It was rare for trolls to storm Gamer Sheridan’s Twitch streams in recent days, but it still happened every now and then. The second Gamer Sheridan saw a john58437584 come in rampaging that Gamer was going to hell, Gamer had to stop whatever they were doing. Not to kick or ban them, not to set down the rules; no, to publicly humiliate them.

“Wow, everyone,” Gamer said with a snarl, “‘john58437584’ says I am going to hell. Whatever will I do, however will I cope?” In the interim, the chat flooded with messages telling Mr. 58437584 to GTFO, to cope, and then beginning to laugh at his stereotypical profile picture. Along the way, the rando’s anger flared up exponentially, only giving Gamer and the chat more laughing fodder.

“This is truly a bleak day for me,” Gamer started, continuing their full insanity Randomized Pokemon Emerald Nuzlocke as if nothing else was happening. “However, my eyes have been opened. I shall now cut my hair, change my name to Greg Gregory, and move to Buttfuck, Kansas to marry a lovely, chaste maiden named Emily Emilison. We will have 7 kids and tend to our farm daily.”

A couple folks added that the last part didn’t sound too bad, especially with Gamer’s shameless tweets about breeding kink on their main Twitter page. Gamer continued their relentless mockery, the troll becoming more and more angry until he stormed out furiously. But Gamer’s mods weren’t too keen on just letting him go scot-free — the second he said he was leaving, they banned him anyways. Gamer, after all, always had to have the last word. Always.

“This isn’t an airport, no need to announce your departure,” Gamer teased with a kiss to the screen. “Alright. Where were we?”

Gamer put down their controller, grabbed an overflowing handful of Doritos, and shoved it in their mouth. There was a good reason they kept a roll of paper towels by their desk. They didn’t care if it was stereotypical — Doritos and Mountain Dew never let them down, unlike some of their exes. 

Besides, who was going to tell them no? Gamer lived alone, was single, hadn’t had contact with their parents in years, and didn’t care what anyone thought of them. And that was just how they liked. Doing whatever they wanted, having no one telling them what to do, think, or say. It wasn’t like any of their viewers was going to. They were 99% needy bottom submissives, after all.

Gamer picked up their controller after reading through the torrent of chaos that had come with the pathetic attempt at trolling.

At least, they almost picked their controller up. But something stopped them from returning to their carefree stream.

They thought it was just a black speck of Dorito dust on their hand. But as soon as it actually came in view, Gamer — for once — fell silent.

“Gamer of Kari Castillo”

…Huh?

What?

Gamer physically felt their brain short-circuit. They saw a new torrent of curious messages come in from their chat, but they couldn’t process it. They couldn’t process anything.

“What?” Gamer finally exclaimed, their tone a mixture of rage, confusion, and shock.

Enough to surprise the chat, too. Gamer tried to read and process the mountain of words on their computer, but they couldn’t. They tried their hardest to brush off their moment - a futile effort - before giving up.

“Fellow gaymers,” they stammered, “it seems I am having a very un-gamer situation. Sorry to say, I’ve gotta — gotta cut stream short. I’ll see you later, and if you’re angry about the sudden end, uh… fuck you. Bye.”

That could have gone better. Immediately, they DMed one of their moderators and hastily wrote “please close things up ty”.

And then they forcefully shut off their computer, the first time they had since they bought it.

Their heart raced. They snatched a flashlight, dove under their bed covers, and flashed it towards their hand. Gamer knew it wouldn’t work, but they tried to smudge the mark off them with their thumb.

Nope. It was certainly not a hallucination, or an accidental pen slip, or a magically readable cluster of Dorito dust.

The tattoo on their skin was — beyond a shadow of a doubt — a Soulmark.

Gamer just stared at it for a while, unsure exactly of what to say or think. The easiest thing for them to do – although not the most moral – would be to blast it as a video. After all, it was the perfect bait – a genuine Soulmark, and it literally read ‘Gamer’. Of course, most people would assume it would be fake. But it sure would bring a ton of attention to them. And to their Soulmate’s, too.

Gamer tried to remember what some of their closest friends, what some of their mentors or the people they’d look up to, what they did upon finding their Soulmark.

Well, some handled it well, and some didn’t. That was a given for Soulmate marks. One would think they'd have figured out the science to predict this shit by now, but nope, guess biologists were too damn stupid. But for the most part, everyone in their inner circle had adjusted well, even with any initial conflict.

Which made sense as to why they felt some anxiety. ‘Partner’ or ‘Submissive’ made much more sense as a title than fucking ‘Gamer’. That was their name, their gender, their profession; all of those made some semblance of sense, even if ridiculous. How the fuck was it supposed to interpret as a relationship marker?

