Groaning, Lucy awoke to a blob of blue in her face. This had to be the 4th day in a row that she woke up to the cat sleeping on her pillow. She didn't mind it really, but the aftermath wasn't something she enjoyed: Happy's owner would appear soon, shattering any remnant of a peaceful morning when he arrived. Lucy curled up in a ball, hugging the blanket around her form as she tried to go back to sleep. It was all in vain though; once she woke up there was no chance of her going back to sleep, more so since she knew she would have company over soon. Sighing, she threw the covers off and sat up. She heard a faint meow and heard Happy land somewhere on the ground nearby. She knew he would be asking for food soon. Yawning, she scooted off her bed and quietly walked over to her kitchen. The small cat padded around his water and food bowl - both being new additions to her apartment after weeks of him appearing randomly at her door. Grabbing some food from the pantry, she opened the can of tuna and scooped half of it and placed it into his bowl. She knew he didn't like it as well as fresh fish, but fresh fish was expensive. He was even lucky that she fed him. With the cat seemingly appeased, she started a pot of coffee and leaned against the counter to wait for the idiot to come crashing through the apartment somewhere.

As if on cue, she heard the window in her room open, accompanied by the soft thud of a body tumbling onto the bed and to the floor.

"Where's Happy?"

The coffee pot beeped, the fresh coffee smell made Lucy's mouth water slightly. She grabbed herself a cup, filling it halfway with coffee and the rest with vanilla creamer. She had run out of her other creamers, but she was too lazy to get more. After stirring the liquid together, she walked back to her room and just stared at Natsu crumpled on the floor.

"He's in the kitchen. Again. Don't you ever watch your cat?"

Natsu sat up, running a hand through his extremely messy bedhead. A nervous smile painted his features as he looked away, face slightly pink.

"I-it's not my fault he likes to run away." His words hung in the air for a moment before he quickly added, "Did you just wake up?"

Lucy nodded, taking a sip of her coffee and she hummed as the warmth seeped through her body.

"Yes, why?"

He pointed at her outfit. She took a quick glance down, only to be greeted by the sight her extremely short shorts and a tank top. The realization that she hadn't changed quickly dawned over her.

"T-turn away! Don't look at me idiot!"

Natsu had already had his face turned away, but his face was still flushed. It's not like he hasn't seen her dressed like that before. It was like this every time Happy is at her place. Still, he was too scared to not listen to her. Last time he didn't, his face looked worse than when he was in that tournament a few weeks back.

Placing her cup down on her desk, Lucy grabbed a robe and covered herself quickly.

"Okay, you can turn your head now."

Natsu turned his head back, yawning as the exhaustion from earlier kicked back in. He stood up, stretching as he asked:

"Luce, let me sleep in your bed. I'm still tired."

Lucy stared at him, her mouth hanging open just slightly. She always forgot how fit he was. It didn't help that his sweats were dragging low on his hips and the tank top he wore showed just how much he worked out. 'Damn.' She snapped her mouth shut, and she nodded.

"Go ahead, just make sure you take your shoes off."

Natsu gave her a toothy grin, kicking his shoes off before he slid under her giant comforter and rolled around until he was comfortable. She could only sigh as she left her room with her coffee, and decided that she needed to focus on waking up before she had to go to practice. She suddenly remembered that there was a concert coming up and the instructor wanted to start figuring out the roles and which ballet to do. Lucy began to tremble and she held her cup with both hands. She could feel her nerves going haywire. It was going to be her first concert in college, and she wanted to have a great part in it. She let out a deep breath, her lips breaking into a wide smile. This was the first time that she had felt this excited about practice in a long time.

While Natsu slept in her bed, she quickly gathered her things as quietly as she could. She already finished her coffee and had a granola bar for her breakfast, as she never did like eating a lot of food before a workout. After gathering her stuff and making sure she had her favorite leggings on, she glanced back into her room and spotted Natsu curled under her blanket. She rolled her eyes as she chuckled quietly, hitching her pack up on her shoulder as she turned to walk out. A small meow came from behind her as she opened the door and she looked down at the blue ball of fur. The fur around his face had some bits of tuna on it and she laughed at him.

"Oh Happy, you're a silly cat." Squatting, she picked the tuna off the cat's face and placed it on her palm for him to finish eating. She watched as he happily at the small pieces of tuna. He looked up at her with eyes pleading for more fish, but she shook her head as she stood. "Maybe next time Happy, I'm late for practice."

