“It’s nice to have coworkers who are mostly your age, isn’t it?”
“Did you know it’s considered rude to ask people their ages?”
“Oh, but you’d ask a baby their age, wouldn’t you? Kaeru-chan, how old are you? Can you show me with your fingers? How many is it?”
“Um, let’s see. Kaeru’s got no fingers up on this hand, and on her chopsticks-holding hand...one...two...three!”
“Huh? What are you— Oh, I see! Finger binary, huh.”
“Kaeru’s a virtual tuber, after all.”
“Yes, but maybe not that virtual. Oh, well. By the way, how do you feel about the person I’m competing against?”
“Hareru-senpai? She’s still intimidating in some ways, but she’s always very up-front with Kaeru, which Kaeru really appreciates.”
“She can be overly attentive, which can come off as overbearing. But it also means she tends to overthink things and hold herself back. So don’t be afraid to be a bit more assertive around her.”
“Well, if you, one of the mommies closest to her, says so, then who is Kaeru to say otherwise? Kaeru shall go on the offensive the next time she sees her.”
“That’s the spirit. First gen, shmirst gen! Make her your mommy all the same!”
: I can't blame Ehrai-chan. Getting accepted into Live-On is already enough cause to start giving up
: she always did say she wants people to have a deeper impression of animals that goes beyond their cute or cool appearances
: the boss doesn't do baby play, but maybe she'll do Child's Play?
: LMAO how in the world did you figure out it was finger binary
: For those who still don't get it, close your left hand into a fist and raise your right pinky, ring, and middle fingers: 11100
: Kaeru-chan is right handed confirmed
: Now this is virtual tubing
: Kaeru-chan is twenty-(redacted) years old
: feels like that number should go up soon considering how long she's claimed to be it
: forever twenty-(redacted)
: Yes, my name is written as 11100. No, you read it as Kaeru Yamatani.
: Mama Harerun, huh? Can't imagine it.
“You know what, mommy? You really are motherly,” Kaeru-chan suddenly said.
“This again?” I replied with a sigh.
“Would you really ask Kaeru how’s she getting along with her friends if you weren’t a little invested?”
“...”
“Would you?”
“Shut it.”
: HUH?! ￥50,000
: ?!?!
: T-Tsundere mommy!
: Mamama-ma Ma-mama!
: This is why you're my oshi!!!
That day, I felt like I had grown in some ways, but sadly, those ways were utterly unrelated to the watermelon endeavor. Back to the grind again tomorrow.
Today was more Watermelon Game. Unfortunately, Kaeru-chan was busy and couldn’t join me. Hareru-senpai and I, however, had streams that lined up. So, for a change of pace, we decided to practice on call together as a little collab stream. I sipped on a can of StroZero, enjoying the conversation and casual gameplay.
“Hareru-senpai, how are things going over there?” I asked.
“I’m harvesting my grapes.”
“Grapes? Why specifically grapes?”
“Ask the game that, not me! For some reason all I’ve been getting is grape after grape after grape. What is this, Hareru’s Vineyard?! And I wouldn’t even be complaining if grapes weren’t so damn hard to combine!”
“True, the grapes are a bit of a pain, aren’t they? It’s the shape.”
Compared to the other, rounder fruits, the unique shape of the grapes made them uniquely difficult to combine. Yes, it was a skill issue, but I gave Hareru-senpai a pass on this one, considering the sheer, uh, quantity she was dealing with.
And besides, this was exactly what I’d been hoping for when I’d chosen this game. That’s it. Keep going, Hareru-senpai’s shit luck! More! More!!!
“Drop you right here, and boom, boom, boom...boom?! No! Why did you do that?!” Hareru-senpai cried.
“What’s wrong, senpai? More grapes?” I asked.
“No! It’s the physics of the game. The fruits don’t settle the way I envision in my head, so my whole strategy falls apart!”
“Wait. You’ve calculated in your head not just how the fruit drops, but how they all collapse when you combine something?”
“Yeah. It’s not too difficult. Except it is, because I just can’t seem to get my predictions right! I know it’s a game and not real fruit, so I shouldn’t expect them to move like real fruit, but they still look like fruit, so it just messes with my calculations!”
“R-Right?! When I play this game, I’m reminded of Darwin’s theory of natural selection!”
“Huh? Who said anything about Darwin?!”
: Hareruns screen looks like a different game entirely LMAO
: damn, is that the new Grape Game?
: And yet she can never get a grape when she actually wants it. Now that takes talent
: this is like knowing the sheet music to a piece by heart but your instruments all play the wrong notes when you try to play it
: hahaha Shuwa-chans little "look at me, I'm smart too!" at the end was adorable
Okay, well, I didn’t quite understand all that, but it seemed at least that the game was proving even more difficult for Hareru-senpai than I had imagined. Nice. What was this if not Lady Luck telling me that I could win this thing?
“My condolences, senpai,” I said sarcastically.
“Grr. Yeah, well, what about you? How are you doing?”
