Chapter Text
On the night of the 29th of October, 2022, Ike Eveland ended his stream after playing eventful games of “Friday the 13th” with Nijisanji EN members, a soft smile on his face, happy to be part of this big, loving family. The man was sitting back in his chair, thinking back to everything that had happened during the collab, when a ping sound came out of his monitor. There, on his screen, he saw a notification coming from the one person who, unbeknown to any of their friends or fans, made Ike the happiest in the world: Uki Violeta.
Their couple was probably the most unexpected pairing fans could think of, but they certainly were very happy about it! It started long ago, a little while after the very first LuxNoc collab, and they’ve lived oh so happily ever since, holding onto one another through a secret long distance relationship.
They would sometimes travel to see each other without telling anyone about it, spending some quality time away from socials and anything else. To keep it as hidden as possible, Uki would keep his flirting on stream directed to everyone and anyone, and Ike would let the legend of Dodgeland live on. And so they made it through everything just like that...
Not wasting a second, Ike opened the message from his lover, reading through it, tears forming in his eyes. Happy tears, of course.
Ukiki -
Hey, Ikey! The collab was so good! You as the killer was so hot, and we definitely need to play together again! You can’t escape it! Eki is real! Anyway, I wanted to tell you that, rather impulsively, I bought a plane ticket for Sweden. A one way ticket. I am tired of always having to leave, to say goodbye, so I’ll be staying. I know we talked about moving in together before, and I know you wished to wait for us to find a bigger apartment, but I love your small place, and I don’t mind living in there for a while. We can go apartment hunting later together, no worries.
Don’t worry about where to put my stuff, I don’t have much with me anyway. And I remember you telling me you’d love to live with Ukinya, so I hope you don’t mind me bringing the fluff ball with me? I’ll pay for all the expenses on the matter, by the way! We can discuss legal stuff when I get there, regarding address changes and bills arrangements and all that boring stuff.
Oh and I’m sorry for making such a huge move without telling you before, I kinda did it all on a whim, while thinking about you yesterday. I’ll be at the usual airport at 6 in the evening, your time. Do you think you can come and pick me up? Or should I look for an Uber? I don’t want you cancelling plans or anything for me!
I love you, Ikey, and I miss you. I can’t wait to see you tomorrow, and I hope you aren’t mad at me for doing all this!
Ike was smiling through his happy tears, getting more emotional by the second. There was no way he could just reply to the message. He made sure his mic was still connected then called them through Discord. Just as usual, Uki answered immediately. Ike was hit by his lover’s soft voice saying “hi” in an anxious tone. Obviously Uki was very stressed over which reaction Ike would have! The novelist had to reassure him, quickly.
Speaking in a comforting tone, he said: “Hey, there. I just read your message, Uki. And I must say you owe me a new tissue box when you get here.” He had to try and make it clear as soon as possible that he wasn’t mad, but Ike’s a dorky man, so that’s how he decided to do things. Canon event, I swear on my writer’s honour.
“So,” Uki started slowly, “you aren’t mad at me for this?” His voice was so shaky it slightly broke Ike’s heart, the man quickly denying it, letting a small chuckle out. Uki heaved a heavy sigh before chuckling with Ike, leading the both of them to burst out in laughter at just how stupid they were. When they finally calmed down, Uki said: “I can’t wait to see you tomorrow and hug you again. It feels like forever since the last time I held you.”
Ike could hear the pout on Uki’s face and couldn’t help but smile at this. “I’m gonna have to take tomorrow off to clean the apartment. Don’t want my favourite person to come into a dirty place! And I probably have a lot of coca cola cans laying around the living room from our movie night...”
Immediately, Uki took their motherly tone to scold Ike: “Babes! That movie night was a week ago! How come you haven’t cleaned anything yet? You know it’s not good for you to live in this! I swear I’m gonna teach you how to keep it clean when I get there!”
“Uki!” Ike groaned in the mic. “It’s fine, honestly! Just a few cans to put in the trash, wiping the floor and some more work and everything will be perfectly clean! You know I usually keep the place clean!” Ike had a perfect reason as to why he didn’t clean sooner, and Uki immediately sensed it as his voice softened and he asked him what caused him to let his place get like that. Ike sighed and said: “I’ve been missing you so much lately I’ve found it hard to do anything. I barely get any offline work done, and I can’t write anything no matter how much time I spend in front of my screen. So cleaning kinda got too much to do for me.”
Uki couldn’t help but coo at this confession, telling him about how he will never have to feel this way anymore once he gets there. “By the way, are you gonna come and pick me up at the airport, tomorrow? I know you don’t have any stream planned but maybe you have a meeting or something.”
The novelist shook his head before realising he had to speak as they weren’t face-timing: “Yeah, I’ll come pick you up! I don’t have anything planned tomorrow, no stream or anything, so we’ll have all the time in the world to get you settled. Though, don’t you have a few collabs coming up today and tomorrow?” Ike was just remembering Uki told him about it.
“I do,” Uki replied, “but don’t worry, that’s why I packed most of my stuff already, and I’ll only have my PC left! Don’t worry about my schedule and all, everything is planned, Ikey. It’s gonna work perfectly. I’ll be streaming tomorrow’s collab from your place, though, so I hope you don’t mind.”
