"You play beautifully."
Mikhail immediately halted playing his violin and spun round. Phillip stood, leaning on a table, looking down at the recently cleaned floor of the café.
"Please continue like I'm not here." Phillip didn't look over at Mikhail, he pushed a piece of ginger hair out of his face as he looked up to the ceiling. Mikhail caught the small smile spread across the farmers lips.
"It's all right. I am perfectly fine with playing in front of others." Mikhail smiled at Phillip and finally the ginger looked him, with a quite surprised look across his face.
"No need to stop then."
The platinum haired violinist chuckled lightly, placing his violin down before taking a seat.
"Lillian said you're amazing, but I prefer not to blindly trust her, maybe she was right on this one." Phillip smiled again, taking the seat across from him. Mikhail looked at him, he was dressed differently from his usual work clothes. The farmer had changed into a red jumper and dark blue jacket to match his trousers.
Howard, the owner of the café, arrived with a herb salad, which Mikhail thanked him for. Phillip smiled as the platinum haired man silently ate, until the door swung open.
"Phillip! There you are!" A sing-song voice came. The pair looked over to the door where a blondish girl stood in a pretty blue skirt. She smiled with her cheeks a light pink. The girl skipped over to Phillip's side and pouted.
"Phillip, you're meant to be working, do you know how much I've done today because you have been slacking."
"I'm just taking a break, Lillian, I've been fishing today." Lillian gave him a stern look before lifting him from his seat and being pulled out the door.
Phillip took to slacking from that day, but only when Lillian would not notice. Lillian was too busy to keep an eye on him anyway. She had been spending most her time at the flower shop where Cam worked, desperately trying to get his attention.
It was a warm day without a single cloud in the sky. The ginger farmer had dozed off in the shade by the pond, having given up on working yet again. The flowers were beautiful that time of year but they were running short since Lillian took to picking a couple. Phillip opened an eye as the sound of footsteps started. It was most likely Lillian, come to shout and tell him off once again.
He didn't, however, expect to see a certain platinum blonde man approaching.
"Shouldn't you be working?" Mikhail said sitting down next to him. Phillip smiled and sat up. The pair sat in silence looking at the pond and watching for movement from animals. The farmer lay back down, putting his head on the violinist's lap, grinning from ear to ear.
"Best pillow out here." Mikhail sighed, figured it best not to move the lazy man and started absentmindedly running his fingers through Phillip's hair. The ginger hummed to himself contently, slowly falling back into a doze.
"Could you play for me?" Mikhail looked down, quite surprised at the sudden request. Still, who was he to refuse. The platinum blonde man pulled his violin out and looked down at the farmer, who was smiling with his eyes closed, quietly waiting. As much as he'd have liked to move the man, Phillip didn't seem to have any interest in going anywhere, so he played with Phillip lying there.
He came to an abrupt stop when he heard movement coming from not far off. Placing the violin down, Mikhail looked round. The farmer sat up wanting to ask why the music stopped but instead followed the violinist's gaze to the place where there sat someone in a red hat. The ginger stood up and ran to him.
"Dirk, something wrong?" Phillip asked, taking no notice of the flowers Dirk had quickly shoved into his post bag. The brownish-gold haired boy gave a small, cheery smile and shook his head. Much to Dirk's displeasure, the ginger wasn't accepting that answer too quickly.
"Get your heart broken?" Dirk's eyes widened as a look of horror appeared on his face. Quickly he averted his eyes, looking at a small amount of flowers on the ground.
The postman mumbled something before running off back in the direction of where he came. The pair watched after him until he was out of sight.
"You better get back to work before Lillian finds out you've been sleeping here." Mikhail stated calmly, taking off his glasses to clean them. The farmer nodded and ran back in the direction of the farm.
"Dirk, where the hell have you been!" Cam grabbed the post-man by his shirt collar, pulling him over to a seat set up outside the café. "I've spent the whole day with that new girl just to find out you'd ran off."
