Hello, guys! It's me, teamBLAZE, and it feels good to post a story once more. Hehe.
My latest craze in HM is Tale of Two Towns, and I simply ADORE Reina. This came up like a sudden thought, and seeing that fanfics about Reina are as less as our fingers, I wanted to contribute something.
As what we always say, Harvest Moon's not ours. Though, we do wish it is, but nope. Enjoy!
CHAPTER 1
Bambusa tulda, Reina jotted down on her notebook, are the largest members of the grass family. Bamboos are some of the fastest-growing plants in the world, due to a unique rhizome-dependent system. Apparently, it was found in abundance on a grove…
She paused, pondering on what she wrote. Is the information of its whereabouts here worthy of a journal to please the Board? she asked herself. Hmm…I guess it would be best to include it, because by the time this will be published, the bamboo grove in Konohana would be protected. As with the pandas living there, she added as she kept writing.
It wasn't that she didn't care for the animals in particular; she was more concerned of the plants living there. They were different from the plants she studied in the university. But then again, she thought as she looked around the whole second floor of her uncle's house, the plants I brought here weren't the same as the village plants, either.
She peered at the hollow center of the bamboo stalk given by the village smithy, Sheng, who claimed he knew best on finding the healthiest bamboos on the grove. She took her penknife and scraped its bark, collecting them on a spare slide. She then stained and viewed it under a microscope. Good, the cells are healthy.
She turned the fine adjustment knob when she heard something clomping on wood. Footsteps?
She suddenly got irritated. Of all the things she hated—aside from fish—it was being disturbed. Lately, her uncle Mako has been pestering her into including his orchard trees into her research. "Mako," she called without looking up from the microscope. "If you're going to tell me again about your favor, I'm still saying no—"
"…Reina?"
It wasn't her uncle's usual gruff voice. Instead, it was a baritone one she had never heard before. She turned around, startled that a stranger might have trespassed inside.
Indeed, it was somebody she hadn't seen from town. He had bushy chestnut-brown hair that reached his collar and wore a blue sweater accentuated with yellow and green stripes over an orange undershirt, similarly designed blue pants and short boots. For some reason, he also had bandages wrapped around his head. His gray eyes displayed surprise from seeing her.
He looked…familiar.
"Reina?" he asked. "Is that you?"
Intimidation replaced Reina's confusion. She gripped her table, where she was working on a while ago, tight. "How did you know my name?"
The stranger seemed a little hurt. "Don't you…remember me?"
From where? She desperately searched her memory for his face, but failed. "Sorry, but I wouldn't ask if I do, right?"
"You know, back at the university?"
With the mention of school, images flashed at Reina's mind: a classroom full of students having Taxonomy, herself as a freshman jotting down notes, and a certain young man raising his hand to answer the teacher's question.
"Are you somehow…a classmate of mine?"
The stranger nodded eagerly, finally making Reina get his point. "Yes! I took Botany at the university, too. We've been classmates for four years."
Odd how I couldn't remember him. But then again, Reina didn't talk much to other students at school.
"Anyway," the stranger continued. "Guess I have to introduce myself again, so that you will remember." He offered his hand. "My name's Phillip. I moved here at Konohana after Miss Ina found me in the mountains injured." So that explains the bandages. "She said I should meet everyone in town."
She almost forgot Phillip trespassed on her room. And off he goes introducing himself. She crossed her arms. "You don't have to climb in here just to say 'hi'. And you should be at the Clinic, if you were injured."
He smiled rather sheepishly. "Sorry. Mako said downstairs that I should meet his niece and let me in. I found—" he pointed to the tree acting as a pillar to her uncle's house—"this tree, and I got curious, so I climbed upstairs." He then pointed to his bandages. "With this…Doctor Ayame said I'm fine now. I stayed at the Clinic since yesterday."
Reina still kept her arms crossed, baffled by the fact he still climbed in. And the nerve of disturbing me and my research!
Phillip must have noticed it, because he shrugged his shoulders and moved backward. "I'm really sorry, Reina. Well, gotta go now." He bowed slightly in apology and left.
Finally, in peace. She returned to her microscope, but now her thoughts flew back to her university days, wondering how on Goddess's name a classmate of hers remembered her.
There wasn't much of her student life revealed in the game, so I figured it could be a good theme for this story.
Read and review, please! I really appreciate it. :)