Again, slippery slope ;)
I'll stand here existing and feeling wretched existence, consuming life force 'til I grow distant - Unravel (Toru Kitajima; Bricie and Narutee cover)
o0o0o
Karma is working when her phone starts buzzing. She sneaks a peek at the caller ID and frowns when she sees it's from Megu, who should know she's at work. With a sigh, she silences the call, but less than a second later, it starts buzzing again.
She feels a tap on her shoulder and nearly jumps before realizing it's just her coworker.
"I can cover for a sec," she offers, and Karma smiles briefly in thanks.
"I'm at work, Megu," she says as she picks up.
There's a brief pause, and she wonders if it was just a butt dial or something when Megu's voice comes through, cross and staticky.
"Didn't I tell you to ask for today off?" she asks evenly, her tone buzzing with ill-disguised irritation.
Karma thinks back. "...Oh yeah, you did. My bad. We got a new employee the other day, so it's been a bit hectic. Why, what is it?"
"...It's his birthday," she says, clearly agitated.
Karma is left mentally buffering for a moment before it clicks. "Oh," she says, very smartly, while staring at the date on her phone's lock screen.
She hears Megu sigh, and she can imagine her taking off her glasses and rubbing the bridge of her nose like she does when she's annoyed. "Look, I'm sorry, it slipped my mind."
"I told you—never mind," Megu sighs, making an audible effort to restrain herself. She's probably pacing back and forth somewhere. "Can you maybe get out early?"
"Yeah, probably." She's a pretty good employee, always on time and rarely making mistakes, not too bad with dealing with customers. "I'll ask. Just a sec."
Another staticky sigh, and then the line goes dead.
A few minutes later, Karma messages her saying that she can leave after the lunch rush hour, getting a short affirmative response, and a pointed, [Don't forget.]
She sighs, tucking her phone away, although she can't exactly blame her friend for being short with her. Despite her best efforts, Karma has probably been unintentionally curt with Megu at least once or twice this past week or so. Plus, it was admittedly a bad move, forgetting the birthday of her dead ex-boyfriend.
(Can she really call him an ex if they didn't technically break up?)
With another sigh, she apologizes to her coworker for taking so long and gets back to the simple, repetitive, aromatic process of making coffee.
o0o0o
A disgruntled Megu is waiting by the entrance to the cemetery, huddled in her coat. She looks up as Karma tromps her way through the snow towards her and cracks a strained smile.
"You made it," she says, falling into step with her.
"My memory's not that bad," she snarks, trying to smile apologetically. Her memory's actually pretty good when it comes to stuff like enemy equipment and builds, guild and party numbers, death counts, stuff like that. Important stuff.
She feels a brief pang of guilt that this isn't considered 'important' to her subconscious, then she shoves it aside. Hasn't she got enough to worry about already?
But he was Megu's friend too, so she goes through the motions with her, mumbling a few generic words when Megu looks at her expectantly, and trailing after her while they wander the streets in relative silence. They soon arrive at a park, where kids are building snowmen and forts and having snowball fights.
"...up with you? Oi."
Karma blinks when Megu tugs at her sleeve, eyes narrowed irritably. "What?"
"I've been calling your name over and over," she huffs, little clouds of white obscuring her face briefly.
She scratches her head. "Oops." For some reason, it doesn't click anymore. The sound of her name simply won't register in her mind; she can hear it, but if she's not actively paying attention for it, it's like the signals just don't make it to her brain.
Megu sighs, slumping back in her seat on a snow-encrusted bench. "...Hey, Natsuki?"
"Yeah?"
"You don't have to if it's uncomfortable for you," she says slowly, nearly mumbling the words, "but...I've been wondering for-"
"How did he die?"
It's hard to tell if Megu blushed with her face already bright red from the cold, but she nods uncomfortably, and Karma sits down next to her with a sigh.
"You could've just asked. It was two years ago," she says in mild exasperation.
She wonders which version of the story to tell Megu; eventually, she decides on the truth. It's a hard pill to swallow, it always is; maybe Megu will understand her better this way.
"It was on day five of the game. We'd gone outside the safe zone to get a head start to the next town," she begins, slouching down in her seat. "He was showing off a bit, handling the monsters by himself."
Megu sighs into her scarf. "Sounds like him," she remarks wistfully.
"Yeah, well, it drew some unwanted attention," Karma continues, her tone darkening. "Some player-killers-"
Megu's head snaps up. "Wait, you mean...players who killed other players?" At Karma's slow nod, she clutches the end of her scarf in a white-knuckled fist. "B-but...that early on in the game? Why-"
"They were desperate. And angry. And felt they had nothing to lose, probably." Karma shoves her hands in her pockets. "Three of them cornered us, demanding we empty our inventory." She huffs, clenching her hands into fists; it doesn't hurt much at all anymore, after two years, but it's not a pleasant memory regardless. "He was an idiot. Shouted, 'I'm a beta tester, so you'd better go away before I kick your ass,' or something like that. Of course, that only made them angrier; plenty of people hated beta testers in the early stages of the game."
