Interlude III
An hour after the battle, you return home. You do not change out beforehand, and the walk to the train station and from the train station to the apartment is done in your plugsuit. People see you but don't give you any mind—the city is still largely on fire, begetting emergencies and curiosities beyond what a teenage girl is doing in the middle of the street in a form-fitting suit.
The apartment block is untouched. You enter the home and walk through the kitchen, scooting the penguin aside with your shin, squelching its begging squawk. You throw open the door to the veranda and step out.
The sun is gone, but the city is still lit by strobing emergency vehicles and the rushing flames of its own immolation. The fires are under control, to your eyes—supervised burns under the watch of fire prevention units.
You smell the smoke. Beyond it, you smell your own hair, your own skin. Your suit. All still reek of LCL and the copper stench of the Angel's blood. You smell it on your face and hands, and when you look at your reflection in the veranda door, you see the cracked, red smear across your face.
When you shower, it will all be gone. By the morning, you will be clean. The city will be clean, too—free of flames. People will come out again. Eventually, even the scorched trees in the GeoFront will be cleared and replanted. Life will go on. Time will, if not erase, then at least reduce your achievement, each repair rendering increasingly unreal the reality you have carved for yourself.
Before you sleep, you lay awake, eyes closed. Flakes of dried blood pepper your sheets, and your plugsuit squeaks when you roll over. It is uncomfortable. You feel too hot, despite the ceiling fan on high, but you enjoy it nonetheless. Breathing deep, you ride the rhythmic waves of pain-memory that flood your skull and arm, feel the aches ebb and swell in time to your breathing. They become a lullaby of sorts, and before long, despite your protestations, sleep takes you.
((()))
In the dream, you stand in the sunlight in someone else's shoes, but they feel like your shoes. The dress feels like yours, too, even though you've never worn it before. Your hair clings to your neck, shorter than you've ever worn it, and you don't recognize the mountains or the lake or the trees, even though they're all around. And within you, something special. Something new and unexpected and scary.
You know you'll keep it—have known ever since the plus sign materialized on that strip. You wondered if you would have doubts, but you don't. You've never met the kid, never even felt it kick inside you, but you knew the moment that sign popped up that you loved it. You'll always love it.
The man responsible for that plus sign is next to you. He's unaware of his responsibility—unaware that he'll soon be a father. He unpacks the lunches from his backpack. You know he didn't want to go on this hike. He's never said it, but he hates hiking. Still, he's here nonetheless, and you wonder if that's enough. Just being here. That says a lot, doesn't it?
You wonder if you love him. You wonder if you'll keep him. You wonder if you'll tell him, or just leave. You could leave if you wanted to.
"Sandwich," he says. His German is stilted but he's trying. You smile and nod and take the sandwich from him. You stand up and walk to the edge of the little mountain lake and look down into the water. Your reflection looks back at you, three faces in one—a mother long gone, a daughter yet to be, and the blood-red face of a false god, its four eyes lit white.
He walks over next to you. Puts a hand around your waist. You look at his face and figure you'll tell him soon. It wouldn't be right to keep it from him. If you marry him, will you take his name, or will your child bear it herself?
He looks at you, and raises an eyebrow. "What?"
You kiss him. A bit of sandwich ends up at the corner of his lip. You laugh, he laughs, and you decide that you love him enough, at least for now.
Langley Soryu. Doesn't sound so bad.
((()))
Your eyes open, and you're just you again. The clock on your bedside says 1:00 PM. It's the next day. You slept through to the afternoon. Your eye doesn't hurt. Your arm doesn't hurt. The sweat in your hair and inside your suit has overpowered the metallic tang, and everything is dry. Sheets peel back and you roll out of bed.
Your feet hold you in front of Shinji's room for a minute. Your ears listen. No sound from within. He's not home.
Misato's room is open and empty. You're alone, so you shed your plugsuit in the kitchen, letting it fall to the tile, and walk into the shower. The sweat and grime and the last remnants of your triumph are washed away in the downpour, sent gurgling down the metal throat between your feet. Why do you hate this so much? It couldn't last forever, that feeling of victory. Is this who you are? The kind of girl who kicks and fights and insults everyone in her life, just when things go her way?
You stand in the hot water and try to recall the dream. It fades fast, becomes a fleeting impression, and slips between your fingers the more you try to focus it down. You give up. It was about your mother, somehow, but it won't come back to you. Nothing specific.
You move your foot along the tile, through the water, and remember sloshing it through the blood, kicking it into Shinji while he clambered away from you, his forearms up in defense. Is that who you are? You kick the boy who said he loved you? You blame him when he's just trying to make things right?
Water runs down your biceps and across your forearms. You owe him an apology, you realize. Fingers curl into fists. Water runs across your knuckles.
You owe him an apology, Asuka. You mean, stupid girl.
Your knuckles smack against the tile. Pain blooms through your hand. It hurts like hell, but maybe you deserve it, so you do it again. Again. Again. Again.
