When younger, Rudi was deeply attached to her parents and often inspired by her father’s ability to make everyone smile through witty jokes and giving gifts. Her mother was just as joyful as they would even make sweets together.
Rudi discovered a unique ability to hear the emotions of others through instruments, which she developed by listening to Una play on a toy piano. She could quickly tell her father was humoring Una whenever he was playfully playing alongside her.
Because of this, the hyperactive Rudi fell in love with the idea of playing music to explore these emotions and often played with her sisters through kitchen pan drum sessions. This sparked a promise between the three to play together like this once they got older.
Her mother, who often happily recorded these cute moments, noticed a serious interest in Una studying piano and decided to enroll her in the perfect school to pursue this interest. In pursuit of the promise, Rudi eagerly awaited her turn to enter the same music class, but it wasn’t as glamorous as her big sister, who was quickly becoming a prodigy.
Despite her desire to play Trumpet, Percussionist was the only position available for the same class Una was in. In addition, her hearing ability constantly picked up dull and even negative emotions from the other members, which quickly dulled her interest in music. Una’s home practice sessions, Tari’s enrollment, and their promise kept Rudi in the orchestra.
Right before it was time for her enrollment and audition, Tari had been in a serious accident taking hot soup to her father, who had fallen ill. This incident caused her to miss the audition for the tryouts. This upset Rudi, and she partnered with her mother, who shared Rudi’s anger, to ask for any exceptions, but to no avail. Although upset at the outcome, Rudi again became inspired by her ill father as he brought Tari’s smile back by bringing her to the family Chao Garden. She even made a close friend there.
Una was later chosen to head out of state for a special concert, leaving Rudi to struggle with the orchestra and help her mother take care of her father, whose illness was still worsening. One day, one of the staff from her manor picked her up early, informing her of her father’s recent passing. Shocked beyond belief, one look from everyone in the manor was enough for Rudi to believe it.
She was devastated but couldn’t help but notice how little her mother responded to it all. She was almost always out of the house or on the phone with various people who didn’t sound like family members. On the day of the funeral, her mother, who she wanted comfort from the most, was nowhere to be seen.
When she later returned with Una, Rudi demanded an explanation but was met with an obvious lie about picking up Una since she had sent staff to Rudi and Tari. Una, who was surprisingly supportive and defended her mother, stood against Rudi, which caused almost daily arguments as Rudi shut herself out of her room.
During this period, she would listen to music to calm her mood. Only a random song from a group called Light Dash, whose drums sounded so happy and full of life, managed to revitalize Rudi, who reminisced about childhood. From this, she made it her mission to bring back everyone’s smiles and started getting to know the staff by buying them all sorts of gifts to brighten their moods, copying her late father.
Her family wasn’t as receptive to this. Tari completely isolated herself in the Chao Garden and outright rejected Rudi’s patronage. Una responded similarly, but her mother, whom she thought to apologize to with gifts, was upset with Rudi’s excessive spending, which sparked even more conflict between them. Rudi felt her family falling apart and had no idea how to stop it. One day, however, Tari approached her and asked to find a way to save her favorite chao, who had grown sick. Rudi saw this as a chance to further bond with her sister and immediately offered aid by flying in a few doctors from various regions to help.
Although she understood Rudi’s intentions, her mother was initially furious at Rudi’s spending and poor financial decisions. Expecting another fight, Una defends Rudi and convinces her mother to help. For the first time in a long time, Rudi’s family united, each bringing their strengths into helping Tari’s chao.
Despite efforts, this ended in tragedy in the form of the Chao’s death. Rudi and her mother were initially upset, but Tari was so agitated that Rudi had to forcibly remove Tari from the room, kicking and screaming. She holed herself in shortly after, not once leaving her room for any reason, rejecting anyone who’d try to force her out.
Bringing the situation to a friend from the orchestra, Rudi decided to try video games. At first, Tari rejected her, but Rudi forced her into her room to set up the game anyway. Although upset originally, Tari slowly began to open up to playing the game, which started a feedback loop of Rudi buying video games for them to play. The two ended up sharing many gaming sessions together.
