Chapter Text
There were exactly three hundred and forty-two reasons why Lucy Heartfilia was going to eventually commit homicide, and at least three hundred of them were currently sitting on her velvet sofa eating dried squid.
The thing about Natsu Dragneel was that he lacked a filter. Not just in the metaphorical sense, the man literally possessed no barrier between the chaotic firing of his synapses and his physical actions. He had no concept of personal space, boundaries, or the fact that a single woman's apartment was not a public park.
Today, Lucy had reached her absolute limit.
She had come home from a grueling, low-paying solo job, looking forward to nothing more than a hot bath and to curl up in bed with a book. Instead, she had walked in to find her bedroom window wide open, a trail of muddy boot prints cutting across her rug, and Natsu using her expensive, imported writing parchment to fashion paper airplanes for Happy.
"Natsu!" Lucy shrieked, her voice hitting a register that made the glass on her vanity vibrate. She marched over, snatching the crumpled parchment out of his hands. "Are you completely out of your mind?! That paper cost me two days' worth of groceries! Get out! Get out of my house right now!"
Natsu didn't even look up, casually tossing another piece of squid into his mouth. "Calm down, Luce. It's just paper. Don't be so rude."
"Rude?!" Lucy’s eyes flashed with pure, unadulterated fury. She pointed a trembling finger toward the open window. "You broke into my flat, destroyed my property, and you’re telling me not to be rude? I am throwing you out! Both of you! Move your freeloading behinds off my furniture before I kick you into the canal!"
Natsu finally looked at her, his brow furrowing in genuine, exasperated confusion at her outburst. He sighed, leaning his head back against her sofa cushions.
"You're such a weirdo, Luce. You'll never get a boyfriend this way."
Lucy froze, her hand dropping to her side. She blinked, a dangerous, deceptive calm settling over her features as she processed the sheer, unmitigated audacity of the statement.
"Excuse me, care to repeat what you just said?"
Happy floated up from the coffee table, holding a paper plane in one paw. "Your face looks scary when you yell, Lushy!"
"I said, you're such a weirdo, Lucy," Natsu repeated, entirely missing the lethal aura beginning to radiate from her. "What guy would want to date you?"
"Oh, you think so?" Lucy’s voice dropped an octave. "For your information, Natsu, guys would line up to date me!"
Natsu snorted, waving a dismissive, calloused hand. "Yeah, right. Name three who aren't your celestial spirits or trying to date you for the money you don’t have anymore."
The words hit her right in the pride, and wallet.
Deep down, beneath the immediate, hot-headed urge to summon Taurus to smash him through the floorboards, a tiny, annoying voice echoed in the back of her mind. It sounded suspiciously like Aquarius, sitting in a bowl of water, crossing her arms and sneering about how Lucy was single, pathetic, and lacked any semblance of feminine charm.
Worse, it struck a chord she hated admitting existed.
What guy would want to date you?
It wasn't just Natsu. Her entire youth had been overshadowed by the concept of her worth being tied to a partnership. Her father had spent years viewing her not as a daughter, but as a political asset, a suitable prospect for marriage to be bartered off to the highest noble bidder to secure the Heartfilia Konzern. She had run away to escape that exact destiny, to prove she was her own person.
But now she was twenty. Twenty.
Was it such a big deal? Was having a boyfriend really the definitive marker of adulthood? Was Lucy Heartfilia genuinely missing out by being single at twenty, having never once had a proper boyfriend?
It couldn't be that hard, could it? I mean, she had never exactly tried to get one. She’d been a bit busy saving the world, paying off astronomical damage bills, and surviving the daily insanity of Earth Land’s most destructive guild. If she actually put her mind to it, if she actually tried, she could absolutely get a boyfriend. Easily.
Lucy gripped the back of the armchair, a sharp, vindictive smile spreading across her lips.
"Fine! You want a wager, dragon boy?" she snapped, leaning over the sofa until she was practically nose-to-nose with him. "Two weeks. I’ll have a boyfriend by the end of two weeks and show you. When I win, you owe me two months' rent and a public apology in front of the guild."
Natsu’s eyes widened, a competitive spark instantly igniting in his onyx gaze. He scrambled to his feet, throwing his arms out as a grin bared his sharp canines. "And when you lose, you have to admit I'm right and buy me and Happy food for a month. Without complaining."
"Deal," Lucy hissed, thrusting her hand out.
Natsu gripped it, his hand entirely engulfing hers, warm and entirely too confident.
The dating games had officially begun!