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Some days, it was getting hard to recall that this wasn’t the real world.
They’d been trapped in Sword Art Online for so long that Shigemura Yuuna had started to feel like this world was the real one. After all, she was still very much herself. She had her trusty guitar with her, ready to strum a sweet melody for anyone who needed a smile. She had her heart, filled with kindness for the people she played for. And she had Eiji, the boy who had always believed in her, even when she thought her own father wasn’t listening to her dreams.
Eiji was a kind-hearted boy. He’d come into her life when she’d entered school as a child, and they’d become fast friends. When he’d learned about her desire to become a singer, he’d been so excited and filled with support, even from a young age. His enthusiasm and encouragement always filled her heart with joy, and as they’d grown up together, they’d become fast friends…and then best friends…
…perhaps something more?
She stared at his back now as she approached him from the other side of the square. He didn’t know she was here. He was lost in conversation with someone from his guild. She stopped in her tracks, eyes focused on the red and white colors of the Knights of the Blood Oath. Her chest filled with pride every time she saw him in those colors. He’d worked really hard to join one of the top guilds in the game. But she couldn’t help but also feel nervous—being on the front lines was dangerous. He might not make it home.
As she waited, she tried to rid herself of this horrible fear. She had to be positive, for his sake. Today was a special day, after all. She wanted to take him to the 47th floor and ask him a question that had been burning in her chest for a while. She had to get it out now, before he went on a big mission with the K.o.B. and risked the chances of never coming back. That reality was why she wanted to get her feelings off of her chest. She had to say something before it was far too late for her to do so.
She twiddled her thumbs, waiting for the conversation to end. Sighing, she turned to sit down on the bench that was attached to the fountain to her left. She flattened her skirt and prepared to be seated, but she stopped when a boy dressed in all black walked up to the fountain and then proceeded to climb into it. She stared at him, bewildered for a moment, and then glanced back over at Eiji. He was still talking. She frowned at the man in the fountain. He was now bent over forward, appearing to search for something at the base.
“S-sir…” she mumbled.
He looked up at her, surprised to see someone watching him. He smiled at her and laughed.
“Sorry, I’ll stop splashing around in a moment, miss,” he said. “It’s just that this fountain has col spawn at the bottom of it at certain intervals during the day to mimic a wishing well. If you’re lucky, you can find quite a bit of it down here.”
She blinked her eyes at him.
“And…you’d remove coins from a wishing well?” she asked.
He shook his head.
“No, that would be rude,” he said. “Players didn’t put this here. The system did. So, I see nothing wrong with taking something meant to be found by players. It’s a game after…”
He stopped talking and frowned at her.
“Say, you’re the bard that plays in the square every day,” he said. “I thought you were an NPC, but your conversation is too lifelike. Are you an NPC?”
She shook her head back and forth.
“Of course, I’m not!” she exclaimed. “I’m a player, just like you!”
This boy was odd. He laughed awkwardly again and dipped his head.
“My bad,” he said. “Are you waiting for someone? Am I interrupting?”
Yuuna glanced over her shoulder at Eiji again. The conversation was still going strong. She sighed. And men complained that women were the chatty ones. She knew she was just impatient. Eiji’s superior was likely telling him important, detailed instructions. She turned back to the boy in the fountain and saw him giving Eiji a funny look.
“Did you get ditched for someone to go join a guild, too?” he muttered.
Yuuna frowned.
“What’s your deal?” she asked. “E…Nautilus and I are very, very close! He wouldn’t ditch me!”
The boy nodded and hummed. He pulled up several coins from the water, nodded once more to himself, and then stashed them away in his inventory. He straightened up and stretched, still in the fountain.
“That’s good,” he mumbled. “If you care a lot for him, then be sure to take good care of him. Don’t let him go.”
She blinked at the boy in black for a moment. Despite his odd behavior, she couldn’t help but feel sorry for him now. It sounded like he’d been rejected by a girl or something. Without any clues to go on, she wasn’t going to say anything about that, so she just nodded and thanked him for his advice. He gave her a sad smile and then climbed out of the fountain, heading over towards a busy street filled with vendors. She watched him as he disappeared into that crowd, and she put her hands over her heart.
