In the year 2022
"Hi There!" the announcer's cheery voice filled the blank parts of the room. "Time for this week's MMO Stream. You just saw a promo of today's featured game. And this is what last week's launch day looked like:" Images of satisfied customers and ecstatic hardcore gamers filled the screen. Lines wrapping around the few video game stores that offered it this early extended blocks long. Some even looked like they had slept outside of them for days in anticipation of the release. "Can you guess what everyone's waiting for?" she continued. "Sword Art Online!"
Kirito flipped through the NerveGear magazine he had set on his lap. He turned over the pages, and was met by an article called "クリスマスは今年初めに来た：ソードアートオンラインのオープンゲイのクリエイターの新しいスクープ." His eyes lingered on a picture of a man in a white lab coat, leaning with effortless sex-appeal against the table behind him. Kirito recognized the man immediately, he would know those kneecaps anywhere. The boy stroked the photograph, admiring Akihiko's thighs, then sighed and moved his finger along the edge of the magazine. He felt a prick and lifted his thumb to see a sliver of blood seeping through a fresh paper cut. Kirito turned off the stream. He'd already had access to the servers for a month, working as a beta tester. But that was a whole other story. Kirito heard pounding footsteps through the thin walls, and a goodbye from his sister before slamming the door. "Hey, I'm off to practice now. See you later, okay?"
The house was then silent, and Kirito was alone. He took his NerveGear headset off of his nightstand and placed it over his head. "Link Start!"
Flashes of blinding colors filled the screen and Kirito was transported to the magical world of Sword Art Online. The town square of the Town of Beginnings formed around him, swarming with new players as well as the occasional beta tester. "Hello, world! I'm back!" Kirito exclaimed, clenching his first roughly and feeling the rush he always got when first diving back into the fantasy VRMMO.
Kirito took off sprinting out of the square. He had to see how the first floor of the iron tower had changed since the many hours he spent as a Beta Tester before the release. "Hey, Bro! Wait up!" he heard from a musky voice behind him.
The black-haired swordsman whipped around, curious and a bit confused to who was calling him. "What's up?" he responded coolly. The man he saw before him had obviously chosen a more cheesy samurai-esque appearance for his avatar. Kirito himself had picked an avatar that looked more like a Shounen anime protagonist. Nonetheless, Kirito could only hope that this man's real face was as smoking hot as his avatar's. He dismissed the thought from his mind, as the red-haired samurai continued.
"Whew…" he panted, obviously having wasted his breath catching up with Kirito's amazing stealth. "You act like you know your way around here. You were in the beta test, weren't you?"
Kirito sighed. It seemed he had been found out quickly, but there was no use hiding it. "Ah, yeah."
"Cool!" he responded, placing his hand on Kirito's shoulder. The younger boy blushed slightly and tried to push the stranger off of him. He'd had enough excitement for the day. "Today is my first day, so could you give me some tips on the lower floors?"
This was exactly why Kirito was hoping to avoid outing himself as a Beta Tester. He had no desire to waste time training newbies when there were new things to be seen and floors to be cleared. In this world of Sword Art Online, Kirito was truly fascinated in getting faster, stronger and better. People like this would only slow him down.
"Yeah, I don't know if I… uh" Kirito tripped over his words, attempting to find an excuse to weasel out of this.
"Oh, please I'm beggin' you!" the stranger clapped his hands together pleadingly, trying with impressive determination to get Kirito to give up and help him. He looked up hopefully and gave Kirito a little wink. It reminded the Beta Tester vaguely of the flirtatious gestures he'd seen so often in gay nightclubs. "Look, my name's Klein. Good to meet you." The excited man pointed to himself with his thumb and waited for Kirito to return the introduction.
"Alright. I'm Kirito". He took Klein's hand and shook it, resulting in a relieved grin from the redhead. Kirito smiled, his hands on his hips casually.
"Argh! Oooh… hurts in the nuts… kill me now…" Klein fell to the ground, wincing and grabbing the region of his special purpose. They were now in a field outside of the Town of Beginnings, fighting the low-level wild boar that lived there. Kirito couldn't help but stare at Klein as he writhed in pain, and check out his really nice ass. Of course, this wasn't perverted or anything, everything was virtual after all.
"Oh, come on, seriously? You can't feel any pain." Kirito remarked, sighing with his hands on his hips while staring at his ridiculous companion.
"Huh? Oh yeah, you're right." Klein stood slowly, his health about half gone as seen on his HP bar. "Sorry, habit". He sheathed his one-handed sword and glared at the boars roaming in the distance with contempt.
"If you do your initial motion right, and activate a sword skill at the right time…" he picked up a small stone and aimed it at the boar until it glowed and then threw it at the large animal. "The system pretty much guarantees you'll always hit your target." The boar squealed as its ass was tapped and turned around to see it's attacker.
"Initial motion?"
The boar was already starting to charge back at Kirito, who matched the beast with his sword. "Here's an easier way to look at it" Kirito continued. "Right after you start your move, wait for a little bit. When you feel the skill start to activate, drive it home!"
"Drive it home?"
Kirito pushed the boar towards Klein, giving him an opportunity to strike the creature. Klein whipped out his sword and activated the sword skill as Kirito had told him. He drove the motion home and the boar groaned before shattering into millions of pieces of glass.
"Hoho! Yeah!" Klein shouted, dancing around where the now dead boar once stood. A white screen popped up before Klein titled 'Results'. Three lines followed, 'exp 24', 'col 30' and 'items 2'. He stood proudly until Kirito interrupted his victory with a condescending laugh. "Congratulations. That was nice. But that boar's about as weak as slimes in other games are."
