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It wasn’t too long before the starting stream screen transitioned away.
“Welcome back,” Nagi said as soon as the camera focused on his webcam, putting up a peace sign. He looked lazily at chat for a moment, “No Valo today, this stream we’re playing Stardew Valley with my roommate Reo.” He gestured to Reo, who is visibly excited to be participating.
“Hi, everyone,” Reo waved, his genuine smile crinkling his eyes.
> katsudonn2: whuut
> nagiWorldclass: no ranked? D:
>
ieMelody: omg reo’s here hii
> 03Feenie: different game today?
He raised an eyebrow at his friend, who seemed to be trying to merge with his chair, “You didn’t even warn your chat before?”
“… I was tired so I took a nap…” He dragged the words in a pout, unaware of the pinch on his cheek this would get him, he yelped an “Owie” defeated.
“You’re always tired, Nagi.” He said in clear mock complaint, no one could misinterpret the fond look in his eyes. He returned his attention to the quick moving chat, “He doesn’t wanna let me play shooters, chat... He’s so mean to me!” He teased, poking his cheek repeatedly.
“If we play Valorant Reo’s gonna get ragebaited on comms again.” He argued, being poked harder than before.
“I never got ragebaited in my life.” He proudly stated, even though it was a blatant lie anyone could unmask, there were multiple viral clips of that stream after all.
“It’s okay, Reo, there’s no need to be ashamed,”
>
samurowl donated 100 bits: chat get the “find a new personality since you can’t find a job” clip
The chat was flooded with laughing emotes and URLs while Reo could only hide his face in embarrassment.
“Stardew is cool too ‘cause you can show off your business skills.” The streamer tried to argue.
He raised his head from his hands with a raised brow, “Didn’t you say you hadn’t played it before?”
Nagi shrugged, “I’ve played something similar when I was a kid, I also asked Hiori for recommendations. He said it’s fun… He said he got 10 thousand gold on his first month,”
Reo hums, eventually accepting the answer as a challenge. “Alright, with my brains and your skills I bet we can get 15 thousand gold in a month!”
“Yes, boss.” He switched the screen to the game and began his character creation.
The scene began showing the grandpa laying on his bed in a small but cozy room, a nostalgic melody played. With a letter in hand and the last of his strength, he told his last will.
‘… and for my very special grandson: I want you to have this sealed envelope.’ The sealed letter smoothly fly torwards the player, ‘No, no, don’t open it yet… have patience. Now, listen close… There will come a day when you feel crushed by the burden of modern life… and your bright spirit will fade before a growing emptiness. When that happens, my boy, you’ll be ready for this gift. Now let grandpa rest.’
Reo can’t help but feel a little emotional with the short dialogue, it really resonated with his time before meeting his white haired treasure. “This brings me back memories.”
Nagi looked at him, “Your grandpa died like this?” He said in a sad tone. His friend looked at him scandalized.
“What? No, what the hell?” He laughed incredulous, smacking his shoulder once before his eyes glanced away sheepishly, “It’s just… I wish I had a grandpa like that.” One that could’ve given me this advice. He sighed and as he focused back on the screen he was frozen to see the exaggerated representation of his current work, an office full of cubicles.
“Wow… Just like Mikage Corp.” Nagi said deadpan.
“It’s definetly not like Mikage Corp, this is just a representation of the boring life of an office worker.” He refuted, mostly for the sake of avoiding getting scolded by his father for slandering the family business in public media, even though he didn’t doubt it could indeed be happening somewhere in there.
“Hm… Is it a hassle?” Nagi could bet Reo could get away with not working once in his life, but Reo was too restless to accept a life like that. Nagi wishes he would, they would spend much more time together after all, but he could not take away the shine in Reo's eyes when making effort on something that made a difference.
Reo sighed, “I suppose, though here-” he points at the screen “-it looks way worse.”
Nagi’s avatar appeared working inside one of them, he made a tired animation before opening his desk drawer and opening the letter.
