Hey all, it's been a while, I'm glad that people are still reading, and I hope you all enjoy this next chapter. We're approaching the end of book 2, with probably just one more chapter and maybe an epilogue to wrap things off before I go on a short hiatus before starting book 3, which will be approximately the same length as book 2.
As always, thanks for reading, and please leave a review!
Caring For A Rat: Book 2, Part 14
"You should have told me where you were going." The words were quiet, but carried a frustration and disappointment to them. Nevertheless, Asuna stayed firm, meeting Kouichirou's gaze without hesitation.
"You knew where I was going," The wheelchair-bound woman responded, catching her brother momentarily off-guard. "Into the Library."
"And then you vanished." Kouichirou responded, his face carved from stone. "You still don't have a phone, I can't text you if I need to find you. If this young man hadn't confirmed that you had gone to watch a movie, I likely would still be out scouring the library." Asuna's face fell at that, her hands resting in her lap. "You should have waited for me to come and then I would have been happy to escort you, but if you're going to go watch a movie instead of looking for books than maybe it would be best if we cut this trip—"
"No."
"Pardon?" Kouichirou asked, tilting his head.
"No, I didn't 'need' to wait for you," Asuna said, raising her head, her temper steadily rising higher and higher. "And pardon me for going to see my favorite childhood movie for the first time in two years, nevermind that it's the first movie I have seen in that time. I am my own woman, I am far from helpless, and I will not be reduced to a cripple forced to wait on someone else to do the things I want." The auburn-haired woman gripped the arm rests on her wheelchair and shakily pushed herself up.
"I was looking forward to spending a day with you at the library, Kouichirou, but if you are going to deny my agency like this, then I will meet you in the lobby when I am done, and that will be it." Asuna pushed past her stunned brother, adrenaline fueling her movements. Behind her, she heard her wheelchair clattering along the floor.
She made it around the corner before her legs gave out from under her. Kiri-Kazuto. It was Kazuto now, she couldn't keep making that mistake. Her husband's hands caught her before her knees could do more than buckle, and he helped her back down into the wheelchair.
"Are ya okay, Aa-chan?" her girlfriend asked, the diminutive blonde ducking around the side of the wheelchair to scan along her face. "Any shortness o' breath, or chest pains?"
"I'm fine," Asuna waved off Tomo's concern. She was breathing a little hard, but that was to be expected, given that she had just walked the length of that track from the physical therapy room without any support. Quite frankly, she was surprised she had been able to walk that far.
"I just," The recovering woman looked up at the signs that hung on the nearby shelving. "Can we go there?" Tomo followed Asuna's finger to the sign she was indicating, and flushed lightly.
"If that's what ya want, Aa-chan."
"I'll delay Kouichirou," Kazuto, the wonderful husband that he was, said. "You two deserve some time alone, and I'm not sure I could help you find any books. Never did spend much time in libraries."
"Alright, see you soon Kazuto," Asuna said, starting to wheel herself towards the section of nonfiction that had caught her eye.
She'd been in this section before, but never lingered; it didn't hold any books relevant to her classes before SAO, and it likely wouldn't hold any books relevant to the tests she'd have to take in a few weeks.
No, her interest in this section was personal.
And so, despite the feeling that she was walking in on something taboo, Asuna wheeled herself into the Gender and Sexuality section of the library, intent on finding a book about relationships with multiple partners.
When I turned the corner, Kouichirou was still standing listlessly. I tamped down the brief flash of emotion I felt. Even if he was her brother, he had been far too overbearing, especially with Sugou looming so close in the past. It hadn't even been a week since she had gotten out of Alfheim, out of that cage she'd been trapped in.
As I stepped up to him, he turned to look at me, his face wrought in confusion. He opened his mouth as if to speak, but closed it before he could say anything.
I raised an eyebrow and stretched my hands up over my head, before sitting down on one of the chairs next to the wall, presumably for people waiting for the next movie. Thankfully it seemed like most of the people who had been watching Whisper of The Heart with us had left, although the ticket man was eyeing us nervously.
"Have a seat." I tapped the chair next to me. Kouichirou eyed it for a second, then sat down.
When he still didn't speak, I sighed and got out my phone. "Kouichirou, I want to apologize," I said as I turned on my phone.
"Why?"
"Because I should have contacted you before we went into the theater," I said. "Tomo shared your phone number with me yesterday, but I've never used it, so…" Kouichirou scoffed.
"Then we'd both be at fault." He slouched further in his chair. "I knew I should have texted you or Tomo, told you to keep Asuna from wandering off, I'm not even sure if she has her phone anymore, I just got so worried when she wasn't there." His voice was quiet, contemplative, and tinged with uncertainty.
I eyed him contemplatively.
"Well, I can't say that she'll want to see you right now, but maybe if you give her a bit of time to cool down she'll be more willing to see you."
Asuna's brother shook his head. "Why did she get so angry, though? I thought that she would be okay with getting books delivered to her." I side-eyed Kouichirou. His question seemed earnest, and I didn't know if that made it better or worse.
