When Esme woke up in the morning, Ilani immediately asked how she managed to answer all the fanmail that she received. He had spent the past hour typing away at his phone, messaging back random strangers on Twitter while wrapped in a heavy blanket on the living room couch. 

The sleepy Internet celebrity was in the middle of pouring herself a bowl of cereal when her eyes went completely blank. 

"Fan mail?" Esme asked in confusion.

"You know, like direct messages on Twitter? They won't stop coming in my inbox."

...

She was suddenly speechless.

"You've been replying to those?" Esme said incredulously.

"Should I not be?" Ilani sounded confused.

The bronze-skinned girl struggled to come up with words. She hadn't realized until now that her 21-year-old guest was that hopeless. Moreover, it was basic Internet safety. In this industry in particular, most people disabled direct messages from strangers in their privacy settings. As an idol, there were bound to be creepy stalkers sooner or later, so it was better to eliminate any potential for trouble early.

"It's not really private," Esme pointed out to Ilani. "Anyone could screenshot the conversations you have with them, and it could lead to drama in the future. If anyone has anything to say to you, they can just post it on your public profile. It's much safer that way."

"Oh."

The asian boy suddenly went quiet.

He was still fiddling with his phone, and his fingers continued to tap rapidly over the tiny touch screen. Ilani looked engrossed, as if he was absorbed in a conversation with someone else on the digital world. Even though she knew it wasn't good to pry into other peoples' affairs, Esme was suddenly curious. Who was Ilani talking to?

She scooped a few more spoonfuls of cereal as she furtively glanced at Ilani through her peripheral vision.

The Juilliard student was really quite strange. Esme couldn't quite pinpoint why she felt this way, but he sort of reminded her of a sleepy cat. He had sort of a wispy and spacey aura, kind of like someone who was constantly daydreaming and living in another world. His soft and delicate black hair was a practically a fluffy cloud, the kind that made you want to pet it softly.

Esme adjusted her glasses and cleared her throat.

"What are you up to, Cho?" She asked innocently.

"I'm looking through part-time job postings," Ilani replied. "I don't want to freeload at your place without contributing anything, so I'll do my best to find a part-time job to help with paying rent."

"What about streaming? That counts as a part time job."

"I'd rather not... to be totally honest... It doesn't sit right with me."

Esme sighed deeply. 

She wasn't going to press any further, but she was disappointed to hear Ilani's refusal. There was no way to get him to do it if he didn't want to, but her channel would have benefited immensely if someone as talented as Ilani became a regular guest on her stream.

It wasn't something that she tended to talk much about, but Esme was self-aware of the fact that her viewership had plateaued around 230,000 subscribers. It was difficult to consistently deliver interesting content, and Esme frankly wasn't as talented or skilled as many of her competitors in the Vtuber industry. Some people called her streams "boring", and she didn't have anything special to offer. At the end of the day, "Mystia" was just a minor independent Vtuber that barely registered on peoples' radars.

If she didn't actively pursue as many collaborations as she did, Esme would probably fade into obscurity.

It wasn't easy to pursue a career as an Internet idol.

Esme sat blankly with her bowl of milk, stirring the cereal flakes with her spoon.

Suddenly, she brightened up for a moment.

"Hey Cho," she said. "There's a Christmas party with a bunch of streamers in our community today. It's off-camera, and a few of them there have connections to the music industry. If you're looking for a part-time job, why not go for something music-related? If you speak to the right person, maybe you could get a job as a stage musician or a backup singer."

There was hopeful twinkle in her eyes.

+ + +

Later in the day, Ilani was back on virtual reality.

As usual, for these types of social events, she was incredibly awkward. Mystia (Esme) was busy fluttering around the room dragging Iris (Ilani) around to various acquaintances and introducing her to them. It was a very large Christmas party, and Ilani rapidly lost track of people that she met. However, she had come mostly for the networking opportunity, and within half an hour she had given out dozens of digital business cards.

Of course, Ilani felt awkward — most people were here to relax with their friends — so it was probably annoying to have a stranger running around blatantly looking for a job at a large Christmas party. However, Esme was incredibly shameless, and she crawled around the server saying hello to practically anyone that she thought was relevant.

There were a number of more famous Vtubers present at the private Christmas event, and plenty of streamers had over a million subscribers, but the event was mostly casual. There were also producers, managers, and other technical behind-the-scenes staff present at the event, so it was really interesting to get to meet the sound directors and animators. In the bigger agencies, sometimes there were up to thirty employees supporting a single Internet idol.

Ilani got one or two inquiries about her credentials or a portfolio — which caused her to stumble because she hadn't quite prepared a resume for her @iris_muse account. Specifically, she had nothing to show or prove her identity, which earned her a lot of bizarre looks from the managing directors of various agencies. Why would anyone attend a networking event without doing the minimum preparatory work?

It left Ilani feeling quite dour and downcast.

Maybe attending this Christmas party at the last minute really was a mistake.

In the beginning, she had been excited at the idea of being able to play music as a part-time job instead of washing dishes, but Ilani quickly realized that she clearly wasn't ready. Furthermore, almost everyone at this event was only interested in virtual employment, and no one was hiring for in-person jobs in real life.

Ilani ended up sulking by herself near the chocolate fountain.

+ + +

Unexpectedly, a tall shadow approached her from the corner of her vision.

"Iris?" A deeply-voiced man asked.

Ilani looked up in confusion.

"Yes?"

"Ah! So you're the mysterious guest that showed up on Mystia's stream that other day."

"Um... yeah, that would be me, I guess," she responded warily, eyeing the stranger who came out of the blue.

He was dressed plainly, almost entirely in solid patternless black. It reminded her a lot of classic backstage attire in live theater, except in virtual reality there was no need to dress in black to avoid the spotlight on stage. 

"Mystia is great," he smiled proudly. "There's a few of us who are part of the same indie circle. Have you heard of Hanabi? We're sort of a group of streamers who often collaborate with each other. Not me though — I'm a backstage guy. You can call me @cosine."

"It's nice to meet you."

"Have you met @Fleure?" Cosine asked. "She's the best vocalist in our group. Actually, you reminded me a lot of her, and you're both flower-themed."

He laughed and turned around, pointing into a crowd of people.

"See the girl with silver hair? That's our miracle girl."

Cosine grinned at Ilani.

"I'd love to see you sing with us, but can you outshine our star?"

∎