yakap sa dilim

Natsu and Happy are usually, on a good day, pretty smart when they put their heads together. 

Natsu’s not quite sure if today is one of those days. 

“I dunno, Happy,” he mulls, scratching his head, “it seems risky.” 

“Wha’ could go wong?” Happy mumbles through a mouth full of fish. 

Natsu recasts the fishing line. “I think many things, actually.”  He’s not focused on where the hook lands in the water, his mind stuck on Happy’s earlier suggestion. 

“What do you mean, send signals to Lucy?” he had asked.

“You know, like flirting and stuff. Buying her things, like fish!” Happy answered. 

“What’s ‘flirting’?” Natsu had replied. 

Suffice to say, he’s not really confident about the whole premise. 

Happy swallows the last bites of the fish before reaching for his own fishing line. He casts it forward in a big arc, landing much farther than Natsu’s half-hearted attempt. He usually would be jealous of the cat’s fishing prowess, but he can’t quite seem to find it within him to care. 

“I think you’re overthinking this, Natsu. Even if Lucy doesn’t love you back, I’m sure she’ll still be our partner and teammate!” Happy chirps. 

Natsu winces. “Not quite a confidence booster, buddy.” He throws his fishing pole to the side and flops on his back, the rocky dirt pressing into his ribs. 

“I thought I was ‘sending signals’ this whole time.” Natsu huffs. Truthfully, he thought she would get the point by now; he’s always near her, tending to orbit around her presence, the gravity of her being too strong to draw away from. He thinks if there’s such a thing as the center of the universe, Lucy is it. 

“She’s kind of dumb, Natsu.” Happy hums. “It’s why you have to be more obvious!” 

“Well,” he sighs, “what else does flirting entail?” All he knows regarding flirting, based on Happy’s previous explanation, is it’s what those creepy guys who hit on Lucy try to do. He would prefer to avoid getting his ass kicked as much as possible in this endeavor.

“You’re being serious, right, Natsu?” Happy says, eyes not leaving his fishing line. He sounds serious, and Natsu’s a bit confused before the Exceed clarifies, “I don’t want you hurting her by not being serious.” 

Oh. That explains the Exceed’s sudden change of tone, then. Natsu’s chest warms at the sight of Happy protecting their celestial mage, even from him. It should hurt, Happy potentially turning against him, but if it’s for Lucy, Natsu would want him to. 

Natsu sits up, grinning. “Of course I’m bein’ serious, Happy! Flirting seems kind of dumb, but if you think it’s worth a shot, then I’m in.” 

Happy beams back, cheering. “Finally!” Natsu ignores this. “Okay, flirting involves being romantic. You have to be subtle, yet make your intentions clear.” Happy continues, grabbing a stick and attempting to draw out a plan in the dirt below them. 

“What’s ‘subtle’ mean?” 

Happy sighs, scratching out the words he’s written in the dirt. “Forget it. We’re gonna start from the basics.” 

Truthfully, Natsu thinks Happy is a genius. As it turns out, ‘flirting’ is essentially a method (or a justification) to do all the things he’s been wanting to do with Lucy, some of which he has been doing for a while: spending time with her, being affectionate, and his favorite as of recently, being touchy. He’s always been rather touchy, but those were sporadic, random touches, more of an excuse to be close to her in moments he could pass off as unintentional. Natsu’s been a little more deliberate about his recent touches. 

He started off small, a little scared of scaring Lucy off; a brush of her shoulder here, a grazing of her arm there. It’s a little bit odd at first, being intentional with where he wants to touch, yet his confidence has grown upon her lack of refusing him and his curious prodding. It’s nice, really, the tiny thrill he gets from it all.

“It’s your turn, Natsu-san.” Wendy says, across the table from him and Lucy. 

Natsu brieflly shakes his head, a useless tactic concerning his thoughts about the blonde, and looks down to his cards. He regrets tuning out Erza’s explanation of the rules as the small pot of jewels in the middle of the table gleams in the light. He half-heartedly throws down an eight of spades, as he’s eighty-percent sure he’s losing the game, anyways, and sags against the bench. 

Lucy giggles behind her cards at the move, and Natsu doesn’t bother watching whatever move she makes as he snakes his ankle around hers underneath the table. He watches her out of the corner of his eye, feeling her ankle briefly freeze around his before relaxing to reciprocate the touch; the tips of her ears flush red, a light dusting of pink rises on her cheeks, and her unwillingness to make eye contact and tease him over his misplay brings his heart aflutter. Aside from the touches, Lucy’s reactions are probably his second favorite. 

