Sweetheart

103

Natsu looked up and gave an aggravated look towards the door and deadpanned, "What the hell are you doing here?"

"Visiting you, duh."

"Okay, you visited. You can leave now."

Lucy smirked and stepped closer, mocking, "You can't do anything to kick me out, so now you're stuck with me."

A groan was heard from the pink haired boy as Lucy drifted over to him.

"Make this as painless as possible. I'm too tired to deal with your shit."

"I'm glad you're okay, Natsu."

"Huh?"

"You might be the most irresponsible, annoying, inconsiderate--"

"Are you done, or would you like a dictionary?"

"Add overly sarcastic to that list and we'll call it even. Even so, you're important to Aina, and I saw just how much you mean to each other during this whole mess, so I wanted to come here to make a truce."

Natsu gave an unconvinced 'uh huh' and turned his attention back to his half-eaten chicken.

"That's okay," she chirped. "I can just tell the nurse that you insisted on not wanting to be on painkillers anymore."

He stopped eating and slowly met her smirk.

"You wouldn't," he tested.

"Oh, that's right!" She happily spoke. "You're in a lot of pain as it is, so being off the painkillers will hurt you really bad, right?"

"You're a monster," he breathed.

"Yes, yes I am. Now do we have a deal or not?"

"Not a chance."

Lucy smirked once again, spun around and called, "Dave! Natsu has a request."

The head nurse appeared in the room a minute later and asked for the request.

"How come you come in here so fast when she calls, but I have to wait a half hour for a glass of water?" Natsu sassed.

Dave laughed quietly and asked what the request was. Natsu went to dismiss it when Lucy spoke up, "He was actually just talking about going o--"

"Fine," Natsu shouted. "We can have a deal."

The nurse, unphased by the shouting, pushed Lucy to continue, but Lucy just gave a mischievous smile and revealed that Natsu would like a pudding cup. Dave exited the room, leaving a newly truced pair.

"Fuck you," he spit.

"Now you know how the teachers felt with all your shit," she easily threw back. "Besides, Aina needs to have her close friends get along. She deserves that much."

"I'm her boyfriend," he corrected. "You're her friend."

"Actually, if you want to get technical like that, I'm more of a sister. So watch out."

"Wonderful," he muttered.

The head nurse had returned with a pudding cup and handed it to Lucy to give to Natsu. Lucy peeled the lid off the pudding cup and unwrapped the plastic spoon given to her before starting to eat it.

"That's mine," Natsu complained.

"Cost of doing business," Lucy immediately answered.

She heard a scoff in response.

-------

Natsu let out a relieved breath when he noticed that it was just Aina in the hallway. Brown hair came into view as she came closer to the room, and brown eyes made contact with his black ones once she arrived.

"How're you feeling?" Her soft voice sounded.

She received a shrug in response followed by a wave to beckon her towards him. Her feet immediately brought her to him, and, like many times before, Natsu's hand tugged on her arm so that she sat beside him on the bed. Her legs dangled off as she swung them, and her fingers connected with his larger ones.

"So," Natsu joked, "I heard that after I get outta here you wanted to come over and--"

"Don't!"

Natsu's loud laughter filled the room, his grip tightened around her waist, and his face rested in the crook of her neck. He could feel the heat radiating off her cheeks, giving him more to tease her about later.

"So," Aina spoke as she regained her composure, "my mom said something about having a meeting with the school before you go back. Which, I mean, could take a while to get to, but I still figured that I would let you know."

"What's it about?"

Aina shrugged, giving an 'I dunno' and leaning back into him (or course, very carefully, so as to not aggravate the wound).

"It feels weird without you in school," she revealed.

"Yeah?" He echoed, running his nose towards her chin."How so?"

She instinctively started to giggle at the touch before she told, "It's just weird without the constant yelling I guess."

"I have a feeling that's not gonna happen for a while, not at fault of my own."

"What do you mean?"

And that triggered the rant that he had been building up.

"They're gonna put up with me because they feel bad about what happened. All they'll be doing is try to make their guilt disappear by letting me get away with shit once I go back. Guaranteed that I won't get in trouble for a while no matter what I do."

"Please don't test that," she pleaded.

"And what do I get if I don't?" He playfully asked.

"Not being expelled," Aina seriously answered.

"Don't worry, sweetheart. I'll be on my best behavior."

"Yeah right," she threw back. "Just don't get into serious trouble."

Her whole body started to squirm under his tickling touch. Despite her best efforts to keep calm, shallow laughs rolled off her tongue.

"Natsu," she squealed. "You're gonna get hurt."