Someday, he thinks, he will be able to tell her. Someday, he will master the labyrinth of his own heart and end up with the answer, end up standing at the top of the pass, his view no longer obscured by those mountains of ice and snow. Someday, someday—maybe someday he will know himself well enough to let himself know her.
She knows him, already. She didn't, at first—couldn't have. But she has been so recklessly persistent, so decisive from the first step, that in time, of course, she could not fail to somehow, against all odds, defying all precedents, know him.
And it aches at him that he doesn't know her that way. He cannot, until his journey is over.
And yet, it is nearing its end. Something in him has broken enough to acknowledge her; to really see her, blue and watery, but—in some moments—reflecting gems of light on her surface. He can hear her now—and he listens, notices the two words that leave her lips most: Juvia. Gray-sama.
He can feel her; the cool lock of her fingers in anticipation of a unison raid, the tiny gesture of comfort, or even the sudden, solid contact as she impulsively embraces him…she is water, but she is so real in those moments, so loud and present and unyielding against him, and he is always surprised by how much that contact…is to him. It confuses him, so he pretends it isn't.
They are the same substance in different forms, people always say. She is movement, liquid, loud and strong and destructive sometimes, never heeding shouts of protest…quiet and uncertain and docile at times, lapping at the edge of a pool, unsure if her intrusion is welcome.
And yet always, an undercurrent of passion. From the beginning, she has been clear and decisive, running on toward her goal. She has been open, she has been warm, she has been wild, she has been tender, she has been giddy, she has been sober, and she has always given it voice.
And he…he is the entrapment of that motion that is in her. He is something caught, he is accustomed to cold; he rebuffs lapping water as if by nature.
He is so closed. She is so open, and he is so closed. How is it that she can continue, faced with him? What is it that he ever did to make her shed her clouds and follow him?
It must have been one moment of openness. It must have been a place inside him that wasn't as closed as he thought, a little tendril of liquid, not yet frozen, that recognized another tendril, about to evaporate, reached out to save it—reached out, maybe, to save them both.
And someday, he thinks, he will be able to tell her. Someday, she will touch in him what he touched in her (someday, he will finally be ready to let her touch it) and he will be able to know her. He will be able to tell her.
It will all come pouring out, flooding, shattering beautifully, in one breath.
I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you…
A thousand I love you's in one moment, to pay back each that she's ever given to him.