CHAPTER 13: The Show Must Go On

"What?" Rin asked and blinked.

"Like I said," Mrs Sakamoto quickly reassured her; "it's just a suspicion so far. We have to rule out everything else before we can be absolutely sure."

"No, I mean, what even is that? I've literally never heard that before."

Kaito understood the impact of the woman's words a little better than the twin, but he too had a lot of questions right out of the gate.

A little less than a week after that horrifying night, the management had him, Luka, Meiko and the Kagamine siblings gathered in the headquarters. There were still two shows left to do in January, and now that Miku had gone to therapy and thus was unable to perform, the company had to decide what to do next.

Before that would be established, though, the remaining Vocaloids found themselves in a conference room with Mrs Sakamoto, Miku's appointed therapist who came to answer their questions. Their friend hasn't been communicating with them, and they were all confused by her recent behavior. Sitting on chairs around a single table, they were all paying attention very closely so that they could make some sense of it all.

"Very well," the doctor said in response to Rin, and her gaze circled them all. She looked like she was trying to choose her words carefully so that everyone would understand. "If I had to put it simply, bipolar disorder is like a black-and-white perception of the world and of oneself. The life of a person who suffers from it consists mostly of two alternating states, depression and mania -or hypomania in its milder form."

"Wait, so this 'mania' is like the opposite of depression or what?" Luka asked. Kaito briefly peeked over at her. She seemed calm, but he could tell just how worried she was on the inside. The girl was fidgeting with her fingers -she always did that when she was nervous.

He remembered the night after Miku was rescued. Thanks to Sammy who didn't feel fresh enough to drive all the way back to Asahikawa, they were able to crash at the house of someone from the company not too far away. However, neither Kaito or Luka were able to sleep anyway, regardless of how physically and emotionally exhausted they were. They were sitting in the dark of their host's kitchen, processing all that had happened and talking about random stuff whenever they felt they needed to break the silence. She was still shaken up, and so they held hands just to reassure each other that they're there.

It was on that night that Kaito realised a lot of interesting things about Luka, and one of them was how much she needed company in times like that. She was undoubtedly a strong woman -the way she was able to deal with that whole situation more than proved it. But at the end of the day, she still needed someone to be there for her when she ran out of energy. And being there for her was the least Kaito could do, especially since Luka was always backing him up without hesitation.

Therefore, it was kind of difficult for him not to reach for her hand again at this moment.

"Not exactly," Mrs Sakamoto spoke up, distracting him from his thoughts. "Mania is more like a state of increased brain activity, so people in that state tend to be significantly more productive, impulsive and energised. The most severe instances might also include distorted views of reality and even hallucinating, but that does not appear to be the case of miss Hatsune."

"So what, Miku is sometimes active and sometimes she feels sad, is that what you're telling us?" said Rin and crossed her arms. "That doesn't sound like a big deal to me."

The therapist looked at her with endless patience. "See, that's a common misconception. 'Sadness' is a too general term to describe the feeling of depression. Depression is more like a persistent voice in your head, figuratively speaking, that is trying to convince you that you hate yourself. You may try to fight it, but this voice is always there trying to outsmart you."

"Yeah, that we noticed, haven't we?" The twin girl looked at everyone in the room. "All those times she was so... scared that we don't care about her, or whatever. She would always come back to that, no matter how many times we would tell her that we love her."

"She probably wanted to believe that," Mrs Sakamoto nodded. "But if you constantly hear yourself say that you're useless, if you're forced to distance yourself from the people you love because you don't want them to see you in your weakest moments..." She paused. "Let's just say, you can eventually just lose all hope and give up on everything."

Her last sentence was hanging in the air for a moment. Kaito's eyes were shifting from one person to another; they were all probably thinking about the same things as himself, which was recalling as many details from Miku's behavior as he could. He was wondering if they could predict what happened and maybe try harder to prevent it. But apparently, none of them ever realised the broad impact of her troubles.

"Did we do something wrong?" Luka eventually asked, giving a voice to his own concern. "We were there for her, trying to help her all the time, but... Apparently it wasn't enough."

"I believe you did more than you can imagine at this moment," Mrs Sakamoto told her with a slight encouraging smile. "In fact, miss Hatsune wanted me to tell you how much she appreciates what each and every one of you had done for her. She loves you all and doesn't want you to worry too much. But you have to realise that neither depression or bipolar disorder are something that can be cured just with a few kind words. It's a constant battle, and while your help can make some difference, the biggest steps are always hers to make."

"But she can get over this, right?" It was Len who asked the question that everyone had on their minds.

