Monday morning. Missing his alarm. Realizing he had forgotten to print out that freaking essay he had spent nearly all night on. Oh, and those damn moving trucks blocking the street.

Gray Fullbuster had seen better mornings, and that morning had not been one of them. He angrily honked his horn at the white truck in front of his car, rolling down the window and yelling, "Get out of the fuckin' street! Can't you tell some people have got places to be?!"

His street was rather narrow; there was only room for one car to pass at a time. Most of his neighbors were fully aware of this fact and often pulled over to the side when being tailgated, yet this moving truck had actually parked in the middle of the street. Meeting his new next door neighbors would be fun.

"Hey, punk, ya mind?" a gruff voice shouted back from the truck. Gray caught a glimpse of a pierced face in the side view mirror. "There ain't any parking left on the curbs!"

Gray mentally face palmed because the guy had been right. His older siblings, Ultear and Lyon, were staying the week and brought their cars. "Can't you at least move? I'm gonna be late, c'mon man!" The only response he got was a muscled arm giving him the finger.

Cursing under his breath, Gray reversed out of his street and decided to take the long way to school, which took about ten minutes. With his luck, probably fifteen.

Twenty minutes. It took twenty minutes for him just to get to Fairy Tail High. "And after I reversed outta my street, I saw that there was a fuckin' construction zone," Gray ranted, taking a rather aggressive bite out of his apple. His friends listened intently. At least, most of them did. Natsu was laughing his ass off. "Shut it, flame for brains."

"Ah, dude, at least you didn't get called into Makarov's today! I had to skip that quiz and now I've gotta go after school!" said Natsu.

That caught the group's attention. Erza, the president of their grade, narrowed her eyes threateningly at Natsu. "What did you get called in for? I hope you didn't have another fight, did you?"

He gulped and tried to hide behind Lucy, who was scribbling something in her notebook. "Yeah, Natsu, I really hope you didn't. Igneel would be so mad," Lucy added. She was the more calmer and collected of the group, the "mom", like Erza, but less scary.

"No, it wasn't that! He just wanted to let me know that some Phantom Lord kids'll be transferring here, so not to start anything! That's it, I swear!" Natsu held Lucy in front of him like a shield while Gray shook his head at the two, recalling a conversation he had with Natsu previously. Sure, Mr. "I don't see Lucy that way".

"What?!" the blonde exclaimed. "Isn't that the school that got shut down because, well, because of you-know-what?"

"The illegal drugs and fights, we know," Erza said, surprisingly blasé about the topic. "We shouldn't treat them any different than how we treat each other. They're probably just coming here for a new start."

"Did Makarov say how many?" asked Gray, opening a bag of chips.

Natsu took his snack without asking. "Just two. Won't be so bad, I think." At the moment he said that, the bell rang and the group forced themselves away from their usual lunch spot in the shade.

As Gray's teacher drawled on about class requirements, he yawned. It was still syllabus week. He had nothing to worry about. However, his indifference was starting to catch up to him, as it was his senior year and college applications were due in the spring.

"That's her," one of his classmates whispered, though it was loud enough for nearly everyone to hear. "She's one of the Phantom Lord kids."

Gray's ears perked up on that. He scanned the room for an unfamiliar face. Could it be that black haired girl in the front? No, he had physics with her last year. Maybe the brunette? No, wait, that's Cana, who must have gotten a haircut. For sure it's the blue haired girl sitting across from him. Wait, that's Levy.

It took Gray a moment to process that hair couldn't grow twice as long as it already was in one summer. Plus, Levy wasn't the type to sit in the back.

The girl was sitting timidly in her chair, staring hard at her notebook as the whispers continued. She was completely blue; her hair, her eyes, even her entire outfit, which consisted of a simple dress and boots.

"Do you think she was in the fight?" someone asked.

"Maybe. You should ask her!"

"No way, if she was she'd beat me up!"

Another voice chimed in. "She looks kinda weird, wearing all blue like that. And she looks all depressed, too."

She pursed her lips and continued to jot down notes, though Gray noticed she gripped her pen a little tighter.

Class ended and the girl made a dash for the door. Gray shrugged internally. Not his problem. He had bigger things to worry about than some girl with hurt feelings, like hockey tryouts and the errands Ur wanted him to do afterward.

Tryouts usually weren't a big deal to Gray, as he had always been promised a spot on varsity ever since freshman year. This time, however, things were different since he had been voted team captain. His job was to find any players with potential.

The first day of tryouts had been brutal, which was just how he had expected it to be. There was no one in particular that had caught his eye. Maybe tomorrow, Gray thought as he parked at the local diner, Mage's Burgers. He was starved, and though Ur had wanted him to go grocery shopping, Natsu had insisted on grabbing dinner.

"Yo, ice pants!" Natsu called him over at their usual table near the window. "How was tryouts?"

"It was alright. How 'bout football tryouts?"" Gray asked as he sat down, noting that Natsu had already ordered and was eating without him.

"Good," he responded, a mouth full of food. "There's this freshman that I think'll be good for the team. His name's Romeo."

Their conversation was cut short when they heard yelling from a few tables away from them. Gray turned to see that blue haired girl, nervously holding a platter while a man shouted at her.