Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Rinko shivers as the door swings open, hitting her with a soft sigh of cold air.

“...Tadaima,” she whispers to herself.

She didn’t bring much, but it still takes her multiple trips to move everything out of her car and into the guest room by herself. In retrospect, it’s probably a good thing they hadn’t been living together, or else she would’ve never even gotten close to getting her things back with all the police tape.

After that’s done, she is quick to close the door; it’s cold enough in here, which can’t be good for either of them. Repetitive beeping echoes quietly as she turns up the thermostat, almost like birds chirping, except she’s pretty sure she scared them all off already.

While waiting for the thermostat to work its magic, Rinko explores the cottage in silence, hands stuck under her armpits in an attempt to warm them. It’s not much bigger than her house, and very spartan in the ways of decoration, but she supposes there’s no need for anything more, nor is she one to talk either. Most of the decor in her own house consisted of bookshelves, and his mansion was just about the same.

She left behind all the picture frames she owns, packed away in a box at the bottom of the closet. Her few friends would never want to talk to her again anyway if they knew.

Her breath fogs on the glass as she stops by the window, pressing her fingertips to the cool, smooth surface. It feels surreal, being out here in the middle of nowhere. The mountains are peaceful, and quiet, and the endless evergreen forest looms just beyond the glass, reminding her of just how alone they are up here, especially in the dark.

Passing by a closed door on her way to the guest room, now hers, she sits down on the bed and pulls out her laptop, probably her most important possession. Her fingers are about to flip the cover up before she hesitates, then stores it back in its case again. She hasn’t been able to bear looking again at the news—even now, almost a month after, people are still talking about it—and if she opens her connection to the real world, she’s going to want to know.

Besides, she suddenly realizes she doesn’t have internet here anyways. She’ll need to ask for the password later.

The thought of talking to him, something that would’ve once made her look forward to it rather than backwards with longing for a different time, settles heavily in her gut like a cold lump of steel. Her gaze falls on the knife resting cold and silent on the nightstand, clean and unstained.

She’s glad it isn’t covered in blood, his blood, no matter how hard she tries not to be.

“Pick it up,” Rinko whispers.

Hearing voices that don’t exist isn’t usually something to be wished for, but she tries, tries so hard to imagine the voices of all those people out there in the real world in anguish and fury, and the voices of ten thousand—less than ten thousand now—who are trapped in another world with a guillotine looming at their necks. Tries to hear them shouting at her to end this abomination before it takes more innocent lives.

“Pick it up,” she begs herself, her hands grabbing fistfuls of the sheets, paralyzed at her sides.

But there’s no one here except her, and no voices, and no resolve.

You coward.

Because of her, thousands, many of them children, have been forced to take up a weapon knowing their lives rely on it, and she can’t even bring herself to touch this stupid knife.

Tell me something I don’t know.

~~~

Click.

Rinko wakes to the sound of a door opening and a sore neck. With a soft groan, she rubs at her eyes, blinking. She fell asleep sideways against the headboard, she realizes, which explains the crick in her neck.

Click.

The second click startles her into full awareness, and she stares at her door, still closed, like a deer in headlights. The sounds came from the room next door, which means…

A light turns on, a sliver of it slipping under her door, half obscured by the shadow cast by something—someone on the other side.

She really needs that wifi password if she’s going to be staying here, since her laptop is her lifeline to literally everything, but there she sits, completely frozen, just like she was when she first found him.

Seconds pass. The shadow stays.

It’s not fear. Maybe she’d feel better in a way if she was scared. That’d probably be more fitting. But all the fear that is conspicuously absent just takes the form of more guilt.

Finally, the shadow moves away, and the light turns off in the hallway.

Do you care?

Rinko wants to cry, but she blinks back the tingling burn in her eyes. She refuses to curl up and cry when this situation is her own making, when there are ten thousand people (hundreds less than ten thousand now) who are suffering because of her. What right does she have to complain?

Starving now, but completely lacking the desire to get up, she moves to a slightly more comfortable position under the covers instead and closes her eyes; the exhaustion from combing through the mountains for three whole days has made a home in her heart and doesn’t seem to want to leave.

The next morning, she finds a note on the table with the wifi password written neatly on it, even though she hasn’t spoken a word to him. This string of digits and letters is her key to this place, a silent invitation; once she takes it, she knows she’ll never be able to leave.

The house is warm now, at least, but in front of her, the cold winter stretches out for an eternity.

~~~

She doesn’t actually see him for a while.

Fortunately or unfortunately (depending on the day), Rinko still has school, and work at the Shigemura Lab. On one hand, it’s good to have something to distract her; on the other, seeing friendly faces consoling each other (and her sometimes, which makes her feel worse) over the current crisis (which she’s already neck deep in) just makes the guilt intensify.

She turns down invitations to grab drinks or food with friends. She wants their company, but at the same time, she doesn’t think she can bear the guilt either. Every day, she leaves campus to go straight home to the one person who can understand her situation because he was the one who created it.

Home. Home is where the heart is. It always has been.

He’s usually Diving. The few times he comes out are in the middle of the night, probably when no one in the game will know he’s missing. He makes no moves to find her in her room, where she’s usually hiding, either working or asleep, so they don’t cross paths for two weeks until she comes home late.

After a longer than expected day in the lab, Rinko nearly drops the styrofoam box when she walks in and sees him kneeling on the floor in front of the open mini fridge, peering into the decidedly empty container with a mild frown. The days are shorter now than ever, in December, so she didn’t want to eat somewhere in town and then drive up here in the pitch black night; it’s nerve-wracking enough doing it in the day.

He’s so thin, is the first thing she can think, even more of a beanpole than before, and he looks so much smaller without his lab coat. His clothes hang off his frame, draping awkwardly, and his cheekbones protrude noticeably when he turns to look at her, but his eyes—his eyes are still his.

They show only the faintest curiosity as they meet hers before dropping to the box in her hands, and then drifting to the empty fridge.

“Haven’t you had any real food for the past two weeks?” Akihiko asks finally, looking vaguely disdainful at the cheap takeout box. Between the two of them, he was always the bigger food snob, especially since he was definitely the better cook and actually enjoyed it, always insisting on making everything from scratch.

Words seem to be failing her, so she shakes her head slowly, and he sighs, pushing the fridge door shut. “What am I going to do with you…?”

He says it the same way he always does. Exasperated, affectionate. Fond. A little teasing. Her short nails dig into the styrofoam as she bites the inside of her cheek. There’s a well worn set of teeth-shaped welts there now, from all the times she’s felt like crying this past week.

Using the mini fridge as support, he stands slowly, his expression flickering with annoyance as his body struggles to obey his will, and when he stumbles, she’s there to catch him, wrapping her arms around his thin waist. She finds she doesn’t quite want to let go, even though she can feel the faint outlines of his ribs through his shirt as she presses her face into his neck.

A hum purrs like a whisper in his chest; he doesn’t push her away nor pull her closer, instead simply resting a hand on her back, fingers tracing random patterns on her shirt, an old habit he developed years ago.

He’s warm enough, but she hates the feeling of her fingers slotting between the too stark ridges of his spine. She has him in her arms, but she knows he’s far, far away in Aincrad; she’s not sure if she’ll ever get him back. Is it bad that she still wants him back?

A tap of his finger grabs her attention, and he mumbles, “There’s a grocery store on the way back here. I’ll make a list later.”

“You know I can’t cook like you,” she mumbles back into his shoulder, and he chuckles.

“You can learn. It’s better than getting takeout every day. I’ll leave some recipes.” He pokes her in the side almost playfully. “I’m sure you won’t set anything on fire again.”

“One time, it was one time-”

Her fists curl up tight, balling up the fabric of his too-big shirt. All those memories...did they really mean anything to him?

His thin fingers draw through her short hair as he brushes a kiss against the side of her head—probably just following another old habit—and she lets her hands fall as he moves away. He doesn’t stop her from following him, doesn’t ask for assistance with the IV drip nor thank her when she gives it anyways. It makes her feel marginally better when he doesn’t acknowledge the crime she’s willfully committing, but again, it just means that every moment here is a choice that she makes all on her own.

One day, karma will come for her, and him.

Sitting on the floor next to his bed, she rests her hand against his gaunt cheek, the part of it that isn’t covered by the NerveGear, and thinks of how he loves that world more than he ever loved this one (more than this one ever loved him), and thinks to herself, Not today.

One day, karma will have them both, but not today, and not tomorrow, and not the day after. It will come for them when they least expect it, but it can’t end now, not until he’s found what he’s looking for. Only then will karma come to take it all away.

For now, it’s winter, it’s cold, it’s dark, and she’s tired, so she closes her eyes and lays her head down on her arms, and if she wakes up sobbing from watching children die in her dreams begging for her to do something, well, he won’t hear her anyways.

Chapter Text

It’s not unfamiliar, to wake up to the sound of a keyboard click-clacking away; in fact, it is—or at least was—probably Rinko’s most listened to lullaby as well. He tends to use his laptop with flatter (and quieter) keys when working at hours at which reasonable (read: human) people should be asleep, rather than the mechanical keyboard of his desktop—but not tonight, apparently.

How is it, she wonders to herself in exasperation, that she can always hear him going click-click-clack-click-clack on mechanical keyboards through the damn wall? It’s faint, but easily recognizable, and entirely too difficult to ignore once noticed.

“Your typing sounds like a machine gun,” she told him once, a long time ago, to which he laughed, his Christmas gift, a new and hopefully quieter keyboard, sitting in his lap. She’d freely admit, it was probably more for her and all their coworkers than for him.

The sounds only get louder when she steps into the hallway; turns out, his door is cracked open slightly, and she nudges it open more to peek inside out of sleepy curiosity.

His fingers don’t pause, but he glances back slightly at her for a moment before going back to work, squinting at the bright boxes (yes, plural; honestly, four monitors is pretty tame compared to his setup in his mansion) in the darkness of the room. The meager light throws his pallid skin and too prominent cheekbones and sunken eyes into stark relief against the shadows engulfing the rest of him.

Rinko huffs loudly.

“Honestly,” she mutters, flicking on the light switch. She takes a moment to enjoy a petty flash of amusement at his distinctly vampire-esque flinch. “I keep telling you you’ll go blind if you keep this up.”

Akihiko looks rather unimpressed by her telling him off—not that he hasn’t heard it a million times already—and just keeps typing away. Loudly.

Rinko sighs. She should’ve known better than to expect him to care about his real body (not that he did much before either), especially now that he has so little use for it.

For a few minutes, she leans against the doorframe, trying to figure out what to do now. She can already feel herself becoming trapped in that state of being too tired to function without coffee (an unfortunate habit she picked up from him) and too awake to go back to sleep easily (the light admittedly doesn’t help).

It is two in the morning. Might as well get something done. With her, it usually depends on the day, but today, sleep is for the weak.

After a cup of coffee and some premade curry that he’d made to stick in the freezer, she returns to her bed and cracks open her laptop, resigning herself to an early morning of grading tests, one of the less fun parts about teaching.

Now it’s too quiet, she realizes suddenly, and stares at the wall next to her, through which she can hear faint keyboard sounds still. It’s a little silly, but she’s just now realizing how big a part he was of her daily life. Even for two people who were dating each other, they did spend a lot of time together. As much as she liked to make fun of his absurdly loud typing, it did make for nice, repetitive background noise after some time, and she got used to having it there as she went through busy work.

It’s been a few weeks now, and Rinko is starting to become more and more desensitized to living with an internationally wanted criminal and mass-murderer, enough to just wander into his room and crawl into his bed with her laptop. It’s just like old times, ignoring the IV drip and the NerveGear sitting next to the pillow.

It’s a little scary, how soon she’s finding herself getting used to this situation—and what that says about her, she doesn’t care to think too much about, even though it’s all she can think about when she should be sleeping at night. But still, she doesn’t care to go near all the emotions she’s been keeping bottled up for weeks with a three meter long pole.

She thought she was confident in what she felt for so long. And the part that she was confident in, she still is. That’s why she’s still here, after all. It’s everything else that changed.

Do I hate him? Should I hate him?

It’s still dark out when he shuts off the computer. With slow steps on bare feet, he approaches and looks at her patiently, expectantly, and for all the pieces that her heart breaks into each time he returns to the virtual world, she still finds herself getting up, letting him take her spot and replace the NerveGear on his head.

Why can’t I hate him?

And then she’s alone on the ground again, while he’s ruling his floating steel castle in the sky.

~~~

Rinko finds that despite going to the lab at least four days a week, her world is slowly shrinking down to that little cottage in the mountains, her vision narrowing down to the endless winter outside the windows.

She drifts away from her friends—not for lack of trying on their part, instead out of selfishness on hers. Every time she looks them in the eye, all she can see are the lingering shadows cast by the floating castle still blotting out the sun. Shutting them out was the only way she could think of to appease her own guilt when it became too much to bear.

I just need time to myself, she claims as an excuse, even though she’s already sick and tired of being so alone all the damn time, but she figures any chance at carrying on a normal life was ruined when she couldn’t pick the knife back up.

The endless winter makes it easier, almost. Up there, in the middle of nowhere where no one can find them, there’s plenty to keep her occupied. The roads have to be cleared somewhat almost every morning before she can leave, the car has to be covered when it snows or even hails, and sometimes the door gets frozen shut overnight.

Some days are harder than others. Work is more draining than it should be, or she just wakes up with less energy than she needs to get through the day.

Rinko is halfway home on one of those days when she realizes she never got food, and she curses quietly to herself behind the wheel. She ran out of the small store of frozen food that Akihiko made the night after she went grocery shopping, so she’s been trying out some of his recipes, but she doesn’t think she has the energy to do anything but flop into bed when she gets home.

By the time she arrives, she’s resigned herself to an empty stomach for the night, so when she shuts the door behind her and lets her boots fall haphazardly by the door and sees a bowl of her favorite comfort food covered in plastic wrap on the table, her brain decides that this is too much, and now is a really good time to just sit down and cry for a solid ten minutes.

He has perfect timing, in many ways. It seems like he always enjoys reminding her that she’s not alone at the moments she can’t be sure if it’s a good thing or a bad thing.

You’ve still got me, he seems to be saying.

Needless to say, it doesn’t clear up the confusion, at all.

~~~

Truly impeccable timing, he has.

“You look tired,” his soft voice remarks from the doorway, as if observing the weather. It’s getting a little rusty and creaky from disuse.

Too tired to be surprised at his sudden emergence from Aincrad, Rinko blinks hard at her laptop screen in the yellowish glow of the kitchen light. “My parents just asked if I’d like to come home for the holidays.”

“Ah.” A pause. “Are you going to go? You had to turn them down last year, didn’t you?”

Of course he wouldn’t understand.

“As if I could face them,” she whispers, refusing to look at him. “Did you need something?” They both hear the tremor in her voice as she forces the words past the lump in her throat.

“No. I just saw the light on and was curious.” His tone is still conversational, relaxed. “I’m glad you’re staying. Oyasumi.”

Her hands clench into fists atop her keyboard as she listens to his footsteps retreating. He’s not even trying, is the sad part. She’s pretty sure he doesn’t care about or even need her here enough to manipulate her; it’s just something that he does, apparently.

After six years, she supposes that it must come naturally at this point.

Chapter Text

Winter break is drawing to a close, and Rinko realizes that without obligation to go anywhere, she hasn’t gone outside in days. Good grief, she’s starting to turn into him.

Her face scrunches instinctively as she steps outside into the sun, shivering slightly. It hasn’t snowed recently, but white still dusts every visible surface, and her breath steams in the air in front of her.

Her first thought is driving into town, but it snowed last night and she doesn’t feel like clearing it just to drive into town with nothing to do. And it’s the last day of the year, she realizes belatedly. People must be gearing up for New Year’s celebrations in town. Traffic will be terrible, with everyone shopping and visiting family.

She huddles further into her coat, for a different reason than the cold now. New Year’s has always been a celebratory occasion for her and her family, like most of Japan. It looks like she’ll be spending it like she did this Christmas—alone.

Rinko debates getting her laptop and sitting on the porch to work, but work is all she’s been doing recently, and she’s already taken care of any pressing matters. Frankly, she’s tired of using work as a way to try and stave off the loneliness and guilt, and it’s losing its effectiveness anyways after so long.

So, what to do…? She doesn’t want to go down the mountain, or back inside.

Well, she thinks to herself dryly, that just leaves up, then.

After grabbing a backpack with food and water and an emergency first aid kit (and checking that it’s not going to snow), she circles around to the back of the cottage, glancing briefly at the curtains covering the window of Akihiko’s room. From staring out of her own window for countless hours, she’d noticed a trail leading up into the mountains, and it winds into the snow-encrusted forest before her now with open arms.

It reminds her of her childhood, growing up in the forested countryside. The last time she did any regular physical activity of any sort was being on the swim team in high school, which she quit after her second year, but she’s suddenly taken by the impulse to just go.

With each step, she climbs higher and higher, leaving it all further and further behind. Him, her loneliness, his hollow companionship, the knife collecting dust on her nightstand, everything.

Even as the trail gets more unsteady and treacherous, she can’t stop, fuelled by the illusionary feeling of freedom. Up here, there’s no cell signal; she’s cut off completely from the world, with no emails or texts to think about—and no way to call for help if something goes wrong—but it was entirely her choice, and it feels better, somehow. The watery winter sun pierces weakly through the lush pines, guiding her on and on like a promise just out of reach.

