"Hey, Gray," Natsu said to his frienemy, Gray Fullbuster, who seemed a bit out of it that morning, "what's the matter? You've been acting screwy all morning. What gives? If anyone should be acting strange, it's me, since after all, I was the one who was inside a fake dragon controlled by a crazy woman and had the magic almost sucked out of me just yesterday. In fact, I am prepared to fight you for the rights to acting unusual!" By now, the fire dragon had his foot up on the table and was yelling down to Gray with an angry and excited energy.

"Sorry, Natsu, but I just don't feel up to fighting this morning. I don't know what it is, I just feel off. It's like something's missing." Gray stared at the table in front of him for a moment before noticing, "Say, isn't there normally breakfast here?"

"Um, yeah," Natsu said, giving Gray a worried look, "but you have to go get it from Mira or someone." He smiled widely. "Even in Fairy Tail, food doesn't just appear."

Gray seemed puzzled. "Yes, it does. Er, wait, no, Juvia usually grabs a breakfast for me." He gasped, suddenly realizing that in over half an hour of being in the Fairy Tail guild building, no one had done anything overly-affectionate or even remotely stalker-ish. "Wait, where's Juvia?" he said looking around for the girl with the short blue hair and deep, adoring, dark blue eyes lined with lovely lashes that were longer on her bottom lids, making her eyes look larger and more beautiful.

Gray shook his head. He didn't usually see Juvia in the way that she saw him, meeting her actions of love not with returned love but not with rejection either. Now, in her absence, he came to see that there was a part of her that he missed. Again, Gray shook his head, not comprehending why that would be. Clearing his mind, he got up and walked over to Mira for some breakfast.

"Say, Mira, have you seen Juvia today?" Gray asked her as he poked at his eggs.

"Why?" Mira teased him. "Do you liiiiiiike her now?" She sounded like Happy.

Gray slammed his fists down on the counter, "No! I was just wondering!"

Mira winked, "Whatever you say, Gray."

"It's the truth! I don't like her in that way!"

"Fine," Mira sighed, deciding she'd put her match-making skills to use later. "You could do a lot worse than her, you know. She really cares about you, she's beautiful, she's powerful. Actually, I doubt you could do any better, especially with that attitude." Gray shot her an annoyed and frustrated glare, which she rolled her eyes to. "Fine, she's right over there."

Excitedly, Gray spun around to see Juvia sitting at a table with Wendy. Her body was folded down over the table, and she seemed to be crying hard. It was only now that Gray noticed the heavy downpour that streamed from the sky and splattered the windows with water.

"Mira, what's the matter with Juvia?" Gray demanded. The sorrow she was displaying eerily reminded him of when he'd first met her and made the horrible mistake of referring to the rain as "gloomy."

"Maybe you should go talk to her," Mira shrugged, cleaning another mug Cana'd tried drinking from before deciding to just stick with her barrel. Mira is always attempting to get Cana to at least use a mug, but alas, there is no separating Cana and her beloved barrel.

Gray ran across the hall to where Juvia sat sobbing with Wendy, desperate to discover what had happened. He'd never really cared so much before, but today was different. Plus, Juvia was his friend. Just yesterday, the two of them used a unison raid to save Natsu from Daphne. He hadn't done many unison raids before, but he knew that people tend to get along better after using one together. Juvia even stopped creeping at Lucy for being a "love rival" after their battle against Vidaldus Taka in the Tower of Heaven.

He rushed to the crying Juvia, laying a hand on her bobbing back. "Juvia! What's happened? Are you okay?"

At his touch and the sound of his voice—two sensations she's treasured since they first met-Juvia ceased her sobbing and sat straight up with a somber expression on her face. The rain outside continued to fall in heavy sheets, but Juvia herself was very composed.

"Drip, drip, drop," she muttered seriously and quietly.

"Hm? Juvia, what's the matter?" Gray pleaded.

"Sorry, but Juvia's too tired now. Drip, drip, drop."

"Juvia, what's this about? Wendy?"

Wendy just shook her head. "Sorry, Gray, but I can't help you. In fact, I think you should just leave Juvia alone."

"What? But I don't understand?" Gray stumbled backwards and bumped into a very ticked off Levy McGarden.

