A soft and warm wind runs its invisible fingers through my hair as the blonde strands bounce with each step I take. The green leaves in the trees are dancing shyly along with the bushes and flowers scattered throughout the area. The silence that fills the air feels tranquil and brings a sense of peace over me, relaxing my body and mind. The light thumps of my feet against the pavement is the only sound that stands out against the rest.
Wearing a simple blue tank top with a black skirt and tennis shoes, I make my way to town. Specifically to a building a certain pink-haired male is working. Last night before my family and I left, he made me promise to coming back the next day so I could start officially paying him back for the money he spent on me. So when I woke up this morning, I got ready and started my trek to town.
It isn't as hot today so there's very little sweating compared to yesterday, though it's still enough to leave my forehead and face shining. As I walk, I go over all the people I met yesterday just in case any of them made an appearance while I was at there, mumbling to myself in the process.
Erza is the scary girl with red hair. Gajeel is the tall dude wearing all black with piercings covering his face. Levy is the cute bookworm. Gray is the one that likes to strip. Igneel is Natsu's father, the man with red hair. The young blue haired girl is his sister Wendy..."
I trail off as I try to remember anyone else I saw and met while I was there. I straighten up as three more people pop into my mind. "Sweet woman with silver hair is Mirajane. Huge dude always talking about manliness is her brother Elfman." I pause as I try to think of the last name. "Oh! Their younger sister is Lisanna, the animal lover."
I continue on like this until I've named every person I can remember. By the time I've finished it's been over ten minutes and the town is just around the corner. Knowing this, I speed my walk up slightly and when the town comes into view, I speed up just a bit more. I don't know why I'm in such a hurry but I just feel like I need to be walking quickly.
My pace decreases when the correct building appears in my line of vision and a smile works its way onto my face as I open the door to it and step in. I immediately welcome the warm aura of the place. Looking around, I notice no one is currently out here in front so I walk over to the counter and ring the bell.
I barely have to wait before the double doors are swinging open and Natsu is stepping out, his sister behind him. "Lucy! You made it!"
"Of course I made it. Not like I'm gonna skip out."
"Good," he says with a grin. Then he points at the display case filled with sweets. "Gonna order anything today?"
I shake my head. "Nah, I already had breakfast back home."
With a nod, he turns to Wendy, who's just standing behind him waiting patiently. "Since she's not gonna order anything, you can go back to the back, Wen."
"Okay," the girl accepts with a polite smile before turning around and making her way back through the double doors. With Wendy gone, Natsu turns back to me. "So where do you want to go today?"
I shrug my shoulders. "I have no idea. This place is literally the only place I know in this town so far."
"Well then we can go meet up with Erza, Gray, Levy, and Juvia. They're all hanging out today and I'm sure you'd like to get to know them more. They're all at the bowling alley today," he tells me as he takes off his work apron.
"I'd love to go bowling!"
"Cool. Just let me go put this apron away and grab my stuff. I'll be back." Before I can respond, he has followed Wendy and I'm standing alone once again in the room. This doesn't last long and less than four minutes later, Natsu has come back, apron gone, the sleeves of his white shirt rolled up, jeans on, and scarf wrapped around his neck.
"You didn't change the rest of your clothes?"
"Nah. We don't really have uniforms so we're allowed to wear whatever we want under our aprons as long as it's not too bright or distracting or anything. So I just wear these white long sleeves and black jeans I have in my closet," he explains.
"Ah, okay."
"So you ready to go?" he asks as he motions toward the door with his arms.
"Of course! Lead the way."
With that, he starts walking toward the door and I follow him with no hesitation. From the time I had with them last night, all his friends seem pretty cool so I'm excited to spend more time with them.
The walk goes by extremely quickly as we talk and laugh like we've known each other for years. Before I know it, we're right outside the doors of a large building called the Magnolia Bowl and Dine Bowling Arena. Going inside revealed a small area with a counter and four doors behind the counter. The door to the very left was labeled Bowling Arena, the one next to the bowling one was labeled Laser Tag Arena, the one to the very right was labeled Mini Golf, and the one in between laser tag and mini golf was labeled Arcade and Ticket Exchange.
A single worker is positioned behind the counter. He's tall, has piercings all over, and has eyes of steel. If only I could remember his name. Scolding myself for forgetting despite going over it in my head not too long ago, I give him a smile when he looks up. He simply nods to me, his face showing nothing but boredom.
