Every time I'm about to write my A/N I just blank completely and I have no idea what to say. asfghjklh
How are you guys? I hope everyone had a good day today. :]
This chapter was fun to write. Things are going to get good next chapter, though!
Expect cliffhangers, because I like to do those. C:
Thank you for reading~ It's crazy how many follows and favs this story has gotten after just 8 chapters. You guys are great.
And 350 reviews in 8 chapters? That's insane. Thank you so much.
I hope everyone enjoys this chapter! See you next Wednesday!
Lucy, Natsu, and Gray stiffly stood in front of each other, staring at each other blankly.
Lucy's mouth remained halfway open as she gaped at Gray's startled dark blue eyes. She hoped that if she stayed frozen like she was, she'd disappear.
"What do you mean, 'What am I still doing here'?" Gray inquired.
"W-What I meant was," Lucy stammered as if she was blatantly grabbing words out of the air.
"How did you unlock Natsu's door?" Gray's eyes narrowed.
"Well, you see—"
"Lucy and I are living together," Natsu revealed bluntly with his arms crossed.
"You're what?" Gray's eyes widened.
"Natsu, what are you saying?" Lucy hissed, giving him a hard stare.
"That girl," Natsu pointed a finger to Lucy, "and I are living together."
"Lucy, is this true?" Gray asked with disbelief.
Lucy held her breath; there was no possible way of her lying her way out. Her secret was out.
"It's true," she averted her gaze to the floor. "Natsu and I are living together."
"How did this even happen?" Gray looked at Natsu and Lucy incredulously.
"Long story short, there weren't any apartments left and our landlord gave both of us this one," Lucy explained.
"You do know if our school finds out that two students are living together, you'll be in major trouble, right?" Gray spoke.
"What?" she gasped.
"Didn't you know that?" Natsu raised an eyebrow.
"Obviously I didn't!" she shouted. "If I did, I wouldn't have moved in with you!"
"We need to get Lucy a new apartment," Gray stated.
"What?" Natsu and Lucy said at the same time.
"Knowing that you're living with him leaves a bad taste in my mouth," Gray shook his head in disapproval.
Lucy was clueless on what to say. Sure, living by herself in a new apartment sounded nice, but somewhere inside of her she didn't want to leave.
These few weeks she spent with Natsu were probably the best times in her life.
"I don't want Lucy to leave," Natsu replied plainly.
"I don't want to leave either," Lucy agreed in a whisper.
Gray gave Natsu and Lucy a strange look. He couldn't believe what he was hearing.
"I-It's not bad living with him," Lucy confessed. "We have boundaries."
She trotted over to the middle of the apartment and showed where the invisible line was.
"See?" she presented. "I can't go on Natsu's side and Natsu can't go on mine."
"That was a smart thing to do," Gray complimented. "Who knows what Natsu would do if that line didn't exist."
"It was actually my idea," Natsu spoke with an eye roll.
"He's telling the truth," Lucy muttered.
"I didn't know what type of girl Lucy was when I first met her, so I wanted Happy and I to be safe," Natsu shrugged.
"Hey!" she frowned.
Gray looked at Lucy for a while and when he looked away, a sigh left his lips.
"Are you going to tell anyone?" Lucy eyed him nervously, feeling as if he held her fate in his hands.
"I won't say anything on one condition," Gray negotiated.
"What's the condition?" Lucy asked, glancing at Natsu and seeing an uninterested expression across his face. It irritated her.
"I'm going to come here once a week to see if everything is okay," he said.
"That's it?" Lucy raised an eyebrow at how simple the condition was.
"That's it," he nodded.
"Okay then," she nodded with him. "We'll let you come over once a week."
"You just want to come here for Lucy's dinner, don't you?" Natsu accused.
"You make dinner for Natsu?" Gray inquired.
"Y-Yes," Lucy admitted shamefully.
"I look forward to eating your dinners once a week then," his lips curved to a slight smile.
Lucy returned the smile, being able to hear a groan of disgust from Natsu.
"What is wrong with you?" she furrowed her eyebrows at Natsu. "Why do you act like that when I talk to Gray?"
"Act like what?" he furrowed his eyebrows back.
"Rude," she said. "You're being rude."
"It's just your imagination," he responded.
The air was tense, the three of them could feel it.
"Well, I guess I'll be going now," Gray awkwardly interrupted the silence.
"I'll walk you out," Natsu muttered, beating Lucy to it.
"See you later, Lucy," he nodded.
