Second Six Weeks
October 19th - 23rd
"What are you looking for?" Levy asked Lucy, who's eyes had been searching around the cafeteria since they sat down for lunch.
"I'm looking for Natsu we're supposed to be meeting up after school, but I haven't seen him all day," Lucy said discouragingly. Which meant he must be absent, and that would mean putting off work on their project for a day. She really didn't expect it it to take more than one day for this part, but she wanted to have plenty of time in case something happened.
"He's here today," Gray informed her. "He just has lunch detention and he missed first period that's probably why you haven't seen him."
Lucy visibly perked up, happy that they would get to start on time. Then she remembered why she had been looking for him and sighed, "I was actually looking for him so that I could remind him about our meeting today, since I usually don't see him after lunch."
"After the reprimanding Erza gave him for forgetting last time and making you wait twenty minutes, I doubt he will forget again," Gray said with a slight shiver that had nothing to do with the temperature of the cafeteria.
"That was pretty brutal," Cana added, "I sure as hell wouldn't forget again."
Everyone at the table solemnly nodded in agreement thinking back to last Tuesday when Erza had publicly berated Natsu during lunch. Lucy had even been pulled into the humiliation when Erza made Natsu apologize to her in front of everyone.
Hoping that everyone would be right, and he would remember; Lucy went back to eating her lunch.
It turned out that like usual Lucy did not see Natsu for the rest of the day. Deciding it was best to wait, and not miss him by running around the school looking for him; she made her way to the library. She had nearly reached the doors when she heard a familiar voice call out to her, "Hey Lucy." She turned and found her partner hurrying towards her.
Breathing out a sigh of relief she stopped and let him catch up with her. "Hey Natsu, I'm glad that you didn't forget this time," Lucy only half teased.
His face blanched and he got a vacant look in his eyes, she imagined he was remembering the horrible experience, "Like I would forget again after that."
Lucy couldn't help the playful smile that spread across her face at the way his whole body had shuddered as he said 'that'. She started walking towards the library entrance again, but soon noticed that Natsu hadn't followed her. He was still standing in the same spot, but was now staring out a window. When he finally noticed she was waiting for him he gestured outside, "Let's work in the courtyard instead of the stuffy library."
Lucy pursed her lips and narrowed her eyes at him, she loved the library it was one of her favorite places. She was about to go into a lecture on how amazing libraries were, and certainly not stuffy, when she noticed the expectant look on his face. Recalling how many times the librarian had glared at them last time, she decided it probably was a better environment for him to work in and agreed.
They set up on an umbrella covered picnic table, "So all we have to do today is pick out a topic for our report, but I think we should also start to think about how we want to divide the work."
"What do you mean divide the work, aren't we supposed to do it together?" Natsu asked in a worried tone.
"The report has to be at least six pages long. So instead of working on it all together usually people divide the workload up. For example one person might write the introduction and the first pages, while the other person writes the second half and the conclusion. I have also heard of one person doing all the research and making an outline, and their partner writes the actual paper."
Natsu seemed to be unsure. Finally he said, "But we could do it together. I mean there is no rule saying we have to divide it up, right?"
Lucy huffed a little, it seemed to her like he was trying to get out of doing half the work. "You are right there is no rule that says we have to divide the work up, but I think it would be best," she said with a tone of finality hoping he would agree. Instead he looked like he was about to argue again, so she continued, "If we don't we are going to have to spend a lot of time in the library researching and writing Every. Single. Thing. When we could each do half the work in half the time."
Natsu's shoulders slumped in defeat. If Lucy thought it was best to divide up the work then she was probably right. Afterall she is one of the smartest people in the school, "Okay, spending less time researching in the library does sound good. So which half should I do?"
"Well first let's pick a topic then we can divide it up," Lucy said as she shuffled through her papers. "They gave us a long list of topics to choose from. How about we both pick three and decide from there."
Natsu agreed and they sat in silence for awhile reading from the list and picking the three topics they found most interesting.
