As Awayuki and friends embodied the spirit of Live-On to its fullest, elsewhere, in less visible pastures, Tadasu and Churiri were holding up their own ends of the bargain.
Gen five’s Tadasu Miyauchi was at a crossroads. She had joined Live-On driven by a deep conviction. But when she’d come to realize this conviction was nothing more than a projection of her own personal fixations, she’d had a mental breakdown.
Tadasu was a girl who was drawn to order. She believed that “manners maketh man.” She prided herself on following rules, thought there was no greater ideal than to live a life of conformity. It was no surprise, then, that someone like her, who cherished such values, would look upon Live-On with a sense of unease. Its free-spirited nature stirred a burning restlessness in her, a vague but persistent sense of crisis at the idea that an entity like Live-On could not only exist in this world, but grow. Compelled by these feelings, she’d joined Live-On, hoping to root out what she saw as its core evil—but we all know how that played out.
Tadasu had hit a stumbling block almost immediately. Her first challenge—her first mistake—was to go against gen one’s Hareru Asagiri. Hareru told Tadasu that her convictions were nothing more than a means to justify her own idiosyncrasies—her overactive imagination, so to speak. Tadasu denied this, yet couldn’t dismiss the truth in Hareru’s words. Their encounter ended with Hareru convincing Tadasu to stay and experience Live-On for a while, to give herself time to reevaluate her stance. Diligently, Tadasu took on this mission. She streamed, interacted with the Live-On community and its personalities, all while keeping Hareru’s words at the back of her mind. Slowly but surely, she arrived at a conclusion.
Live-On wasn’t evil. Its members were tremendously quirky and had their share of strong fixations, but they were far from malicious, let alone a societal harm. It was this realization that began the undoing of Tadasu Miyauchi.
It felt like a denial of everything she was. Those pillars of righteousness she had built her life upon—were they nothing but lies? Did they only serve to mask her own flaws? If so, what was she doing here? Did she even have the right to criticize Live-On? Her sense of purpose crumbled, leaving her feeling like she belonged nowhere.
She knew she needed to act, but how? She couldn’t continue in this state, lest she drag down her genmates, the two people she had come to love the most. Anxiety-ridden and troubled, she grappled with the truth. The answer, however, was already within her grasp. It lay in the sense of crisis and urgency she had felt all along—if only she would stop turning a blind eye to it.
But an honest self-assessment rarely comes easily. Negative thoughts spiraled, drowning out everything else, and she withdrew into the solitude of her room. Yet even that sanctuary soon became unbearable. Desperate and at her breaking point, she turned to her genmates for help. With their support and comfort, Tadasu managed to regain a semblance of calm, enough to think clearly about her next steps.
Grasping for any ideas that might lead to a better outcome, she sought out Hareru once more. During their follow-up discussion, Hareru suggested that Tadasu speak directly with other Live-On members of her choosing, in order to hear their perspectives—which brings us to now, where Tadasu stood before gen two’s Sei Utsuki and gen four’s Kaeru Yamatani, ready to hear what they had to say.
“I think that about sums it up,” Tadasu concluded her rundown of the situation.
“I see, I see,” Sei murmured.
“Hm,” Kaeru hummed in thought.
An odd choice of confidantes, you might think, but Tadasu had her reasons for choosing them. You see, both of them had gone through, then overcome interpersonal issues in the past. Interpersonal relations were a major part of Tadasu’s current worries; by consulting these two, Tadasu hoped to garner something from their experiences, and perhaps come to terms with herself as those two had done.
“Some advice would be good,” Tadasu said curtly, before correcting herself: “Sorry, I suppose now of all times I should drop the haughty act and speak respectfully.”
“I’d rather you not,” Sei said. “Else it feels like Tadasu-kun as I know her is disappearing right before my very eyes.”
“And Kaeru’s never been one for the whole ‘polite speech’ thing,” Kaeru added.
“Oh, really?” Tadasu said, a little taken aback. She hadn’t expected Sei and Kaeru to set aside their own on-stream personas and take her so seriously.
“So, you’re worried about your future, are you?” Sei said. “Oh, what it is to be young.”
“How precious. Kaeru doesn’t feel remotely qualified to give advice to a budding woman in such a critical time of her life.”
“That’s not true!” Tadasu said. “You can tell me anything—anything at all, I’ll take it!”
Kaeru, hesitant, stuck to her silence, but Sei’s silence spoke louder, almost as if urging her to go first. Finally, Kaeru broke it with a dissatisfied groan. “Then I’ll go first?” she grumbled.
