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Natsu knew that Fairy Tail had a lot of "pretty" women. It was hard to ignore the way that men constantly spoke about Natsu's friends.
He always thought it was weird the way that men seemed so fixated on stupid things like women's looks. Why the hell would someone want to waste their time fawning over some girl when they could be out fighting instead? How could there ever be a sensation that even came close to the feeling of your knuckles colliding into your enemy's jaw before watching them fall to the floor in defeat? For most of his life, Natsu thought there was nothing quite like the rush of victory.
To be fair, Natsu still believed that, and it was still one of his favorite feelings; however, he'd learned a few years ago that there were only a few things that felt better.
For example, fishing with Happy, or eating his favorite spicy food, or him and Happy sneaking into Lucy's apartment so she could yell at them when she got home.
Most of all, he liked the feeling he got watching Lucy confess to him through a bright pink face and then the look of shock that befell when he told her he thought they'd been together for a long time already. That was a funny face.
Speaking of Lucy, it wasn't until becoming her friend that Natsu realized what the word pretty really meant.
Tonight, they were both sitting in her apartment. Happy had long since fallen asleep on the bed, exhausted from stuffing his face with the spaghetti and meatballs Lucy had made them for dinner. Meanwhile, Natsu slumped into the cushion of the right side of her couch, his legs spread comfortably wide. Lucy was leaning against the opposite armrest, her legs bent with raised knees so she could tuck her feet under Natsu's thigh. She always did that when her feet got cold.
He'd been watching her read the same book for the past thirty minutes. After all these years, Natsu still didn't understand how Lucy's attention span was strong enough to focus on the same boring book for that long. She'd barely paid any attention to him, even as he constantly complained.
"Lucy," he whined, "I'm bored."
She didn't look up from the book. "So you've mentioned for the past half an hour."
"So entertain me!"
"Entertain yourself."
"But there's nothing to do without you! You won't let me go into your fridge, or look at the papers in your desk, or raid your panty drawer—"
"Natsu!" Lucy hissed, finally lowering her book to glare at him.
Finally! Progress!
Natsu did his best to look indifferent. "What?"
He cried out when Lucy quickly pulled a foot out from under his leg to kick him in the side. She put it back under him as quickly as she'd taken it out, shuffling in place to get comfortable again. When Natsu looked at her, she looked smug.
"You're mean, Lucy," Natsu complained, causing her to roll her eyes.
"No, I'm not! You're being annoying."
"Because you're ignoring me."
"So?"
"So I'm bored."
"Then go to bed!"
"But I'm not tired!"
Lucy threw her head back and groaned. Natsu could feel the edges of his lips threatening to quirk. He knew that meant she would crack.
Finally, Lucy looked at him again with an irritated expression.
"Fine. If you let me finish this chapter, I'll play a card game with you or something."
Natsu perked up immediately.
"Really!? Aw, yeah!" He pumped a victory fist in the air. Lucy rolled her eyes again.
"But you have to be quiet while I read," she warned.
Natsu made a psh noise. "Easy. How many pages are left?"
Lucy raised her book to her face again as she said, "Twenty-five."
Now it was Natsu's turn to groan. He slumped over with his cheek on her raised knee as he looked at her with puppy eyes.
"What are you reading?! The dictionary?"
"That's not silence, Natsu."
Natsu huffed before he sat back up so he could watch the clock tick down. Lucy was a fast reader, but even he knew that twenty-five pages was going to take a while to get through.
How the hell was he supposed to pass the time? He doubted Lucy would let him get up since she was using him as a human heater again. There wasn't anything interesting he could grab to fidget with either—Lucy kept her apartment remarkably clear of clutter. Any time he and Happy rummaged through her things, it would be cleaned up by the time they next snuck in.
His eyes glazed over the room, looking for anything to entertain himself, before stopping on Happy. He considered calling out to him but decided against it. Natsu couldn't wake his buddy up. The poor cat looked way too comfortable.
Natsu's gaze flitted over to the source of his torment: Lucy. She looked so pleased with herself, curled into the armrest. She was smiling at something that was happening on the page, and Natsu was almost tempted to ask her what was so funny. He decided against it, considering he didn't want to break the 'no talking' rule and also because he knew she was probably reading a romance. Natsu could do without hearing about some sappy love fest.
He was about to look away when Lucy suddenly chuckled, her eyes scanning back and forth over the page. It was a tiny laugh, so much so that Natsu almost considered it pitiful, not because it was a bad laugh but because Natsu knew ways to make her laugh way harder.
No, Lucy's laugh certainly wasn't bad by any means. In fact, Natsu found it to be rather cute.
Speaking of which, that was another word Natsu had come to understand.
Since his childhood, Natsu didn't find much of anything cute. Not animals, not noises, and certainly not people. He'd always heard others call kids and puppies adorable, and while Natsu liked animals and other people, he'd never wanted to call them cute before. Even the word itself felt stupid.
But then one day Natsu dug through Lucy's desk drawer and found a half-finished story. When she caught him with it, she grabbed it from him before promptly kicking him in the face. That part wasn't cute (it hurt like a bitch), but Natsu looked up to find her sputtering in embarrassment. Her blush went all the way down to her shoulders as she shamefully buried her face in her hands.
That was when it clicked for Natsu what people meant when they called things cute. There was no other way to describe how she looked at the time.
Well, there might've been one, but Natsu didn't exactly have a wide vocabulary.
He glanced over her features again. Her big eyes were zoned in on the page, completely forgetting Natsu even existed. There was the faintest crinkle in her brows, like she was analyzing what she was reading very intently. It made Natsu hold back the urge to laugh and tell her she looked constipated. That would definitely get him kicked again and then booted from her apartment entirely.
