AN: I'm trying to get into the mood to write VaPtF again, but I'm failing. So I thought I might as well write some SAO shorts instead. I like to think this oneshot is a lot better than my previous one, although this still isn't all that good. This might be the beginning of a string of 'Distorted' oneshots. My muse likes the idea, but I'm still in doubt.

Disclaimer: To my great disappointment, I do not own Sword Art Online. I don't think I ever will

I've been different for as long as I can remember. I think, even before that point, I had some awareness of this. It showed in my behaviour, how I related to, or rather failed to truly relate to other people according to others.

It was not that I was a wallflower because I wasn't, or I didn't feel or care for, because I did, but I like to think that I loved equally. It made it hard to maintain bonds, ties to other people, and in that regard they were right with those accusations. I loved my friends of 10 years, but I'd just as soon have just as much fun with people I just met.

It was hard on them, feeling like they had to maintain those bonds almost entirely by themselves, and as is the case with most friendships where one party feels like that, it eventually brought them to an end.

I only realized they were truly gone years later, when I met one of them years later, and I was treated as a nearly forgotten acquiantance.

I think it was the only time I actively regretted being the way I am.

It was just a few months after my 29th birthday that I, who had grown into an avid gamer, managed to get my hands on a copy of Sword Art Online. I might not have been in the Beta, but I didn't feel like I needed to be. What real difference does a few months make?

When I was finally able to log in, I loved it. Intellectually I knew it was just codes strung together, and relayed to my brain, but that is not what I perceived it as. From the moment I opened my eyes in Aincrad I truly thought it to be a wondrous, beautiful place.

Even during Kayaba's speech, when I could hear people yelling and crying around me, I just stood there, wondering. Even after most moved away, and aside from me only the truly shaken remained, I was left alone with these thoughts.

I opened my mouth, but closed it again, not sure if I could word this simple question that had come to be on my mind. While it came natural to me, this sentiment, I was rather certain it would not be as well received by others.

"But...It's fine too, isn't it? To live and die in this world instead..."