A few more minutes - an hour - passed by with them talking and arranging everything for the next day before they hung up, both teary-eyed but excited. And Ike couldn’t imagine himself falling asleep after such news, so he just got up from his desk, put his metal playlist on and started cleaning.
Tomorrow would be a long day...
~~~
It had only been two weeks since Uki had moved in with Uki and they were already participating in a collab together again: Among Us VR. And the two boys didn’t think it would be this hard to hide their relationship, but here they were.
The collab started, and they hadn’t even started a game yet that Ike realised Uki was having issues. He immediately came to them in game after hearing their confused speech to their chat. “What was that, Uki?”, he asked, worried for his lover.
“Apparently, everyone sounds far away.” He explained, sounding as confused as ever. Ike, however, felt horrible at not being able to help him in any way, as he couldn’t just barge into his room in their apartment, and just commented saying it was strange. He could hear them being focused on what chat was telling them and figured Uki wouldn’t need him anyway, and just walked away to go and listen to everyone else.
Some time passed and they still hadn’t started the game. Uki seemed to have fixed the audio issue and was now asking about his hands. Ike couldn’t help himself, finding his lover adorable for his actions, and replied: “Yeah! Can you not see them?”
However, Uki wasn’t expecting him to come by, as he was asking his chat whether they could see his hands or not, not anyone in the lobby, and said so to Ike, laughing because, he too, found it very cute that Ike came to him. Honestly, he loved the tone Ike took when asking him that, and his heart melted immediately. Ike felt bad for interrupting the man’s time with their chat and immediately apologised, walking away, embarrassed. Uki tried to tell him it was fine, but the man was already gone. At this point, Ike was just scared to drop hints of their relationship already and just did his best to not be close to him too much until the first game.
Finally, the group started a game and all Ike registered was Uki getting killed in the first round and everyone yelling into their mics during meetings. Feeling overwhelmed, he decided to move away from everyone at the end of the first game to avoid all the screaming that was going on. “I am legitimately getting a little bit overwhelmed,” he told his chat, “sorry. I don’t think I can get a word in with everybody screaming and clipping their mics.”
He sighed before seeing Uki coming to him, saying hello in his soft voice that immediately brought Ike to a more peaceful state. He great them back as they said: “It’s- it gets so loud even though I lowered everything to, like, fifty percents...”
Ike replied with another sigh: “Yeah, I lowered it too, it’s- I don’t see- I don’t know.” The novelist was honestly at a loss for words as he clearly didn’t know how to feel in that instant, overthinking everything after feeling so overwhelmed, doing his best not to tell everyone he was deeply in the love with the psychic. “I feel like if I go any lower, nobody is gonna be able to hear on stream...”
The other told him they put the voice chat at twenty-seven percent, making the both of them laugh at that, the idiots almost forgetting they were live for a second. Ike did his best to get them back onto a safe conversation path. “I don’t see myself getting a word in because I don’t wanna raise my voice and clip my mic.” Uki agreed and they went on about a conversation about microphone that author-san was too stupid to understand.
After a while, a small silence took over them and, because they were on stream, Ike didn’t want to let it last too long, so he asked the other if everything was okay. “Yeah,” Uki replied, “it’s- it’s more peaceful over here.” They laughed together again.
“Yeah,” Ike went on, “we have our little corner...” And immediately Ike knew he said something he should probably have not said. Uki, knowing they were about to out themselves, decided to change the subject and move towards the group to check the sound, telling Ike how better the sound was now that they had lowered it to twenty-seven.
Uki would never have admitted it out loud, but he loved the way Ike called this place their “little corner”. Truth be told, this made his heart do somersaults in his chest. After those little exchanges, both knew it would be getting very suspicious for them to talk more one-on-one, and little to no interactions were seen between them on stream.
Though maybe Uki smelling boy smell tubes around Pomu, her asking Ike if he wanted to smell them too and him backing away in confusion could maybe be counted as one, as Uki almost said he could smell honey, ink and wood anemones - though he actually couldn’t smell anything, obviously.
The collab went on and finally both ended their streams, closing everything to finally enjoy some actual time together in front of the TV in what was now their living room, and not just Ike’s. They settled on the couch, cuddling, Ike being the big spoon and Uki the small one, “Howl’s moving castle” playing on the screen.
“I am so happy you came all the way here, Uki,” Ike said suddenly, “but honestly it is harder to keep it secret now. I wanted to get inside your booth to help you with the sound issues and all at the beginning of the stream but I couldn’t and I felt horrible about it.”
Uki snuggled his face into the other’s arm, replying softly: “It’s fine, babes. I figured it out in the end. We have to stay safe and keep hiding. If anyone knows about us being together, our careers are over. And I can’t imagine that happening.”
Nothing was left to say. The couple laid there, cuddling and enjoying each other's presence. This was the day both realised they actually were living together, and the day they realised everything would be both easier and harder.
They weren’t afraid, however. They were happy to finally be there, never missing the other, and still doing what they most loved. And this is a story about a delusional fan wishing this was how things actually went because they need Psychic Writer contents, and they live off crumbs left here and there.