By the first week into October, Natsu had managed to change his temper completely. Lucy wasn't surprised – she had seen it before, after all. But it happened, and she was as impressed as she had been the first time she saw it. Natsu was the most energetic, crazy and loving person she knew. He ran around going on missions, planning elaborate pranks, he talked loudly, and he fought at every change – and he always dragged Lucy along to play. She loved this side of him. He gave her energy, his happiness spread to her like wildfire – ironic, considering that he's a fire mage.
So, when the leaves on the trees became orange, red and yellow, she was surprised every time she saw his energy mellow out slightly. He still acted roughly the same, and he did what he usually did: missions, pranks, fights and hanging out with Lucy, but now with less of that extra stuff – shaking his legs, poking her thighs under the table to annoy her, carelessly interrupting people when they were speaking. She notices him taking the occasional pause whenever they're outside, to take in the rapidly changing view and to take deep, calming breaths of the smell of rain and decaying leaves. It was clear as day: he really liked autumn.
"Whatcha doing?" Natsu was surprised to see Lucy digging around in the flowerpots at her apartment complex's entrance.
"Huh?" Lucy looked up. She hadn't been expecting him to arrive just yet. They agreed earlier today to hang out, but since Natsu had to stop by the tailor she thought she would have time to prepare the flower pots for winter. She usually did this early in the morning, so Natsu didn't know she was the one fixing the nice flower beds every spring, or that she was the one who cleared them when they died.
"Oh I'm just doing some chores, you go ahead and make yourself comfortable inside," Lucy encouraged, waving her tiny shovel. Natsu squatted down beside her, still visibly confused.
"Why are you digging everythin' out?" Lucy was taken slightly off guard with this unexpected interest. After all, she was only digging dirt in a pot, nothing he would be interested in normally. But then again, he was quite on theme with his newfound tranquillity.
"I'm really only making space for new things to grow, I was thinking that I'd like to plant azaleas next year," she told him.
"Are azaleas flowers?"
"Yeah, I'll show you a picture when we go inside – I'm almost done anyway."
Natsu waited patiently. He couldn't help but wonder how those flowers would look – would they be some sort of flamey variant, or would they be cute and fluffy? Or maybe those were the wrong sort of words to use to describe flowers. Round or sharp petals? Thorns or no thorns? And then which colour? Could they pick and decide that themselves? Or had Lucy already picked? He was surprisingly interested – uncharacteristically so, even he was aware of that.
Lucy almost worked up a sweat, Natsu observed, taking his time to soak up the details. Her hair looked soft and light from the sunny summer, but her tan had started to fade. She was wearing gloves, the ones with a little pink detail, and her jacket was on the thicker side. Maybe that's why she was getting hot. She didn't wear any makeup today, he noticed. He liked it when she wore her face bare – not that she didn't look good all dolled up as well, but he just appreciated the way she looked when she was just being her. She didn't try to look like anyone else, like Cana with her dark eyelashes or Mira with her fair skin – she just looked like herself, light eyelashes and some freckles scattered across her cheeks.
It didn't take long for Lucy to give up her efforts. The weather was getting worse by the second, and the warmth she initially worked up was gone as soon as the wind picked up. Feeling goosebumps up her arms and her neck, she soon turned back to Natsu, who was still keeping his eyes glued on her.
"Maybe I'll leave it here for today, it feels like it's going to rain," she said, putting her tools away. "Do you want some tea?"
Natsu nodded, not really feeling bothered by the change in weather. Though, he didn't exactly love seeing Lucy shiver. And he really liked the way she made tea – she always added a splash of milk and a lemon slice or cinnamon stick, depending on the flavour.
As they entered Lucy's apartment, Natsu took a deep breath. It smelled like freshly baked bread, cinnamon and smoke from the fire she made when he wasn't around. Underneath those tones, there was this homey scent of Lucy. The mixture of her hygiene products, her fabric softener, the subtle tones of wood and leather from different pieces of furniture, and then there was her scent. He had never found any other way to describe it. It wasn't like normal body odour, like sweat or skin, it was something else completely. Like he could smell her DNA, or her very soul perhaps.
Well, whatever the scent was, he loved it. For him, being in Lucy's apartment was equivalent to therapy. He didn't even like his own home as much as he did hers – it didn't have her flair.
Lucy broke their silence.
"Will Happy be coming over later? I got a new board game, I thought we could try it together." She took off the boiling hot kettle from the stove. Natsu had taken a seat on the couch, still lost in thoughts.
"Yeah, he'll drop in in time for dinner," he told her. "He's been at the river tryna catch tiger trouts all morning. He's just been gettin' carps though." A low chuckle escaped his lips.
"Well, at least he's got a food supply!" She chirped from the kitchen. "Look what I bought at the market yesterday."
Lucy was balancing a wooden tray, filled with all kinds of snacks, plus some of that bread that had been cooling off. Some snacks looked like glistering jewels, others looked like they could be cursed meat disguised as small, wrinkly sausages. She put the tray down onto the coffee table. Just as Natsu had predicted, the two mugs each had a cinnamon stick in them. Natsu leaned over in intrigue as Lucy plopped down beside him.
"I couldn't identify half of this stuff at gunpoint," he mumbled. As he got a whiff of the smell coming from the mixed assortments, his nose scrunched. "Smells weird."