You look at your hand. The knuckles are red. Maybe they'll bruise. Maybe they won't. But the thoughts of apologies are gone from your mind. At least for now.
You turn off the nozzle, grab a towel, step out. When you walk into the kitchen, towel around you, the plugsuit has moved from the floor to the kitchen table. Shinji? The name goes through your head, unbidden. Maybe he's home?
"I'll take that in with me tonight," Misato says, re-entering the kitchen from her bedroom. She has her jacket off and her blouse partly unzipped. She fishes a glass out of the cupboard and fills it with water from the sink. Her eyes are tired. She leans against the counter and drinks.
Standing across from her, you recall the conversation, months ago now, where she first handed you a glass of wine.
You want to talk to her. You want to figure a way out of the little box you've built for yourself, but you don't know how. "What's wrong with you?" you say. It's an attempt.
"Tired," Misato says. "We've been working since you left. Fixing everything."
"Where's Shinji?"
"I don't know. Not here." Misato shrugs. "I don't know what he'll do now."
She sips her water and doesn't offer more. You adjust your towel, cinching it tighter around your body. Her silence feels like an accusation, or maybe you just want it that way—an excuse to justify yourself.
"He deserved that," you say. "He had no right to come down and interfere after he already decided to quit."
"He was trying to help you, Asuka."
"I don't need his help."
"Maybe you do," Misato says.
"What the hell does that mean?" you shout.
"You hurt him, Asuka. You hurt his feelings pretty badly."
You wince and speak to purge the shame. "Oh, his poor little feelings are hurt? Good! The least he should be able to handle is a little tough love. We're at war, after all. If he can't handle me telling him the truth, then he's no good to me anyway."
Misato doesn't look at you. At first you think she's ashamed. She stares at the table in front of her and sips the last of her water, and you see it clearer. Not shame. Disinterest.
"Are we?" Misato says.
"Are we what?"
"At war." Misato shakes her head. "I used to believe that, but the more I learn about this place, and about Nerv, the less I think so."
You don't know what to do with that, so you stay silent.
"Wars aren't fought to extinction. They're fought between nations, between adversaries who have more temporary goals. But this, what we do? It's all or nothing. And the Evas are weapons, yes, and I have a rank, yes, but the Angels aren't our enemy. Not really."
"Then what are they?"
"Storms, mostly. Disasters. Walking catastrophes. In whatever history they write of this time, I hope they don't call it 'the Angel War'. It's a disaster—a crisis. A massive crisis of faith. The Angels arrive to exterminate us, and in our efforts to stop them, they bring out the best and worst in our nature."
Your eyes narrow. "What is that supposed to mean?"
"I don't know. Probably that I'm too tired to think." Misato tosses her empty glass into the sink. "Just, the longer I fight these things, the more I see parts of myself reflected in them, and the less great I feel about destroying them."
"I don't have a problem destroying them," you say.
"Then perhaps you aren't seeing your reflection clearly enough." Misato walks away, toward her bedroom. "I'm going to sleep for an hour. Clean up won't clean itself."
And you are alone in the kitchen.
((()))
School starts up three days after the battle, on a Thursday, and you decide to go. You could probably skip—Misato has been gone almost every morning before you even wake up—but you go anyway. There isn't anything for you to do around the house but sit, and the more you sit, the more thoughts gather at the periphery of your mind, threatening to encroach.
One time, in the letter you wrote him, you told Shinji that most people didn't count. That they were options. When you wrote it, your list of essential people who really counted was pretty short, and had been pretty short for a long, long time. Now, it's even shorter, but you're less proud than you should be.
As you enter the classroom, the last person to be on-time, you realize that the list is basically blank. Hikari might count, but she doesn't get you, not really, and when you think of being close with her, you just remember the feeling of staying the night at her house when she clearly wanted you elsewhere. The memory makes your skin crawl, and you think of anything else to blot it out.
Today, Hikari doesn't even meet your eyes. When you see her look away, you get the feeling that she's owed something—an apology or a hug. Maybe both. But the thought of giving her either is more discomforting than the memory of you laying in her bedroom, forcing yourself to be there. Thus, she's gone. Off the list. Into the bin of people who don't count.
You take your seat, and the day begins. Your return to school feels like a year ago, even though it's only been a week. Part of returning was a stipulation that you make up all the work you missed in the time off.
This means you are late on everything—science, history, mathematics, and composition. You handle the first three without difficulty. While the teacher drones on, your desk becomes a hive of activity. Three textbooks open at once. You blitz through a multi-week backlog in a single day, and when you turn them in, you get A's across the board.
The composition work comes last. Two essays. You're dreading both. Certainly, these will be the death of your grade. Kanji—always your weak spot.
You start with the computer. The word processor usually catches the worst of your mistakes, but it is still frustrating. Verbs won't conjugate, infinitives are everywhere, and your ideas bumble into each other in a constant stream of fragments and run-ons while you ramble like an uneducated stupid idiot immigrant. Before thirty minutes are up, you slam the laptop shut and place it under your desk with a huff. The kid next to you notices, and you glare him into submission.
