Warning: May contain material not suitable for children under the age of 14. Viewer's discretion is advised due to the story containing material involving language, alcohol use, and suggestive themes. You have been warned and if the content of this story happens to offend you and this warning is clearly visible; then I cannot take responsibility for whatever goes on through your head during or after reading the content of this story. Leave if you are offended. Enjoy! R&R please!
Disclaimer: Natsume and Nintendo own Harvest Moon. (I think)
Under the Moon
Chapter: Epilogue of Letters
It was a day like any other day. Jack was doing his chores around his parents' house to pass the time. Any minutes in Jack's day were used on work to keep him busy. Jack was looking for an apartment in the city so he can start living on his own, but going to an agriculture based college wasn't too wise for the city raised boy who just recently graduated from said school. There was nothing that school taught him that didn't involve living in the country and on a farm. Sure he did learn how to advertise, work phone lines, and mess with stock; though those things did make him a little wealthy, they just didn't feel right.
Jack started to remember his time on an old friend's farm, long ago. He remembered the cows as they chewed their cud and rested outside in the hot sun, the chickens as they swarmed him for taking their hard made eggs, the old dog that he would play with on long days when the old man was busy working in town, and the girl he had met while playing on said farm. It was a bummer when he had to leave, but he only got to stay for one summer. Then his parents would come and pick him up. Jack longed for more of those days; as he longed for the old man's next letter. About a half a year ago, the old man stopped sending Jack letters. Jack only felt that the old man was just getting busy again; retirement only stays exciting for the first some years.
He pushed any of those thoughts out his head and continued mopping the floor. He was going to mop that floor so hard it would shine for decades to come; his parents forever proud of him once more. He needed some actual work bad. His parents said he could go to the city and work at a nearby pub to get his advertisement career going; Jack just wasn't looking for that kind of work though.
The day had finally reached early evening and the mail was just arriving. Jack ran from his post inside the three story mini mansion to the end of their cement driveway and watched as the mail man drove off to the next house. He took the letters from the tin mailbox and began reading through the sets of messages and bills, hoping for a letter from his old friend. To his luck, one was there. He was only at the front door of the mini mansion when he got half way through reading his letter from the old man. He would have been more than willing to wait another full year for a different letter than get the news he was presented with; the only farmer of Mineral Town had died. Along came a piece of paper which Jack managed to figure out was the will. Not a copy of the will, the will the old farmer had personally written out with pen. There was no use to make copies of the will anyway, for Jack was the only one who inherited something; everything. The farm was his, the animals were his if the nearby farm related shops didn't buy them, any money the old man had saved up was his, even every crumb in the old man's pantry was Jack's.
Only one good thing came out of this letter besides a new chance in Mineral Town, his childhood dream home. It wasn't gold in a chest under a tree, a stairway to heaven, or beautiful polygamist women in their mid-twenties waiting for his arrival. The only other good thing was… that it was mandatory.