"Thirty bags of turnip seeds? You sure? … No, I don't doubt you… Oh, so it's a challenge, now?..." Karen was talking on the phone when Claire entered the grocery store. She waved to her friend and looked back down at the notes she was jotting down. She smirked at the earpiece of the phone. "Honestly, I swear you're not human sometimes…"
"Looking for anything in particular?" Karen's father asked.
"I'm ready for more seeds," she smiled.
"Alright, a smart choice... The money will come right back to you if you do it right," he gave her a nervous grin.
"I'm going to look around a bit first…" Claire looked at the shelves of goods.
"Sure. Take your time," he nodded.
"Yep… I'll have Thomas bring them by tonight when he gets your shipment…" Karen was still on the phone.
Claire was eyeing up some chocolate bars when she was startled by a loud laugh from her friend.
"Okay… Alright. Talk to you soon, Pete." Karen hung up the phone and finished writing up the receipt with a huge grin on her face. "Dad, I talked him into fifty bags of turnip seeds!" Karen announced proudly.
"He's paying tonight?" Jeff asked nervously, slouching his shoulders.
"Of course! This isn't Duke or Thomas we're talking about."
Her father perked up. "Alright. Well, go pull his order then," Jeff ordered, fixing his posture.
"Be right back, Claire," Her friend gave her a grin and headed to the storage room.
"You'll get to his level someday, Claire," Jeff wrung his hands. "We all have to keep trying hard…"
She wasn't quite sure who they were talking about, but it sounded like a very established farmer in the area. Claire nodded as a young man stepped into the shop.
"Oh, hey, Cliff." Jeff looked up from his hands.
"H-hi… Jeff…" Claire noticed her friend looked a little nervous. "How are things going at the shop?"
Jeff knew where this was going. "Pretty good, pretty good… I'm sorry, but we're still not hiring," he said gently, but his insides ached. He genuinely felt bad for the unemployed young man, but the shop wasn't making enough income to support another worker. The shop owner's gut always hurt when he got anxious.
"I see… Please keep me in mind if you need any extra help…"
"Of course…" The shopkeeper put a hand on his sore stomach and gave the young man a shy smile.
"Hi, Claire," Cliff gave his friend a nod. She couldn't help but notice he looked a little disappointed. "Shopping today?"
"Yeah… Getting more seeds and a couple essentials."
"Me, too… Well, not the seeds," he let out a shy chuckle. "L-let's shop together."
Claire noticed that of the two men in the shop, Cliff was surprisingly the calmer of the two. "Okay. I'll get the seeds last." They walked over to a shelf of goods.
"What do you need to buy?" He asked.
"Hmmm… more soap. I'm almost out." She sniffed a couple of bottles. "I have to test them all," she explained with a laugh. "Which one do you like?"
"… This one." He held out a bottle of lavender soap, and the young woman wasn't sure why his face was so red.
Claire opened the bottle and took a whiff. "Ah…" It had quickly become her favorite fragrance; she had been wearing the lavender oil Doctor Trent gave her daily now. Her muscles instantly relaxed at the scent. She smelled another. "Hey, try this one; it smells weird," she handed him a bottle.
"What is that?" He laughed. It was nauseatingly sweet.
"I dunno. It's called Angel Feathers."
"It smells like… I don't even know…" He chuckled, cringing his nose.
Claire was happy to see he cheered up a bit. "What? You don't know what the wings of an angel smell like?" She asked in mock disgust.
"Apparently not."
"Well, now you know," she beamed at him.
Karen came back from the storage room with a crate of seeds and set them off in an area designated for pickups. "Phew… Hey, guys!"
"Karen, what does this smell like to you?" Claire handed Karen the bottle.
"Popuri," she nodded.
"Potpourri or Popuri?" Claire giggled.
"Both, I guess," Karen answered, laughing as she handed the bottle back to Claire. "Are you guys just back here sniffing soap?"
"Well… Yeah…" Claire didn't think of it as odd at all until Karen worded it that way.
"Moonlight Tempest, Eir's Love, Wild Rain… What is all of this?" Cliff cocked an eyebrow.
