The Blacksmith and the Warrior

In The Real World

May 16th, 2025

Surviving a death game like Sword Art Online and returning to the real world has been quite the transition. For starters, your busy parents acted like you've risen from the dead, showering me with love and the like. The government give you a few months of physical and mental therapy despite one of you friends within SAO was an artificial intelligence psychologist. Then, just when you get your life back on track, your best guy friend from the death game jumps right back into VR to save his girlfriend and 300 other players who didn't wake up. And that's all before you're sent to school with everyone you know from SAO because you're two years behind from regular education.

Because everyone knows who looks like who, thanks to the NerveGear setting our avatars to our real-life likeness, you find your old pals rather quickly. The two best friends you trusted your life with on the frontlines, the younger girl who is like a little sister to you, and the girl who, over the last few months in the game, you grew a serious crush on. You decide to take your chance, but you know her pretty well enough to delay it. She and the other girl have a bet on your coupled friends, so for a month you have to watch and wait, but even with this delay you still have a chance.

I didn't know my chance would start today at lunchtime.

"Seriously, Lis-Rika, you're driving me crazy with all that slurping."

"Leave me alone. He's all over her, and it's driving me nuts. Acting like that at school, it's so tacky..."

"Hey girls." I silently join Keiko "Silica" Ayano and Rika "Lisbeth" Shinozaki at our usual lunch table, though the latter girl is too focused on the window to greet me. Keiko, however, looks at me with pleading eyes. I won't pretend to not know what Rika's doing with such aggressive slurping of the juice box in her hand.

"Joshua, she won't leave Kiri-Kazuto and Asuna alone. Spying on them is kinda tack too, you know?"

I nod, more so for her sake than my personal gain. "Torturing yourself over them isn't going to make things better for you. Just sit down and eat." Rika groans and drops back into her chair, adjacent to mine.

"If I'd had known it was going to be like this, I wouldn't have let you talk me into a month-long truce."

Keiko slams her first on the table. "I didn't talk you into it, it was your idea! You said we should let them have their little romance for a month, remember? I mean, god, talk about naive."

I set my sandwich down and smile. "I told the both of you it was a bad idea. They are in love...like true love. I was there for half of it. They bought furniture together."

"Oh well," Rika sighs, "it's gonna be cool meeting everyone today, isn't it?"

Keiko grins. "Yeah, I can't wait!"

I nod. "I guess it can't be too bad meeting everyone. You two are no different from SAO, you know? Keiko, you're still the shy yet bubbly person that made some bad days better."

"Oh...thank you..." Blushing, Keiko shrinks into herself then steals a glance between me and Rika. The nervousness is instantly replaced by deviousness. "What about Rika, huh? Or should I repeat what a certain Crimson Warrior said one day?"

My face must've drained in color. I hold my hands out, trying to reach Keiko. She's the only person besides Asuna who knows my secret, and like Asuna, she figured it out based on how I act. Out of my reach, I sigh in defeat and glance at the curiosity of Rika. "Well?"