Kayaba, famous for quantum physics and his genius as a game designer, had kidnapped ten thousand players on SAO's first day of operation and become a criminal reviled by the world. Looking back now, the words magazines had printed from him back then-"This game is absolutely not something to be taken lightly"-could be read as a declaration before the crime.
At the magazine rack of a convenience store, Suzuki Satoru held a copy of NewGame. Two years ago, on that night, this magazine had given him the key to enter the death game. Or maybe it was better to call it the trigger.
He turned the pages one by one, but paid no attention to the text or the grand screenshots from various games.
Once, this had been a book he depended on, the way classics were to researchers, or history books to scholars.
He flipped through it idly until he reached the end.
Then he closed it softly, slid it back onto the rack, and turned toward the counter without a trace of reluctance.
School seemed to have let out. A cluster of lively high school girls crowded off to one side, eating snacks they had bought there while discussing and watching the new song from a male idol group on their phones, letting out cheerful little shrieks now and then.
A few high school boys with waist pouches and an obnoxious swagger, meanwhile, were staring at the gravure idol photos on the magazine rack, their eyes full of profound contemplation about the meaning of life.
The music flowing through the store was another new song with a clear beat and explosive energy. It was probably number one on the Oricon chart this time.
There were no lilting bagpipes, no sense of grandeur, no easy comfort of a fantasy world.
"Welcome. Can I help you with anything?" The clerk behind the counter glanced at Satoru's empty hands and assumed he wanted something near the register, like hot food.
The people who sold items here did not speak in a formatted tone, either. There was none of a blacksmith uncle's heroic bravado, none of a clothing shop girl's timid sweetness, and no one would wait forever while you decided what to buy.
"Sir...?"
They no longer called him adventurer, either. Or swordsman.
"Sorry. A pack of cigarettes, please." Satoru touched his wallet.
"Of course. What brand would you like?"
"Something on the cheaper-"
"Actually, we happen to have an imported one. Chinese, flue-cured tobacco, called Yunyan. Everyone who's tried it says it's very smooth." The clerk cut him off and launched into an enthusiastic sales pitch.
"Oh...?" This was unquestionably a trap, yet Satoru still let an interested note slip out of his mouth.
Seeing that she had a bite, the clerk smiled brightly and pulled out a red pack of cigarettes.
"It's not a hard pack?" Satoru glanced at it.
"We're sold out of the hard packs, but this soft pack is even better. Of course, the price is just a tiny bit higher. How about it? Want to try it?"
"Uh..."
He stared at the pack. It was strange. He had never seen the brand before and had no idea how it tasted, yet it had an inexplicable pull on him. He could almost make himself smell tobacco burning at the tip of his nose... the soft crackle of the paper, the solid fullness of smoke entering his lungs.
He looked down at his wallet. The pitiful bit of cash inside was so sparse that one glance was enough to count the change.
Mm... no. Not happening.
Satoru sighed, then said, "I'll take one."
"Great! That will be 380 yen!"
Damn it. So much for saying no.
Still annoyed with himself, Satoru snatched up the few bills left in his wallet and handed them over. Before he could properly feel the texture of his own money, the clerk took it away in one swipe.
"I hope you like them." Then the pack of cigarettes was pressed into his hand.
"..."
"Mom, that big brother looks totally broke!"
"Hikari, don't say things like that...!"
"..."
Holding a hand to his forehead, Satoru slowly walked out of the store and sighed at the busy road.
After two years trapped in Aincrad, the tiny place he had been renting had been cleanly reclaimed by the landlady. In the end, the lease had expired. The protected treatment he received in the hospital had also cost money, and after getting out he had gone to see a lawyer right away, so there was hardly anything left of his old savings.
It was a life that could only be called brutal. There had to be many others like him, people whose once-peaceful lives had been upended by that death game.
He opened the cigarette pack and put one between his lips.
But since he had come back after making such a huge sacrifice, he obviously could not let anyone laugh at him.
When they met again... he would become the kind of person she hoped for.
With a smile, Satoru exhaled smoke and stood quietly in front of the store.
And, holy hell, these cigarettes were actually good.
"Hey, broke-ass old man, don't block the door."
"O-old man?!" He hurriedly stepped aside to let several high school girls behind him pass.
