Disclaimer: I do not own Harvest Moon nor any of the characters. Also I haven't played Tree of Tranquility so I'm kind of improvising after getting hyped up and reading game summaries so any errors… were kind of planned for. I'm addicted to Harvest Moon games but I can't afford a wii.

"YOSH!!" Jiji pumped a fist into the air and began to zoom around my head as if he were the energizer bunny. It was late in the afternoon and Jiji and I had been sitting by this river for entirely too long. I held the flapping fish on the end of the line tiredly. Behind me sat a large bucket filled to the brim with slimy, smelly fish. We had finally succeeded in reeling in a koi. Now we were two ingredients closer to a rainbow.

"Simply amazing," I heard behind me and turned my head to see Tao standing with a pole in hand as he looked at my bucket of fish. The lanky fisherman knelt down staring into the bucket and scratched his head under his hat. "You've been busy."

"I'm going to put those back. I just needed this one," I replied. He frowned.

"And let all of them go to waste?"

I shrugged. "If it bothers you so much what do you suggest I do?"

He shook his head standing back up. "You've got some money sitting in this bucket. Why don't you ship them?"

I stood and dusted myself off. I was on my last set of unused clothes so after this I would be forced to have a wash day. Luke had promised over the phone this morning to show Takeru and me our new house once they were done. I was thoroughly tempted to check it out ahead of time. My "conscience" had other ideas though so I had been stuck out here all day fishing for an ingredient to the rainbow. When Jiji became my conscience, I have no idea. "You can ship fish?" I was confused. Wouldn't you have to kill them or cook them and put them in a zip-lock baggy or something to that extent first?

The sunhat wearing boy looked up to me golden eyes peering out from the shadow on his brow a smirk dancing on his lips. "Do you need me to show you how to ship things too?" he asked. Immediately I paled.

"No thanks." Just like Gil, Tao could be handsome if he weren't so messed up in the personality department. I mean, yeah some people liked the whole smooth talking, flirt character but it just made me uncomfortable. And Gil, well he was too cold and full of it.

His smile grew and I couldn't get away fast enough. The fisherman grabbed my wrist taking the pale full of fish in his other hand. He didn't have his rod on him which I hadn't noticed until now. Not to say I didn't try to get out of this either, but I wasn't too fond of being drug across the ground so I ended up following him to where ever he was taking me with one of the most impressive scowls I've ever summoned etched across my face. Eventually we stood in front of a wooden bin just outside of the town hall slightly larger than a mail bin you put letters in but built in a similar fashion. Tao opened a little door and set the bucket inside shutting it again. Then he turned to me. I felt like a deer caught in headlights. Nowhere to go.

"You now know how to ship things and you'll get money in the mail for that." He tilted his head to the side and smiled warmly. Was he honestly trying to be helpful other than just flirting senselessly? Then the smile turned back into a face I had feared to begin with. "I heard you quit your job last night."

I blinked. "And?"

"Oh, I was only curious if you needed another. We could use some help at the shop," Tao stated.

Crap. Think up a lie. Think Arika, think! "I was actually thinking of working at the tailoring shop," I spat out wondering if it had been a good idea to say that. I didn't know anything about making clothes.

The person before me raised a pale brow in disbelief and smiled wider. "They aren't hiring." I was caught. "Are you trying to run from me Arika?" he asked then. If I wasn't pasty before I was definitely there now. I shook my head exasperated. "Playing hard to get makes this much more fun." He leaned closer and I contemplated escape possibilities. Why were there guys like this in the world?

"Arika!" Someone yelled and Tao released me taking a step back as Luke popped out of who-knows-where with the biggest grin on his face. "Hey you ready to see your house?"

How relieving. Luke to the rescue. I grinned back at the oblivious hero. "Yeah, where's Takeru?"

"He's with Poen. They headed up when I left to find you." The towering boy scratched his head looking apologetic. "Your brother isn't much bigger than you huh?"

I laughed. "Not really. So… are we going?" I wasn't trying to be rude, but I wanted to put a good bit of distance between Tao and I. He was a little too persistent.

"Oh, yeah," Luke mumbled his grin suddenly reappearing full force. With that he and I walked down the steps to the road below soon back through town to the other side and along another path. Luke had been unusually quiet along the way but when I looked over at him I caught his honey eyes and he looked ahead again trying to play it off.

