Chapter Text
Mira was right when she said Gray would need his energy for work that night. As it turns out, the free skate was cancelled, or so the sign on the front doors stated. Normally, Gray would be glad; that would mean it was a hockey practice night. A few teams would come in and do practice and for the most part Gray would relax and just watch them practice, occasionally getting a coffee for a parent. Sure it sucked because he would be mad with jealousy over the fact that they were out there enjoying themselves while he was unsatisfyingly on concrete instead of the ice, but it was much better than the chaos of a free skate. But tonight was different, there were no mini vans parked outside or kids dragging bags twice their size through the doors when Gray arrived at the rink after school.
He walked through the heavy doors and was greeted by the already overly air conditioned lobby. The rubber mats were the same, the overwhelming smell of sweat, air conditioning, ice and rubber was still there as were the harsh fluorescent lights, but something seemed slightly different to him. Maybe it was the fact that there were hardly any people around, or that the ones who were around were over dressed for a community ice rink for crying out loud. The tables that were set up along one wall with real, not plastic, table cloths on them were also out of place, and definitely confused Gray.
With a frown on his face, he headed over to Mira’s office where he was supposed to pick up the key to unlock the canteen, observing the people in dress pants and office clothes as he went. For the most part, they ignored him; though he really wasn’t expecting them to pay him any attention, he was kind of used to it.
He knocked lightly on the door twice before pushing it open. Normally, Mira would be seated at her desk either on the phone or typing at her computer, but usually she was relaxed. The sight that he was greeted with now was quite the opposite of relaxed; there were stacks of piper piled up all over her desk, most of which leaning to severely he was surprised they hadn’t fallen over yet, the phone was ringing and judging by the flashing lights on it, there were several other calls waiting, and Mira herself was scrubbing furiously at one of the whiteboard signs the rink had to advertise the weekly special, or directions when they had a special event.
Her head whipped around at the sound of the door open and Gray caught the crazy look in her eyes that he had only ever seen once before when some kids let three live chickens into the rink as a prank.
“Uh, is this a bad time?” He asked her cautiously, ready to run out the door in case she started throwing various objects at him. He didn’t think he had done anything wrong, but he could never be sure.
“Gray,” She said like she just realised it was him. She straightened up and continued, “No. No, no you’re perfect, just in time actually. After you go open the canteen, I need you to come back and help me set up some signs.” She shoved the key in his hands.
“Yeah sure,” He started hesitantly. “But don’t you want me to do food prep? Hockey nights aren’t as bad as free skates but I still gotta do some work.”
“What?” Mira looked confused. “Oh no, no tonight’s not a hockey night either. Here, walk with me.” She led him out of her office and started walking with him to the canteen back door. “Tonight’s a special night, which is why I’m running around like a chicken with its head cut off and we have these nice people in our lobby. You know how there’s the figure skating club that uses the rink? And how the older groups are always very secretive because they compete in large competitions?” Gray kept nodding to these questions, not liking where this was heading. “Well near the middle of the older skater’s training season, they have an open house of sorts for the parents to come in and some school scouts to see how things are progressing.”
Gray groaned. “And that night is tonight.” He hated figure skating brats, he hated their parents and he definitely hated scouts who wanted to give scholarships to teenagers who came from rich families and were the last ones that needed a full ride to some prestigious university or college. If he had known this was the kind of shift he was in for, he would’ve conveniently planned to be sick.
Mira gave him a sympathetic look as they stopped in front of the canteen door. “I know the figure skating crowd isn’t your favourite crowd, but do try just for tonight. They are one of the bigger reasons this rink can afford such a high quality Zamboni.” She talked to him in a hushed voice, as to not let the other patrons in the lobby over hear them.
“You could’ve at least given me a warning so I could prepare myself for a night of bullshit.” Gray grumbled unlocking the door with the key she had previously given him.
“What? And prompted you to get a sudden fatal illness that stopped you from working tonight? I don’t think so.” She teased him, with a knowing smile on her face that almost Gray feel guilty for thinking it before. “Put your stuff away and meet me back in my office.” With a gentle pat on his back, Mira was off. Once she was safely behind her office door, Gray groaned for what already felt like the hundredth time and banged his head against the concrete wall. He was in for a long night.
