Notes:

Okay, I had been lurking in the T&B anon meme sites for a few days now, looking through the wonderful works of talented people and my muse could not stop herself and finally got me to write my own story for this fandom. It's my take on one of the anon's in the site,

Here's the request for those who want to look: t-and-b-anondotdreamwidthdotorg/4163dothtml?thread=6693443

Anyway, I could not stop myself and thus this baby was born. Hope I do it justice...

Work Text:

He had no idea what had prompted him to sign up to be a beta tester of the latest video game in Sternbild. Maybe because he sort of filled the requirements of the beta testers being able to read and understand Japanese. Or maybe because he thought he needed a hobby considering he was still stuck in the second league even after the whole Justice Day debacle. Or perhaps it was because he felt lonely most of the time since he and his "partner" are unable to spend as much time they want together, ever since he convinced him to continue being part of the 1st league heroes. Nevertheless, he signed up and now he was standing in front one of Sternbild's largest buildings, that was the home base for the company of the video game he was about to beta test after receiving an email that he was among the 1000 people that were lucky to be selected.

Kotetsu tried to hide his nervousness as he approach the reception desk to ask directions on where the beta testing was about to take place. The woman behind the desk merely smiled at him and pointed him to the elevator and what floor he was suppose to be. He did as he was told and punched the numbers on the floor. As the elevator door shut, Kotetsu heard someone cried out.

"Hold the door!"

Immediately, he pushed the pause button for the doors and later a lanky Japanese man, wearing a white shirt and, strangely, a lab coat entered the elevator.

"Thanks, sir," the man said in English with his thick Japanese accent.

"Uh, your welcome," Kotestu replied, "What floor?"

The man looked up to the buttons before answering, "Looks like we're going on the same floor."

The doors closed and both men waited for them to arrive to their destination.

Unable to really stop himself, Kotetsu opted to start a conversation with the man.

"So you applied to be a beta tester too?" he asked using Japanese this time to level with the guy a bit.

The man merely stared at him, before saying, "Not really. You?"

"Yeah, I sort of applied for it and ended up getting selected to test the game."

"You don't sound excited? Most gamers would feel that it was an honor to be able to get a chance to try a game before they came on sale."

"Well, I guess I can understand that gamers would normally react that way. But I am not exactly a real gamer to begin with so I guess my reaction to it is natural."

A surprise look crossed the man's features. "You don't play video games?"

"Well, do solitaire and mineswipe on the computer count?"

The man looked at Kotestu as though he grew another head.

"Does that mean that you have no idea what NerveGear is?" the man asked.

"I thought the game was called Sword Art or something?" was Kotestu's reply.

The man merely shook his head at the statement while still dawning an incredulous expression, thus making the veteran hero feel conscious about his decision to sign up for this thing. From how the man reacted, he obviously didn't belong here, as usual.

"Sorry. I mean, I guess I wasn't really thinking when I signed up for testing this. I mean, I heard they needed someone to play a game and is able to understand and read Japanese and I thought, hey, why not? I didn't actually thought I'd get selected. You must hate me for being here, I mean, I guess there are many others who are real players who might deserve this spot."

The old hero looked at his shoes, wishing in his head that he hadn't did this in the first place. It was a stupid decision. One he made on an impulse while he was feeling lonely when bunny left on a call for hero work during one of their "unofficial dates". He was so caught up in his own musing that he didn't notice the man giving him a sympathetic expression. He only remembered the other man's presence when the said man placed his hand on his shoulder.

"Hey, don't look so down. I mean, sure you aren't a gamer, but that doesn't mean that you don't have a right to be here," the man said in a soothing expression, "You applied for the spot, and got selected. It was a fair thing. No need to feel bad over it or regret signing up. Besides, you were right. We did needed people who spoke English but understood and can read Japanese to help in testing the game. The reason for this is so that we could test if the translations for English that we did for the game worked right or if we needed to change some stuff, thus we wrote the ad the way we did. You don't really need to get depressed over it."

Kotetsu looked up to the man and stared at his eyes. He was surprised that they had a slightly metallic shade to it, but they looked at him in a kind and understanding way that eased his heart.

"Thanks," was all the veteran hero could say before a ding sound was heard by the two men indicated that they arrived at their intended floor.

The elevator's door opened and both were surprise to see that there was someone waiting for them on the other side, well at least they were waiting for the man beside Kotestu.

"Akihiko-san, thank god you are here! We have started the uploads for the game but we weren't sure on whether to use the Sternbild local account server of to create a dummy account for the testers or to connect it to our Japan branch. We did that in our Korean tester but as you remember there were some complains about the slow connection," the man who waited for them said.

Kotestu merely stared at his companion in shock, who immediate went on about how to solve the problem presented to him. It didn't take a genius for the old hero to piece together the fact that the guy he had been talking to was probably one of the big shots for the company he was in.

It wasn't long before the man, assistant?, left his companion to most probably follow what he had been told to do. Meanwhile the man simply turned to face Kotestu.

"Sorry about that. It is never easy to do an out of the country launch of a game, especially since the said place where the game is being launched is known to have the said game's biggest investors. It's annoying really," the man said, "Well, I have to go and check if Kai-kun had done what I asked. It was nice meeting you, Mr.-?"

"Kaburagi. Kaburagi T. Kotestu," the hero said offering his hand.

The man took it and gave it a firm shake as he said, "Kayaba Akihiko."

They both let go before going their separate ways, where Akihiko followed the other man in a lab coat while Kotestu went to the room where the beta testers were asked to go.

"Don't let being a newbie bring you down. Good luck and have fun playing the game," was what the man said before finally leaving.

Have fun playing the game.

It wasn't much of an advise but Kotestu took it to heart and found that he really did enjoy playing Sword Art Online.

TBC