Don’t let him go.
She turned back to Eiji.
Take good care of him.
Smiling, she nodded to herself and promised the boy in black that she’d do everything in her power to keep Eiji safe. She wouldn’t let him leave her. He was far too important to her to risk losing him. It gave her the courage to express her feelings to him today. She walked over to where the two were speaking and cleared her throat.
“Hello, Nautilus,” she said sweetly.
Eiji turned and smiled at her.
“Yuna!” he said. “I was just finishing up talking with Godfree, here. I was going to come looking for you when we were done.”
She nodded in acknowledgement.
“If you need a few minutes, I can wait over there by the fountain,” she said.
When she turned back around, she saw that the strange boy was in the fountain again, this time with a very burly-looking, bald man standing just outside of it behind him. They appeared to be having an argument. She pursed her lips and turned back around.
“On second thought…” she muttered.
The larger man beside Eiji, Godfree, laughed cordially and shook his head.
“It’s quite alright, young miss!” he said. “We’re done here. You can have Nautilus for the rest of the day if you please!”
She laughed and nodded.
“Thank you very much, Godfree!” she said.
He grinned back at her.
“My pleasure, young miss!” he said.
As he walked away, Eiji started shaking his head.
“He’s way too into character,” he said, chuckling. “I can’t imagine putting on such a character like that. Could you imagine me role-playing? It would be a whole mess.”
She giggled and wrapped her arm around his.
“I think you’d do just fine,” she said. “After all, games should be about having fun, right? In a perfect world, we’d be here for fun, too!”
Eiji’s cheeks turned a bit red. She found herself blushing now, too. He quickly diverted.
“So…I wonder why he’s standing in the fountain…” he mumbled.
She sighed.
“He says there’s col at the bottom,” she said. “I thought he’d left, but he’s back now. Th-there’s somewhere I wanted to go with you, anyways, Ei-kun. Would it be alright to go up to the 47th floor? Where the big flower garden is?”
He gave her a strange look, but then he smiled and nodded.
“Yeah, let’s head there,” he said. “We’ll leave Kirito to his…whatever he’s doing.”
She blinked.
“Wait, you know that guy?” she said.
He waved his hand as they walked towards the teleport gate.
“He’s a front-liner who tends to butt heads with our Vice Commander,” he said. “I don’t directly engage, but there’s a lot of tension between the two. It makes me think that they have some kind of personal spat or something…”
Yuuna hummed and stole a glance at the boy in black. He was splashing some of the water out of the fountain over at the burly fellow.
“Maybe he loves her and feels heartbroken…” she mumbled.
Eiji stopped at the teleport gate and frowned.
“What was that?” he said.
She shook her head.
“N-nothing,” she stammered. “Let’s go.”
They stood side-by-side in the gate and chanted the command in unison.
“Teleport: Floria!”
The bustling city of Algade disappeared from before their eyes, and it was swiftly replaced with the scenery of the center of Floria, a beautiful garden with pastel colors and elegant white pathways and columns. Players frequently called this area the “Flower Garden” instead of its official title, since it literally teleported them to the center of a garden. Yuuna drew in a breath even though her avatar didn’t need such. The game was programmed to include scents, so the fragrances of the flowers tickled her nose. She smiled and took Eiji by the hand, dragging him along after her.
She knew the perfect little hideaway spot in this garden. She often came here when trying to learn new songs that she’d acquired the sheet music to. In SAO, playing a guitar was fairly easy; one could either follow instructions for how to play by moving fingers as one would in those older rhythm video games, or, if one had the talent already, one could actually strum the instrument with their fingers. But it was always necessary to play through a song when the parchment with the sheet music on it was found so as to “unlock” each song as one leveled up.
Yuuna navigated the garden so easily that she wondered if Eiji had put together the fact that she came here often. She didn’t mind if he knew. He was the sort of person that she could share everything with. He was her best friend, and she longed for him to be something much more than that. She glanced behind her every few seconds, telling him that they were getting closer now, and he always flashed her a smile and started laughing when she did so.
