She would put the car accident behind her. She would put Troy behind her.

She would once again become the two-time modern day celebrity she was, book influencer “im_byuristar” on Instagram and star femme-fatale VTuber “Hoshizora Martini” on Twitch. The rest of her time, she would devote to Veggie.

Nothing and no one would come between her way of doing that again.

No one at all.

* * *

“Ah!”

Byul let out a gasp of air, eyes opening wide. Her alarm had not yet gone off, but Veggie had pounced on her and was licking her face all over with his cotton candy tongue. She could barely open her eyes.

“Good moooorning love!”

“Arf arf arf! Woof!”

He zoomed back and forth the two horizontal ends of her bed, eventually leaping back onto Byul with enough force to push in the mattress towards the headboard. She winced at the pressure but was all smiles. Squeezing her abs so he could plant his four stubby feet on her stomach, she sunk her fingers in Veggie’s golden yellow neck fur. This was her favorite way to start the morning.

With his morning zoomies out of the way, Veggie started to relax against her chest. The warm breath escaping from his two tiny nostrils tickled Byul’s cheek and she laughed. They started dozing off in blissful morning laziness, taking turns waking each other up by rustling the tiniest bit or breathing out slightly louder.

One hand on Veggie’s head where the hair was slightly shorter than the rest of his body, Byul clicked open her phone for the 30th time with her other hand. No new messages. She finally understood what her friends meant when they said they kept checking their phones every few seconds, and eventually even had to install apps that would stop them from semi-permanently staring at the empty screen.

“Isn’t it supposed to be today?”

Not even 10 seconds had passed, but she checked the phone again, unable to resist the urge.

Her phone had buzzed earlier that morning with the message she was waiting for.

im_byuristar, your harness is ready for pickup.

* * *

Custom dog harness for Veggie, encrusted with Swarovski crystals, 100% handmade. Byul’s eyes glistened almost as brightly as the Austrian crystals themselves.

“Do you like it?”

Asked Crystal, the owner of the Instagram brand “La Vie en Crystal” that had astronomically shot up in popularity in response to her being appointed to customize the mics and ear monitors for various K-pop idols. They had become acquaintances at an influencer beach party in Malibu last year, and Byul had decided to pay a visit to Crystal’s studio. Partially because she was being cordial, and partially because she couldn’t wait another second for shipping.

“It’s perfect.”

Byul said, running her fingers over the word ‘Veggie’ studded in glistening golden crystals. Stars big and small were scattered around his name.

“Arf!”

Veggie barked from Byul’s arms, as if expressing his own enthusiasm.

“I called you over as soon as I finished.”

Crystal said as she giggled, pushing the binocular head of her gemology microscope away from her face. She got up from her studio chair with both her hands in her apron pocket. She still had glue on the tip of her nose. Plastic bags full of different colored crystals stacked on top of themselves fell over, not able to bear their own weight. Framed pictures of famous gemstones - the Star of India, the Hope Diamond, Princess Diana’s wedding tiara - lined the wall.

“Thank you so so so much. I love it. It’s incredible. You’re incredible.”

Byul’s cheeks were pink in excitement as she complimented Crystal. She put Veggie down on the floor and put a finger up, their signal for “sit.” Veggie did so, and Byul roped the top half of the harness through his neck and clicked the bottom half closed across his torso.

“Woof!”

Veggie barked with his mouth open in his new getup. At the shake of his chest, the facets of the precisely cut crystals caught light and sparkled like the stars themselves.

“It’s. Beautiful!”

Byul cooed over him, pinching his two cheeks. Crystal beamed a proud artist’s smile and said:

“They’re the same quality crystals as the ones I used for Peripheral Red’s mics.”

“What an honor. For Peripheral Red, that is.”

Byul tossed up a joke, mentioning the chart-topping K-pop boy band’s name back to Crystal. It wasn’t really a joke for her.

“I’m serious! I had to fly to Wattens myself for that specific shade of yellow. It’s Austria-exclusive.”

Crystal puffed her chest.

“I did ask for your best of the best, after all.”

Byul said.

“I can’t believe you’d shill out like this! I mean, thank you for your business, but really you’re such a good dog mommy.”

There was truth to this. La Vie en Crystal’s clientele consisted of K-pop stars, film auteurs, music video directors, and the like. And her bejeweled items were exclusively meant for people.

“Anything to spoil my good boy.”

Byul beamed proudly, handing over her Amex.

“There’s no fixing you, is there?

Crystal poked fun.

“I don’t want to be fixed.”

Byul giggled.

