The sound of skin colliding with skin reverberated across the emptiness of a barely filled apartment of the third floor, within the building, which stood erect on an isolated street of Crocus.
"Why are you even here?" She bellowed in his face cursing out loud.
The man in question, stood right there in a long flowing black-and-white trench coat, confound to his core. His cheek, there were feminine fingers imprinted on it getting redder by the minute.
She then grabbed the lapels of his coat and shook him. "Answer me you jerk, why did you do that for?" She raised her voice louder than it had been. Two curse words in a row, huh. But that wasn't what Gray had a hard time wrapping his head around, it was the slap.
"What do you want from me?" Her voice quivered. Letting go of his collar she peeked over Gray's shoulder.
The man she was worried about, left the premises vexed, curtsy of Gray's jealous streak.
Gray had expected two outcomes of this confrontation. One, Juvia would come running back to him. Two, reject him and go follow the man whom Gray, so mercilessly had insulted earlier. What he did not expect was Juvia staying and slapping him.
He raised his head to find Natsu staring at him with disdain in his eyes. Where the fairy queen's face was a mask of stone, Lucy's head drooped low as if she was trying to disappear, but feeling helpless about not being able to.
"Juvia, " he reached out for her hand. She's just mad at him that's all nothing else. He can fix it; He will fix it. He needed her in his life. He already regrets the many years it took for him to realize his true feelings for her. Previously, a part of him was always unsure of how fervently he felt for the water mage.
The day he realized his feelings, he wanted her back. Because, this time around, his feelings for her were concrete. No doubts, no reluctance in committing to that truth any longer.
On his way to Crocus, to confess to Juvia, he didn't exactly envision a happy ending. If she shouts the odds at him for it, so be it. He was ready to endure her wrath if it meant that she'll come back to him like she always did in the end.
He was confident that he'll be able to cajole her to at least reconsider. There was no way she was going to stay mad at him for the rest of her life. It was Juvia he was talking about, and that girl kissed the very ground he walked on.
Gray's whole confidence was crushed by what Juvia had for him in store, though.
"Don't you dare touch me, Gray." She moved away before he could even grab her hand and bring her closer to soothe her.
This was what he used to do back in the days when she suspected him of cheating. He Soothed her with his gentle caresses and his honey pouring until she was assured. He would then take a breath of relief thinking he managed to get away. How wrong was he?
"I just wanted you to know how I really feel about you, I..." He trailed off, his hesitation visible, giving his decision of confession a second thought.
She could either hate him for it or accept him. He'd kneel before God every day, prostrate to a deity if the latter transpired.
He shrugged off any trepidation crawling up his spine and steeled himself to look at her.
Onyx eyes locked on pools of boundlessly deep blue ones, so intense, it chased the air away from his lungs. It was now or never. Drawing in a breath he delivered the next words.
"I love you, Juvia." He enunciated without faltering even for a moment. He was never the man for words. This was all he could offer. So what he did, and prayed hard that the sincerity behind the words reached her.
She stared at him, eyes wide in disbelief. That's when he thought she would throw her arms around him and give him one last chance.
That is all he wanted, to show to her how much his heart ached to feel her touches again, her warm embraces, the butterfly kisses she used to place on his temple trying to calm him whenever he'd wake up thrashing from a nightmare; these little things she did for him were huge in the eyes of any man who would have actually appreciated them. But he...he handled her so recklessly.
Years of being far apart made him not forget, but long for her instead. Not a day went by when he didn't reminisce about the warmth and tranquillity her presence brought into his life after a brief period of darkness.
He was wrong, and a fool to believe he fell for someone else, even though he had Juvia in the palm of his hand. He traded the only good thing he had in his life for fleeting moments of pleasure. He hoped against hope, to this day, for her to put everything behind and reconcile with him.
"Please tell me you're kidding." She blinked several times to hold her tears from falling freely, yet one managed to sneak past that resistance; trickling down her cheek.
Gray froze on the spot, his heart sinking to the bottom of his stomach the moment he acknowledged the hurt on her face. 'Was this not all you wanted, Juvia?' He mumbled more to himself than he asked her.
Juvia, who didn't seem to have heard a word that came out of his mouth, turned to Erza and asked in a low menacing tone. "Tell me Erza, what did I ever do to deserve this?" Her voice was devoid of any emotion. "Was it not you, who promised me not to let him come anywhere near me when I left the guild?"
