"I know you're there." Miss Lucy said in a loud whisper without looking up from her book, keeping the fact that she was talking from any possible prying eyes, except for me.
"What gave me away?" I asked, not coming out from my hiding spot in the shadows of the library.
"Your radiating too much muta. I can sense it in the air. You better calm yourself down." She replied as she turned the page of the book in her hands. I thought about responding with a snarky comeback, but decided against it, she was right, if I let out too much muta I could either drain myself of energy or alert someone else of my presence in the library after hours.
I had been doing this for three weeks now, following Miss Lucy after hours every other day around the academy grounds. When she showed discomfort from my cameras I agreed to take them down, but that didn't stop my pursuit. Nothing could. In the time that I had spent with Miss Lucy, even though conversation was not common, I had learned a great deal about her just from observation. For one, I know now she likes to sneak out of wherever her dorm is pretty much every night to read in the library after hours. Her favorite books to read are about the world be it atlases, tour guides, or history textbooks, Miss Lucy seemed to love reading about the outside world. Next, it seemed that she didn't have a large variety of clothes, as I've only seen her wear four different articles of clothing in the past 21 days, all of which covered her skin completely besides her face. I've never seen her take off her gloves once, but I never asked her straight out. I've learned that she doesn't like to talk about herself, if we ever talked at all.
For the whole of the first week I followed her around, she refused to talk to me, still trying to convince me to leave her alone. But of course I didn't let up, but I did at least respect her boundaries and keep at a distance. I'd try to talk to her almost every night, ask how she is, what book she's reading, and other meager conversation starters that never went anywhere. Finally after seven days, she spoke to me, even if she told me to get lost. After that she would talk to me every time we met, telling me to leave her alone. It was enough for me (man am I a creeper or what?). Five days later Miss Lucy finally stopped in me following her to the library for her nightly reading, me following five feet behind, and at last questioned me.
"Why do you follow me?" She inquired, her voice hushed for night time.
"Because I find you interesting." I told her honestly. Miss Lucy made some sort of snort and turned away from me, looking out the window at the night sky.
"Yes you said something like that already." She responded in recollection.
"Well it's true."
"But why though?" She pushed further looking back to me, as if she was desperate for answers.
I turned my gaze to the moon as I thought about it. I didn't have an answer, not a good one anyway. What was that drew me to her other than her air of mystery? Was that all there is too her? I don't know, but as I have said, I want to.
"I want to know you." I finally answered after a long pause. I looked away from the night to look over at the apple of my eye. She looked confused, and even slightly scared. For what reasons were still unknown, she always so hesitant about everything, careful, her unknown fear constantly holding her back. If I could, I would go over to her and give her a large hug and tell her not to be scared.
Minutes passed between them until Miss Lucy finally continued down the hall, not speaking to me for the rest of the night, but also never telling me to leave her alone. That was the last night she had ever told me that again.
I sat perched on top of a bookshelf in the corner of the room, hidden by shadows. The only light in the massive room was from the small candle on the table by Miss Lucy's chair. My ears perked up when I heard movement by the window. Looking over I saw the small figure of an animal in the window, bathed in a silver-blue color in the moon. A cat!
"Hey Miss Lucy look!" I said in a loud whisper, not wanting to gain any attention from the night guards. Miss Lucy looked up from her book, staring into the darkness in confusion since she still didn't know where I was hidden. "Look at the window!" I directed her.
She looked over at the window and saw what I saw. The cat was sitting on the outside window sill peering in at them. When the cat saw that it had both of their attention it meowed at them, pawing at the glass.
"Is that… a cat?" She asked curiously as she went over to it.
"Yep." I said as I climbed down and walked over to join her. Now with both of us in front of it the kitty pawed at the glass some more, seeming to want to come inside. Miss Lucy leaned down to be at eye level with the feline, staring at it with shock and wonder. It was kinda cute.
"Haven't you ever seen a cat before?" I asked with an amused grin. Miss Lucy looked down in embarrassment, her face now a slight pink; yet I couldn't help but notice the sad, almost ashamed, look in her eyes. I mentally slapped myself in the face for being so stupid.
"I-I'm sorry! It's perfectly normal to have never seen a cat before!" I said hastily, trying to make her feel better, but she raised her hand at him, telling him to stop.
"It's okay." She looked up back at the cat. "There is a great many things I don't know about the world."
What she said surprised me greatly as I turned to her in shock. This was the first time she had ever told me anything about herself. The first time. Ever. (Okay I know we've only been 'speaking' for three weeks, but it's been two months since I became fascinated with her. THIS IS A BIG DEAL!)
"Well why don't we let the cat in, it must be cold outside. We are in the mountains after all." I said to her with a confident smile as I went over to open the window. Miss Lucy took a step back as I got closer, always wanting to keep at least a foot of distance between them. When I lifted the window up I held out a hand for the kitty to come inside, but instead the cat decided to jump down from the small ledge and run off towards the gardens.
"Crap." I cursed under my breath as the cat took off. Miss Lucy sighed as she watched it go. "Well don't just stand there, let's go after it!" I told her as I climbed my way through the first story window.
