There was a soft nudge on Ilani's shoulder.

She mumbled incomprehensibly and only shifted a little bit to the side. The desk in front of her was blanketed with sheet music, and the girl's limp torso was sprawled over the wooden surface. It was obvious that she had been fumbling around with the digital piano, except at some point she must have fallen asleep in the recording studio.

Esme sighed as she waited for her virtual reality connection to stabilize.

"Cho, if you fall asleep online, you're going to wake up with a sore neck tomorrow."

She nudged the sleeping girl a little harder. In the real world, she had come home from work and found Cho unconscious on the couch with a virtual reality headset on his head. He was evidently in the middle of a dive, except he wasn't sitting on the sofa with the best posture for an overnight session. 

As a veteran on virtual reality, Esme knew from personal experience that waking up in the morning with a sore neck was quite an unpleasant experience. It was much better to dive from bed if there was any risk of falling asleep in the digital world. Most virtual reality consoles worked by paralyzing major muscle groups of a user's true body, so it was important to get into a comfortable position before beginning a dive. The technology actually had a number of safety hazards, and every year there were numerous accidents from people who used the equipment incorrectly. All customers were required to undergo safety training before purchasing a console, but the injury rate was still comparable to the number of motor vehicle deaths every year. These VR visors were about as dangerous as driving a car, so it was important to take safety seriously.

Esme flicked Cho's avatar in the forehead.

The tomboyish musician finally stirred and clutched her brow.

"Ow..." Ilani mumbled half-asleep.

"Mornin'," Esme said dryly. "Did you enjoy your nap?"

"What time is it?"

Ilani drearily pulled herself up and immediately went back to rummaging around her pile of sheet music. There was a particular song that she had been looking for, except she had gotten distracted from her project and ended up browsing all sorts of different sheet music in Esme's collection. The girl had an eclectic collection of songs, and she had very diverse taste for music.

At some point, Ilani must have dozed off while sorting through the papers.

"Almost two o'clock in the morning. I just got back from work."

Esme tilted her head, and the cat ears on her head twitched. Currently she was in her pink-haired "Mystia" avatar, which came with a fully functional cat tail. The neko reached for her headphones with her flexible tail and picked it up casually while she booted up a number of networking applications on her server. 

Ilani suddenly had a skeptical look.

"You're not going to bed?"

"I still have streaming to do, Cho."

Esme spun her headphones leisurely around her finger.

"But it's 2AM?"

"It's 11PM on the West Coast, 6PM in Sydney, 4PM in Tokyo, and 7AM in London. It's a perfect time to stream."

"Do you ever sleep, Esme?"

"Mystia," she corrected her. "Let's stick with using stage names when I'm on the recording booth."

Ilani frowned. It obviously wasn't healthy to be sleeping so little, and Esme had numerous questionable health habits. They hadn't even been living together for a single day, and Ilani was already getting a sense that the internet idol was quite different from the shiny persona that she normally put on in public. They really weren't even that close, and at best they were just colleagues who happened to collaborate several times in the past. 

"You're not going to ask me to stream with you...?"

"Mm... nope!" Esme said cheerfully. "You look sleepy."

Ilani sighed with relief.

"You're welcome to join me though!" Esme ventured playfully.

"Um, no thanks."

The catgirl shrugged and clicked on the recording light.

+ + +

Ilani listened to Mystia chattering away on camera for a short while before zoning her out. 

Mystia's private server was not particularly large, and it was only powerful enough to render a digital space the size of a small studio apartment. While it was tiny in comparison with many virtual reality gaming servers, these types of mico-servers were popular among professionals who spent their day jobs on virtual reality.

Ilani would have to remain quiet to avoid disturbing Mystia's streams, which meant that she couldn't play with the instruments in the studio. There wasn't much purpose in her staying online anymore, so Ilani figured that perhaps it was time for her to log off and get to bed for real.

That said...

Ilani slid off her chair and sprawled with her limbs apart on the carpeted floor.

She stared at the ceiling.

In real life, many recording studios had carpeted floors to dampen noise. It was really amazing how much attention to detail virtual reality engineers put into creating digital environments, and everything felt extremely realistic. It had only been a couple years since Ilani had last been active online before she got too busy with music school, but technology seemed to advance so fast. The headset she was borrowing from Esme was also incredible. 

Thinking about herself from back in high school... she had definitely been addicted to virtual reality.

It had been hard to avoid the temptations of the digital world. Online... it was possible to become anyone or anything. For many people similar to herself, it was very common for one's digital avatar to eventually seem more "real" than one's offline self. That kind of story was almost cliche, especially among transgender communities.

Those digital years were a really precious and formative time of her teenage youth.

But it was also very dark.

Virtual reality was a spiraling addiction and an endless rabbit hole.

Many people who dived too deep into it suffered the repercussions in the real world. It was an expensive hobby, and Ilani had seen many friends and acquaintances fall apart after spending twelve or more hours every day online. Fortunately, she had escaped the addiction when she started focusing seriously on pursuing music, but it was extremely nostalgic to be back in this old female avatar of hers.

She wondered if some of her old friends were still okay.

Ilani reached for a nearby electric guitar, disconnected it from the amp, and set the volume to zero.

While she laid on the floor with the guitar on her chest, she strummed inaudible chords and hummed quietly to a silent accompaniment.

The music that she was making was inside her head.

∎