The Cold, Dedicated Winter

I’m still not sure what makes me have no chemistry with Summer. I can talk with her just fine, but when it comes to her streams, I just can’t match her. I freeze up, get too scared to talk at the right times, and I can’t even be expressive. I was disappointed that I couldn’t even be in the same room as the star of the group due to my performance.

I sighed and did as I usually did when something bothered me, I sang. I went to the dance room, where I had met Autumn before her stream. The windows facing the outside made the room feel a lot more alive than the walled off, indoor studios. Maybe it reminded me of that park, the happy place I relied on for so long. At some point, the dance room became my new practice spot. I was trying out a new set of chords for a song, when suddenly I noticed someone standing near the doorway, staring at me.

“You, stand.” It was Winter. She was using her usual way of speaking, monotone, empty of emotion, and using as few words as possible. I had gotten used to it by now, even if we hadn’t interacted a lot.

“Winter? Is everything alright?” I asked, confused.

“No. Can’t enjoy my games with you moping here, this needs to be fixed.” Winter looked at me with a dead serious expression.

“Moping? Do my songs make you-”

“No, but I see you here every night. I’m tired.” She was still looking at me in a fairly intimidating way.

“Well I’m practicing so-”

“Just come with me.” Winter signaled me to stop talking. She escorted me to the motion capture studio, and it felt all too familiar.

“You’re not going to stream me by surprise are you?” I had to make sure she wouldn’t repeat what Autumn did.

“No. Streaming is too much work, but I will record some clips of you so I don’t have to work that hard, if you’re fine with that,” she explained. At least I can count on Winter being transparent, which is sometimes a good thing and sometimes not so much.

“I guess that makes sense, sure!” I didn’t know what I agreed to, but I appreciated the honesty.

“Here, get ready for the video.” Winter handed me a game controller, “and to game.”

“Game? I don’t usually play games like these,” I answered as I held the controller awkwardly.

“You’ll learn," she said coldly.

Winter started a fighting game, and began teaching me how to play. It was a bit hard to get the basics down, but once I understood how the game worked, I could appreciate it a bit more. However, there was no way I could do what Winter wanted me to do.

“This is easy. Do combo,” said Winter as she pointed at the screen.

“I’m trying but… it’s too hard.” I kept pressing the wrong buttons, and at the wrong time. It was frustrating.

“Not hard. Same buttons every time. You like rhythm games don’t you? It’s like a rhythm game.” She pointed at the screen once more, to let me know that I should keep trying. It took me a long time to finish the combo she wanted me to finish, but I finally managed. I was happy that I had overcome that challenge.

“Now do it in a match against me,” said Winter. She was quick to stop my excitement. We played what felt like hundreds of matches, but I could never scratch Winter, much less attempt the combo. She could play any character at incredible speeds, and left me useless most of the time.

“Why would anyone want to play like this? It’s a single player game at this point…” I put the controller down on the table. “How can you do this?”

“Here.” Winter showed me on her computer how much time she had on fighting games. “It took me over 5000 hours,” she explained as she showed me the numbers on her screen. I was surprised by how much time she spent on games, but her experience showed.

“You, 5000 hours in music. I can never match you until I do that much. And I never will,” explained Winter. “Summer, 5000 hours of acting. Both of you are bad at everything else. You and Summer are the same.”

“Summer is the same?” I asked, surprised.

“Yes. Summer worked hard as an actress. In the countryside. It's hard to practice when no one shares that hobby. She worked too hard, and doesn't understand anything else. Spring is a sweet person still, Summer forgot how to be sweet.”

“I see.” I was starting to understand her point.

“She couldn’t fulfill her dream to be an actress. She's too short, not enough roles that would want her. They want tall actresses and models,” she said. I felt like in a few words, she said a lot of horrible things about people.

“That’s… terrible,” I said. Summer’s story broke my heart. I can complain about my appearance, but Summer must’ve had it much harder than me, at least mine didn’t stop me from working on my music.

“Yes,” said Winter. “So she will try her hardest to make this work, even if she doesn’t like it or her fans sometimes. And because she will try that hard, she won’t tolerate us not doing our best, either.”

“I see.” I was very grateful that Winter had shared this with me. This was definitely a lot more words and speaking than she would like, so I appreciated her advice and explanations.

“It’s not just 5000 hours, look.” She pointed at the screen, where she played a video. “I watch this whenever I need to remember.” She showed a video of herself at an esports tournament, losing handily on the screen. “This opponent is easy, I beat him all the time online,” she said, somewhat disappointed.

“Then what happened?” I asked.

“I got nervous, too many people watching, making comments about the wrong things, about me being a girl. I was worried about how they were judging me. Don’t let that stop you too.”

“I see,” I answered. Winter was revealing things that were making me think a lot.

“If I could redo that match, I’d defeat him easily. But skill is not the only thing, you can be nervous too,” said Winter, who seemed unhappy about that tournament match. I was starting to understand Winter and learning a lot about her approach to her job and life.

“There’s more,” she said as she flipped through tabs on her browser. “Do you recognize her?” Winter played some clips of a younger Summer doing several acting bits, including a comedy recording with herself that felt pretty entertaining, at least to me. “She was trying to become viral. Nobody really watched.”

“Where did you get this from anyway?” I asked, realizing those were probably not public videos anymore.

“Doesn’t matter,” she said dismissively. “Hiroaki found us in the depths of the internet. Summer’s demos had no views, but he thought she was talented. He also reached out to me after I lost that tournament, even though my placement wasn’t good. He believed in both of us and brought us here.”

“So all you needed was someone to believe in you?”

“No. All I needed to do was try to have fun instead of competing, Hiroaki helped me do that.”

“But how can I have fun when our job is on the line, and the money, and our reputation?” I asked, wondering how she could ignore those important aspects of working.

“We barely break even. Hiroaki told me. It’s basically a hobby project for him. He’s just trying to have fun too. So you should join in. Ignore Summer. You want to share your songs right? So share.” Winter gave me a lot to think about. Her words had a lot of information and feelings contained in them, it was somewhat overwhelming. “Boss likes you, so stop worrying. Just share your music, it’s nice. If we had a music fight, it would be a single player game for me instead," she explained.

“You think so? Wait, boss likes me?” I asked, surprised.

Winter stared at me for a few seconds, confused. 

“Not that way,” she said after a while.

“Oh, alright. I appreciate all of this, I need to think about everything you said.” I really needed to figure out what my problems with Summer were, and what I could do.

“I know,” said Spring as she went back to playing her fighting game.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” I asked, confused.

“I know it takes time for you to think,” she said, with no expression on her face. I felt she was being quite rude. I looked at her a little upset, but this was her way of caring for me, so I tried to not be too angry.

“Thanks, Winter.”

“No problem. Don’t pay back with words. Pay it back with easy content for me,” she explained. She meant it.

“F-fine,” I protested.

I don’t really know what she used from me for her videos, but it didn’t matter to me, because she had helped me see my future a lot more positively.