The fragile peace starts to crack...These next few chapters are going to be So Much Fun!
On another note, the chapters are getting longerrrrrrr oops :')
clock strikes the seven, I go through my day, I say all the right things, put a smile on my face - Sometimes Hearts Break (Nathan Wagner)
o0o0o
Karma can't stop thinking about Alfheim Online, and it's kind of a problem.
She's late several times to work because she's busy playing ALO through the night, and although she tries not to get into lengthy solo boss fights later in the morning, she can't help it sometimes. And although her body might be sleeping at night, her brain definitely isn't. That's fine, though. It's fine. She's definitely gone a full week without sleep before in Aincrad, so this is manageable. She'll sleep on the weekends. Sure.
Playing ALO does put her in a good mood, though—but only for those precious few minutes after she wakes up, before it crashes down on her that she has to go a whole fourteen to sixteen hours without being able to go back. It distracts her, makes her irritable and inattentive (though she does her best not to show it), always checking the clock, fidgeting, waiting for the sun to set and her parents to finally go to sleep.
Her fingers itch whenever she glances at her NerveGear during the day. Her parents are always at work, so surely it wouldn't hurt to play for a little while, would it?
But what if they call her? What if Megu calls her? What if they get suspicious when she doesn't pick up? What if Kotori shows up? No, it's too risky. And if she Dives during the day once, she'll want to do it again, and again, and again. She's still trying to keep some semblance of precarious balance here. Whether she's putting in effort is questionable, but some prideful, stubborn part of her wants to stick it out, to make it work, to prove she can do it.
And the paranoia…
Her sleep deprivation probably has something to do with it, but she knows it's because of Alfheim too. Because in Alfheim, she doesn't need to worry about being ambushed in a side street and murdered if she's in a Salamander town or some neutral settlement.
Of course, on the other hand, while she's Diving, her real body is completely vulnerable, and she wouldn't know until it's too late. But once she puts on the NerveGear and goes to a whole other world, it's almost hard to care, and that's all she could ever want, for it to not have to feel like it matters.
In Alfheim, she can walk where she wants to, do what she wants, and no one can touch her. In Alfheim, she can cut through the diamond-like plates of a desert scorpion monster in one swing, and in the real world, she can barely carry a ten kilogram bag of flour from one room to the adjacent one without nearly falling on her face.
In Alfheim, no one knows who she is.
And here? Kotori keeps showing up at her workplace, and at her house, and now she seems to have memorized what bus stops Karma goes to, and whenever Karma's mother invites her to stay for the night, she politely demurs, all coy and sweet, and grins at Karma just to dig the knife in deeper, silently gloating about the fact that if she wanted to, she could, and it makes her feel sick and helpless and I just wanna go home.
She sits on the floor in the bathroom and cries while the shower is running, so no one can hear her over the water.
"C-calm down," she hiccups, repeating the same lines she's been saying to herself for weeks now. "Y-you're smart. Y-you can f-fight back. N-no matter wh-what she does…"
Her knife rests on the edge of the counter. She's taken to practicing with one in Alfheim as well, working the motions into her muscle memory to the point where she can take them with her into the real world.
After getting dressed, she hurries to her room so her parents don't see her bloodshot eyes. She locks the door behind her, checks the window, scans the streets beneath, before she turns to the NerveGear. She's not sure if she can wait until she can be sure her parents are asleep.
"When they close their door," she whispers to herself like a promise, pacing circles around her room. "That's good enough."
Her head snaps up from Wuthering Heights when she hears the muffled sound of a door shutting down the hall, and she springs to her bed, rolling under the covers and grabbing her NerveGear. She beams at it, smiling fondly, and tucks it securely over her head, the excitement and anticipation and relief bubbling over in her chest.
Tomorrow, and the next morning, and the morning after that, she'll wake up and go through her day. She'll say all the right things, put a smile on her face.
It's just a job, right? Fourteen hours a day, seven days a week, and when her shift's over, she gets to go home. Simple.
o0o0o
"I can't believe you're still on this."
Karma holds another cross-shaped necklace up to the light, then tosses it back on its hook with a disappointed hum. "You don't have to come with me."
"I wanna know what you're so obsessed about," Megu declares from the next row over. "I think by this point, we've hit almost every jewelry shop in town…"
"I know, and not a single one has something right," she complains, unable to keep a hint of a growl from her voice.
