I was feeling inspired, so I'm churning out chapters this week! I hope you guys are sufficiently grateful. If you want to let me know just how grateful you are, review! Puh-lease! Favorites and follows are also much appreciated. I wanna feel the love! Make my days sparkly – God knows school isn't giving me a rush. REVIEW! Oh, I almost forgot. This chapter is dedicated to LeahMineStar. Special thanks go to WhiteWinterStar, gwb620 (glad to know I got your number right!) and Rukia Heart. If you want a chapter dedicated to you, be the first to comment on this one!
My eyes snapped open, hungry for images to accompany these insane words. When had Jellal told Erza he had a fiancee? I couldn't remember if she had ever mentioned something like that.
"So?" Erza said quietly, pulling my focus squarely to her, standing at the base of the tree with her arms folded and her head cocked. "I knew that already." Jellal gaped at her, his blue hair falling in his eyes. People were staring at the two of them as they passed, murmuring to each other and giggling. Someone said something about a "lover's quarrel," causing Jellal to turn bright red. The hairs on the back of my neck prickled, and I looked up to see Natsu glancing down at me.
"What's that?" he whispered. "Igneel never told me about anything like that." I sighed. He was gazing at me with wide-eyed curiosity, as innocent as a child. But those hazel eyes, that messy pink hair, his tan skin and straight nose and soft lips, it all belonged to a teenager the same age as me. At the end of the day, that was the unconquerable wall keeping me from becoming more than his friend. He was a ten-year-old in a seventeen-year-old's body. "Lucy?" he hissed, waving a hand in front of my face. "Oi, Lucy. Wake up." I snapped out of my daydream and smiled apologetically.
"Sorry, I got distracted. A lover's quarrel is when two people in a relationship have a fight about nothing, like yelling at your husband for not putting the clothes in the dryer," I explained in hushed tones. "Or if your girlfriend doesn't give you homemade chocolates for Valentine's Day. (A/N: I'm using the Japanese version of V-Day, meaning that the girls are the one giving presents, because I didn't want to make all the examples be of the woman getting mad at the man and I couldn't think of anything else. :D) Get it?" Natsu nodded, making the adorable scrunched-up face he had when he was thinking really hard.
"I see."
"Or," Happy interjected, "When Lucy gets mad because you came into her apartment without knocking again!" I felt every blood cell in my body rush into my face and chopped Happy on the head reflexively. "Ouch!" he whined. "Lucy, stop hurting me!" I shot him a patented death glare and scooted a little away from Natsu, suddenly feeling uncomfortable being so close.
"Lucy," he said slowly, looking me straight in the eye, very serious. I leaned away and averted my eyes, flicking glances between him and a very fascinating leaf that looked exactly like the other thirty-thousand leaves currently clinging to the tree's branches.
"Y-Yeah, Natsu?" I said back, almost forgetting to be quiet in my confusion. My face was still red from earlier, I was positive, and my back was starting to burn where I had scraped it against the wide branch earlier. There was something itchy in my hair, which was wind-swept and tangled. And Jellal was saying something in my ear which I really wanted to listen to.
"Could you–"
"Shh!" I breathed eagerly, making him twitch. "Say that in a second." I swept my binoculars to my eyes. There was a rustling sound as Natsu crossed his arms and humphed. On my other side, Happy giggled, and I knocked him on the head without taking my eyes from the pair on the ground.
"I told you, you're a terrible liar. I saw right through you," Erza was saying matter-of-factly. Jellal slumped, his entire body just going sort of soft, and his eyes fixed on the grass beneath his feet.
"I see," he said softly, defeated. He shoved his hands in his pockets and sighed heavily. "I suppose it was pointless, then," he mumbled, so low I don't think Erza was meant to hear. But he underestimated her sharp ears, and her deep-set love for him.
After examining him concernedly, Erza smiled gently and clapped a hand on Jellal's shoulder. His head jolted up, his eyes locking with Erza's warm ones. Mesmerized, he simply gazed at her, peace settling over his face like an old familiar blanket.
