Roses and Sonatas [Harvest Moon: Tale of Two Towns]

Chapter 1

My parents came from two small villages that were on opposite sides of a small, craggy mountain known as Moondrop Mountain. Although the mountain was not terribly high as mountains go, the terrain was too rough for most vehicles, so people there either walked or rode to get from one town to the other. A trip over the mountains took a few hours even on horseback, so it wasn't something the villagers did very often, other than the mailman. Long ago, a tunnel had been dug through the mountain, making travel between the two towns much safer, easier, and faster. But according to local legend, the rivalry between the two towns reached such an extreme that the local deity became angered by the constant bickering and, as punishment, she caused the tunnel to collapse. That didn't end the feud between the villages, but it did diminish it.

Konohana was the village on the south-eastern side of the mountain, and due to its climate and the fertile lowlands around it, the farmers there raised a wide variety of excellent crops. Nearly everyone in the village had a little garden plot or a few fruit trees. My mother's parents had a large farm just outside the town, with huge fields of crops and a large orchard. She was an only child, so they expected her to marry a local boy and take over the family farm someday.

My father, on the other hand, came from the rival village, Bluebell, on the north-western slopes of the mountain. Because the soil there was poorer and rockier, it wasn't as suitable for raising crops. But it was suitable for grazing, so Bluebell's residents favored raising livestock over growing crops. My father's parents had a big ranch just outside Bluebell with plenty of space for their livestock and poultry. They kept bees and raised flowers, too. Sheep and alpacas did especially well there, and their farm was well known for the quality of its wool. And same as my mother's parents, my dad's parents assumed he'd marry a local girl and take over their ranch one day.

Contact between the two villages was pretty limited due to the difficulty of traveling, but the rivalry between the towns continued in the guise of cooking competitions. Each season, the residents of Konohana and Bluebell met at the peak of Moondrop Mountain, halfway between the two villages, for a series of competitions. Naturally, each town attempted to outdo the other in order to prove their superiority. That was how my parents met—through these contests. My mom was the prettiest young woman and the best cook in Konohana, and my dad was the handsomest and strongest young man in Bluebell. So it's not surprising that they noticed each other, but due to the fierce rivalry between the towns, I don't think anyone expected them to fall in love with each other. But they did.

They arranged to meet in secrecy on the mountaintop as often as possible, using the excuse of foraging for wild mushrooms and berries or fishing as an excuse to get away. It was pretty romantic, really, but of course they were eventually discovered. At that time, the rivalry between the towns was at its very worst, and both families had fits, demanding that they put an immediate end to their romance. But instead, they ran away together, choosing to forsake their families and homes rather than each other.

My grandparents were livid, each family blaming the other for their losses. But eventually, as time passed and they grew older, they began to regret their words and actions. They missed their children, and while still upset with them for leaving as they did, they also regretted the pride that had cost them so dearly. They hadn't seen their children in years and had never seen me at all. They wouldn't even have known of my birth, except that the cooking festival judge, Armand Gourmet of the renowned Gourmet family, ran into my parents in a restaurant not long after my birth. He recognized them and stopped to chat, then carried the news back to the villagers at the next competition.

Both families were relieved to hear their children were doing well and pleased to hear they had a child, but they were also offended at being so entirely excluded as to not even be informed of my birth. Afterwards they all altered their wills, leaving their farms to me, rather than to my parents. By a strange coincidence, both of my grandfathers died within a year of each other, and both grandmothers died on the same day a few years later, when I was in my very early twenties.