Do you guys ever get so stressed that you have a headache that lasts all day? Yeah, I'm in that position right now. sigh.

Some people thought that in the last chapter, 'orange milk' was a typo. It wasn't one at all, actually. I was trying to hint that Natsu had put hot sauce in his milk, haha. Sorry for the confusion. :')

The amount of adrenaline each Fairy Tail chapter gives me is astounding. Nalu and Gale are so real, it's painful.

I'm so happy with how everyone has become over the year (besides Gray jfc he deserved that slap from Lucy) and I'm really excited to see how everyone else decided to live their life without the guild.

I seriously have no idea how to write Gray anymore, tbh. Can we please have the regular Gray back? :c

Also! Everyone who tells me this is always reviewing as a guest, so I'm not able to reply back to them to get rid of the confusion.

I am not getting anything for this fic from the stories Playful Kiss and Itazura Na Kiss.

Don't get me wrong, Itazura Na Kiss is the cutest story (I reccommend the Japanese drama over the Korean drama, oops), but my inspiration for this fic was from the manga Good Morning Call. I hope that clears everything up! :-)

My A/N's are always getting so long ugh. I talk too much.

We're seriously so close to 1000 reviews I'm going to scream asdfghjk thank you so much.

Please, enjoy this chapter! :]

Lucy could sense how uncomfortable Gray was as he wordlessly stood in her room.

She knew whatever Gajeel had mumbled in his ear must be embarrassing; the light shade of pink on Gray's cheeks gave it all away.

Thankfully, it wasn't entirely silent. The group's faint voices could be heard from inside the room.

"I guess they're giving us some privacy," Lucy nonchalantly sat on the edge of her bed.

"They won't be able to hear us, anyway," Gray muttered.

"What are we supposed to do?" she repeated, more lightly this time.

"Are you sure you want to do it?" he asked even though Lucy had no idea what it was.

"I don't want to be the first one to refuse the dare," she admitted bashfully.

"Well, alright," he cleared his throat.

He began to shuffle closer to her and stiffly sat next to her on the bed.

"We don't have to do it if you don't want to," he warned.

"It's fine!" she assured, ignoring how self-conscious she felt with him being closer than usual.

She was never able to see the actual color of Gray's dark eyes, but with him being this close to her, she could finally make out his dim blue eyes.

"Do you mind closing your eyes?" he requested awkwardly.

"S-Sure," she stammered, allowing her eyelids to flutter close.

She felt slightly vulnerable due to not being able to see what Gray was doing. She tried not to flinch at his hand landing on her shoulder.

"Gray?" she questioned when the only movement he had done was touching her shoulder. "The five minutes are going to be finished soon."

"I can't do it," he said.

"Do what?" she opened her eyes to look at him.

"I don't want us to kiss because of some stupid dare," he pushed himself off the bed to give them both some space.

Lucy's eyes widened, forbidding herself to feel any type of rejection.

"I want to wait," he confessed.

"For what?" she tilted her head, sending him a perplexed look.

"For when you decide who your heart is set on," he answered.

With her puzzled look not faltering for a second, Gajeel's voice traveled through the door.

"Two minutes left!"

"They're not going to know we didn't do the dare," Gray guaranteed Lucy's frantic expression.

"How about we pretend we did, though?" she countered while rising from her bed and going towards him.

"What are you doing?" he inquired as Lucy ran her fingers through his hair to make it stick out in all directions.

"Making everyone wish they could have seen us," she replied with a grin, taking a step back to see if it looked messy enough.

"I can't be the only one with my hair like this," he scoffed. "Come here."

Lucy giggled as he tried his best to make her hair just as messy as his.

They shared her mirror on her dresser, giving each other a satisfied thumbs up.

"Hey," he looked at her from the mirror.

"What is it?" she asked, looking back at him in the mirror.

"I've been meaning to tell you—"

"Okay, love birds," Gajeel poked his head inside. "Times up."

In the second Gajeel's head went from being in the living room into Lucy's room, Lucy swiftly took Gray's wrist and tugged him across the room with her.

