I had found a rhythm to my days. Every morning I would tend to my crops, clear some more land, and add more hay to my silo. Before leaving the farm, I would check the tappers I had put on the pine, maple, and oak trees I had opted not to chop down. The afternoons depended on the weather and whatever I felt like doing: foraging, fishing, mining, or socializing.

The 2-week mark was rapidly approaching, but I was aware that I had made some progress in developing some skill. Fishing was still frustrating more often than not, but mining was great stress relief, and foraging was getting easier every time. I had collected a number of daffodils and horseradish, my offerings of friendship to the folks in town. Socialization was not really a skill in the traditional sense, but I felt like I was improving on that as well.

It had occurred to me after visiting Robin and Sebastian that day that the people of Pelican Town had their own schedules, even though the rush of the city didn't exist here to push or pull them. Some folks only left their homes after 10am, others wandered up to the mountains in the afternoons, and I was in the process of trying to learn all of their routines.

Meeting Sebastian and completing my checklist had given me a strange peace of mind; my nightmares had lessened in their frequency and severity. It had also renewed my optimism in terms of making friends here, not that Sebastian and I had particularly hit it off. It was his friend Sam actually, who had started treating me like a pal first.

I knew that this was in part due to Sam's openness and friendliness. The guy made no effort to hide his hobbies and passions – I had run into him a few times on his skateboard, and heard him on his guitar while visiting his mom, Jodi. He was also one of the handful of people who didn't seem to give a damn that I had ruined some parsnip seeds on my first day.

It was also incredibly easy to make him happy. The last time I had dropped by, I had been eating some pizza that I'd bought at the saloon. Sam had given me puppy eyes as soon as he'd smelled my food, and I had relented, sharing half of it with him. He had been over the moon with joy.

This afternoon, he was in the town by the mayor's house, gazing at the river. He seemed to be watching the fish drifting lazily by, or lost in his own thoughts. I wasn't sure if I should disturb him, but he looked up and saw me before I could decide to walk away.

He greeted me with a large grin. "Oh, hi! It's good to see you again."

I bobbed my head in response. "Yeah, good to see you, too. How's it going?"

He shrugged. "The usual. Work sucks, but I need the money. How about you?"

"I'm alright. Figuring out how to do my own thing."

"That's good."

We both looked at the river. A particularly large fish floated near the surface, a smaller fish tail sticking out of its mouth.

"Cannibal," I murmured, crouching down for a better look. "You disgusting little fiend."

Sam crouched down beside me. "What did you say?"

"I called it a fiend," I turned to him.

"Ah, my hearing must be going or something. I thought you said 'bean'."

I frowned. "You really should protect your hearing. Getting better quality headphones might help with giving you better detail without having to raise the volume."

He shrugged. "It's fine. I'd rather put the money for those headphones towards guitar maintenance, like new strings or picks. I keep losing picks so those are more of a money sink than they should be." He scratched the back of his neck.

I thought for a moment. "I should ask my mom to send my old picks. That'd at least pad your supply a bit."

He stared at me. "You have guitar picks?"

"I took Guitar for a year in middle school." A thought occurred to me. Did schools here not have guitar classes? Were there even schools out here? I knew that Penny taught Vincent and Jas now, but what would happen when they got older?

Sam blinked a few times and I held my breath. When he spoke, his face just beamed. "You know how to play the guitar? Alright, that is awesome, we can be like guitar buddies or something!"

I held up my hands, trying to stop him, but not wanting to extinguish his enthusiasm. "It's been years since I've touched a guitar, I don't remember much."

"It's like riding a bike, you can never forget," Sam said, but his smile drooped a little. "Hey, it's okay if you're scared of being bad compared to me. I'm only kind of good. I'm sure you could do as well as me if you started playing again."

I nodded slowly. "Yeah, I'm totally fine not playing the guitar ever again. I've kind of given up on the idea of being any sort of musician. Not my thing."

