Disclaimer: Harvest Moon 64 and all related characters are property of Natsume. This story is written for entertainment purposes only, and not one red cent is being made off its existence. (As one would assume would be obvious, as it's posted on fanfiction dot net)
Coming Home
-Chapter 10: Starry Night-
Jack was jolted out of his sleep one night by an earthquake. He sat straight up in bed and tried to wake up properly so that he could remember what he was supposed to do in this sort of situation. By the time his sleep-muddled mind worked out that he probably ought to get under the table in case the roof collapsed, it was over. Blinking a bit once the world had settled back into its usual motionless state, he absentmindedly stroked Jiro, who had crawled into his lap for comfort. Deciding it would be silly to get all worked up about it now that it was over, Jack flopped down on his back and went back to sleep.
(x)
The very next morning as Jack stepped outside to begin his morning chores, he nearly tripped over the head carpenter, who had been waiting for him to appear.
"Morning, Jack," the old man said.
"Morning," Jack responded, wondering what he wanted.
"You feel that earthquake last night?" he asked without preamble. When Jack nodded, he continued, "Well, it opened up an underground spring up on the mountain. Me and the boys are going to build an onsen up there, and we need an extra pair of hands. Would you mind helping out?"
"Uhm," Jack was surprised by the sudden offer, and wasn't sure what to say.
"We'll pay you for your time, of course," the old man added, incorrectly interpreting Jack's hesitation.
"Actually, I'd like to help out," Jack said, before the old man could say anything more.
"Oh, good!" the old carpenter's face broke into a smile, which was accentuated by the many lines and wrinkles in his face. "Work starts at nine o' clock. I'll see you there."
"See you." Jack nodded, and watched as the old man left the farm. He grinned suddenly, because now he had a very nice alternative to slaving away in the dim mines all day. He much preferred the idea of working out in the fresh air to digging in a cave.
(x)
Later that morning, Jack went up to the mountain as he had been instructed, and met the old man at the bridge. Together they ascended the trail leading up the mountain-side. They were greeted enthusiastically by the three apprentices, and Jack was put to work cutting wood almost immediately.
Work progressed slowly but steadily, with the carpenters chatting and joking amongst themselves and drawing Jack into their conversations. He finally worked out that their names were Ken, Kenta, and Kenji...for all the good that would do him, as they were still as identical as ever.
They took a break for lunch around noon. Jack was enjoying his food when a movement over by the bridge (When did they build that bridge? Jack wondered) caught his eye. Coming down off the mountain was Cliff. Jack swallowed his mouthful of food eagerly and started to call out, but Ken...ta? Kenji? Ken beat him to it.
"Hey Cliff!"
"Oh, hi." Cliff responded, nodding at the man in question. Jack was surprised to notice Cliff's, careful, guarded manner. He hadn't seen him act that way in months! He realized further that Cliff hadn't acted that way around him for some time now. When had he stopped? Surprised and pleased at this new discovery, Jack merely watched and listened as Cliff and Ken exchanged pleasantries.
"Are you free this afternoon?" Ken asked after a moment or two of chatting.
"Well, yes..." Cliff admitted. His gaze slid over the tableau of men, and then to the beginning construction work behind them. His eyes briefly met Jack's, and Jack grinned at him. Cliff's own mouth turned up in a small smile, but his attention was quickly dragged back to Ken.
"We're building a hot spring over this crack that was opened up by the earthquake last night. Would you like to give us a hand?"
"Good idea!" enthused the other two Kens. Jack wasn't sure which was which, so he figured they could all be 'Ken'...in his own private thoughts, at least.
"That is a good idea. Sorry I didn't think of it myself," the boss spoke up for the first time. "What do you say, young man?"
Cliff smiled nervously, and his eyes again met with Jacks. Jack grinned encouragingly and nodded.
"Sure! I'd love to," he said after a moment. The three Kens cheered boisterously while the old man nodded his head in a satisfied way.
"Great! We'll have this sucker built in no time!" he proclaimed. "Lunch's over, boys. Back to work!" At that order, Jack and the apprentices scrambled back to their feet and returned to their jobs. The old man told Cliff what he could do, and soon the mountain man was working companionably alongside the carpenters and Jack.
If Jack had been hoping for a bit of private conversation with Cliff, he would have been disappointed. The three Kens continued to dominate all the conversation, keeping up an ever-steady stream of chatter among the three of them, but also including both Jack and Cliff. All in all, hard work aside, it was a very pleasant afternoon, and when work ended at five o' clock, all the carpenters, Jack and Cliff were able to stand back and view the beginnings of their project with a certain amount of pride.