It didn't take long for Gajeel's eyes to widen with surprise as Lucy and Gray strolled past him and out of the room with a content smile on their faces.

"What did you two do?" Levy questioned with eyes incredibly larger than Gajeel's.

"She's not allowed to say," Gray spoke for her.

"Sorry," Lucy shrugged, pressing her lips together to prevent herself from laughing.

"Since everyone has gone, now we can start over again," Cana declared, having already forgotten Lucy's dare. "Natsu, truth or dare?"

And just like that, Lucy soon melted in with the background again, but she didn't mind. Watching everyone do the silliest dares was incredibly entertaining.

Less than an hour later, they were yawning quite frequently now, so they took that as their sign.

"We'll help you clean up," Erza told Lucy. "Boys, leave."

"Yeah, Natsu, let's leave Lucy's apartment," Gray took Natsu out of the apartment with a grin. "See you later, Lucy."

"Goodnight," she called out from the kitchen as the boys exited the apartment.

"Looks like you had a lot of fun with Gray, Lucy," Cana snickered while she ate the remaining chips—her way of cleaning up.

"Did you two do what I think you did?" Lisanna wriggled her eyebrows at Lucy.

"Lu-chan, you didn't!" Levy gasped.

"We didn't!" Lucy exclaimed, not paying attention to their letdown faces. "Gray and I just pretended to act like we did something."

"I knew it was too good to be true," Cana sighed with disappointment.

"Hey," Lucy sent her a frown.

"Someone help me clean up already," Erza commanded from the kitchen.

"Yes, Erza," everyone quickly replied, going to the living room to pick up everything.

Once everything was cleaned up and spotless like the way Erza wanted it, Lucy walked them out of the apartment.

"Thanks for coming, girls."

"We'll be back soon," Levy announced.

"And maybe Lucy will have even more fun with Gray next time," Cana winked.

Lucy pouted at Cana's teasing. She felt no attraction towards Gray whatsoever, but by how her friends were acting, she knew they were seeing something that wasn't there.

After waving goodbye to her friends, Lucy noticed Lisanna still at her front door.

"Do you want me to tell Natsu he can come back?" she asked.

"He'll come," Lucy answered with an assuring smile. "You shouldn't be out this late, so it'd be best to go straight home."

"Yeah, you're right," Lisanna nodded. "Goodnight then!"

"Goodnight!" Lucy waved, watching her go down the stairs. It wasn't until she had reached the farthest streetlight from the apartment when Lucy went back inside.

"What a night," she groaned while falling onto the couch.

"Did you have fun, Happy?" she questioned, scratching the back of his ears to only receive gentle scratches from him.

Waiting for Natsu to return, she allowed her thoughts to float off into her mind. Her back instantly straightened when she realized what almost happened with Gray.

"I almost had my first kiss," she breathed out.

With how fast those five minutes had passed, the thought hadn't crossed her mind until now.

She couldn't help but admit that she was relieved it wasn't Gray being the one to take her first kiss.

She wanted it to be more special. More special than anyone could imagine.

These were always the times when Lucy hated to be the hopeless romantic that she was.

The blonde checked the time after noticing it had almost been an hour since everyone had left. With each minute, her eyes were gradually becoming heavier and heavier.

"I'll just close my eyes for a minute," she whispered and allowed herself to close her eyes.

It wasn't until five minutes later when the front door began to creak open.

"Luce, what are you doing here?" Natsu asked.

"Hmm?" she hummed, not having enough strength to open her eyes.

"You're going to get sick if you sleep out here," he slightly scolded. "Can you get up?"

Natsu stared at her lifeless body, knowing that she wouldn't be able to. With a sigh, he bent down and placed her arms on his shoulders.

"Even though you lost the bet, you still get a piggy back ride," he chuckled mostly to himself.

Lucy's light breathing tickled the back of his neck with each step he took to her room.

"I can smell Ice Princess in here," his eyebrows furrowed when he entered her room. "I wonder why he decided to tell me you didn't do anything."

