A Few Words ~ Gruvia~

4. Make up

Gray Fullbuster

It's 2:50 a.m and I'm awake . Nothing strange since I had spent almost the entire previous day sleeping. The only time I had slept without any nightmares in a long while.

Do I feel better? Refreshed? Energized?
No. Absolutely not.
My slumber wasn't peaceful or anything of that sort. It was more like a time skip. A break from all the stressful thinking and interactions .

Instead, I woke up feeling guilty and hungry. Guilty of being such an insensitive jerk to Juvia and hungry since I hadn't had anything to eat since yesterday morning.

Making my way towards the refrigerator , I notice that it wasn't raining anymore. A sense of relief fills me as I realise that absence of rain meant Juvia wasn't crying .

Thank Mavis she didn't take my words to heart.
But that doesn't change the fact that I was unnecessarily rude to her. I still need to apologise.
If not hurt , she could be really mad at me.

After having some leftovers from the fridge and taking a bath , I notice that it's just 5 in the morning and it's still too early to go to the guild. So I decide to do some training in the meantime.

*********

The training session ended up being longer than I intended it to be. I was so absorbed in training that I lost track of time.
I take a bath once again to get rid of all the sweat and change my clothes .

I open the door of my house , ready to go to the guild. As usual , I find some fan mails infront of the door . Ever since the Grand Magic Games , receiving fan letters and mails had become a daily occurence for the entire Fairy Tail guild . I never read them and simply disposed them .
All except the letters that were in a specific light blue envelope with white snowflakes on it . They were placed in a hidden box in my room.
I used to receive a letter in one of those envelopes daily , even before the Grand Magic Games. I had read some of them when I had first started receiving them. The letters were full of praises for me , some times exaggerated to an extent that made me laugh. I had stopped reading even those letters quite a while ago but I still collected them in the box.

The letters were never signed but I knew they from Juvia. The fact that she even wrote in third person didn't help her in hiding her identity and she had probably never realised it. So I kept it that way and never mentioned them in front of Juvia or anyone .

I bend down and look for the familiar envelope although I highly doubted that I would receive one today . However , I do find the envelope .

So Juvia isn't really mad.

My lips curl into a faint smile. I quickly pick up the letter , but when I bend down to pick it up, a see a small pouch near it. For some reason the pouch looked vaguely familiar. Curious , I open it to find it filled with jewels , 50,000 to be exact.

Why would someone keep money in front of my house?

I place Juvia's sealed letter in the box and continue to think about the pouch and all possible reasons for it to be infront of my dwelling.
Finally I decide to go to the guild and carry the puch with me . For all I know it could be a twisted prank by Natsu.

**********
I open the guild doors to see a very familiar scene . Erza eating strawberry cake , Lucy and Levy chatting with Wendy and Mirajane . Natsu and Elfman in a brawl. Cana enjoying her booze and the rest doing pretty much what they regularly do.
Well except Juvia and Gajeel.
They were nowhere to be seen. Probably late to the guild.

I ignore my primary instict to join Natsu and Elfman's fight right away and sit next to Erza. I see that she's done with her cake, that meant it was safe for me to talk to her.

" Hey Erza"

" Good morning Gray" She is unusually cheerful . The cake must've been really good .

" Why weren't you at the guild yesterday ? " She asks.

" I overslept and wasn't really feeling fine."

For a moment , she stares at me with some unreadable expression. Then her gaze shifts towards the pouch I had brought with me. " I know you must be wondering why you got only 50, 000 jewels when your share should've been 80,000 ."

Oh , so the pouch had my share of the quest reward. I was worried for literally nothing.

But why did she place it in front of my house instead of handing it to me directly?

Getting no response from me , she continues , " Well , we also managed to destroy half the village while chasing the thief, so a part of the total reward had to be given as compensation."

" Why didn't you give it to me directly?" I finally decide to ask .

" You weren't present at the guild yesterday and Juvia volunteered to give it to you. So I let her do it."

" You gave the pouch to Juvia?"

"Yes"

Erza gave that pouch to Juvia?
That means Juvia placed the pouch infront of my house.
Oh crap! Juvia must have come to give me the money when I lashed out at her yesterday and literally called her a stalker.
Shit! I need to apologise . I need to find her.

" Where's Juvia?" The words leave my mouth without any further thoughts. Normally, I would've never dared to ask anyone about Juvia's whereabouts because I knew it would give them all the wrong idea. I never even needed to . Afterall she had quite the expertise in making her presence known to me.

I guess I had spoken a little too loudly because instead of Erza it is Mira who answers my question. " She went for a job in Kolar village with Gajeel . Both were here at the guild very early." She is trying hard to suppress a smile which is enough to show exactly what is going on her mind.

God she left early because she didn't want to see me. She must be really pissed.

" When will she be back?" I just hope I get 'today evening ' or 'tomorrow morning ' as an answer.

But Mira's reply is " Well, Kolar village is quite a distance away from Magnolia. It will probably take them 8-9 days if their job is completed well in time."

I take a deep breath , not really happy with the answer.

I'll have to do something special to actually make it up to her.
Maybe ask her out on a date? No, she'll probably misunderstand my intentions.
Ugh! I'll have to think of something.

Erza finishes the second cake slice that Mira had brought and asks me
" Why? Is everything alright?"

If I tell her that I unintentionally ended up making Juvia cry , Erza will have my head. So I chose the safer option and reply with a " No. Just asking because I didn't see her anywhere in the guild."

She doesn't say anything but I know she isn't exactly convinced. So I run away from her to join Natsu and Elfman.

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