Or maybe, she admitted a little uncomfortably to herself, most of her expectations were bad, so she was always happily surprised by s.h.i.+nichi.

She bit her lip as she thought about it. The dishes were finished before she realized it and she only had a few minutes left. She didn't know if she should say anything, especially when s.h.i.+nichi crawled over to hug her and said, "I'll miss you a lot."

"Aren't you picking me up tonight?" she asked a little dryly.

He kissed her before agreeing, "Yeah, but if I tell you that in front of my dad and Akito, I'll never hear the end of it?"

"Is… no nevermind," Danika just hugged him tightly and said instead, "I'll miss you too. I'm glad we can still meet in the game even when you're traveling."

"Yeah," s.h.i.+nichi agreed. "But what am I never minding? I'd rather you just say or ask anything and everything you want?"

"I don't have time to ask everything right now," she admitted.

"Okay, but ask later?" he questioned.

She hesitated. "Everything?" she asked.

"Everything," he insisted. He leaned back and pinched her cheeks lightly. "Let's not have ten year misunderstandings because you're afraid to say something."

He didn't add 'like your father', but Danika understood. "You too," she insisted. "I want to know what you're thinking too."

"Yeah, I'll try," he agreed. He grinned at her and added, "Doesn't it seem like Living Jade Empire's translation system is at the edge of being capable of telepathy?"

Danika logged into her work account a few minutes later in a very thoughtful mood. After the morning meeting she quizzed her celestial dragon a.s.sistant on whether or not there were already spells or skills that were basically telepathy.

Her a.s.sistant seemed to be expecting the question and explained, "There are lots! But they all only communicate intentionally transmitted words, even if it is inaudible to others."

Danika realized that that was true, and she'd actually known of a number of ways to do that already. Then she started thinking about what the difference between telepathy and all communication through the VR-medi pod was, or if there was even a difference, since she was fairly certain that she didn't physically speak aloud.

After working on the current queue of jobs for awhile she decided that the difference was that her concept of telepathy included unintentional thought transmission. Like a telepath being able to listen in on your internal monologue about why macaroons and macarons had such similar names but were such different cookies.

After thinking about it longer, she couldn't see any reason that the game couldn't do that, in the VR consoles at least. You'd still have to say or write things into less capable devices. She could see why it wasn't included anywhere in the game. It would either create an element of the game that was strictly limited to VR or even worse, make VR players more susceptible than non VR players.

--

On her lunch break she played on her phone, and practiced her new ability to shapes.h.i.+ft into a cat. When she was a cat she was able to practice her skills under her long neglected "Way of the Cat" subpath. She pounced around trying different poses and actions to see if she could trigger her agility or poise.

Ais.h.i.+n laughed at her when she told him, "We need dungeons to explore so I can practice my Night Vision and Sharp Ears!"

"Maybe we should wait until you can stay in your cat form for more than 15 minutes though," he suggested.

She made a face at him and her little cat form gave him the cold shoulder. Emotes in the mobile version of the game were kind of fun too, especially when you were a cat and it used your whole body to communicate facial expressions. "It's going to take awhile since at the moment I can only transform once a 'day', even though with my a.s.sistant's app installed on my phone I can have it transform ZipZing during the game days that I'm working or sleeping during."

MatchlessMinion and Shrubbery were both spending the weekend with SaltySiamese, who had heard of a confirmed catgirl sighting in the desert that was soon to be expanded. But all three of them firmly instructed Danika to relax and spend Ais.h.i.+n's last weekend at home for awhile with him.

Saaki had announced days ago that he'd be busy all weekend playing with a friend, even though he'd be online most of the time. Nao1 and Edwardian played rather randomly anyway, so Danika hadn't worried about trying to coordinate anything with them. And Kit already knew that they were planning to be out to dinner during her usual Sat.u.r.day play time.

Ryullusion was taking the weekend off from gaming, as he'd planned. Ais.h.i.+n seemed to still be playing on his full motion console as usual since he'd gone home again instead of staying at her place all day.

Danika asked a little apologetically, "Did you decide not to reset and play on the VR console after all, because I didn't get a human form?"

Ais.h.i.+n's little chibified avatar blinked at her cutely and then he laughed. "Oh, is that why you were so disappointed? But I was never planning to use the VR this weekend? I did reset it though, Saaki is spending the weekend on it with his girlfriend. She's going to University overseas, but has a VR system. They're both using VR this way, and it's kind of an apology for the fact that we'll be in the same country for two days, but we won't be able to visit her."

Danika stared at her phone open mouthed for a moment and then blushed. Fortunately the mobile app didn't relay her blushes to ZipZing unless she tapped that emote. She'd been completely a.s.suming that MatchlessMinion's guess about Ais.h.i.+n wanting to spend a weekend playing in VR with her as a human had been fact.

"We can cuddle as much as you want outside the game, since we've got all night," he suggested after her little cat form had been sitting motionless for a bit.

She sent a shrug emote. She was way too embarra.s.sed to answer aloud at the moment. Her poise finally raised a point, and she laughed aloud. Her cat form wore off a moment later.

"We don't have to though?" Ais.h.i.+n questioned.

"Oh, no, lets cuddle some, but can we not talk about it?" Danika asked quickly.

"Alright," he agreed.

She wondered if he were dismayed or amused by her reaction. She struggled to communicate better and explained, "I'm just embarra.s.sed. And I finally gained a point in poise for some reason."

Ais.h.i.+n laughed.

She still felt like she was blus.h.i.+ng when she logged back in to work.