"Oh, sorry, Levy," Gray apologized and tried to get Juvia to talk to him, but Levy grabbed the chain of his necklace (as he wasn't wearing a shirt) and spun him around.

"Yeah, you've got a lot to be sorry for, Gray!"

"What?"

Levy was about to spout something nasty—she does have a vast vocabulary, after all—but Juvia silenced her.

"Levy, it's okay," she whispered through returning tears.

Gray turned to her, but she had her pink umbrella open and was walking out the door. "Don't worry, Gray doesn't have to put up with Juvia anymore," she said to Gray, and turned to throw him a hurt and angry glare.

She soon disappeared into the rain, and Gray was left staring after her.

"Hey, Gray," Natsu said, appearing as if from nowhere right next to Gray's ear, which would normally startle him, but now he was too sad and confused. "Doesn't she normally call you –sama?"

"Yeah," Gray muttered, feeling dazed and out of place. "She does."

Later that day, since no one would tell him the reason Juvia was so upset with him, he decided to investigate on his own. Her sudden change in personality really worried him, so he headed to Fairy Tail's girls' dormitory, Fairy Hills.

He knocked on the front door, shouting, "Hellooooo! Anyone home?"

No one answered.

Determined to figure out his situation with Juvia, he crept around the building to try to find a different entrance. Soon, he came across a beach, and at the corner of the building that faced the beach was a wall of windows.

"Hm?" Gray approached the windows to see if he could get in through them and try to find Juvia, who he knew lived in Fairy Hills. Peering into the glass with his hands over his eyes to get rid of the glare, he saw that there was a large hot tub inside, but no girls.

Perfect, he thought. Gray pried open a window, climbed inside onto the rocks that dotted the edge of the tub and slipped into the hot water. As he was walking across the tub, his muscles relaxed and his worries started to melt away in the steam…

Maybe I should just rest here a bit, he thought, reclining against the edge.

After a few minutes, he was startled by a loud, enraged shriek, "Gray!" Erza bellowed, "This is the girls' dormitory!"

Terribly embarrassed and hating himself for being so careless, Gray tried to escape through the window, but Erza beat him to it and ended up thumping him hard on the head with the weapon of her Purgatory armor.

"Perverted oaf," he heard her mutter as he slipped under the surface of the water, unconscious.

Everything was black, but Gray could here the girls of Fairy Tail whispering to each other about what a jerk he was and how good it is that Juvia'd given up on him. He wasn't worth her energy.

Gray's eyes flew open to see Erza, Cana, Bisca, and Evergreen glaring down at him. He stood up, shakily, from where he stood next to the hot tub. "Where's Juvia? I really need to talk to her!"

Bisca scoffed at him, her hand dancing around the gun fastened to her hip. "Juvia deserves much better than you. You've hurt her enough, so you might as well just leave. Besides, she's moved on."

Gray's jaw dropped. "Moved on? To who?"

The girls giggled, not revealing any information. "At first, I didn't approve," Erza teased, "but now I see they make a pretty good couple."

"Damnit!" Gray shouted. "Just tell me where Juvia's room is! I need to talk to her about this insanity!"

"Juvia doesn't live here anymore," Evergreen explained. "She moved out of Fairy Hills some time ago, but if you must speak with her, here's her new address." The fairy slipped Gray a card with an address scrawled across it in the beautiful, watery loops of Juvia's handwriting that Gray had never appreciated.

"I'll go to her, and you'll see!" Gray screamed, bursting back through the window and running towards the town, the address pounding through his head.

Soon, he slowed as he approached a cute house on a street that ran along the river. The outside was painted blue with a darker blue roof. On the door hung a teru teru bozu, the very one that used to have a place on Juvia's fur shawl. This was definitely Juvia's house.

So, the girls didn't lie to me, then, Gray thought despite the truth that, with Juvia's handwriting, they were very unlikely to be lying at all.

He heard several voices chatting inside, and preparing himself for the worst, Gray gave the door a sharp knock. The voices hushed, but the door soon opened just a crack.

"Gray?" It was Wendy who answered the door, but she wouldn't open it any wider than her own head. "What…?"

"Please, I must speak to Juvia!"