"Well," I breathed out, clasping my hands in my lap. "She did just spend almost a month trapped under the whims of a madman." Kouichirou's flinch was… satisfying to witness.
"And another piece of advice," I said as I got up, instinctively grabbing for my cane before remembering I'd left it at home today. "Asuna spoke about you a bit while we were trapped in Aincrad, and how one of the things that kept her going was you."
Kouichirou's head shot up, and I stared him in the eyes. "She wants to reconnect with you very badly, so don't fuck it up."
And then I turned and left. Maybe he'd change his tune, maybe he wouldn't. The more I got to know Asuna's family, the less I liked them.
Her mother had only visited the hospital once, in the company of her husband, well before Asuna woke up. While there she had directed a look of such anger towards Asuna that I had instinctively reached for my swords.
Her father seemed to want to have her best interests at heart, but it was clear that until recently he had seen her as a doting little child who would go along with everything he said. Her brother was much the same, so far.
I was thoroughly unimpressed with both of them.
"Alright Asuna, We're lookin' fer books on Polyamory." Asuna wheeled her cart down the library aisle, listening intently to her girlfriend. "I read a couple over the last month, but I'm not sure if they're gonna be here, so we might have ta improvise."
"Well, this whole trip has been one improvisation from the start, hasn't it?" The fencer said wryly.
Her girlfriend barked out a laugh. "Yer not wrong 'bout that. Still…" Tomo reached out and ran a finger along one of the shelves. "That doesn't mean we can't plan ahead a little, yeah?"
Asuna hummed in agreement, casting a glance down the foreign aisles. She'd never been to this part of the nonfiction section before, and even though she was fairly familiar with the rest of the library, she had no clue where the books she and Tomo were looking for might be.
And she didn't particularly want some stranger to see what she was looking up if she used one of the online catalogues. If what she was researching got back to her mother somehow… well, it probably wouldn't result in anything more than a stern talking-to like the last time she had checked out a book about human reproduction. Still, best not to take the chance.
After all, her mother had already convinced her father to marry her off once. Who's to say that she couldn't do it again?
"Ah, here's a good one!" Tomo said, drawing Asuna out of her worries. "What ta do When ya Love More Than One Person," The info broker grabbed a green book off the shelf and offered it to her girlfriend. "I read that one fairly early. It's pretty highly reviewed, an' it focuses on the idea o' havin' a three-person relationship specifically, rather than a more nebulous 'Open Relationship'."
Asuna took the book from Tomo's hand, taking in the splash of orange on the cover of the book. It really didn't look like she'd assumed a book about human sexuality would look like—it was a swirl of colors that looked more like modern art.
What did you expect? She asked herself in her head A Romance Novel cover?
"Anything else you can see?" Asuna asked, setting the book down in her lap. One book did not a reliable source make. Her mother had drilled that into her head from a young age. She needed to see more conflicts, to figure out alternate viewpoints and perspectives.
It made studying harder, but her teachers had praised her answers for being more well-rounded than others.
"A few," Tomo shrugged. "Not any I've read, though."
"Really?"
"Didn' have that much time fer readin'" Tomo said, rubbing the back of her neck. "Was too busy tryin' ta find ya."
Asuna reached out and grabbed her girlfriend's dangling hand. She still hadn't asked about how Tomo and Kazuto had found her, but if they hadn't been there…
"That just means we can read them together, right?" Asuna smiled up at her girlfriend, admiring the way her cheeks tinted rosily and the corners of her mouth twitched upwards.
"Tha' sounds nice," Tomo said, squeezing the fencer's hand.
I found my girlfriend and wife in a small, out-of-the-way booth set into the back of the nonfiction section, not far from where we had parted ways.
Asuna was poring over a book, one hand jerking like she wanted to be taking notes, while Tomo read her own book at a more leisurely pace, her feet kicked up to rest on the opposite bench and a hand tucked behind her head. She looked like she was sitting in a beach chair, not a library booth.
"Hey," I said, sitting down next to my girlfriend, jolting her out of her book. "Find anything interesting?"
Asuna paused, deliberately looked down, memorizing her place, and then closed the book. I barely caught a glimpse of the cover before my wife started speaking, diverting my attention.
"Yes, I would say so." She hummed pleasantly, sliding the book across the table for me to look at. "That's been most informative about ways to 'balance' a three-sided relationship."
A single glance at the title told me that Asuna had most likely struck gold with it. "The Art of Triads," I read off of the cover, before reading the summary off the back.
"Dr Freidhaus explores both the benefits and the pitfalls of a three-person romantic relationship in a novel designed to help newcomers to the lifestyle adjust to and avoid the many pitfalls of both polyamory in general and a triad relationship in specific."
It was a dry summary, but it wasn't that much worse than reading code. I'd probably be able to muddle through the book itself. "Seems like it would be rather relevant." I slid the book back across the table to my wife, who flipped it open to her saved page with unusual precision.
"We grabbed a few other books too," Tomo said, waving her own text in the air. I caught the title "What to do When You Love More Than One Person". "I'll check 'em out under my name and the three of us can take one each."
