Chapter 1: The Unwanted Revelation
The smell of burnt sugar hung in the air, faint but persistent, mixing with the lavender from the candle flickering on Lucy’s coffee table. Natsu shifted on the floral sofa, the pattern itchy against the back of his neck. Sunlight, filtered through sheer yellow curtains, cut across the room in warm, dusty stripes.It was too bright.Too quiet.
Lucy perched on the edge of the armchair opposite, her hands clasped in her lap. She was beaming.“So, I have some news,” she said, her voice a little too high.
Natsu grunted, looking at the plate of slightly-blackened pastries she’d pushed toward him. He hadn’t touched them.
“It’s big news,” she continued, glancing toward the kitchen doorway.Zeref stepped into the living room then, as if on cue. He moved with a silent, liquid grace that always put Natsu’s teeth on edge. His older brother leaned against the doorframe, arms crossed, a slight, unreadable smile on his face. His dark eyes tracked from Lucy to Natsu, and the smile widened, just a fraction.
A cold knot formed in Natsu’s gut.
“Zeref and I,” Lucy began, her cheeks flushing a delicate pink.She reached a hand out toward him. “We’re… we’re together.Dating, I mean.”
The words landed like physical blows. Natsu’s ears rang.The cheerful sunlight seemed to bleach the color from the room. He stared at Lucy’s hand, now interlaced with Zeref’s long, pale fingers as he came to stand behind her chair. Zeref’s other hand settled on her shoulder, a possessive, casual weight.“Wow,” Natsu heard himself say.The word was flat, dead.
“I know it’s sudden!” Lucy bubbled, her brown eyes wide and sparkling. “It just… happened.He’s so different, Natsu.So mature. He actually listens when I talk about my writing.”
Zeref’s thumb stroked Lucy’s shoulder. “Her stories are fascinating,” he said, his voice a low, smooth baritone.“Full of light. It’s a refreshing change of perspective.”
Natsu’s jaw ached. He realized he was clenching it. He forced his fists to uncurl, his short nails leaving half-moon impressions in his palms.A refreshing change.From what?From him?“Congratulations,” he ground out. It tasted like ash.
“We wanted you to be the first to know,” Lucy said, her smile softening into something painfully genuine.“You’re my best friend.And his brother. It just felt right.”
Zeref’s gaze was fixed on Natsu, the smirk back, cold and knowing.He saw it.Of course he saw it. He saw the riot inside Natsu’s chest, the confusion and the fury and the sheer, gutting loss of something he’d never even had the courage to name.This was deliberate.It had to be.
“Yeah,” Natsu managed. “Right.”
The silence stretched, filled only by the faint hum of the refrigerator in the next room.Lucy’s smile began to falter, confused by his lack of enthusiasm. Zeref’s remained, a polished knife.Natsu stood up abruptly. The sudden movement made Lucy flinch.“Gotta go,” he said, the words tumbling out. “Things to do.”
“Natsu?” Lucy stood, too, concern etching her features.“Are you okay? You just got here.”
“Fine.Just remembered something.” He couldn’t look at her. If he looked at her, she’d see everything—the stupid, humiliating crush he’d carried for years, the jealousy currently boiling his blood. He couldn’t let Zeref have that victory too.“Have fun. You two.”
He was at the door, fumbling with the latch.“Natsu,” Zeref’s voice came, calm and clear. “Don’t be a stranger.”
It was the final twist of the knife. Natsu shoved the door open and walked out, leaving it swinging on its hinges behind him.
The hallway of Lucy’s apartment building was dim and cool, a stark contrast to the sun-drenched room he’d fled. He leaned against the wall, the plaster cool through his shirt, and pressed the heels of his hands into his eyes.A low, raw sound built in his throat. He swallowed it back, disgusted with himself.
He took the stairs down two at a time, bursting out into the bland parking lot.The afternoon sun hit him, but it held no warmth. His body buzzed with a restless, destructive energy.He wanted to hit something.He wanted to scream. He wanted to burn the serene, knowing expression right off his brother’s face.
His feet carried him without conscious thought, away from the tidy apartments, toward the older part of town. The air grew thicker, smelling of asphalt and spilled beer. He ended up outside a bar called The Hollow Star, a place he knew some of the others from the guild frequented.It was dark inside, even in the daytime.
