Disclaimer: I do not own Harvest Moon or anything associated with it.

Author's Note: I initially planned to release this as just a one-shot, but it was so long I decided to break it up into two haha. Enjoy. (:

"Time passes and the pain begins to roll in and out as though it's a woman standing at an ironing board, passing the iron back and forth, back and forth across a white tablecloth."
The Time Traveler's Wife - Audrey Niffenegger

"Popuri…don't you remember what Greg said when we were five?"

"Who is Greg? And how am I supposed to remember what he said if I was only five?" Popuri snapped. Her usually kind demeanor had evaporated and unfamiliar anger had taken her over. She lashed out without wanting to, but couldn't stop herself. If she tried to, she would only burst into tears, and she was reluctant to give Kai that satisfaction.

Kai laughed half-heartedly. "He's the captain of my ship. I've never told you his name in all of the conversations we've ever had?"

She shook her head.

He heisted and then laughed even harder. His laugh fell flatly; it was not the boisterous, lovely sound it usually was. "Wow. That's pretty stupid of me. Well, that's who he is. And when we were five, he told you I would be coming here only until I was old enough to 'travel fulltime'…remember?"

A shudder ran through Popuri as she remembered their first meeting. That previous anger she had felt towards Greg returned. She wished he hadn't sailed away already. It was too hard being mad at Kai- especially when he was looking at her with such ashamed eyes. Being angry at the man who was giving him this other option…now that was easy.

"I hate him," she whispered, and the tears began to leak out. Anger and sadness were so closely tied that they had the tendency to spill out when one was being relied on too heavily. "I hate him so much."

Kai was so taken aback by these vindictive words that he didn't speak for several moments. Popuri had never admitted to disliking something, let alone hating it. The only thing she told him she didn't like was the sad fact that he had to leave every summer; hating a person was unlike her, and he wasn't ready to comprehend that his news had pushed her to that brink.

After several long moments of her furiously wiping her eyes, he stepped forward and wiped them himself with gentle fingers. She sniffed and whimpered. That was also unlike her. In their long years together, Kai had never truly seen her cry.

"Why don't you want to stay with me?" she asked him; it had been hiding in the corner of her mind this entire time, and yet it picked that exact moment to leap forward and reveal itself. Kai wished she had saved the question.

"It's not that Popuri, I just…it's…look, can we not talk about this for a while? I just want to enjoy this summer with you."

That wasn't what Popuri wanted to hear at all. She wanted to know how he could do this to her, how he could make her fall in love with him and then let her down so harshly. She wanted to know if she was ever going to see him again.

But Popuri loved him far more than she loved herself, and so she went against her will and agreed to these unfair conditions.

And so they spent one last summer together.

"It's the last day. Will you answer my question now? Are we ever going to see each other or not?"

Kai drew pictures in the sand. He had hoped a summer with her would help him make up his mind or help him decide what to say to her, but it had done neither.

"Popuri…I…"

Several long moments passed.

"Make up your mind or I am leaving. I'm not kidding Kai. I won't wait for you any longer! I've waited three seasons every year for sixteen years now! Do you know how much that takes out on a person?"

"I've waited to see you too-,"

"It's different for me!" Popuri cried out. Sixteen years of bottled up disdain for their distance erupted at once. "It's different and you know it! You're out there having the time of your life, doing what you love best. I'm here waiting for what I love best. Do you see where our problem is? I love you more than you love me and so I'm stuck here every year, every miserable year hoping that one day you don't leave. Do you know how hard it is for me to accept that it's so easy for you to decide to never see me again?"

"I do want to come back here, it's just an unnecessary trip for Greg to make and his crew won't take it now that I'm older, I do want to come see you Popuri-,"

"That's stupid!" she interrupted, shocking Kai. "You're stupid!"

That was a pathetic insult. It fell flat between the two of them, and yet it was so powerful for Popuri that Kai thought he might cry.

And tears were unacceptable for an adventurer of the sea.

"Oh, really? I'm the stupid one? You're the one who waits here for me all year. What, is there nothing better for you to do than sit here and wait? You have a life, you have friends, you have a family, are they that meaningless to you that the only thing worth living for is a stupid kid you know was born to be on the sea?"

Kai truly thought he had gotten back at her, for she turned at his words and began to walk away, but just before she was out of earshot she turned to him with a mixture of fury and misery and said, "I used to think so."

The adventurer of the sea stared after her and realized that this would be the last time he would see Popuri.

The year passed slowly and uneventfully. Lilia comforted Popuri to the best of her ability, but nothing could make the once bright, cheery girl fully whole again. Something inside her had been broken; so many years wasted on waiting had worn her down, and her insistent smile had finally given in to the world's horrors and agreed to lay low. She was not completely depressed; she was still the optimistic woman she had always been, and yet there was something so dejected about her that people had a hard time speaking to her.

Rick, Kai's biggest critic, had no words to say about him. He wasn't sure what he had done to Popuri- nobody was, in fact- but he knew it was terrible, and he knew it was best not to remind his sister of it. He wasn't sure he wanted to know what had torn that inseparable pair apart.