Sam brought his hand to his chin, stroking it as he thought. "Hmm, well, if you don't want to be a musician, maybe I can recruit you to do something else."

"Recruit me?"

"Yeah!" He beamed at me again and I felt that familiar sinking feeling begin to pull on my insides. "I'll have to think about it, but it's going to be great."

"Sure," I said meekly.

"Maybe this Friday we can – oh, I almost forgot. The Egg Festival's happening this Friday. Are you excited?" His smile only grew larger somehow.

"The what festival?" I gave him a dubious look.

"What, are you going deaf too? Egg."

I ignored his question. "What is the Egg Festival?"

"You don't have this in the city?" He snickered. "The city seems so lame sometimes."

"If you explain it to me, I can tell you if we have something similar maybe." I bit my tongue, hoping that would quell some of the annoyance that simmered within me.

"Okay, sure," he shrugged. "So the moms are all busy right now painting eggs with all these nice patterns, and then on the morning of, Mayor Lewis hides the eggs in spots all over town. At 9am the festival starts and everyone gathers here, and whoever wants to take part goes and gets as many eggs as they can in 50 seconds." Sam looked smug and I resisted the urge to clock the guy in his smug-ass face.

"Well," I began, picking some lint off my shirt, "we have something like that held in Kora Park sponsored by some insurance company. It's mostly for kids to do and there are prizes based on how many eggs you get, things like chocolate bunnies, marshmallow chicks, a permit to own a pet chicken, weird stuff like that."

Sam still looked unimpressed, though his confidence did seem a little bit shaken. "I was right. The city is pretty lame sometimes."

"And you're pretty lame most of the time," I retorted, unable to contain myself any longer.

Sam snorted and burst into laughter. I stood beside him with my arms crossed. I had had enough socialization with him today, it seemed.

"Okay," I said loudly, but he continued to laugh, tears starting to form at the corners of his eyes. "I'm going now. I have many important things to do today. Good-bye."

"Take it easy," he called after me, composing himself just long enough to say that before bursting out laughing again.

Ass.

In all honesty, I was looking forward to the Egg Festival, and didn't care how it compared to the version taking place at Kora Park. This would be my first event in the valley, and it seemed like it'd be a great opportunity to mingle and talk to my fellow townsfolk – minus Sam. I could practically see how insufferable he would be that day, probably laughing at me every time I saw him.

The afternoon sun was clouded over today, and the wind blustered through the trees. Pollen and petals filled the air and I stopped to catch a few. I wondered if my farm was going to be covered in petals as well, and I rushed off to check.

I had been right in suspecting that the petals would be everywhere on the farm, but the wind didn't seem to let them settle on any of my crops for very long. There would be no point in trying to brush them off until the wind had died down.

I turned, ready to head inside to warm myself by the fire and drop things off in a chest, but spied a certain flag up on my mailbox. Eager, I made my way over to it.

I hadn't noticed on my way in, but a box had been placed just in front of the mail box, and the writing on it matched that of the letter tucked inside my mailbox. My mother's handwriting, of course. The letter read:

Hey you! Kid!

I managed to get a package together of goodies! Well, it's really only 1 goodie, but you'll understand once you open the box. Your father is unhappy with the package I put together, but too bad, he did zero legwork to put it together, so he has no say. Anyway, we got your message about the books and CDs and things, so I've tasked your father with handling that. If you don't start receiving your books and things in the next week or so, please direct all ire towards him not me.

(In regards to what's in the box: it's legit, I swear!)

Love always,

Mom

I was intrigued now. Tucking the letter into my back pocket, I knelt down and ripped open the box. The contents left me dumbfounded.

My mom had somehow managed to send me coffee. I couldn't complain, really. She had been considerate enough to get it from my favourite coffee shop in the city, quite a feat actually since they tended to run out due to the exclusivity of the coffee beans, and yet she had managed to send 10 cups of it – 10 cups of brewed coffee, each bottled and sealed so as to keep the liquid in and the inside of the box dry. I tried not to grimace at the sketchy makeshift labels my mom had put on the bottles. She had taken Zuzu Bean's signature coffee cups, cut off the bottoms, and slid them over the bottles. My mother, she was a madwoman.