He pushed the door open.The familiar scent of stale hops and sawdust washed over him. It was quiet, just a few afternoon regulars scattered in the booths.
And there was Cana, sitting alone at the bar, shuffling a deck of cards with practiced flicks of her wrists. She looked up as he approached, her sharp eyes taking him in—the tense shoulders, the wild look in his eyes, the way his hands wouldn’t stay still.
“Well, look what the hellcat dragged in,” she said, her voice a dry rasp.She tapped the stack of cards into a neat rectangle. “You look like you lost a fight with a street cleaner.”
Natsu slid onto the stool beside her, flagging down the bartender for a beer he didn’t really want. “Lucy’s dating Zeref,” he said flatly.Cana’s hands stilled for a second. Then she let out a low whistle.“Oh. Shit.”
“Yeah.”
They sat in silence for a minute, Natsu’s untouched beer sweating on the scarred wood. The anger was curdling into something else, a hollow, aching desperation.He felt untethered. The future he’d somehow, stupidly, imagined—a vague, warm blur with Lucy at the center—was gone.Replaced by the image of his brother’s hand on her waist.
“You never told her, did you?” Cana asked, not unkindly.
“No.”
“Idiot.”
“I know.”
She studied him, then took a long swig from her own tankard.“So what are you gonna do about it?”
That was the question. The fire in him needed direction, an outlet.Talking was pointless. Fighting Zeref directly would solve nothing and would only hurt Lucy.The helplessness was the worst part.
His eyes wandered over to Cana.She was watching him, a knowing, challenging look in her gaze. She was older, more experienced in ways he wasn’t. She was also, frankly, attractive in a blunt, no-bullshit way.She was here.She understood guild life, understood him, at least a little.
A reckless, self-destructive idea coiled in his mind. A way to feel something other than this gaping loss.A way to assert control over one single thing in his spiraling world.
He turned fully toward her.The air between them shifted, charged with a new, dangerous understanding.
“I don’t wanna think about it,” Natsu said, his voice lower than he intended.
Cana held his gaze for a long moment. She saw the pain, the frustration, the raw need for a distraction.She wasn’t Lucy. She wouldn’t expect gentle words or tender feelings.She might understand a simpler, physical language.
“Thinking’s overrated,” she finally said, finishing her drink and slamming the tankard down. She stood up, nodding toward the dim hallway at the back of the bar that led to the bathrooms and, he knew, a rusty fire exit.“You coming or not?”
It wasn’t an invitation.It was a challenge. A pact for mutual oblivion.Natsu looked at his hands, then back at her. The hollowness in his chest yawned wide. He needed to feel something, anything, even if it was just friction and heat.Even if it meant nothing.
He stood up, leaving the full beer on the bar, and followed her into the dark.
The hallway was narrow and dark, the floor sticky under his boots. The only light came from a flickering EXIT sign above a heavy metal door at the end. Cana didn’t head for the exit. She stopped halfway down, in a pool of deep shadow between two stained walls.She turned to face him, her back against the cheap paneling.
“Okay,” she said, her voice a low rasp in the confined space. “Get it out of your system.”
The smell of old beer and industrial cleaner was thick here. Natsu could hear the muffled thump of music from the main bar, feel the vibration through the floor.He stared at her. She wasn’t Lucy.Lucy was all soft light and lavender and gentle hands. Cana was shadows, the sharp scent of alcohol on her breath, and a challenge in her tired eyes. That was what he needed.Something hard.Something real.He stepped closer.The space between them vanished.
His first kiss was not soft.It was a collision. His mouth met hers with a desperate, hungry force, all teeth and frantic pressure. He was all motion, no grace, driven by a storm of jealousy and hurt he couldn’t name. He fumbled for her waist, his fingers digging into the fabric of her shirt.Cana didn’t melt.She matched him. Her hands came up, one tangling roughly in his pink hair, pulling his head down to hers, the other gripping the back of his neck. She took his anger and gave it back, her kiss experienced and deliberate, a controlled burn to his wildfire.She tasted of bitter ale and smoke.
