One Of The Boys

Feelings Suck And I Hate Myself

A/N: A few Natsu thoughts for you all! Hope you like it. Please review, try to be kind :)

He was miserable. He'd never been this upset before—not even about baseball. And that meant something.

He didn't want to eat, he didn't want to sleep. Even the idea of playing baseball bored him—something that had never occurred before. The only activities Natsu was even slightly interested in involved punching Gray in the jaw and talking to Lucy.

He could talk to Lucy, sure. That one was easy. Except his stomach was in knots and his heart started to hurt whenever he saw her and now, today, he didn't think he could.

And yes, he could also punch Gray in the jaw, but he knew that would tick Lucy off, and he never wanted to do that. Besides, did he even have the right to be upset? Gray asked Lucy out, Lucy said yes. Not really anything wrong there.

Except that it was wrong. Everything was wrong. Everything hurt. His heart, his lungs, his ribs, his head...

When he'd woken up, Lucy was long gone. He'd slept in. He vaguely remembered her shaking him, trying to jolt him awake; after a while, she'd headed off, refusing to be late yet again because of him. He didn't even try to wake up, go to school. He was too tired, too mad, too sad.

He hadn't slept very much last night; the thought of Lucy and Gray, out on a date...it shook him.

Everything—all of these feelings, stirring inside of his stomach—all boiled down to him and Gray fighting. None of this would've happened had he not had one simple conversation with Gray.

It happened yesterday, first block. Gray sat down beside Natsu and said he needed to ask him something. Natsu had shrugged, told him to ask away. What he heard next changed everything.

"Do you mind if I ask Lucy out?"

Natsu had blinked for a second, sputtering out some stupid response. "You wanna...what?"

"Yeah," Gray had nodded, continuing. "I know you guys are close, and I didn't want it to make anything weird by me and her getting together without notice, so I thought it would be good to let you know first."

Natsu's face had twisted up into a stupid look. His hands were fists, and he wasn't really sure why. "Why do you wanna ask her out?"

Gray had given the pink haired boy a funny look. "Because...I like her?"

Natsu crossed his arms. "Well—I mean." He paused. "I don't think it's such a good idea."

Gray frowned, now. "You don't?"

"No."

"Why's that?"

"Because," Natsu had huffed out under his breath. "You're just...you're not a good match. You'll date and then you'll break up and everything will be weird."

Gray raised an eyebrow. "What if we don't break up?"

Natsu's eyes dropped to the ground for a split second as he muttered the words quietly. "Even worse."

Gray's frown grew; his eyes searched his best friend. "Do you like her, or somethin'?"

Natsu's eyes widened. "What? No!"

"Then what's your problem?"

"It's Lucy!" Natsu cried. "You can't date Lucy!"

"Give me a good reason why I can't!" Gray fought back.