They sat, admiring the view and eating their burritos.

“Man, some of this meat is unbelievably chewy,” Hunter commented.

Mel winced. “Yeah, I kinda forgot, I feel like this place keeps using cheaper and cheaper meat. Sorry ‘bout that. Just, uh, eat around it? Man, I should have gotten a horchata while we were there. Oh you know what’s really good? Horchata and coldbrew, dude. Delicious.”

“Hmm, sounds good,” Hunter said. “Although sometimes I worry I’m, like, too addicted to caffeine. I blame my work for the free coffee.”

“Oh yeah, what is your work, anyway?”

“Eh, I just work in fast food. Nothing exciting. Honestly hoping I can quit soon if the stream takes off.”

“Ah, gotcha. I’ve worked enough retail to at least sorta understand your pain. Well, I’ll, uh, continue to tell friends to watch the stream. And, like, hopefully you can continue to have fun with it, right? I feel like I’ve seen people get too invested in the metrics and start trying to please everyone rather than just doing what they want to, and it just doesn’t have the same energy, y’know?”

“Yeah, I feel that. I have been thinking that sometimes the challenges and runs I do are kinda repetitive. Might try to mix things up some more. Maybe that’ll even end up getting more viewers? Who knows. The Omegle stream seemed pretty well received, at least. Might do more of those, or get a PO Box set up, or do a Q&A or something.”

“Sounds chill. Speaking as an unelected representative of your viewers, I’d watch. Uh, hmm, what are some other variety streams you could do? Oh, maybe something where chat controls or affects the game? A cooking stream? Wikipedia speedruns? Also, as one of your mods, I will say the Omegles really are a roulette. Like, the chances of a TOS violation are real.”

“Eh, fair point. I did kind of enjoy doing it, though. Is there a way to get around that?”

“Maybe record the calls, rather than streaming live, and then either watch an edited video or post it to YouTube? Or both. Actually, do you have a YouTube?”

“Eh, not really? I have a channel that I posted some cringy skits on when I was, like, 13, but nothing active. You think I should make one? IDK if I have the time and energy, or skill, to edit videos though.”

“I mean, you could get someone else to do the editing and running the channel? I know some other streamers do that with clip highlight channels, or even sometimes a fan will just start one of those of their own accord and later the streamer will make it official. I could do it, if you want.”

“Oh? That would be great, actually. I should probably be more active on places other than Twitter and Discord and Twitch to actually grow my online presence, but I also just never know what to post. Like, I have an BigGoron Instagram but I never know what to put on there. Just random photos of food? Doubt my viewers really want to see that.”

“Well, you could, y’know, post the pictures from today, maybe? Also, that reminds me, I should check with Z to see if they finished whatever the editing magic they do is. Something something color balance.” Mel briefly stopped talking as she became involved with her phone. “Okay, looks like they finished several, at least, and they just sent a link to the Discord group chat we’re all in.”

“I was gonna ask why they didn’t just send the images directly, but then I remembered not everyone has Nitro,” Hunter joked. “Probably don’t want these to be crunched to all hell.”

“I get why they have file size limits but I wish they were bigger,” Mel commiserated. “Although I mostly ended up getting Nitro for the emoji.” 

Hunter’s phone dinged. He saw that Z had sent a image hosting link to the group chat, followed by Mel sending an emoji of a shark holding a sign that said SHONKS.

“Aw, kinda cute lil shark,” he said.

Mel gasped. “Wait, have you not been introduced to the glory of BLÅHAJ? This must be rectified. Damn, should have brought mine with me. What a fool I’ve been.”

“Sorry, how do you spell that?” Hunter asked. “Blow high?”

“Bee, ell, weird ay with a ring over it, aitch, ay, jay.”

“Huh, bizarre.”

“It’s a stuffed shark from Ikea.”

“Ohh, that explains it, lol. I swear if you said too many Ikea product names you’d probably accidentally summon a demon.”

“Lol, yeah. You’d probably summon a bunch of demon parts and you’d have to assemble it yourself by following the mysterious ancient runes.”

They both laughed. “Oh, wait, before I get distracted again, let me actually take a look at these photos,” Hunter said. “Hopefully for once a photo of me won’t make me cringe.”

Mel reached out and patted his shoulder sympathetically. “Boy do I feel that,” she said.