Once his bag was safely put underneath the counter of the canteen and the metal barrier between the ordering window and the actual rink was open, Gray went back to Mira. And so he spent the next half hour or so helping her write directions on sings and position them all over the lobby, inside the rink and just outside the front doors. In that time, the lobby filled up even more, as he was told by Mira, all the coaches and scouts were present and ready to begin the even and that the skaters and their parents would be arriving momentarily.
And so they did. Gray was setting up the last of the signs in the lobby when he saw the first skaters and parents come through the door. As expected, the parents were dressed in the nicest of clothes, some fathers even donned suits and the mothers all wore high heels he knew were extremely out of place at a skating rink. The skaters, mostly girls though a smattering of boys too, had their hair pulled back into pony tails or buns and wore overly expensive track suits or yoga pants and jackets with the club’s logo embroidered into them.
Most of them arrived in large numbers, all at once. It made him wonder if they traveled in packs. Gray was barely holding back a sneer as they all piled in, only because Mira was there greeting many of them alongside their coaches and knew she would have his head if he did. So he kept his head down, even as he finished setting up the last of the signs, standing up and turning around, starting to head back to the canteen where he would be left relatively in peace. Keeping your head down, though, doesn’t let you know where you’re going, so he wasn’t all the surprised when he ran right into someone.
“Shit,” Was the first thing out of Gray’s mouth. He reached out to steady the person, noting that they were close to falling backwards. “I’m sorry I wasn’t look—what are you going here?” He had gotten a good look at the person and noticed that it was none other than the odd girl, Juvia. She was dressed similarly to the other skaters that had already come in; black yoga pants, a black track jacket with the club’s logo on it that was so big on her he wasn’t sure it was actually hers and her hair hanging loose, Gray assumed because it was too short to fit in a ponytail.
He supposed it was the fact that he had just ran into her head first but her cheeks were flushed red, he was beginning to wonder if they were always like that, and she looked back at him with wide, blue eyes. “Juvia is going to her skating practice.” She replied with a shaky voice.
It was like he had just remembered how they first met. He was just surprised that she belonged to such a pretentious skating club. “Seriously? You skate with these guys?” He asked.
She was a little taken aback by his question and directed her gaze to the floor, shifting her feet. “Juvia’s father owns the club. Juvia may not be the best but she isn’t terrible and she would really like to improve.” She said trailing off a little at the end. It occurred to Gray how his previous question sounded, and how there was the possibility of her thinking he didn’t think she was good enough to skate with them.
Making an annoyed face, mostly annoyed with how he had to go and offend this girl, he rubbed at the back of his neck with one hand. He was about to apologize and clear up that he didn’t mean it like that when the sight of silver hair caught his eye.
Looking over Juvia’s head, he saw the last person he ever thought he would see again make his way over to the two of them. He stopped and didn’t even spare Gray a glance as he put a hand on Juvia’s back and said,
“Come on Juvia, if you don’t hurry we’ll be late.” It was only then that he seemed to realise Gray was even standing there. As soon as they met eyes, the atmosphere around the three changed to a tension so thick Gray wouldn’t be surprise if everyone else in the lobby could feel it. It was Lyon Vastia, Gray’s ex-adoptive brother.
“Lyon,” was all Gray said in a mixture of shock and annoyance that he had to see him again. Lyon’s expression had changed from calm and pleasant to annoyed and angry.
“Gray,” He replied angrily. While they had something similar to a stare off, Juvia was looking between the two, extremely confused.
“Eh? Lyon and Gray know each other?” She asked, hoping one of them would clear up what was happening between the two.
“You might say that,” Lyon replied tensely, still locking eyes with Gray. Gray was still in minor shock; the last time he saw Lyon wasn’t exactly the happiest of days. Part of the reason Gray moved to Canada instead of staying in the States where he used to live with his foster family, was to make sure he would never see any of those people again, including Lyon.
