『 @mystia_ch has invited you to join her server. 』
Iris opened her pale opal eyes.
She clicked on the transparent dialogue that floated in front of her body. There was a flash of light, and a cloud of digital pixels enveloped her holographic avatar. The pure white environment of her virtual console lobby melted away, and Iris felt as if she had been sucked into a wormhole leading to another world. The sensation was a slightly nauseating — a little bit like intense motion sickness — except most youth who grew up in Earth's 25th Century were already acclimated with the side effects of diving in virtual reality.
It was a nostalgic feeling.
As a teenager, Iris spent endless hours playing around with friends online.
Her eyes slowly came to focus inside a virtual server that was about the size of a small recording studio. The room was mostly unadorned, but it was already set up with a variety of instruments and mixing boards. A catgirl with flamboyant anime-style pink hair was already inside, nodding away to the strong beat in her headphones and adjusting the sound control knobs. The girl's name was Mystia, and this place was her virtual space for working magic.
Mystia turned around.
"Ah! You're here Cho!" She beamed with excitement, her cat ears twitching.
Iris frowned.
"It's weird if you use my real name when I'm using this avatar," Iris responded indignantly.
The pink-haired girl laughed and took off her headphones.
"I can't believe this is you. This is seriously fantastic! Your genderbent avatar is way better than I imagined. I really like the tomboyish look."
Iris turned her head away and averted her eyes awkwardly.
She had never shown her university colleagues any of her old female virtual reality avatars. Her model had an extremely plain appearance, which was exacerbated by the fact that she was dressed in baggy sweats. Combined with the fact that she had a short bob haircut, Iris didn't look very feminine. It was likely ill-suited for livestreaming to an audience that typically preferred anime girls, but Iris wasn't about to dump several hundred dollars on upgrading her old model for a random one-time specialty gig.
"I didn't know you were the type to prefer flat chests?" Mystia joked crudely. "Most transgirls that I've worked with usually go with something more feminine."
Iris shrugged, ignoring the verbal jab, and sat down on a folding chair. She began to unpack her guitar.
"This is actually an old avatar of mine from high school," Iris explained. "Besides, I'm only halfway transgender."
"Half, huh? So the rumors are true? You really are nonbinary?"
"Genderfluid. It takes too much energy to be a girl all the time."
Iris's voice was dull and flat. It was always exhausting trying to explain herself to real-life acquaintances who found out about her headache-inducing gender situation. In university, a lot of people knew that Iris was taking hormone therapy, but she still preferred to outwardly present as male among her classmates. Few people seemed to understand the apparent contradiction, and at a certain point Iris simply gave up trying to explain herself.
"Lol what? But even as a guy in real life, you're already cuter than most girls that I know. I've been dying to see you all dressed up ever since I met you these past few years."
Iris shot her friend an unhappy glare.
"I'm not trying to be cute."
"But that's exactly what makes you cute, Iris sweetie~"
"I'm not sure if I really like the idea of this..."
"Oh come on! I'm paying you to sing on my stream, so don't complain! I know you need the money."
"My voice is deep for a girl. I'm not sure if your viewers are going to like it. They're all anime otaku, right?"
"Are you kidding? I want you because your voice is so rich. Who cares for that high-pitched squeaky kawaii shit. You've got an incredible vocal range, and you're a student at a professional music conservatory for heaven's sake! I've heard you singing as a countertenor. You can easily pass for an alto or a contralto, and I love that unique raspy quality of your voice. It gives some extra oomph and hearty soul to your songs."
"I'm in the composition division... Mystia... I'm not aiming to be a professional singer.."
"Just trust me on this one, Cho, okay? Do this collab with me. If you hate it, you don't have to do it again."
Iris looked away and then down at her digital guitar.
She sighed.
+ + +
Iris strummed her guitar softly and cleared her throat a few times.
Her fingers wandered over the guitar strings automatically. Soft arpeggios floated up from her digital instrument, and the reverberating notes were as natural as her breathing. Truthfully, she was extremely nervous. She didn't normally perform for audiences this big, even if everything was on virtual reality.
Earlier in the week, she had glanced at Mystia's stream recordings, and the pink-haired catgirl was basically a multi-talented Internet idol. She could sing, dance, play FPS games, and she was incredibly funny simply being her natural enthusiastic self. That girl was pretty much everything that one might expect from a Vtuber on virtual reality, and she had a hefty following of several hundred thousand subscribers.
When Iris compared herself to her friend, there was no way she could fit in doing crazy things like that.
Iris was introverted, mellow, a little weird, and furthermore halfway transgender.
Although she was pretty good with a variety of different instruments, she didn't like being in the spotlight. This was why she applied to the composition division at Julliard. She loved making music, but it was better if she didn't have to be on the stage in front of enormous audiences who were bound to scrutinize her for all her flaws. As a composer, she could still treasure her precious songs from backstage.
Hopefully, she could let Mystia do all the talking when they went live.
She was just a guest on the stream today, anyways.
It would be fine if she stayed quiet most of the time.
"Sound check. One. Two." The catgirl tested the microphone.
Iris took a deep breath and closed her eyes.
"Alright, we're good! You ready to jam, Iris-chan?" Mystia asked while sticking her thumbs up.
The short-haired girl cringed a little bit at the weeaboo Japanese honorifics, but she nodded.
"We are live in: Three. Two. One."
Mystia pushed a button and the recording light blinked on.
A bright spotlight lit up the virtual studio.
∎
Half trans is such a goofy easy to describe being gender fluid
Can't wait to read more
Oh totally right?
You posted this story exactly on 2 AM. Is that intentional?
It’s not! It’s 1pm for me right now!
Disclaimers: This is a fictional world set in the future...
Now that makes sense.