Hanging Noose

She buried her heart and nobody came to the funeral.

"I love you," you say, and you mean it. The words taste like honey and dark chocolate, and everything you imagine her lips to taste like. Telling her just feels so right, and you don't know why it's taken you so long to get them out.

This past year, she's changed. It took you a while to notice, but you have, and you like it. She's stopped speaking in that silly third person style she had, and she's stopped with the annoying suffixes –Gray-sama is long gone –and she's stopped her incessant displays of affection that humiliated you so, that made you the brunt of the guy's jeers.

Finally you're able to look at her without cringing at her manic smiles. You need not cower at the sound of her voice's trills. She's a woman now, you think, and that's all it took for you to fall in love with her.

But the air begins to chill, and you know for certain that it isn't you. She stares at you blankly, and that's when you see the tremor of her shoulders. Her hands are balled into fists so tightly that her already pale skin has turned sheet white. Something falls in the pit of your stomach, but you dismiss the wave of foreboding.

"Now would be a good time to say it back," you chuckle nervously. Because never once have you even considered the possibility that she didn't. That is, it is simply inconceivable that she would stop pining for you, and you think that at last, you two can have your happy ending.

Her dark azure eyes flash dangerously. You jump at the sudden crackle of lightning, followed by a monstrous roar of thunder. The sky turns as dark as her heart has become, and suddenly the rain begins to fall like a deluge of bullets. She shakes her head of bristled curls.

"I'm not going to."

And then the planets cease to orbit the sun, and everyone you cared about isn't dead, and Gajeel declares his love for Natsu before taking him there and then on the bar's counter top.

Your mouth parts slightly into the shape of the beginning of an incomprehensible question, but you cannot utter a word.

"If you told me this a year ago, a month ago, a week ago, I would be fawning over you like I always did. But not anymore, Gray," she says harshly; the name she had once spoken with reverence and adoration, she now spiels like it is a crude obscenity.

"Why?" you, and you can't remember ever sounding so small before.

"Because I loved you," she chokes, "and every day you made me feel so stupid for it."

And when she walks away, you stand very still, with your dark hair plastered to your face. You don't know if the warm drop of water racing down your cheek is a tear or the rain, so you mark it as the latter. The rest of the guild peeks at you from inside through the window.

You have never felt more alone.

A/N: Omake for the night! I wanted to experiment with second person, and since I have to go to bed soon, it's shorter than my usual stories. This literally took ten minutes. For some reason, though the fanfic is supposed to be sad and shit, I threw in that GajeelXNatsusexythang mental image for no reason. K.

And this, Gray Fullbuster, is what will happen if you're too slow.

Thank you for reading! Any form of praise, critique, or flame will be highly appreciated, as always. I'd love to hear what you thought about this through a review.

DISCLAIMER: I DO NOT OWN FAIRY TAIL.