The roof turns out to be filthy and moss-inhabited, with green wire fencing lined around the edges, the installation of which hints to the school's curious history of accidents. Everything about Fairy Tail, even its furniture, seems to cry happy accident and controlled chaos. Jellal pauses at angry, red marker scrawled on the wall: GRAY SUCKS!

Meredy isn't here yet, so Jellal strolls to the edge of the roof and peers out the wire fence work. The view from the roof overlooks most of the school compound. Skyscraping towers, sprawling tennis courts, lush greenery. Students bustle about underneath. Out of the corner of his periphery, Jellal catches a flash of scarlet –

The door bursts open. "Hey Jellal! I knew I'd find you here."

Framed against the door is Meredy, short and slight, carrying two drinks in each hand.

"You asked me to meet you here."

With an impish smirk, she waves a hand airily and hands him one of the drinks. "Ah, semantics. Here."

"How are you liking this school so far?" she asks, after Jellal pops open the top and takes a sip, feeling the carbonation bubble on his tongue.

"Some parts are strange," Jellal admits. For one, the warmth everyone seemed to radiate that Jellal could feel as soon as he stepped into the hallway, but Jellal doesn't say that. "What happened to all the benches?"

Meredy laughs. "Natsu's always fighting with other people, challenging people to stuff he doesn't win most of the time. The benches just get in the way."

"Huh," Jellal says. Meredy lets out a laugh at Jellal's expression and leans back against the wall, letting the wind rustle stray strands of hair around her cheeks.

"Well, you're obviously a stranger," she teases. "I'll tell you about everyone in this school. Everyone that matters, that is."

In the short ten minutes that Meredy's rattling off in her lilting voice, Jellal learns the ensemble of characters in the school. First there's Natsu, breaker of benches, owner of a voracious appetite, and aficionado in coming up with stupid schemes that constantly land him in detention. Lucy's his voice of reason, albeit a futile one, because she always ends up getting entangled in his schemes anyway. Gray's a footballer who has a penchant for keeping his shirt off, even when he might not be in practice, and there's a lot of other names Jellal learns about: Juvia, Levy, Gajeel, Laxus, so many so that it becomes hard to keep track of.

"Didn't you say something about a student body president?"

Meredy nearly spits out her drink. "Geez, just talking about her gives me the creeps! I came to school late one time and she made me run rounds around the school."

"Seriously?"

"You won't even believe what she does to Natsu," Meredy says, shaking her head vigorously. "Natsu's always been a total rule breaker and mischief maker. It's like he physically can't stop himself from getting up to stuff, and one time he played a prank on her. She left the room with him and came back with Natsu shaking and near tears. He wouldn't tell anyone what happened."

Jellal swirls the remaining liquid around the can thoughtfully. "Yeah, she does sound monstrous."

"Not only that," says Meredy, fixing him with a serious gaze. Jellal raises an eyebrow, wondering if the whole mysterious and ominous aura surrounding the student body president is something more than a little joke played by Meredy. "She's incredible at everything. Basketball, boxing, jujitsu, her studies, you name it and she excels at it. It's like she's a robot or something. I think someone should check her for power plugholes because it's impossible for anyone to be like that. And it's not fair to us plebeians. I struggle with my shoelaces everyday and Erza comes round, executing a perfect slam dunk while revising for the upcoming test without breaking a sweat."

"Erza?"

"Yeah, Erza Scarlet." Meredy tilts her head back to reach the remnants of her drink swirling about at the bottom of the can. "Remember that name. Your probable Doomsday. Haha!"

Jellal rolls his eyes. "Don't worry about me, I'll lay as low as I'll possibly can. I'm not the trouble kind of guy."

Meredy squints at him, appraising. "Yeah, you're definitely not a Natsu, now that I think about it, though your tats give me the impression so. What happened in your old school?"

Images of Zeref come floating to mind. The party, circled around Zeref, cross-legged, listening to him as if what he said was gospel, what he said was truth. He and Ultear sat knee to knee, equally as caught up in whatever Zeref was feeding them, stumbling around like fools in the darkness with wool pulled tight over their eyes. Those were bad times, times he's tried so hard to forget over the course of the years.

"Nothing much," Jellal lies. It seems like Meredy's about to call him out on his shitty lie when maybe something shows up in his face and she pauses, her gaze switching from amused to concerned. She shuts her mouth abruptly, tilts her head way back against the wall, craning her head at such a steep angle that he knows she's chasing that last, stubborn drop of the drink into her mouth.

A beat of silence passes between them.

"I know what you must feel like," Meredy says, quietly.

Jellal stills, his heart pounding. For a split second, he thinks she knows about Zeref and what they did under him, but she continues.

"I left behind something dark too before I came to Fairy Tail. Both my parents died in a mysterious fire accident and I sorta spiraled. I came to this city afterwards to get a new start. I've had my fair share of battles too. I don't know you well enough, but I can say that Fairy Tail is different. It's strange. It's a community. It's… warm. Whatever danger's just around the corner, whatever problems you're trying to escape from, you're safe here. Stick around with us enough and I'm sure you'll understand what I mean."

It's a moment before Jellal can muster up a reply. "…Thanks. For saying that."

"Ah! That's enough of that." Meredy blows out a breath. "We meet tomorrow here again, right?"

Jellal's about to give her an offhanded reply when he catches her expression. Uncertain yet expectant, flinch-ready but hopeful.

It is then that he realizes that Meredy's question is not a simple query but an invitation: can we be friends? Real friends? Can we meet up here again? Unsure and tentative. The first time Meredy approached him with the prospect of friendship, Jellal thought she was taking pity on the new student and trying to ease his transition into the school. An obligatory action and she would whisk away after that. But now it's evident that it's Meredy who wants this as well, who is searching for friendship and companionship, someone to ease the humdrum roll of the days with, and has chosen Jellal. Now she's exposed herself in this startling moment of vulnerability and it is Jellal who holds the decision in the palm of his hands.

She was bright and kind and caring. How could he say no?

"Yeah, sure."

A brilliant smile illuminates Meredy's face, which she quickly tamps down on. She turns away in quiet satisfaction and hurls her empty can across nearly half the length of the roof at a dustbin. She lets out an excited whoop when it clatters in noisily.

"You may address me as Master from now on."

Jellal schools his face into an unimpressed expression. "And all it took was for you to throw a can into the bin?"

Meredy looks affronted. "I'd like to see you try, hotshot."

Jellal swings his arm, and the can slices through the air in a perfect arc to the bin, evidently a better shot than Meredy's.

Afterwards, Meredy will vehemently deny his accomplishment, citing wind direction, a torn rotator cuff (a lie, seeing how feverishly she's shaking her fist at him), asthma problems, a bad hair day, unlucky horoscope reading, and he has to concede that it might have been one of the given factors at work to halt her frustrated ramblings, but at the very least, he's found a friend.