“I’m stopping Tadasu-san.”
Churiri-sensei had asked to talk, so I’d picked up the phone—and after all this time, the first thing I heard from her was that.
“She messaged me today, saying she was going to meet with Hareru-san. It’s too little too late, but that’s what finally made up my mind. When she gets back, I’m going to talk her out of leaving.”
“Right,” I said, letting her words wash over me as I simply nodded along.
“I’ve realized something. It’s about Tadasu-san’s and Dagger-san’s happiness—it’s always been. It was through seeing them happy that I wanted to be saved myself. Surprising, isn’t it? And ironic—but I suppose I’d rather call it karma.”
She ended her words with a light giggle, at which I laughed too, making it a shared moment. Because come on, how much more “sensei” can you get than that?
“Tadasu-san is a lot like me. Dagger-san, though, couldn’t be more different,” Sensei continued. “And it was watching the two of them, so dissimilar yet happy all the same, that saved me. It showed me that there were people like them in this world—people I could learn to love.”
She paused for a second. When her voice resumed, it felt like a release, a freeing from the shackles that had chained her for all the long years of her life:
“Turns out, even if I can’t feel sexual attraction toward people, I can still love them with everything I have.”
Her words wound on like a confession, curiously in the past tense, as if she were speaking about a version of herself she no longer was.
“All I ever wanted was to belong. I tried so hard to fit in as a human, and when that didn’t work, I convinced myself I must be an alien, just to fit in somewhere in this cold, infinite universe. I hated myself for not belonging, for being born this way.” She took a breath, steady now. “But after meeting the girls, after meeting everyone, I realized that people are more varied, more complex, than I’d ever imagined. And so, for the first time in my life, I felt like I might actually belong here.”
Conviction firmed up her voice. “That’s why I’m stopping her. I don’t care if she thinks leaving’s what’s best for her. I don’t even know what I’ll say yet. But for someone so similar to me, Live-On is the best place. She may not want to be here, but she needs to be. I need to be.”
“Right.”
“You saved me, Awayuki-san. Thank you. Thank you so very much.”
“...Right.”
Even through the phone, I could tell that her head was bowed low.
In the end, all I could do was nod and say “right.”
Then, when she hung up the call, I immediately called a certain someone else.
Meanwhile, at the Live-On offices...
“Hey, sorry for making you come all the way here,” Hareru said.
“Not at all. I appreciate you taking the time to see me,” Tadasu replied.
They sat across from each other in an empty conference room. Much like Awayuki and Churiri, they hadn’t spoken to each other since Tadasu’s breakdown.
“So, what’s up, Tadasu-chan? You called me out here in quite a hurry today,” Hareru said.
“I wanted to let you know that I’ve come to a decision,” Tadasu replied.
Hareru paused before speaking. “You know I didn’t exactly give you a deadline, right?”
“I know, but I’ve stopped streaming for almost a month now. I don’t wish to cause any more trouble for Live-On and its viewers. But before that, there’s something important I wanted to share with you.”
“I see. Then share away, I’m all ears!”
Tadasu was different than usual. There was a longer, wiser gaze to her that let Hareru know it was her role to listen.
“It’s about me, Tadasu Miyauchi,” Tadasu said, then looked at Hareru.
“Sure.” Hareru nodded, more solemn now, sensing the gravity of the moment.
“When I debuted as Tadasu Miyauchi, I remember I said one thing,” Tadasu began. Slowly, deliberately, almost as if reading aloud. “I said that I enjoy the process of uncovering hidden things, but not the answer awaiting me at the end of the line. I never understood why I said that. Though that implies I even tried to understand it. But now, after everything that’s happened, I finally get it. I understand why I hated finding out the answer so much.”
She paused, as if reflecting on her discovery.
“Because every time I reach that hidden truth...”
It was that fragile, self-resembling thing that had once given Churiri pause.
“I always think, ‘Oh, is that all?’”
The essence of Tadasu Miyauchi.
