Jellal walked down the streets of Magnolia, or rather, because the man was a wanted criminal, he was going through the shadows of said streets. Like the wind, he was swift to pass people by on his way to the number one guild in Fiore.

He needed to talk to their master about a lead he had on a criminal he was after. As much as Meredy wanted to come with him to see Juvia and beat up Fullbuster, he told her to stay behind and rest. She had been wounded in the last battle they had been in and he didn’t want her condition to become worse.

He sighed at the thought of her puppy-dog-eyes. He swore they would be the end of him one of these days. He honestly doesn't know how he managed to make her stay home. Okay, so he may or may not be turning into the big brother that gives his younger sister anything she asked for, but part of him was okay with that. The other part was just his pride telling him he was turning into a wuss, which he gladly ignored.

His thoughts came to a complete stop however when the guild hall came into full view. He stopped in his tracks at the strange sight before him, still standing in the alleyway entrance. Guild members running around carrying what looked like decorations for a huge social event of some kind. He blinked at the sight, noticing then that much that was being carried was cake. A lot of cake. But not just any cake. Her favorite cake.

He gasped as many different scenarios came to mind. Was it her birthday? When was her birthday? How on earth does he not know her birthday!? He doesn’t even have a gift for her! What kind of man was he!?

Somehow, during his inner panic, he ended up on all fours in the middle of the street with a gloomy atmosphere, unknowingly getting in the way of two teenagers and a flying cat walking towards him.

“Wow Luce, you’re stronger than ya look!”

“Aye! Who would’ve known with those skinny arms of her’s!”

“You know, instead of criticizing me, you could help me out here-ahh!” Lucy didn’t get to finish yelling about her frustration as she tripped on Jellal’s arm, the heavy strawberry cake she was carrying being thrown behind her and landing on Natsu’s face.

After skiing on her face, the blonde sat up to find that Natsu was covered in cake with a confused expression and Happy was laughing his head off. Ignoring them, she looked over to find what she had tripped on and screamed. “AHHH, DEAD BODY!!”

After licking all of the cake off of his face clean like it wasn’t covered in it a minute ago, Natsu went over and leaned down to poke the said ‘dead body’, receiving a strange hopeless sound from it which made Lucy shreek. “Nah, it’s just Jellal, Luce. But jeez, I thought he’d never show up.”

She looked down at the man that went from being on all fours to just lying there lifeless and blinked. “Jellal? Oh. B-but he’s not looking so good...” Then realization came to her face and she started to sweat, looking over at Natsu. “W-Wait, shouldn’t we tell Erza..?”

The Fire Dragon Slayer froze at the thought, Happy even stopped laughing and shared the look. He suddenly took Jellal by the shoulders and shook him violently. “Yo man you gotta wake up!!!”

“Natsu! What are you doing!? Shouldn’t we go get help-”

He cut her off, turning to look at her like she was nuts. “We can’t! If we tell Erza that Jellal’s not doin’ well, who knows what she’ll do to us. We can’t just show up at her wedding with him like this! We’ll get blamed! Isn't he the guest of honor or somethin’ like that!?”

Lucy was about to correct him but at Natsu’s words, Jellal sprang to life and grabbed the younger man’s shoulders, his face still dark. “What...did you say..?”

Nervous under Jellal’s gaze, Natsu blinked. “Uh...Guest of Honor..?”

Jellal got a bit closer, his grip tightening slightly. “To..?”

Natsu blinked again. “To...Erza’s wedding..?”

“Erza’s….” It took a minute for the words to process and then another minute to decipher their meaning. Then just as fast as he had grabbed Natsu, he lost his grip and fell over, feeling as if his soul was leaving his body.

Lucy, Natsu, and even Happy yelled in horror. “AHHHHHHHHH!”

“HOW COULD YOU NATSU! YOU KILLED HIM!”

“I DIDN’T FREAKIN’ MEAN TO!”

“WHAT ARE WE GOING TO TELL ERZA!?”

At Happy’s words, the other two looked up at him and after a few long seconds of silence, they huddled together to discuss the matter on how to wake him up.

Meaningless to say, Jellal woke up to cake being stuffed down his throat. After sitting up and choking, he looked over to find Natsu and his cat laughing at him as Lucy looked sympathetic. Blinking at them, he rubbed his face. “W-Where am I..? And why do I taste Strawberry Ca-” Then he remembered their previous conversation and quickly looked at Natsu. “What do you mean by wedding!?”

Natsu waved him off like it was a trivial matter and instead grabbed one of his arms. Jellal blinked. “Huh..?” Lucy grabbed his other arm so he turned to her with the same clueless expression. “Huh?” Then Happy started pushing him from behind as they all had unreadable smiles and started running towards the guild hall’s double doors. “HUH?!”

Slamming through the double doors, everyone looked over at them and smiled brightly at seeing them, crowding around them all.

“Oh good! Jellal is here!”

“Erza will be so happy to see you!”

“So glad you could make it!”

No matter how many people he looked at in the face, Jellal couldn’t understand anything that was happening. He went to ask Natsu or Lucy but found with shock that both had fled the seen and left him to the wolves.

“Jellal?”

His eyes widened at the voice, and as the crowd parted, he saw her standing there in a wedding gown, her scarlet hair in an updo, veil and train trailing behind her in white lace. Suddenly the room got really hot, or maybe it was just him? Either way, he couldn’t manage to speak a single word, leaving his mouth to open and close dumbly like a fish out of water.

She smiled brightly at the sight of him and rushed over, grabbing his hands. “Oh how wonderful for you to come! I was worried you wouldn’t make it! You are part of the Wedding Party afterall.”

