Hope flopped onto her bed, completely drained of energy. "...That was exhausting. Fun, but exhausting..."
There was a soft knock on the door, followed by a harder knock.
"Hope!" Erie's voice echoed. "You alive in there?"
Hope didn't move and just said, "Come in. I'm fine... just tired..."
The door opened and then Erie stepped in, holding a small pint of strawberry cheesecake ice cream and a spoon.
Juliet followed after Erie, looking at Hope with an amused look on her eyes. "You really are an introvert, huh?"
Hope sighed and slowly sat up. "Yeah... It's fun spending time with chat. But interacting with so many people is tough... Even with slow mode, it was hard to read everything." She took the ice cream from Erie and frowned. "How did you two do it?"
Erie plopped herself down on Hope's gaming chair near her desk and said, "Well, I have a script that randomly picks like a message every hundred chatters, so it's manageable."
Hope let out a scandalized gasp. "That's terrible! ...How do I get it?"
Juliet laughed and said, "Not going to just get faster at reading?"
Hope rubbed her eyes and said, "I have weak eyes, okay? The last time I went to the doctor, they said I should probably get reading glasses..."
Erie's emerald eyes twinkled. "Did you know that glasses are very versatile? First, you can have glasses-wearing girls take them off and suddenly become beautiful, or have girls wearing glasses flashing those cute grins, or have girls stealing the protagonist's glasses and putting them on like..."
Juliet groaned. "Are you REALLY reciting that copypasta?"
Erie laughed. "I'm surprised you know it. You watch someone other than Hana?"
Juliet sighed and said, "Hana stole her mom's reading glasses once to try them on. Chat spammed that copypasta for ten whole minutes."
"...Pft."
Hope quietly nibbled her ice cream and let out a content sigh. "Nothing like ice cream after hard work..."
Juliet leaned against the wall and said, "Definitely a lot of hard work for you, Hope. Did you REALLY have to do Miku's song at full speed like that? You're making everyone think you're an AI, you know?"
"Huh?" Hope tilted her head and said, "It's not that hard. Rap God is harder."
Juliet blinked. "Is it?"
Hope huddled up against the wall, pulling her knees to her chest to be comfy. Then she nodded and said, "Yeah! Most of that song is actually singing, you know? And the 'rap' part is just fast syllables. Since it's Japanese too, it's actually really easy to pronounce! There's also not much wordplay. The hard part is just making sure you have enough breath to say it all."
Juliet stared at Hope.
Hope stared back, confused. "What?"
Erie laughed. "Of course you'd find it easy... Oh yeah!" She pointed at Hope and said, "Explain yourself, Woman! Since when is M+N a mod on your channel?!"
"Oh! That's because I went to school with Haley!"
"...WHAT?!"
"HUH?!"
Hope nodded. "Yeah! I didn't know until recently, but I was in Michigan for high school for freshman and sophomore year before moving back because of fostercare things. M+N reached out recently since Haley's getting married and making a wedding invite list!"
"WAIT, WAIT, WAIT!" Erie ran her hands through her hair and said, "YOU WENT TO HIGH SCHOOL WITH M+N's DAUGHTER?!"
"We had advisory together! But everyone called her Hails. I never knew, actually." Hope giggled. "It's pretty funny! I used to talk all the time about liking her dad's music, but she'd just giggle. I guess I know why now?"
Juliet stared at Hope.
Hope tilted her head. "What is it, Julie?"
"...Aren't you like, literally Cinderella, Hope?" Juliet laughed and said, "At this point, I wouldn't be surprised if you had an actual fairy god parent."
Erie pulled out a chocolate bar from her pocket and peeled the wrapper. "Isn't that just Mister John?"
Juliet paused. "...True- Wait. Did you just pull a chocolate bar out of your pocket?"
Erie nodded. "Yeah. Emergency chocolate. Want one?"
"...Doesn't that melt?"
"I have abnormally low body temperature, apparently."
"...Isn't that just from low blood sugar?"
"Exactly. I'll die if I don't eat this. Don't tempt me to not."
"GIRL!" Juliet laughed. "You can't just drop a random 'I might die' joke in the middle of a casual conversation!"
Erie shrugged and took a bite of her chocolate. "Can't spell casualty without casual."
Juliet shook her head and then looked over at Hope, who had gone back to nibbling on her ice cream. Seeing that, Juliet paused and said, "Wait. Do you use ice cream to refuel your batteries, Hope?"
