Chapter 2: The Hollow Star's Back Room
The air in Cana’s apartment was thick and still, humid with the day’s heat and the faint, chemical smell drifting up from the laundromat below. Natsu stood, shirtless, feeling the grit of the floorboards under his socks. Cana’s belt had joined his shirt on the floor. She faced him now, wearing just her jeans and a simple black bra. Her expression was unreadable, a mask of weary patience.
“Your hands are shaking,” she observed, her voice cutting through the heavy silence.
He looked down at them. They were. Clenched at his sides, the knuckles white. He willed them to stop. They trembbled harder.
“Stop trying to control it,” she said. She stepped closer, into his space. The scent of her—cigarettes, cheap perfume, and something uniquely, musically Cana—wrapped around him, overwhelming the bleach from downstairs. She took his right wrist again. Her skin was cool. “You’re not in a fight. You’re not breaking anything.”
She guided his trembling hand upward and placed it, palm flat, against the lace covering her breast. He froze. The warmth of her, the soft give under the rough texture of the fabric, sent a jolt through him that had nothing to do with anger.
“See?” she whispered. “Just touch. Don’t grab. Don’t crush. Feel.”
He let out a breath he didn’t know he was holding. His fingers, slowly, hesitantly, curled. His thumb brushed over the peak, feeling it tighten beneath the lace. A soft, involuntary sound escaped her, and his eyes snapped to her face. Her mask had slipped, just for a second, revealing something surprised and curiously soft.
“Yeah,” she said, regaining her composure. “Like that.”
His left hand came up on its own, mirroring the right. He let the weight of them settle, learning the shape of her. The frantic energy was channeling now, focusing into this single point of contact. His breathing deepened, syncing with the slow rise and fall of her chest. The shaking in his hands subsided, replaced by a focused, almost reverent attention.
“Okay,” Cana breathed. Her own hands came up to frame his face. Her thumbs smoothed over the tense ridges of his brows. “Now look at me. Really look.”
He dragged his gaze from his hands on her body to her eyes. They were dark pools in the neon-lit gloom, reflecting the faint, shifting pink and blue from the sign outside the window. There was no mockery there. No pity. Just a deep, unflinching presence.
“This is me,” she said, her voice low and steady. “Cana. Not her.”
The words were a bucket of cold water, but also a permission. It shattered the last of the fantasy and anchored him brutally, mercifully, in the now. This wasn’t a dream about Lucy. This was real, gritty, and happening with a woman who knew exactly why he was here and had chosen to be here anyway.
A different kind of hunger sparked in his gut, cleaner and sharper than the rage. He dipped his head, his forehead resting against hers again, closing his eyes. “I see you,” he murmured, and it was the truest thing he’d said all day.
Her lips found his again, but this kiss was nothing like the one in the hallway. It was slower. Deliberate. An exploration. She let him lead, let him learn the shape of her mouth, the sharp edge of her teeth, the slick warmth within. Her hands slid from his face down his neck, over the tense cords of his shoulders, mapping the terrain of his back. Every touch was a lesson.
She broke the kiss and turned, guiding his hands to the clasp of her bra. His fingers, now steady, fumbled with the simple hook. It took him three tries. The fabric loosened, and she shrugged it off, letting it fall silently to join the rest of their discarded clothes.
She turned back to face him, completely bare from the waist up. The neon light painted her skin in surreal stripes of color. He just stared, his mouth dry. All his earlier desperation was gone, burned away by a rising tide of awe and a nervous, pounding need.
“You’re thinking too much,” she said, a ghost of her usual smirk touching her lips. She took his hand again and placed it back on her skin. “Just feel.”
And he did. He learned the weight of her breasts in his palms, the sensitive dip of her waist, the fascinating contrast of the smooth skin over her ribs and the rough texture of a small, forgotten scar on her shoulder. He bent his head, his lips following where his hands had been, tasting the salt on her skin. She arched into him, a low hum vibrating in her throat. Her fingers threaded into his pink hair, not pulling, just holding.
When her hands went to the button of his jeans, he stiffened for a second, a wave of vulnerability crashing over him. She felt it. She paused, looking up at him from under her lashes. “We stop whenever you say,” she said, and the raw honesty in it undid him.
He nodded, unable to speak. He helped her push the denim down over his hips. The cool air hit his skin, and he stood before her, completely exposed, more naked than he had ever been in his life. Her gaze was frank, assessing. He saw no disappointment, only a quiet focus that made the heat in his blood surge.
She led him to the bed. The sheets were cool and smelled faintly of her perfume and laundry detergent. He lay back, and she straddled him, her weight a comfortable, grounding pressure on his hips. The neon from the window outlined her form in a halo of electric color, her chestnut hair falling around her shoulders like a curtain.
For a while, she just rocked against him, letting the friction build a slow, torturous heat. He gripped her thighs, his head thrown back, eyes shut. Images tried to intrude—Lucy’s laugh, Zeref’s cold eyes—but he batted them away, focusing on the physical reality: the bite of Cana’s nails on his chest, the damp heat where their bodies met, the ragged sound of her breathing mixing with his.
