After celebrating Mako's birthday on a Saturday morning, I went to Town Hall to do more research about the new samples I got including the Marguerite. I learned of its requirements to grow, its color variety, its habitat and with each discoveries, I became more amazed by how Cam was able to make it bloom into a fine flower.
I attended the cooking festival hoping to see him but he wasn't around. Nori—who also attended—seemed to know my intention so she asked some Bluebellers and was told that Cam was at home experimenting for a new product. Howard, the man I'd seen talking to Cam before, was the one who provided with this information.
"Apparently they live together," Nori explained, "but they're not related. Also, Cam leaves town every Monday to re-stock his flowers supply." I took a mental note.
On Monday I helped Mako develop some new fertilizer that he insisted would win him an award. Lilian came by to give us some required materials that he requested and us three had dinner together. She said she constantly visited Cam and chatted with him about me. At some point she gave me a Marguerite seed to plant, as promised. I insisted on paying back but she said it was given for free by Cam.
During the Cherry Festival, I sat next to Nori while enjoying the view of the cherry blossom. I couldn't help but wonder if Bluebell also had cherry blossoms growing there. Maybe Cam would like to see this festival.
"What're you thinking about?" Nori whispered close to me. Her smile told me that she knew something just from the look in my face.
"I can never try to hide anything from you."
"You weren't exactly hiding it and I wasn't exactly implying anything. It was really an honest question." She giggled with her hand covering her smile. There were times when I wished I was as graceful as Nori but she simply told me that she was jealous of me for being able to get angry without being out of place. She then gave me a hard smack on the back; catching me off guard. With her usual smile she said, "See? If I were to do that, people would be shocked. It's too bad because sometimes I wish I can just hit people when they irk me." We both laughed and had gotten close since.
"If people really know how sly you really are..."
"Then you wouldn't be my special friend who is the only one that knows that secret."
"Great weather today for our cherry blossom festival!" Mayor Ina announced. She was—in her term—bright eyed and bushy tailed ever since this morning. Even though Gombe portrayed the most excitement during festivals, we all knew that the mayor was the one who enjoyed it the most.
"Enjoy the beautiful sight and the great food to feast on!" She continued as she tapped Lilian's shoulder. People usually brought food along for the festival and this year Lilian made bamboo dumpling that she learned all by herself. She seemed to have a knack on learning new recipes.
"I'm glad to see the cherry blossoms blooming so vibrantly this year." I said with a dumpling in one hand.
"Aren't they beautiful? Plus, Lilian's cooking is delicious! *chomp*" Nori took a bite off my dumpling. I knuckled her head.
"Yeah! Not bad for your first time!" Kana gobbled up another part of my dumpling. I knuckled his head.
"As a fellow recipe concocter, I would like to congratulate you on your achievement. Perhaps we can spare time to create new recipes together." Hiro, knuckled-free, was happily sipping his tea while eating his own dumplings.
"Thanks guys. To be honest, Yun's been giving me great advice every time I visit her in her teahouse. The chef in Bluebell also gave me some pointers."
"Bah! Bluebell has no idea how to make a dish! Let's leave them out of this wonderful day we're having." Ina waved her fist full of hate. She then walked to where the rest of the villagers were; mumbling about the stupidity of Bluebell's arrogant mayor.
"If only they stop this stupid fighting things would be so much easier." I exhaled. Noticing Nori's knowing smile, I nudged her sides.
"How do you suppose we achieve that?" Hiro asked.
"Well..." Lilian began to answer, slightly unsure. "The Harvest Goddess said..."
The conversation stopped and all heads turned to Lilian. We were thinking the same thing: 'Did she say Harvest Goddess?' It must've had intimidated her so she didn't continue her sentence and we celebrated the rest of the day without anyone mentioning the Harvest Goddess again. Poor Lilian.
"So you're doing this?" I dropped by Nori's house before going on my usual round to the mountain, only this time I would also be visiting Bluebell.
"I brought a peace offering." I told her as I showed the lavender that was neatly placed in my bag. Nori giggled.
"Good luck, then."
I exited the town later than usual and Kana had already opened his shop. At the spring on top of the mountain, I threw a mint and wished that I would not embarrass myself today. I wasn't one to believe in superstition, but Mako told me that there really was a Harvest Goddess and that I should respect her dwelling.
Once I reached the familiar low area of Bluebell, my heart began to thump faster. My walking pace became slower as I carefully entered the town's gate, passing by the church. The site of the flowers that decorated the area made me feel calmer. We never had beautiful flowers that grew like this in Konohana. Everyone was too keen on growing crops for food while here, I could tell, that they were keen on animals. The first two houses I saw had a large pasture. The one on the right was similar to Kana's place because it had horses running around.
