Archive of Our Own

Antonelli shook out his curls as he put on his bulky headphones. The familiar neon glow behind him meant only one thing: he was going live again. Standard Friday.

Back in college, he'd gotten hooked on this streaming needle spontaneously—he'd simply decided that dragging himself through another game alone was boring. His friends were so tired of his clips that any attempt to share another highlight was met with "god, not again." So he thought: why not do this officially?

Back then, he had no proper webcam—just a cheap potato held together by sheer will and blue electrical tape—nor a decent microphone that made sounds as if something was dying inside. Ears would curl up within the first minute. But surprisingly, people liked it. Maybe because the guy gestured too wildly and reacted too aggressively to another loss. Or because he could laugh at himself—even when his character got pixel-splattered for the tenth time in one evening.

A few months later, he was pulling in solid viewership, and clips from his streams were spreading across the internet at meme speed. He was voiced in TikToks, quoted in tweets, and his catchphrase "What the hell are you doing?!" had become a local idiom among viewers.

He'd even managed to stumble into a weird beef with another streamer—Oliver. No one remembered exactly how their war started. Either Oliver said Antonelli overrated his skill, or Antonelli was the first to mock his donation alerts. But their clashes became routine: live jabs, subtle digs, occasional facepalms at each other's clips. Antonelli no longer even blinked at the strange fan-shipping videos (god, he really had stopped being surprised) and comments from subscribers about how this beef was like their favorite ongoing series. Where, of course, everything would end in friendship—or something even more ridiculous.

He glanced at the viewer count before starting—already six hundred in pre-mod. He smirked.

"Well, Oliver," he said into the void, hitting "Start Stream." "Get your banhammers ready. Tonight, I'm your personal Premier League trophy."

The headphones blinked RGB, curls fell over his eyes, and Antonelli stepped back onto that needle he no longer wanted to get off.

The stream was going normally: he joked, sometimes told stories that had made him laugh over the past few days, took donations and suggestions for what to play tonight. Standard warm-up before the evening.

"You're suggesting we play Stardew Valley?" he read one comment, snorting. "Would that even be interesting to you?… Okay, okay, I get it. Tonight we're chilling. Give me a couple of minutes to download it."

He reached for the mouse, opening the store, when a message flickered in chat:

‘You can play it co-op, by the way.’

"Really?" Antonelli raised his eyebrows, leaning back in his chair. "And who am I supposed to play with?.."

Chat exploded. ‘With Oliver!’, ‘Oliver, Oliver!’, ‘Make up already’, ‘BEEF ROUND 2.0’.

"Oliver who?" the guy rolled his eyes, but the corner of his mouth twitched into a smile. "No-no, guys, otherwise it'll turn into a disaster again. You know how our joint streams end: someone throws a mouse, someone screams across the whole Discord, and then it's three days of editing clips of my red ears."

As if on cue, a cheerful jingle played from a donation—someone sent a hundred bucks with the note: ‘Antonelli, invite Oliver. I want chaos.’

Antonelli rubbed the bridge of his nose, sighed, and gave in.

"Fine. But you asked for it."

And then, a couple of minutes later, he was searching for Oliver's Discord to connect and talk alongside the game. His fingers hovered over the call button a second longer than usual. Then he finally pressed it.

A grumpy voice came through the headphones:

"What do you want?"

"We're playing Stardew," Antonelli replied casually. "My viewers want blood."

"…Fine."

Meanwhile, chat wouldn't calm down:

‘They're like an old married couple’
‘Shippers, attack!’
‘Did Antonelli just blush? He did!’

Friday was going to be long.

The Discord connect sound rang out sharply, like someone slapping a table. Oliver didn't say hello—just asked:

"How many viewers do you have?"

"Doesn't matter," Antonelli muttered, though he glanced at the counter. Fifteen hundred. Not bad for a Friday. "Did you download the game?"

"Fifteen minutes ago. Your subscribers messaged me. Five of them. With the phrase 'Antonelli's gonna call you, don't be a dick.'"

"Chat, you're animals," Antonelli exhaled, not meanly. "Fine. Creating a world. Named…" he paused for a second, then grinned slyly. "Oliver_Sucks."

"Witty. You've matured," Oliver replied. "Let's go."

They entered the game simultaneously. Warm pixel sunrise, a tiny cabin, a couple of parsnip patches, and a chest. Standard start.

"Where did you spawn?" asked Oliver.

"On the farm. Where else?"

"Beach."

"How did you end up on the beach?" Antonelli froze. "We're supposed to spawn in the same place… Whatever. Get over here. We need to clear the farm. These trees are a pain."

But Oliver was already running the other way. The camera panned out, his pixel character—in that stupid blue jacket that Antonelli hated with all his heart—disappeared behind some bushes.