"Why can't you just custom order it?"
"That's expensive. I'm not getting paid that much."
"Just ask your parents. Say it's an early Christmas gift or something," Megu sighs, clearly done with Karma and her necklace hunt. Karma's sort of done too; it won't even matter if they find the right necklace. It won't have been from him.
"I don't want to be in debt to them."
Megu groans irritably; Karma can hear her facepalm from two aisles over. "'In debt'? They're your parents, not a bank. Jeez…"
Oops, wrong choice of words. She must be slipping.
"What about this one?"
Karma glances at an unimpressed Megu holding up another candidate. "Too skinny."
Megu sighs. "Fine." She carelessly tosses it on a random peg. Karma can feel her staring at her. "Listen...are you, like...I dunno. Doing okay?"
She opens her mouth, and for a second, it's on the tip of her tongue.
No, actually, thanks for asking. She is in fact not okay. She's dead tired all the time and nearly walked into oncoming traffic because she was so busy thinking about the best blacksmith shops in Arun. There's a deranged girl gunning to kill her, probably in some cold back alleyway where the body can be tossed into a dumpster or something; in fact, she's so deranged that nothing, not even the fact that she's trying to murder a certified serial murderer, will deter her. Said deranged girl knows her work place, knows all the possible routes Karma could take to go home, and even knows where Karma's apartment is, and no one has a goddamn clue.
Her parents, and Megu, and everyone at work think Kotori is a charming, sweet girl who's just looking to reconnect with friends after losing one to a bloodthirsty, psychopathic murderer. They have no idea what could happen if Karma closes her eyes while under the same roof as the girl. They have no idea that Kotori tends to follow her home every single day that she can, always mixing it up so Karma has no idea when to expect her. They have no idea that Kotori is a murderer, and they have no idea that Karma is one too.
And on top of that, she despises the real world. Breathing in car exhaust is like inhaling poison fumes. The coffee doesn't even taste the same. The dull stars at night make her angry at the universe, and having to watch every side street opening for suspicious activity is draining and irritating and so far ninety-nine percent a vain endeavor of stupidity and irrational paranoia, but she keeps doing it for the one percent of the time that it won't be, and it's slowly driving her insane.
Humans are really bad with change. Karma is. Her parents are. Megu is too.
Megu doesn't really think anything's wrong with Karma. She just thinks Karma's being annoying (which is, granted, not completely invalid) and wants to know why. She doesn't really think there's a significant underlying problem or anything, because there never has been before, not really. Why would there be now? It's not like anything happened in SAO to change Karma so fundamentally that she doesn't even recognize her name as her own anymore.
And ultimately, the answer that Megu is looking for is 'fine'.
So Karma says, "What are you talking about? I'm fine." It sounds a little too perfect, but then again, she's gotten a lot of practice saying a million and one different versions of it.
They still haven't really patched things up after last week, when Megu snapped at her. Or in general, really. Megu is a bit proud from time to time, and Karma already has enough that she can't ever stop apologizing for and doesn't need more, so neither of them are inclined to make that step.
Megu sidles after Karma as they wander the aisles. "Are you sure?" she asks skeptically, her gaze boring into the back of Karma's head. "You've been off lately."
And it only took her this long to notice, didn't it.
He would've taken about point five seconds to notice as soon as the slightest thing was troubling her. Whether or not he would've confronted her about it on the spot was irrelevant. If it became a problem, he would, but otherwise, it was a comfort in and of itself to know that someone cared enough to simply know when she was falling apart inside. He didn't have to ask, she didn't have to speak, he just knew.
Where the hell is she going to find that ever again?
"Megu, I have someone who's literally professionally trained and paid to ask me those questions, asking me those questions every week," Karma says sarcastically, pretending to be highly invested in studying some more necklaces. "It's their job. You don't have to do it for them."
And never mind the fact that she's become a master of deflecting those invasive questions with poise. She's even getting better at sprinkling in a bit of sarcasm here and there with a pretty smile, making meaningless small talk while contemplating which places would be the best to farm certain mats around Alfheim, waiting for the day they get tired of her crap and decide that she is indeed 'fine'.