He broke eye contact to give Lyon a quick look over, he wore the figure skating club’s track pants but instead of the jacket to match, he just wore a regular white t shirt. Gray smirked.
“Still playing a girl’s sport I see.” He used to make fun of Lyon mercilessly for his choice in hobby and it never failed to piss Lyon off.
“Still jealous because I have actual talent I see.” Lyon replied, his gaze turning into a glare. The two glared at each other and Juvia felt increasingly more uncomfortable.
“Juvia,” A strong voice called out from behind her, she almost felt relieved that someone came to relieve the tension.
A tall man with a mustache and a creepy smile walked up to the trio and placed a hand on Juvia’s shoulder, giving a quick but menacing look to Lyon, who took his hand off her back and took a step away.
“You don’t have time to talk to the staff, Juvia. You have a practice to get ready for, now run along.” The man had a slimy sounding voice that gave Gray the creeps; he didn’t like him one bit, and he didn’t even know his name.
With a shy look from Juvia and a glare from Lyon, the two kept walking toward the changing rooms where the rest of the skaters had disappeared to moments before. As Juvia passed him, Gray couldn’t help but notice the last name stitched into the right sleeve of the jacket she was wearing: Vastia. He couldn’t say exactly why, but it pissed him off to no end that she was wearing Lyon’s jacket.
Once they were headed on their way, Gray looked up to the tall man and wasn’t exactly sure whether he should stay and chat or just walk away. If it were up to him, he would walk away without a care in the world, but upsetting one of these pretentious bastards would not be okay in Mira’s books.
The man just looked back to him, all attempts at pleasantries were dropped and he looked at Gray like he was the dirt on his shoes. “Don’t you have work to do, boy?” He sneered at him. Gray made up his mind that he hated him.
Just barely biting back a retort, he glared at the man and brushed past him to the canteen where he promptly walked in and slammed the door behind him. He stood there grumbling about stupid rich people and stupid Lyon while he started prepping. The cool air that came in from the rink helped calm him down, but he was still too rattled by seeing Lyon again and annoyed with the greasy man to really remember his unexpected encounter with Juvia.
In fact it wasn’t until about ten minutes later when the skaters started to warm up on the ice and the parents and scouts were taking their seats among the stands that he remembered she was skating that night. And that was because she came stumbling up to the window, obviously having trouble walking with blade-protected skates against the rubber mats. She leaned up against the counter, not wanting to support herself on wobbly feet, and they looked at each other blankly for a moment before Gray spoke up,
“Something I can get you?” A light blush covered her cheeks and she broke eye contact. One hand dug through the tight zip up hoodie she was now wearing and produced some change.
“Just a bottle of water please,” She handed over the change as he rang up her order through the register. Reaching into the fridge where all the drinks were kept, he handed her the water which she gladly accepted.
“Good luck out there,” he remarked, casually looking over her shoulder to the other skaters who were warming up.
“T-Thanks,” She stuttered out, surprised. As she walked away, Gray dragged his eyes from the rink to watch her retreating figure and tried to ignore the part of him that appreciated the way her dark leggings hugged her ass, showing off how it curved just right. He tried especially harder when she bent over to remove her skate guards and place them next to her sports bag on a bench by one of the entrances to the rink. He blamed it on the fact that he was a teenage boy and it would be nearly impossible to not notice a nice butt every once and again.
Once she stepped onto the ice, she glided effortlessly with a few strides and a new sense of confidence he remembered the first time he had seen her skate the other night. He noted how her shoulders dropped slightly and her chin was lifted a little higher. His eyes followed her as she glided around, and even when she skated right up to Lyon, who was also skating along the ice, dressed in the same white t shirt as before and similar tight, black pants as Juvia.
Gray smirked to himself at that, and almost ached to make fun of him for that one. But the feeling was quickly thrown off as he saw Juvia and Lyon take each other’s hands and begin to skate in synch. They made a few rounds of the rink before the faced each other, this time taking up both of the other’s hands and started to make their way in tighter circles, doing crossovers with their feet, all the while keeping concentration as they stared each other in the eyes.
