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“Is there something on my face?”
Levy’s soft voice breaks Gajeel out of his trance. They’re at their first real date (although Levy likes to argue that it’s their second date) at the Wildflower Bookstore and Cafe. It had books and a seating area for normal cafe business and Gajeel specifically chose this place because he knew how much Levy loved books plus the ambiance in the cafe was nice and cozy.
Levy was sitting across him with a book they bought earlier (that Gajeel insisted that he paid) and two slices of cake on the table. Levy had her usual bandana tied on her hair as its soft waves framed her face beautifully. The light from the window makes the golden specks in her brown eyes glow much more captivating as usual and her skin glow. You can’t blame Gajeel for staring, they’re hypnotizing.
“No,” he says, removing his face from his hand “There isn’t anything there”
She squints at him, not quite believing what he said. Gajeel continues giving her a soft smile. She dismisses it and decides to continue talking. This time, Gajeel makes jokes, comments and laughs with her.
It’s been a month since Gajeel took care of sick Levy and the two haven’t really been able to make plans for another date because, for some reason, their school decided to make them do tests for a couple of weeks. Not exams everyone, tests. The smaller scale version of an exam for absolutely no reason. Levy couldn’t help Gajeel with studying but she gave him a step-by-step plan on how to study for them. Wanting to impress her, he follows it and manages to fill the whole paper within the given time.
They do manage to meet at school and have lunch together. Gajeel lets the fact that he does music slip once during one of their meetings. Embarrassed, he tried to backpedal and convince Levy that he didn’t but she was more interested at the fact he’s trying to cover up that he does music.
“You should let me hear some of your music some time,” she says softly, so soft that Gajeel had to strain his ears to hear it. She got up to leave when the bell rung and Gajeel became a flustered mess.
Back to the present. Levy has been talking about the book they just got and for some reason, Gajeel utters out “You should read it to me,” Levy’s eyes light up saying how it’s a great idea and how they should do it in the park as it looked relatively empty, completely ignoring the fact that Gajeel was blushing.
They start walking around until they find a shady tree where the grass looks relatively clean and dry enough to sit on. They position themselves where Levy is resting her back on Gajeel’s chest as his arms wrap around her waist while Levy opens up the book and begins reading out loud. Gajeel closes his eyes. He breathes deep and feels the calmness surrounding them as the wind blows softly at their directions, the distant sounds of children playing with their friends and family and most importantly Levy’s soft voice bringing the calm together making the perfect ambiance for this slightly cloudy weather.
Gajeel is listening to her but not completely. His mind is filled with the times where he would be very shy whenever he’s around her and how red he would get whenever it happened. How Levy always smiled and giggled whenever that happened and comforts him with soft tones. It was times like this where Gajeel’s heart falls and rolls off to the face of the Earth as he falls in love with her again, and again.
“Oh my!” Levy exclaims “I didn’t realise the sun is already going down!” she looks up from her book to the sky. Gajeel breaks out of his slumber-like trance at her exclamation.
“I guess we’ve been here for so long, we didn’t realise time passed.” he takes in his surroundings. The park has significantly fewer people and there are no more screaming children since it’s probably dinner time already. Gajeel quickly takes out his phone.
“SHit, I wonder what year it is already,” he jokes. Levy turns around to watch him as he smiles. “Nope, still the same year. We could’ve been time travelers,” Levy laughs. He can’t help but join her.
Levy stands up after the laughter had died down. “We should really get going,” she says, as she tucks a lock of hair behind her ear. For the second time that day, Gajeel stared in awe at Levy.
A gentle breeze blew their way and Levy’s blue, wavy hair flowed along. The dusk light made her glow as she smiled at him. Gajeel so desperately wanted to take a photo as the sky was the perfect backdrop for a photo like this but he knows that no camera would be able to capture the beauty and perfection in front of him.
It is here that he’s reminded that Levy is a wanted girl in school and has admirers lining up to date her yet here she is, on their first(read: second) date and he’s already held her in his arms.
“Hey, Gajeel? Are you okay?” she asked. She’s looking at him with worried eyes. He’s been quite out of it ever since their date started and she’s beginning to worry that she has been an absolute bore throughout the entire thing.
Gajeel, however, doesn’t realise that’s how she felt and heats up at the thought of her worrying about it. What was supposed to be a calm,cool answer, he stammers out “J-Join me for dinner!”
Levy is a little shocked, to say the least. She thought she was being a terrible date but the flush on Gajeel says otherwise. He’s looking at her with expectant eyes that are still in shock from the outburst. She realises that she is in fact not a bad date and he wants to still be with her .
“Sure,” she smiles “Where are we going?”
The Edolas Cat Cafe just so happened to be right outside the park and Gajeel was almost immediately run down by the cats there. Levy giggled at the sight of Gajeel trying his best to detach their claws from him and putting them down. It was only after they found a table were they finally free from the felines, except one.
It was a brown cat with bear-like ears and a scar along the side of his eye. It stared Gajeel down from its position on the floor as if it was judging him silently. After the couple ordered their food, the cat pounced onto Gajeel’s lap and curled itself into a ball, completely disregarding if the person wanted to or not.
Gajeel strokes the cat’s hair softly and lets it sit on his lap. He continues talking to Levy while gently petting the cat because cats just walk away after a while. Halfway through, the cat jumps off Gajeel’s lap only to pounce to Levy’s. She giggles about it but he feels an odd sense of jealousy, either for the cat being on Levy’s lap or Levy being able to pet the cat.
It doesn’t really matter because Levy is looking at him with her sparkling eyes and their conversation continues with the occasional cat petting.
They leave to pay and the cat rubs itself on Gajeel’s legs. Levy bends down to give one last petting and leaves with Gajeel. They walk by bright shop lots, giggling along to jokes made. They arrive at Levy’s apartment complex and Gajeel is a little down that their date is ending.
“I had an amazing time today, Gajeel” they’re at her door and he doesn’t want to let her know he doesn’t want it to end. “Yeah, me too,” he replies. She fishes out her keys and opens the door.
“Well, I’ll see you around,” she said quietly. Gajeel knows she should rest and they can always see each other in school. “See ya,”
The door closes and he turns to walk away. The date went smoothly and it was great. That was all he ever wanted. He hears the door open and he turns around only to see Levy running towards him.
“Levy? What’s wro-” he gets cut off by her lips.
It was short but it was enough for his mind to overload and essentially shut down. He’s 1000% sure that he’s red in the face when she pulled away.
“Just forgot something,” she gives him a few more pecks before bidding him good night and closing the door.
He stands in the hallway frozen for a few good minutes before mindlessly walking towards the elevator, pressing the button, going down and exiting the building. It was only then when he burst into a happy fellow, grinning from ear to ear and doing victory jumps. A car honks him and brings him back to the reality that he is in public.
He straightens himself up and attempts to calmly walk away. Attempt being the key word because he can’t help himself from smiling. What he doesn’t see is a certain blue-haired girl giggling from her balcony as she watches him.