a/n: i love my children,, also, i noticed a lot of grammatical errors and such in previous chapters, so i've spent a lot of time going back and fixing those! if you want to reread the previous three chapters, there may also be new tidbits and details and it might flow smoother!

Bickslow whistled as the door slammed shut. "Yikes. Now there's a guy who can be scary when he's mad."

Laxus elbowed him. "Y'scared to punch 'im now?"

Bickslow clenched his fist. "Nah. I think I could do a number on him, no matter what. I've got fists of steel." He tossed his head towards Ever, who was now spraying plants with mist to keep herself occupied. "Hey, Ever, is it okay if I punch if I see him somewhere?"

A particularly harsh blast of water came from the spray bottle. "Of course. Like I said, I don't like him. He's loud, large, clumsy, insensitive, an-"

"Okay, okay, you think he's the world's biggest tool," Laxus wrapped up. "But you ain't a charmer though either."

She snapped her head towards him and fixed him with a look. "He broke my shop!"

Laxus threw up his hands and walked towards the stairs in the back. Before he climbed up, he snatched the abandoned toolbox off her desk, muttered, "This is mine," and went up to the apartment. Bickslow tiptoed about, looking at things here and there while customers walked in and out, and finally went over to Ever while pulling something out of his pocket.

"I found these," he said. "At the store the other day. It's a bag of gummies shaped like octopuses. They've also got juice inside."

"Octopi," she corrected absentmindedly. "Multiple octopus are called octopi."

"Yeah yeah." He put them on her desk. "Just cheer up, okay? Tomorrow's a brand new day. That guy won't matter in two days, promise."

She listened to his clunking footsteps vanish up the stairs, heard the door slam, and threw her head upon the desk. The water from the vase the oaf had spilled leaked into her hair; she huffed in irritation against the wood.

"Boss?"

"Leave me alone."

"Yes, ma'am."

Lisanna was busing tables when he came through the door, and she looked shocked and wary to see him.

"You're home a bit early," she said hesitantly.

Elfman took a deep breath, noticing that customers were looking at him, and slid a hand down over his face. He took the dish bin from Lisanna and began putting the dishes in it.

"I'll do that. Go help Mira in the kitchen."

The young woman glared at him suspiciously and went to the kitchen, though she didn't look happy about her curiosity going unsated.

Evergreen's words were still ringing in his mind. (I quite dislike you.) He did his best to focus only on the clamor of the guests and let the sting of the words melt away. It shouldn't have bothered him that she said that. He didn't like her either. It didn't matter.

"Elfman! Long time no see!"

The dish bin almost fell out of his hands as he turned. Behind him, coming just up to his chest, was a young girl with long blonde hair and bright brown eyes. She was wearing a short-sleeved red t-shirt, a knee-length black skirt, and a black headband was holding her bangs back. There was a waist apron tied around her middle and she was holding a tray of drinks and cookies in a hand while she smiled up at him.

"Lucy!" he exclaimed, leaning down a bit to talk to her. "You're working here now?"

"Mira hired me today," she said with a grin. "All thanks to you!"

"Me?"

"Yeah! Apparently, you told her a while ago that she needed more help in here, so she hired me and Levy to help out. Both of us are pretty competent cooks, but she needed more help waiting on tables than anything."

"That's great!" He followed her while she walked through the mazes of tables. "How's school going?"

"It's… going," she sighed. "My English classes are kicking my butt. It's a really hard language. None of the rules are ever consistent!"

Elfman had never been good at English. At all. He'd only ever barely passed the class in high school, and that was with Loke's constant and expert assistance. He hadn't been a dumb student, but he hadn't been a student who excelled, either. He was just painfully average, as he was in most everything.

"You're studying Japanese literature this semester, right?" he asked.

"Yup. Levy's in most of my classes with me!"

"I see. That's good!" he told her enthusiastically.

He stood back a ways while Lucy served the guests their drinks, waiting until she rejoined him. She seemed chipper and at ease, and though her happy attitude always rubbed off, he found himself wishing that he had the exact same composure as her at that moment.

"So what's up?" she finally asked. "You seem tense."

Elfman bristled and clutched the dish bin a bit closer. "Did my sisters tell you about what happened a few weeks ago?"

"Nope. Haven't heard a thing," she said.

He set the dish bin on the kitchen's counter and Lisanna came and took it. Lucy disappeared into the back room, where normally he and his sisters took their breaks alone, and there was Levy McGarden sitting at the table, spectacles perched on the edge of her short nose, clicking away at a laptop in front of her. She looked up at them and a massive smile crossed her heart-shaped face.

"Elfman! How've you been? It's been months, hasn't it?"

"We saw each other at the get-together this past March," he reminded.

Levy still smiled dazzlingly. "Lu and I are so happy you got us these jobs. We could do with the extra cash."