The two were finally connecting through these games which caused Rudi to keep buying more until she eventually bought out an entire retro gaming store. She had purchased other items during this period, but video games were the only thing Tari was receptive to. Una didn’t like this and thought Rudi was enabling Tari’s shut-in behavior but was fiercely dismissed. Her mother however, was enraged at the amount Rudi had been spending. She decided to lock Rudi’s bank account and demanded that she get a job.
Rudi tried explaining that she was doing it for Tari but her mother saw it as an excuse for her to play games. This deeply offended Rudi, starting another long argument. In the end, Rudi often had to work two jobs immediately after school, leaving little time to play with her sister like before. This led to many late nights for Rudi as she played with Tari late into the night.
What little money she did earn went towards things that could bring Tari, who was becoming restless and needy from her absence, outside her room, but nothing was helped. Even the staff from the manor could see Rudi’s zombie-like fatigue, as if she had lost most of her peppiness. Even listening to Light Dash was losing its effectiveness. Una again tried convincing her to stop playing with Tari and prioritize her health, but Rudi continued brushing her off.
Tari’s increasing neediness led to more fits towards Rudi for being absent. Rudi would try to calm her down, fearing progressing backward with her younger sister. Una tried yet again to convince Rudi to take better care of her health during this period. Searching for any solution, Rudi began opening up to Una about how desperate she was to make Tari happy. She bared her heart out to Una and even swore to follow any instructions she or her mother had advised to help.
Una was ashamed to admit that she and their mother had no real solution. Still, instead of anger, Rudi felt a soft relief knowing that Una was at least listening to her concerns. The two of them ended up reminiscing together without arguing.
After a while, Rudi finally came upon a rare day off from both jobs and promised Tari that she’d be home immediately after orchestra practice to play with her for the rest of the day. This excited Tari as there was a special game she was hoping to play with Rudi. However, when the promised day arrived, her orchestral practice ran on much longer than expected, making Rudi late to leave.
Dashing home in a rush to meet her promise to Tari, Rudi ended up running into the street, where she was hit by a car. When she regained consciousness, she was surrounded by a few people who were in the midst of calling an ambulance. Though in great pain, she knew she had lost a lot of time and still continued onward to her younger sister in a limp, brushing everyone else off.
Rudi ended up being more than 3 hours late than she had promised. Tari was oddly silent, which confused Rudi. She claimed that she didn’t want to play with Rudi anymore. Rudi felt crushed by this as she thought Tari was pushing her away yet again.
She assured Tari that she was fine to play and even promised to skip school, practice, and work for her to make it up to her, but Tari pushed her away more and more until she ended up slamming the door in Rudi’s face. She staggers backward and then trips, hitting her head on a nearby stand and falling unconscious yet again.
This time, she awoke in a hospital bed. Tari, with a tear-stained face, was deep asleep beside her, lying on her hand, which made Rudi realize that she was rejecting her; instead, she was worried about her the same way Una was. Their mother walked in, explaining Rudi’s condition while blanketing Tari. She also told her that both Una and Tari pleaded to lift Rudi’s punishment which surprised Rudi greatly.
Her mother continued by acknowledging just how much Rudi was trying to maintain the morale of Tari and the staff, but this only insulted Rudi at how late it took for her mother to understand her. Her mother had changed greatly ever since her father’s passing. Even now, she barely spends time at home and continues favoring Una, neglecting both her and Tari. All Rudi wanted was to bring back their joyous smiles, but it was as if their mother didn’t care about her father’s passing at all.
Finally understanding Rudi’s impulsive spending and brash behavior, her mother sincerely apologized for her massive change of character. Whereas Rudi wanted to bring back everyone’s smile, her mother wanted to protect her husband’s legacy. She sees the company as something that helped her husband provide those smiles. Due to the incident, many important partners revoked their support, and the company is losing money, leading to layoffs of many staff.
In fact, most of the staff familiar to Rudi are currently underpaid and are only still there out of good faith for their family or the company, which could only last so long. At this current pace, her mother could not promise that the company, including the staff, their Chao Garden, and even their own home would still be there within a few years. Her mother believes that that is when their father would truly be lost.
In addition, her mother bluntly told Rudi to give up on the impossible task of restoring the family and manor to what it was. Rudi was deeply exasperated by the statement and nearly screamed at the top of her lungs. Instead, she ended up silently shedding tears in anger.
