Technical Death Metal
A Neon Genesis Evangelion fanfiction.
AN: I'm thinking of revamping my other stories. I have already written the ending of NGE: Renaissance but realized I didn't like some of the facts that I have set on previous chapters. Sad, really. Anyhow, NGE is owned by GAINAX. The pieces of music that will be mentioned aren't Gainax', but they aren't mine as well.
"Asuka?"
Shinji was frustrated to say the least. His face was contorted, sweat on his brow, his muscles were aching. Suffering for almost fifty minutes now and Asuka being Asuka the entire time, he was thinking how either stupid or just spineless that he is when he agreed to do this in the first place. "Am I doing it right?" He asked Asuka, who was sitting in front of him, eyes closed.
The redhead's eyes flips open and immediately, Shinji cringed. "God, Shinji! Again?" She exclaimed. Aside from her burning eyes and angry tone, a vein that popped on her pretty forehead made her annoyance evident.
"You put your finger here, baka!" She said, finally calming down. Shinji cringed. What a wimp.
And so he did… and started…
He knew immediately that he had to stop. Asuka was going to explode metaphorically, in a very negative sense.
"Are you really this stupid, baka-Shinji?" This time, Asuka used physical force. She took Shinji by the sides of his head and shook him, Shinji tried to stop him but she was too strong. "w.. what are you doing?"
"I'm trying to shake the stupidity from your skull, baka!" For one moment, Shinji actually tried to think it was possible.
"Baka… baka… baka!" Asuka was screaming now. And then she was tired. She backed down and sighed. "Verdammt! We've been through this for a goddamn hour now… AND YOU STILL CAN'T DO IT CORRECTLY?" Asuka complained, hands swinging everywhere, hands which Shinji's eyes followed faithfully. The redhead noticed… and grunted at the hopelessness of the situation. "Dummkopf. I shouldn't have expected any better."
Shinji scratched his head, insulted. He knows he could do it; he had been through worse like piloting an EVA for the first time… He really could do it, in a relatively easier way by himself, he wasn't a complete newbie, he knew a few things… but Asuka insisted that he does it 'by the book' or more accurately, 'how she knows it done', reason being that she 'feels' it wasn't that good.
Shinji inhaled, exhaled, his visible focus seemingly stopping the German from dropping another series of verbal abuse. Shinji held up and tried again, this time eager not to disappoint Asuka even more…
He pressed and…
The bow jumped from the string midway the first note and the violin produced an ugly screeching sound when Shinji tried to salvage the note.
It was horrible, horrible, Shinji, just plain horrible: Asuka was fuming with anger now, and Shinji was disappointed with himself, a grimace was on his face and his shoulders fallen down. Asuka howled, sighed, grunted in frustration as Shinji dared find courage to finish the whole note.
When that was done, Shinji resigned to a sitting position, his face a mixture of sadness and fatigue. His neck was hurting, shoulders was numb, ears were a little hurting too from all the ugly notes he had played. Asuka was the same, but angry and frustrated. Shinji looked at Asuka who was, apparently, staring at him. Her pretty blue eyes showing plenty of emotions, one of them was disbelief, amplified by the slanting of her eyebrows, she was looking at him with her mouth slightly fallen.
Disbelief? Seriously. Shinji mentally kicked himself.
"What the hell, don't tell me you're actually giving up?" She asked, annoyed.
Shinji was confused. He hurt himself in confusion.
Well he did! He raised his right arm which had the bow perpendicular to the ground, ramming the tip of the bow straight to his face… "Ouch that hurts." He said. And to this, Asuka couldn't help but laugh… and stops herself immediately.
"Baka-Shinji, you really are hopeless…" She remarked, snatching the bow and the violin from his hands while he tried to nurse the eye he poked. She turned to pack the violin to its casing. "Hmmm, but it's your first time, anyway… it's normal for you to suck… God, imagine that, you weren't even able to get past the first bar."
Shinji sighed at her comforting words.
"Hey!" Asuka snapped at him, "Don't take it so bad… you just don't have the natural talent like I do, but with practice guided by yours truly…" Asuka pseudo-curtsied at that… "I'm sure you can play decently in no time, not as good as me though." She grinned.
Shinji nodded… she looked cute so he didn't sigh. It seemed she was back on her playful mode an hour ago before she pushed him to try learning the violin. Why am I trying to learn this instrument, again? Shinji asked himself.
"You just have to practice everyday, Third Child. We actually have an awful lot of time to spare for the talent contest." Asuka threw the music sheet on his lap, violin strapped on her back already. "You practice your bowing, alright? You can't suck. You play the cello… and then you study the music. It's pretty easy."
He turned from her to the music sheet. Yes, the talents contest, because some random guy was playing the guitar across the room and was singing horribly that even Shinji was aware of it… that prompted Asuka to go and intervene and tell the guy… "Dude, you suck. Stop singing, you're out of tune, it's getting annoying." To which the guy, who was insulted as anyone would have been, replied, "Shut up, what do you know about singing anyway? You're not even a musician for God's sake."
And the rest is a very immature affair that ended (more like started anew) with Shinji being dragged by Asuka towards the hallway during lunch, towards a poster that said that the school was actually celebrating some sort of Music Festival… and there were a lot of events. .. A talents contest being the one Asuka was pointing. Shinji, to make it short and to keep Asuka from getting angry, just nodded and said he's in whatever Asuka was plotting.
The morning that followed, or today, when he woke up to the wonder that there was already food on the table, before marvel could fill his mind, Asuka threw a violin case on his face.
He brought it on himself.
"Brahm's Wiegenlied." Shinji read slowly… Why would she pick this? Asuka is planning on singing. That's something to look forward too… but why this song? Shinji knew it well. It was hell of a depressing tune, it was Deutsch but he knew what it was about. His teacher said it was about a mother and her child.
With that memory, Shinji felt depressed too.
"Well, come on, baka-Shinji." She said, turning away from him.
"Asuka…" Shinji asked, still immersed from the memory, "Why would you pick this song?"
Asuka paused from taking another step.
She opened her mouth but for one second no word came out. She closed her eyes, bit her lip… and then turned back to Shinji… who was looking at the ground.
"N-no reason baka!" She stuttered. Shinji looked up at her.
"W-well, I've heard it before." Shinji replied. Asuka smirked; at least Shinji knows good music, unlike that 'musician' from school. "Well, hush, Third Child. You shouldn't question the will of your teacher."
Master? Huh, Asuka? "Err, yeah, Asuka…"
"From now on, you call me Asuka-sensei, baka-Shinji." Asuka grinned and started walking again.
Asuka-sensei. Shinji snickered at the thought, deciding to set his thoughts on Wiegenlied for later. In his mind there was a more mature Asuka who was wearing glasses, a skirt and stockings underneath, a black blazer and a white shirt… and holding a stick… That is…
Asuka punched his shoulder. "H-hey." He stuttered.
"You were thinking of something perverted, aren't you?" Asuka was fuming.
"N-no, of course not, A… Asuka-sensei." But his grin betrayed otherwise.
And then Asuka's hand made contact with Shinji's face. Cliché, yes but it hurts, really.
"S-sorry..."
…
Brahm's Wiegenlied can be played violin/voice I think. It's a really nice song. So what do you think, worth continuing?