Gray's POV
After rounding up the sorry excuses for mages, we all bring them to the local jail. Kayla hasn't said anything since that weird Kira guy ran off like a coward. Even when she helped bandage my chest from the shadow blast attack, she seems to be deep in thought.
"There was one guy we didn't get, who escaped," Cana says, talking to the town mayor. I lean back against the wall and let her talk, Kayla beside me with her arms crossed. My white coat drapes her shoulders since all her clothes except her pants and tank top were ripped during the fighting.
The conversation between Cana and the mayor continues but I don't pay attention anymore. She does most of the talking since Kayla somehow manages to feel awkward around new people despite her confidence with pretty much everything else, and both of them think that I'm too blunt and well, nude.
My eyes rest on the makeshift bandage on Kayla's hand, and I remember her wound from earlier. The cloth is bloodied and sloppily put on, "You alright?" I ask, raising an eyebrow at her, "Want to actually treat your hand?"
She looks up at me, surprised and nods a little, "I think there are bandages in the bathroom," she says, oddly distant.
"We'll be out front," I tell Cana before we leave, "Come on shorty."
Kayla gives me an annoyed smile, following, "I'm like, two inches shorter. You have no room to call me shorty," she says hushed, shoving me playfully. I have to admit, Kayla's pretty adorable when she's shy and quiet like this.
I find some fresh bandages in a cabinet once we're in the bathroom. Taking Kayla's hand, I unwrap the bloodied cloth carefully and throw it into the trash. From the look on her face, I can tell that she's thinking about something else again, barely paying any attention to me. About to wrap her hand up again in the bandage, I notice a weird black line in the middle of the wound.
"Hey, what's this?" I ask, flicking her forehead so she pays attention to me. She blinks at me then looks down, frowning slightly.
"There was a line similar to that on your chest when I bandaged you up. I just thought it was darkened blood." she says, still quiet. What's going on with her?
"Well you're not exactly thinking straight right now," I say, raising an eyebrow at her.
Deciding to not worry about it right now is my best bet. As I bandage her hand, I can feel it shaking in mine. Paying a little more attention, I notice that her whole body is shaking ever so slightly.
"You were being an idiot earlier, jumping in front of the shadow laser aimed at me. I can protect myself," she says suddenly, her voice no longer quiet, but worried and a little angry, "I cast an ice shield."
My fist clenches a little and I scowl, leaning against the door, "I took the attack for you because I wasn't sure what kind of shape you were in after that weird attack he used on you earlier, not because I thought you couldn't handle yourself. What was happening anyways?"
"Well I don't want you getting hurt because of me!" she nearly shouts, then turns towards the wall, looking frustrated. At least she seems to be more like herself again, "It was just, some kind of weird induced nightmare. He was trying to get me to panic or be afraid, so I wouldn't be able to fight him."
I ignore the first part and cross my arms, "How'd you wake up then?"
"Just used my magic, it's no big deal really. I'm fine now let's go," she says, trying to walk past me to get out. I grab her hand to stop her and she looks back at me sort of frustrated. The shaking in her body still hasn't left.
Right now, I have an idea to cheer her up. I keep holding onto her hand and pull her outside. A blush makes her cheeks get all rosy, and I can tell Kayla's paying attention to what's going on around her now instead of what's in her head. I drop her hand, coughing awkwardly and turn my face before she can see it's kind of red too.
Why does she make me feel so damn awkward when we're alone?
"Thanks for bandaging my hand," she says, sighing and leaning back against the wall with a smile. Her voice is less quiet and more normal now.
"No problem. And by the way, you need to chill out," I say with a smirk, throwing an iceball at her. Kayla's laugh makes me stop worrying, "Whatever you're thinking about isn't that big of a deal. I'm sure that Kira guy is just some freak."
"You're on, ice boy!" she says, summoning five iceballs and fires them all at once. I grin and we run around throwing ice at each other for a while like we did before the weird encounter with Kira. I manage to get one right above her nose, making her cross her eyes to look at it and we both laugh, me smirking.
"You look ridiculous," I say, and throw another which she dodges this time.
Cana comes out just then and gives us each a look, "You two have the weirdest way of flirting."
"We're not flirting," I say scowling, and Kayla sticks her tongue out. Cana smirks and rolls her eyes, handing us each our portion of the reward.
I put my hands in my pockets and follow a few feet behind the girls while we walk back to the train. Why am I always going on jobs with girls again? I guess I can't stand any of the other guys. It used to be cool before Cana managed to get Kay into having 'girl talk.'