‘Dear Nagi,
If you’re reading this, you must be in dire need of a change.
The same thing happened to me, long ago. I’d lost sight of what mattered most in life… real connections with other people and nature. So I dropped everything and moved to the place I truly belong.
I’ve enclosed the deed to that place… my pride and joy: Choki Farm-’
“Whoa, Choki mentioned.”
“Yes, Nagi, that’s the name we chose, let me read the rest,”
‘… my pride and joy: Choki Farm. It’s located in Stardew Valley, on the southern coast. It’s the perfect place to start your new life.
This was my most precious gift of all, and now it’s yours. I know you’ll honor the family name, my boy. Good luck.
Love, Grandpa.
P.S. If Lewis is still alive say hi to the old man for me, will ya?’
“So that’s how we end up farmers then.”
“Let’s quit our job, yay!” Nagi pumped a fist in the air as his character is shown riding a bus away from his previous life.
An NPC named Robin introduced herself and lead the way to Choki farm —which is totally covered by foliage, trees and rocks—, she shows the player the small house there. The Lewis guy appeared and also introduced himself, the two NPC’s banter for a moment about the size of the house, which seems to be marketing for Robin’s carpentry business.
‘Anyway… You must be tired from the long journey. You should get some rest. Tomorrow you ought to explore the town a bit and introduce yourself. The townspeople would appreciate that.’ The mayor says.
“Meeting new people is a hassle…” Unsurprisingly, Nagi whined.
“It can’t be that bad.” Reo encourages.
Before the NPC left he turned around, ‘Oh, I almost forgot. If you have anything to sell, just place it in this box here. I’ll come by during the night to collect it.’
“Oh, in Harvest Moon it was a guy that collected it at 6pm”
“Really?” Reo thought for a moment and hummed, “Though I guess you can do a lot in 6 hours.”
After the cutscene ended and his character was in his shack, Nagi quickly opened the menu to start the local co-op.
“My turn to make my character!” Reo joined to the character creation menu, quickly fiddling with the arrows to check the options.
Nagi sighed and typed a pause command in-game as to not waste time while Reo made his character, “Ok, I’m taking a 10 minute nap.”
“I won’t take that long, treasure.”
“Hm…” He leaned his head on Reo’s shoulder. He glanced at chat.
> noodletemptati0n: harvest moon is goated ngl
>
> MechaAmuro: i loved felicity from a new beginning
“No, I used to play Friends of a Mineral Town.” He stated, leaning more on the crook of Reo’s neck.
The chat rolled in with questions, some were trying to figure out his playstyle while others were asking which bachelorette he liked best... or which one was the most similar to Reo? Nagi wasn’t too sure what his chat was doing.
He answered one of the gameplay questions, “I didn’t like to mine because the stamina system was awful but it earned the most money...I liked to walk around and collect the colored grass to sell,” He read another message, “I never married any NPC, they were not that interesting,”
Reo stopped looking at pixelated shirts to look at him, “Really?” He cocked his head, “I always see you playing those dating simulators,”
Nagi whined embarassed, not only for being exposed for being a fake nonchalant but because his public would tease him relentlessly if they knew he only went for Reo-type characters, either because of their purple hair or because of the caring and competitive personality. He decided to stop reading chat to focuse on hiding his slightly pink cheeks further on Reo’s neck.
In the end Reo took 15 minutes, but that was something he decided to blame the chat, it was always their fault somehow
“We each got 15 parsnip seeds, nice,” They left their cabins and Nagi quickly started to clean space for their plants. Reo presses some buttons before succeeding on switching his tool, “Are we just planting them here?”
“Yeah, close to the door, no need to walk far.”
“So we have to water everyday, then,” Reo concluded and got a hum from his partner, “Efficient, I like it,”
“I’ll help clear some space,” Reo took his axe and began chopping some of the trees in the area, quickly filling his inventory with wood and sap. Nagi murmured an agreement, walking away to explore the map. He grabbed every foraging item he came across, finding daffodils and dandelions.
