A/N: Hello everybody, I'm back from the dead ;w; I've deleted all the fics I've written to have a "fresh start". When I have time, I will possibly revise and edit some of the better ones. C: Anyways, enjoy this new fic – I'm quite rusty with my writing, so please bear with me.

Side-note: Any "she"s or "her"s that are italicized (like this: she, her), is a reference to Lucy, and not Juvia.

Dedication: This is dedicated to my lovely hime-sama (KidTantei). Thank you for being such a sweetheart and always dealing with my crap. C: You always manage to put a smile on my face, you never fail to make me laugh and I have absolutely no idea why we had stopped talking for so long – like uGH what was wrong with us. I love you so much and I'm so honored to be your dp buddy as well as your ouji-sama (Right now I consider you to be one of my best friends, even without having seen you in real life. Hope you don't find that creepy lol) So, a belated merry Christmas and belated Happy New Year to you, happy holidays, and hopefully you can read this at home and don't have to go to the damned apple store to do so HAHAHA

Disclaimer: I don't own Fairy Tail – all characters and basically anything recognizable belongs to Hiro Mashima.

Summary: /Their relationship was once built on her one-sided admiration, his embarrassing possessiveness, their mutual trust, and pure love. Now, all it's built on are false smiles and forced pleasantries./ Established Gruvia. Too many mentions of GrayLu. One-shot.

wintercearig

lit. "winter-sorrowful";
the feeling of a deep sadness
comparable to the cold of winter

– Old English –

She doesn't remember feeling so cold on a winter's evening.

In reality, it had always been the cold that made her feel warm – if that makes any sense.

She still remembers it all – cold skin brushing against hers, cold lips caressing hers, cold arms wrapping around her waist, cold fingers intertwining with hers – everything was coldcoldcold but it was never really cold even if he was cold because it always made her feel hot and tingly and his cold touches were just so ironically warm and she, she –

She can't fully wrap her mind around the contradictory prospect of feeling hot when being so much grazed by something cold, and she thinks that maybe it's time to visit a doctor (because feeling hot when something should make you feel cold isn't normal, is it?) – but she doesn't care.

She absolutely loved it.

But, that was then.

When she could freely love him in all his cold-but-actually-warm glory.

Right now, she's not sure what she feels when she thinks of his cold touches. All she knows is that she shouldn't continue loving that all-too-familiar, warmth-inducing coldness.

He only has eyes for her now, and she also happens to be her friend. Despite the fact that they're the ones cheating on her, that they're the ones who think she doesn't know what they're doing, she still feels like she's betraying them by loving him.

They think she doesn't know.

But she's a very intuitive and observant person, so she finds out anyway without having to really see any evidence of something happening between them.

They're slightly more awkward and unnatural around her, forcing sunny smiles and cheerful greetings whenever they see her. They sit a little too close for comfort (although she's not sure whether it's for her comfort or for people with strictly platonic relationships' comfort) when they're having their "bonding time". They've been in more "accidental situations" that involved compromising and misleading (which turned out to be not misleading in the end) positions than not. They somehow manage to get themselves into being so close that their lips almost touch or the space between them is near nonexistent.

And when they think they're alone, when they think that she's nowhere near them and when they think they've used all means to prevent anyone from seeing what they're about to do (i.e. closing the door and pulling the curtains closed and giving what could be deemed good excuses to be in a room together alone), they act like tenfold more horny, kiss-hungry reincarnations of Romeo and Juliet.

As those thoughts resurface for what could be the millionth time, another surprising bout of bitterness arises. And again, she tries to comprehend the complexity that is known as "feelings".

How is it that she doesn't feel resentment towards him for not continuing to love her; doesn't feel resentment for when he goes and falls for her instead? How is that out of the all the feelings she could think of that she would have plausible reasons and excuses to feel, she's feeling something such as bitterness that seems to be aimed at herself more than it is aimed at them?

Her mind lingers on this notion as she holds her cold cup of tea tightly. Her gaze impatiently flickers to the door, and finally, she can see him approaching the glass doors of the café through the window – shirtless, as always – and she holds back a grimace.

She's thinking where it had all went wrong, when it was that love had taken off its mask to reveal itself as deceit.

She doesn't remember feeling so awkward with him.

He's the only person in the world who had seemed to understand her without having to consciously understand, the only person in the world who had seemed to love her despite all of her apparent flaws and just loved.

She doesn't remember feeling so awkward with her, either.

Admittedly, she had brought the awkwardness upon herself by constantly being paranoid that she was there to take him away (which she did) and be the reason that he stops looking at her (which she is).

