Disclaimer: I do not own Harvest Moon or any of its characters.
A/N: Please feel free to tell me if I made any mistakes or inconsistencies in a review that I would love for you to leave if you enjoyed reading this.
Prologue
Living in Mineral Town was a totally new but great experience for Claire, and she was especially satisfied with her status as farmer of Garter Ranch. Though she was still an amateur to the trade and didn't exactly have that many animals to care for, she was happy with herself and her gradual progress. However, her satisfaction only revolved around her farm as she still had not made any friends in town.
Claire was a friendly girl, but she wasn't exactly outgoing—at least not until she got to know someone. Because of her quiet disposition she never quite found the courage to go up to people and start talking to them on her own. When she had first moved into town all those months ago, Thomas was her aid when it came to introducing herself to the villagers. For the most part now her social life remained mostly inactive, but she did have one friend. One could even say that he was the only person who really knew her for who she was.
His name was Gotz.
Developing a friendship with this man came naturally as Claire had to be in contact with him nearly everyday due to business and renovations on her farm. He actually forced her out of her shell with his own personality and words whenever she went to him with a job request, but she did not mind in the least.
After getting to know him she knew that someone needed to fix him up, someone needed to care for the fractured pieces of what was him...but no one was around to do it, nor did it seem like anyone wanted to. At least that was what she could gather from the way the other villagers acted around him.
She knew why they treated him the way they did because a few saw it as their responsibility to inform her of his past tragedy concerning his wife and daughter. After all, she was the new girl in town and they didn't want her hanging out with the "wrong people". Now it was quite obvious why Gotz wasn't willing to let anyone close to him.
But Claire was able to succeed.
She was able to walk into his house without knocking, able to sit down and talk to him without asking if he was busy or not. Their stage in the process of friendship had past that of 'comfort zone' and Claire was happy with that. She had befriended him not exactly due to pity for his state of isolation, but because she believed that it wasn't fair for one to be alone especially when one was as broken and internally furious as he. She saw him to be a kind man who had the misfortune of being misunderstood and judged due to an incident that should have never been, and because of that he ended up ostracized.
Now with the Starry Night Festival on the way, she wondered how Gotz would feel having to be alone once again on a holiday where lovers and families spent their evenings surrounded by happiness and warmth.