Work Text:
The world ends like this:
Chikausa swings his poleaxe to block the final boss’s attack, and Taruchi charges forward with his sword. With one final skill and one final blow, the boss’s HP drops to 0. And after a second that seems to drag on, with one final roar, the boss shatters into thousands of tiny digital fragments, leaving only a system message in its place:
<<CONGRATULATIONS>>
<<You have cleared the game!>>
Taruchi laughs a little, and then stumbles, falling to his knees, his sword clattering beside him. It’s over. It’s all over. “GG,” he says, an echo of his distant past self.
They can go home.
If you had asked him, Chigasaki Itaru, two years ago what he wanted more than anything in life, it was to one day wake up and find himself in a different world. If you asked him, Taruchi, now, what he wanted more than anything in life, it was to one day wake up and find himself in the real world. Well, it looked like he was two for two on wishes.
“Taruchi,” Chikausa says, his voice close, and Taruchi opens his eyes up to him, hand outstretched. Taruchi takes it, and like he always has, Chikausa pulls him up, pulling him close to him into an embrace. Chikausa’s polearm clatters to the floor also, coming to rest next to Taruchi’s sword.
“It’s over,” Taruchi says, his own arms coming up to cling onto Chikausa. His fingers grab ineffectually at the metal of Chikausa’s armor, and he wishes suddenly that it wouldn’t be ending here.
He wants to be at home. He wants to be at their house by the lakeside. Chikausa sitting outside on the porch with a book in his hand, Taruchi falling asleep next to him, head nodding off onto his shoulder as the sun sets in front of them, sinking into the lake--that was what Taruchi wanted this world to end with. That where Taruchi had been happiest. That was what he wanted to take away most from this world, if he were to take away anything at all.
He hopes he remembers this. He hopes that when this world disappears, the bond that was between them would still exist.
--
Itaru wakes up to the sound of the doorbell. He rolls over, pulling the covers over his head--as agreed upon in their contract, answering the door is his sister’s job--before remembering that his sister is out shopping right now. Itaru groans, throwing the covers off him as he rolls out of bed and jams his feet into his house slippers, which make little wooshing noises as he shuffles across the floor.
“Coming,” Itaru says, his voice rising slightly. The lights are off throughout the apartment, and he doesn’t bother to turn them on as he passes, rubbing at his eyes. He’s just going to go back to bed after this, after all. He unlocks the door, opening it enough to slide into the opening.
“Can I help--” Itaru begins, but he falls silent, startled by the person on the other side.
“Chikausa,” Itaru says instead, quietly--and then his mind goes blank, as his eyes flicker over the other man, drinking him up head to toe. It’s been six months since Itaru has seen him--not since the world they had known and shared together had shattered, and Itaru had woken up in a hospital, alive. He’d tried to find him--Chikausa--but they had never bothered to share their real names with each other, and the information, he’d discovered, wasn’t necessarily public, even to the victims of the incident.
He looks good. He looks like the man Itaru had fallen in love with, like fireworks on a moonless night, and it may be cheesy to say, but Itaru falls in love with him all over again. Chikausa wears the suit he has on right now as well as he’d worn his armor, back in Aincrad, and holds himself with the same confident air. And Itaru wonders, not for the first time, if he was the only one faking it in the game.
“Taruchi,” Chikausa says, and his own voice is soft too, as he takes in Itaru, and then he frowns, “you know, you’re a very hard person to find, for someone who has such a big online presence.”
“I haven’t updated on any of those platforms in months,” Itaru replies. He steps back, letting the door open wider, and letting the light spill into his empty apartment. Chikausa looks past him, glancing indoors at the place Itaru knows is a mess--door duty is his sister’s job, but basic cleaning, somehow, had become his.
“How are you doing?” Chikausa asks, instead of commenting on the mess that Itaru knows the apartment is, like he always had back at their lake house.
“I look that bad, huh?” Itaru smiles wryly instead of answering. As if to punctuate that, his stomach growls, reminding him that he hadn’t gotten up, let alone eaten, for at least sixteen hours.
“Let me take you to lunch,” Chikausa answers.
“Alright,” Itaru replies, opening the door and stepping back so he can enter, “but I’m warning you, if you take me somewhere where the food burns off my tongue, I will leave you there.”
“Yes, yes,” Chikausa says, kindly pretending that he isn’t laughing at Itaru.
--
“Utsuki Chikage,” Chikausa says, once they are finally seated in a restaurant. Itaru’s sweater is too big for him. It had fit him once, before, but now it hung off him loosely, the fabric pooling around his wrist and the neckline gaping in a way it hadn’t been before. He feels a little self-conscious, perhaps, looking like this when Chikausa, in front of him, is so put together. Itaru makes a questioning noise, not quite comprehending when his mind is still stuck on his sweater, and Chikausa clarifies, “that’s my real name.”
“Oh,” Itaru says, pausing to push the other thoughts out of his mind before he responds, “Chigasaki Itaru.”
“Itaru,” Chikausa--no, Chikage, tries out.
“...Chikage,” Itaru responds, testing the name out himself, letting himself get used to the way it sat on his tongue, like a distant cousin of something he held dear. “I tried to find you, you know. When I first woke up.”
