A little later in the month, Sam watched as I fished again… but in a different location, and under a different climate. We were over by the mountain lake, with the rain hammering on us and the world.

I was out to catch the Legend today. I was admittedly pretty nervous; I'd given the book Sam had found another once-over before I'd left the house, and it became clear that this "Legend" was the grand poobah, the final boss of the Legendary Fish. The conclusion of one of the papers on this thing even said "If one can catch this fish, the other Legendary Fish will be a cinch for them."

Speaking of Sam, I just so happened to run into him and his mother on the way to the lake, when they were walking out of Pierre's store. Sam had said he had to help put the groceries they'd bought away, then he'd meet me over by the lake. Some minutes later, here we were.

This fish was probably the shyest of the Legendary Fish, though. It took a good few hours to come out.

I couldn't complain, though; the longer the Legend took to see my bait, the longer I had to talk with Sam.

There was one particular subject that would stick out, though.

It started with his taking a deep breath.

He then said "Can I… ask you something?"

"Go for it," I said as my entire nervous system did two flips.

"…So… I figured I'd ask my mom if I could skip the Flower Dance this year," he said. "Of course, she insisted I do it. What was I expecting, right? But really, I'm sick of it. I'm sick of having to get into that stupid blue suit just to do some stupid choreography and pretend like it's some big romantic thing."

"Is this really that important to some people?" I asked.

"My mom loves to see me out there," he answered. "Around this time of year, she can't stop talking about how she can't wait for Vincent to be old enough for it. And, of course, Sebastian thinks it's stupid too, but even he acknowledges he gets to go through it with Abigail."

I thought I felt a tug on my line, so I briefly looked back to the lake. It was only the singular tug, though, so I dismissed it and looked back at Sam.

"This is where you come in," he said. "If I have to do this… well… I-I want to see if I can do it with a friend. So… I guess I'm basically asking if you'll be my partner for the Flower Dance this year."

If I was maybe six years younger, this would be it. This would have been my lifelong dream come to fruition. I would have seen fireworks in my mind's eye. I'd just been asked to a dance by my crush. Child me would have been quaking.

But I totally got where he was coming from. If you gotta endure something, make it as easy as possible, right? I still couldn't help but feel a few butterflies, though.

"I'd be happy to," I nodded.

"Really?" he reacted, clearly relieved. "Oh, good. Thank you so much."

"Of course," I smiled. "I'm glad to be able to help you through… well, whatever the Flower Dance is."

With a laugh, he said "Oh, you'll see. It really is kinda dumb." He suddenly remembered something. "Oh, you'll need some kind of white dress. I hope that's okay."

"I guess another trip to the city is in order," I shrugged. "I should be able to find something."

Well, that was happening. This couldn't be worse than the senior prom I went to alone, right?

Another half an hour passed after that… before the big guy we were after finally came along. And it seriously came along.

Suddenly, and I didn't know how, the heels of my feet weren't on the ground anymore.

Maybe twenty milliseconds later, I realized my ass was going in that lake, and that it had to have been the Legend yanking me and my pole into it. Maybe it wanted to fight me in a hand-to-hand duel instead of this "fishing" bullshit.

It took a good five seconds after that for me to come out of my mental preparation to be soaked in cold lake water and realize… there was something warm latching onto my arm.

In that moment, I didn't have time to figure the whole situation out, though. All I knew was that the Legend was trying to pull me into the lake, this warm thing on my arm was preventing me from going headfirst into those waters, and I had to use that to my advantage.

It took a solid minute, but eventually, I had dragged the Legend out of the water. The biggest fish I'd ever seen in person was now on the lakeshore, only doing little flops once every few seconds. I'd won this fight fair and square, I figured it was thinking.

Then, the warm thing on my arm disappeared.

I turned my head around to face Sam. He was standing a little closer than usual to me. Close enough to, say, latch onto my arm.

That's when I discovered that we'd won this fight fair and square.

He was also blushing a bit. If I hadn't figured out how he'd helped me out yet, that would have been a dead giveaway. I could soon tell that I was blushing just as hard as he was.

"S-Sorry about getting in your space like that," he said, rubbing the back of his neck. "I just…"

As one does when they've got a crush, I replayed that minute over and over in my head, the one where Sam had grabbed my arm. I hoped I'd dream about it that night.

"No, no, there is no need to apologize," I assured him. "I probably couldn't have caught this beast if not for your quick thinking. Seriously, thank you."

I decided it best to turn my head back to the beast in question. It seriously looked like something out of a cartoon, like a king. The king of fish everywhere.

Unfortunately, though, it wasn't moving anymore.

"Shit, I think I killed it," I said.

I'd… killed the Legend. Was I a criminal of the fishing world now?

"You probably would have needed a truck of water to keep this thing alive anyway," Sam assured me, picking his umbrella up off the ground and walking over to get a closer look at the Legend. "This thing's frickin' huge."

He bent down to get an even closer look.

"This thing's gnarly," he said. "This has been swimming here for all this time?"

"I guess," I reacted.

And we'd caught it. We'd caught that gnarly beast.

And I was going to the Flower Dance with the one that helped me catch it.

Weird how life works.