Note:

Flashbacks and thoughts in italics

I do not condone or encourage any behaviors in this story. It is simply a fictional story.

CHAPTER 18

Leave The Door Open

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Her hands slid across the table, flashy cards in the folds of her digits. Gray shook his head at her. He took a card from the set reluctantly, groaning. "What makes you think this will work?"

She shrugged, chocolate curls bouncing about her shoulders. "I'm not the one who's desperate here. Chill. It's not like I'm going to show you the future." He wished she could. When Cana suggested he do this, they had snuck into an isolated room somewhere in the building. It's not every day Gray Fullbuster resorted to making deals with this woman, and it's not every day you saw him wallowing away in the red light district, distressed. The thought of miles of roads separating them from Fairy Tail calmed their nerves. He didn't ask her why she came to this place, expecting a similar approach from her.

"Cana, what the fuck." The knuckles of Gray's tight fists smacked the tabletop hard. Hell! He felt like wriggling off the chair and away from this woman's vicinity. Cana smirked up at him like she knew all sorts of things she wasn't supposed to know. Gray gathered his scarf over his lips to cover his face and hurried to the door.

"Oh." She mocked a gasp. "You poor wimp. Always scampering off like a spooked rat."

Gray stopped in his tracks, nose flaring, red creeping down his ears. Now, he doesn't have to prove himself to anyone. But Gray's no wimp. He will not tolerate Cana's bullying. "Mind your business."

"Sit back on that chair if you don't want the whole Fiore to know who dumped your lazy ass at Sting's birthday." Her words were fractals aimed at his heart. At that moment, he despised Cana. No, he wanted to pull her tongue out, should she ever dare to utter it again. Nevertheless, that's all he did: feed his panic to his imagination. He needed to clear his head. Think. It's not like Juvia rejected him. He had never accepted her in the first place. And when he thought of doing it, when he saw her as more than a guild mate or a friend, suddenly, he found that she was out of his reach.

Cana bound his hands in hers, trying to keep him in the mirage of her promise. With his stormy temperament, he could be much more terrible to handle, but she was surprised to find him keeping it together like this. They didn't know whether all the books lined up on the shelves were pornography. And they didn't know why there was a library in this gargantuan brothel in the first place. The calm of incense burning up from the lower floors would soon weather as Gray wrenched his hands out of her grasp with a spite larger than his worries. "It's all your fault, Cana... What are we even doing here? Playing cards?"

His attempts at insult had no effect on her. "How is anything my fault?" She almost felt bad for ruining his time in the pleasure district, but she needed to pull the reins here, or they both wouldn't get what they wanted. She hadn't gone through the trials of rummaging through piles and piles of mission posters for nothing. "You thought it's my fault?" She coughed. "Well. Remember that one time you took Erza home?" His blood ran cold. "I saw it all, so did somebody else you might be missing."

The sentence had Gray's ass finding itself back on the seat, the icy spikes he brought upon himself shooting up his spine. It may not change anything, even if he told Juvia. He wasn't one to bother about clearing up misunderstandings. Yet this one? He had to clear it at all costs. Otherwise, he might keep losing his sleep at night. "Your deal?" Sure, his brain tells him that trying wouldn't get him anywhere. Still, this could be his chance, and he wasn't about to give it up like a loser.

He thought it better to be a warrior in love than nothing. "I have a deal. Give me your word." Vicious and victorious, grenades went off in Cana's mind.

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She collapsed to her knees, gasping heavily. Loke's house was five miles away from the guild. "Gosh darn. I bet he wouldn't mind a house even further than this." She had her pleated shorts dyed with the skin of the avocado. The hue hardly outshone the dropping sun comatose under the foliage. She trod lightly over the grassy yard past the open gate before closing it. He had already announced that he would leave it ajar for her.

Juvia wanted to keep this a secret for now. Not wanting to make this public knowledge. Okay, it may not be much, but can't the truth be as simple as that? More secrets, less drama. Sounds good to her. What else should she do other than conclude it's for the best for both of them? It's all the more okay when Loke appeared to have no qualms with this arrangement. Two hands seize her by the waist and pull her inside even before she knocks or notices that the door has opened. "How dare you keep me waiting?" He says playfully.

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"What do you think? Should we use this one or this one?" He asked, holding up a bunch of jars containing flavouring powders from the cupboard. Juvia chuckled, swiping a wisp of dough onto the tip of his nose with a long finger. Loke liked chocolate. A lot. Juvia insisted they made a chocolate dessert for the day, even though he told her she could have what she loved. Besides, she liked chocolate too, though not as much as him. The ironed white shirt tucked into the black trousers gave him a clean, gentlemanly look. She didn't forget to mention it while they made out in the middle of their food-making session, his large hand tight on the small of her back while the other caressed the side of her neck. She hated the soccer match the guild had arranged on the weekend as a part of the warm-up for the s-class trials. And Loke shared the repulsion.

The sound of boiling water whirred through her string of thoughts as she sat cross-legged on a chair. The light from the kitchen was brilliant, peering out through the windows, and she felt the need to switch it off in a hurry, doubting his neighbours slept early. They had planned to go on a date that day before Erza announced, sprinting up the mezzanine, that efficient preparations needed to be done for good results. The pair equally knew how much of a waste of time this arrangement would be.

