Chapter Text
Sebastian slams his head on his desktop keyboard with a dull thunk, a razor sharp pain shooting through his skull in the same spot that he has bashed repeatedly in the past three hours. Rubbing feverishly at his forehead to get the pain to somehow dissipate, he sighs and turns away from his desk in defeat.
For the past several hours, Sebastian has been searching every online job board for any sort of entry level coding position in Zuzu City and he has absolutely nothing to show for his hard work except for a shiny new bump forming above his right eyebrow. He is so unbelievably sick and tired of being stuck in the Valley, and all he can think about nowadays from the moment he wakes up (typically at noon) to the moment he goes to bed (which, granted, is always very late and when he is very high) is that he just needs to get. the. fuck. out.
Here is the thing. When Sebastian graduated high school, no one was really surprised that he remained at home in the basement of his mom’s house, getting high and sleeping late, and doing nothing of real importance. That was what was expected of him and he knew that. No one looked at him and saw someone who would make a name for themselves and achieve great things —not Demetrius, not the town, not his teachers, not even his mom—and for the longest time, Sebastian was pretty okay with that. He was okay that his only achievements were in video game boss fights and the fact that he (barely) scraped by with his high school diploma. But all of that complacency went out of the window a few weeks ago.
He had been at the dinner table, reluctantly listening to Maru talk about her latest work in the lab as Demetrius nodded along with the keen interest that Sebastian was never on the receiving end of. Robin was still finishing up in the kitchen when she popped her head around the corner.
“Seb! I forgot to tell you since you slept through breakfast this morning. Do you remember Alex Mullner? He was in the papers today!” she exclaimed, waving said newspaper wildly.
At the mention of Sebastian missing breakfast, Demetrius gives a little annoyed huff and Sebastian sinks down further in his chair. As Robin sits down at the table, she slides the paper over to Sebastian’s end of the table. Sure enough, on the front page of “The Joja Journal”, the headline reads “Small Town Kid Shakes Up Professional Gridball Season” with a photo of Alex holding his helmet and absolutely beaming, clearly unbothered by the grime and sweat that visibly coats his skin.
“Well? Isn’t that amazing? Someone we know is on the front page! You should text him and congratulate him.” Robin says expectantly, still smiling.
At that, Sebastian snorts and keeps scanning the article, eyes narrowing in disgust.
While Sebastian knew of Alex, they definitely did not have the kind of relationship that warranted a congratulatory text. Yoba, Sebastian wasn’t even sure if he had Alex’s number saved on his phone. The only reason he knows him is because it’s impossible not to — they’re from the same small town and they were in the same grade in school. And that is where the similarities end. One would think that being neighbors (in the sense that Stardew Valley is so ridiculously small that while you might not be next door, you are all essentially and regretfully neighbors) might lead to a sort of loyalty and pack mentality at the high school a few towns over, but no. Alex Mullner, the jock that he was, absolutely ran the school alongside Miss Queen Bee Haley and the rest of the egotistical, superficial gridball team. Everyone in their grade —yoba, the whole school, even when they had been underclassmen— worshipped the very ground they walked on. It had been disgusting to watch them slobber all over the popular crowd. Sebastian, Sam, and Abby made fun of them constantly, hooting and hollering at each others’ best impression of the adoring masses that resembled something of a monster in the mines. If he was to make a Venn diagram of his and Alex’s social circles, the circles would be almost comically far apart, only intersecting at one tiny point: Stardew Valley.
However, it seemed that even that small shred of commonality had disappeared, since Alex now plays for the professional gridball team in Zuzu City, like he had always dreamed of. Meanwhile, Sebastian was stuck here. It oddly stung, even though he knew Alex wasn’t the only one who had left the Valley behind and he never cared much about him in the first place.
“That’s … nice.” Sebastian finally said, trying to find a word that would placate his family and not make him want to throw up. “I’m surprised he could string together more than two words together for this interview. Thought the meathead might only be capable of caveman speak”, he couldn’t help adding. Something about that picture, with Alex’s huge, megawatt smile, made him feel incredibly small.
Demetrius put his fork down pointedly. “Sebastian. You know that is not appropriate. Your mother is right, that is very exciting news and you should not sarcastically diminish his great achievement.”
Maru snickered from beside him, “Sebastian’s just mad he almost failed gym class and couldn’t catch a gridball if his life depended on it.”
Sebastian elbowed her sharply in the ribs. “That’s rich coming from someone would have to invent a robotic arm to even play.”
Suddenly, Maru straightened up. Sebastian could tell she had her thinking face on and she started muttering to herself, something about “robot gridball” and “projectile motion” as she scurried away from the table to her lab.
Dinner had resumed as normal, which meant Sebastian ate quickly without speaking and Robin asked Demetrius a series of questions about his day and work, while he neglected to ask her any in return. Sebastian blocked them out and twirled his spaghetti, imagining his fork was stabbing Alex instead of just noisily scraping his plate. It wasn’t fair that everything came so easily to him. Sebastian never gave him or his silly gridball star pipe dream much thought back in school, but all of a sudden, it was all he could think about.
Fast forward two weeks to the present, and Alex and his small town success story are still haunting Sebastian. Hence he found himself behind his computer screen for hours every day, not playing video games, but looking for any sort of opportunity that would give him an out of his oppressive situation. Sam and Abby have been blowing up his phone with questions, since he’s been “more of a hermit than normal” and they “miss his vampire, recluse self”.
Nursing his sore head, Sebastian suddenly perks up when a blinking blue line of script catches his eye. It reads: “Feeling trapped? Need a way to escape? Click the link to get the answers you’ve been looking for!”
While the phrasing is vague and suspiciously reminiscent of some sort of phishing scam, Sebastian shoves his Internet safety and logic aside in his state of desperation. He clicks the link. A new tab opens on his browser, which consists of a blank white screen with plain black sans serif text that reads “Congrats! Your escape from reality is on the way!” with a little looping confetti animation. Sebastian sighs and rests his head on his desk gently this time (his head really was starting to ache), the celebratory animation mocking him in his periphery. The colorful emoticon eventually blurs as his eyes grow heavy with exhaustion, and visions of malware and phishing schemes fill his head as he drifts into a fitful sleep.