"Right! If we work like this for the rest of the week, we'll have our very own Flower Bud Onsen open by next Sunday! Now let's go home and get some sleep!" proclaimed the old man. The three apprentices exchanged amused glances above his head as he paid Jack and Cliff for their day's labor. Jack got the distinct impression that sleep, at least for the three young men, was the last thing on the agenda for the evening, now that the day's work was done.
As the four carpenters hiked off down the trail, Jack turned to Cliff, smiling.
"What a day, huh?"
"Yeah," Cliff smiled back. Jack thought he looked much more relaxed, now that the carpenters were out of sight.
"You going to come back tomorrow for another go?" he asked curiously, indicating that they too ought to begin descending from the plateau.
Cliff shrugged, and began walking down the trail, Jack a step behind him. "Dunno...I might. Actually, I probably will...I haven't had this much money for a single day's work in quite a while. It'd be nice to have a bit more."
Jack laughed. "I'll probably be back tomorrow too. It sure beats heading down into the mines."
"That it does," Cliff agreed, for he too had descended into the dark caverns on more than one occasion in search of a bit of wealth. While he was happy enough to sleep in the top-most portion of the cave on rainy or snowy nights, he was not a big fan of the underground in general, and preferred the open air.
"Hey, um..." Jack began, and paused to clear his throat. "Do you want to head down to the inn for a round or two?"
Cliff was surprised and pleased by the invitation. He blushed a little, glad that the early-descending winter twilight would cover his reaction. "I'd like that."
"Great! Let's go, then!"
(x)
Karen looked up from her position behind the bar as the door swung open and Jack stepped inside. She was just about to turn back to her very important task of wiping down the bar when a second figure entered behind Jack. She blinked with surprise when she saw who it was, and then allowed herself a small smirk when she realized that the pair had come in together.
"'Evening, Karen!" Jack said as he passed her on his way to the table in the corner beside the bar.
"Hello yourself," she said, arranging her features into a more serene, less gleeful expression. It wouldn't do to set off any sort of suspicion in Jack. Although, she reflected after a moment, he was so...dense, he'd probably only become suspicious if she were to do something incredibly obvious, such as smacking him over the head with a brick. Still, best not to take too many chances.
"What can I get you boys this evening?" she asked, leaning on the corner of the bar that faced their table.
"Beer for me, please," Jack said immediately, with a grin. She nodded in acknowledgement and turned her attention to Cliff.
"Beer sounds good," the quiet young man told her. She nodded and smiled at him, then turned and busied herself with a pair of mugs and the taps.
When she placed their beverages in front of them, they were conversing quietly about the new hot spring she'd heard rumors of. It sounded as though they had both spent the day helping out the carpenters, and she wondered if that would continue through to the completion of the project.
Guess I'll just have to wait and see, she mused as she returned to her position behind the bar.
(x)
She was greatly pleased when the two young men continued to visit the bar together each evening after the day's work was over. In her opinion, Jack's company was exactly what her shy cousin needed. She could tell that Cliff was able to nearly drop his guard when he was around Jack - something he was not able to do with anyone else.
It was an unusually quiet Saturday night when Karen took her break, seating herself at the table right behind Jack with a glass of wine and a "don't bother me, I'm relaxing" look on her face. The bar's only patrons that evening were Cliff and Jack. She thought that was a little odd, especially for a Saturday, but, well, whatever. She still got paid no matter how many people showed up on any given day, so it didn't concern her overly much.
"...Have you ever trusted someone, and then had that trust betrayed?" Cliff asked quietly after she'd been seated for several minutes. Karen, who wasn't exactly eavesdropping so much as listening with half an ear to the conversation, perked up a little at that and began to pay closer attention to what they were saying, but she didn't let on. Instead, she took a good swallow of her wine and scowled into the glass as she usually did. For once, though, her mind was not on what she considered to be the inferior quality of the beverage in her hand, but on the conversation taking place next to her.
Jack was silent for a few moments after Cliff had asked his question, and he eventually let out his breath in a long sigh. "Yeah," he replied in a bit of uncharacteristic melancholy.
"Really?" Cliff asked. "How can you still trust people?"
"Because I want to," Jack responded.
"Wow...I wish I could be that brave..." Cliff said wistfully. Karen blinked a little at the sad, almost lost note in his voice and scowled all the harder at her wine.
"It takes all kinds," Jack told him gently.
