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“Hey hey hey, this is clearly not supposed to be the difficulty you start on… am I even gonna make it through this first level?” Not even a few minutes into the 1995 cult classic Seijin Soldier released for the Mega Birth, the gamer girl Yuki was overwhelmed with everything going on through each screen. Her admiration for the title and its development before having played it herself hasn’t prepared her for streaming the actual game, it seemed.
“Ohhh, I got it. Thank you very much for the tip!” Yuki put out a cute front, hiding her annoyance at being backseated from a comment by BlastertheMegaMaster pointing out how you can switch between different weapons in the game.
Knocks were heard at the room door as Yuki struggled to keep her character alive.
“Come in.”
“Hey, Shige.” Live peeked from the outside of the room door, with only her eye visible from Yuki’s position. “Could I talk to you for a second? After you’re done streaming, or whatever? It’s not much but… well, you’ll see.”
Yuki gave a side glance. She was too late to respond, with the door shut a few seconds after. Turning her head back to the screen for a second, she contemplated the somber tone in which Live spoke her words.
“You know, this is a good time for a bathroom break. Once I get back, I’ll check to see if Ultraeasy is any more possible for me to go through. It has to be, right? It’s the opposite of Ultrahard. Anyways, BRB!” The livestream fades into a relaxing screen, with a little drawing of the gamer girl sipping coffee.
Closing the door behind her and noticing Live leaning on the wall near the window, she walked towards her slowly but firmly.
“Now, then. What did you call me for?”
“Eh? But don’t you have a stream to-”
“You said it wasn’t much.” Yuki replied, with her arms crossed. “On with it.”
“This may be a bit sudden.” said Live as she poked the tip of her index fingers together, before clasping her hands. “It's been a long time coming. You see, we are close to reaching a million subscribers soon, and I wanted to close off a lot of things with everyone in MayoPan and I thought about what the others like Ichiko and Fu and Tokage thought of Masaki, before she… you know.”
Yuki nodded. “Get to the point.”
With a long exasperated sigh, Live asserts herself. “I’m sorry, Yuki.”
What? What is she apologizing for? The way she said it isn’t at all like how we should be sorry for blundering publicly and potentially outing them as vampires. Even if Yuki’s more open with the rest of MayoPan now that she’s actively living with them, Live wouldn’t change her tone so quickly towards her that she comes to Yuki instead. What gives?
“I see you get mad at me every time I talk about how cute and cool Masaki is when recording, and I just figured you wanted to scold me for being amateurish and somehow not taking this NewTuber thing seriously like you usually did before,” Live began explaining, alarming Yuki and turning her neutral face into more of a frown.
“Then I thought about it, and you don’t seem to get angry when I just mess around with the other girls now. You complain Tokage’s too loud a few times, had to whip up Fu to do something, and think Ichiko’s a lil weird but gets the most done out of any of us. But you don’t get mad at them as much as you used to. Just me and Masaki.”
“...What are you implying?”
“Well, it’s just, we hung around a lot, you know? We did a lot of stuff together, and I always listened to what you were always yapping about, like talking about how many vampires you took down and saying you’d be a better warrior than I would end up being. You’d tell stories about what meal you had, what movies you liked…”
Yuki settled back to her neutral face the longer Live recalled all the things they did like a grocery list. Sometimes they did get heated, talking about how one was better than the other at keeping secrets under Mother’s orders, but it was all fun in the end. Whatever happened for them to not wanna see each other for a while?
“...but, I may have gotten a little cold after we took out all the bad vampires, huh?”
Her pupils instantly diluted, Yuki instantly remembered why she started being so bitter.
“I guess this thing Mother left really got me over my head.” Live caressed the collar with the pendant surrounding her neck. “It really felt like this was a sign I could just let loose after all we’ve been through. And since we were together for a while, I thought we could call each other cute nicknames- I remember the first time I called you Shigeyuki, your face was like a tomato!”
“...you remembered?”
“Of course I did, it was only 40 years ago! You looked so cute whenever you were like “Nooo, don’t call me that, that’s not formal!” Live said with glee, rubbing her face together with her hands. The girl changed her tone and looked toward the floor somberly after reminiscing some more. “But then I thought about it… you were in love with me weren’t you?”
Yuki started clenching her fists clenched and gritted her teeth.
“You told me you wanted to watch the stars for several nights in a row, to walk home with you once; hell, you even asked me once if you could hold my arm and snuggle around it when we got out of the mar- Oh man, that’s reeeal embarrassing now that I’m thinking about it.” Live covered her entire face, completely unaware of the gamer vampire next to her having her fists pumped up and wings out.
“I wonder if Masaki felt the same way about me… Ahh, sorry sorry. This is way longer than I wanted it to be, now I’m the one yapping here! We should talk about this after you finish your str-”
“You… imbecile!”
Lunging towards Live with such sheer force she blasted through the window and tore through the bricks, Yuki grabbed the pink-haired vampire by her neck as she spat out from the sudden impact to her chest. Yuki started carrying Live towards a nearby forest.
“What… the hell… is the matter with you!?” Live gasped out as she tried to pull Yuki’s arms away.
“You only just figured I’ve been falling for you all those years ago now!? ”
“I’m… apologizing!” Live opened her wings and kicked Yuki upwards, sending her several meters higher into the air. Free her from her grasp, Live jetted away deeper into the forest. Shortly after, Yuki recovered from the hit, and made a dive towards the trees.
