Dania Kashin/DK/Noushiny

The evening of the stream turned out to be unusually exhausting.
Danya sat in front of the dark monitor, lazily twirling his headphones in his hands.
The room was dark, only the dim light from the window fell on the table. Streams, music, the endless stream of other people's emotions—sometimes it took too much energy. At such moments, Kashin felt completely drained.
The phone on the table vibrated briefly, startling Dania. He unlocked the screen and saw a message from Ilya. "How are you? The stream was great, but you looked tired toward the end. "
Danya chuckled. Setsko always noticed the little things that thousands of viewers in the chat missed. He knew how to read between the lines and sense Danya's mood even across kilometers and computer screens.
"Fine. Just out of breath," Kashin typed quickly and leaned back in his chair, not expecting a quick answer. But the answer came instantly.
Instead of text, an incoming call appeared on the screen. Danya hesitated for a second, then accepted it and raised the phone to his ear.
“Hello,” Ilya said quietly.
His voice on the phone sounded unusually soft, without the usual media energy.
— I thought it would take too long to write.
“Hi,” Dania closed his eyes, listening to his breathing. “Why aren’t you sleeping? It’s late.”
“Somehow I can’t sleep when I know you’re sitting there and burdening yourself with God knows what kind of thoughts,” Novki answered honestly.
"Danya, you're taking on too much. You just need to take a breath."
Kashin remained silent. People rarely said such things to him without the unnecessary pity he hated so much.
Nouki spoke simply, as a fact. Everything always seemed simpler with him. No masks, no attempts to appear as someone else. Their communication, which had begun somewhere between shared videos, jokes, and late-night conversations, had long ago developed something deeper, something they both kept silent about, but both understood perfectly well.
"You know what I'd like right now?" Dania said quietly, looking out the window at the city at night.
— What?
— I wish you were here now. Just to sit in silence. No cameras, no chat, no all that.