"I'm going fishing."

"We need to work on the farm!"

"And I'm going fishing. Fish = money. Money = house. House = power."

"You're talking nonsense," Antonelli groaned. He grabbed an axe and started chopping his first tree. It fell slowly, beautifully, with pixel dust. "Let me know when you realize we share a budget."

Chat was ecstatic:

‘they already have a joint budget’
‘they'll kill each other in five minutes’
‘betting a hundred they won't last till nightfall’

The first fight happened seven minutes in.

"Did you throw away my weed?" came the voice in his headphones.

"What weed?"

"The weed I put in the chest! It's a resource!"

"That was fiber, Oliver. It grows everywhere. I put a stick in there."

"I DON'T NEED A STICK. I NEED WEED. I MAKE… something out of it."

"Great argument."

Oliver went silent. Antonelli immediately knew—that was a bad sign. A minute later, he walked into the house and found his bed moved into the corner of the chicken coop. A chicken coop that hadn't even been built yet. Just a foundation and a sign that said "Antonelli sleeps here now."

"Are you serious?"

"I don't know who did that," Oliver replied flatly. "Must be a game glitch."

Right then, a donation played a tune. This time, it was the theme from a cheesy soap opera.

"Okay," Antonelli took a deep breath, put the bed back, and walked outside. "Let's make a deal. You don't touch my stuff. I don't touch your fish. We go into the mines together, because it's scary alone, and I don't want you to die and make me use resources to revive you."

"What if I find a diamond?"

"Split it."

"What if it's my diamond?"

"Oliver, we've been playing for twenty minutes, and I already want to scream at you."

"That's normal," Oliver replied calmly. "My viewers say I'm trolling you on purpose. I don't think so. I'm just better at the game than you."

As proof, he dropped a fish on the ground. A catfish. Three-pound catfish.

"Eat. You have a hungry emoji over your head."

"I do NOT have a hungry emoji."

"You do, you just can't see it because your graphics are on minimum settings."

"My settings are ULTRA!"

"Blind."

"You…"

Antonelli stopped. Ate the fish. He was actually hungry.
Then they went mining together. Silently. Side by side. Two pixel people with pickaxes, a squirrel running between them.

Chat couldn't handle this level of tension. Hearts poured in, rainbow emojis, messages like ‘they're building a home,’ ‘this is love,’ ‘they'll get married by fall.’

"I'm not getting married," Antonelli said to no one, chopping a branch.

"I wouldn't marry you either," Oliver replied.

And they kept silently building a shared chest.
Friday night was just beginning.

The next Friday, Antonelli had hoped that none of his viewers would remember their previous week's incredible, passive-aggressive, accidentally tender game.

Those hopes crumbled like a house of cards under a tank.

The moment he turned on his camera and shook his curls out of habit, chat exploded. ‘STARDEW!’, ‘CATFISH!’, ‘WHERE'S OLIVER’ ‘WHY ARE YOU SLEEPING ALONE’. The last one was especially creepy because how did viewers know how he slept? Oh right. The stream. He'd mentioned yesterday that he'd dreamed about the farm.

"Okay, stop," Antonelli raised his hands to the webcam as if being mugged. "We are not repeating that circus. Stardew was one-time content. Got it? One-time. Tonight we're playing a normal shooter where you shoot things, not plant peas and argue about whose bed is wh—"

He didn't finish. Because right then, a donation played the melody from an old romantic comedy, and over it, a robotic voice announced:

"Antonelli, Oliver is already in Discord. He's waiting for you. With the garden beds."

"This is a prank," the guy squinted, though inside, something went cold. "You couldn't possibly have gotten his Discord."

Chat collectively posted Oliver's login. The same one. With the cat avatar.

Antonelli dropped his head onto the desk. He lay there for a minute, hearing his subscribers celebrate and throw money. Then he slowly straightened up, reached for the mouse…

…and paused.

"By the way," he said in his most casual tone. "Has anyone here seen that weird Tumblr art?"

The studio went silent. Even donations paused for a second.

"Because I have," Antonelli continued, feeling his ears start to heat up. "And don't ask why I'm on Tumblr. I have an old account from school, I follow artists. Normal artists. Who draw normal things. Not… that."
He didn't finish. Chat was already rejoicing.

‘he admitted it’
‘CONTENT’
‘a mix of embarrassment and tenderness’
‘Kimi, show us the art’

He didn't show the art, of course. But it could be described roughly like this: two pixel farmers standing at sunset. One—in that blue jacket Antonelli hated with all his soul—holding a fish. The other—in an oversized sweater, with an angry but somehow endearing face. Between them, a shared chest full of resources. And a caption at the bottom: "You threw away my weed. I threw away my heart. We're even."

