"I'm going crazy… Or am I?"
Lucy took big strides across the pavement, her converse occasionally making clacking noises on the ground. She thanked God when all the crossing signs were green and she didn't have to wait for all the cars to drive past. She finally reached her destination – the local supermarket. She walked in the sliding glass doors, resisting the urge to pry them open so that they could open faster.
Ding!
The doors made little noise as she walked in and grabbed a basket. She skimmed through all the aisles and managed to grab some milk, a box of instant noodles, some beef, wrapping paper, gum, some fruits and vegetables and a box of chocolates. She quickly walked towards the cashier and payed, walking out of the store with two bags in her hands.
I'd better get home quickly and greet the neighbours today. She strided towards her apartment on Strawberry street and walked up the railings, not touching the unhygienic steel bars. She glanced towards the room next to her, fished her keys out of her pocket and opened the door, stepping in.
Lucy's apartment was quite big and cozy, and even though it was expensive, it was worth it. The walls were a nice light blue and had multiple paintings. To the left side of the room were two big brown, wooden doors that lead to the kitchen and the bathroom/toilet, with a table between the doors.
On the right side of the room was her light pink bed, which was next to a window placed on a light blue rug. Near the head of the bed was a tall bookshelf crammed with books. In the middle of the room, there were 3 chairs placed around a small coffee table and an armchair. Near that was another window with a brown study desk and a chair with her wardrobe and a fireplace next to it. There were also some shelves and decorative items scattered around the room neatly.
Lucy thew her bag on her armchair and put her groceries into the kitchen. After that, she walked back into the lounge with the box of chocolates and the wrapping paper. She was in a rush so she hadn't seen what the pattern was like. When she sat down, she inspected it – it was a nice green colour with light and dark green stripes, the occasional flower popping up as extra decoration.
Peeling off the package, she laid it on the table and cut out a big square, placing the box of chocolates in the middle. She grabbed wrapped up the present swiftly, using clear sticky tape to bind it together. She placed it in front of her and smiled to herself.
"Perfect!" she yelled out to no-one in particular, walking towards her wardrobe. She grabbed some denim blue jeans and a white blouse with a black cardigan, heading towards the bathroom. After her bath, she brushed her hair and left it down, tying the red ribbon that she had kept years ago on her hand.
"Alright, finished. Now time to greet the neighbours," Lucy mumbled, swishing in front of her bathroom mirror. She grabbed the box of chocolates off the table and walked out the door, locking it and chucking the key in her pocket. She gulped and walked slowly towards the door next to her room, knocking on it slowly. She raised an eyebrow when she heard crashes around the room.
"Oi, Rogue, go get the door!"
"Why are you always telling me to do these things for you, Sting?"
Lucy's eyes widened and she took a step back.
"No. Freaking. Way," she breathed, staring at the door agonisingly. She watched as the door opened oh-so-slowly and nearly fainted when Rogue-sensei came out with a whie shirt and black jeans. He was looking down so he didn't see Lucy's face at first, but when he did, he let go of the door handle and stared at her, his jaw hitting the ground.
"Oi, Rogue, who is it?" a voice yelled form inside. Lucy groaned inwardly. Both teachers had the surname Cheney, right?
"Oh no, oh god no…" Lucy mumbled to herself, staring at the shadow coming from inside the apartment. She nearly fainted for the second time when she saw Sting-sensei standing behind Rogue-sensei dressed in a white shirt and black pants.
"Heartfilia?" Sting asked her incredulously, his jaw dropping to the ground as well, matching Rogue's. Lucy resisted the urge to kick them both in the face and forced a VERY unstable smile, handing them the present slowly.
"I – I'm your new n-neighbour, L-Lucy H-Heartfilia… N-nice to m-meet you…?" Lucy didn't even know what to say in this kind of situation!
Once again, their jaws dropped to the ground even lower, if that was even possible.
"Wait, is that food?" Sting recovered and stared at the box of chocolates. Lucy nodded slowly and he snatched the box out of her hands.
"WOOH! FOOD!" he screamed, running inside. Lucy watched as he ran around in circles, sweatdropping together with Rogue.
"S – so, uh…" Lucy shuffled her legs and stood there quite awkwardly, peering inside at the excited Sting from time to time.
"W – why don't you come in? We are NEIGHBOURS after all," Rogue said.
Does that mean they don't want me to use honorifics? Lucy stepped inside stiffly. She nearly fell down in shock at their room – of course, the layout of their room was the same, but the lack of furniture in their room was surprising!
