~Chapter One~

"It was the best of times. It was the worst of times."

A golden red leaf fell on her head, a bright contrast to her light brown hair. The young farmer plucked it off, frowning slightly from the distraction. The old book gave off a musty smell, but she still loved it, loved the torn binding and the yellowed and delicate leaf like pages.

But she didn't like the story. Lillian placed the book down on the ground beside her. She never quite understood why people always considered these old English novels "classics" or "masterpieces." In all truths, they were really very boring and it didn't seem like they had anything very special about them-

Ash tucked a red flower behind her ear, surprising her.

"Ash!" She said with a laugh. "What are you doing?"

He grinned. "What are you doing? I thought we were going fishing today." He grabbed the book from her side. "You chose a book over me?" Ash gave her a mock pout.

"No! I actually forgot we had plans." Lillian said, clapping a hand to her mouth. "Sorry! I got caught up with all my chores and-"

"It's fine," Ash said cheerfully, brushing the issue off fairly quickly. That was the good thing about this guy. He never got mad over anything, he wasn't petty or particular at all. He wasn't like any of the girls in the village who would fly off the handle over the littlest things.

Ash's eyes curiously and briefly travelled down her figure. She shifted uncomfortably. "Are you wearing a new outfit?" he asked.

"Hmm? Yeah." Lillian said. "Nori made it for me. It's called a casual outfit." She spread the fashionable skirt out around her skinny stick like legs.

"Oh . . . the girl in Konohana." Ash's eyes clouded over for a second at the thought of the other town, then cleared up in a instant. "I liked your old one better." He grinned cheekily.

She smiled but rolled her eyes. I didn't wear it for you.

"So what's this book about?" Ash asked, skimming through the pages so fast it didn't look like he was reading it-probably because he wasn't.

"I didn't finish it yet." She snatched it back from him, thinking he might break the poor thing-or at least tried, because abruptly, Ash tightened his hold on it and let himself lean forward. He cocked his head slightly, but didn't release his hold. Lillian felt herself flush when she realized she accidentally pulled him closer to her. Ash casually placed his other hand on the tree trunk behind Lillian, further enclosing them in a small circle, it seemed like.

Light blue met violet. He gazed into her eyes, saying nothing, steadily keeping eye contact with her.

Lillian dropped the book, broke eye contact, and moved away from him. She stood up, and said, without looking at him, "I wish there were some library around here. I can't believe there isn't any in either town." The wind blew her hair slightly around her face.

Ash stood up as well, tapping her head lightly with the book. "Well, no one reads anything besides the cookbook here-except for you, Miss. Bookworm." he let go of it and it slipped off her head, but she caught it with her hand.

"Hey!" she said, in a mock angry tone. "You better thanks my cat-like reflexes that I saved that. But if I didn't-" Ash laughed, ruffling her hair with his hands and turning away.

There was no talk about what happened a few moments ago. It was almost like it never happened. Lillian said nothing about it and Ash did not approach the subject. Although lately, to Lillian, it seemed as though those incidents were happening more and more often. She wondered how long she would avoid them.

She wondered how long it would be before Ash didn't let her avoid them. But she quickly shook this thought out of her head and followed Ash along the brick road to the main town.

Bluebell Square was alive with its usual villagers gossiping and smiling, having a good time. Ash walked confidently through, waving and calling out to his neighbors. Lillian followed him, walking slightly behind. She kept her head down, but would smile back to people who called out to her.

"Still uncomfortable around them?" Ash asked, turning to look back at her.

Lillian nodded, her eyes downcast. Then she looked teasingly back up to him, her violet eyes gleaming. A faint smile involuntarily crossed Ash's face at the sight. "You know, Ash, I actually sort of kinda like people like you."

"People like you can't keep their mouth shut so it's easy to talk to them." She finished with a smirk. Ash frowned, spinning his hat sideways. She laughed as he moved closer to him.