Antonelli still didn't know whether to be furious or save it to his desktop.

"Fine," he exhaled, hitting the call button in Discord. "Oliver, goddammit, get online. Tonight we're digging potatoes and figuring out which one of us is the bigger hypocrite."

A sleepy voice came through his headphones:

"I've been in the game for an hour. Planted parsnips for you. Don't thank me."

"I'll kill you."

"Axe or shovel?"

Antonelli muted his mic, turned to the camera, and whispered with blazing eyes:

"Viewers, I hate you. You know that? I hate you."

Then, louder, unmuting: "Logging in. Oliver, don't touch my chest."

"Which one? The shared one, or your personal one that I renamed to 'Kimi's Tears'?"

Chat collapsed.

Friday was going to be even longer than last week.

"Ollie, I'm begging you, do the story quests, not just fish!" Kimi pleaded, chopping down another tree with the force of someone attacking a personal enemy.

"I'm going to fish, deal with it," Oliver's mocking voice came through. Then, quieter: "Oh, got a bite!"

Chat immediately typed: ‘their dynamic is like an old married couple where the husband has gone on a fishing bender and the wife is soloing the farm.’ Antonelli read the comment out of the corner of his eye and pretended not to notice. But his ears were already betraying him with a rosy glow.

"I'll bury you with that fish, you hear me?!" Kimi raised his voice, swinging his axe at another oak. "I'll make you a coffin shaped like a carp, they'll put you in it, and you'll lie there forever with your fishing rod!"

"Sounds like my ideal death, honestly," Oliver replied breezily. And then, almost immediately: "Oh, another one! There's a whole school here. We're gonna be rich, Kimi. You'll thank me later."

"We'll be rich if you go to the mayor and give him the package that's been in our chest for three days!"

"Is there fish in it?"

"THERE'S NO FISH IN IT, OLIVER, IT'S JUST PAPERS!"

"Papers are boring. Fish you can sell."

Antonelli threw his axe on the ground. A pixel axe, sure, but the gesture lost none of its drama.

"That's it," he said in an icy voice. "I'm going to the mines. Alone. If I die, it's your fault."

"You always die on your own," Oliver countered. "I have nothing to do with it. But if you find a diamond, bring it to me. I'll enchant it into something useful."

"You can't enchant things. All you can do is fish and annoy me."

"That's called 'multitasking.'"

Chat was in stitches.

‘bury me between them’
‘they're fighting over budget allocation, that's very mature relationship conflict’
‘Kimi, breathe, we're with you’

A robotic donation voice:

"Antonelli, if you don't turn around right now, he's going to put a fish in your pocket."

Kimi spun his character around. There, in his inventory, was a herring. With the label "for soup."

"Oliver."

"What?" His voice dripped with angelic innocence.

"We don't have a pot."

"We have fish."

Antonelli covered his face with his hands—in real life, not in the game. Sat there for a second. Then slowly lowered them and looked into the camera with the red eyes of a man who had accepted his fate.

"If we build a chicken coop tomorrow, I'm naming one of the chickens after you," he said.

"After me?" Oliver actually lowered his fishing rod.

"Yes. And I'll sell it for the rest of my life. Its eggs. Its meat. Multiple times. In different playthroughs."

"You just described Buddhist reincarnation, but with chickens," Oliver noted after a pause. "That might be the most romantic thing you've ever said to me."

"I DID NOT—"

"Fish, Kimi. You're holding a rod, not an axe, by the way."

Antonelli looked down. Damn it. He really was holding a fishing rod. Apparently, his subconscious had surrendered before he had.

"I hate this game," he whispered into the mic. "And you. And that mayor who can't pick up his own papers."

"Uh-huh," Oliver nodded. "Now be quiet. I've got a catfish on the line. This is a solemn moment."

The catfish got away. Oliver swore. Kimi, for some reason, smiled for the first time all evening.

Chat noticed.

‘he smiled’
‘let their catfish always get away’
‘friday is the best day of the week’

The farm slowly grew over with trees nobody was chopping and fish nobody was eating. But apparently, no one cared. Ollie was quietly building something on his plot—the one Kimi had generously "granted" him with the words that he could clear his own land and not come near his garden.

"You done over there?" Kimi asked, weeding carrots while simultaneously trying to figure out why he had an old pair of boots in his inventory. "I'm done with the crops. We can go to the mines together."

"Can't," Oliver replied shortly.

"Why not?"

"Building."

"Building what, exactly?" Kimi asked suspiciously.

No answer. But on the map, right on the border between their two plots, a suspiciously symmetrical structure began to take shape. Made of fences, torches, and something vaguely resembling an altar.