"Hmm...I guess..." Cliff agreed after a pause. After that, the conversation between the two men returned to their more usual, light-hearted topics, and Karen stopped listening and finished her wine.
(x)
If Karen's mind was occupied a little more than usual by thoughts of Cliff that night, it was nothing compared to Jack's whirling thoughts and emotions. Try as he might, he couldn't think of anything else once the two men had parted ways for the evening. He could only imagine what had happened to Cliff to cause him to lose his trust in humanity, and he really didn't care for the direction his thoughts were taking. The best case scenario was the lesser of several other evils that occurred to him, and it was only very slightly better at that. Someone had betrayed Cliff, that much he could tell from Cliff's abrupt question. Who had done it, and what they had done? He had no clue. He certainly wasn't going to press Cliff for answers, in any event...
He only remembered to check on his animals to make sure they were settled in for the night out of long habit. He also thought that he wouldn't be able to sleep as he collapsed into his bed because of the troubling thoughts chasing each other around in his head, but he was wrong. His body didn't particularly care that his mind was otherwise occupied - he was physically exhausted from the hard work he'd done that day, and sleep took precedence over planning unlikely revenges upon the person or people who had caused Cliff to stop smiling without any worries.
(x)
The construction of the hot spring was completed the following afternoon, just as the boss carpenter had predicted at the beginning of the week. Once all the tools had been gathered and the rest of the miscellaneous messes cleaned up, the three apprentices had a race to see who would be the first to enter the hot bath. Their boss just shook his head and looked on while Cliff and Jack watched the three men carry on, wearing matching bemused expressions.
"Well, here's you pay for the day," the boss said after a few minutes had passed and the shenanigans in the bath had quieted down as the three Kens began to relax. "You two do good work," he continued, nodding decisively.
Jack grinned, while Cliff muttered an embarrassed "Thank you."
"I don't suppose either of you has a use for the extra lumber we cut up?" the old man asked, looking between Jack and Cliff with a questioning expression on his face.
"Give it to Jack," Cliff said almost immediately, before Jack could work out how to diplomatically request that he be the recipient. He smiled his thanks at Cliff, who, he was curious to note, blushed slightly and looked away.
"Alright then, why don't we carry it back to your place then, Jack?" the old carpenter asked, effectively distracting Jack from his curious thoughts.
"Okay, sure," he agreed easily. Together, the three of them each carried an arm-load of lumber down the mountain to Jack's farm, where it was added to his woodpile.
"I'll send my boys down with the rest later," the old man promised, and left Cliff and Jack alone together at the crossroads. Without saying anything, and almost without thinking about it, the two young men fell into step beside each other and made their way into town to the inn, where they toasted the successful completion of the hot spring with several beers apiece. A few hours had passed before they left to make their way home.
"Hey...uhm," Jack began once they had reached the crossroads where they usually parted ways.
"Hmm?"
"Do you want to...uh, check out the hot spring?" he asked quickly, before he could change his mind and chicken out. He watched Cliff's face as carefully as he could, but it was far too dark by this time to tell if the other man was blushing or not.
"Sure," Cliff managed to say, and congratulated himself silently when his voice didn't sound too strangled.
"I'll run and grab us some towels then," Jack said, and suited word to action, jogging briskly to his cabin to acquire the towels, and running just as quickly back to where Cliff was still waiting by the entrance to the farm.
"Man! Do you remember the last time you had a hot bath? 'Cause I sure don't!" Jack exclaimed happily as the two made their way back into the mountains.
Cliff did remember his last hot bath, as a matter of fact, and he really preferred not to, because he hadn't taken it alone. He firmly shoved all approaching memories of him out of his mind and concentrated on answering Jack's question.
"It was a while ago," he said truthfully, grateful once again for the dark night that hid what he was sure was a brilliant blush of embarrassment.
"Same here. That damn river's far too cold to bathe in at this time of the year," Jack said, snorting irritably.
"Agreed," Cliff replied.
The clearing around the newly erected bath was quiet and deserted, and Jack and Cliff both slipped into the dark changing room and began shucking off their clothing as quickly as was possible considering how little light there was. Each was rather privately disappointed at how little they could see of the other, but also grateful for the dark because they were both blushing furiously and didn't want the other to know.
The bath was a large, circular pool that was shallow near the changing room, and deeper further away towards the east-facing fence. It was ringed by submerged rocks at all levels, which served as seats for bathers.
When they finally stepped in, was so hot that they had to carefully take their time before they could submerge themselves properly. They spent a full ten minutes acclimating themselves to the temperature, but were finally able to sit on the rocks positioned carefully in the middle of the pool so that the water came up to their navels.
