"Let me put this straight" Lucy said with her eyebrows knitted together". She is Juvia but she has her Edolas counterpart personality, well sort of…right?"
"Cool" Natsu said between a vomit and the other
"No This is not cool at all, idiot!" Gray grunted in frustration.
"Ok, but you said she does not feel the same about you..so why she is here?" Lucy inquired
"Isn't it obvious? Juvia said opening the cabin door and leaning her back on the wall. "There's no way I would stay in a B something when I am an S rank! Enough with the talking here we have work to do!"
She gestured Lucy and the others to dispersed.
"Bossy..isn't she?" Mest smirked
Juvia went outside
The air ruffled her hair and she welcomed the strong scent of the sea in her nostrils. She went to the wheel deck where Erza was running the ship that would bring them to the West continent.
"I read the itinerary, so do you plan to arrive in 10 days?" She asked
"Yes and because of the incident on Caracalla we have Storage only for 7 days, maybe 8" Erza sighted
"Good, coz we will arrive there in 5 days!" Juvia said proudly
"And how?" Gray asked coming close with his arms crossed on his torso. It was a couple day that he felt a bit nervous... Not at all because Juvia was treating him like he didn't exist.. No! He was, just maybe a bit worried. Yes, because Levy was still searching information about this Altromondo potion.
"'Cos I am not one that follows the route, honey! Take a look!" Juvia said taking off slowly and theatrically her heels: two fingers on the zip going slowly down from her knee to her ankle. Then she started to move her hips rhythmically letting her miniskirt fall down. Finally, she freed herself from her blue shirt throwing it right in Gray's face.
He was looking at her.
She was standing there in a mini bath suit, smirking confident and looking directly at the sun.
She was beautiful but a sense of sickness shoot him in the gut and he had to deflect his eyes
Then with a fluid movement, she climbed on the balustrade
"The hell are you doing?"Gray shouted running toward her in the pure instinct of holding her
"I already said I don't need a savior! Didn't II?" She said and then she jumped.
Gray kept his breath looking down.
She entered the water from her head flowing in with the grace of a butterfly in the air.
She emerged and then submerged herself disappearing in the blue.
Gray kept looking until a Geyser splashed from the sea to the ship's deck minutes later
The water recomposed in a female figure, translucent and shiny that was slowly taking the familiar shape of his Nakama: her peculiar shade of Blue hair, her big eyes, her tiny nose, her full lips, the curve of her neck, her bare shoulders and then…
"Juvia your suit!" Erza pointed out looking exactly in the same place where Gray's gaze had stopped "I think you have lost it the sea"
Juvia laughed "yeah I developed a strange habit recently," she said glancing in Gray's direction that instead started looking to the floor finding really interesting the draws of the wood. "Well, it's nothing he hadn't seen before!"
"He what?" Erza shouted with fire in her eyes.
It took him half an hour to explain Erza that he did not act like a pervert during the time they lived together.. Well not to the point she had in mind but this not saved him from taking a really long lesson about responsibility and condoms and flowers and pollination…
Embarrassing! Even worse, Juvia was there: listening and laughing her ass off. Fueling Erza's rage with tales about the most embarrassing moments of their six months together. Like when Gray joined her for breakfast totally naked. Or when Gray had fallen asleep on the couch, next to Juvia and in the morning he was all wrapped around her like an edera, naked of course! When he entered her shower while She was still there or the day he put on the first thing he could find and it was Juvia lingerie…
So mean to tell Erza all of this! But what pissed him, even if, he would tell himself he was upset because it was mean, was that Juvia was telling all this stuff without a trace of her old self. Gray could almost see in his mind the dreamy mess she was every time something embarrassing happened, how cute she turned with her eyes bigger and her cheeks like red apples… But not now... She was just saying all these things to piss him and it was working.
Juvia swung her way to the cabins but Gray threw her his shirt "there" he said before giving her his back trying to hide a frown. There really was no need for her to go around like this. But He was the last that could talk about going around with your ass on the display.
Gray felt two hands on his bare skin and just for a moment a familiar feeling washed over him but as soon as it came it went away when she said: "come on, don't be jealous, the water has no owner you know?" Pushing him and leading her way far from him.
She was Juvia but nothing she did seemed her anymore. She was confident, she laughed a lot but not in her usual earnest way, she was distant and cold
"Juvia is right" Erza said looking on the map at the changes she had written, "following a different route and taking advantage of the sea currents we could really manage to reach our destination in 5 days"
This news what was it needed to decide and throw a little party! They were prepared to defer the food and suffer the hunger but now they had enough and maybe eating it all together in a night seemed less of a stupid idea at that moment.