"Look," the therapist said and sighed; "you're all old enough so I will be honest with you. This kind of condition rarely goes away completely, even if treated. All we can hope for in therapy is to teach your friend about what's going on in her mind and give her enough inner strength to fight through it. You may call it a voice of reason if you'd like. Basically, miss Hatsune must learn not to succumb to her depressing thoughts or manic behavior. And again, you may try to remind her when you feel she's not being rational, but she has to be her own parent, so to speak."

"Parent..." That single word quietly slipped out of Kaito's mouth before he could stop it. He knew what the deal was: On that fateful night, Luka told him about what happened to Miku's parents. It stunned him. He would have expected to hear something like that from Miku herself back when they were a couple.

It was another one of those little things that convinced him their breakup was ultimately a good decision; she deserved someone who she could open up to completely. By the looks of it, she really only had him as an attempt to stop the everlasting feeling of loneliness. When Kaito first realised that, it hurt, but now that he knew what she was going through, he couldn't blame her.

"Still," Luka elaborated on her previous thought. "We probably should have known. I don't know about you guys, but it never crossed my mind that Miku might be going through something like this."

"Mine neither," said Rin. "I mean, I always knew she had it hard, but I kinda assumed she was just... I dunno, moody like that."

The therapist looked at her with a faint hint of empathy. "It's not your fault. We as a society lack proper discussion about mental health. I've been doing this for some time, and you'd be surprised how many people have no clue that these disorders even exist, even if it directly affects them or their loved ones."

"And why do you think that is?" Kaito asked. He knew Mrs Sakamoto was right. He had a vague memory of hearing someone mention bipolar disorder before, or maybe he just read it somewhere. However, he never put any effort into looking up more about it -he never had a reason, or so he used to think.

"I don't know," the doctor admitted. "Maybe it's because they teach you children so many things in school that there's not enough room for something this important. And maybe it's because people like to think that they have their brains under complete control. But illnesses like this affect the way you think, and even if you do notice it, it's never easy to go against your own will."

Meiko who had been quiet so far spoke up. "You know what, I have dealt with some really ignorant people. There are idiots walking among us who classify everyone like this just as 'crazy' and look down on them. I think they might also be a problem."

"Sadly, nobody can really understand what it's like to live with these disorders unless they went through it themselves," Mrs Sakamoto complained. "And that's exactly why we need to talk about this. We have to acknowledge this problem and learn how to help those who suffer from mental illnesses -or how to identify these problems in ourselves. That also goes for miss Hatsune. I believe much could have been prevented if she just seeked the help of a therapist sooner."

Kaito remembered a while back when the management offered to find a touring therapist for their group, just in case anyone wanted to talk about some difficult matters. All of them rejected the offer because they didn't feel they needed it -except for Miku who was actually interested in that idea, but never said why. Looking back at that moment, he thought she might have been too embarassed to admit she needed help. The memory made Kaito feel even more terrible.

The rest of that session went by rather quickly. They had some more questions which Mrs Sakamoto gladly answered, but she could only help them with understanding the basics of Miku's supposed condition. She didn't forget to highlight that each person with this disorder is a little different, and even if she at that point knew more about the girl in particular, most of the information gathered through therapy would not be hers to share. In the future, Miku would have to decide what to talk about with them and what to keep for herself.

Before the therapist left, she had them write short letters for Miku on which they were able to tell her how much they supported her. The singer had to be, on the doctor's advice, in as deep isolation from the outside world as possible for at least a couple of weeks. There was a transition to undergo, and pieces of her old life could easily return her back to the twisted comfort of her original state.

Kaito wasn't able to write anything, it was simply too weird for him to tell his ex-girlfriend how much he cared. In the end, he added his signature to Luka's letter; she wrote everything much more nicely than he could ever be able to, and he agreed with her on all levels.

After a lunch break, the five Vocaloids had another meeting, this time with two representatives of the management, a tall short-haired gentleman and a woman of an apparent European or American descent. They introduced themselves as Yuuto and Emily.

Kaito thought that the day couldn't possibly get even more interesting, to say the least, but he was about to be proven wrong.

"So, listen," Yuuto said when everybody sat down again. "First of all, thank you everyone for coming here on such short notice. We realise none of us were supposed to be here right now, but the... recent events called for this."

"No shit," Rin whispered. Kaito almost snickered, but managed to keep a straight face.

"As you know," the man continued as though he didn't notice; "we have two more shows booked on the eleventh and thirteenth. But that was before this thing with Miku happened."

"This thing?" Meiko repeated and frowned. "Geez, show a little more respect, please."

"That's not what we're here to discuss," Emily replied. "We are sorry for what happened, but what's done is done. We have to talk about the future next."

"Especially with the shows right around the corner," Yuuto added. "We are here to present to you the options that we have now."

"What options are there to have?" said Luka with a hint of confusion. "We'll just have to perform without Miku, right?"