"Ah, those were all a part of a series of fragrances. They're all a little intense for my tastes," Karen shrugged. "Especially Popuri's favorite here. You wanna smell a good one? Try this," the young woman thrust a bottle under Claire's nose.
The blonde's eyes widened and she suddenly felt terribly homesick. "Wh-what is that one?"
"Bay rum."
Claire sniffed it one more time. She was a child again, and her father was giving her a pat on the head to say goodbye before he left for work. She reached up for a hug, but once again, he was already gone… She was sitting at the table with her oatmeal and her older sisters were bickering over some boy they went to school with.
"You okay, Claire?" Cliff asked, noticing the look in her eyes.
"Oh, yeah," the young woman smiled. "My father must've worn this fragrance; I got all nostalgic for a moment," she giggled, swallowing the lump in her throat.
"My grandpa wore bay rum," Karen nodded. "He said all real men wear it. Guess you better buy some, Cliff."
The young man shook his head. "I like this one better," he handed Claire a bottle and she sniffed.
It was warm and earthy; the scent made her think of fall leaves and toasty comfort. It was a very attractive scent; she nodded in approval. "Yes… Very nice."
"Lemme try!" Karen snatched the bottle and took a whiff. "Hoofah!" She gagged. "Too… planty…"
"Planty? Is that a word?" Claire giggled.
Karen sniffed it again and had the same reaction. "Ugh! What is that? Mud? Herbs?"
"Patchouli," Cliff laughed, taking the bottle back and returning it to the shelf.
"It smells like… dirt."
"Maybe that's why I like it so much," Claire thought of the smell of her freshly tilled fields. She was tempted to buy this bottle of soap, but she knew Karen would complain. She opted for the lavender instead. "I'll go with this one."
"Oh, so you're actually shopping then, and not just bumming around, eh?" Karen teased.
"We both are shopping," Claire replied with a nod. She looked back over to the candy she was eyeing up earlier. She had a small cushion of money after her latest turnip harvest and she had been craving a treat. "Ah, chocolate… I'm going to buy a bar…"
"Blah!" Karen stuck out her tongue. "First you like the smell of mud, and now you like chocolate?"
"I love chocolate," Claire frowned. She thought it was a little odd Karen didn't care for it; the sweet was very popular in the city…
"I can maaaaybe do a small amount of milk chocolate."
"That watered down garbage is not chocolate!" Claire's eyes flashed at her.
"Whoa, okay, then…" Karen chuckled.
"I can't remember the last time I had chocolate," The farmer stared at the variety of candy bars. "Don't tell me you hate it, too, Cliff."
"I love it. I haven't had it in years."
Claire smirked at Karen. "Let's split a bar, my treat. What kind do you want?"
"Y-you sure?" He reddened.
Claire nodded excitedly. "Yeah, let's indulge!"
The young man shyly picked out a bar of extra dark chocolate.
"I think you made him afraid to pick anything else," Karen laughed.
"A-actually this is my favorite," he admitted. "Thanks again, Claire."
"No problem. We don't have to share any of it with Karen," the farmer grinned.
They walked further down the display.
"Well, here's your stop, Cliff," Karen laughed.
"Yep." He hoisted a large sack of salt over his shoulder. "This ought to last me a while."
"I should hope so," Claire laughed. "You like salty food or what?"
"Well, smoking meat and fish takes a lot of salt; I brine lots of things before I put them over the coals. I also use it to tan hides and pelts and then sell them to the merchant who lives off of the beach."
"Oh." Claire had never considered using salt for much more than seasoning. It seemed like her friend had to be creative to make ends meet as well.
"That's pretty much all he buys," Karen laughed. "Dad sometimes just calls him 'That Salt Guy'."
The young man rolled his eyes. "I see your father is very creative with nicknames… I guess it's better than 'that guy who is always asking for a job'."
Karen gave him a slight frown as Claire ordered her seeds from Jeff and finished her purchase. "Hey, don't sweat it. Someone will be happy to snap you up; you'll see."
