Dinner was well underway, and Yui was playing with her baked potatoes when she spoke up.
"I remembered something today," the dark-haired girl swirled her fork around, nervously. I exchanged a glance with Argo, who seemed even more curious than I was. There was nothing Argo liked more than a good mystery, and Yui was proving to be a big one.
"I've never been here before."
"Here as in?" Argo asked, leaning over the table, eyes alight with interest.
"This floor."
Yui's response floored me, and Argo leaned back with a mystefied expression. All the players had been together on the first floor when the game had started. Did that mean that Yui was some amazingly complex NPC?
No, that wasn't likely. She had a menu, one that operated like a player's even if it had a few more functions than a normal player's account. If anything, it reminded me of a GM menu. But that wasn't possible either, the only GM listed for SAO was Kayaba, and he had to be busy keeping the servers running.
"Do ya remember where ya were before, squirt?" Argo said, one hand ready to take notes.
"I was trapped somewhere." My daughter's face hollowed. Asuna scooched her chair closer to her daughter, and Yui reached out for her hand. "It was, It was dark. And- and cold, and, and..." Yui took a shuddering breath, her body shaking.
"Yui?" I asked, trying to change the subject. "Do you want to show your Mamas what we did this afternoon?" My daughter nodded, swiping open her menu.
"Papa modeled for me!" Yui said with forced cheer, her smile almost reaching her eyes as she tried to banish whatever demons had come out of the dark depths of her mind back into the abyss of forgotten things.
"And then I drew all over them!" Asuna leaned in to look at one of the "posters" that Yui had made, and her eyes grew wide.
"Pfft-" Asuna smothered her laugh with a hand, prompting Argo to lean around the table, who had no such reservations, sending out great peals of laughter as she took in the edits Yui had made to what was originally a very innocuous picture of me sitting at a desk.
My daughter had drawn a ridiculous handlebar mustache on my face, and one eyebrow had been raised into a very exaggerated arch.
The overall effect made me look very strange, given that I still wasn't old enough to shave, never mind grow a mustache. But it was a rather silly picture, and it helped lighten the mood.
Asuna set down her teacup, and fixed her eyes on me. "If you ever," She began, "Try to grow a mustache like that, I will personally shave it off of your face."
"That's far from the most ridiculous facial hair we came up with," I said in response, "Yui, why don't you show them the 'Adventurer' one?"
My daughter grinned, and flipped through her gallery, selecting one of my proudest poses. I was standing with one leg up on a chair, leaning on my raised knee, scanning an imaginary horizon. One hand shaded my eyes, and a majestic beard flowed down from my chin, reaching almost all the way down to the floor.
"I think it looks good on me," I said, far too serious to be sincere.
"God, Kii-bou," Argo said in between bouts of laughter, "I didn't think you were such a good actor."
"Of course I'm/he's a good actor," Asuna and I said at the same time.
"He fooled everyone into thinking he's some kind of godlike being with encyclopedic knowledge of the game," Asuna said, taking another bite of her dinner.
"People really think that Papa's like that?" Yui asked.
"I'm a really good actor," I said, making Argo laugh again.
"Please, Kii-bou, I've seen you try and hide bein' flustered," The Rat chuckled, cutting off a small piece of her chicken, "You blush at the slightes' thing."
"I do not!" I defended hotly, cutting my chicken a bit harder than was strictly necessary.
Argo side-eyed Asuna, then speared a piece of chicken on her fork. "Say 'Ahh' Kii-bou," The Rat raised her fork across the table, headed directly for me.
She was- was- What- Why- but- Asuna? A quick glance told me I would get no help from my wife. She was leaning back, drinking in the chaos, As I watched, she took a sip from her teacup, smirking at me as she drank.
Blushing furiously, I grabbed Argo's wrist, and all but shoved the food into my mouth. It was rather satisfying to watch Argo's eyes widen and her grip on her fork slacken. I was rarely able to turn Argo's teases back on her like this.
