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The first time it happened, Ultear shrugged it off. It was on a party and Erza Scarlet was rather drunk – which was horrible, no one should ever let the redhead anywhere near alcohol – and while she clung to her girlfriend’s arm, she ranted. And whenever Erza ranted, everyone around her was doomed.
Right now, Ultear doubted that it had been a good idea to let the girl who had a ridiculous low alcohol tolerance date the girl who had worked in a bar once to pay for her studies. But then, it was hardly her place to say something, especially since they were happy and this was, according to Jellal who was something like Erza’s best friend and brother figure all wrapped in one, all that really mattered.
Nonetheless, Ultear wanted to splash cold water all over Erza the moment the redhead threw her a crooked grin and sat down on the bench next to her, the formerly neat braid having come undone a while ago, somewhere between dancing, drinking and kissing. “So, ‘tear,” Erza started and the black-haired girl flinched inwardly because her mother was the only one who called her that – which was because Ur was the only one too stubborn to care whenever Ultear complained – and because she was not drunk enough for anything like this.
And only an idiot could miss the warning that something bad was about to happen, especially since Mirajane – the aforementioned girlfriend – was smirking widely behind her glass.
“Yes, Erza?” she asked with a sigh as she mused whether or not she should decide against being rude and leaving the couple in favour of another drink. It was a tempting idea; especially since it was doubtful that they would really notice that she left them alone with themselves and their drinks.
However, it was Mirajane who flicked back a strand of her hair before she gave up any attempts on saving her hairdo and just let it down completely. “Erza an’ I were talking,” the teacher-to-be said as she leaned over and reached for the bowl of olives. “So, you and Jellal?”
Ultear was taken aback. She was not even sure what she had been expecting from this conversation but she could say for sure that it had not been this. The surprising aspect was that Mira was widely considered to be the best matchmaker on the campus and the tales of her skill and her success had travelled right.
(Not many would have been able to guess that Ultear’s ex-roommate and Hibiki’s ex-girlfriend would ever make a good couple but as it had turned out, Mirajane had been right there.)
Which did not mean that she was right now as well because Ultear was not dating Jellal and had no interest in changing this fact either, no matter how many times her mother tsk-ed at her and told her that they would make a good couple. Ur was being delusional there, really.
“Huh?” she asked back as she frowned at the both young women, once more remembering their ridiculous nicknames. Depending on who was asked, Mira was frequently likened to a demon while Erza got, apparently, away with a nicer nickname which implied, however, a certain tendency for overly competitive behaviour.
“Jellal,” Erza said, her voice holding a trace of impatience now. “You know, tall, odd red tattoo, blue hair – you hang around with him a lot.”
“I know who you are talking about, no worries,” she replied as she scratched her neck, the frown on her face deepening, “but no, we aren’t dating.”
And under usual circumstances, this should have been enough to bury the topic for the next hundred years but, only a week later, Jellal showed up at the coffee shop where they usually met up to study between classes when it would be pointless to go to the dorms and his facial expression spoke volumes about his confusion. For a moment, Ultear was tempted to curse her mother into the depths of hell over ever saying that nothing was making a usually serious man looking more ‘adorable’ – Ur’s word, not Ultear’s – than a confused expression.
“Ultear,” he greeted as he placed the cup that contained with high probability some sort of extremely sugary drink. “…did you hear already that we’re dating?”
So for the first time in half an eternity, Jellal was actually informed about the gossip about him. If the situation was less annoying, Ultear would have marked the day down in her calendar but as it seemed, this could only be translated as Mirajane Strauss being dissatisfied with the results of asking Ultear about it and spreading the rumour all over the campus.
“Are we?” she asked back as she stirred more honey into her ear although she knew fully well that Lyon inform her that it was pointless to choose honey over sugar for ‘health purposes’ if the honey was put into too hot liquids and right now, that was what she was doing.
“Well, according to Hibiki, yes, we are,” he said with a shrug as he opened his bag to get a hold on his copy of the book that was on the list of recommended works for all students.