Klein gasped, dropping his sword, and crying a bit. "Holy Crap!" he screamed, "You got to be kidding. I thought that thing was a mid-level boss."
"Yeah, as if."
The red-head began charging up another sword skill, then striking the air as a test. "Whoa!" Is amazement gave Kirito the feeling that Klein hadn't done this before.
"Addictive, isn't it?" Kirito interjected, giving Klein a subtle smirk. When Kirito was a Beta Tester all he could think about was logging onto SAO and diving into the VRMMO.
"I'll say" he agreed. "So these skills… there's a ton of them, like blacksmithing and stuff, right?"
"Uh-huh," the beta tester responded. "I heard the game has an unlimited number of them." He paused. "All except for magic, though".
"An RPG without magic?" the newbie questioned. "That's a bold choice man!"
"So what do you think? It's kind of fun to move your body as you fight, isn't it? Of course, you could use the VRMMO interface to move your body in other ways."
"Oh, hells yeah!" Klein said, choosing to ignore Kirito's potentially sexual afterthought.
Kirito coughed, ending the brief moment of silence that followed Klein's excitement. "You ready to move on?"
"Yeah, man. Let's keep going."
They trudged through the grass, exploring the beautiful world of SAO that Akihiko Kayaba had created. Kirito had seen it all before but found a new sense of joy in being with Klein for his first time through the game. "When I look around, I can't believe it." The skies of Aincrad were suddenly enveloped in twilight and Klein turned back to Kirito.
"We're inside a game, bro. Whoever made it is a genius. This thing's amazing… makes me glad I was born when I was, you know".
Hearing the mention of Kayaba made the hairs on the back of Kirito's neck stand. Of course, this wouldn't be the case in actuality, but the full dive technology still managed to send a shiver down the player's spine. "It's not that big a deal."
Kirito held back his praise for Kayaba. He knew that what he had going with Klein was already very good, even if just within the time frame of several hours.
"Cut me some slack," the redhead argued, "it's my first full dive!"
"You've never used the NerveGear before today, huh?" Kirito asked, surprised that Klein was more of a newbie than he realized. "This is your first time ever?"
"Uh-huh. As soon as I got the money together, I rushed out and bought all the hardware to play SAO. Stood in line and scored one of the ten thousand hard copies. I guess you could say I was pretty lucky." He paused. "Although, you sit, were ten times as lucky getting to beta-test it".
"Huh?" Kirito remarked, a bit confused by Klein's words.
"Dude, only a thousand people got the chance!" Klein was flabbergasted by Kirito's lack of knowledge about the immense privilege he had as a beta tester.
Kirito thought for a moment. "Yeah, I guess I was lucky". Lucky to meet you. Kirito thought to himself, smirking at his not-so-clever pick-up.
Klein continued. "Hey, mind if I ask how far you got in the beta?"
Kirito sighed, thinking of his adventures through the game in its primal stages. "Two months and I couldn't get further than floor eight." He brought his hand to his chest and looked out over the horizon, to the beautiful landscape of Sword Art Online. "But now, I think I can get there within a month, easy."
"Sounds to me like you're really into this!" exclaimed Klein, who was starting to get more excited from Kirito's enthusiasm.
"Yeah, you could say that," Kirito said cooly. "During the beta test, SAO was the only thing on my mind, day and night. In this world, a single blade can take you anywhere you want to go. And even though it's a virtual world, I feel more alive in here than I ever did in the real one. Anyway, you want to go do some more hunting?"
"You know it!" Klein pumped his fist in the air with vigor. "But the things is…" he lowers his hand and looked at Kirito apologetically. "I'm really hungry. I have to log out."
"Too bad the food you eat here only satisfies your hunger virtually." Kirito quipped.
"Yeah, for reals!" Klein agreed. "That's why I ordered a pizza for 5:30".
"Wow, you're so prepared" Kirito joked again.
"You know it!" Klein threw back, continuing their flirtatious banter. At the rate things were picking up, Kirito didn't doubt that Klein would be on top of him any moment.
"Besides, the game can wait until I get my pizza on" Klein finished.
"I guess…" Kirito mumbled, disappointed that at the near climax of their discussion Klein had to suddenly leave. He felt a twinge of pain in his chest, heartbreak or heartburn.
"Hey, I was going to meet up with some people I know from another game. I don't know what you're up to after this, so, if, uh, you know. If you want, you can friend them and hang out with us."
Kirito couldn't help that his expression so obviously dropped. He had hoped that what he and Klein had was exclusive, but maybe Klein didn't view them as that at all. The black-haired swordsman's heart sunk. Klein saw this and assumed Kirito was disinterested, and feeling pressured.
"No, it's cool if you don't want to… no pressure. I can always introduce you to them another time or something."
"Yeah, sorry. Thanks, anyway". He had learned over the years how to bury his pain and disappointment, so he smiled, trying to keep Klein content.
"No way! I should be doing all the thanking!" Klein said appreciatively. "Hey, one of these days, I promise I'll pay you back for all your help! Virtually, that is!"
Kirito laughed, "yeah, right".
"Thanks for everything, man, really. Guess I'll see you around, then".
"If there's anything else you want to know, message me" Kirito offered, trying to make their final words sweet.
"Oh, sweet!" Klein responded. "I'll do that." Klein swiped the air with his right hand to reveal his menu. He scrolled to the bottom to press the log out button and leave the world of SAO until he would return next.
Kirito looked at Klein's stubbled chin, long red hair and sexy figure. He inspected his hips, delicate wrists and kneecaps beat only by Akihiko Kayaba. The young gamer savored his last moment of Klein, expecting his former friend to dissolve away once clicking the logout button.
"Huh? Where'd the log out button go?"