"Hey!" Ash said indignantly. "That was a sucky compliment. Or was that really a insult disguised as a compliment?" He placed a arm around her neck pulling her towards him. "huh?" He knuckled her head as she tried to squirm out of his grasp, laughing.

"Ash!" Georgia called. Ash let go of Lillian, who immediately tried to flatten her hair. She smiled at Ash, her eyes flicking sideways to Lillian. Lillian pretended she didn't see Georgia's sideways glance and turned away.

"What are you doing for dinner tonight?" Georgia asked him with a sunny Georgia smile. "Does your family want to come over? Grady's making steaks."

"Sounds good," said Ash. Georgia beamed, tossing her long mane of hair like one of her horses would.

But then Ash turned to Lillian. "Why doesn't Lillian join us? She hasn't gotten to know most of the Bluebell villagers yet."

Georgia blinked, her sunny smile slightly froze. She turned to Lillian, but Lillian quickly said, "It's ok! I have chores and I don't want to intrude." She turned from the pair and walked away quickly.

Lillian set her gaze on the ground, pretending like she couldn't hear Georgia's loud Southern voice echo across the square, saying, "That girl always acts like she's scared of me or somethin'." and Ash's quick retort, "No, she's still just breaking in to Bluebell. You know, she's actually real nice-"

And so on. Lillian was busy trying not to step on any lines on the ground when she bumped into someone.

"Sorry-" she started, snapping her head up from the ground. Then her violet eyes widened and she felt a lurch in her stomach.

A tall lanky boy stood in front of her, his long limbs and slender body accentuated by his fashionable city clothes. His narrow green eyes gleamed down on her. Lillian's eyes travelled swiftly from his sharp jawline to his protruding collarbone and then she caught herself staring and stopped.

It was Cam.

"Uh-" She stuttered and then made a effort to make her voice calm like she was undisturbed by his presence. "I wasn't paying attention to where I was walking. Sorry." Lillian looked steadily at him, realizing his eyes somewhat resembled a cat's.

"It's fine," he said smoothly. He looked down and she followed his gaze curiously. "Do you like a Tale of Two Cities?" Cam asked.

Oh! Lillian forgot she was carrying the book around the whole time. "Er . . . not really. It's kind of boring." She said, wrinkling her nose. "It's one of Rutger's books so I'm returning it. Yeah. So that's why I came to the square. Because Rutger lives here." Lillian stopped talking, realizing she was rambling. She looked away, turning to keep back her embarrassed blush.

Lillian looked back at Cam to realize he was turning away, probably because he didn't think Lillian wanted to talk to him. But she actually did . . .

Think, Lillian. How do you keep the conversation going? But keeping conversations afloat wasn't what she did best.

But for this case, it should be simple, right?

"Did you read it before?" she asked him.

"Yeah. it's one of my favorites." Cam said, turning to look back at her.

"Ah." She said. So they don't have the same tastes in books. There was an awkward pause where she tried to think of something to say. "I guess only us two city folks take any time to read these kinds of books, huh?" she said.

"Yeah," Cam said with a half smile. There was another pause.

"Well . . ." Lillian said. "I have to go." She turned to walk away, without looking back.

It wasn't like she felt obligated to keep talking to him. She didn't really care what he thought of her.

He was just a guy she used to like. There was nothing special about that.

But she couldn't help but, out of curiosity's sake, turn to look back and briefly stare after him and to her surprise, she saw he was staring at her as well, with those cat like eyes. Then those cat like eyes quickly turned away to look someplace else. He started clearing away his flower stand.

Lillian turned away as well and crossed one leg over another, letting her back lean on one of the pillars by the Bluebell sign. It would be too conceited to think too much about this. Their eyes met once, but that didn't mean anything special. Or romantic.

But . . . come to think of it, this happened a lot when they were younger. Walking by each other in a hallway. Or the playground. Or passing by in a car. Their eyes had met often. Then fluttered away. Occasionally they would meet again.

It looks like things still hadn't changed since they were young. At least, not for her.