For the Village Square 12 Days of Christmas Prompt Challenge. Day 7 - Goodbyes.

She'd never run this fast before. She couldn't remember having run before, period.

But she'd never had anything – or anyone – this important to run after.

The spring breeze, so pleasant in the afternoon, tore into Antoinette's lungs as she all but flew towards the marketplace. The muted pounding of her fashionable boots on the dirt path was the only noise that could be heard while the rest of Zephyr Town slept, unknowing they'd wake to find the population one less.

She staggered through the bazaar's entrance, gasping for breath and searching for any glimpse of the sender of the note crumpled in her fist. The stalls were all prepared for tomorrow. Just a few ropes tugged here, a couple canvas and signs lifted there, and the vendors would be ready for business.

For all his recklessness, Dirk had a certain predictability when it came to the sentimentality Antoinette had always judged him so harshly for displaying. If he was going to be anywhere in this blasted place, it would be where she set off to first: Joan and Marian's stall.

His lean frame and the unmistakable feathered cap perched atop it were illuminated by the lamplight. He was stooped over, his hands shuffling through the rucksack he'd set on the stall's countertop.

And then he looked up, the lamplight catching his green eyes and making his smile even brighter.

He said it first. He always said it first.

"Hello."

With that one word, her mind figuratively transformed into a tape recorder.

Pause.

Rewind.

Play.

"Hey!"

Antoinette blinked over her teacup as she took a full sip of her spring tea. She then set it down on the saucer, deliberate, lady-like – not obnoxious or intrusive like the boy who'd just slapped both his hands on her table and all but yelled in her face.

"What do you think of the new farmer?"

Her eyes narrowed. What sort of out-of-the-blue question was that? However, she'd learned from experience that Dirk wasn't deterred by the silent treatment, so she did her best to answer as concisely and with as much clarity as possible.

"I don't."

"Huh?"

"Think of her. I haven't even spoken to her besides telling her my name."

"Well, why not?" Dirk's mouth was quirked with confusion – he honest-to-goodness couldn't comprehend how not everyone was as social as he was. "I know you have trouble talking to people but -"

"It's not talking that's difficult. It's knowing what to say." She wasn't one for chit-chat, for idle gossip. There had to be some kind of common ground with which to build a real conversation upon, and..."What could I possibly have to say to a farmer?" There was a definite sneer in Antoinette's tone, as she had little desire to put forth so much effort into befriending the young woman who had come to try and revive the bazaar.

"You won't know unless you find out, right! I mean, I didn't know she liked cats until last week when she helped me and Marian take care of the stray that was runnin' around outside here." How could Dirk make everything so off-putting, like getting to know complete strangers, sound so...intriguing?

"So what, I just...go up to her and start randomly blabbing like you do?" Another sip of tea, warm like the chuckle Dirk let out at her barb.

"Nah, that's too complicated! Just say 'hi' to her, you know! That's always the best icebreaker."

"Mm," she replied noncommitally. "I guess I could...try that."

"Yeah, awesome! You'll see, Anty." A smile, very cat-like, curled Dirk's lips up. "Just saying 'hello' can be powerful stuff. I mean, that's how I became friends with you."

Antoinette didn't have a witty response to that. In fact, she didn't have any response at all. Just an involuntary smile quickly hidden with a long sip of tea.

She recognized the man – his exotic clothes and darker complexion stood out in Zephyr Town. If she remembered correctly, his name was Amir.

That was all she knew about him. She certainly didn't know why he was standing, staring off into space, by the fountain while a parade of visitors entered the bazaar grounds.

And it wasn't her business to ask, nor his obligation to tell, but something about how he was standing: closed-off, shoulders hunched most inelegantly despite his otherwise regal appearance. It beckoned her. An invitation for those who would take enough care to notice to approach him and...

"Hello."

He turned to her immediately, his ruby eyes expectant. The pressure of having to continue was overpowering. She wondered if Dirk's motor-mouth habits were also a product of similar anxiety, because she could not possibly imagine anyone – even Dirk – being able to just say things so easily, so impromptu.

"I...I thought you should know, the bazaar begins shortly."

"I see. Thank you, but I've..." Amir crossed his arms, his stance guarded. "I've never been to the bazaar."

