I'm Only Leafa Here
By Fictioneer
An original piece in homage to Sword Art Online characters created by Reki Kawahara (who prefers "Lyfa" to "Leafa")
"Good morning, Onii-chan!" chimed Kirigaya Suguha in purple pajamas and rabbit slippers, perkily setting the table with toast and jam and other homey implements on a cool bright day.
"Huh, morning," I duly answered, taking my place across the table from hers and somehow it didn't seem long enough. It was a feeling that dismayed me, left me a sense of being ungracious.
It was the start of high school summer break, so we were having a late breakfast without Mother. In a way I was relieved she was away to not further muddle my lingering under-the-dam feelings.
I shoved my spoon into the jar of homemade jam which Suguha gave me and scooped the purple jelly onto my toast. Then I spread some whipped butter, making a marbled design. Recently trying to control her calorie intake, Suguha discretely watched me prepare my toast and tried to endure while comparing the toast in her right hand, but her willpower's saving roll apparently failed, and without a word she pulled the butter jar toward herself, and trying to show that she could at least control the amount, she carefully spread the butter sparingly then spread blueberry jam on her toast, Suguha took a bite of that toast.
"Onii-chan, I'm attending the Kendo tournament!" she chirped, nibbling crunchy toast.
Damn, I can't help feeling phantom guilt pangs every time she says "Onii-chan," though she doesn't seem at all bothered saying it so earnestly.
Still, it's awkward as hell being seated across this demure half-tomboy without any mentions of the pre-dawn world.
"Uh, I'm just – just – er -um -"
"Really, Onii-chan!" Suguha chaffed as she took the milk carton and poured it into the glass in front of me. "You should do a few exercises when you get up to clear your head to talk more over breakfast!"
I nearly coughed.
Exercise?
Is she kidding?
"Uh, I'm – I'm going to the institute to work more on Konno Yuuki and Yui's and Strea's android avatar project."
"Oh? How far are you getting?"
"Still a long way. Since Yuuki's mind was secretly electronically duplicated by Kayaba Akihiko's Medicuboid into ai like he did to himself, her life-long mnemonic storage is far far larger than Yui and Strea's and keeping its integrity for any android interface is a challenge."
"You'll do it, Onni-chan. I look forward to the day I walk with them around in the real world! Even do picnics together. Wouldn't that be wonderful, Onii-chan?"
"Uh, yea."
"Oh yea, the Fukushimas just had a baby – a girl I think! Everyone in the neighborhood's collecting. I'm giving twenty yen! There's a new Lucky Star episode tonight so let's not miss it! Also I found a way to beat the magazine contest raffles..."
I can't believe this conversation.
Suguha, chatting and prattling as sisterly nonchalant as driven snow. As though totally nothing happened last night – or the scores of nights since...since...
How did she do it?
To see her putter about and chat over mundane household matters at breakfast like last night never was. Or did Suguha master the trick of selective amnesia or disassociating reality from the quasi-dream that was VR? I often wanted to broach the subject over breakfast toast but couldn't. I mean brothers just don't converse with sisters over such matters much less anything this intimate.
What goes on in Alfheim stays in Alfheim...
Still, it's awkward as hell sitting here knowing she knows in sly silence, but if Suguha wants to pose the dutiful innocent little sister and sincerely mean it since it was so in the real world, maybe I should just go along and not rock the boat. After all, in real life nothing's happened between us that law and religion would condemn, like having dovetailing wet dreams.
Now I understand the debate between fact and truth.
And guilt and blame.
I chance to look up just in time to catch her lush eyelashes ducking down to her nibbled toast, look she'd been slyly studying my reverie to read my mind. There were times I was glad that Suguha was intellectually precocious because that made my past actions easier to take than if she were a clueless helpless little sister lamb victimized by a sardonic lion bro.
Did I pounce Lyfa on the rebound after Asuna got bedazzled away by that Kuroda guy?
Reflecting belted my belly like a mallet, reading Asuna's "Dear John" text on my phone...
The phone!
"Dear Kirito-kun, yesterday I met an awesome special someone..."
Royal life crash.
My despair and deep funk fled to our cabin on the twenty-second floor on a winter night to wave Yui away and curl up by myself and sob away till there was a soft knock at the door and Lyfa came in and it was like a playback of that chilly night in my dark room after my dispiriting encounter with Sugou Nobuyuki at Asuna's hospital bed when Suguha came in and twined slim sturdy comforting arms around me and her warm fleshy pillows cradled my sobbing tears.
Now with Asuna gone again, my heart torn asunder, I was blinded by the urge to find solace, to smother my grief. I finally truly understood the terrible emotional double-whammies Lyfa/Suguha took at my truth's revelation outside the gates of the World Tree. Losing Asuna not to death but to love slammed me into soft stunned clay, a blind lamb to led by an empathetic shepherd. Lyfa gently stroked and assuaged me in a slow mutual balming where all my dazed grieved mind imagined was that I was again touching Asuna, kissing Asuna, entering Asuna, and in the morning when I woke and startled at the emerald sylph sleeping next I nearly jolted off the bed.
