Note: The characters of this story are fictional. There are probably streamers with these nicknames, but I don't know them and have chosen these names and personalities at random.

                They were used to each other’s company. Although they were many miles away from one another, and they had seven hours difference in their days, both of them would log in when the other was online and tried to stay up until the other was logged out. Both of them were gamers, so their sleeping schedule was naturally messed up but they had so much fun with one another, their health didn’t seem like a priority to them.

                And yet, despite the fun they had with one another, Sol had noticed that something was happening to him but couldn’t quite put his finger on it. He enjoyed the other’s company a bit too much, and he felt an eerie sense of emptiness when a day passed without interacting with the other. As their relationship grew closer and they would idly chat on the phone before sleeping, having already put their computers to rest and lied down on their beds, Sol would feel an unnatural acceleration of his heartbeat, a strange daze in his thinking, a peculiar confusion in his speech.

                All of a sudden, Sol would get anxious when he knew that Axel would join his stream in order to play another game together. It didn’t really matter whether it was just the two of them, or if five or ten more people would join in the same game. As long as Axel was present, Sol would be alarmed, as if Axel would somehow expose his deepest secrets. Of course, it wasn’t like Sol had anything of importance to hide, other perhaps than how trivial and uneventful his life had always been; his parents’ divorce when he was nine being the most accelerating moment of his life. Sol hadn’t directly talked about the divorce and Axel hadn’t directly shown that he had understood – but he did, and Sol knew that. And the fact that Sol knew when Axel didn’t directly express something to him, and Axel knew, when Sol hadn’t even articulated what was on his mind – this mystical fact also made Sol’s heart beat louder, forcing many questions in his mind, and mostly avoiding thinking of the answers.

                Still though, it wasn’t like Axel would ever expose him like that. In fact, Axel might have shared more personal stories with him than Sol had. He might have mentioned a bit too many times that his mother was on psychiatric pills or that he’d have to spend the day with his father (as his parents were divorced as well), so he wouldn’t be able to stream. Of course those statements were spoken when it was just the two of them on a phone call, or on a Skype voice call, that no one else could hear. Axel had confessed to him that he felt the need to complain about his everyday life to Sol, as no one else knew about these things. Sol wouldn’t entirely believe him – he was sure Axel had opened up to the friends he had in real life as well, but he didn’t want to deny his friend’s statements, so he would just try his best to support him and be there for him when he needed it.

                Sol finally grasped what was wrong with him when Axel told him he was considering making a face reveal to his audience. Both guys had a large count of subscribers and they had been streaming and recording their videos faceless since the beginning of their channels. Although they eventually got to share a photo with one another (just one, just for fun, just to show that they fully trusted one another; Sol knew that if Axel hadn’t sent his own photo first, then he would have never sent his) showing their faces to their audience was a huge risk in a number of ways…

                There was the possibility that their viewers had identified with their voices, and had mistakenly put a wrong face and color on their persons. What if these people became disappointed that the guys don’t look like what they had imagined? Or, what if someone recognized them while walking down their neighborhoods? What if they followed them home? That was both Axel’s and Sol’s biggest worry and it was really the main reason they had decided to remain faceless and anonymous.

                However, when Axel told Sol what he was considering doing, neither fear nor surprise were the emotions that ran through him. What Sol felt at that moment was something he hadn’t felt since he was five years old, when his cousins were petting his now diseased dog, and that dog seemed to have momentarily forgotten about Sol’s existence. It was an emotion you weren’t supposed to feel in that situation. Of course Sol wasn’t worried about Axel forgetting him just because his viewers would turn into hardcore fans as soon as they saw his face (he knew that much). This irrational jealousy that had overtaken him was due to the fact that he knew Axel’s secret and no one else did. He knew what he looked like. Axel also knew about Sol’s appearance, and that brought them closer together in a way, making their relationship more special, more unique, more…

                Sol had realized that their relationship felt like something more than what it should be – it felt like something more than what it was. Sol had more feelings towards Axel than what he should have – and they were getting deeper, stronger, more intense, complicated, train wrecking, bizarre, unreasonable, wrong... Sol felt deeply and he shouldn’t.

                So, when Axel told him he was considering doing a face reveal, Sol reacted more intense than he wanted to. He really meant just to remind Axel of the reasons they hadn’t done it so far, of the dangerous behind it, of the convenience without it. He truly meant just to warn him, but instead he raised his voice, calling him stupid for wanting to share their secret and hanged up on him immediately. And then slapped himself on the face for being so unreasonable, rude and transparent to him – and he couldn’t gather the strength to call him back. He wasn’t going to apologize for something he wasn’t supposed to reveal.

                Axel, on the other hand, had been more self-aware than Sol. In fact, Axel knew whom he liked and why he liked them since he was ten. Whether it was a teacher, a classmate, a strange boy he saw on the bus – Axel always knew, and so did his parents. It wasn’t really obvious in the way he spoke or in his mannerisms, but Axel was always given away by his stare. He couldn’t really control it – and he used to hate himself for that – but the moment he found a person he liked, he would unconsciously pierce through them with his eyes, as if he was trying to read their thoughts and see if they were also into him. In time he learned to trust his instinct – but until then, there were many times he became too hopeful with someone’s dirty jokes and too blinded by his passion towards them, that he ended up making a move on someone he shouldn’t have. This resulted in a ruined reputation and his family eventually moving to another location for his sake. His parents knew, but they didn’t judge him. Eventually they filed a divorce but Axel had nothing to do with that – and he knew that.