If she doesn't have him, then she doesn't want anyone.
o0o0o
The walk back to the bus stop is a quiet one. Megu still seems to be debating with herself whether or not to push harder, and Karma decides to ignore her. If she wants to bring it up again, she can, but Karma's response won't change. She does not come when she's called, and she does not move when she's pushed.
A buzz from inside Karma's sweatpants pocket alerts her to a text message, and she pulls out her phone.
[Hey, if anyone's got time, wanna Zoom? I gots some news :D - Sanza]
"What's that?"
With one hand, Karma lifts her coffee to her lips, using her other hand to thumbs up Sanza's message. "A friend. He says he's got news. Sounds like it's good."
Megu blinks hard. "'He?'"
Karma rolls her eyes, unsurprised by Megu's immediate jumping to conclusions. "Not what you think." Nothing against them, but she literally can't imagine dating any of them; it'd be like dating an older brother—just, no.
"Oh." Looking nonplussed, Megu asks uncertainly, "So...what friends are these?"
"I have a life outside of you, you know," Karma responds without looking up.
In her periphery, Megu goes bright red, looking away, blinking rapidly, her brow furrowing. "W-well, I know that-" Her tone is full of poorly concealed disbelief. "I just…Well, y'know, in high school…"
Karma has to concede that one; she never did have many friends. After quitting the gymnastics studio, that already paltry number dwindled even further, to the point where Megu was the only person she regularly talked to.
"So are they from work, or…?"
"No," she says, and leaves it at that.
Kili, Fultz, and Segro add their thumbs ups, and Fultz adds, [Pretty sure it's rush hour for Muldar right now, not sure if he'll make it.]
Holding her cup between her teeth by the lid, Karma types, [And Uzala's probably out cold.] He usually works night shifts.
[Meh, we'll put up with his 'how could you leave me' shtick later,] Segro replies.
Grinning, Karma sends an ROFL emoji. "Hang on, I'm gonna hop on a Zoom with them real quick."
"What? Now?" Megu asks, looking back and forth between Karma and the bus pulling up.
Karma drains her coffee, waiting patiently for the Zoom to load. "I'll take the next one back. See you later."
Megu hesitates, but Karma doesn't pay her any mind until she says, "I want to meet your friends."
Her head snaps up, but the call finally goes through, and she shakes herself and grins at the camera. "Hey, guys!"
Kili is squinting at his screen, curls flopping into his face. "Are you outside? It looks like it's freezing out there."
"It's not too bad. Here, let me grab some earbuds real quick-"
"So what's the news, Sanza?" Fultz interrupts. "You look like you're about to explode."
Sanza inhales eagerly, indeed looking like he's about to explode. "I got a new job!"
Between trying to plug in earbuds and excitement from Sanza's announcement, Karma nearly drops her phone on the snowy ground. Deciding to ignore the earbuds for now, she shouts happily, "Congrats!" hoping that they'll be able to hear over the wind.
"It's the closer one too," Sanza says happily, beaming. "Not too far from the bus stop either, so thank god for that. I didn't fancy walking a mile every day to go to work, especially when I'm still in rehab-"
"Come on, let's wait in there," Megu interrupts, pointing at a convenience store behind them. "It's cold."
"You're the one who wanted to stay behind," Karma says coolly, lacking the will to try to mask her irritation; it buzzes in the back of her mind like a snoring nest of hornets, waiting to be prodded just one more time... "You can go inside if you want." It is freezing out here, but at least that'll let her talk to her friends in peace.
With a huff, Megu shoves her hands in her pockets and trudges off, and Karma lets out a long sigh. She reaches for her earbuds again, finally plugging them in.
"-got to teach a class as part of—oh, there you are, Karma. I thought you got kicked out for a sec," Sanza is saying.
"Who was that?" Segro asks curiously.
Karma shrugs, a small, dismissive gesture; the tension in her shoulders and her constant shivers from the cold make the motion abrupt and jerky. "Just a friend."
Kili's mouth twists in hesitant sympathy. "Everything okay? You sound a little, uh…"
"Tired," Fultz supplies.
She laughs humorlessly. "I'm always tired these days."
"Mood," all three of them quip, and Karma laughs again with them, this time much more genuine, at their perfect synchronization of matching weariness.
