These characters do not belong to me and nether do the harvest moon games. But this story does.

Added 2013: For those who have read this story before I've been going back and editing the first three chapters so their less hard to read.

Added 2018: Good Lord Almighty was my writing juvenile! To whoever is reading this I'm totally revamping this and hopefully you'll like it.

~Claire's PROV~

Claire wiped the sweat back from her forehead. "Whew! It's hot!" it was almost summer. She had been in Mineral Town for a whole season. The place had changed a lot since she was a kid. People had moved and gone. Like the winery owner's daughter who had run off with a much older woman, and her friend's physician father who went off to "find" a cure for his mother's health issues. Oddly enough, the strangest to her was the guy who had moved into that run-down shack on the beach.

Her best friend and cousin Ann told her that there was a new guy in town who had restored the white shack right on the beach. He sold beach gear and food, but only came in the summer. Claire though it was odd to only open once a year and then leave, but hey she had met stranger people.

She felt kind of sorry for the guy too. Apparently, Rick's monster of a sister Popuri was completely obsessed with him. She knew it wasn't nice to call her that, but for the most part it was true. For the brief three years that she and her younger sister Rose and their half siblings Alice and Mark (the trouble making twins) lived here after their father won custody of them, they had gone to the tiny school here in town.

Claire remembered Popuri getting failing grades by the bucketful. Mostly because she spent most of her time looking at her refection in the window next to her desk.

Claire pulled the last weed from her garden and headed off to the family inn to have lunch with Karen and Ann.

"Oohf!" Claire looked down to see what had just run into her.

It was May the little girl who lived with her grandpa at the dairy. Claire had become something like a big sister to her and had recently babysat her often.

"Woah! May where are you going?" she asked.

The little girl was wiggling with excitement. "Kai is back!" she exclaimed.

"Who?" asked Claire.

"Kai! The guy who runs the Snack Shack! He gives me and Stu a free snow cones every Monday!"

"Oh, you mean the islander guy right?" Ann had said that he was from Hawaii or something like that.

"Yah! Come on Claire you have to meet him!" May started to drag her towards the beach.

"May I-"

But she stopped protesting, she was going to have to meet this guy sometime. Might as well have a cute little girl introduce her. Right?

So, she picked up May and put her on her shoulders.

It didn't take them long to reach the beach. They walked up to the door, and as soon as they got close enough Claire heard Popuri giggling from inside. Almost instantly she regretted coming.

~Kai's PROV~

"Oh Kai your soooo funny! Te-he!"

Kai cringed. Maybe Popuri was a nice girl and all, but he could not stand that laugh! She also never left him alone.

The open hours of the poultry farm seemed like the only time he got to himself during the day. Unfortunately, today was Sunday and her family store was closed.

Suddenly he heard the bell ring letting him know that there was a customer. At first, he couldn't who it was, but Popuri stopped giggling and glared at the customer.

In stepped a girl carrying May on her shoulders. He still couldn't see her well because of the sun shining through the door. But when he closed it and Kai's heart stopped. An extremely beautiful girl had just walked in.

He couldn't help but gawk at her. The girl had to be about his age. Her long golden hair just reached the straps of her old blue overalls. Her skin was like the moon's pale reflection on the water, and her eyes were like clear blue ocean water. She was small but not tiny probably just reaching his solders.

She smiled and waved at him, but he just kept staring like an idiot.

~ She waved at him, but he just kept gawking. 'Oh boy. Another admirer.' She thought. A lot of men stared at her like that. She hated being the so called pretty sister. Rose and Alice had nice dark brown hair like their father and Claire always thought they were prettier. Unfortunately, Claire greatly resembled her abusive mother. This was something she had had a hard time dealing with.

She also had a hard time with the fact that no one seemed to take her seriously either. Ever since she had hit puberty people had just assumed she was as dumb as she was beautiful, because of this she had developed a bit of an attitude when meeting new people.

"Kai!" squealed May as she jumped from Claire's shoulders. Kai seemed to snap out of it and picked May up and swung her around. Claire looked over at Popuri who had snapped her plastic spoon in two. Claire just rolled her eyes and looked away.

