Scraps of Paper

Count Down

Lucy has had the watch for as long as she can remember. Every person does, and somewhere in the world, there was a person whose watch had the same numbers as hers. From the moment she was born, Lucy's watch had been counting down the years to her fated meeting.

When she was younger, Lucy dreamed of her soulmate. She pictured handsome men who would sweep her off her feet with extravagant gifts and sweet words. Her dream man had changed as she aged, however, and now all she could imagine was a blank mannequin face.

Some of her friends were lucky, like her best friend Levy. The small blue haired girl met her soulmate, Gajeel, their first week of high school and had been together since. Ezra even met her soulmate when she was a child, and they'd been together for years. Lucy's clock was never close to being done, so she began to stop bothering with it. She accepted that she would meet her soulmate when it was time, and worrying about it was only going to cause her pain.

So it was both exciting and terrifying when she saw she only had 3 weeks, 2 days, 45 minutes, and 12 seconds until she met the one.

"What do you think he looks like?" Mira asked during lunch one day, just as Lucy's watch turned to exactly 3 weeks.

"I don't have a clue," Lucy admitted, swallowing her food.

"Do you have any thoughts on who it could be?" Cana slurred, raising her eyebrows suggestively.

"If I met them already then we wouldn't be waiting for my watch to count down," Lucy reminded her, bumping her shoulder. Cana laughed.

"Whoever it is better be okay with sharing," she huffed, draping an arm over Lucy's shoulders and pulling the blonde girl into her chest. Lucy didn't try to struggle, it only made the suffocation happen faster.

"Don't kill her before she meets him," Mira scolded, freeing her from the boobs of death. Lucy looked at her thankfully.

"I wonder what he'll be like, or how you'll meet him. It must be away from school, or you'd have met him already," Levy said, looking over from talking with her boyfriend, Gajeel. The dark haired boy hummed his agreement, chewing on the end of a spoon.

"Either way, if he hurts bunny girl, I'll have to kill him." There were only a few boys in Lucy's friend group: Gajeel and Loke. Gajeel had grown oddly attached to Lucy since she was close with Levy, and treated her almost like a daughter. Loke, on the other hand, claimed that Lucy would obviously be his soulmate, despite the fact that his clock wouldn't countdown until a year and a half after hers, and they'd already met. He seemed to ignore these facts.

"I'm sure he'll be fine," Levy dismissed, smirking at Lucy. "He'll be Lucy's soulmate after all."

Despite the attention her clock grabbed and her constant talks with her friends, Lucy was ashamed to say she didn't feel excited to meet her soulmate. As odd as it seemed, the idea of meeting him scared her. What if he didn't like how she looked? Or acted? Or her friends? Questions like this plagued her so often that it made sleep hard to attain. 

What really worried her, however, was Levy's comment about meeting him. Sure, he could transfer into her school, but the idea seemed unlikely. Chances were that she'd meet him on a street somewhere, and then what? What if he was visiting from another state, and she'd never be able to see him again after that? She'd heard of online relationships, but the idea was just as scary as the thought of meeting him. 

So the weeks slowly passed by, these insane and dark thoughts constantly plaguing her mind. It was only when she had two days until her fated day that she shared her doubts with Levy. 

Levy and Lucy had been best friends since they were five. Their moms had worked together, and after Lucy mother's death, they'd gotten very close. Lucy trusted Levy with everything, even her life. So when the blue haired girl had noticed her lack of excitement, the blonde easily opened up and admitted the truth.