Games were easy to understand. Content creation, even though there was a ton to it, made sense. Relationships as a whole had some science or guidance to them. But Soulmarks? Soulmarks weren’t games. Gamer couldn’t even min-max Soulmarks.

Their spiral paused when they heard an all-too familiar sound. They slowly escaped from their blanket shield and pick up their phone. Gamer hesitated to open the Discord app, nervous to find a message from whoever Kari Castillo happened to be. Luckily, the icon in the corner was one Gamer recognized.

Of course, there were also hundreds of unread messages - but Gamer didn’t know which were random viewers and which were month-old messages they never responded to.

Gamer didn’t realize they were holding their breath until they let out a sigh of relief. They hadn’t realized their good University friend, Carlos Ellison-Vazquez, was on watch duty for that night. After all, Gamer usually threw together those schedules in a couple minutes – often using RNG – and never double checked it. But, Gamer was immensely grateful Carlos happened to be the moderator. Retreating back into their blanket fortress, they clicked on the message.

> Hey Gaymer. That was a pretty sudden log-off. You doing ok?

Gamer didn’t really know how to respond. What would they even tell Carlos? They didn’t really have anywhere else to go though, and they were more than certain they wouldn’t find any answers online.

They didn’t know how to describe their situation with words. But they’d try their best. Who’d care if they’d fuck this up? It wasn’t like Gamer had anyone to answer to.

Well, for now. Gamer despised the idea of letting anyone, let alone a total stranger, have any control over them.

Finally, they landed on asking if they could call Carlos.

Gamer finally laid down in their creaky bed. They hadn’t fixed the bedsheets in two weeks and had stopped cleaning up whatever spilled on it long ago.

Carlos responded accordingly.

>Yeah, sure. Give me one minute, I’ll be right there.

Gamer could sense the surprise in his message. Understandable – Gamer never used Discord for personal calls. To be fair, that was because they hated phone calls, period. Any calls they ever got were spam, interviews, or the exceedingly rare ignored call from their parents. Hell, if Gamer ever needed to call someone, they’d never bother asking.

Gamer quickly put themself back together, then connected their phone to their kitten ear headphones via Bluetooth and waited for the call.

Which came soon enough.

Gamer immediately picked up. They idly sat on their bed, their lanky, pale legs hanging off the edge. 

“Hey,” Gamer said, their voice its usual laidback tone.

“Hey Gamer,” Carlos replied. Usually he’d be typing some new program in the background, but the noise around his voice was eerily quiet. It seemed the whole world was, too. “What’s – what’s going on?”

Gamer put their legs together. Hanging them off didn’t feel right, so they readjusted into a cross-seated position on their bed frame. Already, it started to feel uncomfortable. “I, uh, I dunno how to say this.”

“It’s okay, man. Say as much or as little as you want.”

Gamer paused for another good while. “I got my Soulmark. I think.”

“Oh, shit.” Glad someone had the same reaction. “How are you feeling?”

“Bewildered. Mostly.”

“I hear you. That shit’s tough. Even was for me and Mina.” God, Gamer remembered that nightmare. They shuddered thinking about the weekend Carlos brought back Mina after first meeting her, and the heated argument that started mere hours after the fact. “Who’s it with?”

Gamer shook their head instinctively. “Someone named Kari Castillo. Does that ring a bell?”

“Nope. You know them?”

Gamer sighed. Of course Carlos didn’t, but they didn’t expect anything less.

“Want me to do some detective work?”

“Sure. Yeah. What’s your base fee again?” Gamer had asked the part-time PI to do some investigative work in the past – minor things, like threats or stalker-fans they’d encountered in the past, looking into an unknown organization requesting their presence to see if they were legitimate, and most importantly, looking into the cheapest deals on rare games on eBay.

“Don’t worry about it. This one’s on the house. A major firm just hired me, too, so I’ve got my bases covered.” Gamer knew Carlos said that to be helpful, but it only put more pressure on them. Who knew how frustrated he’d get once he heard the specifics?

Gamer sighed in relief, and thanked him.

“I got you. You’d do the same for me.” He probably was right. Gamer and Carlos had been randomly assigned as roommates in college, and had been one of the rare few that had stayed lifelong friends.

Gamer was ready to hang up and go back to their solitude. But then Carlos asked the question they dreaded.

“What kind of mark is it?”

Ugh. Gamer supposed there was no real way to get around this one. “It’s… a bit strange.”

Carlos unfortunately – and understandably – had no idea what Gamer insinuated. “Like, Owner/slave type stuff?”