Instead, he focused on her pout, her bottom lip jutting out ever so slightly. He'd known for a long time that Lucy had a really nice pair of lips. Her mouth was small but her lips were thick, and Natsu knew from experience how nice it felt to kiss at the corners of them.
He liked kissing her cheeks, too. Lucy always complained that they were too squishy, but Natsu thought they were cute. (There was that word again!) He liked pinching at them to annoy her even though he knew he'd get it back ten times worse. And holding her face in his hands while he rubbed his thumbs along her cheekbones was one of the best feelings in the world.
Especially when he held onto her cheeks and rubbed their noses together. Lucy loved that for some reason, and he couldn't really complain. He rather liked it, too.
Weirdly, Lucy hated her nose. Natsu thought it suited her all right, but Lucy would stand in front of the mirror for minutes on end as she begrudged about how she wished it was less sloped. She would compare herself to Mirajane, who had a "button nose," as she called it. Natsu had no clue what that meant, but all he knew was he thought Lucy's nose was fine. Whenever he told her that, she would just roll her eyes and say that he didn't get it.
And it was true—Natsu didn't get it, because Lucy had Lucy's nose and Mirajane had her own. If Lucy had Mirajane's nose, that would just be weird!
Another thing she lamented about was her eyes, and that annoyed Natsu more than anything. Sometimes she complained that she wished they were blue like Mirajane's or that they were a lighter brown like Erza's. According to Lucy, hers weren't "striking enough" or something.
Again, Natsu didn't know what she meant, but he did know that her eyes might have been one of his favorite things about her. They could be anything she wanted them to be. When she was in the middle of battle with her brows furrowed and her expression fixed, they were fierce and intimidating. But when she was comforting a friend, they were doe-like and sweet. Natsu couldn't count the number of times he'd been on the receiving end of both versions. There were a million things behind Lucy's eyes and Natsu had seen them all.
All of this was to say that Natsu really liked Lucy's face. Her lips, her cheeks, her nose, her eyes, her everything—all of it together was what made Natsu realize what the word "pretty" truly meant, because that's exactly what Lucy was. He wasn't sure she had a single bad feature.
He was pulled from his thoughts when Lucy huffed and lowered her book to her lap, slamming it shut before crossing her arms.
"Why the hell are you looking at me like that?" she barked, causing Natsu to frown.
"What do you mean?"
"You're staring!"
Whoops. Natsu totally was, and he hadn't realized it.
"So?" he argued. "I'm not allowed to look at you?"
"Not like that! It's distracting."
Natsu rolled his eyes before an idea formed in his head, and he grinned wickedly. Lucy immediately narrowed her eyes as he placed his hands on her knees and sat up straight.
"But Lucy," he whined, "there's nothing else to do!"
"I don't care! Let me read."
Natsu pushed Lucy's legs down and sat on his knees, hovering over her calves. Lucy squeaked when he leaned down to her, sliding onto her back in an attempt to put space between them. Her head was resting on the armrest as she brought her book to her face, peeking over the top with her eyes.
"Natsu!" she hissed. "What the hell are you doing?"
She tried to cover the bright blush on her cheeks with the book, but Natsu could see it clear as day.
Cute.
"I'm not doing anything," he lied as he rubbed his nose into her temple. Lucy huffed under him.
"You're lying on top of me, you idiot!" Natsu nosed at her ear, causing her to sputter, "A-And you're rubbing on me!"
He moved to rub his cheek against hers, pushing the book out of the way. "And? You can read like this."
"No, I can't!"
Natsu ignored her and kept rubbing his face all over hers, causing Lucy to groan and put her book on the table. Natsu hid his smirk. It was only a matter of time before she gave in completely.
"You said you'd let me read," Lucy reminded angrily. Natsu shrugged before lying on top of her and putting his head on her chest, cheek squished against her boob. He wrapped his arms around her, reveling in the soft feel of her body.
"But you spoke to me first," he argued. "You would've yelled at me if I hadn't responded."
Lucy made a noise from the back of her throat as she tried to think of a reply. When she had nothing, she sighed and settled into the couch, running a lazy hand through Natsu's hair. Had he not been lying down, Natsu would have done another victory pump, like his one earlier.
"I hate you," she said blankly. Natsu huffed.
"Not true."
"Yes true."
Natsu frowned and rested his chin on her chest, shooting her an offended look.
"Lucyyyy! You're so mean to me."
She looked uneffected, staring at him with a blank expression. Natsu huffed again before an idea came to him. A wide grin spread across his face, causing Lucy to squint with suspicion.
"What are you thinking?" she asked.
Natsu didn't respond. Instead he pressed a wet kiss to her cheek. Lucy shuddered.
"Ew! Natsu, you're getting your spit on me."
He ignored her as he kissed all over her face: on her forehead, her cheek, her nose, and even her eyelids. Lucy smacked him on the shoulder as she complained, but she eventually let out a bark of laughter when he pressed a wet kiss to her jawline.
"Natsu, stop! It tickles!" she said through a laugh. She tried to stay silent, but her chest heaved with humor. "Natsu, you're gonna make me wake Happy!"
"He ate three bowls of spaghetti! Not even a dragon could wake him up."
Natsu grinned into Lucy's neck as she giggled under him. Listening to her laugh was much better than getting yelled at by her. Her nails dug into his shoulders as she tried to stifle her noises.
After a few minutes, Natsu pulled back and looked at her face. Lucy's cheeks were pink, a wide smile spread across her face as she tucked a strand of honey-blonde hair behind her ear. Her eyes were squinted from grinning as Natsu cupped her face in his hands and pressed his mouth into hers.
Yeah, Lucy was definitely pretty.