Service class has begun. As Mari entered into her classroom a friendly wave was given to her from the back. The waver was Moro Yushi, a quiet girl with a gentle face and big brown eyes. When Mari first met her she couldn't but help think of a Sika Deer fawn and so gave her the pet name "Fawn". Mari waved back to one of the few people in her class that she talks to.
"Hey Fawn. The teacher is late isn't she?"
"Yeah looks like it."
"Great," Mari said with delight in her voice. "I am getting pretty sick and tired of this. Always going to other classrooms to make announcements."
"Hey," Fawn replied "it could be worse. At least we don't get homework and tests AND we still get the points that we need."
"I rather bust my ass off to get the points instead of walking around in this place."
The two heard someone walked in and scan to see if it was the teacher was here. But it turns out it wasn't her. In fact, it was the new boy that came a while ago, the one Kensuke mentioned to the group this morning. Everyone had an opinion or say about this boy: "albino", "loner", "creep", "Rei-Boy", "Snow White", and etc. This boy intrigued Mari. It wasn't the fact he had red eyes and that he was pale as white. Rei is like that too; it was his hair. His hair was pure silver, natural gray too. It may not be as weird as Rei's blue hair, but for the fact that a boy of his age that already had gray hair was astonishing to her. And unlike Rei who would keep quiet to herself, Kaworu seems the type to warm up to people. Perhaps maybe she... Mari didn't realize how long she was staring at Kaworu but her friend giggled in her ear.
"I see you got an eye for that young gentleman, eh Mari-Lovey?"
"What?" Mari turned with a surprise that her friend, who is normally a person of conservative type, would say something like that.
"You have been staring at Nagisa for five minutes. When a girl does that she is taking notes before going in for the kill. Trust me I know these things." Fawn gave her a wink.
"Notes? To the kill? Oh stop chewing crow! I barely even know the kid!"
"Kid what?" An angelic voice had popped in and the two girls looked towards the boy. Not only he sounded poetic in his voice, but appeared to be pure as if he was one too. The boy smiled and brushed away hair that was in the path of his eyesight to see the better of the girls. His red eyes had a paradoxical feel to them. While they have the will to make others to them with great respect, yet those eyes seem to have the power to connect with others and affection. Basically it gave him a loving feel to them.
"I noticed you two were looking towards my direction; you ladies seem to be of pure delight to be with. I figure as much I should talk to you a bit while we wait for our teacher to come." He said. His mannerism reminded Mari of Kaji only Kaji acted that way to gain something. This boy seems to just socialize a bit; Fawn giggled and Mari replied with a welcoming smile. "You two are Ms. Makinami and Ms. Yushi? Is that corrected?" Mari giggled toward his chivalry, unaware that Fawn was watching the two, smirking as the two talked a bit.
Suddenly Mari senses were heighten as she caught his scent. His scent for some reason seem to excited her a bit as she was getting goose-bumps. It can only be one thing LCL. She pondered how could this be possibly be, but she thought perhaps it was her scent. After all, she is always around that substance at work and she had a guilty habit of purposely of keeping the scent. Would this make him leave, as some people can't stand the smell? But the scent of the LCL is fresh, very fresh, so... The snow white child seemed perplexed of her sudden worrying.
"Are you okay, miss?" He asked. The white hart flutter his red eyes and smirked once more. Mari blinked out of her mental trance.
"What? Oh there is nothing wrong, I just remember something." Mari smiled as offer her hand to greet Kaworu and chuckled. "And no need to be formal my comrade. You can call me Mari and here Moro/Fawn. We are in the same class Kaworu."
"Comrade? Indeed we are as both you and I are in these environments." Kaworu chuckled as he shook her hand, as gentle and sweet as honey. "You sit with the class rep. and Ikari? At the middle section of the class?"
"Yep oh and you can call them Hikari and Shinji respectfully."
"Do you know where the teacher is?" He asked.
"I don't know." Mari scratched the back of her head. "Perhaps she forgot."