You sit for minutes, hand on your head, staring at the clock, and the window, and over at Ayanami—who is also staring out the window. For a moment, Ayanami's gaze swivels across you. It passes and ends up behind you. You check behind you and see that she's looking at Kensuke Aida. He smiles back, and your stomach turns.
You look away, down at your supplies. Focus on the assignment, you tell yourself. Ignore them. They're idiots, anyway. Just more optional morons.
The laptop was an impediment, not a help, so you pull out your notebook. Your brain tells you it won't work, either—it'll just slow you down. In college, you could type better than you could write. It won't be any different here.
It is only when you start writing that you realize you know more of the kanji than you once thought. You remember your attic as a kid, the old boards and smell of dust, where you used to crawl around between the scantlings to get away from your father and step-mother—the original optional people. The boxes are clear in your mind, all made of matte green cardstock, the Gehirn logo emblazoned on their lids. Within, papers—scrawled in your mother's slanted kanji.
They always felt like artifacts of a lost civilization, written in a dead language. You flipped through them for hours, trying to find in their nonsense markings some secret. To what, you were never sure. Maybe you wanted to know her better, to see who she was before she became a face behind a pane of glass. Maybe you wanted to find something of yourself there, too, some magical transliteration of who you were and who you ought to be. Either way, it never worked. In reality, you never could read them.
In memory, however, you remember the language like it is your own. Your pencil scrawls in that same slant, and the words start coming without difficulty. It feels like you've always known this language, these characters. Like it's suddenly your native tongue.
Funny, that. Maybe you should've always used a pencil.
The essays don't take long.
((()))
Oil, pink and frothy, burbles up beyond armored glass, and your eyes follow it up, up, up until it vanishes. The oil is partly an organic compound, and even divorced from it by the observation booth, you know its smell from experience: like fresh fish. Your Evangelion is submerged in the stuff. As you watch, divers move around its damaged head, injecting soluble growth compounds and welding fresh cranial supports into place.
One week since the battle. Misato is with you. So is Dr. Akagi. So are roughly two dozen other technicians. You don't know their names. None of them count.
Akagi looks at you. "I'm getting in the habit of repairing Unit 02 these days."
"It's your job," you tell her. The words sound meaner than you want them to, but not by much. "How much longer until it's ready?"
Akagi's eyes flit to Misato, and you anticipate an awkward answer.
"Around a month," Misato says. "Give or take."
"What? Why?"
"Simply put? Supply and demand." Akagi shakes her head. "I've only got so many supplies, and the combat division is putting quite a lot of demand on us. If there were only two Evangelions to repair, I could have them both running in a single month. Three is impossible."
"So we've had to prioritize," Misato says.
"And you've prioritized Wondergirl over me?"
"Asuka, it isn't like that."
"Then what is it like?"
Akagi speaks. "Unit 02 is the most heavily damaged of the three. Unit 00's repairs are simple. Unit 03's, while extensive, are mostly clean breaks or superficial damage. Its head was destroyed entirely, and we've decided to replace it with a spare production-pattern cranial piece. One of your spare parts. Unit 02, on the other hand."
Akagi gestures at the hole in your Evangelion's head. The gesture is judgmental. You feel your face flush, and ball your fists tight to keep from mouthing off. You're pretty sure Dr. Akagi doesn't matter to you anymore, either.
"Why is Unit 03 being repaired?" you say. "Suzuhara can't pilot anyway. He's in the hospital."
"Suzuhara won't need to pilot it," Misato says.
"Then who will?"
"We have a new pilot being flown in as we speak," Akagi says. "He'll be here soon, and we'll begin testing him for compatibility with Unit 03."
A new pilot. The thought sends red flags through your mind. A new pilot means new competition. No matter what else this past week may have been, you are certain that you are on top of your game, piloting-wise. The best ever. No one is going to come in here and take that title from you without a fight.
Even if they are going to give him one of your spare heads to do it.
Then something occurs to you. If Unit 03 is still being repaired, and they're going to test it anyway, then there must be a way to establish a remote testing synch with an Evangelion in the repair bay. Through the glass, you see the equipment assembly encompassing Unit 02's shoulders and back. Amid the hydraulics and pistons which keep it in place during repairs, you can see the synaptic cabling embedded in its empty plug socket.
"Can it be wired remotely to the test bay?" you ask.
"Maybe," Misato says.
"Maybe? Why maybe?"
"We have some questions first," Misato says. "Doctor?"
Akagi swipes a new window open on her datapad and hands it to you. It is a harmonics and synchronization breakdown, dated and timestamped to the end of your last sortie—at the forty-third minute mark. Secondary activation, it says. Unknown power source.
"When Unit 02 moved without power," Akagi explains, "it scrambled most of its onboard combat telemetry. However, your removal of the synch buffer circuits forced the harmonics recorder onto a different channel—one that actually survived the burn out."
"Meaning?" you say, still trying to make sense of the graphs.
"Meaning that we have data on your synch ratio when the unit moved without power." Akagi points at a particular graph. "That's a two-hundred percent synch. It lasted for just a minute and a half."
