Chapter One:
Nice to Meet You

"Get outta here!"

What a thing to wake up to. My parents apparently had it with me. They were kicking me out.

"Please, wait! I'll be out of here soon, just don't kick me out!" I begged them, but to no avail. I was out on my butt with a thousand G and a name. That isn't much.

I've never been any good at anything. No, I mean it; I can't do anything right. Nothing I ever did worked. I was twenty-four and didn't have a clue as to what I was going to do with the rest of my life. Oh, I can just hear some of you now: "Only twenty-four? But you've got the rest of your life ahead of you!" Obviously those who say this don't understand the situation I was in.

Allow me to enlighten you. I'm the youngest in a family of four kids, all of whom are now successfully living on their own. One's a lawyer, the other a doctor, and the last a police officer. So, I bet you're wondering what I am, huh? I was unemployed, armed with a useless bachelor's in Cultural Studies, and still living in the city with my very disappointed parents. Certainly shattered the family tradition didn't I?

My parents always said "Don't worry, Chelsea, you'll figure it out." But they soon got tired of my constant failures and kicked me out, and then they started saying "You ought to worry and start figuring it out!" They were so used to raising success stories that dealing with me was just too tiring. So as soon as they told me to start packing I started thinking. I couldn't succeed in the city so I should find a new place to live.

The day I left my parent's home was bleak. Well, literally it was a clear beautiful day that I would have otherwise been enjoying, but metaphorically there was no sun shining on me that day. I was sitting at a bus stop when a flyer suddenly appeared in my face.

"You look like you could use a fresh start, little lady," said a saleswoman, she held the flyer so close to my eyes it was difficult to see what it was advertising.

"A…new start?" I asked, looking up. The sun was in my eyes so I couldn't see her well.

"Yup! Board this boat and it'll take you to one of the new island settlements. Make new friends, find your niche, and even fall in love!" She sounded like an infomercial, minus the lousy music, but it was the mention of finding my niche that sold me.

"Really?"

"Yes-siree! Just look for the boat on the flyer, and good luck, hun," she said, and shoved the ad in my hand and ran off to find another customer.

I looked at the boat pictured and before I knew it, I was looking at the real thing. The sailor at the dock took most of the money I had on me and asked for my information before letting me on. He asked such things like my name, birthday, and my gender (as if the long hair and boobs weren't a dead giveaway).

Like I said earlier, the sky was clear and now that I was on the boat watching the waves break my future was looking brighter. But as they say there is always clam before a storm. Perfect time to take a nap.

I woke up to yells and screams and unstable ground. The captain was demanding that the lifeboats be set up. Only moments later did I hear the splash of those very vessels hitting the water. I ran out of my room and ran to the rail only to see that my ticket to a new life was leaving without me. I yelled after them but apparently they couldn't hear me. Trust me I would've stayed out longer, waving my arms to a group of people who couldn't rescue me, but there was a flash a lightening and a clap of thunder that sent me scrambling back inside.

I must have passed out because the next thing I knew an old man in overalls was introducing me to his family.

"So, what now?" I asked.

"Well, we were all looking for an island home, right?" said the old man, Mr. Taro.

"You're not thinking we stay here?" asked his daughter, Felicia.

"Why not? From what we saw the buildings have held up pretty well," Felicia's daughter, Natalie said.

"There's even a ranch," the son, Elliot, mentioned.

"We can start that Shipping business we wanted." Mr. Taro exclaimed.

"Yeah, but what would you ship?" I asked.

Everyone paused for a moment in thought.

"The things grown at that ranch, of course!" Mr. Taro said.

"Okay."

"The stuff you'll be producing."

"Okay—wait. What?"

"You can take over the farm! Come, let's go see it."

Before I could protest Mr. Taro was leading me to the abandoned farm.

The place certainly looked abandoned. There were rocks, stumps, and weeds everywhere and they didn't look easy to clean up.

"This place is a mess!" I said once we looked it over.

"Yep, but there buildings are sturdy," he said, banging on the house, "They aren't falling down anytime soon."

"But...just look at the mess! Mr. Taro I can't take care of this place by myself!"

"You won't be. My family and I will help you clean it all up. And we're here for you, whether you fail or succeed. Why not just give it a shot?"

I wanted to argue with him. I wanted to say no and tell him that I would rather go home. But I had no home, and Mr. Taro was offering me one.

Now, obviously, a person's dream job is hardly ever (99.9 percent never) handed their dream job, but, sometimes, there's a person who is lucky enough to have that job just given to them. And I'm the lucky .1 percent that was given that chance. I didn't know it at the time, but Mr. Taro had just paved the way for the time of my life, and many times after.

"Okay, fine. I'll do it. But I'll defiantly need that help cleaning this field, ASAP!" I told him, grinning.

"That's the spirit! I'll get everyone now!" He said, and he scurried off to get his family.

