Chapter 5
Gray and Juvia were sleeping. Rolling over on the bed, Gray took most of the blanket from Juvia. Strangely, Juvia happened to be floating in mid-air as she slept. As they slept, they began to feel a large rumble inside of the house.
Juvia woke up from the sound of the rumble and immediately fell on the floor. Gray heard it too and woke up himself. The vibration of that rumble felt like a 4.0 earthquake.
"What is that?" Juvia asked her husband. "An earthquake?"
Putting on his shirt and looking out the window, Gray replied, "No. This is much worse than an earthquake. Come on."
Juvia followed Gray out of their bedroom when the vibration finally subsided. They peeked downstairs and they could not believe what was happening. Coming inside the house was their worst nightmare: movers.
"Oh, no!" Juvia realized. "Meredy actually sold the house!"
Gray sighed out of frustration. "I can't believe this. The minute we die she goes and sells that fast. Who kind of person does that?"
Watching to see who was moving in, a couple of movers rolled in a moving cart with a couch on top, slamming it to the staircase rails.
"Hey, easy with the stairs, you jerks!" Gray shouted, despite the fact the movers couldn't hear him.
Coming inside the house along with the movers was a blonde haired woman, wearing a pink colored long coat, wearing a black sweater, a dark brown cheetah pattern skirt with some black pants and boots. The woman looked at the house as she observed it.
"Who in the world is she?" Juvia wondered. "And whatever it is she is wearing, I'm going to be brutally honest… she has bad taste in fashion."
The woman continues to observe the house before a spiky pink-haired man walks over to her with a smile. "Hey, Lucy! So what do you think of it? This is the type of house you said you were looking for."
Lucy stared at Natsu, giving him a serious look and said, "Natsu… how much did you say you spent on this house?"
Natsu got nervous and a bit sweaty. Truthfully, he bought this house without consulting Lucy in order to surprise her. Lucy usually was that type of girl who was into these old school things and she definitely loved the Victorian type of style houses. But Lucy was less than pleased.
"Uh… let's just say I got a good deal off it for… $260,000 dollars," Natsu replied, whispering and scared of his wife.
"You spent what?!" Lucy shouted. "How could you spend that kind of money without consulting me?!"
Trying to gain his composure, Natsu laughed and said, "Oh, relax, babe. I wanted to surprise you. I mean this house has a good history and you usually like these Victorian houses. Plus we got plenty of space for you to work on your novels. And on top of that, this place is more relaxing. I mean did you see that big lake? Imagine you, me and our daughter going to that lake and bonding with each other in peace. A lot better than that noisy city giving us headaches."
Lucy sighed. "Natsu, what am I going to do with you?"
Knowing she was still upset, Natsu said, "At least look around and give it a try. And if you don't like it, we could always try for that mansion on the other side of the country." He went ahead in the house, checking out the kitchen.
Lucy replied back, "Natsu, you already know how I feel about mansions." Taking Natsu's advice, she looked around to the kitchen, to the main hallway, to the living room area. Despite how old looking this house was, Lucy figured she could use a little fixing up. "She could use more decorating and painting. If we could do just that, this house would be no problem. I'd have to call my parents about lending me the money."
Coming inside the house were more of the moving men, two of them setting down a matching blue leather armchair. In the armchair was a young 12-year-old girl dressed in black as if she was Death's daughter. She had blue hair, designed in two long pigtails. In her hands, she held a camera, which she usually took anytime her and her parents moved to a new place.
The young 12-year-old girl was named Wendy. She was technically Natsu's biological daughter. Her real mother passed away 5 years ago and Natsu remarried a year later, with Lucy Heartfilia being her stepmother. Despite how annoying she found Lucy, Wendy still loved her regardless, just as long as she made her father happy.
Coming back to the living room, Natsu spoke to his family. "Well, there are some problems with the fridge and faucets. They're making some noises, so we'll have to replace the plumbing. But other than that, I think she's perfect. By the way, Wendy, what do you think of it?"
Wendy looks around before walking over to the stairs and seeing a spider web with a spider on it. "I think I could live here."
Another mover walked into the house, carrying a pile of books, and walked up to Lucy and said, "Excuse me, ma'am, but where do you want these books of yours?"
Lucy replied, "Just put them on the table for the time being. I'll figure out what to do with them later."
The mover did what Lucy said and set the books down on the table. The books he set down were Lucy's own personal books that she wrote herself. Lucy was a brilliant writer who wrote mainly adventure and romance novels. However, she had not written a book in 4 years ever since she got married. She had to put her writing career aside for a while to help Natsu raise Wendy.
But that's not to say she didn't work at all. Though her writing career was on hold temporarily, she took a job as a designer consultant. Speaking of which…
"Help!" someone shouted. Coming in through the window was a man with long green hair, wearing a fancy long red coat, black pants and white boots. The man's name was Freed Justine and he was a fashion designer, who also happened to be Lucy's boss.
"It's Freed!" Lucy says, helping her boss come though the window as he winded up ripping off the curtains and blinders.
Natsu sighed and had a frown on his face. The one person he could not stand was Lucy's boss, Freed. Normally, Natsu was okay with a house being the way it is, unless she really needs to be fixed up. But when it came to Freed, the man had a habit of going decorative overload and cared little for his taste in fashion.
"Why did he have to come along?" Natsu wondered. "He's in the house for 10 seconds and he's already ruining it."
"Oh, get over it, Natsu," Freed told him. "All it is is an old curtain and some blinders. It's not like anybody is going to miss it."
"But why did you have to come through the window?" Natsu asked. "Why can't you come through the door like every other normal person?!"
"It's bad luck," Freed said. "I've had nothing but good luck all my life and I'm not about to ruin it."
Natsu mumbled behind his back. "You've been nothing but bad luck ever since you came into our lives." He went over to stand next to Lucy, afraid of what she was planning to do next. "Hey, Lucy, did you really have to invite Freed along? I know he's your boss, but could you at least keep the house simple and not go overboard?"
Lucy sighed and knew Natsu was going to complain about something like this. "Natsu, you're only lucky I'm not mad at you anymore. I'm willing to live out here in the country. But you have to at least let me decorate in my own style. Just leave everything to me and Freed. By the time we're finished, you might have a second opinion of how you feel the house is going to look."
"I doubt that," Natsu mumbled once more to himself. "All I wanted to do was relax up her and clip coupons."
Going to where her boss was standing, Lucy asked, "So what do you think, Freed? How much decorating do you think this house needs?"
Observing the house himself, Freed replied, "I would say she needs a massive makeover. And by that, I mean she needs to be fixed up from the bottom to the top. Is the rest of the house as bad as this?"
While Lucy and Freed talked, upstairs Gray and Juvia could not believe this was all happening. They could not believe that Meredy would sell their house so soon after they just died. And to top it off, they have to deal with a family that wants to redecorate their house the way they want to.
Juvia was not sure how much more of this she could take. "Gray, we are in hell. I hate these people. Especially that blonde-haired woman."
"They make Meredy look good," Gray quipped.
"Is this punishment for something we did in life?" Juvia asked. "What can we do?"
"Don't panic just yet," Gray told her. "If we want to keep our house, we'll just have to fight for it. And since we're ghosts, I'd say let's spook. Spook them so bad that they'll never want to live in this house."
Juvia was already interested in the idea. "Then by god, let's spook them!"