A/N: This is a commission for sanguine-fairy! Please check out her tumblr for me. Commissions are open, and I would love to discuss prices and what I can do for you as a writer!
You may have seen this story before, and that is because I mistakenly put it under 'The Fairies' Tales' instead of this one. I hope you enjoy anyway!
"I'm Erza Scarlet, and I'm your class president. If you have any questions, do not hesitate to ask," she said with a smile that pierced through his heart. And at that moment, he knew he was doomed.
It was even harder when she sat right in front of him, her shiny red hair cascading over his desk when she would flick it behind her ear when she was concentrating. Erza would always stick out her tongue too which Jellal thought endearing. He was looking even when she thought he was not, and when she glanced back behind her he pretended to be extremely focused on his work.
He had harbored a crush on her ever since the third grade when she beat up someone that was bullying one of her friends. Jellal watched from behind a tree, amazed at this pretty girl whose hair was the most gorgeous color he had ever seen in his life. It was fitting that her last name was Scarlet, and the more he learned about her he became more entranced.
She was the star on the fencing team at her school, and she got all straight A's despite the adversity. Erza was smart, talented, and beautiful. All three of those things made him fall more in love with her every day. Even when she didn't notice him throughout all of the nine years afterward that they went to school together, he didn't give it a single care. When Jellal ended up in her history class this year, he thought it a stroke of luck.
But there was only one problem.
He was good at history, really. He had gotten all A's in it all the years up to his senior year. But now that Erza was sitting in front of him, raising her hand and flicking her perfumed hair behind her ear, it was near impossible to concentrate. That meant dropping grades, and dropping grades meant feeling more like a failure than he already was. He had to find a solution to this, and fast.
When class finally let out, he gathered up all his courage and waited until she was finished talking with her friends. She turned her eyes towards him, and he practically had a heart attack when his brown eyes looked into his dark ones.
"Miss Scarlet?" he asked timidly, looking down into her eyes, trying not to shake.
"Mr. Fernandes. Did you have a question?" she asked, her smile warming his heart once more. Her hair was in soft curls today, and when she flipped it over her shoulder he had smelled cinnamon.
This was it. This was the time to confess. With a soft smile, he opened his mouth, and-
"Would you do me a favor and tutor me?" he asked, and mentally face palmed. That was not the question he intended to ask!
"Of course. I'm always here to help a fellow student," she said, and Jellal said thank you with a faux smile and walked away. When he got far enough away, he mentally cursed himself. What was he thinking asking her to tutor him? Great, now he was going to have to play dumb in front of her! And she
Things couldn't get any worse than this.
"Jellal-san asked Erza-san to tutor him? That is fantastic! Juvia is very happy for the both of you," Juvia said, delicately placing a chip in her mouth and chewing.
"Why didn't you just man up and ask her out?" Natsu asked, throwing an arm around Lucy. Lucy giggled and kissed Natsu on the cheek, which made the man turn a brighter pink than his hair was.
"To be honest, I'm not sure myself. She was so beautiful that I said the first thing that came to my mind," Jellal said, looking down at his lunch in dismay.
"And that thing wasn't, 'You're so beautiful, please date me'?" Lucy asked with a laugh, and everyone at the table chuckled.
When Jellal was silent, Lucy laid a hand on his arm. "Relax, I was kidding. I completely understand what you mean. But Erza needs to get to know you first before you ask her to date you. She likes to take things slow."
"I see. Thank you for telling me, Lucy," Jellal said, rising from his chair. "Please excuse me, I have a tutoring session with Miss Scarlet now."
After he left, there was silence for a few moments as everyone finished their food. Finally Gray piped up after everyone finished, clearing his throat.
"Do you think he knows that she's liked him since second grade?" he asked, chewing the last bite of his burger.
"Doubt it," Lucy replied with a smirk. Boy, was Jellal ever in for the shock of his life.
"Have you gone over the greek mythology unit yet? It is our biggest unit, and worth the most points," Erza said, tapping the outline and notes with her pencil.
"Ah, no. I haven't," he said, leaning back in his chair with his arms crossed. He wanted to look relaxed even though inside he was practically screaming at himself to just ask her out.
"Alright, then. We'll start with Eros and Psyche. It's one of the lesser known ones, so pay attention," Erza told him, her eyes flicking to his. His heart squeezed at her glance, and he nodded and clenched his teeth to not make a strangled noise.
As she told him the story, he listened with interest. Psyche was a princess, and a beautiful one at that. Her admirers decided to make pilgrimage to her instead of the goddess Aphrodite, so the goddess in rage commissions Eros to work her revenge. Upon seeing Psyche, Eros accidentally was stunned by her beauty and scratched himself with his arrow, which made him fall in love at first sight. Later, Psyche and Eros married at the wrath of Aphrodite.
"Are you listening, Jellal?" Erza asked, and Jellal looked into her eyes.
"Intently," he told her, and Erza flushed at the direct eye contact. Shaking her head softly, she turned her gaze back to the paper.
"I will now ask you some questions. What can we learn from this story?"
"Love knows no limits or bounds. Even if the gods themselves deny love, only the two in love can decide their own destiny," Jellal responded, and Erza looked up in surprise.
"That's right," she said, tipping her head to the side in interest. "Are you quite sure you need me to tutor you? You seem to know the topic well."
Jellal gulped. He couldn't mess up this time. She would either accept or deny his request, and if he never asked he would never know the answer.
"Erza," he said, using her name for the first time in front of her. She was always 'Miss Scarlet' to him, but when he used her real name, she knew there was something different about him.
"Yes?" she asked, peeking through her lashes at him. He reached to grasp her hand and lifted her up from her seat, holding her gaze all the while.
"If Eros and Psyche can have their love, even in the adversity that they faced...do you believe we might be able to have our own?" he asked, lifting the back of her hand and kissing it.
Erza was silent for a moment, and then she smiled. "Yes, I do believe so," she said, a smile on her face. She realized in that moment that he wasn't the small boy that fell in love with her in the third grade, and she was no longer the little girl who peeked at the good-looking boy behind the curtains of the theatre stage. They were a man and a woman now, which gave them all the more reason to love.
They stared into each other's eyes for a moment, his dark eyes looking lovingly into hers. The gaze gave him courage to do something that he hadn't done before-a sweet embrace.
He leaned in and kissed her on the cheek tenderly, knowing that maybe one day he might be courageous enough to kiss her lips. He wasn't a cowardly man, but he heeded Lucy's words. Erza liked to take things slow, and he was willing to go a turtle's pace if that meant he could be with the woman of his dreams.
Eros and Psyche might have had a mythological love of legends, but Jellal and Erza's was a true story that would be passed on for generations to come.