I was at a loss for what to do. Sure, I liked Zuzu Bean's coffee, but I couldn't drink all of it on my own before it went stale. I slowly packed a few bottles into what free space remained in my backpack. As I looked at the Zuzu Bean logo on one, an idea occurred to me.

I dashed off for the mountain.

"Hi Robin, the silo's great. Bye Robin," I said as I slipped inside the carpenter's house and flew past her.

"Thank you…?" Her voice trailed off behind me as I rounded the corner and slowed my pace. I continued down the hall to the kitchen at a much more normal speed.

Sebastian looked up from where he stood by the stove. "Oh, hi." His expression remained impossibly bored.

"Hey," I said. "I have something I thought maybe you'd be interested in."

He said nothing, but raised his eyebrows. I took that as acceptance of my surprise. I reached into my backpack for a bottle. "Pass me a mug," I said, not looking up. "Please," I added.

I heard a cupboard open and close, and a mug was set down on the table.

"Thanks," I said, offering him a smile as I looked up. My breath caught as my eyes took him in. The clouded sunlight from the window cast a grey light on him – poor man's moonlight. It highlighted the angles of his face, his cheekbones, his jaw, and made his dark hair shine. He looked otherworldly and fantastical, like a creature who didn't quite belong here. No wonder he spent most of his time inside and in his basement bedroom. For a split second, I longed to see what his room looked like.

His gaze met mine and I stumbled back into reality. I did my best to keep a steady hand as I poured some coffee from the bottle into the mug. I ignored his bemused look as he took in my mom's label on the bottle.

"The label's my mom's doing," I sighed. "She wanted to make sure I knew where the coffee was from, I guess. Don't you dare laugh at my mother."

He blinked at me. "I wouldn't," he frowned. "I was just curious."

"Oh, okay, good." I knew my cheeks had reddened, but he didn't seem to notice.

"So," he said, pulling me out of my embarrassment, "what is it?"

"It's coffee from Zuzu Bean, a café in downtown Zuzu City," I explained, and handed the mug to him. Our fingers brushed during the exchange and I thought he might flinch or draw back, but he didn't. "It's okay if you don't like it. I don't want you to feel obligated. I just thought maybe you'd like to try some of the city's best coffee, y'know before you ever decide to move there or something."

He gave it a tentative sniff before taking a sip. I tried not to watch, but I was intrigued by what his reaction might be.

His face remained stoic, and he seemed to ponder the taste for a good 10 seconds. "Thanks," he said finally. "I like this."

A rush of relief overtook me and I let out a breath I had unknowingly been holding.

"But I have to say," he said, "it tastes an awful lot like the coffee from the Saloon."

"Wait, what?"

He took another sip. "It tastes like the coffee from the saloon," he said again.

"Are you fucking kidding me?" I gave him a look somewhere between a glare and some manifestation of disbelief.

He smirked and I wondered briefly how often he gave those out. I had seen two now, which felt substantial. "No, I'm not," he said, his dark eyes dancing. "I'm starting to wonder if they use the same beans."

"No way. Nuh-uh, that is not possible. Impossible." I violently shook my head.

He shrugged, but a mischievous smile played around his lips.

"Okay, well," I started to zip up my backpack. "I'm going to go ask Gus where his beans are from. Maybe he uses Zuzu Bean's beans." I chewed my bottom lip as I swung my bag onto my back. I struggled with a strap.

"Report back tomorrow," he said, reaching out and holding the rogue strap still for me. His tone was solemn.

"Th-thanks," I stammered, pleasantly surprised that he had felt comfortable enough to aid me. "I'll see you tomorrow, then."

He nodded, and I turned and left before he could do any more nice things for me. My heart was palpitating harder than it should have been.