Chapter Text
(Saturday October 2nd 3:00 pm)
As we finally got off the highway I rolled down the window of the car I was in, taking in the cold autumn breeze. I was currently heading to Fairy Tail Academy, a boarding school in the city of Magnolia. It was exciting to be going to a new place, in all my seventeen years on earth I had never been to a real city. Except for a small town I had once gone to with my mother when I was young, I had never been outside the grounds of the estate in which I lived. My father, Jude Heartfilia, was the owner of a huge chain of companies around the world, and made a very good living because of it. He and my mother, Layla Heartfilia, used to live in an apartment closer to headquarters, but when they found out mom was pregnant, they decided they wanted to have a more peaceful place for their child to grow up, away from the troubles of life in high society. Though it was secluded, I never minded that I wasn’t around too many people my age, for I was completely doted on by my parents. They loved me so much, and we were the picture of a perfect family until my mother fell ill and died when I was at the tender age of eight years old.
Leaning back into my seat I frowned, always saddened by the thought of my mother's death, not just because I missed her so much (I really do), but also because after that my life changed forever. My father was devastated by his wife's death, devastated to the point where he couldn’t even look upon the sad face of their little daughter, the girl that so reminded him of his Layla in both looks and personality. He withdrew himself from my life almost completely, delving into his work in order to divert the pain. Years passed and my father was so immersed in his job that he didn’t even know how to act around his growing daughter, so he just ignored me and left me in the care of his staff. It wasn’t until I was twelve that I realized that I didn’t just lose my mother the day she died, but I lost my father too.
After a lonely nine years of being isolated both from my father and the outside world, I began feeling tired of being alone. While I still had some friends, children of people who worked at the estate, I didn’t like how they had to cater to my every whim, and decided I couldn’t stay there any longer. I wanted to go to an actual high school, not be homeschooled by the family tutors; I wanted to have fun and be carefree, not watch every move I made to make sure it was the correct one. After a bit of research into nearby schools I found one where I could go to classes, but not have to stay at home. It was a boarding school called Fairy Tail Academy. Knowing my father would be against me leaving, I contacted and made plans with the school's headmaster myself, saying that my father was a busy man (true) and that he asked me to handle this myself (not so true). There was just an added bonus that my dad was out on a business trip, so that made it easier to leave without him knowing. The staff never liked how isolated and neglected I was, so many of them helped me make plans, and drive me to the school. I would miss them so much, and would worry about how my dad would handle things when he found out I was gone, but they assured me that they were fine, and that they would make sure my father didn’t find out where I was.
That's how I ended up in a car heading for Magnolia, and the place I would stay for my last year of high school. It was almost a two hour drive from my home to the school, but it felt even longer because I was just so glad to be free of my home's rules and expectations and was just itching to arrive. As they were driving through the city I noticed we were going to pass by a large park and signaled to my driver to pull over.
“Nigel, could I be dropped off here?” I asked one of our butlers, who offered to drive me to the school, “It’s such a nice day out and I would like to walk to the school.”
“That should be alright Miss Lucy, the school isn’t much father so you should find it if you stay on the path.” Nigel said, “I’ll continue on with your stuff and drop it off for you at the school.”
“Thank you,” I waved as I got out of the car, watching Nigel drive off in the direction of the school. I sighed as I took a breath of the open air, hearing the sound of kids playing and the buzz of the city nearby, “Now this is what I’m talking about.”
Following the direction of my driver I started walking along a path that would head in the direction of my school. As I walked I saw families having a picnic in an open area, teenagers sitting under a tree while talking or reading, kids running around the grass or flying kites, things I only saw people do in movies or T.V. shows. Turning a corner, I saw a huge lake through an opening in the trees and walked closer to it. It must have been the lake I noticed in the brochure of my new school, and sure enough if I looked across the lake I could see the campus and academy buildings. Bubbles of excitement floated through my belly as I thought about how I would be staying there, and I started hurrying along the path again.
Around twenty minutes later I came across a little recreation center, with a pavilion near the lakeshore, picnic tables around the grass, a playground, and a couple tennis and basketball courts. I noticed someone at the farthest basketball court and decided that I would watch for a bit. My ridgid life at home meant that I didn’t know much about sports. Yeah I could differentiate between most of them, but I didn’t know how most of them worked. Once I tried to watch a hockey game on T.V. but one of my tutors saw and canceled the channel saying “A young lady like you shouldn’t be bothering herself with this nonsense, go study or practice etiquette some more.”
