Just like that, the food arrived.
To her relief, the salad, soup, and main dish were all largely as she’d anticipated. Kirito pulled the cork out of the wine bottle with his fingers and poured the golden liquid into Asuna's glass.
She'd thought the name sounded weird when he ordered it, but it looked just like an ordinary white wine—except that when Kirito poured it into his own glass, the wine was pink and bubbling.
"...What kind of trick is that?”
"It's not a trick or sleight of hand at all," he said boldly, setting the bottle down with a smirk. "This wine changes at random between red, white, rose, and sweet, dry, or sparkling each time you pour it. Hence the name: ficklewine."
"So you wound up with a sparkling rose. I got..."
She lifted the glass, clinked it to Kirito's, and took a sip. The sharp chill and subtle flavor was a pleasant stimulation to her sense of taste. It was a lot like the white wine she'd tried in the real world, but of course, here there was no alcohol content.
“...a dry white. Mmm, that’s good.”
“Ahhh...” Kirito murmured, watching her closely. She arched a questioning eyebrow at him, and he looked away, clearing his throat awkwardly.
"Er, I... I wondered if you had experience drinking wine."
"Well, a bit, just for the taste..." she started, then stopped when she realized it was bordering on real-world information again. And quite a sensitive topic: If she made him think she had wine regularly, that would mean she was above twenty, the drinking age. Asuna had turned only fifteen just over three months ago, and it felt weird to imagine someone seeing her as five years older than that. In truth, she’d had no more wine than whatever she sipped from her father's or brother's glass at home.
"J-just a bit, really. Didn't you take sips of your fathers beer, too?”
“Well, sure. Though it was my mom’s beer...”