"Nice thing to say about someone who loves you." Dirk remarked, sitting down and smiling. Cam looked at him bewildered but brushed it off as unimportant. "I was delivering a letter to Eileen. I had a little trouble finding her so it took me a whi- hey give that back!" Dirk attempted to grab his bag back off the taller blonde-ish man but to no avail. The shorter of the two stopped and pouted even though he knew it wouldn't stop Cam.
Cam took the flowers out the bag and glared at him.
"That's not how you treat flowers, Dirk. If you gave these to anyone they wouldn't be impressed." Cam scolded, a slight smile escaping his lips that Dirk just noticed. The blonde-ish man took the flowers to his stall, fixing them up properly. Dirk sat back down and waited for him to come back with the flowers. The blonde boy smiled ever so slightly and went back to him, leaving the bunch of flowers at the stall.
"Thanks for the flowers." He whispered in the postman's ear, causing him to blush.
"I never said they were for you."
"I know they were."
Phillip spent the next few days stuck in the farm, not even managing to get out when Lillian went to visit Cam with presents. Turned out she was good at training animals to prevent Phillip from doing things. He ended up standing in the fields, trying to keep a close eye on the animals but ended up daydreaming from time to time. The farmer ended up wandering about the farm, stopping at the exit and looking around to see if there was someone to talk to.
Much to his surprise he was soon face to face with a short blonde boy in a purple suit.
"Can I help you? If it's milk you're wanting we already sent it to town." The ginger farmer said raising an eyebrow. The blonde laughed and adjusted his top hat.
"You must be Lillian's brother, I'm Pierre. I run the cooking festival, wanted to make sure Lillian was aware it was coming up." The blonde grinned in a cheery fashion.
The farmer quickly explained that Lillian had gone out but he'd pass the message on.
"Oh, well tell her I said hello." Pierre's face sunk before he continued on his way to remind the other people in the town. Phillip turned back round, looking at the farm. If he was quick and careful he'd be able to get away to town. The ginger farmer crept away from his work as silently as humanly possible.
Finally finding himself a safe distance, with a grin on his face he turned round to find himself face to face with his good friend.
"Again, Phillip?" The violinist sighed and fixed his glasses.
"If you can get me to the café without Lilli noticing, I'll buy you a drink and this may be our secret." The farmer replied, shoving his hands into the pockets of his worn work trousers. Mikhail thought it over, looking round in case the female farmer could be listening in, before putting out his hand and nodding. Phillip kissed his hand, winking before gesturing at him to lead the way.
The man with platinum hair placed the fork down gently beside the plate of salad. Thinking it over, Phillip would probably get caught when his sister noticed the disappearance of roughly 290 coins. Seemed the young farmer didn't think his plan over all that well. The ginger farmer was too busy eating the curry bread to think about such things. His sister had decided a while back that they would be fine eating cold food, mainly mushrooms, instead of wasting money on heated meals. The only time she cooked warm meals were to be entered in the cooking festivals, meaning Phillip wasn't getting any.
"Lillian is outside talking with Cam. It'll be hard to sneak past her." Phillip stopped eating and looked out the window with wide eyes. Watching her for a few seconds before ducking out of sight when he thought she may have saw him. Mikhail held back a chuckle and smiled at his worried friend. Adjusting his glasses he stood up and ruffled the farmer's ginger hair.
"I'll tell Cam to keep her distracted." Mikhail went out the door, smiling.
Quickly stuffing the rest of the curry bread into his mouth, he waited at the window for Mikhail to give him a signal. It was a few minutes before Mikhail gave him a signal and he made a dash for the door. Hiding close enough to the violinist that he hopefully wouldn't be noticed, they walked back to the farm.
"Thanks Mikhail." The ginger farmer whispered, stopping at the entrance. The violinist smiled and handed him a blue rose.
"Cam wanted business in return for doing that favour." Phillip nodded, heading back into the farm house.
"Lillian!" The female farmer was knocked to the ground by the force of a rather unexpected hug for Pierre. Getting up, she dusted off her skirt and picked up her bag before helping the blonde boy up, turning the boy's cheeks a rosy red. Lillian giggled and fixed his hat for him.
"Let me guess, there's a cooking festival for me to enter?" Pierre nodded grinning from ear to ear.