"Eh… I hope so… I don't really have a skilled trade like Gray, Rick, or Trent, though…"
"Well, what kinds of things are you good at?"
Cliff counted out his coins and placed them on the counter, shrugging. He made sure they were out of Jeff's earshot before he spoke. "I don't really have any special skills. The training I had as a teenager felt pointless at the time, but now…"
The grocer's daughter and the farmer both looked at him curiously. The color drained from his face; he had said too much about himself again. He had been finding himself doing this more and more regularly since he moved to Mineral Town. The young man silently cursed himself. There was no point bothering anyone else with his problems, he had already made so many people unhappy over the years in other ways...
"What were you trained in?" Claire asked, shuffling her bag on her shoulder. "Fishing?"
He frowned and shook his head. He went fishing with his uncle regularly when he was young, but he didn't really look at that as training. The two were only eight years apart in age, but it felt like decades to Cliff sometimes. Cliff was often a little discouraged at how slow and sometimes unfruitful rod fishing could be; he preferred moving targets and not having to rely on bait, and since he began his travels over three years ago, spear fishing was much more practical anyway. Ray would laugh at his nephew's impatience and tell him that a true fisherman learned to appreciate all parts of fishing, including the quiet lulls between bites.
After failing to convince Cliff into staying, his uncle had decided to leave their hometown as well, claiming he was in search of better fishing spots. Cliff knew better; Ray had left because Cliff had ruined the village for everyone, and surely all of his relatives had been treated like pariahs because of their relation to the foolish boy… He didn't want to think about home right now; it never failed to make him feel miserable.
"Well, see y'all around…" He reddened and shifted the sack of salt on his shoulder and headed out the door of the grocery store before his companions said anything. Thinking about his old village was making him slip into his home dialect. He had been mildly teased at the inn a couple of times for doing it in the past.
He hadn't walked far when he heard his name being called.
"Cliff, w-wait!"
He froze in his tracks; Ray had called his name the very same way the day they both left. This voice was a much higher pitch than Ray's baritone, though. He slowly turned around. "Huh?"
"Why did you take off like that?" Claire asked gently.
He didn't answer, but looked down at the ground. Had he been that obvious?
"H-hey… I don't exactly have the best memories of life in the city," the young woman felt a spring of courage well up in her as she stared at her friend. "B-but you can use your past experiences to prepare for new ones... better ones." She was a little proud of how profound she sounded for that brief moment.
Claire wasn't telling him to disregard his past like his friend at the inn did in an attempt to cheer him up; the redhead's motto was a playful "forget about it" accompanied with the unsolicited ruffling of his hair. Cliff really enjoyed Ann's company, but her aggressive cheerfulness ended up intimidating and clamming him up more often than not. He took the bag of salt off of his shoulder and stood pensively.
"That looks pretty heavy; want to take a seat for a moment?" She shyly held out the chocolate bar, reminding him of her promise.
He wasn't particularly in the mood for talking, but he remembered the agreement they had made at the library. The farmer had only agreed to sit with him at the bar, but both of them knew the implication behind that was much more; they had labeled each other as equals. The allure of chocolate didn't hurt, either. "Okay…" He followed her to the bench outside of the shop and plopped the bag down.
"How heavy is that thing, anyway?"
"Twenty-five kilos."
Claire scrunched up her nose; she was immediately reminded how far from home she was. "I'm still not used to the way everyone out here uses the metric system," she admitted as she unwrapped the chocolate bar.
"Around fifty-five pounds, give or take," he offered.
"Well, you did that math pretty quickly; I'm impressed."
The young man shook his brown head and pointed at the bag sheepishly. Both units of weight were posted on the fabric.
Claire let out a giggle as she handed her friend a square of chocolate. "You could have just let me be impressed, you know."
"Well, I can do rough conversions, but it is written right there. " He shrugged as he accepted the candy and his face lit up. "Thank you for the chocolate… It's been so long since I've had any." He realized he had already stopped thinking about home and Ray and ignored the wave of guilt that threatened to come. He sucked on the piece of chocolate and didn't regret sitting down at all. Wonderful, decadent, dark chocolate… Cliff had really forgotten how much he loved it. He would have offered to carry Claire's heavy sack of seeds home with the salt strapped to his back if it meant one more square of the delicious candy.
