-Zeref's POV-

I walked to school, feeling heavy and tired. As soon as I entered, my eyes were blinded by rose petals scattered across the hall, balloons decorating the entrance and a big banner.

​​

'VALENTINES DANCE!' it read as people sat in the halls decorating posters and sticking up school dance posters. The squealing of girls filled my ears and everything just felt so… ugh.

"OMG there he is!" an older girl pointed at me. I turned to look at my sides, making sure she was pointing at me. "Zeref!" she called, signalling me over.

I sighed, walking towards her and her friends. They giggled and squealed. "Do I know you?" I asked, peering down at her while putting both my hands in my pockets.

"N-No but we know you. Uhm, we were wondering if you wanted to sign up for Valentines King-"

"No." I deadpanned before turning around.

"P-Please! We already forced Malia to sign up." I stopped at her words, craning my neck over my shoulder and furrowing my eyebrows. She took that as a sign to continue. "The king and queen get a portrait of both of them in front of the principal's office a-and get to have a dance in front of the whole school. They also get crowns a-and it's good for popularity-"

"I don't need popularity." I scoffed, continuing to walk away but they ran after me.

We all stopped when a platinum blonde boy stopped me in my tracks.

"Jessi…" the girls all groaned simultaneously, their smiles dropping.

"Signing up for Valentines King, Zeref?" he said with a strong posh accent. I looked him up and down. He looked like a noble or even a royal. He had pale skin which made it hard for me to tell where his forehead stopped and bright icy blue eyes.

I shook my head no.

"Well good because I want to win. I have been waiting to shoot my shot with Malia for a while."

My blood boiled, imagining Malia dancing with this skunk. I glared at him while snatching the clipboard of the girl's hand. She gasped as I aggressively scribbled my name down and handed it back to her.

"HEY-" the boy yelled in disbelief.

"Shush." I smirked, pushing past his small body.

**

"ZEREF!!" a small girl with pigtails grabbed the back of my shirt.

I sighed, letting my killing intent ooze off of me. I received looks of fear and the girl's hand dropped from my shirt. I didn't bother turning around, continuing to walk to my next lesson.

So far, I had received countless proposals to this stupid dance and I realised the only way I would get through this day would be to look as threatening as possible. I do credit the girls who still tried to approach me despite my deadly aura. They were brave.

I was thinking of asking Malia but what would I say? I've seen some overexaggerated grand proposals. I was planning on just asking her the simple way.

'You have no game.' Voadhailis commented, interrupting my train of thoughts.

'And you do?' I scoffed mentally.

'Yh. I do. Listen, all you gotta do is have a seizure in front of her then fall to the floor and flop like a fish.'

'Where are you going with this?' I grimaced, imagining if I took his advice.

'Wait, shush. Then you break out into a dance and do all these cool wavey moves with your arm and then make a heart out of fire and hand it to her, then ask her the big question.' he finished, giving me a bigger headache than I already had.

It's not easy having a system and dragon in your head 24/7. Plus my demon side has just been growing stronger and soon I'll have to use the powers and release the shackles.

'Wooooow. I am not doing that.' I laughed at his stupid idea in my head and blocked him out again.

**

I entered my classroom to see Jace already in there, being swarmed by girls asking him who he was taking to the dance. I really trained him so hard to the point he experienced a glow up hehe.

He looked panicked, looking at Naz's empty seat. He was lucky; Naz was probably with Malia right now. He looked at me, excusing himself and rushing towards me.

"How do you not have girls drowning your fine ass right now?" he questioned in disbelief as I chuckled.

"Everytime someone approaches me, I just scare them with my killing intent. I think the word spread so I have stopped getting random girls asking me." I said, walking up to the crowd of girls who were crowding Jace and I's seats. They scattered, letting me swing my bag on my desk and sit down.

"You gonna ask Naz?" I queried in which he nodded. Poor guy, he looked nervous just thinking about it.

Naz walked in, waving at us before taking her seat at the front with her friends. The lesson started with a talk about the upcoming dance which was in two days.

Everyone chattered and the teacher looked at me, saying I had signed up for King. Everyone cheered as I smiled and Jace slapped my back. She also mentioned how Jace and some other dude had also signed up. She called out a hefty list of girls who had signed up for Queen and to no surprise, Naz had signed up.

**

"Ugh, can people stop talking about the stupid dance?" Malia came and sat opposite me with her tray of food.

"I know right, all this pressure on asking a girl out is giving me high blood pressure." Jace groaned, sitting next to her.

I laughed, stealing Malia's apple which she didn't even try to get back. She had gotten used to me stealing her apples now. I didn't know why, her food just tasted better than mine even though we got the same thing.

"You're planning to ask Naz, right?" I asked. Naz wasn't here yet so it was probably safe to do a little teasing.

"I was actually planning on asking Mochiii." he smirked in a flirtatious voice, leaning his face into Malia's.

"Oh please!" she smacked his face away causing him and I to burst out laughing. "Be serious."

"Okay okay. Of course I'm asking Naz. I just don't know how." he said, sulking.

"I've seen girls asking guys out. Maybe she'll ask you. She is kind of direct." I comforted.

"No way. Naz likes grande gestures. You gotta go all out Jace. I've seen people do dance routines, teddy bears and even a bouquet of money." she emphasised on the money bit with hungry eyes.

"Or you could just simply ask her…" I suggested, rolling my eyes at Malia's 'ew that is a horrible idea' face.

Jace let out a cry, resting his head on the table dramatically.

"Who hurt you this time?" Naz asked Jace, sitting next to me and looking at a whining Jace.

"The dance." I replied, looking at his stupid whining.

Naz laughed, eating her food. "Mali, did anyone ask you?" she looked at Malia, munching her sandwich. I shuffled in my seat, intently listening for her next words.

"Yup. A few actually." she sighed, taking a bite of Jace's pasta.

"Same. I got asked by 5 guys today! Can you believe that?! And I heard Sara asked someone and got rejected."

Jace lifted his head, raising his eyebrows for Naz to continue.

"Well, Sara asked this guy to the dance and his girlfriend got really mad about it. Apparently she is going to confront her after school."

I shook my head at Naz, "I don't think that's any of our business though."

"Plus that's not Sara's fault. There's not really anything to confront. I'm sure she didn't know he was taken." Malia furrowed her eyebrows in concern like she was getting into defence mode.

"Chill. I'm just saying the gossip I heard." Naz chuckled nervously, backing away from the topic.

I wonder why Malia had such a different personality when it came to Sara. It's like there was a connection between the two. Sometimes, when I saw them interact, I could feel some sort of strange pull between them like a bond. I've tried to shrug it off but Voadhailis always noted down every suspicious thing about Malia, making it hard for me to let it go.

"Allefin asked me to the dance." Naz giggled bashfully.

"Did you say yes?" Malia gasped.

"No, I-"

Suddenly, a loud fart ripped through all the chatter in the canteen, causing Naz to flinch so hard that she dropped her fork. Everyone went silent as I held in my laugh, looking at the ground to stop but my shoulders shook from laughter. People continued to chatter and that's when Jace finally looked up at us.

"I get an upset stomach when I'm nervous." he justified, holding his stomach.

Naz and I burst out laughing, cackling like hyenas while gasping for air. We slapped each other and Naz went red from laughing while I laughed so hard, I went silent. We both wheezed as Jace excused himself, throwing his apple at my head before he left, which just made Naz and I laugh harder.

"I'm gonna make sure he isn't sick." Malia said, running after Jace.