The day after the Third-Gen Fitness Challenge:
“T-T-T-Tadasu-chan, you can’t leEeEeEeaAaAve!!!” Hikari Matsuriya wailed through the phone.
Tadasu Miyauchi winced visibly, recoiling a little.
“C-Calm down, Hikari-chan!” Chami Yanagase said. “Tadasu-chan didn’t say she was going to quit yet!”
“We’re literally not even two minutes into the conversation...” Mashiro Irodori added, a little exasperated. “Sorry, Tadasu-chan. I think I understand what’s going on. Don’t mind her, I’ll take care of it. Just talk!”
“Th-Thanks...” Tadasu muttered.
For her second round of advice, she had decided to call on the other members of third gen: Hikari, Chami, and Mashiro.
“Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!” Hikari started to cry.
Last time, Tadasu had come away from the discussion desperate for someone to give her a straightforward answer. This time, though...well, with Mashiro barely managing to corral things, it felt like the conversation might not even get off the ground.
She struggled to understand why Hikari had gotten so emotional so fast. On paper, they were just fellow streamers from the same org—acquaintances, really, who hadn’t had many collaborations or even deep conversations. Yet here was Hikari, breaking down as though Tadasu’s departure would tear her world apart.
Was that really just the kind of person Hikari was? Did she truly just throw herself into everything heart-first? Tadasu was once again struck by just how different people could be. It was baffling, really—that someone who barely knew her would be willing to bawl for her like this.
Baffling, but...not at all disagreeable.
After a while, Mashiro, used to her antics, was able to coax Hikari to calm down, and the conversation resumed.
“Right,” Mashiro said. “How about this? I’ll talk first, and you, Chami-chan, and you, Hikari-chan, can take that time to gather your own thoughts. Sound good?”
“Sounds good,” the two replied in unison.
“Good. Ahem. So, Tadasu-chan. Do you mind if I talk to you a little bit about responsibility?”
“Responsibility?” Tadasu echoed, puzzled.
Mashiro nodded. When she spoke next, her tone shifted—less like a fellow Live-Onner and more like someone who’d learned her lessons the hard way. “It’s a big change, stepping out into the real world for the first time. I’m sure you’ve heard this a million times by now, but out here, everything you do has consequences, and you’ve got to be ready to own up to them. I get it now. I didn’t always, and because I didn’t, I ended up causing some real trouble for Awa-chan and the others back in the day.”
There had been an incident not long after Mashiro’s debut, a mistake on stream that could have spiraled out of control if Awayuki hadn’t stepped in. It was a lesson Mashiro still carried with her to this day.
“As you start to put yourself out there, you’ll find that—despite school being your whole world up to now—the real world is much bigger. And it’s drier too.”
“I understand what you mean about consequences,” Tadasu said. “But what do you mean by ‘drier’?”
“I don’t really know how else to describe it. It’s just...dry out here. Parched, really. If school was an oasis, then adulthood is like being tossed out into a desert that stretches as far as the eye can see. When you’re in that oasis, things have a way of working themselves out. People forgive your mistakes, you get second chances if you just explain yourself. But out here, there’s none of that.”
She paused, taking a breath before continuing. “If your choices didn’t matter before, they matter a hell of a lot more now. Make a wrong turn, wander aimlessly, and the only person who ends up exhausted is you—and that’s if you’re lucky. God forbid you’re like me and hurt not only yourself, but the people you love most.”
Tadasu frowned. She’d never been good at these kinds of conversations. It wasn’t that she wanted to argue with Mashiro’s point—it was a common sentiment. And if everyone said it, then it must be true. But there was something about it that just never sat right with her. This unplaceable feeling hung there, tickling the inside of her chest, somewhere between acceptance and rejection, unsettling her without reason.
But this time, she’d sought out the advice herself, from a senior she trusted. No matter how much it gnawed at her, she wasn’t about to be rude or shut the conversation down halfway through. She steeled herself—heart and mind—to stay open, ready to accept whatever Mashiro might say next.