When Lucy had finally picked three she looked up and saw that Natsu was staring at her. From the way he didn't even blink when she looked back at him she could tell he had been staring for awhile now. She felt a faint blush creeping across her cheeks, although she was not sure if it was from his intense gaze or embarrassment over the fact that she had made him wait so long. "If you are ready you can go first," she said trying to snap him out of it.
"Huh," Natsu said as he began to blink. He had been waiting for her to pick her topics for so long that he had completely zoned out. Realizing she was now waiting on him to read off his topics he looked down at his list. "Okay first one, do video games really have an adverse effect on youths? Second, what do historians know about ninjas? And finally my favorite, is it possible that dragons ever existed and how do you think they would affect our world if they were real?"
Lucy could hear herself internally sighing as he read off his choices. Since those had been some she initially crossed off her list, and she had found it hard to cross most of them off her list. She cleared her throat in hopes he wouldn't hear any objections in her voice, "Interesting choices. I found it hard to pick just three and it did take a lot of narrowing down. These were just such great topics." She looked up and noticed Natsu was giving her a 'are you serious right now' look, "Anyways for my first one, what was the women's suffrage movement and how did it change america? Second, is printed media being phased out by electronic media? And lastly, when and by who were the constellations named, and discuss why they were given those names."
Natsu had scrunched up his nose, "No offense Lucy, but all of your choices sound really boring."
Lucy scoffed loudly, "Well all of your choices are stupid."
She took a deep breath in hopes of calming down. It really should not have offended her that Natsu thought her choices were boring, she had disliked his equally as much. "We are just too different we will never be able to agree. We might as well just point at one randomly."
"That's cool with me," Natsu agreed as he closed his eyes and circled his hand above the paper, before bringing it down.
Lucy read off the topic he had pointed to, "What was the code of the Bushido and how did it affect the samurai warriors?"
"Awesome," Natsu chimed.
"Hmm," Lucy thought for a moment. "Studying Japanese history does sound fun."
"So how do you want to divide it?" Natsu asked.
"Are you better at writing introduction or conclusions?" Lucy asked him in return.
Natsu tilted his head to the side and began to scratch the back of his neck. Which Lucy had learned to take as a sign that he had no clue.
"Maybe I should write both of those," she mused out loud to herself. "Since they are very important and if they are not done well it will make the whole paper look bad."
"If it is that important, then maybe you should do them and all the ones that go inbetween also," he said with a sly smile.
"Haha very funny," Lucy said in a mocking tone. "But you are not getting out of this. You will write some of the body paragraphs also."
Suddenly Natsu got a very excited look on his face, "Since we divided it up, does that mean we are done for this week?"
"Well yes, but I will probably go home and start to outline what our body paragraphs will cover tonight. Then tomorrow or sometime you can pick which ones you would like to write, so we will know exactly which ones we will be working on."
As soon as Lucy said yes Natsu had started to pack up his bag, but had stopped and was now staring at her with an open mouth, "You know the report isn't due until next six weeks right. Why would you want to get started so early?"
Lucy began to put away her papers and pack up her bag also. "I know I just like being prepared. Plus I am not going to be writing anything yet, just getting some ideas of what we could write about," she tried to explain to him.
Natsu had just slung his backpack over his shoulders and was walking out of the courtyard. He spun around to face Lucy who was still at the table, "You know what I think Lucy?"
"What?"
"I think you're a weirdo," he answered with a cackle then quickly ran around the corner of the building towards the parking lot.
He was halfway to where he had parked when he heard her yell back, "No I'm not".
Lover of Fairy Tails
Hello - I really hope that Lucy is coming across as studious and not b!tchy. I envision her as someone who studies alot and worries about thier grades, even though they dont need to.
Also Natsu is the kind of slacker that does his works. He just doesnt put much effort into it, and forgets it at home and turns it in late most of the time.
SHHH we are still not talking about how these are updating later and later.
Thanks so much for reading, reviewing, favorting, following. ^o^