The walls were plain white, and plain walls they were. Discarded wrappers and boxes were littered across the floor on the left side of the room, while the right side of the room was neat and tidy. Two matching white beds were placed on either side of the room, a table and two chairs separating the two sides. Lucy just stared and sweatdropped at the sight before her.
"H-Have a seat," Rogue pointed towards the table in the middle and Lucy plopped down, inspecting the room more. She turned her attention towards Sting and watched him shred the wrapping to pieces. Rogue came back with a cup of tea and Lucy nodded her head towards him, "Thanks."
"Yum, food! Finally, some food!" He stuffed the chocolates into his mouth quickly, nearly choking.
"So, would you like anything to eat?" Rogue stood up and straightened out his shirts. Lucy nodded and sipped the rest of her tea.
"Yes, please, Rogue sens- Cheney-san," she answered, setting the cup down.
"Please, just call me Rogue. It would be very confusing if you called me by Cheney - we're both Cheney's after all." After he cleared that up, Rogue walked towards the kitchen.
"Sting, help me out!" Rogue yelled at him, opening the kitchen door. Sting sighed, set the box of chocolates down and walked after Rogue into the kitchen, leaving Lucy alone.
"It's not very nice to leave your guest alone, you know…" Lucy mumbled quietly, scrunching her face up in disgust at a old, discarded pizza box on the floor.
"SHIT!" Lucy turned her head towards the open kitchen door and saw Sting waving his hand around desperately, bumping into Rogue and making him head plant into a pan. Lucy honestly thought it was funny, but ran over immediately when she saw that Rogue's face had collided into a pan that was on the stove.
"Honestly, you two are idiots!" Lucy yelled at them, rolling her sleeves up. She quickly grabbed a tea towel, rinsed it and pressed it to Rogue's face. "Hold." He had no time to reply as she grabbed Sting's wrist and moved him to the other side of the kitchen with Rogue, running his hand under cold water. Both of them sighed in relief and stood there, staring at Lucy as she walked over to the pan and flipped the meat professionally, adding in some other foods she had found in their pantry.
"Um….sorry?" Sting grinned, earning a bonk on the head from Rogue. He pouted and continued staring at Lucy.
"Get me three plates, now!" she barked, making the two grab three plates and place them on the table next to Lucy.
"I wonder what the rest of the class would do if they saw you two pathetic teachers now," Lucy snickered, scraping the meat onto each of the plates evenly. They both blushed a little as they put rice onto their plates.
"Honesty, how do you two even survive?" Lucy grumbled, walking out of the kitchen, hands on hips. The two stared as she walked out and looked at each other at wide eyes.
"What would the students say?" Rogue mumbled, bringing his plate out with him.
"Dunno! All I know is that I get food~" Sting sang, making Rogue hit him on the head. They walked out of the kitchen and sat down on Rogue's side of the room, since Sting's side was downright messy.
"This is good!" Sting cried out, wolfing down the meal straight away.
"I refuse to compliment a student's cooking. It is inappropriate." Rogue said sternly, though the small smile on his face said otherwise.
"How have you two even been living? You pathetic idiots, even making a student cook for you!" Lucy yelled at them, making them shiver.
"Welllll….." Sting started.
"We've been eating take away food…"
"And junk food!"
"Sometimes we eat 2 min –"
"Okay, stop, stop," Lucy waved her hands in front of her face and picked up the previous box of pizza. "You don't even bother to clean up, Sting-san?" Lucy asked, waving the box around, pinching her nose from the stench.
"Well… I don't want to." He grinned as if it were nothing and stared at the box. "Actually, you shouldn't touch that. There's a mouse in there."
"KYAAAAA!" Lucy screamed and dropped the box, standing on top of the table she was sitting at. She watched the furry creature scatter around the floor and she huddled herself, thanking god that she wore jeans.
"Get it out!" Lucy screamed again, closing her eyes. Sting chuckled and stood up, picking the mouse by its neck.
"Sting, that's disgusting," Rogue said, shifting away from Rogue. He shrugged, opened the door and tossed it outside, then walked back in and grinned evilly at Lucy.
"So even Heartfilia-san has a weakness," Sting wiggled his dirty fingers at Lucy, making her squeal.
"Get away from me!" Lucy jumped off the table and ran to the kitchen door, not noticing that there was a picture on top of a table there.
"Oi wa –"
Lucy noticed at the last second, skidding to a stop but still knocking the table over. Rogue foresaw what was going to happen and put his plate on a table, jumping over the bed to catch the photo. Lucy kneeled and tried to catch the frame at the same time, and succeeded. Rogue jut ended up half on the floor, the other half of his body dangling from the bed.
"Hmm? What's this?" Lucy flipped the frame over and looked at it with wide eyes, jumping away from the photo and panting heavily.
