A/N: Wow, whouda thunk that my first mature fic would feature these two lovebirds? No biggie, but I didn't expect this particular bunny to pick me up and take off down the fast lane. Bravo, Kirito and Asuna, bravo.
Warning(s): Fluff, smut, and angst, not necessarily in that order. Great combo, if I do say so myself. Regardless, consider yourselves warned.
Disclaimer: I do not own Sword Art Online in any of its various forms. I do own this smutty piece of fluff, so no takies without exclusive permission (from me).
Summary: You are so sick of looking in the mirror and seeing a face that isn't yours.
It's not easy, exposing yourself. At times, it seems downright impossible.
Your life before this death trap was good, if far from extraordinary. You had a family, one that loved and guided you with everything it had, for the most part anyway. You were a son to supportive parents and a brother to a caring sister, and you had a place to belong, at least until you looked in the mirror and found the truth about yourself, that you were (had) none of those things, not really. Instead, you were a nephew and a cousin, close to family but not close enough, not as close as you were. And unable to cope with the reality, you distanced yourself, too afraid to run away but too bitter to act as if nothing had changed.
Ultimately, you compromised, remained in their home (no longer yours) and lived by their rules; but mentally (emotionally) you were gone. You found a hiding place that could hold you tight and safe (like family), yet give you freedom from the life you no longer wanted (because now you were an outsider).
And what hiding place was more perfect than that which didn't truly exist?
You discovered the world of virtual reality.
Now, you're back where you began, staring into that mirror, wondering who you really are. An eternity ago, you shed your skin as Kirigaya Kazuto and covered your exposed insides with the coat of Kirito, the Black Swordsman. You built an empire of independence and self-sovereignty, and refused anyone who wished to enter your domain. You didn't bother to ask that hard question, but it still reared itself at the worst of times.
Who am I once Kirito's skin is peeled away, layer by carefully constructed layer? You honestly don't know…but she is coming dangerously close to finding out.
Asuna. The girl with the white diamond skin. She stands with you in front of this glass mirror, the antithesis to your black autonomy. Once upon a time, she confronted you, bone-white sword drawn and leveled at your throat, daring you to get up and fight, just as you dared her to lie back and unwind for once in her life. For the first time, here was someone who would not allow you to run and hide. She did more than just match your stride; she challenged it, encouraged you to do better, to bebetter.
Now at an impasse once more, Asuna is challenging you again, daring you…to live.
Truthfully, you're not sure you know how to live anymore. But you do know that you're so sick of looking in this mirror and seeing a face that isn't yours.
This girl before you has extended a duel. This time, her sword is her barely-clothed body, sheathed in the moonlight and just as deadly as any blade tip pressed to your throat. She's beautiful, and your throat closes at the defiant look in her tawny eyes, even as a soft blush makes her smooth cheeks glow.
"Kirito-kun." Her voice, soothing and steadfast, seems to echo inside you, your heart hammering in time with the clock on the wall, and you know that the first step you can take toward change is into her arms. Hesitantly, you extend a hand, and it feels so good to clasp it in hers that you move closer, out of the cold shade and into her heat. She accepts you willingly, folds a thin arm around your back to press your bodies together, fingers entwined between your chests. You draw your own arm around her waist, resting your hand on the small of her back in a parody of a ballroom dance; the soft skin at her hip makes your fingers tingle, and you drop your eyes to the wood floor, embarrassed at your inexperience in these kinds of matters.
"Are you scared?" The question is murmured, and you're close enough to feel her breath on your lips and cheeks, warming your face. You swallow, wanting to lie, knowing it would be so easy to pull the proverbial black coat around your shoulders and claim no fear, as you've done so many times in the past.
I'm so tired of this mask.
Instead, you lift your gaze to hers and nod, just once. "A little," you mutter, and the smile that lights her face is enough to persuade you to unclasp your hand from hers and lift it to touch the skin of her cheek.