Teeth clenched still, she shot her next question at Natsu. "Was it not you, Natsu? Who vowed not to let Gray play with my emotions any more than he already has. That you will do everything in your power to let me move on with my life."
Natsu and Erza's heads were bowed in shame, their lips stretched thin. No word to offer to her in consolation. Not that she needed any.
They can only condemn themselves for letting Gray come this far. They couldn't stop him from tracking Juvia down, the least they should've done was to get their comrade to leave Juvia alone before his actions cause any irreversible, colossal damage. But persuading Gray to back off was parallel to playing the flute in a deaf man's ear.
"Juvia listen." Gray started, trying to stay cool. 'Come on, Juvia! Somewhere deep down you still love me. It's just buried under your confused emotions, all you have to do is revive them.' He begged internally.
Juvia was never the one to use brashness in her speech. Which was why her tone made Gray flinch. "Shut up! Just shut up okay! I am not talking to you, nor do I intend to, so be quiet.
"For once I expect Fairy Tail to not screw things up, but here we are." She snarled at no one in particular. "I thought you all were experts in wrecking towns and cities, but now we have started leaving people's lives in shambles, too, I see." She fumed. Her lean frame trembled with all the pent-up anger.
"I apologize, Juvia," Erza said as much.
"Apologize?" Her words were laced with venom. Gray could only wonder what they were about to encounter.
Lucy for her part, kept her eyes trained on the floor as if it was the most interesting thing to look at, at the moment.
Gray knew better than to assume why she had her gaze downcast. She couldn't meet Juvia's eyes, neither could he. How could they? When the reason why Juvia left Magnolia was them cheating on her.
Gray had always fancied Lucy, this was before Juvia came into the picture. Nothing between them happened when Lucy first joined the guild though, of course, Natsu takes the credits for that. Nastu always had this invisible, territorial line drawn around Lucy, that Gray never dared to breach.
Then, entered Juvia with her eccentricities, and her incapability of leaving him alone, making Gray's thoughts revolve around her most of the time. Any attraction toward Lucy was long since forgotten.
Rarely, but definitely, Gray's mind would wander to Lucy. He wondered what it would be like being with her, with Juvia still being in the picture. He would dismiss it the minute he felt his thoughts stray to the celestial mage. As time passed, he couldn't deny his growing infatuation with her any longer.
He would have put a stop to everything then and there. If only he knew what it would make him cost in the future.
Gray had an inkling, he had his doubts when he thought Juvia was onto them. But then the blue-haired water mage would act so oblivious to her surroundings that it was damn near impossible to pinpoint what she knew, or if she knew anything at all.
Then again, there were moments when he'd lie to her with a straight face telling her why he was late, or had to cancel the dinner plans, or had to cancel going out, and she would buy all of his white lies with a smile on her face.
At some point, she stopped asking for the reasons, and he stopped giving them to her.
He didn't bother concealing his relationship with Lucy much after that, thinking he'd take whatever there is to come. His excuse: he had had enough of Juvia's overwhelming presence that it was smothering him. She was always there, leaving little to no room for him to breathe or think. Not that she was behaving like her usual old self, stalking him and all, but by being too considerate, sweet, and understanding of his cold behavior. It bothered him to the point where he was left rubbing his temples in agitation from time to time.
One time, Gray got back from one of his missions in a foul mood and yelled at Juvia, when all she did was tried to shoulder his burden. Even after being shouted at, she responded with a smile and said she understood. How can someone be so naïve? He was bad news. She of all people should stay away from him; he feared if he kept her any closer, she would become as tainted as he was.
Exasperated, he stormed out of the guild and found himself picking Lucy's apartment lock. Being apprehended as a burglar be damned, he wanted some peace. Lucy's house would be perfect to regroup his mind since she was accompanying Natsu and Happy on a mission for a few days. Also, that's the one place where Juvia would rather prefer to die than to step in. If he got caught while doing so, well, he couldn't care any less, either way, it would be a win-win situation for him as it would mean few days without Juvia's 'too pure for this world' attitude in the cell.
When he finally opened the door, after spouting a string of profanities under his breath at the lock. He found Lucy lying on the floor, three sheets to the wind.
