Disclaimer: Harvest Moon belongs to Natsume, Inc; The Stalker's song and lyrics belong to Adhitia Sofyan, I only own the plot.
~2~
"Don't give up, Claire!"
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I always looked at him. The him who was reading book with serious eyes. Ocassionally, his expression would change. Sometimes he knitted his brows. Sometimes he put his hand on his chin, thinking hard. Sometimes he smiled slightly. And sometimes he held his laugh.
At the library which had not many visitors, my eyes always easily spotted him. Not only at at the library, –my eyes followed him wherever it was possible for me to see him.
At the cafeteria, school yard, along the hallway, through the class' windows, anywhere. As if there was a kind of transmitter sticking on him, and radar in my head which programmed specifically to detect his very presence.
Yup, it's as if…
"Anywhere you'd be right now
I'll always gonna find you
The city is mine
Every scent you left behind
I'll always gonna feel them
Cause I know 'em by heart"
[Adhitia Sofyan – The Stalker]
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Gray knitted his eyebrows when a girl sat down in front of him at the library. He looked at his right, left, front, and back, searching for another human except that girl. But there was no one. It was always like this, though. He and Doctor Trent were the only regular visitors of this library. Other villagers might come once in a while, but not that much.
"What are you doing here?" Gray asked coldly. His face clearly said 'get-lost-from-my-sight'.
Even so, Claire, whether she noticed it or not, only answered him with her usual cheerful smile, "I'm reading!" she said. Well of course. She sat in front of Gray with a farming magazine in her hand, and she was indeed reading. Reading cheerfully, to be precise. Because her feet just kept swinging in a certain rhythm, sometimes it was her head, and she wouldn't stop smiling.
"Don't kid with me," Gray rebuked in his annoyance. He stood up and walked to the library counter with a book he read just then. A glasses cute girl with her braided long black hair was sitting at the counter while writing something. Gray let out a fake cough to break that girl's concentration.
"Ahem. Mary, I'm borrowing this book," he said. But it seemed like Mary didn't hear him, so he had to call her name once again. "Mary?"
"Eh, ah, yes! Sorry, Gray, I didn't notice you!" she said all nervously. She closed her own notebook and took the book from Gray's hand. Because of her nervousness, she almost drop Gray's book. Lucky he could catch the book in time. "Oh, thank you…" she said, this time with her sweet smile.
–A smile which triggered a gentle smile from a man in front of her. And of course, where the Gray's smile was, there was where Claire's eyes looking.
"Be careful, Mary," Gray told her while kept his eyes on Mary who looked downward to write down the library administration book. After she finish wrote the title of book he borrowed and his name on her list, she raised her head and laughed.
"Ahaha! Sorry for always being careless. Thanks again, Gray!"
Such a laugh, even for Claire, sounded so refreshing. It made the blonde's brain filled with some questions.
Hey, why does Gray's face redden? Why he's smiling at her in such a gentle way?
Why does her voice sounds so warm?
She looks like a nerd but she's cute.
Why does Gray laugh along with her and gives her his one million joules energy smile?
Ah...
So that's how it is...
"You like her?"
"Eh?"
For the nth time, Gray was surprised by Claire's sudden question. He just exited from the library with his heart blooming, and suddenly this girl just popped up in front of him, asking for something so bluntly.
He used to avoid this kind of question, but Claire was a different case. If she knew about his feeling to Mary… she might decide to give up on him.
Gray took a deep breath. This way he could manage his red face and also his uncontrollable heart beat. "That's right. I like Mary. That's why… just give up on me."
Rejected for third times, Claire didn't show any sadness in her face. She looked at Gray's eyes direcly and smiled. "I won't give up. You haven't even told her your feeling, right? In any case, if you were rejected, I'll still have my chances. Am I correct?" she asked. A rhetorical question maybe –since Gray were pushed to accept only one answer for it. And it made Gray's face bristled up.
"Aren't you too much? Even though Mary rejects me, doesn't mean that I'll come to like you. I can be as persistent as you and continue to love her…"
Gray's words were butted by Claire's short denial, "No."
"Ha?"
"It's impossible for you to be as persistent as me."
"...?"
"Because my love for you is a lot, lot bigger that I can love you for all these nine years!" She exclaimed.
