Vilja opened her cabinet and pushed aside a few random odds and ends. Bags of pasta, biscuits, and more gave way before her searching hands. Finally, the pantry released the bottle she coveted. It was a bottle of bilberry wine. The feeling of cold, smooth glass on her skin recalled where she had gotten this wine. It was from a stand at a local farmers' market, from a winery she had never heard of. The winery was based out of the Tampere region. She uncorked the bottle, got out a glass, and carefully poured herself a drink. She took a sip and held it on her tongue. It was good. She needed this wine today. She took the bottle and the glass and started to make her way to her computer desk before stopping mid-stride and turning back towards the kitchen. She remembered that the saleswoman at the farmers' market informed her that something chocolaty would pair great with this wine. She set the glass and the bottle down on the small single seat dining table next to her fridge and opened the fridge door. She bent down, sticked her head inside and looked for a small chocolate cake that she had bought yesterday... But it wasn't here. Huh. "Wait," she thought, "I think I already ate that. Damn." She closed the fridge door and stood up, rubbing her eyes. "Fuck insomnia. I can't remember anything." She turned towards her cabinet again and rummaged through it. She always had some pack of cookies, somewhere. She was lucky today, for she found some unopened chocolate cookies. Finally, with the cookies under her right arm, the glass in her right hand, and the wine bottle in her left, she made her way to her desk. She sat down and checked the time. It was eleven forty-four in the morning. Soon The Moment would come and by then the wine should have reinforced her nerves. She had a mostly unsoiled paper plate and a stack of fresh napkins already at her desk. She arranged some cookies on the plate. She took a sip of wine and then took a small bite of cookie, holding the plate beneath her chin to catch crumbs. The saleswoman was right, this was an excellent pairing. It was delicious enough that Vilja was probably going to have to pour herself a second glass by the time it was noon. She put the paper plate down, wiped her fingers on a napkin, and opened DChat's settings to check the integrity of DCall. DCall was an open source video call add-on that she and Ville installed yesterday because they had discovered that vanilla DChat did not have the capability to voice or video call. Instead of having such features natively, the DChat team opted to outsource any customizations to the greater community. An interesting, and risky, choice, but she of course had no trouble at all discerning which developers were trustworthy and which were not. Out of a selection of three add-ons total, she and Ville had audited each and came to the conclusion that DCall was the best. DCall, while functional, had a sad user interface. It was surely created by someone who had more sense for logic than aesthetics. It was bad enough that it appeared to be a poor product; there were visible image artifacts on the icons it used for its buttons. Vilja also swore that there were slightly different fonts used on some of the menu options but Ville disagreed. Regardless, DCall's looks were deceiving. The code was solid and setting the thing up wasn't too difficult. But of course, for all that, it sometimes didn't want to play nice with her webcam. She had yet to determine the reason for this problem. For now, all she could do was test it before The Moment arrived. This time, it was working just fine. The clock ticked and The Moment stepped closer. Attempting to ignore the impending occasion, she looked away from the screen and noticed her blue leather journal. She reflected on how she had done quite well considering the Ville situation. In the journal, there were only about ten full pages, front and back, discussing and arguing the intricacies of it all. She was going to have to tear some of those pages out. They provided little to the narrative of her life. She could always sum up the situation in a sentence or two, telling of how she had repeatedly debated what to do. She was also going to have to streamline her digital journal. Just then, DChat notified her, with a sweet chiming bell sound effect, that a message awaited her correspondence. She closed the settings and navigated to the chat interface. It was Ville. --- ENTERING ANON SPECTATOR MODE FOR DROOM "@Virus, @Virus v2.0 Direct" DATESTAMP 2023-05-20 ---BEGIN TRANSCRIPT--- Virus: Hey. Virus v2.0: Hey. Virus: We still on for noon? Virus v2.0: Yes. Virus: Okay. Virus: ...Do you think we should get it over with and call now? Virus v2.0: Hm. Maybe. Virus: What's the point in delaying if we are both here? Virus v2.0: Yeah. Virus: Well... Virus: Shall