I don't own the characters or Shin Seiki Evangelion. Hideki Anno and Gainax own everything.
A/N : Shinji's point of view. My imagination filling in some of the details in his life before the first episode in the series. Please review and tell me what needs improvement, or what, if anything, worked well. I'm trying to improve as a writer and I need feedback. Thanks.
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Whenever people have bothered to tell me what they think, their appraisals of me were pretty much alike. Being introspective by nature (solitude tends to do that), I had already come to the same conclusions, just maybe using different words. They only served to reinforce what I already knew. I am shy, passive, and gloomy, at least compared to everyone else.
If there was ever someone that wanted to try to understand me, to have me tell them why I am the way I am, I'd have to start with the facts that my mother died when I was five, and my father might as well be dead for all the contact I've had with him since then.
I don't argue with anyone, not unless I'm provoked, even when I think I may be right. I don't like conflict. My mother's brother was the opposite; he loved a "good arguement". If a difference of opinion didn't exist, he would just take an opposing view and stir things up. His few friends were the same way. They would harangue each other for hours on some minor point. I think that he couldn't interact with anyone any other way. Maybe that was why he was divorced. To me, dealing with all that was more than uncomfortable, it was painful. For a while, when I first came to live with him, he tried to engage me in verbal sparring. But I was still pretty young and hadn't developed much self-confidence. I wouldn't take a stand against him. Few little kids confronted with a scary adult would. Maybe that was why he kept berating me, telling me I was a wimp, that I was too timid. I guess he was right. Self-confidence pretty much went away under that kind of battering. Why he took me in after mom died, I couldn't tell you.
Of course, when I was in grade school, it was like blood in the water for a shark. I soon got the attention of the school bully. Even some of the guys who were usually the bully's victims sensed a weaker person and passed their frustration and pain on to me. You know the saying. "Shit runs down-hill." It didn't help that I was kind of thin and weak-looking. And the bully usually made sure my humiliation was in front of some girls. He would put me down with some sort of ridicule that was concocted to sound clever. Most of the girls giggled at the bully's wit. If that kind of experience doesn't make someone screwed up, I don't know what will. Grade school was hell.
One day, when I was in the 6th grade, I came home to find all sorts of emergency vehicles blocking the street by my uncle's place. He didn't survive the heart attack.
After a week with a foster family, I was told that my father had arranged for me to live with one of my teachers. No illusions on my part that the guy wanted my company. He was being paid for his inconvenience. On the up side, as long as I behaved and did my school work, I was pretty much left alone. Another improvement in my situation happened when my uncle's attic was explored. Someone found my mom's old cello, which ended up in my possession, along with her SDAT and a bunch of tapes that were in the case. These were the only things ever given to me that told me anything about her; no pictures, no letters, nothing else. Nothing from my father.
I think my early efforts to play the cello without lessons prompted my guardian to arrange for instruction pretty soon after that. While I had the difficulties that I was assured were common to all beginners, I found that I could temporarily escape into the concentration that learning to play well demanded. I know that I'm not particularly talented (my music teacher would remind me from time to time), but I did improve to the point where animals and people didn't immediately try to flee from the sounds I produced. Listening to some of my mom's classical music tapes helped me understand what I should aim for when playing, and how far I was from getting there. Even so, my need to escape meant that I practiced a lot.
Another saying you've maybe heard is "what doesn't kill you makes you stronger." I suppose it might apply a little even in my case. I was forced to learn to fade into the scenery, to become invisible, to avoid attention. The frequent attacks on my almost non-existant ego taught me how to grow the kind of calluses that protected me from feeling very much. And the occasional bully's physical attacks eventually taught me to endure pain without giving any sign that I felt it. Absorb it, endure it, hide it. By the time I was part way through middle school, I'd learned to survive, to become tougher in the way that iron becomes tougher when a blacksmith pounds on it. This robbed my enemies of satisfaction, while giving me just a little. I'll take what I can get.
Don't get the wrong idea. I still have feelings, emotions. In particular, I feel a lot of sympathy for others who are attacked without asking for it. I feel anger at anyone who inflicts pain on another, especially without provocation. I feel inadequate, powerless to do anything about it. And I feel very alone. Life mostly sucks.
Would I have turned out differently if my mom hadn't died when I was five, if my father hadn't arranged for me to live away from him? I don't know. Maybe. But there's no point to playing "what if".