"What?" I asked feeling uncomfortable but not as much as when I'd been with Tao.

"Did I interrupt something earlier?" Luke questioned quietly as though he were embarrassed to ask.

I nodded and his face flushed before I added in a small, "Thanks for that."

The carpenter looked dumbfounded. "Huh?" he blurted stupidly. I shook my head smiling. Leave it to a guy to have that kind of reaction and then a guy like Luke to be so blatantly clueless.

"I told you before he and I had met already. I just feel really weird around him and not in a good way. He freaks me out a little," I told him. His frowned seeming to be in thought before smiling again as I started to hear crashing water. "What's that?"

"Those are the falls," he replied. "It was a really good location. There's good fishing so you can save up for crops and things like that. When you get a little bit of gold we can build you a pump so you can irrigate water from the stream and have a garden or water your animals if you want to have animals. I'll get my dad to cut the price down a little since it's pretty expensive." Aw, that's so sweet. I couldn't help it when I went out of my way to throw my arms around the boy's neck. I felt him warm under me and pulled back not wanting him to feel oddly.

"Thanks," I beamed and then ran ahead already pumped to see what kind of house they had built for us. It could have been made of cardboard and I wouldn't have cared by this point just having a house would be wonderful. Plus, I had to remind myself, we hadn't paid anything for this house. It was free because of how we had won the drawing for the "exciting ranch plan" blah, blah, blah…

It wasn't a mansion, but it was good enough. It wasn't painted, actually it looked like a storage shack more than a house and I could feel the nervousness wafting off of Luke as though it were a disease. I looked the house over for a minute before walking up through the open door Luke following behind quietly. My brother and a blonde boy I had yet to meet but guessed was Poen, stood with their backs to us talking about later remodels and such whilst I went and had a seat on the single bed of the room. It was a twin, not that it would be a problem. Luke still stood in the doorway looking tense as though he expected me to yell at him.

"I like it," I stated. His mouth dropped open and my brother and the other boy finally took notice of us.

"What—Y-you do?" Luke stuttered seeming rather taken aback. Then his expression changed. "Well, I guess I did do a pretty good job."

The blonde one with a headband rolled his eyes. "Shut up Luke. This thing is probably one of the worst jobs we've ever done. Sorry about that, but the mayor didn't give us enough money to buy good materials. It should be sound until we can do some remodeling."

I shook my head. "It's fine really. I can deal with this."

"We'll remodel soon," Takeru mumbled seeming a little put off by the lower quality of our new home. That or he could still have that hangover. Serves him right.

"So then will you come visit again soon?" Luke asked hopefully as Poen started to usher him out the door.

"Actually," I started thoughtfully. "I'll stop by tomorrow morning. I want to talk to your dad about something." I waved as the smaller blonde boy shoved big Luke out the door and shut it behind them. Then I turned to look at Takeru whose face was not bright as it tended to be since we moved here. He looked rather pale actually. I frowned and approached him placing my hand on his forehead. He wasn't sick. "What's wrong?"

"I'm sorry about last night," he muttered looking down at me. "I don't know what I was thinking. I shouldn't have drank anything. I'm sure I did something stupid last night and what's worse is that I can't remember anything."

I couldn't very well reassure him. Telling him "no, I'm sure you were your normal self" would not only be a lie, but very much against my character. I felt bad to let him wallow just because him wallowing because he was mad at himself was a very un-Takeru like thing to do. Most likely I would get annoyed by it later and snap at him. I really didn't want to do that so I just back up from him and went back outside. I had noticed our miniscule bathroom in passing. It had a tiny shower, no sink, and a toilet. I guess it would have to do for now.

There was a shipping bin just outside of here as well. I guessed that we would need one since those things seemed to be the only way to make money. Actually, now that I thought about it Rucola and Cresson had one of these in their barn and that nasty chicken coop. Funny thing was that I never actually met their daughter sort of like how I didn't really meet that Poen guy earlier. They just passed me up like I wasn't even there at all… hm.

"Ne Arika," Jiji stated tugging on my hair to get my attention as he normally did. I turned my head slightly nodding. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing really," I stated. "Let's go to the church. I haven't seen it yet."

