Asshole

1: Dream Says Hello

July 13th, 2021 | 12:04 AM | Brighton, UK

The drawings and writings appeared nearly four years ago. Sometimes they were poems and song lyrics, some of which he recognized and then ones that yielded zero matches on Google. Other times, his pale skin was decorated with intentionally crude artwork. The most consistent marking to show up was a simple smiling face in the center of his left wrist, just below his palm. It was always present. Over the years, George Davidson developed the habit to sneak glances at the wrists of people he passed by in public. This became increasingly difficult as the pandemic emerged and he started spending a majority of his time at home, behind his computer, streaming video games with his friends.

The entire soulmate situation could be frustrating at times. The only reason he resorted to spying on strangers' wrists was because his soulmate refused to tell him anything substantial about themselves. No name, no location, not how they identified gender-wise or what their preferred pronouns were. It wasn't as though the information itself mattered too much, because as long as they both ended up happy in the end, who cared?

With his lack of information, George named his soulmate Asshole.

He tried piecing the mystery together over the years without directly asking any questions, since he knew it would get him nowhere, but his attempts were often obvious. It would lead to Asshole being overly careful with their words. Other times, George would catch onto things that reminded him of his friends. Specifically certain phrases, like one that Sapnap happened to use in the previous night's stream:

"You know anyone who draws weird spirals on themselves all the time?"

"What? No," he answered as his brown eyes moved to the corner of the screen to check his Twitch chat. Sapnap had been talking about his soul marks for the past twenty minutes. George was sure he'd heard it all before. "Dude, just ask them who they are. Or tell them who you are. Stop beating around the bush and get it over with."

"But it's more fun this way."

George stiffened at the familiar line. The same phrase appeared on his arm a few times after he tried to do the very thing he'd just suggested. But he already confirmed that his friend wasn't behind his markings, since he'd seen the hearts and spirals and occasional penis drawn on Sapnap's arm during video calls. They weren't a match. He let out a silent breath and relaxed his shoulders.

"It's agonizing."

"You're just salty because your soulmate does the same thing. I think mine is falling in love with me because of it. I got that charm," he cackled to himself. George didn't bother to respond with anything other than a small hum, so Sapnap continued. "Tell us about your marks, George. Maybe they're watching."

"You know that'll just make it harder. My notifications will be flooded with people tagging me in fake matching pictures."

A donation rang through:

everyone should write hello on their wrist so he'll know if it's one of us

Against his better judgement, George turned his palm upright and looked at the skin below. The fading face smiled mockingly at him. Once again, he sighed.

"Something wrong?"

"Just getting tired. It's late, I think I'm going to end stream soon." he stated. He leaned forward in his chair as he emptied a few important items from his inventory into his Enderchest for safe-keeping. With a glance at the chat, he noticed multiple did u get a hello??? Messages. He exited the server soon after.

He was convinced that Asshole and Sapnap would get along well. George leaned into his pillows and stared up at the ceiling, most of his body blanketed by his blue duvet. His mind wandered, as it did sometimes during the quiet of the night, to what his soulmate may look like. Their appearance and gender changed often, but one thing remained the same throughout each imaginary version: they were always faceless. Originally, the space where a face should have been was occupied by mute television static, which morphed into a scribbled ink blot, and finally became a white mask with an engraved smile. They're typically wearing something in the yellow shade that George associated with green, since he knew it was Asshole's favorite color. He was delving into his late-night pondering and attempted puzzle-solving when he felt the familiar ticklish sensation on his wrist. He raised his arm to watch the smile become darker as the ink was refreshed. Below it appeared the word goodnight followed by a small heart. Covering his pink, beaming face with both hands and rolling onto his side, he felt as if he could scream.

_

July 12th, 2021 | 7:04 PM | Orlando, FL

"Sapnap."

Clay stood at his housemate's door, arms stretched out to his sides. A T-pose, if you will. He was dressed in a pair of black shorts and a green tank top. His right arm was littered with messages and doodles, the most apparent of which was a freshly inked smile on his wrist. "Do you want food?"

Sliding his bulky headphones away from one ear, Sapnap turned to face the figure staring back at him. The viewers of his stream were soon met with a loud burst of laughter. With light brown hair that could look dirty blonde in the right lighting, green eyes, and a dense splattering of freckles dusting his nose and cheeks, Clay's unusual stance did not waver. "Uh, yeah, I'll take some food."

"Do you want lamb?"

"Yes, I'll take some lamb."

Clay nodded and began to back into the hallway without breaking eye contact or lowering his arms. "Okay."

Sapnap nodded towards his monitor. "Wanna say hi to the stream?"

"Yeah, sure." His meme-like posture melted away and he approached the desk, having already checked to make sure that the webcam light wasn't on. Nonetheless, he found himself waving, his fingers creating small indents where his other hand grasped onto the top of Sapnap's chair. "Hi, stream, I'm Sapnap's roommate."

Clay watched as the chat was promptly bombarded with a mix of polite requests and loud demands for a facecam. They're ignored.

"He's got a Twitch channel, too. I've been trying to get him to stream with me for a while now..." he smirked over at Clay, who suddenly understood what he was doing. "Maybe you guys can help convince him."

Clay echoed Sapnap's laugh. He was more of a solo streamer, always working to increase his Minecraft speedrun time. His channel started to pick up in the past couple of weeks and he knew that his friend was trying to help him out. Sapnap went to say something else, but was interrupted by a donation:

maybe georges pretty privilege will win him over

Ah, yes, the chat. Always ready to make some sort of gay implication when George was involved.

Clay abruptly leaned closer to the microphone sitting on the desk and was just shy of grabbing hold of it. "That is, if he bothers to wake up for the stream.

But he then froze - he's used to watching chat make jokes at George's expense, or listening to Sapnap's friend group poke fun at the Brit. But this was his first time even saying hello to this portion of the community and for a moment, he worried that they might find him rude. But the chat absolutely lit up with positivity in response to his excited jab. Sapnap laughed again.

"So what I'm hearing is that you'll stream with me the next time George does?"

Clay was the only one who could see Sapnap's hopeful expression. The twenty-year-old had been asking him to join a stream ever since Clay started his Twitch channel, and getting him to interact with chat was the perfect ploy to convince him. How could he say no? "Yeah. You get George to stream again before another month passes, and I'll join."

"With facecam?" He was beaming.

"You're pushing it."

Sapnap snickered. "I know. Want to say anything else to the stream?"

"Yeah. Tell George that Dream says hello."