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.’

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.

* * *

Byul rolled back onto her stomach and tapped her lip with her Apple Pencil. The picnic blanket was large enough to fit six people easily, but it was just her and lovely Veggie.

Veggie was taking a nap on his back with four feet in the air. The gentle spring wind must have tickled his golden fur, as he sometimes winced his wet little nose. Dandelions and daffodils were in full bloom around him.

“Haha. So cute.”

She couldn’t hold in her love. Honey was dripping from her eyes. She rested her chin on her hand and buried her face in Veggie’s neck fur. He smelled of sunshine, freshly cut grass, and goat milk.

“Haaaaaa.”

She let out a satisfied sigh. Her touch woke Veggie up, but his eyes were hazy and he fell back to sleep with Byul’s face still on him. Just like he always did, the little sleepyhead he was. He even started to snore ever so gently, and she had to hold in her laugh.

Byul was feeling sleepy too after a meal and two laps around the lake as Veggie’s daily walk. Watching Veggie sleep so peacefully always made her comfortable and ergo, more sleepy, but today she had work to do. She was coming up with a plan for next week’s streaming schedule.

With her car accident and recovery period that had resumed, her content well was nearly dry. Her Twitch channel, empty. Only her YouTube channel was still gaining followers, the algorithm favoring her archived streams from Twitch. Though most of her community was supportive of her, some of them were not happy. Many had already unfollowed her and canceled their subscriptions. Although her VTuber streaming persona, Hoshizora Martini, was only half of her content creation, Byul couldn’t let the VTubing empire she had built crumble away. She strenuously forced open her closing eyelids and kept on jotting ideas on her iPad.

* * *

“Lamp. Palm! Slap. Slam!”

Byul surfaced as Hoshizora Martini, her silver hair cascading down her back and huge, anime eyes glistening as brilliantly as ever. As part one of her rejuvenating life back into her VTuber channel, Byul had planned community game nights. Her chat was welcomed into participating into this anagram word game with her. She sat with her legs crossed in front of an arcade machine with “ANAGRAM” written across it. Her signature martini glass was set down neatly near the controls, on a star-shaped coaster.

Spam!

Saint

Lamp

The crowd, all grey figures with nicknames floating above their heads, hovered around her, yelling out their own words of the anagram as well. White light lit up on the arcade machine when Byul, or Martini, got a word right. When chat got a word right, blue light lit up. A timer was ticking down from 90 seconds.

“Map. Wait, why didn’t that one work?”

She protested at the buzzer that signaled the entry wasn’t accepted.

It has to be four letterssss

Too short

Map is only three letters

Four letters or longer

The crowd clamored, talking over one another for a chance to answer Martini.

“Argh!”

Martini grabbed her cheeks with her hands in feigned frustration. She was fully aware that the game only took four letters or more at this level.

Piss!

Someone in the crowd yelled.

“There’s only one ‘s,’ silly.”

Martini laughed, her tone playful. The timer on the screen marked less than 10 seconds left.

“Wah, there’s only ten seconds left!”

Martini gasped lightly, covering her mouth with one hand.

“Three, two, one - oh no!”

She counted down along the clock and frowned when the arcade screen froze.

“Guess that’s it for Anagrams tonight. It’s so hard getting past level 12!”

Nooooo

Let’s play a different game

Lol you suck

So close

Despite the agonizing voices of chat, Martini clicked the arcade machine shut. She rotated the backless stool she was sitting on and faced the crowd. She picked up her martini glass that was resting on the control panel. The glass was empty. She clinked around the ice in the glass and, as if that was code, the grey figures huddled around with bottles of gin in their hands.

Over already?

You did so well babygirl

Cummon let’s do another round

Kiss kiss kiss kiss

Lol you have two brain cells

You suck

“Hey, don’t say I suck. ‘P L A S M A I N T’ is a pretty difficult combination!”

She pouted in jest. Her anime girl cheeks puffed up just the right amount.

Each time the voices rang out, a grey figure poured a bit of gin into her glass.

Gah

Another round leggo

Wait I just joined is stream ending

One more round one more round one more one more

This is it already?

Martini was cognizant of the growing voices of dissent. Once one person voiced their annoyance, anger, or frustration and the rest didn’t immediately take her side, it was only a matter of time until the disgruntled voices controlled the mood.

‘Can’t help it,’ she thought.

“Sorry, my Espresso Startinis.”

She casted her sad eyes down at the martini glass and said:

“You know spending time with you is my favorite part of the day. I love being your entertainment and I’m just as sad as you that I wasn’t able to provide that for you recently. I’m still at the hospital at most days of the week but-”

Excuses excuses excuses

We literally pay money for content we deserve more

Yeah

We deserve it

The crowd was harder to control than usual tonight.

“-but in just another two weeks I’ll be back to streaming four times a week again.”

Bet the whole accident thing is a lie

Yeah bet

You’re so lazy

The crowd had been swayed to the side of the complainers. So this was going to be the vibe tonight. Martini sighed on the inside and took a deep breath, trying to calm herself down as she looked for her next words. Her heart was starting to pound.

‘Thank god I’m not wearing the heart rate monitor today.’

She thought. Sometimes she wore one for playing horror games and such, but she got out of the habit of using it as very few situations jostled her enough for her heart rate to change. Chat was disappointed when she wore it during her Five Nights at Freddy's streams, as her heart rate stayed exactly the same. Chat being unruly, however, was one of those situations that would actually throw her into a panic. If chat noticed that she was panicking, that would be even worse. She’d lose control of her situation, of her own stream. And that had to be avoided at all cost.

Is it really that much to ask for

Just stay online

Stream League next

Stream Fortnite

What color underwear are you wearing

I’m gonna unfollow if you don’t read my nickname out loud

The hands pouring gin into her glass kept on coming. Her glass was overflowing. The clear alcohol was soaking her hand. Then, she heard it.

Take all the time you need

A hand reached out and poured vermouth into her glass.

Almost instinctively, her eyes darted towards the figure’s nickname. Kuromitsu_33. Seeing her way out, Martini grasped onto it.

“Thank you all so much. I’m super appreciative that you put my health and well-being first. I’ll be sure to get rest so you do the same too, okay?”

The grey figures that had been buried in the back perked up. As if they heard a whistle blow, they charged their way through to the front. They started speaking up, pushing aside the ones that had been vocal until now.

Yeahhh

Your health matters most

As long as you’re happy

Of course we can wait

“Stay woke, Espresso Startinis. Mwah.”

She flashed a bright smile and blew an air kiss. She raised her glass for a toast and moved it to her perfectly glossed lips, taking a sip from it. It was as if she had never been nervous. Silently, she breathed a sigh of relief. She had successfully played it off.

She watched as the faint gold of the vermouth spread through her martini glass. Like a splash of sunlight that hit a frozen pond.

To be continued...