The Dragneel Affair | NaLu

Chapter 16 - Are You In Love

"Tell me, why do you love him?" Erza asked. Lucy blushed and hid her face behind her hands.

"I've never said I love him."

"Yet, you never said you didn't." The girls were seated by a fire, wrapped up in blankets with cups of tea sitting in front of them. Juvia had fall asleep behind them. Everyone was gone, separated somewhere in the house. The living room was theirs for the night. Lucy smiled and stared at the fire.

"You're right, I do love him," Lucy admitted. "It's hard to think of, "why," though."

"Then what do you think about when you hear his name?" Erza asked. Lucy adjusted her blanket and sighed.

"I think of pink," she started. "I think of pink hair and a pink smile. And pink skin after a fight. I think of how he wants to treat me like a lady and how I make it hard for him, sometimes."

Erza interrupted her with a throaty chuckle, "Sometimes?"

"Oh, you shush. Anyway, I think about how he kissed me for the first time and how I knew he struggled with stopping himself. I think about how. . . How he doesn't give up easily and how dumb he is while being intelligent. He's one of a kind, Erza."

"That's one way of putting it." Lucy smiled. She could think of so many other reasons to say but decided to ask,

"Do you like Jellal in any way?"

"No," she replied hastily. Lucy laughed and fell backwards, laying on her back.

"If you say so," Lucy mumbled as she made herself comfortable on the floor. Not noticing the figure in the entry way.

• • •

"Natsu, wake up." Gray kicked Natsu awake. It took a few tries until he was fully awake. Natsu groaned and pushed himself up onto his elbows. He rubbed his eyes and tried to find Gray in the darkness.

"What? What's going on?" He asked.

"I just heard the girl's conversation down stairs," Gray informed him. He turned on an oil lamp, lighting up the room slightly.

"Okay, so?"

"Lucy loves you," Gray stated. Natsu stared up at him, his eyebrow raised.

"Are you lying to me?" He asked. Gray shook his head and sat in front of him on the wooden floor.

"Erza asked her if she did and she explained why she did."

"What did she say?"

"Something about pink," he said. The two were silent for a moment. Gajeel, Loke, and Jellal were in the room with them. Jellal was awake but laid silently in his bed of blankets and miscellaneous pillows. Loke was curled up in a corner, his face hidden under a blanket. Gajeel was snoring on the other side of the room, drool rolled down his cheek. You could barely make out the room with the dark golden light from the lamp. The room was for storage. There were trunks and boxes pushed up against a wall and a window covered in dust.

"Do you love her?" Gray asked.

". . . Yes, I think so." The room was silent again. Gray smiled and stood up again walking towards the light.

"You will tell her, right?" He asked.

"Yes." The lamp was turned off and Gray crawled under his blankets. As Natsu closed his eyes, he asked, "what were you doing down stairs?"

"No reason," Gray mumbled and pulled a blanket over his head.

• • •

The sky was gray that morning. Lucy sat in the kitchen, hoping what she had in her cup was tea. She was the only one awake so far, she remembered being told they would leave early that morning for St. Petersburg, but no one was awake. Early meant before the afternoon with these people. As she took a sip of her drink, she heard footsteps coming down the staircase. She turned around and found Natsu yawning as he walked into the kitchen. He wasn't dressed in his uniform, nothing he wore was in anyway similar to his uniform. He was dressed in a loose white shirt and baggy red-orange pants. There was a dark red design on the collar of his shirt that was similar to the design on his belt.

Lucy asked, "what are you wearing?"

"Clothes," he stated. "It's comfortable."

"It looks lazy," she commented. He smiled and stepped into the kitchen. Lucy watched him from the corner of her eye, careful as she didn't want him to notice. He knew she was but wouldn't look back at her. They sat silently at the dining table, cups of tea in their hands. The clouds began to separate when Gray and Loke stepped into the room.

"I'm just saying, a woman should put in effort to be attractive. You know, wear a corset, try to get a perfect curl, actually look like who she wants to be."

"I don't know what to say to you," Gray told him, rolling his eyes. They were dressed in clothes similar to what Natsu was wearing. Baggy pants and loose white shirts. The greeted Lucy with a, "good morning," and shuffled through the kitchen. Gray watched the two closely. Natsu noticed and shook his head. Gray rolled his eyes and  sat next to him.

"How did you sleep, Lucy?" He asked. He had a plate of meat sitting in front of him.

"Like a baby," she said. "I woke up with my feet stuck in the blanket."

"Good." Gray stuffed a piece of his breakfast into his mouth.

"Aren't you up a bit early this morning?" Lucy asked. The boys nodded.

"Most of us are from St. Petersburg, we have family there," Loke told her.

"And a dozen women waiting for Loke," Natsu mumbled. Loke glared at him as he stabbed a piece of meat with a fork. They talked about their lives at home. There wasn't much to say. Gray was an orphan and a part time criminal. Loke was a womanizer who somehow always had a woman by his side and a father who hated him because he was poor.

"Gajeel's from here, though. But I doubt he minds leaving." Gray was still sitting at the table even with an empty plate in front of him. By now, everyone was in the dining room. Erza was sitting next to her, dressed in a dress similar to the boy's outfits.

"I'm not from either city," Erza stated. "I'm from a small village far away from those places. So I'm poorer than they are," she chuckled as she sipped her tea. For the rest of the hour, Natsu and Lucy sat silently as the others talked about their lives in Russia.

• • •

Author's Note;

This was supposed to be the chapter where Natsu and Lucy confessed but one thing led to another and it didn't happen. I'm sorry if you were expecting to read that but don't worry, it'll happen soon!! Hopefully within the next few chapters.

So I think this story may have 9 or so chapters left (*tries not to freak out*)! But I'm somewhat happy with that. I didn't want this to be as long as The Demon and The Princess, so having this be under thirty chapters will meet my goal just fine. I also want to have this story finished before I start summer vacation because once that starts I won't be writing or updating much. But, I do plan on writing one shots occasionally this summer so I will still be a little active.

Final thing. I entered this story in the Fairy Tail Watty Awards!! This will be my first time entering one of my fics into a contest and I hope everything will work out okay! If I don't win, that's fine. I wanted to enter one anyway, because I'm starting to want to write my own stories and loose focus on fan fiction. But I'll try to get one more full story before I decide I need to work on my own things!

Until I write again,

~ Lucy