* * *

“Thank you.”

Byul flashed a smile to the stranger opening the door for her at Sweetgreen. Taking her salad and hibiscus tea outside, she took her spot at a four-seater table. Veggie crouched into his spot by her feet. His new, bedazzled harness was reflecting sunlight into dozens of kaleidoscopic colors. He was the sparkliest thing on Sunset Avenue.

Satisfied, Byul poked her fork into a piece of miso glazed salmon. The protein dish was one of her favorite items on the menu; anything Asian-inspired usually became her top hitter.

“Want some, Veggie?”

She looked down at Veggie and asked, munching on some avocado. He had put his front paws together and was resting his chin on them. His beautiful, dark eyes were busy moving left and right to observe passersby. He perked up at the sound of her voice and sat back up, all pretty.

“Just kidding. This kind of food is bad for you!”

Byul teased, pushing her plate full of pickled onions and spicy dressing further away from him. She pulled out a dog treat from her purse instead. Made with all natural, GMO free turkey. Veggie’s eyes immediately twinkled and he jumped up at her knees. She couldn’t help but giggling.

“Sit.”

Byul put up a finger, wagging the turkey bar in front of his eyes. Drool was already collecting by Veggie’s cute little tongue that was sticking out.

“Down.”

She led the finger down to between his front paws. He followed her finger down excitedly, looking up at her with excited eyes as soon as his chin hit the ground.

“Give me a kiss.”

Byul said, leaning down at him. He jabbed her on the mouth with the limitless energy of a two-year-old Golden Retriever.

“Thank you. That’s a good boy.”

Byul giggled, crinkling her nose at the slight burst of pain from the kiss that was more like a nose-to-nose bump.

“Good job!”

Finally, Byul held out the treat by his mouth. He grabbed it with his little teeth excitedly. He snapped the turkey bar in half and nearly swallowed it as is.

“Hey, chew enough before you swallow!”

Byul said, laughing out loud. He wasn’t listening, already digging into the other half of the turkey bar that had fallen between his front paws. He licked the ground clean, sniffing around to make sure he got all the tiny crumbs in his mouth.

“Far from a gentleman, aren’t you?”

She opened his water container from her purse. Veggie licked away, splashing water droplets all over her perfectly pedicured toes. She smiled at the cold sensation, and at the sight of his pink tongue reflecting on the water surface.

Byul was more satisfied watching him eat than eating her own salad. She took another sip of her tea and got up to throw the rest away.

In fact, although she came to this salad restaurant often due to its proximity to her apartment and perfect seating arrangement for Veggie, there was something about them that made her taste buds averse to their salads. In Los Angeles standards, $18 for a salad was typical. Affordable, even. It sure was pennies to Byul in her current status.

Her very first time buying their salad, however, she was nothing like whom she was now. A high school student with little money and even less confidence, she had scraped together the month’s remaining budget to try their salad, which was newly open and had gone viral. One bowl of their salad was four days’ worth of her food budget, so she had split one salad into four separate dinners. She remembered staring down at the salad bowl the first time she ate it, fork in her mouth. Three-fourths of the bowl was still full, and her stomach was still grumbling. She had wanted nothing more than to dig into the rest of the bowl and fill her two cheeks full, indulging in the kale, goat cheese, roasted almonds, and warm portobello. Exercising self-restraint, she had put the plastic lid over the salad bowl and closed it shut, waiting for the next day’s dinnertime to come around quickly.

But even as a dirt poor high schooler, she had still bought the salad. She had wanted to know what luxury felt like. She had dreamt of getting used to luxury. To treating herself. To feeling like she deserved it.

By the end of the fourth day, the salad had gone stale. Byul had eaten the remaining salad anyway, desperately pretending that she couldn’t pick up the slightly sour taste in her mouth.

Byul felt the weight of the current salad bowl that she was about to throw away. There was at least half of the salad still left in the bowl.

She let out an empty laugh and let go of the bowl. Into the trash it went.

‘You’re never gonna eat food that went bad, Veggie.’

She thought, looking lovingly at Veggie.

‘You’re only getting the best.’

And it was true. Veggie got the freshest and best quality food, the newest and hottest brands of toys and clothes, the most famous of trainers, the most exciting trips to the oceans and the mountains every weekend, the cleanest parks to take walks in, and the most gorgeous of harnesses. She gave him everything. She would continue giving him everything.

Because he was the source of her happiness, her heart that palpitated outside her body, her reason for getting up in the morning.

It wouldn’t be an overstatement to say she would die without him.

To be continued…