#leafbeth

The real world and the virtual world; the two realities that they knew better than to mix. They’d hide behind avatars, mask their feelings and lock their hearts in their little golden prison cells. The feelings weren’t real if the world wasn’t - right?

So they’d hidden away in that virtual world, where the days passed by in a blur of adventuring, laughter and falling in love. Being themselves in the only world the felt free to do so. The only world where they wouldn’t worry about consequences, or scandals, judgement or rejection.

They’d spent the morning doing their mundane activities in the real world such as chores and homework from the week, but once afternoon rolled around they’d excitedly rushed to their bedrooms and logged into ALfheim Online.

Suguha felt the familiar feeling of switching realities before she opened her eyes in the back of Lisbeth’s blacksmith shop. She’d logged out there with the hopes of surprising Lis the next time she logged on. Of course, Lisbeth was already online, busily working on a new sword for who Leafa could only assume was her brother. Slowly, she walked up behind the pink haired girl, wrapping her arms around her lovingly.

“Miss me?” She asked sweetly, stepping back so Lisbeth could turn and see her properly. She first noted the anxious look on the smith’s face, then her slightly shaking hands. Immediately Leafa panicked, her emerald eyes filled with concern. “What’s wrong? Did something happen? Did someone hurt-”

“What are we?” Lis interrupted her. Her face fell and she looked down to the floor. The silence was laced with tension, questions, and expectations, though neither girl quite knew what those expectations may have been. Lis took a shaky breath before continuing.

“In the real world,” she clarified, “what are we? Because I have feelings for you, strong ones,” she hesitated, “and I want to know if those feelings should only exist here,”

Leafa stepped back, leaning against the wall as she thought, arms crossed with one finger tapping her chin thoughtfully. What were they? In ALfheim, they were lovers. They hadn’t felt a need to label anything, or at least Leafa didn’t. But Lis had a point, the feelings they shared in-game were started to trickle into the real world. It was getting harder to hide, and it was a stress Leafa was uncomfortable thinking of. What would her family think? What would her brother think? Would he still accept her? She couldn’t bear the thought of him pushing her away when they’d just began to get close again.

“I… don’t know,” she sighed, “I want to be with you, it’s just…” she thought for a moment, carefully considering her words, “it’s difficult. I want us to be together, I want us to be able to walk down the street holding hands like we do here, but in the real world, there’s no guarantee of that,”

Lis nodded her sadly, taking a step forward to lean against the wall next to Leafa. They both knew it, the real world was harder, more difficult. The real world had people who judged you, rejected you. Were they willing to take that risk?

They held each other, Lisbeth running her fingers through Leafa’s long blonde hair. That was something else different here. Here, they weren’t Rika and Suguha, those two girls people were slightly intimidated by, the ones that were friends with Kazuto. Here they were Lisbeth and Leafa, two incredibly powerful warriors in their own right, the ones who didn’t care about what people thought of them.

“Maybe,” Leafa began, clearing her throat, “we could start small. You know, tell one or two people and see how they react. Because I want to be able to do this in the real world, too. I want to be able to hold you like this in the real world, I want to hold your hand and scream it from the rooftops that I’m dating you-” She froze, not realising how the words slipped out of her mouth until it was too late.

“Dating?” Lisbeth asked, smirking. Leafa blushed, which only make Lisbeth more playful, “My my, Princess!” She gasped, pulling away from her, “Whatever have I done to deserve such a beauty requesting my hand?” She knelt down, kissing Leafa’s hand before looking back up at her, grinning.

“Meet me at my place at five, okay?” Leafa softly kissed the top of Lisbeth’s head before logging out. While Lisbeth had been busy being embarrassing, she’d been coming up with a plan to carry their relationship into the real world, just like her brother had done with Asuna.

A few hours later Suguha was in her room, changing into a nice dress and talking herself through everything she wanted to say. Her thoughts and nervous pacing were interrupted by a knock at the door. She took a deep breath before hurrying to answer it. As expected, Rika was standing there, just as nervous as Suguha was. Suguha pulled her into a loving hug, squeezing her tighter than probably necessary, moving her mouth to Rika’s ear.

