"You are not completely horrible but you do need some work. Training starts tomorrow, 7 am sharp. And DON'T be late."
"I'm gonna be late, I'm gonna be late!" Lucy repeated in her mind as she sprinted across the pavement barely avoiding most of the other pedestrians minding their own business. Well, she did bump into some of them and she just may have forgotten to apologize in her hurry.
Oh she was so screwed! Aquarius was going to kill her! Her first day of practice and she's already on the verge of being kicked out! Excellent job Lucy.
Lucy was hardly ever late for anything especially an important event. She usually was on time or even a little earlier so why on the first day of pursuing her dream she managed to run late? Right, she was so nervous and excited the previous night and she couldn't fall asleep no matter how hard she tried. When she eventually entered the land of dreams she was so exhausted she managed to sleep through 3 alarm clocks!
And she would still be sleeping if it wasn't for Levy. Lucy had promised to eat breakfast together with her best friend so after some time and a couple of missed calls Levy decided to come to her apartment to check up on her friend. Figuring out Lucy was still asleep she started banging on the door to wake her up and fortunately that worked. Those were the benefits of having your best friend live a few doors away.
Lucy checked the time. 6:56 am. She only had 4 minutes left!
The girl unconsciously slowed down getting tired from all the running. She could see the top of the Fairy Tail rink on the distance, if she run a little bit more she could still make it on time! Lucy determined picked up her pace ignoring the pain on her feet.
Suddenly a blur of pink and black passed by her, knocking slightly on her shoulder. Lucy was ready to yell at the stranger when he turned around and she could identify him.
"I'm sorry, oh!" the man seemed to recognize her as well. "Hey Luigi!" he grinned at her
"Who's Luigi, my name is Lucy!"
"Wow, good morning to you too. What happened, running late?" Natsu slowed down to run with her.
"I'm not late!" well not yet.
"Then why are you running you weirdo?"
"You're running with me too! I'm not late yet but I think I can make it."
"You have a point there. I'm 20 minutes late! And it's the third time this week, Gildarts is going to murder me!"
"How did you manage to be that late?"
"I don't know, I even got out of my house earlier it's like I'm destined to be late at everything." He said dramatically
"Well it's my first day here and I'm almost late to it!" replied Lucy out of breath.
"You are going to be if you're that slow. Come on." Natsu without any warning grabbed Lucy's hand and sped up dragging her with him.
"Hey, I can run by myself!" she complained
"Do you want to be late or not? Come on, we're almost there!"
Lucy imagining her new coach's wrath collected the last bits of energy and picked up her pace running alongside Natsu, their hands still intertwined. They run up the stairs skipping a few of them and went straight through the automatic doors almost running to a nearby couch.
Lucy immediately threw herself into said couch and rested her head on her knees on an attempt to catch her breath and for her heartbeats to return to a normal level. It had been a long time since she last ran like that. Out of the corner of her eye she saw her running companion collapsed into the couch too burying his head in the pillows. She hadn't realized when they had stopped holding hands.
After she didn't feel like her lungs would fail at any moment. Lucy took out her phone and checked the time. 6:59 am.
"YES!" She made it, she made it! Aquarius had told her to wait in the lobby and she didn't see the woman anywhere so she was good!
"Wha- what time is it?" asked Natsu still face planting on the couch.
"It's almost 7 am, I made it!"
"Good for you, I'm… wait a second, what time did you say it was?" Natsu got up from the couch looking alarmed.
"7 am, why?"
"Oh man, are you serious? Are you sure it's not wrong or anything?"
"It's from my phone I don't think it's wrong. What happened?"
"I got here too early!" he exclaimed.
Lucy tried to suppress a laugh "That's it? What's wrong with that?"
"It means that I ran all this way for nothing! I knew that stupid clock had been broken again!"
"Hey, it's not the end of the world if you came early. It's actually good for you, you know."
"Hey, I'm not willing to sacrifice my sleep for that!"
At that moment Aquarius stormed into the lounge immediately spotting Lucy and Natsu. She briefly glared at the pink-haired troublemaker who flinched and buried himself deeper in the comforts of the couch in a poor attempt at hiding. However the woman didn't give him more thought and turned her attention to her student.
