CalPal

-3-

    "So have you made any friends through streaming and stuff?"

    I hummed, "No, not really. I mostly just keep to myself. You know, stream, maybe politely raid someone, then go do homework or something. I've interacted with a few people on Twitter. Like Hbomb94 and I have talked a few times on there and we follow each other. Through him, Shubble and Kiingtong and Graser have followed me but we never talk. That's the extent of my friendships in the community if you'd even want to call it that."

    "Well I'm going to be your friend and annoy the fuck out of you to the point where you'll wish we weren't friends."

    "Uh huh," I said.

    Finally, after a few hours of gameplay, we finished the game. I got the last hit which peeved Dream off. Now I could rub in his face that I beat his record and beat the game the first time we finished it together. Ah, sweet victory.

    "So what's Cal then? Is it a nickname?" Dream asked me as we ran circles around each other at spawn.

    "Yeah. My name is very versatile so I have a lot of nicknames."

    "What is your name?"

    I sighed, "I don't know if I should say. I mean, like I'm a really private person online. I just, I don't want my name getting out."

    "I understand, trust me. I still haven't shown my face to my followers yet. If you're not ready to tell me, that's okay. I don't want to force you into something you're not comfortable with, but I definitely wouldn't tell anyone."

    My player stopped in her tracks on the screen as I took my hands off the keyboard and stretched back in my chair. This time I was careful not to fall off. Dream's ugly green character shifted in front of me and stared at me.

    "Okay," I whispered, looking at his character, "Um," I chuckled, "Shit. Who knew revealing a name would be so hard?"

    "My real name's Clay," he said, probably to ease some of the anxiety I had.

    "Do your followers know that?"

    "Yeah. You can google it. They don't know my last name though. I don't share much with the internet, but gauging from what I've learned from you, you don't share like anything."

    "I don't. They know my nickname Cal, and honestly, that's about it. I just, I don't want my online life meshing with my real life. Like, my friends and family don't even know that I stream or have this big following online. People have asked for a face reveal or even just a general description of myself but I always changed the subject or said soon."

    "I've only described what I look like," Clay said, "I think it was because they wanted to draw some fan art."

    "I've seen so much fan art of myself but it's kind of weird because it's not me you know? Most of the time, it's nowhere close to what I look like. It's cool to see how the fanbase imagines me though because it's different for everyone."

    "Yeah, I get that."

    "Okay, if I tell you my name, can you pinky promise not to tell anyone?"

    Clay's character shifted in front of me in our world, "I pinky promise."

    "The pinky promise is sacred, Dream," I spoke seriously.

    He chuckled, "Okay I pinky promise. Sacredly."

    We started punching each other in Minecraft to lighten the mood.

    "My name's Caelum."

    "Salem?"

    "Kind of."