Chapter 2
Juvia was wandering around the house with a box of her stuff in her hands, Aquarius had just gave the signal to her and her siblings to run up stairs and choose a room. There were so many to choose from! One thing was for sure though she would choose the farthest from Aquarius and Gray's room. Yuck.
Juvia shivered at the idea of her mother and him in the privacy of their room.
Meeting Gray, was exactly as Juvia had expected it would be like. Uncomfortable. With his athletic body, dark tanned skin-Aquarius must have a thing for tanned men- and contrasting white semi long hair, Juvia could sorta see why her mom would be attracted to Gray, but Juvia felt like she needed to be on high alert with him around.
Juvia didnt grow up around other sirena but she had researched them a lot, so she knew sharkfolk were no friend to sirena ninety five percent of the time. There was still that five percent sure, there was no way Juvia could be sure yet she had only just met him.
"Hey there was a room downstairs! Mom and Gray got it, so we'll be good up here!" Jellal said in a low voice, but Juvia could still hear his relief, it seemed she wasn't the only one dreading to be near the couples room.
Juvia sighed in relief, "Now I can choose a room without the fear of being stuck next to them!"
Jellal chuckled at his sisters comment, "Levy got the attic, she'll be two floors away from them!"
"Aww! I didn't know we had an attic, much less one we could sleep in!" Luck just wasn't on her side in this town.
Jellal shrugged and took the box from Juvia's hands, "The attic is huge, knowing my sister though, it'll be crammed with books in no time."
Juvia giggled and nodded in agreement at Jellal's comment. Levy loved books more than anything, more than half of her luggage were books, she had fought vigorously for her shelves too but Aquarius drew the line there, "Definitely NO SHELVES!" she had yelled and Levy gave up her shelves with tears in her eyes.
"Did you choose one already? Your room?" Juvia asked her brother.
"Nah," he said shaking his head, "wanna be neighbors?" his question was casual but it held a lot of hidden feelings underneath it, and Juvia was good at reading between the lines. Jellal must want make up for their lost sibling time, Juvia didn't blame him, she wished she could make up for it too. She loved her life in Oak town with her friends at Phantom and Gajeel and Metallicana, regretting the lost time meant she regretted meeting them, which Juvia didn't, so she settled on making memories with Jellal and Levy starting today and going forward.
It had been Jellal that found Juvia in a chance encounter while she was shopping at the mall.
Jellal had bumped into Juvia, he was too busy analyzing the girl to say sorry, instead he had blurted out "IS YOUR HAIR REALLY BLUE!?" It startled Juvia, but she answered truthfully "Yes." She just couldn't shake him off of her after that. He followed her all around the mall asking her tons of questions.
Juvia remembered asking herself, why she was answering the stranger's questions so honestly. Despite having just met him she felt she could trust Jellal. Maybe it was because after she answered he would tell her his own answer to his question. Or perhaps it was the sense of familiarity she felt the more answers they had in common.
The answer to her weird sense of security around him came when Juvia told him her birthday. Jellal had stood frozen in place and Juvia stood around awkwardly waiting for him to speak again and when he didn't she started walking away. She had only taken a step when suddenly, she was swept up in a tight yet warm embrace by Jellal yelling "It's you! I can't believe it! Everything matches Juvia! Sirena, your name, your birthday, the hair, you're her your really her!" He had yelled as he spun her around in excitement.
Juvia was scared and desperately trying to escape his grip, he noticed because he quickly put her her down and composed himself, however his bright smile stayed on his face. Jellal explained a lot to her that day over coffee.
"Juvia?" Jellal was waving his hand infront of Juvia's face waiting for her to react.
"Yes. We can be neighbors." She answered her brothers proposition and giggled, "I was thinking about when we met."
We continued walking around in silence looking for the two perfect rooms. Juvia mind wandered to her fateful encounter with Jellal.
Through out the sibling's many topics of conversation and cups of coffe Jellal explained to Juvia that sirena don't usually live on land, but there are some adventurous and curious spirits-like Juvia's mother-that branch out, sprout legs and travel the dry lands. It's a beautiful tradition and a silent law, that all sirena, including the ones living on land give birth in the sea, all babies are kissed and blessed by the sea as he or she comes out of the womb. It's considered an omen for the sirena baby to be born on land.
On Juvia's birthday there had been a full blown storm going on, it had been hard for Aquarius to get to the beach, but she was persistent and once she did everything went smoothly.
There's is a moment after the baby is out that the water reacts and swirls around the new born sirena, welcoming it into the sea. The water did just that, and suddenly baby Juvia was being carried off into another stronger current, separating her from her mother.
Jellal told Juvia that was all he could tell her since he hadn't actually been there, he was about one when Juvia came into the picture so he didn't really know anything at that time. But his mother would tell him the story every year on her birthday and together they would pray she was alive and well, and hoped she'd be returned to them again.
"Juvia come look in this hallway!" Jellal called out from up ahead.
Juvia shook herself and skipped over to where her brother was standing.