Get away from the town, from the people coming to visit family, from the people who are going to go to the shrines on New Year’s to pay respects to the deceased. There’ll be a lot more this year, more than there should be (it hasn’t been only those trapped within the game who lost themselves to despair).

Get away from her friendless, lifeless existence at the lab, working day after day with a terrible secret, and the knowledge that she can only blame herself for the way her life is.

Get away from him, and the way he pulls at her heart without even caring enough to try.

Maybe if she climbs high enough, she’ll find that floating castle herself.

Hours that feel like minutes later, she finds herself out of breath and surrounded by more space than vegetation; the trees have thinned out as the mountain grows steeper and rockier. Shocked, she takes a few steps back the way she came, retracing her footsteps, breathless.

The forests stretch out for kilometers before her feet, a dizzying dichotomy of dark pines and bright snow. Far, far past that, civilization is but a vague concept on the horizon. She has no idea where the cottage is, and doesn’t care either.

Up here, there would be no one to hear her scream. A confession that would go unheard is on the tip of her tongue-

She bites it back hard enough to taste blood. It feels too much like complaining, and there’s nothing she deserves to complain about. This is her life and she’s the one who made the choice, and there’s no taking it back.

Would she even want to take it back?

The treacherous thought creeps in unnoticed, but she doesn’t think she could bear the alternatives to this either. Cooperation, silence, or confession—three choices she could’ve made, none with any possible escape from some sort of guilt.

Clear trails burn down her cheeks, cherry red in the freezing cold, fists clenched in her pockets, something snowballing in her throat; maybe she’s guilty, but she can’t stop the grief-stricken tears regardless.

She wants to scream; how is this fair-

The sun is setting, she notices suddenly. She would’ve taken a moment to admire the last sunset of the year if she hadn’t subsequently realized that she left the cottage hours ago.

~~~

It turns out that descending, while faster by necessity, is not much easier than ascending, especially when the main source of light is slipping away like sand through her fingers. And Rinko didn’t think she would ever be happy to see that little cottage that is her home and prison, but after spending who knows how long fumbling in the dark, keeping her eyes glued to her footprints from earlier with the battery of her phone, which was acting as her flashlight, draining fast, she is too tired and relieved to think about it.

Her legs give out as soon as she closes the door, and she grunts quietly as she sits down involuntarily on the doormat. Her face, toes, and fingers have been numb for hours, and she rubs her hands together shakily. She’s not sure how long she sits there, shivering even in the warmth of the house.

It’s not like her to lose track of time like that, or be so reckless in the first place, taking off into mountains she doesn’t know in the middle of winter without telling a single person. What if she had gotten stranded there, in the dark all alone with no way to call for help? He really would be all alone then-

As if summoned by a thought, his voice, with its newly developing scratchy quality, sounds quietly from across the kitchen.

“What am I going to do with you…?”

Blinking owlishly at him—the bright snow did a number on her eyes, she realizes belatedly—she doesn’t quite have the strength to get up. He seems to come to the same conclusion and sighs before stepping into the room and turning on the lights.

She flinches and lifts a hand to rub her still sensitive eyes, only for him to block out the light a few seconds later. With slightly awkward and unsteady motions, he kneels down on the floor and drapes a thick fleece blanket across her front, tucking the sides behind her with thin, skeletal fingers. Too surprised and still cold, she stays silent and unmoving as he works, staring at him as he sits back on his heels, finished.

“That was a little silly, don’t you think?” he murmurs, looking at her with a bemused expression, as if she was simply a rather interesting outlier in a data set.

Her hands aren’t trembling as much anymore as she reaches out, running her hand along his jaw.

“You need to shave,” she mumbles in tired admonishment, tapping a finger against his chin, where stubble is growing.

His hand follows the path of hers, absently dragging his nails (which also need to be cut) along his jaw, but his only response is an uncaring shrug. It’s not like he has much use for his real body anymore, except for moments like these.

In the back of her mind, she wonders why he keeps coming back every now and then. To torment her? But he was never the type to cause pain for the sake of it; there has to be some ulterior motive, something to gain.

Distant fireworks start to go off, and she asks, her voice cracking softly like thin ice, “Why?”

Akihiko smiles at her, and she realizes that all along, what she took for his version of warmth was just a hollow facsimile of the real thing.

“You looked cold,” he answers simply, fingers trailing along the blanket he brought.

She lets her questions go; she wasn’t really expecting an answer when she asked.

Instead, she grasps his hand and stands, pulling him to his feet. It takes more effort than she expected; she must be more tired than she thought, because he’s still little more than skin and bones. He watches in detached curiosity as she wraps one side of the blanket around him, propping her shoulder up against his chest, and pushes her slippers towards him with one foot. At her expectant look, he shuffles into them, and she pulls the front door open.

At his instinctive flinch, she tightens her arm around his waist and pulls him outside anyways. His chin tips up to follow as she points, just in time for colors to explode over the horizon in the distance. From so far away, they sound like little party poppers, showering glowing confetti on a dark canvas. Their light is a little blurry to Rinko, perhaps because of the lingering snow blindness, or because of the droplets sliding down her cheeks.

She still doesn’t know why he’s here with her; perhaps time will tell.

They don’t deserve to be here. There are thousands of other people who should be able to be here in the real world tonight, watching fireworks with friends and family, visiting shrines, celebrating together. The two of them are the last people who deserve to be here.

But while they’re here, can’t she try still?

“There’s beauty in the real world too,” she whispers; if only she could convince him to stay-

But she can feel him slipping away already. And when she wakes up, curled up in her own bed, wrapped up tight in the blanket, she’s

still

alone.

Chapter Text

It takes Akihiko about two seconds to guess, “Revising your thesis?” when he shuffles into the kitchen.

She gives him a dead-eyed look, surrounded by notebooks—she’s always been the type to enjoy writing things down by hand, despite today’s digital age. “How did you guess?”

In all honesty, until it was returned to her a few days ago, she’d mostly forgotten about it, having turned it in on the day of the launch. Well, she hadn’t forgotten, per se; she’s still working on her research at the lab that she did her writing on. Suffice it to say, she just hasn’t had the mindspace to think about the thesis itself. It’s probably a good thing that she got it turned in that day; if she hadn’t, there is a very real possibility that she would’ve legitimately forgotten about it in the midst of everything else.

There’s only one chair at the table and she’s using it, so he wanders up behind her, propping his spindly arms on the back of the chair and resting his chin lightly on her head.

“Where are you at?” he asks; she can feel the thin vibrations of his voice in his chest and throat.

Just like before, Rinko doesn’t ask, but he helps; after all, he was in her position not so long ago. At the time when she was finishing up her thesis, she could literally go days without seeing a hair of him as the launch day of SAO crept closer and closer. She hadn’t wanted to add more to his workload by asking him to look over her work, but he was the one who offered some time in October.

They’d sat down at his spotless kitchen table at eight at night, and somehow, after what felt like an hour had passed, it was two in the morning and not a square centimeter of the table could be seen under all of her notes. When they finally looked at the clock, she’d laughed (and perhaps was slightly delirious from sleep deprivation at that point), and then couldn’t stop giggling. He’d given her the strangest look but smiled back anyways, perhaps amused by her amusement.

He doesn’t stay long tonight, but he leaves her with a handful of suggestions and comments and dog-ears pages from various notebooks to look back at later. Apart from a few teasing remarks about the ease of control F, he’s never really questioned her preference for written instead of digital notes. And somehow, he remembers what went where even better than she does.

It makes her terribly nostalgic, working late at night with him, the two of them taking it in turns to mumble half-finished thoughts and then trail off as the other nods and mumbles back, already understanding. This was how they did most of the work they shared—at ungodly hours, sharing feedback and dry quips along with constructive criticism.

Rinko can’t even begin to count the nights they’ve spent poring over notes and data, fingers cramping from so much typing and writing, sleep-deprived brains threatening to hit the light switch and faceplant them into their keyboards at any given moment—even Akihiko was only human. There was always more writing to do, more data to analyze, more deadlines to meet.

Some of her friends would ask her why she insisted on staying with this workaholic, since their relationship seemed to perpetually revolve around their jobs, on the surface. And they weren’t wrong, to be completely honest. There was probably something about having a good work-life balance in a healthy relationship, or whatever. But Rinko is just as much a workaholic as him—she just has better self-control.

And the two of them did go on dates, but they did also see plenty of each other at the lab every day, even more so once they really got started on Aincrad. Their research has always been their passion, and even on ‘normal’ outings, they’d somehow wind up circling back around to it in the end anyways. Talking about it with each other, inspiring each other to look at things differently and find new ideas, was their happy place.

Both of them were—and perhaps still are—visionaries and idealists at heart, contrary to their outward appearances and behavior. His dream—his desire to see it, and her desire to be there with him—gave them life.

It’s real now, his dream. And it’s the things that haven’t changed that blindsided her the most. Her life has veered so far off from normal into a murky sci-fi fairy tale nightmare scene that it looped right back around to something resembling normal again.

And she should hate it. She should hate him. The rest of the world does.

Maybe that’s just the point. The rest of the world rightfully hates him, and one person, especially one as weak-willed as she, has no hope of making a difference in that regard. And clearly he doesn’t care and likely stopped caring a long time ago, but before she could stop to think twice, she was holding out a hand already, unable to bear the thought of him standing so alone against the world, and now she can’t let go.

~~~

Rinko doesn’t much like cooking, doesn’t like going grocery shopping either (or going anywhere in town, really, because everywhere she looks, people are still talking about Sword Art Online), so she’s fallen into a habit of making a lot of food all at once that she can freeze and then slowly work her way through. It usually takes up her evenings on weekends, when she can leave stuff cooking slowly and work in the meantime.

“See? It’s really not so bad.”

She shoots the dark, lanky silhouette in the doorway a look before hurriedly returning her attention to the pan when something sizzles angrily at her. “Sure.”

A soft chuckle sneaks in under the sounds of the stove running, and from behind her, his thin hands grasp hers where they’re holding the pan and the spatula. “May I?”

She’s not that incompetent, but she doesn’t argue either. It’s strange, she thinks to herself, glad that he can’t see the wry smile threatening to reveal itself on her lips. He’s always had a tendency for physical contact, but mostly just small things—fiddling with her hair, touching her shoulder or arm absentmindedly. Having him so close still makes her heart beat a hair faster, but right now, she just doesn’t have the capacity to care much beyond that. Does it even matter in the end anyways?

From over her shoulder, she can feel his breathing grow a little more labored, and she murmurs, “You can lean on me a little.”

For a second, she thinks he’s going to ignore her, but then she feels his weight shift, his thin chest pressed lightly to her back. Her heart shatters a little as she feels his ribs press into her shoulder blades and realizes just how little energy she has to expend to support him.

To distract herself, she asks, “So how are the players doing in Aincrad?”

Rinko can’t see him from where she’s standing in front of him, but she can hear him light up at the mention of his steel castle. He’s suddenly so much more alive.

And maybe that’s why she just couldn’t.

He’d been expecting her, when she first showed up, knife in hand. Perhaps if he’d still been asleep…

But when she saw his smile, more lively and real than it ever had been in the real world (happier than she was ever able to bring out in him), she couldn’t bring herself to take it away from him.

His voice scratches and scrapes, rusty, punctuated by the occasional cough, but he doesn’t seem to care, just keeps talking about the world he loves. Once upon a time, she would joke and tease him about not being able to shut him up once someone got him going on his research, but only now does she realize that what he would ramble on and on about was simply the tip of the iceberg, compared to everything else he was hiding.

“The clearers have been exploring the Floor 8 Labyrinth,” he’s saying, now leaning against the counter as she wraps up containers of food in plastic wrap. “It’s the Floor covered in water, with trees stretching to the bottom of the next Floor, and branches as wide as roads acting as bridges. Some players have tried to dig through the ceiling, although I made that impossible.” He pauses, looking almost wistful. “Watching the sun set over the water reminds me of you.”

A bitter nostalgia draws the tension in her shoulders taut. “Really,” she whispers, keeping her eyes trained down.

These days, everything reminds her of him.

He hums, either oblivious or uncaring. “It makes me remember being at the beach with you,” he murmurs, and for a second, she lets herself believe that it meant something to him.

Chapter Text

These days, it’s a flip of the coin as to whether or not Rinko gets any sleep on a given night—probably worse odds than a coin flip, honestly.

On one sleepless night, she decides to explore around the property a little more—not that there’s much to see, but on her impromptu hike on New Year’s, she did notice one thing she hadn’t looked closer at.

There’s a shed in the back, attached to the wall of the house. The doors have been frozen shut over the winter, but after a few tries, she manages to yank it open, nearly tripping over herself in the process.

There’s not much inside. Upon closer inspection, she finds some tools and other equipment, probably for repairing things if need be. The most outstanding thing in here is a folding ladder.

It takes some work, doing it all by herself, but Rinko manages to get the ladder outside and propped up against the wall. After shaking it a few times to make sure it’s steady, she slowly starts making her way up; it’s only when she gets to the top that she realizes she has no way of actually getting on top of the roof without either standing on it, the idea of which makes her stomach turn, or sitting on it, which would get her clothes wet.

With a sigh, she shakes her head at herself. “You never do plan anything when it matters, do you…”

Her face reddens further when she realizes she’s talking to herself, but it’s become a habit that’s hard to break these days. Hearing a voice, even if it’s her own, keeps her sane up here, when the only other human company only comes out once every few days in the middle of the night. Unfortunately, the habit seems to carry into work as well sometimes, and she’s gotten more than a few strange looks when she thought she was alone.

With the back of her glove, she pushes some hair out of her face and tosses her head back, only to freeze at the sight above her.

Up here, in the wild mountains away from civilization, the stars are brighter than she’s ever seen them. The night sky suddenly is filled with dozens of colors, and she thinks she finally understands why stars are likened to diamonds, millions of them dancing merrily in their own world up there. Tonight, the sky is as clear as it’ll ever be.

The stars in Aincrad are different. They designed the constellations themselves, just the two of them, and thought up dozens of quests and fairy tales to go with them. As a matter of fact, it was Akihiko who taught her all the stories behind the real world ones; apparently, he’d fallen down about a dozen rabbit holes about constellation myths while researching for inspiration.

One night, at her insistence, they drove all the way out into the countryside, where light pollution was at its lowest, so they could see the stars in their full glory. He waffled and quietly complained all the way there, and once they got out of the car, she smugly watched him fall under the spell of the stars. Basking in the glory of being right, she happily listened as he spent about four hours telling her every single myth and legend he knew.

Between stories, she asked him why he seemed to find these tales so interesting. He’d smiled wryly, and said, “Because they tell stories of humans. Humans who were lucky, or who were prideful and arrogant and stupid...Those we hold up as legends are the ones more prone to flaws than any other.”

A self-fulfilling prophecy, perhaps?

Finally, when he’d exhausted his repertoire, the next thing he said was, “Stars live so long that we’re barely a blip on their timelines. On an astronomic scale, we don’t even matter.”

To which she responded with something along the lines of, “Well, maybe to them, we don’t. But we can choose to matter to the people around us.”

When he turned to look at her, his eyes were filled with the light of a sky full of diamonds. “Ever the optimist,” he teased.

“It’s not optimism,” she argued back, arms crossed; did he know how much he mattered to her? “I’m just saying, it’s pointless to care about the astronomic scale. It’s anyone’s choice of how they want to matter on the scale that we do live on.”

And he chose this.

The moon is full tonight, and its light reflects on the snow covering every visible surface. There’s the faintest hint of red on her mittens; she knows it’s nothing but rust, but in the dark-

She clenches her fists around a rung of the ladder and breathes in the cold, crisp night air.