"But really, it's fine," she reassures them. It's a little strange; lying to them doesn't feel nearly as...blunt as it does when it comes to Megu. Maybe it's because she's lied to them dozens of times along the same lines of "I'm fine, it's fine", except it was never really a lie when she knew they could see through it with ease.
Does that make it better? Suddenly, she's not sure, and something twists in her gut.
"Are you sure?" Sanza asks gently, dark eyes concerned. "I know we can't help since we're all so far apart, but you can tell us anything."
Suddenly, a mostly unrelated realization hits her, and their concern for her brings a wry half-grin, half-grimace to her face. She pushes a numb hand through loose strands of her hair with something between a sigh and a laugh. "I know, I know…"
She's the baby now. She's the youngest of the group at nineteen—albeit only by three years from Kili, but still the youngest, without Asuna.
It doesn't matter that much, really. Age never mattered in Aincrad. She was just as valuable to the front lines as any of the rest of them; she could thrash each of them in a duel, and they all knew it. Besides, by the time SAO was over, there were probably almost a dozen teenagers in the KoB—unsurprising, considering teenagers composed the majority demographic of SAO players, and she was hardly the youngest of them.
Once, some days after she'd been rescued from capture, Godfree had found her sitting alone in the living room late at night, and sat down with her. As she struggled to keep her voice steady past the lump in her throat, he rested one palm on her head and the other on top of her gloved hands and told her gently, a bitter smile on his lips and tired sadness in his bright gold eyes:
"You're too young for this."
As far as she can remember, that was the only time anyone ever said anything like that to her with that particular inflection. Even she forgot about her age soon enough, probably started forgetting it from the moment her hands were first stained; the blood she spilled became a part of her identity, spreading and spreading its red stain until it blotted out everything else that should've mattered.
She and Asuna did get challenged a few times for their age (and likely gender, though only few would say it outright) when they were put in positions of command. But everyone, including Karma herself, soon knew her not for her age, or gender, or anything save for her abilities, and what she did with them.
It makes sense that Godfree, who was a father to a daughter of his own, would remember when no one else did how that castle made soldiers out of children.
Karma doesn't feel young anymore, but she doesn't feel older either. She definitely doesn't feel like she knows what she's doing with her life, at all.
Aloud, she says, "Don't worry about it, really. Talking to you guys makes it better." That, at least, is the truest thing she's said in...well, probably however long it's been since she last talked to any of them.
Unfortunately, it still doesn't eliminate the problem of Kotori.
"Listen," she says slowly, unsure of how much to say, "do you know of any former orange players in your areas?"
Uneasy surprise and alarm flit across their faces, and Fultz asks quietly, "Are there any near you?"
"Yeah, me and a friend were walking home one night and one tried to mug us," she admits, then grins ruthlessly. "He ran for it once he recognized me." If only Kotori was that easy to deal with.
Obviously alarmed, Kili tries to force a laugh. "You do have a particularly terrifying death glare."
"Oh, I didn't even get there. He just straight up ran when I batted my eyes at him."
"Can't imagine why," Sanza remarks in faux sarcasm, pretending to examine his nails.
"Hey-"
"But I haven't really heard of anything like that recently," he continues, more seriously. "It's always been pretty quiet around here in the first place, though. What about you guys?"
Fultz scratches the back of his head. "I mean, I live in a decent part of Tokyo, so it's usually fine...I can't say I've heard of any criminal activity specifically under the banner of Laughing Coffin or any other SAO orange guilds."
Kili, who shivered at the mention of the infamous red guild, nods his head slowly. "Yeah, I live in an apartment a little off campus...I've been kinda swamped with the whole going back to school thing, so I haven't been paying much attention to the outside world, to be honest...But I think I would've heard of it from my roommates."
Karma hums to herself, relieved that they're not dealing with this, at least. They can't help her from where they are, nor would she ever ask them to, but it goes the other way around; she wouldn't be able to easily help them either if they needed it, not like she could in Aincrad. Of course, she would find a way to get to them if need be, even if she needed to somehow get all the way to Hokkaido for Uzala, but there's no way she could ever match the response time she could achieve in Aincrad.
"Do you think it's something we should worry about?" Fultz asks carefully.
