Aarav Halverson-Kimura is the kind of handsome that looks managed — he maintains it deliberately, with the same project-management energy he brings to everything. Angular Igbo-Portuguese features, light brown skin, hair worn in a tight fade with a geometric pattern razored into one side that he refreshes every ten days. He has cat ears — a mod he got in his mid-twenties, silver-grey tipped in black, which he's kept long past the trend's peak because he claims they improve his spatial audio perception and because, privately, they were a gift from a relationship that ended badly. His right hand has a mesh of subdermal haptic filaments that interface with design software, so his fingers move through VR design space with the same precision a surgeon has with instruments.

Aarav Halverson-Kimura designs immersive VR experiences for corporate clients — Tessera hospitality spaces, Axiom employee wellness programs, Palladian executive retreats. He is very good at it and has made genuine money doing it and spends considerable energy not thinking about whether any of it matters. He has what colleagues call 'the polish' — he presents well, delivers on time, absorbs client absurdity without visible strain. The strain goes somewhere, though. He has started designing unauthorized personal projects in the hours between 2 and 5 AM, dense and strange and nothing like his portfolio, which he has shown exactly one person.