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Natsu approached the table with a steaming latte in each hand and a look of dismay smeared across his face. A stack of books and notebooks, her laptop, all sorts of pens and highlighters and sticky notes—her side of the table sat in stark contrast to his, which bore no more than a single textbook and notebook, along with a cheap pen that had long since lost its cap.
“Uh…Lucy?” he asked. “Do ya really need all that stuff?”
“Of course I do,” she replied confidently, as she zipped up her backpack and set it aside. “You have to put the work in if you want to get good grades, you know.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Natsu sighed, and he handed her one of the coffees before settling into his own chair. He took a long, slow sip, once more surveying his best friend’s impressive array of study materials. She’d been like this for as long as he had known her. He often teased her for it, but really, he admired her work ethic and intelligence. He wished he could focus the way she was able to, then maybe he’d get better grades. Then maybe he would be able to impress her.
‘Cause the truth was…he was in love with her.
“’Kay, Natsu,” she said, knocking him from his brief reverie, “Do you wanna start with Bio or Classic Lit?” Her soft brown eyes shone brightly, full of energy.
He blinked back at her. “Huh? Oh, uh…doesn’t matter to me. You can pick.”
“How about Bio?”
“Sounds good.”
They each cracked open their Biology textbooks and got to work. On his own, Natsu didn’t really know where to start. It wasn’t that he didn’t understand the material, but rather that he struggled to structure his study time. He’d get distracted, then frustrated, and by the end have accomplished far less than he set out to do. Lucy made all that better. She always had a plan. She was always organized and focused, and she patiently guided him back to the topic at hand when his mind began to stray. She was the best study buddy a guy could ask for.
Plus, she smelled real nice.
An hour or so later, Natsu, leaning over some note cards Lucy had prepared, said, “So, the lysosome translates RNA into DNA—”
“That’s ribosomes.”
Natsu’s brow furrowed. “I thought those break stuff down?”
“That’s lysosomes,” Lucy giggled; “you’ve got them mixed up.”
Natsu sat back in his chair with a groan and ran his fingers through his salmon-pink hair. “Ah, damn it. I just can’t keep everything straight.”
“Don’t worry, you can do it!” Lucy encouraged him, smiling warmly, then she pressed a finger against her chin and pondered, “Hmmmm…how about a trick to help you remember? Lysosome…’Lys’…kind of sounds like ‘slice’. Slice things up. Lysosomes ‘slice’ things up, in a way. Does that help?”
Natsu rolled her suggestion around his brain for a few moments and felt he could easily commit it to memory. Lucy was so good at this. And so very, very beautiful.
“Natsu?”
“Y-Yeah,” he said after a longer-than-intended pause. “That definitely helps; thanks!”
“Great!” Lucy winked and offered a thumbs up.
CUTE. She’s so freakin’ cute. Gah.
When the pair decided they had spent enough time on biology, they moved on to literature.
“Okay! Time for Ego and Enmity!” Lucy produced her paperback copy, brimming with multicolored sticky notes throughout its pages. She ran her hand lovingly along the well-worn spine, and Natsu got the feeling she had read the book long before this course ever assigned it to her. “I just love Eliza and Mr. Barcy, don’t you? Their romance is just so…” Lucy didn’t finish the thought with words, but instead with a dreamy sigh. She then cocked her head at the absence of Natsu’s copy of the novel on the other side of the table. “Didn’t you bring yours?”
“I, uh, kinda forgot it,” Natsu replied sheepishly, then quickly added, “but I did read it, I swear!”
“Sheesh,” Lucy sighed, leaning back in her chair, though her accompanying eye roll spoke of friendly teasing more than annoyance. “Well, I’m sure you can borrow a copy from the library for today. Let me go grab one.” She slid her chair back, but Natsu sprung to his own feet before she had a chance to stand up.
“No, no, I’ll get it!” he insisted.
Lucy nodded and scooted her chair forward once more. Just before Natsu turned toward the stacks, she added, “And another latte?”
Natsu chuckled. “Sure.” He turned but was stopped by one final addendum.
“Ooo—actually, a mocha?”
He pivoted back toward her with a sideways grin. “Jeez, make up your mind!”
“A mocha, please!” she declared. “You’re the best, Natsu!”
Natsu winked—ugh, why’d ya do that, you idiot!—and turned once more to go fetch a copy of their book. He was glad for the reprieve, however brief, to collect his thoughts.
Because here was the real truth: he’d only just recently come to the earth-shattering conclusion that he was in love with his best friend. As in, within the last month or so. After years of intimate friendship. And ever since this unfortunate realization, any time spent with her required nearly all his focus in order to maintain his cool and pretend everything was normal, the way it had always been—because there was absolutely no way she felt the same way. The only thing worse than this unrequited love would be to make her so uncomfortable that they couldn’t even be friends anymore. And so, he was determined to squash these feelings and keep them hidden from her. He could still spend lots of time with her, hear her musical laugh, smell her sweet natural perfume, protect her…even if he couldn’t touch her in the way he truly wanted. To his great fortune, she did spend most of her free time with him, after all.
Natsu tousled his hair in an attempt to reset his brain and realized he had been aimlessly wandering among the aisles of shelves. Right; the book. Gotta find the book.
