Chapter 1
Shinji Ikari stood by a phone booth, waiting. He had received a letter in the mail and a photograph of a young woman in a bikini top and cut off shorts. On the picture, a handwritten note said: "Dear Shinji, I'm going to come and pick you up. Please wait for me…" and it gave the address where Shinji now stood. It was signed by someone named Misato Katsuragi. Along the side of the picture a post-script, in small print, said: "P.S.: Note the cleavage!". Next to the text was an arrow pointing to the cleavage that was exposed as the woman in the photo bent over towards the camera. Shinji pulled out the photograph and looked again at the young woman.
She's got a nice body, he thought, and she's not afraid of showing it off. If she's going to be my guardian from now on…whew…she's late, though. She said she'd be here by 2:00, and it's almost 2:30. I hope this lack of punctuality isn't a regular part of her personality.
Shinji wasn't an orphan. His mother had died when he was very young, and his father didn't want the continued responsibility and stress of trying to be a single parent, so he gave Shinji up as a ward of the state. Shinji's father had no legal rights to him, and Shinji felt no obligation to find him or contact him in any way, though Shinji did think often about what might happen if he ran into his father by accident on the street.
Shinji had grown up in various public houses, moving from foster home to foster home. All of his foster parents had said there was something about him that just made him impossible to handle or get close to; like an impassable barrier. All of Shinji's psychologists had told him that it was just repression from being abandoned by his father. Shinji knew better. He didn't know exactly what it was, but he knew it had nothing to do with his father. It was more of a…sense… A feeling of higher destiny yet unfulfilled, corny though it sounded to him.
Shinji was brought out of his reminiscing by the sound of an engine approaching. It sounded like a sports car. He turned his head just in time to see a brand-new, bright blue Alpine A310 come skidding to a halt right next to him. Shinji knew quite a bit about cars for a 17-year-old. One of his earlier foster families had run an auto repair shop, and Shinji learned a lot from his foster father. Shinji could take apart just about any engine and put it back together again seamlessly. He also knew enough to be able to boost just about any vehicle on the road. He would never actually steal a car, but he liked to know that he could.
The car's engine shut off. Shinji saw a pair of long, beautiful legs swing out, followed by a dark grey, pencil miniskirt and a gorgeous body that was poured into a tight, black tank top that had a red leather coat pulled on over it. Her face was smooth and beautiful, and her head was topped by a luscious mane of purple hair that flowed gracefully past her shoulders. Shinji's jaw dropped to the pavement. She was even hotter in person than she was in the photo! The woman saw Shinji standing there and smiled.
"Shinji Ikari?"
"That's me," Shinji answered, slightly in shock, "Are you Miss Katsuragi?"
"Yup," Misato answered jovially, "It's good to finally meet you. Sorry I'm late, there was a wreck on the freeway and I kinda got caught in the aftermath."
"That's all right," said Shinji, recovering his composure, "I'm just glad that gorgeous car didn't get caught in the crash. That would have been a tragedy."
"The car?!" Misato spluttered, suddenly indignant, "What about me?! Are you saying it wouldn't have been a tragedy if your new guardian got caught in a car wreck and possibly killed?"
"Not at all," Shinji reassured her, "I'm just saying that that's a really beautiful car, sort of like the woman driving it."
Misato blushed brilliantly. Shinji grinned slyly as he saw his flattery take effect. If there was one other thing that Shinji was good at besides working on cars, it was charming other people into doing, saying, or giving him what he wanted. He wasn't always proud of his subtle mind control abilities, but he did take great pleasure in getting what he wanted.
"You devil, you," Misato purred, "I'm going to have to watch out for your flattery if I'm going to keep you under control. So, is there any place you'd like to go right now?"
"How about to go see where I'm going to be living for the next 6 months?" Shinji asked, climbing into the passenger seat of Misato's car.
"Six months?" Misato asked, getting into the car with Shinji, "How do you figure you'll only be with me for six months?"
"I figure six months because that's about the average amount of time it takes for my foster family to get sick of me," Shinji said with a lark, "I think my record for my shortest stay is one week. I didn't even have time to fully unpack."
"Well," said Misato, hiding her shock, "if that's your shortest stay, what's your record for longest stay in one place?"
"Hmm…" Shinji thought, "I think that would be… 10 months? Give or take a week or two, of course."
"So you've never been in one home for more than a year?"
"Not since I hit puberty," Shinji said.
"Ahh," Misato said, a triumphant look on her face, "a troubled teen, eh? Well, I know how to deal with that."
"Oh yeah?" Shinji asked rebelliously, "And how's that?"
"You need to find yourself a girl," Misato grinned, as if it were obvious.
"A girl," Shinji repeated incredulously, raising an eyebrow, "You're kidding, right?"
"Not at all," replied Misato, waving a hand, "It's my experience that a troubled teen male finds comfort and stability much more easily when he has a significant other that he can confide in."
"What about parents?" Shinji asked, "Isn't the teen supposed to confide in them?"
"Well, sure," Misato conceded, "but there are some things that you just can't talk to a parent about, you know? Sometimes you need someone your age to trust with your secrets."
Shinji nodded thoughtfully. Misato had a point. There were some things that a child just couldn't talk to his or her parents, or in Shinji's case foster parents, about. Still, he wondered, what kind of girl would be interested in a boy who moved around from foster home to foster home and was home schooled because he was deemed too "emotionally unstable" to be put in a public school. Not many, he concluded ruefully. Shinji often got depressed when he stopped to think about how alone he'd been all his life.
But Shinji felt that he could finally put those lonely days behind him. He was in a new city, with a totally new environment, and new opportunities to meet people. Shinji allowed himself a moment of hopeful happiness.
"Miss Katsuragi?" Shinji asked.
"Just Misato's fine," Misato answered, "What's up?"
"Misato," Shinji said, "Where am I going to go to school?"
"Oh, that," said Misato, "Well… I thought I'd home school you."
Seeing the look on Shinji's face at the mention of home schooling, Misato continued:
"I know that you know that I've read your files, but I'm not home schooling you because I think you're 'emotionally unstable'. I'm keeping you out of this city's schools because they're havens for druggies and juvenile delinquents. I don't want to see you end up in that kind of environment; it would be irresponsible of me as your guardian to allow that to happen."
"So, I'm not going to make any friends my own age?" Shinji asked, his mood beginning to sink.
"Did I say that?" Misato asked. Shinji's depression began to lift and he looked hopefully over at Misato.
"I can assure you that there are plenty of other teens in my neighborhood who would be more than glad to meet you," Misato continued, smiling, "Many of them have been home schooled for pretty much the same reasons that I gave you. Their parents didn't want them getting caught in the gang and drug culture that this city is a haven for. I'm not proud of the city I live in, but I do like living in the suburbs."
Misato and Shinji drove around the city, giving Shinji a good look down on the tall buildings and dirty streets that he would soon become very familiar with. Shinji smiled as he surveyed the city. If what Misato said was true, he would feel right at home in this city. Compared to the previous city that he had lived in, Shinji's current home city of Los Angeles would seem like an Eden. Shinji's last home was on the mean streets of Detroit, where he heard a drive-by shooting go by every other night; some weeks it was every night. Shinji wondered what his first night in the suburbs would be like.
