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Hypothetically Speaking

"Hey, Natsu? What would you say if I told you that I really had killed someone?"

Natsu stormed into the guild, his fury eclipsed only by the horrible itchy redness spread across what felt like his entire body. He scratched furiously at the welts and winced as the momentary relief disappeared under the tingling of his pain receptors.

There was only one person who could be responsible for this.

"Hey, ice princess!" he shouted as his eyes locked on the little raven-haired boy sitting by himself in the corner with his arms crossed and a scowl on his face.

Gray's scowl only deepened when he spotted the dragon slayer advancing on him. "What do you want, ash for brains?"

Natsu growled low in the back of his throat at this newest nickname, but he had bigger problems right now. "I'm going to pound your face in! What the hell did you put in my clothes?"

"Excuse me?" Gray's eyebrow rose in a rather infuriating fashion, and the other lifted to join it as he noticed the red patches and let out a low whistle. "What did you get into this time? Poison ivy?"

"Pretty sure you snuck in and rubbed something in all my clothes."

"Don't you think if I'd done that, you'd have smelled me with that stupid nose of yours that you're so proud of? Please. Although by the looks of it, I wish I'd thought of it. Weren't you out in the forest yesterday? You probably got into some poison ivy."

Natsu paused to think that over. He had been in the forest yesterday and early this morning… He shook his head and the glower returned. Nothing that came out of the little brat's mouth was worth believing.

"It was you!"

"Was not!"

Natsu lunged for him, and Gray jumped up and swung back without a second thought.

"Not again," one of the adults groaned as the boys began scuffling on the floor. "For kids so small, they sure cause a lot of damage…"

Well, whose fault was that? Gray was an infuriating jerk! First impressions aside, he was always grumpy and rude and asocial, and something about his stupid face made Natsu want to punch it. The kid had problems.

Natsu hissed angrily as Gray managed to knee him in the stomach. Scrambling back, he jumped to his feet and called forth his magic. No more playing around. The jerk was asking for it.

He threw a fiery fist at Gray's face, and Gray responded with a wave of biting ice. How could he even stand that stuff? It was so cold and unpleasant.

They snarled insults and hurled fists and magic back and forth, sending the spectators scrambling out of their way. Natsu grunted in pain as ice slammed into his chest, and retaliated by shoving fire right back. He took great satisfaction in Gray's yelp and gritted teeth.

And then something slammed hard into his head and sent him to his knees with a pained cry. Blinking up in a daze of pain past his pounding headache, he found himself staring up at Erza. She towered above the bickering boys, her eyes hard and her arms crossed over her chest. Her long braid swished as she shook her head in exasperation.

"Enough," she said shortly.

What right did she have to lecture them? She was always spoiling Natsu's fun, too. She seemed to have made it her goal in life to break up every fight he dared start, but he actually rather liked fighting.

He jumped up, and Gray staggered to his feet beside him.

"You can't just– Ow!" He shrank back and lifted his hands defensively as she whacked him again.

"No fighting," she said sternly. Her eyes narrowed further. "And with magic, even. You're going to kill someone if you keep going on like that. What would your parents say?"

Natsu wanted to tell her that she was being overdramatic and needed to mind her own business—and Igneel might not approve of pointless fighting, but he knew that fighting was a way to train and get stronger, so there—but Gray exploded first. The ice mage had frozen stiff, but two heartbeats later he was alive again.

"You don't know what you're talking about," he spat. His hands clenched into shaking fists at his sides. And he was usually cold and grumpy and irritable, but Natsu had never seen his dark eyes so furious. "It's none of your business. What do you know?"

Erza had puffed up with anger at being talked back to, but uncertainty was creeping into her eyes now as she took in Gray's trembling body and twisted expression. This went beyond his normal brattiness.

"Gray–"

"You have no idea," he hissed. "No idea."

He spun on his heel and stalked out of the guild, leaving everyone staring after him.

"Huh," Natsu said after a long moment of staring at the closed door. "Someone's extra grumpy today."

"I shouldn't have said anything about parents," Erza mumbled. She winced and looked down at the floor, her shoulders slumping.

