Hey friends! Thanks again for all the support! I super appreciate it and it keeps me writing/putting out new chapters! :)
And here comes the next part of this story:
the sugar
Erza woke up the next morning, clear-headed and ready to collect the next most perfect ingredient for her most perfect strawberry shortcake. She stretched up from bed, wriggling into the new day and did a casual requip for the morning to get herself dressed.
Having already done the research for where to find the best sugar, Erza had decided to go southeast to the tropical part of the kingdom of Fiore. She was going to collect her own sugarcane and process her own sugar from the plants—clearly the most perfect sugar for her most perfect strawberry shortcake.
She added the finishing touch to her outfit, a large sunhat that she would use when she was out in the sugarcane field. She secured her pack onto her back and strolled out of the guild at the stroke of dawn that morning, ready to conquer the day.
She hummed to herself. Yes, she was going to have the sugar that she needed by the end of the day. She thought of the Goddess Strawberries that she had secured in her fridge, thinking of how much closer she was to the dessert of her dreams, and her heart sang with joy.
The Queen of Fairies kicked open the door to the outside and drank in the sunshine, determined and heading straight for the train station.
"Hey," she heard a familiar male voice say.
"Je-Jellal!" she exclaimed, when she realized that he had been sitting just outside of the guild.
It was a bad sign for her to start the day with a stutter, she thought to herself.
"What are you doing here?" she asked him, stepping backwards a small step as he approached her.
"I thought I'd see you again," he simply explained, with a bit of a sheepish smile. "I'm sorry if I surprised you." He observed her outfit for a second. "Where are you going today?"
Erza decided that she couldn't help the fact that Jellal was going to tag along with her today—nor did she particularly mind—and continued on her way to the train station. "I'm going to make some sugar today," she said. "I'm going to cut down some sugarcane and make sugar."
"So strawberries yesterday…and sugar today, huh?" Jellal remarked.
"Yes," Erza said, trying not to make serious of the situation. Surely he wouldn't catch onto her true intentions…
"Do you mind if I come along?" he asked.
The redhead hesitated, not wanting to answer immediately so it sounded like she wanted him to come along. She mentally ran through a number of different ways to say 'sure' without sounding too eager. She wanted to make it sound like she was begrudgingly letting him come along, but she didn't want to make it seem like she hated him or disliked him in anyway or communicate that he was troublesome. She wanted to make it somewhat friendly too, but not to the point where she sounded like she really wanted his company…
"Nope," she finally said, after what felt to her like a long stretch of time. She wasn't sure if that was the tone that she had been going for, but it didn't feel wrong either.
Erza quickly reminded herself that she was thinking too hard about this. What about him made her so self-conscious all of a sudden?
She saw him smile from the corner of her eye.
What was he so happy about? Why did he come all the way to Fairy Tail to come see her? If he knew that she was in Fairy Tail this entire time, why hadn't he come to the guild earlier? Why did he want to be friends with her and hang out with her more now as opposed to three or four years ago?
Erza realized that she still didn't know a thing about Jellal; she had no idea what had become of him or where he was living or even what he did on a day-to-day basis. Despite this uncomfortable feeling that she still didn't know anything about her mysterious childhood friend, her body walked with ease alongside him and she didn't feel any extra tension in her mind.
The entire way to the train station, she thought about this silently, and still wasn't able to come to a conclusion about what this all meant before one of the rail workers greeted her loudly.
"Erza-san!" he called. "Where are you going today?"
She brightened upon seeing the familiar face. "I'm going just beyond Lamia Scale—to the sugarcane forest!"
"On another mission?"
"Hai!" she replied, and she was lead onto the corresponding train on the platform.
Erza made herself comfortable in one of the train's seat compartments, putting down her backpack and settling down, kicking her legs onto the seats across from her.
But then she remembered that she had a travel companion.
"Oh," she said, in replacement of an apology and took down her feet, putting them back onto the ground.
"It's okay," he said, sitting down in the seat facing her. "I know you're used to traveling alone."
