A/N: Ok someone, I'm sorry I don't remember who, mentioned how the way Kirito suddenly said "I'll have your back if you have mine" was a bit sudden, and I re-read that whole section of the conversation and decided the whole conversation needed to be fixed so I pretty much re-wrote it, from the moment Asuna is staring at a stone to the moment Kirito smiles differently. So it may be in your interest to look back at it so you're not confused. But if you're like me, you just re-read that whole chapter to spark your memory of what happened last before reading every update, and because it took me an un-godly amount of time to get to updating, I have no words for my shameful existence.

I also edited the crap out of past chapters, chapter four was practically redone.

For those who often skip over the A/N what I just said above is informative on my story and may be in your interest to read. I even un-bolded it to trick your eyes to read this sentence so you'll know. :D

Chapter 8: The Oblivious Type

"Hey Kirito?" Asuna started as she looked over at him from across the table while they ate breakfast together, it was morning and thankfully there were no repeated trauma attacks the night before for the young prince. Though Asuna worried that that was just luck and she had even taken to checking up on him throughout the night. It was a miracle that she got any sleep at all, she really worried for his health.

"Hmm?" was his only response.

"Are there Libraries?"

Kirito stopped eating and stared at her bemused, "Is that a question that they exist or where the nearest one is? Because you're wording it like you're unsure libraries exist."

Asuna laughed sheepishly, "Right…um…Where is the nearest library?"

"Heck if I know, you should have asked Leafa, she's the one who lives here." He stated bluntly before returning to his meal. "Why? Do you want to go to one?" he spoke in-between bites.

"Well yeah, obviously." She responded almost sarcastically. Wow, he must be rubbing off on her, she used to be much more polite and proper and what the heck?! He's a prince he should have been the definition of polite and proper!

But no, instead he's just a sarcastic pain in the ass.

"Why?" he continued finishing his meal and ignoring her attitude, he liked woman with a little spunk anyway.

"Because..."

Because she wanted to know more about this world, because she wanted to find out how to get home, because she remembered her grandmother talking about how there was a sad story as to why fairies and humans don't interact and she figured she might want to know why, because as a human being it was in her interest to know more about fairies so she doesn't risk her life and do or mention something stupid that a fairy wouldn't, because she wanted to know if it was stupid to ever tell him she was human…

The list seemed endless really.

"Because?" he pushed when she trailed off and seemed to get lost in thought.

She jolted like she was surprised before smiling sheepishly.

He just frowned in concern, "Your acting weird Asuna." He stated with a tilt of his head, "Is something wrong?"

"Oh no…not at all, sorry I just spaced out, no big deal. I want to go because I want to brush up on my history is all." She stated with a fake smile.

"Uh-huh…" he spoke unconvinced.

"Really that's all there is to it."

"Right…seems like a big waste of time if you ask me." He said still not believing her but going along with it anyway.

"Well…It's important to me." She responded with a glare.

"What about sword training?"

"We'll do it in the afternoon."

"Why are you always deciding our schedule?"

"Because heavens know if you did; all we'd ever do is eat and sleep."

Kirito just laughed, he was well aware that he was a rather lazy person. He never was one to deny his flaws, in fact he found that by openly acknowledging them often times it would throw people off and make them prone to manipulation.

Well he'd admit that's rather horrible of him but as royalty; his life was all about manipulating people in his favor. It was how all higher ups function, the society was built off of it.

So it was funny to him how this girl had him, for once in his life, jumping through hoops.

He found it even funnier that he didn't mind all that much when it was her doing it. Anyone else and he would have been at their throat…

She did strange things to his head.

"Fine we'll find the library and waste a perfectly good afternoon of our lives just to satisfy your scholarly needs, your highness."

"That's rich coming from a Prince."

Ok…She had him there.

"And we can't sit here forever, we need to move on and figure out what to do next."

"I need to get back to the castle and help stop the resistance."

"It's 'we' not 'I' and is the resistance the people who were trying to kill you?"

"Yeah that would be them…" Kirito answered as he stared at her in awe, 'we' huh? For some reason the made him really…happy?

"Kirito why are you smiling?"

He was smiling? He never smiled unless he decided a smile was needed in the situation at hand… It was a thing of manipulation not an expression of emotion. He tried to straighten his face out to something more casual and controlled but the corners of his mouth kept twitching back up and he found it was hard.

Holy crap he was really smiling and he couldn't make it go away. When was the last time he had this problem? He couldn't, for the life of him, remember but it felt good.

It felt really really good to just smile.

"Seriously what is it?" Asuna questioned though a smile of her own had crept on to her face, she failed to see what about the conversation was smile worthy but she found Kirito's smile contagious. More so she felt there was something special about the smile, just like she felt the other day when they were leaving and he had done the same thing. It was different, it was real.

"We?" He finally spoke with a soft voice.

