Disclaimer: I don't own Harvest Moon, Karen, or any related characters or
events; to the best of my knowledge, they're all owned by Natsume. Any
resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or events is purely
coincidental. This story is based primarily on the plot of Harvest Moon 64.
Wine Red no Kokoro
by flame mage
Part 12: Showing up Emeril
**********
The next day I felt better, so I went up into the mountains, and then over to Ann's place to get ready for the Harvest Festival the following day.
Ann and I always get together, semi-desperately, the day before the Harvest Festival. This annual ritual is the rough equivalent of the blind leading the blind off a ski jump. This'd be pathetic enough, but we have to stand there and watch Gray two feet away cooking up a storm.
This year was no exception. We met at her house--Mom was working at ours, busy making something edible--broke out the aprons, the chef's hats, the oven gloves, the welding masks, etc., and started working.
I'd been to the mountains that morning, so we had fresh mushrooms and berries. We had a couple herbs, too, but Popuri'd been making her herb salad for three years in a row (we always figured it was the only thing she knew how to cook) and it was probably a bad idea. After eating the salad, most people would be totally okay going an entire year without herbs before having to smile through it at the Harvest Festival next year. Gray and Rick came in around the same time with some mushrooms and a bunch of eggs. The vegetables from the farm were already in the fridge.
Gray got the recipe cards down from the box in the empty shack in which they keep everything related to their mother. She kept all her recipes on index cards, smudged with floury fingerprints, and we all sat down on the kitchen floor to look through them. Rain streaked across the windowpanes. It was the perfect day to be indoors cooking with friends.
We were about a third of the way through the stack when there was a pounding at the door. I was the closest, so I got up and opened it to find Cliff standing there, dripping wet. Cain was perched on his shoulder.
Cliff opened his mouth to say something, but Ann was faster. "What are you doing standing there?!"
"The carpenters' shop was closed, and the wind is blowing the rain into the cave," Cliff explained. "I wondered if there was anything I could do to help..."
Ann already had her umbrella and was propelling him toward the door. "Go! Go! You are going to put on some dry clothes of Gray's, and then we'll talk!"
They came back a few minutes later, Cliff wearing jeans and an old sweatshirt of Gray's, and we started looking again. Gray settled on his famous stuffed omelet recipe, which I've had more times than I can count and which gets better each time. Ann normally does mashed potatoes, but this year she chose a recipe for corn fritters written neatly in her mother's round handwriting--if you ask me she was just trying to impress Cliff, who really showed off by whipping out a huge blue fish he'd brought and announcing that he was going to make sashimi. Cain, perched on the back of a chair, fluttered his wings as if he wanted to laugh.
I knew that whatever I cooked, it would be a black lump of char--like something you'd find in your stocking at Christmas if you were bad, only less appetizing. I figured I might as well try to make something with the wild grape, though--I hated to waste it, but on the offchance that it turned out good, at least I could eat it. So I started looking for pie recipes, but then I realized it was hopeless and settled for stamina juice.
We got out all the pots and pans and utensils and started to work. If you've ever been stuck in an elevator with a herd of mature elephants, you know what it's like to cook in a small, tight kitchen with four other people. We managed, though. Eventually Ann started singing, at the top of her lungs, and I joined in. She whacked Gray over the head a couple times until he started--I'd only heard him sing once before; he was pretty good--and then we got Cliff and Rick singing and we sounded okay. Totally out of tune, but okay.
Rick said he didn't think he'd bother going to the festival, so he ran around helping the rest of us out with our cooking. He had some new invention to cook vegetables instantly, and after exploding a couple potatoes (after the first one Ann made him go outside to try it), he burst back in to announce that he had it working. With a fast-cooker, the job got done pretty quickly, and we put all the dishes in the fridge for the next day. After we'd cleaned up, the guys shuffled off to the store to talk to Doug, and Ann and I headed for the barn.
"Sooooo?" I asked as I milked one of the cows. The milk zinged into the jar.
"So what?" Ann was brushing Cliffguard. Again.
"So what's up with you and Cliff?" I asked. It was best-friend- pumping time. "The wind's blowing in the opposite direction from the mouth of the cave. He just wanted to come here, Ann."
