Neon Genesis Evangelion
Collision
By BrokenChosenofEva
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Title: Later, Then...
Prompt: set 1 / prompt 002 [Hate]
Word Count:700+
Rating: T
Summary: AU (any). Asuka knew it. Somehow, she always knew the men in her life would never change, always leaving. She hated them for it, it was the reason she always ridiculed them as being beneath her. But just once, just this once, she wanted to be wrong.
Disclaimer: I do not own Neon Genesis Evangelion
Notes: Warning, character death in this chapter. Bold are remembered words.
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Everything was falling apart. Her home, her team, her very life, all slipping through her fingers like sand. Kaji had vanished, Shinji run away, Touji...
A breath.
"I hate you..."
The whispered phrase, loud enough the only other one there only just heard it, seemed to echo in her mind, reverberating painfully in her chest.
A beep.
"I really do..."
She leaned forward in her seat, her copper hair obscuring her face, her hands balled tightly. The words were bitter on her tongue, acid in her throat, her voice cracking with emotion.
A breath.
"You're a horrible liar ya know..."
Her vision blurred, and she saw slowly growing patches of dampness appear beneath her downcast face. Her breath caught in her lungs, burning and choking as emotions warred inside her.
A beep.
"...Always have been."
She couldn't see, sight warped and distorted as she felt the hot trail of tears on her cheeks, chest tightening and her breath short and choked.
She so badly wanted it different. Just one time, for just one damn minute, she wanted to have been wrong. To have at least one male in her life not be like the rest, to stay! She didn't want to be alone again!
A soft sigh.
"...please..."
The gentle touch to her tear soaked cheeks was the last straw, the last fragment of her world shattering as she latched on to that hand.
She sobbed. She screamed. She cried like the little, lost, broken girl she had always been. The little girl who lost her mother to the grave and her father out the door, and then began losing every single boy and man she held dear.
A beep.
"PLEASE!"
She gasped between sobs, between screams for time. She begged with each breath, aloud and in the silent prison of her mind. One hour more, one minute, one single second! She begged anything and everything she could think of. Begged for someone, anyone, to change one single thing, one single outcome!
"I love you, Asuka. Till all the stars we watched that night go dark. No regrets, not a single moment changed. See you Later, then..."
A tone.
A final soft sigh.
With a final scream, she collapsed on the bed -onto his strong, slowly cooling arm- into silent tears. No sound but her gasped breaths, no words but the silent echoes of the boy's before her.
Her tears slowed, vision clearing and breath returning. She lifted her head, looking one last time at Touji's face. He was smiling, the soft small smile he gave only her when they sat alone. No tears marred his cheeks, no pain pinched his now closed eyes.
For the first time in hours, Asuka smiled. Broken, tear-stained, so very, very fragile. But at peace. His words, his rare wise words, had finally reached her where Misato's hadn't, putting a last comfort to her heart.
A week of love wasn't enough, but she knew no amount of time would have been. She would have begged for another moment even if they'd had decades, begging with her last breath even if she had been the one on the bed.
A breath.
"Later, then..."
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A/N: I don't like tragedy, I get so attached to the character(s) that it honestly hurts. But at the same time, as I told another author, I love all the moments of life, gain and loss, peace and turmoil. Sweet melancholy, happy tears, joy, romance. The duality of happy and sad.
As I wrote in Awakening chapter three, "He smiled when he felt the turmoil flow into love, and happiness, tinged with all the other emotions present in life that made it such a wonderous experience. Everything, good and bad, that flavored life and made him wonder how SEELE could have been so driven to erase it all through triggering Instrumentality."
I hope you understand.
This view-point is what keeps me going through all my ups and downs, what helps me in my tears, my rage; helps me cherish my joys, my peace.