“Look at me,” she commanded again, her voice thick.
He opened his eyes. She was watching him, her face flushed, lips parted. She was entirely in the moment, and she was demanding he be there with her. It was the most intimate thing he’d ever experienced.
“Cana,” he gasped, a plea and a confession in one syllable.
She understood. She shifted, reaching for something on the cluttered bedside table. There was a brief, rustling pause, a moment of practical adjustment in the midst of the fervor. Then she guided him into her.
The sensation was overwhelming. It was heat and tightness and a shocking, consuming closeness that obliterated every coherent thought in his head. He cried out, a raw, unfiltered sound. His hips bucked upward involuntarily, and she pressed him down into the mattress with a firm hand on his stomach.
“Easy,” she breathed, riding out his instinctive surge with practiced grace. “Slow. It’s not a race.”
He obeyed, panting, his whole world narrowed to the point where their bodies joined. He let her set the rhythm, a deep, rolling cadence that built the pressure inside him coil by excruciating coil. His hands roamed her body, learning the curve of her spine, the swell of her hips as she moved above him.
He was losing himself, the pleasure a rising tide threatening to sweep away his carefully constructed control. Just as he felt himself teetering on the edge, she leaned down, her hair forming a tent around their faces. Her lips brushed his ear.
“Tell me what you see,” she whispered.
The question, so unexpected, yanked him back from the precipice. His eyes flew open. He saw her—the sweat beading on her upper lip, the faint freckles across her nose usually hidden by makeup, the dark, focused intensity in her eyes. He saw the peeling paint on the ceiling, the flutter of a stray undergarment on the fire escape outside the window, the neon glow painting everything in a dreamlike wash.
“I see you,” he choked out, the realization a physical ache in his chest. “Just you.”
A genuine smile, small and surprised, touched her lips. It was beautiful. Then she increased her pace, and the world dissolved into pure sensation. His release, when it came, was a seismic event that tore through him with a force that left him trembling and gasping, her name a broken mantra on his lips. She followed him over, her body clenching around him, her own cry muffled against the side of his neck.
For a long time, there was only the sound of their ragged breathing and the distant, persistent hum of the laundromat’s dryers. The neon light continued its silent, cyclical parade across the walls.
Slowly, carefully, she rolled off him, collapsing onto her back beside him. The cool air rushed into the space between them. Natsu lay staring at the water stain on the ceiling, feeling utterly, completely hollowed out. The frantic noise in his head was gone. In its place was a vast, silent emptiness. He didn’t feel fixed. He felt… quiet.
Cana lit a cigarette. The flare of the match was blinding in the dim room. She took a deep drag and exhaled a plume of smoke that curled toward the ceiling. She didn’t look at him.
“So,” she said finally, her voice returning to its familiar, raspy nonchalance, though it sounded thinner now, strained. “Lesson one.”
Natsu turned his head to look at her profile. The neon blue light traced the line of her nose, her parted lips. He didn’t know what to say. ‘Thank you’ felt grotesque. ‘I’m sorry’ felt like a lie.
“Don’t,” she said, as if reading his mind. She tapped ash into a bottle cap on the floor. “Just don’t.”
They lay in silence again. The emptiness inside Natsu began to fill, not with peace, but with a creeping, cold clarity. The physical fever had broken. Now the facts remained, sharp and accusing.
Lucy was with Zeref.
He had just slept with Zeref’s ex.
And he had never, in all the years of longing, ever told Lucy how he felt.
The weight of it was worse than the jealousy. It was the weight of his own cowardice.
Cana finished her cigarette and stubbed it out. She sat up, the sheet pooling around her waist. She didn’t look at him as she swung her legs over the side of the bed, presenting him with the view of her bare back, the elegant line of her spine, and the dark, intricate tattoo that spanned her shoulder blades—a design of cascading cards and falling stars he’d never seen before.
“You should go,” she said, her voice quiet but final.
He sat up slowly. His body felt used, sore in unfamiliar ways. He gathered his clothes from the floor, dressing in the heavy silence. Each article felt like a layer of armor returning to a soldier who no longer believed in the war. When he was dressed, he stood by the door, keys in hand.
Cana remained on the edge of the bed, her back to him, a statue in the neon gloom.
“Cana, I…” he began, the words sticking in his throat.
“Go see her,” Cana interrupted, not turning around. Her voice was low, drained. “Or don’t. But figure it out somewhere else.”
There was nothing else to say. He opened the door and stepped back out into the stairwell, the smell of cabbage and mildew replacing the intimate scent of their sweat and her perfume. The door clicked shut behind him, a sound of absolute finality.
He descended the stairs slowly, each step an effort. Outside, the night air was a relief. He walked without direction, the events of the evening playing in a disjointed loop in his mind: Lucy’s joyful announcement, Zeref’s smirk, the dark hallway, Cana’s guiding hands, the profound quiet after.