There was also a girl with wavy brown hair who was brushing one of the horses there. She noticed me looking at her and waved.
"Howdy! Here to shop, are ya?" She said with a loud voice that had probably informed people of my arrival here.
"I'm...here to..." I stopped myself mid-sentence. I wasn't sure if telling her that I was on my way to see Cam a good idea. What would Cam think if he knew I purposely came here for him? Surely he wouldn't be suspicious about it, right? Was there even anything to be suspicious of?
I gently slapped my cheeks to calm myself. 'Focus. You're here to prove a theory. Nothing wrong with that.' I told myself. The girl was still waiting for my answer so I told her I was here to buy flowers. That felt like a better answer than looking for Cam.
She offered to bring me where Cam's flower shop was. I walked next to her, horrified that this would bring more attention to me than if I were to walk alone. This feeling was due to her loud voice that accompanied us while we walked across the stone-floored square.
"We rarely get Konohana people come round here," she said when I told her my background. "Well, except for Lilian. I assume you know her? She'd visit everybody here and would give flowers to people, especially Cam 'cause he likes 'em."
"Oh..." Suddenly my bag felt heavy. Presenting him lavender didn't feel like a good idea anymore.
"Here we are! Cam, you got customer!"
At the back of a small stall decorated with pots and flowers, I recognized Cam's purple-based outfit. His attention was to the flowers and as soon as his name was called, he turned around. He wiped the sweat underneath his chin and I could see that his hands were covered in soil.
"Ah. Thanks Georgia. I'll take it from here." He replied with a smile.
"Yup. I'd best go back to my horses anyway. See ya around, um..."
"Her name's Reina. Shouldn't you know that already before bringing her here?" Cam answered Georgia before I could. The sound of my name in his voice sent a tingling feeling in my ear. I immediately looked down.
"Whoops! My bad. See ya around then, Reina."
She was soon gone and I was left alone with Cam. My heart was pounding too much and I became suddenly aware of the small movements I was doing. Slowly, I walked closer to Cam's stall and tried to focus.
"Please excuse my dirty hand. I was adding fertilizers to some of the flowers." He explained while wiping his hands with a cloth. "So, welcome to Cam's flower shop. What can I get you?"
I forced myself to meet his eyes. "I'm here to ... I have something for you ... but it seems like you wouldn't need any additional flowers. Please forgive my foolishness."
"A gift?" He asked; his eyes fixed on mine.
"Yes. As a thank you for the flower seed."
"Ah. Yes, that was my way of apologizing for the incident the other day. It seemed that I made you feel uncomfortable."
"No. It's completely my fault. I was...not prepared." I felt my face heating up. In order to hide it I quickly fished out the lavender and offered it Cam.
"That's for me? Wow, that's really nice of you. I don't have lavender growing this season so it's always nice to have people giving me one."
He took the lavender from my hand and my hand froze when I felt his skin against mine. "Ahh ... you're ... you're saying people give you ... lavender...often a lot?" I wanted to slap myself for my sudden lack of communication skill. If Nori was here, she would be laughing at me.
"Actually it's just one other person. Lilian, your friend, gave me lavender once. She said she got it from you. That's when we started talking about you. She seems to be very impressed by you."
"There's nothing to be impressed about..." I mumbled incoherently. "You two ... talk often?"
"Quite a few times. Last time we talked about how to make herb salad. I'm not a great cook myself so it was nice to learn a new recipe."
"I see..." Somewhere in my heart, I didn't like listening to Cam talking about Lilian. My mood seemed to go down and I no longer felt like I could say anything interesting anymore.
"So..." I could see Cam shifted uncomfortably and adjusted his hat. "How's the flower I gave you?"
"It had just sprouted. According to my research it should bloom in the next few days. It said that watering twice a day will help speed up the process but I worry that it might cause an imbalance between the amount of sun and water it gets." I answered with my botanist mode on.
"Marguerite does need a lot of sun to grow but they do well in cold temperature that you can get during night time. You can still water them to keep them humid just make sure that the soil are nice and lose so the water can simply pass by without being absorbed too much."
"I see. Is that your method?" I took out my notebook and began scribbling things down.
"That and ... well I ..." Cam scratched the back of his head and his cheeks turned a light shade of pink. "I also talk to them. Flowers usually bloom well when you tell them they're beautiful."
"Really? Me too!" I beamed. "People usually find it weird that I do so, but there has been research that proves how effective it is to talk to plants. I myself used music before to help enhance growth. It's quite hard to track on this theory because the radio plays music only at a certain time."
"Music, huh? I never thought of doing that before. You're pretty amazing to be able to figure out something like this." He laughed.