Omigish!
What have I done?
And as though Lyfa heard my thoughts from her slumber she woke and clasped my cheeks in her soft hands and her big emerald eyes bore into mine.
"I'm only Lyfa here, Kirito-kun. Only Lyfa."
It was a declaration and command I tired to defy even as I groped for grounds to deny it because the soft sleek body before me resembled Suguha's angular muscled one not one wilt. Not by pale skin nor lovely face nor voice. Lyfa might as well been a stranger as she was once at first meeting. I just couldn't envision this erotic tigress being in fact my tomboy sister or that such vehement passions were pent up and boiling behind whose dutiful modest facade.
Suguha?
But I didn't know! I was blinded by despair and grief! I'd never move on Suguha asleep or wide awake! I hardly even realized who it was, only someone caring was holding me and stroking my sobs and anguish and my deep funk clouded my mind and senses after that and my bod took over. Even the strictest God would pardon compassion's trespass over forbidden waters assuaging my black pit of grief once. I can log out right now with only the slightest stain as an unwittingly strayed brother and leave Suguha's emphatic virtue only bruised as a bout of masturbation...
"No..." Lyfa softly whispers, her hands drew his face down to me and I hesitated but couldn't deny Lyfa wasn't a looker or a coy nymphet but her lips brushed mine and the crazy idea of spilled milk flit to mind. All I see are big emerald eyes and corn-silk locks and nobody else as she kissed my chin. I wanted to say 'Sugu' to break my spell but her slim finger pressed my lip and kissed and my longs and loins went auto-pilot.
No, this mustn't go on.
Or needs a good reason to. One which the real world condemns and blasphemes you for trespassing laws and mores and faith.
But do they apply to dreams and intangible virtual existences?
Do they?
Like, she's in no way Suguha here.
Only Lyfa.
Whose titillating charm was now no longer overshadowed by Asuna's dazzle.
Lyfa.
Who could've very easily could've been my Asuna in whose place way back then when Suguha's existence had no bearing or effect on it or my feelings. Could've then been the bliss of innocent blind love now finally unshackled...
Of their own accord overriding my bemusement, my arms went around Lyfa, mashing plump boobs against my pounding chest. So vehement was our resumed lovemaking that we both fell asleep again afterwards.
I sat up in the noon sun and for the second time looked down at the angel snuggled next to me.
Suguha?
No.
There was no reminder or trace of that person here. Only irrelevant brother memories smearing her beauty.
There's only Lyfa here...
It dawned me that I couldn't think or talk like this before the Suguha's damning image and was suddenly grateful for Lyfa being Lyfa. Granted, Lyfa borrowed a lot from Suguha's trunk, but she was evolving a whole different branch altogether now that solely dwelt this world That VR freed the spirit from the chains of appearance or race or gender or even blood. There were all kinds of dalliances here that would be condemned and frowned upon in the real world. Even though this engagement between us came from a commiseration of grief and soothing, there was nothing dirty or forbidden in it. It didn't mean I ever held these same feelings for Suguha – I hadn't - couldn't, but this was Lyfa. Without Asuna's dazzle outshining it, I can appreciate Lyfa's charm clearly now after totally dissolving my melancholy and loss.
Lyfa...
Her pellucid emerald orbs opened and she smiled and pecked my chin. "I have to go," she near-whispers with a honey-husky breath.
"Why?" I asked with new wistfulness, not wanting to break this fresh snug affinity.
"Breakfast!" She mentioned the real world like chiding my cluelessness and was reluctant to.
Sheepish, I also wish she hadn't. "Uh Lyfa -" Her finger purses my lips, emerald orbs softly boring into my eyes and soul.
"Don't. Ever. I'm only Lyfa here. No one else. What happens here stays here."
I reflected. "Can it really?"
"The real world is still clean and pure and unchanged as before."
"Still..."
Lyfa sits up, sheets wrapping her décolletage-style. "No guilt trips, Kirito-kun. I came to you, you didn't pounce a little lamb."
I snickered. "That's an evil way of getting me off the hook," I quipped but she was right though. There'd been no ravaging, no violation, no molesting, no beguiling – at least on my part, but then that's part and parcel of feminine wiles.
"I plucked a petal," I demurred, trying to sound contrite and urbane but Lyfa smiled.
"I see. You deflowered my soul once more in a thousand dreams?"
"Suguha!"
Damn, what kind of slam confession's that for any sister to make? It's almost bad as knowing I made love with her in VR itself! But do sisters ever have such wild forbidden dreams I wonder? Still, it almost magically lifted a dark somber cloud.
I couldn't help a quip. "Guess that explains why you're so 'good' – Lyfa," I wryly said and she tinkered.
"I hope I pleased you, Kirito-kun, my love."
My love.
How strange yet comforting to hear that. Like a long slumbered bell finally tolled between us.