He made his choice, and she thought she made hers too-

But there will always be more choices to make.

~~~

That being said, Rinko could really do with some better decision-making skills, which is something she’s learned multiple times in multiple different ways over the last few months. Between her master’s research, other lab work, her new project, and her general sporadic insomnia, she lives in a more or less constant cycle of exhaustion.

Higa gives her worried looks when he thinks she’s not looking—she’s usually alert enough to notice, but still tired enough to not mind so much when he not so subtly takes some busy work off her hands. Sugou has made one or two comments about the bags under her eyes; leave it to him to only mention it when she starts looking exhausted. Even Dr. Shigemura brought it up in passing, which is saying something, because the man has been a shell of himself, basically oblivious to the outside world while either throwing himself into work (like Rinko) or burying himself deep in his self-loathing and anguish at his daughter being trapped in a game he helped develop.

In her defense, it’s not an entirely new project she’s been working on. The base concept of it is something she came up with about a year ago, as they were finalizing the design of the NerveGear. She’s been quietly working on it for several months, although it got lost in the chaos of the SAO launch. Like almost everything else in her life, she forgot about it for some time until she unearthed a messy sketch in one of her old notebooks.

“Shouldn’t you be sleeping?”

She ignores Akihiko as he ambles into the kitchen; it’s not like he has ever had room to talk on that matter.

His eyebrow lifts when she shoves a notebook at him, but he takes it, leaning back against the counter to read. Meanwhile, she puts her head down on her arms and watches him with tired eyes. Her notes are a little sloppier than they usually are, but he’s never seemed to have trouble following her thoughts. Maybe that’s why he kept her around; he could read her like an open book, whether she wanted him to or not.

When he holds out a hand, eyes still fixed downward, she just hands him her pencil and listens to him scratching away.

She wakes up several hours later to piercing sunbeams. Too tired to be surprised that she drifted off, she sits up and regrets it immediately when her back protests and a blanket that she didn’t remember having slides off her shoulders, making her shiver. The smell of fresh coffee permeates the kitchen from the machine, even though she’s ninety-nine percent sure that she didn’t put on a fresh pot in her sleep.

After draping the blanket around her shoulders again and pouring herself a cup, she reaches for the pencil and notebook he left on the counter and brushes through some of the pages, stifling a yawn. He left most of her design the same, unsurprisingly; she knew it was good, having worked on the NerveGear for many, many painstaking hours right alongside him and Higa. Most of his contribution consists of a few notes here or there in the margins.

Tucked in between pages are a few sheets of printer paper folded neatly in half. When she unfolds them, it takes her about half a second to realize what they are.

It’s a NerveGear. Rather, the schematics of it, annotated with notes in his handwriting. Rinko frowns, looking over it uncomprehendingly. She knows this device like the back of her hand, and she knows he knows that.

It isn’t until she muddles her way through another sleep-deprived day at the lab that she looks back at her notes and the NerveGear schematic and realizes that this isn’t the NerveGear they designed, not quite.

“I need to sleep,” she says out loud to herself, wondering how she didn’t notice the glaring differences.

Apparently, Akihiko’s NerveGear has a higher electromagnetic output than the regular NerveGears do, as well as more pulse-generated components that would help block out real world stimuli even more, although she can’t quite puzzle out why. The normal ones work just fine; they don’t completely cancel out all feeling from the real body like this modified one does, but there’s so little that does get through that it never really interfered with the Dive feeling.

Perhaps it has something to do with his avatar. Assuming he’s using his Heathcliff avatar, his real and virtual bodies are quite different in stature, so maybe the complete blocking of stimulus from the real world would help him use his virtual body better, or something.

She could ask him about it, but these modifications, while weaved into the original design subtly, seem a little over the top for just a slight more seamlessness in the VR experience. Something tells her there’s another reason for these modifications, and she’s not sure she’d believe his answer if she asked.

Regardless, he gave her the tools to solve the rest of her problems. And although there’s no sign of them in his special NerveGear design, he left some scribbled notes about safety precautions and potential long term effects of the increased electromagnetic output. It’s enough for her to make the final touches on her design.

“I need a name…”

From his chair in front of his monitors, Akihiko turns his head slightly, a little smirk tugging at the corner of his lips.

“You could always ask Higa-kun for suggestions,” he remarks innocently, and she rolls her eyes, seated on his bed in the corner.

“Only if I’m desperate.”

A hoarse chuckle rasps in his throat. “He’s getting his bachelor’s this March, isn’t he?”

“Yeah. He’s already made arrangements to stay in the lab for grad school, though.”

“Mmm.”

She lets her head fall back against the wall, arching her back slightly to stretch before slouching back against his pillow with a sigh. “How did you name the NerveGear?”

He blinks slowly. “I just picked an English based name that sounded unique and was relevant to its function and mechanisms. ‘Nerve’ for how it works, and ‘Gear’ as a short word that means ‘equipment’.”

Yeah, that sounds about right. Why does this have to be so hard?

An amused huff comes from his vicinity. “Of all the things that could trip you up,” he comments, standing from his chair.

With a familiar heaviness in her chest, she starts to move so that he can lay down, but he just sits down next to her and grabs her notebook, flipping to a drawing of the machine.

“So it’s designed for healthcare purposes,” he says out loud. “Something to that end could be a part of the name. And then you could mash it together with a physical attribute.”

“What if that gets changed, though?”

He shrugs dismissively. “People care more about what it does than how its name corresponds to its appearance.”

At his suggestion, she pulls up an English dictionary and thesaurus on her laptop. It’s mildly comical, how much this trouble this name is giving her, because he’s right; people don’t care that the NerveGear is called the NerveGear. They care that the NerveGear has killed nearly a thousand people already.

After some time, probably more than it should take them to choose a name of all things, they’ve settled on ‘medi’, from the English word for medicine, and are debating on the second half of the name.

“...Dome, maybe?” she mumbles, idly scrolling through a list of synonyms. “It’s kind of like a dome around the user’s head…Medidome sounds kind of weird, though...I guess you could also call it a helmet? But I don’t think you can shorten ‘helmet’ and still make it comprehensible…”

He hums, sounding vaguely amused at her persisting dilemma, but he has yet refrained from kicking her out and telling her to go figure it out on her own, so at least there’s that.

“Cube?” he suggests. “As in, Medicube?”

She frowns at the design. “It’s a rectangular prism. With rounded edges.”

Akihiko actually rolls his eyes at that, half exasperation, half affection. “Alright. Cuboid, then, if you want to be picky...So that would be-”

Their eyes meet as they both blurt out, “Medicuboid.”

At their perfect synchronization, Rinko startles both of them with a quiet snort of laughter. He blinks, looking legitimately surprised before something distant softens in his gaze, reflecting the light of her laptop screen. It isn’t even until he brushes the back of a finger along her jaw that she realizes she’s still smiling.

When was the last time-

Bitterness burns in the back of her throat; she’s not smiling anymore as she remembers again, who he is and what he’s done and-

Sitting cross-legged and barefoot next to her, he murmurs from far away, “I miss your smile.”

(But evidently not enough to have stayed)

He doesn’t stop her as she gathers up her things and leaves.

Chapter Text

Knowing what an uphill battle she had in front of her didn’t make it any easier. Designing the Medicuboid was the easy part, relative to getting people to accept that it could in fact be a good thing.

Shigemura outright shuts it down when she brings it up. Too deep in his hatred for the NerveGear, the prison he gifted his daughter, he flatly refuses to listen to any of Rinko’s reasoning, even when she tries to use the ‘saving the lab’s reputation’ argument.

Higa is waiting for her in the hallway when she shuts the office door behind her, and his expression, at the first glimpse of hers, twists into dejected sympathy.

“No luck, huh?” he asks, falling into step with her. Lately, she’s been talking a little more to him, since he has a knack for prototyping, and she needed his help with the Medicuboid.

She shakes her head, already tired, and they haven’t even had lunch yet. “It’s fine. I was banking on him refusing, so I’ve been talking to other people. I’ll be leaving the lab soon anyways, so it doesn’t matter what he thinks.”

“Wish I could go with you,” Higa sighs, scratching the back of his head of spiky pale hair. “It’s been a fight every time to get him to clear even some of our regular projects.”

“You could always take a gap year and apply somewhere else,” she suggests. “Or transfer next year.” Higa had already decided to stay here at Toto for grad school when his application was accepted, but that was before the launch of SAO. It’s too late to change now for the upcoming year.

“Yeah, I’ll probably end up transferring…” He shakes himself briefly, like a dog shaking off water, and gives a nonchalant shrug; even his bristling pale hair seems to stand up a little straighter. “Well, it’s not like he can just keep shutting down research.”

He leaves with a cheery wave and an offer of help with the Medicuboid if she needs it. To be honest, she thinks she will miss him, as well as this lab, once she leaves. She’s been here for nearly seven years now. And Akihiko, who was here even longer, still has his mark all over the place here, impossible to ever forget, so it feels just a little like home even without him—a hollow imitation of it, at least.

But at the same time, there are too many memories here. When she sits down at her desk, all she remembers is how they practically used each other’s workspaces as their own, leaving notes and files and empty coffee cups. For weeks, she would grab two coffees on the way in before realizing, although it wasn’t always a bad thing; she needed the extra caffeine more often than not.

His cubicle is empty still, and she pities whoever gets it next, whenever it’ll be. She’s the only one who’s touched it recently, having needed a flash drive that she left in the back corner of a drawer. The keyboard that she got him on Christmas that one year is still there, decorated with a fine layer of dust now.

They never really made their relationship public, although Rinko is pretty sure everyone at the lab suspected or knew anyways. Neither of them were prone to showing affection in public, but it’s not like they actively tried to keep it a secret either. Even so, strangely enough, this lab—and just work in general—is where they felt closest, unified in his dream.

As far as she can remember, they more or less simply grew into dating. Rinko can’t remember a specific day that them spending time together outside of the lab suddenly transformed from just hanging out and talking to an actual ‘date’. She hadn’t approached him all those years ago—has it really been that long?—with the intent of asking him out; she didn’t even know him, or know about the kind of prestige he had or the specifics of the work he was doing. But she can admit that she’s always been the kind of person to take care of others, even if they don’t ask for it or need it (or deserve it).

At the same time, she was never blind to his genius, even before she knew who he really was, nor acted like it wasn’t a part of him—quite the opposite, in fact. It honestly baffled her how he could get so much done when he frequently forgot about things like, for example, food. And sleep. He was a real pain sometimes—still is.

But they had the best conversations. He listened, and took her seriously, and he went along with her whims as much as she went along with his, and she’s not sure when she started to love him; maybe it was when his dream became hers as well.

They were inseparable. And the worst part is that she knows that nothing happened to them to change that, because from the start, he was always an entire world away.

~~~

Sometime in the middle of January, she turns in her final thesis at last, so that’s one more thing off of her plate. And when a hospital in Yokohama agrees to host the trial run for the Medicuboid, Rinko finally feels like she might be able to take a break and get some real sleep for the first time in…

Well, stopping to think about how long she’s gone without quality sleep is mildly horrifying, so she just tries not to.

She stays in regular contact with Dr. Kurahashi, the one in charge of the Medicuboid tests at the hospital, as they try to get the word out about needing a test subject, for lack of better phrasing, to be the guinea pig. It’s this part of the whole ordeal that has her thinking that designing the Medicuboid was, again, by far the easiest part.

Finally, sometime near the end of February, she gets an excited email from the doctor about having found a pair of twins living in Tokyo whose family agreed, albeit reluctantly, to allow one of their daughters to test the Medicuboid. Something in Rinko’s heart squeezes painfully when she hears of the situation of the two girls—HIV, from an infected blood transfer during birth, and now AIDS.

They’re warriors, Dr. Kurahashi tells her, these twelve-year-old girls who have spent their entire lives fighting, and Rinko wants to know if there’s a part of her that just refuses to let her be even a hundredth as brave as these girls so that she can take it and shoot it.

~~~

Winter is melting away down on the ground, but up in the mountains, it’s still got its claws dug in deep. According to Akihiko, it’ll be weeks until it starts to thaw. As spring starts to awaken and the days grow longer, Rinko feels like she’s being left behind, up in the frozen mountains where time doesn’t seem to go anywhere.

It’s only in the figurative sense. Life still moves on down on the ground below, whether or not she’s mentally present for it. The term’s not over yet, not officially, but she’s started her new job already. It’s closer, making the commute marginally less exhausting, and she doesn’t even have to physically be there as much as before, which is...well, she’s not sure if it’s a good thing or a bad thing.

On one hand, getting up early to make her way down the still frozen mountains nearly every day was probably the most aggravating part about her current life, and she’s infinitely glad she only has to do it maybe two or three times a week now instead of five or six. On the other hand, there’s nowhere else for her to go that doesn’t involve going down the mountain anyways, so the only other option is to stay here, with him, and commuting less means more of that.

He might be a world away, but the weight and shadow of his presence is something she still feels keenly, even after months of living here.

Has it really been months…? Time, like everything else, feels frozen up here.

Rinko blinks, and mutters to herself with a shake of her head, “Up here…?”

For probably the last time, she’s standing at the gates of Toto Institute of Tech, watching people bustle about, most of them dressed up and buzzing with excitement. It’s strange; there’s a part of her—some days, it’s a very big part of her—that always feels as though it’s kilometers away, in that cabin in the mountains, even when the snow-encrusted peak is barely visible to her from the city.

He’s always captivated her, effortlessly held her attention, but for once, she wishes he just wouldn’t.

Rinko heaves a long sigh; she’s still getting used to not seeing her breath steam in the air anymore when she’s in town. She must be the only one here feeling so miserable today.

“Senpai!”

A tiny smile unwittingly finds its way to her lips as she turns to see Higa running towards her, his tie flapping loose as he putters to a stop in front of her.

“I thought you weren’t coming!” he exclaims, batting a hand absently at the tie now half wrapped around his neck. She can’t quite remember the last time she saw him dressed up at all, though his unruly pale hair is a comfortingly familiar sight.

“Not as a graduating student,” she agrees.

She hadn’t had the heart to go to the actual ceremony. It doesn’t feel like a huge loss to her, since she already went to the ceremony for her bachelor’s degree, although her parents might feel otherwise, but she still doesn’t think she has the guts to face them either. When they asked, she’d made up some excuse about having to attend something for her new job.

“And on that note, you can stop calling me ‘senpai’,” she adds, raising her eyebrows at him pointedly. “We don’t work together anymore.”

Despite herself, she can’t stop a hint of wistfulness entering her voice as she speaks. She truly will miss this place that’s been her home for seven years. And people skills have never been her strong suit—perhaps that’s why she got along so well with Akihiko, because in that vein, he was even worse—but she learned so much about herself and made good friends here.

Most of whom she doesn’t talk to anymore, she adds as a bitter afterthought. And as for what she’s learned about herself, well, she’s learned that she’s a spineless coward, but that’s neither here nor there right now.

“You’ll always be my senpai,” he informs her brightly, and she rolls her eyes, pretending to be annoyed. “So what are you doing here? You leave something at the lab?”

“No, I just thought I’d come and…” ‘Say goodbye’ sounds too blunt, since they’ll probably see each other again, being in the same field. “...wish you well in the future in person?”

It comes out sounding more like a question than anything else, but Higa’s face splits into a massive grin.

“Awww, senpai!” he cheers, and she takes a cautionary half step back, genuinely thinking he might try to hug her.

“Not your senpai anymore,” she reminds him, fairly certain that he’s not listening.

She’s reminded of the day he joined the lab, a fresh-faced kid newly out of high school. They didn’t take many undergraduate students—Rinko herself was an exception—and Higa just sort of fell under her wing at the time as her mentee. And despite how new he was, Higa had the passion and the brains to keep up with even Akihiko and his looming steel castle—up until the moment he left them all behind on the ground, that is.

Higa glances past her. “Oh, there’s my family. We’re going out for dinner. Uh, you wanna come with?”

She shakes her head. “No, thanks. Go have fun. You deserve it.”

“Thanks. Well, uh-” He rocks back and forth on his heels and awkwardly takes a few steps in the direction of his family. “If you ever need any help fine-tuning your Medicuboid or anything, just—y’know. Hit me up. Or if you just want to hang out. Well.” He makes a few vague hand motions that somewhat resemble a wave. “See you!”

Rinko gives a small wave in response to his back, and wonders if it’s just a prerequisite for being in the Shigemura lab, to be more fluent in programming languages than people skills.

A sudden gust of wind makes her scrunch up her face, huddling in her coat. As an afterthought, she glances back in the direction of the lab one more time; she can barely spot the building’s glass windows and shiny steel supports in the distance, but she knows there’s nothing left for her there—not a future, nor a home.

Wind rushes at her again, and she sighs, letting it push her out of the gates of Toto without another backwards glance, instead training her tired gaze on distant snow-capped peaks.

Home is where the heart is.

She wonders if it’ll ever leave.

Chapter Text

Rinko supposes she can be mildly grateful for the fact that she finally gets hit with the flu after those two months of chaos. On the other hand, she was finally making an honest effort at going back to a somewhat healthy sleep schedule, damn it.

Muffling coughs in her pillow, she rolls over, shivering despite having dragged every spare blanket out of the closet into a heap on top of the covers. With a quiet, hoarse sigh, she reaches for the cup next to her bed, only to groan and then burst out coughing again when she realizes there’s nothing left in it.

Since she’s not going to get much sleep with her throat feeling like it’s on fire, she shuffles out of bed, dragging some blankets and herself to the kitchen, and nearly blinds herself with the light. Each breath rattling in her chest, she reaches for the sink and braces her arms against the edge while the cup fills, fighting the urge to nod off.

Without warning, she sneezes, much to the despair of her sore throat, and flinches as the cup slips from her grasp and CLANGs loudly in the sink. Thoroughly done, she slaps a hand to her forehead and sighs.

“I’d almost forgotten how incapacitated you are when you’re sick.”

Too tired to do much else, Rinko just gives her housemate a flat look, and he chuckles, sidling into the kitchen, to her alarm.

“Hey, no,” she says quickly, wincing as her throat screams at her in protest, “you stay away from me. I can afford to get sick, but you’re weak enough as it is.”

Rinko might’ve spared a moment to mentally berate herself for worrying about him, of all people, if not for his reaction.

Akihiko blinks, faltering in his approach. His gaze flickers away, and for a spilt second, she thinks she sees something akin to...disappointment? He did always take an uncharacteristic amount of pleasure in mother-henning her when she got sick in the past, as if relishing the fact that he could boss her around and make her take care of herself instead of constantly being on the receiving end of such treatment from her.

But then he keeps approaching, and she shuffles back a few steps; her protests die in her aching throat as she tries to hold back more coughing. With a tiny lopsided smile and a bone thin hand, he carefully brushes some sweaty strands of hair out of her face before he almost playfully tugs one of the blankets from her shoulders up over her head like a hood, eliciting a startled squeak—well, what would’ve been a squeak if she still had a fully functioning voice.

“Go back to sleep,” she hears him say as the tap runs; when she lifts the blanket up from over her eyes, he’s handing the cup, now full, to her. “I’ll make enough food to freeze for until you recover.”

She takes a small sip, the lukewarm liquid soothing her throat marginally.

“Why?” she finally rasps, staring at her wavering reflection in the water.

She can’t figure out which question she’s supposed to be asking—why does he still care about her? Does he care? Is he doing this for her, or did she just happen to provide him with a way to entertain himself?

Moving slowly but methodically, he opens the cabinets, taking out cookware and tools.

“I miss cooking,” he answers lightly, using the counter for support as he turns away to shuffle to the mini fridge.

She should just stop learning to get her hopes up, but she doubts she can be taught new tricks at this point.

“Thanks,” she whispers anyways.

It’s the first time she’s said that word to him in months, she realizes. After all, what did she have to thank him for when he took her entire world away like he did?

Akihiko glances at her. He doesn’t say ‘you’re welcome’, just smiles. It’s an empty smile, and she wonders if she is a fool to hope that she can find something in nothing.