Antonelli stepped away from his character, walked to the window of his apartment, took a deep breath, came back, and said quietly:

"If you're building a shrine to fish, I'm divorcing you."

Chat latched onto that word instantly.

‘DIVORCING??’
‘WAIT, THEY WERE MARRIED?’
‘DID I MISS THE WEDDING??’
‘Kimi, that was a slip, you're legally obligated now’

Oliver didn't miss a beat:

"We're not married, unfortunately for you. But a fish shrine is a great idea, thanks. Noted."

"I wasn't suggesting it!"

"Your subconscious was. You should listen to it more often."

Antonelli ran a hand through his hair, messing up his curls completely. The webcam caught the gesture, and chat made a GIF in real time. "despair but make it pretty," they captioned it.

He finally couldn't resist and walked over to Oliver's plot. Pixel Kimi climbed over the wooden fence (he tripped, but chat didn't see it, lucky him) and stopped.
On the ground, laid out in stone tiles, was a heart. Inside the heart stood a chest. On the chest, a sign.
Kimi walked closer. Read it.

"Here lies the fish I didn't share. And my patience. Mostly the first thing."

He stood there silently. Then slowly turned around and walked back to his own garden, where carrots grew and where there had never been any feelings, and certainly no pixel hearts.

"Well?" Oliver asked in Discord. His voice was suspiciously calm.

"Fine," Kimi replied. "But you placed the stone wrong. There's a misalignment in the left sector."

"Misalignment? It's perfectly symmetrical!"

"Bet you a hundred there's a misalignment."

"Your hundred. I'm a broke streamer. All I have is fish."

Kimi coughed, suppressing a laugh. He awkwardly turned to the camera as if to drink water. Chat still saw everything.

‘his ears are red, his ears are ALWAYS red when it's cute’
‘Oliver built a heart’
‘that's not a heart, it's a geodesic fish storage dome, nothing personal’

The evening dragged on. Trees weren't chopped, fish weren't sold, and chat kept throwing donation after donation demanding they "sort out their relationship."

"We don't have a relationship," Kimi said firmly at the sixth donation.

"None at all," Oliver added at the eighth.

After the ninth, they both went quiet. Because the ninth came with a GIF. Their characters standing face to face against a sunset, with that cursed catfish floating between them.

Kimi took a screenshot. Then deleted it. Then restored it from the trash.

In real life, Oliver did exactly the same thing.

But neither of them said so out loud.

"Alright," Kimi said, picking up his virtual hoe. "Let's just dig this damn potatoes. Together. No drama."

"No drama," Oliver agreed. And then, almost immediately: "By the way, I put a carp in your chest. A small one. As a sign of respect."

"What carp?"

"The one that got away back then. I caught it eventually. I was saving it for you."

Kimi stared at his monitor for a few seconds. There, in his inventory, was indeed a carp. Iridium-quality, rare, with the label "for soup, but seriously."

He closed the inventory without a word. But chat still saw it: Antonelli's character paused for a moment, then kept digging with a suddenly appearing smile that the webcam couldn't hide this time.

Friday slowly drifted toward night, but no one wanted to log off.

The next Friday morning, Kimi was sitting on his kitchen in his usual stretched-out sweatpants (hole in the left knee, a sauce stain that had survived three washes) and a black stretched-out t-shirt with the nearly faded logo of a band he didn't listen to anymore. He was eating instant noodles from a square container with chopsticks that kept sliding apart.

He chewed the noodles while scrolling through TikTok—that endless black hole where all streamers fall between breakfast and their first coffee. The feed threw up memes mixed with clips that viewers had made from the previous evening.

And, of course—though really, the algorithm knew more about him than his own mother—he came across that moment.

The stupid pixel heart. Laid out in stone tiles. With the sign about fish and patience.

Kimi froze, chopsticks halfway to his mouth. The noodles slowly slid back into the container.

The video had edited their dialogue together, set to music from some dramatic anime. Kimi approached the heart. Read the sign. Was silent. Walked away. And at that moment, the editor had slowed the frame, added snow over the pixel grass (even though it was summer in the game), and written in white font: "and no one will ever know how much he wanted to stay."

"Oh, come on," Kimi said aloud to his empty kitchen.

The noodles went cold. He ate them anyway because he refused to reheat food on principle.

He scrolled further. The next video was a compilation of his screams: "I hate this game!", "Ollie, you're an idiot!", "I'll bury you with that fish!" The comments underneath: "he only calls him Ollie when he's really angry or really in love," "their wedding is going to be a battle of the hoes," "Kimi, you actually liked the heart, we all saw it."

"I did not," Kimi said to the void between his fridge and microwave. "I did not like it. It's just a game."

He liked the video.

Then he unliked it.