The moon was out and the sky was clear, and Jack was in a very good position to view Cliff's assets for the first time. The moonlight detailed hard, lean muscle all throughout Cliff's arms and upper torso, a flat, taut stomach that was just a shade undernourished and...that was all he could see. The moonlight, while highlighting all of the details of the young man's torso, also reflected in a gentle glare off the surface of the water, hiding the rest of Cliff's very naked body from view. He was rather put out for a moment, until he realized that his lower portions were also hidden from view, thereby saving him from a potentially embarrassing problem.
Cliff, on the other hand, was carefully avoiding looking directly at Jack, because he knew that if he did, he'd be in trouble. He was silently berating himself for getting into this very disastrous situation. Why did Jack have to be so damn easy to agree with? He couldn't resist peeking at him from time to time, however, and soon, calling himself all kinds of stupid, had to scoot himself even further into the deeper end of the bath.
"Man...I've needed this forever and I hadn't even realized it before now," Jack said after several minutes of silence had passed, completely oblivious to Cliff's predicament.
"Mmm," was the noncommittal response.
Despite his outwardly calm exterior, Jack was a complete mess inside his mind. This was just the sort of situation he really ought to avoid - it was dark, rather romantic, and he and Cliff had each had several drinks before they'd made their way up here. An accidental brush of a foot here, a seemingly unintentional caress there...Hell, they were both men, but unless Cliff was seriously un-enamored of the idea of having a relationship with a guy, all it might take was a single nudge and a few well-spoken words in the right direction...
Almost unintentionally, Jack shifted himself deeper in the water and closer to Cliff, who didn't seem to notice. Just as he was settling again to calculate his next move, a sound caught his attention.
It was actually several sounds, and the longer he listened, the easier it became to discern a conversation...
"Damn! I can't believe the old man made us carry all that lumber down the mountain!" exclaimed the first voice.
"I know! And right after we'd had our bath, too!" complained the second.
"Aw, don't worry about it, you two. It's not like we can't take another one!" offered the third.
Jack and Cliff exchanged a glance.
So much for privacy, Jack thought bitterly.
Saved from my own stupidity! Cliff thought gratefully.
Ken, Kenji and Kenta appeared in the doorway leading to the bath in short order, each carrying a lantern and a towel. They spotted Cliff and Jack, each of whom appeared outwardly casual and relaxed.
"Hey guys!" was the enthusiastic, unanimous greeting shared by the carpenters.
"'Evening," was the slightly less enthusiastic greeting shared by Cliff and Jack.
Am I imagining things, or is he disappointed too? Jack wondered after a quick glance at Cliff. He didn't get any more time to think about that, though, because he was distracted by the exuberant and gleeful splashing of the three carpenters as they entered the bath.
(x)
How Jack got himself home without anyone noticing his...problem...he would never know. Once safely isolated indoors, he took care of it, and then collapsed onto his bed, feeling rather miserable about the whole situation. He had seen Cliff every day for the past eight days, had talked with him at length about various topics, had shared quite a few rounds at the inn with him, and had even, to a point, shared a bath. He was more enamored of the other man than ever, and if Cliff continued to be predictable Cliff, he also wouldn't be seeing much of him anymore for...who knew how long? With that last miserable thought, Jack groaned in frustration and shoved his head under his pillow, and refused to think about it any more that night.
(x)
The next day, Jack spent several moments staring bemusedly at his now rather large wood pile. He hadn't realized that there was that much extra lumber from the hot spring project. And now, unless he was entirely mistaken, he had more than enough to commission the carpenters to build him a kitchen! With that happy thought in mind, he headed up to the mountain to speak with the boss.
The kitchen was built within the week. Jack's only regret was that he didn't have any fresh produce with which to cook something...potato soup sounded delicious, right about now, for a start. He'd just have to content himself with purchasing a few essentials from Elli until he could begin growing his own produce when Spring came. With his days spent in the mines and his new kitchen to distract him in the evenings, Jack managed to avoid thinking about Cliff...too much.
(x)
The weeks went by as quickly as they are inclined to in the winter-time, and Karen realized that the Starry Night festival was drawing closer. If she had to guess by Jack's rather melancholy manner when he visited the bar lately, and by Cliff's complete absence, she would say that someone was avoiding someone else, and that both men were being very silly indeed.
Well. She'd put a stop to that, wouldn't she?