"Huh?"

"I shouldn't have said anything about Igneel either, and I'm sorry. But his parents are probably…you know…dead."

"What?"

"A kid his age—our age—hanging around here all the time and we've never seen his parents? They're obviously not around. Probably dead." Erza sighed and scrubbed at her face with her hands. "I didn't mean to upset him."

Was that why Gray was so upset? Okay, so Natsu had never seen his parents around and had assumed they weren't exactly present, but he'd never really thought about them being dead. Maybe that was why Gray never talked about them, why parents seemed to be an off-limits topic with all the Fairy Tail kids but Natsu.

Despite himself, Natsu felt a small pang of sympathy for his rival. At least Igneel was still alive out there somewhere, waiting to be found.

"Natsu," Erza said, "go apologize to him."

"What?" Natsu yelped, immediately pulled out of his thoughts. "I don't apologize to him. He started it!"

On cue, his skin began itching and burning like fire again. He scratched at it in frustration.

"You will," Erza said firmly.

"But you're the one who really made him mad! He was just grumpy when he was with me."

She winced. "I know," she said in a softer voice. "So I don't think it would be a good idea if I went after him now to apologize and check up on him. So you can go apologize for your part and just make sure he's okay."

"But–"

She met his gaze again, and her eyes hardened into steel. "Go."

Natsu went. He scrambled out of the guild as fast as his little legs could carry him, but slowed to a halt once he was outside. He didn't want to apologize to the ice block. That was weird. And Gray had deserved everything Natsu had given him.

What were the chances that Erza would find out if Natsu just left him alone and went to lunch instead? He entertained the idea for a few blissful moments before scowling. That girl was nosy and knew everything. She'd find out.

Muttering unflattering sentiments under his breath, he sniffed around until he caught Gray's scent and then stomped off down the street. He wouldn't apologize, but he'd at least make up some excuse to follow Gray so that he could say he actually had.

He followed Gray's scent through the crowds and out to the park. Honestly, what was he doing all the way out here? Not that the park wasn't cool and all, but Natsu had sort of imagined that Gray would go somewhere dark and gloomy and broody. The kid was pretty broody.

It was a nice, sunny day, and Natsu basked in the warmth as he trekked through the grass to find where the annoying brat had gone. He wove through the trees dotting the park and stopped short when he spotted Gray slumped over on a bench in their shade with his knees drawn to his chest.

Natsu realized that he had no idea what to do now. He obviously wasn't going to apologize like Erza wanted. Especially not when his skin was still itching like hell on earth. And definitely not to Gray, of all people.

"What was that for, popsicle?" he blurted out. When in doubt, be as confrontational as possible.

Gray's chin had been resting on his knees as he stared out with those ridiculously droopy eyes of his, but now he looked up and scowled as he saw Natsu stomping over. "Go away," he snapped.

"No can do." Natsu plopped down on the bench and crossed his arms over his chest defiantly. "Erza told me to talk to you, and no one says no to Erza. You were a jerk. You made her feel bad."

Gray stared at him for a second before puffing out his cheeks and dropping his chin back onto his knees. He said nothing, but his dark eyes were glassy and unfocused. Natsu blinked at him uncertainly, not sure what to make of this surprisingly non-confrontational response. Actually, Gray looked kind of funny.

"You okay?" he asked before he thought better of it. Gray nodded slightly but said nothing, and Natsu suddenly found himself talking to fill the silence and try to pull a response out of his incomprehensible companion. "Okay, so maybe I got into some poison ivy or something. I dunno. Erza says she's sorry for bringing up your parents."

Gray's gaze slid sideways and a faint frown tugged at his lips. Natsu wondered if it was bad that he had brought up the whole parents thing too. Maybe he should have kept his mouth shut.

He coughed awkwardly. "Uh…"

Gray looked away again and went back to staring at the ground somewhere ahead of him. He was silent for a long time before sighing.

"Hey, Natsu?" he asked in a voice so quiet that Natsu almost missed it. "What would you say if I told you that I really had killed someone?"

It took several seconds of blank staring for the words to really register. What the hell kind of question was that? A dumb one, first of all, but it wasn't like he could just refuse to answer when Gray was being all weird.

