Seven - Erza Scarlet

Erza found herself glad that Jellal was at her school. Before, she didn't have any close friends in any of her classes except for Natsu in Gym. Now she had Jellal in three of her classes. She always enjoyed hanging out with him and Siegrain at their house. She had been close friends with Jellal when they were at Tower Academy, a private elementary and middle school.

That had been in a different town, far away. She had had a lot of friends there, but was forced to move away suddenly. Her uncle had been her legal guardian and had been paying for her to go to Tower Academy. When he died, she had to transfer to Fairy Hills Middle School, which was very far away. She didn't see Jellal or any of her other friends again for years.

She lived in a foster home called Fairy Tail. She loved Fairy Tail like they were her real family. It was good to have them, since she never got any letters or any word from Jellal or her other friends. She grew up with other children that were on their own, like Natsu and Gray. Then there was Mirajane Strauss and Laxus Dreyar, who helped out a lot at the foster home.

Laxus was the foster father's grandson and Mirajane and her siblings, Elfman and Lisanna, had just always been around. Erza wasn't sure why Headmaster Makarov had decided to open a foster home, but she was glad that he had. She knew that most of the staff at the school, and many of the students, all grew up in or had some part in Fairy Tail. It made the whole school feel like family rather than an institution. But she never really forgot about her friends from Tower.

She had been so upset that Jellal had never made any attempt to communicate with her that she practically attacked Siegrain when she saw him at the store one day. It was extremely embarrassing for her when he told her he wasn't Jellal. She was still angry and Siegrain had been fairly pretentious towards her. It was strange, really, that they had become friends. At first, Jellal would barely talk to her or even look her way, even when she was at his house.

She wondered a lot why he was like that. It made her sad when she realized that all of her friends had transferred to Era Academy and none of them had thought to contact her when she was so close by. She shrugged it off, however, having matured a lot over the years. Jellal eventually started talking to her again, though, she became more friends with Siegrain this time around. Myst hardly ever spoke to her, even after he transferred to Fairy Hills; she had chalked it up to him being shy, but later found out he was just usually focused on his music.

Now, Jellal had taken his place at school, and she was able to spend time with him again. She enjoyed hanging out with him and Siegrain, but it was different, just being with him. Less distracting, for one thing. It wasn't like she was having inappropriate thoughts or anything, it was just really distracting to have two very attractive guys around. Jellal, at least, wasn't as self-confident as Sieg, so it made it a bit easier to talk to him and not be intimidated.

Erza found herself watching Jellal instead of listening to whatever Cana was babbling on about at the front of the classroom. He seemed to be focused on paying attention. He had quietly explained that he was covering for Myst when Erza had yanked him into an empty corner of the school after lunch and insisted he tell her what was going on. She wondered if he was concentrating so that Myst's grades wouldn't drop. It didn't really matter in Cana's class, but Erza admired his dedication.

"Why are you looking at me?" Jellal murmured, looking a bit uneasy.

Erza could feel herself blushing as she looked away. "I'm- um-" she stammered quietly. "I'm just trying to see if I can tell the difference between you and your brothers when you're not side by side."

"Can you?" he asked, looking over at her.

She looked back to him and studied his features. He looked exactly identical to Siegrain and Myst. Myst's hair was generally a bit longer, and Jellal's tended to be messier than Sieg's, but they all had the exact same face. The easiest way to tell them apart was by their expression and how they acted. Siegrain was always confident and smooth, never missing a beat or looking foolish; Myst kept to himself; Jellal was… Jellal.

Erza sighed softly. There was nothing wrong with Jellal. Quite the contrary, she liked him very much. She had had a huge crush on him when they were younger. But he had been more sure of himself back then.

Now, he was hesitant and often seemed a bit dispirited. He also seemed to get flustered a lot, which she found cute. She was fairly sure she still had more than just friendly feelings for him. Then there was Sieg, who definitely seemed interested in her. He was always getting into her personal space and making her confused about her feelings.

"Well?" Jellal asked, waiting for her to answer.

"You're identical," she finally responded. "But you act so differently that it's not that hard to tell you apart."

"Maybe I should get a tattoo over my left eye so it's easier to recognize me right away," he joked.

"Please don't do that," she said. "I like your face the way it is."

As soon as the words left her mouth, her face turned as red as her scarlet hair. Jellal's face was competing for a brighter color, causing his tattoo to blend in. They both looked away from each other in embarrassment, neither knowing what to say for the rest of the period. Erza wanted to slap herself, but figured it would look a little strange to the others in the class. She spent the rest of the hour trying to think of a good way to smooth things over when the class ended.

-.-.-

"So, Gym is next, right?" Jellal asked, not quite meeting her eyes. The bell had rung and they were gathering their things. "Do you know where the boys' locker room is?"

Erza was grateful that he started the conversation. "Yes," she said, smiling nervously. "It's right next to the girls'. I can show you." She led the way in silence for what seemed like forever. "Um," she said, after a moment. "Sorry about what I said before. I didn't mean- I was just saying- I don't know what I was saying."

"It's fine," he said. "I understand that you misspoke."

"I wouldn't say I misspoke," she said. "It just would have sounded better if I said something more like, 'You're fine the way you are,' or 'One tattoo makes you look cool. Two would be tacky.'"

"We'll just pretend you said those things then," he said with a small smile.

"Yeah," she said, letting out a relieved sigh. They came upon the locker room doors and she gestured to the boys' room. "Just find an empty locker. We bring our own locks so we don't have to have assigned lockers in the gym."

