Melting Gray [Gratsu]

6

Chapter Six

☆ Natsu Dragneel ☆

"Let me get this straight," Lucy clarified, leaning on her elbows on the glass table we were currently sitting at. "You went to his house?"

It was Tuesday afternoon, and Lucy and I were sitting in our local bookstore, Barnes & Nobles, doing our homework and drinking Starbucks coffee. I had previously filled Lucy in on what happened at Gray's house yesterday, and she seemed a little more excited than she should've been.

"Just to give him a ride!" I defended, looking down to avoid her piercing gaze.

"Mhmm... Ohmygod, you skipped school for this guy!" Lucy realized, grinning. "Did you get caught?"

"Considering the fact I'm sitting here doing tedious homework with you as opposed to lazing off in after school detention, no, I didn't get caught," I responded sarcastically, shrugging one shoulder. "Speaking of which, let's get back to it. Mr. Dreyar gave way too much history homework today."

"I know! An entire packet and notes on two sections?" Lucy agreed, groaning. "What does he think we are? Wizards?"

"Either that, or some freaky geniuses who don't need sleep," I agreed, flipping a page in my notebook.

"Hey, why don't you invite Gray to do homework with us? We haven't done math yet, and he's in my English II class too," Lucy suggested. (A/N: remember, they're Japanese, so English for them would be like us taking Japanese here.)

"No way!" I shook my head frantically. "After what Lyon said to us yesterday, I could hardly face him in school today! Trust me- it's a bad idea."

"Come on," Lucy egged me on, tapping my phone, which was resting silently on the table, with her pencil eraser. "He's just a kid. Gray probably isn't thinking that much into it, and you shouldn't either."

"Whatever," I went back to my homework. "Even so, I don't have his phone number. I don't know if he even has a phone!" He probably didn't, from what I could tell. It's not like he can text or anything. "Can we just go back to working?"

"Fine," Lucy sighed.

We continued working (and by working, I mean dividing the answers and swapping them so we only had to do half the work, and don't you even lie, because everyone has done it at least once) for about two hours, and finally, we shut our textbooks with a satisfying slam. We put our history stuff away, thankful we didn't have to look at it anymore.

"Okay, let's do math next," I offered, pulling out my folder. "All we have to do is the worksheet, front and back."

"Thank goodness it's only like, 20 questions," Lucy grinned, picking up her coffee, noticing it was empty. "I'm going to go get a refill. Be right back."

"Make good choices!" I called quietly after her, and she stuck out her tongue and flounced off, blonde tresses bouncing around her shoulders.

I figured Lucy would be a while, considering the fact reciting her coffee order alone takes about two minutes, and the Starbucks line was fairy long, I could go check out the mangas. So I tucked my phone into my side pocket and searched the hanging signs for the manga section.

At our school library, we had a pitiful excuse for a manga section, with only a single tiny bookshelf neatly stacked with mangas that weren't even the good ones. But here, they had isles of mangas of several genres, just waiting for me to read them all. I got giddy thinking about it.

I knelt down, scanning the alphabetical list for one of my favorite authors, when I heard the familiar clicking of a walking cane. I tensed up and hunched over further.