Hey all, sorry this is a day late, I've been a bit busy. I'm currently running a "ship week" for KiriArgo, hosted on the SAO Fanfiction Central discord server, linked: SYYcMPba (remove the spaces) It's gonna be a feast of fluff, with quite a few writers involved, so if you're at all interested, come join the server to check it out! We'll start posting our submissions on the 31st of October, and finish things up (barring any late submissions) on the 6th of November.
Can't wait to see what you all think!
now, without further ado, here's the next chapter, in which Asuna sees some parallels between her and the main character of one of her childhood movies.
Caring For A Rat: Book 2, Part 13
By the time the limousine was making the final turn onto the road that the Library was on, all of us were ready to get out of the car. The few attempts at conversation we had made after the end of the first one were halting, stumbling, and awkward, and eventually we just sat in silence.
Asuna had been looking out her window for the last five minutes, but didn't seem to recognize where we were at first. However, after we turned onto the last block, she gasped in realization, then whipped her head around to stare at Tomo, who was grinning smugly.
"You didn't!" My wife cried, bringing a hand up to her mouth. The info broker shook her head. "Ar-Tomo, you…" Asuna started rocking in her seat, bouncing back and forth in childish excitement. "Oh, it's been so long!"
"Excited?" I asked, somewhat unnecessarily given the way that Asuna already had one hand on the door handle. If I didn't move quickly, she might injure herself trying to get into the library.
"You bet!" Asuna said, a broad grin plastered across her face. Her seatbelt was unbuckled and her door opened before the car finished rolling to a stop, and I had to scramble to follow her as she pushed herself up, and out of the limousine. A quick glance at Argo told me that she was heading for the trunk, where the wheelchair had been stored.
"Alright, don't wander too far now," Kouichirou said, smiling gently. Asuna gave no sign of having heard him, instead starting to walk towards the library, leaning against the car door for now.
"Asuna-" I began, trying to keep my wife from hurting herself in her haste to get to the library. I had known that she had been frustrated with the extremely small amount of books that she could read in SAO. Most of the ones generated by Cardinal barely qualified as books, given that most of them were written in languages that none of us could read, and no one had ever been able to translate them properly.
Some of the players had actually disputed that they were even written in a language, and were instead just gibberish made up to fill out volumes. But that didn't fit with the painstaking detail that had gone into the rest of Aincrad.
"Kiri-Kazuto, give me your shoulder." Asuna said, supporting herself on the door frame as she took her first steps towards the library, each one growing firmer and more confident.
It was amazing how quickly she was recovering. It had taken me almost two full weeks to go from bedridden to being able to walk around with support, but Asuna had managed it in one. I would have been worried about her pushing herself, but Doctor Tatsutora had said that she was simply very resilient.
"Tomo's bringing the wheelchair around," I said, lifting my hands to try and placate her. "It'll just take a second-"
"But I want to go to the library!" Asuna whined, her mouth curling into a petulant frown. "It's been years since I've been able to visit a proper one, much less this one!" Glancing up at the library, I could tell why she would want to visit it. It was a very big library, taking up most of the city block, and a good six or seven stories tall. Not quite a skyscraper, but there was plenty of floor space for books, community rooms, and reading spaces. The concrete was pitted in places with age, and the lettering over the entrance showed signs of having been replaced recently.
"Library of Tsukihaya," I read off the building.
"The guy who founded the library," Asuna explained, "He was the one the government contracted to build it, and he spent the rest of his life expanding the collection and the facilities. They've got a small movie theater in there where you can take the movies that are in the library for free!" The Building certainly had an air of importance to it
"This is the one that you spent a lot of time studying at, right?" I asked, Tomo having filled me in on our destination yesterday. My wife nodded, her smile returning.
"I did a lot more than that," she said as I let her wrap an arm around my shoulders and we started to walk slowly towards the library while the limousine behind us pulled away to find a parking space. "When I got tired of studying I would go to the fiction section, and on weekends there was a book club that I never got to join, but they had the most lively debates about the books they were reading…" Asuna sighed, her eyes clouding over with nostalgia.
"Here's your wheelchair, Aa-chan," Tomo said, sliding in beside us, the aforementioned device opening with a solid *click*. Asuna shook her head, continuing to walk slowly towards the library, leaning on my shoulder. She was fairly heavy. I probably wouldn't be able to carry her the rest of the way.