She heard Happy meow loudly as she shut the door on him, and she cringed a little. 'Sorry buddy, I gotta get going.' Lucy jogged to the gym, hoping that she would make it to practice on time.

The heavy scent of vanilla flooded his senses as Natsu woke to a very quiet apartment. Peeking his head out from the warmth of the fluffy blankets, he glanced around for a certain blonde before he gave up. She probably went out for practice. It suddenly dawned on Natsu that he was once again alone in her apartment. The first time was by complete accident, and he was swiftly kicked out. But this time she wasn't around to kick him out. He jumped out of the bed, grinning as he started going through her bookcase. The amount of books this woman had was ridiculous, almost enough to fill a small library. He pulled out some of the books, grimacing at how boring some of the titles were as he put them back. The variety in her selection was making his head hurt. Tucked away into the side of the bookcase he spotted a very small book, and he pulled it out. It looked blank on the front, just a simple brown cover, but upon further inspection it appeared to be Lucy's journal. He flipped towards the end, finding more recent entries and tried to find a page to read. Right as he was getting to something about him, he heard a loud crash come from the kitchen. Tossing the journal onto the bed, he rushed into the kitchen to find the possible intruder. As he slid into the kitchen, he spotted a mess of tuna on the floor and a very happy blue cat sitting there eating it all up. Natsu sighed, running a hand through his hair.

"Happy, Lucy is going to kill us. You know she hates having a mess on the floor."

Happy just looked up, meowing once before going back to devouring the rest of the can that Lucy pulled out this morning. Natsu didn't know what he was going to do with this cat; he was a mess and always ran back to Lucy's place. It seemed as though his cat came by almost every other day. Natsu couldn't say that he minded - he got to see Lucy more often because of it - but he was a little worried about how Lucy felt about having to deal with a cat coming over so frequently. He was sure she didn't mind, after all, she went out and bought Happy food. He smiled at the small cat as he waited for him to finish up the can of tuna so that he could up clean up the mess he made.

A little after finally cleaning up the stinking tuna smell, Natsu goes back to snooping through Lucy's bookcase. Most of the novels she has are thick and heavy, but there's this one book on the highest shelf that was shiny with stars on it. He reached up, plucking the book from the shelf and stared in awe at the cover. It was a smooth black book with golden stars etched all over it, showing what he guessed were constellations as the title of the book was 'Chaos and Constellations: The Stars and What They Mean'. His fingers brushed over the various constellations on the cover, staring at how beautiful it all looked. He walks over to Lucy's bed and flops down with the book, pushing aside her journal and flipped through the pages to learn about the stars. As he continued to read about the stories of the stars, he found one of a young woman born to a king. Zeus, some king of the gods or something, spotted her by the sea gathering flowers and fell for the beautiful woman. Zeus then transformed himself into a magnificent white bull and appeared near the seashore where Europa, the woman, was playing. The bull walked over to Europa, kneeling at her feet with his head down. Foolishly enough, the woman thought to trust the gentle bull and put flowers around its neck and tried to get on it's back. But once Europa was on the bull's back, it rushed over the sea and revealed itself to be the Zeus guy and he kidnapped her to some island. Zeus made her his lover, and she became the first queen of the island of Crete. Once she bore him 3 sons, he made the stars shape into the bull that he used to seduce Europa.

Natsu wrinkled his nose, confused as to why a woman would want to go away with a bull and put the book on Lucy's pillow. He couldn't read anymore weird stories about the stars anymore. As he was rolling off the bed, he felt his stomach rumble in hunger. He shuffled to Lucy's kitchen, curious as to what she had in her kitchen. As he was rummaging through her cabinets, he heard the front door open.

"Lucy! I'm going to eat this weird packaged thing in your cabinet. It says something about being a delicious meal and I'm hungry."

"Natsu do not eat any of my food!" Lucy came around the corner, smacking Natsu's hand off of the cabinet door while promptly shutting it before he could pick something to properly eat.

"But Lucy, I'm really hungry and you fed Happy!" He stood there, frowning with his arms crossed against his chest. He watched as she went to pet Happy on the head, cooing quietly to him.

"Happy doesn't eat all of my food, unlike you. You're like a black hole!"