Karma scrunches up her nose as a snowflake lands on it. "I got out, and he didn't."
And after that was when her life in Aincrad truly began—for better or worse.
She catches Megu staring disbelievingly at her out of the corner of her eye and shrugs. "That's it." Megu doesn't need to know all the details.
Megu opens her mouth, brow furrowed in discontentment, then closes it again. She grips her scarf tighter, jaw visibly clenched, and her breath quickens, tiny, angry little puffs of white clinging in the air before her. Karma ignores her; Megu has always had a strong, if rigid, sense of right and wrong, making it quite easy to rile her up.
The snow starts to pick up, and Karma sighs and gets to her feet, shivering. "We should probably head back soon before the weather gets any worse. When you said 'white Christmas', I don't think either of us thought it'd be snowing this m-"
"You make it sound like it was his fault."
She blinks, peering through the snow at Megu. "What?"
Her brown eyes stare bitterly at Karma from behind the lens of her glasses, obscured in some places by snow.
"He was just trying to protect you, wasn't he?" she demands, hands clenched tight around her scarf. "Couldn't you stand to be a little more grateful?"
Her words and tone crack like a whip. Karma breathes evenly, but the air doesn't feel like it's warming inside of her lungs.
She knows where Megu's coming from. Megu was how Karma met him in the first place. He was a year older than her, and since Megu was always a grade ahead, they were childhood friends until he moved away. When they were in high school, he came back, seeming so much more knowledgeable and confident, but there's a fine line between confidence and arrogance.
If it weren't for him, maybe she'd remember what it was like to have clean, unbloodied hands from before she plunged that knife into the back of one of those player killers he'd drawn the attention of. Maybe she'd remember what it was like to be able to stand here and breathe without knowing that in order to do so, she had to take away others' ability to do the same.
Megu doesn't know what she's talking about, and Karma has the irresistible urge to tell her so.
"Come on," she says flatly instead, "I'm walking you back to your apartment." She doesn't know when Kotori is going to strike, but she's not going to let harm come to Megu.
Megu doesn't move from her seat. "Do you even miss him at all?!" she snaps, blinking rapidly when her voice catches.
She can't hold the weight of Megu's glare, and her gaze slides away. "Of course. He didn't deserve to die."
But it's been two years and she's lost so much more than a childhood sweetheart.
Tears sparkle in Megu's eyes as she pushes past Karma, who silently trails after her as they make their way to the bus stop.
Karma doesn't care when they call her heartless, really. But it's a little different when her best friend does it, saying the words explicitly or not. Best friends are supposed to understand, right? Best friends are supposed to know what you need to hear and how to say it so that you get it, right?
When she's by herself, sitting on the bus on the way back, she gazes out the window at the near whiteout that's storming outside, wind howling. They're driving slow, but she doesn't care. More time to herself, with her thoughts—not that that's necessarily a good thing.
Best friends aren't supposed to judge you-
"And you weren't supposed to leave me either," she mumbles, but she's the only one on the bus, the only one stupid enough to be out in this weather, the only one who isn't quite alive enough to care anymore.
She's learned the hard way that reality, virtual or otherwise, doesn't always align with expectations.
The truth really always is a hard pill to swallow.
o0o0o
[Hey, sorry for being so short with you the other day.]
Sitting in the coffee shop's staff lounge, Karma stares at the words on the screen, slurping on her own coffee. With a sigh, she types back a simple, short message.
[It's fine.]
She won't apologize. She wasn't wrong. Megu wasn't there. How can she tell Karma that she was wrong? Megu had always looked up to that boy even from when they were all young. Her feelings clouded her judgement.
Besides, it's not like Megu's actually sorry. Megu doesn't text apologies; she always does it in person, or at the very least, through a phone call. She's always been big on clear communication, saying things straight, face to face. She doesn't want to communicate now; she doesn't want to have been wrong.
"It's fine," she sighs out loud, flexing her fingers around her paper cup of lukewarm coffee. "It's fine…"
She shifts in her seat, picking at the cardboard sleeve of her cup restlessly, and chews on her lip. Opening up her contacts, she scrolls through the (pitifully small) list, half-heartedly looking for someone she can chat with, but the one person she really wants to talk to isn't on here.
"Um, excuse me?"
Karma blinks, shutting off her phone. "Yeah?" For some reason, she responds just fine to general attention-grabbers like those. Even if it's not directed at her, she'll usually hear it anyway. But anything with her name in it won't ring any bells at all.
The new employee, a teenage boy a year or two younger than her, is standing awkwardly at the doorway. "Er, where's the receipt tape? I sort of ran out."
She gets to her feet, grabbing her lukewarm drink. "Here, I'll show you." She peeks out front to check that there's someone manning the cash register, and she casts a critical eye over the glass display of decorated pastries. "Might as well refill some of the baked goods while we're at it."
Since she's still on break, she hands the items to her coworker, not wanting to be out front if she doesn't have to. Kotori managed to wrestle Karma's work shift information out of an unsuspecting coworker, so she's taken to coming to pester her whenever she can. She apparently can't get out too much because she's still being kept on a leash, thankfully, but that also means Karma never knows when she's really going to show up.
