User blog comment:Omega natsu2/Fairy Tail's Ending/@comment-4449950-20140626081503/@comment-7418318-20140626182400

The request board and several wooden columns would disagre with your last sentence :P

Regarding Gray: He didn't clearly say what he meant to Juvia. He just said "No" literally, without any more qualifiers. Sure he followed up by stating that he would say when he didn't like something, but he never actually says it clearly what it is exactly that he dislikes about Juvia.

That "no" can be interpreted in many ways like "No, I'm not ready for a relationship", "No, you need to become less of a Stalker before I'm interested in you", "No I don't love you", "No, because I hate you" and many, many more possibilities. Maybe that's a translation problem, but at least in the english version he was still vague.

If he outright told her that he only liked her as a friend or that he didn't love her romantically, it would be okay, but he didn't do that. While all the little gestures toward Juvia might just be normal non-romantic friendship, they can easily be seen as shy love (certainly by someone as obssessed as Juvia) and he never goes to the trouble of getting clear what those gestures really mean.

That's why I think he's a dick.

As for the JerZa: Getting into a relationship with Erza at that moment would have been selfish in my opinion. He would have been asking Erza to abandon all her friends, her home and her job to be with him. Sure Erza might be happy about it initially, but eventually it would likely became a strain on their relationship and end up hurting her more this "rejection" ever could have.

He wants to get into the clear with himself and maybe clear his fugitive status before he dares to confess to Erza, lest he end up hurting her even more. And even though he loes Erza, with his lie he still gave her the option of walking away from him and find happiness with someone else, without having to carry the guilt of knowing that she broke his heart by doing so. And that is why I consider his decision selfless and not selfish. Persueing the relationship or telling her the truth (that he loves her, but can't be with her) would have been far worse for Erza than the lie about the fiancé.