"Hey hotties."
Some guy walks over to Cana and Kayla, making me frown. Right away Cana gets a flirtatious smug look on her face, and Kayla looks slightly annoyed and raises an eyebrow questioningly, "It should be a crime that you two are all by yourselves without a man." he says, giving them a flirtatious smile. I walk over, feeling annoyed with this guy. We're going to miss our train at this rate.
"You're a cheesy flirt," Cana says, loosing interest.
"Then I'll just focus on the girl with the pretty green eyes," flirty guy says grinning.
Kayla's about to say something when I pick her up and set her down behind me, "Hey, we're a bunch of powerful mages trying to get back to our guild hall, so please let us go," I say.
The other guy gives me a look and Kayla facepalms next to me, "You're in your underwear stupid," she says grinning, trying to hide a laugh.
"Are all mages this weird?" the other guy asks, giving me a look and walks away. I shrug and walk towards the train station.
"Next time don't tell girls that they need a guy with them, it's insulting," Kayla calls after the guy walking away, smirking slightly, "I can whip almost any guy's ass if I want to, don't need one around."
Sure got that right.
... ... ...
The train ride back is uneventful and boring. Kayla sits across from Cana and I, not sleeping but distracting herself enough to not get motion sick. I stare out the window and think about everything that just happened and what it might mean. From the way she's distracting herself, I can tell that Kayla's thinking about it too. Every time she over thinks about something, it ends up freaking her out.
Maybe we should do something fun tonight, to get her mind off of everything.
"See you later, Cana," Kayla says as we part our separate ways at the train station. Normally we would all go back to the guild hall, but Kay says she wants to go back home. Only reason I'm going with her is because she was acting all weird earlier.
Once we're inside our apartment, she tosses my coat on my bed and plops down on her bed on the other side of the room, "Thanks for lending me your jacket," she says, grabbing a book. I shrug, and go to the fridge to grab a snack.
While I make different ice sculptures on the floor in a fit of boredom, Kayla's laying on her stomach reading some book. I would take her book and stop her but she'll probably just lock herself in the bathroom and read there instead.
"We have enough money to start renting that apartment with two bedrooms, cause this is starting to get pretty cramped," I say, trying to get her in conversation.
"And awkward," she mumbles, looking over at me, "Ya, we're not as small as we used to be. I talked to the landlady of the apartment and she said it'll be available in a month."
"Cool," I say, leaning back against my bed, "You know, this is the perfect time for you to move into Fairy Hills if you want to. There's no reason we still have to be roommates."
She looks over at me with a questioning look, "You really think I want to live in the same building with a bunch of giggling gossiping girls from the guild? At least with you I can be myself without being judged. Unless.. unless you mean you want me to leave," she says, frowning a little.
I frown a little. Does she feel like she can't be herself with other people in the guild? It's true she's a little different and maybe more like a 'girl' when she's around others, not including Cana and maybe Natsu, annoyingly. They're both dragon slayers, I guess it makes sense. Even though he's a total flame brain.
"No of course not, I'm completely fine with us still being roommates. And what about Cana?"
"Well, that's where I almost decide to go to Fairy Hills until I think of how in charge she would be of my wardrobe," she says, laughing, "Plus I'm too used to our stupid routine every morning."
We laugh for a few moments. It's true I guess when you're long and close friends with someone, you develop a sort of sibling like relationship. Maybe I'm not happy with it just being like that though. I kind of like her more than that. Maybe.
Sure, her chest is small and all, but Kayla's pretty attractive. When she smiles it makes me remember the weird girl who would wrestle with me when we were little. That funny scowl or pout she makes reminds me of the stubborn six year old who convinced me not to listen to my mom.
"Uh, Gray? Why are you staring at me?" Kayla asks, her face red. I blink a few times, realizing I was in a daze and scowl. Shit, I was staring at her without realizing it. There's no reason I should be thinking about this.
"Sorry, just thinking about stuff," I say shrugging, and scowl at the ground. In the corner of my eye I see her look confused, and turn back to her book.
I guess I should ask about how she's feeling in the Kira aspect of stuff that's happened today, but her reading means she doesn't really want to talk. Learning all these things about her came the hard way. Kayla may not be a typical girl but she's a dragon slayer which pretty much makes up for that.
Still find it weird that for the first four years that we knew each other, she was living with a dragon. It's understandable why Cana and I didn't know about it at first, but it makes me wonder if we would've ever found out if Natsu never came along. Maybe eventually, but not as soon as we did.