“But,” Mashiro added, her voice softening, “while the lows can be pretty low, the highs can also be incredibly high.”
Tadasu hummed softly in confusion. That wasn’t what she’d been expecting at all.
“If being an adult means getting hit with the consequences when things go wrong, it also means you get to savor the moments when they don’t. That success, that sense of reward, knowing it’s entirely yours—it’s like hitting the jackpot.”
Tadasu tilted her head slightly. “So, gambling.”
“Gambling? Aha ha. I guess it is, in a way. But you know—I’ve gone through a lot, but at the end of the day, I think I’ve won more often than not. If I wasn’t doing this, I wouldn’t have found myself among all these wonderful girls I’m privileged to call my friends. Wouldn’t get to say that I draw for a living. I mean, how many people in the world can boast that? The key is that there are certain things you can find that just don’t exist in the oasis.”
“What kind of things?”
“The kind you find at the end of a path you chose for yourself.”
Like a knife, that sentence plunged deep into Tadasu’s heart.
“Look, Tadasu-chan. What I’m trying to say is that the very fact you’re worrying about this means you’re stepping out of that safe place—you’re trying to figure out what really matters to you, what you want to take responsibility for. That’s not a bad thing, not always. As long as you stay mindful and keep pushing yourself, you’ll find your way to the path you truly want to walk.” With a wry smile, Mashiro added, “Maybe you’ll even come out of it with fewer bruises than I did.”
Cutting herself off there, she turned the stage over to her genmates. “Anyways, that’s all from me. Girls?”
Hikari, still sniffling, spoke next. “H-Hikari’s not so good at things like this, but she’ll try anyway. For Hikari, she thinks that whenever she’s in a rut or overwhelmed, her thoughts drift to the people who care most about her. It’s like, when we’re worried... Hm, how should Hikari phrase this? It’s like when we’re worried, we tend to give something to others to seek their approval, right?”
“You want to give something to others?” Tadasu shot back quizzically.
“Hikari doesn’t mean like a physical gift! It’s like effort, time, whatever!”
Tadasu’s expression softened, gaze shifting slightly as if piecing together a puzzle. “I think I understand, somehow,” she said after a pause.
The crux of what Hikari was trying to convey, as Tadasu understood it, was that people often try to secure a sense of belonging by offering something of themselves to those around them. It was the idea that we seek acceptance by proving our worth. Tadasu found herself understanding Hikari’s message, perhaps thanks to her past conversations with Dagger, who had a similar childlike way of expressing ideas.
“Really? Nice!” Hikari’s eyes lit up at the joy of being understood. “Anyway, Hikari doesn’t think that’s a bad thing. It’s just that it’s not...complete? You know? Yes, you can give, but more than that, there’s a sense of... Ah, how can Hikari say this...? Ah! She knows! There’s a song Hikari really likes right now, and in it, there’s a lyric that means, ‘Instead of focusing only on the things you’ve lost, why not be grateful for the things others have given you?’ That’s what Hikari wants to say.”
Tadasu hummed, mulling over Hikari’s words. She thought about, as Hikari had put it, the people who cared most about her. But to her, they felt more like “the people she hoped actually cared about her.”
At the same time, following this train of thought, Tadasu thought about the people she cared about, the people she didn’t want to burden or trouble. The fact that she thought of them this way, she realized, meant those people had given her something that made her want to protect them, a bond she didn’t want to betray. And wasn’t that exactly what Hikari was trying to convey? That meaningful connections in life were not one-sided, but built on mutual care and support?
And so it seemed that despite Hikari’s roundabout explanation, her words had properly resonated with Tadasu.
“Ahhh, Hikari’s head’s all spinning. Chami-chan, you’re up!”
“Already?! But I’m not quite ready yet!”
“It’s okay,” Tadasu reassured her. “Take your time.”
“Oh... Thanks?”
“All right, Chami-chan. You’re supposed to be the one giving advice here,” Mashiron quipped dryly, but she took that as a good sign. Tadasu was almost completely okay. She just needed one final push.