A Magical Evening

    Asuna has put a lot of thought into this. She has been busy with duels lately, busy with being a mom, and there was a strange mood that kept her busy for a month. It's time to really make up for that. And make up for it, she shall. She let Klein know that she wanted him to be home by 7 PM tonight and to dress nice. She likes whatever he wears, but it wouldn't be very kind of her to dress to the nines without giving him the chance to do the same. The gown she picked is definitely meant to blow him away. She's in love, he's going to just have to get used to her wanting to impress him.

    She has food ready. She has candles set out. She has a nice, lovely scent on her. A perfume that Klein has indicated he likes. And she's made sure Yui is setup to have a wonderful time at the Links. Considering that Wake was visiting, it was immediately obvious that there was going to be a lot of fun. Asuna would have been a bit jealous, but her night is setup to be a dream come true.

Klein has been quite busy since the Crownless Cup started, despite not being a duelist. No, his surprising skills with a thread and needle are starting to become known, and so Klein has been drafted. His needle and thread has sewn many a plushie inbetween watching duels with Yui and helping with a few minor repairs of Shibuya's stands when they arose. So when Asuna noted he should be home by 7 PM and to get fancy? It sounds exactly what they both needed.

Klein's headband was noticably missing for once, his hair stylized instead of it's typical wild look. A yellow tie, black vest and red jacket and slacks were his clothes for tonight, and the samurai even managed to find himself a close enough version of dress shoes for the occasion. Pushing aside the odd feeling of heading home while being dressed like a Lander noble, he coughs softly into his closed fist to test his breath before he enters the front door.

"Hey Asuna? I'm ho-..." It's clear to see what is the cause for Klein trailing off. Despite being around Asuna, her beauty can sometime be breathtaking without her realizing. With the amazing dress that she is wearing tonight? Well, it takes Klein a few seconds for his brain to reboot. "...whao. Uh, wait...you look very stunning tonight."

    Asuna is waiting, trying her best to maintain her poise. But she really wants to just pounce Klein when he appears. Her heart skips a beat, literally. She has to calm herself down to not ruin the moment. She moves forward a step to meet Klein and reaches out to hold his arms.

    "Heya handsome," she says warmly. "It's good to see you tonight. I've been crazing some alone time for a while now. And I hope you don't mind if I use tonight to start making up for all the lost time with you."

    She finds herself feeling shy. It's hard to meet his eyes for long, and her cheeks turn a bit pink. She admits quietly, "I'm not used to being as happy as I've been ever since we got together."

Walking forward to meet with Asuna, he takes one of her hands, lifts it up and gently kisses the back of it. Giving Asuna a playful wink, he then takes both of her hands in his and squeezes once. "It has been a while since we got to do something like this, yeah. Things have been a little hectic, but...i'm glad we got time for this."

Scroffing softly, he gently cups Asuna's head and turns it back towards him, a soft smile on his lips. "Asuna, you deserve every bit of happiness and more. Trust me, I still consider myself the luckiest guy in the world for being with you."

A soft blush coloring his own cheeks, he pulls away and motions towards the table, before materializing a bottle from his inventory. A bottle of red wine appeared close to the center. "At the very least, I had to bring something for the table!"

...and now Klein is realizing that he should have asked if she liked red wine first. Oops.

    Asuna blushes brighter when Klein mentions feeling lucky. It's hard to really accept that, sometimes. She can see every flaw she has and describe them in exhaustive detail. But Klein probably knows that.

    "Well, if you are happy with me, then I must be doing something right," she says gently. She moves with him to the table and laughs gently at the sign of win.

    "A red! Have you been studying how to pair wines? I think that will be perfect. And I do prefer red to white."

    She will wait a moment, allowing Klein to draw back a chair for her before sitting. It is not a pizza night, tonight. There is some pasta, but overall it's a more refined meal. It is beautifully arranged and balanced. Fish, vegetables, and some fruit all find their place here.

    "I am curious about some things. I would like to know about you before you came to this place. And I'd like to tell you everything about me. I want you to know me better than anyone, Klein." Even if that scares her a little. She has some rough edges.

As Asuna turns away, Klein lets out a silent sigh of relief. He honestly wasn't much of a wine person, but he knew he had to bring something for dinner tonight. He just gotten really lucky. "I mainly just asked around for advice before I brought it in." After all, honesty is the right way to go.

Sliding the chair back for Asuna and scooting her in a little like a proper gentleman, he takes his own seat across from her, seeing her in the candlelight. He felt an odd mix of being nervous and relaxed at the same time. He should be sweating buckets right now, but...this felt right. He just had to make sure he did things right.