Natsu had no idea why he was speaking to himself aloud, but it was better than trying to slide Lucy off his back in silence.

"It was weird," he continued, his voice becoming hushed as he pulled up her covers to her chin; he had never seen her sleep any other way.

Natsu froze once she began to stir, waiting until she fell back asleep again. He gently ruffled her hair before slowly leaving her room.

"It was a little relieving, too," he added under his breath, then closed her door to enter his own for the night.

Waking up the next Saturday morning had never felt so good to Lucy.

"It's summer," she cheered softly with a grin.

She counted the first Monday off as the first day of summer, but she couldn't deny that the first Monday felt just as good as the first Saturday.

Feeling in the mood to make a delicious breakfast to start the day, she leaped out of bed to brush her teeth.

"Good morning," Lucy nearly sang when Natsu left his room—scratching his uncovered stomach as always.

Natsu gave her a strange look, and he never stopped giving her that look until the large breakfast was made.

"Why'd you make so much?" he inquired suspiciously, trotting over to the kitchen from playing his video game.

"My mom," Lucy explained, looking down at the food with a smile. "My mom likes to always make me a big breakfast on the first day of summer."

"But summer starts on Monday," he remarked.

"She knows," she replied with a giggle. "My cooking isn't nearly as good as hers, but I tried."

Natsu tried not to admire the food too much, but he wouldn't be able to, anyway. As soon as he sat down, he began to drizzle hot sauce over everything.

"What's your mom like?" he asked with a mouthful of eggs.

Lucy paused at the random question. She had talked about her mom plenty of times to Natsu—he had even heard her a few times—but she had never gone into detail before like this.

"She likes to cook," she answered slowly. "And she's really understanding about everything."

"What about your dad?" he continued to ask, even though he never bothered to stop shoving food inside his mouth.

"He's busy with his work, so…" Lucy's voice trailed off.

"That doesn't answer my question," he pointed out.

"I don't like talking about him," she mumbled. "What about your parents? What's your mom like?"

"It's not important," he responded bluntly.

"What do you mean—"

"Thanks for the breakfast," he interrupted her, hastily standing up from his seat and placing his plate in the sink.

Before she could ask—or even say—anything else, Natsu was back to playing his video game with the roaring volume he never lowered.

Lucy stared at her half-eaten food with a dumbfounded expression. This wasn't the first time Natsu avoided the topic of his family.

Curiosity gnawed at her; she had no choice but to push her thoughts away.

The air was tenser than she would have preferred, but it soon thinned into thin air when Natsu invited Lucy to play his video game with him.

After many embarrassing deaths and laughs, they had finished half of the game in three hours.

"I can't play anymore!" Lucy proclaimed breathlessly. Her cheeks were flushed from laughing too much.

"Your hands hurt, don't they?" he smirked.

"I'm not used to playing video games for this long," she defended herself, setting the controller beside her.

She was just about to massage her hands, but Natsu beat her to it.

"If you do this, it'll help," he advised as he gently pressed his thumb into her palm.

Although Lucy felt relief in seconds, she didn't tell him that.

"This isn't hurting anyone," Lucy silently convinced her thoughts.

She watched Natsu relax her hand; she was glad that he didn't notice the blush that forced its way on her face.

"Can we go to the restaurant I want to go to?" Natsu asked once he had finished massaging his own hands.

"Already using your free meal pass?" Lucy lifted a brow.

"You never said I couldn't go today," he retorted.

"Let's go then," she nodded, picking herself up from the couch.

It didn't take long for either of them to get ready. Natsu opened the door for her, yet as soon as Lucy stepped outside, the dark clouds in the sky released all the rain inside of them.

"Let me get the—" Lucy began.

She wasn't able to finish her sentence as she was interrupted by crackling thunder.

"U-Umbrella," she stuttered, accidentally bumping into Natsu's chest.

"We'll can go another day," he guaranteed.

"Are you sure?" she questioned while following him back inside. "It's okay! We can go."

"You and I both know you won't be able to survive with this thunder," he scoffed.