"It wasn't for nothing, Jellal," she told him. "I understand why you did it, and I admire your strength. I–" I was tilting forward, impatient for what she would do next, when the brach quivered violently and I was rudely heaved from my seat and draped over Natsu's shoulder like a sack of potatoes. The binoculars slipped from my grasp and yanked out the earpiece as they fell, hitting the branch with a thunk and sliding off into the beyond. I thumped Natsu on the back with my fist and growled in his ear.
"Put me down! What the hell are you doing? They'll see us." He didn't look at me for a moment, and I couldn't make out his expression. "Natsu?" I was starting to worry that something was wrong when he turned his head to grin widely at me.
"Squirm any more and you'll lose your skirt, Luce." I gasped and put my hands on my butt, tugging frantically at the hem of my miniskirt. I had never had a problem with the length before, but now I was wishing I was wearing jeans. Or, better yet, sweatpants. That way, they wouldn't be pulled so tight against my skin you could see the outline of every bump, freckle, and blemish.
"Put me down right now, Natsu!"
"They're gonna hear you if you don't keep down your voice, Luce. " He cast a swift glance at Erza and Jellal, who I could no longer see. "They're not even...talking..." Whatever he saw there made him go quiet and slightly pink. He stared straight ahead, pointedly looking away.
"What? What's going on?" I asked, dying of curiosity. "What are they doing?"
"Nothing," Natsu muttered, turning his back to them and leaping off the branch, effectively shutting me up. We landed on one ten or fifteen feet down, and Natsu swiftly sprung to the next one. We reached the ground quickly, on the opposite side of the tree as Erza and Jellal and whatever they were doing that made Natsu so flustered. Happy flew down after us, a fish in his mouth. I really didn't understand where he got those things and how they stayed so fresh.
"Hey, hey!" he called excitedly. "Did you see–" Natsu grabbed him by the tail with one hand (the other was still holding me up) and muffled his voice by sticking Happy's face in his chest.
"She'll hear you!" he said in low voice. I flicked him in the side of the head as he made as if to walk off into the park. He frowned at me, rubbing his head. "That hurt, Lucy."
"Aren't you forgetting something?" I whispered fiercely. "People are staring, and I'm pretty sure that guy over there can see up my skirt!" Natsu took in the shocked gazes and the beet-red teen fixated on my rear end and put me down carefully.
"Sorry, sorry!" he laughed, scratching the back of his neck sheepishly and giving me a huge Natsu grin. "My bad." I nodded, my defenses knocked down in a single blow. Then Natsu grabbed my hand, nodded to Happy, and started running. "Come on!" he shouted. "Let's go back!" I smiled back and ran after him, my legs pumping and my breath coming long and slow, filling my lungs and then leaving them empty. It was exhilarating, running with Natsu across the park to the street beyond. It was like a dream, one I didn't want to give up.
Five minutes later, my legs were cramping, I had a stitch in my side, and there was not nearly enough oxygen in the world. "Natsu," I gasped. "Hold up." I let go of his warm hand and braced my palms on my knees, bending over and sucking in deep measured breaths. In through the nose, out through the mouth.
"Are you okay, Lucy?" Happy asked, hovering easily above me. I nodded, not wanting to interrupt my breathing exercise by talking.
"Do you need a bag to breathe in or something?" Natsu joked, still wearing that elated grin on his face. Happy laughed, and then Natsu laughed too, and then I was laughing at how stupid we were, two wizards and a talking cat on the streets of Magnolia after spying on our guildmate and her will-eventually-be-boyfriend. I forgot my practiced breathing. I forgot that my legs hurt. I forgot that I was starting to get hungry.
And, most importantly, I forgot my love for Natsu. In that moment, I just was. Nothing complicated.
That one second was pure bliss.
Hmm. I'm not really sure about this ending, but screw it. Let me know what you thought, and of course favorite and follow. I love you guys! I'll update soon, promise. Byeeez!