"Yeah. Your hair's so long, and you've got all that stubble. Clean yourself up a little. You're probably some sad unwanted otaku, right?" The girls, hands tucked away and looking more than a little like gyaru, laughed among themselves.
I'm only in my twenties!
"Oh? Isn't that Asada-san? Great, let's go hit her up for some change."
As if they had spotted a "dear, beloved" friend, the thoroughly unpleasant girls walked straight off.
Were high school girls these days always this bold...?
No one beats my Sheeta.
Satoru lamented under his breath and pulled his old jacket tighter around himself. It was late winter, but the temperature was still low. His old jacket was not especially thick, and the cold wind seemed able to cut through the fabric and scrape along his skin.
...
By the time he walked back to his new place, he could still see the belongings that had once been his stacked in cardboard boxes by the door. His monitor, the graphics card and motherboard inside his tower-who knew how much dust they had gathered over the past two years. Even if they still worked, they probably would not perform the way he wanted anymore.
Two years was enough time for hardware to go through a whole generation of upgrades. He did not even know whether he could still recognize the model numbers now.
People were the same.
That was why, even though the boxes were sitting outside a rental apartment building like this, he did not really care whether the neighbors took anything.
He stood in front of the door for a while, hesitating, then took out his key, turned it in the lock, and stepped inside quietly.
The air inside was just as cold as outside. The heater that might have made things comfortable had not been turned on. He took off his old sneakers and padded as quietly as he could across the freshly mopped floor, heading for the inner room. The chill of the floor touched the soles of his feet, sending a sharp sensation up through them.
But apparently he had still been noticed.
"You're back?" The voice was very steady, coming from the kitchen. Then came the crisp sound of a bowl being set down, and a man walked out of the little kitchen. He was wearing a ridiculous apron with a kitten pattern on it, his sleeves rolled up high to reveal lean forearms with taut, clearly defined muscle.
It was probably muscle built from long years of work, a type completely different from Satoru's own frailty.
The black clothes he wore were damp in places from water drops, making them look even darker.
The man resembled him around the brows. Looking at him, Satoru felt as if he were seeing himself five years later.
"Good timing. Eat first." The man's tone softened a little, though the firmness in his bones had not lessened.
"Yeah." Satoru answered and went into the inner room opposite the kitchen. He sat down on a floor cushion. The television was already on, tuned to a news channel. The overwhelming coverage of SAO being cleared had finally calmed somewhat over the past few days, and what remained on the air now was mostly reports on the cleanup afterward.
From the kitchen came the sound of oil hitting the pan. Satoru sat in the plain room, listening in silence to the anchor's precise report.
On the low table sat an ashtray, a pack of cigarettes, and a plastic lighter. He recognized the cigarettes. They were a cheap brand. Five or six butts were already lying in the ashtray.
"In half a month, the government-run school for SAO's student-age players will open. Students will receive free classes and psychological counseling. At the same time, support will also be provided for adult players who left their jobs and now need to find work again. Next, an interview with a University of Tokyo sociology professor on the aftermath of SAO..."
Satoru lit another soft-pack Yunyan and exhaled smoke toward the empty space in front of him.
By the time the sounds from the kitchen stopped, he had finished three cigarettes.
The man came in carrying food and set it on the little table one dish at a time: dressed side dishes, fried shrimp, sashimi, and a few leftover rice balls. After putting everything down, he returned to the kitchen, opened the fridge, and took out a can of beer.
"Want one?"
"Yeah."
He took out two cans, set one in front of Satoru, then opened the other for himself. Only after taking a long drink did he sit down and pick up a bite of the side dish.
Satoru looked at him, silently stubbed out his cigarette, then opened his beer and took a sip. The slightly bitter, ice-cold liquid slid down his throat and into his stomach. The foam and carbonation pressed against his stomach wall, a different kind of fullness from smoking. After drawing a breath and feeling that real stimulus, he took another large drink.
"You never used to like drinking," the man across from him said, watching him.
"Drinking with so-called business clients was exhausting. It didn't feel good."
"Did drinking over there feel good?" The man ate a bite of the side dish, then reached for the cigarette pack on the table, took one out, and lit it.
