The Mystery of Those Still Asleep
"Hu... hu..."
Faint breathing continuously rose and fell from the girl's slightly pale lips.
"Beep—beep—beep—"
Instruments testing her heartbeat and other functions operated in the ward, connected to the girl's body.
Luo Zhen came before the girl, sat down beside her, and stared blankly at her for a long time without reacting.
After a long while...
"Sorry. I'm late."
Luo Zhen spoke as though he were conversing with Asuna.
"I should have come sooner, but because of my own affairs—and because of all sorts of other things—I was delayed until now."
Luo Zhen began to speak.
"I know that if it were you, you would definitely cry and smile as you told me, 'Don't worry about it. I knew you would come.'"
That was the girl's gentleness, and even more so, a wish she had never dared to hope for.
"Even though I'm an idiot who only knows how to clear games and conduct research, and have no understanding of romance at all, you were still willing to come live with me and become Yui's mother. I really can't understand it. What did you ever see in me?"
Luo Zhen slowly voiced his words one by one, as though he wanted to pour out all the things he had hidden in his heart over the years in a single breath.
"Perhaps when we first met on the 1st Floor of Aincrad, you should have stabbed me to death with your sword. That would have been more straightforward."
Recalling what had happened then, and remembering what he himself had been like at the time, Luo Zhen could only smile bitterly.
But...
"Now I've become greedy. I really want to go on a proper date with you again. Even without that forest on the 22nd Floor,