Chapter 5: A Day In The (W,L)ife

"Four thousand..."

Asuna's warm, sweet voice simmers through the air around me. I can feel her weight on my back, every pound of her wasted potential as a character helping to keep me down, making this exercise harder. My entire upper body is exposed, and, as it has been shinning gracefully with sweat for a few minutes now, has drawn a crowd. The once passers-by ogle at the godlike display of sheer virility that is my being with wonder, awe, and in the case of many of the women in the crowd, passionate arousal.

Ladies, ladies. You can come right upstairs and I'll show you my best exercise rout- oh fuck. I remember that I do, in fact, have a wife who is currently serving as my extra weight for these push-ups. Damn it. I guess I should finish this part up soon so I can get to most intimate part of our circuit training. After all, Asuna couldn't be a better 'gym partner' in that aspect.

Huhah!

Effortlessly, my major Pectoralis Major gracefully raises me, and the babe mounting me, back into a perfect push-up position, my arms outstretched.

"Four thousand... and one!" Asuna gleefully exclaims. The adults in the crowd cheer, the children begin weeping with joy, and the simultaneous explosion of dozens of ovaries within the ranks of the masses causes the younger men in the crowd to stare at their female companions in utter virginity-fueled confusion. From the corner of my eye, I see a NPC janitor awkwardly shift a wooden "Warning: Wet Floor" sign into place before scurrying off.

Damn, it's good to be this good.

I pick up Asuna with one arm, her graceful figure trembling with pleasure next to my chest, and take her inside to wipe the sweat off her. It was hard for her at first, but she's gotten used to going outside with gallons of water to avoid dehydration. Holding herself back so much around me causes her to sweat buckets, but she's really adapted as my gym partner.

"Ahhhhh, it was sooo tough today Gary." she sighs out between rapid breaths. I place her down upon the bed and begin checking myself out in one of the mirrors.

"Don't worry babe, I got it covered." I may say this now, but honestly? I broke a sweat out there. A single droplet. I must be losing my touch.

Using one of the nearby towels, I wipe Asuna's sweat off my body and turn back to face her. She says something, but I'm too busy looking at my own reflection in the mirror behind her. The bed is, of course, surrounded by three full wall ones which show every single action I perform on the bed. It would be impossible to admire myself in the act otherwise. Best choice ever.

"...right, Gary?" Asuna finishes whatever she was saying. Honestly, I'd feel a little guilty about ignoring her if she wasn't going to become a poorly disguised plot device in the next major arc, but this is just how the cookie crumbles, unfortunately.

"Of course, babe." Like any man who has been married for more than a month, I pretend I listened to a word of what she just said. It's better this way, because if she ends up becoming a complex character my fans back home will come dangerously close to becoming interested in anyone other than the protagonist. Can't have that happening.

For now, though, I'll dive deep into her complexities.

Huhah!

Just another day in the Wife.

The next morning, I go through a terribly familiar ordeal. Scrolling through my equipment, I really just don't know what to wear today. This isn't a commonly known fact, but dressing modestly and humbly while having the very peak of desirable male aesthetic traits isn't easy. Asuna is standing in the doorway, already dressed in her usual light-armor getup, gazing at me with the stars of love in her eyes. Against my best judgement and the totally accurate impression I've gotten of women from the numerous harem anime I've watched, I opt to ask her for help.

"Should I take the black trench-coat today, or is my black shirt and pants enough?"

"Gary, you know I love you, but you don't always have to wear black."

"Asuna, you know how I feel about this."

As I have learned from observing Kirito, dressing like a brooding teenage anti-hero with a monochromatic wardrobe is a sure-fire way to make girls fall deeply in love with you during a short period of time. I will not forsake this one piece of wisdom I had missed during my own adventures through harem-land. That said, I can understand why Asuna is asking me to change. She likes me better with my clothes off, that's for sure...

Huhah!

