Lengthy oneshot for NaLu, my otp :3 (Took three days and countless daydreams but finished nonetheless. Whoot!)
Finding My Other Half, By Accident
Her first impression of him was simple: He was a peasant, quite filthy in appearance, possibly extremely dense.
The heavenly stars shine brightly against the dark velvet of the night sky. Lucy smiles to herself as she traces the lines which make up constellations, managing to easily identify the major characters. It was to be expected, she did this whenever she had the time, ever since she was but just a child. She leans against the iron of the gate, clutching her hands behind her back, watching the stars as she listens to the sounds of crickets hidden in the blades of grass.
There was the Summer Triangle which was especially bright tonight, consisting of Deneb, Altair and Vega. This asterism was remarked upon by J.J. Littrow, who described it as the "conspicuous triangle" in the text of his atlas, yet Lucy found the triangle strangely comforting, for what particular reason she did not know. As if there were something buried deep in the folds of her unconscious.
Her mother used to read to her a lot, sparking her interest in the fine literary arts. She aspires to be a writer, yet she can hardly find any motivation to write any more these days. Daughter to a wealthy merchant, she is meant to stay at home where books become a means of escape. Unless of course, if there were formal events in which she would have to attend with her father for the sake of appearances. She felt more like a tool to the Heartfilia rather than a daughter to her father most of the time.
Her attendants, servants and pets (Plue the puppy being the most beloved one) surround her and she is thankful for the constant company, but sometimes she needed a break to clear the noise in her head. Alone time during the chill nights in the south garden were best spent looking up at the stars and letting her worries melt away.
She closes her eyes, letting the cool wind kiss her cheeks and eyelids. A relaxing night several times a week to wash away what she did not need.
She was about to head back to her room before her father threw a hissy fit when she heard a loud thud followed by someone cursing colourfully under their breath. Curious, she looked out the iron gate into the streets and alleyways to find no one there except a few stray cats. Goosebumps formed on her spine, she wasn't sure if it was from the cold or the feeling of dread in the pit of her stomach. She backed away slowly from the gate, her first thought was to run as fast as she could back to the main house if anything were to happen.
Just when she convinced herself that her imagination was much too wild, a sudden head of pink popped up, followed by sharp fangs and a scaly scarf. She almost, almost, screamed to the high heavens before noticing it was neither monster nor beast but a human being. With both hands clamped tightly over her mouth and her heart pounding a mile a minute in her chest, she glared her infamous death eyes at the intruder (not precisely one) outside her gate. "Who are you and what are you doing here?" she hissed, arms crossed over her bosom.
The male smiled at her, rubbed a hand at the back of his head. "Sorry, sorry. Did I startle you?"
"Shh! Why are you speaking so loudly?" she hissed again.
He shot a puzzled look at her, as if he genuinely did not know a thing. "Are we supposed to be quiet?" he mocked whispered. "Is someone planning to run away from home?"
She fumed scarlet at him. How dare he say something as impudent as that? "For you information sir, no one is running away tonight or any other night!" She takes a step closer to the gate. "You have not based your statement off any proof at all. Now do tell me, what in god's good name are you trying to do in front of my gate?"
"Me? I'm just looking for my cat!" His eyes travel around the vicinity of her garden. "Speaking of which have you seen him anywhere? He's a black cat. Almost blue-ish like fur. Has a white tip on his tail. Extremely cute." For a moment his eyes are downcast. "He's my best friend, I don't wanna lose him."
Her heart softened at the thought of this male trying to look for his friend. "I haven't seen a cat like that here..." And the sad look he gave her made the guilt well up in her throat. "... B-but I'll tell you if I do! Maybe you could come back tomorrow?" Mentally she slapped herself. Why has she invited this stranger back? Was it only out of sympathy?
He flashes her a brilliant smile, and for a moment she thinks she sees the bright light of a burning flame. "Thanks a bunch! You may be a bit weird, but you're probably a good person after all!"
At this she fumes again. "Who are you calling weird, you weirdo? And what do you mean by probably?" She placed her hands on her hip, leaning forward a little so that she came face to face with the man, save for the gate as a barrier. "If I wasn't a good person, I wouldn't help you in the first place now would I?"
He cocks his head to the side, arms crossed over his chest and face pinched as if in deep thought.
"Do you even need to think before answering such a simple question...?"
He stares at her as if she were the dense one instead. "Of course I do! I mean, I don't even know you, so how can I trust you and your words?"
She clicks her tongue against the roof of her mouth in annoyance at his reasoning. It was pretty sound, even she would be on her guard around random people. With him though, she was hardly afraid of anything. "My name is Lucy Heartfilia alright? L-u-c-y. There. Now tell me your name."