“Please!” Tadasu said.
“Kaeru...used to be a manga-ka. Though calling myself that might be a bit of a stretch—I didn’t sell a single copy. ‘Used to try to be a manga-ka’ is probably more accurate.”
“I think I’ve heard someone say that before,” Tadasu said.
“Really? Well, that might’ve been me. I bring it up on my stream now and then. It’s not exactly a secret.”
“I’ve studied all of the Live-On talents. Otherwise, I wouldn’t feel qualified to criticize them.”
“How...diligent of you? I guess? Anyway, whenever I bring it up on stream, my viewers always make fun of me. They say things like, ‘Yeah, right, like you could ever make it as a manga-ka.’”
Tadasu’s face scrunched. “That’s awful!”
“You’d think so, but I’m okay with it,” Kaeru replied. “I mean, I am a failed manga-ka. If getting teased about that is what keeps me far, far away from gainful employment, then so be it. But that’s not really the point. What I wanted to say is...I once had a goal. And I went after it with everything I had. I’d be up brainstorming storyboards till the early morning, drawing manuscripts until my hands went numb. I really thought I’d break if that dream of mine didn’t come true. And, well...I did break.”
Tadasu stayed quiet, letting Kaeru’s words settle.
“For a good long while, I was absolutely heartbroken,” Kaeru continued. “But looking back now, I have no regrets. Back then, being a manga-ka was everything to me, but now? It’s nothing. I’m a VTuber. I make baby noises for a living. People tease me about my manga-ka past, and I can laugh right along with them. Do you get what I’m trying to say?”
“I don’t think I do. Could you explain?” Tadasu urged.
“Right, let me try again,” she playfully scolded herself. “What I’m trying to say is that we’re not defined by any one thing we choose to do. As long as we’re alive, there’s always a ‘next.’ Especially for you, Tadasu-chan. You’re young. You possess endless possibilities. Like Zundamon. You can become baby too if you so desire.”
“I... Sorry, I don’t think I desire...”
“That’s a shame. But seriously, I’m not here to tell you to work yourself to the bone. There’s no point in telling someone that. If it’s something you truly want, something you believe in, you’ll work hard for it, no matter what anyone says. It’s when you start doing things you think matter to others, not to you, that you lose your way. Honestly, Kaeru doesn’t believe in ‘working hard’ at all. In fact, what is work, even? Because Kaeru is a baby.”
“Right...”
“Um, okay! That’s all from Kaeru. Sei-sama, you’re up!”
Kaeru, unable to handle the embarrassment of acting even slightly serious, couldn’t stick the landing and threw the baton straight to Sei, ready or not.
“You sure?” Sei teased. “But you’re doing so well, Kaeru-kun. Go on, talk. For another hour at least, until I’m satisfied.”
“You’ll be satisfied when I punch some sense into you,” Kaeru said, unamused.
“Sorry, I don’t do fisting.”
“Oh, don’t worry, these are going straight to the jaw.”
“F-F-F-F-Fisting—?!” Tadasu stammered. “What debauchery! You must be corrected!”
“Speaking of correction,” Sei said. “Tadasu-kun, why do you write your given name with ‘kyou’ (匡)? Isn’t ‘sei’ (正) more common? I looked it up and they seem to mean the same thing.”
“Huh?!” Tadasu yelped. “Because isn’t ‘sei’ (正) the character they use in doujins? To denote how many times someone’s had...”
“Horny,” both Sei and Kaeru said.
“N-No, I’m not!” a flustered Tadasu-kun shot back. “Stop changing the subject! Answer the question, Sei-sama!”
A placid meltwater lake to Tadasu’s babbling brook, Sei smiled and graciously moved on. “Very well. Tadasu-kun, you’ll be pleased to hear that I’ve distilled my wisdom down to a single sentence. And here it is: Worry away, teenage girl! While you still can. Whatever choices you make, just know that your future self will always be more than who you once were.”
With that poignant line, Tadasu’s first round of discussions drew to a close. After hanging up, she mulled over the words exchanged.
Kaeru and Sei. While both their messages resonated somewhat similarly, they remained distinct in their essence. That, of course, was obvious to Tadasu. People are all unique. Not only do individuals evolve differently based on their experiences, they all come into this world with minute variations locked into their genetic code. Even if they were to share identical experiences, they would still diverge in how they grow.
Disparate and lonely—to Tadasu, there were no better words to describe the human condition.