"Oh," Jellal said. "Myst didn't tell me that. I don't have a lock."

"Hmm, you can use mine for today," she offered, holding out her electronic keypad lock. It wasn't something she would have bought for herself, since it was expensive. She had had things stolen before, so Headmaster Makarov had given her a better lock. She was sure she could trust Jellal to not lose it. "But you should bring your own tomorrow," she said.

"You don't have to-"

"I insist," she interrupted, shoving the lock into his hands. "I don't want your first day to be unnecessarily difficult. Most of the people here are nice, but there are some real jerks that you'll need to watch out for."

"Uh, thanks," Jellal said, smiling slightly.

"The code is five - three - five - five - two... five..." she told him, trailing off at the end when she remembered her reasoning behind that particular set of numbers.

"Got it," Jellal said, obviously not noticing her hesitation. "Thanks, Erza."

He disappeared into the locker room before she could make any sort of protest. She just went into the adjacent room, hoping he wouldn't notice what could be spelled out using the letters underneath the numbers on the keypad. When they met up again, changed into their gym clothes, he wasn't acting any differently. It was still hard to calm down. He would be more likely to notice when he actually had to punch in the numbers to unlock his locker.

"Alright, class!" Coach Elfman shouted over the chattering of all the students. Everyone quieted down and turned to listen. "First day back for the school year, so we're gonna do some warm ups and then have a game of manly dodge ball."

The class cheered, but settled down quickly in anticipation of getting to play. Everyone followed Elfman's instructions for warming up, then gathered into teams for the game. Erza pulled Jellal over to her team when she saw that he wasn't moving to one side or the other. Myst generally found some way to get out of group activities, but Jellal was different. Natsu looked surprised to see him.

"Is Myst playing this time?" he asked.

"I guess so," Jellal shrugged.

"Are you all good at this game?" Lucy asked.

"Oh, we will win," Erza assured her. "Natsu and I never lose."

At first, Erza wasn't sure if Jellal was going to be any good at dodgeball. Myst had never played with them and she never saw any of the triplets play any sort of sport while she was at their house. It turned out that she had no reason to worry. Jellal was unbelievably fast, never getting hit once. He wasn't bad at throwing either, pegging at least half of the other team, all on his own.

"You are awesome, Myst!" Natsu congratulated when the period ended. "You were even better than Erza!"

"I wouldn't say that," Jellal mumbled, looking to Erza apologetically.

She wasn't offended by Natsu's statement though. Jellal had done much better than she had. She was impressed. A few times, she had gotten distracted, watching Jellal play instead of paying attention to what she was doing. She might have played better if she had focused more, but Jellal would still have had her beat.

"No, you were amazing," she told him. "You have to be on our team all the time."

His face brightened at her words, making her heart flutter. She quickly followed Lucy into the girls' locker room to avoid complimenting Jellal too much and embarrassing herself. She dumped her gym clothes into the Fairy Tail laundry chute. The foster home would collect and wash all the dirty clothes their kids put in, to make it easier on them. When Erza got out of the showers and headed for her locker, wrapped in a towel, she found Lucy smiling at her.

"Sooooo," Lucy said teasingly. "You like Myst?"

Erza's face instantly flushed bright red, canceling out her hurried denial. "No," she squeaked. "I do not like Myst."

"Riiiiight," Lucy smirked, opening her locker and pulling out her clothes.

Erza stomped past the blonde, towards her own locker. She had assumed that no one would mess with her stuff, even though she didn't have her lock. No one was going to risk making her angry, or so she thought. She yanked her locker door open to find her bag, but no clothes. She checked in the other lockers, just in case, but her belongings were nowhere to be found.

"Where are my clothes?!" she demanded of the room. She was having flashbacks to when she first started at Fairy Hills and her things were stolen often. A few of the other girls in the room shrugged, backing away in fear of inciting Erza's wrath. "Someone has to know something!" she shouted.

"I saw a boy sneak in here while we were playing dodgeball," Virgo eventually admitted. "I don't know who it was. He had blue hair though and he was wearing an Era Academy uniform."

"Era?" Lucy repeated. "Why would a student from Era steal your clothes?"

"Sieg," Erza grumbled.

"Sieg?" Lucy echoed in confusion. "As in, Siegrain Fernandes? Why would he be here? And why would he steal your stuff?"

"I don't know," Erza said. "To get my attention, I guess. Though, he could have just asked to talk to me. Now I have no clothes."

"I'll go ask Coach Elfman if there are any clothes lying around that you can use," Lucy offered when none of the other girls had extra clean outfits and everyone had put their gym clothes in the laundry chute.

"Thanks," Erza mumbled. She wasn't holding out much hope. Since it was the first day of the school year, there would likely be no lost and found clothes. It surprised her when Lucy came back smiling and holding a small pile of clothes. "The coach actually found some extras?" Erza asked.

"Actually, no," Lucy said. "He didn't have any. But Myst overheard me explaining the situation and said he brought an extra change of clothes."

"These are... Myst's clothes?" Erza asked.

Lucy responded by smirking and holding out the bundle of fabric. Erza recognized the shirt as one that Jellal wore often; it had the Big Dipper constellation on it along with the words "Grand Chariot". The pants didn't fit quite right and the shirt was a bit baggy on her, but she didn't have another option. Secretly, she liked wearing Jellal's clothes, even though they probably looked terrible on her. She shook her head at herself; her feelings for him were making her weird.

"How are you going to get your things back from Siegrain?" Lucy asked.

"Go to his house after school and beat the hell out of him," Erza said. "I don't care if he's just trying to mess with me. He went too far."