Summary: "Subaru, do you prefer being with Tsukasa here to being with An in the real world?"

Pairings: Tsukasa/Subaru, Mariko/An

Notes: I don't own anything relating to .hack//SIGN or other .hack related materials. I'm only borrowing, because I love.

Genderless Communication

They are sitting side by side in one of the many deserts of the World. Normally it is a field for battle, but tonight it has been abandoned for the silence to conquer, deserted except for the occasional party of monster-slayers. Tsukasa likes the peace – whenever he's with Subaru, quietness doesn't hurt like it sometimes (often; way too often) does in real life. Which is also the reason he feels somewhat reluctant to break it now.

"Subaru," he says slowly, dragging out her name as if not to disturb the tranquillity that has settled between them too much. She raises her head from his shoulder and looks up at him.

"Hai?" A gentle inquiry.

"Do you prefer being with Tsukasa here…" he pauses, not quite knowing how to make the comparison, because just on the other side of the screen his own self is listening, living and feeling. She is hurting enough as it is without this question brought up to discussion. "…to being with An in the real world?"

Next to him, Subaru falls silent. He notices how she fists her hands in the sand, letting the small grains of dust run through her fingers – she does these kinds of things often, as if she could really feel the texture of the World against her skin. He knows very well that she can't.

Once he could, but he is relieved that this particular ability has been lost to him for a while now.

"Tsukasa and An are the same person… to me…" Subaru finally settles with, turning to face him, her dress dragging across the ground. However, it doesn't get dirty. Nothing in the World ever really does, he thinks.

"Demo…" he objects, reaching out for his staff simply to do something with his hands, his grasp around it so tight that his knuckles go white. He was never good with words, but now it seems even harder than ever. How is he supposed to explain? "In the World… I am… me…" He uses the male pronoun in a desperate attempt to convert his thoughts to her. She waits patiently for him; like she has all along.

It was true… what she said about it being her who was waiting.

"Out there… boku wa…" he continues, "… boku ja nai."

The sentence dies out and as he closes his lips around the full stop, there are no more words left for him to grab hold of. Communication has a tendency of being tricky like that.

"Tsukasa," Subaru says – she has always pronounced his name in such a strange way, as if it holds a meaning deeper than the lines of its kanji (a meaning that no one else but her really understands), "do you still like looking at the same stars as me?"

Automatically, he turns his face upwards, watching the stars blinking to each other (to them) far above their heads. It is hard to believe it's all simply random fragments of code. It looks so real. Turning his attention back to Subaru, he finds her too looking up… up… up…

"I do," he replies. Simply. She smiles, her eyes softening in that special way only Subaru's eyes can manage.

"And does An like to look at the same stars as Mariko?"

"She does," he answers without hesitation, recognizing it as the most important of truths.

"Then you are the same."

Subaru's cheek comes to a rest on his shoulder again, the closeness soothing his frantically beating heart. Even through the thousands of digital systems separating them – the distance of the one thousand layers that make up this virtual reality – Tsukasa senses how his real figure (the girl) relaxes as well. He enlaces his fingers with Subaru's slowly and Subaru squeezes his hand lightly in thanks.

Once again they enjoy the safe silence that doesn't hurt.