LOVE & LUCKY 🌹 Layla's Daughter ✓「1st Place in FFFA」

31: Dinner

As it turns out, she was really starving.

"I’ll have the grilled salmon and the dessert that goes along with it and, uh," Natsu looks over to her to wait for her order. "what about you?"

"I’ll have what he’s having," seeing as she didn't know any other choice. The prices were off the roof and seems like his food is one of the many cheapest on the list of the menu. "Thank you," Lucy was lurking through her purse to make sure she had enough money to oay her half. Natsu held her hand that was resting on top of the table.

"This is on me. It's our first date. You don't need to worry about anything." He smiles. And whenever he does that, something happens to her she couldn't understand. But in the end, she smiles back.

"It's too much, Natsu. You've paid me enough for the days I spent at your friend's place. . ." Without blinking at the mention of that friend, she ended up staying silent. Remembering what she saw the two of them were doing.

"Is something wrong?"

"Why were you. . .doing it with her, if you two are not even in love?"

He leans back, adjusting his position. "She's been a great help to me. It all started in middle school when she asked me for a favor," He kept fidgeting with his fingers due to how nervous he is about it— right in front of his date. Wouldn’t this make things more complicated between them?

"Do you still do that now? Even when I'm gone?"

"No." He replied sternly, "Not after you left. I was hurt from it. But I would never do that. I swear it."

"Why didn’t you stop when you two got older?"

"Champagne?" The waiter had disrupted the on-going uncomfortability between the two. Natsu gestured him to only pour in his glass. Once he'd left, Natsu was hesitant to hold her hand. Although he was sure of his answer next, Lucy decided to stop this at once.

"I'm sorry; I must’ve been asking such rude questions." She breathed in and out, playing with the spoon in her soup. "I couldn't stop thinking about it. . ."

"Lucy, I promise you— Lisanna and I are never doing that again."

Her heart fluttered at his effort to do so. Promising with his persuasive eyes. And her genuine trust she puts in him.

“When’s your graduation, by the way?” Natsu asks while he was in the middle of cutting up the salmon. Lucy was doing the same. Though she was culture-shocked that people can actually hold a conversation while eating meals. It was common around them; but not as noisy as she thought people would be, talking over the chewing.

"Around May."

"That’s in, what, 3 months?"

"Yes." Despite the number of absences she’s committed due to panic attacks and the unbearable sight on her way to school, her professor didn’t let her down and kept his promise. She will be on the list of graduates.

"I’m proud of you,"

"For what?"

"Making it this far. Not everyone graduates at the same time,"

Oh, right. Natsu is not yet aware of her condition. She had to close her eyes for a minute or two, trying to forget. Trying to calm down a bit. Something triggered the memory. She wasn’t aware of it. Now all she could remember was the ceilling, the chandelier shining upon her to block her sight— and Natsu calling for help from the restaurant’s staff.

💄

Clothes ripping, blood spilling, hiding in the closet to take the smell off. Why did everything start coming back? Why here? Why now?