"Perhaps I didn't." And in comes a small, round belly lady. Mrs. Kasumi, the head of the service class. Usually she fills in as a substitute teacher but the school had also enroll her to advise and distribute the roles each student as in the class. Unlike most of the teachers in the school, she referred to the students by their first name. Today she had her clip-board with her. "Okay I am going to do this announcement change real quick since we lost some time. Okay from Monday we are going to change some assignments to certain people as I said. The changes include the following: The announcers for the war veteran's fundraiser would be Goro and Seita; patrol units in all the floors are Mana, Aoi, Megumi and Toshi. Bulletin board would be Moro and Honda. And for people collecting the donations for the homeless and the sick are Kaworu and Mari. Everyone else remain duty. And that's about it. Now let's get to work people!" Mari and Kaworu turned their heads toward each other.
"Well then, I guess I will be seeing with you Monday then." Kaworu smiled. Mari smiled back.
"Right. Perhaps we will know each other a bit more." Mari winked. The two children walked towards their job, as Fawn and Mari went to patrol their assign floor. Her fellow comrade was snickering as a jay when harassing a hawk.
"Well, well, it is as if the gods are in your hand!" Fawn said. "Silver and brown go really cute together!" Mari turned around, not amused to her friend's sudden immaturity level being sky-rocketed off the roof.
"Now I have lost all respect to you. Aren't you supposed to be the one that keeps her nose in her own business?"
"Well, well, Mari. We are girlfriends after all! I mean c'mon, ever since you have set foot in this school you never set eyes on a boy unless it was personal agenda." Fawn stated. "Personal agenda" was Fawn's secretive way of Mari and her friends' involvement in Nerv. Although the behind-the-scenes of the war between Human and Angel and the Evangelions was supposed to be classified from civilians, some people already knew them through discussion. And there was of course all the students praising and being envied the pilots, especially Kensuke. To majority of the kids they were different from the rest of everybody else. But to Fawn, the pilots were nothing but fellow members of her species; simply just another plain person, indifferent if someone was one or not. That's why Mari liked Fawn, because she was one of the few people that could care less. And she was getting sick and tired from the fan crowd (which unlike her sister who craved for the attention).
"Well..." Mari stifling an answer. "Sure I may have been blinded by the flirtations from the boys. And some of them are quite attractive, it's just that I am not looking for anybody at the moment. All of this "boyfriend/girlfriend" is just playing house. Why sometimes whenever Hikari and Toji are together, sometimes it gets kind of corny at times. And Asuka, well... you know her."
"Oh yeah." Fawn responded as swift as a horse kick. Coming from a different class she barely knew the people Mari hanged out. Only once or twice she had met them in person when Mari would go to her class once she was done with the service hour. They seemed nice though that was until Mari invited her over when it was their guardian's promotion. She was perplexed and horrified as the woman, Ms. Katsuragi, was passed out while there was an all brawl between her sister, Asuka, and one of the guys Toji, with the girlfriend Hikari acted as referee. The other boys, Shinji and Kensuke, the weirdest of the bunch, were chased around by a psycho, drunk and horny penguin all through the apartment. The boys were locked in the bathroom which Fawn and Mari had to tamed the savage beast with salmon and trout. The whole event was still etched in Fawn's mind and shook her head. From then on, she would say hello them, but Fawn wanted to stay away from them. Especially Asuka which still amazed Fawn; she is nothing at all like Mari as lacked the humble, caring person. Asuka was the bossy, ignorant and arrogant, and selfish. Fawn remembered how Asuka commented her dress at the party being tacky and would despite anyone who disagreed with her. She has to be the one that is right all the time, which made Fawn very angry. She disliked the German very much, but respected her for Mari's sake.
"She is not going to like it when I tell her." Mari paused as the thought of the rest of the day would. She made a heavy sighed and felt the comforting pat on the shoulder from her friend.
"Hey I am sure everything will be fine. You'll see. Good luck!"
"You and that albino would be working together?" Asuka asked. The two sisters walked home to Misato's together by themselves as the others had plans with themselves. Asuka was licking a cherry ice pop while Mari carried her bag filled with their homework for the weekend. Mari told her what happened in her class; the only thing she didn't tell her was his scent, figuring it was nothing. Asuka took a bite and chewed it in annoyance. It was a hot evening as usual and a chorus of cicadas were singing with their vibrating wings. Their song can be heard from miles and all around, but it was the norm these days that the children tend to ignore it. "This is a joke what we go through! We are two good for these boys and yet there is always someway we get hooked up with these losers!"
