Guess who's back! I still love this story even though most of you like Trust Me better. I can't give up on this story no matter how much I try XD
Chapter 9—Revealing the Scars
Akira
It didn't take long for me to become friends with some of the guild members. Three days into the probation and Cana and I had already become good friends. She made it a point to try and beat me in drinking games, but little did she know that I could never get drunk let alone slightly tipsy. I had been staying at the guild hall's residence hall and had made sure that I kept up the 'injured' façade. Wendy had to change my bandages at least twice a day and whenever I did anything too physically active, I would pretend to be hurt and need more pain medication.
It was easy for me to fake it. I had the type of disguise magic stored that allowed my body to imitate symptoms of illness or injury with ease even though I really felt no pain at all. I just had to have the facial expressions to match. And if anyone was good at faking emotions, it was me.
The only problem was that my emotional walls that I had put up were slowing faltering every time I talked or was around one person in particular. Gray had managed to enclose into my personal space the first day and I didn't stop it. No, I had no desire to stop it. He was just there all of a sudden and I had to force myself out of a trance. It was dangerous to feel so alive around him, but I convinced myself that I could handle it. I wouldn't let my feelings get in the way of what I had to do. I would let my feelings fuel the determination to what I had to do.
The fourth morning, I allowed Wendy to change my bandages for the first time that day. The little girl was not shy towards me and quickly and meticulously changed my bandages with care. I talked to her a lot and did not hesitate to try and gain her trust. She seemed to trust me a little at least. Her cat, on the other hand, was a little more skeptical. How a cat could see through my lies was beyond me.
There was no one really in the guild hall that morning because most people were on jobs. Natsu and Lucy had left yesterday for a job and weren't back yet. Gajeel had gone on a job and Levy had followed him out because she was nervous that he would destroy a city if she wasn't there to stop him. Everyone else was either on a job or hadn't woken up yet. Mirajane smiled kindly at me and gave me a bowl of porridge for breakfast and I watched as people began to trickle in. The first few days, people would stare at me and whisper to each other about me, but now most of them thought I was normal and never gave me a second glace.
I watched as Cana walked in with Macao and Wakaba close behind her. She grinned as she spotted me and came over with a determined look in her eyes. I grinned as she plopped down next to me and nodded at Mira.
"What's up, Kira?" She asked in an almost whisper. 'Kira' was her nickname for me, because apparently adding one letter to say my actual name was too much of a hassle. "Did you sleep well? How's your stomach?"
"I slept pretty well. And it's getting better, thanks for asking. How did you sleep? I'm assuming like a rock." I dipped closer to her ear and said the last sentence with a slightly raised voice. She jerked back and covered her ears.
"God, please don't scream." She said quietly but pleadingly. I laughed, taking in another spoonful of porridge. She and I had had another drinking contest that night and she was definitely hungover. I, on the other hand, had never felt more awake in my life. I patted her on the back, reassuringly.
"Don't worry, one of these days you might learn not to be so lightweight." I sniggered. "But then again, I've never met anyone so lightweight. You sure you almost beat Bacchus?" she growled at me as I smirked tauntingly.
"I am not lightweight. You're just not human." She said in annoyance. The door suddenly slammed open and Natsu came barreling through, screaming at the top of his lungs. Cana flinched and pressed her hands to her ears. "Okay, I'm going to go somewhere quieter. See you later." She stood up and lumbered away, holding her head. I grinned and shook my head as Natsu and Lucy clambered over to where I was.
"So how did it go?" I asked as Lucy sat next to me and Natsu waddled around, looking for something to eat. Lucy shrugged in annoyance and jerked her thumb at Natsu.
"He almost threw up on me on the way home. But other than that, pretty uneventful. They just wanted us to clear out some big scary monster who turned out to hate fire. We did get a lot of money. Enough to pay my rent, finally."
Mira appeared at the bar and served Natsu some food. He scarfed it down in one gulp and I had to cover my mouth to keep from laughing.
"Oh yeah, that hit the spot! I'm all fired up! Hey Lucy! I'm going to look for another job!" Natsu exclaimed, his throat filled with fire. Lucy turned around in a panic.
"Now? But we just got back! Wait—Natsu!" Lucy grabbed her stuff and darted after Natsu, shouting protests as he walked over to the job board. I chuckled and shook my head, finishing up my porridge. As Mira was cleaning up my bowl, I turned in my seat just as the door to the guild hall opened and cold gust of air blew in.