Then he liked it again—because if he unliked it, the algorithm would think he wasn't interested and stop showing him… what? He didn't know what exactly he needed. But he didn't want to live without all this either.
He opened Discord messages. Opened the chat with Oliver. The last message was from yesterday: "take the carp, it's in your personal chest, not the shared one, so you don't whine." Kimi had replied with a cucumber emoji. That was it. No hearts. No hints.

He closed the chat. Opened it again. Typed: "did you see that tiktok? with the heart?"

Deleted it.

Typed: "eating noodles"

Deleted it.

Typed: "what time are we streaming tonight?"

Sent it.

The reply came a minute later. Oliver—even in the morning without coffee, even half-asleep—always replied quickly. Especially to Kimi.

"8 pm. Good?"

"Good," Kimi replied.

A pause. Then another message.

"did you see the heart video? I found it in my feed this morning"

Kimi stared at the screen. His ears started heating up. Damn ears, they gave him away even when he was alone in his apartment.

"yeah i saw it" he typed. "cringe"

"Yeah. Total cringe"

"Mines tonight? No drama"

"No drama"

Kimi turned off his phone, pushed aside the empty noodle container, and stared out the window. Outside was a gray morning, an ordinary city, no pixel grass, and certainly no confessions.

"Okay," he said to himself. "Just a game."

He got up, poured coffee, took a sip, burned his tongue, and somehow smiled into the mug.

In twelve hours, they'd be screaming at each other again over resource allocation. And some viewer would draw another piece of art. And Kimi would pretend not to care.

But right now, on a Friday morning, with coffee and a burnt tongue, he really did care. And that was the strangest part of this whole story.

That evening, Kimi was sitting in front of his monitor an hour before stream. Camera off. Sitting in the dark, only the neon glow behind him glowing faintly—he'd forgotten to turn it off last time. Scrolling through feeds, staring into space, drinking his third glass of water, unable to explain to himself why he was slightly shaking.

Normal Friday. Normal game. Normal Oliver, who annoyed him, trolled him, built stupid pixel hearts, and stayed silent about the important things.

At 8:00 PM, he finally went live.

"Hey everyone," he said into the mic, checking his sound. "Mines tonight. Is Oliver in Discord yet?"

Chat answered instantly: ‘waiting’, ‘he joined first’, ‘he's been in the game for half an hour, cutting grass on your plot.’ Kimi rolled his eyes, but something inside him fluttered.

"Ollie, you there?" he asked, connecting.

"I'm in the mines," Oliver replied. His voice was tense, unusually serious. "Kimi, get here. Fast."

"What's wrong?"

"JUST COME."

Kimi didn't argue. He grabbed his character and ran across the map. Chat noticed his haste:

‘he ran’
‘he dropped everything for Ollie’
‘this is love, I tell you, this is love’

He flew into the mines. Level twenty. Dim torchlight, pixel stone walls, a slime wiggling in the corner. And Oliver. His character stood motionless, facing a strange statue that Kimi had never seen here before.

"What is that?" Kimi asked, moving closer.

"Don't know. I broke a rock, and there was a hatch underneath. Came down—there's this statue. And an inscription."

Kimi read it.

"Those who come here alone will remain alone forever. Those who come with another will find not ore, but an answer."

"That's some secret thing," Kimi said. "I don't remember that in the wiki."

"Me neither."

They froze. Two pixel people in front of a gray stone woman staring at them with empty eye sockets. The slime in the corner squelched and slithered away.

"We probably have to do something," Oliver guessed. "Offer an item. Or both interact with the statue at the same time."

"Let's try," Kimi moved his character right up to it. "On three. One… two…"

They activated it together. The statue glowed purple. Luminous dust flowed from its eye sockets. A sign fell from the ceiling.

Kimi picked it up. Read it aloud, accidentally turning his mic to full volume:

"'You ask why we are here. The answer: to remember. You ask what we seek. The answer: each other.'"

Discord went silent. So did chat. Even donations paused.

It lasted too long. Ten seconds. Maybe twenty.
Then Oliver said:

"It's just a game, right? Just a game."

"Just a game," Kimi echoed.

They both knew there was no such statue or inscription in the official version of Stardew Valley. One of them—or both—had downloaded a mod. Or the game had decided to play a joke. Or it was just a coincidence they'd never be able to explain.

But now, in the semi-darkness of his room with the neon glow and the sound of someone else's breathing in his headphones, Kimi suddenly said something he hadn't planned:

"Ollie."

"Mm?"

"Did you really build that heart for me?"

Silence again. Heavy. Fragile as glass.

"Did you really save that Tumblr art to your desktop?"

"How did you—"

"Chat leaked it. When you stream your desktop, it's visible. There's a folder." Oliver paused. "I saved it too. The one with the sunset."

