Neon Genesis Evangelion is owned by Hideaki Anno, or Khara, or whoever has the rights at this moment.
English isn't my first language, so feel free to point out any typos and/or grammar mistakes you find.
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Broken Hands
It was a pre-Impact movie. From the late nineties, if she remembered correctly. Not that she cared much. Asuka just wanted something to distract her neurons while she ate the chips, her chosen dessert for the night.
The movements of her hand were mechanical, precise and somewhat lazy. From the bag to the mouth. Munch, munch, munch some more, swallow, and hand to the bag again. Rinse and repeat. All the while, the parts of her brain that weren't in off mode paid the bare minimum of attention to the movie. The plot was something about a cursed VHS tape that killed people seven days after watching it. Based on a novel, according to the TV guide.
She could hear the noises coming from the kitchen. Water running. Scrubbing. The clacking of wet plates being piled on top of one another. Normally, Asuka would yell at Shinji to keep it quiet; but, again, she wasn't all that invested in the movie. It was just the least boring thing to watch at the moment. Thus, she didn't react with her usual sigh of 'finally!' when the racket ceased, replaced by the muffled noise of a fourteen-year old boy drying his hands on a towel. She didn't react in any way when she heard his footsteps, or the door of his room opening and closing.
Asuka returned to a movie she hadn't truly left. The open bag of chips rested between her crossed legs. Her hands and mouth moved pretty much on autopilot.
Eventually, the snacks were finished before the film was. With no more incentive to remain there –the plot had somehow shifted into a conspiracy about psychic powers, which made Asuka roll her eyes– the girl stood up. She walked to the kitchen, threw the empty bag in the trash bin, and opened the sink tab to wash the salt off her fingers.
While she dried her hands with the only avaliable towel, Asuka noticed something in the yellow fabric: a red spot. Not exactly small, but not exceedingly large either. And another one, just a little away. And another one…
She stretched the towel, and saw a total of five red stains. Instantly, her attention shifted to her own hands, looking for any wounds; but she found none. They were as pristine and perfect as they should be, as it was expected from the pilot of Evangelion Unit-02.
Upon studying the spots again, she realized that the blood was dry. Most likely, it had been left there by the last person to use the towel.
The girl dropped it and bolted out of the kitchen. She reached his room in no time, and opened the door without bothering to knock first.
"Shinji!"
He was laying on his bed, listening to his SDAT player; but the redhead's sudden entrance made him jump so much that the earbuds fell. Asuka quickly noticed something dark on his hands. She approached him and grabbed them, pulling them closer to her face before the boy could ask what was going on
There were cuts all across the knuckles, some of them so wide that she could see the flesh underneath. The surrounding skin was black due to the now-dry blood.
No, not cuts. A more appropriate word would be… cracks.
Shinji winced when he felt Asuka squeezing his hands. He noticed that her arms were trembling. After gulping, he looked up, and met with the intense gaze of two blue, European eyes.
"Who did this?" she demanded to know.
The girl was showing her teeth, almost snarling.
"Who did this to you?" she insisted, her brow furrowed and almost spitting as she spoke. "Take me to them! I'll break their bones!"
"Nobody!" Shinji yelled as he yanked his hands free from hers. He backed away in his bed and turned his head, not wanting to face that furious glare, even if Asuka wasn't angry at him.
"Nobody," he repeated. "It's… It's something that has happened to me since I was a kid. When I get my hands wet, because I'm doing the dishes or cleaning the windows or whatever; they crack and bleed for a couple of days. I'll heal soon. I always do."
She stared at him, eyes wide, while her brain processed the information. Then, she put a hand on her chest as the anger disappeared from her face.
"Thank Gott!" the girl sighed in relief. "It's just xeroderma."
He tilted his head, giving her a confused look.
"What's that?" he asked.
Asuka raised an annoyed eyebrow, as she often did when, in her opinion, Shinji was being stupider than usual.
"Greek," she explained. "It means 'dry skin.' When you wash your hands too much, the skin looses moisture and it cracks."
"What? That doesn't make sense! Getting wet increases moisture!"
She shook her head and let out another sigh, this one much more exasperated and much more familiar to Shinji's ears.
