I kind of forgot the disclaimer for the first chapter, so it's going to be on the second one.

Disclaimer: I don't own Harvest Moon or any of the characters

Chapter Two

I woke up but didn't open my eyes. I lay in my bed, wishing I was still somewhere off in dreamland. The bed was so comfortable and the pillow so soft, I just couldn't bring myself to plop out of bed and start the day. But the alarm clock was ringing incessantly and it was enough to put me out of my comfort. I blindly reached out to stop it, but my hand met nothing. Forcing myself to open my eyes, I grabbed the alarm clock and threw it against the wall. It kept ringing.

"I'm up, okay?" I yelled at the alarm clock. It didn't stop. "Shut up, shut UP!" I yelled some more. I grunted with aggravation and kicked it until it stopped … and broke. It made a dejected ping-like noise and sputtered, signaling the end of its ringing life for good.

"Fine you can break for all I care," I muttered, not realizing I was talking to an inanimate object. I got dressed and readied myself for the day, taking great care into combing my hair and putting it in the usual braid. I never left my room without my hair perfectly pulled back and out of the way. I swear I'd cut it all off if it ever got in my face, and to avoid doing that, I keep it that way every day.

I dragged myself out to the hallway and wiped the sleep out of my eyes before approaching my dad. He was in the kitchen, making breakfast.

"So what is it today?" I asked.

"Eggs, bacon, toast, some sausage. What do you think of pancakes?"

"What's all this for?" I asked. "I usually only eat an egg and maybe a piece of toast in the morning." I'm not one for big breakfasts.

"I'll need to get the milk and orange juice, too," my dad muttered to himself.

"Need help?" I asked.

"Yeah, could you scramble up a couple more eggs?"

"Sure," I said. "If I knew why you were doing all this!" I said, determined to know what was going on.

"For the boarder, of course!" he said. "I need to have everything ready for when he wakes up to eat."

"Dad why don't you just ask him what he wants when he wakes up?" I said.

"Don't you remember Ann? It's tradition here. On the first day, the boarders get a free breakfast of everything I can make."

"Oh yeah!" I said, suddenly remembering the age-old tradition we had here at the Inn. "It's just we haven't had a new boarder for a while, so I guess I forgot."

I started scrambling the eggs, humming to myself as I cooked. I was in a considerably brighter mood than I had been a few minutes ago as I woke up. But that's usually how it goes in the morning; I reluctantly wake up, some screaming takes place, I come downstairs, eat and/or cook breakfast, then I go to the spring up in the mountains. There's an old legend that says a the Harvest Goddess lives in that pond, but I've been going there every morning since we moved here, and never have I seen anything that even resembled a spiritual being. All the townspeople here, though, are very traditional and swear up and down that she lives there. Being an official town's person myself, now that I've lived here for many years, I guess I've kind of come to respect that.

I finished scrambling up the eggs and slapped them onto a plate. I brought the plate out to where the new boarder was sitting all by his lonesome at a table. He already had some food out there. I guess my dad brought it out a couple minutes ago. I set the eggs down in front of him and smiled, saying, "Enjoy your breakfast! Are you having a good time here so far?"

He nodded. "This is a nice town."

"Where are you from?" I asked, not recognizing either his clothes or slight accent.

"I'm not from a particular place." He responded. "I'm a traveler."

I nodded. "Interesting." I said. "Well I hope you have a good time while you're here."

"Thank you," he said, and he continued eating. I walked away, back to the kitchen where I found my dad.

"Dad, how come you were telling him you would cut his rent for the first couple months if he travels around and doesn't stay in one place for long?" I suddenly realized what I had just said.

"How did you know I was cutting his rent?"

"Well, last night, I kind of overheard you while I was getting some fresh glasses from the kitchen." I said.

He gave me a look before continuing. "He admitted to me that he wasn't sure how long he'd be staying here, but that he didn't have that much money. So I told him, if he were to stay here for about a year, I'd cut his rent the first couple of months to give him a chance to get a job and earn some money."

"Oh," I said. "And I'm guessing he's staying for about a year?"

"Yes, about that." My dad answered, turning back to cook some more breakfast, this time for him and me.