Tomo just folded the wheelchair back up, and slid in on the other side of Asuna, wrapping an arm around her waist, just below mine. I shot her a relieved glance as Asuna started to speed up, trusting us to keep her safe.
The doors opened before us, and we were in the library.
It was an open entrance, full of light from a skylight on the roof. Four layers of balconies stretched down from the ceiling, each one only hinting at the vast array of books that must have been contained in the structure. The main lobby was a bit narrower, with a desk for check-outs on the right and a reference station manned by a tired-looking librarian on the left. A TV mounted above the reference desk displayed various events that were happening in the library, but given how rarely the screen changed, most of the advertising was done elsewhere.
In the center of the room stood a cork signboard, littered with advertisements and flyers for various clubs and activities at the library. The papers seemed layered almost five layers thick in places, people putting up posters without ever taking them down.
Asuna craned her neck to look around, seeming to try and take everything in. "It's changed," She said, her voice thick with emotion. She unwrapped her hands from our shoulders, and took a few steps forward, reaching out to touch the board.
As she ran a hand over the papers pinned to the cork, I stepped up behind her, ready to catch her at the first sign of her legs giving way.
"See anythin' interestin'?" Tomo asked, stepping up on her other side.
"Not really," Asuna sighed, letting the last flyer flutter back down into position. "I guess it was too much to hope that the book club was meeting today." As the poster fell back against the sign, it slipped loose from it's pin. I bent to pick it up, and Asuna let out a gasp.
"Kazuto, Tomo, look!" She cried, grabbing onto my shirt and tugging me up. I scrambled to grab the paper before it slid out of reach, and when I came back up, it was a little crumpled. "I, we need to go there, now!" Asuna said, pointing at the TV. I caught a glimpse of an advertisement featuring a book, and a room.
"Hold your horses, Aa-chan," Tomo said, smiling fondly. "While I love you bein' pressed up against me, I can't hold you up forever, so could ya please use your wheelchair?"
"I'm walking-" Asuna said, right as her leg gave out on her. I caught her under the arm before she could fall far, but it took a lot of effort from my still somewhat-weak muscles to get her standing upright again. "Okay, I'll use the wheelchair," she said, grumbling."
It wasn't even half a second after she had gotten settled that Asuna had started wheeling off, leaving me and Tomo behind. "Hurry up guys!" she called back as she rushed off further into the library, heading into the stacks.
"She's really lively today," I said as I followed at a more sedate pace, given that I didn't have my cane with me at the moment, and didn't need to push myself any further than I had already.
"Can ya blame her?" Tomo asked rhetorically. "It's her first day out of the hospital since she woke up, an' given what happened before that…" My girlfriend's smile grew sad. "Let's let her enjoy herself today."
Asuna was more excited than I had ever seen her, her head bobbing back and forth between the shelves even as she pushed herself towards her destination unerringly. As we walked, we passed fellow librarygoers, most of them absorbed in the shelving, a few reading books then and there.
Thankfully, they were all quick to get out of the way at the sound of Asuna's wheelchair approaching. I didn't want to get into an argument with someone today.
The further we moved, the more people we saw, until we hit a wall. After looking both ways, Asuna turned right, muttering to herself about something that I couldn't quite make out. However, the sign hanging above the only door in the direction we were headed was rather self-explanatory.
"Fujita Rise Film Theater," I read off the sign. Asuna nodded, humming.
"They're showing one of my favorites, and I really wanted to see a movie again. There was a distinct lack of movies in Aincrad," Asuna explained, only now slowing down. "It looks like we got here in time, though, so hopefully…" she reached out and pushed the wheelchair button at the side of the door, before rolling herself through.
"Yes!" Asuna whispered triumphantly as we passed through the door. A harried-looking teenager in the same uniform as the librarians waited behind a desk that looked like it had been moved here rather hastily. Behind him, a dark hallway extended into what was presumably the movie theater.
"Are you here for the movie?" The attendant asked, "because if you're looking for the film archives, those are on the third floor." Asuna waved him off confidently.
"We're here for the film." she extended a hand. "I presume it's the same procedure as when I was last here?"