The day of the festival, Karen got up earlier than usual and made her way down to Jack's farm. She stepped onto the property just as he was stepping out of the front door of his recently expanded cabin. She called a greeting, and strolled over to meet him by the shipping bin.
"Hey, Karen!" he said, perking up a bit.
"Hi Jack," she said, smiling a little in return.
"What's up?" he asked curiously, though he thought he might already know. Whenever there was an imminent festival, someone always seemed to turn up at his front door early in the morning to let him know about it. "Tonight's the Starry Night Festival," she told him. "Do you want to join me at the beach?" Of course, by inviting him to the beach, she was effectively giving up her favorite spot...but who was she to stand in the way of romance? She could always watch the stars from the sand dunes a ways back, after all...
"I'd like that a lot!" he replied, smiling.
"Great! Be there around eight o'clock, okay?"
"Okay," he agreed, and watched her leave before he turned to do his chores.
As she left, she felt a little bad for inviting him to do something with the intention of standing him up...but at least he wouldn't be alone if she could help it, and she got the sneaking suspicion that he preferred Cliff's company to hers anyway.
Now Cliff...Cliff would be a little harder to persuade. She knew he liked her alright, but he was also so unsociable...not that she could blame him, after what she had overheard him talking about with Jack in the bar that night, but still...The boy would need to learn to trust again sometime, and Karen had the feeling that Jack was the sort of guy who'd be perfect to build that trust back up.
After pondering several scenarios, Karen decided that the best approach would also be the most direct. She spent several hours in the mountains looking for her cousin - just when she was beginning to worry that she wouldn't be able to find him, she ran into him around noon as he was stepping out of the mine.
"Cliff!"
"Oh, hi Karen," he seemed a little surprised to see her.
"I've been looking for you!"
"Er...you have?"
"Yeah," she nodded. "Look...tonight's the Starry Night Festival, and I told Jack I'd meet him at the beach. But I really think that you ought to be there instead, if you catch my meaning."
Cliff blinked and blushed, looking incredibly confused and embarrassed at the same time. Karen sighed.
"Look, Cliff," she began, softening her voice. "I know you like him -" as she said this, Cliff managed to blush harder than ever and began to stammer an excuse, but she cut him off and continued, "-And unless I'm entirely mistaken, he likes you as well. He's been mooning about for the past two weeks, ever since the hot spring was finished, and if I were a betting sort of woman, I'd bet that he hasn't seen you at all since that last night you two came into the inn together. Am I right?"
Cliff, flustered and unhappy to be caught, only nodded mutely, his face unreadable.
"You don't have to go, and I'm certainly not going to tell Jack how you feel - only you can do that. I'm just trying to push the both of you along as best I can, because I really believe you each have what it takes to make the other happy."
"How...how long have you known?" Cliff managed to ask, his voice slightly strangled. Karen smiled and laughed, not unkindly.
"Honestly? I could tell the first day I met you." Cliff raised an eyebrow in disbelief. "Believe me or don't, I really don't care. I just wanted to let you know that I'm rooting for you," And that I think you're both being incredibly silly, she added in her head...best to keep that last bit to herself, though.
"What about yourself? I mean, you like Jack, don't you?" Cliff asked, his voice a little steadier, now that he was over the initial shock of being confronted.
"Of course I like him! He's a very nice guy. I'm not interested in him like that, however, which is lucky for the pair of us," she said, grinning conspiratorially. "Anyway, I've been looking for you for a while now, and I need to get back to the vineyard. Don't forget. Eight o'clock at the beach." With that, she turned and began making her way along the river towards the bridge. Cliff watched her go, stunned. She was almost out of sight when a thought occurred to him, and he shouted after her,
"Was that you? The fireworks?"
She turned, walking backwards, and grinned, flashing the victory sign with her right hand. Shortly after, she disappeared altogether from view. Cliff stared at the spot where she had vanished, too bemused to do anything for several minutes.
(x)
Eight o'clock came, and Jack made his way down to the beach, looking forward to a quiet evening with Karen, and wishing very hard that it would be a quiet evening with someone else entirely. However, that wasn't very fair to Karen, so he resolved to be as cheerful as possible.
He descended the slope from the path near the ranch and stepped out onto the cold sand. He could make out a dark shape sitting a ways down the way, and he walked forward, preparing to call out. As he neared, he could make out a familiar brown leather vest and a short, blond ponytail that was rather silvery in the starlight.
"Cliff?"
"What, you not happy to see me?" came the somewhat hurt reply, though Jack was sure he was just putting on.
"Of course I am! I was just...er..."