Wendy became nervous, stuttering, "Um, I'm s-sorry, G-gray, but I c-can't l-l-et you in, r-right now."

"Why not? Why are you even here!" Gray was furious by how much trouble this was all causing him but also by how much it appeared that he really did care for Juvia.

"I-I c-can't tell you. It's a s-secret."

Gray stepped forward, pushing the door open. "I've had enough of secrets. Where's Juvi-."

Gray was stunned into silence by what he saw in Juvia's living room. She sat on a white couch, her tea resting on walnut coffee table. Sitting in chairs and on the couch all around her were people Gray knew: Macao, Levy, Mystogan, Happy, even Aquarius and Gemini, but most surprising were Jellal and his thought projection, Seigrain. Though Gray had no idea why this odd group of people had gathered, he could only focus on one thing: Siegrain's arm resting across Juvia's shoulders.

"Gray's not allowed to be here," Juvia said.

"Why not?"

"Because Juvia and her friends are in the middle of a meeting!" Juvia said, standing up. "This is the blue-haired club. You have to have blue hair to come here, and Gray doesn't, so he has to leave. Sorry, Gray, but Juvia's done." Then, Juvia sat back down next to Seigrain.

Suddenly, Jellal and Mystogan were beside him. "Believe me," Jellal whispered, "this is even more awkward for us than it is for you." Mystogan nodded in agreement.

"What the hell?" Gray shouted. "No, no, no, wait! I have blue hair too, see! I can join!" He tugged at his hair, showing the group members.

"Hm," Macao said, inspecting it. "Looks more like black to me."

"No! It's dark blue, like yours!"

"Not quite," Levy announced from Juvia's computer, an internet window open in front of her with Gray's picture on it. "According to the wiki, your hair is black."

"According to the what?" Gray couldn't stand it anymore, this whole day was just getting stranger and stranger, and he couldn't take it anymore. He leapt over to Juvia, kneeling in front of her after moving the coffee table out of the way. He took her hand and poured his heart out to her, telling her how much he missed her all day, that he really did care about her as she cared for him, that using a unison raid with her the day before had opened his eyes to how much they truly were meant to be together: like she always said.

Juvia pulled her hand back from Gray, uninterested and unmoved. "Please. Gray's never appreciated Juvia, and now he's just being bothersome. Aquarius!"

"With pleasure!" Aquarius rejoiced, raising her jug over her head a sweeping Gray away in a massive wave of hot water.

Dripping wet, Gray opened his eyes to find himself, yet again, on the tile floor of the Fairy Hill's open bath area. But this time, instead of Erza, Cana, Bisca, and Evergreen standing above him, he was met with Juvia's face.

"Oh, Juvia was so worried," she said, smiling with watery eyes, "Gray-sama."

"J-Juvia…" Gray was amazed to see where he was, trying to make sense of it all. "Wait, why are you dating Jellal?"

"You're what?" Erza shouted, and Juvia's eyes grew to half the size of her head in fear of Erza's anger at her as a love rival. At first, Gray thought that this was a dream, seeing Erza so upset over Juvia with Jellal, but she soon composed herself. "Gray, we explained to Juvia how much you seemed to care about her, and she's decided to forgive you. Don't waste her love this time." Though to Gray, it seemed more like a threat than advice.

"Oh, is Gray-sama okay?" Juvia asked him. "Erza-san hit Gray-sama's head pretty hard."

They both stood, and after coming to a tough decision, Gray spoke. "Juvia…" he was tempted to run a hand through her short, spiky hair, but figured that as much as he'd like to, it wouldn't make this any easier. "Juvia, I'm so sorry for taking you for granted. I care about your feelings and all but…" He was lost in her shimmering sapphire eyes, which were just waiting for the response she'd been waiting for since she first met him. "But, while I feel like that, I don't feel the same way you do."

Juvia's heart shattered into many tiny droplets of water, but she knew it would be okay.

"Juvia will always love Gray-sama!" she said as he left through the window.

"You're a great friend, Juvia," he called back, walking towards the town.

Deep down, Gray Fullbuster knew that he could never feel right without Juvia around. He loved her. But a relationship, he felt, would only complicate things, so he had to let her go. I'm such an idiot! He thought to himself as he walked away from Fairy Hills and the love of his life.