~~~

Rinko spends the next week or so in bed, either sleeping off the illness or doing whatever remote work that she can do while minimizing the number of times she needs to physically move from her bed—rather, just minimizing movement in general, really. Every day that it snows, she contemplates shovelling some of it out of the way of her car, then rolls over and goes back to sleep, resigning herself to regretting her decisions later, just like she always does.

But strange things happen. Sometimes, she wakes up tucked snugly into the covers, her laptop plugged into the charger and notes organized in a neat pile on the nightstand next to a cup of water, when she distinctly remembered falling asleep with her face glued to the keyboard after she ran out of coffee, papers strewn around her pillow. Or she’ll stumble into the kitchen at half past eleven when she gets too hungry to stay in bed, and breakfast will be waiting to be microwaved, fresh coffee brewing in the machine.

It’s almost a little too familiar. If she didn’t know better, she’d think these instances were hallucinations, or some hyper realistic dreams. But it’s real—every time she enters the kitchen to find coffee and breakfast, he’s still missing.

Meanwhile, her time perception is falling further and further off the track, right along with her already nonexistent sleep schedule, with every passing day that she stays inside. Taking care of her comatose housemate is all that’s left of any sort of schedule she may have once had. Some days, it’s the only thing that can get her out of bed.

On snowstorm days, the wind rattles the windowpanes and she can barely see the outside world, let alone dredge up the energy to go much further than the coffee machine in the kitchen. During a particularly dark morning, she vaguely remembers waking up to the faintest amount of light coming in through the window before rolling over, and then the next thing she knew, it was four in the afternoon. With her sickness preventing her from actually going to work, she doesn’t even have that to keep her accountable.

Besides, everything looks the same up here. The ground is always blindingly white, the forest always dark and shadowed. If she goes too long without looking at a clock, sometimes she can convince herself she’s living in some sort of eternal loop, the rest of the world frozen in time like a broken video tape.

Her illness is starting to clear up when she realizes she literally hasn’t spoken to anyone in over a week, which has got to be a new all time low. And with her throat feeling like a truck ran over it in the past few days, she hasn’t even been talking to herself. Even her elusive housemate seems to have taken her advice for once, avoiding coming near her, at least while she’s awake, and during the times that she goes to change his IV or whatnot, he’s always asleep. She hasn’t heard a human voice in over a week that didn’t belong to some random sitcom she’s been streaming on her laptop.

It’s just been her in her little bubble. Things get in, not much gets out, but since when did she ever try to make herself heard?

After some number of days, it’s the trash cans being full to the brim that finally forces her to emerge from hibernation and into the outside world. With a sigh, she crams the empty IV saline bag into the overflowing bin as best she can, bundles up, and makes her way to the door.

Cold hits her like a physical force when she finally shoulders open the door; she stumbles back a step, shivering as she can suddenly see her breath in front of her. Freezing air stings and nips at the insides of her lungs, and she muffles her coughs as she steps outside. Her toes, already starting to go numb, curl in her boots as she squints at the front yard, as brilliantly, blindingly white as always.

Quickly, she shuts the door behind her to keep the heat inside for Akihiko, and she takes a few steps onto the porch, reaching out to knock off a few icicles hanging from underneath the railing. They make oddly pleasant noises as they snap. Above her, under the lip of the overhang, larger icicles stand watch.

In a way, she’d expected this. When she first realized that she would never be able to take his life nor hand it over to anyone else, she knew she would be completely alone. And in a way, it’s not...bad, objectively, even if it leaves her alone with nothing but her own thoughts for probably longer than is good for her.

Out here, everything substantial seems to just fall away. Given enough of that thing that people call ‘time’, that very thing itself starts to become little more than an idea, simplified down to occasionally checking calendar dates and the amount of sunlight coming in through the window. Outside of her job, and taking care of her roommate, there’s little else that she has to do on a regular basis. Even going grocery shopping is something she only does about once a month these days.

And, she adds to herself with a wry grimace, she doesn’t even really have any friends left that she can hang out with anymore, and although most of the people at her new job are perfectly nice, she hasn’t had the will to try and befriend any of them. They’ve invited her out a few times, but for reasons both personal and practical, she’s turned them down.

Part of her wants to say something out loud, anything, just to hear a real human voice again. But now, standing out here, it seems almost a crime to break the fragile silence of this frozen winterscape. Instead, she settles for simply listening to her own breathing, rhythmic with a slight leftover rasp, and closes her tired eyes, letting the afterimages of the snow dance under her eyelids. Even after having done little else but sleep for so long, it feels as though she could drift off again standing here.

It’s funny—usually, it’s excessive social interaction with people she doesn’t want to interact with that drains her like nothing else does. These days, it’s just about the opposite.

I’m lonely.

She’s always been an introvert, which still very much holds true. Usually books are far more interesting than the company of most of the people around her. But she had friends, good friends, that she didn’t know she was taking for granted until she could no longer keep their company in good conscience. Ultimately, everyone needs a hand to hold sometimes.

Almost against her will, she turns to look back at the door leading inside, twisting her fingers together slowly in melancholy. Hand-holding was about as much physical affection as either of them was willing to show when they were in public, but god, she misses being able to reach over for him when she’s lost in thought at work, or walking down the sidewalk, or taking a quiet coffee break, or driving on the way home.

Does he miss it too?

Her breath steams in ragged puffs as she struggles to hold back tears all of a sudden. She knows what it all meant—means—to her, knows that her feelings can never change, nor will her memories ever fade, but part of her will always want to know what it meant to him, even if the answer would break her heart.

~~~

As the weeks crawl by, Rinko has grown into the dichotomy of living in an endless winter in the mountains while spring is in full swing down in the rest of the world. It stopped snowing so heavily a while ago, but the cold still refuses to weaken its grasp.

That is, until she walks outside one day and her foot lands in a puddle on the edge of the porch.

For a moment, she freezes there mid-step at the sound of the splash. Her brain doesn’t quite process the significance of that tiny sound, and she stands there, wondering why she’s still standing there, and why she has this strange feeling that she’s supposed to know something-

Plink.

Like a startled cat, she jumps at the feeling of an ice cold droplet hitting her head, running down into her shirt. With a violent shiver, she hops down the single step and whirls around, staring at the puddle on the ground for another second, and then up.

The icicles are melting.

In her periphery, a branch sagging with the weight of snow suddenly dumps its load onto the ground with a quiet fwump, and birds take off in fright.

It’s the thaw. An incredulous laugh escapes her in a soft breath.

Winter is finally ending.

Chapter Text

“Hi! Lovely place you’ve got here!”

Right now, Rinko is probably closer to hating her housemate than she ever has been before.

“Thank you,” she forces out alongside a smile, half-heartedly wishing the earth would kindly swallow her whole right about now, please and thanks.

The mountains are too treacherous, he said. Hikers don’t come up here, he said.

You liar, she screams internally, smile still plastered to her face. She’s no medical expert, but she’s pretty sure she’s been having a more or less constant heart attack from the moment this hiker-shaped bundle of sunshine showed up on the porch.

Keep it together. Keep it together.

The young hiker sticks her hand out with a cheery grin. “I’m Amane Mai! Nice to meet you!”

Mechanically, Rinko shakes her hand. “Nice to meet you.” Keep it together.

Amane doesn’t ask for a name, thankfully. “So you live here? Are you here for summer vacation?” At Rinko’s hesitant nod, her eyes go wide as she looks around. “Up here? All by yourself?”

Not quite. “More or less.” Rinko decides it’s her turn to ask. “What are you doing up here? These mountains aren’t easy to get through.” She would know.

The hiker beams, her dimpled smile framed by short dark locks. “That’s the fun of it, right?” Her bright countenance dims fractionally. “And, y’know, to get away from everything else for a little bit.”

Rinko exhales quietly. “Yeah.” Unfortunately, she knows all too well what it’s like to be sequestered away up here, and before she can catch herself, she finds herself asking, “Would you like to come in?”

While she makes coffee, she quietly breathes a sigh of relief that it really does look like she lives here by herself. There’s one car parked on the path, one coat slung over the back of one chair at the table, one umbrella, one scarf. No pictures, no personal affects, and few extras of anything.

Akihiko barely exists in the real world, and right now, it’s a blessing.

There are a few spare mugs in the cabinet, luckily, but no extra chairs anywhere in the house, so Rinko is left leaning awkwardly against the counter, and still quietly screaming inside. She has no plans to leave Amane unsupervised during her hopefully brief visit, and Akihiko always has his door closed when he’s Diving, but the mere presence of someone who isn’t herself or him in this house sets off automatic alarm bells left and right.

“Do you live nearby?” Rinko asks, hands cupped around her mug. She did just have coffee about an hour ago, but she’ll never say no to another cup, and she figures the extra caffeine can’t hurt, probably.

“Kinda. I go to uni up north, but my family lives here,” Amane replies, sitting with one foot tucked under a rhythmically bouncing knee, still smiling. “I’m visiting them for the summer.” Her smile becomes a little more fixed as she stirs her coffee absently. “Originally I was going to take some summer classes, get an internship or something, but I couldn’t visit over the winter, so…”

Rinko can sympathize; a pang of guilt accompanies it, and she shakes herself. “Can I ask what you’re studying?”

Amane’s smile widens, a little warmer now. “Marine biology. I get to go fishing for a job,” she says with a little giggle.

It makes Rinko smile, reminded of how much she loved her own work—well, loves, present tense, but whether it’s what he did or the simple lack of his presence, it just hasn’t been the same. He took ten thousand lives with him to his virtual world and many more souls, including hers.

“So what about you?” Amane asks, eyes bright and inquisitive.

“I do research on virtual reality technology.”

Amane doesn’t stop smiling, even as her expression becomes a little more hollow. “Oh.” Her leg stops bouncing. “I bet that’s tough right now.”

Rinko can only muster a tiny shrug, knowing that there is no one who is less deserving of sympathy than herself. “I get by.”

The hiker hums softly, lacing her fingers together around her mug. Her foot describes a slow circle just above the floor as her shoulders, having carried that weighty backpack sitting by the door up a mountain, start to sag.

“That’s why I’m here, actually,” she admits conversationally, and Rinko’s stomach drops out of her feet and her heart stops before Amane continues, totally oblivious, “My little sister—she’s sixteen, and she’s one of the SAO players.” She rubs her eyes briefly, blinking rapidly; there’s a shell of a sad smile left on her chapped lips. “It’s been rough on my parents, and they weren’t too happy when I couldn’t come home last winter—long story. I think my mom especially misses having someone to, well, someone to mom, but I just needed some alone time up here.”

The irony of the situation is not lost on Rinko. In a distant part of her mind, she wonders what Amane would do, if Rinko pointed her towards the door just down the hall and told her who was inside. Given the chance, would Amane be able to do what Rinko can’t? Would she be able to kill him?

And if so, what would Rinko do? What would she do, if someone were to try?

Would she let them, knowing that it’s only what she should’ve done all those months ago? Or would she fight for him? Would she pick up the knife she brought to kill him only to defend him instead?

All questions she hopes, in her cowardice, that she’ll never have to answer.

Amane sighs into her cup, mumbling, “I just don’t know how no one saw it coming.”

Yeah, Rinko thinks to herself bitterly, she’s not quite sure either.

For hours every day for weeks, she and the other lab members put all of their own projects on hold and did nothing but scour the code of the game for hours each day—partially to try and find a way to shut it down, as well as to sate their own burning need for answers. How did he get this past all of them? Sure, he was the one who developed most of the intricacies of the technology, but even so, they all worked on it for years.

But the system itself, in the grand scheme of things, feels like but a fraction of the whole, at least to her. Perhaps it’s what’s holding them all in this mess, but still…

I didn’t know.

She was so foolish. How could she have not seen how unhappy he was in this world that he had to go to such lengths to create a brand new one?

Did I do something wrong?

All of his little tics and habits that sometimes raised eyebrows, she just thought that was Akihiko being Akihiko. There were times when she got annoyed with his detachment, although she’s always been terrible at holding grudges so it didn’t last long in her heart or memory. Should that have been a red flag? It didn’t feel like it; she loved him enough for both of them, she thought, enough to love that part of him too, though maybe that was the problem.

Was there something more that I could’ve done?

Or perhaps even all those years ago, on the shores of Enoshima, the ocean waves lapping gently at their feet, pulling and pulling, she was already too late.

She wonders which would feel worse—to have meant nothing at all so that it would’ve been pointless to try, or to have meant something but not enough because she didn’t do everything that she could’ve. Was it either of those? Something in between?

“Did you lose someone too? To the game?”

She stirs, broken out of her thoughts, and she can’t help but glance down the hallway.

“Yeah,” she admits. “But some days, I wonder if he was long gone even before.”

Chapter Text

It’s the first time it’s rained—first time it’s been warm enough to rain—since she came here.

Speaking of which, it’s a good thing that she doesn’t have to go anywhere on the weekends, she thinks to herself, watching the droplets cascading out the window while taking a break from her book. She hasn’t yet had to drive down the mountain in rain, on a road that would potentially be mud, but she can’t imagine it would be better than doing it in snow, if not worse.

Honestly, she should just get an apartment in town at this point, since she’s obviously here for the long haul. Every time she gets on the road back down the mountain is pushing her luck. But however reluctantly, she’s grown into life up here, in the quiet isolation.

And if she were to find a place in town, away from the mountains, she would be well and truly alone and so would he.

Despite the dangers, rainy days are still wonderful. The blank background sound is soothing and repetitive, and back then, working together with him felt the most seamless on those days. The white noise filled in the gaps, enhancing the quiet, and the light from outside was dull, but still bright enough during the day to work or read comfortably by the window—for that matter, sunshowers are the absolute best. They’d spent many a rainy afternoon together on opposite ends of the couch with a book or their laptops, notes and papers on the low coffee table next to them within easy reach, legs intertwined comfortably in the middle.

And normally, it took effort to get him to go outside if it wasn’t necessary, but he was often the one who cajoled her to put on her rainboots and take walks with him when the rain wasn’t too heavy. He said he liked the scent of it, and that the weather would dissuade most other people from leaving the house on foot, making the sidewalks quieter, and she came to agree.

She remembers one time with particular vividity when they’d just arrived back at his house from one such walk. When he tapped her shoulder, she turned just in time for him to open the umbrella in her face, showering her with little droplets. For a solid few seconds, she’d stood there, staring at him and the smallest hint of a smug little smirk on his face in utter disbelief, before she proceeded to tickle him until she could see tears in his eyes. Hearing his startled yelp and the following laughter, however involuntary it was, was well worth his prank.

Rinko lets out a sigh and puts her book down to roll her neck and shoulders, sinking further down in her hard wooden table chair and wriggling a bit in a fruitless attempt to get more comfortable. There’s no couch here, and if she were to read in bed, she knows she would never actually get up to be productive.

Of course, she has no real inclination to put down Wuthering Heights and actually go be productive right now anyways, but she can set up her laptop nearby with all her notes organized around her and pretend.

One could say that her copy of this book was the only gift he’d ever given her, but the truth is that he didn’t so much as give it to her; she borrowed it and just never gave it back. In her defense, he never asked. They hadn’t even been dating at that point, just...well, she’s not sure if he was even a friend either, more of a workplace acquaintance to whom she spoke often.

She’s not even sure how it came up, but one day, he asked if she’d read it, and she said no, and he just—randomly, out of absolutely nowhere, he just pulled out a copy of the book and handed it to her, as if he always carried one with him for moments like these (she never did figure that out), and told her to tell him what she thought about it later. Looking back at it, it was a very Akihiko thing to do.

The glaring flaws of all these characters captivated him, he told her. And she had to admit that it was fascinating in its own way, like watching a train wreck—unable to do anything about it nor look away—in slow motion as these people made mistakes and wounded the ones around them, caught in the grips of their pettiness and self indulgence and grief.

With a sigh, she lets her face rest on her hands and props her elbows up; the slight adjustment of position knocks one of her notebooks to the floor. Wincing at the sight of some of the pages crinkled on the floor, she picks it up and delicately straightens the thin sheets before noticing one lying forgotten on the floorboards—Akihiko’s NerveGear plans that he gave her as a reference for the Medicuboid.

Absentmindedly, she picks up and unfolds the pieces of paper, laying them flat on the table with one hand and picking up lukewarm coffee with the other. She browses through it, idly leafing through the pages, and stares absently at his little notes scrawled in the margin next to the words ‘high output microwave transceivers’, reading the words but not really.

Then she reads them again. And again.

And when the pieces begin to fall into place, all she can think is, I never had a chance.

