I Hate You Too

Gray heard Yurika ask him to never fall in love with her, but he really couldn't understand why. He was borderline abused tonight, albeit by his own idiocy, and now he was essentially shot down at the finish line.

"Can... can I ask why?" Gray finally got out.

"Don't worry, it's not for some crappy reason like 'I want to wait until after the war is over', that's just asking for death!"

Gray had to agree with her as that was his initial fear was that she created a death flag for herself.

Yurika fidgeted for a second then said "I don't feel like this is the real me, the me I am now is who I made for this as just a game. It's strange, but I'd like you to meet me in the virtual world as that is who I am in reality."

Gray was a little confused "If the person you created in this game is who you want to be, isn't that the same as being that person?"

"Well, kinda, yeah, but I don't mean my looks, or my personality, I mean my past."

"Heh, you're making this more difficult than it has to be, I don't mind Yurika!" Gray squeezed Yurika close and she pushed back slightly to stop him from squeezing them together.

"I know you're not always honest with your feelings or yourself, and you're kinda dense, and you probably have more than one woman chasing after you because you're so nice to everyone but yourself, but my family is... ridiculous... I've never been on a single date ever, instead I was told that at 25 I would be matched with a suitable bachelor, and this was normal in my family. We never married for love, we married for convenience and who had the superior genetics."

"How old are you then?"

Gray let out a yelp as Yurika pinched his ear hard "Never ask a woman her age!"

"I'm sorry! I mean are you at the age where your family already matched you?"

"I'm... I'm already engaged, but luckily I was chosen as a Diamond Tier so I could escape to here."

"Oh... so you're already going to get married..." Gray said regretfully.

"... I am sorry, it's not what you wanted to hear, but you all are really my first friends I've had that I've been able to just be myself with."

"Wait, you said it was for convenience and superior genetics? Maybe I have genetics that are better than that guy!"

Yurika laughed hard causing Gray to get slightly depressed "Ha! Sorry, it's just that the guy they are betrothing me to is a genius, he started his own company at 13, received a doctorate at 17, and he even helped the AI Dr. Sara Watts develop the consciousness transfer algorithm."

"He sounds... amazing... What's his name? He's probably famous, right?"

"Stephen Seegall."

Gray thought about it for a moment, then thought a little more and finally said "Nope, can't say I've ever heard of that name before..."

"Heh, he keeps a low profile, he goes by the name Edward Teach, after the partner of Dr. Sara Watts, but surely you've heard of Alterra Corporation, otherwise you wouldn't be here."

"Fair point… well, that explains why I've never heard of him. Why does he use the name Edward Teach though? And isn't he like 50 years old then?"

Yurika's eye twitched "He could be, he's lived in nothing but the virtual world and Alterra Corporation has been around for almost 30 years."

"Let's just wait until he dies then!" Gray said with a goofy grin on his face.

"What? No!" Yurika said while laughing. "We would be old by then too!"

Gray smiled at her laugh and said "That's better… you look much better smiling."

"…dork… you're only sweet when you want something I bet…" Yurika said coyly.

"Yeah, what's your point?"

"Umm… I want to… you know… I REALLY do, but we've already gone too far, it's not fair to my family and to Stephen."

Gray looked down at Yurika and had to admit this was the weakest he's ever seen her. He once again looked at the proverbial angel on his shoulder and it was shaking his head, Gray looked at the devil on his other shoulder and it was frantically waving its hands and shaking its head then pointing at Yurika's shoulders. Gray could make out her proverbial devil and angel standing on her shoulders glaring at his devil and angel with red eyes and bodies lit up with a fiery glow just waiting to attack. Gray wisely decided not to do anything.

Gray kissed her forehead and said "If you knew all of this, why did you keep calling me your wife?"

"Because I'm selfish… I want you all to myself, and let's be honest, I'd totally be the alpha male in the relationship!"

Remembering how much she beat the snot out of him while they were training in the simulator, Gray had to agree with her. "It's not exactly fair to me though…"

"You said it was Ok for me to be selfish!"

Gray rolled his eyes and said "Yeah, you can be selfish, but not unfair."

"Then what should we do?"

Gray thought about it for a moment and then said "So… all I need to do is get your family's approval over Stephen, right?"

"It's not going to be that easy, the wedding is set for a few days before the war starts."

"I thought you weren't going to be forced until you were 25…"

"I'll turn 28 on August 29th, the wedding is on the 30th. I was able to bargain for 3 years so I already can't push it back anymore."

"So… I got about a month to stop a wedding…"

Yurika frowned at him. "I appreciate the sentiment, but my family has always put the needs of the family ahead of the needs of a single person."

"I still don't understand why you though…"

"Hey! I'm awesome! Why not me?!?" Yurika pouted

"I-I agree! I mean why specifically you though, doesn't your family have other women in it with equal or possibly even better genetics than you?"

"Probably, that's the only thing that is off about this is that Stephen requested me specifically and gave my family a huge dowry in return. Any children we have will stay in the Winchester family."

"That still doesn't make any sense, what does he get out of the deal?"

Yurika leaned back from Gray and checked herself out "Isn't this enough?"

Seeing Yurika expose her top finally, Gray felt like he was flying to heaven when Yurika suddenly made a yipping noise and squeezed closer to Gray so Gray couldn't see her top. "You meant to get me to do that, right?"

"N-No! That was entirely your fault!"

"Shut up! You tricked me!" Yurika started to hit Gray's chest then started to cry softly.

Gray squeezed her close and kissed her forehead again then said "You should know though, I agree with you, you would be worth giving up everything for."

Yurika started to cry a little harder "Geez asshole! I'm trying to not make this harder than it has to be!"

Gray just held Yurika and ran his fingers through her hair gently until she finally stopped crying. "…Gray… can we run away?"

"Well, we could, but we don't have enough power yet to stand on our own and running to the Hegemony might put us in a worse position, not to mention if the Alliance wins, it would've been all for nothing then."

"…Damn it, you're supposed to just agree with me and take me away like the princess I am!"

Gray couldn't help but think that Yurika's mood swings were a little much at times, but they made up her so he couldn't help but like it. "I can't promise that I'll be able to fix it, but if I can't, I'll kidnap you away from your own wedding."

"Do you have a plan?"

"Nope, but I'll just wing it like usual."

"Like usual? You mean you never have a plan going into the matches we have against other teams?"

"How could I? I mean, I have a general idea of what to do, but I can't make a plan until I know what the enemy has and what the conditions are. I'm not omniscient…"

"Fair point, but still, you've always seemed so sure of yourself when you give orders, excluding that match with GameGo Gamers."

"Well, I've learned that people will follow your orders more if you're confident in giving them… plus confidence is sexy, right?"

Yurika laughed and exclaimed "Dork!"

"You love it!"

"…and I love"

Gray put his finger over her lips before she could finish that and said "If I can't fall for you, you can't fall for me!"

Yurika bit his finger then said "Fine, so… it's now almost sunrise, I'm not going to be able to sleep."

"Neither can I now… what should we do then…" Gray and Yurika were only a millimeter apart now looking at each other.

"You know… if you don't rescue me again, I'm going to hate you…"

"Good, you can hate me all you want…"

"Damn it Gray, I hate you so much…"

"I hate you too Yurika"

Gray and Yurika finally gave in to each other even though they both knew it might not be able to last… you can use your own imagination as to what happens next because this is not a R-18+ story.