A/N: I really wanted to write something for Valentine's Day so I came up with this. This Oneshot is for the Spring Harmony Festival in Sunshine Islands. I believe this is a sappy/clique story but that's my opinion. If you don't like then don't read. Enjoy!
Two men sat facing each other in the Diner, a plate of grilled fish, a bowl of porridge and two glasses of milk in front of them. One had a parrot perched on his shoulder; other was dressed like a cowboy.
"So what are you going to do for the Spring Harmony Festival this year?" the man with the parrot asked while stabbing his fork into the flesh of the fish.
"Am I supposed to do something that day?" the man dressed like a cowboy replied in confusion, sipping his milk.
"Dude, you're supposed to give cookies to the one you love."
"Says who?"
"It's tradition, Vaughn. Besides, didn't Chelsea give you something at the Winter Harmony Festival?"
The man named Vaughn pulled his Stetson- his trademark hat- down, hiding his blushing face, and nodded.
"Then you should give her something back! If I'm not mistaken," the parrot man grinned before continuing, "didn't the two of you get together after that? I heard all about it from Lanna. You yelled at Sabrina that you wouldn't accept her cookies then Chelsea appeared and you took her cookies without missing a beat. From what I heard from Lanna, who heard from Julia, you tried to kiss her, didn't you?"
"Shut up, Denny, that's none of your business," Vaughn growled.
Denny just smiled and the two of them proceeded to just eat their food. After a while Denny interrupted the silence. "So are you planning to give Chelsea anything? You know, considering she's your girlfriend and all."
Vaughn groaned inwardly. Couldn't Denny leave this topic alone? "When is it?"
"It's next week; next Friday, to be precise."
"Too bad," Vaughn shrugged. "I don't do Fridays."
"So you're not going to do anything?"
"What am I supposed to do?"
"Come up with something and surprise her. I'll help you with it, but you have to come up with your own plan."
Vaughn smirked and started brainstorming. Not a bad idea, not a bad idea at all....
xxx
Spring 14
A young woman with shoulder length brown hair walked into the animal shop, causing the bell overhead to ring and alerting the owner and her daughter.
"Hello Mirabelle, hey Julia."
"Hello Chelsea, what can I do for you today?" Mirabelle questioned, moving toward the animal feed.
"Oh, I'm just waiting for Julia," Chelsea replied, smiling. She turned to look into the next room. "Julia, are you done yet? The others will probably be at my house soon."
"I'm coming, just wait a moment," she replied hurriedly. Picking up the stack of paper on the table, she handed them to her mom then turned to Chelsea with a smile. "Okay, let's go."
"Aren't you forgetting something?" Chelsea asked.
"Huh? I am?" Julia paused to think then ran to her room, grabbed a box, and came back out. "Okay let's go now."
The two of them walked back to Chelsea's ranch, Leaf Ranch. Not long after they got there, Natalie, Sabrina, Lanna and Lily arrived, and the group of girls proceeded to talk about what they had received from their respective boyfriends.
"So did everyone get something for Spring Harmony?" Julia questioned, unaware of Chelsea biting her lip and looking momentarily sad. "Let's hear about it! Natalie, you go first."
She looked surprised but started her tale nonetheless. "Pierre came into my house this morning and gave me some cookies. He said something like he was thinking of me when he made these." She took out the box of cookies and sure enough, they were in the shape of fruits.
"You are so lucky he made those for you" Lily remarked.
"Why is that?" Natalie questioned, munching on her lover's homemade cookies.
"He made them especially for you."
"Didn't Will get you anything?"
"He got me these," Lily took out a box and opened it to reveal cookies of different shapes sizes. "It's nice of him to give me something but I wish it rather be like Natalie's." She sighed. "Well, Sabrina, what did you get?"
Sabrina looked up, startled. "M-me? W-well, I got some chocolate cookies..." she trailed off, blushing.
"Did you get something else? There has to be something besides that, you're as red as a tomato," Natalie commented, narrowing her eyes in a friendly manner.
"M-Mark came to my house this morning and h-he sang to me." Sabrina's face was burning red as she finally got the words out of her mouth.
