Author's Note

Hey there, bet you weren't expecting something like this from me! I'm usually the type to only write stuff in a multi-chapter format, but this is clearly a one-shot/drabble collection. To be perfectly frank, I'm just as surprised as my followers probably are here.

Yeah, so I've been doing one-shots more often lately. And I've been getting more and more ideas for them, too. So I thought I'd create a little dumping ground for all of my SAO yuri one-shots and drabbles and the like. That's what this story is. Every installment will be self-contained, and they will all be unrelated to every other installment unless otherwise specified in the title. Most of them will be at least two thousand words, but some will be in the 1-2k range, I'm sure. Nothing will go below that, though.

Though every single one will be yuri, the pairings will be subject to my whims. This first story, for example, is female Kirito/Yuuki. The next one will probably be female Kirito/Sinon. And I have plans for a few Asuna/Yuuki ones, too. Basically, I'm just doing whatever pairings I can get ideas from, though if you have a pairing suggestion, be sure to leave it in a review and I might get to it eventually.

Worth noting is that every one-shot/drabble in this entire collection will be an AU of some variety. You will not find any canon universe fics here, sorry. Chances are in the great majority of them, VRMMOs will not even exist. So if you're looking for stuff in the normal SAO-verse, look elsewhere because you won't find it here.

Without further ado, time to read!

The Yuri Drabble Zone

Story One: Mismatched Feelings

I knew it was unreasonable to expect anything else of her at this point, but right at that moment, I was deeply annoyed at how increasingly late my best friend was becoming. We had agreed to meet at the mall at ten in the morning, and thirty minutes had already passed since then. And yet still, there was no sign of my bouncy, cheerful, borderline ADHD childhood friend.

Her being late was an every day occurrence, so normally, I was accustomed to dealing with it. But today, we were supposed to see a new movie together, one that would be starting at eleven. We had planned to get together for brunch, then go see the movie after that, but with how long she was taking, I got the feeling we'd just have to settle for snacks at the theater instead. Which could easily end up being significantly more expensive for a lot less food.

And more than that, I had set up this get together, chosen this particular movie, for a very specific purpose. Something I wanted to express to her, to get across before it was too late and the damage was irreversible. But if she arrived too late for us to get into the film showing, that would significantly throw off my whole plan. My only hope was that she'd arrive at the meeting spot soon so we could at least get there on time.

For a moment, I pulled up the sleeve of my black denim jacket in order to check my watch again for probably the third time in the past ten minutes. But just before I got a good look, my field of vision went dark as two cold somethings covered up my eyes.

"Guess who?" this call rang out right by my right ear, and I could feel the words as much as I heard them.

Other than what I was sure was a subtle reddening of my cheeks at the contact and breath on my ear, I gave no outward reaction to having been snuck up on. I merely used both of my gloved hands to grab the ones hovering over my eyes, then pulled them down, turned around without letting go of them, and gave the person behind me a cold stare.

"You're late. What happened this time?"

The girl whose hands I was still holding onto was rather short for the fifteen-year-old girl she was. She had comparatively shorter brown hair, kept that length for sports, that was so dark, it would appear black in dim enough lighting. Her baggy, unfashionable light gray sweat pants and violet hoodie made of a similar material mostly obscured her body type, but it was still possible to tell that she was very thin in all respects, including her chest. Though since starting to play basketball a year prior, she'd definitely put on some muscle compared to how she was before, as one would be able to tell if her pants and sleeves didn't cover her limbs.

All in all, she didn't look very girly, appearance-wise. Which wasn't a criticism I could make without looking hypocritical, anyway, since I myself was wearing fairly masculine clothes and zero makeup. My black jean jacket had a distinctly non-feminine style, I wore fingerless black leather gloves that even had manly little knuckle holes, and my pants were dark gray baggy denim. But in terms of my body, I definitely had the girl in front of me beat in the way of femininity. I had what I'd heard other people refer to as an hourglass figure, and my long, lustrous black hair came down to my waist. Even without makeup, my gray eyes appeared large and more expressive than any other part of my body.

All these observations were made in the single second before she began to speak.