"You really are a dummkopf," Asuka said. "The human skin contains water in its deeper layers, what's why it's soft. To keep it that way, the outer layer has natural oils that slow evaporation. When you wash your hands too often, you remove that oil, and thus the water content evaporates faster, the skin dries and…"
She stopped and blinked several times, in rapid succession; almost as if she had just realized an absurdity in the current situation. Her eyes locked onto Shinji's and they both sunk into an eerie silence.
It didn't last long. Asuka's brow furrowed again.
Her fists, clenched.
Teeth gritting.
Cheeks red, but not of embarrassment.
"Why am I explaining this to you?" she exploded. "Idiot! Idiot! You idiot! You made me worry for nothing!"
The girl turned around and stomped out of the room, as energetically as she had come in, but thrice as upset. She even slammed the door so hard that it bounced back, and ended up open again.
Shinji just looked down. One of his hands was clutching the blanket. He bit his lower lip. Asuka's screams still rang in his mind. The boy turned around and curled up in his bed, rubbing his broken hands. He put the earbuds on, but music gave him little solace.
Nobody seemed to give too much importance to the brief tantrum. Such occurrences were the usual in the Katsuragi household. The night came and went, and so did the morning at school and the afternoon at Nerv; but the event wasn't mentioned. The two participants addressed each other as they always did, to the point that no outside observer could've ever guessed what had transpired the previous day.
Sitting at the kitchen table, Shinji struggled with yet more physics problems. Pen-pen was sleeping inside his fridge, Misato wouldn't be home until very late and Asuka had gone with Hikari to the mall; so he was alone. Not that he minded, of course. It meant fewer distractions to do homework that was already taking too long, in big part due to the itching in his hands. He gazed at his knuckles and grimaced. The cracks had gotten worse. A couple of them were even bleeding at the moment, sending tiny but annoying pangs of pain every time the adjacent finger moved. Biting his lower lip, he did his best to ignore it, focusing on the task instead.
He didn't know how much time had passed, nor did he really care; when the apartment door opened.
"I'm home," Asuka said.
"Welcome home," Shinji replied, not taking his eyes off the notebook.
Not too long after that, someone put something on the table, at his left. He looked, and saw a small plastic bottle, white with blue stripes.
And, just behind it, standing still and waiting, a plastic bag hanging from her arm; was Asuka.
"What's that?" he asked.
"Moisturizing cream," she explained. "Rub it on your hands and they will heal faster."
His eyes went from the bottle to her, and back to the bottle, a few times. Shinji grabbed it. 'For dry and cracked hands,' it said, right under a brand name he didn't recognize. He turned it around and started to read the ingredients.
Letting out a groan of impatience, Asuka took the bottle from him and sat at his left. Without wasting a second, she opened it and poured a large drop of the translucent cream on the tip of her fingers.
"Hand," she demanded.
Shinji complied, although not without his doubts. The girl applied the cream onto his knuckles, but as soon as she did so, he recoiled, wincing.
"It itches," he complained.
"Of course it does," Asuka said, "because you let them get this bad. I don't know how you are capable of even grabbing a pencil. Just look at it! Your knuckles are almost completely black and red! Now get back here!"
She pulled his hand closer, and continued with the treatment. The itching returned, and Shinji clenched his teeth. However, as the cream was spread, that uncomfortable sensation disappeared. All that remained was the feeling of Asuka's fingers on her knuckles, moving in circles, making sure that each and every crack received its dose of lotion. Her touch was gentle, an adjective he'd thought he would never apply to the fiery German pilot.
"The other hand."
More itching, but since Shinji knew that it wouldn't last, it didn't bother him. He let it come and go, and once again, he shivered a little at the sensation of her fingertips massaging his skin.
A part of him didn't want her to stop.
"How do you know so much about this xero-thing?" he asked.
Asuka stopped. Her touch lost gentleness for an instant, and Shinji swore he saw her lips trembling. Without answering, the girl resumed applying the lotion. He didn't try to initiate another conversation, and they spend almost a minute in an uncomfortable silence.
When she finished, Asuka stood up, walked to the kitchen's counter, behind Shinji; and grabbed a napkin to clean her own fingers.
"The same thing happened to my mother," she explained.
