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The rowdy atmosphere of the Fairy Tail guild was exactly what Lucy Heartfilia had come to expect, but looking back, she realized the signs had been there since her very first day.
On the day she was officially branded with her guild mark, the hall had exploded into its usual chaotic brawl. Chairs flew, tables shattered, and at the center of the madness, Natsu Dragneel and Gray Fullbuster were locked in a fierce, forehead-to-forehead glare. What Lucy had found strange even then—though she had been too overwhelmed by her new surroundings to fully process it—was that while Gray was actively threatening to dye Natsu's hair blue, his hand was resting firmly against Natsu’s hip to balance himself. Natsu, meanwhile, had his fingers loosely hooked into the belt loop of Gray’s trousers while screaming about stripping habits.
At the time, Lucy had just shivered and thought, ‘Wow, the people in this guild have absolutely no concept of personal space.’
As the months passed, the little anomalies kept piling up, forcing Lucy into a state of perpetual, exhausting rationalization. She saw the way Gray would slide a drink toward Natsu or the way Natsu would instinctively shift his weight to act as a shield against a draft. Every time she felt a pang of suspicion, she forced the behavior into the mental box labeled "Rivalry," even when the pieces clearly didn't fit.
She tried asking others, desperate for a sanity check.
One afternoon, she cornered Gajeel near the mission board. "Gajeel, be honest. You spend a lot of time around them. Do you ever think... I don't know, that Natsu and Gray are more than just rivals?"
Gajeel snorted, picking a piece of metal out of his teeth. "What, you think they're dating? Nah, Bunny Girl. They’re just two idiots who don't know how to express their 'rivalry' without getting into each other's personal space. Trust me, if they liked each other, I’d know. It’s just testosterone and stupidity."
Lucy had sighed, defeated. ‘If Gajeel doesn't see it, I must be crazy,’ she thought.
But then came the mission returns. She watched as they came back from a job, both covered in soot and minor scrapes. While everyone else was grabbing drinks, Gray was quietly dabbing ointment on a cut on Natsu’s cheek, his brow furrowed in concentration. When he finished, he flicked Natsu’s forehead. Natsu just grumbled, “You missed a spot, ice-breath,” and leaned into the touch. Lucy had watched the guild members walk right past them, completely unbothered, as if that level of intimacy was standard procedure for mortal enemies.
Then came the rainy Tuesday when the guild was surprisingly quiet. Lucy had looked over at a booth and seen Gray sound asleep, his head resting solidly on Natsu’s thigh. Natsu didn't even look down; he was just absentmindedly playing with a stray ice-fidget toy with one hand while eating a giant chicken leg with the other. Every few minutes, Natsu would lean slightly to the side to block the draft from the front door, effectively shielding Gray from the chill.
Lucy had rubbed her temples, trying to make sense of it. ‘Okay,’ she reasoned, ‘Natsu is a Dragon Slayer, so his body heat is basically a human radiator. Gray is an ice mage, but maybe he gets cold in the rain and is just using Natsu like a stolen blanket to be annoying.’
But the absolute breaking point happened when she saw Natsu casually eating a fire-cooked meat skewer right out of Gray’s hand. Gray hadn't even looked away from the request board; he had just held the skewer out blindly, and Natsu had leaned in and taken a bite. No fighting. No yelling. Just a perfectly synchronized, domestic motion that shattered her carefully constructed narrative.
Deciding she was finally losing her mind, Lucy leaned over the bar toward Mirajane, determined to get to the bottom of the guild's weirdest dynamic. "Hey, Mira? Random question. Are Natsu and Gray... close?"
Mira beamed, wiping down a glass with an angelic smile. "Oh, absolutely! They’ve been rivals since they were kids. They fight constantly, but they really do care about each other as brothers."
Brothers don't share skewers like that, Lucy thought, her eye twitching. She turned her head and saw Cana chugging a barrel of beer nearby. "Cana, let me ask you. Have you ever seen Natsu and Gray out in Magnolia together? Like, just the two of them?"