Gray raised one his eyebrow when he heard her reason. He lost his count on how many times he heard the words 'like' and 'love' from her mouth. Seriously? She said the words that Gray's held inside his heart for this one year so easily?
So much easily?
"Hah!" Gray snorted with his cynical smile. "Say, is that feeling of yours classified as love? Aren't you just too obsessed with me?"
His question put her in silence. He saw that as a chance to attack her further, "Just like a kid who wanted a teddy bear, but she can't… She'll keep wanting it even after she became an adult, because it's stick in her brain too much. Though actually, she doesn't really want nor need it. So open your eyes, and stop loving me."
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Claire still stayed on a bench next to supermarket, not too far from the library where Gray leaved her alone. The blue sky had turned reddish, and some villagers had passed her to go back to their own home. She had been thinking about Gray's words since some times ago –what he said about her feeling. Was it true that she only obsessed with Gray? And this feeling wasn't love?
"What's the difference?" she let out her mind unconsciously. And, by a pure coincidence, Mary –who was walking in front of her, heard it.
"Yes?" Mary moved closer to Claire because she thought that girl was talking to her.
On other side, Claire –who was literally daydreaming, confused to see her love rival right in front of her. "Eh?"
"Did you ask me, 'what's the different'?" asked Mary.
Claire's face reddened when she aware that she let out her mind, "Uhm… Nah, sorry. I'm just talking to my self."
She thought the glasses girl would laugh on her, but she wasn't. She only smiled, and sat next to her.
"You like this village?" A very kind question from Mary to a newcomer like her.
"Yes, I like it," she answered plainly. Actually, she wasn't sure how to act towards her love rival. Mary seemed innocent, clueless, and… cute in many ways.
Just look at her.
Even though Claire answered her with a plainly annoying tone, that girl's smile didn't fade at all. She even added a sincere 'thanks Goddess' to it. How could Claire hate that kind of rival?
"Mary, is there someone you love?"
"Eh?" Mary's check reddened in a flash light upon that sacred question. "U-uhm… Well… maybe… yes,"
Looking at how cute and pure this girl, Claire felt her heart tightening.
"Hehe, but sorry, I can't tell you about him yet. Even I myself am still not sure about my own feeling," she continued. Her hands were moving randomly on her laps. Maybe she was nervous.
"Hu-um," Claire murmured while thinking. Mary wasn't sure about her own feeling, and the man could be Gray. "You know, I'm always sure about my feeling. I think it's because I'm a spontaneous girl," she opened her talk. "But now I kinda lost… This like, love, obsession… Have I misinterpreted it? What's the difference?" She asked with helpless face. That expression had Mary's chuckles.
"Ahaha… so that what's you're daydreaming about," Mary referenced to her accidental question back then. Mary got up and stood in front of her. "I think you don't have to differentiate this kind of feelings. Why put it in a completely different box? Uhm…. How about this: love the one you like, to the point you're obsessed with him," Mary spook up her idea, shot an awareness' arrow to her head. In her mind, things were suddenly assembled in the right way. Like, love, and obsession drawn in the same line. It was just about the level.
"You're right. I'm obsessed with the one I love. But it doesn't mean that I don't love him. Right?"
Mary smiled. "I believe so. But there's one important point," she took a little pause to fix her glasses position. She continued, "Love's able to let go the one its love to be happy with another person. Obsession ain't able to do that much."
For a second Claire was spechless. She tried to absorb the librarian's words carefully. A little stunned. A bit stabbed in her heart. As if the librarian warned her that she wasn't the one who could bring Gray's happiness.
Claire chuckled, "Hehe, you're indeed my rival."
"Pardon?"
"Nope…" she shook her head and smiled. As long as she could make Gray happy, then it was enough. She had no obligation to give him up for Mary. "Somehow, I like and dislike you at the same time," said Claire.
Mary's face reddened, she buried in her nervousness and inferiority, "Eh? Do you hate me? I'm sorry, am I…"
"I don't hate you! Maybe I'm just jealous of you," she cut her off before she misunderstand even more.
"Jealous? O-of me?"
"You're cute, kind, and smart. I hope I can become someone like you,"
"Eh?" the glasses girl's face got even redder. Strongly, she shook her head. "It's me, though! I'm the one who want to be like you. You're pretty, energetic, hard worker, and easy-going with everyone. I'm so clumsy and get nervous every time. Thank you for always coming to library and talk to me!"