You feel a thrill move through your body, and can't hide the grin from your face. "Two hundred percent, huh?" you say. Try to beat that, new kid. Whoever you are.
"Do you remember any of that?" Misato says.
You look at her, and lose your grin. You want to be back in the plug. If they won't let you pilot for a month during repairs, then you at least want to get a remote synch in. Even if they only let you do it from the test bay, throttled and weak, it will at least be something. Being out here, untethered, is terrible. You want to be back in the plug, where you belong.
A wrong answer and they might keep it from you. Your first instinct is to lie. Last time, that got you grounded, and led to the worst weeks of your life. So you don't lie.
"I remember parts of it," you say. You step to the glass and watch, through the oil, and feel the torsion in your hand as you claw an Angel's body to pieces. "I remember screaming, and I remember the Eva around me, screaming back. Then I didn't feel anything for a moment. And I…"
You realize that there isn't anything concrete left to remember. There is a feeling in your memory. It's like sunlight or being held, like a good day and a warm sleep, like your mother's smile. You shake your head, realizing you can't put it into words—like describing a color without analogy.
"Then it was over, and I ejected," you say.
"How would you describe your emotional state afterwards?" Akagi says.
"Good," you tell her, still focused on that feeling. "I felt really, really good."
"And now?" Misato says.
You blink. "Who cares about now? When do I get to synch again?"
"I'll take this all into consideration and let you know soon," Akagi says.
"You can't keep me from this. That isn't fair. I did everything I was supposed to do!"
"I'll take this all into consideration," Akagi says, again, slowly, her eyes not leaving yours, "and let you know. Soon."
You leave immediately, before you can say anything else that will torpedo your chances further. Misato catches up to you in the hallway outside the observation booth. "Asuka," she says, halting you with a hand on your shoulder. You shrug out of it.
"I'm done jumping through all these hoops! I told you what you wanted and you still won't let me do it!"
"Ritsuko just wants to be sure." Misato holds up her hands. "It's okay. You'll be okay. You just need to see it from our perspective."
You stare at her, and try to think of any perspective that doesn't begin and end with Asuka Langley Soryu. After very little effort, you fail.
Misato continues. "The last two times you've gotten in Unit 02, it has behaved erratically. Moved without power."
"The last two times I got in Unit 02, I killed Angels."
"Asuka, it isn't that simple."
"I did everything right," you say, "and now you are going to take it from me again! It isn't right! I gave up everything in my life for this! I don't have anyone anymore, and you won't even let me sit in the seat? You want to tell me how that's fair?"
Misato looks at you with that pitying look, the one you get when you're too honest, when you let someone in. It's judgmental and infuriating, but if it gets what you want, you'll endure it.
"I can schedule some testing time," Misato says, "but it won't be a full synch. You'll be very restricted. That's the best I can do."
A 'thank you' is almost on your lips, but you stop it before it can slip out. "Good," you say, and turn to leave.
"Asuka," Misato says. "You still have me. I'll always be here."
You halt and glance back at her. Part of you wants to run to her and give her a hug. You want to say you're sorry, and that you wish everything could go back to the way it was. But that look in her eyes, the one that wants to help, makes you feel weak. It hurts to see and it hurts even more to admit that it might be deserved.
"Well, maybe I don't care," you say, instead, and leave her behind.
((()))
Nine days since the battle, you get that promised harmonics test. Just as was promised, the synch is throttled, badly. You can barely get into the meld, but the touch of it is enough to get you by. A whiff of true synch to keep you going.
When you eject, you realize that there is a new plug next to you in the test bay. 03, it says, stenciled on its flank. The hatch is closed. It hums in quiet activation. You stand near it for a moment, wondering what the new kid within looks like, then leave to head to the lockers.
Ayanami wasn't here for testing. In fact, you haven't seen Wondergirl anywhere but school since before the last battle. When you enter the locker room, it is empty. Not that Rei Ayanami is much of a presence when she is around. Still, without her, it feels desolate. You shower, wash the clogged gunk from your hair, and change out quickly. When you're done, you re-fit the nerve connector band into your hair, the clips gripping your hair with a sharp snakk.
You first hear the sound the moment you leave the lockers. Recognizably a voice, but not altogether clear in its nature, it drifts through the empty halls as only one voice can in a space meant for hundreds, where it has time and space to rebound from silent walls and carry farther than any voice should by rights travel alone. The sound tings your ears, stirring strands of familiarity in your mind which, for want of clarity not borne by the echo, you cannot fully grasp. Yet it plucks at you all the same, and you wish to seek it, to find it out and make sense of it.
Without thought, your feet carry you forward, hunting it through the corridors of headquarters. Your distant familiarity is a compass, guiding you nearer.
You turn a corner and suddenly it is clearer—a hum. The familiarity resolves somewhat, but the low notes are inaudible, and there is no accompaniment to give the beat fidelity.
Footsteps on tile, drawing you closer. The melody solidifies. Classical music. Da da dum dum do de de do. Something you should know, but cannot place.