"Hey, I just got a text asking if we wanted to meet up at the pub in Gattan later. We can go out and grind XP, hunt a few monsters with the rest of the gang."
"Yeah, sounds great. I wanted to work on flying a bit more anyways."
"I hear you. Flying in VR took me some time to get used to."
Karma stops mid-step, pivoting sharply on her heel. Then she quickly ducks back into the staff lounge and pulls out her phone; it takes three tries for her trembling fingers to type in [VR flying] into the search bar.
At the top of the results is a VRMMO game called Alfheim Online.
More frenzied searches reveal that the game is based off of Norse mythology with nine different 'races' of fairies that can indeed fly, that it's the most popular video game in Japan right now (probably largely because of the flight engine), that it was created for another FullDive rig called the AmuSphere with more safety precautions. It's not the only VR game out there, but apparently, it revitalized the VR industry after the SAO crisis, and it's currently the best of its kind in terms of the game engine and design, according to reviews.
It's been around since over a year ago, to Karma's surprise. Is it that mystical and fun that people were willing to play it while the world was still reeling from SAO?
The questions bubble up in her head while she mindlessly goes back to work. The stars don't seem to be as wildly misaligned today, since even Kotori doesn't make another surprise visit before her shift's over.
On her way home, she stops by a game store, the same one that her ex-boyfriend bought a copy of SAO for her from.
There it is, sitting front and center in the display cases. It certainly looks quite magical, with the enormous tree standing in the center, the canopy shrouded by clouds. On the back is a world map, detailing each race's territory, with the World Tree in the middle, ringed by a mountain range.
She buys it on an impulse and makes a phone call on the way home.
"Hey, Argo, what do you know about Alfheim Online?"
o0o0o
When she gets home, she goes to her room, tossing the case for Alfheim Online on her desk. Argo had a lot to say about ALO, but one thing in particular stands out.
It's compatible with NerveGear.
She sits down on her bed, leaning back against the wall and reaching for the device. Cradling it in her hands, running the pads of her fingers over the cracks and grooves, she bites back the longing and casts another glance at the colorful art on the game disc case.
"But it's not Aincrad," she mumbles, staring forlornly at the winged fairies soaring.
Truth be told, she hasn't even considered the possibility of returning to the virtual world. She's thought about it countless times, she's wished for it all the times the real world is too much (increasingly often these days), but she never thought it could be done.
With a shake of her head, she reaches for the case. "It doesn't matter if it's not Aincrad," she declares quietly, ripping off the plastic covering. "As long as it's not the real world…"
It takes a bit of fiddling around, but she manages to plug everything in. When she hears a noise from the living room, though, she suddenly remembers her parents are still awake. What if they walk in and see her asleep with her NerveGear on again? They'll freak out. They won't think twice before trying to take it away from her.
Regretfully, she puts the NerveGear down. "Wait just a little bit longer," she whispers, as if it's going anywhere. In some irrational way, she's actually scared that it might.
She reads Wuthering Heights again to pass time, but she barely takes in a word, unlike usual. That's okay. She's read this book enough times to have pretty much memorized it. But trudging her way through it brings her right up to her parents' bedtime, and she soon hears them settling down in their room.
Quietly, she makes herself coffee and stays up surfing the web, watching stupid videos mindlessly until enough time has passed. After checking that her parents are dead to the world, she shuts and locks the door behind her and reaches for the NerveGear.
There's something in her chest that's been asleep since the rest of her awoke from Aincrad. That part of her yawns, stretches, and purrs, thrumming at the prospect of going back to the virtual world.
Going home.
Or, at least, the closest to home that she can get. Anywhere that's not in the real world is close enough. She'll take it.
She checks her phone again to see if she has any messages, especially from Megu. A blank lock screen is all she gets, and she tosses it aside.
The NerveGear is a perfect fit still, snug over her braids. Her heartbeat starts to accelerate as the tint of the dark gray translucent visor slides over her vision, and she takes a deep breath in. Once she dives in, she won't even need to breathe.
A quiet, wet laugh escapes her lips as she lies back, pulling the covers snugly up over herself. She'll go to sleep tonight like this, and the only dreams she'll have will be fantastic ones.
And when she opens her eyes again, she'll be in the virtual world—just like the last two years.
"I missed you," she whispers to the ceiling, eyes sliding shut contentedly.
Last time she was here, she'd just gotten off the phone with her ex-boyfriend, who had to talk her out of backing out at the last minute. Her hands had been trembling then too, her mouth dry, her heart racing, but for an entirely different reason—she was leaving everything she knew, she was leaving her home for a scary new world.
Everything is different now. After all, she's just going home.
With confidence, she commands:
"Link start."
o0o0o
heavy wings grow lighter, I'll taste the sky and feel alive again - Vanilla Twilight (Owl City)
maybe she just can't forget all the miles they have driven since the moment that they met - Last of Her Kind (Alec Benjamin)
Thought I'd give a little more backstory, while simultaneously widening the rift between her and Megu. Multitasking is fun :D
Alfheim, here we go!