Shinji didn't turn to look at her. His mind recovered the memory of that one night…
Mama…
"She would let me help her with the moisturizing cream," the girl continued. "We always used the same brand. You don't have it here, that's why I asked Hikari to come with me to the mall, to help me find a good one."
Hearing her steps approaching, Shinji dared to look up, at his fellow pilot. He was expecting to see, perhaps, some sadness of melancholy in those blue eyes. Maybe a reminder of that night, now so distant that, sometimes, Shinji wondered if he had just dreamed it. However, all he found was the same Asuka as always. Confident. Proud. Not a tinge of doubt or gloom in her face. Unbreakable.
"Now wait for the cream to be absorbed," she said. "Don't worry, it won't take long."
Shinji studied his own hands. His housemate had done a thorough job of spreading the lotion. His fingers and knuckles felt sticky.
"I don't think I can do my homework like this," he complained.
"Well," Asuka smirked, nodding at the plastic bag still dangling from her arm. "It just so happens that I also bought a new videogame. You can watch me play it. Unless, of course, you'd rather stare at a wall."
He shrugged, which both interpreted as a 'yes.' Sitting on the living room's couch, Shinji waited while the girl changed into more comfortable clothes. He kept his hands raised at all times, waiting for the lotion to be absorbed and for the sticky sensation to disappear.
The game was an RPG, the latest entry on a series which Shinji wasn't too familiar with. Neither was Asuka, but apparently there was no continuity between titles, so it didn't matter. She plopped down next to him while the opening credits flashed through the screen. Not caring about who had worked in the game, her thumb pressed the Start button.
"The main character kinda looks like you," she snorted. "What should we name him?"
"I don't know," Shinji mumbled, turning his head away, just a little. 'We?' he thought. 'You are the one playing.'
Asuka threw a side glance at him, which the boy missed. Huffing a little, she returned her attention to the game.
"Well, since you don't have any preferences, let's see if 'dummkopf' fits… Oh mein Gott, it does!" her laughter filled the apartment. "Oh, this is great! The adventures of Dummkopf the Hero! Okay, which class do you want, Third? There's Fighter, Mage, Cleric… Hey, what does that kanji mean?"
Such were their interactions for the following half an hour or so. Although Asuka remained at the wheel at all times, she often asked for Shinji's input. Naming each and every party member, choosing between dialogue options, selecting which spells to cast during battle; or simply translating whatever texts she didn't understand. All the while, the German girl kept making jokes, trying to stir a reaction in her housemate.
Shinji just sat there, not looking at her more than strictly necessary. He wasn't even paying attention to the screen. His gaze shifted between some point in the floor and his hands, which had almost finished absorbing the cream and didn't feel sticky anymore. Well, not too much.
The sound of the game being paused took him out of his musings.
"Alright, Third," he heard Asuka grumbling. "What's eating you?"
Even though he still wasn't looking at her, he knew that she was scowling.
"Is the game that boring?" the girl continued. "Or is it me who isn't funny enough? Seriously, I can't believe it! Here I am, trying to cheer you up a bit, and you don't eve–"
"Please, stop doing this."
The tone in which he spoke cut Asuka's rant like a knife, killing whatever she was going to say next. His voice was hostile, even with the 'please.'
She looked at him, her face reflecting the shock in her soul, but Shinji didn't see it. He just stood up, his gaze far away from her.
But Asuka recovered quickly from the surprise.
"What are you talking about?" she asked. "Stop doing what, exactly?"
Shinji turned, so that she could see his face, but his eyes remained fixated on the ground.
"Yesterday," he said, "when you thought that someone had hurt me, you got angry for me. You sounded even worried. Today, you bought that cream to heal my hands and now you're trying to make me laugh. You're making jokes and playing a videogame, as if everything was fine and we were long-time friends… But I know that, as soon as I do something you don't like, you will insult me. You will yell at me. If you think I'm doing something perverted, you will even hit me," his fists were shaking. Were not for the dried blood, perhaps Asuka would've seen his knuckles going white. "I hate it."
The girl remained silent. She couldn't find any reply, retort or comeback for her mouth to spit. Not that Shinji gave her time to do so, anyway. He turned her back to her and started to walk away, towards his room, slouching and almost dragging his feet.