That didn't make eating something off of someone else's fork any less embarrassing.
Argo took her own bit of chicken, her cheeks lightly flushed. She really didn't like it when I turned a tease back on her.
My wife, on the other hand, looked a little left out.
"Here, Asuna." I speared a section of baked potato onto my own fork, and moved it towards her. She eagerly leaned forward, and daintily bit down on the piece of tuber.
"Me next!" Yui said eagerly, almost bouncing in her seat as I took my fork back. "Me next,"
"Alright Yui, here it comes." Asuna moved the fork, heaped with chicken, playfully, making abortive half circles, and jerking it from side to side, forcing her daughter to lunge for the food she wanted. The little girl screeched delightedly through a mouth full of food when she finally managed to secure her reward.
"I wanted to be fed by Asuna too," Argo muttered distractedly, her eyes following the chef's fork as she withdrew it to her own plate. I met Asuna's questioning look with a smile, and nodded.
"Say 'Ahh'," My wife said, lifting her fork towards Argo. The Info broker looked like a startled rabbit, as if she was going to leap out of her chair at any time. Despite the tension in her frame, she remained as stiff as a statue. Even as Asuna's utensil poked her cheek, Argo remained stiff and unmoving, her eyes wide.
"I worked very hard on this, Argo," Asuna said, poking Argo's lips with her fork. "Please give it a try?" I blinked and Asuna was holding a bare fork while Argo chewed furiously, her shoulders tense.
"'S good," The info broker muttered after she swallowed. She had her hood down for dinner, to avoid getting any sauce on it, and the motion of her throat bobbing up and down almost hypnotized me in a way only Asuna's graceful movements had managed before.
Argo ducked her head in a way that would have hidden her face beneath her hood if she was still wearing it, but only served to make her hair bounce with it down. It was a nice bounce, very fluffy.
Wait… was she? I speared a piece of baked potato, and lifted my fork towards The Rat. "I've got more food for you, Argo," I said, letting the utensil bounce a little in my grasp.
"An' I've got plenty for myself, Kii-bou," The Info Broker responded, sawing at her chicken.
"But I want to feed you," I said, moving my fork further forward, enjoying the subtle interplay of emotions that I couldn't name crossing The Rat's face. "Say 'Ahh'." Argo flushed a luminous red, and for a split second I thought that she might yell at me, but instead she bit down on the food I offered her, and pulled her hood up, vanishing into its depths.
"Cute," Asuna mumbled under her breath, and Argo flinched. Scraping some green beans on to her fork, my wife moved her fork towards Argo again. The Info Broker's eyes never left the fork, crossing when the utensil got close enough.
She took her bite, and then shrunk back into the depths of her hood again. I had no idea why she was so flustered by us feeding her, but she was rarely this cute. I picked up my knife, preparing to cut off another piece of chicken for Yui, who was looking quite left out.
I don't think any of us ate another bite off of our own plates for the rest of the meal. Argo gave us large portions when she could summon up the courage to offer the rest of us pieces, which Yui in particular delighted in receiving. I just offered whatever I could to the others, and enjoyed the way Asuna teased me by licking around my fork.
Even Yui got in on it, trying to offload her tomato sauce-covered chicken to the "Adults" in the room. She usually got offered pieces of chicken right back, although Asuna made sure that they were clean of any tomato sauce.
My wife made sure that each of us was eating a balanced meal, offering green beans to me after I ate half of a potato from Argo's plate, and most of Yui's chicken. All in all it was a rather enjoyable meal, and by the end of it, Yui was drooping sleepily over the table.
It wasn't that surprising, considering that it was well past 10:00 at night.
"I'll put Yui to bed," Asuna said, rising from the common room chair that we had appropriated. It was easy to see why she liked the Golden Loom; The rooms were very close to a public kitchen that you could use to cook, and the price attached to the rooms was so high that the average player on the first floor couldn't visit it.
