Sweetheart

48

A small 'ding' broke the otherwise silent store. Wendy's head popped up from the register and happily greeted whoever had walked through the door. Aina was the next person to notice the new customer, and she rolled her eyes when she spotted the familiar pink hair.

"What're you doing here? You don't even have any pets."

"Came to look at the hamsters," Natsu smoothly replied with a smirk. "Lucy said there's a really cute one here."

A loud crash sounded, and Aina's head whipped around to see that Wendy had knocked over the cat toy display.

"Sorry!" She squeaked.

Natsu leaned his head to the side to get a look at the mess and spotted the blue haired girl.

"Who're you? I don't know you."

"Oh, I'm Wendy. I go to another school. Do you both go to the same school like Rogue?"

Natsu gave a small nod before he walked over to the display and started to help her pick up the different ropes and untangling the bells.

"Oh, you don't have to help," Wendy fretted. "You don't work here. It's really fine."

"Nah you're good," Natsu assured.

As they cleaned up, they made small conversation, and it ended up being Wendy showing Natsu the cats. He stepped close to the cat adoption glass and watched with entertained eyes as the cats started screaming.

"Wendy, did you feed them yet?" Aina questioned.

"Oh crap!"

Aina walked over once she noticed his concentration and joked, "Wanna go in? They won't bite, probably."

Natsu rolled his eyes, but he accepted the offer, and soon the cats surrounded him.

Wendy returned with the food and started to fill the bowls, and the three of them hung out until another customer arrived fifteen minutes later.

-------

"Mister Dragneel, it's so--"

"You know, you only do this to me. Everyone else can come in late and not get this greeting."

"That's because you always come in late. If you showed up on time for most of the time then I wouldn't need to."

Natsu rolled his eyes and plopped down in his seat and, much to the teacher's dismay, put his feet up. Class continued as normal, but Natsu had taken out his phone. Seconds later, Aina felt her phone vibrate in her pocket.

Up for a skip?

Journalism is actually meeting today.

So? We still have free period.

Aina quickly glanced back at Natsu and saw that he was already looking at her with a mischievous glint in his eyes.

-------

"Can we go already? This is, like, super boring."

"We've only been here for five minutes."

"And I can't take any longer. Let's just go."

Natsu had to spend the next few minutes trying to convince her, and she eventually gave in. Aina signed out of the log and Natsu slipped out unnoticed at the backdoor. He almost bumped into someone, a silent curse escaping his mouth when he saw it was Gajeel and Loke.

"Hey man, great timing," Loke observed. "We were just gonna sneak in to get you."

"Uh yeah. Actually, I have something I need to do. We're still on for bio, right? So I'll see you then."