Sweetheart

14

"How are you so perfect at school?"

"I guess I just force myself to be."

"That's stupid."

"You know," Aina started, "when my dad died, I couldn't take it. I started pushing everyone away and I neglected my schoolwork."

"You? Neglect schoolwork?" Natsu sarcastically questioned. "Yeah, okay."

"I'm serious. Anyway, I eventually met my friend Lucy, and she basically forced me to turn my life around. I poured all my energy into my grades and I guess I forgot to let myself have any fun."

"Yeah no kidding. You're way too uptight, sweetheart."

"Gee. Thanks."

Natsu sat up and gave her a lopsided grin. He went back over to the box and looked up some craft stores.

"We'll have to get there at some point to get stuff for the water. This store is open late, so if we need to we can go after you get off work."

Aina smiled before asking if he was coming for dinner.

"Oh, uh, are you sure your mom--"

"She's the one that offered. Besides, we're having roasted potatoes."

---------------------------------------------------

Natsu sat in front of his plate and stared at it.

"Natsu, is something wrong with the food? You haven't touched the meat."

Natsu pointed to the meat and asked if it was another Finnish dish. Aina and Kelia looked at each other before raising their eyebrows.

"It's steak, Natsu."

"Steak? Like the expensive meat?"

"Well it can be pretty pricey, but it was on sale this week for $1.99 a pound. So I picked up a package to get a little special meal."

"Why are you wasting it on me then?"

Kelia assured him that it was fine and that it was too much for just her and Aina. Natsu looked at her for another few seconds, but eventually started eating it. Aina giggled at his reaction and asked him to pass the potatoes.

"Thanks for the food, Miss Labelle."

"Oh please, Natsu. Just call me Kelia. And I expect you to come next week, too. We're doing grilled fish."

Natsu smiled wide and nodded before following Aina out to her car.

"Your mom is...nice."

"Yeah. She's always been like that. She can be a pain sometimes and she's a little weird, but she's great and I owe her a lot."

"She's certainly different from any of the families I had that's for sure."

"What were they like?"

"Let's see," Natsu thought out loud, "one family decided that I was their unpaid servant. They took the money that was set aside for me for clothing and used it to go out all the time and they left their kids with me. That was when I was eight. There was another one when I was around ten that was a raging alcoholic with a temper, and you can probably piece together that puzzle pretty quickly. And then there was this super freaky religious family that I had when I was thirteen and they were convinced that I was the literal devil. They were the ones that dumped me."

"How on earth did they let that keep happening?"

"Let's just say my caseworker wasn't the best. Doesn't matter now though. In a couple months none of them can touch me."