"Yes of course, I have your back; you have mine, meaning that we stick together." She answered finally understanding what made him smile. She was starting to find out more and more that he wasn't the stuck up spoiled prince she had originally thought him to be. Well actually, as much as she hated to admit it, her most original thought of him was that he was attractive.

She blushed at the memory, it was only a couple days ago yet it felt like weeks ago, she felt different, they were both different like the more time they spent together the more they changed. Not to mention that he was still attractive, that hadn't changed…

Kirito felt heat rising to his face as they both continued to stare at each other, he could see she was blushing and if the heat he felt in his face was any indication…he was too.

Immediately he stood from the table, "Let's go find that Library." He spoke quickly as he nearly jogged to the door.

Asuna agreeing instantly, following behind him at a comfortable distance

It took them two whole hours of running aimlessly around town and asking strangers questions before they found the library, at one point Asuna could have sworn that they were just going in a giant circle.

Though Asuna learned something new today about Kirito during their giant detour; his wings were a handicap to his sense of direction… He's spent too much of his life relying on his ability to just take flight the moment he didn't know where he was.

Hence the two hours' worth of searching, even with directions from multiple different people. It was bordering on pathetic actually and she was pretty sure he knew that because he was in a very grumpy mood by the time the two of them stood on the doorsteps to the library, sweaty and exhausted from the whole fiasco.

"I've decided I hate libraries." Kirito mumbled under his breath.

"Oh, woman up." She shot back almost instantaneously, come to think of it she might be borderline grumpy herself.

Could anyone really blame her though? She certainly wasn't wearing the best shoes for constant walking; it felt like her heart had decided to relocate down to her feet as they were throbbing so much…

"No, I quite like being a guy so-OW! Why did you have to hit me?!" He whined as he nursed his head.

"Sorry, muscle reflex." Asuna responded with a false smile, not sounding apologetic at all as she finally entered the building.

"Oh I'm sure it was." Kirito shot back in sarcasm, and if looks could kill Asuna would be dead already. "Anyway, what are we here to read about again? Wait no you didn't say…I bet I could guess it though."

Asuna rolled her eyes, shooting a glance back at him that spoke volumes of how little she thought of his little games. A look that the prince conveniently ignored, go figure.

"How about the time when Fairies first came to this land?" He started with a confident smile.

"No, not it." Asuna responded right away as she came to a stop just past the entry way to the building, not quite sure where to start looking for the answers she seeked.

Kirito's smile only faltered for a moment before he quickly recovered, "Ok, then how about the first fairy to discover the magical properties in fairies and study it?"

"Wrong again." Asuna denied a second time with a chuckle.

Kirito looked like he was done with his own game already, "How about the time when we first discovered orcs?" when he got yet another negative in response he huffed in irritation, those were all very famous parts of history… what else would she be interested in randomly learning? "Ok I give up, seriously what part of history are we going for?"

"You give up already? Wow, Kirito that's just…really sad. I want to know about what happened between Fairies and Humans." Asuna responded with a small smile as she looked around at the many ridiculously tall shelves full of books. Wait, where are the ladders? How does anyone get to the books- Oh right, wings…

Asuna paused when all she heard was continued silence, 'Weird Kirito hasn't said a single thing since I responded…it's been long enough that he should be firing back some stupid yet witty remark by now.' She turned around to question him about it only to find him staring at her oddly.

After another couple minutes of just staring at one another, Kirito spoke, "Asuna, anything to do with humans are a taboo, so you're not going to find anything here. Why you even want to know about them is beyond me."

Asuna stared at him in shock and before she could stop herself words were slipping out of her mouth, "Do you hate humans? If you met one, would you kill them?" She wanted the ground to open up and swallow her for not stopping the questions from leaving her mouth, but that's not what bugged her the most.

What bugged her the most was her reasons for asking them, it wasn't for the sake of figuring things out so she could go home like it should be. No it was her looking for approval; she wanted Kirito to tell her that he didn't hate humans, that he didn't hate what she secretly was. She wanted to know that she could tell him and everything would be alright.

"This isn't the place to have this conversation, others are staring." Was what she got instead before he was suddenly gripping her arm almost painfully and practically dragging her out of the place.

He continued like that all the way down the street, all the while Asuna kept tugging on her arm, trying to get him to let her go because Kirito was a strong fairy and it seems he has forgotten to watch his strength.

"Kirito!" She called out with a wince.

Yet no response was given, just a continuation of the heavy silence that fell between the two ever since the word 'Human' slipped from her mouth.

"Kirito, you're hurting me!" she finally shouted.

Immediately he let her go and quickly turned around to face her with wide eyes when that caused her to accidently fall to the ground. "Asuna-" He spoke, with his voice heavy in guilt.

