Hello, it's Kuruk with a new long-fic.

I know, I know. I have too much out. Well, I really like this one. It's a first, so bear with me.

Let me give you a warning. This story does contain yaoi... as in M/M slash. For now it'll be a T rating but in later chapters, mostly when the characters become teenagers, due to the language teens use and of course, maybe a few sexual scenes... So just a warning. If you don't like it then don't read it. Really, no flames please.

This is actually a first for me. As in my first yaoi fic on FanFiction. But this idea grasped me and wouldn't let go so I just had to write it.

Disclaimer: I do not own Harvest Moon, unfortunately...

Hope you enjoy. :D

Oh, Teenage Hopes

Prologue

This story starts and ends, with a boy.

It's a story of disaster, isolation, love; both unrequited and otherwise, rejection, acceptance, and, above all, friendship and just how far such a thing can go, even when love I brought into the equation.

My hopes, no matter how dumb or stupid they were, have always; and will always, revolve around that boy… the same one that begins and ends this story…

And so my story begins…

This story began on the day that I met him, the boy…

I was five at the time, so young yet so sharp, as my mom used to say. Her piercing, deep blue eyes would bore into mine; mirror images of hers, her fiery red hair cropped short, almost boyishly, was the same shade of crimson mine was.

We looked so much alike that I would later wonder if my father really was my father. He; a tall, brown-haired and eyed man, strong and proud; yet so kind at the same time, claimed to be my father. I; an average-sized, weak and timid, cool and distant boy that looked like my mother, saw that there were almost no similarities between my father and I. He was… the very thing that I ached so much to be but could never in my wildest dreams even try to compare to.

Even so, even though I knew that my father never understood me, he always tried to. He would smile at me when I explained the techniques I would use; cross-hatching and sfumatto, to finish my paintings of the mountains or the sea at sunset. He would watch with an encouraging smile as I read my books and gave each of my toys roles; invented entire scenarios with them that were never the same twice.

I could see that he was disappointed in me even though he never expressed it. In those, big, sad chocolate-colored eyes of his I saw the disappointment and the lost hopes; the hope that his son would grow up big and strong and active and would ask him to teach him how to do… well, manly things…

He loved me; a lot. He tried showing it as much as he could, and his love, untainted by the disappointed that lingered on those eyes of his, would spur me on through my life, providing me with the reassurance that he would always love me no matter what.

My mom… she was different.

She never was disappointed with anything I did. Whenever I would show her one of my drawings she would compliment on it, when I explained to her how I used shading to provide the illusion of 3-D form she would actually listen and understand what I was saying, not feign interest like my dad did.



My mom was the closest thing to me; we were so alike in so many ways and in the areas of the mind we seemed to have the same workings. It was because of that that she was so patient and understanding with me; never not supporting anything that I did.

But, both my parents had always been concerned with the way that I would lock myself in my room and wouldn't leave the house, let alone the farm. So, one day, when I was five, my mom told my dad to introduce me to the other kids in town.

He'd gladly complied, putting off hours of farm work that would surely come back and bite him in the behind later just to take my out to meet a few of the neighborhood kids. I guess he thought that maybe playing with others my age would encourage the behavior that he had tried to foster in me, and failed.

Maybe, just maybe, by introducing me to them, he would finally make me 'normal'.

I held his hand as he led me through the village, a proud smile on his face as we walked past the villagers. They would wave and smile at me; tell me how cute and smart I was; and that made my dad proud. Even though he'd always wanted for the villagers to tell me how big, strong and brave I was, he settled for the compliments they gave me, well, because, he had never gotten those compliments himself.

While I paled in one aspect, I was superior to most in another. And that; me being good at something, I mean, made my dad proud. And by making him proud, I made myself happy; happy that my dad was finally proud of something that I did.

Then I remember arriving at the Goddess Spring and seeing those two for the first time in my life; the two people that would become so integral in my life that I wouldn't be able to think of a day without them; without loving and hating them…

But at that moment I was so terrified that I remember hiding behind my dad's thigh, poking my head out just a little so I could see the kids I was about to be introduced to.