“Not terribly, if I say so myself. In fact, I realized during my off-stream practice earlier that I might even be good at this game. Oof, that’s an awkward-looking space. I need a grape. Give me a grape... A grape!”
“Huh?! How come you get something the moment you want it?! That is ridiculous!”
“There’s nothing ridiculous about it. This was meant to be.”
“Yeah, right, buddy!”
“Tsk, tsk, tsk. You still haven’t noticed yet, senpai?”
“What?! I missed something?!”
“Heh. You see, Hareru-senpai, I didn’t get the grape just now—the grape got me.”
“Ha ha ha, that doesn’t even make sense!”
“Oh, but it does. As I said, this was meant to be. The reason being...”
Hareru-senpai gulped loudly.
“Grape was once a StroZero flavor!”
“Ha ha ha, that doesn’t even make sense!”
“Oh, but it does. As I said, this was meant to be. The reason being...”
Hareru-senpai gulped loudly.
“Grape was once a StroZero flavor!”
“Ha ha ha, that doesn’t even make sense!”
“Oh, but it does. As I said, this was meant to be. The reason being...”
Hareru-senpai gulped loudly.
“Grape was once a StroZero flavor!”
“Ha ha ha, that doesn’t even make sense!”
“Huh? Are we trapped in a loop? Wait! Don’t tell me! Has my name been written into the Book of Life?!”
“Now who would do that, deface a perfectly good book?”
Darn it, this isn’t a loop. Then what was going on with this senpai of mine?
“Listen, we can’t stay here all day. Can you react with a ‘What did you say?!’ so we can move on?”
“No. Because what does that even have to do with anything, grape being a StroZero flavor?”
“Because I can affect the chances of any fruit dropping if it’s a current or past StroZero flavor? It works well for past flavors and even better for current ones.”
“So you’re telling me you think what you just said makes complete and total sense and isn’t ludicrous in the slightest?”
“Yes? Senpai, are you sure you’re okay? You know what, it’ll be faster just to show you. All right. Give me a grape! Nice. Give me another grape! Nice again.”
“? ? ? ( ⁀ ◡ ⁀ ) ? ? ?”
“Ohhh, you know what? I think the cause of your grape problem is also me. I’m subconsciously interfering with your gameplay because I don’t want you to win.”
“? ? ? (◉◞౪◟◉) ? ? ?”
: Huh? Huh???
: chat is this real?
: the notion is so outlandish I refuse to even be surprised by it.
: Harerun confronts the biggest enigma of her life yet
: When the woman is too interesting
: can VTubers do that???
: it's just luck right? I mean even if the probabilities are one in a million there's still that one, right?
: apparently we are playing StroZero Game now
“What...? Could it be that I’m the crazy one?” Hareru-senpai murmured in disbelief. “Have I been playing this game wrong this whole time? Okay, let’s try it. Give me a persimmon! And...it’s a cherry.”
“Give me a dekopon! Ah, didn’t work this time.”
“Aha! See?! You can’t do it either! That just now was a coincidence. An absurd, nearly miraculous coincidence! Whew, I knew it! Yep, yep, yep, I definitely knew it! But you got me good there, Shuwacchi, I admit! You saw the one-in-a-million chance and you took it! Respect!”
“Oh, well, yeah, it doesn’t work with the dekopon that often. There’s no dekopon-flavored StroZero, right? There’s orange flavor, which is related, so I only get about a fifty-fifty chance that it works.”
“Aha ha ha! Of course, how could I have forgotten?! It’s not a StroZero flavor, so it doesn’t work all the time! Silly me—I mean, NOOOOO!!! This is messed up! This is manipulating game files! This is...!”
“If I’m manipulating game files, then so are you with Grape Mountain over there. Quit being a sore loser, senpai. It’s not my fault StroZero doesn’t love you back.”
“C-Condescend to me, will you?! We’ll see who has the last laugh when you end up losing to me even with those reality-bending superpowers of yours! Calculate, brain, calculate!!! You’ve already mastered the physics in this game, don’t go confounding it with reality! They are not fruit! Just pixels masquerading as fruit! I’m gonna drop you here, then you’re gonna boom, boom, boom, boom—NICE! Perfect calculations!!!”
“And I’m the one who’s supposedly cheating?”
: And now Live-On becomes the battle shonen it was always meant to be
: fuckkk I want to see this become an actual show so bad LMAO
: so this is a battle between two Live-On S-rankers...
: Hey Shonen Jump, heard you needed a new "big three"
: that'd be like if Nakayoshi serialized Death Note
: Ah yes. Shonen Jump's famous guiding principles: Friendship & Effort & Victory & Madness & Chaos
: this fulfills all five. send it and ship it
: we only need the first three fulfilled, thanks
The battle raged on as we traded blows, yet the day ended without a victor. Still, I was certain we both felt it—the day of reckoning was drawing near.
“Do you feel that buzz in the air, Kaeru-chan? Today’s the day.”
“Yes.” Kaeru-chan nodded from right beside me.
That’s right. From right beside me. We had talked about wanting to meet up at least once, so here she was, at my place, next to me, for an offline collab.