Squeaky Clean

On one fateful night, a blonde climbs her way to the porcelain holy whiteness, the soft clouds of suds dripping on her full, blossoming cheeks. She inhales the soapy smell which is mixed with the greasiness of the fried chicken she had for dinner.

"Ah," she has thought, "that smells nice."

She picks up a sponge and her arms strangely begin moving, scrubbing the germs and grime off the pans and plates as though she is playing 'Moonlight Sonata' on the piano. When she is done, her heart feels at ease and she's just about to clean another one when her father catches her.

"What are you doing?!" He thunders, "This is not respectable behavior of a Heartphilia!"

"Please daddy," the little child pleads, "this is fun—no, this is my dream!"

And the father, not being as cruel as he makes out to be, complies with the wishes of his only daughter.

From then on, to her father's distaste, she washes the dishes after every meal with a bright smile on her face. As she grew older, however, her habit reaches new heights, the growing girl cleaning anything she deems dirty.

Her father starts to see the grave mistake he's made years ago. "Lucy, why don't you hang out with your friends instead of..."

The blonde looks up from her handiwork at the toilet bowl which her father swears has to be cleaner than when they first purchased it. "Hm? What are you talking about, papa?" She waves the plunger and sponge in her hand. "Mrs. Plunger and Mr. Sponge are my friends! And so is Little Soap, Miss Bucket...and oh! Who can forget the twins: Broomie and Moppy? And-"

"I get it, I get it," the father shakes his head, regretting his mention of friends, "I'll be heading to my bedroom-"

"Oh, do you need any cleaning there, papa?" Lucy asks with starry eyes, "anything dusty in your closet? Your drawers? Your bed-"

"No!" The father yelps, wondering how appropriate it is to allow a daughter catch sight of her father's boxers. "Y-you behave yourself missy!"

"Aws," the daughter pouts, "Alright then papa. Good night."

The father leaves, half content and half petrified by his daughter's personality. Luckily he left then or else he may have had nightmares for the rest of that week.

"Heh, heh, bathroom pipes, I, Lucy Heartphilia, will now strip you of your nasty virginity with my holy scrubbing stick! Just you wait!"

—

On her first day of high school, her first course of action is escaping the opening ceremony to the heavens—the janitor's closet.

"Uwah my beautiful," she sighs, "My new friends, I'm Lucy Heartphilia! Please to make your acquaintances!"

She's greeted with silence but in her ears, the cleaning utensils are happily welcoming her back, filling her with excitement to use them. She reaches for the mop who has greeted her loudest when a real voice, a real human voice from behind, exclaims: "Uwah, I've never seen a girl like you before!"

She turns around, mop still in her hand. Sitting on the floor is a pink haired boy with a smile on his face. His smile widens at her surprise and he holds out his hand.

"Hi, I'm Natsu!"

—

She recalls what happens afterwards. At the sight of his dirtied hand, she can't suppress the urge to whip out a brush and begins furiously scrubbing the grim away.

"My. Name. Is. Lucy." She has muttered through scrubs. The boy seems shocked by her reaction and it is no problem to her should he not want to associate with her anymore. As long as she finishes cleaning his hand that is.

But after she's done, he inspects his hand with wide eyes and amazement, exclaiming, "This is amazing Lucy! You're so amazing!"

That is how Lucy finds herself being followed by the happy pinkette wherever she went throughout the school year. If she happens to sneak to the school yard after finding out there's this undefeatable growing fungus, the pinkette is waiting for her with soap and water ready. She starts to question why he tolerates her weird habit but supposes it's because she deals with his everlasting hunger (if she ever has leftover money from buying cleaning utensils at the supermarket, she treats Natsu to a burger).

Months into their weird, (dys)functional friendship, she starts to question even more. Prom day is approaching and she's not deaf to the girls who speak of whom they want to be asked out by.

"Oh I wish Natsu can ask me out!"

"Right, right? He's so cute and friendly. He'd make the perfect boyfriend!"

"Too bad he hangs out with that blonde chick..what's her name?"

"Does it matter? Who even cares about a cleaning freak?"

"But Natsu seems less cool when he's with her!"

She doesn't really care about others' opinions of her. All that matters is the opinions of people who are close to her. But she's not used to hearing people talking bad about Natsu, or talking about Natsu in general. She's never known of his popularity and it dawns to her that perhaps the reason is because he's always with weird old her.

"Natsu," she says one day when she is busy scrubbing the floor of a hallway, "if you like, you can always hang out with others. I don't want to monopolize all of your time."

