Rose Coloured

Chapter 24- Severed Ties

Natsu wanted to roll his eyes, feeling a sense of deja vu here. It seemed as though whenever someone learned about his relationship, they wanted to try and talk him out of it.

"Hey, I'm not trying to sound redundant here, I promise what I'm going to tell you is something you haven't heard before." Levy gave him an apologetic smile as she held her large book close to her chest.

We'll see about that... "Alright, but tell me, how did you find out her real name?"

"Because I know her. Or, I knew her, rather." Levy sighed, missing the shocked expression Natsu gave her.

"Wait... you knew her? What do you mean?"

She set the book on the coffee table in front of them to allow him to look through, revealing that it's actually a photo album. "She and I were childhood friends." She pointed at a picture of her and Lucy, both looking like they were no older than 6.

"...Childhood friends..." Natsu looked over every picture on the page, and although most of them were just Levy and her family, young Lucy could be seen in a lot of them. "...W-what?"

"Yeah, you know I used to live in France, right? I moved here when I was 12, and Lucy and I were so close that her family moved to my town 2 years later so we could go to high school together."

Levy turned the page a few times before she stopped, now showing several pictures of her and Lucy in school uniforms. "Her name was Lucienne, but she started going by Lucy when she moved here... I never got rid of the photos even after what happened between us..."

"What happened?" Natsu had to pry his eyes away from the album to look at her, he was just too fascinated with seeing what Lucy looked like when she was a kid.

"...Well," Levy sighed as she stared at the pictures, "I knew her since we were 5... we did everything together, and likewise, we told each other everything, too..."

"...When we got to high school, Lucy was completely out of her element. She was homeschooled for most of her childhood, and then went to an all-girl private school for a couple years before she moved, so going to an American, public high school was terrifying for her."

She flipped the page again, now showing her and Lucy in what Natsu assumed was their teen years. "She was a huge nerd, just like me," she laughed dryly, "And cared about her grades more than socializing, honestly. She wanted to go to college and get an English degree, I remember she mentioned she wanted to become an author someday... but..."

Levy finally looked up at him, her expression sullen. "...She completely changed near the end of senior year." She slumped in her spot as she let her eyes fall back to the pictures. "She became a monster."

"Levy..." Natsu began to feel awkward. He could tell she was upset, and he didn't want her to get emotional, but her words made him very curious. "...What do you mean by 'monster'?"

Levy sighed as she looked away in thought "She suddenly started breaking rules... skipping school, stealing, even drug dealing... I had no idea what happened, it was like she was a different person..."

Natsu bit his tongue. Lucy had said she was 17 when she became "Bunny," which would've been her senior year in high school, just as Levy said. He hadn't thought about her life of crime affecting her education, but it made sense. Of course her peers would notice something was off, or at least her childhood friend would.

"...We worked at a library together, and she ended up getting fired for missing too many work days. I quit so I could get us both a job at Gajeel's shop, y'know, back when his father owned it... I thought maybe she was doing those things because she wanted to make money... which is funny, considering her family is full of millionaires."