...don't ask. Everything's explained below.

I own nothing.

A line.

Then two.

Quick, expert strokes, crosshatching, and shading. Another line. Two.

A smile.

And perfection is born.

Somewhere, in a time that never was, there is a girl of hair of wheat and eyes of purest brown, sitting at the piano – oh, how her grandmother absolutely loves to hear her play – chocolate irises sparkling in anticipation, a gentle smile on her lips. Gentle fingers, tinkling plunks coming from the piano, oh how marvelous to hear –

Abruptly the playing stops and the girl with hair of wheat looks up with a big smile, eyes meeting the other's equally brown, warm irises. "Oh! hello!"

"Hey," he greets warmly and cheerfully, because he is not reserved unlike her. "How's it going?"

A flush graces her delicate cheeks, and she looks away. "Nothing much," she replies, each word soft and gentle, like notes from a piano. "I haven't been out much." Her cheeks deepen to a lovely crimson.

"Hey, no worries," he grins, "It's fine. Say, how 'bout we have dinner at the Inn later?" he asks, all innocence in his offer. "I'll pick you up at seven?"

She smiles. "I'd like that."

Did it happen?

In another time, in another place, the same wheaten-haired young lady is seated at the piano. Only this time, her grandmother is a harsh critic, and there is no handsome young man to rescue her and spirit her away to dinner. Instead that man just tends to avoid her, and never stares at her like the way she would like.

"Dear, play from your knuckles and not your finger joints," her grandmother's smooth, soothing voice comes to her ears. "You need to improve your posture as well. Now play that again."

The granddaughter sighs and wills her fingers to play Beethoven's Fur Elise yet another time, expecting praise and receiving nothing but criticism. She bites her lower lip and looks away, muttering an "excuse me" before hurriedly walking the door.

On her way out, Romana adjusts her spectacles and gives a small smile.

Is this how you'd like things to be?

Lumina has always believed in magic.

One of the few things she remembered about her mother – very few, mind you – was the soothing voice that came with the fairytales. She remembered the soothing calm of her mother's voice when she told of Snow White's dire situation, or her girlish trill whenever she would describe Cinderella's fairy godmother. And after Romana took her in, Lumina reveled in the magical nature of these fairytales.

She remembers one day she asked her grandmother: "Is love a magic?"

Romana had looked at her little granddaughter with what could be called amusement, and smiled. "Yes, dear, love is a magic. It's a beautiful magic, now – it will make you happy, forever, and ever."

Now, Lumina thinks, if Jack doesn't love her, then magic must not exist either.

Stop.

It's always been part of Lumina's nature to compare.

Muffy is giggling and flirtatious, she can give her that, not to mention beautiful: hair of gold and seductive emeralds for eyes. Griffin isn't complaining about her, or anything when she's around, even. Flora has intelligence and professionalism as part of her allure, not to mention she is beautiful when she gives one of her rare, from-the-heart smiles. Nami's appeal is centered on her outer toughness and inner sweetness, something men find attractive. (Lumina makes it a mental note to try and be like them. Maybe then he'd notice her.)

But Celia.

It isn't that Celia's not a very nice girl, or that she's ugly (both of which she isn't), it's just that…

She watches Jack and Celia together, motions as fluid as water, laughing and smiling as easily as possible. Lumina frowns, not because she is angry, but because of the fact that Jack seems to smile so easily with Celia – something he can't seem to bring himself to do when he's around her. But she knows pouting and frowning spitefully will do nothing, but it's not like she can do anything, either.

But that's when Celia smiles at Jack oh so prettily, looks in Lumina's direction, taps Jack on the shoulder, and he looks.

Lumina knows she's staring – normally she would beat herself up for it, because that's undignified, but she can't help but stand still, petrified, heart beating a million times a minute, her face a brilliant shade of red, as Jack looks at her, and her heart breaks a little more when an agitated look comes over his face.

What would Celia do in this situation?

Celia would smile, and laugh prettily, and amble over to Jack to start a conversation. Fists balled, eyes closed, she takes a deep breath and tries.