That would have been better in almost every way. It would have made sense, let Gamer know how to go about it. And they had to admit, there was a burst of validation seeing the universe deemed their life as meant to be a gamer. It was another way to tie their identity to Gamer.

At least there was that. They were truly a Gamer, acknowledged by fate itself.

Gamer went back to slouching over their bed. “Gamer.”

The silence on the other end of the line swiftly turned from sympathetic to dumbstruck.

“That’s the Soulmark,” Gamer clarified. “‘Gamer of Kari Castillo’.”

More silence. Every millisecond of silence felt more agonizing than the last. Ugh, of course Carlos wasn’t going to take this seriously, no matter how good friends they were. Gamer’s streak of dramatic pranks and nonsensical hijinks probably didn’t contribute well to that fact.

“What?” Carlos finally spoke.

Gamer didn’t immediately reply. Instead, they took their phone, snapped a quick picture – even looking at it felt unreal – and swiftly sent it to Carlos.

More silence. Maybe that would convince him, though?

“Gamer, are you fucking with me right now?”

Just this once, Gamer kind of wished they were. “At least God finally acknowledged me as Assigned Gamer at Birth.”

Carlos gave a long, breathy exhale. He obviously wasn’t entirely convinced, but it wasn’t like he never did any work around Soulmarks and unusual situations involving such. Gamer kicked their legs back and forth, crossing their arms, waiting for Carlos to say something next.

Finally —

“Wow. That sure is a real fucking Soulmark.”

Gamer bit their lip. Of course they already knew that, but the thought of Carlos doubting them gave them a spike of indignation. Instead of saying whatever was on their mind, Gamer hummed an affirmative noise.

“Uh, so,” Carlos sighed. “Yeah, okay, I see why you’re confused. I am too.” Eventually, Gamer heard the loud, swift clicking of Carlos’ massive keyboard. Clearly, he started his research, as bewildered as he was.

“I feel like it should make sense, but it doesn’t. I’ve made gaming and streaming my whole identity, so now that it’s a Soulmark, I— why? Does the universe even know what a ‘Gamer’ is? Am I going to wake up tomorrow, have the sun go ‘oopsie doopsie!’ and have it change to an Owner mark overnight?” They shook their head. There was no need to disclose anymore to Carlos.

“Don’t worry. I’ve got you. I’m looking into them right now. Can you give me, like, fifteen min max?”

Gamer smirked and saw the opportunity. “Oh, if you find any way to min max Soulmarks, please let me know.”

That earned them a hearty laugh. “Will let you know if I come across anything.”

The call played out, both of them sitting in silence. Looking around their untidy room, Gamer caught a glimpse of themself in the window, behind the midnight scene of Sydney, Australia. With nothing better to do, and no real want to game or check the internet, Gamer combed their hair, wincing as they caught more than a few knots. Their fingers came out, the texture oily and gross. It wasn’t like Gamer never showered like some gamers. Their long, green hair was a beast to take care of, and whatever they did, they never got to shampoo every inch of it. Who could blame them? They had better things to do, after all. Like gaming.

“You there, Gamer?”

Gamer shot to attention, hissing as they combed out a final knot. “Yeah, I’m here.”

“I think I found her. Seems she’s another gaming streamer. Under the username KarinariPop.”

“Huh.” Gamer supposed that made sense, for their Soulmate to be in the same field. “Haven’t heard of her.”

“That’s not surprising, considering she only has two thousand followers on YouTube.”

Ah. That made more sense.

“She’s cute. You should look her up.”

Finally, Gamer got themself to stand up. Only then did they realize both of their legs had fallen fast asleep. Gamer winced as they walked over to their computer, pulling up KarinariPop’s YouTube within minutes.

They scrolled for a couple seconds. Gamer clicked their tongue in bemusement. It was hard not to laugh at what they saw. 

Well… everyone had to start somewhere, Gamer supposed.

Their profile was hardly fleshed out — their branding was all off, they had a single mic for audio equipment, and had the most basic content ever. Somewhere along the way, Gamer learned about boring business shit like branding and bookkeeping and taxes, though they usually offloaded those tasks to someone who cared more. KarinariPop – Kari Callisto – very clearly did this as a hobby. A very inconsistent hobby.

But they got a couple good looks at her. Gamer’s soulmate. What kind of mark did she have? Gamer instinctively went back into their cross-legged position, slouching over as they scrolled aimlessly.

