There he was. The love of her life.

He was impatiently waiting outside her bedroom, sitting on the floor no less. His eyes lit up at the sound of her door creaking open, signaling an end to his seemingly endless waiting. He hurriedly stood up. The sight of him drew out a natural smile from her. With gentle eyes and an even gentler voice, she lulled out.

“Come here, pet.”

* * *

He hardly waited for Byul’s prompt. Actually, he definitely didn’t intend on waiting for permission at all. With an audible thump of the heel of his feet, he dashed up to her and clung onto her waist. The impact nearly made her fall backwards with a dense thud.

“Look at you!”

She laughed, squeezing him back in a tight hug. In the middle of uncontrollable laughter, they fell to their knees. She shuffled her fingers through his hair.

“Give me a kiss.”

She requested, her precious aegyosal filling up as she flashed a cheeky smile. Those words were like code; he didn’t waste a second in darting towards her lips.

“Mwah! Thank you.” Byul smiled, satisfied. She returned a little peck on his nose.

“Now lie down like a good boy.”

He dropped to his back, belly up.

“That’s my good boy.” She pet his head.

“And a good boy deserves good belly rubs!”

She kneeled by him and rubbed her ten fingers all over his stomach, playfully attacking him.

His furry stomach, that is.

His name was Veggie, and he was a year and six months old puppy.

His golden yellow fur had a luscious shine to it. He had a diamond-shaped white spot on his forehead that Byul loved to kiss. His round, brown eyes sparkled like emeralds in the sun. A glorious supermutt of miscellaneous mixture of breeds, he looked most like a Golden Retriever. He held a permanent puppydog smile in his face, was head-empty, glued to Byul whenever she was around, and was the fluffiest ball energy every second he was awake.

Above all else, he was the sole object of Byul’s affection.

* * *

Getting her fill of Veggie belly rubs, which was as much a treat to her as it was to Veggie, Byul checked the time. 10:22pm. Streaming always tired her out more than she expected, and it was time for her and Veggie to relax together.

“What do you say, Veggie? Should we treat ourselves?”

Veggie let out a high-pitched yawn. Guess it was contagious; Byul yawned too.

“I’ll take that as a yes, sweetheart.”

She hoisted up Veggie and brought him over to the bedroom next to hers.

Scents of vanilla and tasteful tobacco wafted as soon as she opened the door. Complete with blackout curtains and mood lighting, this room held two spa beds, one human sized and the other dog sized, right next to each other. A fountain made of a dark shade of metal adorned the center. She turned the fountain on and it soon sprouted water, creating ambient water dripping sounds.

Byul laid Veggie into the dog sized spa bed and put a warm towel over his eyes. Calm and happy, Veggie started dozing off almost immediately. She adjusted the mood lighting, lowered the blackout curtains, then sprayed magnesium reset spray all over the room for soothing aromatherapy.

Finally, the last and most important step. The moment she had been waiting for. She turned on the surround sound stereo system and clicked on an MP3 audio file on the iPod connected to it. It was the only file in the iPod.

[3Dio ASMR] Come here, I’ll spoil you rotten_2018_07_05.mp3.

“Good job today. It was a long day, wasn’t it?”

A soft, gentle male voice filled the room. Her shoulders drooped almost immediately.

“Let me soothe you with some ear cleaning and massaging.”

The voice continued on in a whisper. His voice was just deep enough, but not too deep that it felt threatening. If she had to put a face to it, he’d be a K-pop pretty boy type.

He spoke slowly and tenderly, like being careful not to wake Byul or Veggie up if they were sleeping. A music box-esque piano music accompanied him in the background.

The scratchy sound of simulated ear cleaning spread out. Byul took her spot on the human sized spa bed, putting a warm towel over her eyes like she had done for Veggie.

“I know you like the ear cleaning, but this is what you were waiting for, isn’t it?”

Byul inhaled sharply in anticipation.

“Mwah. Chu. Chu.”

The sound of kisses, deep breathing, and licking. She blushed.

If this were a cassette tape, the polyester film would have been stretched out beyond repair. A CD, disc rotted years ago. Ever since the audio came out in 2018, Byul had listened to this file thousands of times.