~~~

When he walks in and finds her sitting at the table, staring blankly into space with a cold cup of coffee, she can see him tilt his head in the periphery like a curious dog.

“What are you doing?”

Rinko turns to look at him; he meets her bloodshot eyes evenly as her breath escapes her in a single word: “Nothing.”

She’d almost left, actually, when she realized she really was doing nothing here.

Because from the start, it was written into the code of his connection to the virtual world; the day he left, he left for good, and it’ll only be a matter of time before whatever this is standing in front of her is gone too.

Her lungs draw in another breath involuntarily. “Were you ever going to tell me you were planning to perform a high density scan on your own brain?”

He smiles almost fondly at that. “I knew you’d figure it out from the blueprints.”

If it doesn’t work—and it almost certainly won’t—he’ll be gone forever. She doesn’t bother mentioning this aloud; he already knows anyways.

This whole time, what was she doing here? Why did she stay? From the very first day, she knew she would never be able to kill him or turn him in. She should’ve known the knife was just a pretense that she used to fool even herself, one that he saw through in an instant.

Rinko never wanted to be a hero.

I just thought I could get you to come back.

What arrogance. What did she think was going to happen?

She should’ve cut her losses and ran a long time ago. Right from the start, there was no point. When he sees this through to the bitter end, it will be the end of him in this world, and the end of whatever little is left of them.

In a grief-stricken daze, she’d had her things packed up and ready to leave before she could realize it. Realistically, she knew she was being unreasonable right from the start; what more could she have possibly hoped for? It was only ever her inner idealist speaking, dreaming up things that could never be, and when confronted with the existence of this insurmountable dead end, that little hope crumbled.

She’d almost done it. She’d almost left, just like Heathcliff did in the book, before he could truly leave her.

When she saw the knife on the nightstand, one more reminder of her failures, she couldn't do it.

It didn’t feel right to leave it. Taking it with her just felt like an obligation; there was no other choice. The thought of leaving it behind, of turning her back on and abandoning her failures fully to run away from them, put a bitter taste in her mouth. People are dying because of her.

She can’t remember how long she sat there, trying to will herself to just pick up the damn thing, and sobbing when she couldn’t.

Maybe she just doesn’t want the responsibility it represents, the duty it would thrust upon her, to do the right thing and put an end to this nightmare. Maybe she just doesn’t want to let him go; there is so little time left for them, and as selfish as it is, she can’t bear to end it sooner than it has to.

Chapter Text

Summer is winding down, and Rinko decides to make the most of the sunlight and her time before fall rolls around and things pick up again. This time, she’s smart enough to ask Akihiko for some sort of map before blindly wandering off into the wilderness.

“There’s a small trail behind the house,” he told her, tracing a path on the paper with one thin finger, “which I think you already found, on your little New Year’s excursion. The main part of it leads up, but if you make a left, you might find something else. The path is a little rough, but it’s there.”

To that, Rinko rolled her eyes and said, “I grew up as a country girl, you know.”

About an hour along the barely existent trail, she is starting to very much have second thoughts.

While the path slopes downhill instead of uphill, the footing is poor, and her backpack feels heavier than it should with every awkward step. It’s hot, she’s sweaty, and her hair that she probably needs to trim sometime soon is sticking to and chafing against the base of her neck uncomfortably. She’s not looking forward to going back uphill, but she’s come all this way already—at least, that’s what she tells herself every five or ten minutes when she starts to wonder if she should cut her losses and go back.

But then she’ll have to tell him she gave up if he asks, and that’s enough to make her keep going.

About two hours after she set out, it becomes more than worth it.

It’s a small pond, but the surface is like a piece of a perfect glass mirror, smooth and unblemished. There’s not a cloud in the sky, and Rinko can see her reflection crystal clear, along with every sweaty lock of hair plastered to her forehead.

It feels almost like a crime to disturb the perfectly smooth surface, but she can’t resist the urge to splash some water on her face, humming happily at the soothing feeling. Shaking her hair out of her face, she shrugs off her backpack and takes off her shoes and socks, content to just sit there, letting her feet rest in the shallow water.

Nine months. It’s been nine months.

She absently wipes her hand on the grass next to her, remembering another time when it would’ve been sand. The air smelled of salt, and she wasn’t so alone.

How long has it been since that time? Four, going on five years?

With a long sigh, she leans back to lie in the grass; it tickles the back of her neck and arms, and she can see through half lidded eyes dragonflies flitting by overhead, erratic and free. They remind her of an even earlier time, when she was far younger, growing up in her parents’ house on the edge of the woods. Long hours she spent in there, sharpening sticks, collecting acorns, talking to the forest spirits she made up in her head, backstories and mystical powers and all.

Come to think of it, she was a weird kid. Maybe he saw through to that.

Now she’s homesick, and nostalgic, but there’s no going home; this is home now, these mountains that her heart never leaves these days.

She tips her head to the side with another sigh, only to stiffen in surprise when she sees a pair of deer so close by in the treeline, poking around. Rinko is as captivated by them as they are by whatever they’re investigating, and she watches them in silence for several minutes. One of them is playing with some sticks in the underbrush, and she tries to reach slowly for her backpack for her phone inside.

Thump. Her clumsy self knocks the backpack over onto its side, and the deer spook, darting away. Berating herself inwardly, she sits up, heaving yet another sigh and squinting up into the bright afternoon sky. It seems like a waste to go back right now; the days still stretch long in late summer, and she went through all the trouble to get here.

After drying off her feet as best she can, she wriggles them haphazardly into her shoes, stuffs her socks into her backpack, and wanders off to find a good reading spot.

That’s how she finds herself suddenly building a stick fort on the edge of the treeline, as if she was five and not twenty-five years old, but the deer from before gave her the idea. Before she knows it, she has a pretty good lean-to thing going on, and it’s the perfect little space for her to do some quality reading.

An amused—and slightly proud, if she does say so herself—smile tugs at her lips as she surveys her creation, her very own little castle, of which she is the chatelaine. Using her mostly empty backpack as a seat, she sits down in the shade, the ever constant knot in her chest loosened by the crisp smells of the forest air, and glances at the pond; its surface sparkles in the sunlight.

She wants to know when he stopped being able to see, truly see, and appreciate the small things. She wants to know when he stopped caring and let the mundane things, the backdrop for everything extraordinary, fade into grayscale in his pursuit of grander dreams.

He has a tendency to see right through her, especially when she wants him to least, and perhaps that’s why she herself couldn’t see it clearly. But she does now. He was blinder than she ever thought he was if he couldn’t recognize everything this world had to offer.

When did he lose that?

Who took it away from him?

~~~

The pond becomes a favorite haunt of hers in the next month or two. Shame that she found it with so little time left in the year to actually enjoy it before the weather will deteriorate once again.

It starts with the rains, turning the already hostile backwoods path almost unusable. By the time she can manage to safely make her way down again, she is dismayed to find that her little stick fort, fragile as it was, has been washed away.

Still, she can’t help but smile when sees a few small birds picking around in the smaller remnants before they spot her and dart away in fright. At least someone was making good use of it.

As the first few weeks of fall begin, along with the academic year resuming, her free time diminishes rapidly along with the length of days. She can feel the cold beginning to creep up again. Fall has barely begun, but the mountains seem to be in no hurry to stall the arrival of winter. The warm season felt all too short, and she mourns its loss as she traces fingertips in the condensation misted on the kitchen window.

Soon October trudges in, and people are talking more and more about how it’s been almost a year since the launch of SAO. They’re starting to lose hope; it’s palpable in the atmosphere. They lament the overall uselessness of the government, burn out their frustration and grief in slandering the game that has imprisoned so many of their loved ones.

Part of her agrees with them, hates the thing that she helped to make. Another part of her threatens to rise in rebellion, in defense of the world she and hundreds of others poured hours of tears and sweat into, the one that he loved so much (like he loved nothing and no one else) that he gave up on this one for it.

Each time, she bites her tongue and tries to drown it all out at work or while she’s in town, fleeing home as soon as she can. Funny that the one place she feels safe from it all is here, with no one but him for company.

On one such day, she finds herself sitting at his bedside for no real reason; she simply didn’t feel like working alone in her room tonight. To her surprise, numbed by drowsiness and an overall sense of resignation to the routine familiarity of this, she realizes it’s three in the morning and sighs to herself, huddling further into her blanket cocoon.

She looks tired, she thinks to herself as she stares at her reflection in the window.

Also, it’s snowing.

Rinko breathes, in and out, and closes her laptop, curling up tighter in her chair, watching the flakes fall, already beginning to blanket the world in white. Slowly, the world outside the window starts to transform before her tired eyes.

It makes her feel exhausted, but in a way that has nothing—well, maybe just a bit—to do with how little sleep she’s been getting, so she closes her eyes.

Later, she wakes to a hand gently shaking her shoulder, and Akihiko’s gentle admonishment of, “You know that’s really not good for your back.”

As if he’s one to talk. Grumbling, still half asleep, she reluctantly unravels herself from the blanket she’s swaddled herself in, wincing as her back protests. He huffs out a tiny chuckle.

“What am I going to do with you,” he murmurs, brushing some loose strands of hair from her face.

While rubbing her eyes, she frowns at him. He’s still wearing a short sleeved shirt, and she gives into the urge to sigh loudly.

“What am I going to do with you,” she parrots at him, and promptly throws her blanket over his head.

After brushing her teeth, she checks back in to see that he’s returned to Aincrad, her blanket layered haphazardly over his covers, and she bites back another sigh. In a few quick motions, she pulls the blanket to cover him a little more evenly, brushing her fingers along the stark ridge of his cheekbone.

She can’t help but think that he always looks so peaceful when Diving, and she casts one more glance up at the swirling darkness outside.

Tomorrow, she’ll venture back down the mountain on her way to work. The roads in town will be clear, and the sun will shine brightly past idle clouds.

Tonight, winter has arrived.

Chapter Text

Winter blusters through to take hold of the rest of the world unusually quickly; Rinko can’t tell if it’s a blessing or a curse. People are rather miserable in general with the foul weather and shortening days layered on top of the fact that SAO has not yet been ended, but she’s had time to become more or less resigned to Mother Nature’s whims, if nothing else. The cold isn’t new.

At the same time, the days seem to get longer even as the amount of sunlight only shrinks. On days she has to come into work, she finds herself exhausted already by the time she arrives in the morning, hands sore from clenching the steering wheel with white knuckles all the way down from the mountain in murky darkness.

She really should just suck it up and get an apartment in town, but she hasn’t the mental energy to start looking. A temporary solution is the most permanent of all, as they say.

As winter freezes the world over, Rinko feels trapped inside a glacier, dragging herself inch by inch through every day. The weather keeps her inside, and even if she had things besides work to keep her attention with, she wouldn’t have the energy to engage with the world besides the bare minimum.

Her life runs on a repeat like a broken tape, her days spent sitting in the kitchen or in her room most days, typing away at her laptop with several blankets draped heavily on her shoulders, broken periodically by unnecessary naps that do more harm than good. She could sleep for a hundred hours and wake up wanting to sleep for a hundred more as soon as the cold seeps into her bones again.

If she could just sleep away the winter entirely, she would. But then, who would take care of her housemate?

Akihiko comes in to check on her occasionally, and more often than not finds her asleep at the table, face smushed against the keyboard or some papers. Sometimes he’ll bring her fresh coffee before waking her up, and although she knows she probably shouldn’t, she can’t resist. She wonders if that’s his genius master plan, to shamelessly encourage her insomnia and drag her down to his level. If it is, that’s evil. Still, coffee is great.

He tells her about how his guild recently moved into a new base on Floor 39. On one hand, it’s gratifying to know that the players haven’t given up, and are still forging their way through the castle, Floor by Floor; on the other hand, she knows just how many they’ve lost, and it makes her sick to think of how many more they might lose as they reach for greater and greater heights. The higher they climb, the further they have to fall.

Sometimes they talk about real world life. Mostly, he tries to help her cope, suggesting that she buy a sun lamp, try these recipes he found who knows when, or decorate the house for Christmas even if no one will be partying in it. The first one helps, the second one might, and she’s thinking about the third—she could buy a mini tree and some generic ornaments, cram as much tinsel and fairy lights as possible in the car, and completely turn the house upside down overnight while he’s Diving. The house is small enough that she could do it herself, and the thought of surprising him brings a tiny smile to her lips.

Oddly enough, Rinko thinks he might be spending more time in the real world these days—at least, he’s here more frequently, even if for only a minute or two. Why he bothers, she’ll never know. Making sure she’s still here, perhaps? Really, hasn’t she made it abundantly obvious that she is going absolutely nowhere?

She’s staying with him in his room one night when her alarm buzzes at midnight. It’s basically her ‘go to sleep already’ alarm to remind her that she has to work in person the next day, except she almost always ignores it anyways, just like today, when she reaches over to silence it.

But even as she sets her phone down, she can’t help but feel like there’s something she should know…

Frowning, she checks the date on her lock screen again, and the hole in her chest yawns in realization.

It’s their anniversary. Well, technically, neither of them can remember when they started dating by the conventional definition. After about a year, Rinko decided for them that it might as well be today—not that she remembers why, but at the moment, it was probably just an excuse she made up on the spot to justify dragging him away from drowning in his work. He knew better than to argue.

Some years, they’ve remembered to do something out of the ordinary. Other years, it completely slipped their minds, and they spent the whole day working because they forgot to make other plans.

But still, Rinko thinks to herself, suddenly feeling very alone, they were always together, weren’t they?

Reaching one hand under the covers, she places it over his bone-thin chest, closing her eyes in an attempt to draw some companionship from the sluggish beating. Sobs sputter in her throat and she lets them escape, bowing her head to bury her face against the covers, muffling her cries even though no one is here to hear them. These days, she feels like crying less and less, but that just means it hits her when she least expects it.

She misses him when the sun shines, bringing her back to the days she would drag him to sit on the patio outside. She misses him on rainy days, when they would walk with umbrellas in hand in a world that felt as though it was all their own.

She misses him at the coffee shop, where they always lingered together, talking about who knows what while waiting for their orders. She misses him at the grocery store, when she used to dig around in her pockets for the list he gave her, wondering idly what his newest experiment in the kitchen would be. She misses him at home, because home is where he is but she’ll never have more than a shadow; some days, she feels like she is nothing more than a shadow.

She misses sitting at the kitchen table, working while he cooks. She misses the light banter and playful bickering, the kind that everyone teased them for by calling them an old married couple. Hell, she even misses the Shigemura Lab, a place and a moment in time when she wasn’t alone.

She misses saying, “See you tomorrow.” It was a promise, the reciprocation of which she thought would always be implicit until it suddenly wasn’t.

~~~

She wakes up curled into his side, cold even under the layers of blankets that feel as though they are doing nothing but stifling her, and she unconsciously tries to burrow further into his body heat. The stark ribs she can feel under her hand remind her that she’s cuddling little more than a ghost.

Her eyes feel sticky; she refuses to open them, instead blindly fumbling around for her alarm to shut it off before quickly retracting her arm, shivering. The top of her head is pressed against something cold and hard—the NerveGear. So he’s still out.

As winter solidifies its grasp, this becomes a more and more common occurrence, slipping carefully under the IV drip and into his bed early in the morning, eventually drifting off to a fitful sleep. Somehow, the rest leaves her feeling more exhausted than before.

Maybe it has to do with the cold and the possibly broken thermostat, or the fact that she feels absolutely no motivation to get up. He used to always wake up before her, chuckling in amusement, voice still hoarse with sleep, at her drowsy attempts to get him back into bed. Coffee would be waiting in the kitchen for her in a steaming cup on the table and the taste of it on his mouth by the time she would stumble out of their room. The motivation to get up just isn’t there when the house is dead silent and cold, when there’s no promise of coffee in the kitchen unless she makes it herself, when he won’t leave her heart but he’s still so far away.

After she eventually manages to drag herself out of bed, she shuffles through the motions of preparing coffee like a zombie and presses her forehead to the window, her lethargic breaths fogging up on the freezing glass. She lays a hand on the surface, then on her neck in an attempt to wake herself up; it helps, marginally.

Then it occurs to her that, lo and behold, she still has to work for the rest of the day, and by that point, she already feels like doing nothing except going back to bed.

It’s not like this is anything particularly new, but the winter makes everything worse. It didn’t use to be this way—winter was never her favorite, but it always heralded spring, which is her favorite. True, she was the child who would rather curl up somewhere warm with a book rather than make snow angels and go sledding, but at least she could look at the world of white and admire its beauty.

Now, every day she looks out the window to see the white blanking out everything else, all she feels is tired. Last year, winter held on tooth and nail for weeks past its time here in the mountains. She wonders numbly how much longer the cold plans to stick around this year.

Pathetic as it is, she finds herself slinking to his side for company more often than not. It’s better than being alone, or at least she thinks so.

Some days, she thinks it would be better if she was alone; on those days, the bitterness and grief threaten to get the better of her.

Some days, when she drifts off with her laptop in bed and wakes up having mysteriously changed out of her day clothes and into more comfortable pajamas, covers tucked in around her, laptop plugged into the charger, notes neatly stacked nearby, with breakfast sitting on the kitchen table waiting to be microwaved, she doesn’t know what to think or feel anymore.