"Natsu." He flashed her another bright smile. "Natsu Dragneel, pleased to meet ya!"
And for some reason, she couldn't help but lightly smile back. "Well Mr. Dragneel, I have no cats here, so I suggest you come back tomorrow if you are still unable to locate your pet."
"No worries weirdo. I'll come by even if I do find him."
"My name isn't weirdo you oaf! It's Lucy! And why come by if you've found him?!"
He shakes his head in mild disbelief, making his salmon locks swing in tandem. "Isn't it obvious? If I find him, I'll bring him here! Then you can meet Happy for real!" He points an accusatory finger at her. "Are you actually really stupid or somethin'?"
"Urgh, just go!"
~.~.~.~
Her second impression of him changed very little. He was still a peasant, he was much more annoying than ever yet she felt comfortable chatting with him.
"So you've found your cat?" She was standing in front of the gate once again, Natsu on the other side, holding up a blue-black cat with a white tip on its tail and bright eyes.
"Yep! Here's Happy!" He proudly holds up the cat in his hands to the gate. "Say hi Happy!" The cat meows once and Natsu lifts one of it's paws in a mock greeting.
Lucy lets out a little laugh and waves back slightly. "It's nice to meet you Happy." She had to admit, the cat looked kind of cute, in its own unique way. Natsu's cat was like his precious child.
The salmon haired lad tried but failed terribly to whisper into Happy's ear, "Watch out Happy! This lady here's a huge weirdo, so I'd keep my guard up if I were you." to which Happy meowed in acknowledgement.
"Hey! I'm not a weirdo!"
"Says who?"
"Well, me!"
He cradles Happy in his arms carefully. "That's just you. No one else says so."
She suppresses the unimaginable urge to smack her forehead on the nearest pillar or ram straight at the gate itself. The man in front of her was both dense and irritating; or maybe he was the type to play mind games with people. If that was so, she hated him even more for trying to test her this late at night.
"Helloooooo... Earth to Lucy, you there?" She looks up from her mild stupor to find him waving a hand in front of her face, the other cradling a now sleeping Happy. "You look kinda out of it, you okay?"
"Yes. Yes, I'm fine." her answer is brisk. She wants to look at the stars some more, not waste her limited time bantering about useless topics. She takes a deep calming breath. "For the last time, my name is Lucy, but if you refuse to call me that, then I can't do a thing." She shrugs her shoulders. "It's not my mouth, those aren't my words and it isn't my life. You're free to do what you want."
She felt that she has rightfully put him in his place. A smug look threatened to take over her features, yet she kept it tightly in check; looking up only to find said male having a pathetic look on his face, something akin to guilt, disappointment and tons of regret.
Lucy was completely taken aback. "Wh-what's the matter with you?" She expected more taunts or perhaps a burst of fiery anger, not him on the verge of breaking down.
"Luuuuucccceeee~ I'm sorry so please don't be mad at me..." He clutched the sleeping Happy to his chest as a child would cling to his favourite plush toy in times of distress. "I won't call you 'weirdo' again, I promise!"
To her, she couldn't help but laugh at the scene. A grown man apologising to her because of a small matter, looking as if he were about to cry. Her laugh echoed off the walls of the nearby buildings, creating a loop in the alleyways.
"Hey, I'm saying sorry here. What's so funny?" And he pouted, still cradling the cat.
She clutches her stomach, wipes some stray tears form the corner of her eyes. "No, it's nothing. Just that, … I appreciate you not calling me 'weirdo' anymore." She smiles at him. "Though isn't a bit too early for nicknames?"
He blows a raspberry at her. "Which idiot came up with that rule?"
~.~.~.~
After the third time, their meetings increased in frequency. They covered many topics, some of which even surprised her. As the nights changed with the seasons, so did her impressions of him slowly began to change as well.
"You know, until a while back all I wanted to do was to go off to some other world, a place beyond anyone's reach, a place beyond the flow of time." She wonders inwardly whether telling him is the right thing to do. She wonders why she is even telling him this in the first place. Perhaps it is because of the bond they have shared these past few weeks, them being closer together when they first met.
He huffs and shakes his head. "There isn't a place like that in the world. It's a fantasy." They are sitting back to back, leaning on the gate and facing the eyes to the stars overhead.
"Exactly. Which is why I'm living here, in this world where things are forever being damaged, where the heart is fickle, where time flows past without a break." She pulls her legs close and hugs them to her chest, letting her blonde hair fall over her shoulders. "We can never find a way out of all this."