Closer, closer, closer, until you stand at the open door to the boys' locker room. The song is clear now—da da dum dum do de de do, da da de da da, da dum—as though the hummer is just beyond the doorway. Just out of reach.
Ode to Joy, you realize.
Your feet carry you over the threshold and into the center of the web. The canyons of lockers, the racks of towels, the rows of benches—all the same as the girls' locker room. You follow the instinctive layout. Do de de da dum, da-dum, dum.
And then you find him.
He sits, shirtless, a black plugsuit slumped on the bench next to him, deflated. He kneels, lacing his shoes, humming along. Synch clips in his hair—black beetles on white snow. His body is lithe, fraught with corded sinew moving beneath pale flesh. His voice hums like a choir, and he does not seem to notice you.
You lean against one locker and watch him, arms crossed.
He stops humming once he reaches the end. "The song is good," he says, in perfect Japanese. His hair is down, obscuring his face in-profile. "Singing brings joy and revitalizes the human spirit. I think that song itself might just be the highest achievement in human history."
His head swivels and he faces you. His eyes—two pools of red, like Ayanami. He smiles, thin and unnerving.
"Do you agree?" he says.
"No," you say, without a moment's hesitation.
He keeps tying his shoe, not breaking eye contact with you. "Really?"
"Really," you say. "For one, you're not singing, you're humming. For two, I came to tell you to shut up. This place is creepy enough at night without someone humming like a ghost."
His smile splits and he laughs. It is a pure sound, purer even than his humming had been. It is a natural outpouring of himself, and you realize that what you took for unnerving is actually an honest, disarming smile.
"I apologize, Ms. Soryu," he says.
The use of your name and the honorific threatens to let a smile break on your face, but you suppress it. "So you're the Fifth."
He gestures to the suit and the headband. "Indeed I am. The designated pilot of Unit 03." He makes a half-bow, seated. "My name is Kaworu Nagisa. You may call me Kaworu."
"Alright, Fifth," you say. "Let's get something straight, right at the beginning: I am not looking for another tag-along pilot. I've got two of those already. I don't need you slowing me down."
"How would I slow you down?"
"By sucking. By getting in my way."
"I will endeavor not to." He stands up and puts on his shirt, buttoning it as he speaks. "Are you supposed to be in here?" he says.
You look around and remember where you are, then realize he's correct. You run out of the room a second later.
((()))
School starts in fifteen minutes, but you're already at the building. You leave early these days—up early, showered early, packed early. No need to see a roommate. Get busy, stay busy, don't think. You used to work time into your schedule to sit and think, or to talk with Shinji or Hikari, but not now. Now, that kind of thinking is a liability, so you do other things. More school work. More harmonics tests.
You think about calling Kaji sometimes, but then you remember the look he had on his face when you lied to Shinji and you think better of it. No reason to drag any of that up anymore. No one who judges you needs to be in your life. No dissent. No nonsense. And so, soon, he is also added to the list of optional people.
You walk through the front doors, your mind returning, as it often does, to Shinji Ikari. You hold out hope for Shinji. Much as you don't want to dwell on him, you've begun to think that, maybe, there is a way past all this. A way back to him. A way to—
You walk through the front doors and pass the office, and through the windows you see a shock of white hair and pale skin at the secretary's desk. Your feet stop.
You enter the office without thinking. "What are you doing here?" you say.
The Fifth looks up and smiles. "Hello, Second Child," he says. He wears a school uniform. The synch clips are still in his hair. "I'm enrolling."
A clipboard sits on the desk in front of him, filled out. Secretary Mizuno takes it from him.
"Oh," you say.
"Is that a problem?" he says.
"No," you say, because you realize there's actually nothing to truly be mad about.
"Here's your school ID," says Secretary Mizuno.
"If it is a problem, I can leave," he says.
"It's not a problem." You look at the secretary. "I can take him to class. If you want that, I mean."
He takes his ID card from the secretary. "I do want that," he says.
You walk him up to the classroom. He is quiet while you walk, not speaking unless spoken to, but it isn't awkward. He seems comfortable in silence. You try to fill the void anyway, and tell him where the gym is, where the school store and cafeteria are, and help him find his locker. He spins the combination based off the little piece of paper from the office, then closes it again.
"I assume they'll give you books," you tell him, in reference to the empty locker. "A lot of books."
"You don't like books?"
"What? No. Books are fine. I just don't need any of them."
"Why not?"
"I already have a college degree," you say. "Junior high is a little behind me."
"Then why do you come here?"
"Why do you?"
"Because I have nothing else to do," he says.
You raise an eyebrow. "That actually made sense, Fifth."
"Thank you, Second," he says. He holds his ID card up like it's a foreign organism, inspecting its spring-loaded clip. "I'm not sure—"
You roll your eyes. You take it from his hand and clip it to his school bag. With a flick of your wrist, you turn it face-out.
"There," you say.
"Thank you," he says. "What is it for?"
"It links to your school account. Y'know, for lunches and stuff. We eat before fifth period."