"I'd laugh," he said.

That finally got a reaction out of Gray. He whipped his head around and his eyes were wide and disbelieving. Then they narrowed dangerously and his weird melancholy was eclipsed by his anger again.

"You can't ever take anything seriously," he growled.

"Why should I? I don't like stupid hippo–hyper–higher– Those stupid make-believe questions."

"Whatever." Gray unfolded his legs and stood up with a huff. Turning on his heel, he stalked away with all the grace of a grumpy kitten pretending to be a rough-and-tumble alley cat.

"Hey!" Natsu called after him in self-righteous indignation. "Don't you just ignore me and walk off!" Gray didn't respond or slow, and Natsu jumped to his feet too. "I'd laugh because it's silly, okay? You're grumpy and annoying and a pain in the neck, but you'd never kill anyone."

Gray finally slowed down, his feet dragging until they came to a complete stop. He frowned down at the ground in front of him instead of looking back, but at least he wasn't leaving anymore.

"But what if it was true, though? What would you say then?"

Natsu shifted about impatiently, not understanding Gray's sudden interest in hypo-whatever questions. They seemed pretty useless to him. Either something happened or it didn't—there was no need to constantly make up all your own what-ifs.

"Well, I'd say it wasn't your fault, because you're stupid but you wouldn't kill anyone. So it would be an accident. But since you're an idiot, you'd feel bad anyway and blame yourself. So I'd tell you to stop, because you're being silly. And I'd tell you that you still belong here and we wouldn't look at you any differently and you could still be my friend."

Natsu broke off and flushed, suddenly feeling like he'd said too much. He'd gotten too caught up in Gray's hippo-question, almost pretending it was real even though it was so ridiculous. He shook off the strange feeling it stirred in his chest and wondered if there was a way to physically pull the words back out of the air. Now he sounded all weird and sappy.

Gray was looking at him now, a strange expression plastered on his face as he half turned. Crap, Natsu shouldn't have said anything so embarrassing. He was pretty sure it was Gray's fault because of his weird mood and hyper-questions.

Then Gray was scowling again, and that strange, incomprehensible mood was gone as quickly as it had come. "You aren't my friend."

Natsu drew himself up to his full height and his normal fire blazed back to life in his chest. "Oh yeah? Well, you aren't my friend either. So there."

Gray snorted and started over. He stalked past Natsu without so much as looking at him.

"Come on, flame brain."

"Huh? Why?"

"Let's go find something to fix your poison ivy problem."

Natsu stared at the retreating boy's back, floored. "Really?"

"Otherwise I'm going to have to listen to you whine about it all day."

He stayed rooted to the spot, but then laughed and felt a grin tugging at the corners of his lips. And Gray was a weird kid and not all that easy to get along with, but Natsu followed him anyway.

Gray's sigh lingered in the night air before being swallowed by the darkness and soft lapping of the waves below. He pulled his knees tighter to his chest and dropped his chin onto them. He shifted a little to find a more comfortable position on the hard rock, but his gaze and attention were fixed solely on the ocean rolling by ahead of him, the water glimmering faintly in the moonlight.

The hole in his chest yawned wide, and the absence there weighed heavier than ever. It had been a while since it had hit him so hard. He'd gotten better at pushing things out of mind over the years, but Lyon had taken great delight in shoving it all back in his face.

A wave crashed over a nearby rock, sending a fine mist of ocean spray wafting toward him. He scooted backward and eyed the ocean. He wondered if Ur was somewhere in the waves, if he could touch her if he dipped his hand into the water. He inched backward another few centimeters for good measure.

Something crashed behind him in a clatter of stones and colorful curses. He whipped around, almost losing his balance in the process, and spotted Natsu tumbling down the escarpment.

"Ow," the dragon slayer groaned as he crumpled into a heap among the wide stones and steep boulders lining the beach.

"What the hell?" Gray wondered aloud. He'd thought everyone was safely asleep back in the demon village. So much for getting some peace and quiet to be alone.