After a quick stop at the library terminal, which revealed there were in fact no copies of this particular novel available, Natsu ventured over to the location just in case, only to find that indeed all copies had been checked out. He grumbled and rubbed the back of his neck for a moment, wondering how quickly he could run back to his apartment and grab his own copy. Trouble was, he did not live close by, and it would likely take well over a half hour to get there and back.
Natsu wandered back toward the table he shared with Lucy in order to deliver the news, only to stop short halfway across the room. Someone was sitting in his seat. His seat. With Lucy.
The two of them were sharing an animated conversation. The intruder, a brown-haired guy Natsu recognized from one of their classes but whose name escaped him, leaned forward over the table and said something that made Lucy laugh. The guy’s arms extended even further so that they encroached upon Lucy’s study space. She was sitting straight up in her chair but by no means recoiling from him. Natsu then noticed two new steaming cups from the library coffee shop, one in front of each of them. His jaw clenched.
“—very true. I do wonder if Professor Makarov ever saw—oh, Natsu!” Lucy paused in whatever she was saying as Natsu stepped up to the table. “You know Peter, right? From our Classic Lit class?”
“Hey, Natsu!” this so-called Peter greeted him with a small wave and a freakin’ annoying grin. “I saw Lucy sitting here when I was in line at the coffee shop, so I grabbed her an amaretto latte. Sorry I didn’t get you anything—didn’t realize you were here, too.”
Natsu stared back at him in silence for a moment before uttering, “Lucy hates amaretto.”
“N-No I don’t!” she countered quickly. Yes, she did. “I-It’s not necessarily my top choice, but I do like it. Thank you again, that was very kind,” she shot Natsu a quick sideways glare, “of you.”
Natsu stood silently, staring daggers at the punk who stole his seat as if that was enough to transport him to another planet.
After a beat of awkward silence, Peter said, “Mind if I join you? We’re all studying the same book, after all.” He gave his closed messenger bag a light pat to indicate a copy of Ego and Enmity lay within.
“No.” Natsu continued to stare at him.
Peter shifted uncomfortably and croaked, “U-Uh…”
Out of the corner of his eye, Natsu could see Lucy gaping at him. “Natsu! Peter, of course you can stu—”
“No,” Natsu repeated. “We’re studying alone.”
The cloud of tension surrounding the table could have been cut with a knife. Peter and Lucy exchanged one final glance before the former slid his chair back and rose with his messenger bag. He had barely stepped out of the way before Natsu reclaimed the seat, causing Peter to have to sidestep awkwardly to remove himself.
“I, uh…I’ll see you guys in class, then,” Peter mumbled before walking away.
With the uninvited guest gone at last, Natsu clasped his hands atop the table, cleared his throat, and proceeded to study the grain of the wood.
Several beats of silence ensued, and he felt the intense gaze of his partner radiate from the other side of the table.
At last, Lucy spoke up. “What the hell was that, Natsu?” she hissed. “Why were you so rude to him?!”
Natsu did not look away from the tabletop. He suddenly regretted his actions, but also knew he would do the exact same thing all over again if given the chance. Mainly, he regretted it because it had upset Lucy, and in order to explain himself, he’d have to roll over and expose his belly. Which he had vowed not to do, right? He couldn’t ruin their friendship. It would be too devastating. But, despite all this, he felt the words bubbling up in his throat, furious as he felt powerless to stop them.
“Do you like him or something?” His eyes finally snapped up to meet hers.
Lucy blinked back at him. “Huh? Of course not!” Her brow furrowed. “But what does that have to do with it?”
Natsu considered his words carefully. He decided there was something he needed to know, in order to armor himself for the future. The sight of Lucy with that guy…it had set his body ablaze, and he would have to learn how to quell that fire. “But…you do like someone?”
This time, Lucy’s eyes dropped to the table, her face turning red. She swallowed and tucked a strand of blonde hair behind her ear.
“Who is it?”
Lucy’s eyes slowly drifted back up to his face, her cheeks still flushed. “I mean…I-I thought it was obvious.” Her voice came meekly.
Natsu shook his head with a faint shrug, racking his brain for any clues. Surely, if Lucy liked someone in a way that, according to her, was obvious, then he would know who it was, as her best friend?? The only person who she really gave…special attention…to…was…
Lucy nervously bit her bottom lip, and it was Natsu’s turn to blush.
A long, silent pause passed between them, the only sounds being the quiet murmur of others studying and the faint clinking and whirring from the coffee shop.
“You, uh…didn’t grab the book?” Lucy asked quietly.
“They were…all gone.” His voice was equally small.
Lucy shifted in her chair, and after a moment, slid it back and rose with her copy of the novel. She rounded the table and pulled out the empty chair next to Natsu, sat down again,and scooted the chair close to him. Lucy then placed the book on the table between them and opened it to a page marked by a small pink sticky note. She gave the chair one more scoot, and their arms pressed into each other.
Natsu’s face was on fire, his heart pounding. Did she…really—? He glanced sideways and found her looking his way, her face rosy as ever.
Okay. He was the luckiest damn guy on the planet.