It seemed an odd response, but Antoinette had no difficulty reading the meaning behind it. The crush of the crowd was enough to keep her away some weeks, and she'd been there numerous occasions. To someone who'd never attended? It would be nothing short of overwhelming, almost cripplingly so, especially if you had no intended destination and just wanted to wander, to browse. You'd likely be carried away by the maddening sea of hagglers, found days later buried under a mountain of losing Lucky Lotto tickets.

"Well. If you'd like, I could...show you a few of my favorite stalls. If you don't mind looking at jewelry and those kind of girly fashion things, that is."

"Oh, I...could you? " Antoinette detected an almost child-like excitement beneath Amir's stoicism. "I actually have been meaning to buy my sister some souvenirs. I'm sure the stalls you're going to would be ideal to find her something."

His prediction was an understatement. The afternoon passed in a blink of an eye, and they exited less than an hour before closing, arms adorned wrist-to-elbow with bags of everything imaginable.

As Dirk had once commented about the bazaar, "If you can't find it there, you don't need it!"

The hotel lobby was busy, but Antoinette managed to follow Amir through it, up to the top floor where they stopped just outside his door. Finally able to set their purchases down, they did so and sorted them out.

In the bag containing her grape tea tins, was a smaller, brown paper one, with about a dozen peppermint sticks poking out the top. Though she generally enjoyed mint, she wouldn't have ever bought this many candies. She fished out the bag and made to hand it to Amir. "I think these are yours."

But Amir waved her off.

"You can keep it, Antoinette. It seemed like a good idea at the time, but I don't think sending my sister so many sweets -" Amir lifted a different bag, bulging full with with fruit chews. "-would be too favorable, in my parents' eyes. I've plenty other things I can send her. Consider it my thanks to you for your assistance."

"I'm just glad you were able to find something for her." She neglected to say that, surely, if he was as close to his sister as it sounded, she would be satisfied with any little trinket. At least, that was the feeling she from the gifts her mother mailed her. It didn't matter if it was a bookmark or a pair of amethyst earrings – Antoinette treasured them all. "It's really not a big deal, but um...you're welcome, anyway."

"It is a 'big deal' to me. I've had a hard time getting to know anyone outside of the hotel staff so far. They've been most kind but...they're often busy., and I don't want to interrupt." She could hear his fondness towards Stuart and Ethel and Daisy, close to the tone of when he spoke about his sister. In the short span of just one afternoon, Amir had become infinitely more personable – someone who wouldn't be so awful, to get to know.

Was that what he was currently thinking of her? Antoinette wasn't one to ask so much as flat-out state her thoughts. "Mm, well...if you ever need a chaperone to the bazaar again, I'd be willing."

"Oh? I'd like that – I'm sure we haven't seen all there is to see, there." A pause, one Antoinette knew from doing it so frequently herself, when she had more to say but not enough confidence to say it. Amir, apparently, had more than her. "Or if you just wanted to stop by here sometime, just to say 'Hi', even, I would like that very much."

"Or just to..." she began to repeat his offer, but the words died on her lips and she just nodded and gathered up her bags, looping her arms through them. "Sure, Amir. I could do that."

Clutching the peppermint sticks tight in her hand as she left the hotel, she went off in search of Dirk, eager to share with him both the candies and her eventful day, knowing he'd be willing to listen to her as much as she had inadvertently listened to him.

The numbness she'd wrapped herself in all evening fell away when she saw the same absence of emotion on her father's face.

Maybe she'd been the one to steal those feelings from him, with all the insults she'd screamed at him this morning when he'd sat her down and told her that her mother wouldn't be coming home tomorrow for her birthday – or ever again, other than to pick up her belongings.

She wanted to apologize for her hurtful words. Her immature way of coping, of turning her pain around and hurling it at anyone foolish enough to try and ease her, when she didn't want to be comforted. She wanted to rant and cry it all out as loud as possible, because it felt like that was the only way anyone would believe such a tiny young lady could harbor so much inside herself.

That didn't make it okay. Especially when the target of her tantrum was her father, who had to be even more devastated than she was.

But Antoinette didn't know how to speak right now. Didn't know how to string a sentence together. She couldn't believe she was even capable of peeling herself out of bed, but here she was, at the edge of the hallway and staring blankly at her father as he did the same at the cup of tea sitting on the coffee table in front of him.

Without a word, she slid onto the couch next to him, wrapping her arms around him and burying her face to his arm. She wanted to cry, but that required too much from her and she was sick of giving too much, or anything it all, when it didn't matter.