“…did Hibiki mention where he heard this?” she asked with a groan as she wondered if it was too late to drop out of university to pursue another way of life, one that was hopefully not paved with gossip-spreading morons who liked to make her life harder than it had to be. And considering that Ultear had grown up with two younger brothers and parents who could be described as eccentric, it took more than just a tad bit of annoyance for her to lose her patience with people completely.
“He didn’t really tell me; I think he was talking to that kid genius,” he replied as he took a sip, his movements making it painfully obvious that he was on his guard, waiting for her to explode.
“My money’s on Strauss,” Ultear muttered grimly as she looked out of the window, trying to get her thoughts into some kind of order. A part of her had always liked coffee shops because one of her early childhood memories was going out to buy new things with her mother – and without anyone else – and sitting in a café, surrounded by countless bags and listening to the silly music made her remember these days.
“I actually believe that they came up with it themselves,” Jellal said as his shoulders lost tension and he flipped open his book. “I guess it looks like we’re dating to many people.”
Which was part of the reason why Ultear actively questioned quite a few of the people she had to deal with on nearly daily basis. They were perhaps not oblivious but they had the habit of looking too hard for something to talk about and frequently neglected the truth.
“If they did, I’m nearly impressed,” she huffed as she held out her hand in an absentminded manner before she closed it around the pen he had handed her. “It’s surprisingly creative.”
He chuckled as he ran a hand through his messy hair and yawned. “Are you going home next month?” he asked as he rested his thumb on the page, marking where he had left off.
“It’s Gray’s birthday so yeah,” she replied as she furrowed her brows before marking a word in furious red and looking up at him. “Family values matter to my parents.”
She always had had a feeling that it was mostly her mother who was the driving force behind all the more or less mandatory family activities but then, she remembered that her father had been orphaned at a young age and never had had many family experiences so he likely wanted to do both, make up for what he had missed and ensure his children made the experiences.
“Sounds like it’s going to be interesting,” Jellal said with a shrug.
“Understatement of the century,” she sighed as she took a sip of her tea. Whenever her mother’s family decided to celebrate something, they did it properly and since they had the money, there was little that remained impossible for them once they put their mind into it.
“You should keep me updated then while Erza and Mira drag me from one party to the next,” he said with a warm smile that was always weird because half of the time, he was either calm or nearly stoic and so whenever he smiled like this, it was … nice. Very nice, actually.
“Or, you know,” she started as she scratched her neck – a behaviourism copied from her father – and looked at him, “you could just come along with me. My mom wouldn’t mind.”
Her father, on the other hand, would more than certainly mind but this was because he was the text book definition of overprotective father – her mother liked to make jokes about this, usually by reminding him of his own wild days which frequently caused him to look at her in a pained way and to whisper “That’s exactly why I’m like this, Bambi” and this marked the point at which Ultear always stopped to listen because she did not need another retelling of her parents’ days at the university although she was certain that those were rather wild days, too.
“You know, if I accompany you to your little brother’s birthday, they’ll never stop saying that we’re dating,” Jellal said and in this very moment, Ultear rationally understood where the rumours had come from in the first place. Whoever had been the first one to suggest it had probably noticed that Jellal and Ultear did a lot of couple-y stuff together without actually being a couple. They went out to watch movies every once in a while or had dinner in fancy places after acing exams. Or now, her offer to take him along to a family celebration, an offer she had not even thought about because it had seemed just natural.
So maybe, Mira and Erza and everyone else had been right and they had indeed behaved like they were seeing each other without actually dating. And frankly, Ultear could not bring herself to care much about this because as far as she was concerned, there could be worse people she might be supposedly dating than Jellal Fernandes. Or even actually be dating.
“Well,” she started awkwardly as she thought back to how they had met and how they had become friends and everything else, “I … personally don’t mind all those rumours. Do you?”
He was silent for a moment and as she knew him well, she could tell that he was fighting with himself, that there was something he wanted to say but was not sure about yet. “Guess I do,” he said after a second, “but that is … well, I wouldn’t mind all those rumours – or at least some of them – to be true.”
For a moment, she was taken aback by this before she ran her hand through her hair and closed the book she had been working in for the past half hour. “Well, lucky for us, we’re on the same page here,” she said calmly as she realised that it was a good step up from her last relationship – the one that had ended in an ugly way – that it felt like the natural consequence for their current friendship to become more.