Chapter Text

For once, the tables are turned as Rinko wakes to find him by her bed.

Reaching his scrawny arms as a scaffold around her, he helps her sit up, although she’s pretty sure that she’s still doing most of the work. She promptly headbutts his shoulder with a yawn, eliciting an amused huff. His fingernail traces the new stitches on the tiny new scar he just gave her to hide an explosive the size of a button, before his hand lifts to tuck a stray lock of hair behind her ear.

“Why?” is the first thing she thinks to ask as he hands her a glass of water.

“Why not?” he asks; he’s definitely teasing her.

Rinko takes a sip of water and heaves a sigh, drawing back slightly to squint at him. “Did you have it with you the whole time?”

Akihiko’s ‘I told you so’ smile, the one she has always found equal parts endearing and infuriating, speaks volumes, both of his unspoken answer and of how transparent she obviously is to him.

“It was a precaution,” he admits lightly. “One that I wasn’t truly sure if I would need to implement. Then again, I suppose I should’ve had more faith.”

Faith in what? In her? In her pathetic lack of resolve?

Rinko has to admit that she did not see this coming. When he woke up early in the morning on Christmas, he nearly gave her a heart attack from where she was huddled at the foot end of his bed with her laptop.

“I have something for you,” he told her, looking weirdly excited as he nudged her leg with his feet in an almost playful manner.

She narrowed her eyes in a deadpan look that probably made him very proud, as the master of said look. The look turned to a frown when he opened a drawer in the nightstand and held up this tiny thing; she couldn’t even tell what it was, especially in the uncertain light.

“...And what is it, exactly?” she asked, supremely skeptical.

His steel gray eyes gleamed. “Your future.”

Being extremely tired already and in no mood for his riddles, she stared at him and said flatly, “What?”

She spent all of yesterday decorating the house for Christmas and made grand plans to spend Christmas day working, sleeping, or streaming sitcoms, and none of those plans involved interacting with other people in person. Something was clearly afoot, but being operated on by someone who is definitely not a certified surgeon was nowhere on her list of suspicions. Maybe it was stupid to trust him with a scalpel around her, but she was too busy thinking about what he said to question it very closely, even though the future was the last thing she wanted to think about.

The winter still feels endless, but logically, she knows it will come to an end, as will Sword Art Online. Whether someone clears the game, or the remaining thousands of players’ real bodies give out, there’s no way it will persist forever.

Still groggy from sleep, she cuddles in closer, wanting to make the most of it while he’s here. “How much longer, do you think?”

Akihiko hums softly, the sound scratching roughly in his chest against her ear. “I give it another two years or so. They’ve done well, but the battles and dungeons after the fiftieth and the seventy-fifth Floors get exponentially more difficult-”

He breaks off in a fit of coughs, and she holds on tighter, reaching to rub his back with one hand silently, glad that he can’t see her expression.

“And by that time,” he continues, a little more hoarsely, “I expect there will be a reduction in the number of capable fighters as well. The timeline will all depend on whether or not new blood will rise to fill the ranks.” With one hand, he drums his fingers lightly against her back. “Speaking of which, I need to do some more scouting for new recruits…”

Reluctantly, she takes the hint, letting her arms fall as he slips away. As she burrows under the covers again, one hand curls over the fresh scar on her chest, the gift he gave her, her key to a future—one that will certainly be without him, by the time it’s all over.

All this time, she’s been living here, in the present, and far too often dwelling on the past and what once was. She’s had no energy or mindspace to spare to think about the future except to dread the returning endless winter that has now swallowed them whole; she hasn’t wanted to think about the future, afraid of the worst possible outcomes and that it will all be her fault.

She’ll have to move out of this cottage. Maybe she’ll move back to Miyagi and find a new job near there. She won’t have to drive down a mountain every time she wants something outside of her house, and she won’t need to shovel snow every other day for over a third of the year either.

She won’t be so isolated, she realizes. She won’t be so alone, but she’s terrified that she’ll be even lonelier than she is now.

~~~

The rest of Christmas passes by in a lethargic daze, and she doesn’t see him for another few days until it’s almost New Year’s.

“Red players,” he tells her when he finds her in the kitchen working at some ungodly hour. “They’ve been causing more and more trouble lately.”

Rinko “hmm”s noncommittally, eyes glued to the screen in an attempt to force down the nausea rolling in her stomach. Why do people feel the need to cause even more death in a game that’s already trying to kill them all?

“Can you check my work?” she asks instead in an attempt to distract herself from the matter of the red players, and how little he probably cares about the bloodshed.

He shrugs a shoulder in agreement, and she stands to let him sit down, electing to perch on the tabletop next to him. Taking one of the blankets on her shoulders, she drapes it over him before pulling the other one tighter around herself.

“What is everyone doing for New Year’s?” she asks while he taps away at the keyboard every few seconds.

“We’re hosting a gala for the clearers.” His tone tells her just how enthusiastic he is about that, to her mild amusement. “Luckily, Asuna-kun is in charge of the planning. She comes from an upper class family in the real world who used to attend and host such events regularly, so she knows what she’s doing.”

Rinko nods a few times absently, before realizing that she’s going to nod herself right off the table if she closes her eyes for too long. She shakes herself, rubbing her eyes tiredly.

His gaze doesn’t leave the screen as he asks, “What about you?”

With a tired ‘I dunno’ sound, she props her elbows up on her knees and her chin on her hands, most definitely not staring longingly at the coffee machine across the room.

“No more extreme mountain climbing?” he asks, definitely teasing her, and she scowls half heartedly.

“I’ll probably just watch the fireworks from here or something,” she says. They were pretty enough last year, and at least the view is one of a kind.

“You’re not going into town?”

“Don’t feel like it,” she mumbles into a sigh; her fingers are uncomfortably cold against her cheek.

“Why? It’s not likely to snow anymore for another day or two. It would be a good time to make the most of the weather.”

She just makes a noise in the back of her throat. “Traffic’s always bad around New Year’s.”

“Well, I imagine you’re not visiting anyone, so you wouldn’t need to go very far downtown, would you? It’s usually quieter on the outskirts of town.”

As always, his logic is sound, and she hunches lower. “I don’t want to.”

At her petulant tone, he gives her a half exasperated, half amused look. “You should. I know winter has been hard on you. Maybe looking at it from somewhere other than here or your job will help.”

Her downcast gaze flickers to him as he stands up, bracing one hand on the table for support, the other grazing absently over her knee. Moving slowly and methodically, he pulls the blanket from his shoulders and repositions it around her, brushing his chin against the top of her head before disappearing into the dark of the hallway.

~~~

He was right, as per usual. The cities are likely congested with traffic, but the outskirts aren’t too bad. She finds herself actually enjoying wandering around in the suburban area. Christmas lights are still up, adding to the show as small fireworks regularly pop and bloom overhead on a backdrop of diamond stars. He’d convinced her to book somewhere to stay in town ahead of time, so that she won’t have to worry about driving back up the mountain in the dark.

It’s not so cold down here compared to the mountains, but she can’t help breathing on her hands and rubbing them together in an attempt to warm them nonetheless. Some kids sprint past her, shrieking and laughing in glee, and she dodges them with a faint, absent smile. Most other people are partying, almost always accompanied by someone else, but she’s content to just wander alone, knowing that the one person whose company she desires most is too far away to count the kilometers.

Unsurprisingly, he was never a big fan of the festivities, but while she occasionally let it slide on Christmas and other traditional dates—some of which she admittedly also forgot sometimes, though he would never let her hear the end of it if she said so—she never took no for an answer on New Year’s. Aside from work conventions, New Year’s was the only time that she could get him to put in an effort to dress nice and look pretty, and he soon learned to stop arguing.

Yesterday, he asked if she’d brought her kimono, reminding her that she did not, to her disappointment. Dressing up was about as much her thing as it was his, which is to say, not at all, but she didn’t mind the occasional opportunity to look nice. If there’s one thing she’s sure of, it’s that her looks were never what piqued his interest, or whatever it is, in her. Still, there was something in his eyes that softened the last time she’d put on that kimono, and she wants to believe that she didn’t just imagine it.

And she probably is imagining this, but the microbomb in her chest feels as though it pulses with every beat of the heart it lies so close to. He didn’t tell her that it would never go off; he didn’t need to. She’s been here for a year already and hasn’t spoken a word. If she’s being honest, she’s not sure if she would care even if the microbomb was a legitimate threat. Maybe it would even make her feel better, if there was a tangible chain shackling her down instead of just sentimentality and a broken heart.

Rinko has joined the mass of people at the local shrine when someone taps her shoulder. “Hey!”

Nearly jumping out of her skin, she whirls around to find a familiar-looking young woman standing there, all bundled up and waving cheerfully. “O-oh. Hi...Amane-san, right?”

Amane beams. She looks thinner, her face a little more gaunt, a little more tired, but she still looks stunning, dressed up and all. “You remembered!”

Rinko would be surprised if she ever forgot how the hiker had nearly sent her into cardiac arrest about a dozen times in as many minutes. “Of course...Are you here with your family?”

“Ah, no, they're at home. They're busy with our relatives. I just wanted to come alone tonight, and I'll go back tomorrow with the family.”

The thought of family brings to Rinko an ache of regret and unbidden memories of fireworks, sunrises, shrine visits, homemade osechi, knowing that what made them special was the company she always found herself in. Homesickness sweeps in melancholy waves through her chest as she tucks her arms in closer, feeling small.

Come to think of it, her family’s dedication to the holiday was why she was always so insistent that Akihiko participated, too. She would’ve never been able to bear the thought of bringing him home to meet her parents one day if he didn’t at least pretend to care about the holidays—a broken pipe dream now, of course.

Amane is still talking. “I brought a few friends, though. They're…” She looks around, shading her eyes with one hand. “Somewhere. I’ll find them eventually. Say, you’re not here by yourself, are you?”

Rinko offers an awkward shrug, sticking her hands in her pockets. “No one I wanted to go with could come.” It was true enough.

“Oh.” Her face pinches in sympathy. “That’s too bad. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. I sort of prefer it this way.” That isn’t entirely true, but it’s close, more or less. New Year’s is a time of remembrance, yet also moving forward. She wouldn’t wish for anyone to be stuck with her in the past forever.

With an uncertain smile, Amane gestures vaguely at the shrine. “I was gonna go, uh, pay my respects. Do you want to come with me, maybe?”

It takes Rinko longer than it should for the meaning to sink in; a polite refusal is on the tip of her tongue before it crawls back down her throat to die.

Pay respects.

The realization must’ve shown; Amane’s smile turns a touch bittersweet, and resigned; though she doesn’t say a word, the way she rubs the back of her neck in silence and the hairline crack in her expression speak volumes.

Run, every beat of Rinko’s heart screams; the microbomb—a safety created just for her while he plays with thousands more lives like disposable toys—burns inside of her chest, searing each breath of cold air she draws in unwittingly.

If Amane knew that her sister is now gone because of Rinko’s inaction, she would never extend the same hand of companionship.

But, a tiny voice says, it doesn’t change how right now, under the canopy of fiery flowers blooming in a velvet and diamond sky, she is grieving. They both are.

So Rinko nods once in acquiescence, and when Amane’s expression brightens, in the way that it can only when it has seen its equivalent darkness, Rinko thinks to herself, maybe…

Maybe Rinko deserves to be alone and miserable, to steep in her guilt in solitude. But Amane doesn’t.

Chapter Text

For the thousandth time, Rinko wakes to a thin hand shaking her shoulder, and she blinks up at Akihiko with sticky eyes, having been slumped over at his bedside. At his half amused, half exasperated look, she sighs and stretches, yawning with a shiver and a wince at her back’s protests.

After what appears to be a moment of contemplation, he offers her one of the blankets lying across his lap, but she shakes her head. She’ll only fall asleep again if she gets too cozy, and she has work to do.

Reluctantly, she drags her laptop closer, rubbing her eyes and flexing her cold fingers. As she logs back in, she glances up at him; he hasn’t moved. “What?”

He shrugs and pulls the covers back, but doesn’t get up, and she stares at him blankly. At her obvious confusion, he huffs a soft chuckle and pats the space between his knees in a clear invitation.

Unfortunately or fortunately, he always catches her when she’s exhausted, stressed, and overworked—more so than usual, at least. Before she knows it, she finds herself crawling up under the IV, settling back against his thin chest, feeling him shake with every rattling breath he draws; he’s so skinny, but she’s short, so it works, somewhat. His arms loop around her stomach as if not a day has passed, and he pulls her closer, his chin brushing against her temple. His unkempt short beard tickles; she’s long since given up on asking him to shave.

“What are you doing here if you’re not making edits?” she asks.

It’s not the most comfortable she’s ever been; she’s afraid to lean on him too heavily, thus trapping herself in a state of slightly stiff half-slouching—can’t get too close, don’t want to be far. Her hands are still cold. Is it worth it?

She feels him shrug. “Leading a guild is like herding cats sometimes,” he says flatly, and she lets out a snort at that.

“I assume you have vast experience in herding cats?” For some reason, the image of Akihiko running around in an attempt to herd actual cats pops into her head, her lips twitching.

“I do now.”

He offers some occasional input, but mostly stays quiet as she works; it’s repetitive and mindless, allowing her mind to wander, for better or worse.

Rinko thinks too much too often—after all, what else is there to do up here? Winter makes everything slow on some days, but on others, it only makes her hyper aware of her life, the choices that led here, and everything that could possibly be different. Some days, it stops there.

Other days, she lets those thoughts unspool into tangles of what-could’ve-been’s, and although she hasn’t the guts to ask him, she wonders what he would’ve done if she had posed a legitimate threat to his life.

In his TV broadcast, his prerecorded message stated that any attempt to interfere with SAO would result in the termination of all ten thousand lives inside of the game, a typical hostage situation. And no one thought that he didn’t mean it; clearly, if he was deranged enough to start this, surely he wouldn’t hesitate to end it so brutally either.

Except, what is a world without inhabitants? Perhaps it’s wishful thinking at this point, but Rinko truly doesn’t believe that he would do such a thing. It would go against everything he was trying to achieve.

Besides, even if she did have the heart to do something like threatening him at knifepoint with the intent to mean it, she knows that he would not make that trade. He’s already shown that living in this world is meaningless if he can’t have his dream.

Some days, she’s not sure if she’s thinking clearly, or if she’s just trying to rationalize and justify her mistakes and shortcomings. Still, she can’t help but wonder what killing him, now or before, would do.

Again, she doesn’t believe it would be a mutually assured destruction scenario that he promised. Despite what he lets the world think, she refuses to believe that he made this game as a drawn out way to kill people. Why go through the trouble of making the entire game when the mechanism is built into the NerveGear itself?

For all she knows, killing him now might not even do anything, except deprive the players of one of their most influential, most powerful players helping them clear the game.

“How’s work been?”

At his soft inquiry, Rinko shrugs a shoulder tiredly. “Same, I guess? It’s been…” She stares blankly at the tiny words on the screen. “Wow. Almost a year.” Her face drops to her hand. “Ugh.”

“Feeling old?”

“You’re still older,” she mutters waspishly, not bothering to deny his comment. “Sometimes I feel like I’ve been there for years, and sometimes I still feel like I’m just getting used to it.”

A hum of acknowledgement purrs weakly at her back. “It does seem like a lifetime we spent at Toto,” he admits. “Six years…”

“You were there a year before me, though,” she reminds him. In her more cynical moments, she wonders how many of those six years’ worth of memories made together are stored in his mind as anything more than simple facts and events, hash marks on a timeline.

“I was,” he concedes, sounding vaguely surprised, as if he’d forgotten. “That first year…”

“Wasn’t the best?” she guesses wryly.

“It wasn’t bad. I’d started working with them before I graduated high school anyways. The work wasn’t new. It was just nothing particularly memorable.” He pokes her in the side almost affectionately. “Then you came along.”

Her lungs squeeze, and her fingers crawl to a stop atop the keyboard.

It’s not fair.

It’s not fair how he got to just walk away with the keys to her heart; it’s not fair how he lets himself in to wreak havoc without even feeling like it. It’s not fair how he gets to leave her, and then say things like that, things that remind her over and over why she fell in love with him, why she will never be able to stop loving him, to move on.

“What makes you say that?” Her voice comes out in a barely audible whisper.

His lips quirk in a trace of a smile against her hair, fingers curling against her waist. “I suppose you reminded me of me,” he muses aloud, “before.”

There’s something in his tone, something with a weight and a presence; she hasn’t heard it before, and the echoes linger.

“Before?” she parrots softly, turning to look at him. She’s not sure what she’s hoping to find, but she knows it’s not there.

He’s not looking at her, instead gazing out into the darkness past the window, but he stirs at her movement, and shrugs. The feeling from before is gone; for a second, it felt like there was a gravity that had almost managed to pull him down from his floating steel castle for a moment, dragging him closer to the ground, where she still stands.

But only for a moment.

“Is that why you let me stay?” she asks, giving up on an elaboration of before.

His arms tighten fractionally as he breathes out in mild surprise. “Why I let…”

His apparent confusion confuses her, and she remains motionless as he seems to consciously unwind his arms from around her, one hand falling awkwardly to the sheets, the other lifting to play with the ends of her hair. It’s been growing out, now well past her shoulders; she hasn’t gotten it cut since before the launch.