After circling the couch, he stopped. Still not looking back, he spoke one more time:
"Thanks for helping me with my hands. I am truly grateful for that, but… Please, Asuka, stop. If you hate me, you don't have to pretend. Just say it."
And he resumed his walk, leaving behind a girl in a silent room.
After a few gloomy steps, he heard her voice:
"You stupid, self-centered, insufferable BRAT!"
And a cushion hit the back of his head. Even though it was soft, it had been thrown with so much strength that the impact hurt a little. Shinji stopped, but refused to turn around.
If he had, he would've seen Asuka up on her feet. A pulsating vein was becoming visible on her forehead. Her eyes, which had shrunk into a tiny fraction of her original size, glared at his back with what an intent that could only be described as 'nigh murderous.' Although they twitched a bit, she didn't blink. It almost seemed as if she wanted to set him on fire with the power of her mind.
What happened, instead, was that she stabbed his soul with the power of her words:
"I try being nice to you, and this is how you repay me?!" she hurled another cushion at him. Shinji didn't react. "This is what I receive for caring about your stupid skin condition?!"
Other than a mumble, Asuka got no reaction from him, so she grabbed the third and last cushion and threw it, this time hitting his shoulder.
"Don't ignore me, brat!" she roared.
Nothing. Letting rage control her movements, the girl picked a nearby thick magazine. Shinji winced and hissed when the plastic spine clashed against the back of his head, but did nothing else.
"There you go," she spat, "running away again. Crybaby. A selfish crybaby, that's what you are!" the girl searched for more projectiles. When she found none, she swatted the TV controller away with her hand. The batteries fell off when it hit the ground. Uncaring about the object, Asuka continued with her assault: "You want everyone to be nice to you. You want others to pat you on the head, but as soon as things go a little awry, as soon as something doesn't conform to your perfect pretty fantasies; you act like a jackass! "
"It's not that!" Shinji protested, his voice rising a bit. "I…I just can't take it anymore, Asuka! Sometimes you're nasty, sometimes you act normal…" he had wanted to say 'nice,' but his subconscious prevented him from using that word. "It makes me feel like I'm your toy, that you play with me and you break me as you please, and I don't like it! It hurts!"
"And now you're a hypocrite! Is that any different from what your father does?"
The boy's whole body stiffened. Asuka heard him gasping, and a smirk, one not devoid of cruelty, appeared on her lips.
"Touch a nerve there, did I?" she said, knowing that it was a low blow, but too angry to stop. "Yes, your father. I've been doing my research. I know that he abandoned you and that you barely spoke in ten years."
She could see him trembling. Asuka paid no mind to the shaking of her own clenched fists and continued:
"I know that he called you just to put you in a robot you had never seen before. I know that he threw you to the lions without any training, and not only did you accepted, you stayed. Pathetic," she made sure to put extra venom in that last word. "What? Because he said 'I'm proud of you' that one time, all is forgiven? Tell me, did he ever check if you were fine after the attack of the Eleventh Angel? Or after your accident in Unit-00? Has he even acknowledged your presence in these past days? No. No, he hasn't. He hasn't…" something wet itched in her eyes, but she ignored it. "Where's your anger at that, Third?! Where's your hatred?!" she squeezed her eyes shut as she shook her head. "Why does it upset you so much when I do it, but not when he does it?!"
"Because I don't care about him!"
All of Asuka's anger halted. The next hurtful words became stuck in her throat, and even if they hadn't, her lips would've refused to let them out. All the insults and retorts she had prepared in her mind were now useless, for she had never expected him to say anything like that.
"I used to," the boy mumbled, "but not anymore."
And he disappeared down the corridor. Asuka stood there, unmoving, her fury extinguished like a weak candle's flame in a blizzard. Her mouth opened and closed a few times, but her dry lips produced no sound. She didn't avert her gaze from the spot where Shinji had been, blinking only the bare minimum, to keep her eyes moist.
As her brain restarted and the chaotic whirlpool of her thoughts became clearer, the silence around her felt heavier and colder. She hugged herself, but that provided little to no comfort. Perhaps for the first time in her life, her flight instinct didn't activate. As if her feet had been nailed to the floor by invisible tacks, Asuka just couldn't run to the nearest room, no matter how much she wanted it. Maybe she knew that it would be futile, that she could not escape from her own thoughts.