"Expecting Karen?"
"Well...yes..."
"Funny thing about that..."
"Oh?"
"Have a seat!" Cliff said instead, slapping the sand beside him in invitation. Outwardly he appeared to be cool and collected, but inside he was a complete mess.
She said she thinks he likes me!
Thinks, Cliff, thinks! She doesn't know!
But she knew about me!
Only because you're so obvious! Of course, he had no idea that Jack was just as bad as he was...he was far too busy worrying about his own problems that he didn't have time to notice Jack's.
You can bank on a woman's intuition. he told himself firmly, and that shut up the nagging voice of doubt. For now.
While Cliff had been carrying on his internal dialogue, Jack had seated himself and was busy staring up at the sky. The two men sat in silence for several minutes, until it was broken by Jack.
"You were saying about Karen...?"
"What? Oh, yes...she told me she had some unavoidable business...not sure what, but she asked me to come instead so that you wouldn't be here all by yourself." What Cliff didn't know was that Karen, at that very moment, was seated on a fence post next to a young man in a purple bandanna who she was beginning to like very much, watching the stars from the vineyard.
"Oh."
"Yeah."
"That's the second time she's done this," Jack said after a moment.
"Hmm?"
"Sent you as a proxy...she did it when I got sick from working too hard at the beginning of the season, remember?"
"Naturally." Like I'll ever forget that! An image of Jack, lying spread eagle and stripped to his boxers, flat on his back in bed with the covers kicked off, floated unbidden into his mind, and he smiled a little at the memory.
"She seems a bit...absent-minded, huh?" Jack asked after a moment or two more of silence.
"Mmm," Cliff responded noncommittally. If "absent-minded" is synonymous with "scheming" then yes, yes she is.
Their conversation dropped off after a while, and the pair of them leaned back on their hands in the sand and stared up at the sky. It was said that this was the night when the stars were at their most beautiful. It was certainly true that the stars tonight were incredibly lovely - the sky was clear, and there was no moon. They were far enough away from the town, which only had very minimal lighting at night anyway, that there was no light to be found anywhere, except that of the star-light.
Taking in the devastatingly romantic scenery, Cliff couldn't help but mentally return to the conversation he'd had with Karen earlier that day, her words repeating themselves over and over in his head:
I know you like him, and unless I'm entirely mistaken, he likes you as well.
Could he do it? Tonight, under the stars? He glanced at Jack, who had by this time stretched out on his back, cradling his head with his fingers laced beneath it as a make-shift pillow. Three little words - that was all he had to say.
...unless I'm entirely mistaken, he likes you as well.
Cliff squirmed a bit, wavering back and forth.
he likes you as well.
He shifted his weight around, trying to find a more comfortable position for his rear, which was falling asleep.
...he likes you...
"Jack, I -" Before he could get any further, however, Cliff was interrupted by a gentle snore. Turning to stare at the prone form of the other man, Cliff stared in astonishment as yet another soft snore emerged. Cliff almost felt like weeping. Instead, he simply sighed heavily and flopped down onto his own back. The sand was cold - it hadn't warmed up much in the weak winter sunlight during the day, and the surface sand was always the first to lose its heat anyway. The thought of shaking Jack awake fleetingly crossed Cliff's mind, but he dismissed it. The moment, if indeed there had ever been one, was gone, and there was not a thing he could do about it.
(x)X(x)X(x)
-To be continued-
Author's notes: You know you've officially watched way too many romantic anime when you can do awful things like this to your readers twice in one chapter without even thinking about it. I promise I'll stop doing this...soon. I swear!
So the boys have been blushing awkwardly around each other for nearly a year now, and this is the first time one of them has noticed. My my, they're such silly boys, aren't they? What? You say it's my fault? Well, I guess you're right. Harumph.
Onsen is the Japanese word for "Hot Spring".
So in Harvest Moon II GBC, the carpenter who expands your house is named Ken. Since he looks remarkably like the three carpenter's apprentices in HM64, I decided that I'd just go ahead and name them after him...and who knows, maybe he's their dad, or something. Myahaha.
Kudos to whoever catches the Cowboy Bebop quote. There's one in there somewhere, I promise. ;)
Anyway, please feel free to leave a review...A very big thank-you goes out to everyone who has left a review thus far! It's a big motivation for me to continue when I know so many people are enjoying my story. As always, comments and constructive criticism are very welcome, and flames, as one young lady has recently discovered, will be severely mocked. See you all in Chapter 11 (and what a chapter it will be!). :)