The Playboy of Fairy Tail High

Natsu the Street Fighter

"An arcade? Is it even open?" I widen my eyes at the childish grin Natsu gets.

"Of course! And it's always open, if you know how to open it." Natsu winks, then pulls something out of his pocket. For a second I think he's going to pick the lock on the door, but he turns to the window. Unhinging something at the base of the window, a secret compartment opens, revealing a key.

"Huh?" I say.

"I know the owner. They're close with my family, and I would come here all the time when I was younger." Natsu brings the key over to the door and it swings open. "Welcome to the Rocket Palace," he sweeps his arm and holds the door for me.

"Thanks." I step into the dark arcade. Natsu walks in after me, and stands right behind me, his heat filling my body once again.

"Close your eyes again," his voice is low and directly into my ear. I stop breathing, and slowly close your eyes. I hear a zap and the hum of electricity, and see the bright giveaway of lights turning on around me. "Open them," I hear Natsu's voice again. Slowly opening my eyes, I watch as the rest of the arcade comes alive. There are lights on the floor marking out paths, and colorful lights around the edge of the ceiling. The different machines and games hum as they come to life once again. Music starts to play in the background, scratchy at first, but begins to clear up.

"This is... this is amazing, Natsu." I turn around in a full circle, before looking behind me to see Natsu leaning against the front desk, the electricity switch still in his hand. 

"It's pretty great, isn't it? Now it's time for you to have some fun!" Natsu runs off and straight over to a video game. I follow him, gawking at the different machines around me.

__________________________________________________________

"Damn it!" I reach Natsu just in time to hear him slam his fist on the game, as the leaderboard pops up.

"But you have the high score!" I exclaim, reading the screen. Actually, it looks like the first five names all read 'Natsu'. He must really come here a lot.

"Yeah, but I keep dying at the same time!" Natsu grunts in frustration, and I can't help but laugh. He's right. The scores are crazy high, but the top five are the exact same number!

"Hmm, Street Fighter," I read, looking at the top of the machine.

"Yeah, you wanna play?" Natsu moves over, and leads me to the P2 controls. "You can play on your own first, then I wanna fight you!"

"Uh, ok... I don't really play video games much, but- ok!" Natsu had put in a coin, and started the game. A character pops up, bouncing back and forth with its fists in front of its face. In a rush of panic, I start to mash random buttons. I watch helplessly as my character does flips around the arena, and attacks the edges of the screen. At least, I think that's my character...

"Come on, Luce! You got this! Kick his butt!" Even though I know I suck, hearing Natsu's encouragement is actually pretty nice. I turn to look at Natsu's elated face, just to hear the game over sounds. I look at the screen, and my painfully low score.

"I guess I'm just no good at this game..." I sigh, pushing away from the score that won't even land a spot near the high scores board.

"Oh, don't be that way. Here, I'll teach you some moves Luce. Just come here." With his hands on top of mine, Natsu explains the joystick and attack buttons. He shows me how to jump, my normal attack, advanced attack, jump attack, low attack, kick, punch, and a whole lot of other things.

"Wow, this is really complicated," I widen my eyes.

"Yeah, so you wanna face off?" Natsu asks, excited. He turns his smile towards me, and then freezes. I look at him with big eyes, confused.

"What's wrong?" I tilt my head.

"N- nothing. Let's play!" He pulls his gaze off of me, and puts another coin in the machine.

"Ok!" I could tell Natsu was going easy on me, but I actually won the first round! Natsu naturally wins the next two rounds, but high fives me anyways. Turning away from the machine, I realize I am laughing.

"Come on, let's do something else!" He runs off to the next couple of machines, trying out each of them, although I'm sure he's played every game here at least twice before.