"What the fuck are you even doing?" Laxus asked, leaning over Jellal's shoulder. "This looks like the shit Freed hasta do."
"That's because Freed's in my math class," Jellal sighed as he dropped his pencil onto his math book. "Don't you have something better to do than to try and understand my math homework?"
"No," Laxus looked around Thunder God Records, the music store in Fairy Tail Mall. The store was empty apart from its workers and the music from the classic rock station droning in the background.
"You cleaned all the shelves?" Jellal asked.
"Yeah, and I don't hafta teach any brats guitar. Slow day," Laxus hopped onto the counter, sitting on Jellal's notebook.
"You are . . . a butt," Jellal pulled his notebook from underneath Laxus.
"And you're a bu-" Laxus stopped himself. "Fuck you and your 'no swearing' rule. You've now got be saying 'butt' as my primary insult. Fuck you, you shit-headed weenie."
Jellal huffed and under his breath he muttered, "Butt."
"Now listen here you a-" Laxus was about to reply when a conversation from the front of the store echoed to the back.
"-Do you think they're avoiding us?"
"Who knows with those two? Jellal turns red when he's around you and Laxus . . . I don't know where to even begin with him."
Erza and Mirajane had just entered the store, Jellal and Laxus's girlfriends respectively. As they mulled around the discount bin at the front of the store and gossiped about the store's workers, said workers scrambled to hide in the one section of the store no one ever entered: the polka section.
The polka section was one of the sections that sandwiched the back counter, the other being the Christian rock section. The polka section was never entered by anyone, aside from the store's workers who hid there when someone whom they didn't want to talk to entered the store. Jellal and Laxus really shouldn't have had to hide from their girlfriends, but they both believed that they had somehow fucked up something in their relationship this past week and both were still mulling over how to fix it. So they'd avoided their girlfriends when they came in the store, not wanting to bring forth their wrath. Though, now that they were in the store at the same time, it seemed as though they only fucked things up further.
"What are we supposed to do?" Jellal asked Laxus, beginning to panic.
"Stay sane man," Laxus replied. He was quiet for a moment before coming up with a plan, "I know what we'll do."
"What?" Jellal asked.
"We'll call Freed."
"What?"
"He's right next door," Laxus explained. "He can say we're at lunch, it's about noon anyway."
"Okay," Jellal began to breath easy. "Call him. Quickly."
Laxus whipped out his phone and began to text Freed. Not a minute later, the green-haired bookstore employee walked into Thunder God Records, quickly walking through the store to the back with a nervous gait. Taking the place behind the counter, Freed looked like he wished he was invisible. Sadly, he wasn't.
"Freed?" Mirajane and Erza walked over to the counter. "Since when did you work here?"
"I don't work here," Freed replied. "I'm covering Jellal and Laxus while they're off at lunch."
"They really shouldn't leave the store alone for so long," Erza stated.
"Do you know where they went?" Mira then asked.
"No, I just got Laxus's text," Freed answered.
"Oh, okay," Mira replied. "Well, thanks anyway Freed."
"No problem," Freed replied as Mira and Erza left the store. Once they were out of sight, Jellal and Laxus poked their heads out of the polka section, looking at Freed, who turned to them and exclaimed, "That's a really bad hiding spot and never make me do that again!"
"It's s'not a bad hiding spot," Laxus replied. "And thanks for comin' in."
"Why can't you two just talk to them and fix everything instead of hiding in the polka section!?" Freed then asked.
"Because," Laxus replied.
"We're butts," Jellal finished. Laxus then whacked Jellal with his napping pillow, which Laxus kept in the polka section for when he wanted to take a nap at work. "Butt."
"Fuck you," Laxus replied.
"I have to get back to the bookstore before the manager sees I've left my post," Freed sighed as he began to walk out of Thunder God Records. "Please make up with your girlfriends so I never have to do that again."
"No promises!" Laxus replied as he and Jellal to their previous place behind the counter again. Once Freed was gone, Laxus turned to Jellal, "Man, what the fuck are we going to do?"
"How should I know? You haven't even told me what you've done!" Jellal replied. "But we should do it soon," Jellal groaned as he put his head in his hands, "Oh, we're so messed up."
Laxus was quiet before agreed, "Yeah, we're so fucked up."