She was cute. Her soft, small smile made her look authentic, unlike many of the cookie cutter content creators Gamer had gotten to know. Sure, her content strategy could use some work. But she looked genuine. When they came past a thumbnail of an excited Kari, on a 4-year-old video titled “I graduated college!!!” Gamer’s emotionally distant heart melted a little.

It wasn’t just that Kari looked cute. Gamer loved fucking with their friends and sort of loved ones. They could see the frustrated grimace Kari would give being put through Gamer’s shenanigans. The disgusted reactions to having to do as told… She looked almost… almost like prey. But ‘gamer’ wasn’t a kink nor an ownership mark. And even if it was, it didn’t necessarily make Kari their toy, their submissive.

Right?

Gamer grabbed a handful of Doritos — unsure how long they’d been out — before swiftly opening the rest of Kari’s socials. A couple messages from Carlos had come through, having dug up Kari’s personal pages. They whistled, “quick work.”

“Gotta be real, I work much quicker when a cute girl is the subject.”

“Ugh. That’s so straight.”

“You’re gay,” Carlos rebutted.

Gamer grinned. “At least I’m not straight.”

“Eh, you got me there.” 

The two laughed again, a fragment of levity returning to Gamer’s voice, commenting casually on whatever they could find.

When Gamer opened Twitter, the first thing they noticed was the slew of notifications and tags about their recent stream. The nosy tabloids had already been written and posted publicly. Even their close ‘friends’ talked about Gamer like they were a nuisance.

It wasn’t like they expected more, but as a surprise to Gamer, it still stung.

Gamer did all they could to divert their attention, turning back to the official KarinariPop account.

They weren’t sure why the location was the first thing their eyes landed on. But as soon as they saw it, their jaw dropped.

“New York City? In America?” Gamer exclaimed. “My Soulmate is on the other fucking side of the planet? Like I don’t have enough questions already?!”

Carlos hummed sympathetically. Gamer didn’t notice, but they’d been on call for almost an hour at that point. Even they were getting tired. “The Australian Office of Soulbond Partnerships often will pay for travel and lodging expenses, for Soulmates to meet.”

“Great. Travel. My favorite activity.” Gamer’s voice dripped with sarcasm. They detested traveling. Every second from leaving the house to coming home was a goddamn nightmare and a half, from going through TSA to finding out their agent didn’t book the tickets correctly. Traveling was by far the worst part of being a famous content creator.

But business was business, and their business required it of them. Damn it, if only their Soulmate was local, or at least on their side of the world.

“Well, uh, they may not fund that immediately,” Carlos interjected, “unless they’ve seen someone with the mark ‘Gamer’ before.”

Oh great. Their mark probably wasn’t registered. Well, that made sense, at least. Gamer felt that they were getting some sick sense of comeuppance from everyone they pissed off.

“Hey, Gamer? Someone’s, uh… in your Twitch chat.”

“Oh. Yeah?” Gamer switched tabs quickly off of their Soulmate’s socials, onto their own Twitch profile. Sure enough, some drama was going down.

Down low.

The first thing Gamer saw was a question asking to get in contact with Gamer Sheridan. Gamer snorted. It’d be nice to meet fans one-on-one more, but if Gamer allowed for that, their schedule would be booked to the second. The next thing they saw was everyone making fun of the poor lass.

And then Gamer saw the person asking for their presence.

“KarinariPop”. Kari Callisto, obviously.

Whatever sense of humor Gamer had brought to the surface instantly died. The words in their throat froze and sank back to their stomach.

“Should I intervene? Message them and put you two in contact?”

Gamer curled into their circle even deeper. “No,” they said quietly. “I’ll contact them tomorrow. At least they were easy to find.”

“That’s probably their username on Discord, too.”

Gamer looked to the ground. He was right — unless Kari was one of those people who wanted to keep her content creation ten miles away from her personal life. Gamer got the impression, though, that wasn’t the case.

One thought popped to the top of Gamer’s brain. One thought they kept silent.

Why is this so confusing?

After all, gaming was the core of Gamer’s life and identity. It should have made sense, but it didn’t.

“You should get some sleep,” Carlos spoke, “I can look into them some more. And I’ll take care of chat.”

Good ol’ chat. Gamer always had their notifications silenced, but it didn’t take more than two brain cells to imagine the commotion in their server, on their socials, everywhere.

“You will contact them tomorrow, right, Gamer?”

Gamer sighed with a heavily exaggerated tone. “Ugh, fine, dad.”

“Wow, I’ve been assigned as the dad friend. Cool. Though I’m disappointed you didn’t call me Daddy.”

“I’d rather jump off a cliff.”

Carlos laughed. “Alright. Get some sleep. Let me know how it goes.”

