Chapter 42: Loke's Harem
The new guild hall was taking shape, though "shape" was a generous description. The framework was up, sturdy wooden beams, fresh lumber still fragrant with pine but everything else was chaos held together by enthusiasm and spite.
A massive, iron-stained crater in the center of the floor had been repurposed into a seating pit, lined with mismatched cushions raided from the dormitories. Walls leaned at angles that would make an architect weep. Laki Olietta kept sighing and using Tree-Make to reinforce corners that Macao had accidentally hammered crooked.
The smell of fresh timber, Mirajane's restorative stew, and Wakaba's pipe smoke mingled into something that almost, almost smelled like home.
At a corner table, surrounded by the wreckage of what had once been a perfectly good loaf of bread, Gray and Happy were locked in mortal combat.
Verbal combat. Mostly.
"I'm telling you, I won!" Gray jabbed a thumb at his own bare chest, his shirt had vanished approximately forty-seven seconds into this argument, and no one could remember when or how. "I had you pinned for a full ten-count!"
"Aye! But I had the high ground on the pillow fort!" Happy insisted, wings buzzing indignantly, his tiny body puffed up with righteous fury. "Natsu even said my aerial bombardment was 'sneaky and effective' right before he passed out!"
"That's because you hit him in the face with a blanket! That's not a win, that's a war crime!"
"A WAR CRIME IS WHEN YOU USE ICE-MAKE TO FREEZE SOMEONE'S PILLOW BEFORE IMPACT, GRAY!"
Gray's mouth opened. Closed. Opened again. "...that's called strategy, you furry little…"
They both turned, simultaneously, toward the one neutral party who could settle this dispute with absolute, unquestionable authority.
"LUCY! WHO WON THE PILLOW FIGHT?!"
Lucy Heartfilia sat at the bar, staring into a cup of cold tea as if it contained the secrets of the universe, the meaning of life, and possibly a winning lottery ticket.
She did not look up.
She did not acknowledge their existence.
Her expression was ice.
"I don't care."
The words dropped into the space between Gray and Happy like glacier calving into a frozen sea. Gray's mouth, already open for his next argument, simply stopped. Happy's wings drooped so dramatically he lost six inches of altitude.
"Aye..." he whispered, retreating behind Gray's bare shoulder. "...scary Lucy..."
Gray, for once in his life, wisely chose not to press the issue. He and Happy exchanged a look of mutual, bewildered terror, then silently turned back to their bread destruction project.
Lucy returned to her tea.
Loke.
Three days since the festival. Three days since he'd saved her from those drunkards in the alley, stupid, useless men, couldn't even handle their festival ale, three days since he'd looked at her with those sad, exhausted eyes and said the words that had burrowed into her skull like parasites, gnawing at the edges of her thoughts every quiet moment since:
"I don't have long to live."
And Natsu, Natsu, had just... shrugged it off. That infuriating, absolute certainty. "Don't worry about it. He will live. You will make sure about it."
As if she could just... will it. As if she had some magic wand to wave that would fix whatever was wrong with that stupid, mysterious, infuriating man who flirted with everything in a skirt and then ran away the moment she tried to talk to him.
Her fingers tightened around the teacup. The ceramic creaked.
What am I supposed to do?
The doors slammed open.
Not with the dramatic, magic-charged force of an enemy invasion or a returning S-Class team. Just... enthusiastically. The way doors do when pushed by someone wearing four-inch heels and carrying seven seasons of unresolved romantic drama.
A flood of color and perfume swept into the guild hall.
Women. At least six of them. Maybe eight. It was hard to count because they kept moving, a swirling tide of designer handbags, glossy hair extensions, and the unmistakable, predatory energy of a group on a mission.
"MIRAJANE!"
The lead woman, tall, brunette, wearing a dress that cost more than Lucy's monthly rent and looked equally fragile, slammed both manicured hands on the bar. Her companions fanned out behind her like a fashion-forward tactical unit, all narrowed eyes and synchronized glares.
"WHERE IS HE?!"
Mirajane's smile, serene and professional, didn't waver by a single millimeter. "Welcome to Fairy Tail. Can I help you?"
"Loke! That cheating, lying, no-good, beautiful snake! He dumped all of us! Simultaneously! Via text message!" The woman's voice cracked on the last word, genuine hurt bleeding through the theatrical outrage. "Last night! Just 'I'm sorry, it's over, thank you for the memories' and then NOTHING! No calls! No replies! His apartment is EMPTY!"
"He dumped ME first!" a redhead snapped from the left flank, brandishing her phone. "I got the message at 8:47!"
"No, HE dumped ME first! I got mine at 8:46! I win the breakup!"
"You don't WIN a breakup, BRENDA!"
"DON'T TELL ME HOW TO GRIEVE!"