If my eyes could deceive me, I would be seeing flowers forming an arc above Cam's head. He was finally showing me the smile he showed to Lilian and Georgia earlier. That might not mean that I was special, but at least I was one of them. I slowly began to feel more confident with myself.
"I read about how people listen to music during their pregnancy to enhance the baby's development. I theorized myself that perhaps it would work well with plants."
We began to emerge ourselves in exchanging theories on how best to grow flowers and plants in general. Cam shared what he knew about flowers while I shared what I knew about green plants and trees. I explained the different fruit trees we would have in Konohana and the different dishes we got to make out of it. He explained how flowers are edible.
"That's interesting. How did you find this discovery?"
Cam was about to answer when, from the nearby house, a girl exited the place. She had her blond hair tied up in a bun, a red cardigan worn over her white shirt and apron. Her gracefulness reminded me of Nori and she was indeed a picture of beauty.
"Well, it's rare to see you chatting this long with a customer, Cam." She said with a smile. Cam didn't answer and instead he simply blushed. "Hi. I'm Laney. Nice to meet you."
"My name is Reina. I'm a botanist from Konohana."
"A botanist? No wonder you two have been at it for hours."
"What time is it?" Cam asked.
"Almost time to close shop." Laney pointed at the sky. I could see hints of orange mixing with the blue.
"Oh. I have to go soon. I still need to check up on a flower." I said, excusing myself.
"Your marguerite?" Cam asked as he busied himself with emptying his stall.
"No. It's a wild flower I found in the mountain. I've been waiting for it to bloom so I can identify it." I called out my answer. I rushed to the exit of the town without waiting for Cam to reply. Faintly, from one of the pastures, I could hear a boy's voice saying Lilian's name and I was able to catch a glimpse of Lilian's blue-based outfit that Mayor Ina gave her.
Throughout the hiking trip I was busy thinking about the plant that once I arrived there, I let all the emotion wash over me. I touched my cheeks that were red both from the hiking and the fact that I got to talk to Cam. My lips curled into a smile and I looked at the plant with glee.
"I talked to him. I really had a conversation with Cam." I told the listening flower. "Oh, why can't I stop grinning? Nori cannot see me like this."
I lied on the green grass by the bud and allowed myself to be calmed by the nature around me. The wind made the high grass danced and tickled me as if congratulating me. I thanked them and soon made my way back to report in.
Nori was no longer outside by her field anymore so I made my way inside the house after greeting Gombe who was complaining about how the day ended too soon. As a good granddaughter, Nori was busy preparing dinner. She greeted me with her usual smile and offered me a seat.
"I am happy to report that I was able to talk to him without any problem."
"Is that so? From the very beginning?"
"Well, no...I was still nervous at first. I had a hard time looking at him straight in the eyes and I almost lost interest when he was talking about Lilian," I began to smile as I relived the memories, "but then we somehow got to talk about plants and things became better. He even mentioned that he talks to his flowers...and then came this girl."
"What girl?" Nori asked in the middle of making her curry.
"She said her name was Laney. She commented on how we two were chatting non-stop and Cam just...blushed. I'm not surprised, though. She was very pretty—just like you—but with blond hair. Heck, all the girls there are pretty. There was another girl named Georgia and she was pretty too, with her wavy brown hair and her pretty accent. Cam can possibly be in love with any of them." I rested my head on my hand; unmotivated.
"Wow, this is the first time I've heard you being jealous, Reina." Nori giggled.
"What do you mean?"
"It's already a first for you to be talking about boys, and now you're jealous that you have competition." Nori brought the hot curry plate on the table and sat across me. She stared at me with a stern look. "Reina, did Cam cause you to feel like going through a sudden seasonal change?"
To be honest, that was the first time I heard that expression but I understood what she meant. And to be honest, I believed that the answer to that was: "Yes."
"Then, my dear, you're on the first step towards falling in love."
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Author's Note
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Third chapter to Dandelion! Hooray! Thanks for those of you who are following this story, and for those who reviewed. Hopefully this chapter satisfied your cravings for a good ReinaxCam. I made Reina's conversation about plants and how she appreciates Cam's habit to talk to flowers as a good answer to a made-up Cam's flower event. I think the rest of the "flower events" I'll be making for them won't be accompanied with the flower arc description but I just that one there to explain that there are flower events in this story.
When Nori asked Reina if she went through "sudden seasonal change", I was referring to the term "roller coaster of emotion" but since Harvest Moon isn't set during the time where roller coaster exist (I assume), I made up a new term that is more farm-related.
Leave a review/comment to let me know if you like how the story is going.. Let me know how I can improve!
Thanks for reading!