She reddened a little, so I figured I knew the answer. Nothing phazes her.
"I like him," she said after a while. I'd moved on to feeding the sheep. "I just don't think he likes me."
"Annnnn!" I wailed. "Of course he likes you! I know him! I grew up with him! Look, you know he's gonna be at the Festival tomorrow. Ask him to dance!"
"I don't dance, Karen," she said, but she was grinning now. "Okay, my turn. You and Jack...?"
"I dunno." I shook my head and grabbed some more fodder for the cows. "At first I thought he was a jerk, but lately he's been okay. And then there was dancing with the Kifu fairies...and he was so sweet yesterday..."
"Let me see the music box again!" she demanded. I pulled it out of my pocket and showed it to her. "So what do you think?"
I took it back and repeated, "I dunno. You remember that summer. It was just...I just...I feel like I know him." Yep. No way I was gonna be able to explain this.
But she was nodding. Best friend intuition thing, y'know. "See what happens tomorrow," she said, in that tone of voice that always makes me suspicious that she already knows what's going to happen, and plans on engineering it every step of the way.
But then she handed me a pair of clippers and motioned toward the sheep in the back of the barn, and I didn't get to ask her what she meant.
I got up early the next morning, giving myself enough time to take a long, hot bath and get over to the ranch. Ann was already waiting when I got there.
"Come onnnn!" she cried, jumping up and down. "We're gonna be late, Karen!"
"Late for what? The festival lasts all day!" I protested from my position a foot or two behind her where I was being dragged by my arm.
"If we're not there early, we won't get a spot by the entrance to the square, and no one will eat our food!" she insisted. If I remembered right, the square was so small that it only took everyone an hour to make the rounds anyway, but she did have a point in getting people to eat our food before their stomachs got full. I jogged a couple steps to catch up.
We were the first ones there, so we did end up getting the best spots. Cliff came a couple minutes later, carrying May ("I ran into her on the way," he mouthed to us), and they both set up at our table, too. Secure in the knowledge that all the other morons would just have to fight over the nosebleed seats by the track, we all went down to the bakery to help a struggling Elli with the cakes--for some reason she flashed a wink at Ann--and then got back to the square before everyone came.
Wine Red no Kokoro
by flame mage
Part 12: Showing up Emeril
**********
The next day I felt better, so I went up into the mountains, and then over to Ann's place to get ready for the Harvest Festival the following day.
Ann and I always get together, semi-desperately, the day before the Harvest Festival. This annual ritual is the rough equivalent of the blind leading the blind off a ski jump. This'd be pathetic enough, but we have to stand there and watch Gray two feet away cooking up a storm.
This year was no exception. We met at her house--Mom was working at ours, busy making something edible--broke out the aprons, the chef's hats, the oven gloves, the welding masks, etc., and started working.
I'd been to the mountains that morning, so we had fresh mushrooms and berries. We had a couple herbs, too, but Popuri'd been making her herb salad for three years in a row (we always figured it was the only thing she knew how to cook) and it was probably a bad idea. After eating the salad, most people would be totally okay going an entire year without herbs before having to smile through it at the Harvest Festival next year. Gray and Rick came in around the same time with some mushrooms and a bunch of eggs. The vegetables from the farm were already in the fridge.
Gray got the recipe cards down from the box in the empty shack in which they keep everything related to their mother. She kept all her recipes on index cards, smudged with floury fingerprints, and we all sat down on the kitchen floor to look through them. Rain streaked across the windowpanes. It was the perfect day to be indoors cooking with friends.
We were about a third of the way through the stack when there was a pounding at the door. I was the closest, so I got up and opened it to find Cliff standing there, dripping wet. Cain was perched on his shoulder.
Cliff opened his mouth to say something, but Ann was faster. "What are you doing standing there?!"
"The carpenters' shop was closed, and the wind is blowing the rain into the cave," Cliff explained. "I wondered if there was anything I could do to help..."
Ann already had her umbrella and was propelling him toward the door. "Go! Go! You are going to put on some dry clothes of Gray's, and then we'll talk!"