He shifts a bit uneasily on the other side of the gate. She hears him sigh softly, a thing which he rarely does around her. "There's always a way, Luce. You just haven't found it yet."
~.~.~.~
She tells him a lot about the stars in the sky especially, relating all her knowledge of the astral bodies to him as he stares and listens in pure childish wonder. He tells her a lot about everyday life in the streets, about the people, the colours, the sounds as she soaks all this information up like a sponge. In a way, they learn something new every night, not only about these topics but about each other too.
"Can I ask you a question Luce?"
She nods, knowing he can feel it rather than see it as they sit back to back. "Sure, what is it?" She hears him shifting on the ground.
"Can you keep a secret?" he asks hesitantly.
"You know I haven't a soul to tell, Natsu. What is it? Spit it out." She fingers the slightly damp grass underneath her seating area and abruptly is concerned about the hard ground Natsu is sitting on.
He gulps, takes a breath before continuing. "When we look at the sky or all around us, we see things that aren't out of the ordinary. We see the stars, the buildings, the alleys, the people. We assume everything is well deserved in our world."
She keeps quiet, waiting for his next sentence. After knowing him for quite a while, she understands that he sometimes is prone to philosophical or radical ways of thinking, despite how dense he is.
"But if you knew you might not be able to see these things again tomorrow, the stars, the buildings, the alleys, the people; everything would suddenly become special and precious wouldn't it?"
She inclines her head. "I suppose so. Why are you asking that?" Her natural curiosity was somewhat piqued at his odd question.
"Have you ever felt that?"
"Um... not yet, no."
He licks his lips before continuing. "The problem is I have, and honestly Luce, I think I'm in love." He turns to face her, his own features a state of worry. In a low and vulnerable voice which catches her immediate attention, he asks "Is that a bad thing?" For some reason, her heart drops into the pit of her stomach but she ignores it in favour of listening to his problems.
She stares at his open features for a while, at his sincerity of asking her for her advice and is touched by the small plea for help as a friend. "I read in a book once that anyone who falls in love is searching for missing pieces of themselves." She shifts a bit to face him properly. "Once, the world was made up of male/female pairs who were stuck with their fated partner for life. But one day God took a blade and cut everyone right down the middle, separating everyone from their partners. Ever since then, humans have been searching for their other half."
He nods all the way to indicate that he understands the story. "But what does this have to do with me?"
"It's actually very simple Natsu. Falling in love isn't a bad thing." She grins at him through the iron gate. "It just means that maybe you're looking for your other fated half."
He grins back at full force. "Yeah, you're right Luce! I'm looking for my other half!"
A nauseous feeling overtakes her, she wants to punch something so badly it's scary. She questions herself on the intensity of her feelings and why would she be feeling them in the first place. "So who's the lucky girl Natsu?"
As if on cue, he blushes a brilliant shade of scarlet. He hides his cheeks in the crook of his elbow, averting his gaze away from her. "Sh-she's really pretty... no, she's a very beautiful girl." he states and Lucy can feel a fire burning inside her.
It takes a boatload of effort for her to smile encouragingly at the shy male. "Come on, don't be a tease. What's her name?" She fists the grass under her fingers violently, close to pulling them out from their roots. Whoever that girl was, to make the usually over-confident Natsu blush and stutter...
"I-I can't say... Sorry, Luce." He looks sheepish, apologetic. She cannot bring herself to hate him, cannot stop the poison green spreading through her veins like wildfire.
"Oh. That's alright. You don't need to tell me if you don't want to." She tries her best to keep her voice from shaking, whether in anger or in pain she does not know.
He perks his ears up at the sound of her voice, feeling a bit guilty she sounds rejected by his statement. Yet he cannot, dare not, say her name to her. If he did, he may break the delicate balance they are in right now, two strangers from two different parts of the world. "Sorry Luce, I promise I'll tell you next time."
~.~.~.~
After that night, he did not come back. She waited impatiently for several nights, yet she could not spot tail or hide of him. As if he has totally disappeared from the face of the earth.
She plops herself down on the soft grass, sighing. Whatever that idiot was doing at the moment, why should she care? He was a grown adult, not a child; he could take care of himself just fine so there wasn't a valid reason to worry. Moreover, he had Happy with him. Surely he wouldn't dare do something rash with his precious pet around.
She pulls out reason after reason, excuse after excuse out of her brain, trying to convince herself that he wasn't hurt and dying in a ditch nor was he going out of his way to go see this girl he loved. Both situations made her sick to the bone, but she detested the latter more.
Honestly, what kind of friend leaves without saying a word?