As I got closer I noticed more things about the person playing: one that it was a boy, two that he was alone, and three that he had the most peculiar shade of pink hair. I had never seen a person with pink hair before, and if you asked before what I would think of a person who had pink hair I would ask why they would ever dye their hair that color, the boys hair didn’t seem like it was dyed, and if it was it was really natural looking. Honestly it kinda suited his tan skin and tall muscular build, he was actually very attractive. Shaking my head I stopped focusing on what the person looked like and more at what they were doing, the reason I came over to watch them. He would bounce the ball a couple of times while running back and forth along the court, then he would either stop and throw the ball at the tall post that held a circle with some netting, or just throw it while he was running. Sometimes he would turn before he threw it, and others he would jump really high and just put it in the circle thing while grabbing onto it. Every time though, the ball would go through the circle with the netting, which I guessed was the point of the game.
After a little while of watching I saw him walk over to the bench and pick up a bottle of water and call out, “How much longer are you going to stay here and watch me, it’s kinda weird?”
My head shot up and I realized the boy was looking my way. I blushed and walked toward him a bit. “Sorry, I was watching you play, I haven’t seen anyone play this game before and was curious.”
“Are you messing with me, you're telling me you’ve never seen someone play basketball before, really?”
I shook my head and he gave me a weird look, “ You’re weird you know that.”
I looked down and blushed even more at his comment. Embarrassed that what I was doing was considered weird.
“...did you think?” I suddenly heard.
“I’m sorry.”
“ I said, now that you’ve seen it done, what do you think?”
“About you playing?”
He nodded his head like that was an obvious question. I took a couple more steps towards him and said, “Well I think it must be tiring running and bouncing that big orange ball constantly, and I also think it’s very impressive how you could get it through the circle net thing on the post every time.”
He chuckled again and told me, “that 'circle net thing’ is called a hoop, and this ‘big orange ball’ is called a basketball.”
“Are those all basketball terms?” I asked curiously.
“Kinda, mostly it's just what they’re called. You really don’t know anything about basketball do you?”
I shook my head, “I don’t know much about sports in general, but I do know that in basketball you run around and throw the ball in what you called the hoop to get points, and in hockey you skate on ice with a stick trying to get the little black disk in what I think is called a goal.”
“Wow, I don’t think I’ve known anyone as clueless about sports as you, I know you must not be from this city though because basketball is a pretty big thing around here. What I’m questioning now is if you're just clueless about the world in general or if it's just sports?” The boy asked.
I blushed again and responded, “No, I’m not clueless about everything, I guess I’ve just had a sheltered life. I haven’t left my home much, and my tutor thought sports were a waste of time so I never got to learn too much about them.”
“That's a shame,” he said putting his water bottle back inside a black bag on the bench, “Sports are pretty cool.”
I thought a bit before asking, “Can you teach me?”
He looked at me, shocked, “What?”
“Can you teach me to do what you did?”
“I’m too busy for that, not like I would do that with a complete stranger anyway.” he told me.
“Please, if basketball is as big a sport in this town as you say then I should know more about it. Besides, we've been talking for the last five minutes or so, so I wouldn’t really call us strangers.”
The boy thought about it for a bit, but then nodded and said, “Fine I’ll teach you a bit, but just a bit, I’m still a busy person.”
I smiled and walked across the rest of the court towards him and held out my hand, “Thanks, and I’m Lucy by the way.”
“Natsu.” he said as he slowly brought up his own hand to shake mine.
For the next hour or so the boy, Natsu, talked to me about the basic concepts of the game. First he explained the rules—how points were actually scored and how many points each successful shot would get. After he thought I had finally understood everything, he showed me how to bounce the ball, something he called dribbling, and then how to shoot it into the hoop. I got the hang of dribbling pretty quickly, but had a lot of trouble shooting and aiming the ball. I was either too low or too high on my first ten tries and it hit the fence of the tennis courts behind it. Natsu was patient through it all. He would always go after the ball and bring it back for me, then he would try to tell me what I was doing wrong, demonstrating again how I was supposed to throw it. An hour in I finally started to hit the “backboard”, and on maybe my fiftieth try I was lucky and made it in. I cheered and he congratulated me on finally making a basket. I walked to pick up the basketball that had rolled only a couple feet from me when I heard a beep and saw Natsu check his watch.
“I have to go,” He said, walking over to his bag and putting it over his shoulder.
“Oh, goodbye then, it was nice to meet you.” I told him. In return he raised a hand to wave and then walked away.
I watched him go a bit and then yelled, “I hope I see you again sometime.”
I didn’t see him give any response to that so I turned back to the path I was walking on earlier, and went on to Fairy Tail Academy.