Hey guys! I'm back, and with a new fandom! *unenthusiastic jazz hands* Thanks a lot sis. You've got me hooked. I also took in your suggestions for editing this. I decided to write this to avoid doing my homework. Mainly because of references to Jellal, this takes place somewhere between the Tower of Heaven arc and Oracion Seis.
Natsu was bored. Incredibly bored.
He was sitting at the bar in the guild hall, with his head in his arms, trying to think of something to do. He hadn't destroyed much in a while; only a couple of chairs and a table.
Gray and Lucy still weren't back from that supposed "one day" mission, and Natsu was starting to get agitated. They should be back by now.
Well, it had only been a few hours since they left, but for some reason he couldn't stand the idea of Gray and Lucy on a job... together... without him. What if something happened to Lucy? She wasn't that strong of a mage.
Natsu groaned inwardly. He'd been coming to conclusions like that a lot lately. Almost any train of thought he let run long enough ended with Lucy. It was either her golden hair, the way she loved her spirits, how obnoxious she could be when she found him in her apartment, her seeming love of yelling at him...
A few stools down, Erza received her enormous slice of strawberry cake from Mira.
"Hey Erza, can I ask you something?" Natsu asked.
"Hm?" she looked up, "What about?"
"Just something I was thinking about." he said.
Erza nodded slowly. "And?"
Natsu got up, and slowly walked towards Erza, saying "Well, there's a girl-" this earned an incredulous laugh from the redhead "-and I end up thinking about her a lot. I don't try to, I just always do."
By this point, Erza Scarlet has pretty much figured out who this girl is. "What's your point?" She took another bite of cake.
"I just can't get her out of my mind. Do you know what I mean?"
"I don't-" Erza started, but changed her answer. "Yes, I suppose I do." Her mind often wandered to what Jellal had become.
"Don't you try to fix it? It's driving me crazy!" Natsu exclaimed rather childishly.
Rolling her eyes, Erza said, "I don't think it's something you can 'fix', exactly. And what gives you the idea this is a bad thing?"
"What're you getting at?" Natsu demanded, but then realized what the requip mage had meant. He was just glad that Happy was still sleeping.
"No. No way. No." he snapped, but Erza just shrugged, shoving another strawberry in her mouth.
"It could be that-"
"No!"
"-you love her." Erza ignored Natsu's interruption. The boy hid his head in his hands.
"Do you think that she might just maybe... like me?" he said, uncharacteristically softly.
"I don't know. I haven't had much luck on that subject, if you get what I mean." she said a little wistfully.
"Yeah." He paused. "Really, no. I've got no clue what you're talking about."
After a quick glare from Erza, the two of them sat there for a moment, both lost in their own memories, until Natsu broke the moment.
"It still doesn't make any sense! Why?" he yelled, slamming his fist - now on fire - on the counter.
The blaze flared up, and Erza fell off her stool in surprise. When she looked back, her slice of cake had been reduced to ashes.
"You burned my cake!" she shrieked, jumping to her feet.
"What? I- oh!" Natsu realized what he'd done, and had the sense to run. But when he reached the double doors of the hall, he bumped into a certain ice mage.
"Watch it, Flame-Brain!"
"Outta my way!"
The day ended with Mira cheerfully speculating how she was going to tell Makorav that Fairy Tail had destroyed half of the guild hall. Again.