It was grade ten, now, and the school dance was in a couple days. Everyone was in a huge kerfuffle; this year, it was mandatory that the girls asked the boys. This, of course, set everyone into a huge panic: girls worried about who to ask, boys worried that no one would ask them. Silliness, really.
Lucy wasn't worried—her and Natsu always went to the dances together.
And she hadn't really thought it about until the school day had ended and she was slowly packing up her backpack at her locker. She frowned, looking at the time; Natsu should've been here already, waiting for her to be ready for their walk home. She hoped he hadn't gotten detention or anything.
So, she'd waited. Pressed her back against the locker, sat on the ground, and waited for him. After another fifteen minutes, he'd finally showed up. He had a goofy smile smeared across his face, a daze in his eyes.
He offered Lucy a hand; she gladly took it, and he pulled her up.
"What's wrong with you?" Lucy asked, narrowing her eyes at him. He looked...different.
He couldn't wipe that dumb grin off of his lips. "Ah, nothin'."
They started to walk. "Tell me," She urged, wondering why he looked so weird.
"You really want to know?"
"Obviously, you doorknob."
They pushed out of the school doors, headed out into the fresh air. It was breezy; the clouds were getting dark, as though it might rain later on.
His voice was funny—happy, but not in his usual way. "Lisanna Strauss asked me to the dance. That's why I was late."
Lucy's steps faltered, and she nearly tripped; she caught herself, taking a quick two steps to catch back up, hoping Natsu hadn't noticed. Her hands subconsciously balled into fists as she gribbed her backpack; her heartbeat picked up. There was noticeable tension in her voice when she spoke. "And you said?"
Natsu snorted. "I said yes, of course. You think I'd turn down an invite by the cutest girl in school?"
Lucy's gaze dropped. For some reason, her legs felt heavier; walking was more of a struggle. "Ah." She took a couple more seconds to spit out her next sentence. "Good for you."
"Yeah." He beamed, which only seemed to make Lucy's chest hurt more. "You ask anyone yet?"
Lucy swallowed. The dance was tomorrow. "No. Not yet."
"Better get on it, lazy."
She didn't respond; she was far too caught up in her own thoughts. Sure, the idea of Natsu going to the dance with Lisanna pissed her off. After all, it was a major inconvenience, now that she had to find her own date. And besides, it sort of sucked that Natsu hadn't upheld their long time tradition of being each other's dates to every dance they'd ever attended.
But was that it? Was that all that made her mad?
Was it the idea of Natsu dancing with another girl? Was it the idea of him walking another girl afterwards? Was it the idea that they might stop on her porch, and he might lean in and kiss her?
Lucy slammed her eyes shut, shaking her head. No. No, of course not. She didn't care about that.
At least, that's what she tried to convince herself.
"You okay, Luce?"
Lucy's head snapped up, eyes flashing to Natsu. "What?"
"You're acting funny," He said, voice dripping with concern. His hand flew up and pressed against her forehead; his skin instantly set her skin aflame. "Woah—you're hot."
Don't, Lucy groaned mentally. Don't look all worried and cute. Stop it.
When she didn't respond, he changed the subject. "You comin' to pitch? Gray just got a new bat."
Lucy's throat was tight; her voice was a squeak when she spoke. "Uh—raincheck," She mumbled, looking straight ahead rather than at her best friend. "I just...I've got some errands to run."
"Oh," Natsu said. "I'll come with."
"No!" Lucy cried; she froze, desperately trying to calm her voice down. "I mean, nah. It's fine. You guys go hit the ball around. I'll be pretty busy for the rest of the night, so..."
It was the first lie she'd ever told Natsu. The thought stung in her chest, but she couldn't stand to be out there, playing ball with the boys, thinking about Natsu dancing with Lisanna and kissing Lisanna and whatnot. She needed to lie down, drown in her own sorrows for a bit.
She still wouldn't explicitly say why she had sorrows—she refused to admit her feelings even to herself in the privacy of her own mind.
"Okay," Natsu replied, sounding a bit glum. "You sure? It's never fun without you there."
She gave him a quick glance, tightening her messy ponytail from beneath her baseball cap. "Positive. I'll see you tomorrow."
The pink haired boy frowned. "Can we at least have a sleepover?" His lips spread into that classic Natsu grin. "I'll bring your favorite chocolate."