"No problem."
The young man had an amused smile on his lips.
She hadn't spent much time with the man, and this expression was new; she found it made her feel warm inside. "What's on your mind?" Claire swung her feet, biting off a corner of her chocolate and letting it melt on her tongue.
"I was just thinking how you lured me over here with food," he confessed bashfully. "I was afraid if I called you out on it, you wouldn't let me have any."
"Maybe, maybe not," She grinned. The chocolate was smooth with just the right amount of bitterness; she could have easily eaten the entire bar herself.
"That's how Ann gets me to talk; she feeds me. I guess when it really comes down to it, I'm no better than the deer I bait," he laughed.
"Aw, don't say it like that! You make it sound like Ann is out to get you!" She giggled. "Besides, what is it they say?"
"Hm? Who are they?" He looked at her curiously.
Claire ignored his question. "Right! The way to a man's heart is through his stomach!" She beamed as she handed him a piece of candy and he looked at it thoughtfully for a moment.
Cliff snorted. "I seriously doubt those are her intentions," he rolled his eyes, studying the logo embossed on the block of chocolate, but Claire caught a hint of color in his cheeks. "I'm just one of her projects… It's kind of like how she's trying to train Gray to be less of a slob, or, as he likes to put it, 'less of a man'." He popped the candy into his mouth and shook his head with a soft chuckle.
Claire's heart was stung with an uncomfortable jolt. Cliff had just called Gray a slob. She straightened her posture and her smile fell. The young woman was reminded of the uncomfortable position she was in a couple of weeks ago when she had to listen to Karen and Gray argue. Why was everyone so harsh when it came to Gray? She suddenly felt herself scrambling to defend the apprentice blacksmith. "S-some people like a little organized chaos…" She ventured, her eyes moving to the cobblestones.
Cliff shrugged. "I suppose… but you and I both know Gray's chaos isn't organized; you've seen his side of the room plenty of times," Claire caught the tone in his voice and she didn't like it.
She had seen the apprentice's pile of assorted objects but never managed to start up a conversation about what they were or what they meant to him. Claire had been in Gray's room dozens of times and never got more than a polite "Hello" finished off with the ever-dreaded "Shouldn't you be heading back to the farm now?" He never offered to walk her home…
On the inside, she was frustrated and confused. Why would someone who had such a quiet, shy demeanor dare to say something so mean-spirited? On the outside, quite frankly, she looked exactly the same – frustrated and confused; the farmer was never very good at hiding her emotions, try as she might.
"W-well… He's probably busy and doesn't have the time to clean it," she replied curtly.
The young man stared at the ground in silence for a few minutes. They were both keenly aware of the tension between them. Claire wished Cliff would just go away already; she was done talking to him. She regretted buying the chocolate bar…
The blonde heard the young man let out a quiet sigh; his blue eyes looked up at the clouds. "Carter told me once that the gods gave us faults so that we could learn to help one another…"
Claire's anger diffused immediately. Cliff wasn't claiming to be perfect, she realized. He never had; he had just said that Ann saw him as a challenge.
"He said that the desire to improve ourselves is what makes us different from beasts… But… we have a tendency to only do it when it is convenient for us and the reasons are often selfish. I… I want to become a better person, but I can't even manage to do that… Perhaps I'm lazy… That's much worse than simply being unorganized…"
The young woman shook her head; she had stopped by the church a few times a week and had seen the anguish on her friend's face as he sat in his assigned pew. Often, after having a word with Carter or taking confession, Claire would take a seat beside her friend and they would spend an hour or so in silence. Some days, they recited prayers together. Other days, he had no words for her, but she swore when she waved goodbye to him he looked less depressed. He was trying hard, but he seemed to be having a difficult time seeing any progress in himself. She had noticed a change just within the past couple of weeks; he seemed to brood a lot less. "Y-you're not lazy."