"All the time," Cana laughed, wiping her mouth and shuffling her cards. "Usually at a restaurant or down by the river. They always claim they just 'ran into each other' and started fighting over who gets to sit where. Classic idiots. Why do you ask?"
"No reason," Lucy whispered, pinching the bridge of her nose. Everyone in this guild was completely blind. The mixed signals were burning a hole in her brain. They had to be dating. They had to be. But the entire guild was acting like they were just overly aggressive roommates who hated each other's guts.
Taking a deep breath, Lucy stood up from the bar. She marched straight over to the table where Natsu and Gray had finally stopped swinging fists and were now sitting side-by-side, their shoulders pressed firmly together.
Lucy slid into the booth right across from them. She crossed her arms and stared them down, determined to end the madness.
"Alright, I can't take the suspense anymore," Lucy said, keeping her voice level. "How long have the two of you been dating?"
Natsu didn't even blink. He swallowed a giant mouthful of meat and answered instantly, "Almost two years."
The entire guild hall dropped into a sudden, suffocating silence.
The clinking of beer mugs stopped. A chair that Elfman had been about to throw froze mid-air. Macao dropped his pipe right into his lap.
Happy, who had been happily munching on a fish right next to Natsu, froze entirely. The fish slipped from his paws, hitting the table with a soft thud. He slowly turned his head, his eyes dinner-plate wide as he looked up at his partner.
"Wait..." Happy squeaked, his voice cracking dramatically. "Are you guys actually dating?!"
Natsu paused, his fork halfway to his mouth, looking genuinely confused by the blue cat's reaction. "Yeah? Obviously. Why are you surprised? You literally helped me plan our date last week."
Happy’s jaw dropped so low it practically hit the floor. He let out an incredibly shocked, high-pitched yell. "I DID!?!"
"Yeah," Natsu frowned, scratching his head. "I asked you what kind of fish Gray liked, and you told me to get him the shiny, expensive trout, so I did."
"I thought you were just making a peace offering so he wouldn't freeze your underwear again!" Happy screamed, clutching his head in sheer, unadulterated disbelief.
Gray stopped mid-sip of his drink. He slowly lowered his glass, his dark eyes scanning the room. He took in the wide eyes, the dropped jaws, and the completely frozen postures of every single mage in the building. He looked back at Natsu, then at Lucy's triumphant but slightly exhausted expression.
"Wait a minute," Gray said, his voice cautious and suddenly very self-conscious. "Did you guys... not know?"
Before anyone could formulate a coherent sentence, Natsu slammed his hands onto the table, standing up in utter confusion. "Wait, nobody knew?! I thought you all knew! We were together for a year and a half before she even joined! We weren't trying to hide it at all!"
"You fight every five minutes!" Wakaba yelled from across the room, breaking his stunned silence.
"Yeah, because he's annoying and he steals the blankets!" Natsu yelled back, waving his arms. "But we've been holding hands in public for almost two years now! We walked into the guild holding hands on our first anniversary!"
"We thought you were trying to break each other's fingers in a test of strength!" Macao shouted.
"I literally wore one of Gray's shirts last week! It has his name on the tag!" Natsu argued, pointing emphatically to his chest.
"We thought you stole it to mock his stripping habit!" Jet and Droy cried out in unison.
Suddenly, the dam broke. The entire guild exploded into a chaotic uproar of intense discussions. People were grabbing each other by the shoulders, frantically putting together all the pieces they had completely brushed off for years.
"Oh my god," Mirajane gasped, clutching her cheeks, her matchmaking senses tingling in retro-active overdrive. "That time Natsu complained about the cold but refused to move away from Gray's ice magic... it wasn't a durability challenge! He just wanted to be close to him!"
"And when Gray kept buying extra spicy food and complaining it was 'garbage' before sliding it to Natsu... he was just buying him lunch!" Loke realized, facepalming hard.
"They ran into each other at the park because they were on an actual date!" Cana yelled, slamming her beer down. "I literally watched them share a crepe and I thought Natsu was just trying to bite Gray's hand off!"