"I'll be fine!" she reassured, her body freezing when there was another rumble of thunder.

"We'll go tomorrow," he repeated. With that, he returned to the couch and turned on the TV.

Even with Natsu's assurance that it was the rain's fault, Lucy couldn't help but feel that she was the reason they weren't able to go.

Since she played video games with Natsu instead of grocery shopping, there wasn't anything she could make that would make a decent dinner.

So she lounged around for the rain to let up a little, but that didn't happen. All the rain did was come down even harder.

With an impatient sigh, she made the only thing that she could: rice balls.

She tried to ignore the rain that only seemed to get worse while she rolled the rice balls into the seaweed.

The light started to flicker in Lucy's peripheral vision and that's all it took. Lucy's breath halted when everything became dark.

"N-Natsu?!" she shouted frantically, unable to move.

"Luce?" Natsu called back from the living room. "Stay where you are."

"O-Okay," she replied, her hands gripping the edge of the counter.

It was pitch black; Lucy wasn't even be able to see her own hand in front of her face.

She could hear Natsu moving behind her to get to her, but she couldn't stop herself from panicking.

The apartment lit up for a quick second by the help of lightning, and she braced herself for another terrorizing thunder to enter her ears.

However, the thunder didn't get a chance to enter her ears.

"Are you okay?" Natsu asked, removing his hands from her ears.

Despite not knowing where he was, Lucy spun around and wrapped her arms around the first thing she felt. She immediately felt safe once Natsu's arms protectively wrapped around her in return.

"Why are you shaking so much?" he laughed softly into her ear.

Lucy didn't listen to her thoughts as she tightened her grasp around him. It was the only thing she could do to hold back the tears that wanted to fall.

They stood in silence for a while—the rain, gently drumming against the window, being their company.

"C-Can you talk or something?" she squeaked into his shoulder.

"Talk about what?" he inquired.

"Your family?" she suggested.

Natsu sighed into her hair in response. By the way he sighed, Lucy instantly felt guilty. She was going to suggest another topic, but Natsu had begun.

"My mom isn't alive," he revealed. "I've never met her once."

"What about your dad?" Lucy whispered.

"Igneel is somewhere in this world," he responded with another sigh. "I don't know where, though."

More lightning; more thunder.

"G-Go on," Lucy said after she was finished jumping again.

"I used to live with a family that was neighbors with Lisanna," he resumed. "That's how we've known each other for so long.

"Soon enough, my foster father died, too. The adoption center, I don't really know who they are, told me I was old enough to live by myself. So now I'm here."

Silence took over them again. Lucy was absolutely speechless.

"I'm sorry," was all she could say.

But as she said those words that sounded like nothing, she lightly squeezed him to express the feelings she wasn't able to put into words.

Her heart skipped a beat when he squeezed her back.

"Coming here was better than I expected," he stated. "It's always fun here. Especially when we're together."

As he finished speaking, the flickering of the lights returned. And then in seconds, all of the lights were back on.

"D-Don't look!" Lucy exclaimed, hastily wiping her tears away. She couldn't believe that she was crying because of Natsu's story. "You didn't see that, okay?"

"What? Your crying—"

"Yes, that," she cut him off before her face started to blaze even more.

When she knew she was at least a little less puffy-eyed, she forced herself to pull away from Natsu.

It was strange just how fast it was for Natsu's body heat to leave her arms.

"You're making rice balls?" Natsu's eyes lit up in an instant.

"I can't make anything else right now, and I'm not sure if it's enough—"

"Thanks, Luce," he grinned while sliding out another plate. After neatly placing two rice balls onto the separate plate, he took the remaining rice balls with him to the living room.

"Of course he'd only give me two," Lucy scoffed, looking over her shoulder at him.

She was glad that Natsu liked being here with her. If she had enough courage, she would tell him that she loved being here with him, too.

Even though the first day of summer wasn't until Monday, she could feel that this summer would without a doubt be a summer she would never forget.

She absolutely couldn't wait for the day she would be able to give Natsu his birthday present.

And perhaps, give him something else that would be much more special as well.