Disclaimer: I don't own the series. If I did, I wouldn't be posting up fanfiction about my own series: I would just WRITE the darn thing directly onto the TV.

Author's Note: From what I understand about Japanese High Schools, the teachers change classes instead of the students when the period is over. That's just hearsay, but sounds a lot more efficient to me. That is when the second scene takes place (You'll know it when you see it.)

Distance

By Nathan Yuen

The afternoon air in Tokyo-3 was humid as the sun beat down for another summer-like day. Cicadas still droned lazily, muffling the sounds of students chattering and laughing as they exited their classes. Overall it appeared to be another pleasant day.

But for Asuka Langley Soryu, she would have preferred rain, thunderclouds, maybe even a tsunami so that the weather and impending disaster could match her mood. "Damn that idiot!" She muttered as she stalked across the concrete bridge to the school. "He chooses to walk the First Child to sync testing over walking me home? Unthinkable!" No, it wasn't that she was jealous of either of them, but it was the principle of the matter, damnit!

In order to assuage her ego, she started muttering suppositions and situations. "I bet they're just gonna skip the sync test and go back to her apartment to make out and screw like rabbits. That pervert is probably so hard up right now that…" a scene taking place off in the distance halted her train of thought, and she leaned over the railing to get a better view.

There was Rei, sitting at a bench under the shade of a tree; reading like the first day Asuka met her. Shinji strolled up to her, and started talking. Rei closed the book, using her left forefinger as a place marker, and looked up to talk with Shinji. Then something happened.

A smile, so small that it was almost microscopic at Asuka's distance, appeared and quickly grew into an easygoing grin that made Shinji look handsome. Hate and frustration flowed to Asuka's heart, turning the blood it pumped into slow-moving lava. "Argh! He never smiles like that when he's around me. What is it about him? Can't he see that I'm smart, beautiful, and athletic? What does the doll have to offer him other then silence and pale weakness?"

A deceptively easygoing drawl commented to the left of her, "It's not rocket science, you know. And if you have a college degree and still can't figure it out, then the University of Berlin must be handing out diplomas like fliers."

Her head whipped around to glare at the source of the comment: one Kensuke Aida, the camcorder glued to his face as usual and filming that scene off in the distance.

"You bastard! How dare you insult my intelligence!" She took a swing at him, but he calmly sidestepped away from the blow, his reactions honed by hours of mock military training. A little stunned that he managed to avoid the slap, Asuka hesitated, and that was all Kensuke needed. He lowered the camera and faced Asuka. "You want to know why Shinji shows more appreciation for Rei than for you? I have all the evidence on my camera, if you want to take a look."

Asuka's outrage over Kensuke's impetuousness halted as the new information sunk in. She could either hit the stooge (and most likely never find out the precious info) or she could take the information and make the stooge pay later.

Her curiosity won out over her rage. "Gimmie that!" She cried, swiping the camcorder away and nearly breaking Kensuke's hand in the process. She flipped open the LCD display and looked into it, but it was dark. "It's not working, stooge…" she growled menacingly.

She heard Kensuke's sigh to the left of her. "Here, let me set it up for you." The display came on showing what the camera saw at that moment. Then Kensuke pressed a button, and it started rewinding to earlier in that day, during lunchtime.

The display showed the back of Rei sitting at the left edge of a bench in the cafeteria. Surprisingly, there was not much noise. It was obvious that she was eating soup, focusing on that one menial task. Shinji came up beside her. "Hi, Ayanami." She greeted him with a nod. Encouraged, he said, "how's it going?"

She looked up at him. "I am faring well today." She scooted over a couple of feet, and Shinji sat down beside her, chatting amiably about small things: school, teachers, students. But it wasn't the conversation that was telling; Rei's focus was now entirely on the boy next to her, her soup growing cold. In the meantime, Shinji's face became brighter as a smile slowly bloomed on his face. Sometimes he talked to her, sometimes he sat in comfortable silence with her.

Finally he asked, "Would it be okay if I walked with you to the sync testing?"

While she did not verbally acknowledge the request, she looked at him, exposing her left eye to the camera. In that eye contained an unreadable emotion as she slowly nodded an affirmative to him.

If it was possible, the grin on Shinji's face grew even broader. "That's great! I'll pick you up at the usual spot, okay?" He got up and left, taking both their trash with them.

Kensuke hit a fast forward button, and the digital media skipped forward to a break time in class sessions.

