The first few rides had been quite decent, at least, giving them lasting excitement by the time they reached the exit gates of the rides.

While walking in between from rides, they all agreed that for the two-seater rides, Juvia would sit beside Meredy while Gray beside Lyon.

"Sorry, Gray-sama!" Juvia exclaimed while clasping her hands together in front of her, "You would have to sit with Lyon-sama and not Juvia... After all, Meredy is Juvia's original date, while Lyon-sama is yours!"

Gray decided to ignore the implications of her very last statement. "Not a problem. As long as he doesn't vomit on me."

"Excuse me," the older ice mage retorted back, crossing his arms, "Just don't cling on me when the ride goes plummeting down."

Apart from minor arguments between the two ice mages on who got to sit first, they generally had no problems with the rest of the attractions in the park.

Until they came across one ride.

The Tunnel of Love.

"No. Way." Gray stared at the sign with a disbelieving look on his face. "No way in hell am I gonna ride that with him!"

Lyon was equally unpleased. "What makes you think I'm gonna ride it with you?"

"Aww, come on! Juvia thinks it'll be fun!" The water mage approached the boys as she tried her best to convince them to go along. "Didn't Gray-sama ride the Love Slide with Lyon-sama before? Juvia doesn't see why this would be any different!"

"Ugh, I'd rather ride it with you than with him!" Gray said in an outburst, but immediately started regretting it after seeing the shocked look on Juvia's face, which only lasted briefly, as her face then transformed into one immensely hopeful.

"R-really, Gray-sama?" Juvia's face was already as scarlet as Erza's hair.

"T-that doesn't mean I wanna do it!"

Juvia's mind was clearly in another world already.""OHH GRAY-SAMA! Is that an indirect confession of your love?"

Gray continued turning her down and was finding ways to escape. His eyes met with the pinkette. "How about Meredy?"

"Actually, Gray," Meredy responded quickly with her index finger pointed upwards. "I was going to suggest that we trade places, for now, at least!"

Juvia's smile grew even wider. "Really, Meredy? Thank you! How about you, then?"

"Don't worry about me, Lyon and I could wait for the two of you here." The pinkette turned to the silver-haired mage, "Unless, you want to ride that as well? I could see a lane for the singles out there!"

He peered over to what she was referring to and had a glimpse of various women seemingly waiting for their Prince Charmings. He grimaced. "No thanks, I can wait with you." The thought of being paired to random females who appeared hungry for love didn't really appeal for him.

"Wait, don't I have a say for this?" Gray started to complain, but Meredy ignored him and grinned.

"That settles it, then!" The Maguilty mage pushed them towards the ticket booth until Juvia did the job for her for the rest of the trip to the queue line.

As soon as Meredy was beside Lyon again, neither of them started to speak, encasing them in an awkward silence.

"Nice weather we have today," Lyon said after some seconds, trying to break the ice.

"Hmm, yeah."

Another moment of silence.

"Why did you do that, though?" He tried again, as glanced at the floating hearts and some flying angels of love circulating around the exterior of the attraction. "The outside is pretty impressive in itself. Just imagine what you'd see on the inside if you only went with Juvia."

Meredy casually leaned her back against the metal fences. "After all we have been through, Juvia had been nothing but really nice to me. This is the least I could do to pay her back." She watched as he similarly leaned back and rested his elbows on the railing. "Besides, Gray seems to have no real qualms about it. I mean, did you see how he allowed her to pull him towards the queue?"

Lyon huffed in irritation. "Eh. Stupid Gray is just being his stubborn self."

"What is this? Is this bitterness I see?" She smirked. "Sorry though, Juvia is my friend so I support her happiness. I hope you forgive me for making her steal Gray away from you!"

Lyon looked as if he would be having a headache. "Please do me a favor and stop this boy love nonsense with Gray. Juvia saying it is just enough."

She easily hopped onto the railing and sat on it, balancing herself. "Haha, I was just messing with you, of course. I know who you really like. Your public confession of affections was pretty much one of the highlights during the Grand Magic Games."

Lyon tried to look not too embarrassed with his actions before. "That was a thing of the past. I have learned to let go of my feelings for her."

"So you could have space for your feelings for Gra-"

"Please no."

"Heh."

A brief moment of awkward silence followed.

Lyon flicked his arm in front of him as if checking the time, even if he didn't really have a watch. "Well, they seem to be taking their time."

Meredy only giggled. "Relax, will you? Not even three minutes has passed."

Silence.

