Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-118.137.168.148-20130811115237/@comment-1173941-20131110033830

StariFey wrote: Kirito's first love was actually Sachi... there was this official survey where you could "ask" the characters questions, and Kirito answered that his first love was "someone in the Moonlit Black Cats Guild"

They weren't exactly romantic, but I would say that they had really really strong feelings for eachother, and according to the manga, I would say their feelings are much more real and strong than Kirito and Asuna's feelings. That survey was from back when SAO was a Web Novel (back in 2005 I believe). In the Web Novel version of the story, Kirito and Sachi were MUCH closer (though, subtly with a few hints and such, including a couple scenes and explanations being slightly different) This was more-or-less changed in the Novel publication...