Her heartbeat fell at ease upon his touch. The cold night made her want to snuggle closer to the man who had mated her a few minutes ago. His heat felt better than the crackling flames in the fireplace. It poured into her like an elixir as his thighs met the back of hers. She was angry at him for almost giving "their thing" away to the entire guild. However, little did she know about his anger when he saw Gray's arm going behind the back of her chair as they conversed about what Juvia called official matters. Hmph! He wanted to sneer at her.

However, Loke tamed fire with fire, making her lose all thoughts to touches. His touches. This is the last night before the s-class trials we're talking about. They made sure they made the most of it.

He clutched the back of her neck, feeling her tongue winding around his cock. Just when he thought she stopped for a breath, he felt her ticklish fingertips on his balls. He shuddered. "Careful." She took her time, long laps towards the underside before his head slammed into the back of her throat at once. They got it on past the bothers of time, in a charged, watery world, connected. She swallowed, thick beads of his cum rolling down her chin. The sight made him want to slam his cock right back in, but he controlled it.

That is not to say they hadn't any unspoken words between them. Casanova. Juvia didn't want to outright call him but call it the aftermath of dizzying sex, being in a room filled with obscene sounds she wasn't sure she could hear or produce for hours. She cursed ever so softly. "Your new way of calling me a manwhore?" There was no spite in his words, and Juvia felt defeated.

Any second from now, Juvia compulsively pictured him lashing at her despite it never happening. "Look, I'm sorry—" He didn't let her finish her sentence, taking her chin in his hand, a finger hovering amidst her lips.

"Is it your first time sleeping with a Casanova?" She sucked languidly at the thumb that had snaked into her mouth. "How many have you met?"

He took her heat like he would cease all her loneliness, but it was too selfish a thought. "A few. The kind of men who'd lead a girl on and break her heart."

Loke stopped in his tracks—thrusts—as he laughed like a drain. "Hhn. I hate to say it is true. But that's in the past."

His toes brushed against her ankles, making her feet curl. "When did you change?"

His toes climbed higher up her leg, but she remained still. "The day I met you."

"Pssh." Falling back on the mattress, she made a sound like the hiss of an open tap. "Like in the soap operas."

"I'm not lying." "Sure."

He expelled a breath, his back meeting the bed beside her, hurling off the pillows that came in between them. "Who are you paired up with?"

"Gray." It might be because they have the same element in their magic.

It didn't make Loke feel any less betrayed. "I see." He trapped her in the crook of his arm, many sighs leaving their lips. Why would Master do that? No—how dare Mackarov do that!

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Is a need to remain a mystery too much to ask? She didn't like people prying into her life, mysteriousness aside. The water mage gazed longingly at the picture on her phone, walking to the bus station in the morning, the one Loke had forced her to buy, with the looming threat of him buying one for her, saying without saying that he couldn't stand not being able to contact her or know about her whereabouts for months like last time. Loke's hair went in all directions in the image, his cheeks squeezing hers as they sat on the sofa, stuck together like mozzarella cheese in pizza, their face-filling grins making them look like strange twins despite the height difference. For a moment, Juvia wondered what it would be like to have a twin. Would it feel like having a friend with whom you could share everything? It might not be, but suddenly, she felt unreasonably jealous of all the twins in this world.

"Is that your boyfriend?" At the bus station, a random woman wearing thick glasses asked her. "Juvia-san." Should she have covered her face with a mask? She thought she wasn't famous enough to be pestered by strangers until now.

"Are you kidding me?" Juvia was taken aback by her deep voice. "You're dating him?" No, they were just bedmates as of now. Friends, maybe? Still, she could be wrong. Who is this woman, and why is she staring shamelessly at her phone. Juvia had never wanted to evaporate so much in her life. She could, but that would attract more attention than this woman's crescendo.

The woman shook off her dark wig to reveal it was—in reality—not a woman. "F—Freed." Juvia scooted away from him on instinct. Behold! He was someone who had set her alight in lightning.

He carried on, unbothered by her visible discomfort. "So this was what Laxus meant." What's he blabbering about? There was that permanent frown on his face like it had been there from the moment he came out of his mother's womb.

"You guys were hanging around at the Love Hotel, huh? Laxus had been in the room right next to yours." The man behind them shot a pointed glance at the fallen wig, gathering his two kids behind him. Really, he doesn't need to make it sound polite when it is more than weird to have an informal conversation with him. "You know how he is." No, she doesn't. Freed straightened his gait and lowered his voice. Sharp eyes were knowingly lax at the direction she came from, and she could do nothing but gulp. "He said you guys were loud. I couldn't believe it, well, until now."

Is he finished? Juvia was stuck between blanching and blushing. She could pretend to have no clue about what he was talking about, but that wouldn't sell here. Why is the bus taking so long to come?

"Let's try our best at the S-class missions today. " He never smiled, not even once. Maybe because of their rough history. Or perhaps he had forgotten all about it. Why would he remember when she was the only one hurt in the ordeal?

"Hmm." She nodded anxiously.

Author's Note:

song - Leave The Door Open

zero editing this time. hope I didn't entirely ruin it. XD