“Right.” Gamer longingly looked back outside. “Talk to you tomorrow.”

And then they hung up.

Gamer aimlessly tossed their phone behind them. It landed on their bed, flopping once or twice.

Realistically, Gamer knew they should follow Carlos’ advice and go to bed. They were exhausted — physically, mentally, and emotionally. Any more seconds they were going to stay awake would only be further detrimental. And yet, Gamer knew that they’d only be able to toss and turn in their old, springy mattress.

So they did not follow their dad friend’s advice, and instead, spent three hours combing through everything they could find out about Kari.

Unsurprisingly, she had gone radio silent on social media, too. So she definitely saw her own Soulmark, too.

Come to think of it, Gamer didn’t actually know what it was.

Which was fine. Gamer didn’t know what their own Soulmark was supposed to be, either.

~~

Gamer didn’t realize they had fallen asleep at their desk. They rubbed their eyes, looking around the room to remember what happened. It felt like they had some kind of sick, bad dream. That’d explain the anxiety nausea coursing through their digestive system. Maybe if they just distracted themself, it would—

Nope. The ‘Gamer of Kari Callisto’ Soulmark was still plastered on their hand.

Gamer shook their head. A pounding headache split their brain open. Gamer had their shit together always, without fail. To have them this confused and thrown off was an abnormality. A glitch of sorts.. In desperate need of caffeine - lots of it - they reached into their mini-fridge and pulled out an over-the-top Monster drink.

Kari Callisto. Another content creator — a novice, at that. One that lived way, way, way too far away.

How in the fuck was Gamer supposed to take care of this mess? Fuck, what even was Kari’s Soulmark? Maybe it was something more normal. Or, maybe not normal, but something that made sense.

Unsure what to expect, they opened their Twitter homepage.

As expected, it was pure chaos. Gamer took one look at the number of notifications. They opened the tab to mark it all as read, and left in a millisecond.

Okay. Contact Kari Callisto. That was easy enough. Sure enough, her Discord name was the exact same as everything else. So Gamer could easily send her a friend request.

Later.

Gamer promised Carlos they’d reach out today, but they needed to do it strategically. They might not have been able to treat it as a game, but they could at least strategize and used what they’d learned through their career. Instead, Gamer elected to just stalk Kari’s social media, learn everything to know about her, down to her height, weight, eye color, and phone number.

At least she was attractive. Gamer’s worst nightmare was being tied forever with some greasy incel who mansplained everything ever. 

All the while, Gamer pulled various snacks out of their pantry. Tired of getting up every fifteen minutes, they just pulled the whole box of snacks. They were starving. Most of Gamer’s meals wouldn’t fill them up - Doritos, cheese snacks, candy — but that was fine. They’d didn’t care too much. It was enough.

Gamer stared at the friend request button. Just press the button, they said. You’ve probably pressed millions of buttons. They giggled at their own thought, somehow sounding like an innuendo. Finally, Gamer held their breath, and clicked the button.

A friend request was sent.

Ugh. How were they even going to do this? Who knew how they were going to handle going to the Office of Soulbonds if they couldn’t send a fucking private message?

To be Gamer Sheridan, the star whose name circled the internet for years?

Or to be Gamer Sheridan, the shut-in who lived how they wanted, even if their decisions were bad for them?

To the vast majority of the world, Gamer was a character. Not a person. 99% of their relationships were purely parasocial, and any genuine relationships would fizzle in days, or would be kept at an arm’s length. And the moment of weakness they had was a huge problem. Clickbait articles had already been written, and the overenthusiastic fans sent plenty of death threats for ending the stream early. They didn’t care about that, though, that was the norm.

The character they’d adopted, the word ‘Gamer’ they adopted every way they could, it was at the core, a joke. Ironic. A way to build their character and gain more viewers. Gamer enjoyed it, of course; they wouldn’t have changed their name otherwise. But the word Gamer now had significance. It was no longer a joke. It was a responsibility, one only Gamer could take care of.

Whatever. They had to bite the bullet.

Truthfully, they didn’t know what to write.

So they went with the ol’ reliable.

“Hey”

“Sup”

Well. Now they really couldn’t take back their request or messages. All Gamer could do was wait. They pulled out another bottle of Monster. And another. They went to the basement to restock on junk food. No other screen or person mattered.

Honestly, Gamer’s goal wasn’t really to get in contact with their Soulmate.

Their goal was to figure out what the hell was going on.

Gamer shifted relentlessly between fidgeting and stimming anxiously in their chair, and sitting completely still, their head glued to the desk. Gamer had long ago taken a persona of not caring, making a joke or bit out of anything, taking whatever life threw at them with a shrug and a laid back attitude. That was what they showed on stream, on videos, on camera, and the times they’d have to meet fans at conventions.

