# Kaede
THE LOBBY HAS TWO FRONT DOORS FOR THE SAME IN-GAME NAME
The earliest surviving Kaede-shaped Lobby record is December 19, 2021, and it comes with a warning label. The Discord author is the pooled "Deleted User" account that contains multiple deleted humans. The account is not Kaede. This message identifies itself.
"FuentesKaede". S16 Jormungandr. Reaper and Illusionist. UnderLords.
Mugen replies directly to that exact post, assigns the role, and gives the house map in miniature: club rules, Discord Tour, Biodata.
January 2023, a separate Discord account appears as "FuentesKaede" and files the same specific in-game identity again. Before the form is finished, Ren is already asking "kaede linda eres tuuuu?". Later she closes the intake with "bienvenida de regreso kaede linda".
The software needs another form. The human recognition does not.
CHRISTMAS, AND THE GAME STOPS BEING THE BORDER
Christmas 2022 lands between those two Lobby receipts, inside another pooled "Deleted User" hazard. This time the surrounding room does the identification for us: contemporaneous replies call the speaker "FUENTES" and "kaede". That resolves this scene. It does not hand us the rest of the pooled account with a bow on it.
And the locally resolved Kaede is almost painfully unguarded.
He calls UL a wonderful family. He thanks people for their friendship. To Daya, he says the group's love inspires him to be a better person. To Yelik, he says she is one of his best friendships "inside and outside the game".
That last phrase is doing a lot with very little. Kaede does not say the friendship survived *despite* Dragon Raja or announce some grand transition out of gaming. He simply names the boundary and then steps over it. The friendship exists in the game. It also exists outside it. Raja gets demoted from container to location.
The Daya line is even softer. Somebody could have written a generic holiday thank-you and escaped with dignity. Kaede instead says the affection he receives from the group changes what kind of person he wants to be. There is no swagger to hide behind there, which makes the later stripper-club joke feel less like a tonal contradiction and more like his usual emergency exit: say the sincere thing properly, then remember everybody here is a clown.
It also changes how the 2023 return reads. Ren recognizing him before intake finishes is not the first clue that the relationship survived the software. Christmas already has Kaede saying, in his own words, that some of these friendships no longer fit inside the game's walls.
WOLFIE DRAWS HIM INTO THE FAMILY PHOTO
March 2023. Wolfie drops an anniversary illustration into the Louvre and the room starts identifying the Officers and Snipers inside it. Mugen eventually announces the scale: nineteen people drawn. Kaede is one of them.
Five days later he returns with an eight-message response. The length matters because he is not just saying the art is nice. He is trying to explain what being visibly included did to him.
He says seeing himself beside people he considers wonderful brought relief and happiness because he had a family he loved and believed loved him too. He says the piece reminded him what he had, made him feel lucky to be with them, and thanks Wolfie for making a space for him among everyone.
The drawing is communal art. Kaede reads the fact that somebody remembered to put him there as part of the meaning.
HE ALSO REVIEWED THE ART AT PIXEL LEVEL
After the emotional part, Kaede actually audits the image: night alley, club background, urban artwork, LEDs, stairs, floor, graffiti, names, individualized hair, skin, eyes, accessories, poses, and the tiny details that survive zooming.
Then he asks the question the archive has been carrying for years:
"I've always wondered 'why is UnderLords a stripper club'"
His conclusion is simple enough: if being a stripper means being in this company, he is proud to be one.
Wolfie answers with "awww kaeeedeeeee", gratitude, family, and a hope for more "amazingly chaotic nonsensical memories" together.
IT WASN'T JUST THE DRAWING. KAEDE KEEPS NOTICING WOLFIE DOING THE CARE WORK
The portrait is the loudest surviving Kaede/Wolf scene. It is no longer the only one carrying the emotional load.
September 2020, Kaede thanks Wolf for helping build a place where friends became family and for giving him a place to call home. January 2021, he tells her she was one of the people he had been thinking about and says he is happy and relieved to have her there. April, the wording gets almost mundane: he points out that Wolf kinda cares for mods and general server stuff.
That last line is exactly why the sequence works. Kaede is not merely producing anniversary-card language whenever the calendar tells him to be sentimental. He notices the labor. He notices the person doing the unglamorous server-care nonsense. Two years later, when that same person spends time drawing nineteen people into a communal portrait, of course he notices the LEDs, the floor, the faces, the tiny details and the fact that she remembered to leave him a space.
Then November 2025 puts one more pin in the map: "HAPPY SIX YEARS TO UNDERLORDS!!! LET’S GOOOOOOO", with Wolf tagged into the celebration.
No, this does not crown them Best Friends Of All Time, secretly marry them, or fill every silent year between the receipts. It does something more believable. Across different eras and different kinds of scene, Kaede keeps noticing Wolf as one of the people whose presence and care make the place feel inhabitable.
Kaede's surviving file starts with identity paperwork, catches him naming friendship beyond the game, and then watches a drawing make belonging visible. The paperwork changes. The social recognition keeps beating it to the room — and apparently Kaede has been taking notes on who keeps the room worth returning to.