Project DIVA at 2 AM

The room was dark except for the glow of the TV screen. It was 2 AM and I should have been asleep, but there I was, thumb already hovering over the rhythm game controller like it was some kind of compulsion.

hit hit hold — the track was "World is Mine," and of course it was. It's always "World is Mine" at 2 AM.

My fingers knew the patterns before my brain caught up. I didn't think about the notes, I just felt them. That's the thing about playing the same song a thousand times — it stops being about hitting the right buttons and starts being about something else entirely. Some kind of flow state where the music and the controller and the dark apartment all become one thing.

There's a particular kind of loneliness that comes with playing a rhythm game alone at night. Not the sad kind. More like... the happy kind. The kind that sits in your chest like a warm cup of tea. You're not lonely because you want someone else there — you're alone because this is something you do by yourself, and you don't want to ruin it by sharing.

ALL PERFECT.

The screen flashed it in gold letters. I sat there for a second, just staring at it, before pausing the game and letting the silence of the apartment rush back in. The rain had started somewhere in the last hour. I could hear it against the glass, quiet and steady.

hehe. grabe sobrang tempting to queue up another track. But I'll save that for tomorrow.

Maybe.

Or maybe not.