The game drags on, with Gray and Erza debating (arguing) over the rules and whether or not Cana was cheating based on her affinity for card-play, (Natsu brought this up within the first five minutes, but was promptly ignored, and usually he would say I told you so! but with the warm weight of another ankle against his, he can’t really find it in himself to care), as Lucy and Wendy tried to mediate. 

He leans back, throwing an arm around the back of the bench. Here, if Lucy were to stop waving her hands around in her panic to calm Erza down, she would fit nicely into his side. It would be like one of her puzzle’s she occasionally does, and if she were to try sidling into Natsu, she might discover a rather perfect fit. The thought warms him, and he leans his head back to doze off, content with only their intertwining ankles. 

Regretfully, trying to find gifts for Lucy is hard. Natsu’s never really thought about buying her things aside from the necessities, such as covering a train ticket or two, but those were easy to buy. Those were also so he could drag her along on missions, so it was sort of a selfish gift, really. 

He wanders around the shop, overwhelmed as he eyes the different pieces of jewelry strung along on shelves along the walls. There’s lots of options, too many, and he can’t differentiate between any of them. He feels clueless as he tries mentally thinking through what he thinks Lucy would like, and settles on I have no fucking clue. 

“Excuse me, sir, is there anything I could help you with?” Natsu’s started by the shopkeeper’s sudden appearance by his side - he was so lost in his thoughts and subtle panicking that he hadn’t noticed her arrival. 

“Uh, I don’t know, really,” Natsu tells her, “I’m kind of lost.” 

The shopkeeper giggles. “Are you looking for something for a friend, or a family member?” 

He pauses to think. Friend?  

“Not really, but sort of?” Natsu tells her. Lucy is his best friend, but referring to her as that feels a bit less than. She’s also family, but not in the way he views Erza and Gray as family. He doesn’t really know what to call her, exactly. 

“I see.” the shopkeeper smiles knowingly, her ponytail swishing with the tilt of her head. “Follow me.” 

With no other options other than drowning in the too many choices, Natsu follows the woman to the counter displaying many other choices. The shopkeeper, sensing his unease, takes the initiative in pulling out a few rows of necklaces, bracelets, and rings. The pieces all catch the light, shining and dazzling and sort of hurting his eyes.

“Do you know what your ‘sort of’ friend enjoys regarding jewelry?” The shopkeeper asks. 

Natsu shakes his head. 

The shopkeeper hums. “Do you think they’d prefer gold, or silver jewelry?” 

Natsu’s head tilts as he mulls over the question. Silver or gold? He doesn’t really remember a time Lucy ever stated she preferred either or, and he’s not quite sure he’s willing to wager a guess on either one. 

“She loves pink, actually,” Natsu says, looking at the options, “and gold goes nice with her hair.” When he asked the Exceed for advice earlier, he has simply said “Lucy will like anything with thought put into it, Natsu. Maybe try thinking?” A rather rude piece of advice, Natsu thought, but he was pretty sure he was thinking right now. 

“Well, that’s a good start.” The shopkeeper says as she puts the silvered pieces away. “Anything else important about your friend I should know?” 

If Natsu were paying attention, he would have noticed the knowing tone in the woman’s voice, and the kinds of rings he was pulling out. He wasn’t that intuitive, though.

“She’s a kick-ass mage,” he grinned. “Got anything for that?” 

There’s a slight breeze in the air when Natsu makes the leap towards Lucy’s apartment window. It smells of spring – the scent of lilies catch his nose, and he stops himself just short within the windowsill before he knocks over Lucy’s plants. The last time he did that, he was banished to the front door for three miserable weeks. It was awful. 

He carefully manevours around the potted lilies and hops into the apartment. It’s suspiciously quiet, and as Natsu sets down his pack, he turns to see Lucy has decided to take a nap. Usually, he wouldn’t hesitate to crawl under the covers and join her, despite her insistence he not do that, but he’s far too excited from his recent marketplace trip. This is his first time with Lucy alone since he went out shopping, (curse their other friends are are equally prone to breaking in to hangout at Lucy’s,) and he wanted nothing more than to show her her new gifts. 

But as Natsu took in her sleeping form, her arms curled around a pillow and Plue snuggled in the blankets pooled at her legs, he felt an un-characteristic feeling of grace overtake him. He wouldn’t wake her, not yet; she looked far too comfortable and peaceful, her soft exhales blowing strands of hair across her cheek. Natsu would give his sleeping partner mercy just this once. 

He sat on the couch, crossing his arms. He pouts for a good three minutes, eyes flickering from the ceiling, to the bed, to the kitchen, to the bed again, to the coffee table, before finally resting on the bed. Natsu had no other plans for the day, a big ‘FLIRT WITH LUCY’ written in red on his mental calendar, and he was so bored. He wouldn’t wake her, now that he has decided to be a good friend (again, not a suitable word) but what else could he do? 