"Well, I got really excited about the idea of seeing a movie with you, since you don't go out much anymore, and it ended up making me stay up too late and oversleep," she explained, as openly honest as usual. I wished I could be so straightforward sometimes. "And then when I woke up, I didn't have enough time to do the laundry, so these were all I had to wear that wouldn't make me die of hypothermia. I'm still kind of cold, though."

It went like this a lot. That was just how my childhood friend two years younger, Konno Yuuki, operated when it came to me. She would be strongly affected by the smallest of gestures I gave her. I was able to elicit bigger reactions from her than anyone else in her life could, even her own family, and to a degree, it had always been like that. I'd long since grown used to it.

"It's not that bad yet. It's only mid November," I retorted, but at the same time, started to do something to fix her complaint.

"K-Kimiko… what are… you…" with each pause in her sentence, her face got redder and redder.

I smirked smugly at this reaction, which I would never outwardly admit, I found pretty cute. "You said you were cold, so I'm just warming you up a little. No big deal, right?"

What I was doing was basically just messing with her hands. Rubbing her palms with my thumbs, entwining and untwining our fingers, that sort of thing. There weren't a whole lot of people around this area of the mall right now, since our meeting spot was basically a back entrance that not many people knew existed, so I didn't really have to worry about anybody else seeing us and judging what probably looked like a couple's activity.

And I could easily tell that my strategy to warm her up was working. Her hands were getting hot and sweaty, and she had a fierce blush on her face. I was fixing her cold problem and getting a solid tease in at the same time. Side objective complete, for now at least. All that was left was to wait for direct confirmation.

"Y-you can stop now," she requested after another few seconds. "I'm not cold anymore."

I nodded my head, letting go of one of her hands, but keeping her right entwined with my left. "Gotcha. Then let's head to the theater. There's not enough time to get brunch, and if we get there soon, we'll be able to watch the previews, too."

"Okay…" her affirmative was somewhat subdued. She still seemed pretty embarrassed by what had just transpired.

Seeing that only made me that much more motivated to go through with this and put an end to this miserable situation once and for all.

They ended up getting seats one away from the back row, in the middle. I chose them because I wanted to be able to watch both the movie and my childhood friend's reaction to it without people looking and wondering why my attention was split between the two. Considering the only row behind us was, quite literally, the make out row, and there weren't people right next to us on either side (the theater wasn't often very crowded before four in the afternoon), I more or less accomplished my objective in choosing these seats.

Yuuki herself had been positively glued to the screen for the whole movie so far. Which made sense, considering this was her first time seeing it. I myself had already seen it once before, with my sister, who had taken me specifically to prove a point to me.

That point being, rather bluntly, that I really needed to do something about my relationship with my childhood friend. You may be wondering how taking me to a movie would drive such a point home. The answer was pretty simple.

The two main protagonists of this film were, in a lot of ways, very similar to me and Yuuki. They were childhood friends, like us, and while they didn't exactly look very similar, they did have personalities like ours. And for that matter, they were also both girls, like us.

The movie's plot was a fairly standard romantic drama, though interestingly, it was one of the first Japanese lesbian romance films I'd ever seen hit theaters. Basically, the two childhood friends fell in love with each other, but they didn't really love each other the same amount. One loved the other far more than that other loved her. This led to their eventual relationship being very unstable, to say the least.

The current scene was a big fight between the protagonists, who had thus far been a couple for about a month in the story. However, the one who didn't love the other as much had been cheating on her, and it had finally come out into the open. At the end of the scene, they would break up until the end of the film, where they'd get back together again with a more mutual love.

Frankly, I felt the ending was contrived and unrealistic. In real life, there wouldn't necessarily be a happy ending to this story – they wouldn't have gotten back together again, or if they did, the relationship would probably fail again for a multitude of reasons. Real life was a fair bit darker and sadder than people's lives in movies like these, most of the time.

And that was the whole point, frankly, of me taking Yuuki to this movie in the first place. For a long time, I'd been aware of the existence of that. Of her feelings for me, and of mine for her. But there was no way that we could ever work as a couple. Why, you ask?

Because, much like the protagonists of the movie, we didn't love each other the same amount. While we definitely both had romantic feelings for one another, she loved me far more than I did her. That was why an intimate relationship between us would be destined to fail.

That was what I wanted to get across to her today by taking her to this movie and talking to her about it afterwards. I wanted to do it for her own good, so she could move on from me and find someone who would actually love her back as much as she deserved.