"Bye, Gray," she waved.
As Natsu and Gray left the apartment, Lucy viewed the closed door with a vacant expression.
She felt furious with how Natsu was acting, but simultaneously, she wanted to apologize for the joke she made at the aquarium.
"Whatever," she sighed as she entered her room and slammed the door.
When Natsu returned, Lucy stayed silent in her room, listening to him play his video game.
"Is he mad?" Lucy asked herself several times.
She hated the way Natsu reacted when she talked to Gray, but she hated fighting with him even more.
Preparing herself with steady breaths, she peeked her head out of her room.
"Lucy, I'm hungry," Natsu twisted around from the couch and looked at her.
"What do you want to eat?" she asked smoothly, trotting to the kitchen.
"Something spicy," he answered.
"Of course," she smiled slightly.
Lucy made what she could with the ingredients that were in the kitchen. Calling Natsu over to the table, she nibbled on their dinner silently.
"Why are you so quiet?" he smirked, giving her leg under the table a nudge.
"I'm sorry for making you mad," she blurted out.
"Mad?" he repeated, his eyes withdrawn to his food. "I wasn't mad."
"Were you annoyed?" she asked.
"Ice Princess annoys me," he mumbled.
"Why?" she dared herself to ask.
"Gray thinks he can get anybody he wants," Natsu revealed hesitantly. "Once he gets who he wants, he gets bored in a day or two and dumps them."
"What?" Lucy looked at him with bewilderment.
"That's Popsicle Princess for you," he stated.
It was quiet until Lucy's giggles morphed into a laughing fit.
"Popsicle Princess?!" she echoed in-between her laughs. "You have the weirdest names for Gray!"
"I have a list," he replied with a hint of pride.
"Tell me them!" she commanded breathlessly, trying to control her laughs.
"There's Ice Princess, Popsicle Princess, Droopy Eyes," he listed off his fingers.
By the time he had named all the nicknames he had created for Gray, Lucy had nearly fallen off her chair from laughter. Her stomach felt sore.
Natsu viewed Lucy with amusement, watching her inhale deeply to regain her breath only to lose her breath once again to resume laughing.
Her cheeks were flushed after she could eventually control herself.
"I will not let that happen," she declared. "Gray won't ever have a chance to do that to me."
The subject had already slipped from Natsu's mind, but he was reminded when Lucy began to speak as if she was reciting a speech.
"Just be careful around Gray," Natsu warned after she was finished, taking a hold of their plates and setting them in the sink.
"Thanks for worrying about me," she grinned.
"Whatever," he scoffed, passing by her to return to the living room.
Lucy felt warmth flood up inside of her. Whether she liked it or not, she was comforted by Natsu looking out for her.
With that, she sat beside him on the couch with a journal in her lap and aimlessly wrote what came to her mind. She was content that they were back to normal now.
If this was how her spring break was going to be like for the next week, she was more than happy to spend it with Natsu.
"Natsu, stop! I can't breathe!" Lucy giggled as he poked her sides left and right.
"This is what happens when you try to hide my hot sauce from me," he stated as he continued to steal in several more pokes.
"I won't do it again!" she promised as she struggled to run away from him.
Natsu paid no attention to her protests. What made him finally stop was the tune of Lucy's ringing phone.
"Stay," she commanded Natsu as if she was talking to a dog. With light steps, she scurried to answer her phone.
Her eyes widened when she read the caller ID. It had been a few days since they had last called.
"Hey, Mom," Lucy smiled into her phone.
"How is your spring break going, dear?" Lucy's mother, Layla, asked.
"It's a lot of fun!" she replied with no hesitation. The past five days had been filled with laughter because of Natsu.
"Have you been hanging out with Levy a lot?" Layla assumed.
"Levy-chan has been sick for a while," Lucy answered, plopping onto the couch. "We haven't been able to hang out this week."
"Is that so? Oh, I hope Levy gets better soon," Layla spoke.
"M-Me too!" Lucy squeaked as Natsu poked her side again.
"Are you okay, Lucy?" Layla asked after listening to Lucy's giggles.
"There's a really funny show on right now!" she laughed loudly, Natsu never pausing to torture her.
"Well, it seems like you're enjoying it. I'll let you watch it then," Layla said with a smile in her voice.
"I'll talk to you later, Mom!" she hastily hung up, hearing her mother begin to say something but was cut off.
Natsu's hands returned to his lap as he grinned at her.
"Keep your hands to yourself," she ordered.