He got her to sit uprigh, trying to get her to spill why she was in the state she was. She cried incoherently, something to do with Natsu being dense, and not recognizing her feelings. He was a flame brain for nothing, after all, Gray pondered while rubbing circles on Lucy's back.
He consoled Lucy until her cries died down, her head still in the crook of his neck, and when she twisted it out from its place to look at Gray—call it the effect of the alcohol, or their frustration with their respective partners, but in the blink of an eye, her lips were latched onto his in a sloppy kiss.
It was a lousy attempt at resistance on Gray's part, he caved in after a bit of an internal argument with himself. His conscience, gaged, and locked down into a dark cellar at the back of his head he was sure, he won't be visiting any time soon, while erasing Juvia's image that kept popping into his mind, entirely.
He never had a problem with being in a relationship. He was only terrified of what followed after that; expectations. Expectations of being emotionally more open, accepting and dishing out love, which was an emotion foreign to him. He wasn't even sure he loved himself, how was he to assure someone like Juvia that he loved her?
Which was why, after regretting what he did with Lucy the other night, he found himself knocking on her door time and again. The explanation he kept giving to himself: it was easy being with Lucy. She didn't bother him with trivial questions like asking him how he was, or how his day had been. No questions asked. Whenever she did ask, which was not very often, a sharp grunt from him would send her into assuming mutism rather than pester him about it. He felt no remorse in enjoying this phase of the relationship.
Sooner than he anticipated, his good days came to an end when his guilt of cheating on Juvia caught up to him. To rid himself of the guilt, he indulged himself farther, and deeper into his atrocious endeavors.
Addition to the subject prior, the fact that anyone he loved was snatched so brutally away from him, made his decision of never letting people come closer firm.
Foreseeing the inevitable, surmising Juvia would leave him sooner or later, in one way or another— because she, too, had almost died for him, and he was tired of adding names of the deceased to his already burdened soul— he made mistake after mistake after mistake, and created something far worse than what he was trying to avoid in the first place from happening.
He wasn't sure who started growing distant first, Juvia, or him, but they were definitely falling apart and he was too prideful to admit that he missed the bubbly Juvia who never left him alone. Perhaps, that's how she managed to keep his darkness at bay, by being at his side always.
"You're apologizing for what?" Juvia spat pulling Gray out of his reverie. She inched closer to Erza, her eyes ablaze with unfathomable fury. Erza coward. This was something new, Natsu thought to himself in astonishment.
"It's not your fault you confused Juvia's life with a building and brought it down to the ground. It's okay, things happen, right Erza?" She snapped her head to her left where Natsu was standing and asked. "Isn't that right, Natsu? But hey," she moved away flinging her arms wide, "why the somber look? You should celebrate because you did a great job."
"That's enough, Juvia." It was Lucy who spoke this time.
She knew what Gray meant to Juvia, she knew the chaos her secret relationship with him would bring in Juvia's life, yet she pursued Gray anyway. She agrees they did her a lifetime's worth wrong, but being petty was beneath Juvia. Lucy wanted to stop her from saying anything she would feel guilty for later.
Gray dared a glance at Juvia who had her head cocked to her right, unsettling calm exuding off of her. She then sauntered to where Lucy stood, only to stop inches away from her. Gray shook in panic, he didn't want to bring Lucy here, to begin with. If anything, he thought, she'd make matters worse.
With Lucy giving her input in this situation, he knew something terrible would come of it. Why couldn't she just keep her mouth shut?
As he predicted, Juvia did have some unprecedented remarks to make.
"Well, Lucy, pray-tell. Why should I?" Juvia asked towering over a Lucy, who was trying to shrink into nothingness, probably coming to a deduction of her own that how bad of an idea it was to open her mouth.
"I don't remember saying enough when I saw your messages on Gray's communication lacrima, in fact, I let all the lewd things you two used to exchange over the phone once Gray made sure I retired to bed, slide."
So she knew all along. Gray felt a bigger pit opening up in his stomach, he felt hollow and miserable for putting Juvia through all that. He'd had enough; he didn't want to hear any more of what Juvia was revealing, but she continued.