"I'm hoping to taste some of your wonderful cooking at it." The blonde licked his lips enthusiastically.
"Thanks for telling me." The blonde farmer said cheerily, kissing the gourmet on the cheek. Pierre nodded blushing before running off again. Lillian smiled and continued on her way home with the shopping. It was becoming hard work but if she could get her useless brother to actually help maybe they could make it through. All he had to do was keep the animals happy and safe, then she would try her best to do everything else including getting a good amount of money the products they would have to sell.
It was getting much too cold to do going about in a skirt, she needed to think about getting something else to keep her warm in the cold weather. After unlocking the door to the house she went in and was surprised to find Phillip already lying in bed, out cold with a blue rose in his hand. Lillian sighed with a smile and put the rose in the vase. She'd have to question him about it in the morning. For now she needed to check everything was done and Phillip hadn't just been sleeping in the field before she went to bed.
"So where did the rose come from?" Lillian asked as the pair sat eating breakfast before starting work for the day. Phillip almost choked on his bread.
"m-Mikhail gave it to me yesterday, he stopped by and said he'd bought too many of them so gave me one." The ginger farmer answered hesitantly before scoffing down the rest of his breakfast. He left the table, mumbling something about having to get work done early for the day. The blonde farmer watched after him until he was out of sight, then she looked at the rose. Lillian didn't know much about flowers but it didn't take a genius to know what a rose meant.
She could always tell when Phillip was lying. She liked to ask during meals because if he lied, he'd finish the meal quickly to get away from the situation. Other than that, he tended to unconsciously play with whatever was in his left hand, if he didn't have anything in said hand he'd play with his shirt. Lillian decided not to push the subject any further, Phillip tended to stand by his lies all the same and wouldn't tell her the truth in any hurry. The blonde farmer cleaned up from breakfast before starting work with him.
Lillian was surprised to find Phillip had actually done almost everything apart from attend to the cow, which he refused to do. In fact he'd already pinned a note up and ran. The young farmer pulled it off the board so she could read it easier, after all her brother's writing was already quite illegible.
"Gone to see a girl about a thing." Lillian sighed and shoved the paper in her pocket. At least she wouldn't have much work to do and could start cooking for the festival soon. Pierre liked to check in on her, hoping to get a sneaky taste of some of the dishes.
"How unlike you, Mikhail. Sleeping by a river, I thought that was my thing." Phillip attempted to shake the violinist awake but failed miserably. Really, he didn't want to throw water at his friend quite yet. Finally, he came up with a sure fire way to wake his sleeping accomplice. The ginger farmer looked around in case anyone was watching before leaning down and giving Mikhail a quick peck on the nose. Phillip watched closely to see if his magic had worked and would awake the sleeping prince. Much to his dismay, it was a failure and, alas, the handsome prince would sleep on.
Luckily though the water from the river was much more effective.
"What the-!" Mikhail shot up with a start, upper half of his body completely soaked. The violinist removed the hair from his eyes and dried his glasses before glaring at the farmer. He went to ask why on Earth he had thrown water over him but didn't have to.
"You were asleep at the side of the river, it seemed very out of character." Phillip answered the unspoken question with a smile spread wide across his face. The platinum blonde paused for a few seconds, taking in the information before nodding.
He tried to think why he'd have fell asleep there and thought back to the night before. He'd hardly slept.
"I'm sorry, I've been having trouble sleeping. I have some work to get done but I'm having a little trouble." Mikhail said, rubbing his right eye. The farmer sat down beside him, the soles of his feet together in front of him.
"Something on your violin?" Mikhail nodded and picked a flat stone out of the river, turning it over in his hand. He looked at it for a few minutes before standing up and skimming it up the river, getting about 5 skims. Phillip hadn't been watching, he was trying to thing of how to help his friend. Violins weren't really something he knew much about.
"I don't know much about these things, but could I help?"