                That was also the time when his mother’s mood swings and paranoia got worse and the doctor’s prescriptions were no longer effective. Axel moved again – he wasn’t entirely sure why – and a new psychiatrist started seeing his mother and a new prescription replaced the previous one; until it also stopped working, so they moved again… and again, and again.

                Gradually Axel stopped trying to make new friends in the schools he went to – and that was something that Sol didn’t know about him. Axel was embarrassed to admit that he’d become friendless out of his own accord. He thought that Sol wouldn’t believe him – or maybe he would, at first, and then he would start doubting him until all of the experiences and thoughts that Axel shared with him became just a lie in Sol’s mind. Perhaps Sol would start ignoring him. Perhaps Sol would move on and leave him behind. Perhaps Sol didn’t trust him to begin with – perhaps he was faking it even now – or perhaps his mother’s paranoia was getting to him; perhaps his bad genes were finally acting up.

                In the end, regardless of all these thoughts spinning in his head, Axel and Sol had developed an unnatural bond between them. Sol had become a friend with whom Axel would share stories and thoughts he wouldn't share with anyone else in the world. Gradually, steadily, Sol was turning into a very unique person in Axel’s mind and heart and slowly, their relationship evolved into something that Axel wasn’t quite sure how to define it… The phone calls (that were late at night for one of them and early in the morning for the other) were now a daily thing and had actually become purposeless and vital at the same time.  They would call one another, having absolutely nothing new or old to discuss, and they would have their phones stuck to their heads until one of them fell asleep. Then, whoever woke up first, would send a message to the other to let them know. “Good morning”, “How did you sleep”, “I had the craziest dream”…

                Throughout their days, at noon, in the evening, in the afternoon, at night, they were constantly chatting with text or voice messages, almost narrating bit by bit their entire day to the other. It was like they lived together, but they didn’t. What they both called a friendship and what they hid from everyone else was that their relationship had evolved into anything but that. Axel knew. Sol didn’t want to know.

                So, when the time came that Axel had the most absurd idea ever to make a face reveal (which was actually a joke he wanted to tell Sol in order to hear his dumbfound expression), and when the time came that Sol responded to him the way he did, calling him stupid for wanting to share their secret, Axel felt an indescribable excitement. He felt happy, strong, free and stupid, all at the same time. He felt certain of what Sol was feeling towards him (although he hadn’t clearly said it, Axel could just tell, like he always did when it came to Sol), and he felt powerful.

                That night, after Sol hanged up on him, Axel was giggling so much he was afraid of waking up his mother or even the neighbors. He had covered his face with his pillow and was smiling, laughing and crying at the same time. Although his relationship with Sol had evolved to being anything but friends, it would never be fully clear if none of them admitted it. It would be a question, forever hovering in the air, constantly troubling his mind and always making him fearful that one day Sol would find someone else – a girlfriend, a wife, someone, anyone; anyone but him. Axel was afraid that Sol would move on, despite what they had between them; but now that it was evident that that wasn’t the case, Axel felt reborn.

                Sol’s words kept repeating in both of their heads. Sol felt regret and shame – Axel felt glee and pride. He was proud because Sol was feeling something so deep and beautiful towards him; and he knew that Sol was now beating himself up for it (he knew that without a doubt), so after giggling, laughing and crying, he tried his best to regain his composure, making his voice go back to normal, and finally called Sol back.

                Sol took a while before picking up the phone, and when he finally did, he simply placed his phone next to his ear without saying any words.

“Sol?” Axel eventually asked, afraid that either of them had technical issues.

“What is it?” Sol responded half-heartedly, self-consciously, afraid, regretfully. “What do you want?” he sounded annoyed but Axel knew that was his way of hiding his embarrassment.

“Is it our secret?” Axel asked with a playful tone in his voice. “Is my face your secret and yours mine?” Sol could hear the goofy smile on Axel’s face, forcing a chuckle escaping from Sol’s lips.

“It’s not if you don’t want it to”, Sol responded and bit his lips, feeling stupid. He had no doubt that Axel caught up on his previous absurd reaction; he had no doubt that Axel had fully realized what he, himself, hadn’t realized for too long. And now that the cat was out of the bag, what was he supposed to say?

“No, I do, I really do” Axel responded quickly and excitingly, and then covered his face under the blankets embarrassed. “I like being your secret” he continued, and the silence that followed terrified him. Had he pushed Sol away? Or had he confused him? Was he being too direct, or not direct enough?

“I mean that I like you” Axel continued regardless, forcing Sol to almost shout “Yeah, I get it!” and then another silence followed.

“Do you?” Axel whispered, being afraid of what the answer might be. Another silence followed.

“I do” Sol said quietly – too quietly in fact, that Axel hadn’t heard him at all.

“Do you?” So he repeated his question and an annoyed Sol responded with “I said I do” that was a little bit louder than before – but it was good enough for Axel.

“Don’t worry I’m not going to reveal my face to anyone. It was a joke” Axel said quickly after Sol’s answer as he felt the need to fill in the silence that would follow.

“I hate you” Sol mumbled under his breath and Axel laughed in return. “Will you sleep now?” Sol continued and Axel confessed that it was now impossible for him to sleep.

“Wanna play another game?” Sol asked and both of them were shortly back at their computer screens, seemingly sharing another game with one another; and it really felt like that to their audience, but for them it was something much deeper than that. It was a secret they could hide in plain sight. It was a feeling they could share in every laughter. It was what made them alive. It was what made them strong. For their audience, this was just another game. For them, these games were everything.