They continued there warm up that way, sometimes facing each other and skating in perfect unison, or Lyon would be behind Juvia and they were facing the same direction, his hands on her waist to steady her as she glided on one foot, the other out to the side and her arms stretched out gracefully. He didn’t know why, but it really irked him seeing them skating like that, he put it down to having an immense distaste for Lyon, but it made him turn away from the rink completely, throwing all his focus on readying coffee and tea for the parents. At least he knew they weren’t dating now, or probably not anyway, they were just skating partner. All the less, he made a mental note to pester Juvia tomorrow at school for more information about his used-to-be-brother.
The next two hours were spent doing odd jobs around the canteen, mostly to do with cleaning as the parents and scouts weren’t exactly huge fans of cheap tea and coffee. It made it harder to not watch the skaters practice and show off their best for the scouts. For the most part, Gray would just roll his eyes at the boys and girls, even those in pairs that would smile extra big, throw winks and just come across as so much more fake than usual to impress the scouts. And from what he saw of those sitting in the stands, it worked for them.
But it was harder to keep his eyes from watching one pair in particular; Juvia and Lyon worked their way from demonstrating how effortlessly they made skating in synch look to some quite impressive throws and lifts. He was proud to say though, that despite Lyon taking apart in doing his best to show off for the scouts, Juvia appeared to have forgotten that the practice was an extra special one where scouts were attending, and looked to be off in her own world most of the time.
By the time the practice had wrapped up, Gray was more than glad to clean out the pots and heaters that had kept the beverages warm. Unfortunately, he had spent the majority of his time cleaning so now that it was closing time, no cleaning had to be done. That and apparently competitive figure skaters and parents had bad habits of sticking around to chat. This meant no sneaking on to the ice for his own skating time for a while, and required a lot of stalling, now that his excuse of cleaning up was gone.
So to kill time, Gray insisted on helping Mira take down signs, do small jobs, even insisted on staying longer when Mira said he was free to go home early. Although, Gray couldn’t tell if she said that out of consideration for him or because he was moving at the pace of a snail and doing a half-assed job at helping out.
In the time spent in and around the lobby, Gray was met with numerous glares, mostly coming from Lyon, which he gladly returned, but even a few coming from the creepy-smile guy from before, which Gray was also happy to return. It was unpleasant, but he figured it wasn’t too bad.
By the time all the figure skaters and their affiliates were out of the arena, and Mira had staggered to her car, dragging her feet with exhaustion, it was late; later than the usual. Gray didn’t mind though, when it came to skating and being irrevocably free for once, he didn’t mind if he lost an hour of two of sleep.
So you can imagine his frustration, his anger and his overwhelming sense of desperation when he rummaged through the lost and found box to come up empty handed, the left behind skates he had been borrowing that were so conveniently his size were gone. At first, he just thought he had missed them, prompting him to search a little more viciously through the various discarded items. When that still turned up nothing, Gray actually jumped over the front desk completely, hoping and praying that the skates had just fallen out of the box somehow, that they would be lying on the ground beneath the front counter and he would recover from his minor freak out and carry on with his routine. But it just wasn’t his day; there were no shabby hockey skates underneath the desk and with a look around the general vicinity, the whole reception area was void of the skates.
“Fuck,” He swore in frustration, straightening up and roughly shoving his hands through his hair, effectively mussing it up so it pointed in every which direction.
“Did you lose something?” A voice asked from behind him, surprising him and making him whip around to the direction of the speaker. Sure enough, Juvia was standing on the opposite side of the desk, staring at him with cautious blue eyes.
“What are you doing here?” He blurted out, momentarily replacing his anger and panic with confusion as to why she was there when he had almost been certain he was the last one to leave the arena.
She shrugged and looked down at her hands before answering, “Juvia likes being at the rink by herself,” Her voice went up at the end, almost like was questioning what she had just said. “It’s calming,” she said the last part more quietly than the first, as if she was trying to defend her choices but wasn’t sure she wanted to defend herself.
“Oh,” Was all Gray said in response, too tired and emotionally conflicted to think of something more intelligent to say. They stood there, awkwardly looking at each as the silence dragged on, neither of them knowing what to say or do.
