"Ya look like a pig."
"Mmfcuse meph?"
"I said ya look like a pig with all that food in yer mouth," he cackled.
Levy tried to pout through her donut-stuffed cheeks. They were cinnamon glazed, what did he expect? She swallowed forcefully, wincing as the entirely-too-big bite slid down her throat, "You're just grouchy because you can't have any!"
"Yeah, 'cause ya ate 'em all, Piggy!"
"Because you haven't been able to solve even ONE of these problems in the hour that we've been here!"
His immediate scowl coaxed a smirk out of the blue-haired girl. She felt a a little sorry for digging at the very reason Gajeel had called her to the library that night but his annoyance was satisfying. "'Cause these problems are hard!"
"Well, they wouldn't be hard if you, oh, I don't know, showed up to class every once in a while!"
"I don' think that woulda done much fer me, Shorty, it's still hard."
Levy exhaled slowly, and picked at her lips. She had run out of ways to teach Gajeel the fundamentals of frictional force, and the fact that he had missed the physics lecture altogether made matters even worse. Backtracking would take too long, Gajeel would only cackle at the demonstrations, and she had already used the Lucy-method (simple concept to scenario relations) to no avail.
"Okay, let's try this again, do you remember Atwood's machine?"
"Was that the lil' pulley thing with one block on the two ends of the string?"
"Yes, now assume the pulley is massless and there's no friction. Are the accelerations of the two masses the same in magnitude?"
"Sure."
"Gajeel," she sighed, "please."
"Levy, I really don' know teh answer, an' you gettin' upset wit' me won' help."
The girl tugged at the skin around her thumbs. He was right, she was being unfair. How was he supposed to learn if she didn't have the patience to teach?
"Sorry…"
"S'alright, I know I'm not teh bes' student."
She bit her lip nervously. Gajeel was trying, she knew he was, and oh God did it hurt her to see him so discouraged. So she threw a donut at him.
"What th' hell?!"
The boy leaned backward abruptly in surprise, tipping his wooden chair, and crashing clumsily to the ground. Levy stood over her friend, and giggled maniacally at her friend, gripping her sides to keep them from splitting open in hysterics. "Y-you should've seen y-your face!"
"Ya think that's funny, do ya," Gajeel grumbled, a slight smile spreading across his tanned face, and hand rubbing his tailbone.
"H-hilarious, actually-y," she cackled.
"Well, whaddya think o' this!"
With unbelievable speed, Gajeel sprang from his position on the ground, and chucked a donut at the girl. It flew straight into her gaping mouth, the impact startling her into the heavily stacked bookshelf. "BAHAHAHAHHA," he laughed, pointing at a very confused, and very distressed Levy, "thas' what the lil' pig gets fer messin' with the big dogs!"
"Oh, you're a dog alright," she grumbled, puffing a tuft of blue hair away from her tiny face. She got up slowly, evaluating her smug friend's stance, before reaching for the box of donuts on the other side of the table. In her attempt, Levy's foot snagged onto her messenger bag's strap, sending her flying face-first onto the table before her. "BAHAHAHAHAHAHHA," Gajeel cackled harder.
Levy's face flushed a bright shade of crimson, then noticed her proximity to her weapon of choice. She only had to reach a little further to wrap her delicate little fingers around another two donuts. "Ohhh no, ya don'," Gajeel stuttered between chuckles, swiftly snatching the pink pastry box away from the tiny girl. She scowled, "you're the worst!"
"Nah, Shorty, I'm the best, an' tha's' why ya can't beat me!"
She stuck her tongue out at the black-haired boy, only to have her insult reciprocated. Levy sat up a little, intensifying her childish mockery. Gajeel, again, mirrored her, crossing his arms, and sticking his tongue out a little farther. Determined to win, Levy sat up on her knees, threw her arms back, and tightly shut her eyes, willing all of her frustration with this particular boy into her expression.
"WHAT HAPPENED HERE?!"
The pair's heads snapped toward the source of the voice only to see a particularly appalled Mirajane Strauss standing at the entrance to the library. They looked at each other for a second, before pointing at one another:
"HE STARTED IT!"
"SHE STARTED IT!"
"I don't care who started it, just clean this mess up. NOW!"
Levy jumped off the wooden table carefully so as to not step on any stray donuts, and approached a scattered pile of books. "This is what I get for letting you two use my library after hours?! You're banned for the remainder of the month! BANNED!"
They both nodded in solemn agreement, Levy bearing the weight of Mirajane's words more heavily than her companion. She spent every day in this library, what was she supposed to do now?
It took approximately half an hour to sort the books, and pick up each individual donut crumb left by their little war, and another half hour to write the standards Mirajane had forced on them: "I will not throw donuts in the library."
Gajeel had finished before Levy, oddly enough, and immediately evacuated the building without so much as a word to his blue-haired friend. She was angry, partly because he had not apologized, partly because he hadn't said goodbye.
It was around midnight when Levy finally left the library - messenger bag slung over her shoulder, a slight glower plastered on her fair face. "Geez, what took ya so long?"
Levy spun to face Gajeel. He had been leaning up against the wall beside the entrance, arms crossed over his chest, one leg propped on the wall for support. "I wanted to apologize to Mirajane for the mess."
"Fer half an hour?"
"It was twenty minutes, but yeah."
He approached the girl slowly, "sorry 'bout gettin' ya banned, Shorty."
She shrugged in contempt, "It's whatever."
"Nah, nah it isn't. Here," he spoke as he reached into his pocket. "I swiped it off 'er desk while you were writin'."
He tossed her a small silver key which, much to both of their surprise, Levy had caught in one hand. "What is it?"
"Key tuh the library, what else."
Her jaw dropped, "Gajeel, I can't -"
"Ya can, and ya will use it whenever you want. 'S all yours, blue," Gajeel spoke, walking toward Levy slowly. He looked down at the her lovingly, cupping the back of her neck in his calloused hands.
"Now le's go before the demon notices it's gone."
