Looking at her, you'd see a fiery rebellious, lost girl with bright red hair cut short like a boy's. On the particular day that everything changed between us, she was wearing a blue plaid shirt with the sleeves cut off over an orange tank, white shorts, and blue converse. Her burlap sack was slung over her shoulder as usual, and her hair had been growing a little. Nami walked into class and took a seat in the back of the class as usual.

"Hey," she says to Gustafa, a hippie-dippie guy who happened to be one of her close friends. "Have I missed anything?"

Gustafa sighs. "Not much at all. It's a shame the wind hasn't carried our teacher over already."

"Galen probably has a lot more to do other than teach a stupid history class. I don't know why they asked him to do this," Nami says, crossing her arms.

"I think they just wanted to keep him busy after…well…," Gustafa says.

Nami raises an eyebrow. "Say it out loud Gustafa, honour her with the recognition of her life and death."

In that moment, I turned around and caught her eye. She looks at me sideways, as if searching for some amount of weakness in me. It was true that Nina and Galen had been my father's friends, and had welcomed me into the village with open arms. Yet, it was also true that since they'd departed, Galen had wanted nothing to do with me.

As if reading my thoughts, name cleared her throat and says, "Don't sweat grumpy Galen. He probably just sees her light in you. She loved you, y'know? She really did love you."

Gustafa turns around, perplexed, and waves at me. I wave back awkwardly and nod in Nami's direction.

"Jack!" I hear someone call me. I raise an eyebrow to see Rock, the platinum blond boy who lived in the same Inn as Nami, bounding towards me. "You might want to get out there, it looks like the Mineral town boys are back."

I roll my eyes, but get up and take off my ranching gloves.

"Remember," Gustafa warns, getting up, "be a pacifist!"

I smirk at him. "Don't worry, Gustafa, I've got the persuasion of an infomercial."

I rush out of the class and see Cliff and Gray from Mineral town rallied up against Skye and Marlin from Forget-Me-Not-Valley.

"Get outta here Jack," Marlin says, spitting at the ground. "You're not stopping us this time."

"I don't know why you're so excited to get a beating. Pretty boy is a big wimp who goes around stealing things, and you, Marlin, are a completely useless fighter anyway." Cliff says, smiling smugly. Gray pulls his hat father down over his face.

"You want to test that theory?" Marlin says, striding up to Cliff who does not back down.

Skye, the silver-haired thief dubbed 'Phantom Skye' had been discovered when he fell for my sister Jill. He wasn't that bad of a guy, and he'd stopped stealing once they started going out. Marlin was as stubborn as ever, even when Celia was around to try and do what she could to stop him from getting into trouble. Cliff was always looking for a way to prove that he was worth something, and I had no idea why Gray was here. If his grandfather found out he'd be in trouble, and he was supposed to be working at the Blacksmith's shop.

"Guys, there's no reason for you to fight. There's no girl, no glory, no victory, or anything hanging in the midst that would provoke you. All of you like to talk big, but no one here really wants to see either one of you hurt. So why don't we all just get to class?" I say, hands up, walking between the two.

My name's Jack Suzumiya. Eleventh grade was a big pain, especially when I had to run a farm all by myself right after classes. Well, I wasn't completely alone. Takakura was there, providing guidance and dropping off my shipments. Our small village helped out when they could. Rock, Lumina, Nami, Gustafa, Marlin, Celia, Skye, Jill and I were all from Forget-Me-Not Valley. We'd grown up with each other. We stuck up for each other.

But lately, our little gang had started needing way more help than usual. It was true that life was getting harder day by day for both Forget-Me-Not and Mineral Town, but if we were both going to survive the hard times, we'd need to bond together. I just didn't know how to get through to them.