“Why did you stay?” he asks instead, and Rinko levels an unimpressed look at him. For all the times he’s turned her own questions back at her, this one wasn’t particularly elegant.

“Because a mass murderer implanted a microbomb next to my heart to ensure my reluctant cooperation and assistance, of course,” she deadpans, poking his chest.

Akihiko returns the unimpressed look and nudges her gently. “Fine, be that way. It’s about time for me to go back anyways.”

Reluctantly, she acquiesces, her toes curling against the freezing wood floor. Moving to the doorway, suddenly cold now, she glances back at the ghost preparing for departure and sighs, relenting.

“Because,” she says, and his gaze flickers to her, “I care enough to be different from you.”

You, who left me.

Then she closes the door behind her.

The cold doesn’t abate much as she grabs another blanket from her room and crawls into bed alone, tucking her hands underneath herself. Her gaze lingers on the dull reflection of moonlight upon the knife still resting untouched on the nightstand, a thin veneer of dust on its surface.

Chapter Text

For once, the kitchen is entirely quiet as Akihiko drifts in on not quite steady legs one cold morning, as the sun begins to peek over the horizon. Normally, there’s at least some sound, if not much—the coffee machine might be going, or Rinko might be typing on her laptop, quietly scratching away in a notebook, or microwaving something.

In her periphery, she sees him tilt his head in that way of his.

“Don’t you have to go to work today?” he asks curiously, leaning on the edge of the counter near the threshold. Trust him to not even be here twenty-four hours in a single week and still know her schedule by heart anyways.

“Road’s been blocked since last night,” she says dully, eyelids heavy and sore. Her laptop is closed in front of her, and she rubs the bridge of her nose in exhaustion. “I’ll be working remotely for...well, I don’t know. Until things get cleared up, at least.” And given the remoteness of the path, and the fact that she can’t call to report it without potentially giving something away, that might be a while.

Slowly, he ambles over to sit against the edge of the table, and she takes a deep, shuddering breath; even the scent of hot coffee isn’t enough to soothe her.

“There was a car accident,” she whispers.

His hand cards through her hair, shaking nearly imperceptibly with the strength it requires of his atrophied muscles to accomplish such a minute task, but Rinko can’t help but lean into whatever scraps of comfort he has to offer anyways.

“And how exactly is it your fault?” he asks dryly, his tone almost teasing, and she shakes her head, feeling the aching guilt threaten to burst from the lump in her throat; it hurts, almost as much as it did in the beginning, when the pain was still so fresh. It’s much farther from her heart this time, but the feeling remains.

“It was a new hire at the lab,” she starts to explain in a halting whisper, clutching her coffee mug like a lifeline. “He reminds—reminded me of Sugou.”

A soft ‘go on’ hum nudges her along when she pauses, and his fingers start to braid a part of her hair idly. In the back of her head, even though she knows better than to go down the winding road of contemplating the before, she wonders whether or not he ever really cared about those times Sugou tried to ask her out with his oily smile no matter how many times she told him no. Sometimes Akihiko would come rescue her in his neutrally off-handed manner, sometimes not; she assumed he knew she could handle herself, or something like that.

It was far from the only thing she’d blindly assumed.

“It was snowing really badly last night...I could barely see two meters in front of me, but it’s not like it’s the first time…I was on my way down this morning when—when-” Her voice trembles like a leaf. “I think he tried to follow me home.”

Genuine shock seems to pierce his demeanor as his fingers stutter to a stop, strands of her hair falling unravelled back to their unkempt, frazzled places. Her head turns on a sore neck to peer at him with tired eyes as she wonders what he’s thinking, what he’ll say.

He’s giving her the strangest look, the one he wears in the rare times that he’s stumped.

“...Okay,” is all he says at first, still looking confused. “And that’s your fault because…?”

“Because if it weren’t for me, he wouldn’t have tried coming up here,” she breathes out; she feels dizzy with leftover horror, only to hear a startled huff of amusement.

“And if he had succeeded?” His tone becomes one of mild chastisement. “He would’ve found you, and possibly me as well, and any number of disastrous things could’ve happened.”

Rinko squeezes her eyes shut. “Yeah. I know.”

“And even if he hadn’t found my body, our secrecy would’ve been compromised.”

He’s right, he’s always right in that infuriating way of his, but that doesn’t make it better. Neither does his choice of words.

Our.

A dark streak of bitterness sears through her chest and burns the breath in her lungs. Her fists clench under the table.

Our secrecy, he says, like she’d wanted any of this at all.

“I know,” she mutters anyways.

“Do you?” he prods, seemingly oblivious to the melting pot of guilt rolling around in her stomach, and even more oblivious to the traces of something darker dripping in like poison. “If you did, I don’t think you’d feel the need to beat yourself up so much.”

He makes it sound as if it’s so easy to just flip a switch, turn it off. Maybe it is for him. In this moment, as her nails dig into her palms, she’s almost jealous. There was a time, a different life, where she lived without guilt. She can’t remember what it was like.

“This outcome isn’t some kind of double-edged sword,” he goes on. “We didn’t stand to gain anything from his survival. On the other hand, his death was rather convenient in keeping our-”

“Would you stop it?!”

The coffee mug shatters on the floor, followed in quick succession by the back of the chair clattering next to it. The sounds echo like gunshots as the words fly from her lips before she can think twice or even once.

“Stop talking about this like it’s ours!” she cries out. “I didn’t ask to be your stupid accomplice, I didn’t ask to cut myself off from everyone who ever cared about me, I didn’t ask for any of this!

“And people are dead because of me,” she spits out, her voice breaking in a sob, “and he’s hardly the first or the last one either! And I know you think it’s good riddance! Or that you probably don’t even care enough to waste your precious time thinking about it at all, but can’t you just respect the fact that I still do?!”

She can feel his gaze as she storms away—or tries to, at least. By the time she makes it to the hallway, her anger has mostly faded into guilt, and although she wants nothing more than to slam her door in a childish show of frustration, all she can muster is a tiny click before she sinks to the floor against it and buries her face in her knees to cry.

For all the times that he would pull all nighters, or drink borderline alarming amounts of coffee, or blatantly refuse to turn on the lights even though it was killing his eyeballs, no matter how many times she told him for god’s sake would you please not, she never could hold a grudge. Her anger towards him, in the rare times that it properly surfaced, always seeped from her hold like sand. It still does.

And for once, she wishes she could just hold onto it, just this once, to keep the guilt company; she is so, so lonely.

~~~

Long hours pass. He went to hide in Aincrad, she went to hide in her room. When the hinges creak softly, she refuses to acknowledge the light spilling through the slowly opening door, refuses to acknowledge the shadow that blots out the light in wavering movements, refuses to acknowledge the weight sinking down at the side of her bed until he clears his throat.

“You should drink something,” he murmurs, setting a glass down on the nightstand. It’s not coffee, to her mild disappointment. “You’re dehydrated.”

“You think?” she mutters, but there’s no bite behind it; she’s just going through the motions.

His hand slips under the covers, rubbing her back and shoulders, just like he would sometimes after a long day to ease the aches from too many hours spent hunching over in front of a computer screen. There’s not much strength in him right now, though. She supposes it’s the thought that counts, although that begs the question of what exactly he’s thinking, and she hasn’t the energy to wonder.

Finally, she sighs, pushing herself up and swinging her legs over the side of the bed next to him. After dragging a sleeve across her tear-encrusted face, she grabs the glass of water and sips at it half heartedly. Her head and heart hurt from crying so much.

“Don’t suppose you have anything a little stronger,” she sighs, peering at the clear liquid in mild disappointment.

A quiet snort answers her question, probably accompanied by an eyeroll.

“You don’t have to stay,” he tells her softly, and she nearly dumps this glass over his head.

“Well, neither do you,” she bites back, gesturing with a sharp little gesture at where he’s seated, next to her.

He shrugs; in the dark, she can’t quite see the look on his face or in his eyes. “Why do you insist on blaming yourself for things out of your control?”

The classic ‘you wouldn’t understand’ is lodged in her throat. She wants to say it, but the words don’t come out, and she swallows hard.

“It doesn’t matter if I could or couldn’t do anything about it. I was still responsible…”

“That man died because of his own foolishness and, need I remind you, ill intent towards you,” he rebuts firmly. “You did not make him try and follow you up a treacherous mountain back road in a blizzard. It wasn’t your choice to make. It’s just how it happened.”

She hunches her shoulders even lower, and he lays one thin hand across her back. “Correlation does not equal causation, remember?”

With a soft groan, Rinko buries her face in her hands. Maybe he’s right. Maybe she’s just too tired to think of anything else to say besides, “I don’t like it when you make sense.”

He lets out a scratchy chuckle. Strands of her dark hair fall into her face messily as she lowers her hands. The confused emotions that tumbled in her chest for hours have started to dull into something more bearable, and she wants to laugh. Here she is, taking advice on how to feel from someone for whom apathy is a defining trait.

She always loved him for what she saw as his rationality, his ability to calmly and logically reason his way through whatever problem he faced, unburdened by panic or nerves or fear. How many times had he been there to tell her to breathe, to patiently talk her through late night stress-induced meltdowns or simply keep her company? How many times had she gone to him for advice, and received never the answer that she’d wanted, but always the one that she needed?

Perhaps hate is a strong word. But for lack of better choice, she hates that what she loves about him hasn’t changed—twisted, maybe, to reveal new facets of him she hadn’t seen before, or was simply too blind to see, but not gone. Maybe her life would be easier that way. Maybe her life would be easier if she’d done what she should’ve done and killed him that day.

Right now, the shoulder she leans on is sharp and not exactly comfortable and won’t stay for long, but right now, she’s glad it’s there.

Chapter Text

Rinko hasn’t wandered more than a dozen meters from the house in almost a month now. It would be impressive if it wasn’t mildly pathetic, and it would be alarming if she hadn’t already lost the capacity to care about it.

By the time the car accident was discovered and cleaned up, the semester was more than three quarters done, so she decided to just stay home for the rest of it. Coincidentally, she went grocery shopping only a few days before the incident and stocked up on plenty of microwave meals, ignoring her housemate’s judgemental side-eye as she loaded them all into the freezer, so she conveniently hasn’t had a need to leave the house either.

Also, she’s not sure if she can deal with the rumors if she happens to go back, because god knows people are going to gossip about the disappearance of her coworker coinciding rather neatly with her transition to remote work all of a sudden.

She hadn’t fully realized it, but there was a lot she’d kept bottled up before she ended up slipping and lashing out at him. By no means had she vented every scrap of emotion she’s been hoarding like a dragon hoards gold, not even close, but it was something. She’d whipped the curtain away from the elephant in their one story mountain cottage, and even if she’s still too much of a coward to confront him on it, there’s something that no longer feels so stifled.

Some days, she wonders if the isolation is making her go insane, and if it is, she’s not sure that she can tell from where she’s standing.

Today is nice—cold, but in a dry kind of way that nips at her skin instead of pressing a wet hand over her mouth and nose, and not so bad that she can’t sit outside at the porch with steaming coffee and relax. The brightness of the snow is more bearable with sunglasses, and she lets herself focus on nothing but the sight of her own breaths puffing rhythmically with each exhale, her mittened hands idly playing with the snow stacked heavily on the porch railing. She’s looking forward to the days she can work outside again.

Taking it one day at a time makes things easier, and not just in regards to the whole aiding and abetting issue. Although she will deny it to his face until the day she dies, she’s probably just as much of a workaholic as Akihiko, just with a slightly better sense of self preservation.

(That’s debatable at this point, though, and really, his schedule was always bursting at the seams, so it was only entirely his fault most of the time, not every time. He didn’t do it often, but there were definitely times when he left things down to the last minute and had to scramble to make a deadline--though one could never tell just by looking at him. Bags under his eyes were just a part of his poker face by that point.)

Rinko’s not quite sure if she’s physically capable of going a full day without doing at least something related to her work. Still, sometimes she really does just need to put her work brain to sleep for twelve hours. Rare are slow days like today, and even rarer were the days when both of them had overlapping time to spare.

Those days were the best, though. Rain was the optimal weather for chill times. He’d cook something nice, and they would make the grand trip to the couch for reading dates. She’d never wanted for more.

Sometimes she’d curl up against his side and watch him sketch random things in his notebook—ancient trees spiralling towards the heavens, grotesque nightmarish monsters, harmless fantasy critters, beautifully exotic flowers and jewelry, tarnished weapons and rusted tools, mouth watering dishes (at which point she’d start getting hungry). Stadiums and amphitheaters, arches and balconies, grand cathedrals and castles, run down cottages and ruins. Arctic tundras, murky polluted lakes, shadowed misty pine forests, grasslands ravaged by fire, sweeping sand dunes like curtains of pale silk, wild moorland blanketed with lush heather.

They would talk for hours about the lore behind it all, the stories that each object, each creature, each location told, how they came to be, and what or who made them that way. Some made it into the final game; she’d felt honored to be able to be so close to where ideas were translated to pen and paper.

She’d felt proud, too, when some of those suggestions and mini plot lines were her own ideas. She’s not sure how she feels about it now, though. Pride is certainly the furthest from her heart, when so many ideas that she contributed to are being used to kill.

Rinko sets down the mini snowman her hands have been shaping and sighs. She honestly thought she was going to marry that man.

Akihiko had never really given much indication that he thought about it, but somehow they’d stuck together through five plus years of sleep deprivation, coffee-fuelled all-nighters, and everything else in between, so the possibility was definitely there, or so it seemed. On the rare occasion that people asked, she thought he’d given some indication of wanting to stay with her with that enigmatic half smile of his.

And between the two of them, he was by far the bigger dreamer, but she did her own fair share as well, about the future they could’ve shared. Getting married in itself wasn’t a huge deal to her, but she’d been thinking about asking if he wanted to live together before the SAO launch. It would’ve been at his mansion, since it was way bigger than her place, and she spent most of her time there already anyways. Besides, he only bought the place because it was big enough for him to store all of his gadgets and books hoarded over the years, and there was plenty of space for her.

He would certainly be busy often with work, as would she, but they would find time for each other somehow. They always managed to before, too. In fact, the majority of their time for each other was at work, because where else would it be? Everyone said that mixing work and free time in relationships was a bad idea, but it worked for them just fine, didn’t it?

It would’ve been fine.

Now she’s sitting here, alone, living in a house she shares with someone literally consumed by his work. Instead of looking forward to the future, all she can want anymore is for things to go back to the way they used to be.

A shiver wracks her as the wind picks up suddenly, and she squeezes her hands around her rapidly cooling drink, glancing briefly back at the door. The dry, cold air is making her eyes water, she tells herself as she blinks rapidly.

If he had just asked, she would’ve shared with him everything she could offer. Now she’s given it all away to him regardless, and she holds little hope of getting any of herself back.

~~~

It’s the middle of spring and the thaw has begun, to Rinko’s quiet delight. She takes to working outside more and more often to the background soundtrack of birds chirping and wind rustling in the pines. Occasionally, she’ll see a deer or some squirrels and rabbits poking around, allowing her to record some videos on her phone before darting away. She shows Akihiko these clips sometimes. He never really loved animals, but he always liked them more than he liked people—not that that’s a high bar to pass.

Some days, she catches herself breathing in the spring-summer breezes, or basking in the sun out on the porch with a book, and wonders what right she has to be enjoying her life when thousands more are still puppets on strings hanging from his shadow hand.

It’s been over one and a half years, and in the matter of Sword Art Online, she still hasn’t done anything more than the nothing she’s been doing since the start. She tries not to think about it too much. It doesn’t bother her as much as it used to. She’s not entirely sure if it’s a good or bad thing—it depends on the day.

She amuses herself on lazier days with random little things. On nicer days, she’ll go down the trail to the pond with a book. One day, she found a drill in the shed behind the house and made a makeshift bird feeder with an old water bottle, some twigs, and twine. It’s set up on the treeline, far away enough that she can sit on the porch and observe quietly whenever some small visitors show up.

Rinko still doesn’t think she likes living here, exactly; nothing about this entire situation is particularly preferable. But for better or worse, sometimes it’s undeniably comfortable, and she can’t bring herself to hate it either, because what good would that do? It’s energy spent on emotion that will never find an outlet. There’s nothing she can bring herself to do to change the situation, short of perhaps moving out, and even then, she knows she would still find her way back here too often for it to make a difference.

There’s routine in this life, and she likes that, at least, even if she can’t remember what it feels like to truly be alive.

Chapter Text

Rinko lets out a long breath as soon as she hits the ‘end record’ button and pulls her headphones down from her ears with a satisfied hum. Strangely enough, she’s finding that she rather likes teaching online classes, even though the increased lack of actual face to face interaction is what scared her before.

Perhaps she’s simply grown used to the isolation. Perhaps she just likes the summer atmosphere of the mountains too much to have to bother to keep leaving them just to teach.

Perhaps, god forbid, she even likes it up here. She hopes she’ll never come to like the circumstances that surround her, but it’s getting easier to crack a smile at the sight of the wildlife stirring in the shadows of the treeline, or at the scent of food cooking in the kitchen—she’s gotten pretty okay at that too; maybe miracles are still possible.

Perhaps she just thinks way too much? It’s a distinct possibility.

It seems impossible that she’ll ever be happy with her life here, and every day she clings fervently to the hope that it is not permanent. Happiness is out of reach up here, and she’s relieved that it is. She’s not sure how she would feel if she was happy here, because she knows she could never deserve it.