(The church in my hometown is like this actually. They really do have one of the very few real Baroque era organs. Also it's one of the only ones in our state. So basically… I guess I'm sort of describing my church. It's really pretty and I guess it could be creepy at night if you were superstitious because it's like a small version of one of the European cathedrals. Remember I haven't played the game. I'm making up a lot of this stuff… no idea what the actual church on ToT looks like.)

I wasn't really much of the personality to be dark and depressing but upon entering the church I felt like I was in a true baroque setting. The cathedral wasn't exceptionally well lit and everything was bathed in maroon and navy with the sun setting outside. An enormous organ rose out of the front and its decorative pipes extended in frames like gigantic wings. The whole place was evolving into a world completely separate from the one outside. It was gothic and beautiful because it was such a contrast to what else I had seen on this island where everyone seemed to be dull, happy, and very boring.

Ironically, I didn't find this place ominous. In fact I was intrigued. Jiji on the other hand, sat on my shoulder and released a shudder. "Can we leave now?" he grumbled.

"It's pretty, why don't we stay?" I stated walking further inward and approaching the organ at the front in curiosity. There was a small standing piano off to the side, but I wasn't interested in it quite yet. My entire focus was that enormous immovable instrument that took up an entire wall of the spacious room. Bypassing the pulpit I finally reached my destination and walked around to the seat of the organ. I wondered how this thing worked. Did you have to do something special?

"What are you doing?" I heard someone growl and turned to the direction it had come from. There stood the mayor's son in all his haughtiness. "You shouldn't meddle with things you know nothing about. This is an irreplaceable part of our city and you were probably about to attempt to play it weren't you?"

I didn't answer even though he had just pegged me dead on.

"If you press the keys or peddles when the pump isn't running in the basement then you will ruin it." And of course the kid couldn't say this in a nice way. He had to be obnoxiously rude about it.

"Then go down and work the pump," I deadpanned staring right back at him completely unfazed.

His crystalline eyes narrowed. "Move."

I shrugged and slid out of the seat which he was in seconds after. He pulled a lever that was just beneath the layers of keys and waited a moment before he spread his hands elegantly over those same age blackened keys and went to work. Perhaps I was too in awe to notice that my mouth had fallen slightly open. My hands gripped the frame of the box that he sat in as he played while I watched him finally feeling that the setting of this cathedral of another world was complete though wondering how he managed to just randomly pop up as he had.

The song he played was exquisite. I had never heard an organ, nor witnessed an organ grinder. To find out that the boy I had disliked from the moment I first saw him was musically inclined made my thoughts of him turn. I was a pianist. I knew how hard it was to take control of things and portray them correctly or even to where they were comprehendible. I also knew he was using three voices instead of just two like a pianist would. He had to use his feet as well. I was a person that liked being challenged, that was why I had wanted to try to play this instrument. Now I was seeing how magnificent and almost impossible it would be. Sir Arrogance had probably been doing this since he was very young.

Once he was finished I still stood completely dumbstruck. Why was it that the guy I liked the least was the one who had the main characteristic I sought after? I loved musicians. Why was Gil good at anything? Dammit. This was very frustrating.

"Stop gawking," he said jarring me from my thoughts. "It's late you have work tomorrow do you not? I suggest you go home and to bed."

Then the stupidest words came out of my mouth. "Will you teach me?" Jiji practically fell off of my shoulder laughing. Gil seemed as though he I had just slapped him. He looked annoyed enough. Shaking his head he slipped out of the seat and I watched him my ego now forcing me to face him even though I really wished I could take the statement back.

"Why would I do something so ridiculous?" snooty-pants-son-of-a-bitch asked before strutting in the general direction of the door. I hung my head and sulked over to the piano. I didn't take rejection well. I had really wanted to learn too. Oh well, good riddance. I'd seen enough of that blonde kid for one day. So I played whatever came to mind which happened to be something rather depressing and reflective of my sudden mood change. Jiji had stopped laughing and come to sit where sheet music should be held though there wasn't any. I doubted this place had anything decent anyway. No use looking for sheet notes.

"Arika," I heard and my head shot upwards so fast that a pain went straight down my spine. I turned around clutching the back of my neck to see Gil with his hand on the door not quite having been able to push it open yet. The heat rushed to my face so fast it made my head spin. I had thought he was gone already. He'd sure taken his time. "Meet me here again tomorrow. At nine."

Then he left. What were the odds of that? Had he really just said he would take me on? I blinked still staring at the door. "What?"