Sweetheart

61

"Welcome back, Natsu. You'll be happy to hear that I just got new colored pencils!"

Natsu gave a short laugh and took his usual seat across from Melanie. The therapist looked at him expectantly.

"What?"

"This is the part where you tell me about your week, remember?"

"Well, uh, nothing really happened. I did three math problems for homework this week and I smell like fish."

"Anything else? Come on, you gotta fill me in for the session that we missed."

"Miss Labelle knows that I'm dating Aina now."

"Oh? And how did she take it?"

"She said she already knew," Natsu pointedly spoke as he narrowed his eyes at her.

Melanie held up her hands and promised that she didn't say a word about it.

"I mean, she is a therapist too. And from what I remember of Aina, she's not very good at hiding her feelings, especially to her mother."

"Yeah I guess you're right."

"So what else?"

"Well, uh actually I, um, wanted to ask you something."

Melanie nodded and leaned back as she waited for him to speak.

"I've never been in an actual relationship before, and all I've really done is have sex, but I have no idea when or how to go about doing that in a relationship."

"Go on."

"I mean I'm used to the blatant 'hey wanna have sex?' and them being down for it, so I have no idea how to approach it. And I mean, it's also Aina, so that makes it so much worse."

"Why is that?" Melanie asked, amusement in her tone.

"It's Aina," he tried to explain. "She doesn't seem like the type. And there's no way she's ever slept with anyone before."

"Why would you be so sure?"

"There's no way someone who had sex would act like she does all the time."

"Her being straight edged?"

"No," Natsu laughed, "I meant that anytime something even closely related to sex comes up, she just freaks out and turned to, like, emotional mush. Like, she gets so flustered and she has no idea what to do with herself."

"Ah yes. Typical Aina. So tell me this: is her hesitant personality making you question the sex part even more or are you just confused in general?"

"I mean, I just don't wanna rush anything."

"And when do you think you'd be ready?"

"Me?" Natsu's loud laugh echoed in the room. "I'm ready whenever. This is the longest I've gone."

-------

"You know," Aina tried scolding through her pants, "you could've met me downstairs instead of making me come up here."

"I figured you would want to try to beat your record."

"You're not even dressed yet," she sassed.

Natsu rolled his eyes and walked back into his room, coming out a couple seconds later with a shirt on. He overdramatically pointed out that he was dressed and grabbed his keys, pulling her out the door. Aina took one look at the stairs and groaned.

"Now I have to go down all the way?"

They had eventually made their way to Aina's car, and Aina rested her head on the wheel to try to steady her breathing. She looked up and glared at Natsu. They buckled in and started driving to their destination.