddered, imagining the dark glare on Erza's face. "She'd probably be here ordering us around."
"Maybe you two should get to work." Asami suggested, taking note of how her husband was sitting at the table with a bored expression and Natsu was still lying on the ground. Lucy's brow twitched, taking note of their lack of work effort.
The two exceed glanced at each other, a mischievous look in their eyes as they looked towards the doorway, letting innocent smiles appear on their faces as they waved. "Oh, hi Erza!"
"EEP!" The two immediately got to work, their eyes flickering around as they searched for the redhead. They paused in their movements as they realized that the two exceed were lying. "YOU TRICKED US!" They snapped at the laughing exceed.
The two girls sweat dropped. "Idiots." They mumbled.
A couple of hours ticked by fast as they made progress with the books they placed back on the shelves. Lucy wiped the sweat from her brow and let out a heavy breath. "How many more books are left?" She asked.
Asami glanced around, feeling a pang of relief when she saw that they only had less than twenty books remaining. "About twenty. We should be able to get this done and everybody can do what they planned." She said, her eyes switched to the clock. "It's almost noon anyway."
Lucy's shoulders slumped, a relieved smile on her lips. "Thank goodness."
"You mean we can still go fishing!?" Happy exclaimed in excitement, he flew around past Natsu who was practically staring up Lucy's skirt as she stood on the ladder. "Did you hear that, Natsu?! We can still go fishing!"
"And we can still go to the candy store!" Haru beamed, as he sat on top of Gray's head.
Gray chuckled. "We still have to finish putting these books back."
Asami sweat dropped when she saw what Natsu was doing. "Natsu don't look up Lucy's skirt." She muttered.
"What'd you say?!" Lucy exclaimed, turning to look at the fire dragon slayer but turned to quickly causing the ladder to fall back with her along with it.
She screamed as she fell and they all rushed to catch her. Everybody groaned as they sat up.
"You okay, Lucy?" Natsu asked the blonde who was lying on top of him.
She got off him. "Yeah, but that really hurt." She pouted, rubbing her head.
Asami blinked, seeing the strange book lying on the ground and picked it up. "What's this?" She opened it to a random page and felt everybody crowd around her to get a look at the book. She placed it on the table so everybody could get a better look. "It smells weird." She muttered, wrinkling her nose slightly and saw Natsu nodding his head in agreement.
Lucy's eyes sparkled at the book and began reading what it said. "Want to know your future? Well all you have to do is say how far you want to go and repeat these words." She read aloud, her brows furrowed.
Natsu snatched the book from her and read the strange language aloud. "Huh. Nothing happened."
"You never said how many years." Happy pointed out.
Haru blinked. "How about twelve years?" He said and repeated the strange words in the book.
They gave the brown exceed a questioning look before looking back at the book. Gray sighed. "Nothing happened."
Lucy opened her mouth to say something but, a bright light began shining from the book and quickly surrounded them.
The group of four were dropped down on pavement, they blinked. Asami saw the book on the ground beside them and picked it up before she looked up, her eyes widened. "Woah."
They followed her gaze and gaped. "Did the guild get bigger?!" Lucy exclaimed, taking notice of the changes made to the guild.
Natsu's eyes squinted at the guild, scrutinizing the new look. "Geez. How many more times is the guild going to change." He muttered, crossing his arms over his chest, disliking how the guild kept changing.
Gray scoffed. "Well maybe if you stopped breaking things, the guild wouldn't need to get remodeled all the time."
"What'd you say?!" Natsu snapped.
The ice mage sent him a smirk. "Hard of hearing."
His eye twitched. "You-"
Asami sighed, knowing the two were going to probably end up fighting. Her body tensed when she heard incoming footsteps. "Guys, we need to hide!" She said in whispery tone and they all jumped behind the crates that were there as they watched to see who was coming out of the guild.
Their eyes widened, seeing who it was. "Is that Romeo?!" Natsu yelled in shock.
"No way!" Happy gaped.
"Shush." Lucy covered his mouth despite the evident shock on her face. "It definitely looks like him."
"And smells like him." Asami muttered, blinking away the shock. She looked down at the book in her hand. Could we really be 12 years in the future? Hearing a gasp coming Lucy, she looked over to see what other surprise there was. Her blue eyes widened and her jaw dropped when she the next person to walk out of the guild. Could it really be...
"Wendy?" Gray breathed out in surprise, seeing his sister in law look more mature.
Haru whistled. "Well at least Wendy doesn't have to worry about her chest not growing." He muttered, taking note of how she wasn't flat chested.
"She really grew up." Asami whispered, a fond look in her gaze as she stared at her little sister. The expression quickly changed to suspicious when she noticed the blush on Romeo's face when Wendy smiled at him. She stood. "That is not happening." She was ready to march over there and scold her sister before Gray pulled her into his arms and she struggled.