Soon enough it became their whole personality, in the real world too. It was hard to faze Gamer.

Kari Callisto, somehow, accomplished that. And she didn’t even do anything.

Gamer held their face in their hands. They grasped at straws desperately, trying to get ahold of themself. Why were they so nervous? Hours ago, Gamer had laughed at a transphobic troll to thousands of viewers without thinking twice. Anxiety, dread, any kind of emotional or external factor, nothing stopped Gamer from doing or saying whatever the hell they wanted. Gamer was a fighter through their whole being. They weren’t someone to get anxious aside from jumpscares (and even those were often faked), let alone stew in their anxiety. They wanted to channel the Gamer Sheridan that the world knew.

A familiar sound pinged. Kari responded.

> Hi! Nice to meet you

Huh. Kari’s response was far more normal and agreeable than Gamer. It was almost impossible to read tone over text, even for those chronically online. A sentence could be read as terrifying or hilarious only by adding proper capitalization.

Their fingers hovered over the keyboard.

Gamer didn’t know what to write.

Kari had obviously heard of them. Who hadn’t? That wasn’t Gamer being narcissistic. It was realistic.

Maybe it was narcissistic. Gamer didn’t care how one referred to their objective notoriety, really.

They got off of their chair, walking around their apartment until they could come up with a good response. Nothing came to them. Gamer grasped their hair and continued pulling knots out of it, groaning in frustration.

“Come on brain, think of things,” Gamer murmured, “come on brain, be so smart.”

It didn’t work.

After an agonizing time, Gamer sat back at their desk.

Kari messaged ten minutes ago. Thirty minutes after their last message.

> Can we please talk a little?

Why did the phrase ‘we need to talk’, or any variations of it, feel like a bear was stalking them as prey? Gamer wanted to give some kind of snarky reply, something in line with their online persona. They smirked at the idea and almost sent something like that. Almost. But they deleted it and sent a new message.

> yeah call u in 2 min

Gamer hit send before they could look it over. And then realized they had a burning dilemma.

Why did they say 2 minutes?

> OK! Ready when you are.

A minute passed. Then two minutes. Something stopped Gamer in their tracks. How did they want to present themself? Did they want to treat the call like they were talking to an avid viewer? Or did Gamer want to be authentic, whatever that looked like?

Gamer continued to consume an inhuman amount of snacks and energy drinks, trying to motivate themself. The caffeine probably didn’t help, their heart pounding harder, and harder, and harder, at an impeccable speed and acceleration. They typed scripts for what to say to Kari. They sleuthed their socials, going back to posts over ten years old.

“Ready when you are.”

Gamer didn’t want to admit it, even to their Soulmate. But Gamer wasn’t ready. They weren’t ready for the responsibility, duty, and vulnerability that came with relationships, let alone Soulmarks. They lived alone and followed their own rules, or lack thereof. They didn’t need someone telling them what to do.

So… Kari would understand if they needed some more time. Kari had to understand. She was their Soulmate.

So time passed. Gamer kept trying to justify their delay, or find false excuses. 

Gamer turned back to their games for a while, pulling out the closest comfort title they could find – Celeste, in this case – and slapping it on. They threw on their noise-canceling headphones and let themself get lost, almost into a dissociative state. Nothing mattered except themself and whatever they were playing. Video games were the ultimate comfort, and anyone who said otherwise was objectively incorrect.

Hours passed. Gamer didn’t want to talk to Kari. Why? Maybe it felt like, if they accepted their Soulmark, it would be giving their independence up, now having to care for another person.

But then Gamer lost on the most frustrating part to them, and they sighed. Alright. They had to do this.

Gamer slowly crept back to their computer, sitting in their awkward position.

They could do this.

Gamer Sheridan wouldn’t care if it went wrong.

Holding their breath, they adjusted their kitten ear headphones, and pressed the video call. As that annoying sound played, Gamer fixed their hair as best they could.

Part of them hoped that Kari wouldn’t respond, somehow thinking that it would absolve them of this responsibility.

Nah, though. The call was answered almost immediately.

Kari’s face popped on the screen almost as quickly as Gamer’s did. She was significantly less dressed up than she looked on cameras. Her hair was disheveled, her eyes were covered with comically large, tired bags, and much like Gamer, she wore little to no makeup.

The next thing Gamer noticed was that Kari’s teeth were clenched, her eyebrows furrowed tightly. She stared at Gamer impatiently, at if waiting for Gamer to explain their absence.