And besides, a break from pizza is a nice change of pace. Just because he's well known for it doesn't mean he has to have it for every meal!

Now, that is something that honestly should have come up earlier, perhaps sometime before they adopted a child together. But...when you fight alongside someone for several years in life or death situations, you get a vibe on what kind of person they are. Almost rubbing at his chin before catching himself, he figured that he should start first with the most basic thing. "Well...if we want to know one another, best to start with the basics." Smiling, Klein bows his head slightly towards Asuna. "Back in the real world, my name's Tsuboi Ryoutarou."

...huh. Feels weird realizing that saying your actual name can somehow feel rusty.

    Asuna feels nervous, of course. But she's smiling. There's a natural flush on her skin, even on her shoulders. She has to remember to breathe slow and steady. To keep herself calm. "And I'm Asuna, as you know. Asuna Yuuki. I.. kinda use my real name. I know, I'm such a newbie."

    Looking back, though, she is rather happy to have been so ignorant. She really likes using her normal name. "Ryoutarou," she says rather abruptly. "I like that. It suits you, I think. I like knowing your real name."

    It's something she hadn't thought of. But who is to say which name is the real one? After all, they've been here a while. They've put their lives into each other's hands here. And they have fallen in love and have their daughter here. How much more real can one get?

    "Oh, and if the time is still what I think it is, my birthday is in two days." She pauses. "You probably remembered that already. I know it's come up before."

    She pauses thoughtfully and then gets back to the point. "Oh, and I'm in college. I'll be 23 this year. Which.. you probably remember already. Sorry. I'm rambling a little. Oh, and I was hoping to work in my family business."

Learning more about Asuna, the woman behind the lighting fast fencer and Towerclimber, is honestly something he needed to know. Despite himself, Klein chuckles as he hears her newbie mistake. "Well, to be fair, this was your first major game like this. At least be happy that you didn't put down your full name. So many people have doxxed themselves doing that."

There's a reason why one of his old guild members had the name Harry One.

...uh...actually...no, Klein doesn't remember if Asuna mentioned her birthday. Oh great, something he needed to get for her, and he doesn't have the slightest clue! No worries, that's a problem for Future Klein!

(Future Klein would look back on this moment later and curse Past Klein.)

"Well, let's see. I got a two year degree in general business applications and financing, but that's likely outdated now. I'm 24 years old, with a birthday coming up in November. And...honestly? I was mainly just trying to save up for a month long road trip all around Japan, just me and a group of friends of mine. You know, a meetup IRL with friends." He still hopes they're doing great.

Hmmm...perhaps they should switch to a lighter topic for a bit. "Oh, and my first VR game was actually Fragment. Was a beta tester during the Open Beta...wait, you likely don't know anything about that, huh?" Yeah, ETO was Asuna's first MMO, if he remembered right. "Just think of it as like a clunkier version of ETO, if that makes sense."

    Asuna laughs softly at her mistake. She is lucky, though she will have to ask someone what doxxing means later. She tries not to slow Klein down with her ignorance. Hearing about Klei... no, Ryoutarou's life has her attention focused. Asuna is really happy and points out, "I'm glad you are older. I mean, either way would have been okay, obviously. It's just nicer I think."

    "That sounds like a lot of fun! Were you going to ride motorcycles for that trip?" She doesn't even know how to drive, actually. It never bothered her until now. But maybe they will get to do that road trip and she can ride with him!

    "Fragment? I think I remember some commercials for that. Clunkier than ETO. And probably featuring a logout button, too." She wrinkles her nose, laughing softly.

    Eating is taking a backstage to conversation, but she does let Klein fill her glass with the wine. It should be pointed out that Asuna... does not really drink! He will soon figure out that she's got no tolerance.

    "ETO was my first. You know, I only hopped in because my brother said we were going to play together. So in I came! And he had work that pulled him away, so here I was. Lost, confused, clueless." She pauses and whispers, "Afraid, too."

    The dip in her mood doesn't last more than a moment, though. She won't let it! "But that's all behind me now."

Food is starting to be put off to the wayside, but that's a good thing in this case. After all, a deep conversation like this was food for the soul. But no, shouldn't leave the pasta to get cold after all of Asuna's hard work. And taking a quick bite helps with the blush he gets from hearing Asuna is glad he's older.

Laughing at the mental image of him on a bike, Klein shakes his head in the negative. "Nah. If I remember right, the plan was for us to rent a camper and go around from campsite to campsite. It was a good idea to get away for a while and unwind." And unlike ETO, he could make a decent stew IRL!