Asuna glanced up at him from her place on the ground, quickly hiding her wrist from his sight; she'll go to the healer about it when he goes to bed tonight. In the meantime he doesn't need to know…

"I am so so sorry, I panicked, and I needed to get us out of there. A couple of the people there looked like they were going to notify someone or something and with everything that has happened I'm a little paranoid…" Kirito continued, he sounded like he was ready to have a panic attack about the whole thing.

Before Asuna knew it, Kirito was knelt next to her on the ground with a look in his eyes that spoke of untold amounts of worry.

"Are you ok? Let me see your wrist." He practically demanded as he reached his hand out for her wrist.

"No it's fine, really, you don't have to worry." She answered in a panicked voice.

"Asuna, give your wrist." He nearly ordered, his own panic starting to mix with the worry in his eyes.

When Asuna shook her head again as a refusal, his outstretched hand dropped to his side and his hair seemed to hide his face as he looked down towards the ground.

"How badly did I hurt you?" he spoke, his voice painfully soft.

That did it for Asuna, as she immediately offered him her wrist with a cringe.

Kirito looked up at her offered arm for a moment before his eye's widened and he gently took it in his hands.

It was a kind of gentle Asuna had never seen come from him, and never guessed she would see.

"I sprained it, it's sprained…I really hurt you." Kirito finally spoke, his voice heavy with emotion.

"No, Kirito its fine, we'll just go to the healer and it will be fixed. It's nothing." Asuna responded in a rush, she didn't like that look on his face.

"Aren't you in pain?" he questioned quietly.

"No I think it's in shock."

"I'm sorry, I hurt you and you're the only one that-" Kirito paused mid-sentence, like he said something he shouldn't have.

"I'm the only- what?" Asuna questioned quietly.

"The only one the matters to me…" he mumbled, wishing she wouldn't hear and give up. However he knew she had heard the moment he glanced at her face and saw her staring at him with wide eyes.

They both sat there staring at one another for a long moment, this time the silence felt much more awkward than it did heavy or tense.

"It's been a long time since I've allowed myself to really care about anyone, and I've only known you for what? –a week? Isn't that sad? But I can't stop myself from caring when I'm around you, there's something special about you and I can't figure it out." Kirito finally explained.

"Kirito-" Asuna started to say but stopped abruptly when she discovered she didn't know how to respond, not really…

"Never mind that, we should get you to that healer…" he spoke quickly, almost like he thought that if he spoke fast enough she would forget all about what he had just said before that.

But Asuna knew she wasn't forgetting those words anytime soon.

Then he surprised her even more, something she didn't think possible at the moment, when he scooped her up in his arms like a princess.

"K-Ki-Kirito?! I can walk!" Asuna stammered, her voice so high in embarrassment it was practically a squeak.

Of course Kirito completely ignored that comment, cradling her close in his arms like she was the most precious thing on the planet.

The healer took one look at the pair on his door step before rolling his eyes.

"Seriously? What is it with the lot of you getting injured all the time?"

"Um…" Kirito answered so very intelligently.

"Can you please tell him that even though my wrist is injured my legs will still work just fine because he refuses to put me down, in fact he wouldn't even let me ring the doorbell!" Asuna stated in a sad attempt at irritation when really she just looked a little embarrassed at the fact that she was still tucked carefully in Kirito's arms.

"Oh please, you liked it." Kirito jokingly responded with a smirk.

"You're full of crap!" Asuna immediately shot back, her face turning bright red.

Kirito stared at her for a full minute before smiling in satisfaction, "Blushes don't lie." Was all he said.

"Ok well, whenever you two love birds are done flirting…" The healer interrupted their banter with a flat look.

The response he received was instantaneous, "We are not flirting!" both Kirito and Asuna practically shouted.

"Yeah sure whatever you say…" The healer said, voice heavy in sarcasm, "You might as well come in, so a did I hear correctly that your wrist is injured?" he spoke while looking at Asuna for affirmation.

"Yeah, we think it's sprained…" Asuna answered.

"Ah, well that's an easy fix." The healer responded as he pulled out a chair for Asuna to sit in, "Though you are going to have to put her down young man."

Kirito made a show of acting like he was relieved at the notion while gently putting Asuna down in the chair, "Good, she's heavy."

"Excuse you; you're the one who refused to put me down! I didn't even need to be carried."

Kirito just looked away at Asuna's response, pretending like he hadn't heard her, typical boy.

"I suspect he just liked doting on you, we men do weird things when we are in love." The healer spoke casually with a smirk.

"Lo-LOVE?! I'm not in love! I merely felt bad ok?! Stop implying crap!" Kirito practically exploded, while Asuna just sat in silence blushing.

The healer just laughed, "Oh so you're the oblivious type." He stated like it was fact.

The rest of the time with the healer was spent with the two blushing, stuttering and yelling…the afternoon that lead them there being completely forgotten.