"Me, too," she replies, and you remember that this strong girl has her own difficulties to overcome, her own faults to conquer. Asuna has her own glass mask to shatter.
As you touch your lips together, you find yourself wondering how dazzling she'll be once it's removed.
She already shines so brightly.
When she shifts her lips against yours, you move the hand on her cheek to her hair, stroking your fingers through the thick mass. Her hands close to hold fistfuls of your shirt at your chest and back, her head tilting to mold your mouths together more firmly, and you can't stop the small sound that rises from your throat as her lips part.
Breathe. Tentatively, you pull her closer, feel the press of her breasts (breathe) against your drumming heart, and graze her tongue with the tip of yours, tasting floral tea and shuddering at the reverberation of the near inaudible moan that echoes between your mouths (just breathe).
Her warm fingers slip under your shirt to caress your stomach, and your breath stops completely.
"Kirito-kun." You reluctantly open your eyes to see her gazing back at you, half-lidded and shining with something you know but cannot quite name. You feel the brunt of heated hands as Asuna's fingers rest on your chest, gently stroking as you watch one another. "Have you done this before?" You shake your head, focusing on her warmth.
"No." Even if you had, you know it would never have equaled this. When she pushes your bangs away with tender fingers, you open your mouth, pause, then speak. "Have you?"
"No." She answers easily, a small smile curving her lips, before her hands slide up to your shoulders and back down, eliciting shivers; you resist the urge to pull her close again. "Do you want to do this?"
For a moment you simply blink at her, wondering why she bothers asking; your interest has been acutely clear in the last few moments, and becomes ever clearer as you catch glimpses of her bra and underwear at the edges of your vision, the white of them a tantalizing contrast to the peach of her skin.
And then you remember the beginning of all this, that damn duel that led to your wearing that damn white uniform and that damn old man who paralyzed your limbs and made your life flash before your eyes. And to capitalize on it all was the absolute terroryou felt at believing that life to be over, the same life you had taken for granted too many times to wholly recall.
If there was any bright point in it all, it was Asuna. With her intervention, she gave you a chance at redemption, an opportunity you didn't know you had been looking for until she broke down and shed tears for you. Which led to your first kiss (with her, withanyone) and the declaration (however poorly declared) that ultimately led you here, with her standing mere inches away, pretty eyes bright with a hint of uncertainty.
Tonight, I want to stay with you. And while the night has taken a turn you never considered, the words still ring with an undeniable truth.
Asuna's hand passes over your torso again, and you untangle your fingers from her hair to grip it to your chest. Your heart still drums loudly, and you wonder if she can feel the pulse beneath her palm. "I want to be with you, Asuna," you whisper, and her eyes widen at the implication that's now clear in the cadence of your voice. "Do you want to be with me?"
"Yes," she answers instantly, a quiet affirmation that somehow resounds as intensely as a shout. She flushes slightly at her outburst but retains her resolve, and you think that may be the core difference between you. You've never known her to back down from a choice, even in uncertainty, even with doubt looming overhead like a shadow. It makes you smile before you lean in to brush your mouth over hers, slipping your hand back into the silky tendrils of her hair as she lessens the distance and presses the length of her body against you. This time, when your mouth opens to deepen the kiss, it's her tongue that grazes yours, and you breathe in deeply, a weighted sense of fulfillment (belonging) settling in your ribcage, unfamiliar but welcome.
Somehow, you loosen your hold long enough for Asuna to lead you through the kitchen and living room to her bed. The moon offers the only illumination for which the two of you can see one another, but it's more than enough as Asuna opens her options menu; with lightning-quick taps of her fingers, the Ethics Code is switched off, and her underclothes fade into nothingness, leaving her bare but for the moonlight sheening her skin. "Ah-" Your mouth shuts before words can ruin the moment, your eyes darting around her face, neck, her bare shoulders, before inevitably centering on two beige-tipped breasts, and even as you try not to react you feel your face heat to a blaze. When you meet Asuna's gaze again, her eyes are crinkled in amusement.