Hope nodded. "Mmhm! So you're a meanie for stealing mine! They're emergency rations!"
Erie waved her chocolate bar towards Hope. "Hear, hear!"
Hope paused. "Hear what?"
Erie gave Hope a blank stare. "...You have GOT to be kidding me."
Hope stuck out her tongue. "Just kidding- OW!"
Erie pinched Hope's tongue and said, "Got you!"
"Nyo! Leht gyo!" Hope flapped her arms, tearing up as Erie pinched her tongue.
Erie chuckled and let go. "That'll teach you to lead me on."
Juliet slowly raised an eyebrow. "...Lead you on?"
Erie immediately turned a bright red and grabbed a pillow from the bed to chuck at Juliet. "THAT'S NOT WHAT I MEANT AND YOU KNOW IT!"
Juliet caught the pillow and laughed. "Sorry, low hanging fruit. Couldn't leave you hanging, right?"
"OH MY GOD."
Hope rolled her eyes and kept eating her ice cream. After a few more bites, she said, "We still have to do a collab stream, right?"
Juliet set the pillow back on Hope's bed and said, "Yeah. Erie and I were chatting about it before we came to get you. Is there a time you wanna do it? We know you get tired from hanging out, so we didn't want to push you."
Erie nodded. "That's right. If it's too much, we can put it off, Hope. There's no rush." She chuckled. "Besides. I think the anticipation will make everyone even more hyped."
Hope hummed. "I'll be honest... I'm pretty pooped." She let out a long sigh and said, "I haven't been this tired for a long time. It's Friday, right? Maybe... on Monday? Can we just have fun this weekend to relax?"
Juliet let out a warm smile. "Of course, Hope. We can celebrate and unwind."
Hope held up her ice cream cup and said, "Yatta~!"
Erie's emerald eyes twinkled and said, "Well, you might get drained from interacting with chat, but I feed off it. I'm definitely going to start streaming every day again."
Hope gasped and pointed her spoon at Erie. "You ARE an energy vampire!"
Erie shrugged. "We're villains or whatever, right? I might be reincarnated, but there's no reason to stop being a baddie. After all..." She struck a sultry pose, placing a hand on her hip and tilting her chest just so to show off her goods. "We ARE baddies, aren't we?"
Juliet rolled her eyes. "Just because you got a bit back in your boobs doesn't mean you need to show it off, Erie."
"Says the cutting board."
Juliet turned a bright red and said, "I AM NOT A CUTTING BOARD! I'm a perfectly average B-Cup, thank you!"
"And I've graduated to a C-Cup after healthy eating, so I win!" Erie let out a smug smile and puffed up her chest.
Hope tilted her head. "You're only a C-Cup?"
Erie paused. "...What do you mean 'only?' Aren't you the same size?" She stared at Hope's chest. "...Wait. Don't tell me you wear compression bras or something, Hope?"
"..."
"OH MY GOD, REALLY?!"
Juliet looked concerned. "Doesn't it hurt?"
Hope huffed and said, "It hurts more having them flop around. Especially when they smack each other."
Erie gave Hope a blank stare.
Juliet did too. Then she slowly said, "Hope."
"Yes, Julie?"
"...Are you just like, a living lore encyclopedia? Just how many more random things have gone on in your life...?"
Erie nodded, looking morbidly curious. "Yeah. Like, I swear every time we chat you drop a new piece of backstory on us. Is there anything else we should know?"
Hope furrowed her brow. "Um... I mean, I'm just me. I don't really think about stuff like that... Ooh! I have perfect pitch!"
Juliet gave Hope a blank stare.
Hope tilted her head, confused. "Julie?"
"...That explains so much and so little." Juliet groaned. "I wondered how you kept tuning my guitar so perfectly..."
Erie looked excited and said, "Wait. Does that mean you can like, sing anything? After just listening to it once?"
Hope giggled. "No, silly. That would be having perfect memory. And I'm still working on singing. I can hear perfect pitch, but it's hard making my voice match it. Honestly, it's kind of annoying... That's why I like composing song melodies! I can just tweak the notes on the DAW and it works! Oh! I like DJing too!"
"YOU CAN DJ?!"
Hope blinked. "Oh. Did I never mention it? I had to do it a few times to make ends meet. But clubs are kind of sketchy when you're a female DJ, you know? That's why I wore a mask! I had found this big puffy marshmallow helmet one time and-"
"YOU'RE THE MYSTERY FEMALE MARSHMALLOW DJ?!"
"...Yes?"