"You're working on something special for the shop, am I right?"
"Y-yes... that's right..."
In the local gift shop of Flower Bud Village, a young man was working on a special invention while the proprietor watched in admiration.
The young man had short, fairly done black hair and wore glasses. He also had on a greenish collar shirt and brown tie.
The young woman close by had wavy pink hair decorated with orangey flowers on both sides of her face. She also wore a dark blue country dress.
"Go ahead and take your time, Louis. I really appreciate the work you're putting into this" the woman smiled.
"T-thank you Lyla..." the nervous young man uttered.
The two of them really enjoyed their tender moment together, until two more people entered the giftshop.
One was a hearty man spotting a green rimmed feather hat with brownish ranger clothes. His reddish bangs neatly stuck out from his had in a fine arrangement. In his hands were pinkcat flowers, which happened to be Lyla's favorite.
The other was a younger man wearing a backwards blue cap and overalls. Two brown tufts of hair stuck out of the cap's hole off to the side, and gave him a loose, carefree appearance about him. Despite this, he was shaking heavily as his face was extremely red. He was likely to be a hundred times more nervous than the man in the glasses as he held a bag of blueberries close to his chest.
Harvest Moon: Magical Melody
Prelude to A Farmer's Romance
"Oh, Basil! Hello! Nice to see you again!" Lyla cried.
Louis and the farmer eyes looked helplessly upon the beautiful young lady as she calmly approached the handsome botanist.
"B-Basil... my arch-nemesis!" Louis thought to himself.
The poor farmer lowered his head in shame. "Great, she didn't even notice me" he thought to himself.
"I share the same pleasure, Lyla! I brought you some beautiful pink cat flowers again! I know how much you appreciate these, and it's a pleasure to have a fellow plant lover in town!" Basil said.
"WHAT!" The farmer panicked in his mind as he saw Lyla's face light up. Shakily, he looked into his bag of blueberries in disappointment. "How dumb could I be? After shipping in so many of those flowers to lure Lyla to the village, I got so caught up in the profit they provide me that I neglected to consider how much she'd actually love them! I overheard how much she enjoyed blueberries, but... but those Pinkcat flowers are getting a much better reaction out of her! Stupid! Stupid!"
"Thank you Basil, you're always so considerate!" Lyla answered in a sweet voice.
Basil then handed her the flower she coveted so much, which the gift shop owner carefully placed in a nearby vase.
"So then, Basil, is there anything you wish to discuss, or is there perhaps something you would like to purchase?" Lyla asked her dear friend.
Basil shook his head. "Just here to make a delivery, ma'am. I'm just glad you're still enjoying the flowers"
"Of course! I would never stop loving flowers!" Lyla exclaimed. "Well, since your done, I suppose it would be polite if I personally see you out, then?"
"It would be a pleasure" Basil answered back.
Happily, the two dear friends walked out of the shop holding hands.
The two hopeful bachelors glared at this scene most anxiously. After the door close, their gazes turned to each other. And such spiteful gazes they gave. A thick tension suddenly filled the gift shop as these two men had their stare down.
"Jack..." Louis growled.
"Louis!" The farmer exclaimed, completely puzzled.
"I notice that you have... blueberries with you. I know for a fact that Lyla just happens to like... blueberries" Louis remarked .
"Yeah, so what! What does this have to do with you, anyway? What the heck are you doing here?" Jack asked.
Louis' inner frustration grew. "I have every right to be here! Even more so than you!" he shouted.
Jack backed off. He was not used to seeing Louis so riled up before. From what he normally sees, Louis is usually a shy and quiet inventor who always loved working on his own little projects. This unexpected side really threw him off.
"I know what's going on here! It's bad enough that I'm fighting a loosing battle with Basil, I don't need some happy-go-lucky playboy going after my Lyla, too!" Louis blatantly declared.
"WHAT!" Jack yelled. "Hey, don't mess with me, pal! I know how fondly you speak of Ann! You love HER, don't you? Then stay out of this!"
"I like Ann... like a SISTER, got it! And as a concerned friend, I am applaud by how you would just discard her like that once someone like Lyla comes along! It was just one date, and you dump here immediately to talk to your other girls! You must think you're really special, huh" Louis shouted back.
