Summary: "Fine. I guess I'll just leave. That should solve things, shouldn't it?" Lillian and Ash have been friends for as long as Lillian had been in Bluebell. When he starts giving her the cold shoulder, though, things take a turn for the worse.

Disclaimer: Harvest Moon belongs to Marvelous Entertainment.

"… What?" she questioned, staring at Ash with wide eyes.

Realizing what he had just done, Ash's face flared up like a fire cracker, and he quickly averted his eyes away from the girl. "I… Like I said… Lillian, I love you. And I have for a long time."

"… Right then," she replied, an uncertainty in her tone.

"W-what is that supposed to mean?"

Lillian held up a hand for him to stop speaking, as she lowered herself into the grass just outside her front door –or, rather, her old front door. What the man just said slowly sunk in, and as realization fully came in, her cheeks flared as bright as Ash's. He… He just confessed to her. That he loved her.

"Lillian?" he asked, a tint of panic in his voice, as he started getting more and more nervous. No. No, no, no. Oh God, why did he just say that? Why in the world would she return his feelings?

"One question," she finally mumbled, voice cracking, "If you… Why…"

"Why was I such an ass?" he asked for her, seeing she was currently incoherent. Letting out a sigh, he wound around to sit in the grass, directly in front of her, though both were avoiding eye contact. "I… I don't know. I was just… I was jealous."

"Jealous?" she asked, brows furrowing as she looked up at him, managing to catch his eye and hold it for a few seconds, "You were jealous of what?"

"You can't think of it yourself?"

She stared blankly at him.

Sighing, he removed his hat and pushed his bangs back –it seemed this would become his new quirk for when embarrassed or nervous. "Of other guys, of course. The first day I was annoyed… Do you remember what you were doing that morning?" he asked, forcing himself to look directly at her.

This seemed to stump the girl, as she racked her brain. "I… I was talking with Cam, wasn't I? He was telling me about some new flower seeds he got in."

Ash nodded at this, "Yeah. And then after that?"

"He was gave me a flower I was going to buy, and for free, so I hugged hi- Wait, you saw that?"

"Obviously," he mumbled, "Bluebell isn't the biggest of villages, Lil. It's not like the city."

"Okay, that explains the first day. But what about for the next week? I didn't hear from you once for like, five days! And then you came into the Café and decided to be an ass! What was up with that?" she asked, eyes narrowing as she continued her interrogation.

This was not turning out the way he wanted it to when he blurted out his feeling. Taking her hands in his own, he began tracing the lines, using it as an excuse to look down as he explained. "Every single day, I would try to go find you to apologize for my behavior. Every time I would find you, though, I'd see you with Cam, or Dirk, or Mikhail, and know I would lash out again. Today was the same; I went to the Café, figuring you would be with Laney, only to walk in and see you kissing Cam…"

Lillian appeared to take his words into consideration, staying silent as she turned over what he said in her head. "One more thing," she finally said after an eternity, "Why were you so mad when I went to your house? I wasn't with any guys then."

Of course. She just had to ask the one thing he'd been praying she forget. "W-well…" Ash hesitated, his heart rate accelerating the more he thought about it, "You had bad timing… Right before you came, I… I was still annoyed. A-and then my mom asked me something…"

"Which would be?" she pressed on.

"… When I was going to ask you to marry me." The tone he used was the barest of whispers, though it seemed to be heard by the farmer girl nonetheless.

With cheeks ablaze, only moments after having been on the verge of returning to their original shade, she looked down at their joined hands, "O-oh."

"Oh? Is that all you have to say?" he asked, voice faltering as his mood turned more disheartened with every second that passed.

"W-well… Yes. Ash, I didn't even know you liked me before! And we've never gone on an actual date or anything before! And… And what if things go wrong, and it ruins our friendship?" Freeing her hands from his grasp, she lurched forward, snagging his neck and pulling him into a hug. Hiding her warm face in the crook of his neck, she continued, "I just don't want to lose you."

"But you won't, Lil, you won't! I wouldn't allow things to go wrong with our relationship!"

"Ash, I… I can't. I live too far. It'd be too hard to see you, what with the tunnel still all blocked up."

He just stared in a dumb founded manner, straight ahead, and the brunette could feel his shoulders tense, "You mean… You…"

"I'm not coming back, Ash. Not now. I was being serious when I said I wanted to better learn how to plant crops. And it wouldn't be fair to Ina if I stayed for barely a day, and left; she'd likely take it offensively." Pushing herself away from Ash, and standing she walked into her old home, grabbing the keys off the counter before going outside to where the ginger still sat in the grass. "I need to go. I have to bring these to Rugter, and check in for the night; I can't go back to Konohana in this darkness.

Without even waiting for Ash to stand, she started jogging to the exit of her farm, being stopped short only by Ash's voice. "When will I see you again, then?" he shouted.

Lillian paused for only a moment, "Soon!" she yelled back, before continuing her route to leave the farm.

Ash sat there for only a minute, watching as she disappeared, before eyes going wide. "Wait! Lillian! What's your response to my confession?"

But it was too late; she was gone in the dark of night.

A/n: THE CHEESE. IT BURNS. And soyeah. Don't worry guys, the story will still be going a few chapters c: I bet most of you thought it was going to end this chapter or the next, but NOPE ;D I've got other things up my sleeve ;D

Thanks, as always, for all the support! I'll get to replying to the reviews from the last chapter ASAP!