Chapter 1

The first time I REALLY saw her, it was a typical school say. It was ridiculously hot outside and I was tempted to take my shirt off, but as I was walking through the hallway, I saw our homeroom teacher looking my way. She knew about my shirtless habit and set herself to keep the morals of the school high giving me detention every time I stripped. I sighed and kept my uniform on. For now. I walked past the clubhouses when I spotted something move in the bushes. My hand slid through my hair in annoyance as I saw a peek of blue hair hiding from me. Looks like Juvia is at it again, stalking me all over the place.

As I started walking past the main building to the cafeteria, I saw a girl pass by. I knew her. In fact, everybody at school knew her. She was pretty small, but her breasts definitely weren't (hey, I'm a guy, ok?), blonde with deep chocolate brown eyes and rather slim. She was in a cheerleading team and let's be honest, everyone knows cheerleaders. They're hot and popular, queens of every school. I remember her cheering for me once or twice in our basketball matches.

She just passed me, no sign of recognition what so ever. Or was it the fact that her eyes were set on Natsu, the Captain of our team? She was basically dancing towards him, her long blonde hair shining in the afternoon sun. I saw Natsu wrap an arm around her shoulders as she got to him and wave my way with the other as he saw me looking his way. I nodded my head towards him and headed to the cafeteria with a shrug off.

Lessons finally ended as I grabbed my bag flipping it over my shoulder and headed to my locker. I picked up the ball inside the locker and took the bag with my gym uniform leaving my books behind. I dribbled my way to the gym heading to the practice. We had a big game coming soon, everyone was on the edge. I already heard the sound of shoes squirming on the floor and balls being dribbled all over the place, the sound of a ball in the basket and a loud 'yeah! ' yelled from the gym. I changed into my gray shorts, black sleeveless top and just as I finished tying the laces on my white shoes the coach came in and blew on the whistle to stop the loud bouncing of the balls. Everyone stopped in their tracks and headed to the coach to listen to him. I moved in as well stretching a bit as I did, warming up.

"In a week we have a big game," he started and the mood turned serious. "I'm not going to tell you to work hard because I know that you can beat those damn Tigers so hard they'll never want to touch the ball again!"

There was a loud 'YEAH! ' from the team and the coach had to calm them down again before he spoke.

"But you slackers need some motivation. So..." he pointed to the door where curious heads of the cheerleaders were already peeking out and an excited talk started as they came in.

"I asked the girls to come and watch your every practice and they have promised to embarrass you in front of everyone in school if you slack off," the coach grinned as we nervously gulped and the girls giggled. The coach then came in closer and put a hand on Natsu's shoulder and mine.

"We're counting on our Captain and our Ace, stay in shape."

We just nodded our heads and I mentally slapped myself for looking to see Lucy, the blonde beauty that was waving at Natsu.

The practice began and boy was it a practice. No one dared to slack off, everyone wanted to impress the girls that were standing at the side of the court watching the game. It was extremely high paced, everyone was sweating like hell. As we split into two groups, ready for a practice match, the girls stood up and started to cheer. It hyped us even more, feeling like we were in a real game, when I stood against Natsu stopping him in his tracks and forcing him to pass to Gajeel. As the ball got passed back to him I dove in and stole the ball sprinting to their basket, passing to Loke to confuse their defenders and jumping high dunking it in. There was a loud cheer as I jumped down from the hoop with a wide grin and Natsu smirked at me while motivating his team.

"Let's get it back!"

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I was dead. I lay on the floor panting for my dear life as the practice finally ended. My hair was drenched in sweat, my body felt heavy and I couldn't move. So I just lay there, catching my breath as the gym slowly cleared out.

Suddenly a blonde head popped into my view. Her deep brown eyes smiling as she bent over me. She giggled and held out a hand to me.

"Nice game," she said, her sweet voice sounded like a voice of an angel in my head. I took her hand and stood up with her help as I tucked my raven hair out of my eyes.

"Thanks. And nice cheers," I grinned. She smiles quite pleased with my compliment.

"Glad you liked them. You'll be hearing them a lot now."

She giggled and I noticed she's all tired and sweaty too. It never occurred to me that cheers were hard work too.

"Our Captain said we can train like this too, so we all worked hard not to embarrass ourselves in front of you guys. You tried so hard for us..." she smiled proudly.

"Looks like it's a win-win situation then," I grinned trying to act all cool even though my legs were shaking and I was barely standing on my own. I noticed that even this messed up hair and sweaty tired look suited her, which surprised me. Natsu barged in looking for her.

"What's taking you so long?" he asked as we both looked his way.

"I'm sorry, I'm coming!" she answered and turned back at me with a kind smile. "Need help getting to the locker rooms?"

"That would ruin my cool image," I gave her a grin full of sparkling teeth and she giggled rolling her eyes on me.

"Typical boys. Well, I have to go. It was a pleasure to meet you, Gray."

And with that she ran to Natsu and out of my sight. As I slowly walked to the locker room to take a shower I wondered how she knew my name.