These days, it seems less impossible to be, at least, content.

Is that okay?

Not ten minutes after she finished uploading the lecture, an email alert pings, and she frowns. Surely she hasn’t already got questions from students about it? Unless she did something like uploading it without audio somehow.

Her eyes grow wide upon seeing the sender email address, and her breath stutters in her chest.

~~~

Lost in thought, she nearly jumps right off of the bench when he sits down next to her. “Wh—how—when-”

Watery morning sunlight and amusement dance in his eyes at her surprise. “I’d nearly forgotten how much fun it is to sneak up on you.”

She scowls at him, her irritation ebbing away as fast as it came, and quickly pulls the blanket from her lap to spread over his thin shoulders. “What are you doing out here? It’s still cold in the mornings. And won’t people notice you’re gone?”

“They just cleared a difficult boss fight,” he explains with a shrug, tugging the blanket closer absently. “So everyone’s partying. I won’t be missed.”

“You didn’t answer my first question,” she points out.

He shrugs again. “I wanted to see the sun. It’s nice out.”

Rinko can feel her eyebrows trying to escape up her forehead. “You...wanted to see the sun.”

It is nice, though. They don’t deserve it.

Akihiko simply chuckles at her deadpan disbelief and extends a frail hand, letting the soft morning sun rays bathe it in gold. “We got it almost right.”

She stares, wondering how it would feel to intertwine her fingers with his once more; before she can think better, she’s reaching out. He lets her take his hand, thin fingers pliant and obedient as she weaves hers into the gaps between them. His nails are getting long again, she thinks to herself. As she breathes in deep, holding the scent of dew and pine in her lungs, she consciously reminds herself to resist the temptation to tighten her grip, fragile as he is.

He seems to be in a good mood, letting her do as she wishes, and he hums softly as she nestles her head against his shoulder. “Something on your mind?”

She exhales slowly, and breathes in again; the emptiness in her chest cannot be satisfied.

“My parents emailed me last week,” she says, closing her eyes. “My maternal grandfather passed away. They’re having the funeral today.”

Needless to say, she hadn’t gone.

He doesn’t speak, and she forces herself to lift her head from his shoulder, blinking rapidly. “I don’t know that they would’ve been happy to see me, after so long…”

Nor did she think she could handle the guilt, selfishly. What was she thinking? The isolation must be getting to her head; how could she ever think that anything about all of this was okay?

But her hand stubbornly refuses to let his go, and she shakes her head. “I’ve changed so much, after all…”

At this, he stirs, tilting his head towards her in her periphery. “Really?”

Confused by his apparent skepticism, she looks at him silently, searching for an answer, and he shrugs. The blanket slides from his shoulders, and she quickly pulls it back into place, eliciting a rueful smile.

“And,” he says, raising his eyebrows and glancing pointedly at the blanket, “I rest my case.”

His tiny smile unwavering, he draws the back of his fingers along her jaw, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. She wonders if she’s imagining the warmth she sees in his eyes.

“All of the many things that I admired and valued most about you,” he whispers, and her heart begs for the sincerity with which he speaks to be true, “haven’t changed.”

And she finds herself searching desperately, scouring for a hint, anything to indicate that what she’s seeing and hearing and feeling in her heart is real.

The words slip out with the air in her lungs involuntarily. “You mean that?”

He draws back, still smiling. “What do you think?”

The moment broken, she pushes lightly at him with her other hand and a huff, shaking her head. “I don’t know why I asked,” she grumbles, clearing her throat to get rid of the remnants of something lodged there.

Her half hearted ire, as always, seems to amuse him more than anything. “Come now, it was an honest question. What’s the point of dreams if you can’t bring yourself to believe in anything you imagine?”

She studies his expression carefully. It was never a problem for him, she supposes.

“So what did you admire and value about me?” she asks, managing to speak with only the slightest tremor in her voice; she’s pretty sure he can see right through to how badly she wants to know anyways, despite her woefully inadequate attempts at being inconspicuous.

To her annoyance, he pretends to think about that, humming with a thoughtful expression, before it morphs into a more playful one as he smirks at her.

“Would you believe me if I told you?” he teases, and she conceals blossoming disappointment—in him, in herself—with an exasperated shake of her head and eyeroll. No, she probably wouldn’t believe him.

Even before, taking compliments from him, though they were far and few in between and hard earned every time, was awkward, at least on her end. Praise was easier to take from other people. She knew her skills and accomplishments, knew what they were worth. But he was always so hard to impress; it caught her off guard when he would offer a casual complimentary remark, and he would be moving on by the time she thought to stammer a response.

Rinko decides to drop the matter altogether. It’s too confusing to sort out in her head, and his presence doesn’t make it easier. She casts around for another topic, but unfortunately, her mind steers them right back to where they started this train of thought.

“It’s a nice day for a funeral,” she hears herself whisper.

The pad of his thumb rubs idle circles upon the back of her hand. “I recall you talking about your grandfather occasionally…You used to go and visit your grandparents in summer.”

She nods slowly, his words bringing back memories of flower crowns, iced tea, and birdwatching. “Every year, before we moved to the city.”

Bitter regret weeps in her chest like an open wound. If she hadn’t insisted on distancing herself so much recently, perhaps she would’ve been able to say goodbye when the time came.

“It feels…” She presses her lips together and breathes in deep. The grief in her throat tries to claw free. “I feel like I don’t deserve to be sad.” With a humorless laugh, she whispers, “Not when so many people have gone through worse because I’m a coward.”

Beside her, he’s silent. Birds chirp, filling the silence between them. That’s fine; she wasn’t expecting him to say anything to that, especially since she already knows what he thinks about her endless guilt.

Without warning, he says, “It rained the day my mother died. I was ten.”

Her head snaps in his direction, eyes growing wide in shock. Her hand squeezes his in involuntary surprise, but he doesn’t seem to notice. For all the years they’ve been together, for all the stories she occasionally told him about her family, not once has he spoken about his. She asked in passing once or twice but didn’t push it when he would evade and then change the subject without fail, but now, all of a sudden…

“And then, when the day of the funeral came…” His hand is limp in her grasp as shadows stake their claim in his eyes. “The sun was shining so bright. It felt like the world had already moved on.”

Rinko swallows hard, squeezing his hand, a little more gently this time. “I’m sorry. I hope her passing was kind.”

Akihiko blinks slowly at nothing. “It was suicide. So I hope it was kinder to her than life was.”

Speechless as her heart shatters into a million pieces, she is helpless to stop the tears spilling down her face. As she tries in vain to blink away the blurriness, she can see his face, looking mildly bewildered, probably confused as to why she’s crying, even as he offers her a shoulder, to which she promptly lowers her head to cry.

Rinko’s not entirely sure what or who these tears are for. Her grandfather, who she never got to say goodbye to? Her parents, whom she has been missing every day? The SAO players she couldn’t save, and their families in the real world?

Or perhaps they’re even for his mother, in a more distant way, and also for him and the tragedy he never deserved, for the future he could’ve had in a different life, even if it meant that she would’ve never met him. Perhaps it’s all of the above.

Perhaps it’s a little bit for herself too.

Is that okay?

She cries until the blanket is stained with her tears, until she’s too tired to lift her head from the spot. As her eyes grow heavy, he shakes her gently, sounding almost apologetic.

“Rinko…Rinko, you can’t fall asleep here. I won’t be able to carry you back inside.”

She mumbles something beyond even her own comprehension as she rubs at her sore eyes, reluctantly shifting to a less comfortable position, still resting her head on his shoulder, hands intertwined. A soft sigh tickles the top of her head.

“Thank you,” he murmurs.

She freezes. Today is just full of surprises. In two years, he has not once thanked her for anything.

“What for?” she asks, her voice more than a little hoarse.

Against her hair, she feels his lips curve into a tiny smile. “For crying for her. I couldn’t anymore, after a while.”

Swallowing back the lump rising in her throat again, she places her free hand against his cheek and lifts her head to press a kiss to his jaw, ignoring the scratchy stubble there.

“Anything for you,” she whispers, pulling back. “You didn’t deserve it.”

For a heartbeat, he shows no response, before he offers a smile. But it’s blank, and she knows it’s time for him to go. Her head and her gaze drop, but he catches both with his hand, drawing his thumb underneath her eye before returning the blanket. She watches him retreat into the cottage, back to Aincrad, and takes a deep, deep breath.

She wants to see him smile in earnest, one day.

~~~

That day comes far sooner than she expected.

Chapter Text

Rinko is reading at the pond when her phone receives a text alert. It’s likely the last nice day of the year after the first snowfall last week, so she ignores the alert in favor of the next page of her book. Already, heavy gray clouds are approaching in the sky, heralding more snow tonight.

It takes her longer than it should to realize.

Out here, she doesn’t get text alerts, or anything that requires an internet connection. The wifi covers the house and no farther, for security reasons. Which means that someone must’ve changed the settings, which means-

She nearly drops the phone in her haste.

[If it’s okay with you, I would like to see you one last time.]

Before she can comprehend it, she’s already on her feet, racing back towards home.

One last time? It can’t be over. It can’t be. The front lines were only at the seventy-fifth boss fight today. How can it be over?

Her lungs are threatening to burn through her ribs by the time the cottage is in view. She wrenches the door open, gasping. In the threshold, she kicks off her shoes and slumps over, bracing her hands against her knees.

Is it really…over?

Something aches deep in her soul as she drags each breath through her chest.

Her feet carry her towards his room. Her fingers trail along the wooden walls that have housed her for two years.

Still, home has always been behind the door she opens with a trembling hand.

Sitting on the edge of the bed, NerveGear cradled in his hands, Akihiko looks up at her, wearing a smile not at all like the others, not this time.

“I was wondering if you would come,” he whispers, and it takes every ounce of willpower she has to keep herself from rushing to throw her arms around him, beg him selfishly to stay with her.

“You thought I would let you leave without saying goodbye?” she whispers back, moving to sit down next to him instead.

They lapse into an almost comfortable silence. He’ll explain in due time, she knows he will, but each second that passes feels warped. Surreal. For so long, she believed that they had so much more time.

It was always a curse, she thought. The sooner it was over, the better, she thought.

“The boss battle was over,” he begins. He isn’t looking at her, but there’s something in his eyes that isn’t a blank nothing. “He caught me by surprise. Kirito, the dual blade wielder. He forced me to drop my mask.

“I offered him a duel. If he won, the game would be over, and everyone would be free.” With a wry expression, he adds, “I trust you can guess who lost.”

She swallows hard. “You don’t sound too upset,” she manages to say past the lump in her throat; why is she feeling more miserable about it than he is?

He shrugs one frail shoulder. “I’m not. Because today, I witnessed something truly extraordinary.”

“Extraordinary?” she echoes in barely a whisper, captivated by his expression, like he’s dreaming. This is the boy who dreamed of his steel castle, with all the innocence and wonder that he should’ve kept. The world had no right to steal it from him.

She wishes she could’ve had a little more time to get to know him.

“She broke the paralysis,” he explains to her, sounding so amazed. “It was a miracle.”

Rinko blinks slowly at him. “You don’t believe in miracles.”

If he did, he would’ve been able to see all the miracles around him in the real world, the little ones that she’s slowly come to appreciate for herself, even here in her solitude--especially here. He would’ve seen the little miracles in the galaxies that swirl in fresh coffee, in pine cones with their amazingly precise arrays of scales, in night skies with their constellations so bright and clear in these mountains. For two years, he has ruled his steel castle in the sky but only from the top, only ever looking down; he never saw those stars.

Akihiko leans forward on his elbows in contemplation. “I believe in the existence of the things that others see as miracles. But no,” he continues, “I suppose I’ve never believed in the concept of miracles myself…Perhaps I should’ve, though.”

He looks at her with a rueful smile. “Somehow, I met you in this bleak world, so maybe there was hope after all.”

Rinko can feel her heart break clean down the middle as she presses her lips together, willing the tears back with all of her might.

There was always hope, she wants to tell him, knowing that it’s far too late now. Since the day he launched his steel castle into the sky, it was too late.

“You asked me once why I let you stay here,” he whispers. “But I could never have forced you to leave. And I wouldn’t have blamed you if you did, but you didn’t. I put you through so much, and you stayed.” Something trembles almost inaudibly in his voice as he repeats, “You stayed.

“You were the reason,” he breathes. “You were why I kept coming back here, to the real world.”

For two years, every scrap of kindness and warmth that he has tossed her way, she has hesitated to believe in. When he twisted reality like he did, she suddenly grew wary, jumping at every shadow, even while staying so close.

Maybe it was just her attempts at protecting what was left of her own sanity. If she kept them apart—the criminal, the killer, the present, and the artist, the dreamer, the person she fell so in love with in the past—then things would be easier to deal with, right? In her mind, there was already a divide that took everything from before SAO and preserved it in a time capsule, never to be opened again, so couldn’t she do the same with him?

But things are never so clear cut when it concerns him. It all is, was, will always be real. What matters is how she chooses to perceive and remember.

“What’s the point of dreams if you can’t bring yourself to believe in anything you imagine?”

With nothing more to lose, she chooses to let herself believe that the affection she sees in his gaze is real.

“So,” she says, drawing her feet up to hug her legs, “I guess I’m just not worth it anymore?”

The words come surprisingly easily. He doesn’t refute them.

“You meant the world to me,” he says instead, and she smiles through the ache in her chest, as if her heart is splintering into so many glass pieces. How long has she waited to hear those words from him?

“Until you made a better one,” she whispers, nodding at the NerveGear.

He offers her no denial. He never did. Maybe that’s why it doesn’t hurt quite as much as she thought it would. Broken her heart may be, but somehow, she is still breathing.

“Do you know where you’re going to go from here?” he asks.

Rinko exhales shortly. She’d been thinking about it, but she never thought she would have to implement those plans so soon. “Overseas, I think. For my PhD. I’ve been working on some applications already. My English is pretty good, and…I don’t think I’ll want to stay in Japan. Assuming they’ll let me leave, at least.”

“You should be able to. The microbomb will give you an out if you want it, no strings attached, if you play your cards right. I looked into it.”

“Of course you did.” Knowing him, he’d done his research on the matter before the SAO incident even began.

Lifting one hand, so weak that it trembles in the air, he painstakingly brushes her hair behind her ear, his dry palm coming to rest against her cheek. “I’ll miss seeing you smile.”

He says this as if she’s had much cause to smile in front of him for the last two years. Frankly, she would be surprised if he really remembers what her smile looked like two years ago, because she doesn’t.

She leans into his touch lightly, biting back tears again. She’ll miss seeing his smile too, the real one that’s more than just a shell, the one she saw only a precious few times. Too few. She wants more time.

“What am I going to do without you?” he wonders aloud, and her tears spill over, faster than he could ever brush them away.

“I don’t want you to go,” she confesses, reaching for his hand; he sets the NerveGear down to let her take it, her tears tracing the seams of their intertwined fingers. “I never wanted you to go.”

Past the watery blur of her vision, she feels his dry, chapped lips against her temple before he rests their foreheads together.

He whispers, something infinitely sad in his hoarse voice, “I know.”

Rinko can’t be sure how long they stay like that. It could’ve been a second, it could’ve been a day, it could’ve been a year; all she knows is that it is not enough before he pulls away, reaching for the NerveGear he put aside for one precious, priceless moment. She knows the drill, and she stands as he sets it on his head for the last time and lies back.

In a moment of hesitation, he looks up at her through the tinted visor of the device. “Stay?”

He’s never asked anything of her in these two years. He’s never had to. How badly did it hurt when he was left behind that he has to ask this? From her, of all people?

Crouching down at his bedside, she grasps one of his hands in hers. She knows she should be saying goodbye, but all she can say is, “Always.”

Rinko listens to the device whirring to life for the last time, watches as the corners of his mouth tugs upward in a smile, bringing a bittersweet one to her own face as she lifts his hand, pressing a kiss to the backs of his fingers. His gaze lingers upon her for one last moment before he closes his eyes.

“Link start.”

With two words, Sword Art Online takes one last life.

Until long after she cannot feel a pulse beneath her hand, until long after he is gone, she stays, as per his request. The sun sinks beneath the horizon; it will never rise on the two of them together again.

A soft groan escapes her as she pushes herself to her feet with aching knees. She looks up, and the light outside of the window is, for a moment, blinding. The moon reflects boldly upon the brisk, silver snow, freshly fallen. Perhaps it’s just her imagination, but the world looks brighter tonight, no longer cast in the shadow of a floating castle.

Rinko leaves to go next door, to her room. She takes the knife sitting on her nightstand, dusts the surface off carefully with her sleeve, and holds it up to the light. She can see her own reflection, puffy red eyes prominent, in the blade that was never once stained with blood.

Four thousand. Four thousand lives were lost because of her cowardice. And now that he’s gone too…

What would one more be?

Rinko takes a deep breath. Her hand is remarkably steady as she sets the blade down, and reaches for her phone.

After making a call to the police, she grabs her coat and steps outside to sit and wait on the porch, just within its protection from the snow. Already, the world is covered in clean, powdery white, leaving no evidence behind of what was beneath it.

And because of this alibi buried next to her heart, this future he gave her, her life moving forward will be an equally blank slate, a pristine snow-blanketed field. Only the two of them will ever know of their secrets frozen deep below.

She can’t be sure if she'll ever truly let him go, but she thinks that now, for the first time, she can make an honest effort.