It was nothing like he’d imagined a kiss would be.There was no soaring music, no fluttery feeling. It was heat and pressure and a frantic, physical dialogue. It was a weapon he was using against the image in his head—Lucy smiling up at Zeref, Zeref’s smug, knowing face.He pushed her harder against the wall.The paneling groaned. A bottle clinked somewhere in the darkness.Cana broke the kiss first, pulling back just an inch. They were both breathing hard, the sound loud in the dank corridor.Her eyes were dark, searching his face. “Better?” she breathed, her voice barely a whisper.He didn’t answer. He was searching for the feeling he thought would come—a release, a forgetting. But the hollowness was still there, just covered now by the taste of her and the sting of his bruised lips. The fire inside him hadn’t gone out; it had just found a different kind of fuel.
He rested his forehead against hers, his eyes squeezed shut. For a second, the world was just this dark hallway, the grip of her hands, the shared, ragged breaths.A broken connection. A placeholder for a feeling meant for someone else.From the bar, a burst of laughter echoed down the hall. The real world, waiting.
The laughter from the bar faded, leaving only the sound of their breathing. Cana’s hands were still in his hair, but her grip had softened from a pull to something closer to a hold. The anger that had driven him here was banked, embers now, leaving behind a confusing ash of shame and a persistent, aching want.
He didn’t move his forehead from hers. The darkness of the hallway felt like a cocoon, a separate reality from the sun-drenched betrayal in Lucy’s apartment. Here, there were no brothers, no best friends, just heat and pressure and the faint, metallic taste of blood where his teeth had caught his own lip.“You’re thinking about her again,” Cana murmured. It wasn’t an accusation.It was a flat observation.He stiffened. “I’m not.”
“You are. Your eyes are open, but you’re not seeing me.” Her hand slid from his neck to his cheek, a rough, calloused touch that was jarringly tender. “Look at me, Natsu.”
He opened his eyes. Her face was inches away, sharp and real in the gloom.She wasn’t smiling. There was a weary understanding there, and something else—a pragmatic kind of pity that burned worse than contempt.
“This doesn’t fix it,” she said.
“I know.”
“But you want to keep going anyway.”
He nodded, a short, jerky motion.He did want to. The physicality of it was a drug, a temporary noise to drown out the silent screaming in his head. If he stopped now, the thoughts would flood back in: Zeref’s smirk, Lucy’s delighted eyes, his own pathetic cowardice.Cana studied him for another long moment. Then she let out a quiet breath, a sigh that seemed to hold the weight of every bad decision she’d ever made or witnessed. “Fine,” she said.Her voice lost its rasp, becoming strangely direct, almost instructional. “But we do it my way. You’re about as subtle as a forest fire, and I’m not a wall to be hammered down.”
Before he could process what that meant, her hands were moving.One found his wrist, her fingers circling it. Her touch was firm, unyielding.She pulled his hand from where it had been braced against the wall beside her head.
For a second, he resisted, muscles tight with confused tension.Then he let her move him. SHE GUIDES HIS HAND.
Her fingers wrapped around his wrist, her touch decisive but not cruel. She guided his hand, which had been balled into a fist, downward. She pressed his open palm flat against the cool, slightly damp wall beside her head. The plaster felt gritty under his skin.It was an anchoring point, a tether to something solid.
“See?” Cana’s voice was low, closer to his ear now. “Not everything needs to be a fight.”
He blinked, staring at their joined hands against the wall. His own looked ruddy and tense, dwarfing her slimmer, steadier one. The simple act of being directed, of having his frantic energy channeled into just holding still, sent a weird calm through him. His breathing, which had been coming in sharp gasps, began to even out to match hers.
For a long moment, they stayed like that, connected at the hand, her other one still loose in his hair. The wild panic in his chest receded, leaving behind a thick, shameful exhaustion. He was using her.She knew it.She was letting him. The transaction was clear and ugly in the dim light.Cana turned her head slightly, her temple now resting against his. She studied the side of his face.“You’re gonna hate yourself tomorrow,” she stated, no judgment, just fact.
“I hate myself right now,” Natsu muttered, the words slipping out before he could cage them.
“Good.Means you’re not completely stupid.” She finally released his wrist. His hand stayed on the wall, as if glued there. She patted his chest once, a firm, almost companionable thump.“But we’re here now. And you’re still buzzing like a live wire.”
He was.The physical calm was superficial. Underneath, the hum of betrayal and jealousy still vibrated, a constant, nauseating frequency. He looked at her mouth, then away, a fresh wave of shame heating his neck.Cana didn’t say anything else. She reached down and took his other hand, the one that had been hanging uselessly at his side. She didn’t lace her fingers with his. She just held it, her grip firm, and took a single step backward, pulling him gently off the wall.His hand fell away from the plaster.