His fingers were soon in her hair, idly stroking them just like those nights when she was a child and the thunderstorms frightened her so dreadfully. It was a gesture she was sure she'd outgrown, something reserved for a scared little girl who wanted her daddy.

But while she wasn't a little girl, she was his little girl. And she was scared, and more than anything right now, she needed her father.

Antoinette hugged him tighter, trying to make up for all the nights she'd been unable to hug Mother and now never would.

After some immeasurable stretch of time, sharp knocks on the door jolted her with a gasp. She heard her father begin to explain, but none of the words registered. She knew that knock's off-beat rhythm, and pushed up from the couch, quickly crossing to the door to open it.

"Hey." He attempted a lopsided grin as he stepped inside, but even he couldn't fake the cheerfulness he'd likely come here intending to bring.

His greeting prodded one from her in return, her voice dry and scratchy from hours of disuse. "H-Hi..."

"Your dad...um...your dad told me. He thought...I mean, he thought you wouldn't mind if I..." His shoulders were dotted with the light snow falling, his usual cap replaced by a knit one only half-covering his pink ears. "I haven't told anyone else, and I won't. Not even Ivan, unless you wanted me to, of course. But honest, I can keep my mouth shut, I...um, okay, I guess I'm not doing a good job of that right now, but..."

Antoinette didn't mind. She was thankful, because she wouldn't have been able to do it herself, not for some time. That would mean accepting the reality of it all; that her mother was just like everyone else in her life. Away away away, always trying to get away because there was more out there; more better, more satisfying than anything Antoinette could give.

Everyone but her father, and the boy who caught her as she staggered into his arms and the tears came pouring out.

It'd been almost a year since her parents' divorce, and whenever she asked for him to be there – for dinner at the cafe, for an afternoon at the bazaar, to pass the time early before a festival – he was. Even with his new job at his now-sister-in-law Freya's business taking him outside of Zephyr Town most days, Dirk made time.

Antoinette supposed he always had been that way. Giving of his time, for whoever asked. And she'd never been the type who had been able to ask, not outright, but Dirk had been the one to hear her shouting for that companionship, over the haughty indifference trimming her demeanor.

But did she know how to give it back? And not just to a friend, and not just to her best friend, but to her best friend who'd just had his heart broken.

Because she knew that's what the case was; that's what happened when your heart was broken – the rest of you didn't function either. You didn't talk, nor did you move from the spot under the windmill where you'd confessed your feelings to the girl you loved, and she'd crushed those feelings finer than the flour manufactured at said windmill.

Antoinette stood below, by the stream's edge– one of her favorite spots in town, because it lent itself to peaceful reflection. Today it'd lent itself to observing Dirk surreptitiously, his back to her as he stared up at the windmill's whipping blades, as he'd been doing for the past half-hour.

She'd warned him not to admit his love for Gretel to her, especially seeing as how Antoinette had noticed Gretel attached to Angelo most days. She'd even used her own parents as an example, of her father so blindly holding on to something that wasn't there, and falling all the more further for it.

But Dirk never learned by others' mistakes, only his own.

She wished she could march right up there and tell him, and mean it, that she loved him that way, the way Gretel didn't love him or the way her father still hopelessly loved her mother. And then it would dawn on him, "Oh, yeah!", he felt the same, and the wounds in their souls would miraculously be healed.

She knew it didn't work like that. You didn't fall in love with whom you probably should or, in her case, you'd yet to fall in love at all.

Sometimes all that love got channeled in a different direction, and you found yourself so deeply emotionally entrenched in friendship. An unbending friendship that seemed the most impossible of all in a world where it'd been proven to her that love was a terminable contract, subject to so many limitations and, more often than not, just the inevitable changes that came with the passage of time.

At her core, Antoinette knew the way she loved him wasn't important, so much as how much. She – her friendship, and however unorthodox her way of showing it – was enough for him, so long as his was enough for her. They were enough for each other, when it often felt like they weren't for anyone else.

So whatever she could do – it would be enough, as long as she did anything at all. After all this time, when had it not been? That knowledge filled her with the courage to put one foot in front of the other, and move to Dirk's side, slipping her hand into his.

She didn't care that it was clammy and cold, unlike its warm owner. She only cared that her doing so finally caused Dirk to tear his gaze from the windmill, and acknowledge her with red-rimmed eyes.

"Hey."

All the times he'd been able to make her smile, she finally repaid him. By doing nothing at all except trying to be the friend he'd always been to her.