"Hey, ice block." Natsu picked himself up, wincing and brushing himself off as he limped over and flopped gracelessly onto the flat boulder Gray had picked as his vantage point. "Fancy seeing you here."

"Go away." Gray turned back to the ocean with a scowl, hunching his shoulders.

Natsu stayed quiet, but he didn't go away. He had always sucked at taking direction. After a few long seconds of silence, he started laughing.

It wasn't really an amused sound. It was a little forced, a little strange, and the distorted sound echoed oddly off the stone and water to disturb the silence. It felt out of place and jarring against the solemnity of the mood.

Gray looked back at the dragon slayer and stared in disbelief, but his shock quickly morphed into anger. "What the hell?" he repeated in a growl.

Natsu shrugged but at least stopped with that awful, strained laughter. His eyes were solemn, with none of their usual blithe cheeriness.

"I told you I'd laugh," he said. "You know, if you ever told me that you killed someone."

That made absolutely no sense, but then hazy memories began surfacing in Gray's mind. God, that had been so long ago. They'd been kids.

"Hm."

"You remember?"

"Sure."

"None of it has changed."

"Hm." Gray frowned out at the water. "Hypothetically speaking…"

Natsu groaned loudly. "Not more hypothetical questions."

"I guess it's not really that hypothetical," Gray mused grimly.

"Of course it is. If it's not real, it must be hypothetical, right?"

"Hm."

"Don't 'hm' me. I was right, wasn't I? It would only happen if it was an accident and you blamed yourself for something stupid."

Gray sighed. "It doesn't matter."

"Doesn't it? Hypothetically speaking, I'd tell you that you still belong with us and we wouldn't look at you any differently and you would still be my best friend."

Gray looked over despite himself. Natsu's cheeks were darker than usual in the moonlight, but his face was creased with determination. He met Gray's gaze squarely, eyes holding as much steel as warmth.

No, Natsu wasn't looking at him any differently, not even with everything he'd learned today.

"Hush," Gray said, his gaze sliding back to the sea. "If you keep talking like that, someone's going to get the idea that we're actually friends."

Natsu chuckled despite himself, and the sound was warmer and more genuine than last time. "You're so stubborn."

Gray gave the ocean one last look before he unfolded his legs and pulled himself to his feet, sure-footed as he picked his way back through and around and over the boulders. "Come on, then."

"Come on for what? It's the middle of the night."

"Let's go patch you up. It looks like those rocks really did a number on you."

Gray didn't slow or look back. Natsu could follow or not.

After a brief pause, Natsu snorted in amusement and scrambled after him, pebbles skittering under his clumsy feet.

And for tonight, it was enough that Gray had been exposed and still wasn't alone.

emmahoshi: Eh, sure, I watch/read more than FT, I just don't usually get as inspired to write. Most of the media I consume are actually novels, but lately I end up writing more for anime. Your Lie in April is definitely not the type of anime I usually watch, tbh. I only watched it at all because I saw spoilers for the ending and wanted to see an anime actually kill someone off lol I don't much care for anything approaching a harem or reverse harem, but this one wasn't bad enough to turn me off. Increased 0.5% tact with age XD Sounds like Natsu lol Well, "make-believe" is more of the kiddie term lol That's usually what adults call kids' imagination-focused games and activities, so I'm pretty confident that they'd know it before "hypothetical". Ah, Natsu, dumb as rocks but also accidentally smart sometimes XD (Btw, for what it's worth, I did finally write "Gag Gift" like I promised you :) I'll probably post it after "Recon" is wrapped up lol) [EDIT: Yeah... I'm sort of jumping around all over the place in what I'm writing right now, tbh. Maybe I'm just reveling in my freedom from "Recon". I'm trying to knock out some of the smaller pieces right now, and there's some sort of half-baked goal to pick ones that focus on different characters and genres so that all the Gray/Natsu or Gray/Lyon pieces or whatever don't end up together when I post lol Ha, same. Someone can be really important to you, but I think it's a problem if you're so devoted that they are everything and you can't be yourself without them. That's starting to border on unbalanced and unhealthy. I hope your book turns out to be a good read, and I'll be sure to invest in some earplugs one of these days XD]