Cliff: Sane? I'm perfectly sane! Oh no, here come those flying monkeys…

A/N: Long time no update, eh? I know it's no excuse, but I've certainly come a long way since my days of N64 and Harvest Moon obsession. Getting over the likes of Dragonball Z and moving on to more sophisticated anime, as well as obtaining a Playstation 2 more than a year ago has also certainly slowed me down, as I have been plagued with the opposite of writers block. In fact, I fear I will never have the time to finish the fanfiction hosted in my profile in addition to the ones I have planned. But, knowing this is one of the easiest to knock off the list, I'm going to try. So sorry if it's not entirely up-to-par but keep in mind, it is the best I can do, considering the large amount of stress and pressure I am under. Additionally, I wonder how many of you will notice the new writing style I picked up sometime back? Added to that, I wonder why the font for previous chapter is so you-know-what-ing huge.

Children of the Harvest

Friday's Child

Her pleasantly plump figure plopped down on the window seat near the entrance of the Flowerbud Village Bakery, chubby digits tracing the pattern left behind when multitudes upon multitudes of salty rain drops separated from the light drizzle and flung themselves at the glass window by which she sat. Heh, she mused, it was rather suicidal of those droplets. Not that she cared though; she had her own problems to deal with.

Running an idle hand through her short, chestnut-colored hair, her downcast orbs of mahogany raised to greet Jeff, the head baker, who had just entered the room and slipped behind the counter. Silently standing, she carried herself over to his side, routinely reaching over the counter with a motherly tsk and straightening his apron and bow-tie, which always seemed to be lopsided.

When he scratched the back of his head in embarrassment, spindly fingers weaving through the mass of inky, obsidian strands, Elli could not help but smile. Refraining from also reaching over and tweaking the end of his shiny black mustache, which always seemed to slightly twitch when its' owner was embarrassed, she turned swiftly on her heels to face the front door of the building.

"It hasn't rained like this since..." she trailed off as she leaned back on the sturdy display case, carefully bringing her right knee up and clasping her hands over it. "...Since he left,"

Jeff found himself frowning at the back of her head. By he, of course, she meant Jack; grandson of the deceased farmer who had stayed at the Auroch Ranch for several years. It was no secret that most of the town's eligible bachelorettes had fallen good and hard for him, Elli being no exception. And of course, this was a big problem for Jeff - who while attractive in his own rights, held nothing on Jack's sheer, sexy demeanor and handsome face - for he had been crushing on said young woman for several years now.

Jack, despite his playboy-ish qualities, however, was a rather conservative fellow; in other words, a one-woman man. This had posed as a problem when all the girls had began to come onto him, for he could not bring himself to choose between them, risking losing his simple friendship with the others and their hopeful beau's.

And so, leaving the farm in charge of his best friend Cliff, who was sure to help it prosper and grow, he had fled Flowerbud Village one stormy spring morning, never to return again. Of course, everyone was crushed, but Elli particularly so, for she, having an unusually low self-esteem, felt herself to be solely responsible for his disappearance.

In any case, Jeff found himself raising a tight fist to his mouth and clearing his throat. "He was a good guy," he returned, rather weakly, having lost his nerve at the last moment. But when she turned to him and flashed him the saddest gaze he had ever seen, his heart melted and he gathered his courage once more. "Why do you let him rule your thoughts - your heart, even - Elli? Especially when you know he will never come back"

Something akin to irony pulled her thinly pressed lips into a sad, soul-wrenching smile as she shook her head, allowing her feathery, bobbed tresses to bounce up and down. "I don't quite know how to explain it, or even if I know myself," she confessed, "But I am quite sure - take no offense to this, mind you - that you would never understand,"

He sighed, at her unwillingness to open up to him, her cool brush-off with sugarcoated words. Casting his eyes to one of the larger windows, he took note that the muddy, puddle-filled streets were abandoned. Growing bold, he stepped out from behind the counter and advanced upon her.

She eyed him warily; she trusted him completely, of course, but she could not help but wonder just what the man was up to. He paused, directly in front of her, allowing his eyes to sweep up her in one, swift motion, from the tip of her shiny brown boot to the tip of her dusty-colored hair. Then, he spun on his heels and circled her once, stopping when he was behind her.

