Secrets
When she woke up, the morning was already gone and her stomach reclaimed something it could digest. She stood up groggily and walked to the kitchen. However, she stopped a few steps away hearing some unusual sounds coming from that direction. She spied from the door and saw a pink haired man rummaging through the fridge noisily. She sighed and, rubbing her eyes, she walked up to the table behind him.
"Did you find anything you like, yet?" she asked innocently, expecting the man to be surprised.
"Mm… Not really," he replied, still searching. Jessica's eye twitched. Not only was he assaulting her fridge without her permission but also didn't value the fact that, for once, there was food in it.
She huffed and stood up. She walked past Natsu, who was munching on a slice of bread as he acted, and opened a cabinet door. Inside she found a Tupperware which she took out and also some instant coffee. While she searched her usual cup, she turned the electric kettle on and then put two spoons of coffee inside her cup.
"Do you want some coffee?" she asked distractedly. The man looked her way and nodded. His eyes were fixed on the Tupperware that contained something brown in big quantities. Jessica took out another cup and prepared coffee for them both. Then she handed the man his cup and headed back to the table carrying the mysterious tupper with her. Natsu looked at the fridge once more before deciding the brown mystery seemed more interesting than the carrots.
When he reached the table with his coffee, he started drooling at the sight. Brownie for breakfast! He dag in immediately.
"You're the best, Lucy!" he shouted with his mouth full. Jessica's eye twitched at the surname and the crumbles that hit her face coming from the man's direction. She took one slice for herself and drank some coffee. It seemed her visitor was quite the good eater and wasn't very well-mannered. That took out some points.
While thinking about this, she noticed for the first time consciously that she had included him in her list of desirable man. Additionally, he was occupying a high rank already! She narrowed her eyes at her thoughts. "What the fuck?!"
A movement from her right caught her attention and brought her out of thoughts. It was Natsu moving his legs and arms, clashing his palms against the table like a little kid. He looked at her eagerly.
"So what are we eating for lunchtime?" he asked.
"Wh- What do you mean by that?" She looked at the empty Tupperware and gulped. They looked at each other and at the clock on the wall. It sang 1 p.m. and Natsu grinned. Jessica sighed and shook her head. She had gotten to eat only one brownie anyway so… why not.
She stood up and checked her food supplies. For some reason she imagined Natsu would love to eat anything as long as it was spicy and tacos seemed like a great idea, but she needed to buy some ingredients. She put her hands on the table with a THUD, grinning and soon enough they were both walking down the streets to the market.
"What are we making anyway?" Natsu asked insistently. She was thinking about keeping it a secret but it was proving to be a difficult task.
She paused. "We? You are going to help me?" Jessica asked.
The man snorted. "Of course, who do you think I am?" She smiled in return.
"Alright so, we have to turn on that street to get to the butcher's shop, then we need some veggies… I think the store should be a block away…" Jessica explained.
"Alright, we are buying meat. I like that," Natsu noted smiling. She laughed and looked at him but when she did, his smile had disappeared and his gaze was fixed on something ahead of them. She turned her head to see three men walking down the street in their direction. They didn't catch her attention but Natsu surprised her by taking her hand and changing sides, meaning he would be the one to walk beside the group of men. She didn't understand the meaning of this but didn't say a word. However, she understood it when one of the men yelped as they walked by.
Natsu wasn't walking anymore. His hand was holding the stranger's arm. The man had some kind of knife and Natsu had stopped him from stabbing him. Oh, God.
Jessica froze but Natsu didn't. He took the knife out of the stranger's hand and sunk it in the man's throat. The sound was so horrible she wanted to forget it the very moment it was produced. Natsu then headed for one of the other two. He pulled out a gun and Jessica gasped. He pulled the trigger twice and blood stained the floor.
Natsu was holding the man's arm so that the gun pointed at the sky, but it was too late. He was bleeding. His shirt was turning darker.
"You will regret that," Natsu said, his voice another sound Jessica wanted to forget the moment she heard it. Deep, grim, frightening. For the first time she was able to react enough to close her eyes and she did with full force.
She heard a thud, then a scream, then some steps far away. She begged for it all to end and covered her face with her hands. For a moment, silence spread. She half opened her eyes trying not to look at the floor but her peripheral vision showed her a glimpse of three bodies on the floor. She tried to shake that thought away but the sight of the man in front of her wouldn't let her.
Natsu was looking at those men with the ferocity of an animal, making sure they wouldn´t stand again. Suddenly, like a bucket of icy water, the thought crossed her mind that that man wasn´t "Natsu". She didn't even know him. She didn't know his name. What was the meaning of all this? What kind of horrible person was standing in front of her? This was far more than any secret she could handle. The man in front of her was flying out her list of desirable men and out her list of friends and out of everything, she told herself in a very stupid mental note.
The man looked at her, accidentally it seems, as if he didn't know she was there at all, and, in an instant, the monster disappeared and Natsu's eyes were worriedly looking at her. He was frightened.
"Lucy…" he said with his usual voice. And she broke. The tears started spilling down her cheeks and a horrible pain burned her chest. She curved forward, pressing her hands to her heart. The tears blurred her vision but through them she could see the dead bodies.
The only man still alive took a step towards her, lifting his hand. She closed her eyes again. Not one logical word came out of her mouth but she whimpered.
Suddenly, she heard steps coming their way and someone shouting, "Stay right there!" Then she heard "Natsu" talk before running away.
"Sorry," he had said and, as the police officer came closer, she started crying out loud. She didn't cry just because that had been one of the most mortifying experiences of her life. She cried because she fell in love with him and she truly, truly, believed she could help him face the shadow that darkened his eyes the first time they met. As the police man put his hands on her shoulders and started saying something she couldn't comprehend, Jessica realized she wasn´t up for a shadow that big.