They're waiting for her to respond, she realizes, and she sighs. "I mean, I exist in a base state of paranoia at pretty much all times, you know that," she says with a lopsided grin. "So what I think you should or shouldn't worry about probably isn't the best metric…" This isn't Aincrad, where she had to ability to mitigate the things they had to worry about. "And the only way any orange or red player would recognize and target you is by your appearance, and what are the odds, y'know? We look pretty different without armor and gear. But I do carry a small folding knife on me at all times, which is legal if it's under six centimeters, I think. Just as backup."
"It wouldn't hurt," Sanza admits, sounding thoughtful, and the others make small noises of agreement.
"I mean, it's not like I can carry a knife into class every day," Kili adds with a sheepish laugh, "but yeah, I mean, I do feel really weird still, not being armed all the time…"
Karma nods along with the others, but a pang of guilt twists in her stomach. On one hand, the thought of them being armed reassures her, if only a little, but on the other, it was supposed to be her job, making sure they didn't have to worry about the paranoia like she did. She's helpless, unable to do anything in the real world, not when they're so far apart.
"Sorry," she adds apologetically, "I didn't mean to make this depressing."
"Don't be," Sanza replies immediately. "It's worth thinking about."
They shouldn't have to. She hates it. "Yeah...So when's your first official day?"
For another ten minutes, they chatter away, quickly deviating from the original topic, catching up with each other. It reminds Karma of whenever she would come home from long missions, or back to back ones, and get the chance to simply kick back and spend time talking to the people she loves. It's no different now (well, he's not here, but); they all live such different lives that there's no shortage of new things to talk about.
Gods, she misses her little sister.
When she senses someone approaching, she looks up to see Megu trudging back to the stop. Right on cue, the bus approaches, bright headlights glaring, slowed to a crawl by the still falling snow.
"Sorry, gotta go," she says apologetically; she doesn't feel like introducing Megu right now. "I'll catch up later. Congrats again!"
Waving briefly, feeling a bitter fondness at their disappointed goodbyes, she quickly hits the 'end call' button. In relative silence, she follows Megu onto the bus.
"I thought I was going to meet your friends," Megu says as they sit down.
"You said that, not me."
"You met some of mine."
"Yeah. They were nice." They also didn't talk to her much, probably because of the whole 'SAO survivor' thing. She doesn't remember their names, doesn't care either.
"It's okay if you don't like them," Megu mumbles, clearly wounded. "You don't have to like them."
She sighs shortly; the hornets' nest is starting to buzz again. "Good. I never felt like I had to."
Megu shifts in her seat, looking frustrated; it's scrawled in a mess all over her face. "Do you just not want me to meet your friends?"
No, absolutely not. "You wouldn't like them." That much is true, at least. They're a little too loud, a little too rough around the edges, a little too different and Karma loves them for it, but Megu wouldn't know how to deal with it. And she loves them, but there's no way they'd be able to hide who Karma was.
"Well, I feel like I should get to decide that," Megu replies, trying to force a casual joking tone, and failing. Badly.
Karma just gives her a long look, mildly exasperated. "I haven't 'replaced' you, if that's what you're thinking."
Megu's half-startled, half-guilty flinch confirms it.
"Wh-what are you on about?" she protests, forcing a disparaging laugh. "Th-that's dumb...I'm just…I-I was just curious, that's all. It's not like I was…"
Jealous, they both finish in their minds, and Karma blinks slowly as Megu trails off weakly.
"Okay," she says with a blithe smile, deciding to ignore Megu, whose attempts to lie are like trying to put out a house fire with a beach pail—completely futile.
And it's true. The KoB are some of the best friends she'll ever have, but none of them are her best friends; they just don't fit that definition in her mind. They're her friends, good friends, but they're much more than that; they're family.
And Megu's still her best friend. It's just something that she knows. The sky is blue, fire is hot, and Megu is her best friend. That hasn't changed. It can't change; Karma refuses to let it change, or else what would she have left here?
It's something she knows, but somehow, all of a sudden—or maybe it's been a long time coming—it's no longer something she feels.
o0o0o
mayday, mayday, the ship is slowly sinking; they think I'm crazy, but they don't know the feeling - My Demons (Starset)
get up, get out, get away from these liars, 'cause they don't get your soul or your fire - Open Your Eyes (Snow Patrol)
Karma is starting to develop a bad habit of jumping to conclusions (and she's not exactly wrong a lot of the time). More on that later :D