Claire smiled. Say, how could Mary say such things? Whereas Claire only came to library to meet Gray. She worked so hard to be able living in this town, to be able stay close to Gray. Her world revolved around Gray, without him even care about her. But Mary… she could get Gray's love so easily.
After that, the two girls talked about a lot of things. About Mary who was writing a novel, about Gray who said that he want to read the novel once it was done, about gardening books, about the Harvest Goddess, about flowers field on Mother's Hill, and about how Mary coincidentally met Gray at Mother's Hill sometimes, about Gray's stubborn grandfather and how he consulted to her about it…
Gray. Gray. Gray. Why did his name come to Mary's activities so much?
Well, of course…
Their love is mutual.
~000~
An ordinary day at Saibara's Blacksmith. Sounds of rapping hammer bounced off the workshop walls. The workshop placed right behind the counter, without separation, so that those who entered was able to see their ways of working directly. Gray dipped the finished sickle in a water basin, making a hissing sound due to contiguity of hot iron and the cold water. With that, his job ended for the day. He wiped his sweat with his right arm when he saw his grandfather approached with an ax. A scary posed, actually. With his spooky face and ax in hand, it looked as if he was going to kill someone.
"Gray, send this to that new farmer fan of yours. What's her name again? Eh…"
"Claire. Shouldn't you remember it already? And what do you mean by her being my fan?" Gray complained but still taking the ax. He had it enough to see Claire, hear her name, and he really didn't want to say her name.
"Well, ain't she coming everyday only to see you?" Saibara stroke his bushy white beard.
"She also greeted you, Grandpa," Gray said in evasion. He took off his sweaty working shirt and changed it with a clean white t-shirt.
"Not as lovey dovey she greeted you, though: Good morning, Senpaaai!," The old man imitated the way Claire made a heart shape with a pair of her index finger and thumb, and put it in front of her chest. Honestly, he thought that the old man looked even scarier in that sweet pose. Killer pose suited him more.
Anyone who saw this pose would understand what she meant. Luckily she only did it in front of him and his Grandpa –a pose meaning that she loved Gray.
"Stop it, Grandpa. That pose is really embarrassing. Not to mention I rejected her," he said openly with his forehead knitted.
In contrast to Gray, Saibara laughed. A very rare thing coming from that spooky and stubborn old man, "Haha! That kid is amazing. Can you do something like that, Gray? What a straight-forwardness!"
"I can't and I won't. I'm not that stupid," Gray decided not to pay attention to his grandfather talk any longer. He walked to the door, an ax in hand.
~000~
Crack!
Claire was surprised when the handle of hammer she used to smash stones in her farm suddenly broken. In the midst of her broken heart, the incident made her brain hot. A sudden frustration gulped her. She dropped the hammer, and then crouched down. Buried her face on her knees, she tried to bury her negative thoughts.
She then lifted her head and screening throughout her farm. Her vision was slightly blurred. Perhaps because the sun was a bit too strong that day. It had been two weeks since Claire arrived in this city, and she already harvested twice from her farm. So far she thought she did it well enough. At first it wasn't easy. Actually, it was super difficult. She knew nothing about farming; she was a complete beginner who leaned only to manual books.
Before her move, she had bought a lot of books and studied them all. But farming, in reality, wasn't only about following the steps provided in the text books. She should ask some residents, especially Rick, about Mineral Town soil characteristics and how to handle it. She worked had and managed to get money out of this abandoned land. But still, somewhere in heart was empty. And it felt like floating, the place where her feet stand on…
"Claire?"
Hm?
Her view was completely blurred. And in the midst of her remained consciousness, Claire saw a worried face of a man who always filled her heart. He dropped an ax to the ground and support her. Oh yeah, she ordered an ax from Saibara a few days ago.
Gray.
Gray.
Gray...
"Are you okay?" he asked while kept Claire from falling. When he touched her skin, he could feel her body heat.
"Senpai...," Claire whispered when Gray put his palm on her forehead.
