Title: Virtual Reality

Author: shimasama

Pairing: Akane Narita and Subaru Yagi

Fandom: Hot Gimmick

Theme: #29 – the sound of waves

Disclaimer: I do not own Hot Gimmick. It belongs to Viz and Miki Aihara.

Subaru had recently gotten into the world of virtual reality gaming. For his last birthday his parents had given him one of the VR headsets for an online game that had caught his interest. He liked to be absorbed in the VR world. He could listen to the cheesy background music and watch players who lived over 3,000 miles away come up to him in their recently created avatars.

But his favorite part of the VR world was the places he could go to without leaving his room. In this particular fantasy game, he could climb mountains and swim rivers without breaking a sweat. He fought dragons in the dark dungeons of a haunted castle, and saved damsel CPUs. He could go into a town with old stone streets and shop in a bazaar full of other online gamers like himself. Sure, the world was mostly a bunch of two-dimensional backdrops, but it was a world he could enter effortlessly.

Akane did not enjoy the experience of virtual reality. She found it boring, at most. She did not understand how you moved with just the tweak of your hand on a joystick, or how you talked to other players just by whispering words into your mic. She disliked the 2-D backdrops and the strange elves and other fanciful creatures that either attempted to trade with you or started a fight. This VR world was not nearly as interesting as her world.

"What's with this stupid music?" She asked him one day after he plopped his headset on her head when she tried to distract him from battling an ogre. "It's so repetitive. Why don't they have real-world music? Where are the birds? The waves?"

Subaru laughed, not understanding Akane's frustration with his world. "This isn't real. There are no birds."

Akane pointed to a creature only she could see. "Right there! It's a bird, but you can't even hear it! What's the point of a world with only cheesy elevator music? Not even someone's footsteps! Sheesh." She took off the headset with one swift motion and shoved it back into his hands. "I prefer the real world, Subie-kun. With real sounds. I'll see you later." She got off his computer chair and pranced out of his room, her little skirt flouncing with her every step.

She took him to the beach for their eight-month anniversary. She held his hand on the entire train ride; even nuzzled his neck once or twice to lay a kiss on a spot she knew was especially sensitive. When they finally reached the coast, she dragged him down to the sand, kicking off her strappy heels as she went.

"See this?" Akane cried as she danced around the waves that coiled along the shore. "This is the world I was talking about!"

Subaru did see. He heard the seagulls crying overhead and the waves that took away Akane's footprints. He felt the cool spray and the light breeze. He heard the last departing train and did not bother to wonder how they would get home.

"It's the sound of waves," Akane said when she reached him, her legs already soaked and stuck with sand. "That's what was missing."