On the first day of summer, Popuri awoke two hours earlier than usual- just as she had always done before. It seemed that perhaps old habits died hard. Had her body truly gotten so used to waking up extra early on that one day that it was going to continue doing so, or had she subconsciously woken herself as if sensing she must?

She couldn't help herself. Her mother and brother had planned on sleeping in this year as well, so she tiptoed around the house, getting herself dressed up, and then ran to the beach. A sudden sense of hope, of longing, filled her quick steps. The anger she had felt at Kai had faded only a season after their parting, and had long been replaced with a gaping hole of agony due to the loss of her best friend. That hole now sung with expectations as she dashed towards the dock. Her body surged forward, her smile grew, she was running so fast that she knew she would come crashing down any second…

She fell to her knees on the beach, her long pink hair brushing the sand. There was no ship.

Popuri slammed her fists down onto the sand before her and began to cry. She had not cried since the last day she had seen him, had sworn to herself that she wouldn't cry, and yet there was she, crying.

She wished so desperately that she had said a proper goodbye to him. She knew, truly knew, that neither of them had meant the cruel words they had said to each other. They had been spoken only out of frustration and confusion. If only she had returned to the beach to speak to him, if only he had come after her…

And now she was never going to see him again.

She let this idea fully wash over her for the first time. Of course she had encountered it thousands of times before, but she had never truly considered it. Now that she did, the tears fell faster and faster down her burning cheeks. Why did it have to end this way? Why couldn't she entice Kai the way the sea did?

"It's not my fault," she promised herself. She remembered the summer she had to tell Kai that her father had left and not returned. He had told her those same words as she held back tears. "It's not your fault," he had promised her.

Hours passed in which she sat on the beach as the first warm summer sun rose up, mourning her lost love the entire time. The saddest part, she had decided, was that they had never fully owned up to the depths of their feelings for each other; they had instead let time pass, content to wait another summer to confide in each other the truth.

And this time, they had departed without realizing they didn't have another summer to rely on.

That summer that passed was the worst of Popuri's life. She had been able to deny the pain and greet everyone as cheerfully as ever during the long seasons of fall, winter, and spring, but summer presented a challenge she wasn't ready for. Popsicles and fireworks were not the same without Kai, who used to meet her at the beach every night with two popsicles. They would either watch fireworks that other town members had gotten permission to set up, or mischievous Kai would steal some and set them off just for her. Mayor Thomas would come running, but never caught them. He probably knew, Popuri realized now, but didn't have the heart to spoil the fun of the summer lovers.

The pain of losing someone was not new to her, of course. When her father had gone to search for a cure to her mother's disease and had never returned, Popuri had been devastated. Her mother's constant failing health was a trickling hurt that tried its hardest to desensitize her to the idea that one day, her mother would be lost forever.

But the pain of losing Kai was something that she hadn't been prepared for in the least. She had given her heart up to him, complete with its darkest secrets and most precious memories, and he had left it broken on the shore of Mineral Town's beach.

However, time goes on no matter how hurt you are, and Popuri reluctantly learned that. The pain dulled with time, and she fell into a routine that made it easier to handle the hurt Kai had dealt her. And, in that mind-numbing routine, days passed and passed and passed until the autumn wind began to lift her heavy heart with hesitant hope for the future.

A knock on the door woke Popuri early on the first morning of autumn. She woke, relieved to know that summer was over, and called out, "Rick, go ahead and do my morning chores for me just this once. I'd like to sleep in a bit."

Her brother had been awfully understanding during the past season, so she didn't understand why he continued to knock even after she called to him with that simple request. The knocking didn't stop; it continued at a steady rate for at least five minutes until Popuri forced herself out of bed, running her hand through her hair and sighing as she opened the door.

"Rick, could you just-,"

Kai stood there, drenched. Popuri listened for a moment, but heard no rain. Maybe I'm dreaming, she thought to herself. Kai couldn't be there, and if that was Kai, why would he be wet when the rain didn't start to come until at least mid-autumn? She stood there, eyes wide and despondent. Hope for better days had lifted her spirits, but her hope in him had faded with the summer.

"Can I have a towel?" he asked rather bashfully.

Popuri said nothing, but walked past him to the hallway, opened up the closet door, took out a towel, and returned to her doorway without uttering a single he fall into the ocean, maybe, she wondered? That was an even stranger notion to accept than that he was there on an autumn day.

She held the towel out to him silently, watching as he pulled his bandana off and towel dried his hair and then wrapped it around his shoulders. He kicked his shoes off, peeled his socks off, and stood barefoot in her doorway, right in front of her.

"Are you cold?" she finally asked him.

"What?"

"Are you cold?"

"Er…yeah, I am, actually," Kai admitted. Popuri was shocked by this as well. Kai would never admit to being affected by the weather. When they were strolling the streets in blistering summer heat, he would pretend to be feeling fine thanks to the 'cool breeze,' and in the freezing summer nights he claimed that the 'warm wind' was keeping him from being cold.

