As for Juvia's side of things…
The entire counter looked as though it had been bombed.
Juvia's face was covered in soot and flour, and sitting on the plate in front of her was an unidentifiable black lump.
"Well… at least it's technically a cake?" Ankh stared at the sticky mass for a long time before forcing out the compliment.
"Maybe it only looks bad?" Lucy offered kindly, trying to salvage the situation from another angle.
She dabbed a little of the black frosting onto her finger and tasted it.
"Bleurgh—!"
Lucy nearly rolled her eyes into the back of her head. After making a strangled noise, she forced herself upright, her face green and tears gathering at the corners of her eyes.
"It's delicious… bleurgh…"
She raised a trembling thumb toward Juvia.
"See?" Ankh swallowed as he watched Lucy's teeth chatter, then calmly pointed at her writhing on the floor when he noticed Juvia's crushed expression. "It's not bad at all."
Juvia: "…"
Juvia gave up.
She knew how to cook, but a gift was different. One day simply was not enough time for her to learn how to make a dessert worthy of the man she loved.
"What about a different gift?" Ankh immediately suggested, mostly for Gray's stomach. "Something handmade would still be nice. A scarf, for example. With a mage's fine control, one day should be more than enough."
"A scarf?"
Juvia thought about it, then asked worriedly, "But Gray-sama never gets cold. Wouldn't a scarf be a little…"
Ankh glanced outside. The sky was gradually turning gray, and it looked as though a heavy snowfall would arrive that evening.
An idea struck him, and he sighed with sudden wisdom.
"Even an ice mage can feel cold."
"Then… all right!"
Juvia hesitated for a moment, but quickly accepted the idea. Her excitement returned at once, and she hurried back toward the dormitory to knit a scarf.
Ankh let out a relieved breath.
Then he saw Asuka riding on Natsu's shoulders as they headed out of the guild and hurried after them.
Lucy somehow followed without even thinking about it. Those two really did seem to have some invisible status effect that kept them in the same place.
...
"You want to work and earn money?" Natsu asked, confused by Asuka's latest sudden idea.
When Asuka nodded vigorously, Ankh looked around at the nearby shops.
"Do you want to buy something? I can get it for you."
"No. Asuka wants to earn the money herself." Her eyes shone brightly as she refused. "I'm going to buy back Mommy and Daddy's memories!"
Unable to argue with the stubborn little girl, the three of them had Happy return to the guild and pick out several small jobs suitable for a child to help with.
One of them involved temporarily replacing a broken fountain in a park.
Lucy summoned Aquarius to provide the water, and Aquarius nearly swallowed her whole.
Fortunately, the proud mermaid seemed hopeless when it came to children. She had been the same years ago when toddler Lucy summoned her from a bathtub, and now she had no idea how to respond when Asuka innocently praised her.
After Asuka quickly soothed Aquarius's anger, she followed the three mages to several more places where they could earn money.
She helped Happy deliver food, followed Natsu into a kitchen to repair a broken stove, and went with Ankh to rescue a cat from a tree.
All the tiny jobs that famous mages from a major guild would normally ignore were cleared out in a single day.
By the time the sun began to set, the three adults and one child sat down to count their earnings.
"They were all small requests, but together they came to fifty thousand Jewels," Ankh said in amazement as Asuka held a thick stack of bills.
Lucy's monthly rent was only seventy thousand.
Then again, none of these jobs had involved destroying public property. Magnolia was a famous magical city, so even its small requests paid generously, and none of them had been particularly difficult for mages.
"So what does Asuka want to buy?"
Ankh looked at her as she pressed her face against the window of a pawnshop.
Asuka pointed toward a snow globe inside the display case. A tiny castle stood inside it beside a goofy-looking snowman.
"Mommy and Daddy said this holds their most precious memory."
Asuka accepted the snow globe with wonder in her eyes.
Natsu tilted his head. "Then why did they sell it?"
Asuka shook her head. She was only a child. How would she know?
Ankh watched her cheerful smile with a complicated expression.
Alzack had told him the story before.
During the seven years when the Tenrou team had disappeared, the guild's poverty had been far worse than any of them had imagined.
One winter, Asuka had fallen seriously ill. Her fever would not go down, and she remained unconscious. Bisca and Alzack had already used up all their savings and could not even afford the medical bills.
They did not want to burden the others, who were struggling just as badly.
So they sold the reward they had earned from the first job they completed after falling in love.
This snow globe.
That was why the couple said they had sold their memories.
They had already found something far more precious to protect.
Moved to tears, Lucy hugged Asuka tightly.
