Part One: Lucy

Chapter 1

"Man, I'm so jealous of you."

"…Sorry, what?"

Kairi turned to me, her eyes glittering with ambivalence. "C'mon, try to pay attention when I say something, Lucy," she whined. "I'm not that boring, am I?"

I blushed in embarrassment. "N-no, of course not. Sorry; I was just…preoccupied, you know?"

Kairi was one of my friends from school. But since we were now out for the summer, most of my other friends were on vacation, and we were the only ones left in town.

Well…us and our boyfriends, actually. As luck would have it, they had nowhere to go for the summer, either. Since we had nothing better to do, we decided to hang out at the local park. Kairi and I were resting in the shade, waiting for the guys to come back with ice cream. I'd been busy staring at the leaves of the tree that were hanging above us and dancing in the breeze when she interrupted me.

"Preoccupied with what? There's nothing fun to do right now; it's too hot." Kairi flopped against the trunk of the tree, irritably blowing stray hair out of her face. "Anyway, like I was saying earlier—I'm jealous of you."

I blinked in surprise. "You're…jealous of me?" I asked incredulously. "Why?"

"Because, you managed to hook up with possibly the best boyfriend ever!" She sat up straighter and looked at me indignantly. "You have no idea how lucky you are."

I was utterly confused. "What are you talking about?"

"Let me just tell you that it's way less awkward when you're not going out with a childhood friend," she clarified with a huff, crossing her legs. "I mean, don't get me wrong; it's not like I hate Sora or anything—but I could really do without the constant babying. He always treats me like I'm some kid who can't take care of herself." She sighed wistfully. "I like that; I just wish he would let me take a couple of risks here and there. I'm not made of glass."

I stifled a giggle. "You know, he has good reason to be overprotective," I said. "I won't lie; you can be kind of a reckless ditz sometimes."

"Gee, thanks for being such a good friend." She stretched before turning back to me. "Seriously, though; you're really lucky. You managed to snag a guy you don't know—and he's not even from our school! How'd you do it? You just showed up with him out of nowhere several months ago, and it freaked us out."

I rested my chin in my hands, contemplating. "Well…honestly, I wasn't even trying to make friends with Natsu in the first place. I just happened to run into him at a farmer's market, we started talking for a bit…and things just went from there. I didn't even catch his name the first time I ran into him."

"Really?" Kairi leaned in, interest gleaming in her expression. "When did you run into him next?"

"Uh…" I wracked my brain in search of the memory. "I think it was…about three days later? He was waiting in front of my house in the morning."

Kairi made a face as she noted, "That's…kinda creepy."

"I was thinking the same thing when that happened," I agreed. "I had no idea how he was able to find me—I didn't give him any information about myself to him, since he didn't either. His being there definitely gave me the creeps, but he told me that he only wanted to tell me his name. He said goodbye right after he did—he didn't even ask for mine."

"So you stopped him," she guessed.

"Well…yeah. It didn't feel right knowing his name while he didn't know mine, you know? So I stopped him and introduced myself, and…I'd asked him to hang out before I realized it. That's how he met you guys."

"That was random."

"Yeah," I giggled. "It was. But you already know that he's a good guy. It's hard to explain, but…I don't know, he looked lonely to me. So I just felt that he needed some people to talk to."

"Whatever the reason, I'm glad you ran into him. Still…" She started to play with a lock of her hair, her gaze unfocused. "I know he's a great guy and all, but…he's always so distant from everybody besides you. Even me, and I'm your best friend. I wonder why."

I couldn't deny that I wanted to know the reason for that, too. He was friendly with everyone, but he didn't spend a whole lot of time talking with them—I was the one that occupied the most of his attention. I'd always wanted to ask him about that for the longest time, but for some reason, I'd been afraid to. There was an air about him that always dissuaded me from asking him personal questions.

"Me too," I admitted, curling into a ball. "It's kind of embarrassing, since we've been going out for several months now, but…I don't know anything about him other than what he told me when we met for the first time. I don't know about his family, other friends if he has any, acquaintances…I don't even know where he lives, because he always shows up at my house first, and he never took me there to visit. He never tells me anything. Sometimes I feel like I'm dating a stranger." I grinned sheepishly. "That's why…if anything, I'm the one jealous of you and Sora. You guys don't have that awkwardness between you since you guys were friends way before you started going out."

"Well, I guess it's different with every relationship, huh?" Kairi sighed resignedly, but she turned and flashed me a reassuring grin. "Don't sweat it too much. I'm sure he'll start opening up once he's ready. We can't exactly push it, can we?"

I smiled half-heartedly at her words. "Yeah…guess you're right," I said.

"Heeeeey! Kairi, Lucy!"

We both looked up to see Sora jogging toward us, holding two popsicle sticks (Sora avoided junk food like the plague). He was by himself, too—I couldn't see Natsu anywhere.

"Sora, what's up?" Kairi asked, getting to her feet. "And where's Natsu?"

Sora looked nervous as I stood up myself, curious as to what he was saying. "He, uh…he left. Wouldn't really explain why; he just said that he had something important to do."

"Natsu left?" I asked in surprise. "Again? Just like that?"

"Yeah…it was weird." He handed me one of the popsicles. "He told me to give this to you and that he'd drop by your place tomorrow. Then he took off before I could say anything back." He frowned. "I don't want to be the devil's advocate here, but I feel like he's hiding something from us."

Kairi smacked him upside the head, making him wince. "Idiot, don't go saying things like that!" she hissed in warning. "It's rude!"

"What?" he protested, rubbing the spot where she whacked with his free hand. "It's true, isn't it? He hardly ever talks about himself, and he never takes off that scarf of his, even in hot weather; he has to be hiding something! He wouldn't be acting so secretive all the time if that wasn't the reason!"

"That doesn't matter! You're casting suspicion on him; that's not something a friend would do!" She pulled on his ear, making him yelp in pain. "And you do realize that you're saying all this in front of his girlfriend? Apologize to Lucy right now!"

"No, it's okay, Kairi," I assured her quickly. "Don't worry about it. I'm sure he'll explain it to me tomorrow. Natsu probably has a good reason for doing something like this, anyway. It's not like this is his first time running off like that."

Kairi looked uncertain, but she released Sora from her hold on his ear—who immediately scooted away and covered his ear while flashing a comically fearful expression in her direction. "Well…whatever you say."

"Let's just go home for today," I suggested. "If anything happens tomorrow, I'll give you guys a call, okay?"

They agreed, and we split up and headed for home.

The whole way there, I couldn't help but think about what Sora had said earlier. I didn't think too much of the scarf (it was probably just another weird quirk that he had), but maybe he was right—maybe Natsu did have something he didn't want any of us to know about. That could explain why he never talked about himself, and why he kept excusing himself at random moments.

But he was a genuinely nice person—what could he possibly have to hide from us?