How Writing Fanfiction Saved Me

Zeref's Pain

Disclaimer: All Fairy Tail Characters Belong To Hiro Mashima

Chapter 4: Zeref's Pain

I woke up to the loud annoying ring of my alarm clock. I watched it roll around my bedroom floor waiting for me to catch it to shut it up, Wendy's idea of a good present. I hated that thing. I looked around for something to throw at it with no luck. I ran my fingers through my hair and decided to get up. I chased the evil clock down and turned it off. I threw it at a wall too, but the stupid thing refused to break. Oh, well. After Friday I would not have to listen to it for many weeks.

I was still tired from the night before but I felt a little lighter. I got ready for school and took my phone off the charger. I didn't bother checking for messages, I knew there wouldn't be any. I made my way out to the kitchen for my usual coffee and cereal. To my surprise Zeref was already cooking breakfast. There was a plate laid high with buttermilk pancakes and another with bacon. He handed me a mug of coffee prepared just the way I liked it and smiled at my look of surprise.

"What? Can't I make breakfast every once in a while?", Zeref said looking amused but also something else. I looked at him intently trying to figure out what else he was hiding behind his black eyes. He caught me looking and quickly looked away.

"Where's Wendy?", he asked.

"She should be out any minute. It takes her awhile to decide on an outfit.", I rolled my eyes.

"I see you don't have that problem.", Zeref commented taking in my wrinkled appearance.

"It's not like I'm trying to impress anyone, I've finally gotten it to where everyone leaves me alone.", I said, "What are you still doing here? You're usually in school by now."

"I've decided to take the summer term off.", Zeref said while looking at the plate of pancakes.

"That's rather unlike you.", I said slowly and stared at him intently trying to hold his gaze.

'What are you hiding?', I wondered.

"I'm not hiding anything, Natsu.", Zeref said reading my mind as he has always done, "I just thought it would be good for us to spend some time together as a family. Maybe go on a vacation. School will still be there in the fall."

Something about the way he said that made me uneasy but before I could question him further Wendy came out of her room and we had to comment on her outfit to appease her tween insecurity.

"Enjoy your breakfast guys!", Zeref gave a backwards wave and headed towards his room to get ready for the day.

Wendy and I stared at each other but chose not to comment on Zeref's strange behavior. We ate our breakfast in silence and looked at our phones. Wendy looked through all of the text messages she had received overnight from all of her friends. I looked at my email to see if any of the fictions I was following had updated overnight. I didn't really get personal emails, mostly just spam. I had a few messages from the Fanfiction notification bot. Three in particular caught my eye: