#author stuff

Everyone else just watches as the gloomy shut-in who refuses to speak to strangers sprints across the hallway.

"...BRO."

"...BRO?!"

"...BRO!!"

And suddenly, the most antisocial person in NRC is hugging someone. Nobody knows what is happening.

• Nobody believes you're just online friends.

Ace: "You've never met."

"Correct."

"You've never seen each other's faces."

"Correct."

"But you're best friends?"

"Yeah."

"..."

"..."

"That sounds fake."

— Meanwhile, Idia knows your sleep schedule, your favorite games, every voice crack you've ever had, your food preferences, which bosses make you rage quit, and every embarrassing phase you've ever gone through. He's basically known you longer than anyone outside of his family.

• Your DMs are horrifying. Ortho somehow recovers years of chat logs. The first conversation. Hundreds of thousands of messages. Entire arguments over game balancing. Three-day-long conversations that never technically ended.

— A random message from four years ago reads:

> "brb bathroom"

Immediately followed by:

> "sorry that took 8 hours"

The conversation simply continued like nothing had happened.

• Voice calls. You'd spend six-hour Discord calls doing absolutely nothing. No conversation. Just existing together.

— Every so often...

"You alive?"

"Yeah."

"Cool."

Then it was back to silence. That was quality friendship.

• Gaming legends. The two of you became infamous online. People recognized your usernames together.

"Oh no."

"It's those two."

"We're cooked."

— You developed combo strategies without speaking. Idia knew exactly where you'd move, and you knew exactly what ridiculous strategy he'd attempt. It was basically telepathy.

• Meeting in person is... weird. You've heard each other's voices thousands of times, yet actually standing face-to-face feels surreal.

"...You're taller than I imagined."

"...You're shorter."

"..."

"..."

"This is cringe."

"Extremely."

— Neither of you knows whether to high-five or hug until Ortho physically shoves Idia toward you.

• He's so much louder with you. Everyone assumes Idia is always quiet.

— The second you're together...

"NO, THAT'S A TERRIBLE BUILD!"

"IT WORKED!"

"BY ACCIDENT!"

"STILL COUNTS!"

Ignihyde regularly hears the two of you yelling at each other over game mechanics at three in the morning.

• Ortho absolutely adores you. He's heard about you for literal years.

"Oh! You're finally here!"

"You're exactly as Brother described!"

Idia immediately panics.

"ORTHO."

"DON'T."

Ortho innocently continues.

"Brother has mentioned you approximately 18,734 times!"

— Idia mentally blue screens.

• You know things nobody else does. You know what genuinely makes him laugh. Which topics he'll actually ramble about. How to tell when he's socially exhausted before he says anything.

— You even know his typing habits. His "..." means something completely different from "...?" and you can tell when he's lying because his punctuation changes. Nobody else notices.

• His social battery doubles around you. He still hates crowds. Still avoids people. Still wants to disappear.

— But with you? It's effortless. You're one of the only people who doesn't drain him. He can spend an entire day with you and somehow end up with more energy than when the day started.

• Online habits don't disappear. You're literally sitting beside each other.

— Your phone buzzes.

> Gloomurai: "grim is eating fish shaped crayons again"

You look up.

Grim is, in fact, eating fish shaped crayons.

You type back.

> You: "dude stop him"

A second later...

> Gloomurai: "no u do it"

Neither of you says a single word aloud.

• The others slowly realize why you're so close. It isn't some instant soulmate connection.

— It's history. You celebrated birthdays together online. Stayed awake through each other's worst nights. Finished games together. Watched movies while syncing countdowns. Helped each other through bad days. Sent memes at two in the morning. Spent years slowly becoming each other's favorite person without ever expecting to meet.

When the impossible finally happened, it didn't feel like meeting a stranger. It felt like finally putting a face to a friendship that already existed.

• The heartbreaking realization. One evening, after the excitement has settled, Idia quietly asks:

"...So... does this mean... you're actually from another universe?"

You nod.

"Looks like it."

He stares at the floor.

"...That's actually insane."

"...Yeah."

"...Out of every possible reality..."

He lets out a tiny laugh.

"...I somehow made friends with someone who didn't even live in my universe."

You smile.

"And somehow we still ended up on the same team."

His lips twitch into the smallest smile.

"...Guess digital media really is multiversal."