sonder (n.) the realization that each random passerby is living a life as vivid and complex as your own.
Natsu Dragneel was not what one would call popular around Fiore Academy. A better word might be infamous, notorious, and some even consider him entirely disreputable. He was known for burning things – lots of things – and overall causing constant chaos wherever he strayed. That was why most people favored staying out of his way nowadays; nobody wanted to get caught in the crossfire of his destruction.
Plus, he was not very nice.
The only person who could ever make him be nice was Erza Scarlet, and that was solely because she was terrifying – and even then, sometimes he disobeyed her word until she physically forced him to follow her instructions. He was blunt with insults and not very considerate of the feelings of other people, and he did not like to hang around other people.
So when he walked up to his lunch table and found that a ditsy-looking blonde was occupying the seat across from his, he was not very happy. Not only had he been kept awake for an hour last night while Makarov gave him the monthly reprimand, but he had to waste hours away into the night scrapping up irrelevant points for his history essay, and now some girl was sitting at his table.
"This is my spot," he stated, dropping his tray onto the table with a loud clatter.
Clearly, his words had startled her by the way her head shot up, eyes wide. "What?" she questioned dumbly, eyebrows furrowing together.
"This is my spot," he repeated, leaning against the table impatiently. "Go find your own."
By the way she slipped her notebook into her backpack, he assumed she was leaving, but then she scowled up at him and crossed her arms. "I don't see your name on it," she snorted.
"Actually," Natsu smirked, his index finger tapping a patch of dark words on the wood, "it's right here."
She got closer to inspect it disbelievingly, cheeks tinging a light pink as they puffed out in defiance. "Just because you decided to deface school property doesn't mean I'm moving." Then she proceeded to take an angry bite of her lunch, her fiery glare matching his – both unwilling to falter.
"This has been my table for years," he argued, lips pulling back in a snarl. "Everybody knows that."
"Sorry," she apologized, though her voice lacked any sincerity. "I'm new here. I didn't get the cafeteria handbook yet."
The smug look on her face, in spite of the mad puffed cheeks, infuriated him. She must have been the girl he heard about – the one who supposedly paid to get into the school. "Why don't you go buy your own table, since you were able to buy your way into F.A.?" When she sucked in a deep breath and allowed her hands to curl into the fabric of her skirt, he felt a satisfied grin stretch over his lips, sitting down casually. "All right, bye."
To his astonishment, the girl took another bite of her food, now seemingly unfazed by his snarky comment. "I told you I'm not moving. You don't need a whole table," she shrugged casually, something sparking behind her eyes.
His own eyes glinted dangerously, leaning forward and lowering his voice enough to rid her of her complacent expression. "All right, fine. But if this happens again tomorrow, you won't be so smug."
Her eyes were wide for a moment, but there was not a trace of fear in them – not the usual reaction he was able to elicit from a variety of people. Then she became angry again, forehead creasing and staring him down.
For some reason, he felt small under her glare. It was strange for someone to stand up to him or bother him, let alone remain composed against his threats. It made him uncomfortable and it was not right. So, bitterly, he turned his head to the side, glowering as he began shoveling food into his mouth.
The cafeteria food was all right. He enjoyed the rare days when some of the student chefs were able to cook and serve, rather than selling the typical frozen food that was barely edible. Home-cooked meals were his favorite; they always had a little something extra within them. Though, to him, any of the food was edible as long as he was hungry enough – and boy, was he hungry.
For a few moments, the mostly empty table was silent. The sounds of her eating were not even there, which was weird, because he had pretty decent hearing. When he glanced at her from the corner of his eye, he caught her practically gawking at him – or, rather, his intense eating. Quickly, though, she looked away, returning her attention to her own food.
The rest of their lunch period went like that: tense, silent, and filled with the occasional fleeting glimpse.
Dear Mom,
I did it. I finally made it into Fiore Academy like I always wanted.
I just finished my second day and it's not what I expected. I made two friends, Levy and Gray, and they're really nice. Levy is my roommate now and she loves books as much as I do. I met Gray in my first class and it turns out he's in a few of them. He's cool – except he's got this weird stripping habit.
Everybody else isn't that nice so far. They all think I paid to get in and don't believe me when I say I didn't because I'm a Heartfilia. They think Dad paid, but he didn't. I haven't heard from him in a little over a month, since he left for his business trip; he didn't even show up to my goodbye party.
But I know–
Her pen inscribed a long blue line across the paper as the journal was snatched from her grasp. "Hey!" she called, her heart rate rising dramatically. "Give it back!"
The culprit was Flare Corona. Apparently she never had enough of Lucy, because every second she saw her was full of constant taunting and sharp verbal jabs. The wicked smile she wore now with all of her friends from Raven Tail behind her made Lucy want to cringe. "What's this, Blondie?"
"It's nothing!" she sputtered, reaching for it. Nobody was outside to witness it, and she was not sure if anybody would have helped her had they been.
Flare held it back, though, her smile darkening with Lucy's eagerness to retrieve it. "If it's nothing, then why do you want it back so badly?" Silence lapsed for a moment before she let out a blood-curdling laugh. Her fingers brushed over the pages, opening it to the one that had been most recently dog-eared. "'Dear Mom,'" she read in a mocking tone. "'I did it. I finally made it into Fiore Academy like it always wanted. I just finished my second day and it's not what I expected…'"
As Flare read aloud the words that were personal, for her ears and for her mother's, had she still been alive, Lucy felt fury boil within her. Eyes pooling with hot and angry tears, she made another grab for her journal, missing by a mere centimeter when Flare moved it out of reach once again. "Give it to me," Lucy demanded, her stare hard.