“So, did you, um, lose something?” Juvia repeated after the silence was too heavy for her to bear any longer.
“Right,” Gray said, looking back down at the ground, as if he just remembered what he was looking for. Slowly, a crease between his eyebrows grew as he frowned deeply, remembering exactly what he was looking for. The skates must have been picked up by their actual owner earlier in the day, which left him with no skates to use and meant that he wasn’t going to be skating until someone else lost a pair of skates in his exact size or he managed to rack up enough money to buy a pair of his own. But with his current financial situation, even the unlikely hood of the former happening was more likely than the latter happening.
He remembered that Juvia was still standing there, waiting for a response from the question she had asked twice now. “Yes. Well, no,” He replied to her. “Actually yeah. I mean kind of; you can’t really lose something that’s not yours. Or something you shouldn’t be touching in the first place.” Juvia just nodded, her mouth forming a silent ‘oh’ like she understood what he was saying, but the confusion that was clear across her face was a dead giveaway that what he was blabbering made no sense.
“Sorry,” He said dimly, taking the lost and found box off the counter and back in its place beneath the same counter. “I’m not using the rink tonight so if you want extra practice the rink’s all yours.” He mumbled, hopping back over the counter and walking past Juvia towards the rink. He may not be able to skate, but he’d be damned if he wasn’t going to go and brood in the stands and at least enjoy being at the rink despite not being able to skate.
He pushed through the doors and couldn’t help feeling the ache in his chest as he was hit with the cooler air. Ignoring the twinging, Gray made his way to up the stands, to promptly plop down on a hard bench exactly in the middle of the stands.
What he didn’t expect was to see Juvia sit down to his left; Gray hadn’t even realised she had followed him out of the lobby and to the stands. He would’ve assumed that after he left the lobby, she would’ve headed to the rink right away, excited by the fact that she could easily have an hour or more of free time and a full rink to herself to practice.
He gave her a look that with no words perfectly conveyed what he was thinking; ‘What the fuck are you doing?’. Too bad she was pointedly not looking at him, more focused on staring at the rink; her cheeks were dusted with a pink that Gray almost believed was a result of being in the colder temperature.
“Aren’t you going to skate?” He grumbled at her, mainly confused as to why someone would ever not take a chance to skate.
“Juvia already skated today,” She responded, still looking forward.
“Do you have a daily skating limit or something?” Gray sneered. Usually he wasn’t this abrasive to those who hadn’t really done anything wrong to him, but combined with his frustration over the skates from the lost and found being taken and rendering him skate-less, he couldn’t help but feel angry that Juvia was perfectly capable to skate her little heart out with her own pair own pair of skates but instead decided to sit with him. It felt like she was mocking him, even though he knew it wasn’t her intention.
“N-No. Juvia just thought you needed someone to talk to,” Her guilty face should’ve brought a satisfaction to Gray for successfully making her feel like shit, but instead it just made him feel like shit; more than he already did, anyway.
“Well I don’t,” He snapped back. Gray wasn’t one for talking about his feelings. Lucy had been the only one to this date that could get anything beyond a simple ‘I’m in a shitty mood’ out of him, and even then she had to work at getting that much. But he had to admit it, he kind of did want to vent.
He was reflecting on how nice the possibility of having someone to just bitch at about everything that was pissing him off seemed to him when Juvia stood up.
“Juvia is sorry for disturbing you and she will be leaving now,” She said, slowly walking down the aisle, away from him. “She also hopes you feel better tomorrow.” She added. Gray clenched his teeth at the last part. ‘Damn women and their damn intuition’, he thought to himself. Try as he may, although, his annoyance didn’t run deep and didn’t stay around for long, prompting him to speak up just as she reached the end of the aisle and started her descent down the stairs.
“Wait, Juvia,” He started, sighing audibly. “I’m sorry I snapped at you, I’m just irritated.” She brightened at hearing this, and started to make her way back to sit down beside him once more. The way that there was a new light in her eyes and a slight bounce in her step reminded Gray of a puppy who had just been told off and but then offered a treat.