Kimi took off his headphones, set them on the desk, and covered his face with his hands. A few seconds later, he put them back on.

"So what now?" he asked tiredly.

"Let's just get this damn ore, come back up, and pretend nothing happened?"

"What if I don't want to pretend?"

Silence. In chat, a storm:

‘WHAT’
‘HE SAID IT’
‘I'M GOING TO DIE RIGHT NOW’
‘KIMI ADMITTED IT’

"Then," Oliver's voice dropped, became lower, "then tomorrow, I'll bring you real fish. Not digital. A real carp. And we'll talk. No cameras. No chat. No two thousand viewers."

Kimi exhaled. Not air—years of pretending.

"Bring it," he said. "The carp. But only if it's alive."

"It's not alive. I'll buy it from a store."

"Ollie."

"What?"

"Idiot."

"I know."

They played for another two hours. Mined iron, found one diamond (split it, didn't even argue), and then Kimi said "I'm going to sleep"—though neither of them believed it.

He quit the game, ended the stream. But he didn't close Discord.

"You still there?" he asked quietly.

"Still here."

"Goodnight, Ollie."

"Goodnight, Kimi."

Chat couldn't see anymore, but Kimi smiled. In the dark, with his camera off, with ears burning like he was standing next to a campfire.

Tomorrow, a carp was supposed to arrive. Fried—or not, since live ones weren't an option. But it didn't matter anymore.

What mattered was the thing they'd been silent about for two years while chat shipped them and drew art, while fifteen hundred viewers watched a series every Friday called "Antonelli & Oliver: Spitefully Together."

Tomorrow, a new episode was supposed to air.

And apparently, no deus ex machina required.

Kimi only opened his eyes around noon. He reached for his phone—and froze.

Thirty-seven messages on Discord from Oliver. All with the same gist: "What's your address???", "Kimi, are you ignoring me?", "I'm serious", "I've already left the house", "KIMI", "I'M CALLING YOU, PICK UP", "Fine, I found your address in an old chat, you sent it a year ago when we talked about delivery", "I'm coming."
Kimi didn't remember how or when, but in the last message, he'd typed: "okay, I'm waiting." And immediately passed out with the phone in his hand.

He fully woke up only when someone pounded on his door insistently. Three short knocks. Then three more. Then one, as if a fist had hesitated.

Antonelli shuffled toward the hallway. Didn't even ask who it was. Just opened the door.

Completely sleepy. Disheveled—curls sticking out in every direction as if he'd fought a pillow tournament during the night. T-shirt slipped off one shoulder, sweatpants with the hole in the knee—the same ones from the morning. Puffy face, hazy gaze, left cheek creased from the couch.

And in front of him stood Oliver.

A head taller. In normal clothes—not a pixel jacket, but a black coat with a sweater underneath. Hair damp, like he'd just stepped out of the shower. And in his hands, he was holding a goddamn carp.

A real one. Wrapped in butcher paper. With the tail sticking out of the package.

"You…" Kimi blinked. "You're serious?"

Oliver shifted from foot to foot. He looked exactly as awkward as Kimi—he was just better at hiding it behind his height and calm face. But now, there was no calm. There was a blush on his cheekbones and slightly trembling fingers.

"You said 'okay, I'm waiting,'" Oliver replied hoarsely. "I didn't know if you meant the address or… well. The carp. So I brought both."

"I don't have a pan big enough for that carp," Kimi croaked, his voice still sleep-rough. "And I didn't—"

He didn't finish. Because Oliver stepped forward, crossing the threshold without asking, and got so close that Kimi had to tilt his head back.

"Are you going to let me in, or are we standing in the hallway with a fish?" Oliver asked. "The neighbors are staring."

Kimi turned around. Behind Oliver on the landing, an old lady with a shopping bag was indeed watching with interest as the tall guy with a parcel and the sleepy guy in a stretched-out t-shirt stood frozen.

"Come in," Kimi whispered, stepping back into the hallway. "Quick."

Oliver stepped inside. Stopped in the entryway, looked around. The apartment was small, bachelor-cozy: unfinished coffee on the table, laptop on the couch, headphones on the floor, the neon backlight still glowing behind the chair—who would turn it off anyway.

"It's nice here," Oliver said.

"So is yours, I saw it on your stream once," Kimi replied automatically, then immediately wanted to sink through the floor. "I mean—"

"Been watching my streams, have you?" The corner of Oliver's mouth twitched. "Secret viewer. I knew it. You always use the same anonymous cat avatar. You thought I wouldn't notice?"

"And you noticed?"

"I notice everything, Kimi."

A pause. The carp in Oliver's hands seemed like the main participant in the conversation.

