Hiya guys! I've completed chapter 1 of The Complicated Life of Mary! Yay me! I think that it's off to a good start! Thank you to Jeannie-chan (A.K.A Jean Cooper) for being the first reviewer! I hope I get more insight on how this story is unfolding! Plus, I wanna know if I should change the title to The Complex Life of Mary. So your guys's feedback would be really useful! Thanks!
Signed Queenie-chan
Disclaimer: Again, Harvest Moon is still not mine. I've made a little progress in guy-napping Kai (thank you Jeannie-chan) but still no luck :'(. Oh, and 'The Diary of Anne Frank' Isn't mine either.
The Complicated Life of Mary
Chapter 1: The New Regular
I looked up from the sentence I was busily writing a moment ago. I glanced around, noticing that no one was inside the library. Sighing, I returned to my sentence. I frowned, thinking hard. I just couldn't find the right conclusion to the first sentence of my paragraph. Angrily, I flipped over my pencil and erased the sentence yet again.
"C'mon Mary, think!" I thought to myself. I began to write again, but I soon stopped. I cocked my head to the side, reading the sentence.
"The magnificent princess sighed dreamily as she stared at…" I read in my mind. What or whom was she staring at that made her sigh dreamily? I was seriously having a bad case of writers block, and I really hate writers block. I closed my eyes, extremely irritated. Standing up, I made my way towards and up the winding stair case to the second floor.
"Maybe I just need a break." I told myself. I ran fingers along the spines of the books, looking for one in particular. I finally found the book I was looking for, 'The Diary of Anne Frank' by Anne Frank. It was such a good book, and always a favorite of mine. Upon grabbing the book, I heard the door open downstairs. Excited, I jumped up, dropping the book, and ran towards the stairs. Unfortunately for me, my foot had found the railings, and I found myself plummeting towards the base of the stairs. I closed my eyes and screamed at the top of my lungs. I braced myself for impact, but impact never came. Instead of slamming into the hard-wood floors, I landed on a warm body.
"Ooof." I said, very unlady-like. I opened my eyes, but all I could see was a big khaki colored blob underneath me, for my glasses had flown off upon impact. I heard a deep voice moan. I gasped, realizing I had probably fallen on the customer.
"Nice one Mary. Now you've probably scared the customer away!" I angrily yelled in my mind. I rolled off the poor person, and went in search of my glasses. Suddenly, a hand put my glasses into my palms.
"Th-thanks." I said, putting on the round specks. I gasped again, seeing the person who had found my glasses and stopped me from landing on the hard ground. It was a boy, the blacksmiths apprentice to be exact. I hadn't really met him before, only seen him at a distance on my way to the mountains with my parents on my days off. I had always thought the young man was quite cute, but a little on the rude and mean side. I was quite surprised that the blacksmiths apprentice was at the library, for he had never visited before.
"Umm…" I said, quite embarrassed.
"It's ok." The boy said, already knowing what I was going to say.
"So… why are you here?" I asked him. The boy looked at me with this lopsided smile.
"Well, to read, seeing as how this is a library!" He told me. I laughed.
"Right, I forgot!" I told him sarcastically, tucking a strand of hair behind my ear. The boy just shook his head, letting out a small chuckle. He stood up and then helped me up.
"So, what's your name anyways?" He asked.
"Mary, nice to meet you." I said, holding out my hand for him to shake. He looked at it, and then briefly shook it. His hand felt very warm, probably from the forge.
"How about you, what's your name?" I asked him.
"Gray." He responded.
"That's an interesting name."
"Yours is very pretty." I blushed at this.
"Thank you." Gray smiled. He looked at the books behind him.
"So… could you help me find a book?" He asked.
"Umm… sure, but, what kind of book do you want?" I asked.
"Uh… I guess horror." I looked at him quizzically.
"Really? I would have thought you would want a book on… I don't know… blacksmithing or something." I told him. His expression darkened greatly when I mentioned blacksmithing.