"Well..." Yuuto suddenly looked nervous. He scratched his elbow and looked at his colleague for help.

Emily took a breath. "Here's the thing. You all know that your parts in the show are... rather small compared to Miku's. Even if we ask you to perform all of your songs, it will still not be enough. The fans would be disappointed."

"If you put it like that," Kaito spoke up, slowly feeling blood rush into his face; "it really feels like we're useless without Miku."

"We're not saying that!" the woman immediately tried to ease his mind. "But people mostly want to see her in particular, there's no point in denying it. We were... thinking whether performing the shows would still make sense without her."

"Fuck that!" Rin said and almost jumped out of her chair. "You can't be serious about cancelling the shows just because Miku can't be a part of them!"

"We understand it's difficult," Yuuto replied and smiled in an attempt to calm the twin down. "But it seems it makes the most sense. When the word gets out, we're afraid people are going to be returning their tickets, and performing for the few hundred who might still want to come isn't a good idea. Both venues expect their performers to bring a certain amount of people, and they would most likely cancel the shows anyway if there's not enough interest in them."

"Are you sure you're not underestimating us? Or the audience?" said Luka. Kaito looked over at her; she looked tense. When she noticed he was looking at her and her eyes briefly met his, he quickly tore his gaze away from her and rather stared at Yuuto and Naomi who looked anything but happy with the way the meeting progressed.

"What do you mean?" the man asked Luka.

"I mean, if I was a Vocaloid fan who already paid for a ticket, I'd come just to see the rest of us. It's not like the crowd goes dead silent when we're on stage, dammit," she said vigorously. "They care about us too."

Yuuto massaged his eyes with his fingers. "Even so, you guys simply don't have enough material rehearsed. If people were to show up, we don't want them to leave after fourty-five minutes. And finding you that many new original songs to practise within the next two weeks is just out of the question, understand."

"What if," Meiko suddenly suggested while seemingly carelessly eyeballing the ceiling; "what if we work with what we already have?"

"Were you not listening, Meiko? I just-"

"No, I don't mean our songs." She looked directly at Yuuto. "We could throw in some of Miku's songs for ourselves."

The conference room was quiet for two seconds. Everybody let Meiko's idea resonate in their heads. Then, Rin hit the table in front of her with her fist; most people flinched, and Kaito smirked at her.

"That's an incredible idea!" she shouted. "If people want Miku, we'll give them Miku. Everyone loves her songs and they'll sing them back at us. And we kinda know her songs already. We can perform an entire two-hour set like that, easy-peasy."

"Okay, that sounds cool and all," said Emily and smiled at the girls with appreciation for their effort. "And the band wouldn't have to learn anything new at least. But what about Miku's choreographies? We can't expect you to learn them in such a short amount of time. I'm not even talking about costumes and-"

"Fuck choreographies and fuck costumes!" Rin retorted. Luka nudged on her with her elbow, likely to make her remember to watch her language, but she ignored her. "Why don't we just forget about all that shit for once?"

"Twice," Kaito corrected her.

"Twice," she repeated. "Whatever. People come to have a good time, not to stare in awe at us as we change clothes."

"It goes against your image," Yuuto said urgently. "You're supposed to be robots. We're not ready to show your human side yet."

"You're forgetting that the human side has already shown in us, Yuuto," Meiko reminded him. "At least in Miku it did."

Luka nodded. "Yeah, this whole problem stems from Miku being in therapy. How can we keep being robots after that?"

"Exactly!" Kaito agreed. He felt really supportive and enthusiastic about it. Everything the girls have said up to that point made sense. Cancelling the shows just because of Miku would be stupid; and if they were to get the management to agree with this idea, they could finally break the fourth wall -just like they wanted all those months ago when the group claustrophobia hit them.

"We're doing this for Miku, after all," Rin added. "Let them know. I mean, we don't have to tell them that she has bipolar disorder. Just that something's going on and we keep doing it for her."

Luka hugged her with one arm. Had Kaito been sitting closer, he'd probably do the same.

"And would you guys really want this?" Emily asked them. "Think about it. You'd have to learn at least four, five new songs each in a couple of days. Not impossible, but... if we bring this to the rest of the management and discuss it, we need to know if you're all sure you'll go for it."

And they all answered.

"Yes!"

"Fuck yeah!"

"Absolutely!"

"You bet!"

"Um, yeah, sure," said Len in his typical manner.

"Okay, look," Emily continued and looked over at Yuuto for permission; he gave her a single nod. "We'll present this idea to the others in the evening. No promises. We'll let you know as soon as the decision is made."

"Fair enough," said Kaito and grinned. In his mind, he was already shuffling through some of Miku's songs that he thought would work well with his voice and gender. For the first time in forever, he had something to actually look forward to.