"Good, you're here. Follow me, I'll show you your training rink." She turned around and started walking to the direction from which she came from, not waiting for her to follow.
Lucy turned to her running partner and stared at him not knowing exactly what to say.
"I guess I'll see you later then." He waved at her grinning. "Good luck!"
"Thanks! Talk to you later!" Lucy smiled back before running behind her coach to catch up.
She was about to have her first lesson! She was excited and nervous at the same time as Aquarius led her to the rink she performed the day before.
"This will be our training rink at the moment." Stated Aquarius. "I'll tell you if there are any changes but you will come here for now. We will discuss your training program more later for now I want to see what you can do. Leave your things on the benches."
Lucy did as she was told and proceeded to get her skates out of her bag before she was stopped by her new coach.
"No, you will not need those yet. First you will run 10 laps around the building, I want to see your endurance level. After that do some stretches and get into the ice to do another 15 laps."
Lucy blanched. Her feet still felt sore from her morning run and she get tired easily.
"Come on, get moving. Why are you staring at me like an idiot?"
"Yes, I'm starting!"
This was going to be a long day.
/ - / - / - / - / - / - /
Gray executed a triple salchow for the seventh time on that day and landed wobbly on the ice. It wasn't perfect but he was getting there. At least he hadn't landed on his butt this time.
After the accident he had to readjust to skating back again and that involved the painfully slow process of re-learning moves. He had to be careful with putting weight on his injured leg and not overstretch it. Gray was really looking forward to going to his regular training program by now.
The black haired skater rested his hands on his knees and glanced at the clock hanging on the wall across from him. 7:30 am. Where was she?
It wasn't like they had agreed on a specific time so Gray couldn't complain she was late. He couldn't wait for her the whole day though he had been in the rink for a long time already. Well, he did come a bit too early but a little more practice wouldn't hurt. It was in his program anyway.
He had told Mira to send Juvia to his practicing rink so he didn't have to worry about looking for her. He would just give her a quick lesson and get on with it.
A scowl slowly formed on his face. Why did he have to be the one to teach the girl? He had no idea how to do that! It wasn't like he couldn't pull it off if he tried but it was still too much responsibility and he had other things to do.
Gray had tried to get Cana, an instructor at the rink and his longtime friend, to teach the lesson but she blatantly refused. She was usually in charge of teaching classes both adults and children but the adult class didn't get enough participants this year so it wasn't formed. That particular class had never been that popular but it was just his luck that it shut down at this point.
Apparently Cana had taken 2 of her student to coach regularly into the junior league and didn't have time for more private lessons. Also to her words he made this mess and he should be the one to sort it out. Sometimes Gray believed the woman really liked to make him suffer. He also suspected that her "other plans for the evening" had something to do with alcohol.
Gray really, really wanted to tell Juvia "I'm really sorry I can't teach you after all you can enroll in regular classes next year if you want." and get on with it. But he couldn't bring himself to do that. He had made a promise, even if he didn't know what he was promising at the time, and he would have to keep it. It couldn't be that bad, could it?
He may have little to none experience in teaching but he was confident he could pull it off. Gray would just approach the matter like he did in any other thing. Keep his cool and everything would be sorted out. It was like Mira had said. He wouldn't know until he tried it.
Gray snapped out of his thoughts and went back to practice. It was just a one-time thing anyway.
/ - / - / - / - / - / - / - / - /
Juvia carefully tried to open the metal door without making any sound and peeked her head inside half hiding behind the much larger doors. She quickly found who she was looking for in the center of the rink. Gray Fullbuster looked as elegant in real life as he looked on the TV screen while skating. Juvia still couldn't believe this was happening to her!
She didn't manage to get much sleep from her excitement thinking about what happened and what was coming. That wasn't exactly beneficial for her early morning swimming practice. She had been so sleepy her coach made her go home to get some rest. In exchange she had some extra practice this week that she was not looking forward too.
Juvia unconsciously leaned more to the metal door and it ended up giving out to her weight and she stumbled forward catching herself before she face planted to the floor. So much for a decent entrance.