They came back a few minutes later, Cliff wearing jeans and an old sweatshirt of Gray's, and we started looking again. Gray settled on his famous stuffed omelet recipe, which I've had more times than I can count and which gets better each time. Ann normally does mashed potatoes, but this year she chose a recipe for corn fritters written neatly in her mother's round handwriting--if you ask me she was just trying to impress Cliff, who really showed off by whipping out a huge blue fish he'd brought and announcing that he was going to make sashimi. Cain, perched on the back of a chair, fluttered his wings as if he wanted to laugh.
I knew that whatever I cooked, it would be a black lump of char--like something you'd find in your stocking at Christmas if you were bad, only less appetizing. I figured I might as well try to make something with the wild grape, though--I hated to waste it, but on the offchance that it turned out good, at least I could eat it. So I started looking for pie recipes, but then I realized it was hopeless and settled for stamina juice.
We got out all the pots and pans and utensils and started to work. If you've ever been stuck in an elevator with a herd of mature elephants, you know what it's like to cook in a small, tight kitchen with four other people. We managed, though. Eventually Ann started singing, at the top of her lungs, and I joined in. She whacked Gray over the head a couple times until he started--I'd only heard him sing once before; he was pretty good--and then we got Cliff and Rick singing and we sounded okay. Totally out of tune, but okay.
Rick said he didn't think he'd bother going to the festival, so he ran around helping the rest of us out with our cooking. He had some new invention to cook vegetables instantly, and after exploding a couple potatoes (after the first one Ann made him go outside to try it), he burst back in to announce that he had it working. With a fast-cooker, the job got done pretty quickly, and we put all the dishes in the fridge for the next day. After we'd cleaned up, the guys shuffled off to the store to talk to Doug, and Ann and I headed for the barn.
"Sooooo?" I asked as I milked one of the cows. The milk zinged into the jar.
"So what?" Ann was brushing Cliffguard. Again.
"So what's up with you and Cliff?" I asked. It was best-friend- pumping time. "The wind's blowing in the opposite direction from the mouth of the cave. He just wanted to come here, Ann."
She reddened a little, so I figured I knew the answer. Nothing phazes her.
"I like him," she said after a while. I'd moved on to feeding the sheep. "I just don't think he likes me."
"Annnnn!" I wailed. "Of course he likes you! I know him! I grew up with him! Look, you know he's gonna be at the Festival tomorrow. Ask him to dance!"
"I don't dance, Karen," she said, but she was grinning now. "Okay, my turn. You and Jack...?"
"I dunno." I shook my head and grabbed some more fodder for the cows. "At first I thought he was a jerk, but lately he's been okay. And then there was dancing with the Kifu fairies...and he was so sweet yesterday..."
"Let me see the music box again!" she demanded. I pulled it out of my pocket and showed it to her. "So what do you think?"
I took it back and repeated, "I dunno. You remember that summer. It was just...I just...I feel like I know him." Yep. No way I was gonna be able to explain this.
But she was nodding. Best friend intuition thing, y'know. "See what happens tomorrow," she said, in that tone of voice that always makes me suspicious that she already knows what's going to happen, and plans on engineering it every step of the way.
But then she handed me a pair of clippers and motioned toward the sheep in the back of the barn, and I didn't get to ask her what she meant.
I got up early the next morning, giving myself enough time to take a long, hot bath and get over to the ranch. Ann was already waiting when I got there.
"Come onnnn!" she cried, jumping up and down. "We're gonna be late, Karen!"
"Late for what? The festival lasts all day!" I protested from my position a foot or two behind her where I was being dragged by my arm.
"If we're not there early, we won't get a spot by the entrance to the square, and no one will eat our food!" she insisted. If I remembered right, the square was so small that it only took everyone an hour to make the rounds anyway, but she did have a point in getting people to eat our food before their stomachs got full. I jogged a couple steps to catch up.
We were the first ones there, so we did end up getting the best spots. Cliff came a couple minutes later, carrying May ("I ran into her on the way," he mouthed to us), and they both set up at our table, too. Secure in the knowledge that all the other morons would just have to fight over the nosebleed seats by the track, we all went down to the bakery to help a struggling Elli with the cakes--for some reason she flashed a wink at Ann--and then got back to the square before everyone came.