His eyes snag on a brown marker on her desk. An idea forms in his head as he casts another glance to Lucy’s bare arms around the pillow. 

Stealthily, Natsu grabs the marker and tiptoes over to the bed. He plans on doing only a few doodles; nothing much, not enough to fully wake or anger her, just only a few. To cure his boredom. No other reason. 

Natsu uncaps the marker, the scent of ink wafting through his nose, and puts a finger to his mouth to mime “shhhh,” to the celestial spirit who curiously poked his head up. Plue yawns, decides this fight isn’t worth taking (again), and curls back within Lucy’s legs. 

Natsu starts off with a few scribbles as he lightly presses the marker into Lucy’s arms. He’s gauging the limits of how asleep the blonde currently is, and as he accidentally jabs a bit too hard and there’s no reaction, he assumes he’s safe. Happy’s usually the one who wakes her, with his lack of patience to control the marker properly, so Natsu plans on indulging himself. When it comes to messing with Lucy, he can be rather patient, he thinks. 

He doodles absentmindedly, flitting between drawings of Happy, different foods, Plue, and sometimes just little squiggles. The whole experience is rather calming; the sun shining through the curtains, the rise and fall fo Lucy’s chest, Plue curled by her feet, and he finds himself actually focusing on making the drawings something Lucy would enjoy, a sharp redirection from his main goal of irritating her just to get her attention. He’s more than halfway up her arm when Lucy stirs, dragging a straight line through his current drawing of an angry Charle. 

“Natsu..?” Lucy sleepily murmurs, bringing her hand up to rub at her eyes. “That tickles.” Her voice is thick with sleep, a heartwrenching detail Natsu usually would be focusing on if he wasn’t scared shitless she wasn’t going to Lucy Kick him out of the window once she saw her arm nearly full of doodles. 

She looks down at the source of tickling. She doesn’t say anything, just continues to stare at her arm. A few moments pass by, Natsu still crouched by her bedside, and he swears this is more torturous than if she just killed him outright. Somehow, her analyzing is more uncomfortable, and he shifts. 

As if remembering he was there, she turns to him. There’s a soft smile on her face. “They’re cute.” 

“Really?” He asks. 

“Yes.” She turns and twists her arm to look at more of the drawings, pointing out a slightly crude one of Loke as a lion he drew. “This one’s even pretty good.” 

He perks up. “I even drew him a tail!” 

Lucy laughs, most likely at his eagerness, but he doesn’t really care. She’s not mad at him, and she even grabs the marker from his hands to draw a little heart next to a fluffy Happy. 

Natsu stands, preparing to grab the gifts for her now that she’s fully awake, but Lucy catches his wrist and drags him onto the bed. He’s about to ask why, but before he can open his mouth, he feels the marker dragging across his skin. He’s silent for a moment, their roles never being reversed before, Lucy never even showing interest in pranks, but maybe this isn’t really a prank. 

Lucy says nothing, focused purely on her drawing. Natsu leans back on his other arm, enjoying the soft sensation of Lucy gripping his hand and the stroking sensation of the marker gently moving across his skin. She’s right; it is ticklish. After a few moments, he feels himself begin to get drowsy. It’s just so relaxing. 

Natsu looks down and discovers dozens of flowers, ranging from lilies to chrysthamums to roses intricately painted across his skin. There’s layers of detail in each flower, vines delicately carving from one to another to connect them all. Natsu’s not exactly an art guy, never cared for it, but he thinks if there’s anything he’d bother going to a museum for, it’d be what’s on his arm.  Lucy’s tongue is poking out in concentration, and he feels his heart give a rather painful thump in his chest. 

He’s not sure if this constitutes as flirting with Lucy anymore. It feels as though he’s spun out of control, his heart hammering in his chest, and it’s scary, he thinks, being on this side of the precipice. It’s one thing to flirt with someone, it’s another to have someone flirt with you. Is she flirting? Gods, he hopes she’s flirting. Natsu wonders if she knows exactly what she’s doing to him in this moment, her hands softly gripping his wrist and his arm to admire her work, and he swallows. 

Suddenly, she brings his arm to his eyes. “Ta da! All done!” 

He forces a laughter past the breathlessness in his chest, past the lump in his throat. “Jeez, really had to knock mine out of the park, Luce.” 

“Well,” she boasted, “I’m rather adequate with a pen in both writing and doodling, thank you very much.” Lucy’s hands are on her hips, a proud smile on her face, and the gifts are all but forgotten about in his brain.