This is My Place and This is Your Place

Chapter 3

Number of Words: 1,423

Natsu and Lucy travelled to Magnolia in silence. Lucy couldn't look Natsu in the eyes, she doesn't know why she can't, when she's not the one who made a move. There's a lot of things going on in her mind, there's a lot of questions that keeps on popping like a mushroom in her head, she tried to make sense of it, she tried to think what comes into Natsu's mind to do that, and she doesn't know why she kissed Natsu back.

The train stopped and the train attendant announced that they were already in Magnolia, she woke Natsu up, and it's the first time she approached Natsu ever since they kissed. Her friend woke up in an instant, and she's not surprised anymore that her friend was already full of energy after the train stopped.

She tried not to look Natsu in the eyes, and she just continued to walk beside him, while Natsu acted like nothing happened. Lucy furrowed her eyebrows and thought why is Natsu acting like nothing happened between them? Earlier both of them were silent when they were going to the train station of the city, and after his nap from the train he acted like it's nothing. Lucy couldn't make any sense of it, but there's one thing Lucy couldn't understand, why does she feel like her heart could burst into pieces anytime?

The two arrived at the guild, and Lucy headed to the bar where Mira is wiping the beer mugs Kinana just washed, and she could feel Mira's stare as she sat on the barstool and slumped her head down on the bar table.

"Lucy, what's wrong? Did the mission didn't go well?" Lucy heard Mira asked with a concerned tone in her voice.

"It went well," she said as she rested her right cheek on the bar table.

"What's bothering you then, Lucy?" Lucy knew that she can't tell Mira what just happened between her and Natsu, because Mira will just gush at her and she'll just call the attention of the whole guild and tell them that Lucy and Natsu kissed.

"It's nothing, Mira." Lucy faced Mira and faked a smile, and stood up, "Mira, I'll be going home early."

"Okay, take care." Mira's face tells that she still wants to ask what's going on with Lucy, but with Lucy's look right now the barmaid could tell that she needs to leave the Celestial Spirit mage alone for now.

Lucy left the guild to go home to her apartment, she was thinking of having a nice warm bath, and maybe she'll try to come up with something new to write for the novel she's planning on doing. Lucy planned on writing an adventure novel again, but with a mixed of romance, but she doesn't know how she'll write the romance part, because she hasn't experienced what being in love feels like. Well the only romantic thing that she experienced is being kissed by Natsu, and she doesn't know if she could consider it romantic, because she thought that maybe Natsu did that because of the heat of the moment? Or he's just plain curious? She doesn't know what to think anymore!

"Lucy?" she looked up to the voice that called her, and it's Erza, who's always in her armor.

"Hi, Erza!" Lucy greeted, not noticing that her greeting is different from her usual cheerful greeting.

"What's wrong, Lucy? Did Natsu destroy something again while on your mission?" Erza was about to dash off to the guild to lecture Natsu, but she was stopped by Lucy.

"It's not like that, Erza." Lucy said as she was still holding Erza's arm.

"Then what is it? What's bothering you?" she just averted her gaze from the concerned look of her scarlet-haired friend, and she let go of her arm, as she grabbed her other hand as if to console herself.

"Nothing." She heard her friend sigh, "Lucy, we've been teammates and friends for quite a long time now, I know when you're not okay."

Lucy just continued to look at her shoes, trying to avoid Erza's worried look. Noticing this, Erza grabbed Lucy's hand and said in a calm voice that Erza usually uses when talking to her friends when they are down, "I'm going to share this cake to you at your apartment, and we're going to talk about your problem, okay?"

Lucy just noticed the cake box Erza was holding on her other hand, and thought Erza never shares her cake, unless she wants to cheer someone up. Does she really look bothered by something?

Without waiting for an answer, Erza grabbed Lucy's hand and dragged her until they reached Lucy's apartment.