"At first I didn't want to believe it, but then I saw you two kissing in the alley on my birthday." She casually shrugged her shoulders as if the matter never bothered her, maybe it didn't. "I still remember the day I was searching for Gray because I got all dolled up for him to make him happy." She let out a dry laugh. "Here I was, on my birthday, trying to make a jerk happy when I should have been the one whom he should have strived to make happy." She faced Gray with doe eyes, hatred dripping from every syllable of her words, "isn't that what a boyfriend does, my beloved Gray-Sama?" She batted her eyelashes in as much mockery as she said his name and the suffix.
"My then boyfriend apparently, was busy snogging your face off, absolutely unaware that your actions made my whole world come crashing down, " she snapped her fingers, "in one swoop."
Juvia spun on the heels of her feet laughing. "Such a tragic thing don't you think, Gray-Sama? Some people are born with tragedy written in their fates, and Juvia here supposes, is tragedy herself." She straightens before stalking back to stand face to face with Gray.
"What will it take for you to completely disappear from my life?" She asked no trace of mockery in her tone left. "Tell me, Gray, what is it going to be?"
"Juvia, I…" He trailed off, unable to string together a sentence worthy enough to give it to her.
"What will it take for you to forgive me?" He asked boldly. A stupid act of bravery that caused Natsu, and Erza to shoot daggers at him with their glares. Gray still didn't back down.
Juvia, to his surprise, shrugged a shoulder again. "Why, is Lucy not satisfying you anymore?" Gray felt a searing prick in his chest as if someone's pierced his heart with a machete.
Gray knew Juvia was a strong opponent in any given battle, verbal savagery, he never thought she possessed. It was unexpected of Juvia to be so unrelentingly blunt that her words were enough to rupture anyone's ego to a sorry sag, never mind hit Gray's whole existence with a fatal blow.
Gray all, but tried not to give in to the temptation of buckling his knees and deflate before Juvia.
"I thought I was removing myself out of the way when I left without a word. I thought you would be happy with her." She narrowed her eyes at Gray, feigning care for Lucy and Gray's secret relationship. Then came the words Gray thought he might never be able to erase from his memory. "If satisfaction is what you want, don't you think you've wandered a little too far?" Gray's head pounded.
"You've got so many pretty girls at your guild itself. For instance…"
"Juvia!" Natsu shouted, his nostrils flaring, cutting Juvia off mid-sentence to Gray's relief, who was still trying to process her implications. Whore was what she called him.
"What?" She barked at Natsu.
"Not the guild." He retorted.
"Why didn't you defend me, one of your guild members, when you found out about them? Better yet, why didn't any of you ever stop me from making a fool of myself in front of this so-called guild of yours." She added with a bite. Natsu opened then closed his mouth back up.
" Why? Why did nobody tell me that I should probably stop pursuing Gray because it was unhealthy? Why did you keep quiet every time he treated me poorly?"
One does not realize when they're doing someone wrong. Hearing about the despair your actions caused them, watching the same person go from loving you passionately to hate you for it, gives you an abhorrent spin on the perspective of who you truly are. Gray felt sick like he was about to vomit. If Juvia noticed it, she sheerly didn't care.
"Some of you even had the nerve to encourage me when I wanted to give up on him." Despite noticing how ashen Gray's face has gotten, she continued. "Why because then you'd lose your daily dose of good entertainment? I am sorry to tell you Natsu, this guild of yours stood laughing at the expense of my raw and honest emotions. Your guild turned its blind eye to the pain and suffering I was going through. It turned deaf to my cries. Not once, did one of you tell me that it was probably now time to give up on my unrequited love, and when I had come to that decision myself, that I'd give up on Gray for good, then why did he," Juvia points a finger at Gray, "stopped me from doing so? Tell me Natsu!" Juvia was unstoppable. She took great gulps of air while Natsu was rendered speechless.
Even he had no clue how to respond to that. Yes, she was suffering, but did someone really help her see the right thing to make the correct decision? Natsu couldn't remember. As far back as his memory served him, everyone did laugh at the water girl at the guild for her overboard declarations of love for Gray. Not once had anyone seen the agony and embarrassment behind that smiling façade, or explained to her how she was being perceived.
Juvia wasn't done though, she placed a shaky hand on the only colorful furniture standing in this dingy place, this was her home, bought for her by the man she had come to love after all the heartache she had gone through. She deserved peace and quiet, and a happy life. These fairy tail members, Gray Fullbuster, was here to snatch it away, and she was not going to let that happen.
