Author's notes: This idea struck me for some time now and only recently have I been able to flesh it out a bit. As stated in the summary, there will be multiple pairings throughout the story, however, I do have an idea of what the final pairings will be and, of course, I'll drop hints here and there for you to catch :) Hopefully, you'll enjoy this story and feedback would be amazing!

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Chapter One:
The Proposition

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The aroma of cooked eggs and bacon had seeped through the tiny apartment, crawling into the corners of the small area; the smell at its heaviest in the open kitchen. A tall, slender boy with broad shoulders sat at his kitchen's counter with a newspaper in hand and a plate of half-eaten scrambled eggs and fried bacon set off to the side. He leaned forward as he re-read the paper in front of him with bright green eyes once more before his vision fell to the flat's front door, watching as the faded golden doorknob jiggled violently before the door was forcibly pushed open and in stepped a tiny brunette, clearly flustered with the weighted door.

"Damn thing," she cursed under her breath, removing the apron from her waist before throwing it on the nearby couch.

The seated blond boy stared on with amusement as the small girl continued to mutter dark things to herself, her eyes set downward at the room's brown carpet as she became lost in her thoughts. She hurriedly removed her black sneakers and began to unbutton her frilly pink shirt, not bothering to take off her name-tag that had CHELSEA printed across it in dark, bold letters. He smirked and cleared his throat pointedly before she unbuttoned her work shirt too far and she finally looked up from the ground, squeaking as her cheeks flushed.

"Mark!" she trilled at him as he laughed at her. "Oh, you big idiot! How long have you been standing there?"

"Long enough," he chuckled. "Long night at the diner, Chels?"

She sighed, her prior embarrassment and anger subsiding abruptly, and took the hair tie out of her high ponytail and let her long locks fall freely down her back and shoulders. "Like you wouldn't believe."

"I've got your breakfast wrapped up in the fridge," he said, nodding toward the refrigerator placed on the other side of the counter he was sitting at. "Coffee just got done, too."

"Coffee will do," she said before heading into the open kitchen, pouring herself a generous cup of the dark coffee, adding gracious amounts of cream and sugar before turning to her friend on the opposite side of the dirtied tile counter. Once she was settled in enough, leaning against the shelves next to the stove, she looked at her roommate. "No work for you today?"

"Not till four."

"Oh. How's Christina?"

"Broke up with me."

She bit her lip, averting his blank gaze. "Oh… Well, plenty of other fish in the sea?"

"Not too much into fish," he smiled faintly. "Don't be awkward about it, Chels. I only dated the girl for two months; besides, you can't really romance a lady off of tips from a cafe that sells coffee drinks and pastries."

Chelsea sighed. "You'd think we'd find better jobs by now. It's been like, what? Two seasons since we've graduated college? After this spring season, we'll hit summer and it'll be a year and I'll still be a waitress at a twenty-four hour diner and you'll still be making mocha lattes for soccer moms and business dads. A bit pathetic, isn't it?"

"Afraid so," he agreed dismissively, "but you can't expect much with this economy, eh?" She shrugged, defeated and he clicked his tongue thoughtfully before adding, "that being said, I've got this idea that popped in my head when Christina broke up with me last night."

She looked at Mark questionably. "Oh?"

"It could maybe help us with our money situation," he commented.

She repressed a bitter laugh. "This'll be a good one," she muttered and he ignored her snide remark.

"Well, you know how my sister, Claire, took up that farm in Mineral Town…" he glanced at her and the brunette arched an eyebrow in response, urging him to continue. "And your cousin, what was his name –– Jack, right? Well, I remember you telling me he inherited a farm and moved into it after your grandfather died."

Chelsea snorted before taking a sip of her coffee. "You can't be serious." She frowned behind her mustard colored mug when he didn't falter the slightest as her relatively harsh words collided into him and his building idea.

Mark lifted a single sheet of paper from the daily newspaper delivered every morning to their apartment complex, dangling an article he had highlighted and teared out of the ads space in front of her. She resisted the desire to roll her eyes, instead leaning forward onto the kitchen counter to take a good look at what her blond friend was so insistent upon.

"Look, there's an old farm that's been vacated for about a year on Sunshine Islands. We could scramble up enough money and move there for a bit, make a profit by farming and animal produce, sell the entire property eventually, and move back to the city once we're stable enough to afford an actual decent apartment while we job hunt for our actual careers." He grinned lightly, placing the article back onto the table. "It can't be that hard if my sister and your cousin can run their own farms by themselves."

"Right but they've always been the black sheep of our families," the frown that had claimed Chelsea's face grew heavier and Mark watched as his optimism was drastically weighted down by his counterpart's growing wariness. "Besides, we don't know the first thing to farming when it comes down to it."

Mark squinted downward at the slightly crinkled newspaper set before him, smoothing out the creases with his hands as he bit his lip. Only when another idea was pulled to the forefront of his mind did he look at Chelsea, another bright smile curling at his lips. "Then," he said, "we simply learn how to farm."

"Mark!" cried the brunette, her eyes narrowing into slits at his childish antics. "Stop fooling around! I'm being serious here!"

"I've been visiting Claire since her first year at Mineral Town," he reasoned calmly, "I'm fairly well acquainted with her farm routines. It's really not that hard, and plus, there'd be two of us working together which would lessen the load quite a bit."

"And where are we going to sleep exactly in that house?"

"You take the bed, I'll get the pull out bed in the couch," he shrugged. He cocked an eyebrow at her. "Don't tell me now you think it's going to be weird that we're roommates. I dunno if you've forgotten or not, but we're best friends and we've lived together since the third year of school."