This would be better for both of us. I knew that for certain. So that was why it sucked so damn much that even though I knew this was the best course of action, the idea of going through with it still left me feeling so hollow inside.

After the movie ended, we decided to go back to her house for the day. It was already the middle of the afternoon, but I don't think either of us wanted to part just yet. We didn't talk a whole lot during the trip back, nor did either of us say much while making our way to her room for some privacy (her entire family was home, since it was a Saturday). But then, right after she closed the door behind us, I spoke up.

"So, what were your thoughts on the movie?"

To be honest, I already had a pretty good idea of what she thought of it. I had sort of been watching her to gauge her reactions for about a fourth of the film's total length at least. But you could only tell so much about reactions from the face alone. So I had to ask in order to start the conversation I wanted to have.

"It was really good, actually," she replied, nodding her head at her own words. "Though for some reason, the main character – the long-haired one, I mean – really reminded me of myself."

"Really now?" I asked, though I actually knew full well why she would see a resemblance.

The one who reminded Yuuki of herself was the one who loved the other main protagonist more than that girl loved her back. Or rather, she was hopelessly head over heels for her. Which would be a good way of describing how my childhood friend felt about me, as far as I could tell.

"Yeah, although I can't really explain it well," my friend said with another nod. Well, more like she didn't want to explain why to me, probably. "But anyway, I'm really glad they got back together in the end. What about you?"

"Personally, I thought the ending felt forced. Didn't seem really realistic to me," I admitted, looking over at the window to my left to avoid seeing her reaction to my reply. "In real life… I don't think it would have ended nearly so well."

"Somehow, your eyes are telling me that there's some sort of deeper meaning here. But I can't tell what it is," she caught what I had both been expecting and hoping she would catch.

"There is a deeper meaning, yeah," I acknowledged. Here was where things got hard. "It's… it's about us."

"Huh? About us?"

I gulped reflexively. It was getting harder and harder to say what I knew needed to be said. "Yeah. I…"

My voice lost its strength when I needed it the most. For the first time, I realized that I might not be able to go through with this. Because even if my feelings didn't go as far as hers did… I still loved her. And I didn't want to lose her, even if I knew she shouldn't be so fixated on me.

But this had to happen sooner or later. The longer this issue was ignored, the worse it would become when it had to be taken care of. I had to get her to move on, for both of our sakes. So I took a deep breath, exhaled, and forced the words out.

"I know you're in love with me. Like the long-haired girl in that movie was in love with her childhood friend."

There, I said it. First and second objectives cleared. Just a few more to go. I just had to gather the courage to say them. But before I could, Yuuki's voice cut in. Apparently, she had drawn her own conclusions based on what I'd said so far.

"Then… was showing me the movie your way of rejecting me? Of telling me you don't love me back?" That was the conclusion she'd reached. In my head, I laughed bitterly, because I wished it were that simple.

It would have been so much easier if I could have just lied. Told her yes to both of those things. But I couldn't do that. She deserved to know the full truth. So I took another deep breath, and with a great sigh, spoke again.

"Yes and no. I am rejecting you, but not because I don't love you," I said, by some finding it easier to say what I needed to this time. "I do love you, and I don't mean just as a friend. But… it's not anywhere near as much as you love me."

I was almost done here. Just a bit more, and I'd leave, and she'd be able to start the process of moving on. She could finally find someone who would love her back just as much. This needed to be done—

My thoughts were cut off when, out of nowhere, Yuuki closed the distance between us and wrapped me in a fierce embrace. I turned back to face her in order to tell her to stop, but before I could, her voice, loud, clear and kind of unstable, whispered into my ear.

"You useless idiot. Rejecting someone doesn't work if what you say right after only makes it harder for them to give up on you," she scolded, her tone kind of shaky. It sounded like she was about to cry.

"I never claimed to be good at things like these…" I said it without really thinking too much about it.

She spoke right into my ear again, and I had to fight off a shiver from the feeling. "Hey. How long do you think I've been in love with you for?"

That was a good, albeit unexpected, question. I hadn't exactly traced it back a whole lot since realizing it, so I didn't have a definite answer off the top of my head. I took a few seconds to think about it, then gave a rough estimate.

