I really regret doing that photo thing, but now I gotta roll with it. Uggggggh. Why, Daaaaawn. You suck.

Yeah, I love you, too.

Shh, you don't want them to know you're insane.

Too late.

Whoops.

Yeah…moving on…

Anyway, here's the next update! I can't believe that people are still reading my story! Like, whoa. Whattt. Thanks guys, so much. You make me feel spesch-spesch! =^.^=

Yeah, now they know for sure you're insane.

Shh.

Okay, okay, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, let's get to the story, yeah?

"This is your home?"

I frown at the question. "It sounds like you're implying something. Not all of us can be rich like you."

She coughs and turns red at the answer. "I, uh, didn't mean it like that."

I narrow my eyes. "Yeah, well then what did you mean?" She's implying my house is a pig sty, isn't she? Well, I'm sorry if it's all I have left.

Lucy sighs and crosses her arms. "Natsu, let it go."

I huff and turn around. "You can take my room. I'll take the couch."

"Why are you so cold all of a sudden?" she mutters, running a hand through her blonde hair.

"Oh, I don't know, maybe it's the fact that I don't enjoy it when people insult my house," I retort angrily.

"All I asked was if this was your home. You immediately jumped to the conclusion that I had meant it in an insulting way."

"What other way could you have meant it? And for your information, this is not my home. I just broke into a house that happens to have my pictures all over the wall."

"Oh, you're insufferable!" Lucy groans. "Now I understand why I kept my distance from you. I ask a simple question and we get into this pointless argument. Natsu, let it go."

"What are you, fricking Elsa?" [A/N: It's an AU. Shh.]

"Mavis, you're so sensitive! You're like a girl on her period!"

Immediately, I cover my part and glare at her. "Who told you I was on my period?! That's private information! I'll kill Gajeel!"

Lucy immediately bursts out laughing. "Alright, alright. Whatever. Which one's your room?"

"To your right," I tell her.

Lucy nods. "Goodnight, Natsu."

"'Night," I reply. She opens the door and disappears into the room. I make my way over to the couch, but I'm not tired. It's been hard to adjust my sleep schedule, so I follow almost the same pattern. It's been getting better though, so I usually fall asleep around two or three nowadays. Seeing that it's only around nine o'clock and I still need dinner, I decide to pay a visit to Eymho. [A/N: Eymho is looking for a singer to play for them. It's one of the jobs that Natsu was looking at and one that Lucy took from him in the chapter "The Picture."]

I shuffle to the table I know I kept it at and stare for a moment at all the papers. Immediately I groan. Why do I have to be so disorganized? I sigh and start pulling out random papers. Not the paper, not the paper, not the paper, not the paper, not the paper, ooh a letter. I pull open the letter to find it's just an old letter from school before remembering something. That prank I was supposed to keep pulling on Lucy! I only did one letter. I have to keep putting more in her locker. [A/N: If you don't remember, Natsu put a letter in Lucy's locker saying something about her eyes *gag* (jk jk) and said he was a secret admirer. He was planning on continuing be he forgot (not me! hey, urusai, back to the story.)]

Noting that, I continue on until I finally manage to dig the darn thing from the depths of papers that look practically identical to it. I also need to call Romeo and Wendy or whatever their names are to figure out a time I could teach them guitar. Sighing, I read the information on the Eymho paper and note that they will be open now. I push myself off the couch, grab my guitar, and leave a note in my room in case Lucy wakes up before moving down the stairs.

The night air is familiar, but it's no where close to what it's like in the middle of the night. People are still up, swatting the flies and making a ruckus. I grimace and tighten my scarf around my neck, making sure I have enough money in my pocket for dinner. Barely. I could stop by a convenience store, I muse and then shake my head. I don't want to eat microwavable food right now.

"Yo! Flamebrain!"

I pause and then start walking faster.

"Flamebrain!"

Faster...

"Flamebrain!"

Now I'm straight out sprinting. I can hear their footsteps pattering on the cobblestone behind me as they get closer. Suddenly, I'm being tackled, and I find myself hugging the ground. Quite painfully.

"Get off me, Ice Queen!" I grunt. My guitar has skittered across the stones, and I try to push him off.

"Not until you explain this Lucy thing."

I roll my eyes. "Jeez, you do realize you could've texted me, right? You didn't have to tackle me." With this, I manage to successfully push him off and help myself up. I dust myself off, but not before grabbing my guitar and securing it on my back.

"Oi, you must have burned all your brain cells up. I have been texting you, hothead," Gray retorts.

"Shut up, stripper," I mutter and cross my arms stubbornly.

"Well?"

"Well, what? I thought I told you to shut up."

It's Gray's turn to roll his eyes. "Can you just tell me what's going on with you and Lucy? I mean, dating? Really?"