Erza's eyes locked on mine and it felt like the world had frozen in ice. I stared directly into her eyes without breaking eye contact, determined not to back down. The other guild members looked at us nervously as she walked inside, with her hand ready on the hilt of her sword. We hadn't said a single word to each other since the first day, but I knew she was just waiting for an excuse to throw me out. My defense mechanisms would spring into action every time she came in proximity. I knew that the tension between us would one day snap and there would be a full battle on my hands. I just had to be ready for it.
Erza gave me dirty glare before proceeding to walk upstairs into the S-Class wizard quarters. Just to annoy her even further, I gave her a sweet smile and finger-waved to her as she climbed the stairs. She scoffed and rolled her eyes, disappearing from view. The smile immediately fell from my face and I gave the place where she had just disappeared a murderous look.
"You shouldn't scowl so much, you know. It draws attention away from your pretty eyes." I blinked and turned as Mira placed a glass of what looked like chocolate milk in front of me. My eyes softened and I gave her a small shrug as I picked up the glass.
The door opened again and this time, the hairs on the back of my neck stood up. My heart sped up as I felt the air in the hall shift. I felt my body respond and try to draw towards the person who entered. My cheeks warmed and I put the glass down, wrapping both hands around it, squeezing hard.
"Watch how hard you're holding the glass, dear, you don't want to break it." Mira smiled knowingly and then addressed the person who had just walked in, winking at me slightly. I blushed hard, angry with myself for letting the blush creep onto my cheeks. I released the cup and cupped my cheeks with my hands, trying to force their temperature to drop.
"Good morning, Gray, did you have a good night's sleep?" Mira asked cheerfully, glancing at me through the corner of her eyes. I felt frustration build up inside me at her stolen glances towards me. I knew she was a matchmaker like no other and I kept getting annoyed whenever she'd give Gray and me 'the look'.
"Yeah, I did, thanks Mira." I exhaled, removing my hands from my cheeks, happy that the blush had vanished. Gray sat down next to me and I noticed that he was wearing a shirt. Part of me was happy he was wearing a shirt so I could concentrate, but the other part wanted to him without a shirt again.
"Hey, Akira." He said, inching closer. I nodded in greeting and chugged the milk. Then I stood up and tried to walk away but Gray grabbed my arm before I could. I jerked back as he turned me to face him. I almost melted as I looked into his eyes. They were especially piecing today with a mischievous glint that I rarely saw anymore. His hair was messier today than usual and the cross around his neck was hanging proudly on his chest in full view for everyone to see.
"Wait, before you go, I have a proposition for you." He said, smirking. He looked around and saw Natsu and Lucy still arguing over a job. He called them over and they walked over to us, still arguing intensely. "Do you guys all want to come into town today? I heard there's some carnival that's coming through and it should be fun, don't you think?" Gray said, once they had reached us. Lucy squealed in delight.
"Oh my gosh, yes! The carnival is to celebrate the founder of Magnolia! There's going to be music, and dancing, and party games, and all sorts of things. I was going to go anyway since we just got back from a job." She shot a nasty glare at Natsu. "So my answer is yes, I want to go. Akira, you and I can check out the bikini pageant! It's said the winner gets their picture in Sorcerer Weekly!" she linked her arm through mine and looked at me hopefully.
"Um… well, I don't know about the pageant thing…" I said nervously. I wasn't very comfortable in showing off my way-too-scarred body for the whole world to see. Gray put his hand on my shoulder.
"You don't have to do that, but the other games and rides should be fun. What about you, Natsu?" Gray said, looking at the pink-haired boy in annoyance. I tried to ignore how Gray's hand shot warm tingles from my shoulder down through my whole body.
"No way in hell am I going on the rides, but you can bet that I'll beat you in every game!" Natsu said, grinning in challenge. Gray's hand left my shoulder and he angrily turned towards the pyromaniac.
"There's no way I'll even think about letting you beat me. You can just forget about that." He said menacingly. Natsu grinned and they both began to argue about who was better at party games. I stared at both of them in disbelief. Finally gray announced that they would settle the dispute at the carnival and Natsu agreed. They turned to leave, casting angry glares at each other. Lucy pulled me along with her, following the two boys.
I wanted to pull away and crawl into a hole, but I forced myself to go with them. This could mean my ticket into the guild. If I could show them that I wasn't the assassin they thought I was, then this could be my chance to gain the trust of even Erza. I knew that I would have to be as friendly as I could even though I knew for a fact that a carnival was not my scene. Ignorant people made me angry and lash out. Annoying people made me even angrier and lash out harder. I had to try to control my anger while I was in this extremely swarming, public, crowded, jam-packed, full of people…
Oh, god, I was not going to able to do this…
I gulped and clung onto Lucy like a lifeline as we traveled through the streets of Magnolia to get the carnival. I felt Gray look back at me from time to time and I had to smile at him every time he did, much to my annoyance.
