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

Chapter Thirteen

It was Sunday. At seven o'clock tonight, I'd be heading over to Jodi's house to have dinner with her and Sam. Per Jodi's request, I was heading out to catch a largemouth bass for her casserole that she was making for dinner tonight. It was the first fishing trip I'd managed to go on since I got here and I was very excited to finally get back to what I used to love doing, but knowing that once I caught the right fish, I'd be headed to see Jodi and Sam which made me a little nervous. I wondered if Sam even knew I was coming over or if Jodi had just made these plans without even letting him know.

I went to get the fishing rod I'd bought from Willy during my first week here but as I reached for it, I noticed something odd about the handle. It looked like a scratch of some kind. As I looked closer, I realized the scratch mark I had noticed spelled the initials 'SS'. Stella Shaw.

Grandpa and I were out fishing one day and when he wasn't looking, I grabbed his fishing knife and began carving my initials into the handle so that everyone would know that this fishing rod belonged to me: Stella Shaw.

As I got to work on the first 'S', Grandpa turned around and caught me.

"Stella," He scolded me. "Stop doing that. That fishing knife is very expensive and you're going to ruin both my knife and your fishing rod by doing that."

"But I'm almost done!" I countered, not even looking up at him as I continued to carve my initials into the handle.

I heard grandpa sigh deeply and when I looked up, he had turned his back to me again and waited for a bite on the line he had cast. Grandpa almost always let me get my way. You could say he spoiled me quite a bit, but that was what I loved most about grandpa. He was the only one who ever made me feel like I was loved.

I took my thumb and traced over the initials carved into the handle. This was my old fishing rod that I had sold when I moved out to Zuzu City. How did it make its way to Stardew Valley? How did Willy get his hands on it? The person I had sold it to all those years ago was a woman who said she was buying it off me as a gift for her husband, but Willy wasn't married and never had been as far as I know. Was it a coincidence or was it fate that my fishing rod had made its way to Stardew Valley and back into my own hands?

With my gear in tow, I left the house and headed up to the mountain lake. This was now my third time taking the stairs at the northern entrance of the farm and across that dirt path dotted with pine trees that led to the mountains. Each time I'd taken this path, I was reminded of the day I arrived here. When I think back on the girl who showed up here over a month ago, so full of curiosity and caution, I knew that she was mostly gone now. While I still had my same sense of caution, as it was just my nature, my curiosity had left me as I learned more and more about my surroundings here in Stardew Valley. I was really starting to feel like I was making a home for myself. Between meeting Emily, and Sam, reuniting with Abigail, and my fishing rod reuniting with me here in the place I least expected, it felt like everything was finally falling into place.

I circled the mountain lake, searching for the best spot to set up. Grandpa had taught me how to look for good fishing spots when I was younger. If you looked closely at the surface of the water, you could usually spot small areas of bubbles where the fish were plentiful. After searching for a few minutes, I finally spotted one just on the other side of a wooden bridge at the back of the lake.

I set my gear down and attempted to get comfortable as I figured I may be here a while as I tried to catch the largemouth bass for Jodi. As I sat in the dewy grass, with my fishing rod in hand, I started to notice just how quiet it was here and how peaceful it felt. It wasn't an eerie quiet like the feeling I got that morning I went to go see Abigail at the community center. This was a different type of quiet—not completely quiet as I could hear the bubbling of the lake in front of me and the birds singing to each other in the trees.