But she can't.

So instead she runs home, ignoring cries of "Lumina! Lumina, wait up!" back to Romana, with apology after apology and endless "I won't do it again"s, and small smiles and acceptance, and she goes back to her room and picks up a pencil.

And draws.

Somewhere, somehow, in a world defined by white sheets and eight-by-twelve measurements, there is a boy, and there is a girl. The boy isn't often agitated and somber around the girl, and the girl can speak to him without blushing and clamming up every single time she opens her mouth. Somewhere, somehow, they are on top of a mountain, looking up at the brightest full moon she has ever seen, stars twinkling effervescently in the background.

"It's beautiful," she murmurs faintly, feeling cool and beautiful rays of silver light brushing her cheeks.

"Isn't it," he murmurs not softly, because, once again, she is reserved and he is not. And then he leans in –

Is that what you wish for?

She gasps with shock and drops the pencil as if it has burned her fingers,looking away, horrified. She glares at the thing she has just drawn, as if it is a terrible monstrosity sent from the depths of hell. Salty liquid pools in her eyes, and trembling hands clamp themselves over her dainty lips as the tears threaten to spill. How dare she, she thinks, because she is, after all a critic, how dare she draw this – this thing that showed her with Jack of all people, he, the untouchable man who already had Celia. How dare she.

And that night, curled up in the comfort of her four-poster-bed, is when she lets herself cry. I am a monster. A worthless, green-eyed monster.

Really?

Rain today.

Lumina does hate rain, for not only does it mean a whole day of staying cooped up in the Mansion playing the piano, it also prevents her from seeing the beauty that is Forget-me-Not Valley and the happy, family-like aura the people give. Lumina loves it so much, it's almost soothing.

But perhaps she should give it a bit of leeway as well, as rain only saves her the heartache of seeing Jack's anguished face every time he laid eyes on her, and Celia's innocent, naïve smile.

Perhaps she is naïve as well. Naïve enough to fall for Jack without thinking of the consequences. Naïve enough to believe that if she loved him, he would love her back.

She wasn't even sure if he knew.

So she sits at her desk and the sketchpad in front of her, drawing scene after scene on white perfection. But not only does it end in pain and frustration, it always – always ends with her ripping the page out and throwing it into the bin.

I-I can't.

What was magic anyway? Was it something that just came randomly to someone? Or was it something that existed in all of us? What was it? Perhaps it did exist in everyone, like Mary claimed, like love.

If that's the case, then Lumina thought, maybe magic didn't exist. She didn't see Jack magically falling in love with her, and plants never magically bloomed to her touch, and she couldn't say that she was a genius at the piano, or anything else for that matter. Maybe magic just didn't exist.

Not for her, at least.

Is it wrong to involve other people in our own dreams, in our own fantasies?

The next day, for better or for worse, is sunny. Lumina is sad that Mary can't come today, and as such ends up bored. Asking Romana if she could go out for a walk made her feel better.

"Hey, Big Sister!"

She looks down, face automatically etched into a smile, to see the village's youngest female resident (so far) smiling up at her. "Kate, hello!"

"Hey, Big Sister, can I ask ya somethin'?"

Lumina smiles. "Of course."

Kate gives her a grin embodied with all the light and innocence a six-year-old can have, and asks, "Do you believe in magic?"

Lumina's eyes widen, and her lips bite themselves before her trembling hands hurriedly cover them. "I-I don't know," she croaks out helplessly, "Not…anymore."

Kate looks at her sadly, and Lumina wonders whether she'll have to rethink it.

The girl looks up at Lumina, eyes shining brightly, asking her a question which the girl knew the answer to. Lumina answers without hesitation, the words flowing effortlessly from her mouth. "Of course."

Wouldn't you want to be that way?

Lumina doesn't like it when the day doesn't match her mood.

It felt like nature was disagreeing with her and the reasons for her mood, and the fact that today is bright and sunny and otherwise perfect doesn't help. If only it was cloudy. Or better yet, drizzling. That would make her feel better.

