SEPTEMBER 9TH — KISSES
"mal de coucou"
n. a phenomenon in which you have an active social life but very few close friends—people who you can trust, who you can be yourself with, who can help flush out the weird psychological toxins that tend to accumulate over time—which is a form of acute social malnutrition in which even if you devour an entire buffet of chitchat, you'll still feel pangs of hunger.
Contrary to widespread belief, Lucy was not a bimbo. She indeed had bright blond hair and a body to turn heads for miles, but she was also captain of the Debate team and possessed the fifth highest GPA of all southern Fiore universities. But ninety percent of people looked at her and thought this is someone I can take advantage of, and so she held most at arm's length. Her contacts list was a perfect representation of this: Father, Police, Levy-chan, Brandish-neechan, 911. It didn't become a problem until she was stuck on the side of Central Avenue with a flat tire and a class beginning in twenty minutes. And no friends who could drive.
After calling the tow company, she collected her things and hustled to the subway. It was an eight-minute walk from where her car was; she made the run in three, but she had to take off her heels and stepped in something that might've been gum at one point. The train ticket cost her the last of her cash until her next paycheck, so she wasn't going to get the car repaired anytime soon. And then, as the train pulled up, the wind blew the skirt of her dress before she could react.
"Mommy, what kinda undies are those?" the four-year-old standing next to her asked her mother, who was blushing at the sight of them. It had nothing on Lucy's blush as she swung her bag around and pressed it against her crotch.
Seriously, today blows hard.
The doors open and she slid her way into the closest seat without making eye contact with anyone. Soon the train was gliding along the tracks and she let out a relieved sigh. With her luck, she expected it to stall before it started moving again. She set her bag next to her and instead moved to grip the hem of her dress hard.
"Hey, d'ya mind if I sit there?"
She looked up to see a pink-haired guy about her age holding onto the support bar and pointing at the seat. He had two sets of silver hoops in each ear and a splint across his nose, which did nothing to hide the browning bruise set dead-center in his face. She smiled and politely shook her head.
"I have a friend making her way from the rear who'll sit there. I'm sorry."
He scrunched his nose, grimaced a little in pain, then said in a flat voice, "You sound more plastic than a Barbie doll." She choked in surprise.
"W-What?"
"Okay." He lifted her bag into his lap and plopped himself next to her, waving a hand as he spoke. "It's okay if you don't want to exchange social security numbers with me, but it's just a seat. No need to be cold about a seat."
"I'm not being cold, I said I have a—"
"Friend, yeah." His tone said exactly how much he believed her. "Usually it's a) you think I'm gonna steal your purse or b) you're not a people person. And considering these feel like thirty pounds of textbooks," he lifted her bag with a small grunt, "you just don't like people, right?"
An indignant blush crossed her cheeks and she turned away from him, her ponytail swinging over her shoulder. "You may sit there if you really want to."
"I'm already sitting here, weirdo," he said quite smugly. She spun around with a bigger blush and raised fists.
"You're the weirdo here, if anything, you—you—" She pounded his chest which did nothing to stop his laughter, but to his credit, his body felt solid as a rock under his grey hoodie. "What gives you the right to talk about me like you know me?"
"Freedom of speech?" he said passively. Fuming, she snatched her bag and moved to her feet.
"You can have the whole seat." She attempted to storm away, but the gummy substance on her foot caused her to trip. A calloused hand grabbed her wrist before she fell, and she was pulled back into a hard body that smelled a lot like smoky incense.
"Careful, you could hurt yourself." He sounded genuinely concerned for her wellbeing, which made her pull away with a downcast look.
"Why would you care? You don't know me."
"Do I have to know you to care if you get hurt?" She heard him shrug and turned around, but she kept her head down.
"That's typically how it works. I know tons of people, but I can count on one hand how many would go out of their way if I ended up in the hospital tomorrow."
"Then you don't really know tons of people." He paused, then, "Have a boyfriend?"
"What—why?" she exclaimed with pink cheeks. He simply stared at her and she eventually muttered a no.
"Okay. At least you don't mess around with people's hearts." He paused again, then he made a cute little happy noise she expected more from a puppy. "You're really smart, you're big about school, you're not a people person, you're kinda a weak hitter—" he laughed when she pouted, "—and you don't have a boyfriend. How many people can say they know all that about you?"
"I..." She trailed away and chewed her lower lip. "...only you."
"What, me?" He said it so loudly the other passengers turned to them in interest. Lucy quickly sat down again and he joined her, body angled towards her curiously.
"My best friend doesn't know…I don't have a boyfriend," she admitted. He raised his eyebrows, and slowly a wide grin grew on his face. She returned a small smile after a moment.
"I'm Natsu," he said, offering a hand.
"Lucy Hea...Lucy." She noted how her hand was dwarfed by his, and how warm his was.
"Lucy." His smile widened. "Wanna kiss?"
"What?" she shrieked, completely red in the face. All the passengers in the car turned towards them and Natsu broke out laughing.
"A kiss!" He rummaged in his pocket before pulling out a half-empty bag of Hershey's Kisses. She peeked up at it and relaxed slightly with a short laugh.
"Oh. Well, I suppose." She took one and peeled away the grey wrapping. It was, like his hand, uncomfortably warm, but she never refused chocolate. For the rest of the train ride, they talked about random interests and found they had a lot in common, mainly this obscure anime she didn't know anyone else watched, but Natsu was a dedicated fan of Fairy Tail.
Eventually the train came to a stop and people started shuffling through the doors. Lucy stood and smoothed her dress. "This is my stop."
"Alright, see ya." He stood and held out her bag, which she grabbed with both hands. She stared at the little note where she'd scribbled his contact information and smiled.
"I have some kisses too. Want one?"
"Hmm? Well, sure," he said with a shrug. Lucy's smile widened before she moved up on her tiptoes and pressed her lips to his. The contact lasted a second since she was rushing, but she didn't miss his bug-eyed expression and cute pink blush.
"Better than yours?" she asked, stepping off the train. He shook his head to clear it and grinned so wide it looked painful.
"You'll find out next time I see you."
keyframe
n. a moment that seemed innocuous at the time but ended up marking a diversion into a strange new era of your life—set in motion not by a series of jolting epiphanies but by tiny imperceptible differences between one ordinary day and the next, until entire years of your memory can be compressed into a handful of indelible images—which prevents you from rewinding the past, but allows you to move forward without endless buffering.