"I'll tell you what it is! First we got our drinks…"
She handed Natsu his cup, a dark murky orange one, rough and handmade, with little yellow flames painted in the glaze. He'd gotten it from Lucy a Christmas a couple of years ago, and ever since then it had been his designated one. As he held it he smelled a mix of spices from the steam.
"It's a masala chai, it originated in Bellum over a thousand years ago! This mix is made with cinnamon, cardamom, ginger, nutmeg, black pepper, cloves and black tea leaves from the area, but the seller told me that the recipe can vary. Then there's just some milk and sugar as well, but I thought you might like it." As Natsu listened to her listing up the ingredients, he finally found some sense in the jumbled combination of mixed spices. It made the drink feel more appetising.
"Taste it!" She urged, Natsu seeing an intense glimpse in her eyes.
"Kay… You better not have put somethin' weird into it…" he warned her before putting his cup against his lips, taking a small mouthful of the lightly tanned liquid into his mouth. Before Lucy could counter his rude claim, Natsu lit up. "Hey, that's actually good!"
"Is it?" Lucy excitedly turned to her own cup, the one she had bought from the same pottery artist as she got Natsu's. Dark blue with yellow stars painted where Natsu's cup had flames. A matching pair, despite the themes being completely different. He liked the way it contrasted her pale hands, and he liked how she held it delicately with both hands so she wouldn't drop it. "It really is!"
She turned to smile at him proudly, not containing her joy in the slightest. He could always tell when her happiness came from her heart – it showed in her eyes, in the fact that they squinted so hard that her eyes looked like two slits, resting on her pillowy cheeks. If he didn't have his hands full, he would have reached out and pinched them. Test if they were as soft and plush as they looked.
"Right, so that's the tea," Lucy continued, not paying any attention to the intense stare that was coming from the mage beside her. "Then there's this, it just looks like normal candy cane pieces to me, but the woman who sold it said that the people in the northern parts of Seven eat it traditionally towards winter." The hard candies in the bowl made a jingling sound as Lucy picked it up. As she said, they tasted pretty much like normal candy canes. Natsu didn't care for it all that much – the minty flavour left a cold feeling in his mouth, and he didn't love to be reminded of a grumpy stripper every time he had a sweet. Still, they seemed delightfully handmade, and Lucy mentioned something about them being called polka pigs in a rough translation of their native language, and Natsu loved pork, so he took another piece in solidarity to its name.
As the two of them continued to taste test the different snacks from around the world, Natsu noticed Lucy edging closer. It seemed she hadn't realised it herself, as she still was talking about the long, complicated production of those sausage-things that tasted much better than they looked (apparently there was beer involved? He didn't really follow). Her position had changed from sitting on the opposite side of the couch to now sitting shoulder against shoulder. Every now and then she would lean closer, like she was searching his touch as much as he always searched for hers.
"Oh that's right!" She exclaimed, suddenly diving under her coffee table. Natsu didn't hide the confused look on his face when he hunched down with her.
"What?" He asked, trying to figure out what she was rummaging for.
"The flowers! Azaleas, I was going to show you a picture." She crawled up into the couch again, her hair slightly messy this time, holding a small book. A Flower Encyclopedia was written on it, and she immediately started browsing the chapter index.
Struggling to see the contents inside the book, Natsu hoisted Lucy into his arms so he was looking over her shoulder. She seemed unfazed by his action, but her accelerated heartbeat begged to differ. Natsu couldn't help but smile at her from behind. Her feelings could be so transparent.
"There it is," Lucy mumbled, very aware of the blush on her cheeks. The page she held open showed a plethora of deep, pink flowers, sitting against a dark greenery. Natsu leaned a bit forward so he could see the book closer, letting his chin rest on her shoulder.
"They look kinda nice." He tilted his head against hers, their cheeks squishing together with the motion.
"I thought you'd like them," she whispered.
Natsu dug his face into the crook of her neck and took a deep breath. He couldn't help it when the source of the smell he loved more than anything was right under his nose.
"Read to me," he begged, hugging her closer. As his mouth was pressed against Lucy's shoulder, she immediately felt his hot breath against her skin, earning a shiver. Still, she complied. Reading the pages went quickly as there were mostly pictures, but she knew he didn't ask her to read in order to hear about flowers. She knew that he just wanted to hear her voice, so when she finished the thin book, she started talking about anything that came to her mind. Dreams, memories and things she had to do the upcoming week.
Natsu had dozed off after just ten minutes of reading. His soul felt fulfilled as he laid there, breathing Lucy's air, hearing her calm voice, feeling her body heat pressed against him as they cuddled together. The tranquil air around the two of them acted as a perfectly curated space – he swore he could feel their heartbeats match up.
Life felt perfect. Soon Happy would arrive, and the three of them would share a delicious hot meal, listening to the cat's fishing adventures – not before said cat teased the pair a little for acting all cuddly of course. Then they would take turns to wash up before playing that new board game long into the night.
But right here, right now, there was only Natsu and Lucy, and a comfortable couch in a warming embrace. The rain that Lucy had predicted earlier that day was smattering against her window, and before she drifted to sleep herself, she remembered thinking that this was what life was about.