"Hey metalhead! I didn't know you were working today," Natsu calls out to him.
'Metalhead' grunts in response. "Levy and the others haven't started their bowling games yet so if you hurry up, you and blondie might have time to join."
"Cool, thanks metal freak!" Natsu exclaims as he slaps some money onto the counter. "Do us a favor and bring us our shoes. Wouldn't want to waste any time waiting for you."
Grumbling, the pierced boy nods his head. "I know your size but what about the girl's?"
"Size 7," I inform.
Before the other male can respond, Natsu grabs my wrist and is dragging behind the counter and toward the bowling alley. He allows me through the door first before following me through it and closing it behind him. The door leads to a long, straight hallway. At the end, it veers to the left but almost immediately opens up into a large room.
As I step into the room, I look around. The lights in the room are dim but the neon lights strewn across the room make up for it. The corners and crevices of the wall and ceiling are lined with neon lights and they make up a cool design on the ceiling as well. The floor is carpet, a dark blue with bright yellow bowling pins and bowling balls as a design. The lights are slightly brighter along the bowling alleys but not by much and smaller lights are placed in between the lanes.
In front of each lane is a comfortable looking, dark blue, curved couch with a small gray table in the open space the curve makes. The couches have enough space to fit six people but there's two normal chairs at both ends of it for a total of eight seats. At the end of the table closest to the seats is the machine used to put in the names of each player. The bowling ball deposit machine is to the left of its respective lane and table.
The music being played is the kind that someone would play if they wanted to dance. It was quick and energizing but it was quiet enough that people could still focus on the game instead of dancing. It's the kind that's extremely hard to hate.
There are about twenty lanes in total but at the moment I notice only three are in use. I recognize the group Natsu and I are here for first though. The red of Erza's hair and blue of Juvia's and Levy's make it hard to miss them. They're at Lane 10.
"Hey guys!" Natsu called out when he realized where they were. "Add us to the game!"
The four of them turned around and waved once they realized who it was. "Natsu! Lucy! You made it!"
"Just in time as well. We were just about to start the game," Erza added.
"Well let's not waste anymore time! C'mon Lucy!" Natsu exclaims as he grabs my wrist and practically drags me across the room to them.
A few minutes later, the two of us have been entered in the game and Gajeel had come with our shoes. As Levy steps onto the wooden bowling floor, all of our attention is on her, including Gajeel's despite the fact that he should have returned to the counter at the entrance as soon as we had retrieved them. Her first roll goes off to the left and only knocks down a four pins. Her second one takes the same route and knocks one more pin down.
Her shoulders slump forward with disappointment as she walks back to her seat but her eyes show determination. "That was just my warm-up!" she declares. Gajeel chuckles at her which earns him a glare. "Stop your laughing!"
"Sorry Shrimp. I can't help it that you're terrible at bowling," he teases as he walks closer to her.
"Go back to your job." Her voice sounds angry and if I didn't see her face, I would have no trouble believing she actually is but she has a slight smile on her face and her eyes hold a lightness to them that completely smashes the idea of her being mad to pieces.
With another chuckle at the bluenette, he starts making his way out of the room. As he leaves, Erza stands up with a devious grin decorating her face. "I guess that means it's my turn. Soon you peasants will bow down to me and unbeatable bowling skills!" Immediately following her words, she turns and strides toward the bowling ball deposit machine, where Levy's ball already back and waiting to be used again.
"She's confident in her skills," I observe.
"Oh just you wait. You'll see why in a minute," Natsu tells me.
"Besides the fact it's Erza and I don't think there's a thing in the world she's not confident about," Grays adds.
After grabbing the only silver ball, Erza quickly makes her way to stand in front of the lane. Only a few seconds pass before she launches the ball forward. It rolls smoothly down the middle and my jaw drops as all the pins tumble down for a strike. "Woah," I breathe out. "She's good."
"Good is an understatement, Lucy. She's amazing."
"Not as amazing as my darling Gray!" Juvia exclaims as she attacks the male's arm. He responds by squirming around to get her to release him. After a few seconds he gives up, however, and lets her hug his arm.
