IT IS EAST, AND JULIET IS THE SUN
The ringer went off. The small, lighted window displayed the I.D.
"Ayanami, Rei 224-…" it read.
She felt a powerful mixture of anger and guilt. Last night's dream came back to her. Why do you hate me? Rei had said. I don't! she'd responded hastily. I-
The phone rang, for the last time. In spite of herself, she dialed Rei's number. Rei answered after half a ring.
"Asuka?" she asked. She sounded panicked.
"Yeah, what do you want?" Asuka responded. More anger, more guilt.
"I… I'm down at the docks," Rei answered.
"Why the hell should I-" Asuka started. Rei cut her off.
"I'm sorry," she said. Asuka heard crying on the other end of the line. She'd never heard Rei cry before. "I'm so sorry." Rei hung up.
Asuka sat listening to the dial-tone for a moment. What the hell had that been about? She didn't know, but it made her nervous. Asuka was on a subway train. Her stop came. She got up, but only to read the map on the wall. She had to get to the docks.
An hour later she ran off the train. She was the only one that got off. The station here was completely empty. It was an eerie feeling to be alone in such a place, but she ignored it. She had to see if Rei was alright. She might just tell her today. That prospect scared her.
She ran up the stairs the surface. The docks were deserted but for the odd bum. The docks had been abandoned years ago. With most of the planet's surface flooded, there was nowhere to go. Only the military vessels were saved from the scrap yards.
Asuka searched frantically among the ruins. It took half an hour to find Rei sitting on a concrete block. She was slumped against the wall behind. Heart hammering, Asuka raced down to Rei's seat by the water.
Rei's eyes were closed. In terror, Asuka put two fingers to the side of Rei's neck. She was cold. She felt no pulse.
"No," she said quietly, shaking her head.
A small cardboard box sat on the ground nearby. She picked it up. Its printed gloss surface was white, with grey cursive letters on the front. Asuka didn't bother to read them. She knew what this was: a suicide kit. They'd started selling them years ago. Officially, you had to be eighteen to buy one, but in such days as these, store clerks often relaxed the rules.
"No," she said again, embracing Rei's body.
"NO!" she screamed, her cry long and loud. She started to cry.
She loved Rei. She'd loved her as long as she'd known her. But every time she thought of telling her, every time Rei came near, she got angry. Angry at herself. She hated herself. And then she took it out on Rei. Now it was too late. Too late to apologize, too late to make it up to her. Too late. She remembered what Rei had said on the phone.
"No," she said to Rei, putting her down, straightening her pose. Making sure she was comfortable. Right now, that didn't seem stupid at all. "I'm sorry. I love you, Rei."
Thinking of what she'd do now, thinking of why Rei had done this, thinking of whether she might whip out her pocket-knife and join her, right here and now, Asuka noticed something in Rei's left hand. Slowly, solemnly, she bent to see what it was.
She gently reached out and touched Rei's hand. Even ice cold and rigor mortised, her hand was soft. Amongst all the wet-dreams, all the thoughts of what it would feel like to kiss her, one of her strongest desires had just been to one day hold Rei's hand.
That thought brought more tears, but she continued prying Rei's hand open. Inside was the key-card to Rei's apartment, and a small steel key. Asuka examined them, puzzled.
Clearly, Rei had wanted her here, or she wouldn't have called. Had she wanted her to find these? She went out on a limb, and decided she had. She put the keys in her pocket and started toward the subway station, but stopped. She looked at Rei's body. She couldn't just leave her here. She took out her cell-phone and called Shinji. He answered after a moment.
"Asuka?" he asked. Asuka spoke in a monotone. Her grief had passed, for the moment anyway. She was completely burned out emotionally. She felt dead.
"Rei's dead," she said plainly. There was silence on the other end for a moment.
"What! How?" he asked frantically, panicking.
"She killed herself," she stated simply. Silence for a moment longer.
"How… how do you-"
"The docks," Asuka cut him off.
"What?" he asked dumbly. He was clearly having trouble processing this.
"She's at the docks," Asuka said plainly. She hung up.
An hour and a half later, Asuka calmly got off the subway train, one block from Rei's apartment. She felt numb. It rained on the way there. She didn't care. At Rei's door, she swiped the key-card.
The door opened to a small room with off-white walls, an off-white wall-to-wall carpet, a small off-white bed, and a small writing-desk and chair. It was cold. Asuka recalled Rei mentioning once that she couldn't afford to run the heater. Examining the dismal scene, Asuka noticed a metal suit-case on the floor. She took the key from her pocket. Was this it?
She picked up the suit-case and set it down on the writing-desk. She slid the key into the hole. It turned. She opened the case.
Inside the lid, an Mp3 player was wired to a pair of speakers, all taped to the lid. She noticed a second wire going to the edge of the case, connected to a pressure-pad. The Mp3 player came to life a moment later. She heard the sound of music. As the lyrics started, she realized she'd heard the song before: I Want You, by Bob Dylan.
Asuka had heard the song once years before, played on a street-corner by some blind guy. Keeping up appearances, Asuka had pretended to hate it, but secretly, she'd liked it. The original was much better than the blind guy's version. She was unable to enjoy it, however.
In the bottom part of the case, there were red roses, with what seemed a thousand pictures mixed in. They were all of her. Asuka remembered that Rei had started carrying a camera around some months ago. Now she knew why. Rei hadn't been able to look long in public, so she'd taken these. Asuka remembered seeing Rei photograph her only once. She found the picture. In it, she wore a wide-brimmed hat. She was laughing, her eyes closed. She remembered yelling at Rei when she'd seen her. She turned the picture over. There was writing there. She read it: "It is east, and Juliet is the sun. So bright, that birds would sing, and think it were not night."
There were similar poetic snippets on the backs of the others. On one, she found a simple statement. It read simply: Why do I love her? Why does she hate me?
Asuka fell to her knees. Her emotions returned to her, each hitting like a sledge-hammer. She began to cry.
Rei dead, that was bad enough. Knowing why was worse. Asuka wept bitterly. The pictures, the roses, the sweet sound and message of the music. They ground at her heart. It was her fault. It was all her fault. She was Juliet, long after Romeo had died of simple heartache.
They found her lying there in the fetal position, a photograph clutched in her hand.