"Um, three years?" It seemed like a pretty recent development. At the very least, it wasn't one of those cheesy 'I've loved you since we first met' type deals. We were childhood friends, we'd known each other since before we could feel that kind of love.

"Close. It's been four as of last month," she replied, her voice sounding much more stable by that point. "And through all of them since I realized it myself, I never once thought of confessing. Because I never once thought that you felt the same, even a little bit."

What… what was she trying to say here? What was she trying to do? I asked these questions in my head even though I knew there was no point. She was probably going to make that clear real soon anyway.

"So what if you don't love me as much as I love you? The fact that you return any of my feelings at all is enough to make me happy! That's more than I thought I'd ever get already!" by the end of it, she was shouting. And to be honest, it really hurt my ears, but I didn't say anything for fear of ruining the moment.

I could feel my resistance crumbling into dust, leaving only uncertainty in its wake. I hadn't prepared for this at all. I had no idea how to deal with it. What the hell was I supposed to do now that it had progressed to this point?

"Since I know how you feel, I can't just say okay to being rejected. So instead, let's do this for now," Yuuki continued, suddenly speaking in a softer, far more pleasant tone to hear so close. "Try going out with me for a while. Find out how it would actually work out for yourself. See if you can fall in love with me more than you are now. Okay?"

In that last word, when she asked for my confirmation, I could sense all the uncertainties underneath the surface of what had been nothing but confidence before it. I could hear the worry that even after all the attempts to convince me, I'd be as stubborn as usual and refuse.

"I…"

Damn it, how could I say no to that, anyway? I knew I wasn't exactly one to talk, but she really wasn't playing fair here, saying all that while hugging me so damn close. This would have been hard to refuse even if she were halfway across the room, but like this… it was just impossible.

Wait a second, weren't the arms wrapped around her really tight? It felt like she was being squeezed. She was… really nervous about my answer, wasn't she? Or perhaps even scared. In which case, I really had to hurry up.

I wrapped my arms loosely around her slim frame, returning the hug. "Okay. You win, I'll try it."

At that precise moment, right as Yuuki's arms tightened even more in response, I became aware of the presence of someone else very close by. The bedroom door was cracked open, and through the small opening, I saw a single eye staring at the both of us. A very familiar eye, at that.

"Aiko, don't eavesdrop on us," I called out the owner of the eye, my gaze hardening into a glare.

Following my calling out our spy, my lover of five seconds and counting rapidly disengaged from me and turned around to face her older sister. "Sis, what the hell?!"

"What kind of self respecting older sibling would I be if I didn't get worried after overhearing this kind of conversation? I was worried!" said sister asked us, opening the door a little further and crossing her arms defiantly. "But it turns out I didn't need to. Since Kimiko made the right choice, which means you two finally hooked up."

It felt like she was indirectly implying that if I had still gone through with my planned rejection, she would have made me pay for it dearly. Which, if I were to be frank, made her seem more like an overprotective older brother than a big sister.

"Well, I'm gonna go back to my room before Yuuki throws her alarm clock at me. I'm going to assume that Kimiko will be here for a while… but please be sure not to make too much noise tonight, all right?" Aiko told us the most annoying thing she possibly could before turning around to leave.

Faced with such an implication, I could only blush profusely and put my head in my hands. Yuuki, on the other hand, yelled something about how her sister shouldn't poke her nose into our business before shutting the door in a huff.

Later that night, for the sole purpose of messing with Aiko, my new lover and I played together on her old PS4 with the TV's volume turned all the way up.

Author's Note

Honestly, this one turned out drastically different from my initial vision of it. It's barely even recognizable from how I imagined it up. It became way more dramatic than I initially wanted it to. And way more melodramatic, too. I basically added the bit with Aiko in as a method of lightening the mood because damn, I didn't know how I was going to wrap it up otherwise.

This one was pretty original, I think. I didn't exactly get the idea from anything that already existed that I know of. A lot of other fics in this collection will be based off of doujins I've read and liked, but this one wasn't. It was kind of weird.

Anyway, questions, comments, concerns? Reviews? Ones that don't just tell me it was good and say to update soon? Please share them if you have any to give.

See you next time! The next one-shot I'm thinking of writing is a Kiriko/Sinon drabble (so it'll be shorter than this) that will be titled, "Three Seconds", based off a doujin of the same name.