The Anti-Social Social Club [Stardew Valley Sebastian x Female Player (OFC)]

Chapter Seven

After dumping out four full pots of rainwater yesterday multiple times throughout the day, I decided it was about time I stopped by Robin's in the mountains to see if she could help patch the roof. Maybe that was also why I was freezing to death on cold nights. It was no way to live and I knew I was going to need to fix it before I caught pneumonia.

The walk to the mountains was calm and felt strangely familiar to the day I arrived back in Stardew over a week ago. I had walked this same path again for the first time in years with Lewis as we made our way from the train station to grandpa's farm. Now I was making my way back the other way to visit with Robin whose house we had passed by on the way to the farmhouse. I was curious to see what Robin's house looked like as there never had been a house in the mountains before.

As I passed through to the mountains, my eye was immediately drawn to a small yellow tent set up in the corner with a blazing campfire set up outside it with two small, wooden boxes on either side as makeshift seats. I felt like I recognized this yellow tent but I couldn't remember. Maybe my memories were starting to blend together and what I was really remembering was this one and only camping trip my father took me on just after my mother chose to leave us.

It was the same summer he pulled me from Stardew Valley early and told me I'd never be coming back. He had said that despite our family shrinking to just the two of us, this camping trip would make us feel whole again. In fact, it didn't. My father liked to put band-aids on stab wounds—a temporary fix, like that would do the job. Maybe he actually felt bad that I was deprived of a happy summer, or he was just trying to cover up his feelings of guilt. Either way, it was a poor excuse for a trip.

He had packed this yellow tent for us to sleep in, but he hadn't realized that moths had gotten into the bag during its extended residency inside our musty coat closet and we ended up calling the trip early when it began to rain and the water leaked through the holes left behind by the hungry insects that once inhabited it.

So in all honesty, I couldn't remember if my memories of the yellow tent actually came from Stardew Valley or my father's attempt at easing his conscience. All I knew was that I had some memory of a yellow tent and this one in the corner of the mountains was bringing it back to me in a manner as vivid as if it had just happened yesterday.

Just below the hilltop, I noticed a new landmark of the mountains: a large house with a thatched blue roof. This must be Robin's house as I knew that it hadn't been here before I left all those years ago.

I made my way down the stairs embedded in the mountainside and past the fenced-in area attached to the house that had a big telescope just inside the perimeter. Someone who lived here had a fun hobby, it seemed. The two front windows were adorned with frilly, lace white curtains on the inside and there was a wooden sign hanging at the top of the door with a picture of a saw. It seemed that these people always made sure you knew exactly what building you were walking into.

I stood outside the door for a moment, taking a deep breath in and resting my hand on the door handle. I was admittedly a little nervous about walking into Robin's house. I felt weird walking into someone's house uninvited even if it did double as their store. I remembered Lewis saying Robin had two kids about my age as well, one of them being a son. I just hoped I wasn't going to find myself with yet another crush on top of the two I already had.

I glanced at the windows that flanked the front door once more and then noticed one thing I found odd about Robin's house which was the presence of a garage attached to the right side of her home, just beyond a nice little plant in a clay pot on a small footstool. Stardew Valley was so small that no one had any need for cars. In fact, Pelican Town had no roads or streets, just cobblestone footpaths. I suppose garages can be utilized for many things and Robin was a carpenter whom I'm sure had many different types of tools and was in need of a workspace. But I wondered, why a garage? Why not just a shed like grandpa had? In fact, grandpa had multiple sheds for all different uses. Surely Robin could have been satisfied with a work shed rather than a whole garage attachment on her house.