As such, we had the entire place to ourselves, even though we were in what was technically a public space. This was probably the best place to talk about what I'd found out about Yui with Argo and Asuna.
"'M no sleepy…" Yui mumbled as my wife picked her up, "...Feel fine."
"I'm certain you do," Asuna said, patting her on the back, moving carefully so as not to jostle her.
Our daughter yawned as the pair moved out of the room,
Argo's messages dinged almost immediately, and she swiped open the notification. Her eyes widened, and she cursed.
"Fuckin' hell, Thinker." I winced. Whatever it was, it couldn't be good.
"What is it?"
"Not righ' now, should explain this fuck to the both o' you," Argo said, rubbing her forehead with one hand. "Now be quiet fo' a bit, I need ta figure this mess ou'."
I scooched my chair over to sit next to her as she worked, offering her a familiar presence as she worked. She didn't seem to consciously notice, but she did lean a little towards me at times.
By the time Asuna reappeared in the doorway of the common area, Argo's mood had gone from "poor" to "Very Bad." I was rubbing soothing circles into the Info Broker's upper arm as she typed furiously into the message bar, her scowl growing worse with each reply she received.
"Kibaou's taken over The Army," Argo said, her scowl growing even more pronounced. I met Asuna's eyes, and saw just as much confusion and stupefaction in them as I felt.
"How'd he pull it off?" Asuna said after a few long moments, pulling up a chair to Argo's other side. "He can't have killed Thinker, even indirectly it would make too much of a splash, and he'd be the first target everyone would look for." The Vice-Captain of the Knights of The Blood Oath scanned through the various texts that Argo was sending, trying to read them. But they were coming and going too fast for me to make out more than glimpses, and written in what looked like code besides.
"My man says he's gone missin'." The Info Broker scrolled back up to the relevant section of text, and Asuna and I leaned in to read it. "Yulier's been goin' frantic, and Kibaou took over in the confusion."
Asuna was the first to read the info that had really put Argo into a bad mood. "She's refusing to tell us anything over messages?" Argo nodded, and I sighed. It was just like Yulier to refuse sending Info through any method but in-person meetings. It made her good at rooting through bad proposals, but it was inconvenient, to say the least, in times like this.
"Well, I've got a meetin' with her secured for' tomorrow, so she can tell us what's up then," Argo said, flicking her messages closed and opening her inventory screen. "So we shoul' be ready for anythin'."
"Sounds reasonable." I opened my own inventory, and started editing my combat equipment set. I still hadn't equipped the new bracers or boots, and I would need to get used to the subtle differences in weight and feel before I could really use them in combat.
On the other side of Argo, I could see the shower of light that indicated someone changing equipment. Asuna stretched her arms out in front of her, weighing her new bracers against her arms. She then stood up, drawing her rapier, and falling into a stance.
Her rapier gleamed in the evening light as her hand came up, deflecting an imaginary blow. It turned into a lightning-fast slash that left an arc of white across my vision, punctured by a line where she had stabbed through almost immediately afterwards.
One of the vases in the inn crashed into the opposite wall and shattered.
None of us moved for a second, before Asuna sheepishly unequipped her rapier and sat down in her chair again.
"Marvelous, Asuna," Argo said, slinging an arm around the fencer's shoulders, "Truly an inspiration to all of us," She drew her hand slowly across the space in front of her, "If only all of us could be so-"
"Please, Stop," Asuna gritted out through a luminous flush of embarrassment.
"Aw, Aa-chan, you know I lo-look up to you as a paragon o' our community," Argo said, affectionately tapping her head against my wife's, "Such a sublime beauty, who leaves people blind with her dazzlin' bladework, a shinin' star in-"
"The dark of our night, I know, I know," Asuna said, huffing a pout of laughter.
I moved seats so that I was facing them and tapped on the table, trying to catch the attention of the two women. Argo jolted upright in her seat, unwrapping her arm from Asuna's shoulders as though she had been struck and carefully scooching farther away.