we? Virus v2.0: ...Okay. Virus v2.0: Let's voice call first. Virus v2.0: Turn on the cameras later. @Virus reacted :agree: --- Vilja took a deep breath, held it, and sighed it out. It seems The Moment was a cheater in the race of time. But, Ville was right. Why delay it further? She put on her headphones. She hovered her mouse cursor over the 'start call' button. Her heart beat faster. She hated that her heart was beating faster. She needed to be above emotion. She grit her teeth and clicked the button. She startled slightly as the interface changed from a chat to a display of the profile pictures of those present in the current call. Her picture, an abstract sparkly blue design reminiscent of a network diagram, floated by itself in a black void. The Moment came and her picture was joined by another. Ville's. His was a blue letter 'V' on a darker blue background. The sound of suppressed microphone static casually flicked on and accentuated the sound of her heartbeat in her ears. He could hear her. She could hear him. Softly hissing silence. Decisively, she rose to challenge The Moment. "...Hello," she said, trying to sound as unaffected as possible. "...Hello," he said, only a micro-second after her. It was shocking when they had sent the same messages at the same time over chats. But, hearing it in real time now over a voice call... Bewildering to the point of stupefied silence. Vilja muted her microphone and drank some wine. She clucked her tongue, savoring the flavor. "I wonder if Ville likes wine," she thought. Well. She could ask him. It seemed the wine was doing its job. She unmuted her microphone. "Hey. Do you... Like wine?" There was a pause before Ville answered, "It's okay. I prefer liqueur." She sipped her wine again. Hissing silence. "I am drinking some salmiakki mix right now," he said. "We had the same, similar idea. I have some wine." "Oh." Hissing silence. She pondered the subtle differences between them. She liked wine, he liked liqueur. "Is DCall working with your camera?" Vilja asked. "They fight occasionally. I don't understand why, yet." "Same here." "What camera are you using?" "Virrat K120." "Me too." Of course they had picked the same webcam. Longer hissing silence. Vilja contemplated Ville's voice. He was most definitely from South Ostrobothnia, like her. There was no hiding the accent, the dialect. She noted, too, how he was particularly mindful of pronunciation. She also had to admit that his voice was rather smooth and soothing. If he sang, he might be a tenor. "He should read audiobooks," she thought to herself. She wondered how she sounded to him. "Speaking of webcams..." Ville said, interrupting her musing, "...Should we...?" Vilja exhaled. "Yes." Her heart rate increased, again. She clenched her teeth and rested her chin on her hand. It turned out that The Moment was not a singular adversary. It was rather a series, a string of Moments that Vilja had to overcome. "On three?" He asked. She moved her cursor to the 'camera on' button. "One." She provoked. "Two." He escalated. "Three." She confirmed, no retreating. She clicked the button. The black background of the call interface split into a hauntingly familiar arrangement of pixels. There she was, in male form. Ville was also resting his chin on his hand. No. She quickly moved DChat's window to her other monitor and opened her web browser. She couldn't look at him directly. She navigated to Conga aimlessly and scrolled through suggested results. She could tell by the mouse clicking sounds occasionally escaping around the audio filter that Ville was doing something similar. Her heart pounded. Ville said nothing. She wasn't sure how much time had passed when Ville abruptly asked, "Where did you get your hoodie from?" "What?" She said, not meaning the question. "Where did you--" "A store in Seinäjoki." "...Which one?" She inhaled heavily. Overcome this. No emotion. She dragged DChat's window back into her field of view. No, no, he was so eerie. "Um," she forced herself to say, "I think it is called 'Halla.'" Vilja watched Ville sit back in his chair and stare at his computer screen. His eyes were intense. "...I shop there, too." She thought, "Of course he does! What don't we do together, lockstep, without meeting?" She froze. "Without meeting..." She repeated mentally. "Wait," she said aloud, "when do you like to go out?" "Evenings. I don't like the sun." "Me too." Should this be shocking anymore? Hissing silence. Vilja muted her microphone, took a hefty swig of wine, and poured herself another glass. She unmuted her microphone and asked, "Do you shop at Tähtijärvi's Leid?" "Yes." "Me too. Weekends?" "Yes." "Me too. Evenings?" "Yes," Ville answered, before adding, speaking in unison with Vilja, "How do we never meet?" Oppressive hissing silence. --- By Adaline Guerra