Yeah. Maybe Gamer waited a bit more than two minutes. And maybe that was a mistake.

“Hi, Gamer. I’m Kari Callisto.” Kari spoke methodically. She wasn’t screaming at Gamer, and her voice wasn’t even that cold or distant, but something in her tone made Gamer almost defensive. Maybe Kari wanted to scream at Gamer, but was holding herself back.

Gamer knew this was going to be a tense call. “Hi. I’m Gamer Sheridan. You probably know that, though.”

Kari exhaled. “Just want you to know, it’s pretty late where I am,” Kari said. “So I would have appreciated knowing if you were going to take longer than two minutes.”

Well, this was starting off poorly. But Gamer could salvage this. And if they couldn’t, what would it matter to either of them?

It took a moment for Gamer to respond. Even thinking of what to say was difficult. “I… sorry.”

Kari exhaled, rubbing her temples. Gamer stared at themself in the corner of the screen. Needing something to do with their hands, they swiped a scrunchie off their desk and put their hair into a messy bun.

“It’s fine. So, we both have Soulmarks. What does yours say?”

“Huh? Oh, right.” Gamer held their palm to the camera, then read it off as if Kari couldn’t. “Gamer of Kari Callisto.”

Kari’s face twisted. She didn’t respond immediately, but Gamer could almost hear her scream ‘are you serious’? The tension began to get under Gamer’s skin, and they thought of some kind of joke or bit or a way to make this any easier.

“The universe has finally acknowledged me as AGAB, assigned—“

“Gamer at birth. Yeah, I get the joke. What even made you pick the name Gamer?”

Gamer shrugged, trying to brush off Kari’s question. “It suited me best.”

“Right,” Kari looked down. It was hard to tell, but Gamer could guess she was clenching her fists.

Almost like someone put the thought into Gamer’s head ala Zero Escape, Gamer briefly daydreamed of putting their hand on Kari’s. They shook their head, trying to get that thought out of their brain. Earfucking themself would do the trick, but now wasn’t the time for that.

“What does yours say?” Gamer shifted the topic. They needed to know more about Kari, and why they were matched together.

Kari scratched the back of her head and looked away from the camera. “That’s — I can tell you after. We need to figure out—“

“Nuh uh uh.” That moment of playful teasing brought a smile on Gamer’s face, especially after seeing Kari groan. “I told you. Now you tell me. That’s fair, isn’t it? Games are supposed to be fair.”

“This isn’t a game,” Kari hissed.

“It might as well be, since I’m your Gamer. Does this mean I get to play you like a fiddle, or like Fortnite?”

Kari shut her eyes, clenched her teeth, and then relaxed herself. Finally, almost to shut Gamer up, she held her palm to the camera.

As if Gamer’s wasn’t strange enough, Kari’s was somehow even more bizarre.

“Discord Mod of Gamer Sheridan”.

Discord Mod.

Discord, the app they were using to talk. Did… that mean Gamer’s server? What the fuck? Gamer sure wasn’t going just let some rando walk in and become a moderator for their server. Gamer already had a whole team of a dozen mods and four admins, separate from Gamer themself. Did Kari even have any experience with Discord modding, or any kind of community management?

“Uh…” Gamer couldn’t hide their confusion or bewilderment any longer.

“Yeah,” Kari said icily.

“Do you… have any experience with Discord modding?”

Kari shrugged. “I’ve got my own little fan server with, like, a hundred people in it. My friend helps me.”

Oof.

“So… we’re going to have to train you to be a proper Discord Mod then.” The more toppy this bizarre dynamic sounded, the more into it Gamer was. Hiding their smirk was impossible, and that only got under Kari’s skin further.

“No, I’m not dedicating my life to making sure your simps are in check!” Her voice hadn’t turned into shouting, not yet, at least.

“It seems like that’s what the universe wants you to do.”

“Fuck no!” 

Gamer flinched at Kari’s sudden outburst. 

“There… there has to be some kind of secret to this. Why the fuck would the universe assign me something like this?! Yours, I can understand. You’ve made gaming your entire identity. So much so that you’re conceited, and obnoxious, and all you care about is getting clicks and subscriptions! I bet you don’t even care about what you play, you just want to show off like a attention—“

“Shut up.”

The words died in Kari’s throat, and she stared into the screen. Her anger had turned into indignity. To be honest, Gamer wasn’t sure why they said that. Kari’s words were hurtful, sure, but Gamer had heard far worse. And Gamer hadn’t told anyone to shut up, or stop talking, before. They just watched whoever was rambling drive themself into a hole.