Shinji was sitting at his classroom desk, chatting amiably with Toji as they waited for the next teacher to come to the classroom. Suddenly a blur with red hair stalked up to Shinji.

"You're walking home with me today, stooge," Asuka declared.

Shinji cringed for a moment, anticipating an outburst of destructive magnitudes as he revealed his own information. "I'm so sorry Asuka, but I've already promised Ayanami that I would walk her to NERV."

The atmosphere in the scene turned deathly quiet as Asuka digested this news. "You're choosing the First over me?" She breathed, her voice deadly and low

He clasped his hands and bowed his head as if praying for a higher divinity to come down and take him away. "I'm sorry Asuka, but I can't!"

Everyone moved back – the scene shrunk as Kensuke and his camera leaned back reflexively – as they anticipated an outburst.

And they were very nearly correct. Her whole body shook and her fists trembled, clenched at her side. Eventually, the trembling stopped. But when she spoke, they half-expected frost to come out of her mouth. "Fine, go play with your dall." she said, stalking away.

The scene ended with Shinji shaking his head, sad and disappointed.

"Bo-ring!" Asuka intoned, feeling oddly defensive as the display switched off. "So he talks at the First and he apologizes to me. It's like every other day. What's your point, stooge?"

"If you looked closer, you would have noticed more than just Rei being talked at – she was quiet because she's listening attentively to him. She even scooted aside to make space for him to sit down, a clear nonverbal invitation. She lets Shinji take his time to settle down and get comfortable with her. That's why he's so attentive.

On the other hand, you stalk right up to him, demand his attention and time, make him cower in fear, and insult him. If you look at the end, he doesn't even know what to do with you. He doesn't pay attention to you because he wants to – it's because he's afraid of you."

Asuka put her hands on her hips, as if daring him to make another argument "All right Mister Freud, that's all well and good. But so what? Attention is attention. Why should I care if it's out of fear or whatever?"

Kensuke sighed in frustration, pushing up his glasses with his ring finger and oddly echoing Commander Ikari. "If Shinji was a chauvinistic pig who demanded your attention all the time and insulted you when you were down, would you want to talk to him?"

Asuka actually had to ponder that for a minute, trying to figure out what a chauvinistic Shinji would be like. "Well… no…"

"My point is made then." Kensuke said, crossing his arms and leaning against the railing in satisfaction. Behind him, Shinji was now sitting with Rei, still talking. Though it had been five minutes since Kensuke and Asuka met, it had seemed a lot longer to Asuka. And she couldn't think of anything to say to his point.

So she did the only thing she could do to defend herself: accuse the other side. "What do you know about relationships anyways! You're such a dork, I bet you haven't even been in a relationship yet!" Smiling sadistically, she turned her palm down, letting gravity take the camera from her hand. As Kensuke dove to save it from destruction she picked her school satchel up from the ground. " Trying to tell the great Asuka Soryu what to do? You should know better! You're pathetic, stooge!" And with that, she scooted away.

It would only be after she was far out of sight of Kensuke that Asuka would acknowledge to herself that she was hard on Shinji, and that she would need to respect him a little more in order to get his attention. Maybe she will start tonight, by helping him do the chores?

But in the meantime, Kensuke was dusting himself off and looking off in the distance at the retreating Asuka. Then he looked down at the hand cradling his precious recorder. No- it wasn't the recorder that was precious, but the memories contained within. He whispered to himself, "perhaps you're right, Asuka… I am pathetic."

Seeing that Shinji and Rei hadn't moved yet, he thumbed the camera to life and started recording. Though his face was a mask of calm acceptance, a single tear of anguish made its way down his uncovered eye as he filmed Shinji and Rei – clearly enjoying themselves – through his eyepiece. Then they started to move off, side by side down the street and into the distance.

As they disappeared into the horizon, Kensuke deactivated his recorder, then put the lens cap on. Shoving the camcorder deep into his satchel bag, he headed home – in the opposite direction, widening the distance between him and the couple.

(End)

Note: I made this story after reading Mercaba's "A Past to Forget." I was appalled that Kensuke acted petty and jealous of Shinji's closeness with Rei. In the manga he acts more mature and level headed. So I decided to make him the focus of this story, defending his mild-mannered honor, showing that he might be hurting from the development between the two main characters, and showing how an outsider's point of view might add some clarity to the situation.