"Hi."

Their fingers wove together and the windmill spun faster and faster above them as time and the rest of the world slowed down, but inevitably continued on.

"That doesn't make any sense!"

Yes it did. It all made perfect sense.

Dirk was leaving Zephyr Town because everyone left Zephyr Town eventually.

Amir had stopped visiting – which was understandable, since he'd found a bride in a town far off from here - and the general store had closed up when Raul left last Summer. Sherry's honeymoon with Lloyd was now verging on the half-year mark, and judging by the gushing letters and postcards Antoinette had received, their travels mixing both business and pleasure could easily continue on for the foreseeable future.

And Dirk had confided to Antoinette a month ago that Freya was lobbying for a raise at her job, so hopefully she and Ivan could soon permanently relocate to the city – and, without any permission granted from Dirk, bring him along with.

It was the principle of the matter. If Dirk was moving out of Zephyr Town, it'd be because he'd decided to, as he'd just finished spelling out to Antoinette.

"What?! How doesn't it? It's not like I plan to never come back or anything. But for now, I gotta get out of here, y'know?"

Y'know y'know y'know. His little verbal fillers that still, to this day, annoyed her, seemed far less irritating when she considered the prospect of not hearing them again any time soon.

"You don't even know where you're going!" She flapped the letter at him. "'Out of here' is not a...a destination."

"Oh, come on -"

"You expect me to just...accept that you're up and...leaving?! In the middle of the night, like some..." She quite literally had to bite her tongue (something she never did) to keep from saying 'kid', knowing that wasn't she saw him as – and what he would absolutely erupt at being called. She restated her initial question. "...You really expect me to accept this?"

"Yeah." He held her gaze with his own starkly serious one. "I do."

And truly, she did; the why and the lack of where, and especially the how. This would be Dirk's way of leaving: staging what was little more than "a great escape", complete with the hastily scribbled letter she'd found stuffed under the front door upon returning from a late dinner at the cafe, requesting her to meet him at the bazaar grounds so he provide an explanation to the one person who seemed to be interested in hearing it.

"I was gonna do it...you know, 'sensibly', but I can't. I gotta just go...now!" His tone, which had been careful, picked up pace, to its normal rapid-fire intensity. "If I have to hang around and actually say goodbye to everyone – to Kevin and Marian and Joan and everyone else – I'll second-guess it. They'd all try to convince me to stay, or at least guilt me about leaving, and...I know you won't."

No, why would she, when all she talked about was her own hopes to one day also leave this worthless town? They'd never made plans to leave together, mostly because Dirk rarely made plans at all. But when he did make plans – even the nebulous sort, like this – he'd taken her feelings and opinions into consideration.

Somehow, that made it all the much harder, knowing that what she had to say – and what she felt – meant something. Why did it hurt so awfully to be so significant? It's what she'd wanted for so long, from anyone, and all it did now was loosen the tightly-laced wall around her heart, rendering her vulnerable to the sharp dagger on the other end of significance: rejection.

A deep, clarifying breath. This wasn't just about her. "What about Ivan and Freya?"

"They know."

"Is that right?" Dirk essentially, when it came down to it, running away when he had no idea where he was running away to was plenty enough to create discord between the two brothers. Antoinette imagined Ivan would be supportive of Dirk's dreams and aspirations to strike out on his own – just not his execution of them.

"Yeah, I told Ivan tonight, before I tried to find you." Dirk lifted his rucksack from counter and slid it over his shoulders. "I've told him like...a hundred billion times over the past month! I've been saving up money for a while now, and...I don't have it planned out exactly, but I have enough to travel around a few different places and see what's out there for me."

"And what did he have to say?" Antoinette didn't want to anger Dirk, to make the situation any more tense than it was, but maybe if she had more information, she could at least have an idea of how to handle Ivan the next time she saw him.

"What do you think? He thinks...not that it's a bad idea, but that...it's not the way he would do it, so it's...incorrect."

If Dirk was the blades of the windmill – sometimes fast, sometimes leisurely, but always in motion – Ivan was the strong, sentinel-like foundation. It'd been a position thrust upon him at an early age, and Antoinette knew very few men would have risen to the task of so expertly raising both a younger sibling and themselves the way Ivan had.

With a heavy sigh, Dirk rounded from behind the stall, out closer to Antoinette. She was about to force out some kind of affirmation, that she could plainly tell it was destroying him to think he was departing on rocky terms with Ivan, and everyone else.