Popuri loathed Claire. She assumed it was because Popuri was the pretty girl in town that all the men stared at until Claire came back. When they were children they got along alright, but now she hated Claire with a burning passion. This gave one of Claire's best friends Rick, Popuri's brother, a lot of grief. Claire usually didn't let it get to her, but it was irritating.

"Kai this is my babysitter Claire! I won't need one anymore soon though, because I'm a big girl now! See I grew an inch since last summer!"

Kai laughed. "I see." he said.

May ran over back to Claire pointing "See I told you she was pretty!" Kai laughed a hardy laugh, but Popuri didn't. She just angrily stamped out the door slamming it.

Kai let a sigh of relief out. Claire raised an eyebrow.

"Thank god. I've been trying to get her out of here all frickn day!" he turned to the snow cone machine and made two snow cones one red and one blue. Then bent down and handed them to May.

"Here May why don't you run over to the church and give one to Stu too?"

May thanked him and hurried out the door, leaving Claire.

"Great." She thought to herself. Now she actually had to talk to him.

Kai wiped his hands off on his shirt and held out his right hand. Claire stepped forward and shook it.

"So you're the Claire I've heard so much about?"

"Yes, and you must be Kai right?" She could sense the change of tone in his voice. He was trying to make it sound more manly and lower. Ever since she was sixteen she could hear it instantly. Men never stopped staring or coming up to her trying to speak with her. One of the many things she didn't miss from her old life. Everyone here had known her since before she could walk, so they had grown used to her looks and treated her more like a normal human being.

But he wasn't unattractive, that was for sure. He was tall dark and handsome. He had warm brown eyes and thick black hair and a big goofy smile.

"Kai Kiono. At your service madam!" He laughed a little.

She broke a smile maybe he wasn't so bad after all. Claire sat down at the bar and looked at the menu.

~Claire's PROV~

"So what would you like?" he asked her.

She made a funny face at the menu.

He sighed "Yah, I know it's odd." He tried to bring a little of the outside world to Mineral Town with his cooking, but most people just ordered hamburgers and fries.

She smiled and shook her head. "No it's good. I'm glad someone's finely bringing something new to this place."

"You like this kind of food?" he asked wide eyed.

She nodded her head.

"Woah pretty and good taste in food! I think I'm in love!" He thought to himself.

"I think I'll have the Mexican grilled corn." She said.

"Coming right up!" he said as he turned to the oven.

Maybe his summer was going to be better than he thought.

~ "So Claire you sound like you know a lot of people in this town." Said Kai.

"Well I should. I lived here for three years and came back every summer until I was fifteen." She let out laugh. He was surprisingly easy to talk to.

"Really? Dang, I was hoping you were a newbie. I'm getting really tired of being the weird guy in the shack." Claire laughed again. Wondering why she was laughing so much.

"So, I see you know Popuri." She said casually.

She didn't know the whole story about last summer. Ann tended to tell long stories and she tended not to listen. Kai turned to her casually

"Erm. That depends on how much you know." Claire could tell by the change in his voice that he was wondering how much she did know.

"Well one thing to learn about this place is that everybody knows everything about anybody."

Kai paused for a minute.

"Oh… well we started dating you know? Then I realized she wasn't really my type. I tried to let her down easy but…"

He paused again.

Claire could feel that she hit a nerve a little, and quickly piped up.

"You can't reason with her believe me I know what you mean. When I came back at the beginning of last season to restore my family's farm she got the idea in her head that I was trying to outshine her. I tried to talk to her, but she just started yelling at me trying to start a scene. Poor Rick really has his hands full."

~Kai's PROV~

"Oh? You mean her brother? Yeah, I'd say he got the bad end of that genepool deal." He let out a chuckle at his own joke.

He maybe went a little far with that one trying to be funny but come on everyone knew that Rick wasn't much of a looker.

He expected a little laugh or a "Oh come on that's a little harsh" from Claire, but the silence was getting a little to long for comfort.

"You know I really have to get back to work." said an irritated voice from behind him.

"What? But your food is…" He turned around; she was gone. Money was left on the table.

"Shit."

End of Chapter One