The attendant hummed. "Well, I'm not sure when you were here last miss, but I'll have to write down your name and if you have a library card, I'd like to see it as well."
"Of course," Asuna said, "I'll have-" she reached down to her hip, before she cut herself off, her face twisting into a frown.
"Miss?" the teenage attendant asked, his eyebrows raised in concern. "Is everything alright?"
"Yes," Asuna said, her voice heavy. "Everything's fine. Ah, I'll just write my name out here?" She picked up the pen that had been provided with the sheet of paper.
"Just so, miss," The attendant said, before turning towards me and Tomo. "Now, is this your first time at the "Fujita Rise Film Theater?"
"Uhm, yes," I said, as Tomo stepped up to the desk to sign herself in. "Is there anything we should know about?"
"This is not a normal film theater, as you've no doubt noticed," The attendant said, "And while we show movies here for free, it is a fairly limited selection, and we rarely add new ones." He paused there, checking over our names and the contact info that Tomo and I had put down while he spoke.
"Now, with that in order, let's go over the theater rules." He walked over to the hallway entrance, and raised a hand to the frame. "There is no food or drink permitted in the theater, so if you're hungry, I recommend stepping outside to eat. Other than that, it's fairly common sense." The teen shrugged. "Keep quiet, don't heckle the other moviegoers, and enjoy the movie,"
"Thank you," Asuna said as we started down the rather short hallway. "We will!"
The room that we entered was large, perhaps forty feet long and twenty feet ceiling was well over two stories tall, and the seating was evenly spaced. The walls were a dark red, and the movie screen, while not the biggest I'd ever seen in a cinema, was still rather big.
As we entered, an announcement started to play, and the lights started to dim. "Our feature presentation will begin in thirty seconds, please find your seat." We ended up sitting near the entrance, Asuna having pushed herself into one of the slots reserved for wheelchairs, while I sat next to her, and Argo on my other side.
It was a strangely intimate setting.
While I was aware of the other moviegoers, mostly parents with kids from the brief glimpse I had seen before the lights started to fade, in the darkness, it felt like nothing existed but the three of us. At the last second, I remembered a bit of movie etiquette, and powered down my phone.
An achingly familiar studio card popped up, and for a second, I was a kid again, watching a movie that my mom had put on the TV for me and Sugu, unaware of Aincrad and the spectre it would lay across my life. Then the blue of the title card faded, and was replaced by a lovingly drawn shot of a city at night.
An american tune started to play, the only one I knew by heart
"Country Roads, Take me home" (note: provide link here)
Tomo let out a small gasp in surprise, and the three of us settled in to watch a movie that had been part of our childhood, of the time before.
For almost two hours, we laughed, cried, and cheered silently with Shizuka as she struggled to find herself in a world that in some ways, was harsher than Aincrad. Less forgiving of the people who stood out and refused to be hammered back into place.
Most of the way through the movie, as Shizuka's family confronted her over her steadily lowering grades, Asuna nudged me in the arm.
"This movie was the first time I questioned if studying was really all that I wanted to do with my life," She whispered, her eyes agleam. "I-I wanted to do something, be something more than just another student who crumbled under their family's expectations, and Shizuka made it seem so freeing…"
I reached over and grasped her hand. "No matter what you decide," I said, feeling her squeeze my hand back. "I'll back you up on it."
"I will to," Tomo said from my other side, "Ya didn't think I'd let ya two face the world alone, did ya?"
"Never doubted you for a second," I said, unable to keep myself from smiling. "You've always had my back, and I know you always will."
"Oh, uhm, thanks?" Tomo stammered out, her cheeks flushing a furious red. I was starting to learn the differences between her angry flush and her embarrassed flush, and right now she was very embarrassed.
I wrapped an arm around her shoulder, and softly knocked my head against hers. "Together, right?"
Tomo drew in a deep breath, then nodded. "Together."
And I stayed in that position, holding my wife's hand and one arm around my girlfriend's shoulder until the end of the movie.
Asuna was transfixed by the screen. She could feel her husband's hand in hers, and there had been a time that she had been scared of it becoming routine, but if it would, it hadn't happened yet.
But even the comforting weight of Ki-Kazuto's hand in hers could only distract her from the familiar story playing out before her.
Shizuka was so familiar it hurt, somewhere deep inside, when her older sister berated her about her falling grades, and her dad agreed.