She gritted her teeth as she remembered everything that her fellow pilot had said, and her lips trembled when she thought about what he hadn't said. The wet, itchy and salty sensation in her eyes returned.
"Idiot…" the girl mumbled, shivering. "Idiot. Idiot. You idiot."
For once, she wasn't talking about Shinji.
Misato never suspected of her wards' quarrel, in part because the two teenagers did their best to pretend that everything was normal. When it came the time to sit down and eat dinner, Shinji and Asuka acted like it was just any other night. Plus, he had tidied the living room before cooking, to hide all the evidence. Misato did notice that they seemed a little bit colder with each other than usual; but she didn't think too much about it. She assumed that they were upset, that perhaps they'd had one of their usual, harmless fights.
Dinner was over, eventually. Asuka returned to her room, saying that she was tired and wanted to go to bed sooner. After doing the dishes and applying some more of the moisturizing cream; Shinji did the same, leaving Misato in the kitchen, with no more company than Pen-pen and some cans of beer.
He was still awake when he heard her walking, wearily and drunk, to her room, turning off all the apartment's lights on the way. In the sepulchral silence of his room, Shinji could even hear the noise of his guardian as she collapsed on her futon, a few thin walls away of him. The boy didn't react to that. He remained still, in bed, laying on his left side. His knuckles still felt sticky due to the lotion, but at least they didn't itch nor hurt anymore. The pilot of Unit-01 sighed in the darkness, his eyes open even though they couldn't see anything; and kept thinking about the events of the afternoon. He replayed them in his mind, listening again to what he had said to Asuka, and pondering about all the confusing and contradictory emotions stirred by that memory.
Shinji thought about her, as well. A part of him wanted to apologize, as he always did. Another part wanted to avoid her as much as possible. He wanted to go to her room and talk to her, even through a closed door. He wanted to run away. He wanted to go back in time and do things differently. He wanted to get truly angry at her. He wanted to…
The sound of his door opening put a stop to his contemplation. Dim light from the corridor dispelled the darkness of his room. He recognized the noise of bare feet approaching.
The bed stirred when someone laid next to him. He could feel warmth on his back, human warmth. Although he had a pretty good idea of who it was, Shinji started to roll over nonetheless. He needed to confirm it with his own eyes.
"Don't turn around."
Asuka's voice stopped him dead in his tracks. It didn't surprise him, though.
"How are your hands?" she asked. Shinji noticed that, while his words weren't drenched in neither the anger nor the venom from that afternoon, they didn't sound friendly.
Similar to how he had sounded, hours ago.
"Better," he answered. "I applied more cream a while ago."
"Good."
And she said nothing more.
Despite the warmth irradiated by her body, Shinji shivered. He could feel a knot forming in his stomach. There she was, so close, just as he had wished just a moment ago. Alas, the parts of his mind that called for her, to either apologize or scream, had shut down. All that remained was a terrified little boy, assaulted by feelings he did not understand and exhausted by the lack of sleep.
Unbeknownst to him, the redhead's presence there was the result of her own episode of insomnia and confusing emotions. Since the end of dinner, Asuka had been twisting and turning in her bed, unable and unwilling to forget their fight. Her blood boiled every time he thought of Shinji's words, of how he had spit at her act of kindness. She wanted to slap him, to kick him, to hit him, to snarl at him and to tell him that he made her sick.
And yet, at the same time, she was a little happy. A little proud of him, even. As weird as it could seem, she was glad that Shinji had reacted that way.
He had stood up for himself. He had stood up to her. The boring little boy had displayed the courage and initiative she knew he had, deep inside his heart. The same courage that had made him jump into an active volcano to save her.
But why did he have to show that bravery, that initiative, just to reject her kindness?
No. Asuka knew why. Or, at least, she suspected why. And that suspicion was more than enough to make her feel something else: guilt. Therefore, with her emotions becoming a jumble of chaos and confusion; she had decided to pay Shinji a visit, in the hopes that, somehow, his company could help her.
"Asuka," he called, after a while. "I… I'm…"
'There he goes again,' she thought 'Always apologizing. Always the coward.' The girl was hit by a wave of disappointment, and considered standing up and going away before he could say the two words she despised so much.