“Did you?” Chikage says, before pausing, and adding, a little ruefully, “I’m not a very easy person to find. I’d...forgotten about that.”
“So what you’re saying is that you’re a cheat character in real life, too?” Itaru asks, flatly.
“Maybe,” Chikage replies with a smirk, and Itaru makes a noise of complaint in return.
It’s easy. It’s the same cadence, the same banter, the same way they slotted into place like two people who had lived and fought side by side for years. It’s the way Chikage pokes at him where everyone else has been cautious, the way their eyes meet from across the table and Chikage’s expression softens, the way he cups Itaru’s elbow as they leave the restaurant, a motion so familiar and tender it leaves an ache in Itaru’s heart he hadn’t known he could feel again.
“Let’s walk that meal off,” Chikage says, and even though Itaru hasn’t willingly done exercise since before landing in Aincrad and hasn’t really left the house since leaving it, he agrees. It’s not unlike the dates they used to have back in that world. Chikage directs them, and Itaru is content to let him do so, just relishing in the contact. It’s only when Chikage comes to a stop that Itaru looks up and focuses on where they are--a park, green, with plenty of tree shade, but mostly empty. Something about this place seems familiar to Itaru, but he can’t quite place it.
Maybe he used to come here before. Maybe he used to play here, as a kid. Itaru looks around for a bench or some swings or something to sit on--really, Itaru is much more out of shape than he remembered--and Chikage calls him, gently, drawing his attention back like a siren song.
“Itaru,” and Itaru turns, to see Chikage holding out a small velvet box to him. It’s a ring box. It’s a ring. It’s--it’s like the wedding bands they had shared, back in Aincrad.
“...what is this?” Itaru asks.
“I didn’t forget,” Chikage says, stepping forward as he holds out the ring, still nestled into that open box, “I promised you I’d make you happy, once. I’m keeping that promise.”
Ah , Itaru thinks, that’s what it is . It’s like the first time, when Chikage had taken him out to one of the levels of Aincrad with nothing but tall grass and flowers as far as the eye could see. He’d held his hand, and said, a house by the lake. I saw it last week. It’s just big enough for two. I think we’d be happy in it together. I’d promise to make you happy in it, together.
“Itaru?” Chikage asks. Itaru’s eyes flick up, towards him. He’s nervous too, Itaru realizes, with the recognition that comes with living and sleeping by someone’s side every day. Here, after everything, they were both nervous, both chasing after something that had existed, but they weren’t sure if they were entitled to anymore.
Trembling, Itaru nods, and Chikage takes the ring out of its velvet box, gently holding Itaru’s trembling hand as he slides the ring onto his finger.
Ah , Itaru thinks, this is what it’s like to come back home.
--
“Tomorrow…” Taruchi says, trailing off as he looks at the empty dishes in the sink. Washing them is as simple as tapping a UI and selecting the action, but for some reason, Taruchi can’t bring himself to do it. Washing the dishes will just bring him closer to bedtime, which will bring him closer to tomorrow, which will bring him closer to the final boss battle, and an ending, one way or another. This time tomorrow, they will either be awake, or dead.
“You can’t do the dishes tomorrow,” Chikausa says, passing through the kitchen, “and don’t use tomorrow as an excuse not to clean.”
“I’m not!” Taruchi scowls, whipping around to narrow his eyes at Chikausa. It’s a familiar argument, one without heat, and Taruchi finds himself lingering in even this feeling, wanting to savor it.
“...what?” Chikausa says, attuned as he is to Taruchi’s moods. Taruchi looks back at the dishes, still unwashed.
“What do you think will happen, the day after tomorrow?” Taruchi asks.
“We’ll wake up,” Chikausa says confidently, “in the real world.”
“Will we remember any of this?” Taruchi asks, “or will it all have been like a very long dream?” Chikausa is silent, and then Taruchi hears him coming over, feet padding softly on the bare floor.
“Where is this coming from?” Chikausa asks as he comes close to Taruchi, cupping one hand over his elbow and turning Itaru to look at him.
“This is the happiest I’ve ever been,” Taruchi says, bluntly. “I’ve always wanted to wake up and be someone else, somewhere else. That’s why I decided to play this game in the first place. And I understand we have to go back, that we should go back. We can’t stay here forever. ...but what if I wake up, and I don’t remember anything? What if it’s all just a dream, and I’m just sending myself to be unhappy again?” Chikausa’s fingers brush across his cheek, and Taruchi turns to catch the motion of his hand as it comes away, fingertips wet. He’s crying, Taruchi realizes.
“This is the happiest I’ve ever been too,” Chikausa replies, as Taruchi brings his hands up, scrubbing at his eyes, “and didn’t I make you a promise when we moved into this house together to protect that happiness?
“You did,” Taruchi acknowledges. Chikausa reaches out, pulling Taruchi’s left hand away from his face and pulling it towards him.
“Then trust in my promise,” he says, “whether it’s in this world or another one, I’ll do whatever I can to make you happy.” And he lifts Taruchi’s hand to his lips, pressing a kiss to the ring on his finger.
“Even if you forget everything else,” Chikausa says, “remember this.”