Without warning, Meredy hopped off the fence and landed squarely on the ground, slightly startling him. "God, this is awkward!" She strode in front of Lyon and boldly placed her hands on her waist. "Lyon, let's play a game."

The other mage raised an eyebrow at her sudden proposition, but decided to humor her anyway. He found her pretty amusing and odd at the same time. "What kind of game?"

"It's the 'Know-who-Lyon-has-the-strongest-feelings-for' game!"

If his personality was still his past self, he would've outwardly said that it was ridiculous and she was ridiculous. But he was already a changed man, and this Meredy girl seemed sweet enough, so he still decided to play along, even though part of him thought that he would regret it soon. "Interesting. What should I do?"

Her eyes gleamed in excitement. "Wow, you're like, the first person ever to accept this without throwing me off! Not even Jellal wanted to play this with me... Though to be fair, pretty much everyone already knows who he has the strongest feelings for, hehe!"

The way she happily bounced and pranced seemed to lessen Lyon's anxiety. A bit. "So? What do I do?"

"All you need to do is relax, and close your eyes!"

And he obeyed. After about five seconds, he felt a chilly breeze of air flowing in front of him, as if he was riding a boat in a calm river. There was also warm sensation encircling his right arm.

"And now you're connected! You can open your eyes now!"

And so he did. He was almost afraid to ask. "What...did you do to me?"

"Right now, you are sharing your sensations with the person you have the strongest feelings for! Just wait a minute while I analyze the magical signature of that lucky person!"

As Meredy closed her eyes in concentration, Lyon took it as the opportunity to check if she did something weird with his body, and the only thing out of the blue was the pink seal around his right wrist. He was startled by her for the second time when she loudly exclaimed, "A-HA!"

Again, he was almost afraid to ask. "What now?"

"What a surprise!...or not," she deadpanned, but then she raised her voice again in a dramatic tone, "The person you have the strongest feelings for in a one kilometer radius is no one other than...Gray!"

Lyon frowned with great displeasure. "Stop screwing with me."

"Oh, but I'm not!"

"Either you're messing with me or your magic's a fraud."

She feigned an offended gasp. "My Maguilty Sense magic could never lie! It only analyzes your own emotions, so the only one lying here could be yourself!"

"Well then, I'm probably feeling the strongest emotion of hate towards him."

"Orrrrr you two are actually secret lovers! The great Meredy intuition is never wrong!" She began laughing heartily.

He however found it far from amusing. "Shut it. Release me now."

"Okay, okay," she managed to say in between her laughs, "To be honest, I could only detect strong emotions from a target. I have no idea what particular emotion it is... Only you, the target, could really know what is-whether it's romantic love, familial love, hate, anger, whatever feeling you could imagine! Unless of course, I join your Sensory Link!"

He was quite baffled at how she could immediately shift from being an annoying little jest to someone capable of explaining seemingly serious things in a lighter tone. Because of this, he didn't notice how she clenched her hand into a fist and then began pounding it on his chest three times. Afterwards, the seal on his wrist vanished.

Lyon looked at the area where she hit him. "What was that for?"

She only grinned mischievously. "Nothing. Thank you for being a good sport!"

He only huffed in annoyance, remembering what she did to him earlier.

"You're so kind," she added. The comment caught him off-guard, and for some reason, seeing her with a more sincere smile made his cheeks warm.

"Of course. How could you do that to the gentlemanly me who chose to accompany you here?"

"Sorry. I'll make it up to you next time."

Next time?

"Meredy, Lyon-sama!"

The two shifted their heads to the source of the voice, and they saw their companions coming out from the exit gate of the attraction.

Juvia ran towards them, with Gray lagging behind. "Meredy, Meredy! You'll never guess what happened!" The water mage proceeded to share how she had the most romantic time of her life, plus, how Gray outrightly exclaimed that he felt something pounding on his chest thrice, which Juvia automatically assumed that it was his heart saying "I love you."

Meredy only chuckled.

At the same time, though in a less detailed manner, Gray began to share to Lyon how decent the ride was and how he actually enjoyed the effects, though for some reason, his emotions immediately shifted into intense frustration upon seeing the giant cupid towards the end. It dawned to Lyon how that phenomenon happened, but he wasn't going to admit his little game with Meredy anyway, so he joked that the cupid probably reminded him of Ichiya.

To his surprise, Gray actually agreed.

And then he heard the sound of laughter coming out of Meredy's mouth, and soon, he realized that he was laughing with her as well.

She was definitely amusing. Odd, but amusing.