She quickly looked up to find the other occupant of the room. Gray had been alerted by the noise and he was now staring at her his hands still lifted in an unfinished move.
Juvia felt her cheeks grow warmer. She had a way for making a fool of herself in front of her idol.
Gray cleared his throat, composing himself. "Good you're here." He then skated closer to her position outside the rink.
"Juvia is sorry if she was late!"
"Nah, it's fine. We hadn't agreed on a time anyway." He waved her off. "Now before we start I want you to know this is a one-time thing, okay?"
The woman nodded her head in understanding.
"I did promise this lesson but I can't give you more. For that you can check with official courses."
"Juvia understands! She is very happy with just one lesson" she gave him a small smile. She wasn't expecting anything more. Even the opportunity to spend some time with her idol was amazing. It felt like a dream and she half expected to wake up soon in her warm bed and go back to reality.
"So, this isn't your first time on the ice, is it?"
"No, Juvia has practiced alone before." She confirmed.
"Cool, put on your skates and get to the ice. I'll see what level you are and we'll continue accordingly. I hope you've already passed the falling constantly on the ice phase."
/ - / - / - / - / - / - /
Juvia ended up a considerable amount of times on the cold surface of the ice. Though she was a fast learner to Gray's joy. She may have been a little clumsy at the start but she got the hang of things quickly. At least she didn't make Gray's job harder.
Gray winced as his temporary student face planted into the dividing wall of the rink trying out the new move he had shown her.
Juvia had executed everything else without much trouble considering she was a beginner. Gray was almost impressed. However she didn't seem to be able to get this one. It wasn't much harder than the rest of what he showed her but no matter how many times he corrected her stance she ended messing it up.
Gray took pity on her the fifth time she lost her balance and almost fell to her face. "Okay, I think that's enough."
Juvia turned to him, sweat glistening in her forehead, trying to catch her breath but she had a desperate look on her face. "Wait, Juvia can get it right! Just one more try and Juvia will get it right!"
"Hey, don't worry about it." Gray reassured her "It's natural not to be able to do everything in the first few tries. Besides you seem tired, you can't keep on like that."
"But Juvia has disappointed Gray-sama! She should be able to do it!"
"It won't be good for you to continue." Gray explained calmly. This reminded him too much of his early skating days. "I'm surprised you lasted that long to be honest. You… you did good for a first try." He was never good at giving compliments.
However the blue haired woman's eyes light up with that statement. "Really? You really thought Juvia was good? Thank you!" a wide smile went up her face.
Gray looked away slightly embarrassed. He really hadn't said anything special. "So that concludes our lesson then. Again if you want to apply for more, check that with Mira in the reception."
"Juvia is very grateful for this lesson and she is sorry if she took too much of your time! What does Juvia owe Gray-sama?"
"What? No! I chose to do this you don't owe me anything!"
He wouldn't admit it out loud but he actually enjoyed their little lesson. Teaching wasn't an awful experience like he thought it would be and Juvia wasn't that bad after all.
"But Juvia still feels bad about it…"
"Don't. It's fine, really."
Juvia furrowed her eyebrows and lost herself in her thoughts for a couple of second before her face lit up. "What if Juvia bought you something to eat?"
"I told you, you don't have to do anything!"
"Juvia insists! Just something small, it's the least she can do!" Juvia had a determined look on her face, her eyes silently pleading him.
They stared at each other for a few seconds neither of them backing up before Gray gave up. "Fine, do whatever you want!"
"Thank you! Juvia will not take much of your time!"
"Whatever, you're the one buying me food."
"So where does Gray- sama want to go?" Juvia asked as they glided to the end of the rink and started pulling off their skates.
Gray thought about it. The rink cafeteria would be closed at this time and he didn't want them getting anything expensive. But maybe… "There's a good ice cream shop in the corner."
/ - / - / - / - / - / -/
Hey guys! Hope you liked the new chapter! This was more of a transisioning chapter but we're getting closer to the end of the first pary of the fic (the introduction part) And this was the first chapter with both nalu and gruvia in it, we hope you enjoyed that. As always we look forward to reading your thoughts. Reading the reviews makes us so happy!
See you next chap!