Jack was a nice guy. A very, very nice guy. Wasn't she awful for falling in love with him and his niceness and suffer for it?

She'd tried to think of him as a very friendly brother – the way she saw Hugh, or even Rock. It worked – as long as she didn't see his face and he didn't talk. Which wasn't very often.

Maybe if she just sat here she could imagine all her problems away. The cool breeze, she will admit, is wonderfully soothing, and had her mood not been thunderous she would be more than willing to sit at the Goddess Pond for more than a few hours, and think.

The Goddess is dead, some had told her, She isn't going to come back.

She grimaces. Then the magic died with her. Lumina frowns, an expression characterized by the drop of her mouth and the furrowing of her dainty eyebrows. She sighs softly, and gets up to leave.

"Look! There she is!"

Lumina freezes up at the girlish, non-too-familiar voice, and images of a certain brunette farmer come to mind immediately. Lumina closes her eyes, and thinks so very hard and tries to vanish into the earth.

"H-hey, Lumina."

Lumina bites her lip. Why, oh why did Jack have to come here and talk to her? Did he know? Was he just playing with her?

"Lumina."

The way he says it in his wonderful drawl, drawing the name out and making it seemed sweeter, makes her heart clench. She bites her lip and turns to glare at him. "What?"

Jack winces, and Lumina sees him steal a glance at Celia. Lumina wills herself to look, to see Celia giving him an encouraging look.

"L-lumina, I – I want to tell you…"

She sighs and suddenly finds the ground incredibly interesting. She does not look up to see his face as red as a tomato, or the fact that he is looking at the ground as well.

"Lumina, I—"

"For the goddess' sake, Jack, don't beat around the bush, hurry UP!" That's Celia's voice, uncharacteristically hissing, and Lumina resists the urge to bite her lip again.

"Lumina, look at me, please."

She holds back tears and wills her head to snap up and glare at him, and she notices him snap back a little, but he takes a deep breath.

"Lumina,IwanttotellyouthatIreallyreallylikeyouandI'msorryifyIdidanythingcauseyoualwaysseemreallymadatmeandCelia'sbeenbuggingmetotellyouforeverandnowhereIamandI'msorryifIsoundstupid."

Lumina stares at him with wide, untrusting eyes, when her eyes meet his sincere ones, her own overflow with tears and Jack seems all the more worried.

"Lumina, what'd I do? Oh my goddess, I'm so sorry…"

She blinks them back and looks up to smile at him.

See?

When suddenly she starts laughing hysterically and she throws herself into his arms, because now, they are both not reserved. "No," she murmurs. "I-it's nothing. Thank you."

What would you call this now?

Lumina hugs him tighter, laughing through her tears with happiness, leaving a damp spot on his shirt, and Celia starts clapping, and Jack feels a grin break over his tanned face. Lumina smiles and giggles and cries and laughs, because we are all like that, and tells herself to throw away her sketches and to talk to Kate again later.

Magic.

A/N:

WHAT IS THIS HORRIBLE CHEESY THING I DON'T EVEN.

First Harvest Moon fic in a really, really, REALLY long time, so I might be a tad rusty. Or still just plain bad. Nevertheless, I blame it on the new student in my school (not really anymore, school started LOOOONG AGO) who got me hooked on a huge number of mangas and animes and YEAH. Procrastination was my best friend.

So January comes along, and everything's fine. I try to write Harvest Moon again for the 50th time, and ALMOST succeed, when ALONG SHE COMES brandishing a link to Hetalia. And It All Goes Downhill From There. Quite stupidly, naturally.

Seriously, I had so much fun writing it (I wrote a lot more than what I put up here, mind you) that I forgot HM existed (again) all the way until I see the contest theme. So I FORCE myself to write Harvest Moon (still in the works, I can barely type Romana without accidentally typing Romano), and that lame effort is THIS. And YES, I AM aware that the 'magic' in this story is very vague and stuff, but please review~

Anyway, please review (and vote, if you think it was worth anything)! ;)