All the other young women stared at her, wide-eyed, with their mouths hanging open. Julia was the first to recover and she started awing at the cuteness. "Wow Sabrina, Mark sounds awesome. You better watch out, you never know when someone will steal him from you."
"Julia! Don't say that," Lily scowled. "I'm sure Mark will never do anything to harm you, Sabrina."
Sabrina just smiled. "How about you, Lanna? Did you get anything from Denny?"
"He gave me a giant cookie in the shape of a fish. I left it home since it's too much hassle to carry around," Lanna giggled. "How about you, Julia? I'm sure Elliot made a lot of things for you."
Julia smiled and showed everyone the contents of the box she had brought. There were cookies, chocolate cookies, vanilla cookies and even orange cookies. "You guys can have some; I probably won't be able to eat them all."
Everyone took a cookie and munched on it as they turned to look at Chelsea. "Hey Chelsea, what did you get?" Lily asked.
She tilted her head slightly and looked at them. "Me? I didn't get anything. Vaughn isn't here on Fridays," Chelsea replied swiftly, not batting an eyelash.
"But didn't he give you anything before today? Wasn't he here on Monday and Tuesday?" Natalie questioned.
"He was here but he didn't say anything about today," Chelsea replied.
"But that's not right!" Lanna argued, shocking everyone.
"What do you mean, Lanna?" Chelsea asked.
"Denny told me that Vaughn had something planned since he couldn't be here today."
As Lanna finished speaking there was the sound of someone knocking. Chelsea got up and answered the door, revealing Taro.
"Ah hello Chelsea. Mirabelle gave this to me to give to you so here you are. I'm going to go now, you have a nice day."
Chelsea took the package and closed the door, heading back to her spot in their circle. She shook it gently but it made no sound so she stared at it as if she had x-ray vision.
"Hey, maybe that's from Vaughn. C'mon Chelsea, open it" Lanna exclaimed.
"Lanna, calm down. If Chelsea doesn't want to open it then she doesn't have to. It's for her, remember," Julia reasoned as her eyes strayed to glance at it.
Lily and Sabrina sat quietly and just waited while Natalie rolled her eyes. Chelsea laughed and proceeded to peel off the wrapping paper.
Underneath the wrapping paper sat a square brown box with a card stuck on top. Chelsea's name was written on top in Vaughn's neat writing. She gently removed the card and opened it. "Sorry I couldn't be here to give it to you in person but I reckoned you'd like it on the actual day. Meet me at Animal Island tonight and Happy Spring Harmony."
Chelsea read the card again, this time out loud to her friends. Giggles filled the air and Chelsea couldn't help but smile. She opened the brown box to reveal another box. This one was in the shape of a heart, like the one she had given him on Winter Harmony. It was black but instead of white lace it had red lace, her favourite colour. The brilliant scarlet frills ran across the box, holding the heart together. It was almost an exact replica of the one she had given Vaughn.
"Wow, I can't believe he got you that!" Julia exclaimed, her mouth hanging open in an O shape.
Natalie stared at the box, unblinking. "Did he come up with that himself?"
"It seems your boyfriend is a keeper" Lily stated calmly, smiling.
"Awww, your boyfriend is awesome, Chels" Lanna giggled.
Sabrina didn't make any comments, just smiled.
Chelsea unravelled the lace and opened the box to reveal cookies in different animal shapes and sizes. Each cookie had details carefully drawn on in icing with the correct colour. The cow ones were chocolate cookies with white icing for spots and pink for the nose. She pulled out a pig shaped one and stared at it. It had a very close resemblance to her pig, Ribbon.
She looked at the cookie for a while before munching on the swirly tail, biting it off then licking her lips. Her friends watched her facial expression with amusement.
"You guys can have some, you know. They're really good," Chelsea offered to her friends while still licking her lips, a grin on her face.
They shook their heads and refused. "Nah, it's your first Spring Harmony present from Vaughn, you should enjoy it."
Chelsea shrugged and took out a cow cookie, starting to munch on it.
"So are you going to meet Vaughn tonight?" Julia asked as she ate her own cookies.
