Promise Me Please

In that meadow

{LUCY'S POV}
Natsu and I texted until late at night. I don't think I've ever laughed so hard in my life. Now that I'm at school, though, I'm beginning to have regrets.

"That's the third time you've yawned in the past five minutes, Lu-chan." Levy-chan points out.

"I'm exhausted." I murmur, yawning again. I just saw Natsu, and he was as cheery as ever. Where does he get all that energy from?

It was like this back then too. At the end of the day, I would be dead tired, while Natsu would being running in circles around me.

I recall Natsu's face as he looked at that photo of us. I don't think he actually saw himself at the end of the arm, but he looked stricken, like he wanted to remember and knew he should, but just couldn't.

I, however, remember that day crystal clearly.

*flashback 8 years, Lucy is 9*
"Wait for me!" I cry, panting as I race after Natsu in a big field full of pretty rainbow colored flowers. "Natsu! Wait!"

"Catch me if you can!" He laughs, putting on a huge burst of speed.

There's a rock in our path. Natsu easily jumps over it, but I don't see in time and my foot catches. I face plant on the sun warmed earth.

"Ouchie." I sit up and inspect my stinging, bloodied knee. A hand appears.

I look up, and Natsu's standing over me with a toothy grin. "Hey slowpoke, you okay?"

He helps me up. I try to walk, and immediately wobble. I would have fallen had Natsu not looped his arm around my waist and supported me.

"Thanks." I beam, and he blushes.

Natsu helps me sit back down. "Wait here. I'll go get Mr. Capricorn!"

He starts to go, but I grab the hem of his shirt. "Noooo! Please don't leave me alone!" I sniffle, feeling tears well up in my eyes.

Natsu looks back and sees my frightened expression, so he grins and plops down next to me in the middle of the field. He links his hands behind his head. "Whatever. You're such a scary cat, Luce."

I smile gratefully and hug him, to which he responds by blushing madly and hesitantly hugging me back after a second.

I decide to teach Natsu how to make a daisy chain flower crown, since we're surrounded by nothing but flowers here.

"Ehh?" Natsu complains. "No way! That sounds way too girly."

I puff out my cheeks. Natsu decides to learn how to make a daisy chain flower crown.

After I teach him, he's a pretty quick learner. I make one and stick it on his head when his back's turned, but Natsu refuses to let me see what his looks like, which bugs me.

It takes a while, but eventually he's finishes, and shows me the most beautiful flower crown I've ever seen. "For you." He presents it to me.

My leg is feeling much better, so I stand and curtsy, allowing Natsu to place the crown on my head.

He steps back to admire his handiwork and grins his toothy grin. "You look like a princess."

I blush.

"Lucy-sama!" Mr. Capricorn, who's super tall and for some reason always wears a goat suit, has been the butler of the Heartfilia family for years. He comes running across the field.

After hearing about and seeing my knee, Mr. Capricorn agrees that I shouldn't walk home, and easily picks me up.

"Wait!" I cry when he and Natsu start to leave. I beg Mr. Capricorn to take a picture to remember this moment, since we might never find this same meadow again. They concede, only because Mr. Capricorn happens to have a camera on him.

In the picture that is now my secret treasure, Natsu and I are sitting side by side in that field, I'm wearing his flower crown, and he's wearing mine.

At the last second, Natsu reached up and gave me bunny ears, but Mr. Capricorn and I only discovered that after he printed out the picture for me, a week after we made the promise.

Mr. Capricorn asked me why I was so insistent on having that picture. I only smiled secretly and told him it was nothing really. I honestly may not have known at the time.

How it was at that moment, in that meadow, that I fell in love with Natsu Dragneel.
*flashback ends*

"Lu-chan!" Levy-chan shakes me back into reality. I realize that lunch is over. It's time for science class. I have to run, and barely make it on time.

As I walk towards my seat, he turns and grins that same toothy grin, and I know. No matter how hard I try, I can't not be in love with Natsu.

Who cares if he doesn't remember our past together? I'll make a future with him that we'll never forget. Who cares if he forgot our promise? What the promise represented is still there, and that's the part that truly matters.

The entire class period, Natsu and I get along well. He helps me with a problem I'm struggling on, and in exchange I teach him my special trick for remembering formulas.

We talk and laugh with each other during work time when the teacher doesn't care, which earns me a few venomous glares from one Lisanna Strauss.

Screw her. She wants to fight me, she's welcome to try. I ain't afraid of no mean girl.

What matters is that I'm interested in Natsu, and he seems to be interested in me. We can make this work, so help me Mavis.

After school, I'm walking through the hallways, when someone "accidentally" bumps into me and knocks me to the ground.

"Ouchie." I rub my sore rump, and a hand appears. I look up, eyes widening.

"Too soon?" Natsu asks, using his other hand to scratch the back of head sheepishly. "I just thought, since we were getting along so well before that—"

I grab his hand. "You're rambling."

"Sorry." He pulls me up to my feet easily, and we walk out of school together.

"Talk to ya later?" Natsu asks hesitantly. I smile and nod. With a relieved smile, he waves and jogs off. I can't help but giggle.

"What's so funny?" I hear Mira's voice, and turn to face her, Erza and Jellal, Levy-chan and Gajeel, and Juvia and Gray all walking out together.

I smile secretively. "Nothing really."