Note
Flashbacks and thoughts in italics
'Thoughts' in the flashbacks are in 'single' inverted commas.
CHAPTER 1
[Jellal POV]
.
Now, I'm counting seconds, the steps left of a fleeting dance of time before I plunge deep into this inky expanse of death, becoming one with it. Won't be needing any wasted ambitions nor arrangements nor plans.
When was the last time I enjoyed a beach holiday? Yeah. On Miami with Erza. It makes me reckon again of the miles separating us. Her voice, the rich, mellow tootle-too of a flute, her scarlet red hair, her eyes, everything felt like a vivid dream.
Far.
Distant.
I trudged, heavy footsteps marking on the beige sand, the transient waters glassy like my eyes kept beckoning me with the promises of a tranquil life after death, desires poles apart from the ones she offered. Salty waves washed over my toes, and as I walked over onto the brimming waters, I didn't have a care in the world.
"Farewell to everything I must have cared..." A brittle chuckle was the last thing that slipped from between my lips before devouring death. But fate mused unalike.
That would have happened had I not felt that odd tug at the hem of my long charleston green sleeves. I whipped around, cocking my head to the side. The late eventide zephyr howled across the beach. In the moonlit gloom, Erza Scarlet stood before me in all her splendor, breathtaking in her wedding gown. She smiled a smile that failed to reach her eyes. Her orbs held a strange gleam, though. I didn't question my reason when I yanked her wrist, pulling her close to my chest. Maybe, I wanted her to know how much my heart was beating for her. Maybe, I wanted to show her that everything was still the same, could be the same.
Nonetheless, my bleeding heart knew everything could be, except her.
I breathed in her scent while my mind lingered on hazy ponders. She smelled like petrichor and jasmine. I couldn't help but wonder why. Erza's always preferred strawberries in her cosmetics, seldom earthy, never floral. It was at that tick that the best-loved tipple I'd been gulping down had the lion's share of taking its toll on me. I'm calling it liquid courage; perhaps I was intentional in my choices: I needed it. My lips crashed onto her's in a desperate kiss. I might ne'er get another chance to capture them again. Then let it be the way it is.
When I opened my eyes, I couldn't fathom why, but I didn't see the sweet shade of chocolate brown that is her eyes. Instead, it was a deep stormy blue, fathomless like the ocean that kept calling me. I had been hallucinating, I think. It wasn't Erza Scarlet. This person wasn't her. It was desperate, pathetic, but did I care. Now, the only thing I wanted was to hallucinate more.
Taken by the gales in a hurricane, in my wake, my footsteps faded.
Walking out of love felt hard.
I'm yearning, waiting for the day she'd care to call me, checking for a text from her. But no, it seemed like she was proving to me, letting me wallow in the reality that I couldn't reach out to her anymore. It's been days, each day, a struggle to love myself. Tired of the winds whispering to me that what we had would forever be unfixed, I wept.
She's giving me my space like how I asked her. Only this space was choking me so much so that I couldn't breathe. Her love was my air. I have lost it somewhere on my way back. Without it, I can't. Breathe.
"Where the hell were you, Jellal?"
Sand bathed in the sooty incandesce of twilight. Ultear's voice re-echoed off the gravels as she came plodding up the tilting cliff overshadowing our bodies, obscuring us from her field of vision. Halting at the peak, she had an arm above her eyes, squinting hard to make out my silhouette amid the scattered rocks beneath. The girl under me, whom I started kissing a moment ago, writhed from the dire need of oxygen, fighting to push me off from her. I let go of her shoulders from my unyielding grip, our lips still connected with a fine string of saliva.
Ultear was a close cousin and friend of mine. We weren't childhood buddies, but one common thing between us was that we both grew up in one of the southern states of Fiore. Her mouth moved. Whether it was owing to the fact of her being far off or my mind getting fuzzier, I didn't know. I heard no sound for a while.
"Can you hear me? I said, come back. I got your keys." Ultear says. "The tides are coming up!"
I looked at the girl before me again. She wasn't Erza. Yet, I liked her soft lips. They were deliciously plump and small. Erza's were full and tasted like nobbut strawberries, but what I tasted now, bubblegum and mint, felt peculiar. Once more, I wanted to kiss her. I would've, if not for the lady calling out to me, spying me from atop the cliff.
I didn't want her to come down from there. And catch sight of me like this, red-handed, with some girl on the beach.
A forlorn white-walled lighthouse flashed around beams of white about the windswept shores. Just as soon as I turned my back on the girl, I craned my neck to rivet my orbs back to her for reasons I couldn't quite decipher. It seemed her visage was a mix of contradicting expressions. In the shimmering shades, my eyes could make out the brilliance of her hair, blue. A colour familiar yet in a trice unfamiliar to me.
"Your name?" Words came out from between my lips without my consent. I was supposed to be solely pondering, nix akin to blurting out.
"Juvia."
[Juvia POV]
.
A cup of coffee invariably buoyed up my mood with merry. But not today. I'm a person who didn't label most things as good or bad. By most things, I mean an exam or an interview or even a day. But today wasn't a typical day. Today was a bad day, I must add, I couldn't help but label it as such. It was preceding Friday that I stopped taking coffees, not to mention I had gotten fed up with their lousy room service. They didn't do any good to me.