“So, does Gray want to talk about it?” She asked tilting her head slightly to the right, that he found way too endearing for his own good.
“Not really,” He frowned at the way her shoulders dropped slightly. Turning back to face the ice, they sat in silence for a moment before he continued. “I really love skating alright?” From the corner of his eye he saw her perk up again. “I just can’t afford a pair of skates right now and so I’ve been using this pair that was left in the lost and found but they must have been picked up by the owner or something because they’re gone now. So no more skates for me,” He explained, giving her a quick glance out of the corner of his eye; she was practically leaning forward, on the edge of her seat, listening to what he had been saying like he was telling an amazing story instead of a pitiful explanation of why he was upset.
“Juvia is sorry to hear that,” She said with earnest. Gray just shrugged it off; there was a time in his life where he had heard too many people say the exact same thing to him so now the phrase just sounded like a pile of bullshit. “Perhaps there will be another pair of skates left in the lost and found?” She phrased it like a question, but Gray couldn’t help but hear how amazingly hopeful she sounded over the aspect of another person with the same size of feet as him losing a pair of skates. He scoffed, but smiled slightly, silently grateful to see such hope for something so insignificant.
“I think the chances of that happening any time soon are lower than being able to afford a pair for myself,”
“Gray shouldn’t give up hope! Juvia believes something good will happen to you!” Her face was set in a determined look and she had both hands fisted in her lap. Gray smiled again; how was it that this girl cared so much about the happiness of someone she barely knew? Either way, he liked it, and even for a second he let himself believe that she was right and everything was going to work out in a not completely shitty way.
“Thanks,” He said bumping her shoulder lightly with his. They sat there in silence for a while, both wrapped up in their own thoughts to bother at even attempting to make conversation. A few times, Gray noticed that Juvia looked like she wanted to say something, to ask him a question. After playing a guessing game with himself over what she wanted to say, Gray came up with the conclusion that she probably wanted to ask about Lyon, and how they knew each other. It seemed like she and Lyon were skating partners, and while Gray knew next to nothing about the sport, he was smart enough to figure out that the relationship between skating partners had to be a close one. So it wasn’t hard guess that she was curious about how her partner knew Gray and why they appeared to loathe each other.
But it was either that she was too shy to ask or figured that he didn’t want her to pry because she never broke the silence between them. He was thankful for that; his past was something Lyon held a huge part of and something he didn’t like talking about to anyone. Not even Lucy knew the full story and she knew the most of all his friends.
Eventually, it grew to be late and Gray’s mood lightened enough to warrant not having an over whelming desire to be a moody teenager sulking in the stands of an arena. Once outside, Gray noticed that she didn’t have a car waiting for her to jump into to get home, or any method of getting home safely at that hour.
“How are you getting home?” He asked while locking the front doors.
“Juvia will just be walking home,” She replied, tucking a strand of short hair behind her ear, avoiding making eye contact.
“How far away do you live?” He was a little sceptical.
“Not that far. It’s only a twenty minute walk,” He knew she was trying to be casual about it.
“That’s pretty far considering it’s almost one A.M.” He frowned at her. She just smiled awkwardly and waved her hands at him.
“No, no it’s fine really. Juvia is used to walking home at night,”
“Being used to it and it being right aren’t the same thing,” He dug around in his jacket pocket for a moment before pulling out two brightly coloured squares of paper, slightly bent and dog-eared from being in his pocket. “Here, take the bus home. I’ll come with you to make sure you don’t get yourself lost or something.” He extended the bus tickets out to her, but she just looked at them like they were small bombs that he had asked her to light. Sighing loudly, Gray physically took one of her hands and shoved the bus tickets into them, making sure was closed her hand around them before starting to walk to the bus station that was a few meters down the road from the arena. She was stunned silent for a moment before she ran to catch up to him.
“Why did you give Juvia two?” She asked when she was walking by his side.
“Because that’s how many you need to get on one bus,” He answered, giving her a crooked look. Had this girl never ridden a city bus before?