After eating my own breakfast, I went out to the main Inn room and started walking toward the door, headed for the mountain spring as I did everyday. I was stopped before I reached the door.

"Excuse me, miss," I heard the boarder say. "I heard someone shouting this morning. Is everything alright?"

I felt myself blush as I remembered my rather one-sided conversation with my alarm clock this morning. "Oh, that." I said. "That was just, uh, me. I was still half asleep you see," I said, forcing myself to laugh. "I was having a nightmare."

"Oh," he said. Then he changed the subject, much to my delight. "Is – is there a church around here?" he asked rather shyly.

"Yes," I said. "You go to the town square and head north, and the church is right there." I started for the door again, this time stopping myself. "Oh, and you can call me Ann."

"Cliff," he responded by telling me his name. "Thanks Ann."

"You're welcome," I smiled and left, immediately wiping the smile off my face. Ugh. I hated being so polite to guests. It's not that I wanted to be rude to them, but to be just polite at all was an annoying thing to do. I was glad to finally have some time to myself as I made my way up the mountain and to the spring.

When I got there, Popuri was already sitting down, gazing at her reflection in the water. She was also almost always there when I arrived. We usually had a conversation of some sort; small talk most of the time.

"Hello," she said cheerfully. "Isn't it such a nice morning? It's the perfect temperature for being outside."

"Hey," I mumbled back.

"What's wrong?" the chipper girl asked, concern drawing an odd expression on her face.

"Eh," I said, not sure if I felt like confiding in her. I decided to tell her anyway. "Just a new boarder at the Inn."

"That's so exciting!" she said. "Why is that such a bad thing? I would love it if we had guests staying at our house!"

Typical Popuri. "It's just another person to serve, another person to look out for, another person to be polite to." I shuddered at that last one. "And the worst thing is, he's a young man, about my age. You know what that means."

Quite contradictory to how I was feeling, Popuri started clapping her hands. "Oh that's wonderful! Now you have someone who you can fall in love with!" She put on a dreamy face and she looked so mushy I thought she would burst out in tears any minute.

"No," I said. "That means that my dad will try to set us up and I'll end up scaring him or something. He already looks really timid."

"That makes it even perfecter!" Popuri said. "You two sound like total opposites! And you know what people say about opposites attracting."

"No, what do they say, Popuri?" I said sarcastically. This only caused Popuri to put on a confused face and not say anything. I continued talking. "First of all, there are two things wrong with your theory. One, 'perfecter' isn't a word. Two, I don't care how ideal he might be for me, I'm not going to get married. Ever."

Popuri's eyes widened and she looked at me with her mouth wide open. "W-why not?" She questioned. "Getting married and being in love is wonderful!"

I scoffed. I was about to say, Like you would know when I suddenly remembered that she probably would know. She had Kai after all. So instead I said, "I doubt that."

"But it is!" Popuri insisted. "What's the best feeling in the world, to you, Ann?"

"Well I do feel pretty good about myself whenever I win an argument." I said, smiling at the thought of me triumphing over – well, anybody.

"It's better than that!" she said.

"No!" I said with mock surprise. She could tell I was being sarcastic this time. She made an 'angry face' and crossed her arms. "Look, Ann," she said, being serious. "I really do think you should at least give this guy a chance. If he's the complete opposite of you, he sounds like a pretty nice guy."

I started to sigh with aggravation when I realized she had just insulted me. "Hey!" I said, when she interrupted.

"Let's ask the Goddess. She knows everything."

I rolled my eyes. Here she goes again with this Goddess-is-real stuff again. I couldn't do anything but sit back and watch as I saw Popuri pick a flower and throw it into the pond.

"She likes flowers," Popuri whispered to me and winked like it was some big secret. I just stared back at her and she finally turned around.

"Hello Goddess," she said to no one. "If you're listening, I was wondering, will Ann ever fall in love?"

My heart nearly jumped out of my chest. I could have sworn I heard a woman whispering into my ear after Popuri asked. But what scared me even more was what I had heard:

Yes.

Btw if I don't get any reviews on this story I'll probably just stop writing it. I know it's kind of boring so far, but it'll pick up. So if you don't want me to stop writing, or if you want to continue reading the story to see if it gets any better, then review or pm me.