"Um," Lucy stammered, heart beating quickly in her chest. Here he was, puppy dog eyes begging and his lip all pouty. How the hell was she supposed to say no to that? Cringing, knowing she'd never be able to escape her depressed thoughts about the dance, Lucy nodded. "Yeah—sounds great!"
That seemed to brighten his day—the sight of his eyes lighting up after her agreeing to a sleepover sort of made her heart ache. And then, he'd high-fived her goodbye as he dashed off to the baseball field, leaving her standing there, on the sidewalk outside of her house, heart heavy.
She wasn't sure why she felt so glum, but she didn't question it. She was just protective, she'd reminded herself. She was protective about Natsu going to the dance with another girl. Just like he'd been when Brad tried to confess his love for Lucy.
It was friendly. That's all.
Lucy made her way into her house, greeting her father, who had already made it home from work.
"How was school, princess?" He asked. He always called her princess—probably trying to subtly manipulate her out of being a tomboy.
Lucy shrugged, her mind not being able to focus on anything other than Natsu going to the dance with Lisanna. "It was okay. How was your day?"
"Great," Jude said. "Hey—take a look at this. Another pamphlet from that all-girls prep school came in the mail. How odd. Let's look at it."
Lucy rolled her eyes. "What a coincidence," She blabbered, playing along with her father's ruse. She was well aware how desperately he wanted his daughter to attend the school—if only for the summer camp—in order to mold her into the perfect little lady he'd always wanted. They looked at the photos. She couldn't deny, the school was impressive—but not really her thing. "Amazing as always, dad."
She forced a smile onto her face, not wanting to get into an argument with him—not now, when she was already miserable. Her father took her smile as progress; the idea that she might be warming up to the girls' school excited him.
"It really is amazing. And you'd fit in so well. You'd make some female friends!"
Lucy sighed. "I don't need female friends."
Jude sighed, too. "Listen, honey—you know I love Natsu. He's like a son to me. But...a girl should have a girl friend. Just to gossip to, braid their hair. Whatever."
"I gossip with Natsu," Lucy responded. "And I braid his hair."
"That doesn't surprise me," Her father muttered. "Anyways. Honey, think about the prep school, okay?"
She waved him off, heading up the stairs towards her bedroom. "I will, I will."
"Promise me!"
"Pinky promise!" She shouted back, closing her bedroom door and tossing her backpack on the ground.
Then, she leapt into bed face-first, letting out a groan of anguish.
Why did Natsu have to say yes to some other girl?
And why did he have to call Lisanna the cutest girl in school?
The thought made Lucy queasy. She didn't like the idea of Natsu with other girls.
Time flew by, and before Lucy knew it, Natsu's heavy feet came bounding up her staircase; he shoved open the door, not bothering to knock. He never did knock, and it had never really bothered Lucy—except this time, she'd wished he had.
He froze in the doorway, staring at her.
She was in bed, blankets around her, crying. She hadn't realized when exactly she'd started crying, but all of the dreary feelings about the dance and about Natsu and about Lisanna had sort of overwhelmed her. So, there she was, cheeks wet and eyes puffy and face red, staring up at a surprised Natsu.
His face immediately crumbled into a look of worry and pain, and within seconds he was kneeling on the floor beside her, hand on her shoulder. "Jesus, Luce—what's wrong?"
Lucy closed her eyes, shoving her face into her mattress. Firstly, the fact that she cared this much—enough to cry—about Natsu simply going to the dance with another girl, that bothered her. All this time, her feelings for Natsu...they grew. And now they were at the point where she was crying over him, about the idea of him even looking at a girl other than her. Secondly, everything was worse now that he'd seen her. Not only was she crying over him, but now he was there, with her.
She was so embarrassed.
His warm hands scooped under her chin, tilting her head back up so he could see her. His eyes were dark, but soft; he looked extremely upset seeing her like this.
So concerned and...so cute.
"Luce..." He'd whispered, lips turning down at the corners. "What happened? Did you and your dad get into it again?"
Lucy swallowed; her throat felt thick, like something was caught in it. "No, nothing like that." She sucked in a breath. "It's not a big deal."
His big thumb wiped a tear from her cheek; her heart rate increased, and she thanked her lucky stars that he couldn't hear it. Desperate to avoid any hint of conversation about the cause of her tears, she sat up, sniffed, and wiped her eyes. She rubbed any semblance of tears away, her puffy skin the only hint that she'd been upset.
Natsu still looked worried.