"No. Defiantly not. I do it enough that I don't need to damn well learn anything more about it!" He snapped at me. I glared at him.
"Well, you didn't need to be so rude." I stated very calmly, despite my actually feelings. Pushing by him, I went to the horror section and picked out a book for him.
"Here. Take it." I said shoving the book in his hands. "Now go and read your book." Gray looked much sadder now.
"Look, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to snap at you. It's just… my grandfather is so hard on me. He never praises me on my hardest and best work. Hell, he probably doesn't even acknowledge it! He just makes blacksmithing so hard for me." Gray said honestly. I sighed, feeling guilty. I silently cursed my short fuse.
"Ah, well, I should be apologizing. I shouldn't have blown up like that." I apologized. Gray smiled and headed over to the chairs, sitting down in one of them. I flushed a light pink color at how cute his shy smile was.
"Damn, I just met the guy, and I already have crush on him!" I thought. I took my time to carefully look the cute boy over. His fiery red hair stuck out under his hat in all directions. His soft azure eyes scanned the book quickly, taking in every single word with detail. His mouth was curled in the smallest of smiles, his lips silently mouthing every word he came across. The blush in my cheeks deepened to a scarlet color as I sat down to write my sentence again. I thought about what to write, and I still couldn't think of anything. I looked over at Gray, and sighed dreamily. Then, all of a sudden, I knew what to write! I smiled at my sudden burst of inspiration, and began to madly jot down my idea. Time passed faster then I thought, and before I knew it, it was 4 o' clock. I looked over at Gray, and saw him deep into the story. I blushed at how cute he was when he was deep into a story.
"Umm… Gray?" I said. Gray looked up, snapping back to reality.
"Huh, what? Oh… sorry Mary. I guess I was so into the story, I didn't realize where I was." Gray laughed feebly, clearly embarrassed. I giggled.
"Oh, that's quite alright. I do that all the time!" I admitted.
"So… why did you bring me back the real world then?" He asked.
"Oh, well, you see… the library is closing now. Sorry." I told him sadly. Gray nodded.
"Ok… I guess I'll sign this out then."
"Ok. It's due by next Tuesday, so you have to return it by then, or my mom'll go insane!" I laughed.
"Hey, I'll just come back tomorrow, kay?" Gray said. I smiled and nodded. He nodded back, and then walked out the door, book in hand. And that's how Gray became my first regular. Every single day from that one Tuesday when we were sixteen years old, Gray came to the library. I was glad that someone other then I thought that the library was a safe place to be, just a place where you could truly be yourself. A place you could be free. He went, day after day, to read all the horror books in the library, and I'm telling you, there were countless ones! I had to keep getting more and more the way Gray read through those books so fast! Ah, there are so many sweet memories in that library. One time, Gray dared me to read a horror book, and my stupid over-sized pride (yes, it's quite over-sized) took on the challenged. Well, let's just say for many nights after, I had tons nightmares about hockey mask clad men chasing me with a chainsaw. Gray laughed so hard when I told him about it. That was one of the rare times Gray actually laughed open-heartedly. In fact, it was one of those rare times Gray even smiled. I have always thought that if Gray smiled more, he would be so much more popular! But then, Gray wouldn't be Gray, and that's what I like about him. He's just so… serious, that it's actually really cute. Well, like I said, Gray visited the library every single day. Everything stayed the same. Same old routine, same old books, same old places, same old people… nothing ever changed. Ever. Eventually I was begging the Goddess for something to happen! I wanted a change, one small change just to make one little thing different! It was driving me crazy how boring the days were getting. Even Gray began mentioning how boring and how slow his life was going. Well, I eventually got what I wanted, and one small thing changed absolutely everything in my life.
I should have been careful of what I wished for.
So, you like? I thought it was good. I really think that this was a good start to my long-fic. Well, besides the intro of course! It's only about to get better though (I hope). So anyways... Remeber readers: Reviews make the world go 'round, so contribute your review, and make the world a better place :) (plus, you get a free virtual cookie of whatever flavor you want!)