When they got inside Lucy's apartment, Lucy grabbed her saucers and cake knife for Erza's cake, and she made some tea to pair up with the cake.

After she put the tea, saucers, and dessert spoon on her coffee table, Erza didn't waste any time asking Lucy what's wrong.

Lucy just stayed silent for quite awhile, and she sighed and thought that maybe it won't hurt her if she told Erza? And besides Erza's not the gossiping type of girl, she can keep a secret.

Lucy sighed again, for the fifth time already, that she noticed that the slice of cake Erza gave her was already gone. She closed her eyes, and inhaled and exhaled deeply.

She looked at her friend staring at her waiting for her to speak up while munching maybe her third slice of cake. "Okay, let me get this straight, I won't tell my problem to you with the cliche "I have this friend who, bla bla bla", this just happened when we were on the mission, and actually it's the first time me and Natsu were alone in a mission without you, Gray, Wendy, and even Happy who's always there beside Natsu..."

After Lucy told Erza what happened between her and Natsu, Erza had a tinge of red on both of her cheeks, and it disappeared in just a few seconds, and her friend cleared her throat and sipped on her tea and looked at her.

"Lucy, Natsu may not be one of the brightest person you know, but Natsu wouldn't act like that to anybody—"

"that's the point, it's so unlike—" Lucy was about to protest but Erza glared at her. "Let me finish first, Lucy."

"Y-Yes, Ma'am!"

"And Natsu isn't that innocent, so if you think that before he wouldn't do things like almost tearing your shirt off of you because of the heat of the moment, you might've changed your view now that you just experienced that side of him. Besides, he grew in a rowdy guild, he wouldn't be that innocent knowing that there's a lot of perverted adults surrounding him."

Lucy blushed at Erza's statement and she just bit the insides of her cheeks to ease her embarrassment because Erza has to be the one to make her realize that.

"Lucy, if Natsu doesn't like you as more than friends, then he wouldn't do that. He wouldn't just kiss some random girl on the street or in the guild if he doesn't like her as a woman. Listen, I know an outsider's view to Natsu's feelings wouldn't matter to where your relationship is heading to, but isn't obvious Lucy? Is Natsu not too obvious for you?"

Lucy blinked, and confusion can be seen all over her face, she doesn't know where Erza is heading to, that she just managed to say "huh?" to Erza's question.

Erza just sighed at Lucy's response, "Natsu never told us anything about how he feels, but all of the guild members and even some people outside our guild could tell that he has some—I'm not in the right place to tell you that, but Lucy, you need to open your eyes, I don't know if you'll ever return what Natsu has for you, but what he has for you has been there for a long time.

I don't know what will be your next move, after you realize some things, but you need to confront what you've been denying all this time, Lucy, even if it takes a long time. Just not a decade, okay? The two of you are not getting any younger." Erza chuckled at her last statement to lighten the mood a little, and Lucy just gave her friend a small smile.

"Now, Lucy, as you now know, Natsu already made his move, when should be yours?"

A/N: Hello! It's been a while since I updated. I've been watching some shows, and I tried to focus on finishing all the novels that I started doing when I was like 16 years old? Almost fours years ago haha. So, I don't know if someone's waiting for an update to this story, but I just want to inform the people who are reading this story that updates will be not be as fast as this or like the update from the last chapter, because my online class will start in just four days, and I'm planning to focus on my studies because I'm on my third year of college, and I want to do my best! :)

Thank you for reading this story, and to those who've been waiting for an update. Sorry if I missed some grammatical and spelling errors!

I would really appreciate it if you guys leave a review, or a favorite! Because those are my inspiration, and I don't mind receiving constructive criticism, because I know it'll help me improve my writing :) and question, do you want to know what happened to Natsu and Lucy's "heat of the moment" kiss?

All characters belong to Hiro Mashima.

If there's a story similar to this, note that it's only similar and it is never my intention to copy anyone's work.
See you on the next update! :)