She sighed, defeated. Her hopes were absurd. He couldn't help her. He couldn't even help himself.
"I'm… I'm not sorry for what I said; but I'm sorry for how I said it. I shouldn't have lashed out at you like that."
Her movements stopped. Asuka held her breath, just for an instant. Involuntarily, she let out a tiny yet audible gasp of surprise. She licked her lips when these grew dry, and swallowed a lump that had formed in her throat.
For the second time that day, she saw his courage, peeking from under the layers of fear and low self-esteem.
"So," she whispered. "You meant all that."
"Yes."
Asuka curled up on her side of the bed. A part of her wanted to go away, to return to the safety and privacy of her own room, albeit for different reasons than just a moment ago. She clutched at the blanket, perhaps in an attempt to anchor herself to his bed. The pilot of Unit-02 reunited enough courage to ask a question she wasn't sure she wanted to know the answer to:
"Do you hate me, Shinji?"
She heard the change in the rhythm of his breathing. She could even feel his body growing tenser. The girl was sure that, if she were to look, she would see him trembling.
Time seemed to slow down to an eternity, until he spoke:
"I don't hate you. I don't want to hate you, but… you make it so difficult sometimes. The way you act… it confuses me. It hurts me. I don't like it. I want to understand you, but I need your help. I want us to be friends."
Asuka turned her head, just a little, barely an inch.
"Just friends?" she asked.
Another moment of silence. Another forever in slow-passing seconds.
His reply was little more than a whisper:
"I don't want you to go away."
The girl huffed, not bothering to hide her discontent. That wasn't the answer she had hoped for. She didn't know which one she wanted, she only knew that it wasn't that one.
But, perhaps, it was the answer that she deserved. Why would he say anything else, anything more meaningful, after the way she had treated him? 'You reap what you sow, you stupid girl,' she thought. 'And consider yourself lucky.'
Shinji wasn't sure if Asuka had heard him, but he found no courage to repeat those words. He felt like a soul at the time of Judgement, waiting for the trumpet that would sound either his salvation or his damnation.
When a body pressed against his back, he held his breath. Asuka put an arm over him, and her hand covered his. Her fingers caressed his still cracked knuckles.
Gentle. Like before.
"I don't hate you either," the girl said.
"Then…" at the warmth of her touch, Shinji found the courage to continue speaking, in spite of his fear and his nervousness. "Then, why? Why do you those things?"
Her breathing tickled the back of his neck, but he didn't mind.
"I got hurt a long time ago."
Mama…
"I got hurt a long time ago," Asuka repeated. "I don't want to feel that pain again. Sometimes you hurt me, and I attack to protect myself. I can't help it."
"I hurt you?" he blinked. "How? What do I do?"
"It's not what you do, it's what you don't. You don't do anything."
The accusation caused Shinji's bile to stir. 'How can she say that?' he thought. 'I don't do anything? Who does the dishes, the laundry and all the other housechores, so that she doesn't have to? Who takes care of everything around the apartment, so that she can sprawl on the couch and watch television every night? Who gets up the earliest, to prepare both breakfast and our lunch boxes?'
The kid wanted to slap her hand away and give voice to all those thoughts; but he bit his tongue. He had already lashed out at her once, doing it again would resolve nothing. He couldn't waste that chance that the universe had given them, in an uncharacteristic act of cosmic mercy. Thus, Shinji pondered about her words, trying to understand them.
To understand her.
He saw himself at the many different chores. Laundry. Garbage. Cooking. Grocery shopping. What was wrong with any of that? He was just making sure that the place was tidy and nice for his housemates. How could Asuka accuse him of 'not doing anything'? After all, it was him who always washed the dishes after every meal, without protesting or asking for help, diligently, his back always turned to…
"You won't even look at me," the girl mumbled.
No, he wouldn't. Not at her, not at Misato. The dishes would always get his full attention, even if there weren't all that many, even when he was so familiar with them he could do it blindfolded. He also realized that, sometimes, he would purposely do it slow, so that he could spend more time there, away from everything else. It was not a task; it was a refuge, a place for him to ignore everyone around him. A safe space where he could hide and be loved all the same, because he was helping. Because he was useful. That was enough, right?