The sky had gone red as the sun was setting and the pair had just about finished. They stopped for a minute to see the sun and Phillip checked the time on his watch. He'd be expected home soon, if he was lucky he might convince his darling sister to spare him a couple of the rejected meals. That was, if Pierre hadn't eaten them all by the time he asked. The blonde self-proclaimed gourmet (Phillip was unsure if he really was a gourmet) always claimed he had simply been tasting it to see if it was good enough for the festival and that he did it with all the contestants dishes. Even if he did, the ginger was pretty certain the other contestants' families could have a warm meal any day of the week without it being put down as "too much money".
The pair had been talking about many things over the course of the day. Started off talking about the farm and ended up talking about Mikhail's past as well as all the places he had been. It didn't seem that important what they talked about but surprisingly, Phillip took a lot of interest in his friend's past. Mikhail didn't seem all that bothered by the subject and offered to walk him home when he found out the time, an offer that was happily accepted.
Lillian laughed, watching the gourmet attempt to lick the icing off his nose. Pierre had claimed such a task would be easy for him, yet it seemed he was having quite a bit of trouble. When Lillian stopped laughing, she took the icing off his nose and put it on his lips. He smiled, licking it off quite happily before pouting.
"I almost managed Lilli! If you'd just have given me a little more time." Pierre did his best to look angry at her, crossing his arms and turning away. The blonde farmer laughed again, taking another cake out of the oven, only to have it taken from her by the blonde boy.
Pierre cut it into slice before he took a large bite of the cake and waited till he'd swallowed it before continuing.
"Much better but I think you've used too much chocolate, it's good but not the best I've ever had." Despite this, Pierre ate the rest of the slice in record time. Lillian smiled, wiping flour and sugar off her apron before she started making more icing.
"You got to stop eating like that, Pierre, you'll get fat. I don't mean normal fat, I mean you wont be able to move ever again." The gourmet laughed and shrugged before kissing Lillian's cheek.
"You'd love me anyway, right?"
Before Lillian could answer, the door came flying over and Phillip ran in. Straight away he went to the counter and picked up a plate of curry, quickly shoving fork loads into his mouth. After a few mouthfuls, Phillip remembered he'd left his friend standing outside, the platinum blonde man believing it impolite to come in with out proper invitation. Swallowing the food quickly he invited Mikhail.
"Maybe some other time, I better start heading back. See you some other time." With that he turned round and left, heading home in the darkness.
Finishing work early once again, Phillip had decided it was a nice enough day to go for a walk. He suddenly paused when he heard a tune playing, the source not to far away. The ginger haired man smiled, knowing there could only be one man in the whole town playing that brilliantly. Sure enough, he found the platinum haired violinist standing by the spring playing beautifully.
'He looks amazing.' Phillip thought, slowly sneaking up behind him before wrapping his arms round Mikhail's waist, giving him a fright.
"You really shouldn't scare me like that." Mikhail said, trying to disguise a smile and fixing his glasses. He stopped playing and put the violin away, sitting down with Phillip. Silence fell, the only thing to be heard was the birds sitting in the trees near by singing.
"Some of the girls around the town told me a story. They said the old church bell use to be rung at weddings and the sound is supposedly a blessing from the harvest goddess herself. They don't ring it any more because it's old but it is believed the couple can sometimes still hear the bell ringing on their wedding day." Mikhail told Phillip, looking up at the clouds with a dreamy look in his eyes. The farmer's eyes didn't stray from him as he told the story and didn't even look away when the violinist caught him staring. Much to Phillip's amazement, this didn't appear to bother Mikhail in the slightest. In fact, he noticed a smile creeping across his face, causing him to smile in return.
Once again they went to silence after Phillip lay down, using Mikhail's legs as a pillow. Absent-mindedly, the violinist ran his fingers through the ginger locks, smile never fading, until the farmer completely dozed off. He sat like that for a little while longer, looking at flowers and clouds. Careful not to wake the ginger haired farmer, Mikhail leaned down, bringing his face closer to Phillip's own. Quickly he realised what he was doing and stopped to think it over. If someone saw or Phillip ever found out it would only cause him to be hurt. Mikhail sighed but before he could sit back up properly, the farmer pulled him down and kissed him. The violinist was absolutely gobsmacked by the sudden action but ended up kissing back all the same.
A/N: I'm so sorry, this is probably my worst fanfic to date.