But whenever Juvia wasn't her paranoid self with worries that all the girls in the world were trying to steal her man, she would have nice heart-to-heart talks with her. Juvia always considered how she was somewhat like a sister and a stranger. A sister in the sense that she would always be there to pat her back or soothe her when she needed it, but a stranger in the sense that she didn't need to understand what she was saying – all she had to do was listen and then forget her existence.

In short, it was never this awkward with either of them, and currently, their relationship with her is akin to a carnival goer who attempts to walk the tightrope – they are just attempting at something that they know is going to fail; she doesn't know why they even bother trying.

It's a long train of thought, and she finds that she's staring at her cold cup of tea again.

Now that she thinks about it, really, he should just break up with her and they should just carry on with their lives without needing to worry about her feelings.

She has dealt with being a broken porcelain doll for so many times before.

So what's once more?

He's now stepping inside the café and making his way towards her – and suddenly he is all hardened eyes streaked with guilt, chapped downturned lips that are seemingly stapled there as a permanent frown and thick brows that furrow together by just a fraction of an inch, worry lining his forehead.

Suddenly he is not what she remembered him to be – bright eyes screaming with passion that are practically windows to his soul; smiles lined with sincerity and happiness and love; her cold warmth; hers.

It takes a while for him to reach her, because he doesn't really want to face her even though he likes proving himself by facing his fears head on (although he mainly likes proving himself because it means he's better than Natsu).

But when he reaches, he's hovering over the table hesitantly, not sure if he should sit or if he should stand, because sitting would seem too casual and standing for too long would be too awkward.

His eyes have always been the windows to his soul – when their gazes catch each other for a split second, she sees all of it.

"Gray-san. Greetings. Sit – don't hesitate like that."

He notes the change in suffix. Not the usual, warm "Gray-kun" or excited "Gray-sama", or even the rare suffix-less "Gray", but "Gray-san" – unattached, distant, formal.

"Hi, Juvia." He forces a bright smile, thinks happy thoughts and tries to make himself feel more alive so that his smile would reach his eyes.

It doesn't work.

"Something wrong, Gray-san?"

"No, no. I'm fine. I'm good."

He scratches the back of his head and sits down, reluctance and edge present in his sheepish actions.

They're silent for too long, and he wonders why they're talking in a coffee shop.

All their past talks had been done while strolling down near the river. Whether or not they were serious did not matter – the point is that during all of their arguments and debates and negotiations and idle chats, none of them had been done in a way-too-intensely-heated, suffocating coffee shop.

(Conveniently, she lived in a nice place overlooking the river, and so after most of his spats and chats with her, they'd go their separate ways and he'd go find her for what he guiltily considers to be better company. (She knows this.))

It dawns on him that maybe that he's told to meet her here because whatever talk is about to come up is even more serious than whatever talk they've had before but those thoughts fly away as she breaks the ice by saying something casual and completely unexpected.

Not a "I know you're cheating on me" or "You love her, don't you?" but a:

"This weather is nice, isn't it? Makes you feel cozy when you're in a warm place like this."

He quirks a smile that's not even really a smile, and responds with a "Yeah."

He sneaks a glance at her and looks for signs about how badly she wants to talk about his infidelity to her. And when he doesn't see the signs he's looking for, the anxiety and dread ebbs away, until there's only awkwardness and an uncomfortable silence settled in between them.

She knows he looked. But he didn't see.

She sees that all of his worry seems to have melted away. Initially, she was going to bring up the topic of his unfaithfulness to her, but she can't bring herself to replace what's slowly becoming a comfortable silence with a talk that would only bring tears, heartache and pain.

There will come a time when she'll confess how she's known about them all along, but that's not now. So instead, she remembers.

She remembers the scar just below his hairline, partly obscured by long locks of midnight blue.

She remembers the way his eyes would shine with warmth and contentment when he thinks about something he loves (which, she notes, is not her anymore).

She remembers his lips that are thin, cold and even somewhat dry but expressive.

She remembers his body – all contours, all lines, all rippling muscles, every inch of glowing skin.

She remembers the way that he had uttered her name, the weirdly fascinating way his mouth would move.

She remembers all of his cold touches that would set her body ablaze with warmth, all of his electric kisses that would give the most pleasurable feeling that no magic could ever conjure up, all of his loving gazes and tight embraces – she remembers all the love he had for her. She remembers all of him.

She does her best to remember everything, and remember she does – yet the one thing she doesn't remember is when she had last felt warm on a winter's evening.

A/N: thAT ENDING SUCKED BALLS /cries/ sorry, Kelp, I tried. ;n; Hope you all liked it, it's been a while since I wrote something. If this is bad, cut me some slack, I was never that good at writing. xD I just write for fun, so deal with it. :P