"What's wrong?" Sting, who had just come back from washing his hands, picked up the photo, stared at it lovingly and set it back up on the table.
"W – who is that? Are you related to her?" Lucy asked, her breath slowing down.
"She was like a sister to us, since she took us in from the adoption centre. We were abandoned by our parents and she found u-"
"Sting, you're saying too much." Rogue sat back up and shifted around. He was never too comfortable about people talking about their past.
"So…she's like your mom? Or your sister?" Lucy asked, sitting up in a chair.
"More like a sister, I guess, since we never regarded her as a mother. Why, do you know her?" Sting asked, sitting next to Rogue.
"Do you remember her name?" Lucy asked slowly, dreading the next answer.
"Layla Heartfilia."
Sting stared at Lucy with wide eyes.
"Holy shit."
"I wonder what Lucy's doing now…" Gray mumbled, lying in his bed.
"Wait, why do I keep thinking about her?!" Gray yelled out loud.
"SHUT UP, GRAY!" He heard his brother and his sister, Lyon and Ultear Fullbuster, yell at him through both sides of the wall simultaneously, making his ears ring. Gray fell to the ground with a big bump, hitting his head on his bedside table. He rubbed his sore head and saw cross legged on the floor, sighing.
"I'm hungry…" he muttered, now rubbing his stomach.
"MOM! HAVE YOU GOT ANY FOOD!?" Gray yelled, not bothering to walk out.
"I've got curry rice!" she yelled back. Gray whooped and ran out of his room, heading towards the kitchen.
"Get some for me too!" Gray heard Lyon yelled.
"Get it yourself, lazy idiot!" Gray yelled back, finally reaching the kitchen. He sat down at the marble table as his mother, Ur Fullbuster, slid him a plate of curry rice.
"Give this to your brother, okay?" Ur said, giving him another plate.
"Hai, hai," Gray sulked.
"ITADAKIMASU!" Gray dug into his meal straight away and looked at his mum cooking.
She had short dark purple hair that framed her face neatly into a small bowl and dark black eyes. She was wearing a black singlet, green shorts and a white apron over them. Gray didn't know his father's name, since his mother refused to tell him. All he knew was that he had abandoned his mother when she had gave birth to Gray for another woman.
He had sneaked a few glances at his mother's photo album, once. His father had short dark blue hair like him and dark blue eyes. In short, he was exactly like Gray. There had been many times where Gray had asked his mom about his dad, but she had pushed the subject aside.
It was the same with his brother and sister. He had suspected they knew the whole story, but also refused to tell. Thus, Gray had stopped asking, ignoring the subject completely. Somewhere in his mind, though, he knew that he was still curious about his family.
"So…that makes you guys my uncles?" Lucy asked the two who were still staring at her. Rogue had grabbed the photo frame, staring from Lucy to the photo over and over again.
"Y – yeah, I guess so…" Sting answered, scratching the back of his neck. Lucy scoffed.
"Sting-ojisan." She snickered at the new name.
"I'm 100 years too early to be called an ojisan! NOOOO!" Sting yelled, his world falling apart.
"Sitng-ojisan and Rogue-ojisan. Hehe~" Lucy sang, Rogue's face turning bright red.
"Well, I've got to go. No thanks from the homework Sting-ojisan and Rogue-ojisan left me," Lucy smirked, making her way to the door.
"You better not call me that at school, brat!" Sting yelled at her, making a vein from Lucy pop.
" What did you just say?!" Lucy growled at him, her head turning around like a robot.
"I called you a brat." Sting lifted his head up and puffed out his chest in pride.
"Why you -!" Lucy was about to rake him with her long fingernails but he quickly put up his hands as a signal of mercy. Rogue just sat there, staring.
"See you later, Sting-ojisan, Rogue-ojisan." Lucy walked out of the door and waved at the two, the door closing quietly.
Silence enveloped the two brothers. It shocked them when the door opened once again.
"You better not go into my room. I'll see you tomorrow." Lucy shut the door once again.
Sting scratched his head. "Well, that was quite a weird shock, wasn't it?"
A/N: thank you to everyone who has reviewed so far! my mail was beaming with all the cute reviews and the follows / favourites from you all! cute reviews never fail to make my day c: also, thank you to everyone who wished me a happy birthday!
some people are saying that Lucy is too OOC and are asking what she will do after revenge. Well, I've written up a plan of sorts since the whole Lucy and her revenge thing will become a BIG problem later.
oops, spoilers -
Make sure to review & read / support my other stories: Valentine's Day, Darkness, Of Dragonslayers love and best friends, The proposal, Fairy Tail Academy and Replacement!
- hime