"B-but I'm not aloud outside the building!" She said to him as he began to let himself down to the ground.
"Common, we're just going to the gardens twelve feet away." I took off after the cat to make sure it didn't get away. I faintly heard her call "-Wait!" as I took off, but I was more focused on getting the cat for her, if she didn't want to come out that was fine, I'd just bring to her instead. But when I heard a loud thump, I turned back and saw that Miss Lucy had fallen into the bushes outside the window.
"Are you okay, Miss Lucy?" I called as I ran back, forgetting to be quiet.
"I'm okay." She replied as she stood and left the bushes. "I've just never climb out a window before. Do you do this often?"
"Nah, but I used to do it all the time when I was a child." I said. "Now let's look for that cat." The exact moment after I said that a meow sounded from below and I felt something brush up against my leg.
"Looks like…he, came came back to us." I stated after check for gender. I looked to Miss Lucy and held him out to her.
"Oh no, I shouldn't." She said shaking her hands in front of herself.
"Common, he's super fluffy." I urged her, holding out the feline further.
"Really, I can't."
I shrugged and took the cat back into my arms. Looking at him closer now I could see that his fur really was blue. How peculiar.
"What should we name him? Happy would be a good name… Miss Lucy"
Miss Lucy walked slowly over to the gardens, mesmerized by the flowers, plants, and ponds bathed in the light of the moon. She crouched over by some lilies, morning glories, and sunflowers. Gently she leaned over to smell their fragrance and instantly a smile came to her face. Tonight was a night of firsts because that was the first time I've ever seen her smile as well. It made me smile as well. Walking over I sat next to her, putting Happy into my lap. We were quiet for a few moments as she took her time to behold the beauty around her.
"I've always just seen it from the window." She breathed out. "But it's much prettier up close."
"Most things are." I responded.
She glanced at me, her expression was an enigma, yet a small smile came to her face, her eyes shone beautifully with a light look of happiness in her chocolate brown eyes of hers.
"I suppose so." She said softly. Lucy reached out to touch a lily, but the second she did the white flower turned into water and fell down to the garden dirt. My mouth opened in shock and a look of dismay covered her face. Sighing gloomily she sat back and looked at her hands with a sort of despair.
"My glove is torn." She said sadly, holding herself in her arms. "This always happens." Miss Lucy buried her head in her knees and began to shudder in her spot.
"What always happens? What did you do?" I asked, taking a bold leap. Miss Lucy lifted her head and continued to stare at her hands.
"I always reconstruct whatever I touch." She confessed, tears pricking at her eyes.
"Reconstruct?" I echoed her.
"That's my power, I break down the atoms in an object and reconstruct their code into becoming an entirely new element. For example I could turn a tree into a block of ice, or turn a lake into boiling lava."
"I've never heard of that ability before, that's kinda cool."
"It'd be 'cool' if I could control it. That's why I wear mutacloth clothing, that way I can touch stuff without totally changing their elemental compounds."
"Well at least you have potential, when you've grown to control your powers I'm sure you'll be able to help a lot of people," I gave her a pep talk to try and cheer her up from being so gloomy. "The only thing I can do is set things on fire." I chuckled a bit at the end. Miss Lucy giggled a bit as well.
"Well I'm sure you can help plenty as well." She told me.
"Yeah, the next time your oven breaks, call me."
We laughed, then the moment passed, the air becoming serious again.
"You said you wanted to know me, but why? Why am I special?" She questioned me.
"You know I haven't figured that out yet either." I leaned back to lay on my back and look at the stars. "Ever since I saw you that day in the library when I came to get my notebook I've just been taken by you." I looked over at her. "You interest me."
"I don't see why though." She frowned.
"Sometimes we have more to offer than we think, and what we dislike most about ourselves can be someone else's favorite thing about us. You have plenty to offer Miss Lucy." I held out and hand to her, though I knew she wouldn't take it. "Perhaps you could offer me your friendship?"
Miss Lucy looked between me and my hand, probably debating his proposal in her head. At last she finally nodded, a slight curve at the edge of her mouth in what was almost a smile.
"Okay, but only for the month, and just Lucy if fine. The whole 'Miss' thing is weird"
"Sure thing," I grinned like a mad man as I set my hand down. "Lucy." Her name sounded sweet on my lips. Be it one month or eternity, I was glad I could be with her like this.
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So… it's been awhile hasn't it. Sorry for that, I got caught up in other things and school. (I finally have a social life now) I'll try to continue to post as regularly as well, but hey, a review would really help. Seriously though, reviews are the most important thing to me (But for the love of fanfiction stop posting meaningless review of single words or just . who comments . anyway? That's not even a word! (i'm talking about the period mark, spam will be removed and reported.)
Just so you know this fanfic is going to be less than ten chapters long, shorter than my other NaLu stories I know but it's hard to draw out the plot without pointless filler. I hope my pacing is okay though. See y'all later!
(I'll also have very few timeskips for now on, at the most they'll only skip a few days to progress the plot)
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