He just shrugged his shoulders, shuffling his way back to her bedroom. He didn't mean to eat all of her food, she just always had good food in her place and he loved eating whatever she cooked up.

"What did you do to my room Natsu? It's like you've rolled all over the bed!" She went and grabbed some of the books off of the bed and noticed he'd grabbed a particular book off of the shelf. He watched as she picked it up gently, her face torn between sad and nostalgia.

"Natsu! You need to be careful with my books. Especially this one." She cleaned the cover off, making sure there wasn't much oil left on it and the pages were straight. "My mother gave this to me."

Natsu's stomach twisted as she scolded him, the soft and sad look in her eyes as she gently placed the book back in it's rightful place put a tang somewhere in his chest.

"I'm, uh, I'm really sorry Luce." He felt his stomach twist into a knot as he moved back to the doorway of her bedroom. He stood there, hands shoved deep into his pockets as he watched her smooth out her bed.

"It's okay Natsu. I did say you could read any of the books I had here."

He stood there, watching her before he turned on his heel as he cleared his throat. He glanced back at Lucy, a goofy smile on his face.

"I'll be back Luce! You need some food in this house that I can eat."

Lucy waves at him from her spot on the bed, a confused look on her face as she watched him walk out the apartment.

"Okay? I have enough food for awhile though?"

It was too late, as Natsu had already shut the apartment door and was walking towards the small grocery store near the campus. He felt bad for not taking care of Lucy's book and wanted to make her something. He wasn't an amazing cook, but he knew that he could make Lucy something that tasted pretty decent. Working at the bar had helped him learn to make a few essentials.

As Natsu made his way to the small grocery store, something caught his eye in a dinky little shop. He stopped, staring at the small golden trinkets with a confused look on his face. He turned towards the door, contemplating going in before he turned on his heel with a huff and headed towards the grocery store.

An hour or so later, Lucy's apartment door opened with a long bang and Natsu carrying an excessive amount of grocery bags. He had a slightly panicked look on his face as Lucy peeked out from the living room to see why he opened the door so loud.

"Natsu? Why do you have so many bags? It looks like you can feed a whole army with what you have."

"I didn't even mean to buy so much, I saw all these cool things in the store and then I wanted to make everything, or maybe you could cook it?" He dropped the bags on the kitchen counter, rolling his shoulders in relief.

"Natsu! There's no way I could cook everything from this. You'll need to come by and help me eat everything before it all goes bad." She looked at all the bags, she could feel the stress of having to figure out all the different meals for all of the food she now owns. "Don't you have your own place you can keep this at?"

Natsu shook his head, checking his phone for the time. "I live in a dorm, so I'd rather not share with all the guys there. Plus, then I can come and bother you whenever I want! Speaking of, Luce I don't have your phone number."

Lucy stopped sorting through the bags and stared at him blankly. "You're right. We've never exchanged phone numbers all this time. You've just sort of popped up randomly. It's been weeks though." She pulled her phone from her back pocket, handing it over to him once the contact's list was up. He exchanged phones with her, typing in his number. He was grinning ear to ear as he handed her phone back to him.

"Now I can bug you on the phone as well!"

Lucy rolled her eyes, handing him his phone back with a small smile on her face.

"I'd like to see you try Natsu."

Later that night, Lucy was getting ready to go to bed when she saw something shiny on her dresser with a note. She picked up an assortment of keys and noticed that they had the zodiac signs on it. She flipped open the note with her other hand.

Sorry I messed with your books. I read about the stars and all that weird stuff and found these. I thought you might like them.

-Natsu

She smiled softly, sorting through the keys on the ring.

"Maybe I'll put these on my bag for ballet."

She moved to her bed, grabbing her phone and went to check Natsu's contact information. She snorted at the name he put down, Natsu The Greatest of All Time. She went to the edit button, changing it to Bubblegum before sending him a text.

Thank you for the present, you didn't have to. -Lucy

She got comfortable in her bed, pulling the comforter over her shoulders to keep her warm when she heard the buzz come from her phone.

it's the least i could do. ill be back for dinner tmrw! -N

She smiled softly as she shut her phone, worrying what kind of chaos the two would cause together.

Thank you all for waiting patiently for another chapter. I don't know how long it will take me to always have chapters up, but I will finish this story by the end of the year. Thanks so much for waiting, and I'll see you again soon!