"You said it wasn't anything important," Flare mused. In a second's notice, a lighter was retrieved from her pocket and held dangerously close to Lucy's journal. "So I guess you wouldn't mind if I…" The flame sparked and danced mere millimeters away from the paper. "…burn it."
"Stop!" Lucy shouted, trying to swipe a hand through the air – but her hands were restrained by one of Flare's friends, Nullpudding. A single tear weaseled its way from her eye and down her cheek as the fire licked the bottom of her journal, the pages catching and the edges turning a sickly shade of black. "Please!"
Suddenly, the grip on Lucy's wrists disappeared, followed by grunting and the sounds of punches. Flare stared with a mixture of shock and horror behind Lucy, oblivious to the way that the fire had consumed the journal up to her fingertips. Lucy, though, lunged for Flare, tearing the book from her hands and patting it hard enough to diminish the flames.
The journal, which had been a gift from her mother so long ago, which had been filled with memories since she was a little girl, was now nothing but a flimsy burnt cover and a pile of ashes. All of the words she had scribbled onto paper were gone.
Yet, when she looked over her shoulder to see Laxus Dreyar throwing the last of the few Raven Tail members into a heap by a tree, Lucy could not find it in her to let the tears fall yet.
Flare, fear evident in her eyes, crawled away, gasping when Laxus's furious glare was set upon her. "Leave," he growled, and she did as he told, abandoning her companions.
It was silent for a few moments, Lucy clutching the remains of her notebook to her chest (surely ruining her pretty yellow blouse) and Laxus glancing around the courtyard. Then he began walking towards her, a little bit angled away, and she expected him to leave – but he did not. Instead, he stopped, extending a hand to help her up. "Are you all right… Lucy?" He seemed unsure if that was her name, which was not surprising. Most people only knew her by her last name.
"Yeah," she nodded slowly, surprised. "Oh, uh, thank you."
"No problem," he shrugged casually. Finally, though, he did turn around to leave, walking a few steps before glancing over his shoulder at her. "You're part of Fairy Tail now, so we've gotta look out for you."
Nothing was able to process in Lucy's mind.
Thankfully, she would be alone probably until she fell asleep. Levy and Gajeel had finally talked and Levy spilled all the details to her during sixth period. It turned out that Gajeel did like Levy (as Lucy had guessed) and he laughed because he was so relieved and baffled. After a long, drawn-out discussion of not believing each other, Levy had been the one to directly ask Gajeel out – on a date. That was where they were currently, and Levy probably would not return home until late – it was a Friday, after all, and Fiore Academy had the weekends off.
So Lucy took a very lengthy shower, during which she sorted out her thoughts. Laxus Dreyar, the headmaster's grandson, had beaten up the people antagonizing her and told her, essentially, that it was the responsibility of the Fairy Tail members to look out for one another. Levy was right when she told her about that, then.
I guess that even though they're not that close anymore, the idea of family still runs deep, she thought, rinsing the rest of the conditioner from her hair. And… I'm part of it now.
The shower handle was turned with a squeak until water stopped spewing from the spout. Lucy stepped out quickly. If there was another fire, she wanted to actually be dressed when everybody evacuated.
Minutes later, she was in front of her dresser, soaked hair darkening patches of her pink kitten shirt. Her fingers traced the edges of her burnt journal once more and the tears sprung to her eyes again. It had been a momento of her mother – it held the same note in the front from Layla that Lucy read every time she felt upset.
And now it was gone.
Freely the hot tears streamed down her cheeks, her fingers curling around a picture frame that held a picture of her parents and herself. She was young, no older than four or five, but her mother and father looked absolutely joyous. Jude was smiling in a way that he had not done since Layla's passing, and Layla herself was glowing. She looked so beautiful, and Lucy sometimes still woke up expecting to see her smiling face.
"I'm sorry, Mom," she whispered, leaning against the wall and sinking until she was sitting down. Her sobs were quiet but they shook her shoulders intensely, every single one causing tremors in her bones. And she cried for a while, surprised at how many tears she could produce, until finally, she heard something.
A voice. And it was singing.
No way. It was behind the wall in the room adjacent to hers, low and sweet but belting out lyrics confidently. The song was one she could not recognize, but the rhythm was enough to calm her mind and her nerves. Eventually the tears stopped flowing and she felt herself being lulled to sleep, the song never faltering – not even in her dreams.
Natsu exited the shower and wrapped a towel around his waist, maneuvering his way through the mess he called his dorm room. Luckily for him, he had no roommate (well, aside from his pet cat, but Happy was not a registered student), so he could do whatever he wanted with his room and nobody could complain about it.
The day had been rough. Aside from his lack of sleep and the girl who stubbornly across from him at lunch, he had undoubtedly failed three exams and the essay which he had turned in for history was a solid C- at best.
It was not the fact that he did not put any effort into it. He did try, really, but it was hard for him to grasp the concepts. Science came easily to him (some science) and math was all right, but the other subjects were difficult for him to comprehend and apply – and he was failing because of it.
To say he had been stressed all day was an understatement.
He did what he always did when he was stressed: he sang. It was the reason he got into Fiore Academy. Ever since he was a child, he had been blessed with a great singing voice, and it only got better with time. Even though it was a basic talent, it was good enough for the headmasters to accept him and allow him to enroll, and he had no complaints.
It started out as a quiet hum as he got dressed, but eventually it grew in volume until he was singing as loud as he would have during a performance (if he had done those). His back hit the wall by his door and he fell to the floor with crisscrossed legs; then he serenaded Happy, who had slunk over to him with the pure intent of being pet. And he sang for a while, until he vented all of his emotions and his voice grew sleepy.
As he drifted off, he couldn't help but feel a strange warmth, like someone was there with him.