Despite the situation they're in, the scruffy-chin man has to add onto the joke. "You do know what they say though. 'The update was a downgrade.'"

He knew that this game was Asuna's first game, but hearing that she was supposed to be playing with her brother? Damn. And while he wanted to blame the guy for abandoning his sister in need, but there was no way anyone could have known what would have happened. Reaching across the table, Klein squeezes her hand once. "Hey. Everyone was. And anyone who says otherwise about the early days is lying through their teeth. Except me, I was amazing." Winking once, he nods his head in agreement. "And now you're an terror of a dueling tournament, moving up the ranks quickly!"

...Asuna must never know of the pigs.

    "Well, I am trying to do well for our daughter," admits Asuna. "I want Yui to know she's safe and even if it scares me, I am hoping that as she gets older we can teach her how to defend herself." Yui still wants to be a Samurai, like mama and papa. Mama still hopes she becomes a baker, still. "Besides, my fanbase seems to delight in my work." Which is silly as she says it, but, well, she has fans. She hasn't a clue why, though.

    "Let's see... hm. Oh! Hobbies. I did calligraphy and also tea ceremony. My grandmother and my aunt taught me calligraphy." There's a little ripple of pain at the mention of her aunt, but it only draws on her expression for a moment and then she's smiling once more.

    She takes a drink of the wine. Without paying attention, she's drinking it like water. She is rather surprised. She didn't think she could handle much. But then again, she's unaware that alcohol needs a minute or two to reach the brain. In the meantime, she's finished her first glass.

Asuna brings up a good point, and not one many people tend to like thinking. With how dangerous this world can be at times, there is always a chance they can't always be there for their daughter. "Hmmm...maybe...once we're sure that's what she wants, maybe we can get her a dagger? It's simple and easy to use, I just want to make sure she really wants to learn how to fight instead of just focusing on a fad for a bit."

Weapons are already dangerous enough. Adding in Sword and Wave Artes into the mix, if used wrongly, can cause more harm for the user than the target.

Oooh...uh, this is likely gonna cost him a few points in the "Klein can't do anything wrong" camp, but then again, Asuna has seen a lot of the Adventurers. "My hobbies? Honestly, I didn't really have much interest in a lot of things my parents enjoyed. Besides video games, a guilty pleasure of mine was watching those cheesy samurai movies from like 50 years ago. Usually a lone samurai taking on an evil shogunate's forces singlehandly." ...sure, they were cheesy, but those movies were always so good to watch though, no matter how many times Dale complained about it! He just didn't know fine art if it bit him!

While Asuna may not be noticing the wine slipping away like crazy, Klein is. After all, he's the one refilling her glass! So when he does refill it, he gives her a little less than before, just to play it safe. There's no telling what kind of drunk the chestnut-hair beauty will be, but he got a feeling that classy demeanor of hers will slip away. "Outside of that, I consider myself to just be a normal guy back in the real world. Still...I miss normal a lot, some days."

    Asuna nods thoughtfully. "The dagger is a good idea. Something small. Or maybe even a quarter staff? So far she has stayed interested, but you are right, of course. There's no need to rush into such a thing. She's either safe with us or at day care. I highly doubt she'll have trouble there."

    Asuna does feel the wine rush to her head in a few minutes. It's enough for her to slow down. Her smile changes for a moment. There's a wavering, but it soon returns to its brightness.

    "That sounds like a good source of inspiration for you, my samurai hero. And I think you're wonderful. It's okay to not be flashy. That's not what I like, I just.. I want someone I can know will be there."

    Her expression changes in truth, now. Delicate, sad. "I graduated top of my class, you know?" Her voice sounds different. No doubt alcohol has loosened her tongue. But it's also a flash of pain she shares. "My parents weren't there, though. They were busy." She sighs gently and sets the glass aside just as she was about to take another drink. "I.. have had enough of this."

    She has eaten throughout the conversation. And that is a good thing. It helps lessen the clouds in her mind. Her eyes are remarkably clear as she looks at Klein. "I love you."

    She rises slowly then, and walks to Klein's side. She kneels down there and looks up at him. "I love you because I know my heart is safe in your hands. I love because I know your heart is with me, and that you really do treasure me. I love you because when I think of you, everything is better. I know you won't leave me."

    She smiles, her eyes lowering. "I'm a bit drunk." That much is obvious to her. But her mind is still remarkably sharp. She will wait a moment, and soon they will go back to their bedroom and sleep.

    She says one more thing before sleeping, though. "I hope you are happy with me, Klein. I have no intention of going anywhere. Ever."