After shooting her friend a crippling glare for his dry remarks, Chelsea sulked back, frowning once more before her shoulders fell in defeat. "You really think this is a good idea?" She furrowed her eyebrows. "I mean, you've actually thought this through?" She chewed on the inside of her cheek, momentarily pausing before she pressed, "and why can't we just move to Mineral Town with your sister?"

"No affordable lots available," Mark answered with an easy shrug. He stood to his feet, tucking his shabby stool under the messy counter, and looked at her with an earnest smile. "I met one of the townspeople there; he travels to other farm towns during the springtime and he'll occasionally visit Sunshine Islands for a vacation or to do odd jobs. In fact, a few of Claire's friends visit the islands on a yearly basis. I know it's not much coming from any stranger's mouth, but they all say it's a nice place; it's just small, like the rest of the farming community generally is. I'm sure your cousin's is equally as limited."

Chelsea recalled a letter Jack had written her aunt once, apologizing for not attending a family gathering because the town he was currently residing in was having a bit of a financial problem and he was in hot pursuit of a rare butterfly or something of that nature that only came around during the summer season. Being the middle of the season, time was of the essence, and while her aunt had a sour smile on for the rest of the reunion, she hadn't called up her son in rage laced with disappointment, but quietly excused his absence instead. Though, maybe her aunt wasn't entirely too letdown because Chelsea had admittedly read a small snippet in his letter of some pink-haired woman that caught her older, handsome cousin's eyes.

The brunette raised her eyebrows in indifference. "I guess. I haven't really talked to him since he's moved there, though."

She frowned again, although, could feel the sides of her mouth strain slightly as she glanced at her roommate whose smile was shining so brightly in the limited amount of sunlight flittering through the dusty blinds of their apartment. Her stomach clenched and she knew she was going to mentally kick herself every morning for the next following seasons, hard, for what she knew she was bound to say next; sighing in almost silent defeat and Mark beamed, grinning rather crookedly.

He could tell she was caving in and his eyes lit with sudden excitement.

"I mean, if Jack can do it… and your sister, well, she's always been a city girl but she seems to be fairing well…" she muttered more to herself than him before shaking her head in intent to clear her cluttering thoughts. "Well," she licked her dry lips, "how much do we need to make this happen?"

"About 15000G," Mark answered, rushing forward as Chelsea's face abruptly paled at the mention of the damaging amount of money the two needed to set this absurd idea in motion. "I've already got 3000 in my savings, you said you had like 1000 from your birthday, right? Claire offered to let me borrow 4000 from her and as for the rest," she caught the quick side-glance he gave and she felt sudden dread overtake her body.

"Mark," she said warningly.

"We'll sell the stuff we don't need here and I mean, I don't think the islands' have cars as transportation––"

"––hold up!" she interrupted him sharply, glaring at her blond friend still residing across the kitchen counter and out of fatal harm's way. "What do you mean they don't have cars?"

For the first time from the start of their conversation, Mark chuckled nervously; all earlier effervescent pretenses falling. She eyed him suspiciously, frowning as he sheepishly scratched the nape of his neck with one hand. "Well, I guess when you have a smaller community like Sunshine Islands or Mineral Town like my sister's, well, ah, everything's pretty much in walking distance and I reckon the exhaust from the car would be bad for the crops and animals…"

Chelsea shook her head feverishly, holding up her hands. "No. No, no, no." she snapped. "No way, Mark."

Finally, Mark had weaved around the tiled counter that had previously divided the two friends and as he approached her, she stepped back. He took another step forward insistently and she, in turn, parroted his move, only in reverse. They continued their game of cat and mouse until the tall blond had his petite roommate backed against the walk-in pantry's closed door.

"Chelsea," he soothed rather charmingly. Her hardened expression didn't falter the least bit. He then rubbed her shoulders in attempt to subdue the tension boiling in her veins, continuing with a faint grin, "we'll be able to buy another car when we come back. In fact, we'll have enough money to buy two, I bet."

Chelsea coldly shrugged off his hands and folded her arms across her chest. "I've had that car since I was sixteen, Mark. It was my birthday present for goddess's sake! You're insane if you think I'd just sell my baby without a second thought!"

"Your 'baby' has a dent the size of a medicine ball on its trunk and the passenger side's door only opens from the outside handle," he told her pointedly. "Besides, it has horrible gas mileage. I bet your parents gave you that car only so you'd practically be forced to get job to fill up the tank every week."

"So how's it going to sell for any money if it's as horrible as you say it is!" she whined in protest.

"Brand name," he answered, "anyone will buy a Lexus, even if it's a piece of shit. They'll buy it for that car brand. My uncle works at a used car lot and he sells those kind of cars all the time. I bet you if we sell that, along with some other stuff we'll never use at the islands, we'll have enough money to buy the farm in two weeks."

Chelsea looked downward, staring at her pink colored socks so she didn't have to meet her friend's determined eyes. If she was going to be honest, Mark somehow always ended up getting his way when it came to anything; girls, grades for his classes, jobs –– anything, you name it, and he could charm his way into obtaining it. She knew, in retrospect, he was going to somehow win in the end and her painted red with cream leather interior baby was going to part ways with her forever.

"What if we don't have enough money in two weeks?" she quipped weakly, finally glancing at her friend and meeting his eyes.

"We stay here," he deadpanned, "we stay here and try to work something else out with the money we do manage to gather up." He held out his hand. "Deal?"

Chelsea paused, swallowing down the morning's events. Admittedly, she knew she was just as miserable as Mark was here with their dead-end trivial jobs with minimum paychecks that just barely made the month's rent along with other bills, no other opportunities springing upon them; the list could go on. Maybe she did need a break from the city's foggy mornings and thick nights to a place where artificial lights wouldn't outshine the sky's stars, where things were a bit simpler and quieter. She sighed to herself before taking his hand, hesitantly shaking it.

"Deal."