We reached the carnival and I was overwhelmed by the amount of colors and bold designs that seemed to explode from the carnival. It made me nauseous to see how many people were wandering around, how many rides there were, how many activities there were. It was an explosion of the senses and it almost overwhelmed me on the spot. I felt a hand wrap around my upper arm, steadying me from falling over. I looked up gratefully to see Gray smiling kindly at me. I immediately looked away, a scowl appearing on my face.
I followed Lucy closely as we walked into the carnival. I felt Gray close behind me and I felt myself leaning into him whenever a crowd passed by us. There were so many people that it felt like I was drowning in a sea of people. I tried to breathe normally as a huge, sweaty body pressed up against me, trying to get past. I leaned backwards and felt Gray's hands creep onto my shoulders, guiding me gently through the crowd. The uneasy feeling in the pit of my stomach vanished as I allowed him to guide me softly through the hordes of people, avoiding their bodies and anything else that could touch me.
We reached a podium where Natsu and Lucy both tried to play the game. Gray closed the distance between his front and my back and I had to force myself to ignore the heat radiating off his chest. I watched in frustration as Natsu and Lucy both failed at throwing a ring around glass bottles. It was a simple carnival trick, or so it seemed. I knew, like most, that these games were rigged to not be easily possible.
Natsu threw his fifth ring and missed and I couldn't take it anymore. I stepped forward, snatching the rings out of his hand. He shouted in protest but I gave him a look that silenced him immediately. I narrowed my eyes at the bottles and threw the ring. It hooked around the bottle top. I did the same for the remaining three rings and made it on each one. Natsu stared at me in awe as Lucy exuberantly grabbed a stuffed penguin. I turned around, smirking in triumph as gray gave me a knowing smile.
"Using your magic is cheating." He said in amusement. I looked at him and smirked broadly.
"I didn't use magic." With that, I looked away and followed Natsu and Lucy to another kiosk.
We spend most of the day wandering around the carnival playing games, eating food, riding the rides (much to Natsu's annoyance), and it was already starting to get dark. The sky had turned a beautiful shade of orange as Lucy led the way to giant stage in the center of the plaza. I had a floral necklace around my shoulders and a giant sunflower in my hair from when Lucy forced me to try them on. Gray insisted I keep them on because they brought a little color to my bland outfit, a white blouse and khaki leather pants.
We reached the stage as Lucy squealed in delight. I looked up to see a huge sign that read: Miss Magnolia Beauty Pageant. I rolled my eyes as Lucy pulled me up to the table at the edge of the stage. There was a long line of girls waiting to be approved to join the competition. I stared at the men running the show as they gave each girl a once-over and either approved them, or rejected them quote harshly. I turned around to see Gray and Natsu had disappeared and therefore had left me to try and get away from Lucy's determined grip.
"Lucy, I don't think I'm up for this." I said nervously as three model-like girls peeled into line behind us.
"Don't be ridiculous. You're here to support me! But if you really want to, I'm sure you'd be perfect for this competition. In case you change your mind on the way up there." She said, eagerly peering over the heads of the girls. She shrieked so suddenly that I jumped back in shock.
"The winner gets the hottest bikini of the summer! Oh, my gosh, I'm so excited! Look, Kira, Mira and Juvia got in! Aw man, if they're both in the competition, there's no way that I'm going to win." I looked over to where she was pointing and saw Mira and Juvia making their way back behind the stage to get ready. I saw Natsu and Gray yelling at them about something. So that's where they disappeared to. Gray turned around just as Juvia said something and looked back over the crowd. He found me in line and grinned, eyeing where I was. I rolled my eyes and looked away as we inched closer to the table.
Lucy could not sit still as we got closer and closer. She was fidgeting all over the place and took everything I had not to whack her upside the head. Her pacing in circles has making me dizzy. Finally, we reached the desk as a man with dark brown hair as a perverted smile grinned up at us. He gave Lucy a hungry once-over and did the same to me. He licked his lips and nodded at Lucy. She squealed and grabbed my hand, pulling me with her. But she was stopped by the perverted man. He pointed at me in distaste.
"You better have something more worthwhile than that get-up." I narrowed my eyes and prepared to snap at him when Lucy tugged me along, reassuring the man that I would be so sexy, he would drool puddles. I stumbled forward as she roughly pulled me along with her back behind the stage.