Erza sits down with a pleased look on her face. Realizing it's her turn, Juvia reluctantly lets go of Gray's arm and stands up. Speediing over to the balls, she grabs an ocean blue one. She doesn't waste time in rolling her ball. It goes off to the right slightly but stays close to the center. In the end it knocks over eight of the pins. Her second roll knocks over one more, leaving a lone pin still standing.
I add her to my mental list of opponents to watch out for.
Gray is next so he gets up quickly in hopes of avoiding Juvia's clinging. The girl pouts as she realizes she took too long in getting back and missed out on her small window of opportunity. With his ice blue ball, his first roll knocks over half the pins. His second go knocks over three more.
Natsu practically jumps up once Gray starts walking back after his turn. He grabs a bright red bowling ball. My mouth falls open when the ball glides down the alley and knocks down all of the pins. Seeing he got a strike, he sits down with a cocky grin. This whole group is great at bowling.
It's my turn now. Hiding the grin trying to make its way on my own face, I grab a hot pink ball. After a single deep breath, I make my move and send the ball on its way down the alley. It takes a route similar to Juvia's except instead of knocking down eight pins like hers, it immediately knocks down the nine. The tenth rocks in its place. We all watch anxiously as it keeps this up for a good five seconds.
Eventually the rocking gets too much for it and it falls over. Letting out a sigh of relief, I turn around triumphantly and let the grin form. "Three? We have three terrific players now? This is terrible!" Gray exclaims.
"Say bye to your bronze medal, Gray. It looks like Lucy's going to steal it," Natsu laughs.
"Shut it pyro!"
"Nah. I can't let this perfect opportunity to tease you pass, stripper."
Gray is just about to reply back but Erza stops them. "This better not be the start of a fight I see forming." Immediately, the two throw their arms around each other.
"No ma'am! No fighting here!"
"Just best friends!"
"Good." Then she turns to me with a somehow evil yet sweet glint in her eyes. "Good job Lucy but don't get used to it because I will beat you hard."
Nervously laughing I nod my head. "Yes ma'am."
When everyone has settled down as much as they're ever going to, Levy stands back up to start the second round.
The rest of the game goes by quickly. Natsu, Erza, and I all stay within the top three though the order of us continously switches throughout the game.
The last round starts with Erza in first, Natsu in second, and me in third. Gray follows me with Juvia behind him. Levy is in last. It's expected to stay that way but during Erza's turn, a blue-haired boy with a weird tattoo under his right eye passes and messes her up, causing her to knock down only seven of the pins. Her second turn knocks the rest down but it still proves as her downfall when Natsu's turn comes around. He gets another strike which gets him above Erza, much to the dismay of the girl.
Then it's my turn. After this, I'm either moving up to second or finishing third. Knowing I'll be happy with either, I don't worry about it too much. My first roll ends with nine pins down so I only have one pin left but my second ball misses the pin by a hair. Erza lets out a sigh of relief that she still gets second.
With the final scores, we all congratualate Natsu, except Gray who is grumpy he came in fourth, and start to clean up. Since this place serves food and drinks for bowlers, the table is littered with garbage.
Cleaning up takes only a few minutes with all six of us and before I know it, we've changed back into our normal shoes and are walking out the door of the building. Despite hvaing plenty of food while bowling, we all agree to go over the The Summer Rose.
As we walk, I can't help but smile as I watch all my new friends laughing. Back at home I'd never had friends like this and those were people I've known for years. I've known these people for two days including today. Two days ago when I first arrived here, I hated everything about this place. Since I met Natsu early yesterday and the rest of them late yesterday they've already completely flipped my views. I can tell they're only going to continue doing that throughout all this summer.
Can I just say this chapter was terrible to write? I've been working on it since right after I uploaded the last chapter but I just couldn't get much done every time I tried to write. All of it up to "'Well let's not waste anymore time! C'mon Lucy!' Natsu exclaims as he grabs my wrist and practically drags me across the room to them." was literally written sentences at a time. Every time I worked on it, I got out a sentence or two before I stopped. Thankfully I cranked the rest out in one sitting. Otherwise this update would take quite a bit longer than it already has.
Also, you know how spring break is supposed to be a great time to update more than usual? Yeah, well, not for me. I'm four days into mine and the only reason I'm writing is because I forced myself to. Although once I got writing I was really into it, it took four days of break to get there. I've been too caught up in reading the fanfiction of other people.
Well, I'm gonna stop rambling and upload this already. See ya my peeps!