Popuri pulled back the blankets of her bed for him. "Go ahead," she murmured. "You'll feel warmer."

"But-,"

"Go ahead," she repeated, firmly.

Kai obediently crept into her bed, letting her tuck in the blankets around him. His eyes were just as wide as hers. They did not say or do anything too suddenly, as if afraid to scare the other off. Popuri was still convinced that she was dreaming, for there was no possible way he could be here…Kai only came in the summer, and this was autumn…everything was confusing…

"I came back."

"Oh," she answered.

"Not forever."

"What a surprise."

"Popuri," Kai whispered, looking mortified not only to be speaking so seriously to her, but to be coddled as he was. In all the years they had known each other, Kai had been the strong one, and yet here he was owning up to his weaknesses, and preparing to admit to more. It was more than he could handle, and yet he persevered through the strangeness of the situation.

"Yes?"

"I couldn't stand it. I thought of you every single day this past year. I was wrong. Look…I love the ocean. I love being out on the ocean. I was born on a ship, I was raised on a ship, I've spent almost the whole year for the past twenty-two years of my life on a ship. I feel most comfortable on a ship. I'm good at working on a ship."

Popuri nodded. His words were not doing anything to alleviate her confusion, but she decided to hear him out.

"But…you know…there's a lot of stuff a ship can't offer to me that I want. Like…like, a family. Or a house I can come home to every day. A stable job, like the one I work at the food shack here, every summer, you know? I like doing that too. And a ship sure as hell can't give me you. Greg doesn't allow girls on the ship, you know."

Popuri reluctantly smiled. She couldn't help it. Seeing Kai's confidence grow before her very own eyes, seeing him there at all, was suddenly too much for her to take. She was smiling wider than ever before.

"And...I've been trying to decide between being with you fulltime or being on that ship fulltim, but…I knew I couldn't do either of those things. I couldn't be away from you all year and I couldn't be away from the ship all year. So…I made a deal with the crew members. From now on, instead of spending every summer with you…I'm going to spend every summer away from you. But I'll be with you every fall, winter, and spring."

Popuri breathed in very sharply. The sudden realization that Kai was there washed over her and she stared at him, eyes wide, unsure what to say.

"Popuri, I love you. But I'd be cheating myself if I stayed away from a ship all year of every year. I have to spend one season at the most out there…do you understand? I'm ready to be 'tied down,' like I used to call it, I'm ready to stay with you forever, to start a family here in Mineral Town, but I need to spend at least a little bit of time every year out there."

Popuri thought about it for a moment. She considered saying, No! That's not enough! I want you all year! But after thinking it through, she decided that his conditions were acceptable. She remembered very well that look on his face at the end of every summer, torn between the sadness of parting for another year and the excitement of being out on the sea. He was offering her the majority of his life; he was putting her at the top of his priorities…

She was going to accept this deal, though she knew every summer would be hard, because she cared for him too much to stop him from doing what he loved.

"Okay."

"Okay? So, you're okay with all of this? You're…not mad?"

"I'm…I'm a little sad. But I'm mostly happy," she spoke softly, carefully. "I love you too, Kai. You know that I do. So…I'm okay with this. I understand."

He breathed out a sigh of relief.

"But…why are you all wet?"

Kai's cheeks flooded. "Well…um…I kind of…look, I was really excited to get over here, so I may have…miscalculated my jump from the ship."

"You mean…you fell in the water."

"I jumped in the water."

"You tried to jump onto the dock," Popuri replied with a grin, suppressing sudden laughter. "And you missed!"

"Look, I was really excited, okay-,"

"You fell!"

Lilia looked up from her place in the kitchen when she heard the familiar sound of their laughter. Rick went charging past her, but she grabbed his shirt and pulled him to a stop.

"Mom, that guy totally broke her heart and-,"

"Let them work things out," Lilia replied. "It's fall, Rick. And he's here. Kai isn't playing around. Give your sister a chance."

And so Rick reluctantly stood there, and he too listened to the sorely missed sound of Popuri's laughter flooding from her bedroom.

On the first day of summer, Popuri watched her adventurer of the seas sail away from her. They had spent the past few seasons together happily, and though she had expected his departure to open up a new wound in her heart, saying goodbye to him had been simple.

Compared to waiting through fall, winter, and spring for him, summer was a cinch. Summer would fly by, for she would do her best to enjoy it. There would be no more moping around until his return, no more wallowing in the sadness of his absence. Only one short season separated them from each other now, and she would spend that time celebrating the beauty in her life she had not appreciated in a long time.

It would be strange; another summer without the joy of fireworks and popsicles and causing mischief and staying up late with Kai…but she would spend the summer doing something she loved, as he did. All she had to do was discover what it was she loved to do.

"Goodbye, Kai," she murmured. "I'll see you in autumn."

And with that, she turned and headed back towards home, where there was much work to do for the start of summer.