Asuka did not understand why the adults had suddenly become so emotional. Her big eyes turned thoughtfully before another idea popped into her head.
"Lucy-oneechan, why don't you kiss Natsu-onii-chan?"
"Huh?"
Lucy's mind stopped working, and her face instantly turned bright red.
Natsu only shrugged. He had promised to listen to the little girl for the whole day, so…
"Wait… Natsu! You're not seriously going to do it, are you?"
Lucy stared in panic as Natsu placed his hands on her shoulders. Her entire body went weak.
"She's just a child! You don't have to listen to everything she says!"
"What choice do I have? I can't break a promise to a kid."
Their faces moved closer and closer.
The charged atmosphere left Lucy so weak she could barely stand. She was just about to scoop up Happy from the ground and use him as a shield when she noticed…
A certain shameless god of gossip was holding the snickering blue cat in his arms, watching them with delighted anticipation.
Lucy's whole body had gone rigid with nerves, but she no longer seemed to be resisting.
Ankh found himself holding his breath on their behalf.
Then he heard movement behind him.
His expression turned cold. He spun around and delivered a vicious roundhouse kick, driving a thief who had been reaching for Asuka's snow globe straight into the ground.
"You little rat. You've got some nerve touching someone under my protection…"
Ankh cursed, still holding Happy in his arms, then hurriedly turned back to keep watching.
But all he saw was Lucy standing there in a daze, her face so red she looked ready to pass out.
Natsu had already released her. He looked mostly normal, though somehow a little stiff.
Beside them, Asuka had not even noticed the thief. She was still clapping happily.
Ankh and Happy stared in silence.
'Wait… did they kiss or not?!'
'We missed it!'
The walk back to the guild was unusually quiet.
Aside from Asuka chatting nonstop with Ankh, Natsu and Lucy had fallen into a strange silence.
Had things moved too quickly?
That could not be it. Natsu had already accidentally seen Lucy naked more times than anyone could count.
Ankh decided not to think too deeply about it.
Once they returned to the guild, Asuka finally tasted the little cake Wendy and the others had carefully prepared. The portion was tiny, and she finished it in two bites.
Everyone was happy except Erza, who looked unusually depressed because she had not managed to taste either the legendary Golden Strawberry or the cake.
...
The snowy night was gentle and quiet.
After shutting himself away for days to study Devil Slayer Magic, Gray finally emerged from his room, starving and looking for something to eat.
Today was the anniversary of Ur's death.
Ur might have returned to life, but every year on this day, Gray's mood still sank. He would lock himself away somewhere closed off and quietly tend to the old wounds inside him.
He looked at couples sitting together beneath the warm lights of restaurants and fathers helping their children build snowmen in the streets.
For a moment, Gray felt as though the world had no place for him.
"Gray-sama!"
After isolating himself for so long, Gray walked with his head lowered and his thoughts heavy. Then he heard the voice that usually gave him such a headache.
He looked up.
Juvia's cheeks were red from the cold as she hurried toward him, eagerly holding out the scarf she had made.
For a moment, the woman in Gray's vision seemed to overlap with Ur.
Ur…
No.
Juvia.
She was not anyone else.
She was Juvia.
As she excitedly explained the significance of their four-hundred-and-thirteenth-day anniversary, a faint smile gradually appeared on Gray's face.
Whatever conclusion he reached, he slowly accepted the scarf and wrapped it around his neck.
Under Juvia's hopeful gaze, Gray hesitated for a moment before saying, "Thank you. I really like it."
Juvia looked ready to faint from happiness.
Gray turned his face away in embarrassment and started walking, while Juvia followed him as noisily as ever.
"I'm going to find something to eat. Want to come?"
"Ah~ Is this a date? Juvia would love to!"
"You… forget it. I'm starving."
"Juvia can learn to bake a cake! A little cake shaped like Gray-sama!"
"You probably shouldn't…"
...
They walked away together, still exactly as they had always been: the clingy lovestruck girl and the handsome man pretending to be irritated, bickering noisily as they disappeared into the distance.
But this time, the ice had finally admitted it could feel cold.
Little by little, it was moving closer to warmth.
And beginning to melt.
Later, a certain god of entertainment who had hurried over in hopes of catching another piece of gossip witnessed the scene and wrote in his diary:
[When you've spent too long sinking into a dark, sealed room of ice, having some fool patiently try again and again to pull you back beneath the sun is an incredible kind of happiness.]
[Gray was lucky that particular fool chose him.]
[And he finally found his sun—a warm sun that just happened to bring rain.]