“There’s always something off. It’s never the way I imagined it would be. That beautiful truth in my head is always a little tarnished, a little incomplete in reality. That’s when I realized... Everything I touch loses its luster. And by extension, I was losing mine.”
Hareru said nothing.
“But even then, I wanted to be good. I believed I could be a good person. But no matter how hard I tried, that ideal was stripped away from me, bit by bit.”
She remained silent, only allowing Tadasu to pour out her heart.
“How was I supposed to keep going in a world that broke my heart at every turn? The so-called good people of this world—they’re nothing but sadists who take pleasure in yanking out every nail that dares raise its head, reveling in the joy of bending it until it snaps. There’s no meaning, no allure left in the unexplained wonders or mysteries of the world. Not when everything can be dissected and explained by science and rationality.”
Tadasu paused, as if the weight of those thoughts had taken her back to darker days.
“These thoughts consumed me, pushed me to my limit. I became disillusioned. And I knew...if I grew any more disillusioned, I’d become a bad person. So what did I do? I rejected reality. If ignorance truly brings happiness, then that’s what I’d be. I’d live in my mind, in a world where everything was perfect, where I could be the good person I once thought I was.”
The girl who loved imagination more than anyone else had found herself in denial of all aspects of reality.
In a way, this was a denial of imagination itself. This was simply a way of deceiving herself, playing pretend that she could be a good person. But to become a truly good person through pretending? Though the paradox both puzzled and intrigued Hareru, she let Tadasu continue.
“The fetishism derived from my overactive imagination was nothing more than an excuse. Loving all things hidden was just a fanciful way of saying I turned a blind eye to the world, its people, and myself. That was why I enrolled myself in a strict ladies’ school, so I could brainwash myself into believing it. There, in that last bastion of order in this modern world, where it was enforced to live as obedient ‘good girls,’ it was easiest to deceive myself. There, I could be the person I thought I was. But it wasn’t to last. Graduation was approaching, and I was so close—so close to closing the loop, to fully convincing myself of my own righteousness, when it happened.”
Tadasu’s rhythmic, storytelling tone broke down. She let the moment hang before she spat out the next words with full force.
“Freaking Live-On happened!”
It had been a serious conversation up until then, but the absurdity of hearing that name in this context was too much. Both Hareru and Tadasu burst out laughing.
“That’s true,” Hareru said, still trying to stifle a snicker. “Totally true. Live-On happened, didn’t it?”
“It’s not funny!” Tadasu said through a snort. “I was seriously upset then, you know?”
“I bet you were—trying to cover yourself up with your ‘good person’ act the whole time, then in walks this band of merry folk who don’t even try to be modest as they strut around shamelessly.”
“Honestly, I thought I’d lost my mind! At least if people pretend to be normal, I could fill in the gaps with my imagination. But you guys didn’t even give me that! Just full frontal, all the time! All my plans, ruined! At the time, I thought I couldn’t let you get away with it.”
“But that’s not why you applied, isn’t it?”
With all the subtlety of a car crash, Hareru brought the conversation to a sudden, jarring halt. Tadasu was left momentarily speechless.
“You didn’t join just to get revenge on us, did you? There’s another reason. The real reason.”
She couldn’t help but think that Hareru had timed that line perfectly, hitting when it would hurt the most.
And of course, she wasn’t wrong.
“You’ve seen through me from the very beginning, haven’t you?” Tadasu said, letting out a laden sigh. “You truly are a terrifying opponent.”
“Really? Thanks! I was starting to think I’d lost my touch after Shuwacchi wiped the floor with me.”
“And just like that, the conversation’s derailed. Live-On. Even the name itself invites chaos. It almost makes me wonder why—” Tadasu shook her head. “No, that chaos is exactly why I found it so damn unfair.”
Tadasu’s voice changed as she spoke. It became lighter, more natural. As if she’d finally set down a weight. Her true voice, the one she had turned a blind eye to for so long she had forgotten it was even there, peeked out once more.