"You've got a fever," said Gray. He then bolstered Claire entering a small house on the edge of the farm. The house that was once filled with cobwebs, dust, and broken furniture, now looked neat and clean. There were only a bookshelf, a calendar, a small bed, a small round table, and a wooden crate. No object to hint that this was a girl room. It was hard to believe, remembering how cheerful and noisy this girl was. Her house was small and quiet, almost like a single room belonged to his grandfather.
Gray laid her on the bed. The girl curled up and covered her face using her left arm.
"Thank you…" she said without seeing Gray. Gray could see both her cheeks were blushed, though it blocked by her arm. Perhaps it was due to her fever… or him being by her side.
"Shall I take you to hospital?" Gray offered help because he couldn't stand seeing her in such bad condition.
Claire shook her head, "Nah, it's alright. Just leave," she kicked him out.
"What?" His brows knitted. Hard to believe he just heard the girl –who has always following him around, asked him to leave.
Claire changed her position, lying on her side so that Gray couldn't see her red face at all. "My heart feels like it's going to explode if you stay here…" she said honestly with low voice. She tried hard not to see his face. She couldn't help it. He just touched her. If his smile was able to make her heart pounding like crazy, what about his touch?
Gray's face slightly flushed from hearing such honest explanation. But, instead of leaving, Gray sat on the floor, rested his elbows on the round table and propped his chin on one hand.
"…do you love me that much?" Gray asked. He noticed the girl's ears from behind turned into red in a blink. If only he could take a peek on her face, he sure he would find it hilarious because she was super red right now. But she felt resentful.
What kind of question is that? Isn't it obvious?
"Leave me alone… Rather than fever, my heart is hurt so much, you know," she finally managed to say something.
"Because of me?" Gray asked innocently.
Upset, she finally got up from bed. "Who else it could be?!" She blown up and glared at him. But as expected from Claire, her eyes couldn't even look at Gray's face for long. Her tears fell within three seconds. Feeling beat, she went back to her position –curling on her bed, and didn't let the young blacksmith looking at her tears.
"Please leave me alone. I'm in the mood to brood," her voice sounded husky, obviously holding her tears.
The man beside her exhaled his breath and then walked out of her house. When she heard her door closed, tears escaped from her eyes. "Goddess, how come I turned into such a crybaby nowadays…" she whispered to herself.
She wasn't like this back then. Actually, she even found it hard to let out her tears. No matter how tight her heart already had been. No matter she want to let out her feelings. But now, when Gray happened to be in front of her, her tears gland became so much weaker. As if it had lost its lids. It leaked the water so easily.
But Gray knows nothing.
That's why he said something like that yesterday.
It's not his fault that I'm being like this, too.
It's just me, who loves him too much.
"Isn't it obvious? Even me, I'll run if there's a man who suddenly pop up and says that he loves me in our first meeting," she mumbled. She cried for a long time, until she felt tired and decided to wash her face –which was extremely messy, with fresh water from the river. Just when she opened the door, she surprised by the scene of Gray jogged towards her.
"Here, drink it up," he said as giving her a bottle of turbojolt. Looking at the girl only stood still and didn't move at all, he grabbed her hand and put the bottle in her grasp deliberately. "You're living alone, so take care of your health carefully."
Stunned, Claire could only say thank you in a daze, "Thanks…"
"You're welcome. Well then," he excused himself and walked away.
"Senpai, wait a minute!"
Just like their first meeting in Mineral Town, Claire stopped his steps. And just like that, Gray turned with his forehead frowned.
"My feeling for you… It's indeed love. It's true that I'm obsessed, sometimes I'm going too far, and it's bothering you… I'm sorry!" she bowed deeply. She then quickly raised her head and looked at Gray with her red eyes –thanked to all those crying. "But, is it alright if I keep on loving you? Because... you're my life energy!"
Looking at flustered Claire somewhat transferred some heat to his face as well. He pulled down his hat to cover his red face. "Suit yourself," he said.
He couldn't help but wondering about how this girl said those embarrassing lines so easily. And just like his grandfather said, it couldn't be as easy as it seems. It required lots of courage and recklessness to do so.
Guess I have to compliment her for that…
"Yeay! And then, slowly I'll steal you from Mary!" Claire continued her ultimatum in fire. But because her head was hurt, she collapsed and leaned on the door frame immediately.
… or not.
Yeah, I won't. This girl is too hectic for me.
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[To Be Continued…]
