Akira resides at Takahashi’s Many Worlds, a virtual cafe complete with personal pods featuring a serviceable futon, shower facilities, and a small kitchenette. Reservations are typically not allowed. The owner is Ms. Eiko Takahashi. She sympathizes with Akira and the other young people who have been effectively exiled following the deaths of their families and despite government assistance. Before selling most of his belongings, Akira would spend whole afternoons plugged in—killing zombies, hitting home runs for the Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters to roaring applause. Since the plague, many more people have turned to VR to connect and to escape—new friends and lovers replace the dead, spending the day in pre-plague Japan, packed baseball stadiums and annual festivals attended by families who haven’t been torn apart. Lately, though, Akira prefers to hang out in the cafe lobby talking to Ms. Takahashi and the occasional tourist.
“People have come back outside onto the city streets, but notice how they keep their distance. Nobody smiles at each other. Everyone staring at their phones or lost in their augmented reality glasses,” Ms. Takahashi says.
“Strange opinion, seeing that you run a VR cafe,” Akira says.
Ms. Takahashi laughs and slaps Akira on the back. Around the cafe, the sounds of zombies and gunfire can be heard from the kiosks. At the community computers, a group of men chat with their hundred-yen-a-minute online girlfriends, airbrushed models from America and Russia. Poor Ryu, a cafe regular, has long been convinced that Natalia from Moscow is going to marry him someday. Just a little more money, she says. When are you coming to visit?, he says.
“Well, not everyone can afford their own VR system yet,” Ms. Takahashi explains. “At least not one that’s truly immersive.” She points to the posters behind the lobby desk advertising VR apps of tropical islands and singles mixers. “Everybody deserves a little time to feel normal. Maybe some people aren’t ready to be out in the real world just yet, you know? And judging from the logs, you’ve been spending a fair amount of time with these apps yourself.”
“Something to do,” Akira admits.
“Shoot ’em up games or something? Maybe love fantasies?” Ms. Takahashi jabs Akira in the side, laughing. “What kind of girls do you like? You seem like such a sweet boy.”
“That’s a secret,” Akira says.
As if Ms. Takahashi willed it into being, Akira receives a private message from a Yoshiko2376 that same night when he logs into his VR session: We have eaten from the same rice pot. The message floats in the air like smoke before it fades away . Unlike others who have opted for more familiar forms, save for pointed ears, a tail, or a set of wings, Yoshiko glided above the virtual ocean as a Pegasus with a silver mane. Akira noticed Yoshiko’s avatar right away. She galloped around the Greek amphitheater where they held support gatherings for plague survivors struggling with their second chance at life. Many attend these virtual meetups looking for a suicide partner—through door-to-door mercy services or by rope in Aokigahara Forest at the base of Mount Fuji—and Akira understands their loneliness, the memories and dreams lost during the outbreak. But he attends the meetings for his own reasons, to embrace the possibility of being someone else—a rockabilly greaser with a leather jacket, cool and confident. He comes to escape and remind himself what it feels like to belong among others who feel like they, too, don’t quite fit anywhere else. Akira can see ellipses on the horizon now, alerting him that Yoshiko is sending another message—a virtual address to her private island. He swipes left with his glove interface to open the navigation menu and transports himself to an arts and crafts shop filled with handmade trinkets, antique lamps, and vintage teddy bears. Behind the counter, Yoshiko as a Pegasus belts out a cheerful Irasshaimase!
“I liked what you shared in the group about feeling like the world only cares about traditional families and forgets about people who don’t have someone to lean on,” Yoshiko says.
Akira nods and explores Yoshiko’s store as he thinks about what to say. Even in a VR chat world dedicated to discussing the possibility of suicide, Akira doesn’t know a thing about how to talk to women. He’s only been on pseudo-dates, which were really just a group of friends going to the movies or the mall. His only romantic interest as an adult died during the outbreak before he could do anything more than smile at her when she took his order at the coffeehouse. Throughout the store are photos of a couple and a little girl, a wedding invitation, a pink kimono, a porcelain tea set. A pocket watch the size of a hubcap dangles from the ceiling. Every item seems to be a memento or a memory.