In reaction, Jack smacked his forehead. "...stupid rumors... you don't really understand at all, do you?"
"What I understand, is that scum like you doesn't deserve someone as sweet and sincere as my lovely Lyla!" Louis answered back boastfully.
"Listen... Ann and I are just friends, and probably not even close to what you share with her. Besides, SHE was the one who insisted on going on our little date that day. Because I was concerned about how she felt about it, I made my feelings perfectly clear, and I felt she took it just fine! But tell me Lou, when Ann came home that night, was actually crying, or what she even holding back sorrow?" Jack asked in a taunting tone.
Louis thought back the morning after that day. Knowing Jack's reputation, he had to check on her dear friend's condition. To his surprise, Ann looked just fine as she had on her daily smile. There wasn't even a hint of secret sadness on her. In fact, she actually told him how much fun she had, with little signs of romantic attachment to it.
Still, Louis wasn't about to give in. He was well aware of the other girls Jack could essentially have his way with.
"Just stay out of this! What I feel for Lyla is entirely different from what I feel for Ann! A flirt like you would know nothing about it, though! Unlike you, I can barely even talk to women! Unlike Basil, I'm not in the kind of condition to be going out into the mountains to gather beautiful flowers for her! But what I know for sure... is that between the three of us, I'm the one who actually loves her!" Louis proclaimed.
The inventor's words somehow sparked a fire within Jack. Out of all the girls in Flower Bud Village, Lyla just happened to be the one that he had the hardest time talking to. Considering things, he wasn't in any position better than Louis is. All Jack had going for him was the blueberries he gathered from Mt. Moon, INSTEAD of the Pinkcat Flowers she actually loved so much. If he couldn't even find those, Jack resorted to a pathetic ploy of sharing some blueberry jam he bought from her. AT the very least, Louis had the daily privilege of fixing up a special invention for her Flower shop.
"And my ability to talk to people makes you think I could care less about her? You're just making up excuses to make yourself look like the helpless victims! That just makes you sound even more pathetic!" Jack shouted.
Louis' anger grew worse. "DON'T LOOK DOWN AT ME LIKE THAT!"
Jack sighed and lowered his head. "To be completely honest, I've only been able to go as far as make casual friendships with girls. I'm not much in the way of romance or anything like that. I'm not "flirting" with them, like you're assuming... I'm... just putting myself out there to be the nice guy. It's a rough existence when you're trying pursue something more meaningful. It's like... there's an invisible barrier around me that's keeping me from going beyond a friendship. Up to a point, I've been okay with it. I clearly see that most of the ladies in this village have already seen their special someone in another man they've known for sometime. I'm... happy that they've managed to find someone for themselves, but now the flower girl enters the picture, and... my relationship barrier's starting to work against me. I've found someone special after all this time, and I think that she, too, only sees me as little more than a friend. Louis, I'm not saying that your pursuit of Lyla is hopeless, but don't you see the kind of thing you have going with Ann? I've... heard rumors that she's starting to take interest in Blue. Maybe you should deal with what you have before it's too late. Even knowing that I may very well loose this battle, I... want to fight it to the very end."
Jack took a deep breath after his very wordy speech. For the very first time in his life, the farmer felt very hopeless.
Unfortunately for him, Louis wasn't moved.
"Nice guy!" Louis huffed. "Lyla is special to me... I'm not about to give her up just because you can't find true love with a woman! You think I'm supposed to feel pitty... for a "nice guy!"
At this point, Louis was like a bull who saw red, which is really bad for Jack.
"L-Louis!"
"YOU WANT NICE! I'LL SHOW YOU NICE!"
Immediately, the inventor in glasses charged straight at his source of hatred. With little distance between him and Louis, Jack stood little chance at evading. The impact of the collision was so great that the both of them flew straight out the door, where Lyla was conveniently standing.
"Oh, my..." Lyla gasped.
Upon hearing her voice, both Jack and Louis' face turned bright red.
Lyla looked back inside the store and noticed some broken jam jars.
"I see! How gallant of you, Louis! If you hadn't pushed Jack out of the way of those fallen jars, he could've gotten seriously hurt!" she cried.
Both men looked puzzled. Louis immediately stood up and gave an extremely bashful laughter. "Uh... er... unnn... t-t-t-t-thank you, Lyla!"