Not a word was exchanged between them for quite some time, with Jeff simply standing there behind her, quietly taking in her lilac-tinted scent, and Elli, stone-still, breath quite audible in their otherwise silent environment.

Taking a cautious step forward, he reached out a wavering arm, allowing his index finger to separate from the others, tracing her spinal cord from its' beginning all the way down to the small of her back. Still, not a word was spoken and, taking this as a go-ahead, he closed to gap between them, his other arm snaking out from his side to encircle around her waist, embracing her from behind. Resting his chin and its' newly formed stubble atop on of her shoulders, he held her like this for quite awhile, taking bliss in the silence.

However, when he supposed she finally became fully conscious of his actions and tensed beneath his touch, he decided it was time to break said silence and utter long unspoken words. "Elli..." he began, pacing his tone to sound methodical, deliberate. "You say I do not understand what an unrequited love feels like?"

She nodded, dumbly, too shocked by these revelations to speak. It did not help that when she did this, his lips accidentally ended up brushing against her neck, causing her to suppress a shudder. "Well," he continued, "I most certainly do." And with that, he fell completely silent.

Several more moments passed before Elli chose to respond; and when she did, her voice quivered, sounding quite close to tears. "My parents died when I was but a child, you know that, Jeff...I got passed around from relative to family friend, finally somehow ending up with you and your family,"

"Mmhmm," he nodded, in agreement, the soft, almost purr-like sound vibrating deep within his throat, in turn transferring the odd sensation to the dip in her shoulder, causing her to chuckle through her sadness, at the way it tickled.

"Anyway," she reached up one apron clutching hand to dab at her eyes, hoping to clear her blurry vision, made so by salty tears which so reminded her of the drops of rain she had earlier observed. "Sorry about this," she ten proceeded to motion to herself, in reference to her crying.

"It's okay," he soothed, momentarily lifted his chin from her shoulder to shake his head. "Do continue,"

"Alright," she sighed, letting her apron fall out of her hot hands and back to its' right position. "Well, I suppose that when..." she hesitated, trying to put this next part as delicately as she could, "Your parents died, you could have just left me, huh? I mean...You're only a few years older than me, correct?"

"Yes," was his simple response. "Four, to be exact,"

"Yeah..." she trailed off, looking momentarily thoughtful before shaking her head to clear her muddled thoughts. "But anyway, you stayed with me. Took care of me with blind devotion, and when you came here, you brought me with you, giving me a job and somehow reuniting me with my grandmother,"

"Those were the days," Jeff smiled softly, lightly squeezing her in a comforting manner. "But go on,"

Elli wrenched herself free from his grasp and, like a true gentleman, Jeff made no move to keep her, assisting her in disentangling herself instead. But she made no move to flee, as he had at first expected. She merely folded her hands behind her back, bending slightly as she smiled radiantly up at him, "I guess I'm trying to say thanks," her cheeks were a-fluster.

"You don't have to thank me," Jeff shook his head, fighting the urge to blush himself. "I mean, any decent person would have done the same,"

"No," her response was immediate, as she straightened herself and stared straight at him. "They wouldn't have..."

Not having the will to argue with her and, secretly absorbing her every word of praise, he merely averted his gaze with no small amount of meekness. "Anyway," she said, cheerfully, taking a step forward and pushing herself up on her tip-toes, shyly pecking the corner of his mouth, "I'll try to be more considerate of your...feelings...too, and remember that I am loved!"

And with that, she bounced off to her room, leaving a very startled but ecstatic baker named Jeff to trace the wood-grained floor with the tip of his boot and mumble incoherently before fluttering happily over to the very window-seat Elli had earlier graced, absorbed in his own thoughts.

A/N: Elli was the highlight of this chapter; she was Friday's child. The way this turned out pleased me so much, I have decided to keep the same continuity for the next chapter, where I was planning to do Jeff's story anyway. Truth be told, I'm not really an Elli fan at all, and actually, I kind of always seem to mock her, but...I like this, so what can I say. Keh. Anyway, I promise to get both Saturday's Child and Sabbath's Child out real soon. Not the previous...*drum-roll* Year and 16 days.

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