~.~.~.~
"Lucy, I think it is about time we found you a suitable husband." declared her father over breakfast. "You are still young enough in your prime, old enough for maturity. Marrying a wealthy man could give you an easy life."
She kept mum, knowing her father would not be swayed by and of her outburst or pleas that she has tried countless times before. He wanted her to marry a wealthy man to increase and maintain the family inheritance. And she could not retort, even if this was far from what she wanted.
Her father stood up, swiped his mouth with a napkin and left her at the table to ponder about her own fate.
She bit her lip to prevent herself from crying, and irrationally wished that Natsu would come back so she could talk to him about this. Yet she hasn't seen him for eight months.
~.~.~.~
They sat in the drawing room, attendants bringing in her suitors one by one. There was a salesman, a merchant, a trader, a governor, a governor from another district,... On and on it went. After a while all their faces looked the same to her, a boring conundrum.
She smiles sweetly at their lousy attempts at flattery, at their idiotic self confidence that they would 'get the girl' so to speak. They flaunt their riches, act high and mighty. Even her father detested a few of them, so disgusting was their general behaviour.
Everyone of them was sent away, much to her relief. At least her father still loved her enough not to marry her to some lunatic.
"Looks as if we can only manage this for today." says her father. The sun was beginning to set, bathing the room in a soft orange glow from the french windows. "We shall hope for better results tomorrow."
There was a knock at the door, a butler poked his head in, scurried to her father and whispered something into his ear. Her father's eyebrows shot up, but he kept his composure nonetheless. She stares at them in puzzlement. "Alright, send him in." The butler hurries out again.
"Will there be one more, father?" she asks politely.
He inclines his head ans seats himself back down. "It appears so. After this one we'll have to send any others back. It's much too late."
The door is opened by the butler, in comes the next suitor to try his luck in courting her. She takes a deep breath to prepare herself for the next onslaught of awful attempts at flattery and winning her heart.
When he sat down, her preparations all turned to naught. Her breathing increased, eyes widened, heart rate went up a few notches. He sat right there, in front of her in a light suit, grinning like he never left. She swallowed the painful lump in her throat and whispered "What are you doing here?"
His grin faltered, but he wasn't about to back out now. "What does it look like I'm doing? I'm here as one of your suitors." All at once he looked sadly apologetic. "I'm sorry I took so long, Luce."
Her father looked between the two of them skeptically. "Lucy, do you know this man?"
Hesitantly, she nodded once. "I-I... I knew him." She stood up abruptly, the sound of her chair scratching against the marble tiled floor. "But I know him no longer."
"Lucy! Don't be impolite!" scolded her father.
"You've got a point," chimed in Natsu. "We haven't seen each other in months! We're probably strangers separated by a gate again."
Her father was bewildered with this new information. "What do you mean have't seen each other... Lucy have you been seeing this man?!"
"And you've come here to be my suitor." she hissed, ignoring her father. "Well you have some sort of bravery there, must come with being an idiot."
He stood up as well, paced slowly so that he would be in front of her. She had her arms crossed, eyes shining in defiance and pure anger. "I treated you as my friend, Natsu. And what do you do? You walk away just like that." She shakes her head, trying to hide the tears that threaten to spill. He reaches out but she stops him. "Don't. Don't try to act like my friend now."
"But Luce, I don't want to just be your friend." She looks at him, betrayed. "Remember what you told me? I was always looking for my other half, to complete myself. And I think I've found her." A flash of disgust flashes across her delicate features. "I've been gone for months, trying to earn enough to not look like a street urchin."
He takes her hand in spite of her protests, gets down on one knee. "Lucy Heatfilia, would you do me the honour of marrying me?"
The air in the room became thick, tangible even to the butler who stood outside the door.
Lucy smiled sweetly at Natsu. Then kicked him in the stomach with all the force he could muster.
"Ack!"
"Get lost you idiot!" She stomped across the marble tiles to the door. "Even if you want to propose to someone, do it properly!"
"Lucy!" shouts her father and Natsu at the same time.
The girl turns around, and Natsu's eyes widen at her bright red cheeks. "From now on, I expect a proper courtship. Which means coming to see me every day without fail." She reddened even more at her own words yet her heart was flying. "Do you understand that much, Mr. Dragneel?"
He grins wide, showing off his sharp teeth. "Yes ma'am!"
Maybe, just maybe, the both of them could form two halves and complete each other. Then would they stop searching.
Done! Hope you enjoyed reading this!
[ Could anyone find some quotes from Murakami in this story? ]
If there's a request you would like to make, please don't hesitate to PM me or ask through my tumblr at hydranomago