The inside of the house was all white, white walls, white marbled floors, mostly white colored furniture. There were touches of red and gold in some places though, it looked super fancy, definitely not a place Juvia had ever been in before.
Jellal was standing in a hallway with the same white walls, marbled floors and gold chandeliers like the previous ones so Juvia didn't see anything special. She looked up at her brother with a confused expression on her face. "What am I looking at?"
"This is the hallway for us Juvia!" Jellal chuckled and pointed at the hallway again.
Juvia took the hallway in again. There was two tall arched double doors on one side of the hallway and three on other. At the end of the hallway there was no wall, only a window with two doors in the middle, sunlight was pouring in lighting up the hall.
"A balcony!" She squealed in excitement.
They exchanged knowing looks before running down the hallway opening the doors on the side they were on. Juvia ran the hall with the three doors, one was a an empty small room, the other a restroom and the last a huge room. Juvia turned excitedly to her brother.
"I want this side!"
"I want this side!"
The brother and sister yelled simultaneously. Juvia peaked through her brothers open doors, a room and a restroom, Jellal did the same.
They nodded at each other before Jellal walked over into her room and places the box in the middle of her room.
"Come on let's get our stuff." Jellal said to Juvia as he threw his arm around her shoulder and lead her downstairs. "Mom will be running around getting everything settled these next couple of days so what do you say we do some exploring around town and fix up our rooms to our liking?"
Juvia giggled and nodded, "Yes my room definitely need a huge splash of color before I can call it mine!"
They spent that day carrying boxes up to their rooms and when they took breaks, they'd look at their baby pictures and share stories.
"Here," Jellal was holding a picture and waiting for Juvia to take it, "it's a picture of our parents, me and you as a bump."
Juvia took the picture and looked at it. The picture was taken on a boat. Aquarius was making a funny face, sticking out her tongue and doing a peace sign, she had her long blue hair down and the wind blowing it around but she didn't seem to mind. She had on a plain yellow spaghetti strap tank that didn't cover her noticeable baby bump and some faded out jean shorts, her other hand over her bump.
There was tall man with dark skin and a huge smile on his face hugging Aquarius with one hand and carrying a small child in his other.
"That's Scorpio!" She'd seen her dad before in many other pictures but this one was different, he looked happy. "And aww baby Jellal tso cutie wootie yes he is!" Juvia said in a baby voice teasing her brother.
"Watch it punk or I won't give it to you." Jellal didn't have a hint of threat in the sentence and his efforts to hide his smile gave him away.
"Why this one?" Jellal had many other pictures including their parents and him and Levy.
"Well you're in this one. And there's not many with the four of us together..." He trailed off and looked away.
"Oh." Juvia braced herself and took the picture. "Thank you I'll hang it as soon as I organize my room. Promise." She moved forward and kissed her brother's cheek before getting up and walking downstairs to get more boxes.
There wasn't much of Juvia's stuff to begin with, she really only had like three suitcases of her own but helping Jellal kept Juvia busy, there wasn't really much to do around there yet. Levy had played the 'these books are too heavy and I'm tiny but I'll be tough' card on Gray, successfully getting him to bring all her books up to the attic for her and she's been cooped up in the attic ever since.
Aquarius' car and the trailer it was pulling was pretty much empty aside from a few boxes labeled, 'kitchen' or 'bathroom'. Now that Juvia thought about it, there wasn't any furniture in the trailer, and the rooms were completely empty. Was Aquarius planning on buying new beds and furniture? Or did she think the house was already furnished? Juvia definitely has to ask later.
"There you are!" Aquarius yelled out as she sprint over to her daughter, her hair was up in a messy bun, with strands coming loose framing her face, Aquarius was wearing some cute running shoes, blue capris and a purple and blue flannel collared shirt open with a white shirt underneath it
'Why did moms always wear flannels when they moved houses?' Juvia nodded, "Yeah I was looking for more boxes to take to mine or Jellal's room."
A confused expression appears on Aquarius' face, she lifted an eyebrow before asking, "Where's Jellal?" She looked around the house and car for her son.
"Upstairs taking a break."
Aquarius' features relaxed a bit and she smiled brightly at Juvia. "Okay baby so since Levy rolling around in her books and Jellal's being a lazy butt I'll ask you."
Juvia tried hard not to wince at Aquarius' words, sometimes it sounded like she was Aquarius' last option, making Juvia feel like the soggy salad people eat when the food and dessert wasn't enough to fill their appetite or they eat it because they didn't like the actual main course or the dessert.
"Juvia? I said what do you want for dinner baby, you feeling okay?" Aquarius reached out, placing her cold palm on her daughter's forehead, her temperature was normal.
"I'm fine. I was just thinking," Juvia snapped, swatting Aquarius' hand away from her face harshly, "just order some pizza or something I'm not hungry."
Aquarius watched her daughter stomp her way inside the house, she was left wondering if maybe moving away so soon after finding her lost daughter was the right choice.