Nalu: The Playboy's Ex

Chapter four

Me: HELLO! And welcome back to-
Everyone: Nalu: The Playboy's Ex!
Me: so....
Mira: NALU MOMENT!
Me: yeah...and a little bit of a...um...how do I describe it?
Natsu: problem?
Me: that works!
Lucy: *has read it* I hope everything works out ok....
Me: she's m-um....let's start!
~~~~~

Weeks slowly pass and I find Natsu's presence easier to deal with...ish.... the memories still fly to me but it's not as painful. I've started writing my novel, I decided to call it 'the life of Iris' and will do a counterpart story called 'the adventures of Iris'. When writing about the female protagonist, I found I was putting a lot of myself into this character. She was just relatable to my personality.

It was a cold and snowy night. Which is weird since we're in November. I never could sleep when it was snowing. I turn over and cover my head with the pillow, hoping to trick my brain into thinking it's not snowing and everything is right with my life. My, wouldn't that be nice?

Work at the cafe wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. Sting was very considerate of me and tended to avoid me to make things easier. I was astonished to learn he got a girlfriend. Her name was Yukino (Me: sorry StingXRogue fans, I just ship this more, please no hate!) and she was really nice. She knew about the history about me and Sting but believed he was trying to change. Despite everything that happened, I felt happy knowing he had someone in his life who cared for him like Yukino. She always helped me when I was struggling, which was most of the time, or felt too self-conscious because of the uniform. It was a maids outfit and it was a little too...expressive...yeah, of my chest area.

I turn onto my back and sigh. I'm not going to sleep like this... I'm going to regret this...

I climb out of bed and head to the hallway. I make my way to the other side and open the door.
"I-I couldn't sleep.." I say when I see him looking at me. He grins in victory and I glare at him. He opens his arm, lifting the covers up so I can crawl this. I do this and feel his arm wrap around my stomach. Old feelings return and regret laughs at me.
"Night Luce..." he says.
"Night Natsu..." I say. Despite the slight pain that remains, I start feeling comfortable. Relaxed...and before long...I've drifted off into a dreamless sleep.

I wake up in the middle of the night to the sound of hail. Great....now I'll never get to sleep again. I remove Natsu's arms from around me and stand up.
"What's wrong Luce?" Natsu asks, waking up due to my movement.
"Can't sleep again." I reply while stretching my arms. Natsu sits up, even in the dark I can see his worried expression.
"Is it me?" He asks. He doesn't need to say anything else.
"No..." I say, at least I don't think so. "It's the hail..."
"I see...." Natsu says. A few seconds of awkward silence surround us.

"Luce...I know it's still early considering what's happened and you probably need more time but..." he starts. I already know where this is going, and I have my answer prepared. "Do you think we'll ever be close again? Like we were before?"
"I honestly don't know Natsu." I reply, sitting on the floor. "I'd like to think we do but I don't want to give you false hope. Maybe in the future when...when I'm not hurting as much..." Natsu crawls out of the bed and kneels in front of me.
"I understand that." He says. He rests his forehead on mine. "But I want to start making amends as soon as possible." This isn't what I expected...my face heats up as I suddenly realise what was going on. His hand had grabbed mine and his fingers intertwined with mine, increasing my heart rate and making me feel fuzzy inside. One wrong movement and our lips would touch. "Ever since...it...happened...I...." tears spring to his eyes and I instantly want to pull him closer. To tell him it will be ok.
"Natsu..." I say. He looks up at me. "If we're ever going to move on from what happened, we need to forget about it. As best we can anyway." He nods once, showing his agreement.
"But what if we can't move on....what if every time I look a you I remember just how badly I hurt you? What if every time you look at me you think about what I put you through?" He says. As the words fall out of his mouth, my heart breaks. He looks at the floor and shakes his head, getting rid of the tears. "I don't deserve you Luce....I never did....." I pull Natsu closer so his head rests on my shoulder.
"You did...." I say. "You just made a stupid mistake." His arms wrap around me and squeeze me ever so gently, but tightly at the same time.
"A very stupid one." He corrects me.