"Fine," Antonelli exhaled, running a hand over his face. "Give me the fish. And let's… I don't know. Talk. Since you came across town with a carp in butcher paper."

"Fried," Oliver added almost guiltily. "I got it from the market already cooked. You said 'alive,' but I didn't know how to transport a live one. It would've died in the car. And this is… almost alive. Still warm."

Kimi blinked. Then laughed—quietly at first, then louder, throwing his head back so his curls fell over his eyes.

"You're an idiot, Ollie."

"I know."

"I'm an idiot too."

"We've established that."

Oliver took off his coat—hung it neatly on the back of a chair, as if he'd been here a hundred times. Put the carp on the kitchen table. Found a plate, transferred the fish, found a fork. Found napkins, even.

Kimi watched from the side and couldn't believe this was happening in real life. Not in the game. Not on stream. Not on TikTok with slow-motion editing. But here, in his small kitchen that smelled of cold coffee and fear.

"Sit down," Kimi said when he found his voice again. "Tell me everything. From the beginning. Why you built that heart. Why you came. Why the carp."

Oliver sat across from him. Put his hands on the table. Looked him straight in the eye. Calm, without streamer bravado, without his usual mocking squint—just simple and serious.

"Because all our bickering is nonsense," he said. "On stream, we trash each other, but in real life, we actually talk. Even if it's through Discord messages. And I'm tired of it. Of the act."

Kimi was silent. Gripped the edge of the table so hard his knuckles went white.

"I'm going to take your fishing rod in that stupid game, you hear me?" he blurted out, because he didn't know what else to say. Because the truth was too big and too scary to jump into without a running start.

Oliver exhaled. Not angrily, but wearily. The kind of exhale you make when you step on the same rake for the hundredth time.

"Here I am, trying to sort out our relationship, and he's talking about fishing," Oliver's voice wavered but didn't break. "Are you even listening? Or do you prefer to avoid things?"

"The viewers like our banter," Kimi mumbled. His voice cracked, sounded pathetic, childish. He didn't recognize himself.

"And you?"

The question hung in the air. The small kitchen, the cold coffee, the carp on the plate—and this question, impossible to dodge, impossible to replace with a joke about fishing.

"I…" Kimi swallowed. "I like it when you get annoyed too. But that's not the same as…"

"As what?" Oliver leaned forward.

"As wanting you to be there when the stream ends," Kimi breathed out. The words escaped on their own, without permission. He didn't even realize how they'd formed into a sentence.

Silence. Real silence, without donations, without chat, without fifteen hundred viewers.

"Then why are we still pretending?" Oliver asked in a whisper. "Why am I building stupid hearts in a pixel game instead of saying this to your face?"

"Say it," Kimi whispered.

"I drove to you with a fish on a Saturday morning because I can't stand watching you smile at strangers while all you do is yell at me. And because I want you to yell at me—not in the game. In real life. Because that means we're together. Even if you hate me."

"I don't hate you," Kimi said quickly, like a gunshot. "I've never hated you. I was just scared that if I said something, you'd laugh. Or leave. Or… I don't know. Chat sees everything. Viewers comment on everything. What if it's all just for hype? What if you're just playing a role?"

"I got up on a Saturday morning, drove forty minutes across town with a fried carp in my trunk," Oliver smiled slowly, very slowly. "What role is that, Kimi? Should I expect an Oscar?"

Kimi cracked. First a snort. Then a laugh—nervous, on the edge of hysteria, but completely genuine.

"You're an idiot," he repeated for the umpteenth time.

"And you're a coward," Oliver replied without malice.

"Was," Kimi corrected, wiping away tears—from laughter or everything at once, he could no longer tell. "Was a coward. But now… I don't know. Let's find out."

"How?"

Kimi stood up from the table. Walked around it. Stopped a step away from Oliver, who was taller, which was simultaneously terrifying and strangely comforting.

"Ollie," he said very quietly. "Kiss me so I know this isn't a dream. And that it's not a game."

Oliver didn't ask twice.

The carp on the plate went completely cold. The coffee never got finished. And the neon backlight in the room blinked in time with someone's heartbeat—whose, it no longer mattered.

And only Kimi's phone, left in the hallway, vibrated with new Discord messages from a chat that was already beginning to suspect something was up after both streamers went mysteriously silent on a Saturday morning.

But no one cared about that anymore.

"Oliver, stop stealing my chickens to your side of the farm!" Kimi yelled, gripping his mouse as if his life depended on it.

Ollie, sitting in his room—now their shared apartment, two meters away from Kimi—chuckled quietly into his mic. He wasn't even trying to hide his voice, because the viewers only heard him, not Kimi. Or did they? The tech in the new apartment wasn't fully set up yet.

"What chickens?" Oliver asked innocently. "Those are my chickens. I bought them. I have a receipt. Well, almost."