So, that's how I found myself to be the owner of Chance Ranch, in this itty-bitty excuse of a house, second-guessing my choice of taking on a farm that no one wanted. Some new life the whole situation turned out to be.

The next morning, I kid you not I spent an hour trying to figure out how to plant turnip seeds properly. I never did figure it out on my own. Mr. Taro came by and showed me all the ropes, taught me everything I needed. That same day he introduced me to Chen and Charlie, who I bought seeds and other things I needed, days later he introduced me to Mirabelle and Julia then Gannon, and finally Vaughn (who was a bit of a jerk). He even invited me to dinner with his family every night. The geezer was the only reason I continued living on that island, well, before fishing.

One day, Mr. Taro came to my doorstep, fishing rod in hand, and told me he was going to teach me how to fish. I had only ever seen people fish in the movies, so I wasn't so sure about this lesson of ours, I was still having trouble handling the hoe. But, it wasn't like that at all. No, I finally had found something that I can do right. My first catch was a medium sized fish, a Snakehead.

"Hey, you're a natural at this! You sure you haven't fished before?" Mr. Taro had asked me.

I shook my head, "No, but this is really fun!" I said, casting my line again.

After that fateful day, I spent most of my after work hours fishing, visiting the villagers, whose numbers were growing, and having dinner with Mr. Taro and his family and sometimes with Chen and Charlie. I'd visit everyone after work and then I'd fish until I came close to passing out. A few times a season I would get crops, but most of my income came from my daily fishing trips. It wasn't until the middle of Spring did another fisherman finally arrive on the island.

It was almost five, and I was fishing on the dock so when I saw that boat coming in, I assumed it was the guys who collected the shipments. It wasn't. The boat was way too small to be them, but I forced myself to look away from it as it approached. It seemed like an eternity before it finally docked and its one-man crew set foot on the island. He was dark, had curly hair, wore a purple bandanna, and had a bird on his shoulder. He looked like a pirate. A purple pirate.

"Hey there," he greeted once he spotted me.

I looked back at my fishing pole, "Hi."

Have I mentioned how terrible I am with strangers?

The man looked at anything but me, but he eventually took a seat next to me.

"Any luck?" he asked

"Huh?" I wasn't sure what he meant.

"Fishing. Did you catch anything?" he laughed.

I shook my head no. I hadn't caught anything—not even a nibble.

"Aw, bummer."

We sat in silence for a minute or two, I felt as if he was going to leave when I finally had something on my line; it was something big too.

"Whoa!"

"Reel it in!"

I did as I was told, and instead of the large fish I was expecting I brought in a sorry looking boot.

"That isn't a fish," the stranger said.

"Yeah…" I said, unhooking the boot and tossed it on the dock.

The man got up and told me goodbye, said he was going to introduce himself around the island. It wasn't until I couldn't see him did I realize I never caught his name.

I left the beach a few hours later. My luck had changed after I was alone. I shipped most of it except for three medium sized ones for dinner with Chen and Charlie; they tended to be more eager to eat what I caught. After dinner I went straight home after the day's fiasco I couldn't bring myself to stop by and see Mr. Taro and his family.

When I got home, I found an interesting sight waiting for me. The pirate from the dock was sitting in front of my house.

"Hi…?" I said walking closer.

"Oh, hey! You're the girl from before," he said as he got up.

"Yeah…um, just, er…What's your name?"

"Huh? Oh, right. My name's Denny, sorry."

"It's, uh, alright…I'm Chelsea."

"Wait, wait. You're Chelsea? The Chelsea?"

I was confused. Denny seemed to know me. How? I had no clue. He must've noticed my surprise because he apologized.

"It's just that I heard about a great fisher here and…"he admitted trailing off.

My face went red, here this guy was looking for a famous (well, sort of) fisher and he finds her on a dock with nothing but a boot on her line.

"Ah, well…you found her," I laughed nervously.

"Yeah, I guess I did," he laughed too, feeling just as awkward.

"Well, it was nice meeting you, Denny."

"Yeah, same here, Chelsea." He said. Then he left, boy, he must've been disappointed.

That was my first meeting with Denny, and that night I vowed it wouldn't be my last. I was determined to make him mine. Sure, there were other bachelors on the island, specifically Elliot and Vaughn, but Elliot was more like a brother and Vaughn…well Vaughn I wasn't sure he liked me very much. So if I ever wanted to get married (and you bet I did) Denny was the answer.

Author's Note: Good day, readers. This was a story that came to me once I started playing Harvest Moon: Island of Happiness. Originally, I was going for Vaughn, than I stopped playing. Once I started again I set my sights on Denny (but I still ended up with Vaughn). Anyways, I started writing this before Sunshine Islands, so it's based off of Island of Happiness. Enjoy!

Disclaimer: Harvest Moon and all characters belong to Natsume.