"You'll never get into a good college with those grades," her mother sighed at her, looking over the report card Asuna had spent five nights out of seven up late studying to achieve.
On-screen, Shizuka's parents did what Asuna oh so desperately wished her parents would do, and let their daughter choose to do what mattered most to her.
The young, weary girl felt her eyes start to tear up. God, what she wouldn't give to be able to, to, to figure out what it was she wanted out of life. Her mother had made a name for herself as a university professor, but sometimes it seemed like people only ever knew her as 'Mrs. Yuuki, Shouzou Yuuki's wife.'
Asuna didn't want that.
When her mother heaped extra studies on her, she did so by saying that it would help her daughter get into highschool, and from there, college, and then, presumably, a job at the company. But almost the second that that had been derailed, that Asuna had been trapped in Aincrad, she had started arranging a marriage with a 'respectable businessman', much like the one that she had married.
Asuna still remembered how betrayed she had felt, hearing her father say that her mother, who had encouraged her studies, told her to try and remain independent, and wealthy, had been the one to first suggest locking her into a marriage.
God, what she wouldn't give to be in Shizuka's place; with parents who tried to support her as she figured out who she was outside of Aincrad, and outside of her studies.
Even if it all ended in tears and broken dreams, like Shizuka so clearly feared it would, at least she was trying to do something with her life, to be more than just a copy of her parents, or to just bring them honor.
Her parents didn't need her for that.
They had Koichi, who was already in the upper middle management of the American Branch, and this scandal wouldn't stop him from rising higher. He would probably inherit the company someday.
And that wasn't even counting the way that her family treated her time in Aincrad.
She'd seen the way that her father hesitated around her. How he tried to change the subject whenever Aincrad was brought up. How he'd asked some cursory questions about her life there and then stopped before she could tell him about the things she was really proud of: of purchasing her own home, of leading the KoB scout teams, of Kizmel and how amazing the Dark Elf was.
But they didn't want that. They wanted their Asuna back. The kind, studious girl who loved to please her parents, and wanted nothing more than to hang out with her loose friend group and achieve high scores on tests.
God, her friends from before! Did any of them even remember her now? She'd never accepted any of their invitations to hang out outside of school. Could she even remember their names? There'd been a Mami, certainly, she was the one who the others rallied around, and maybe a Totsuka…
No, it was foolish to try and rebuild those relationships. They'd never been that strong in the first place.
As the movie ended, and Shizuka and Seiji promised each other to pursue their dreams, Asuna couldn't help but feel melancholy. If only it could work out that easily; that she could figure out what she wanted to do with her life. She had thrown herself into the KoB the same way she had used to throw herself into her studies, and now without her guild, she was lost.
Without purpose, like those dark days at the beginning of Aincrad. She needed something to do, to work on. But nothing came to mind. Asuna sighed, catching the attention of her partners.
"You okay, Asuna?" Kirito asked, his warm eyes gazing into hers. Asuna nodded.
"Just thinking," The former sub-leader of the KoB said, brushing a lock of hair back over her shoulder. She still wasn't used to the sight of her hands and arms being so thin. One more mark that Sugou had left on her.
"Anythin' bad?" Argo asked, looking very strange without her cloak. It still surprised Asuna, sometimes, that Argo, who never went anywhere without her cloak, seemed to have discarded it entirely. One more difference between Aincrad and Earth, Asuna thought to herself.
"No, not really," Asuna sighed as she turned into the hallway out of the theater, her wheelchair squeaking as it turned. "I just…" She trailed off, marshalling her thoughts into order. "I wish I had something to do."
"Well, we're at a library, so why don't we see if there's any books you want to read?" Kirito said, and Asuna hummed an affirmative. SHe didn't think that books would quench the hole that had started to grow in her since Heathcliff had been revealed as Kayaba, but they might help.
Any plans to check out the bookshelves, however, were foiled when Asuna almost ran into her brother, who was standing right outside the hallway into the movie theater.
Koichi raised an eyebrow at his sister, his face carved into that dispassionate frown that all parents and older siblings have learned. The one that says: "You just did something wrong and I am angry about it."
Asuna shrunk back before his gaze, suddenly reminded that she'd never told him that she was going to go to the movie.
"Uh… Hi?"