"Now Asuka, you make it sound like this is a bad thing. Besides there is nothing going to be between us. Sure we had gotten ourselves into situations in the past before and I can recollect a lot worse than this."
"Yeah, but we are superior to everyone else. After all we had a highly sophisticated man for a father!" Their father Taylor Langley was indeed a very sophisticated man and a brilliant scientist at best. He was highly respected by his peers and his daughters. Of course his daughters respected him as a man and a scientist and not as a father. Now was the time to not remember that man.
"That may be true, but I feel humble in front of others. I just feel everyone should be on the same bar of respect and rank. Besides I am not looking for anyone at the moment." The last piece of the cherry pop was finished off with Asuka chomping it off. She throw the stick to the ground and sighed. She loved her sister dearly, but sometimes she just couldn't understand Mari sometimes.
"Sometimes I feel bad for you; one of these days someone might abused your kindness." Asuka closed her eyes as she whistled a tune. Mari shook her head and stifled a chuckle.
"You worry too much." Mari took her sister and locked her head with her arm and gave her a noogie. Asuka pleaded and was not very thrilled with this while Mari continued to tease her. Innocent bystanders watched perplexed by the event that was unfolding. Once they realized they were attracting attention, the Mari stop. Asuka fixed her hair and attached her clips back on and she pointed her finger in the air.
"You know I hate noggies!"
"How could you not love them?"
"Well, you are the one not being noggied!"
"Of course! That is what an older sister must do! It is the law that oldest must play tricks in addition the responsibility of their youngest!" Mari was trying to change the subject as she had enough with discussing about boys today. Asuka, however, was not ready to call it quits. She huffed away and crossed her arms with her eyes closed.
"Back to the topic." Mari moaned. "You know who is a real man? Kaji!" Just saying the name made the redhead giggled and dreamy much to Mari's dismay as she rolled her eyes. Back with the Kaji routine.
"While he had watched over us until recently when Daddy was busy, don't you think he is a bit old? On top of that he and Misato might still be in love." Mari was treading on thin ice as she knows how much Asuka adored him. People have to agree with Asuka in every field in order for to give other's respect and by dismissing the idea of her and her "man" being a couple was sacrilegious to her ears. If Mari wasn't her sister Asuka would have smacked the English out of her.
"That's where you are wrong! Don't you hear Misato always chewing his ass off! Now that is a woman that is no idea what the Hell she is saying or doing. I bet you my life that Misato has carpet that is so dry because she doesn't have a good carpet cleaner to wash it up!" An image popped into Mari's head and face palmed herself.
"Really Asuka, must you say that?"
"What it's true! Who in their right mind would rather have a stupid penguin than a handsome, strong man?" Mari looked at her sister. While she loved Asuka dearly, she can't stand it how blind she is to people sometimes. She scratched her head and looked briefly at a pair of magpies on a gate together allopreening. Mari turned to look at her sister with her eyes that demanded answers as Asuka hooked with one of her eyebrows.
"Sometimes Asuka, people are funny animals. Just because Misato might act a certain way on the outside, doesn't mean it reflects on how she truly feels on the inside."
"Well it sure must be covered pretty deep within her. She gets annoyed whenever she sees him. On top of that she always would say something nasty behind his back."
"Perhaps she is angry about herself. I don't know why, but I get the feeling there were some decisions that she wished she never would have done in the past." Mari heard Asuka yawn shook her head in pity. A warm breeze blew into their hairs. They were like flags just weaving, dancing and waving to the wind with the brown pigtails and the red hair being lifted gently.
"You know, for an older sister, you sure never had experiences admiring a boy. I guess this albino will be a good thing." Asuka said, though she still wasn't sure if this set up would be a good thing. Mari rolled her eyes in annoyance again for the oomph time.
"I told you already, Kaworu and I are just friends." But even that sounded wrong to Mari. To consider someone that you barely know a friend is a pretty big step. But he does seem friendly enough and unlike the other boys, not rude and has swarthy look to him. Besides she grow pretty close to Shinji and the others in a matter of days so it shouldn't be a problem with Kaworu. And she didn't mind making new friends too. Asuka huffed at her sister as she placed her hands on her waist.
"Whatever you say, though I still have a funny feeling about this" She said to Mari.