Kirito x Asuna

♪Kirisuna One-Shot ♪

Kirito's P.O.V.

Asuna sighed with her left ear atop my bare chest. Her small hands wrapped around my thin waist, with chestnut hair flowing over me, creating a cover of safety and love.

"This throbbing... This is the sound made by your heart, isn't it?"

A small voice rippled through the crisp air, immediately stopping my meditations.

"Er......"

I replied after a little thought.

"Well, our heart pumps blood throughout our bodies at a certain rate of speed, creating a heartbeat right...?"

Asuna brought up a mildly upset face and pouted.

"That's not what I mean, Baka!"

A quick flutter of her eyes to mine, and a suddenly tight grip around my torso made me immediately reconsider my ignorant answer.

"I mean, this throbbing...it's made from your heart, your feelings, and emotions, your love..."

I couldn't make out the rest of Asuna's mumbling after she dug her face into my mid section and squeezed. I blushed and nodded, finally understanding her embarrassment.

This 'throbbing' she was talking about wasn't basic human anatomy like I had first assumed, but the warmth and love I felt spreading slowly inside my chest whenever I was around the fencer with long chestnut hair.

I'm positive that the same sensation came over Asuna as well, which was probably what brought on her sudden question.

"Yeah, most definitely"

A smile easily returned to Asuna, who then placed her ear back on my chest, her mood recovered. With my eyelids shut, my thoughts, too, dimmed gradually as I listened to her gentle murmurs of content from listening to my heart beating.

Now that I think about it, I had never heard anyone's heartbeat in the real world.

Of course, I had heard them numerous times as sound effects in television dramas or movies, but in the first place, was it even possible to hear someone else's heartbeat without a stethoscope? Could those beating sounds actually be heard if one placed one's ear against a chest like Asuna was doing right now?

Above all, exactly what sound was a heartbeat? The sound of the muscles contracting? The sound of the valves opening and closing? The sound of blood flowing...?

...While considering countless questions of that sort, I developed the urge to listen to that sound too-even as a reproduced sound effect-and stuck my two hands under Asuna's arms.

"Kyaa, what?"

And I lifted the grand, flustered swordswoman's slender figure with a grunt. The sheets against Asuna's body slipped off, showing slivers of bare skin here and there in its entirely lewd state, glittered beautifully under the moonlight; but to accomplish my initial objective, I pressed my face onto her petite chest.

"Noo, wait... e-erm..."

I wrapped my two arms tightly against her struggling body and sighed with relief that she didn't do anything harmful.

"Asuna, let me listen to your heartbeat for a while..."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The day had changed, it was the twenty-fourth of December, 2024, fifteen minutes after midnight.

A quick five hours had passed since Asuna and I (along with 23 other junior and graduating students) arrived at the top of the snowy mountains in the south east of New South Wales, Australia. The murky night hung down on the log hotel we occupied on the outskirts of the town a few minutes away if you walked and the only sounds audible were gentle ones from insects and constant resonance of the wind against the glass windows.