“Ready?” She whispered. Rika nodded her head and pulled away, linking arms with Sugu as they walked inside. Suguha could hear her heart beating loudly, and the few steps from the front door to where her brother was lying on the couch felt like the longest walk of her life.

Finally, the pair reached the couch, and Kazuto looked up from his phone to smile at them. He opened his mouth to greet Rika when he noticed their hands. At some point during their short walk, Rika had moved her arm and instead tightly held Suguha’s hand, their fingers intertwined in a way that was more than Kazuto thought normal.

“We have an announcement…” Suguha trailed off nervously, looking her brother in the eye. He sat his phone on the coffee table, sitting upright.

“Proceed,” he said suspiciously. The girls locked eyes for a moment and Suguha squeezed Rika’s hand protectively.

“Rika and I,” she looked up at Kazuto again, voice shaking, “are dating. It’s been happening for a while, I started spending more time with her in ALO and then the feelings kinda… didn’t go away…”

The room was silent for a few moments until it was eventually broken by Kazuto’s laughter.

“You think we didn’t know?” He asked, wiping a tear from the corner of his eye,” You’ve been staring at each other constantly, holding hands, and, and, and-” he stood up and placed his hands on his sister’s shoulders, “- I’ve been through this before, remember?”

Suguha let go of Rika’s hand, instead, wrapping her arms around her brother. Kazuto hugged her back, resting his chin on her head while she held him tightly.

“And Rika?” He eyed the girl suspiciously, “if you break her heart I break every sword in your shop,”

-----

They say you never realise what you have until it’s gone, that you never appreciate people until you don’t have them anymore. You don’t realise how much you’ve grown until years have flown by and life brings forth the days you could only imagine as a child.

That day was Suguha Kirigaya’s wedding.

She’d been pacing around the entire morning, fixing her dress and playing with her hair until her mother had firmly grasped her shoulders and told her to calm down. She couldn’t help it, she was excited, she was nervous.

This was the biggest day of her life, she was getting married to the woman she loved more than anyone, the one who taught her that there was nothing wrong with her feelings, the one who taught her the all you needed for healing was a little trust and some self-love.

Now, as she stood in front of the doors to the wedding chapel she felt her stomach doing flips. She’d screw up, she knew she would. She’d fall on her face when she walked in, she’d say somebody else’s name, she’d start crying and be unable to finish her vows. Would Rika understand if she ran away and offered to try again next week?

“Sugu,” her brother’s voice behind her snapped her out of her rambling thoughts, and she turned to face him. Tears threatened to spill down his cheeks, pride swelling in his chest as the sight of his sister so grown up.

What happened to her? Hadn’t it just been yesterday that she’d been running around the house in fairy dresses loudly declaring that she was going to marry whichever idol she’d been fascinated with that week? Surely it hadn’t been that long ago that they’d been kids, only dreaming of the day that they’d have their own lives.

“You look beautiful,” he sighed, resisting the urge to cry at the sight of her. He'd be strong, he could do this. “How are you feeling?”

“I feel like I might die from excitement,” Suguha laughed lightly, turning her head to see Nagata walking toward them.

“Suguha!” He grinned, “Are you ready?”

She took a deep breath as Kazuto and Nagata each linked one of her arms with their own. She smiled once more at each of them before the doors opened.

The first thing she noticed, the only thing she noticed, was Rika standing there, waiting for her. Suguha felt a tear fall down her cheek, though she felt somewhat relieved that she wasn’t the only one crying. It looked like her mother and Rika had been crying, too.

Rika felt her heart stop, and for that moment it seemed like time stood still, like there was only the two of them. She looked beautiful, just like she always did. Like an ethereal fairy, her ethereal fairy.

As Suguha began the walk towards her fiancée, the woman she would spend the rest of her life with, she felt every memory of the two of them flooding back to her.

She remembered when they’d confessed their feelings for each other, remembered how nervous she’d been as she prepared for their first date, remembered how Rika had walked her home, remembered how they’d kissed just before they said goodbye, remembered how they’d spent the rest of the night texting and arranging another date.

She could even remember the exact feeling she got looking at Rika when they first met. The feeling of a thousand fireworks going off inside her head, the feeling of immediate attraction, quickly followed by the longingness of falling in love and wanting to make sure she’d see her beautiful smile every day.