"They had beer over there, and also this purely mellow kind of liquid. The taste wasn't great, and it didn't feel real like this." Satoru answered honestly, picking up a bite of side dish and eating it with the bite of the beer.
"Cold? Want me to turn on the heat?" the man asked again.
"It's fine. This is enough."
The two of them talked off and on. Even though they had someone to talk to, they both ate and drank as if nursing their own silence. When the beer cans on the table had piled up to five or six, and the man had listened for a while to the University of Tokyo professor's grand talk on the TV, he finally opened the next subject.
"He's saying things that sound impressive and make no sense."
"Neither of us even went to high school. Of course it sounds that way to us." Satoru held his beer can.
"It's just the way he phrases things, the words he cites, and all those numbers I can't tell are real or fake. That's what makes me feel that way. I can still understand what he's actually saying." The man said, "Basically, he thinks survivors like you are psychologically twisted."
"Do I look twisted to you?" Satoru asked.
"I don't know. But the fact that you wanted a lawyer as soon as you woke up probably means you are." The man shifted his gaze from the TV screen and looked at him. After a moment, he added, "But the strongest impression is... you've grown up."
"..."
"When I first took you in, you weren't this tall. And you weren't this good at smoking and drinking."
"Smoking and drinking aren't standards for whether a man has grown up." Satoru shook his head. He finished the can in his hand, adding another empty can to the pile beside him, then reached for the pack he had bought, pulled out two cigarettes, and said, "I got talked into buying these by the convenience store clerk today. 380 yen."
"Even though you barely have any money left," the man said evenly, reaching out to take one.
The two similar men lit their cigarettes at the same time.
"Have you decided what to do with that pile of stuff outside?" he asked again.
"They're old parts from two years ago. At this point, I can only treat them as scrap and find someone to take them," Satoru said.
"Even though two years ago they were top-end?"
"That's the computer hardware industry for you."
"The embodiment of survival of the fittest, huh... Have you found work?"
"Not yet."
"I saw in the paper that they're going to give you people more opportunities." The man smoked, and at that point he laughed. "Well, once you look closer, you'll know. The extra opportunities are mostly watching forests and hills, or filling vacancies in factories. Hard, exhausting jobs, and not easy to climb out of."
"That's what I get for not being a college student. Otherwise I could still go hide out at school for a while." Satoru said it casually, but he had not expected it to make the man fall silent.
"Back then... I'm sorry I made you drop out," he said quietly. "If I hadn't done that, maybe you never would have touched SAO."
"You had your own problems too, right? You were dating your girlfriend at the time, weren't you? She was pressuring you pretty hard." Satoru was also silent for a few seconds.
"Yeah. Later, after you were trapped and sent to the hospital for safe treatment, I broke up with her."
"Weren't you already almost at the point of getting married..." Satoru said softly.
"You heard me say that while you were dreaming? I was working in Kyoto, and I trusted her to hand the money I earned there over to you. Turns out none of it reached you later. And you almost never contacted me. You were even more stubborn than I thought. If you'd just made one phone call..." The man smiled. "Besides, she had plenty of other boyfriends. She didn't need me."
"You quit the Kyoto job too?"
"Already quit." The man shook his head, cutting off the topic. "Now both of us have to look for work together. Odd jobs alone won't cut it. Good thing we're both men. We don't have to fuss over quality of life like women do. One way or another, we can get by."
"..."
"Thank you..."
"My sister was good to me, too. Compared with what she did for me back then, what I've done for you is almost nothing."
The man smoked, then raised his head and breathed out a plume of smoke.
"That civil servant from the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications who came to see you this morning. What did he want?"
"It's nothing that'll land me in jail. Don't worry."
"Mm. The lawyer said the same thing. With the law still having gaps when it comes to the virtual, your case should be very easy to settle."
"Yeah. If I'd known that, I wouldn't have bothered with a lawyer. Got scared for nothing because I didn't know any better, and lost another meal's worth of money and cigarette money." At last, Satoru showed a faint smile.
The man shook his head.
"Then tomorrow, let's go to Hillside Cemetery early."
"Okay..."
Satoru opened his mouth.
And at last, he let out the two syllables he had wanted to say most, but had never said.
"Uncle."