"Maybe you should come back another time. You used quite a bit of energy working on that special invention of yours. Just let me clean up the mess while you get some rest, okay?" Lyla suggested.
"B-but Lyla... please let me help! I don't mind at all! I... ooh!" Louis fell to his knees from fatigue, but Lyla intercepted and helped him back up.
"I insist" Lyla added.
Louis was still eager to help out with cleaning the gift shop, but he clearly understood Lyla's sentiments, along with his own fatigue.
"Okay... t-thank you for your concern, Lyla. Goodbye, then" Louis uttered.
Luckily for Louis, the shop he worked and stayed at wasn't too far away. He was able to make it back with little trouble. That left Lyla and Jack alone for a little. Unfortunately for Jack, Lyla had some lingering thoughts of her own.
"Louis is always so eager and compassionate about what he does. It makes me so happy to see his enthusiasm everyday. Still, I wonder when the day will come when he can finally ask me out? I can see how badly he wants that, and yet... the poor guy can't find the courage to do so" she huffed aloud to herself.
At that moment, Jack felt completely shot down before he even had the opportunity to confess his feelings for her.
"Well... whenever that day will finally arrive, I'll be happy to oblige!" she exclaimed.
Slowly, Jack approached Lyla, feeling not only invisible to the girl of his dreams, but thoroughly defeated as well. "Just another friend, huh?" he thought to himself.
In a soft voice, Jack presented his gift to Lyla. "Here..."
"Oh, Jack! And you've brought more tasty blueberries, too? It's really hard to be able to have them fresh like this, so I always appreciate it!"
"Thanks..." Jack answered in a somber tone. He then looked back into the store with the broken jars.
"Hmm... yes, those broken jars are going to be a problem. Would you not mind helping clean up with me?" Lyla asked.
Jack exhaled an anxious breath. "S-sure... no problem"
Jack then dragged his dispirited body into the shop to help and went to work like a cleaning zombie, while Lyla followed. She felt really uneasy as she witnessed Jack's depressed expression, leaving the shop very quiet.
At that moment, she couldn't help but sense the remnant's Jack's broken heart and pondered to herself. "... so then, this must mean that Jack actually loved me all this time... I... I just thought he was trying to be a friend like with everybody else. I was really happy to have another friend like Basil hang out with me, but I guess his heart played a strong roll in his kindness, as well. I'm... at a loss here. I can't just treat these poor young men's hearts like my playthings! I... I should probably go to Gwen for help. She's handled plenty of situations like this. She should know what to do. Basil, too. He's always been like a wise older brother to me."
In the midst of his cleaning, Jack raised his head ever so slightly. "You know... Louis has been especially nervous whenever Basil is around. I already know much he adores little Nina, and I can see how much you care for him, so just maybe... he'll know you're available. The poor guy's so shy, that he thinks he's dealing with a hopeless competition. It might actually be a good idea if you're the one who says something, first."
Jack's recent suggestion harshly jabbed his heart. The cruel irony is that he had a refreshing dream on the night after he first met her in the Flower Festival. The two of them were alone in the shop like this, except the two of them weren't cleaning broken jar shards. There was a high tension in the air between the two until Lyla finally spoke.
"Jack, would you be troubled if I were to say that I love you? I want to see your trouble look. Maybe I'll just say it: I love you"
Ever since then, Jack desperately worked to find out about Lyla's preferences, discovering how much she enjoyed blueberries and flowers. What struck him most of all was Lyla's considerable love of pumpkins. With that knowledge in mind, Jack waited for the fall season to arrive so that he could grow the biggest, tastiest pumpkin to present to her, and perhaps make that dream come true. However, knowing now that Lyla had her heart set on Louis, he concluded that the dream wasn't meant for him.
Feeling something very wrong from his depression, Lyla was nearly brought to tears. "Why... is he doing this?"
For the rest of the day, the two of them cleaned up the gift shop in uncomfortable silence.
Author's Note: If you've been reading my other fanfics, you already know how this turns out. If not, then know that Lyla and Jack marry each other. This is supposed to be a prequel to those other stories, after all. But then there's the matter of Louis. Some of you might be wondering, "Did Louis end up happily ever after with Ann? Or is the poor inventor all alone now?" Pretty good questions. I just might answer that in another fanfic... if I feel like it.