“Do you have any idea how much I’ve suffered thinking about you!?” Yuki yelled out, the most exasperated she’s ever been for the past few months. Her voice could be heard echoing from around every tree in the area. “All that time I’ve kept up with you after we won against the human-hunting vampires… after Mother rewarded us… I’ve yearned for you, hoping you’d have noticed my approach to you.”
Live struggled to navigate around the clutter while being chased, she turned around to look at an anguished vampire desiring vindication.
“You should have forgotten about our so-called tender memories we had before.” Flying quickly but delicately around each and every tree, Yuki shortly caught up with her target. “And now you’re here talking to me because of how much you like your new girlfriend, huh? Is that it?”
“That’s what I want to talk to you about!” Live turned around to talk to Yuki more clearly while flying in the same direction. “I wanna know if you wanna get together with me for real this time!”
Yuki grabbed Live out of the air, leading them to tumble and roll along the ground until they reached a hard stop from a rough impact on a rock.
Live sat down near a tree, and let out a hiss from the injury on her back. Yuki regained consciousness shortly after.
“What do you mean… get together… for real this time?” Yuki asked, one hand and one elbow on the ground trying to stand back up.
“It’s Masaki. There’s no doubt we’re gonna pass 1 million subs at this point.” Live muttered out, curling up into a ball with her knees to her chin. “After that, she’ll be… gone. And MayoPan will have to go on without the one that got us together again in the first place.”
“...you don’t seriously think that, do you?”
“We can run the channel just fine, but… Masaki and I made a promise to each other, and if I really loved her, then there’s no way I can back out of what she-”
“You’re extremely bullheaded.” Uttered Yuki, as she got up to sit properly.
“W-What!?”
Live got on her knees, and came crawling to Yuki quickly.
“How else am I supposed to fulfill our promise?”
“Promises - especially between people like you and her - are trite.” Yuki snidely remarked, much to Live’s expectations. “They’re meant to be broken when both parties have reached a satisfying compromise. Are you really going to burn away the time you’ve spent together because of a few words you two said to each other over a few months ago?”
Live was met with an eye opener of a realization. She put her hand on her head in disbelief
Why would she need to throw her one true love’s life away if it only meant satisfaction to a statement?
"I guess that means we don’t have to…” Live spoke before realizing the point of this conversation. “I’m sorry, Yuki. I really am.”
“Don’t worry, I’m used to it; and I’d like to apologize as well.”
“Ehhhh!? You mean for the choking and roughhousing you did to me?”
“No. I’m sorry for not being clear with what I want with you.” Yuki said with her hands clasped. Live was taken aback at her words, was this the same Yuki that kept her feelings to herself and demanded everybody else to apologize for making a mistake?
“It was foolish of me to try and be subtle with you, when I should’ve known you’d only recognize words when they’re as loud and standoffish as you tend to be.” Live was taken forward with that comment.
“Typical…” Live was taken back to reality. “I accept your apology, as backhanded as it is. But I still have to ask a question after all this.”
“Give it to me.”
“Do you still love me?”
“...Yes.”
“I have a question for you too.” Yuki replied.
“What is it?”
“Do you love me back?”
“...Yes.”
“That’s gonna be a problem if you’re still in love with Masaki.”
“Hey, I really do wanna make up to you for all of those years you’ve spent longing for me without me giving back to you, okay?” Live pleaded. “Would a kiss make up for it?”
Yuki chuckled.
“Thank you, but I’d rather have your first kiss be on the first person you fell for, and spent a lot more meaningful time together.”
“The time we had was meaningful too!” the pink-haired vampire stood up, wishing for any and all wrongs to be righted.
“Alright, then.” Yuki stood up afterwards, brushing off the dust from her dress. “For the record, I don’t want you to be thinking anything will come out of this-”
“I won’t, I guarantee it. It’ll be a secret just between the two of us. Just between… two people that could’ve been closer together. Masaki won’t even know this happened.”
“Right.”
The two girls held hands not too hard as to think this would go further, but not too lightly as if this didn’t mean anything. Even with everything confessed, the two took their time and stared each other in the eyes. They wondered if they had ever been this close to each other at any point in time. Deep in the forest near 12 where nobody could’ve stayed, Live and Yuki slowly moved their faces forward.
Yuki backs away from their touching faces, and Live hers. That felt nice. That would’ve felt nice 40 years ago as well. They wouldn’t mind if it happened again.
“Welp, I guess that’s that.” Live walked along with her hands behind her back, enjoying a midnight stroll now that the two are outside the forest.
“Mhm.” Yuki replied with her “You know this means that the problem will change from the subscribers to if Mother would allow Masaki to live here, right?”
“Riiiight, I forgot about that. We’ll figure that out soon enough.” Live turned her smile into a more disgruntled one. She quickly changed tone as she thought about MayoPan’s future “You know, I think we oughta do more streams in the forest. Oooh, finding Bigfoot, that’d be a really go-”
“MY LIVESTREAM!” Yuki screamed, remembering her audience she left behind.
"Ohh, Ichiko might have already-"
Yuki jolted back to their manor in the air. The jet stream from her movement was felt by nearly every tree in the forest.
“Ah… ” Whispered the exhausted Live. She turned that weariness to a tired but hopeful smile as she looked towards the moon. “A lot can change in 40 years, huh…”