“Juvia doesn’t understand why they didn’t just make one ticket instead of two,” Gray just shrugged his shoulders in response, mainly because he didn’t really understand it either. As they continued their short walk, Juvia stared at the tickets like they were all of a sudden going to grow a mouth and explain why there were two and not one.
Once they had arrived at the bus stop, Gray started to rummage around in his pockets and his bag to retrieve any spare coins he could.
“What are you doing?” Juvia asked him. ‘Man, this girl is full of questions’, Gray thought to himself.
“I’m looking for spare coins,” He responded.
“Why?”
He should have seen that one coming. “There are three ways to get on the bus; a bus pass, bus tickets, or paying the fare in coins. I don’t have a bus pass and you have the last of my bus tickets so I’m left with having to pay the fare.” Juvia frowned and looked like she was going to object to him giving her his last tickets, so he interjected to explain before she could even ask. “Usually you can get away with not paying the whole fee when you’ve got lots of coins. Sometimes they question you about it though and I think you would probably start crying if that were to happen to you.” She blushed heavily and stayed quiet, making a small smirk appear on Gray’s face when she essentially confirmed his suspicions.
Thankfully, the bus appeared not too long after Gray gathered enough coins to be able to pass as the expected three dollars and forty-five cents. He let Juvia get on first, and silently pointed to where she was supposed to slide the tickets in, and to where she needed to pick up her transfer. He then dropped his handful of coins into a similar console, giving a driver a quick glance to see if they were going to challenge Gray at all. But to his delight, the driver had barely paid any notice to them as they got on, probably too tired from having been driving around all day and gotten stuck with one of the late night routes.
The bus was pretty quiet, Gray noted as they got moving. It was nothing new as most people weren’t bussing around at one in the morning. He was glad though, it meant that there was no one to be loud and annoying and it ensure that he and Juvia could sit together; he would really feel bad if she got stuck sitting next to some weird guy that smelt like mouldy cheese.
Once they were seated, he answered all her questions she had about the bus, from what the transfers were (“Proof of payment so you don’t get accused of having snuck on the bus. That and they let you get on other busses within the next hour and a half without having to pay again.”) to the way the different bus routes worked.
True to her word, she didn’t live far away and they were soon coming up to the stop he knew was the closest to the address she had previously told him. “Okay, we’re getting off at the next stop.” He said as he pulled the cord that ran along the side of the bus, signalling to the driver they wanted to get off at the next stop.
When they had pulled close to the stop and the automated voice announced the name of the station, Juvia stood up quickly, like she didn’t want the bus driver to think they weren’t actually getting off and keep driving.
“No need to be so hasty there,” Gray said as he stood much more slowly, positioning himself to be slightly more behind her, anticipating what would happen next. Much to his amusement, he was correct in his assumptions; when the bus made a full stop, Juvia was not ready for the jerk she got and was thrown off balance, trying to reach out to grab something to steady herself, but ultimately falling back into Gray’s chest and waiting hands. He gripped her arm with one hand while the other one was keeping both of them from toppling over and was gripped around a hand grip hanging from the ceiling.
“You okay?” He asked her, not even trying to hide the smile on his face. She just blushed and stammered an apology. She was still a stuttering mess when they stepped off the bus and Gray was laughing by the time it drove away. “C’mon, you need to get home before you trip over a flat surface,” He teased her. They made a short walk to her house, which was grand to say the least. Really, Gray considered it less of a house and more of a mansion.
“Thank you for walking me home, Gray,” She said as they stood at the end of her driveway.
“Don’t mention it,” He rubbed at the back of his neck. “Erza would have my ass if she found out I let someone walk home at night be themselves,” For a moment he forgot that she may not know who Erza was, but when she didn’t look confused he figured Erza was notorious enough to be known be everyone. And then remembered she was also student council president. He blamed the late night on his slow uptake.
“Anyway, I’ll see you tomorrow,” And with a slight wave of his hand, he was walking back towards the bus station.
“Good night,” He heard her say from behind him. When he got back to the bus station and onto the next bus going in his direction, he leaned back into his seat and let his eyes slide closed. He realised happily that he hadn’t been this relaxed in a while, and he hadn’t even had to go skating to achieve it.