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Questions asked.
A few days after New Year's, Levy was pleased to see the Dragon Club appear in her shop again, with a few more new faces as well as a slightly disgruntled Gajeel. She hadn't seen him since their little Christmas episode, so naturally she assumed he was embarrassed.
"Yo, Levy!" Natsu grinned, waving enthusiastically. At his sides were Romeo and Wendy, followed by three new faces and a sulking Gajeel at the back.
"Good afternoon, Natsu." She smiled politely, nodding at the two younger students too. "Romeo, Wendy."
"We decided to have our club meeting here, if that's okay." Wendy grinned sheepishly, rubbing her neck.
"That's fine by me," with a grin, the blunette got up from her seat and led the way to a collection of tables at the very back of the shop, where she kept the books typically for studies and revision at for such purposes. Three round tables pushed haphazardly together later, and enough room for everyone was made.
"Right! So as Club President, let me introduce you to the rest of the lot!" Natsu beamed proudly.
He jabbed his finger at a reddish-haired boy, who looked like a typical punk with weird clothes, hairstyle and demeanour. "This dude's Cobra. Don't know his real name, but he's alright when he's not shifty as fuck and readin' your thoughts."
He pointed to the girl next to Cobra; who, with short purple hair, appeared to also be a punk, though she smiled at Levy and seemed much nicer. "That's Kinana, special guest in the club due to being Cobra's 'girl'." He used his fingers to quote the last part. He leaned in to whisper dramatically, "I think that means they're dating, but who knows?"
He pointed to the dark-haired guy at the edge of the group, who was stripping off his button-up shirt to a vest underneath. "And that asshole is Gray."
Gray choked. "Really? At least introduce me in a nice way, dick."
"Okay; this is Gray, stripping-ice-princess-fuckboy-extraordinaire."
"Are you fucking with me, flame brain?"
"Nah thanks man, I'm straight."
"Quit it, asswipes, or I'm kickin' ya out right now." Gajeel growled from the back table, looking as menancing as possible.
Or, as much as he could, with Wendy doodling cats and silly faces on his arm. Either way, the pair of quarreling boys came to a standstill.
"Someone's got their goddamn panties in a twist." Gray muttered to Natsu, suddenly buddy-buddy.
"S'cause he's tryin' to impress his ladyfriend," Natsu replied, not-so-subtly pointing at Levy herself.
Clearing her throat to ease the blush on her cheeks, she politely excused herself to go back to her desk, where somebody appeared to be waiting.
"Sorry for the wait," she apologised with a smile, taking the books and completing the transaction.
.
.
About half an hour later, she decided to drop by on the group again to see how things were going. As it was, it didn't seem like much was happening other than arguing.
"Um, is everything okay?" she inquired as loudly as she dared.
Natsu quickly shifted his feet off the table sheepishly and prodded Gray awake from where he slept.
"Sorry if we were making too much noise." Kinana spoke, and her quiet voice calmed Levy's nerves a little.
She smiled. "It's fine; my shop isn't a library after all. I was just wondering if anyone wanted some tea or some help with anything?"
Most had black tea; Kinana with milk and sugar, Cobra with none, and Gajeel with just milk. Wendy and Romeo had hot chocolates and Natsu and Gray had plain coffee. When she brought the drinks over, she found them arguing again.
"Let's tackle Geography first!" Romeo complained. "It's boring and there's two of us that need to study it," he gestured to Wendy, who ducked her head.
"Or we could do History so I can finally leave." Gray muttered. He lost his vest in the short time Levy was away, though she didn't say anything.
"I'm telling you, me and Cobra need to learn Genetics ASAP, we got our exam in a month!"
"Natsu, you know I'm not actually in your Genetics class right?"
"Drinks!" Levy interrupted cheerfully, wondering how to set the tray down. Gajeel moved to help her unload the drinks to the right person, and she could see that his ears were slightly red. Giggling, she rested the empty tray in both hands in front of her.
"So what's all the chatter about?"
"We have some tests and exams coming up," Wendy muttered. "And we were gonna study together... but.."
"We can't decide what to start on." Romeo finished.
"Kinana and I don't need to be here," Cobra scowled, "We're quite high up in all our classes, believe it or not."
"I can help, if you want; I graduated from Magnolia College too," she twirled a strand of hair around her finger. "Top of my year, might I add."