His face exploded. “A-A-A part of t-the W-Wedding Party..?” Was he dreaming? Was this finally happening? If it is a dream, he would like to live it out to the very end.

“Oh! You haven’t had the chance to meet the Groom yet, have you? Come, I shall introduce him to you.” Suddenly, his world broke, even though she was holding his hand and smiling brightly, her words made him almost freeze in place. He takes it back. Instead of ‘living it out’, he has decided that he should just die now.

“Honey! You must meet my closest friend! His name is Jellal.” The wizard being dragged around froze on the spot, his jaw hitting the floor at not only being fiercely friend-zoned, but also at seeing the husband-to-be. The man before him looks normal starting from his black shoes all the way up his tuxedo to his neck. However, the normality stops there.

His head had no face, no mouth, no eyes. It was only a giant slice of strawberry cake.

The Cake-man held out his normal looking hand out for Jellal to take. “How nice to finally meet you, Jellal. I’m Strawberry Cake.”

Jellal flinched at the deep, dark voice that seemed to come from the slice, his thoughts going awry. “IT SPOKE!”  Wordlessly, and with his mouth still trying to catch flies, he shook his hand. Why? he wasn’t sure but he guessed it was to confirm that it was real. It sure did feel like it was…

Despite himself, he looked over at Erza, who had shifted to link her arm in her Groom’s and spoke hoarsely. “E-Erza..H-how did you two m-meet again..?”

She laughed and waved her hand and giggled, not seeming to notice that his knees where on the verge of giving out, despite the fact that she was an S-class wizard. “We met in a Cake shop! It seems that we both love eating strawberry cake! isn’t that right dear?” The Cake-Man nodded and Jellal’s shock only grew. “A CANABLE!?”

The slice turned to Erza and spoke again, still making Jellal flinch at the unexpected deep voice. “Dear, we should hurry or we’ll be late for our own wedding.”

Erza laughed at the joke even though the voice didn’t sound the least bit funny. “Yes, you are right.” She looked to Jellal. “Please hurry and get dressed, or you’ll be late as well.”

He thought it over and quickly decided to run far away as fast as possible. “O-oh no! I-I could only come for this long..! I must be on my way soon and-”

She waved her hand. “Oh nonsense. Girls?” He suddenly saw more and more females in fancy gowns surround him with a tux, accessories and huge smirks. When he gave Erza a pleading look, she didn’t show any sign of mercy and only smiled. “Please take good care of him.”

And so, our poor friend Jellal was dragged away and shoved into a locked dressing room with everything necessary to get ready for a wedding that he wanted to be far away from. Reluctantly, he finished and as soon as he knocked on the door to be let out, was grabbed and dragged over to behind the guild on the beach, where the wedding was apparently being held. He was forced to stand behind Erza where the ‘Maid of Honor’ would normally be. He had to keep his jaw from falling to the ground. not only was he rejected and friend-zoned, he was now placed as the Maid of Honor instead of Best Man!

He flinched as a thought came to him, and out of pure curiosity, glanced over to see who the Best Man was. Again, he had to keep from showing his shock and disgust, even though he should have seen it coming... Not only was the Best Man a smaller copy of the Groom, the other two men standing next to him in the line where also Cakemen. The only difference other than height was the fact that they were other kinds of cake instead of just Strawberry.

He started to sweat and before he knew it, Makarov, who was doing the vows, had somehow already gotten to the end. “You may now kiss the bride!”

This time his jaw did hit the ground.  “Wait! You didn’t even ask if anyone objects!!!”

But it was to late, Erza’s lips had already been stolen by a man without any of his own and makarov declared them Husband and Wife. All he could do with rivers running down his face was fall on all fours and reach out yelling.

“NOOO! ERZA!!!!! DON’T MARRY THE STRAWBERRY CAKEMAN!!!!”

Silence.

After a few more minutes, his eyes focused and he realized that he was home, in his bed, in the little shack that he and Meredy found and claimed as their own after the Grand Magic Games ended. He blinked at his bedroom’s ceiling.

Sitting up, he wiped off the sweat that was on his face and slowly made his way to the kitchen where he found Meredy cooking their breakfast. She didn’t even look away from the stove as he leaned against the doorway. “So, in this one, Erza was marrying Strawberry Cake over you?”

“I don’t wanna talk about it...”

She rolled her eyes at his childish voice, smirked and tried not to laugh. He only grew more depressed as he sank in his chair after making it to the table. She started hearing a light thud and looked over to find him hitting his head on the table, mumbling to himself on how he lost to cake.

Her eye twitched. “I don’t care if you’re depressed about something as ridiculous as losing Erza to cake, but don’t take it out on our table!”

He covered his face with his hands in shame. “B-But Meredy..!”

She sighed as she finished their meal, laying it out on the table as she spoke. “Alright, alright, I get it, It was a terrible dream that felt so real that you now believe she’ll pick Strawberry cake over you.” She sat down and gave him a sly smile. “I know how you could fix that though.”

He gave her a serious expression. “You’re right, tomorrow I’ll start destroying every shop in Magnolia that carries Strawberry Cake and-Ow!”

As her irritation had risen from his stupidity, she reached over the small table and whacked him on the head. “No idiot!” She sighed and leaned back in her seat, ignoring that he was still complaining that she had hit him and gave him a smirk. “I meant that you could just ask her to marry you now!”

A few moments of silence passed as he stared at her blankly. Then he hit the ground, his face the color brighter than his crush’s hair.

“Jellal? Jellal! Hey! Wake up! I was joking, I’m sorry! HEY!!! YOUR FOOD IS GOING TO GO TO WASTE!”

THE END