We went into what seemed like a big changing room and saw that most of the girls had already changed and left to get ready for their turn to impress the judges. Lucy walked around, looking at all the clothes on the racks, meant for our use. She pulled out a bunny costume that left little to the imagination. It was literally some underwear with bunny ears and a cotton ball as the tail. She wrinkled her node at it and tossed it aside. I stood in the corner awkwardly and watched her. She sighed as she pulled out a cheerleading costume.
"I don't think I have any chance of winning this thing." She said sadly. Then she looked over at me and a ghost of a smile passed over her face. She fished through the racks and pulled out a bikini decorated with blue swirls. "But you could!" she finished. My eyes widened as I took a step back, shaking my head.
"No, Lucy, bikinis aren't really my thing. And I really don't have any curves at all, to be honest." I protested. She bounded over to me and held up the bikini.
"But it matches your hair! And, don't give any of that 'I'm not very pretty' crap. Have you looked at yourself in the mirror? Maybe what you've got on doesn't flatter you, but this?" she shook it in front of me. "This will have all the guys drooling over you. Could you just try it on? Please? I promise if you still think you aren't pretty after trying it on, you can say no." seeing the way Lucy was pleading with her eyes, I knew that if I didn't try it on, she would never leave me alone. I rolled my eyes and snatched it away as she cheered. I pushed her out of the way and went over to one of the private rooms.
I closed myself inside and stared at the bikini is distaste. I changed as quickly as I could as I heard the door open to the changing room where Lucy was waiting. Lucy shrieked and then angrily shouted out at whoever had just walked in.
"What do you two think you're doing? You're not allowed to be back here! You could get us disqualified!"
"Come on, Luce, we just wanted to see what you were going to wear!" Natsu protested. I rolled my eyes, imagining Natsu's face. Lucy made a guttural sound and stomped away. I began to think, if Natsu was here, then so was…
"Shut up, Natsu, we all know why you're really here. You're a little pervert in disguise. Hey, where's Akira?" I sucked in a breath as Gray's voice echoed around the room. I stared at myself in the mirror and cringed as I traced a long, thin scar across my stomach. There was a burn scar on the back of my shoulder and several long, deep ones across my back. I turned around to look at them. They were uglier than I remembered. I couldn't go out like this. No way in hell was I letting anyone see this.
"She's changing into a bikini. I want to show her how pretty she is. Akira?" Lucy knocked on my door. I jumped and turned around, grabbing my clothes. "I'm coming in, okay?" I shook my head as the door opened and Lucy slipped inside. She smiled at me and gestured towards my clothes, that I was holding over my body to shield it from view.
"Come on, let me see." I shook my head, feeling more panicked by the second. Lucy's smile faded as she stared passed my shoulder and into the mirror behind me. I closed my eyes, realizing that she could see everything in the mirror and now there was no point in hiding. I let my clothes fall and spread my arms out. I spun in a circle as Lucy's eyes glazed over.
"This is why I didn't want to do this. I'm sorry you had to see it. But know you know, I am not pretty and will never be." Lucy's eyes moistened as she stared at my pitifully. I tried to avoid her gaze when suddenly, the door opened and Natsu fell head first inside.
"Hey, Gray, what's the big idea? You can't just go shoving people around! If you wanted a fight, why didn't you just say so?" Natsu jumped up and glared behind him as Gray chuckled darkly. My cheeks flushed as Gray looked through the door and right at me. His smirk was wiped off his face as she stepped inside, past Natsu. His eyes traced the scars on my stomach and my back through the mirror. I gritted my teeth and looked to the side.
"Can we stop this annoying slide-show? I'm not an exhibit. You can leave now." I said irritably. Gray's eyes filled with angry emotion and fury. He took a step forwards but I held up my hand. I pointed to the door and gave him a murderous look. Lucy pulled on Natsu's arm and left, leaving me and Gray alone in the room.
"Kira…" he whispered, reaching out. I took I step back and wrapped my arms around my stomach, uncomfortably.
"Go, please." I croaked, looking at anything but into his eyes. After a few beats, he obeyed and walked out the door, the silence he left behind, almost deafening. I grabbed my clothes and changed quickly before Gray of Lucy could surprise me again.
I looked at myself in the mirror and tied my hair up in a ponytail. The scars would always be a part of me. They were a reminder of who I was and who I always would be. I couldn't let feelings of any kind get in the way. Whether its loyalty, friendship or even love, the scars on my body made sure that I remembered why I was here. I was here to free myself. I was here to save my best friend. Nothing more, nothing less.
And now that they had seen the scars underneath my clothes, there was going to be no escape from their scrutiny. I just had to deal with it as best as I could until I carried out my job.
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