But Dirk spoke first, his anguish derailing his words off their tracks into one long twisted wreck.

"H-He's gonna think I hate him, Anty. He's gonna...I mean, he's gonna blame himself, but...if I stay here...I could never hate him, but I'll snap. And I can't. I just can't do that, y'know? I...I love him so much, and he's always looking out for me, but...I can do that for myself now. He taught me, better than anyone. Please, if he says anything, just...let him know I don't hate him, and tell him I'll write. I'll write as soon as I get settled somewhere. Him and Marian and Kevin, and you...I'll write."

"I'll tell him..." She paused, recalling how her father had phrased it when they originally moved to Zephyr Town, and her mother remained in the city. "He has his life, and now it's time you had yours. But just because they're different, doesn't mean they have to be entirely separate."

"Ah, that's perfect, yeah! That's what I've been trying to say to him all this time..." Relief washed over Dirk's expression, and his shoulders slouched as though a weight had literally been lifted from them. "Gah, you're a lifesaver!"

That coaxed a smile from her, but one that quickly fell as she ransacked her mind for what to say next. Antoinette's life had been filled with awkward silences, but none of them were with Dirk. She prevented the first one between them from forming by throwing out the most inane questions. "So you're taking the late train? And what about your job at Freya's, you're just quitting without notice?"

"Yeah, and who cares, that job sucked anyway. I only stuck it out because I care about Freya. Working in a mailroom is so...monotonous, I'll find something way better."

"Yes...I'm sure you will."

"And maybe once you get your stall off the ground, you can come to wherever I am, and open shop there, right?"

Goddess, how was she supposed to predict that far into the future when she couldn't even face how she was going to handle tomorrow? She appreciated and envied Dirk's penchant for always trying to put a sunny spin on things, but she couldn't deal with that right now. She didn't want to dwell on this positively or negatively; she didn't want to think on it at all.

"Sure, whatever." She became incredibly focused on the tufts of dandelions lining the path at his feet.

"Anty..." She felt him inching closer. "Anty, if you wanna...I mean, if you don't think I should go, then you can tell me why. Like, I know you've said you're supportive of me leaving before, but now-"

"Yes, Dirk!" Her head shot up, her small hands clenching into fists so tight, her nails tore through the letter. "But now it's different! I want you to leave, I want you to get the hell out of Zephyr Town, because no one should be stuck here their whole lives! I'm not trying to stop you, I just..." Her voice trembled, cracking like the teacup that'd fallen from her hands the morning she learned Mother was leaving. "I just don't know how to...to say..."

The words that wouldn't come were replaced by her stumbling forward into Dirk, his chest muting the sob that escaped into it. Her arms circled him, as strong a hug as she could muster when she was sure there was no strength left inside her.

"Seriously, I'll write. Soon." A promise sealed with a final squeeze and a kiss planted on the crown of her head.

She nodded, but didn't reply, as he pulled away from her and from his life in Zephyr Town. She didn't watch, only listened as his footsteps grew softer and softer until they were completely swallowed into the still of the night.

At last, Antoinette lifted her head. Hot tears tracked down her cheeks as she stared out into the darkness and whispered "Goodbye" to the boy who'd taught her the power of hello.

Um, wow it's been over a year since I wrote Harvest Moon. :O

Yeah so I really really love Dirk? And I have all these headcanons about him leaving Zephyr Town for Konohana, and this is what it turned into. Antoinette is a really underrated character, and while I don't ship her and Dirk exactly, I do definitely champion the idea of them being close as all get-out.

As far as I know, Dirk never mentions her in ToTT :\ I'd like to think that's simply because she's a private person and he wouldn't just gush about her...idk I've overthinking it.

Anyway, the reference to Antoinette having her own stall at the bazaar is the in-game dialogue when she visits your stand. And I know her one heart event is about her deciding to possibly go off to the city to fashion school, but since that's only with Hansel (the male farmer), I figured maybe that never happens if Gretel's in town. :P

Also, a big thanks to Evil Icing for all her support and cheering me on, and a shout-out to therainydaykids for co-modding this event with me (lawl that I hardly participated in SRY)! Also, and EXTREME high-five to everyone in the Village Square Forums who contributed; seriously, you guys are the best, and this is for you (here, have an angsty sad fic as a show of thanks)!