So I LOVE Harvest Moon. Absolutely obsessed with that game. I've been playing it since A Wonderful Life came out on the game cube which by the way I was just a punk kid. Anyways this story was inspired when I was playing A New Begining and I married Soseki, but as the game progressed an Neil's feelings did too, I couldn't help but wonder if I made a mistake.

Warnings:

Smut & Adultry


The Glance

Rio married him during her third year in Echo Village. He moved in during her second year, after she built that Japanese home. He was much older than her. When she first asked him his age he would laugh and jokingly ask what a young woman like her would ask for an old man's age.

He was different from anyone who ever stepped in this town. His hair long, thick, and the color of bamboo shoots she often found in the forest. His eyes were slant, and brown. He had a small beard on his chin and he always wore a yukata he called it. He would talk about his time in the city, how he was a top notch journalist, but something happened; something bad and since then he moved to Echo village to heal.

Rio gave him old coins that she found in her fishing cages and he would blush and say something stupid about how much this was his favorite food and they would laugh before she bashfully moved away to continue her chores.

Their first date involved carrying him back to his home, but he made it up to her by buying her as much food as she wanted; and Rio loved food. It continued. Their dancing and flirtation. Then she boldly presented him a ring and he flushed so red and accepted, but he proposed to her, a blue feather under her nose and she accepted. They married a week later, him in a black and red suit and she in a princess dress with a veil.

They were happy, but Rio realized it was short lived. He was always tired. His back always hurt and he couldn't help with the chores. He thought the animals were cute, but he didn't help. Rio always believed that marriage was a partnership between two lovers, but Soseki very rarely did anything. But she loved him. And loved his flaws regardless.

When they first made love, he was so experienced and taught her so many things. He was the first man to touch her, see her so intimately. Yet sex with Soseki was short, pleasurable, but short. It always left her wanting more, but Soseki was always too tired to continue. Some nights he didn't want to at all. Sometimes it made Rio feel ugly and unattractive. She stopped wearing dresses, stopped going to the salon. She wore her overalls and kept her hat on her head. It wasn't like Soseki cared anyways.

Then—then he looked her way.

-x—

Neil always saw her. Rio thought that he didn't see her, but Neil saw her the first day she came into town and he lectured her about the cow he was giving her. She was pretty, but then again there wasn't a lot of people to compare her to in town, but even when more eligible women came into town Rio was still prettier then all of them. Her long blond hair that she often cut and dyed, but Neil thought she was prettier with any cut and any color. He tried to woo her, but he was horrible at flirting with her and more times than not did he offend her.

Then he came into town. Waltz right in and took her away from him. With his smooth words, his wisdom, and Neil felt so inadequate compared to the older man who travel around the world. All Neil ever been to was his childhood city he grew up in and Echo Village. Rio escaped his grasp before she was even in it. He attended their wedding and all Neil could think about was how she could've been his.

She was happy and Neil thought it was best for him to look away. The suddenly she wasn't happy. Her hair grew, but Allen commented how she never came into his salon anymore. Yuri grumbled how she didn't buy clothes from her anymore. That's when Neil looked her way again and he saw her wilting. Rio who was always blossoming and blooming, yet now she was wilting. She didn't look happy and when he decided to take a walk around her farm he saw her nudging at her soil and sighed softly before plopping on her ground and staring up at the setting sky with shiny eyes.

It was then did Neil decided that if Soseki couldn't keep her happy then he could.


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