"That sounds good," I hummed, rubbing my chin. I glanced over at Asuna, noting the tension in her shoulders and the lingering tightness in her cheeks. She must have still been pissed off from her encounter with Kouichirou.
"Do you wanna check out the novels while we're here?" My wife looked up at me, surprise written clearly across her face.
"Novels?"
"Yep," Tomo said, closing her book. "I planned this trip as a way for ya ta get yer own novels rather 'n havin' ta rely on us knowin' what ya wanted."
"That's…" Asuna took a deep breath. "I'm sorry for getting you guys sidetracked."
"Don't apologize, Aa-chan," Tomo said, leaning across the table to grab on to the hand not holding the book. "This trip's always been about ya, and we're happy just ta be here with ya." I nodded.
"Couldn't have said it better myself."
Asuna grinned, flipping her hand over to squeeze her girlfriend's hand back. "I guess you're right." Then she flipped her book closed again, not bothering to memorize her place this time. "Still, finding some light novels sounds good. I'm not certain I want my parents to see me reading these." She handed the book back over to Tomo with a wistful smile.
"Alright, you want to guide us?" I asked as our girlfriend shoved the books into her bag.
"Sure," Asuna said, smoothly sliding into her wheelchair, wheeling backwards with a smoothness that I envied. "It's just this way," She called back over her shoulder as she turned, heading down one of the corridors.
"Wonder if any o' my novels have updated," Tomo said, her hand brushing against mine as we walked behind Asuna.
"Probably," I hummed. "I mean, it's been two years already, maybe one of them has finished?"
"That depends on what kind of novel you were reading," Asuna said. "I knew one of my favorite authors took well over a year to get the next volume of his series out regularly."
"A year?" I asked. It seemed vaguely reasonable to me. I knew that game design teams could spend years on their games, and that very often the story was one of the easiest parts of making it.
But then again, I didn't read or follow novels all that much. Not like Asuna, who had bemoaned the lack of good reading material on more than one occasion.
"That's pretty long." Tomo agreed, nodding her head. "That's what, twice the normal time between novels?"
"Maybe they're just a slow writer," I offered, feeling distinctly out of place.
"Perhaps," Asuna hummed, skirting around the corner of a shelf..
And then we were at the Light Novel section and any prior conversation was put on hold.
"Oh, Classroom of the Elite updated!" Asuna said, wheeling up to one of the sections. As someone who'd spent most of his time on computers, I had no idea what light novels were considered "Good" and which ones were considered "bad", and I didn't want to upset Asuna by picking a book that she found abhorrent in my ignorance.
She looked so happy running her finger along the shelf of books, skimming the titles. With a little gasp, she pulled out a book, showing it to Tomo excitedly.
I leaned back against the opposite shelf while Tomo and Asuna settled in front of the bookcase, and a pile of books slowly started to assemble in my wife's lap. It was… somehow warming, to see them like this. Happy, together, and having fun. Even if I wasn't part of it at the moment, there'd be time for me.
As time wore on, Asuna started frowning more and more, pausing at different locations on the shelf before moving on, occasionally glancing back at a particular title before moving on.
I was far enough away and the titles were so small that I couldn't easily read them, but they all seemed to be rather long titles.
"You doing okay?" I asked, stepping up beside her as she paused at another title.
Asuna nodded. "I feel fine."
"Those books are making you frown," I said, gesturing to the last one she'd stopped at: How a Realist Hero Rebuilt the Kingdom.
"Really?" Asuna leaned back, bringing one hand up to rub her face. "I hadn't noticed."
"It was gettin' kinda weird, Aa-chan," Tomo piped in. "I mean, I knew you preferred Slice o' Life, but I didn't know ya hated Isekai."
"I don't... hate it," Asuna defended herself, "It's just... " She reached up and fingered the book that she had last stopped at. "It feels… distasteful." She took a deep breath. "It reminds me of Aincrad."
Oh.
That was a loaded statement. From my understanding, Isekai was a genre built on the fantasy of going to another world and becoming a hero there. We'd lived that, in all its horror, glory, despair and beauty.
Tomo reached down and grabbed Asuna's hand. "Then let's find somethin' else ta read, okay?" She guided her hand toward a different book. "Why don't ya take a look at one o' my favorites?"
"Spice and… Wolf?" Asuna read off the title of the series that her girlfriend had guided her towards. "What's it about?"
"Feudal European economics," Tomo said with a perfectly straight face. I couldn't help cracking a grin, and Asuna let out a chuckle. "What?"
"Sorry, it's just…" Asuna trailed off, sliding the book into her pile.
"It sounds very interesting." I said. Surprisingly, it did. Tomo, as Argo, had had a very strict limit on what sort of info or stories she would publish, one that presumably carried over to her reading standards.
The book apparently being about economics, a subject most novels I had read avoided like the plague, made it even more interesting.
"It very much seems like the sort of thing you'd enjoy," Asuna said, grabbing the second book of the series out of the shelf. "Thanks for the recommendation." She nodded at her girlfriend, backing away from the shelf.
"Now, I think we've got enough books, you guys want to head to the checkout?"