"They were in MY coop! I hatched them myself! Well, not myself, but… Oliver, goddammit, give them back!"

Oliver's chat was in hysterics:

‘He hatched them himself??’
‘Ollie, do you have farm problems?’
‘Why is he yelling, aren't you in the same game?’

Oliver chuckled louder, dragging the virtual chicken across the invisible boundary between their plots. That was the fifth one tonight.

The viewers didn't know. Well, they suspected, but didn't say anything.

To his own viewers, Oliver just said he'd decided to move—change of scenery, you know. He couldn't exactly say that he and Kimi were together now, so they'd decided to change scenery together. Kimi kept insisting his landlady had kicked him out. Yeah, something like that. It just so happened that both had left their apartments.

Into one. A two-bedroom. With thin walls.

"They're SHARED!" Kimi added in a cracking voice, but it was too late. Oliver had already renamed the chicken "Kimi_s_joy_#5" and moved it to his side.

"If they're shared, why were they only on your side?" Oliver asked as calmly as if discussing the weather.

"BECAUSE I EARNED THEM!"

"And I earned you. So the chickens come with."

Discord went quiet. Kimi's ears flamed up—he physically felt it, like a thermometer hitting critical. Oliver's chat, of course, noticed this strange exchange.

‘Did he just say 'earned you'??’
‘THEY ARE DEFINITELY LIVING TOGETHER’
‘Ollie, did you move in with him??’
‘YOU MOVED IN WITH HIM?!’

Oliver glanced at his screen, at the panic in chat, then looked toward his slightly open door. From there came the heavy breathing of an enraged Kimi, who was currently moving the chickens back, one by one, clicking his mouse at inhuman speed.

"We live together," Oliver said into the mic, not raising his voice. Just a fact. "Stop theorizing. We're just roommates."

‘ROOMMATES WITH A SHARED COOP??’
‘ROOMMATES WHO YELL AT EACH OTHER FROM DIFFERENT ROOMS??’
‘Ollie, we're not stupid’

"Well, not all of you," Oliver smirked, and at that moment, his door burst open.

In the doorway stood Kimi. In the same stretched-out sweatpants, the same black t-shirt, his cheeks blazing, clutching a mug—where he'd gotten it, no one knew.

"End the stream," Kimi said in a deadly whisper.

"I'm live."

"I don't care."

"I have a thousand viewers."

"Make it a thousand and one if you don't end it right now."

Oliver looked at chat, which had already overflowed the screen. Then at Kimi. Then back at chat.

"Guys," he said, hitting the "End Stream" button. "I have an urgent matter. A chicken to rescue."

Chat exploded with final messages before the screen went dark:

‘HE ENDED STREAM FOR HIM’
‘THIS IS LOVE’
‘WE KNOW EVERYTHING, OLLIE’
‘SAY HI TO KIMI FOR US’

Oliver closed his laptop. Turned to Kimi, who stood in the doorway with a mug and the expression of a man ready to kill, then resurrect, then kill again.

"You told them we live together," Kimi exhaled.

"They figured it out. I just didn't lie."

"We agreed we wouldn't—"

"Kimi," Oliver stood up, walked over to him, took the mug (empty; Kimi hadn't finished his coffee for the second time), set it on the table, and hugged him, burying his nose in his hair. "They've known since the first time you blushed on our first joint stream. Can we just stop?"

"I can't," Kimi said into his sweater, muffled. "I'm scared."

Of what?"

"That this will end. That they'll get bored. That you'll… that you'll leave."

Oliver tightened his arms.

"I just moved all my stuff into your apartment. I brought the carp. I steal your chickens now. It's too late to leave."

"You're giving back the chickens," Kimi reminded him.

"Not a single one."

"Two."

"One."

"Three, and you're sleeping on the couch."

"Deal," Oliver laughed into his hair. "You haggle like a little old lady at a market, god."

"You're the little old lady," Kimi muttered, but didn't pull away.

Outside, it was getting dark. Somewhere in the game, left on pause, pixel chickens wandered on the wrong side of the farm, and the shared chest with the sign "Kimi's Tears" still stood on the border between two halves of a virtual world.

But in the real apartment, there were no more borders. And that was scarier than any monster in the mines.

And also, way better.

"Ollie?"

"Mm?"

"Goodnight."

"But it's only eight o'clock."

"Goodnight," Kimi repeated, yawning as if to prove his point.

Oliver sighed, scooped him up (Kimi squeaked, not expecting to be lifted at all), and carried him to the bedroom, turning off the lights with his foot along the way.

The carp in the freezer rested in its icy glaze, a witness to the grand stupidity called "they finally stopped pretending."

In Discord, messages kept coming. But they were busy.