Chapter 82
Chapter 82
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Translator: MadScientist
Chapter: 82
Chapter Title: What I Want to Say
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The live stream suddenly goes dark.
In the darkness, Sara's whisper reaches the ears of the bewildered viewers.
"Listen well, this is my story, and yours too."
The "I-" surely refers to Sara.
But who is "you all"? The viewers watching this moment right now?
The viewers instinctively knew it wasn't them. So who exactly did "you all" mean?
The darkness offers no answer.
It simply unfolds one story in a calm, steady manner.
"My story, and the one QWER wants to share. Everyone, please watch it with joy."
A story born from overlaying Sara's life onto QWER's idea.
The screen brightens, and a video begins to play.
It starts with an unknown girl opening her eyes in a house right in the heart of New York City.
Someone who is neither Sara nor Myth.
The appearance of this third character amplifies everyone's questions.
Who are you?
Naturally, the girl in the video can't answer that question. Instead, she begins her day.
She stretches in her pajamas on the bed and pulls back the blinds to gaze out the window.
"...Good morning."
Even in the dead of night, the girl says this.
For a frail girl who can't leave this room, the distinction between day and night holds little meaning.
The girl's world was yesterday, today, and tomorrow alike.
Just this small room.
"Sara."
From beyond the screen, someone watching this moment utters Sara's name.
This wasn't Sara's avatar.
It was Sara herself. Sara before she became a VTuber.
Sara often casually shared stories from her sickbed during her streams.
Not because it was something she'd already overcome, but to give hope to the children going through it now.
The girl, pale and barely able to support her body, pulls a laptop from the drawer beside her.
The girl loved this laptop.
Not the window that always showed the same view, but this one that revealed a colorful world to her.
With familiar movements, she opens the laptop, and there dances a VTuber singing and moving.
'Who is that?'
No answer can be given to that question. Because this VTuber doesn't represent a specific person—it's the embodiment of "VTuber" itself.
Even someone like her, whose body ached, who couldn't stand properly and vomited blood at random times—could she become a VTuber too?
On stage, a beautiful avatar dances and sings.
The girl dreams and holds onto hope.
"Let's go."
The VTuber's voice rings out in Korean, sending chills down everyone's spine.
Only her oldest fans might know the anecdote of how Sara got into VTubing.
During those truly agonizing days on her sickbed, the song from a beautiful avatar with an incredibly lovely voice—the moment she saw that VTuber singing.
One girl came to admire her.
At the same time, the song begins to play from the screen.
"From the first stage-."
Sara's debut song, her first original track.
A song from the days when Sara hadn't yet settled on her concept and was fumbling around.
Far from the powerful style Sara has now—her voice wasn't fully recovered yet, so it was a soft, warm composition designed to preserve her throat as much as possible.
A song Sara no longer performs because it doesn't fit her current concept, yet one that symbolizes her beginnings.
The immature, childlike Sara of her early days.
Suddenly, Myth stands beside the girl, grabs Sara, kicks open the door, and they step out into the world.
The door that confined yesterday's girl, blocked today's girl, and would block tomorrow's girl opens effortlessly, as if it was never a big deal to begin with.
The moment they step through, the "girl's" avatar instantly transforms into "Sara."
"The editing team poured all their resources into that. Unfortunately, they don't have your monstrous editing speed, Legend."
"Thanks for that."
The scenery shifts.
From the view of an apartment in the city heart to a dense jungle in an instant.
The dull concrete walls transform into lush natural foliage amid beams of light, thrilling the viewers—and especially Mika.
Most viewers hadn't noticed yet, but Mika knew.
The concept of this music video. What was about to unfold.
"...Map rush."
A barrage of maps, each one capable of shaking the world upon release.
Myth and Sara, dressed in beige explorer outfits, look around the jungle.
Sara gazes at the jungle with an innocent expression.
Trees towering high enough to block the sun, snakes slithering along the branches, lizards on the leaves, armies of ants crawling on the ground.
The world is truly made of so many things. A visualization of the world the girl hadn't seen—and surely the children suffering from illness right now hadn't seen either.
Sara conveys that the world is full of such variety. Yet because of that, Sara feels fear.
Curiosity and anticipation surge toward her for this vast, diverse world, but so does fear.
Myth grabs the still-hesitant Sara's hand with a smile and runs forward.
There's still too much to show to linger here?
Sara cautiously takes Myth's hand and runs along with her.
- Where is this?
- The Orient. First time seeing it, right?
The place Myth leads Sara to is Japan.
Myth and Sara, now changed into yukatas, stroll through the fireworks festival.
They browse the stalls around the shrine and admire the bursts of fireworks exploding in the sky.
The light of the fireworks reflects in Sara's eyes.