“I’m proud of you for always doing your best. I hope today has been kind to you. It’s been exhausting, isn’t it? Let me reward you with more kisses, okay?”

This was her biggest and most embarrassing secret, her guiltiest pleasure.

Her book influencer self, im_byuristar, could never, ever be associated with boyfriend experience ASMR. It would be career-ending, a social suicide. No one could find out.

Even so, Byul couldn’t stop listening to this audio. She had been listening to it for more than five years now, and never tired of it. In fact, the more she listened, the more she desperately craved the specific sort of comfort it gave her.

No matter how difficult the day was, at the end of the night, she’d always have her sweet baby angel puppy and this anonymous voice that made her melt into a puddle.

* * *

Some would have called this spa room a show-offy whim of a dumb little influencer girl. That is, if she ever let anyone know about it, least of all see it. This room was the most expensive thing Byul had ever invested in, yes. But it was so much more than a blind luxury; it was Byul’s oasis. It was self love, an investment to herself and Veggie, and the only time she could relax.

In here, she could put her walls down. She could be honest and weak.

Home was not a place for her; it was the vibe created and contained in these four walls, solely for her and Veggie to enjoy.

“Chu, chu, chu. Mwwaah.”

The kisses that had started as light pecks were developing into wetter, longer ones. Byul closed her eyes and drifted to the steady rhythm of his kisses. Veggie was already deep in sleep, snoring adorably.

Byul never took anything with internet access into the spa room, always making sure that her childhood iPod was functioning and charged instead so it can play her ASMR file. In her bedroom next door, no doubt her phone that was busy gathering a million notifications. Followers for her book influencer self, im_byuristar, and VTuber self, Hoshizora Martini, were busy looking for her attention.

Being loved on the internet was really something else. She got to play god on herself. Making up her aesthetic, her identity, her philosophy, her personality. Of course, this wasn’t 2007. People could sniff inauthenticity a mile away. Hoshizora Martini and im_byuristar were both still her; just more curated versions of her. She was good at it.

Too good, perhaps. She attracted people like hell on both sides, but sometimes she couldn’t seem to figure out what it was all for. Especially when her fans would get parasocial and demand affection back from her. Everyone wanted to be her significant other. They loved the facade she put up, and demanded to own it and control it for themselves.

Too bad she didn’t want a boyfriend. She didn’t have space or time for it in her life. She was busy. She was a successful book influencer, had parties and events to grace at every weekend, and was a model student at a top university in Los Angeles. What every girl in her teens and twenties scrolling on TikTok and Instagram - read, absolutely everybody - dreamed to be.

“I love you.” Whispered the voice.

‘I don’t.” Byul thought.

And she thought it truthfully.

“You are so precious to me. Out of the billions and billions of people in the world, you alone are my favorite.” The voice went on.

‘You’re not mine. There’s only so much love I can give.’ Byul thought.

‘And it’s all going into Veggie. Every drop.’

Yes, after all, she already had Veggie. She simply couldn’t understand why she should waste her time with boys when she had Veggie to love. Her baby, her child, the source of all her happiness, a diamond among rocks, a prince among peasants.

It wasn’t eros, of course, Her love for Veggie was parental, platonic. That of best friends. Soulmates. Cute aggression. What she decided to call it depended on the day, but she knew for sure it was a different kind of love from that she would feel for a boy.

She had never tried to find out whom the ASMR voice belonged to. She didn’t wish to. Surely there was a real person out there who created this audio file; ASMR guy, she would sometimes call him in her thoughts. But she had no interest in becoming something to him. She wasn’t going to be one of those people who was so desperate for an influencer or celebrity to notice them that they’d stoop to parasocial means. She relished in the momentary high of feeling loved and treasured while she was in this spa room, but knew she didn’t have it in her to reciprocate something like that to a real human being.

“It’s like an AI. An AI boyfriend, just for when I want it.” She whispered to herself.

“No strings attached. No responsibility.”

She felt her consciousness slip away.

Who he was in real life was truly none of her business. She would simply go on falling asleep to his kisses, dry and wet, hugs, and gentle “good night”s whenever she wanted. He would remain anonymous forever.

Or at least he should have been.

To be continued...