What was that supposed to mean? She thought briefly on the subject, but let the ruminations go when the train conductor popped his head into the compartment.
"Erza!" the train conductor explained. "Off again today, huh?"
She nodded, and then reached into her pack to find the money to pay for her ticket. But the blue-haired man in front of her was quicker and swiftly gave the conductor a gold coin himself.
"This is for the two of us," he said. "You can keep the change for yourself."
The conductor looked at the large denomination of the coin, not even able to quickly mentally calculate how much extra Jellal had provided him for their two tickets, and then gave him a short bow before giving him a verbal thank you and going on his way to the next seat compartment.
Erza froze, her hand still reaching into her coin purse. "You didn't have to pay for me," she said, simply.
Jellal shrugged. "I'm paying for your troubles taking me with you," he explained.
She decided not to question his actions, putting away her own purse and looking at the window. However, she couldn't help but think about the fact that Jellal had given the train conductor an entire gold coin—which was enough to pay for at least 10 individual rides—and told him to just keep the excess money.
What, was Jellal suddenly rich or something? In the time that they had spent apart, had he become wealthy and powerful?
Or maybe, she mused. Perhaps he was just trying to show off?
She closed her eyes and took a deep breath in and out, not letting the questions that were building up in her head get in the way of her focus on getting her sugar for her most perfect strawberry shortcake.
"You're well-known, Erza," Jellal suddenly said, interrupting her thoughts.
She stared directly into his eyes for a moment, before asking, "Did you hear of me before today?"
Jellal gave her a soft smile, one that threatened to make her blush. "Yes," he admitted, after a while, as if he didn't want her to know that he had.
"You knew I was in Fairy Tail," she said. "Why didn't you come to visit me?"
His eyes lost a bit of their shine. He kept his eyes focused on her, but she could tell that he was having a little bit of trouble getting out the words—the first time she had ever seen him slightly unconfident since yesterday.
"I thought you might have not wanted to see me," he answered, finally.
She blinked for a moment, thinking briefly of the few times when she had been younger and thought of him and the rest of her foster home friends. The first few months away from her foster home friends and in Fairy Tail, she had thought about him and the rest of her friends a lot—hoping that they hadn't forgotten about her and had been planning to visit her soon.
It had been her wish to the stars every night. I hope my friends come to see me tomorrow!
A few years passed, and she had heard no word from Jellal or any of her childhood friends, so she had stopped thinking about them as frequently. She eventually had determined that maybe the reason why they—Jellal—hadn't come to visit her was because they thought that she had betrayed them by going off to join a guild rather than staying in the foster home with them. She had told herself that maybe that was the reason why Jellal had said that mean comment to her—because he had been mad that she was leaving all of them behind to go make new friends and find a new home without them.
It was then that she stopped hoping that her foster home friends would come to see her, but she couldn't help thinking about them—about Jellal—every now and then, which eventually was how the rest of the guild—especially Mirajane—caught on and started teasing her about Jellal-this or Jellal-that.
But now that Jellal had admitted that he thought she had been the one that was upset with him…That made her realize that maybe the reason why he hadn't come to see her in the first place was because he thought that she was still mad at him for being mean to her that night before she left.
She realized that this was what she had always wanted to get off her chest. The fact that she hadn't said a proper goodbye to Jellal had been bothering her since day one of coming to Fairy Tail.
This was her time to set things straight.
"No," she corrected him. "Not at all. I really missed you…everyone. You should have come visit me." Then after a moment, she added, "I'm not mad at you."
His dark brown eyes flickered. "You're not mad at me?" he asked.
"No," she affirmed, shaking her head. She paused for a bit. "I'm sorry about not saying goodbye to you," she apologized. "I had been mad because you made fun of me for leaving to go to a guild the night before, but that was when we were just kids—I'm not mad at you anymore."
He looked at her a long time, and she was surprised that she was able to hold his gaze.
"Oh," he said, after some silence. "I'm sorry."