"Your turn?"
Oh.
With a stiff arm, you shakily bring up your menu and file into options. Your hand hovers over the Ethics Code, fingers itching anxiously. Press it. Shatter the mirror. Asuna watches you, patience lining her face, giving you all the time in the world. Take off the mask, and show her who you are.
Ethics Code Off
Cool air prickles your skin as your long-sleeved shirt and pants pixilate away, and you shudder and shut your eyes at the sense of utter exposure that overtakes you. It's something you've never felt before, something you've avoided (at all costs) since you came into this world and cloaked yourself in black arrogance. But those shadows aren't there to hide you anymore. Now, you're just as illuminated in the moonlight as the girl before you, and it's dizzying and terrifying and-
"Kirito-kun." A soft hand comes to rest on your cheek just before a body follows it, molding to the contours of your skin.
Exhilarating.
Before you can retreat, Asuna's gentle curves are in line with your angles, a soft friction that ignites a flare deep in your belly. Your mouths come together as her arms wrap around your neck and her hands burrow in your hair, and you touch her, fingers roaming her neck, her shoulders and back and waist and hips. And when they finally cross over that unspoken barrier and dip lower, you're thrilled to feel her body tense not with doubt, but with delight.
Your lips pull apart when you lower one another to the bed; your sight is blurred, but you see that look in her hazy eyes again, and finally recognize the message in it.
"I want you." And the emotion (the warmth) that courses through you is beyond anything you can say.
The remainder of the night, you might as well be oblivious to anything but her. As you touch, running hands and hesitant fingers over increasingly damp, heated skin; as you wrap around each other with arms and legs and lips and tongues; as you breathe each other in, the air around you heady and disorienting, your heart paradoxically slows, becomes a steady, heavy beat in your chest that complements the pulsing movement of your center against hers.
In many ways, it's too much for you. Your senses are overloaded, your brain whited-out with awareness as your bodies join again and again, Asuna's thighs a cradle for your hips and her fingers a strong, slender anchor on the sweat-slicked skin of your shoulders.
Ironic that, even as you push against the onslaught of sensation, you simultaneously reach for more. It's never aloud, never audible, but it's there, in the tightness around your eyes and the desperate grip you have on the bed sheets, in the open-mouthed wonder you feel as you lose your control and Asuna's voice makes itself known in your ear.
Finally, your bodies burst, reduced to little more than ragged, blissful quakes. It's raw, and it's painfully real, and you feel wetness at the corners of your eyes as you're engulfed, loosening the adhesive of your pride and releasing the pressure of it all in a cry that pairs with her own, muffled and quavering against your lips.
In that moment, when the ground beneath you shatters, so does your mask. It falls from your face in glass shards, leaving you more open, more vulnerable than you've been since you first entered this place, determined to never show weakness again.
You failed.
Asuna gathers you close in the aftershocks, breath still stuttering, body still wracked with tremors, and kisses you; you wrap yourself around her like the sheets tangled around your ankles, gasping into her mouth as you try to kiss her back, anything to show how much you're feeling.
"Kirito-kun." Her voice is a hoarse whisper, and it sounds as beautiful as she looks, with her hair wild about her head and her eyes heavy-lidded and warm. You smile, touching your hand to her cheek and basking in the heat that emanates from it (from her).
You swear to yourself that, one of these days, you'll tell her your real name; after this death game has been bested, and you've ensured each other's (everyone's) safety, you want there to be a means for you to find each other again, because you really don't think you can be completely happy without her, not now that you've met her, not now that she's seen your true face and you've seen hers (and how beautifully bright it is).
Until that time, when the real world finally beckons, you'll simply indulge yourself, imagine how good it will sound, your name (your true name) coming from her lips.
"Kazuto-kun."
"Asuna."
This is me.