You lead him to the classroom. When the day begins, he is asked to introduce himself. He takes to the front of the room, grabs a piece of chalk, and writes his name on the board. He turns, hands folded behind his back, says "My name is Kaworu Nagisa," and that's it. Nothing about where he's from, why he's here, or that he's excited to meet them. Just his name. He waits for the teacher to dismiss him. Then he takes his seat, oblivious to the snickering of the boys and girls around him.
You want to punch them all. How dare they giggle at this boy?
But he doesn't seem to mind. His head is high, and when he sits down, he keeps his focus on the class at hand, never rising to the bait. It's admirable, you realize.
After school, it's your turn for cleaning duty. You stay behind and clear the trash cans, wipe down the desks, clean the chalkboard, mop the floor, swipe and straighten the blinds. It takes about an hour, which is one more hour you're focused. One more hour you don't have to sit with yourself.
Again, your thoughts return to Shinji. You try to play through scenarios in your mind, different ways to apologize to him, to make things right. Maybe he'll just come home one day, hug you, and let you say you're sorry. Then things can go back to normal again. You'll sit with him and he'll tell you where he has been, and maybe he'll need your apology as much as you need to give it. Maybe even more.
You hope it happens that way. You really do.
((()))
You wring your mop clean and then lock up and leave, only to find that he's waiting for you at the exit, leaning on the wall, hands in his pockets. He nods as you approach.
"You stalking me, Fifth?" you say.
"I am not."
"Then why are you standing here?"
"I wanted to ask you something."
"And what is that?"
"A question," he says.
The air hangs quiet for a beat, and the sincerity in his eyes makes you laugh out loud. You haven't laughed in weeks. It feels good. He smiles and chuckles, too.
"I figured, Fifth. Go ahead."
"Why do you go here?" he says. A pale hand encompasses the school with a wave. "You never answered."
You look at the school. Your hands are still drying from wringing the mop out.
"I don't really know," you say. "Same as you, I suppose. I just have nothing else to do."
You start to walk away, and he keeps pace with you. He isn't pushy. He's accommodating. Not intrusive, not clingy.
"May I walk with you?" he asks, still with that disarming smile, and you tell him that's fine.
He asks questions. Questions about the Evangelions, about Nerv, about Misato and the Commander and the other pilots. You answer him as best you can, and after a bit, you begin to enjoy it. It's nice to be acknowledged for the knowledge you've accrued over the years, and even nicer to be listened to.
You explain how you were selected by the Marduk Institute, how you were tested, and how you were trained. You explain Unit 02's quad-focal visual-spatial design, and give him tips on how to cycle it properly, since he'll be using one soon. You tell him about the wounds, too—the pressure from the volcano, the burning from the acid attack, and the time you killed an Angel that was going to blow up the whole region.
He listens to it all. "So the other pilots are Rei Ayanami and Shinji Ikari, right? The First and Third Children?"
"Yeah," you say.
"What are they like?"
"Rei is weird. A real wind-up doll. She basically never thinks for herself." You pause. "Shinji is different."
"How is he different?"
"He's just… He thinks things through before he does them. He takes his time. I do things the moment they're available, and I don't really think past it, you know? But Shinji thinks and waits and makes the right choice."
"Do you admire him?" he asks.
You glance at him, confused not by his words, but by your reaction. It's the first question since the school that has verged beyond the professional and into the personal, and yet you don't want to tell him to go away or leave you alone. You're not offended. Looking at his open expression, it's hard to imagine how you ever could be offended by him.
"I do," you say. "He gets on my nerves, but he's a good person. He's a better person than me."
"Why do you think that?"
"Because he's never hurt me the way I hurt him."
"What's wrong?"
"Nothing," you say. The sun is lower now. You gesture to the building ahead. "This is where I live."
"Is it nice?"
"It's okay."
"Will I see you tomorrow?"
"I have a harmonics test at four."
"I have one at three."
"Then we're just missing each other."
"Not if I wait for you."
"You don't have to do that."
"But I want to do it."
"Okay. Then do it if you want to. I might talk with you."
"I hope that you do," he says. "Goodnight, Second."
"Goodnight, Fifth," you say, and walk inside, smiling.
((()))
It is the evening, days later. You're sitting in the living room, watching TV, when you hear the front door open. By the sound of shoes and the quiet rustle of trousers, you know it isn't Misato, and your blood flash-freezes. It's him, and you aren't ready.
You turn down the volume and listen while he unpacks something in the kitchen. A grocery sack, by the sound of it. Jars of something. You stand up and lean into the kitchen just as he finishes stocking the cupboard. He folds away the paper sack, his back to you. Your face feels hot, flushed. You aren't sure where to begin or what words to use.
"I thought you were gone," you say. The words had more stink than you wanted, so you try again. "Where were you?"
"I was with Kensuke," he says.
"You stayed with him?"
"Yeah." Shinji turns to you. "I didn't feel like I could come back here."