"Oh, we're not really dating. I mean, Levy sent that picture to everyone. We just figured it would be easier to pretend like we were. Who wants to deal with drama and crap?" I explain as I start walking. Gray won't tell anyone, and it won't matter if he did.

Gray nods and let's it go. "Where you headed?"

And that's the question I wanted to avoid...

"Eymho," I say nonchalantly.

"Why?"

I roll my eyes. "To destroy the restaurant with fire. Duh."

Gray furrows his eyebrow for a moment before realizing I'm joking. "Guitar?"

I scoff. "No, this is my secret weapon of mass destruction."

Gray rolled his eyes. "I'm off, retard. See you at school." He turns around and walks away, and I sigh in relief before heading on my path to Eymho. I get there without someone else tackling me and step in.

"Hi, welcome to Eymho. How may I help you?" a waiter at the counter asks.

"Actually, I'm here to discuss this position," I hold up the paper, "with the manager."

"Right this way," he says, leading me through the staff entrance and into the office of a person that reads Atlas Flame. What a strange name. "You may sit," the waiter says, and I sit down in the chair across from the empty table-chair set.

A few minutes later, a man with orange hair walks in, a smile on his face. "Hello, I'm Atl—Natsu?!"

I look at the man, surprised. "How do you know my name?"

The man sits down slowly, a look of surprise on his features. "Y-your father used to bring you here. We met a couple times. It's hard to forget that bright pink hair."

"Salmon," I correct.

"Salmon," he repeats softly. "I thought by now you would've moved away or something…"

I blink. "Why?"

"Because Igneel went missing."

My eyes bulge. He knew? For a few months before he disappeared, my dad had cut off his ties from everyone in the city. No one had seen him for months, but if they came along he was there. Eventually people stopped asking for him and then he was gone. I hadn't told anyone because I knew they would ship me off to some other family. I couldn't bring myself to part from everything that reminded me of him. I had only found his "grave" because I went to visit my mom one day and found it next to hers.

"I—I… How did you know?"

He shrugs. "He'd told me he had been planning it for a while."

Hurt sears my chest. He had been planning it? He intentionally left me? Everything seems to come crashing down, my hopes that it had been a mistake and he had left on a random self-finding journey and the other very far-fetched explanations I'd come up with. But my hope is crush like a flowering bud that someone decided would be fun to destroy with a sledge hammer. My heart thumps unevenly and my mouth goes dry. I bolt up and stumble towards the door. "I—I have to go," I mutter.

"Natsu."

I turn around.

"About the job… I'd love to have you. I'll pay you extra and you can have free meals any time. And I'm sorry."

I just nod and push the door open, leaving through the back staff entrance. I wasn't about to break here, though. I stumble home and collapse onto the floor when I open the door, curling into a fetal position after getting my guitar off.

Pain is something I was used to, numb to even. But right now it rips through my flesh, screaming and clawing. I tremble and don't realize someone is calling my name until they put their soft hand on my face. I shoot up and stare at Lucy.

"Natsu…" she whispers. She takes me in her arms and holds me like I'm her lifeline. I'm probably doing the same, though. I can't tell anymore. "It's okay to feel what you need to feel."

I start to cry, something I haven't done since my dad left. I clutch Lucy to me, and she rubs my back soothingly.

And right now, that's all I need.

Shortish chapter after almost a year of no update. I really do suck. I apologize. It was kind of hard to write this because I've been writing in past tense for forever since I stopped writing this. Okay, here goes frank time.

I have never finished a full story.

There you have it people. I suck. I lose interest and move on. Sometimes it takes me a while to pick it up again. So yeah. If you want something that's going to be finished any time soon, I suggest you don't go for this novel. I can promise plot twists and gasps and woahs, but I can't promise something finished sometime this year…. I mean, I might finish this year, maybe. I have finished plenty of short stories and you could check those out if the LINKS ON MY PAGE WERE WORKING BUT NOOOO. So yeah.

I started this chapter because I had promised it, and I finished it because Ringette-girl left a review I found about an hour back and now I've finished. So I guess if you really want me to finish a chapter, leave a review after a week or two (or two or three, you know how about just a year. This is me mocking myself again…)

Also, I got lost in the world of Wattpad and all of my creativity is now gone. All I can think of now for stories is really cliche stuff about a player/bad boy/football star that falls in love with shy/one-best-friend/really-good-at-comebacks nerd. I'm putting this in a random place but leave a review that says "Dawn is a Unicorn" and what you thought of this part if you're actually still reading this and I'll probably respond back because that'll make you my best friend… Luckily I finished my entire plot before this loss of creativity happened and I could only think of realistic fiction romance (I'm trying to get my mojo back with an assassin love story, but we'll see) so yeah.

Aight guys, no one actually reads this. See ya. :)

OH P.S. WATCH AND READ KAICHOU WA MAID-SAMA. OR ELSE.