"It was hard at first, lying beside you," everyone in the room were startled when Juvia started speaking again, including herself. She sounded tired at the same time determined to get her voice heard.
She's been keeping things to herself for far too long, if she didn't speak now, she feared she'd implode and destroy her sanity, "and telling myself over and over that it wasn't true, denying what I saw and heard." She released a deep rattling sigh.
"Then I began to declutter my thoughts, which made me come to the same conclusion no matter from what angle I tried to look at it. I wasn't afraid of living a life without you, never. I was afraid of living a life alone. Clinging to you, was only because I thought I was incompetent, gloomy, and brought nothing but bad luck wherever I went.
"Which was why when you took the rain away, you became a superhero in my eyes. Gray became Gray-sama," she gave him a crooked smile, "someone, who warded off all of my demons. I wanted you to keep doing that for me instead of facing them myself.
"You want to know why? Because I was so tired, " she answered her own question. "And also because I was a coward, I was scared that I wasn't wanted, or needed that when you showed me my first sunshine, I clung to it like a little child clings to its favorite toy." She finally lets her tears spill down her face.
"Hence, I made you my protector, acting like a damn damsel in distress when I could have saved myself from any befallen catastrophe without your help, just fine." If Juvia was saying all this to torment Gray, it was working. He felt the ground giving out beneath him.
"You became my priority, keeping you happy and close at all times my goal so that my rain won't come back." She smacked her own head, "Juvia you pathetic little downer."
Silence, such painful silence was eddied with the atmosphere of the apartment only to be interrupted by Juvia's occasional sniffles.
"I realized that I don't need you to keep my rain away, that I can do it on my own. All I have to do is be a bit braver, and the moment I learned that little fact, you, Gray Fullbuster, became irrelevant in my life, " Gray wasn't hearing things right. There's no way, what she was saying was a possibility at all. He despised her words so much that he wanted to dismiss them, but the harder he denied the more difficult it got to contradict the reality. "So I took off."
The revelation wasn't hurting him any less than it was hurting her.
He wanted to fall on his knees to beg for forgiveness, kiss her tears away, make things right, but he was too late. He ended up tainting her anyway.
"You don't care Gray. You never did." Her crying ceased.
Each word was like a shard of glass being jabbed harder, farther, and deeper into his chest.
"You only cared when your pride was at stake. Always out to prove that you have an upper hand in the matters that concern purely you. If that was not the case, you would have known my importance when I was with you, not when I found someone else who loves me back the way I wanted you to." Can someone's heart be broken any further? Gray didn't think it was possible, and yet, there his heart was, breaking so painfully slow he could actually feel the pieces of it breaking apart and tumbling down, scattering in a messy heap inside.
'What's the hardest to recover from Gray-Sama, physical pain or emotional?' Juvia asked Gray when they lived together, during those six months after the guild disbanded.
He replied physical. whoever gets their emotions hurt? Definitely not him. Getting your emotions hurt by someone else would be an act of idiocy. How must the universe be laughing at his disposition right now?
"Why come here when I am about to start a new life?" She shook her head, furrowing her eyebrows, hair sweeping from side to side, "Is it because your competitive streak kicked in when you heard it was Lyon with whom I've moved on?"
His breath hitched for a couple of seconds as though someone sucker punched him in his guts. He hadn't known it was Lyon.
"That is why you're here aren't you? To prove to him that you still have your sway with me?"
No. He was there only for her, not to prove anything to anybody, but she will never believe him now, will she?
Gray, even in his wildest dreams, never dared to conceive of a future where Juvia felt anything short of pure burning love for him. Witnessing himself, her refusal to spare him even a single glance, as if his very face made her stomach turn if she did, had made one thing crystal clear—she felt everything, every negative, hateful thing but love for Gray.
"Who ratted me out?" She tapped her foot folding her hands over her chest.
'No one!' He wanted to say but his exhaustion was starting to wear him down. 'No one!' Because he hadn't known it was Lyon. Lyon wasn't the reason he had come to get her. He didn't even know she was with anyone before today.
Seeing Lyon with her in this apartment was just a coincidence. Even so, he thought Lyon was only visiting her as he was fond of the water mage himself. He hadn't known that they were seeing each other.