Why did he have to do things like that? Why couldn't he just be like a normal friend? One that played baseball with her, but other than that, didn't particularly care much about anything? It only made it worse that he was so concerned about her wellbeing. It only made her yearn for more, when in his eyes, it was strictly friendship.
"Tell me, Luce."
Lucy let out a sigh, the softness in his eyes making her want to stab herself in the jugular. "I'm..." Upset that you've got another date. Mad that you ditched me. Desperately and hopelessly in love with you, Natsu, and I always have been. "On my, uh, period."
That shut him up pretty quickly. His dark eyes ran over her face, eyebrows shooting up in surprise; his mouth formed a small circle, but no words came out for a solid minute or so.
"Gotcha," He'd replied, his big hand patting her head. He pulled himself up onto her bed, rolling over her so he was on the open side of it; he grabbed her laptop from the floor, placing it neatly on his lap. Immediately, he logged on—he knew her password—and started searching through the massive amount of movies she had stored on there. He picked something gory, and pressed play.
Lucy being on her period didn't bother much—not nearly as much as other boys his age. If she had been with Gray, or even Gajeel, and mentioned something about her period, they'd act as if they were disgusted, as if she were infected with some contagious disease. But, Natsu...well, he'd encountered Lucy on her period before, and it hadn't scared him off.
The first day she'd gotten it, in grade five, she'd awoken with stained sheets and an awful stomach ache. She'd groaned, grabbing her sheets and tugging them to the laundry room; then, she headed to the bathroom to clean up. Once that was dealt with, she told her father; he overreacted (typical single father) and told her to take the day off of school. He then gave her seven boxes of pads and tampons—he'd been worrying about this day occurring since Layla had died—and made things incredibly awkward. Lucy didn't mind, though. It was awkward.
Dad had headed off to work, and Lucy had gone back to bed, stomach pains worse than she'd ever imagined. She'd known people got cramps, but she'd never realized they were this bad; she put a movie on and lay there in agonizing pain.
Natsu had bursted into her room a while later; he'd frowned at her when she was still in bed. He'd asked her what the hell she was doing—it was a Wednesday, and class started in fifteen minutes—until she'd awkwardly sputtered out that she was sick. He'd said he didn't believe her, that she was faking the whole thing to get out of being his biology partner. Unable to get him off of her back, she'd muttered out the truth, that she'd gotten her period.
'Oh' was all that he'd said, and then he plopped down in bed beside her. He'd taken the day off, too, skipping school without a second thought—which is mother angrily chastised him for later that night. They'd stayed in, watching movies all day long. He'd gone out in the afternoon and bought her a pint of icecream. He got her a hot water bottle to rest on her stomach when the cramps got intense, to help ease her.
As she'd grown older, she'd adjusted to womanhood, like most girls did. She'd learn how to cope with it, learn how to adjust to her cramps. But still, whenever there was a bad day and she was in far too rough of shape to sit in school for six and a half hours, she'd stay home—Natsu by her side.
So, seeing her sobbing in her bed, saying it was period issues, that didn't really phase him. He'd learned not to ask much about it, knowing that if he did, he'd most likely get a smack from Lucy. So, he pulled up a movie, angling the laptop so Lucy could see it better.
And that would've been nice, if Lucy weren't absolutely miserable because god, he was so sweet and she wanted to lean over and kiss him, but she couldn't because they were best friends forever and he had a date with another girl to the school dance and everything was ruined.
But, still, as per usual, he'd distracted her. As the movie went on, he'd made his usual dumb jokes; Lucy couldn't help but crack up. By the end of the night, things felt like they were back to normal—just the two of them, laughing and snickering, so incredibly happy just be in each other's company.
At least, it seemed normal. Lucy still had to stifle her thoughts about how cute he was and how her heart jumped when he looked at her. She had to stuff the thoughts about the dance into the back of her mind, because, for god's sake, he was her best friend and she couldn't bear to be miserable when he was sitting in her room eating chocolate with her. So, she pretended she was fine and she laughed when he made a joke and she tried to forget about how absolutely in love with him she was.
They fell asleep, movies still playing, icecream and chocolate melting into the sheets. And Lucy didn't mind, because she was happy—even if it was temporary. She was glad to have such a good friend, even if that meant he never saw her as pretty or beautiful. And she was glad he was there to pick her up when she was down, even if that meant he'd never love her the way she loved him.
At least, that's what she liked to think.
