Cupid (DNF + Karlnap)

Chapter 40: Streaming

Dream POV.

An hour or so had passed when I lifted myself up from the ground. I’d spent the afternoon switching back and forth from sitting against a tree and pacing around the treeline impatiently while lost in my thoughts. It was only when the sky began to darken I returned to the house.

The smell of something delicious filled my nose as I opened the door of the house, and I was enveloped in the heat from inside. After kicking my shoes off I headed inside, expecting to see Techno off of his stream and cooking over the grill for us to eat. Yet as I stepped around to look I instead spotted Sapnap and Karl.

The former was mixing a bowl of something while leaning against the kitchen counter, and the latter was swiftly chopping vegetables. I was going to walk past them without giving any acknowledgement to the pair, but Karl called out to me from across the room.

“Dream, how was your walk?” He asked with a smile on his face. It seemed as though he didn’t care about me, since only a few seconds after his initial questions he continued. “We are making mac’n’cheese, salad, and chocolate cake for dinner.”
“Cool.” I frankly didn’t care, continuing to walk with a frown on my face.

“Where’d you even get all this food?” I knew half of the things I could see and smell from here weren’t from the house, not that I wanted them to freely use my stuff like a donation anyway.
“Went to the shops in town.” Karl explained, and my gaze narrowed in suspicion since I had been hanging around the edge of the property and hadn’t seen a car leave.

“It will be ready in about half an hour if you could go tell George and Techno.” Sapnap hummed, continuing to mix his bowl while looking towards me.
“Sure, I’ll tell them.” I spoke half-heartedly, perhaps it wasn't even ‘half-heartedly’. I frankly did not care about what they were saying at all, yet I would do as he said.

There was a lot of loud noise coming from the upstairs hallway, both from George’s room and Techno. This showed that they were still in the middle of their stream, continuing without me as though they didn’t care. Their new ‘Dream Duo’, or whatever you wanted to call it. Every name that I came up with sounded like a ship name, which made me feel worse.

I decided that I’d rather talk to Techno than George at the moment, and my pink-haired friend could just pass on the message. In order to make sure I wasn’t interrupting his stream at a bad time I knocked on the door. There was a long wait, perhaps too long, and I was about to knock again before Techno called out for me to come in.

He was studying me in the doorway impatiently when I entered the room, and I stayed hovering around the doorway. “What’s up Dream?” He asked, and I studied the screen behind him where his character hid behind the bed defence made of a bright green wool.
“Just wanted to let you know that dinner will be ready in half an hour.” I told him.

When I spoke I made sure I was loud, louder than I needed to be. My still spiteful side hoped that the audience would hear me speak and go to their questions of ‘why isn’t Dream on the game?’, but it didn’t seem like that was the case.

“Thanks for telling me.” He hummed. “This’ll probably be our last round anyway.” I watched as he turned back towards the computer to make sure he wasn’t being attacked, seeing George running and placing blocks around him. Some loud chatter was also coming through his mic, something I could hear from the other side of the room.

“How’s your games been going?” I asked before I left, my fear of missing out making kicking in as I studied my friend. The grin that he had on his face made me notice that he was doing well, clearly having had a good day.
“Only lost two games.” He proudly explained. “Came second for both of them.”

“Wow, what a terrible day for you.” I rolled my eyes, noting the way he solemnly nodded in agreement. With  before turning. “I guess I’ll see you at dinner then. Good luck for the rest of your game.” Before I had even left the room the furious tapping and clicking started back up, along with him continuing to commentate.

“Sorry about that.” The pink haired man spoke to his audience once he’d unmuted himself. “Nothin’ too important, just ‘ad a talk about dinner. This will be the last game.” I heard George’s voice adding to the conversation, not bothering to try and listen to what the boy of my dreams was saying, since I knew it would just upset me.

I wouldn’t tell him about dinner, he was smart enough to probably figure out that was what Techno had been talking to me about, and even if he hadn’t figured it out they would surely talk about it after the stream ended. So I walked past the door to George’s room and headed to my own, slamming the door shut behind me.

There was nothing that I was particularly interested in doing, not wanting a risk of coming across anything associated with George or Techno. So I didn’t go on my phone, nor did I attempt to move towards my bookshelf or computer or anything, since I didn’t want to see any of the photos of the pair (specifically George) that were around my room.

I counted the seconds in my mind, waiting patiently for the half hour and wondering what was going on. It annoyed me that Karl and Sapnap were trying to win George, Techno, and myself over with meals such as mac’n’cheese. It was a pathetic attempt, one that seemed to have worked based on the fondness both of them showed the pair of tourists.

Speaking of which, I had been letting these tourists crash here for days at this point for no reason other than the kindness out of my heart, the feeling of kindness and charity was beginning to dwindle within me. Before I came to the conclusion as to whether I should kick them out or not I began to hear footsteps.

People were moving around, meaning that it was likely dinner time and Techno and George had finished streaming. As they headed downstairs I took my time, finding the motivation to sit myself up, combing through my hair with my fingers as I did. I wasn’t even feeling too hungry, so I could theoretically stay here without dinner, or at least wait for a few hours.

But through the cracks in my bedroom door I was able to smell the mac’n’cheese, the chocolate cake, and some other foods which made my mouth water. Even though I wasn’t hungry it basically drew me downstairs like a siren song of food. George, Techno, Sapnap, and Karl were all gathered around the table, all in the middle of a cheerful conversation.

George was explaining to the two tourists what had happened on the stream, with both of them listening enthusiastically as I sat down opposite Karl. In the centre of the table was mac’n’cheese, salad, and bread, with some gaps in the plates as the other four had already served themselves.

Karl and Sapnap both stopped to smile at me, however George was happily focusing on them as he talked. Techno wasn’t paying attention, just keeping his head down as he ate, yet even he looked fond at the meal.

I followed his lead, keeping my head down as I began serving up my own food reluctantly.
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1313 words