"It's okay!" she nervously said, suddenly very uncomfortable with how deep the conversation was going. She swatted her hand back and forth and laughed shakily. "W-we were just kids, after all!"
"Yeah," he softly agreed, giving her a small smile.
"Ah hahaha…" She continued fake laughing, trying to brush off the entire subject.
"I'm really glad that I ran into you, Erza," he said, after a beat.
She could only manage a nervous smile, hoping that he wasn't expecting a response from her, because she was only going to be able to do that awkwardly. Their conversation had already been embarrassing and a bit too emotionally revealing for her, and it had only grown worse from there.
After a long time staring out the window to fight off the awkward moment and resisting the urge to sneak a look at him to see what he was looking at, she determined that he probably hadn't been expecting a response from her. She relaxed a bit, realizing that her muscles had been tense the entire conversation, and repositioned herself before looking back at him.
He was sleeping, she realized, seeing his closed eyes. His body had leaned over to rest his head and shoulder against the wall, his blue hair messily falling over his face. He looked peaceful…and she couldn't help but think, adorable.
It was as if under the mature and grown body, he was still the young, adventurous boy that she had once grown so close to.
And despite the many questions that still marinated in her mind about what had become of the time that separated the two of them, and despite the uncomfortable tension that she felt between them, she smiled to herself and allowed herself to watch him sleep for a bit longer.
at the sugarcane forest
"You came completely prepared," he remarked, when she produced a machete from the air after a subtle requip spell and put on her sunhat.
"Of course," she replied and started looking for the best sugarcane in the area—keeping on the lookout for only the tallest sugarcane with the deepest royal purple stems and richest green leaves. Those sugarcane would the most perfect sugarcane and they would make the most perfect sugar.
And that, along with her most perfect strawberries, would bake into her most perfect strawberry shortcake.
She found a sugarcane cluster that met her most perfect requirements and then quickly hacked it down, giving Jellal—who insisted that he help—the stalks that she had cut down. He lay the long stalks across his arms and followed her as she ventured further into the sugarcane row for another chop.
"You're picking out the best sugarcane?" he asked, and when she didn't reply, he knew that this was a 'yes.'
"Why?" he then asked.
She paused, hesitating for a moment. "I'm gathering only the best sugarcane to make the best sugar," she said, as concisely and as vaguely as possible.
He seemed to understand that she wasn't going to answer his questions with any more detail than that and left her alone after that.
She continued to hack at the most perfect sugarcane, electing to do this with a machete rather than requipping her swords to do the work for her. For some reason, she didn't want to use her magic in front of him—for some reason she felt it embarrassing to do so.
A very focused Erza kept throwing the sugarcane stalks back behind her at Jellal, who continued to follow her into the sugarcane forest and carry the sugarcane that she chopped up.
"Ano… Erza?" he asked.
She pretended that she didn't hear him, hacking away even harder at the sugarcane stalks. Focus, Erza, she told herself. She worried that they would get into another deep conversation that she wasn't ready for.
He called her name again, and in response, she threw back another round of sugarcane stalks.
She walked way ahead of him, moving onto the next row of sugarcane. Concentrating on only the task at hand, she chopped at this bundle of sugarcane and turned around, waiting for Jellal to pick up the stalks.
Then she realized that he was lagging behind he was carrying too much sugarcane!
"Ah!" she yelped, running back toward him. She had been so busy focusing on not being distracted that she completely forgot that there was a limit to how much sugarcane he could carry!
The stack of sugarcane he carried was precariously balanced into a pyramid above his arms. The sugarcane went well above his head, and she was certain that he was straining his back quite a bit carrying the stalks.
"E-E-Erza," he said, breathing heavily under the weight of the crop. "I think you have enough."
"I'm sorry!" she apologized and then reached over to try to split the load.
However, that was the last sugarcane that broke the man's back, and the entire stack of sugarcane came tumbling down. Jellal fell with it, and Erza was caught up in the whole catastrophe—before they knew it, Jellal had landed on top of her—and his hands were in a not-so-innocent place…right on top of her boobs.