He gave her a sad smile. "Maybe you're right. Not lazy… just selfish. My fault is that I am the most selfish person I know."
The blonde turned toward him and handed him a piece of chocolate, shaking her head. "But everyone's selfish to some degree. No… Your fault is that you tend to over think things and get melodramatic." She raised her eyebrows and gave him an apologetic smile.
He sucked on his chocolate pensively. "Melodramatic, huh? … You know… I actually tr-try really hard not to let anyone see how I feel," his voice was barely audible.
The young woman let another piece of chocolate melt on her tongue as she worked on her response. "Exactly. And you let your negativity stew inside of you and turn it into something far worse," Claire looked down at their feet. Maybe she was being too candid with him…
"I suppose you're right…" His voice was emotionless. "You know… You and Carter are the only ones I feel like I can be completely honest with. Everyone else either keeps their distance or is constantly asking why I don't have a smile on my face all the time."
"That's what my friends in the city would always ask... And I'd get the impression they'd only ask because everyone's expected to be happy all of the time," the farmer rolled her eyes.
"Yeah, faking it is exhausting; I gave that up years ago," Cliff admitted with a bitter chuckle.
"Just… be who you are. Happiness will follow you in time," Claire handed him another piece of chocolate and took one for herself.
"Huh…" He mulled the words over in her head. "Do you really think so?"
"Well, that's what Carter told me, anyway… I think I believe him, though," Claire nodded.
"I… I want to believe…"
"Then allow yourself to." She handed him the final piece of chocolate and crumpled up the wrapper, shoving it in her pocket.
Claire had a way of making things sound so simple; Cliff found a smile on his face.
"Carter seems pretty smart, doesn't he?" The young woman grinned at him.
He nodded. "Smart, yes, but also a little goofy sometimes," he chuckled, "He's always practicing his ideas for sermons on me. Some of them can be a little odd."
"Oh, you mean like that story he told us a couple of weeks ago?" She recalled.
"Yeah… He's also getting way too excited for the summer festivals and keeps trying out his ideas for summertime ghost stories on me," he groaned. "I don't think he could even scare May or Stu."
Claire giggled, but didn't want to admit she scared easily. "Well, I think I had better head back to the farm and put these seeds in the ground." She stood up and stretched. "I've been following the instructions in that book I got at the library and realized I've been making things harder on myself than I need to. I'm going to try to have a good pile of money for seeds once summer rolls around."
The young man smiled up at her. "I'm glad. So the book has helped?"
The blonde nodded. "It has blueprints for farm layouts. I can only do it on a small scale right now, but this summer, I'm going to get serious!" She pumped her fist.
Cliff stood up. "Cool. I know you'll do great, Claire," he replied with a friendly laugh.
"Thanks!" She beamed. "And how about your projects?"
Cliff got quiet and shrugged.
"You keep trying hard, too!" Her eyes blazed.
He perked up a bit. "Okay! Smoked trout and tanned rabbit hides, here I come!" He laughed, hoisting the large bag of salt on his shoulder with a grunt. "Thanks again for the chocolate, Claire."
They both knew he was talking about more than just the candy. The open, honest conversation had helped both of them; she owed him her gratitude as well. "Thank you, too."
They went their separate ways as the brunette followed the path toward the inn. Claire shuffled the heavy bag of seeds on her back. Things were changing; they were growing…
0o0o0o0
Author's Note: Fans of the Tales Series will probably recognize some of the names of soap fragrances in the shop. Kudos to anyone who caught that!
Watch out, Cliff! Your back story is showing! I've developed a whole background for him and I'm pretty excited to reveal little pieces of it as the story goes on. Yeah, I threw in Ray. I've played Magical Melody a bit and thought he'd made a nice fit to Cliff's story and hometown.
I was really excited to post this chapter because I enjoy writing honest dialogue, especially with characters that have such guarded hearts. I was also excited to write a scene with a little bit of tension between two people who normally avoid uncomfortable situations at all costs. Hope you enjoyed! Please leave me some feedback on what you think of the story so far!