Gray was not that hungry and left all the fun to Natsu.
Juvia was sitting with her long legs crossed and a strapless top that revealed too much of her cleavage every time she bent down to took one olive and curl her tongue around it before eating it. She was explaining Mest how it is easy to detect the right path to follow when you can let your body feel the flows.
Gray had this urge of rolling his eyes. If he didn't know her he would think she was flirting. Wait. He didn't know her! At least not this version of her.
He covered the distance in three long steps and took Juvia by her elbow.
"Can we talk?"
"Jeez, you are annoying you know?"
Gray eyed her. If she wanted to play a Game in who was the stubborn one between them, he would not give her his staff.
"Fine, fine!" She said throwing her hair off her shoulder in annoyance and following him outside
"Aren't you cold?" He said while the wind of the night filled the sails and sang against the sea.
"well you just throw away my chance of warming the night, or maybe you spare me a session dressed as a Lolita" she said smirking.
He felt his jaw tense but decided against saying something about that.
"I think you should worry a bit more about the potion that made you like this!"
"Really? I think you should mind more your business!" She answered
"Juvia This is not you!" He nearly shouted
"I'll give you a juicy gossip! This is exactly me!" She said way too calmly
"No, it is not! And we don't even know if that potion could have others side effects!" He tried to reason, but the hand that kept passing through his hair suggested his frustration.
" I don't care!" She said slowly stretching her arms and leaning her back against the wooden railing.
"Juvia!" He called her "we don't know if this could hurt you. I won't let.." He groaned looking at the dark above them
Juvia let out a heart full laugh and he looked at her puzzled "you will not let what? Me to get hurt? Look I know we lived together for a while but it was not as we were some kind of thing, we were just sharing a place to save money, so don't feel like you have something to do with me. You are not responsible for nothing, so it is fine if you stop worry and leave me alone"
She sat on the edge of the balcony, her feet hanging in the air
Gray took her wrist forcing her to face him
"You know it's not like this!" He whispered getting closer but she freed her hand and smirking she mount the balustrade and surpassed it, keeping herself pushed out toward the sea like the mermaid on the prow of a pirate ship.
"How it is then?" She asked and Gray tried to take her by the waist to keep her closer to the ship, preventing her from falling but said nothing.
She laughed again looking at his face where she could easily detect that he was at war with himself.
"You said that the potion could hurt me but you know what? I think I Will be fine instead! I don't understand it well now but I remember you know?" She said turning, her feet of the external side of the ship looking him right in the eyes "I remember every time you pushed me away and I remember how that hurt. I remember the blind hope and the feeling I had when it was shattered every time, only to glue the pieces together a moment later and see it destroyed all over again. I remember the feeling of emptiness that made me sick of life when you disappeared. I remember the stupid feeling of relieve when I saw you and the pain of keeping all about myself and pushing it into a corner to make a place for anything you could give. I remember how it hurt and I am sorry if in this moment your ego is not pleased with my behavior but I think no side effect could hurt more than that so I think I'll be fine! Thank you!"
Gray said nothing looking at her wide eyed, stopping on his purpose of taking her back on the ship.
She helped herself and with her usual fluidity she jumped in again.
He watched, his fists closed on his sides while she smiled looking at the dark sky.
"We will save the master and then we will come back, we will restart our lives and I will take care of My situation" She said and it was like she was stabbing his chest with a knife in this silent statement that whatever would happen in this new start she wanted them to have nothing to do with each other.
He just nodded "Fine." he muttered "you were the one saying that I have to mind my business so do as you want," he said and even while his own words left his lips he could feel how wrong they seemed and how they expressed exactly the opposite of what he wanted to say.
Like a child that loses his most precious treasure but says he hated it instead of crying.
She smiles coldly "Well I'm going to bed now, so if you don't plan to join me for a bit of mere fun then see ya" she smiled again.
She was smiling way too much and if in the past months her smile was what haunted his nights while he was far from her, he could not recognize anything of her smile in those ones she was throwing around.
The cold breeze hit him in the face when she left. Maybe she was right. Maybe she really would be fine in this way! Keeping her far from his cursed life wasn't what he had asked for her a thousand times? He could just let her be as she asked and they both would restart a life as she had said. They could see each other, go on missions and no others complications. It was easier and it seemed the right solution for both of them. Then why thinking about this hurt so much?