Thinking about this stuff just bums me out a bit. I make a small figurine of what I imagine a dragon to look like in my hand and crush it when Kayla's voice startles me.
"Have you ever thought about where Lyon is and what he might be doing?" she says quietly, looking up from her book and staring at the wall. What's making her think of all this stuff all of a sudden?
"Uh, maybe sometimes. Guess so. That guy's such a little twerp though so I see no reason to," I say, relaxing back on the side of my bed.
Kayla looks over at me, half smiling, "Well of course that's what you think. Last time you saw him he was accusing you of killing Ur, which wasn't your fault," she says the last part sternly and I frown. Sometimes it seems like she knows me too well, "Not to mention you're thinking of him at the age of eight. Lyon in my mind when I think of him now is fifteen, just like you. How he is now."
Everything she says brings up a lot of uncomfortable subjects. I still haven't told her about how Ur isn't really dead, her body was just transformed into the ice. Feeling guilty I stare at the ground. Not to mention I never got along super well with Lyon.
"Never thought too much about Lyon, no. At least not like that. Don't really like him enough to," I say, putting my hands behind my head.
Her smile gets a little amused and tired looking, "You're in your boxers stupid. I don't even know how you managed that in that position," she sighs, sitting up and crosses her legs with her hands resting behind her.
"Eh," I shrug, smirking slightly. If there's going to be a time to tell her about Ur, I guess it's now. If she's mad at me for not telling her earlier, I'll just defend myself by reminding her she kept a secret from me for four years about Crysteel and the fact she knew magic long before I learned it.
She looks at me smiling for a few moments before I say anything, "You know... about Ur, there's something I never told you..."
"I know idiot," she says, rolling her eyes with a small smile, "I did some research on Iced Shell myself. And I understand why you didn't tell me."
Surprised, I nod and look up at the ceiling. After a few minutes I realize that Kayla has gone back to reading, so I get up to look for some food to make for dinner. In the fridge there's only some jam and juice. I look in the cabinets but find only a half empty box of cereal.
"Kay, we're out of food!" I yell from the kitchen. Maybe now I have an excuse to force her out of the house and stop focusing on stuff in her head, "Wanna go to a restaurant for dinner tonight?"
"Sure! Just let me get dressed real quick!" she calls back. Getting dressed and slipping on my red hoodie, I wait outside. Kayla runs out in her blue jacket, and smiles at me, "Where do you want to go? Eat at the guild?
"Nah, we'll run into Natsu that way," I say, getting an idea, "How about we just go to that cafe down the street?"
"Okay," she says, putting her hands in her jacket pockets.
Kayla starts ahead of me and kicks at random rocks as we walk. I hurry up next to her and she smiles at me, "You're being quiet today."
"You're one to talk," I say, rolling my eyes, "What's up with your thinking and not sharing what you're obviously worried about?."
A waitress comes up to us and we sit at an outside cafe table, "Well, I was just obsessing over how I might know Kira, why he'd say what he did and any real enemies I could've made, and when there was nothing that came to mind I decided to just try and ignore it," she says a little quieter, staring down at the menu. Obviously she's not completely over it but at least she told me.
Both of us order a hamburger which I finish in half a minute. Kayla smirks at me knowingly from across the table, only haven taken two bites of hers. I shrug and lean back in my chair.
We talk about boring stuff for a while before Cana walks past us, and smirks at Kayla who sighs, "Hey Cana, what are you doing in town?"
"Oh, just spying on people. Going back to Fairy Hills," she says, giving Kayla some look I don't understand. She doesn't seem to get it either.
"Uh, cool," Kayla says, laughing a little.
"Well, anyways I'll leave you two be. Bye," Cana says, and walks away. Well she just came and left quickly.
"I'm going to go pay real quick," Kayla says, messing with my hair as she walks past.
"Alright," I say, scowling at her slightly. Her laughs make me smile again, and I pick up her jacket that she'd left on her chair.
When she comes back out of the cafe, I toss the jacket over her head. She laughs again and throws an iceball at me as I run back to our place. Iceballs continue to fly at me as I run into our place. With a smirk I ambush Kayla with a flurry of snowy ice as she comes in.
"Jerk!" she says with a laugh and closes the door.
The rest of the evening she reads and I find random stuff to do.
Editor's Noter: Sorry this chapter took a bit longer, I find it harder to write in Gray's POV and it took me a lot of re-writing to get it to a point that I liked it. Still totally not satisfied but I finished it, so tell me what you guys think. :) Thanks for reading!