I want to protect that smile.
At last, their pace slowed down to a walk. She had taken him to an area where roses grew up on trellises, arching over a few benches here and there. The benches were hidden from view so as to give the person or persons sitting on it some privacy. She pulled him into one of the spaces, letting out a sigh of relief when it was empty. The space on the inside seemed a lot bigger than the space on the outside. She went over and sat on the marble bench, then she patted the space beside her.
“I come here often when I’m practicing,” she said. “It’s a nice place to sit away from everyone and work.”
Eiji hummed and glanced around the little pocket of space.
“Why not in your room?” he asked.
She laughed.
“It feels calmer here,” she admitted. “Algade is such a busy town. So much happens in the streets. It’s very distracting. I get caught up wanting to watch people going about their business from the window. Here, I’m cut off from everyone else in one of these little corners. No one’s walking by where I can see them. Only rarely have I had someone walk into one on me. There’s an indicator outside that tells you there’s a player inside.”
The corner of his mouth turned upwards.
“That’s actually pretty convenient,” he said. “Why bring me here, then? Were you wanting to test out a new song?”
She shook her head.
“No, that’s not why we’re here today,” she admitted. “It’s something very different than that, Ei-kun.”
She bit her lip.
“You’ve gone and joined a big guild,” she said. “And I’m very proud of you for being brave and wanting to save everyone. But before you go, I can’t wait to tell you something very important, Ei-kun. Some things should be spoken aloud, not kept locked inside of our hearts.”
He tilted his head, and he finally came to sit down beside her. He took her hands in his and frowned.
“Is everything okay, Yuuna?” he asked.
She drew in a deep breath. The way he held her hands now so casually filled her stomach with butterflies. Was she too bold? She had to get these feelings off of her chest. If he didn’t feel the same way, would she feel okay? She offered him a smile.
“I just…” she started.
Her voice sounded more emotional than she’d meant it. Had that been a crack?
“You mean everything to me, Ei-kun,” she said. “You’ve always been by my side. And with the fear of losing people dear to us always looming over us in this death game, I have to say what needs to be said before we never have the chance to again.”
Eiji squeezed her hands.
“We’re going to make it out alive, Yuuna,” he said. “I promise. I promise to protect you and wake up to see you on the other side again.”
She wanted to throw her arms around him. His kindness and optimism was overwhelming when she had doubts of her own.
“But this is just in case, Ei-kun,” she said. “Because I’m going to protect you, too.”
Leaning forward, with her heart pounding, she slipped her lips into his and kissed him for the very first time. How long had she been waiting to do this? It felt like ecstasy. Her whole body was on fire from the excitement of it all. The two’s hands slipped apart, and she thrust her arms at last around his neck, pulling him closer. Her hat bumped against the wall of roses behind him and fell down off of her hair. She felt his hands make their way to her waist. She pulled away for a moment.
“I-I’m sorry…” she stammered. “I just…I’ve been in love with you for a very long time…and…if this game never gets cleared…”
He strengthened his hold on her waist and smiled.
“This game will get cleared, Yuuna,” he said.
She pressed one hand to his cheek as she gazed at him with wide eyes. Tears were falling down his face.
“Ei-kun?” she whispered.
His smile broadened just a bit.
“I’m so happy,” he said.
She tilted her head.
“Y-you are?” she stammered.
He nodded and laughed.
“I’ve been in love with you for a while now, too,” he admitted. “I thought I was mistaking things and fooling myself, but…”
He pulled her closer again.
“May I kiss you again?” he asked softly.
She nodded her head. This time, he drew her in and slowly took her lips in his. The butterflies in her stomach started to subside. Instead, she felt a warmth unlike any she’d felt before. She wanted to cry—her love was being returned. The boy who mattered most to her in the world loved her just as much as she loved him. She could feel the change in the wind. They would make it out of this game together. They would kiss in the real world.
And they would never be apart.