"As lovely as it is to spend time relaxing with you, we need to talk about Yui," I said, observing how each of my companions responded. Asuna nodded thoughtfully, tapping her chin with one hand.
"She did say something rather unsettling tonight." Argo rolled her eyes at Asuna's statement.
"I think tha' not ever bein' on the firs' floor is a tad bi' more than unsettlin'," The Rat drawled, "I mean, at this poin', are we even certain tha' she's human?"
"She has access to some of the underlying systems of SAO in a way I thought only GM's could have," I said, drawing a circle on the table with one finger.
"Like what?" Asuna said, tilting her head innocently even as Argo gulped. Oh right, this was Asuna's first game.
"The ability to edit photos in-game, for one." The room was silent as I continued tracing circles, letting the repetitive motion center my mind and focus my thoughts. "I kept her away from doing much experimenting, but from what I saw she could teleport without a crystal."
"Do ya think tha' a GM accoun' got puppeted by an NPC?" Argo said, her eyes calculating in a way she rarely showed.
"Maybe," I said, hunching my shoulders slightly, "I don't know what sort of limits there are on her access, but it's entirely possible that she might be able to force a log-out." I saw a spark of hope flit across the faces in front of me before it was snuffed out almost as quickly.
"That would probably kill whoever used it." Asuna said, frowning angrily at the table.
"'S not like Kayaba to leave loopholes lyin' around," Argo agreed, "No, the only way we're gettin' out o' here is if we beat the game ourselves." Grim nods met her statement across the table. Both of us knew that it was entirely likely that more of our friends would die in the struggle to the 100th floor. We could die as well, even if we never went back to the front lines.
"Onto a more relevant topic," Asuna said, trying to lift the mood, "What are we going to do about Yui tomorrow?"
"Not much we can plan ou'," Argo said, leaning back from the table, her hands behind her head. "It all depends on wha' Yulier wants us ta do."
Asuna nodded thoughtfully. "Well, in any case, we should be well-rested for the meetin'." She smirked, "Wouldn' wan' ta fall asleep like Kii-bou now woul' we?" Asuna chuckled lightly even as I pouted. Just because I had gotten bored of Kibaou and Lind's posturing back and forth didn't mean that I fell asleep at every meeting.
The discussion after that was largely meaningless, with Argo alternating between teasing me and Asuna relentlessly and withdrawing from conversation until she felt more like a ghost than an actual person.
Asuna, on the other hand, brought up a rather serious topic after we had all arrived back at our room and were getting ready for bed.
"Wha' do you mean I'm sleepin' with Kii-bou?" Argo hissed quietly at Asuna.
"What I mean," Asuna said, just as quiet, "Is that I want to keep an eye on Yui tonight, and to do that I'll need to sleep in the same bed as her." My wife did a good job of not showing it, but I could tell that she was worried about Yui. It was a miracle that she had even managed to go shopping this afternoon, and I wouldn't deny her this.
"I can always sleep on the couch if-"
"No." Argo cut me off before I could finish making my offer. "Jus' take the bed, Kii-bou, I'll sleep on the couch."
"Argo," I tried, "You've been sleeping on a couch for the past week,"
"An' I'll keep sleepin' on one," Argo said, crossing her arms. Normally it came off as intimidating, but in her pajamas, it just came off as cute.
"I really don't mind if we share the bed, Argo," I said, sitting down on the mattress. "I mean, we've done it before."
"An' wha' abou' Asuna?" Argo poked one finger into my chest, "Wha' does your wife feel abou' you sharin' a bed with another woman?"
"That it's okay?" Asuna tilted her head, her eyes confused. "I was the one to suggest this?"
Argo let out a sigh, seeming to deflate before my eyes. "Ah, fuck it. I'm too tired for this," She crawled past me into the bed, and curled onto her side facing the wall. "Us' keep your greedy hands to yourself, Kii-bou," the info broker smirked, "don't want Aa-chan to smack ya."
The last thing I saw as I drifted off to sleep was Asuna stroking Yui's head.