"Levy wants more money to blow on books," Lucy said with a smirk.

The short woman laced her fingers. "I am no liar, and so I will not deny that."

"I didn't do much," he protested, waving his hands. "I just off-handedly mentioned to Mira that she was stressed and she needed help, so-"

"So it was, indirectly as it may be, because of you." Levy twirled her finger, as though to signal that the conversation was wrapped up. "In any case, Lisanna told me that you're in a bit of a pinch."

"Awww, she told you, but not me?" Lucy pouted and put her hands on her hips, staring defiantly at Levy.

Levy ignored her and kept typing. When Elfman glanced at the papers to her left, they were records and bills and other numbers that made his head hurt, but they probably delighted her.

"Apparently, Elfman is indebted to Magnolia's scariest florist," she said finally, a tone of amusement barely laced into her voice. "That's what Lisanna says."

"Well, damn it, Elfman!" Lucy glared at him. "Why'd you have to go and do that?"

A blush covered his cheeks. "It wasn't my fault! A guy picked a fight with me and I… fell… into her, uh, shop."

Levy carried on as though neither of them had spoken. "He's been working for her for, what, a week now?"

"That's correct."

Mirajane walked in right behind them, her hands on her hips. She was wearing a light blue frock and a beige waist apron and looked rather cross. The topic of Elfman breaking the Rose Garden was always a bit of a touchy subject for her, because she thought that she would "never be able to go back there again and get such pretty flowers."

"Hey, sis."

"How much longer have you got to go?" she asked, glaring up at him.

"I was supposed to have a month left," he muttered.

Levy raised an eyebrow. "Supposed to?"

Mira narrowed her eyes. "Elfman Strauss, what's that supposed to mean?"

"Means I'm not working in that unmanly place anymore. We don't like each other, so I told her I'd just pay her back in full tomorrow." He could not bear to look at her.

Lucy whistled. "Yikes."

"How much is that going to be?" Mira asked, almost like she was afraid.

"10,000 yen," he muttered.

A high-pitched noise came out of Lucy's throat, Levy choked a little bit on her drink, and Mira's face immediately went to her hands. "I'm going back to the kitchen," was all she said and then she was gone.

"This florist lady must be scary if she drove you off," Lucy marveled.

"I wasn't scared!" Elfman defended. "She's just unpleasant and rude and mean! She even scared Loke, of all people."

After all he'd said, this seemed to be the thing that rattled Lucy. Her hands fell from her hips and she stared blankly at him.

"Loke?" she echoed. "My Loke? My ex-bodyguard Loke?"

"Loke," Elfman affirmed.

"She scared him?"

"With just a look."

Levy was trying to drink her beverage chalantly, but her hands were trembling just a bit- she was trying not to laugh.

"I told you, the lady is totally unmanly and scary! I'd hate to spend just one more minute with her."

"I'd honestly love to meet a woman who could scare Loke," Lucy muttered, and she put a finger to her chin and looked up to the ceiling. "She must be pretty tall-"

"She's kinda short."

"-she probably has scary black hair, like Gajeel-"

"Brown. Curly. Crazy."

"-a mean expression!"

"She always looks bored. Doesn't make many facial expressions."

"-maybe she's buff!"

"She's got muscle."

"-piercing eyes, too. Those would scare 'im."

"They're brown. Scary. Makes me feel like she's going to eat me or turn me to stone."

Elfman looked back down from Lucy and Levy, done studying the ceiling. He hadn't realized he'd been correcting Lucy as she'd gone along with her imagination, but by the looks they were giving him, he definitely had. The young women looked at each other, grinned, and leaned up towards Elfman with sly looks.

"Ohhh~ Levy, I think Elfman looked at this scary florist a lot."

"Me too, Lu. Probably especially looked at her eyes~"

"N-no! I didn't! I looked at her once! Ever! Just once!"

"In the course of so long? Only once?"

Lucy leaned into Elfman and gestured at herself. "Oh? Does she have a figure like me? Or maybe one like Levy's? Is she reallllly pretty?"

He was burning worse than ever. "I. Don't. Know!"

Levy and Lucy joined hands and giggled, shooting him cruel looks. "Elfman totally likes her!"

"G-" His throat was closing up, and he felt hot. Too hot. Hotter than even when she looked at him. And he felt really hot when she fixed those eyes on him. Elfman swallowed, shook his head slightly, and pointed sternly to the door. "Get back to work! Or I'll tell Mira to fire you!"

Of course, he wouldn't really. Mira would never listen to him, and besides, he liked them far too much to ever cause them harm.

Lucy walked past him with a slight skip in her step. "Can't wait to tell everyone~ Cana will want to know, and so will Gray and Natsu and Juvia and-"

"I don't like her! I just- I just ruined her shop!"

Lucy stopped at the doorway, grinned at him, and left with only a slightly ominous: "That's just where it starts, right?"