Right?
Shinji admitted, to himself, that he hadn't just been doing the dishes; he had also been running away. And what had he gained by doing that? Just broken hands.
Asuka retired her arm. The boy wondered how long he had been pondering, and dreaded that his silence had given her the wrong impression. With resolve born from the revelation, Shinji started to turn around, slowly, making sure that she knew what he was about to do. If Asuka told him to stop, he would stop, and that would be the end of it.
She didn't.
Shinji rolled over and looked at her. Curled like a baby in a crib, she seemed much smaller and fragile than usual. Head down, her eyes were hidden behind locks of red hair, and yet he could feel a faint sadness emanating from the girl. Her hands were together, close to her chest, almost as if she was praying.
The same hands that so proudly held the controls of Evangelion Unit-02, so powerful, so full of confidence; now appeared broken too, despite having no cracks or wounds. Broken in a different way, perhaps.
His hands wrapped hers. Shinji felt them trembling at his touch. He was shaking a bit as well.
"I'm looking at you now, Asuka."
She raised her head, and their gazes met. For an instant that lasted too long for both of them, they experienced the most frightening of terrors, but also the most encouraging drop of hope.
"I…" Shinji said. "I can't promise you that I'll know how to help you, but I can promise that I will try. I will try my best. So, if you need to talk about something, about anything… I'll be here. I will listen. I won't run away."
Asuka's eyes widened. Her mouth opened a bit, but she didn't let out any sound.
He looked deep, deep into those blue irises; and thought he saw something.
A little girl, scared and hurt long ago, breaking free from one of her many chains made of anger and fake self-confidence.
"Do you mean it?" Asuka asked. "Do you really mean it?"
"I do. Whenever you want to talk, I'll be here."
She looked deep, deep into those dark blue irises; and thought she saw something.
A little boy, scared and abandoned long ago, breaking free from one of his many chains made of cowardice and loneliness.
Asuka lowered her head, hiding her eyes once more, and squeezed Shinji's hands.
Gentle.
"Thanks," she whispered, "but not today. Maybe tomorrow, or maybe…" she shook her head. "I don't know when, but one day. I promise."
"It's alright."
Neither of them was trembling anymore. There were no knots in stomachs, no lumps in throats… Confused feelings? Yes, but not as much as before. Maybe that's why Asuka, as he looked at him again, dared to say a certain word she had been avoiding for most of her life:
"Sorry."
This time, Shinji was the one left speechless, and with eyes as saucers.
"Sorry for throwing stuff at you," she continued. "Sorry for yelling all those things. But most importantly, sorry for hurting you. I'll… I'll try not to do it anymore, I'll really try, and I mean it. Also, sorry for calling you a brat. You aren't one."
"Well," a small sigh escaped his lips. "I'm not so sure about that. I think I am a bit of a brat sometimes."
"In that case," she chuckled, "I'm an even bigger brat."
Those words seemed to lift a burden from their shoulders and a veil from their souls. They were no longer the Second and Third Children, the pilots of the Evangelion and the saviors of the world. They didn't need to be, at least for the night. They were just Shinji and Asuka, broken kids who, after a lifetime, had found someone else who understood of shattered things.
"Thanks," he smiled. "Thank you, Asuka."
She smiled back.
"Thank you, Shinji. Now, let's go to sleep," she said, closing her eyes.
"Okay. Good night."
Just two broken kids.
"Gute Natch. And don't forget to apply the cream tomorrow."
"I won't."
Although, if broken hands can be healed…
"And no funny business."
"Of course."
Then, maybe…
"But… you can keep holding my hands, if you want."
Asuka's smile was wide. Warm. Happy. For the first time in many years, truly happy.
"I'd love to."
And so was Shinji's.
THE END
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This has been my attempt at a more serious Asushin story, one that ends not with a kiss, but with the hope of a mutual understanding (and kisses) in the near future.
At first I had my doubts about publishing this one. Because we all have to wash our hands more often due to the pandemic, I thought it would be in poor taste. However, the good people at the Asushin discord, especially fellow author Boreas Anemos, convinced me to do it. So, many thanks to them for their help and support.
And thanks to you for reading it. I hope you liked it.