Gray's whole world spun when he realized how intimate their relationship is or has been, so intimate, that they bought an apartment together.
"I need you to understand, Juvia," Gray stepped closer trying to grasp her hands, grasp any string of hope he could find. He wanted to do whatever it takes to reconcile with her.
When he insulted Lyon earlier, saying the only thing he had to do was ask Juvia to come back to him and she'd drop everything to be with Gray made Lyon—otherwise smug and confident, storm out of the house without uttering a word, which in turn instigated Juvia's rage resulting in her slapping him.
Even after the situation took an unexpected turn, he beseeched for his declaration to hold some truth, he wanted to find some light shining at the end of the tunnel, however dim.
"No, Gray, I need you to understand that it's over for us." She put a good three foot's distance between them. "I'm in love with, Lyon." And just like that, the idea of any hope was choked to death before it had any chance take a birth for Gray.
"He was always there when I needed someone," Gray remembered saying something close to that to her once, and she was, only he didn't appreciate it.
"I'm not about to throw that away just because you realized what you really want." Sobs wracked her body one more time. No matter how much she wiped at them, her tears kept falling. She was exhausted herself too.
"He treats me right. He doesn't have to but he does." her final smile, weak but genuine, was not for him. It was for Lyon.
"Now, I expect all of you to be gone when I," she paused shook her head and said meeting Gray's eyes with a challenge to defy her, "when Lyon, and I get back to our home." She put a stress on the last word.
Gray went utterly numb.
There are ways more than one in which you could lose someone.
"I can forgive you for whatever you did to me in the past, but I can never forgive you for this, for ruining my happiness I found without you."
There's losing someone when they have given up on you.
"Don't be a hindrance in my life, Gray."
There's losing someone by emotionally shutting them out.
"I don't want to see your face now, or ever in my life again."
There's losing someone by taking them for granted, but realizing they were actually the one you wanted all along.
"I never thought I'd ever say this in my entire existence," Juvia exhaled shakily, silver still lining her eyes. "I regret ever falling for you." And she was terrified if he could tell for the biggest lie it was. Because, yes, Juvia Lockser still loved Gray Fullbuster with all of her heart, but now, she has grown weary, tired of second chances and pointless excuses. Her heart will never forgive him any more than it could unlove him. Looking at him so broken and defeated, she wanted to forget everything he did and take him back. But her reservoirs of forgiveness had run dry a long time ago. So, she better sever whatever little tether that's remained between them; still connecting them with each other. And in a way, that he never shows up at her doorsteps again in his entire life.
You lose someone when they die, and no amount of cursing and begging to the skies can bring them back.
Juvia walked past Gray, shoving him from out of her way, so hard, that he staggered away a few steps, then dropped to the floor with a loud thud; knees slamming on the hardwood floor. Akin to a statue, he watched her figure disappear out of the door, walk out of his life.
As she did, a memory flickered to life in his head.
'I'm glad you're always there by my side when I need you." he told her in a distant past when she was still in love with him. Not again, not anymore.
Tears flowed down Gray's cheeks uncontrollably. He detested being emotionally vulnerable when an audience was around, but he couldn't hold his agony in any longer. He was hurting all over. He chased the one person who could've loved him till the end of the time, from his life.
Natsu and Erza ached for their defeated friend. They wished they could do something to ease the pain of their comrade, but none made a move to console him.
Juvia left behind a scar far worse than her death could ever have, and there's no running away from it or healing from it.
At that moment, Gray realized he had the right answer for the question Juvia asked; Emotional pain. That was the hardest thing to recover from. It leaves scars so deep and hidden that you believe the time has healed them, but they're still there. Lurking beneath the surface, waiting to hit you when you least expect them. He was an ignorant ass to think otherwise.
Now that he had the answers for every question Juvia ever asked him, there was no Juvia in-sight to give them to.
His crying got louder and harder. This loss out of all will haunt him for the rest of his life.
Then, there is losing someone to a fate far worse than death.
A/N: I confess this comes purely out of my frustration with Gray. He treated Juvia carelessly and she still forgave him without even putting up a fight. I admit this story was completely biased. I just wanted to get it out.
Thanks to one of the guest reviewer, I made the necessary changes. Enjoy:)