"Yea, you were amazing. Who'd imagine your innocent little sister would have such – lively dreams?"
Lyfa laughed and nipped my ear. "You once said during a moonlight waltz between sky and Earth that you'd wait for me till you were sure and free, Kirito-kun. You knew what I was then."
Abashed, I mulled that strange frenzied night, a promise made to the limbo between cousin and sister. A promise that never should've been hadn't I been so uncertain but a little less sincere. It was kind of naive of me to think Suguha or any girl would simply write-off such a traumatic revelation and confession during that Alfheim episode when Suguha's pines for me had been so brutally and unwittingly exposed. Only the public boiling had stopped, but those feelings been long simmering under tact and civility. If I want to be cold about it I could say Lyfa took advantage my dazed angst and seduced me and fulfilled Suguha's lifelong desires. Oddly, in a way that also lightened blame and shame...
I admitted, "I – was half-hoping you'd get over it, but – that was because of Asuna..." I thought I'd feel a nudge of betrayal thinking of her but for some reason it felt irrelevant, grade school math was in high school. I wondered whether my emotional armor would've been as weakened and susceptible to Lyfa's assuaging had Asuna died or been killed for real somehow.
Maybe I owe that Kuroda one big fat favor.
"Lyfa, you still have to give me time. It's one thing for my body and desires to feel alright about this, but my conscience still feels clingy to - being proper in another world, you know?"
"I understand – and that's good, Kirito-kun," she blesses with a kiss then rises to the noon sun and waves to pop a menu before her. "Wait twenty minutes."
"Lyfa – " I call too late as her dainty fingers strum the menu and her form dissolves into sparkling glitters fading.
Damn! More than ever I'm apprehensive what I'll find the other side.
I wait, sitting on sheets are still damp from lovemaking. Talk about full fidelity VR! How the hell did Su – Lyfa get so skilled at it? Just wet dream simulations?
The thought wells double-edged guilt as I sensed how familiar she was as Asuna's awkward first time, only Lyfa's learning curve took off like a rocket. Suguha's training wet dreams must've be something else.
A soft timer bell that Lyfa set broke my long muddled mull and nervously I press my log-out button and my cabin bedroom dissolves into an opaque visor and I sit there stunned and faintly smell breakfast aromas.
Christ.
I pause then slide my door open to the bathroom across the hall and it's still warm from shower steam and Suguha's vaporized sweat scent. Whether from VR battles or sex, your body sweats from the mental stress in the real world, and they were distinctive odors too.
But what I was whiffing wasn't from any battle...
My innocent little sister?
Tingles of guilt and misgivings chide me as I hastily shower – trying to ignore visions of Suguha here before me only minutes before – and oddly succeeding, and after briskly dressing I stealth into the dish and pot clatter of the kitchen to face what – a surly betrayed sister?
A robotically stunned violated sibling?
No.
Who greets me is the same cheery perky sib who's before me now today, pouring me milk and spreading blueberry jam over her toast and chatting over her Kendo tournament like nothing between us ever happened in another world.
Nothing like Lyfa in the slightest.
Different girls in different worlds.
Beyond my comforting relief at that, what matters most is Suguha's still a flowery maiden in every sense and truth of the word in the real world where life most counts, her infinitely precious honor and virtue untouched by a quasi-reality free the real world's irreverent rules and condemnations and damnations. And if I need to feel less culpable, I recall that among the hundred thousand logins in VR that there are far more than a few even more blood-related than Suguha and I having unwitting or blind or even willing engagements with another's stainless avatars just by sheer chance.
The blood/gender/age/class/specie VR couple combos are breathless...
"Like some more jam, Onii-chan?"
"Uh, that's okay. I'm full!" I almost apologetically replied and she softly smiles unoffended as though she knows that this is actually my second breakfast from an hour ago where Lyfa prepared in our cabin while gracing a nice off-shoulder floral-brocade gown that compel my eyes to follow her during our dawn strolls in the flowery forest and meadows after a torrid night of twined limbs and heaving and merging and plunging and erupting and sharing, ever more daring, ever more shamelessly creative corruption, and even though the bro in me ought be abashed and ashamed that demure "little" sis here knows it all, if she's totally unbothered than so am I.
Because nothing's changed between us in this real reality, which is all that matters the real world and our virtue and honor.
Love's like a private dream between Lyfa and I, and though there're faint twinges of obsolete guilt, I just can't tie or pin any of those feelings to this girl having breakfast across from me.
I'm pleased and relieved and content of that most of all.
That my brotherly affections for Suguha are light-years away far different deeper ones only for an emerald sylph in another universe.
What goes in Alfheim stays in Alfheim...
I smile and spoon more jam on my toast before my innocent sister's coy sparkling dark eyes. Eyes which no longer shyly ogle me as had long before because that torch's since been passed on.
To Alfheim.
Alright, dear Sugu.
I'll play mum and shy too, long as Lyfa keeps waltzing across heaven's bridge to me.
FIN