My dad waved at them and they ran over excitedly. "Jack! Jack!" the boy called, looking a bit flustered and out of breath, his wispy blonde hair bouncing on his head in a cowlick style.

The girl got to us first. She was… probably the first girl I'd seen that was my age. She looked… I don't know, at that age… disgusting yet intriguing at the same time? Her dark brown hair was fixed into braided ponytails and the strangest reddish eyes I'd ever seen.

"Who's that, Jack?" she asked my dad, pointing at me in a surly manner that made me want to run for cover.

My dad chuckled heartily and crouched down to their level, pushing me into their line of sight where I immediately looked down at my shoes as if they were the most interesting things in the entire world at the moment.

"This is my son," the kids gasped as if it were unthinkable that my dad had a son, "His name is Isaac… he's five; like you Hugh!"

The boy smiled at me as if we were friends already, but I looked away timidly, avoiding eye contact like the plague. I squeezed my father's hand for any type of familiar reassurance I could get from him, trying to make him tell me that everything was okay; that these kids weren't as scary and foreign as they seemed to me…

"Well…" my father said, "Isaac wants to play with you guys too, is it okay if he does?"

The boy, Hugh, nodded immediately, an eager look on his face. The girl, Kate, seemed to consider this for a few minutes; the scariest minutes of my short life, and then nodded reluctantly. "Fine," Kate said, a mischievous glint in her eyes, "But only if… you're it!" she shoved me hard, pushing me down to the ground. Tears welled in my eyes, clouding my vision by making it all blurry.

I reached out for my father, seeking the familiar, calloused hand for comfort… but my small hands didn't find him. I remember what dread I'd felt then; having been abandoned by my father in front of these two strangers… my lip started to quiver, I started to make small sobbing sounds…

"What a crybaby!" Kate yelled, her hands forming little fists as she leaned closer to me, "Looks like the perfect friend for you, Hugh."

"Shut up, Kate," Hugh said, looking flustered. He bent down and extended his hand to me. He had a bandage on his pale skin; that's what I remember thinking when I saw him like that. That he had a freaking bandage on his skin. "It's okay. Kate does that to me all the time," he whispered while Kate occupied herself be kicking at a few rocks, "She's mean… and a girl."

Ah. She was a girl. As if that would explain everything.

But at that age, it did… at least for Hugh. He made a disgusted face and mouthed the word 'eew' and helped me up, easily. He was strong, even at that age. I was scrawny and small for my age, even at that age.

"B-but…" I sniffled, wiping my runny nose on my sleeve, "I… like girls…"

Hugh instantly fell silent, his mouth frozen in a small 'o'. Kate too, had fallen deathly silent, as if I had just grown fangs and wings and had attempted to suck their blood out. "You… like… girls…!?" Hugh exclaimed, chubby little face almost bursting with shock. I nodded in bewilderment, and Kate made coughing sounds, covering the little blush that was spreading on her cheeks with her hand.

"B-but…" Hugh muttered, still shocked out of his little brain, "Girls have cooties-,"

"Like boys don't!?" interrupted Kate, stomping over and leaning forward towards Hugh as if to intimidate him. Hugh did jump back. Whether it was the cooties of the threat of getting attacked by the scary Kate wasn't clear.

I could just watch as Kate and Hugh had an argument... well, basically it consisted of Kate arguing at Hugh while he would lamely reply with some little insult that would make her even angrier.

And despite myself... I smiled.

Maybe I could play with them after all... if I wasn't beat up by Kate first!

A/N: That's the prologue. Things start off slow, but soon, after a few chapters, things will get complicated. Love squares, anyone? Of course Isaac and Hugh will be in it, but then a very confused Kate gets mixed into the situation, not to mention a mischiveous character with magical powers. XD You'll see soon enough.

Like? Please show me what you think!