Her breath catches, the emotion raw and palpable. She realizes the world is this beautiful.
It continues, they run onward.
Enjoying a samba festival in South America, modeled after the streets of Brazil—
In front of an emerald sea, strolling along the sandy beach.
They revel in how happy the world can be. Savoring the world beyond that small room, that tiny window.
- Where next?
Sara asks.
Myth gives a wry smile and strokes her head at the innocent question.
Regrettably, the world isn't always beautiful.
After the familiar cityscape, what welcomes them—and the viewers—is a sea of sand reflecting sunlight so intensely it stings the eyes.
The desert.
Even sand like the beach sand, yet so different.
Sara frowns.
Wearing turbans over their faces and thin but full-body coverings, they struggle through the sandstorm.
For the first time, the smile vanishes from Sara's face.
The sandstorm is fierce and terrifying—enough to make Sara, who had longed for the outside, hesitate for a moment.
Yet Sara presses on steadfastly.
"Come to think of it, Sara kept getting cuts, but Myth barely had any. Is it because you're busy?"
"No, Myth is overwhelmingly good at facial expressions from the start. Nothing to point out, and she did even better than I imagined, so I had nothing to say."
Beyond the desert, now the Arctic.
Here too, an ordeal opposite to the desert awaits the girl.
Now Myth is no longer by her side. Sara must overcome this trial alone.
'Getting better wasn't just pure joy.'
It might sound spoiled, but everything in the world has two sides.
As Sara lived on, miraculously curing Kororon Plus unlike other children with the same illness, and pursuing VTuber activities, she faced more than one or two storms.
Stalkers, SNS tracking, false police reports, sexual harassment, insults, email terrorism, comments—torment in every conceivable way.
And the pinnacle was Rayshowjo's betrayal.
- We value creators and fans above all else.
Even after weathering so many storms, was she still just a naive child?
To believe such a fairy-tale story and sign the contract.
No, that's not it.
Sara just wanted to believe.
Because she had miraculously recovered and could stand on two legs, chasing her dreams—unlike the other children suffering the same illness.
She let herself believe the world might be a bit more beautiful.
'No regrets.'
And even if she went back to that time, Sara would make the same choice.
Trust, get betrayed.
And still move forward.
Because the pain of betrayal was nothing compared to lying powerless, just staring out the window day after day.
Rushing to Korea on impulse stemmed from that very thought.
If someone who could share such beautiful hope with others might grant her a miracle.
And this is the answer.
"...Wow."
On an empty stage, the screen displaying broadcast status shows the scenery Legend oppa created.
A masterpiece from one pure-hearted man responding to a single girl's innocence, without taking a dime.
Sara, who climbed the pristine snow mountain, faces a veil of vibrant aurora hanging high in the sky.
Sara, glowing in every color, swallows hard.
It must be tough right now, for sure.
That's when people finally realize who "you all" are.
Sara's message to the children on sickbeds, to everyone suffering watching this broadcast.
Even if today is painful and hard, there's no guarantee tomorrow will be the same.
Please hold onto hope in life.
"Now."
"Yes."
Sara and Myth quickly take their positions, timing it perfectly.
As the breathtaking, mesmerizing scene fades, the viewers return to the concert hall.
"To trace the bright moonlight-."
The Sara stage they'd seen countless times this year.
But it's different.
Completely different.
Because in that short music video of just over three minutes, they'd seen Sara's story, understood what she wanted to convey.
Even dancing with Myth in the exact same venue as mere minutes—or months—ago felt entirely new to the viewers.
On stage, dancing with Myth, was one girl.
A girl who escaped her small room, endured the world's storms, believed hope lay beyond hardship, and stubbornly pressed on.
Her dance and song, forged without abandoning dreams amid trials and pain, pierce straight to the heart with fierce intensity.
Don't give up.
There will surely be happiness at the end of hardship.
The sight of that girl now dancing on this stage with her idol Myth is the proof.
"Let the clouds heal me of the strings-."
Those in pain, those struggling now, find solace in this song.
Then what do those who are happy now feel?
Listening to Sara's story brings one thought to mind.
Sara is saying:
Be someone's "Myth."
You don't have to be an idol, but give strength to the weak, frail young ones who can't move forward on their own—so they can reach tomorrow.
The song and video, interpretable in two ways depending on one's life, tug at heartstrings.
"I believe."
The song ends with Sara's soft voice.
Haah-, haah-.
Myth discreetly mutes her mic.
All that echoes through the venue is Sara's ragged breathing.
Amid her breaths, Sara utters just one thing.
"How was it."
Beautiful, right?
With the radiant smile of that shining girl, the live stream curtain falls without another word.
Leaving a deep resonance in everyone's hearts.