Because of you, he does not say, but you hear it nonetheless, like a punch in the gut, like a kick in the ribs. You feel like dirt. All the swirling thoughts of how much you hurt him, pushed aside at great pains over the past days, are suddenly inescapably present—a thousand pains from then clogging up your now, making it impossible to think.
You want to go back and redo that moment in the cage. You want him to say he's there to help you again, but react the right way: Tell him you love him, that he's your best friend, and admit that, yeah, you do need him. You weren't lying before; without him, you're unmoored, floating deeper into this little cave of your making, without a light.
But you don't know how to start that process, partly because it feels like weakness, and partly because the last time you did, he walked away from you. You try to access the right words, but just when you think you've found them, they slip from your mind—alike-ends of two magnets that refuse to connect.
"So why are you here now?" you say.
"I don't know," he says. "Do you have a problem with me being here?"
"No," you say, too quickly. It makes you look greedy. Needy.
"Okay." Shinji picks his backpack off the table and moves toward you, to go to his room. You let him pass and then follow him and hover at the door while he puts his things away.
"I didn't change anything," you say, to fill the air.
He nods.
"I got caught up at school," you say. "We're starting a new unit in chemistry. I've got all the notes if you need them."
He nods. You rap your fingertips against your leg and shift your weight.
"I'm doing better," you say. It's the closest you can get to admitting that something was wrong before. The closest to an apology that you can make.
"Good," he says. He places his backpack down.
"They say my Eva will be repaired in about a month. Unit 03 will be done before then, and we'll get a new pilot. Are you piloting?"
"I told Misato I would," he says, quietly.
That's why your Evangelion isn't being prioritized, you think. Even after killing an Angel by yourself, against the beliefs of every one of your "superiors", they still don't trust you enough. They go back to the invincible Shinji and the fabled Unit 01. You want to scream about that, but you can't. Shinji isn't invincible, you tell yourself. He's just Shinji. It isn't his fault.
Plus, you need him. He's the last person left. Don't screw this up.
"Okay. Good. Cool." You force a smile. "Maybe we can show the new kid how to do the job. He isn't a total weirdo like Ayanami."
He finishes unpacking and straightens up. His eyes meet yours for the first time since he walked in the apartment, and suddenly you want to hug him and say you're sorry, and go back to that place where you can lay with him, or sit on the veranda in the night and point out the defense towers against the black line of the horizon. You want to walk to school with him and do the dishes next to him and hear him breathing in the dark next to you. You want to hold his hand and hear his laugh and see his smile and really, badly, you want to kiss him.
"Shinji—" you say.
"I'm really tired," he says, and his hand reaches for the door. "I need to go to sleep."
The door begins its slide. You stop it with a palm.
"Shinji!" you say, letting the anger carry you. "You can't just come back and close the door on me. We need to talk!"
He glances away, then, after the anger. Not scared—no, never scared. Just exhausted with you. You can't force this conversation, and you don't know how to wait for it. In the meantime, you've driven him further away. Somehow, it hurts worse than any insult.
"Please stop," he says. "Please just stop."
He doesn't need to say more, because you heard the other unsaid thing, blared as though through a megaphone: Please stop being so you.
He gets his wish. You stop yourself, turn around and leave him, rushing away into your room and slamming the door behind you. None of this went right. None of it is how you wanted it. No apology from you, no hug from him, no way to get out of the hell you're stuck in. You march past your bed and to the wall and smash your fist against it, crashing a hole in the plaster. It hurts, but not enough to blot everything out. You fall onto your bed and hold your throbbing fist between your lips and scream into it.
A moment later, you hear his door close, too.
((()))
You dream again.
And again, you are not you.
You are her. Your mother.
The EKG bleeps out a steady tone and fades into the background. You sit in bed and hold your little girl, your little Asuka, so fresh and fragile and small. She is sleeping and you feel her tiny breaths in the way her swaddled chest contracts and expands. She's so small and breakable, and yet you don't fear for her. For now, you have her, and nothing bad will ever happen so long as she's in your arms
And when she's too big for your arms, well, you'll be there for her then, too. But she won't need you, you think. She'll not always need her Mama.
"One day," you tell her, quietly, "you'll be stronger and smarter than me. You'll be the best woman that I can make you, and I'll never let anyone hurt you."
Asuka wakes up, and you see yourself in the blue of her brand-new eyes.
The EKG bleeps on.
((()))
Shinji is gone when you wake up, but the little bento sits on the kitchen table, waiting. You stare at it for a minute, trying to decide if you see an apology or a threat in the looping scrawl of his handwriting on the little sticky label saying "Asuka". The answer isn't readily apparent.
You leave home without it.
((()))
He's there like he said he would be—waiting for you after the harmonics test, just like he waited for you after each test and each school day for the past week. You have become used to your walks with him; walks to parks, walks to the restaurants, to bike trails and grocery stores. He has his clips in his hair and his hands in his pockets, he smiles when he says hello, and you wonder if there was ever a time when he wasn't waiting for you.
"Hello back," you say.
"What are we doing today?" he says.
