Chapter 4
There was a sudden falling sensation, like she'd been hurled into a bottomless
pit.
Suddenly, her sense of up and down shifted ninety degrees, and she felt a
powerful pressure on her back. Next, Asuna tensed against the shock of each of
her five senses violently reconnecting and resuming.
After a few eyelid twitches, she was able to pry teary eyes open to see the
ceiling of her room. At last, the familiar softness of her bed registered on her
skin. As she breathed, quick and short, the chaos of her senses finally began to
subside.
What had happened? It could have been a momentary power outage or an
issue with the AmuSphere. She took a deep breath at last and sensed the scent
of a perfume that did not belong to her. She sat up, suspicion sinking in, and her
mouth fell open.
Standing right next to her bed with a stern expression, holding a thin gray
power cord in her hand, was Asuna's mother. She had pulled the power directly
out of the AmuSphere Asuna was wearing.
In other words, the abnormal disconnection was the result of Kyouko
powering off the AmuSphere. "Wh-what was that for, Mother?!" Asuna
protested.
But Kyouko only glanced silently at the north wall, her expression severe.
Asuna followed her gaze and saw the hands of the wall clock indicating that it
was about five minutes past six thirty. Her mouth twitched in surprise.
Kyouko said, "I told you when you were late to dinner last month—the next
time you're late because of this game, I'm going to pull the plug."
Her tone was beyond cold, almost gloating. Asuna nearly shouted back at her.
She looked down to stifle that urge and managed to emit, low and trembling,
"It's my fault for forgetting the time. But you didn't have to pull out the cord. If
you shook my body or shouted at my ear, it would send a warning inside to
me…"
"The last time I did that, it took you five minutes to wake up."
"That's because…I had to travel, and say good-bye, and…"
"Good-bye? You're prioritizing simple pleasantries in that nonsensical game
over actual arrangements in real life? Don't you care about the hard work that
our help put into the meal, only for you to let it go cold?"
A number of arguments ran through Asuna's head. Even in a game, they're
still real people. Besides, when you go work at your school, you routinely waste
an entire day's worth of cooking with a single phone call. But she only looked
down again, sighing a trembling breath. Her eventual response was short and
simple.
"…I'm sorry. I'll be careful next time."
"There won't be a next time. The next time you let this thing ruin your actual
responsibilities, I'll take it away. Besides." Kyouko sneered, glaring at the
AmuSphere still attached to Asuna's forehead. "I just don't understand you
anymore. That bizarre contraption has cost you two precious years of your life,
don't you understand? Why doesn't it make you sick just to look at it?"
"This one isn't like the NerveGear," Asuna mumbled. She took the doubleringed circle off her head. After the lessons of the SAO Incident, the AmuSphere
was constructed with several safety mechanisms to prevent that from
happening again, but Asuna recognized that it would be pointless to say so.
Besides, it was true that, different device or not, Asuna had been in a vegetative
state for two years because of a VRMMO game. Her mother must have been
worried sick during that time, and both of her parents probably steeled
themselves for her eventual death. She understood why the woman would hate
the device.
Her mother sighed in response to Asuna's silence and turned for the door.
"It's time to eat. Get changed and come down at once."
"…I'm not hungry today."
It wasn't fair to Akiyo the housekeeper, who cooked dinner, but she was in no
mood to sit across from her mother and eat now.
"As you wish," Kyouko responded, shaking her head as she left. When the
door clicked shut, Asuna reached for the room control panel and set it to vent,
hoping to drive out the scent of her mother's eau de toilette. Instead, it
persistently hung in the air.
The excitement she'd felt about meeting Yuuki the Absolute Sword and her
wonderful friends, and the anticipation of a new adventure with them, had
melted like a snowball in the hot sun. Asuna stood up and opened the closet,
slipping on a pair of damaged jeans with ripped knees. Next was a thick cotton
parka and a white down jacket on top of that. They were some of the few
clothes in her possession that weren't chosen for her by her mother.
She straightened her hair and grabbed a bag and her cell phone before
leaving the room. She got down the stairs and slipped on her sneakers at the
front door when the security panel at the door screeched, "Asuna! Where are
you going at this time of night?!"
Asuna ignored her and opened the door before her mother could remotely
lock it. The instant the double doors opened, metal security bolts shot out from
both sides, but Asuna slipped through them just in time. The damp, cold night
air struck her face.
Only once she had crossed the driveway and escaped the property through
the walk-in entrance to the side of the front gate did Asuna let out the breath
she'd been holding. The vapor turned white before her eyes before dissipating
into the air. She pulled the jacket zipper up to her neck and stuck her hands into
her pockets, then started walking for the Miyanosaka station of the Tokyu
Setagaya line.
She didn't have a destination in mind. She'd run out of the house in an act of
rebellion against her mother, but even Asuna knew it was just a pointless bit of
childish posturing. The phone in her jeans pocket had a GPS tracker, so her
mother knew where she was at all times—not that Asuna had the courage to
leave her phone behind. That frustration with her own weakness only amplified
the feeling of powerlessness in her chest.
Asuna stopped in front of a children's park at the end of a row of large
mansions. She sat down on the reverse U-shaped piece of metal pipe blocking
the entrance of the park and pulled her phone out of her pocket.
She traced the screen with a finger, bringing up "Kirito"—Kazuto's contact
info from her address book. Her finger hovered over the CALL button, but Asuna
held it there, shutting her eyes.
She wanted to call him and tell him to come pick her up on his motorcycle
with an extra helmet. She wanted to sit on the back of that tiny, noisy, oddly
speedy vehicle with her arms clenched around his midsection, riding straight
along the major roads empty in the wake of the holiday. Just like flying at top
speed in Alfheim, that would certainly clear the cobwebs out of her mind.
But if she saw Kazuto now, she would lose control of her emotions and break
down into sobs, revealing all the things she wanted to keep secret from him.
Her forced transfer from their school. The possibility that she might not be able
to play ALO anymore. The cold reality that pushed her in a direction that had
been erected for her since birth, and her inability to fight against it—in other
words, her own weakness, which she had tried to keep hidden.
She moved her finger away from the screen and held the SLEEP button instead.
After a brief squeeze of the phone, she put it back into her pocket.
Asuna wanted to be stronger. To have the strength of will to never waver in
her decisions. The strength to proceed in the direction that she desired, without
relying on someone else to take care of her.
But at the same time, a voice screamed that it wanted to be weaker. The
weakness to not hide her true self, to cry when she wanted to cry. The
weakness to cling, to cry out for protection and help.
A snowflake landed on her cheek and melted into water. Asuna looked up,
silently watching the faint blots of light as they descended from the pale gloom
of night.