VERiTY (Fairy Tail Fanfic)

22. Harvest Festival.

Gray's jaw dropped.

"What is going on here?"

He entered Eir's house, only to find Cana and Laxus in there, the girl half-dressed in oriental clothing.

The year is X775, and Eir is sixteen.

Eir had his hair pulled back in a small ponytail, his sleeves rolled up, and he was struggling with Cana's sleeve with a scowl on his face.

Biting a needle between his teeth, he had a few ball-headed pins tucked into his ponytail.

Cana had the yukata over her usual dress for a fitting, and Eir was measuring the sleeve to readjust to her size. She was quite literally swimming through the fabric (the yukata was Enno's,) but Eir was going to trim it to above her knees later.

Laxus was sitting by the couch and watching some nonsense outside the window. He was already back in his normal clothing, including his headphones. He was already as tall as Eir, so finding a fitting set of hakama for him on short notice really wasn't that difficult.

"Sit down, Gray. You're going to participate in the Fantasia tomorrow too and I need to get your costume ready."

"...The what?" Gray asked again, stepping back once from the door in case the crazy was infectious, "why are you guys dressed like that?"

"Why? Obviously because the Master heavily insisted for my parade float this year to be samurai-themed," Eir explained, picking out a pin from his hair and tucking it into a certain spot on Cana's sleeve as a marker to trim off later. "Remind me to punch Jura when I see him tomorrow."

"I'm not following-- what parade?!" Gray asked.

Eir groaned. "You don't know about the Magnolia Harvest Festival? Have you been living under a rock?" Then he froze. "Oh wait, you actually have. My bad."

"HEY! Was that an insult?!"

Laxus removed his headphones. "Eir, when are you going to get a haircut?" he asked, "you can even tie your hair back now. That's pretty long for a guy."

Eir snapped, "do I look like I have time for a goddamn haircut?!" He raised a needle-holding hand to point at the teenager. "And I'm already losing half my hair a day because of you three!"

"Really?" Laxus deadpans, "but you literally made the top rankings for 'boys with the prettiest hair, which girls would love to have' on last week's Sorcerer."

Eir instantly had goosebumps, shrinking away in disgust, reaching for his hair protectively. "What the fuck."

Laxus blinked at him. "Yeah, you were second to Ichiya."

Eir felt a whole other range of shivers go down his spine, "maybe I'll cut my hair for the Fantasia, then..."

"Ehhhh?!" Cana whined loudly, "but long-haired samurais are the coolest! You can't cut it! Keep it for the Fantasia please please please please please--"

Eir drooped his head in defeat. If his hair wasn't white already, he'd be getting gray hairs from all the stress of his kids anyways.

"Is anyone going to tell me what the Fantasia is?!" Gray yelled.