From the little money she makes working and seeing her personal account plummeting, Rudi had never viewed the company as the fuel for everyone’s smile. Una struggling in her own way, Tari shutting herself in, and having a better understanding of her mother’s struggles, she just couldn’t bring herself to express how hurt she was at that statement and knew deep down that she needed to hear that from someone even if her mother.
Her mother knew from Rudi’s face that she was beginning to understand why her mother had been so hard on her. As such, she was willing to lift part of her account and use the other part as an emergency fund if Rudi was willing to drop out of school and work for the company full-time. She’d be placed in a position that helps Una with her workload, allowing both of them to be home with Tari.
Thinking seriously, Rudi thought it was a genuine offer in exchange for leaving the orchestra, which she secretly hated. However, she still saw the orchestra as the last thread of the promise with her sisters, so she decided to think about her mother’s offer while she was hospitalized.
The coming days involved Rudi resting, listening to Light Dash, and going to muscle therapy. Una and her mother would also come to check on her occasionally and reported that Tari was getting out of her room more and even going back to the Chao Garden. This made Rudi very happy and started getting much more sleep from the relief the news brought. This made Rudi want to get better quickly so she could join her sisters, but she knew she had to come to a decision about the offer her mother made.
A friendly nurse who had been taking care of Rudi offered her special advice that solidified her decision to accept her mother’s offer. Rudi realized more than anything that she wanted to spend time with her sisters, even if it meant not playing music. Coming to her answer, Rudi was finally released, and her whole family, including her mother, who took time off, spent the next few days with each other as a genuinely happy family. For the first time in a long while, Rudi felt as though she had brought back a piece of her blissful past.
With this new arrangement, Rudi had ample time to join her sisters in the Chao Garden, where Una played piano more, and Tari played with the chao more and more. Thinking about the nurse’s words, Rudi thought Tari should do the same and managed to procure Tari her own personal Chao Egg. She thought Tari needed to replace the bad memories of her previous Chao with good ones and thought she was ready.
Tari was surprisingly receptive to the idea and dedicated herself to raising it properly. Seeing her determination, Una and Rudi helped as well. Right when Rudi was fully committed to not playing music with her sisters, Tari surprised her one day with a song she had made on her computer and was gleefully excited for Rudi to listen and tell Tari’s emotions.
As much as Rudi wanted to lie, she admitted that she could not hear Tari’s emotions through her music, which made Tari a bit depressed. To cheer her up, Rudi suggested getting the chao to sing and Tari make music over top of it, which really perked Tari up. She was taking it so seriously that she asked Una for lessons and cooperated with Rudi to purchase toy instruments for the chao to play.
The emotions Rudi was hearing from Una’s piano and the Chao’s toys were much more gleeful and happy compared to the orchestra which couldn’t help but make Rudi want to join in herself. From the orchestra, she impulsively purchased a marimba just so she play with her sisters but was more conscious of staying in budget. It wasn’t until now that she realized she was nearly fulfilling the promise the three of them made when they were younger. She probed the sentiment by asking her sisters to form a little band.
She’s long been secretly posting videos of them all playing with the chao and has been blowing up a lot on socials. Tari became even more excited, but Una was conflicted on the idea. To Rudi’s surprise, her mother approved of them pursuing this venture. She even allowed a sizable budget for them to get started. Rudi was shocked beyond words and started considering that her mother had really started to change back into how she was, which made Rudi consider patching things up with her mother.
In doing just that, Rudi overhears a conversation between her mother and Una, revealing that her mother doesn’t care about their band. She gave her approval as a means to improve Una’s business skills and said that she only had five years to show their mother that they could sustain themselves through their promise or that they’d all have to work for the company with Una as the successor.
Rudi was initially upset that her mother would taint her cherished promise after everything they’d been through but saw Una respond with vigor and determination. Clearly, Una saw this as a challenge that she wanted to win. It was also clear that Tari was finally happy again, and Rudi didn’t want to do or say anything that might change that.
Instead, she kept these feelings to herself and decided to support Una in winning this challenge. Rudi’s secret goal was to make enough money to completely detach herself and her sisters from the company so they could live their lives without their mother around. This way, her mother could keep watch of her dad’s legacy without putting so much pressure on her sisters.
Even with this, Rudi was finally happy that she could spend time with her sisters as a family again and didn’t want anything to ruin it. She puts everything she has into craft supporting her new favorite band, Chao Bytes.