"Yeah- but we have tons of time before then. So, does anyone have anything else to share?" Chelsea asked winking at Julia.
Lanna noticed and started shooting question after question at Julia while the others just laughed. Julia glared at Chelsea and she just smirked in response.
xxx
Spring 14 Night
"Hey Kirk, can you take me to Animal Island?" Chelsea asked from the dock.
"Sure Chelsea, get on," he replied, getting the boat ready.
She jumped onto the boat and stood carefully as Kirk started it. She did wonder why he didn't ask her why she was travelling so late like he usually did but her excitement and curiosity at what Vaughn was up to chased it away.
Chelsea thanked Kirk as she jumped off the boat onto the island. The sun had set and the moon was starting to rise higher into the sky. She walked toward the feeding trough and looked around. Spotting nothing, she started walking toward the trees that grew in the back of the Island when she felt an arm around her waist pulling her.
"Chelsea..." the man whispered, his breath tickling her ear.
"Vaughn!" she gasped, surprised. He spun her around so she faced him. His silver hair glowed in the moonlight. She reached her hands up and took off his hat. "You look better without your hat," she stated as a smile crept onto her lips.
A light blush painted his cheeks and he reached up to his hat to cover his face, remembered that Chelsea had taken his hat off, and scowled light-heartedly.
She laughed, her voice filling the air and he couldn't help but smile. Bringing his lips to hers, he gave her a kiss.
When they broke apart, Chelsea's face was bright red and she turned to look at the ground making Vaughn to chuckle. He put one hand under her chin and tipped her head back up so she was looking at him once more.
"Why are you here today?" Chelsea asked, her face burning.
"Today's a special festival day, isn't it?" Vaughn questioned her back, smirking. "I couldn't let this opportunity for you to show your friends how good I treat you slip away."
"They were impressed, but I do wonder if it was your idea in the first place. I never thought you were the kind of guy to do something like this," Chelsea stated. "Not that I didn't like it. I loved it, it was a nice surprise."
"I'm glad you like it. Denny reminded me."
"So that does mean you didn't come up with this. I knew it was too good to be true," Chelsea muttered, half to herself and half to Vaughn. She started saying something else but Vaughn silenced her with another kiss.
"Chelsea, just stop talking, okay?" Vaughn asked as she blushed even harder, if that was even possible. They walked toward the stump where the Harvest Sprite stood- although Vaughn didn't know that.
"Why did you want me to meet you here, of all places?" Chelsea questioned.
Vaughn rolled his eyes and sighed. "Do you ever stop asking questions?"
"I will after you answer all my questions," she replied, grinning slyly.
Vaughn smirked and shook his head before whistling a tune. The bushes and trees in the distance shook. Mice and badgers slowly wandered out, walking towards Vaughn and Chelsea.
A total of six mice and eight badgers stopped in front of them; dropped off the items they carried in their mouths and wandered off again, leaving Chelsea staring in astonishment.
Vaughn walked over and picked up multiple firefly flowers and twin herbs. Chelsea watched in amazement as he wove them together to make a wreath. The firefly flowers held on to each other tightly with the twin herbs placed on top of the knots. Holding it delicately, he placed it gently on Chelsea's head and kissed her lips gently.
She looked up into his sparkling violet eyes and smiled. Reaching out her hand, she touched the wreath delicately, feeling every curve, every petal and every stem and hugged Vaughn.
"Thank you, Vaughn. I'm glad you're here and this has got to be the best Spring Harmony present ever," Chelsea said softly, her chin resting on his shoulder.
"I'm happy you like it," Vaughn replied as he placed his arms around her waist. "Do you have any more questions?"
Chelsea giggled, shook her head and looked up at the moon. She thought of her cookies at home and couldn't wait until winter arrived. Grinning mischievously, unknown to Vaughn, she started thinking of what to give him for Winter Harmony.
A/N: I know I based "Heart Shaped Box" on Island of Happiness but let's just pretend it was for Winter Harmony too, okay? =) Comments/Reviews are always welcome! Happy Valentine's Day everyone (Happy Birthday to me :D) and also Happy Chinese New Year!