"Eyes, a misty pane;
woebegone,
tired of your games."
"Your promises sealed off
in my Pandora box.
Your kisses
left me thirsty for more.
Your words
were the final nail in my coffin."
An old jukebox was playing in the background, one of the things I like about this place. Listening to the musical notes got me a bit bemused. Inhaling a sharp breath, I blew out slowly, sighing long. Ironically, the songs had fitting lines.
"Meredy. Yeh, it's me." I answered the call. She seemed hesitant as if her words could shatter me, whole. Her words were only a candle flame seeking to brighten a blinding bonfire. How much more unwitting was she to boot? "No. I'm in the coffee shop."
"I saw them together." I heard how Meredy swallowed. I could feel how hard she might be clasping her phone from sliding down her sweaty arms. "On my way after getting some pills from the pharmacy, I stopped by her house to get the book I gave her."
"How many more chasms
in this two-way road of love?
I'm stuck in a bridge
you've burnt and broken."
"You stole my soul.
You stole my heart.
You left me with no profits."
"Her curtains were open. Th—They. I saw. In the b—bed." Her stutters were a dead give away of the internal battle betwixt her conscience and dilemma in trying to filter out the truth, thereby break me less. Her efforts were in vain. Morose, I clenched my fists, albeit my head drooped.
I just cut her off, just as the corners of my lips tugged into a rueful grin stretched lopsidedly across my face. The overcast sketch of azure and the busy city bustling at sundown outwith the walls must've been befogging to my mind. I pulled down the bamboo blinds that gave off a rustic finish to the coffeehouse.
Only a few hours ago did Gajeel Redfox, my elder brother, bang on my door to play havoc with my serene slumber. What he had to say was what he'd been telling me since it all began: let go and live, to accept reality, to move on with my life. Although heartsickness was no bed of roses, all these years, I had hope heretofore, a ray of hope that one day he would requite my love for him. I wouldn't bother him anymore.
I, Juvia, is now a closed chapter in his life so is he in mine.
I'll make sure.
We'll always remain what we used to be: nothing. Forking fingers through my cerulean blue locks after zipping up the purse, I stuffed them back inside the pockets of the brown slacks I had on. All I needed was a confirmation. I got it. I'm moving on. All my stuff was packed and set intact. Tomorrow night, I'll be leaving Magnolia. Gajeel had booked an early flight to Crocus.
So, sweet sayonaras, Gray Fullbuster.
Eastertide was a dazzling season, but I preferred monsoons. Monsoons are moody, just the same as my bittersweet childhood and maybe me. Every time it rains cats and dogs, I get reminded of Ma and Pa, the day I was born, and the day I lost them. I used to loathe birthday celebrations, must be since I never had the privilege to celebrate mine. As a kid, I was envious of filthy rich kids who showed off at those typical school parties. My roommates and I never got close, nor did I with my classmates. Even when we were inches apart, there was always a mile separating us. I was the loner, that person you'll find lurking and sulking in the corner of the room, the wallflower... I'd rather say I loved my space and solitude while secretly craving for attention. I used to be all that up until I became a high-school graduate. These days, thinking back makes me feel as silly as a goose, same old same old nasty nostalgia.
Outside, on the waysides, the mauve jacarandas were in full bloom, sprouting grace. But that wasn't what caught my attention when I paddled past my bathroom door, a towel around my middle. Two men walked out of a car parked athwart the fading brick walls. Through the drapes, unfortunately, "This place..." was the only thing I could make out before they pushed past the gates of my apartment building.
I sighed long and slow, feeling a hand on my shoulders, whom I knew was my roommate Evergreen. She asked me if I was alright, to which I just nodded. Flipping through the channels, she had her eyes glued to the flashing television screen. Habitually a bit booming, some 11 am live broadcast concerning a particular businessman in Fiore was on. On account of my apathetic notion, I got more curious to check who was inside the expensive car. With a raised eyebrow, blinking thrice, I was sure that the man inside it seemed to be the dead spit of that person on the T.V, like two peas in a pod. He pushed the black Wayfarer up the bridge of his nose, swiftly gazing up. Hotfoot, before I get caught peeping, I jerked myself away from the window-side.
"By the way, Juv—!" Evergreen snatched my focus to her gaped mouth stare. She couldn't be less still than a statue at the instant her index finger pointed to the T.V, the grapes she'd been snacking on, halfway through her mouth, halting mid-air. "Isn't that you?" It came out muffled, catching me off guard.
Entailed to take a diligent look—not that it could alter any one thing—,in hardly any long-legged strides, the screen came to be the victim of my scorching scowl. Cornered amid the shadows of a chancy night and a well-sculpted chest, the gal in the video had blue hair and eyes, her mouth thoroughly, desperately explored by a tongue that didn't belong to her. A kiss you'd call no less than searing hot yet insufferably juicy (for the media.)
Before you can say knife, it hit me like a ton of bricks that "the gal" was nobody else but me, myself, in my new floral bikini. The world around me blurred, fogged up, then blackened at full tilt. I was out like a light.
Author's note
So here's Jellal X Juvia fanfiction. Thank you so much for reading!