"Ah! Suma! I'm sorry!" he jumped off of her and tucked his hands away. He blushed furiously and watched her with wide eyes.
It took her a moment to realize that she had just been groped. "U-Uh…I-It's okay!" she said, getting up.
"I-I'll pick up the sugarcane," he declared and then turned around to get to doing so.
"M-me too!" she said, her face turning a bright red as well.
later
After the whole falling-over-each-other incident, they didn't speak until Erza told Jellal that they now had to press out all the juice from the sugarcane and boil off the water to collect the sugar.
Without another word, they pressed all the moisture out of the stalks, cranking the sugarcane through the wooden machine. They collected all of the sugarcane juice into a large pot, and after Jellal carried it over to a small pit where they could lit a fire, Erza reached over to start a fire with a set of matches.
"Here, I got this," he said, stopping her from the matches, and then snapped his fingers quickly to conjure a flame.
His fire was a honey golden flame, and it burned warmly and sweetly. The sugarcane juice in the pot started bubbling and boiling soon after, and before the sun set, they ended up with a thick layer of large diamond-like sugar crystals all along the pot's edge.
Erza chipped some of the sugar off and tasted it, immediately discovering that this was indeed the most perfect sugar. She was satisfied.
"Good?" he asked her, and she nodded, beckoning him to try some as well. Jellal did the same as her, breaking off a piece of sugar and then lifting it to his tongue. He agreed after trying it. And then a second after, a large, almost comedic smile stretched over his face.
"What's so funny?" she asked.
"Sugar and strawberries," he simply said. "You're baking a strawberry shortcake, huh?"
Her shocked face told him the answer.
"You haven't changed at all," Jellal laughed. "You still really love strawberry shortcake, huh?"
She was embarrassed that he had actually caught onto her true intentions and nodded like a child who had been caught stealing from the cookie jar. Jellal's discerning eyes met her sheepish and slightly ashamed eyes and he let out a small low chuckle, knowing that he had been right all along.
Erza turned around to hide a small smile, but as she did that, she didn't notice his eyes turned sad.
back on the train
The sun had set by the time they got to the train, and they ended up taking a late evening train back to Magnolia—a ride that Jellal insisted he pay for again, despite Erza's resistance. The two of them had lay the many jars of sugar they had collected from today's harvest on the seat facing them, opting for the two of them to share the same seat on the other side.
Indeed, as usual, Erza had gone overboard, above and beyond the amount of the sugar that she needed in her recipe, and even Erza was aware of this when she opened the sacred recipe book to the strawberry shortcake page.
I really only needed a little more than a cup of sugar, huh, she realized, adding up the measurements for sugar.
She realized that Jellal was not-so-discretely looking over her shoulder at the recipe book as well.
"This is the recipe?" he asked her.
She moved the book to her right, so that the two of them could share a better view of the text.
"I need to get the dairy ingredients next—the heavy cream, butter, and milk," she said.
He gave her a simple nod, and she tucked the recipe book back under her armor plate.
Jellal looked at the numerous jars of sugar that they had piled on the seat in front of them. "We got too much sugar," he observed.
"Yeah…" she said, embarrassed again.
He looked at her. "But we had fun, right?"
This time, she looked back up at him, but found she couldn't keep eye contact with him without blushing. "I guess," she admitted, and then looked out the window, watching dark shadowy figures of things pass by them.
After a while, Erza felt a heavy weight on her right shoulder. When she looked to that side, she saw a mess of blue hair and realized that Jellal had actually fallen asleep on her!
Her eyes widened and an imminent blush threatened to cover her face. What was she to do? Shrug his head off of her shoulder?
Erza snuck a look again at his calm, resting face and couldn't help a smile form on her lips.
Maybe she would just let him sleep.
Oh god, this story is so fluffy…(except for that one "eyes suddenly turned sad" part, muahaha, more on that later) but still I can't even…I don't usually write fluffy stories. I usually angst or action my way through things.
But hopefully y'all enjoyed! Drop me a comment and I'll see you next time!
thir13enth