"But you're my only entertainment," he whined. "It's the last day of spring break and I have nothing to do."
"Let's go out then," she surged up from the couch and looked down at his confused expression.
"Where?" he inquired.
"The arcade?" she suggested.
"Okay," he responded with bright eyes twinkling with excitement.
"I need to get out, too," she agreed.
With Levy being sick, Lucy had spent her entire break indoors with Natsu. She claimed it was torture, but in the inside, she was having fun.
They were closer than ever before; Lucy didn't mind his habit of roaming around the apartment shirtless anymore. Natsu didn't mind Lucy's singing in the shower anymore either.
They had gotten so close, the invisible line was gone. Now, Lucy could easily enter his side of the apartment without the fear of having to clean dishes for three months.
"Your mom always calls you, but your dad never does," Natsu remarked as they strolled to the arcade.
"My dad is weird," Lucy shrugged slightly. He was much more than that, but she didn't want to get into it.
"What about you?" she glanced at him. "Your parents never call you."
"They're busy," he mumbled.
"So busy that they can't call you?" she tilted her head with a puzzled expression.
"Seems like it," he nodded, rushing into the arcade before Lucy could interrogate him any further.
"Wait for me!" she called out, rushing to catch up with him.
In the blink of an eye, Natsu and Lucy had wasted all their money by attempting to beat each other at the various arcade games.
"Here," Natsu handed her a bundle of yellow tickets when they had decided to stop competing for the night.
"How many tickets are these?!" she exclaimed.
"If you put the tickets in that machine over there, it'll tell you," he nodded his head towards a box decorated with lights.
Lucy eagerly entered the tickets into the machine, the number revealing how many tickets there were increasing rapidly.
Levy took care of the tickets the last time, so Lucy never got the chance to experience the thrill of seeing how many tickets there were.
"Five hundred tickets?!" she read the number with disbelief.
"I won the jackpot on one of these games," Natsu lifted his hand and lazily waved at one of the games.
"Really?" she was almost jumping in place from happiness.
"Let's go see what you can get," he led her to the prize section.
Lucy didn't need to look through the prizes very long. As soon as her eyes landed on a snowman-like plushie, she knew that's what she wanted.
"Luce, that's only two hundred tickets," Natsu pointed out.
"You can have the leftover three hundred," she responded, content with the plushie that had a striking resemblance to her dog named Plue.
Natsu was completely dumbfounded as he searched for a prize that perked his interest. He was seconds away from getting fifteen rainbow slinkies, but Lucy's voice interrupted him.
"How about this?" she held up a light blue plushie in the shape of a fish.
"For Happy?" he inquired, scrutinizing the plushie.
"He likes fish, right?" Lucy remarked. "Happy would like this if you gave it to him."
"Good enough for me," he replied.
After getting the prizes, Lucy squeezed her new plushie, Plue, with all her might.
"Why do you like that snowman so much?" Natsu questioned.
"It reminds me of my dog at my old home," Lucy answered with a small smile.
"Do you miss your old home?" he asked.
"Sometimes," she admitted. "Do you miss your old home?"
"Not really," he replied plainly.
"Why not?" she lifted an eyebrow.
"Because I like my new home better," he grinned.
"Oh," she said with large eyes, wishing that the streetlights surrounding them weren't bright enough to show her rosy cheeks.
As Natsu unlocked the door for them, they entered the apartment. They caught a glimpse of the time and they both let out a sigh at the same time.
"We have school tomorrow," they groaned.
"Are you excited to be in the same class with me?" Natsu asked with a smirk.
"Excitement is an overstatement," she quipped.
"Hey," he frowned.
"Don't oversleep tomorrow, classmate," she stifled a laugh when she was about to enter her room for the night.
"At least I haven't overslept twice, classmate," he retorted.
"It was only once!" she proclaimed, entering her room and shutting the door behind her.
Natsu entered his room as well, Lucy could hear his steps through the wall.
"Goodnight, Luce," he said from the other side of the wall.
"Goodnight, Natsu," she smiled at her wall, being able to imagine his goofy grin behind it.
Lucy leaped into her bed and snuggled against her covers with her smile remaining.
She was starting a new school year. She was going to be making new friends, memories, and perhaps even an enemy or two.
Lucy couldn't quite understand what she was feeling about being in the same classroom, but she absolutely couldn't wait for school to start tomorrow.
She turned her head on her pillow to look at the wall. Was Natsu looking forward to it as much as she was?
Well, she liked to think so.