"You can't go over there, remember?" He said quietly and she stopped struggling and gave him a pout. He chuckled. "And what's so bad about Romeo having a crush on her? It's not like they're dating."
The group watched as Wendy kissed Romeo on the cheek and the two walked away while Romeo's face was a bright shade of red. "Wendy." Lucy gasped, covering her mouth, a slight blush on her cheeks. "Who knew~"
Gray sweat dropped when he saw his wife sulking. "You just had to say something, Gray." Natsu sighed. "You know she has a sister complex."
"I do not!" Asami said, a small dark aura around her as she tried to shake away the thoughts of her sister and Romeo together.
"Yeah, you do." The group said in unison and Asami turned red from embarrassment.
The redness on her cheeks quickly faded when she noticed that they were short a couple cats. "Um... where are Haru and Happy?" She asked.
The other three shared a glance.
"Okay, you have everything right?" The woman asked, feeling a pang of worry as she stared at the small toddler with look of fondness in her gaze before looking at the person she was talking while they stood outside the house.
The man chuckled, "Everything will be fine, Asami." Gray said soothingly as he stared at his wife. The two looked pretty much the same they had since twelve years ago except for looking a tad older. Except, Asami who now had her hair shortened to her shoulders.. "You'll only be gone with the other women for a few hours."
Asami pursed her lips, giving him an unsure look. "A lot can happen in a few hours." She pointed out as she looked at their young son who looked exactly like Gray excluding his soft facial features that resembled her own.
Gray opened his mouth but was cut off by Cana who grabbed the ravenette by the shoulders. "Come on, Asami. We all agreed to hang with Lucy before she has to pop out her baby." She said, pulling her along.
Asami looked back at her husband who was waving at her and her baby doing the same from his stroller, her lips wobbled at the action. This was the first time she was leaving Gray in charge of the baby alone without any help. "You better watch him!" She yelled as she and Cana turned the corner, disappearing out of sight.
Gray chuckled nervously, knowing that there was an underlying threat in that sentence. He knew how protective she was of their kids. It seemed like her protective instincts had gone in overdrive when they had their first child which wa surprising because he didn't think it was possible for her to get more protective after seeing her raise Haru and Wendy over the years. But, that obviously was proved untrue when he saw how nervous she got when they had their first child. Not that he could blame her because he was just the same if not worse.
He was relieved that they had managed to get the life that he always dreamed they could have. Sure they had plenty of ups and downs over the years but they got through them because of the love they shared. And he can say that he didn't regret a single moment that he shared with his wife. She gave him the two greatest gifts he could ever ask for.
One of which he was going to be spending the next few hours with. "Hey, Yukio how about we go get some ice-" He stilled when his gaze landed on the empty stroller. He felt the sweat dripping from his head. "Uh oh." He panicked as he began to search for his missing son. "Yukio?!" He ran through the streets as he could already feel the wrath of his wife upon him as he frantically searched for his son. "Where are you, Yukio?"
"Dad?"
Gray tensed as he turned to look at his oldest. His daughter who greatly resembled Asami when they were kids minus the expressions she made that everyone said were all him. "Eira!" He exclaimed, looking around in case someone else saw him. "What are you doing?"
She raised a brow, a hand on her hip. "I just ran into mom and the others. She asked me to check on you and Yukio." She said, her blue eyes narrowed at him when she saw that her baby brother was missing. "Where is he?"
"Oh! You know we're just doing some father and son bonding by playing hide and seek." He said, trying to play it off. "He's hiding."
Her expression didn't falter. "You lost him, didn't you?" She deadpanned.
"Don't tell your mother." He pleaded.
Eira sighed, feeling sorry that she might not have a dad if her mom found out that he lost her baby brother. "Fine." She said and gave him a look. "But, you can't tell mom that I'm helping you. If she ever found out that you lost Yukio and that I knew but didn't tell her...."
The two shuddered knowing full well that Asami was the sweetest person but when it came to the safety of her children, she became the complete opposite. "Okay." Gray conceded. "I'll go this way and you go that way. If you find him, give me a call." He said referring to their small communication lacrima.
She nodded and turned in the opposite direction as she looked for her baby brother.
"Where to now?" Happy asked, as he chewed on the fish that he bought as he walked beside Haru.
The brown exceed shrugged. "Maybe we should head back." He suggested, chewing on his own fish. "Let's just hope that they aren't too mad."
"Aye." Happy nodded at his friend and flinched when he bumped into something or rather someone. "Huh?"
The two looked, blinked when they saw a small baby in their path. "It a baby." Haru breathed out, dropping his fish.
"Da!" The baby squealed as he suckled on his pacifier and launched himself at both cats, cuddling the two.
"GAH!" The two cried out when they were tackled by the baby and were pouting as they now regretted leaving their friends. They flinched and winced as they felt the baby pulling on their fur and hugging them tightly. "HELP!"
"DA!