The chopping rhythm of the axe hitting the stumps echoed the small bedroom, bringing a pea ceful tempo to the stream. It was not long before Reo’s energy bar was almost completely depleted so he decided he was do ne with it for the day. As finding out how to craft a chest to store all those items was easy, he moved his way to the town center.
Reo met a few NPC’s gossiping and introduced himself, he mindlessly commented on their characters whi le the gray eyes discretely tried to find out where he was, it didn’t take too long before Nagi recognized the background and he walked down the map.
Nagi finally found Reo standing on the town square and took out a daffodil, “Here, Reo, for you,” he ha d an almost invisible bashful smile in his lips and only the most faithful viewers could notice the faint pink blush on his cheek bones. Noticing it or not, the chat went insane with the flirting attempt.
“Oh, that’s great, treasure! I bet we can sell those for quite a bit.” Reo smiled. Nagi looked defeated at the camera, the chat consoled him in sympathetically.
Nagi is quiet as he explores the town, it’s not until he finds a certain NPC that he decides to open his mouth.
He reads her standard first greeting dialogue, “Oh.”
“Hm? What is it?” Reo could hear more dialogue sounds but could not take the focus away from the fishing bar. He had to prove he was not that bad at this minigame and the 5 times the fish escaped were actually a fluke.
“Nothing.” Nagi responded immediately.
He furrowed his brows more, biting his lip in concentration, he was almost losing the fish again. “Eh...? Now I’m curious, just tell me! I can’t look right now,” He nagged but Nagi refused to answer. He tried to get a quick peep at his side of the split screen when the sound of failure played. “This one doesn’t count, chat! Nagi distracted me!” He was quick to defend himself to the chat, finding some messages that confused him.
>
> chokiN1fan: reo i love you but im afraid you should give up on fishing
> noodletemptati0n: another purple haired manic pixie dream im crying reo do something
“Huh? Manic what? Who’s Abigail?” He asked confused. He looked at Nagi’s screen and found him talking to a purple haired woman NPC that seemed to be talking about running around in their private property, which sounded crazy to Reo.
“Only the purple hair is similar,” Nagi defended him and it made Reo delighted he almost missed the mischievous air coming from the former, “She’s not as annoying.” The white haired completed the thought and Reo is quick to argue.
“What?! This is slander, I’ll have you know!” He dropped the controller on his lap, freeing both hands to ruffle his partner’s hair in an act of cute aggression, “I sentence you to fishing duties ‘til the end of spring!”
“Nooo…” He made sure to cry out even though all of his chat could see through his nonchalant act, his pink cheeks and cheeky smirk were hidden from Reo’s eyes only.
> chokiN1fan: LOLOL HE’S SO DOWN BAD god when will it be my turn
> 03Feenie: do NOT rescue him he’s exactly where he wants to be
> Reoswallet: it should’ve been me!!! IT’S NOT FAIR!!!!!
> katsudonn2: they say the chat is a reflection of the streamer
“Treasure, before you complain,” Reo started, one hand already on Nagi’s shoulder, “I spent all our money on these cauliflower seeds, I don’t know how much they’re going for but if we plant all of them we might make at least a 20% profit on it.”
He caught a wide looking fish called a Hounder, “It’s fine, Reo can do whatever he wants. It’s supposed to be a relaxing game anyway,” He says in an almost comforting matter, and launches his rod again.
> MechaAmuro donated 200 bits: there is a late game wedding ring you can craft to marry each other
The robotic voice could barely finish the sentence. Nagi perked up immediately, leaning forwards and clutching his controller with a serious expression unseen for the entirety of the stream so far, “Ok, Reo, let’s lock in.”
Reo turned confused, “Wait, you wanna marry our characters?”
“Reo, let’s lock in.”
“Nagi, we’re on day 4.”
“Let’s lock in.”