Within seconds, the group had devolved into a full-scale argument, handbags swinging, heels stomping, accusations of "you never really loved him" and "well, HE said YOUR perfume smelled like his GRANDMOTHER" flying through the air like shrapnel.
The guild watched in stunned, delighted fascination. Cana was already taking bets, her card deck spread across a barrel. Macao had abandoned his crooked hammer. Even Elfman had stopped hauling lumber and was just... watching, his massive jaw hanging slightly open.
"Ladies!" Mirajane's voice, still calm but now carrying an undercurrent of steel that made even Elfman flinch, cut through the chaos like a hot knife. "Please. One at a time."
The women paused, breathing hard, mascara slightly smeared. The brunette leader smoothed her dress, composed herself with visible effort, and turned back to Mirajane. Her eyes were wet, but her chin was set.
"Just tell us the truth. Who is she? Who did he replace us with?"
Mirajane's serene smile froze.
Very, very slowly, almost imperceptibly, her gaze drifted across the hall.
Across the sawdust and scattered cushions.
Past Gray, who was still shirtless and confused.
Past Happy, who was nibbling nervously on a fish cracker.
And landed on the bar.
On Lucy.
Lucy, who was still holding her cold tea. Lucy, whose brain was currently processing this information at approximately the speed of frozen molasses.
"...What?"
The women followed Mirajane's gaze like a pack of lions spotting a wounded gazelle.
"HER?"
"Blonde? Big chest? THAT'S his type?!"
"She's cute, I'll give him that, but THIS is what he traded ALL OF US for?!"
"I thought he had a rule about not dating guild members!"
"HE MAKES EXCEPTIONS FOR STUPID BLONDES, APPARENTLY!"**
Lucy's mug clattered against the bar. Tea sloshed over the rim. "Wait, no, absolutely not, there's nothing going on between me and Loke…"
"THEN WHY DID HE BREAK UP WITH ALL OF US LAST NIGHT?!"
"HOW SHOULD I KNOW?!"
"BECAUSE OF YOU, OBVIOUSLY!"
"THAT'S NOT HOW BREAKUPS WORK!"
"YOU DON'T KNOW HOW HIS MIND WORKS!"
"NEITHER DO YOU, APPARENTLY!"
The women surged toward the bar. Lucy backpedaled, her stool scraping against the floor with a sound like a hunted animal. "I'm serious! I have someone else! I'm not, we're not, Loke and I are just…"
"JUST WHAT?!"
"JUST FRIENDS!"
The word echoed in the sudden, ringing silence.
One of the women, the redhead, Brenda, narrowed her eyes with the precision of a prosecutor delivering a closing argument. "Friends. Right. And I suppose this 'someone else' is just a convenient excuse you invented on the spot?"
Lucy's face went from pale to crimson in 0.3 seconds.
"That's… it's not… I don't have to justify my romantic life to a group of women who COORDINATED THEIR HANDBAGS TO AMBUSH ME!"**
A beat.
Then Brenda snorted, examining her manicure with theatrical disdain. "Coordinated? Please. Mine is from the capital. Hers is a knockoff."
"IT IS NOT A KNOCKOFF! I PAID SEVENTY-THOUSAND JEWEL FOR THIS BAG!"
"Then you were ROBBED, sweetheart."
"SWEETHEART?!"
While the argument reignited behind her in a fresh blaze of designer-label warfare, Lucy spotted her exit. She grabbed Happy, who had been hovering frozen in mid-air, fish cracker suspended halfway to his open mouth and fled.
"I'M LEAVING NOW! GOOD LUCK WITH YOUR COLLECTIVE DUMPING!"
"WE'LL FIND YOU, BLONDIE!" Brenda's voice chased her through the doorway. "LOKE CAN'T HIDE YOU FOREVER!"
The doors swung shut behind her, cutting off the explosion of offended protests.
Lucy leaned against the outer wall of the half-reconstructed guild hall, breathing hard, Happy clutched to her chest like a fuzzy security blanket.
"Aye..." Happy whispered, his eyes still wide. "...those ladies were SCARY, Lucy."
"They're not the scary part."
Lucy's voice was quiet now, the comic indignation drained away. She stared at the cloudy sky, at the wooden beams still waiting to become a roof.
"The scary part is that Loke broke up with ALL of them. At once. Last night."
Happy tilted his head. "That's weird, right? Even for Loke?"
"It's final." Lucy's fingers tightened in Happy's fur. "It's like he's... tying up loose ends. Saying goodbye to everyone at once."
The words hung in the air, heavy with implication.
"I don't have long to live."
Happy's ears drooped. "Aye... Lucy... do you think Loke is really..."
"I don't know." Lucy pushed off the wall, her jaw setting. "But I'm going to find out."