In the middle of the crowd, Juvia Lockser stood entirely frozen, a dark, swirling storm cloud instantly forming directly over her head. Her eyes darted wildly between Gray, Natsu, and Lucy. "Wait..." she whispered, her voice trembling with a mix of shock and intense calculation. "If Gray-sama has been dating Natsu for nearly two years... then Lucy-san is not Juvia's love rival?!"
She pointed a shaking, dramatic finger straight at a startled Natsu. "It was you! The fire idiot is Juvia's true nemesis! A rival of flames and passion!"
Lucy threw her hands up in pure, unadulterated relief. "Oh, thank god, the target is finally off my back!"
Through the absolute pandemonium, a terrifyingly heavy footstep echoed. The crowd parted as Erza Scarlet marched toward the table. Her expression was completely unreadable, her arms crossed tightly over her chestplate.
Natsu and Gray both tensed up out of sheer instinct. Even though they were a committed couple, the wrath of Erza was a universal constant. They braced themselves for a lecture, or worse, a direct fist to the jaw.
Instead, Erza reached out, grabbed both of them by the backs of their necks, and yanked them forward into a massive, rib-crushing armor hug.
"I am so incredibly happy for you both!" Erza declared, a fierce, proud warmth in her voice.
Natsu suffocated slightly against her metal shoulder. "C-Can't breathe, Erza—"
Erza pulled back, placing her hands firmly on their shoulders. Her smile softened, though her eyes remained stern. "But next time something this incredibly important happens in your lives, you should just tell the guild outright! We are a family, and we want to share in your joy."
"We really thought you guys just didn't want to make a big deal out of it," Gray muttered, rubbing the back of his neck, a deep scarlet blush creeping up his neck. "We've been living together for a long time now."
"We thought you were just breaking into his house to fight him in his sleep!" Happy wailed, still emotionally compromised on the table, staring betrayed at his fish. "And your neighbors told me they kept hearing roaring and crashing at 3 AM! I thought you were trying to assassinate him!"
"I was just making midnight snacks!" Natsu shouted back defensively. "And his neighbors thought I was a very loud, aggressive stray cat anyway, so I didn't think anything of it!"
From the second-floor balcony, Master Makarov peered over the railing. He wiped a comedic, streaming tear from his eye before raising his giant wooden mug high into the air.
"Listen up, brats!" Makarov roared, his giant voice easily echoing over the chatter. "We missed out on years of celebrating these two idiots getting together! That means we have nearly three years of partying to make up for! Bartender, open the good barrels! We're celebrating tonight!"
The guild erupted into a massive, roof-shaking cheer. Within minutes, the initial shock melted into classic, chaotic Fairy Tail festivity.
A massive crowd immediately swarmed Natsu and Gray's table, pulling up chairs, knocking over cups, and shouting questions.
Elfman slammed a massive fist onto the table, tears of overwhelming emotion welling in his eyes as he caught Natsu in a fierce, well-meaning headlock. "Supporting your partner passionately for two whole years without bragging about it or making a scene... that is what a real man does! I respect the manhood of this relationship!"
"So, who confessed first?!" Max demanded, leaning over the back of the booth.
"Gray did," Natsu said immediately with a proud grin. "He got all red and told me my fire was warm or whatever."
"I said your magic was tolerable, you loudmouth!" Gray snapped, hiding his burning face in his hands as the guild burst into coos, wolves' whistles, and teasing laughter.
"Wait, so who actually pays for the meals on your dates?" Levy asked, leaning over the table with a massive, supportive grin.
"We usually just fight the restaurant owner's rivals for a reward and use that," Natsu explained matter-of-factly.
Lucy just sat in her seat, watching the utter madness unfold around her. Happy was currently clinging to Gray's leg, crying about how he felt betrayed by the lack of communication. Gray, despite his feigned annoyance, had a soft, genuine smile on his face. Beneath the table, out of sight of the roaring crowd, his hand subtly found Natsu’s, intertwining their fingers in a tight, familiar hold.
Lucy took a slow sip of her juice, a small, satisfied smile forming on her own face. ‘Yep,’ she thought, watching Natsu accidentally set a banner on fire while trying to defend Gray's honor from Elfman's continuous praise. ‘They really are a bunch of idiots. But they're our idiots.’