The boy, who has jelly splattered all over himself from opening the packet to a jelly custard, blinks. "What? But I like hanging out with you Lucy! It's fun! And you buy me food time to time too!"

"That's not what I mean," the blonde sighs, looking up, "what I mean is..."

She finds her face suddenly to be merely centimeters away from Natsu's, his usually jubilant eyes all serious.

"What do you mean?" He asks innocently, his soft breath tickling Lucy's cheeks. She gulps and begins to sweat profoundly.

"Uh..." Her eyes start to scan everywhere but the boy for a logical answer, anything to widen the space between them. Anything. But then her eyes start to wander downwards...where they stop at Natsu's jeans zipper.

"Sorry, Natsu," she bites her lip as she fumbles in her pocket for a spare toothbrush. "F-forgive me..."

"What are you-" before the boy can react, the blonde dives for his bottom, rubbing furiously away. Despite knowing the blonde's weird habit, the pinkette can't help but yelp.

"Lucy! Wh-where do you think you're touching?!"

By now she's almost finished with his jeans but she doesn't stop there. Seeing that the jelly has been spilt on nearly all parts of his body, Lucy travels her way up, cleaning thoroughly his arms, chest, and face. Up until she reaches his lips, of course.

She's staring at his eyes with realization while he stares back in astonishment. Her cheeks starts to flame as her fingers loses their grasp on the toothbrush and as her empty fingers dances lightly on Natsu's lips.

"Whoops!" Lucy yelps when she realizes what she is doing. She jumps off the boy who is now cleaner than he has ever been. "I-I'm sorry Natsu! I don't know what I'm doing! I understand if you don't ever want to see me again! G-good bye!"

She starts to get up and leave, knowing what she is doing is right. After what she has just pulled, there is no doubt she's a freak in the eyes of the one person who has treated her normal (well, as normal as a cleaning freak can ever be treated as).

"Wait Lucy, hold on," a hand has suddenly caught her wrist, forcing her to look into the eyes of her captor. "Who says I never wanted to see you again?"

"B-but what I just did," Lucy stammers, "It disgusts you, didn't it?"

"It did?" His voice is playful, half-bemused. "Nah, I was actually thinking, 'Wah, I should've been dirty a whole lot earlier!'"

A blush returns to Lucy's face as she soaked in the implication of Natsu's confession. She starts squirming, "B-but people will think bad of you and-"

"Lu-cy," he stops her from rambling, her breath hitching a level upon the rare sight of his dead serious eyes. "I don't care about others as long as I'm with you."

I don't care about others as long as I'm with you. Has she ever heard anyone say that to her before? Her eyes well a bit, touched by the boy's kind words. The boy smiles as well, please to have cheered her up. He gently embraces the girl, who, for the first time, acknowledges a precious something, or rather someone, in her life other than cleaning utensils.

Natsu...

"Natsu..." She breathes when they reluctantly let each other go, "I..."

"I'm really hungry, Lucy!" Natsu intervenes, his usual bubbly personality seeming to have returned. "Let's grab something after school, yeah?"

Lucy shakes her head and smiles, "you'll never change will you-" she stops upon the sight of bread crumbs stuck between Natsu's teeth. "Wait Natsu! Hold on! Let me clean your mouth first!"

Now it is Natsu's turn to gape in surprise but he recovers leaning closer for Lucy. "Sure! I'll let you clean my mouth with your lips~"

Lucy reddens at the thought and decides that, just this once, she'll let the cleaning opportunity to slip by. "N-no! It's okay!"

She skips away with a laughing Natsu chasing after her.

And, after a little while, she laughs as well.

Word Count: 1577

A/N: So something in me spurred me to clean the dishes this morning for the first time in my sixteen years of life. ;D Sad, I know. But I felt kind of happy which is what gave birth to the start of this story. (I am NOT weird.)

If you're reading this, that means my (fail) humor attempt and (really fail) romance has miraculously entertained you. ^o^ Thank you so much for reading even though some of you may know I have a lot other writing works to finish. ToT I just really want to try humor. Did it work? Is Natsu (well, Lucy is definitely not in character ;D) somewhat in character? (Oh, curious question, when have you guys first cleaned the dishes? ;3)

I hope you guys liked this story though! It has been a great experience writing a one-shot, especially a humor one (angst person here, YOLO). Don't be afraid to drop a review of how you think of this story. ;D Hope to have your continued support and again, thanks for reading!