But Kari stopped talking for a moment.

And Gamer’s heart raced. Butterflies and heat filled their body.

“What?”

Gamer didn’t have to think before speaking. “I said shut up. I don’t need to hear your insults or baseless accusations. We’re in a weird situation, yeah. But that doesn’t mean you get to say whatever you want to me. There are rules, rules you need to follow, as my Discord Mod.”

Kari’s mouth hung open. She reached for the words, but couldn’t find any sort of retort. Oh, now this was getting interesting. Gamer didn’t know exactly what either of their marks were intended to be, but taking over Kari, and forcing her into the submissive position…

It made Gamer much, much more comfortable with the idea.

“I… I… you can’t…”

“I can. I just did. What are you going to do? Burn that Soulmark off of you?”

“No, I—“

“Then cope.” The word wasn’t a question, or suggestion. It was an order. Kari, as furious as she was, followed it. Even Gamer wasn’t sure why, but it didn’t matter. The show of dominance put Kari in their place — presumably.

“I’m going to send you a link to my Discord. You’re going to join, and not say anything. I’m going to give you access to the Mod channels, and when it’s not the middle of the night for you, I’m going to introduce you to everyone.”

“You can’t just decide that!”

“Oh yeah?”

Gamer was getting a lot — a lot of out toying with their soulmate. It was one thing to put trolls down and shut them up for good, but doing it to their soulmate gave Gamer a different kind of visceral rush. One they didn’t know they needed.

They grabbed a link to their server, usually reserved only for Gamer’s subscribers, and dropped it in the chat with Kari.

Gamer stared directly into the camera — directly into Kari’s eyes. They didn’t even blink.

Kari sighed, and looked down. Moments later, a message popped up in the welcome channel.

> KarinariPop has joined. Get the pizza out.

“Good Mod.”

“‘Mod’ better not become my pet name,” Kari grumbled.

Gamer smirked. They were having much more fun than Kari, that much was obvious, but Gamer would be surprised if Kari wasn’t going with it at least a little. At least subconsciously. “I don’t think that’s for you to decide, Mod.”

Already, people were sending a slew of welcome messages, some with inside jokes Gamer had established long ago.

Kari looked away from the camera. Their blushing was only more visible this way, but she probably didn’t know or care. “So what now?”

“What… now?”

“Yeah. There’s a bunch of legal crap we have to deal with — both of us — especially since we live on entirely different continents. I already went to my bureaucratic hellhole. You’re gonna go to yours, right?”

Gamer exhaled through their bared teeth. “You don’t need to tell me.”

“Yeah, I do. Because I’m your Mod.” Kari smirked at the wide-eyed Gamer, having turned the tables on them. “Seems travel arrangements will be made, funded by the government.”

That was most likely accurate. The US was particularly anal about those kinds of things, even for non-traditional dynamics. 

“Tell me you’re going to go tomorrow,” Kari ordered.

Gamer smirked, and leaned in. “Maybe I will, maybe I won’t.”

“Ugh,” Kari roared, “you are so fucking—“

“Sorry, sorry,” Gamer raised their hands in false innocence. “I’ll go tomorrow. Aight? And your assignment tomorrow is to introduce yourself to the other mods and admins. Don’t say your soulmark for now. We’ll have a video meeting where we’ll explain everything — including your role and responsibilities.”

Gamer could almost see the hairs on Kari’s skin stand when Gamer said the word ‘responsibilities’. After much exacerbation, Kari finally agreed with an affirmative.

“Good Mod.” Kari winced even harder than when Gamer said that term the first time. Gamer adored it. “Go to sleep. We’ll talk tomorrow. Got it?”

“…Yeah,” Kari responded with a low, soft voice.

“See you tomorrow, fellow gamer.”

Kari didn’t return the salutation, and ended the call, without even looking at Gamer before doing so.

It stung, Gamer had to admit. But part of them loved seeing the resistance, the struggle.

That didn’t mean Gamer didn’t still have questions. Kari probably had more questions than when they met just now.

Gamer stared at the chat screen with Kari for a while. A part of them wanted to call Kari again, hear her talk again, tease her and put her in her rightful place.

But not today.

They had one task: go to the Australian Soulmates Office. 

Gamer groaned. Sadly, that involved going outside. Leaving their house to go somewhere unfamiliar was like a lesser, still annoying version of traveling.

And the last thing they wanted was to be recognized. They threw on their classic blending in outfit, hiding their long green hair under a hoodie, and took a deep breath.

“You can do this,” Gamer reassured themself, “You have to do this.”

And then they left. All the while, all they could think about was Kari Callisto.