She didn’t turn toward the fire exit or head back to the bar. Instead, she began to walk backwards, leading him slowly, step by reluctant step, down the remainder of the dark hallway. Their footsteps were quiet on the sticky linoleum. His eyes were locked on hers, and in their dark reflection, he saw his own confusion, his own lost-ness.She was steady. An anchor in his chaos, even if this was all wrong.
The EXIT sign glowed red above the door at the end.She reached behind her with her free hand, pushed the metal bar. A rush of afternoon light and city noise flooded the narrow space, shocking and bright.
She didn’t look away from him.She just kept walking, pulling him forward.
SHE LEADS HIM OUT.
The afternoon light outside The Hollow Star was a dull, dusty yellow, filtered through the perpetual haze over the less-polished part of Magnolia. It hit Natsu like a slap, harsh and revealing after the bar’s protective gloom. He squinted, the noise of the city—distant traffic, a shouting vendor, the clang of a dumpster lid—rushing in to fill the silence that had grown between him and Cana.
She finally dropped his hand, the contact breaking with a finality that made his fingers feel cold. She fished in the pocket of her jeans, pulled out a crumpled pack of cigarettes, and lit one with a cupped match. She took a long drag, watching the smoke curl up into the stagnant air.
“My place is two blocks over,” she said, jerking her chin eastward.“It’s not the Ritz.”
Natsu just nodded. Speech felt beyond him. The walk was a blur of cracked sidewalks and the scent of fried food from a nearby stall. He moved automatically, his body following Cana’s lead, his mind a stubborn, broken record of Lucy’s smile, Zeref’s hand. The physical urgency from the hallway had ebbed, replaced by a heavy, leaden feeling in his limbs. What was he doing?This was Cana.They drank together. They occasionally brawled side-by-side at guild functions.This wasn’t them.
Her building was a narrow, four-story walk-up with peeling green paint on the front door.The stairwell smelled of cabbage and mildew. She took the stairs quickly, not looking back to see if he followed.He did, his footsteps echoing hers. On the third floor, she unlocked a plain wooden door and pushed it open.
Cana’s apartment was a single room, dominated by a large, unmade bed heaped with a dark blanket. The rest was functional chaos: a small kitchenette with a piled sink, a table covered in scattered cards and empty bottles, a single overstuffed chair leaking stuffing. The walls were bare but for a stained calendar from three years prior.One window, slightly grimy, let in the same dull light. It was the absolute opposite of Lucy’s warm, curated space. There was no lavender here, no burnt sugar, no softness.It smelled of tobacco, old alcohol, and solitude.
She tossed her keys onto the table, where they skidded and settled among the cards. She didn’t offer him a drink, didn’t ask him to sit. She just turned and looked at him, leaning back against the edge of the table, her arms crossing over her chest. The cigarette dangled from her fingers.
“Last chance to bail, Salamander,” she said, her voice flat. “Walk out that door, go train until you puke, punch a hole in a wall.Get it out clean.”
He stood just inside the doorway, the thin carpet rough under his shoes. The offer was a lifeline he knew he wouldn’t take. Bailing meant being alone with his thoughts.It meant imagining what Zeref and Lucy were doing right now. It meant acknowledging the sheer, staggering depth of his own failure. The emptiness of this room, Cana’s stark, unsentimental gaze—it was a kind of truth.It matched the howling void inside him.
He shook his head, a tiny, almost imperceptible movement.
Cana took a final drag, crushed the cigarette butt into a chipped ashtray on the table behind her. “Okay then,” she sighed. She pushed off from the table and walked toward him, not with seduction, but with a weary purpose. She stopped a foot away, her eyes scanning his face again, reading the conflict, the shame, the stubborn need.
She reached out and didn’t touch his face this time.Her hands went to the hem of his t-shirt. “Arms up,” she said, her tone devoid of inflection.He obeyed, a marionette with cut strings. He raised his arms, and she pulled the shirt up and over his head, tossing it aside onto the floor.The air in the apartment was cool against his skin. He stood there, exposed, feeling more vulnerable than he ever had in a fight.Cana’s appraisal was clinical. She saw the lean muscle, the old scars, the rapid, shallow rise and fall of his chest. She didn’t comment. She just unfastened her own belt, the leather sliding through the loops with a quiet hiss.