"Really? That'd be super!" Romeo cheered, making Wendy laugh. For a little while, the petite shop owner went over a schedule of what to help with for each person, and discussed what she knew well and could help out on.
"Well, you guys can come by tomorrow to start," Levy had a look at the clock on the wall, which read 6:50pm. "I've got to close up in a few minutes, unfortunately."
There were sighs of relief from Gray and Cobra, whilst Kinana hurriedly put her things away that'd she taken out and actually started to study whilst the others argued. After everyone was ready to go, Gajeel huffed out that he was going to stay back to help Levy close up.
"Whatever you say," Natsu winked, leading the others out of the shop.
It was silent after that, so the blunette used the silence to gather the empty cups and take them to the back room for washing. Once the cups were left to dry, she appeared in the main room again to see that Gajeel had already turned the sign to 'closed' and had moved the tables back to normal, as well as putting books back in place. A voice in her mind nagged that they probably weren't exactly where she wanted them, but she ignored it.
"Thanks for helping me," Levy smiled at the tall student as he made his way over. He said nothing, simply striding over silently, making Levy back up instinctively until her back hit her desk. Looking up to meet his eyes she found she wasn't afraid, though her heart hammered in her chest at the sight of the slightly nervous look in Gajeel's eyes.
"Can we.. talk?"
"Sure?" She wondered if it would be about what happened at Christmas.
The dark-haired teen went silent, thinking hard on whatever it was he wanted to say. Levy's heart continued to thump loudly.
"What do I do... to get you take me seriously?" Gajeel finally ground out, face flaming red.
"Er.. what?" Levy's brows furrowed a little. Flustered, Gajeel started to mumble.
"I-I know I'm nineteen and all but I've, yaknow, not been interested in stuff like girls or kissin' and the like... Yer really the only person I've felt all these mushy feelin's for and I know ya think being older than me is a big deal but I don't think it is? And I really thought we got along and yaknow, I kinda went and kissed ya on Christmas and I was like shit I don't know what I'm doin', so I left 'cause I fucked up-"
"You didn't know what you were doing?" The blunette interrupted. Gajeel went impossibly redder and scowled.
"..first."
"First?"
"My first kiss, ok?!"
"Oh. Ooohhh." responded Levy lamely. Her eyes widened in surprise, she realised that maybe he took her happy laugh back then as mocking, and tried to correct her mistake. "I wasn't laughing-"
"Nah I know that now," scratching his head, Gajeel seemed to be pouting a little. "I just thought that you didn't really like it-"
"I did!" interrupting again, Levy blushed hard. Gajeel smirked a little. "Soo... we're okay?"
"Yeah."
"And you don't mind me being older?" Levy frowned. "Six years is a big difference in many cases. You still have a lot of years to explore the world and-"
"Shaddup, I know what I want," pouting more visibly now, the taller man folded his arms stubbornly. Levy giggled at him, making him relax again.
"Can I be serious about you then?"
Levy nodded with a gentle smile.
"What if I fuck up? It's not like I know what I'm doin'."
"It doesn't matter." Chuckling, Levy grabbed the teen's hand in hers. "I'm not that experienced either, okay? We can take it slow."
Gajeel nodded. Then asked cheekily, "Does this mean I get to kiss you again?"
"Hmmn, maybe," Levy smirked. When Gajeel leaned in to kiss her, though, she put a finger to his lips. "First of all, you're gonna revise for your exams. If you do well, you can take me on a date, and then we'll see about kisses, how 'bout that?" Winking, she moved her fingers to brush his cheek and give it a light pat.
Gajeel huffed and pouted some more, but didn't argue, which rewarded him with a little peck on the cheek.
So what I originally planned out for this chapter disappeared from my brain before I could write it down and trust me I wanted to kill my brain for it for several days and then I thought 'fuck it yolo' and write the other prompt by fairytailfandom which was a study-type chapter, which starts (kinda) in this and continues in the next chapter. Will the others be there or will it be one-on-one? Who knows~ (I don't).
100-Theme-Challenge has been decided as Gajevy, and the first 6(ish) have been written already!
I dunno when I'll next be able to update, but unless I get inspiration for one of the others, Small Steps should be the next update! (I'll probably update this too/first though)
Leave a review telling me what you think? :)