You lead him through the GeoFront, walking out of headquarters at the lakeside exit and across the bridge on the footpath. Along the way, you speak to him, just like you've spoken with him every day. He asks you questions about the battle, about where you launched from and where you fought the Angel, and you point out the launch point and the armament towers and the place along the eastern spoil where you launched a barrage of shots from a rocket cannon.
He asks where it injured you, and you point that out, too. Earthmovers surround that spot, their big tires and yellow hulls obscuring the scar in the land where your body tore open the topsoil.
You get to the lake and lead him out on the rocks that run the circumference of it, stepping from one to the other until you're right down along the shore. From there, you can see everything. The whole cavern is in front of you, rising up like the sides of a bowl. The top of the pyramid, with its block of scaffolding, the distant hospital and service buildings, the stalactites of the defense towers, and the crisped skeletons of the once-verdant forest.
You crouch down by the water and find a pebble, then straighten and toss it high, so it plops into the lake straight-down, like a meteor. Ripples radiate from the little impact. You look at your reflection in the water. It's just your face—no mother, no Eva—and then it warbles as the ripples twist and distort it.
"Do you come here often?" he says.
"Never," you tell him.
"Then why are we here now?"
"I don't know. Somewhere to go, I guess." You shrug and fish for another pebble. "Are you going to stay at our school?" you ask him.
"Yes," he says. "Why wouldn't I?"
"Well, I quit once."
"Why?"
"I thought I didn't have any friends there." You find a pebble, about thumb-sized, and toss it as well. It arcs higher. The splash is satisfying. "I was probably right, actually."
The Fifth crouches next to you and finds a pebble of his own. He holds it and turns it in his fingers, examining it. Then he stands. When he launches it, his arm straightens to the sky, long and lean, languid, even. The pebble wobbles at the apex and falls, landing almost at the epicenter of your last ripple.
"Good throw," you say.
"Thank you. It's my first."
Kaworu smiles. You smile back, and wonder how long you've thought of him as Kaworu and not Fifth. Was it just now?
"You said you don't have friends," he says.
"I just…" You don't have the words, not right away, so you decide to talk and find them as you go, and trust that some of them will be true. "Everyone hates me now, and it's all my fault. I did what I thought was right but now everything is just wrong. I was mean to Shinji. I lied to him, and then a few days later I hurt him even worse. Misato tries to help me and I push her away. I can't even look Hikari in the eye anymore, she hates me so much. Even Wondergirl—Ayanami—tried to talk to me once, about a month ago. She told me I was her friend, and I told her off, too."
"Have you apologized?"
"To who?"
"To any of them."
"I've tried. I've tried so many times, but the words just come out wrong. It's like I won't let myself do it, and then I hate myself even more afterwards because not saying it just makes things worse. It's like I can see the pit I'm in, but I can't get out, and everything I do just digs me deeper down. And at the end of all of it, all I have is this."
You wave one hand around at the lake and the vast space beyond it.
"The Evangelion," he says, as if it is perfectly clear.
"Yeah," you say. You glance at him. He doesn't speak, but he doesn't look away, either. "Does any of this make sense to you?" you ask.
If he says no, then that's fine—it just means that he thinks you're crazy, just like everyone else. Then you'll discount him, too, just like Misato and Hikari and Rei and Shinji and all of them. You'll just shut up and never talk to him again. You don't really need him, anyway.
"It makes perfect sense," he says. "You were a pilot before you were anything else. It's only right that you stay that course, despite everything."
"Yes," you say. "I tried to be a kid. That failed. Then I just tried to be a friend. To Kaji, to Misato, to Hikari. I tried to be a good girlfriend, too, but I don't know how. And there's this little part of me that tells me I don't owe them anything anyway. I'm better than all of them, and I don't owe them an apology. I'm a great pilot. They owe me thanks, not the other way around. The longer I think on it, the bigger that part of me becomes."
"And that should be enough," he says. He's right there, in front of you. You turn your last pebble over in your hand.
"It's strange," you tell him, "but it's like we're saying the same thing, just at different times."
That weird, easy smile hits his lips again. "I think you might be the first person I've ever truly known, Second Child."
"You can call me Asuka," you say.
"You can call me Kaworu," he says.
"Okay, Kaworu."
"Okay, Asuka."
You find his grin is on your face, too, and you don't hide it. The lake is next to you. His eyes are right in front of you—crimson mirrors. You toss the pebble sideways and don't watch it land. Ripples tease the rocks along the shore. You see yourself in the red reflection of his eyes, and, suddenly, you don't want to be anywhere else.
He does not move when you kiss him, and for a second, you teeter on the edge of fear, wondering if you've done the wrong thing, if he'll push you away just like everyone else. Then he kisses you back, his lips moving deeper into yours only as much as you've moved into his. He matches your movements moment for moment, never doing anything without you doing it first, like he's learning how to kiss from your example. Like you are kissing yourself.
"Is something wrong?" he says, in the aftermath.
"No," you say, running a hand through the perfect snow of his hair. "Nothing is wrong."