Opting to leave the trench-coat behind, I sit down on my bed and put on my boots. I give the utterly pointless spurs at the back of my size 18 US western style boots a spin, and make my way towards Asuna.

"C'mon babe, the secondary characters want some screen time." Asuna reminds me as we begin to walk downstairs.

"Well, they've got a point after all that last night. There was some great stuff on that 72 inch HD mirror." I remark.

Blushing, she attempts to latch onto my arm, but after discovering that she is, in fact, unable to wrap her arms around my grotesquely gargantuan biceps she opts to grab onto my sleeve instead. The diamond-chiseled features on my face shift as I seductively grin back at Asuna, who is now humming to herself happily. Senpai noticed her, after all.

I open the door to the bar area of the inn as slowly and discretely as possible, so as to avoid the vast majority of players inside the inn from getting up from their tables and worshiping the second strongest couple in the entire game. The strongest couple is, of course, the one Kirito's in with Sachi. I may have a lot of raw strength and bonuses, but even I can't match up to the edgy character benefits he has.

"I don't want to dIIEEEEE!"

I hear our group before I see them, and my vision adjusts, zooming in on an extremely confused and uncomfortable waitress shuffling her feet at the table where our friends are located.

"What she's trying to say is she wants vanilla ice cream." Kirito carefully explains. Ah, my best buddy is always so reliable. Asuna and I, hand in hand, make our way over to them as Sachi recovers from her conversation-induced panic attack.

"Thank you Kirito, I was sooo scared!" Sachi whines to her lover, grasping onto him tightly.

"Woah, when'd she start saying that?" I ask, bewildered at the fact that her vocabulary has expanded. Is she starting to come into her own as an individual? How will their relationship survive?

"Ah, don't worry. It's just a variation on the usual." Kirito explains, and Asuna and I sigh in relief in return. Sachi's a red-shirt character, and if she becomes anything remotely close to a developed human being before she dies then we might actually feel more sympathetic for her than for Kirito. Can't have that happening!

"Well, aren't you a merry bunch?" I hear a calm, soothing voice behind me. I know in that instant, that if it was physically possible to be intimidated as a man of my stature and build, I would be at this very moment from hearing this voice alone. I turn slowly, Asuna scrambling desperately to latch onto my arm and slipping off of it as if it were a tree-trunk, to face the newcomer.

"Mind if I sit with you four?" asks a man donned in red armor, a particular crimson, the color of blood. The leader of the second most prominent guild in SAO, right behind ours: The Knights of Blood Leader, Heathcliff.

Now we're talking.

Will the Knight In Red Become the Knight In Dead? Come back Next Week for More Gary Stunning, Where Tension is Always Absent

Who is this mysterious Heathcliff? We can tell he's not just "character of the week" from his character design, but then why wasn't he introduced earlier? Could be he a villain, or is he the hero Gary needs to help his party break them out of this game? Find out next chapter in Gary Stunning, where the return of your favorite token minority character Big Black Guy and the rest of the largely-ignored cast will mark the pen-ultimate episode of this epic tale! More Gary x Asuna and Kirito x Sachi fluff to come!

Actual AN:

The Tale of Gary Stu-nning's final chapter is now confirmed to be chapter 7. This is to avoid it getting too stale and repetitive, and so we don't mirror actual fanfiction too closely by never actually finishing the FF.

If any of you are wondering about when Interfector is going to release the next chapter of Living Orange(I know I am), his main project that's been without updates for ages, he says within two weeks(edit: years?). Take that with a grain of salt but keep your eyes wide open.

Also, a brief note directly from Interfector: A reviewer brought up pretty valid comments on the depiction of women within this fanfic. The reader themselves realized this, but if you are in any way shape or form offended or triggered by the way Gary treats women that means you're understanding his point as a character. The vast majority of self-insert male OCs(note, not all) tend to marginalize female characters in one way or another, and Gary's objectification of women is just a take on that. If you have any major concerns with it, just PM either one of us(Harrowed or me) and we'll see what we can do.