Path of Hollowness

by KendrixTermina

Pilot Childhood Friends AU, Yui & Kyoko live, Shinji grew up with his parents, the devastation of Second Impact was avoided, but none of this will save them when the angels finally arrive. Gradual tone shift - Starts something like the ep 26 AU or SIRP, becomes progressively less silly and more serious/ canon-like. The ReiShin plotfic I wish to see in the world.

27. 2,4,2: OPERATION ICEBREAKER

(2.4.2: OPERATION ICEBREAKER)

December 12th 2014 – 8:53

T minus 384 days, 5 hours and 7 minutes

"Misato-san? Are you awake?"

She had't showed up at all for breakfast today, but she'd mentioned yesterday that she has work, so I thought it prudent to check up on her before leaving for school.

And yes, before you ask, I do appreciate the irony here – I highly doubt that Miss Ritsuko would have phoned me to scold me if she was late, like our teachers might have called her if Asuka and me hadn't shown up.

Asuka for her part had already left. I was about to leave, too, I had my jacket buttoned up and my school bag affixed to my bag. Still I couldn't afford to linger here too long, considering that I'd still have to slip into my shoes and wait for the elevator.

You might imagine why I got a bit anxious when I heard only vague muffled noises frm the inside. I didn't want to leave without making sure that she wouldn't just nod off again, but if I waited any longer, I'd be late – that worry most of all, and maybe some slice of unacknowledged frustration, might've been what motivated me to open the door, though it was of course reluctantly and with prior announcement.

I think Misato thought it was funny – I could see little more of her than a big shapeless heap underneath the blankets, but she had stuck out her right arm to wave at me.

"Don't you worry Shin-chan~ I'm awake~"

Well, she can't say I didn't warn her now.

I'll just chose to count that as good enough – if she still manages to be late, I wash my hands of it.

Some more cynical part of myself mused that she would be forced to leave her cozy blanket nest one way or another – after all, the security goons would be waiting on her to report that we had left.

"Don't forget to take your lunch with you, okay? It's the purple box in the fridge."

"Okay~ Thanks for going through the trouble~"

Well. She says she appreciates it, but will she ever so anything to help me?

...one way I could bear this was to maybe think of her less as a carer and more like a messy older sister who was stuck watching me until my parents came home from work – as I'd sometimes seen with Touji and Sakura, the oldest sibling isn't necessarily the most mature one, nor is it a tragedy when you have to nag someone who's a lot closer to being on the same 'level' as you; It makes a lot of feelings a whole lot less complicated.

December 12th 2014 – 12: 07

T minus 384 days, 11 hours and 53 minutes

Remember what I'd said before, about reminding Misato to take her lunchbox? Well, I'd thought it would be nice, if we all got nice homemade lunches. I think I was confident enough for cooking to undertake that sort of project – chopping up vegetables was a nice, regular activity that kept my hands busy, and my mind off of bigger problems, and it made me feel useful, like I was impacting something, making a difference, if only just a little bit.

I could use a small archievement, a little regularity that I had made for myself.

And it's way more economic to make food in bigger portions, both financial wise, and in the use of pots and pans. Time wise, it doesn't take that much longer to make rice for four people than for one. It might take a little longer till the water boils, but that's it.

We had a lot of plastic lunch boxes in our shelves, even though some might have somewhat silly prints on them – my mother had usually lovingly filled those during my days in elementary school, though we had enough plain, reasonable looking ones that she'd used for herself and father. I knew better than to hand Asuka any box with cutesy cartoon animal prints.

Misato thought they were cute, though, and Mari loved them. They'd said there comes a time in life when you're no longer concerned about proving your maturity to others, but that might have been a rationalization – honestly, I was rather more inclined to believe Mari on this than Misato.

So yeah, more than enough boxes for all four members of our little household.

I had not prepared for four people, however.

Once I was already at it, it wasn't a large step to give in to the lingering thought of adding a fifth, especially when I wouldn't be needing any extra chunks of meat or fish.

I had put it into my bag with my own things, shuffling my penboxes around so that it would all fit, and set off to deliver it once the bell announced the lunch break, making my journey to that one seat off in the back next to the window.

"Uh – I've been thinking of preparing lunch for the others at our house – you no longer live with us, but since I never see you eating anything, I thought you could use some as well-"

"Thank you. But you needn't trouble yourself. I can just wait until I get home."

"Sure, but- but what about low blood sugar?"

This wasn't exactly the message that I wanted to be sending, but I figured that logical arguments might get me the furthest here in the short term.

"Blood sugar?"

"Yeah, if you skip a meal, your blood sugar might get low, and that's not good for – concentrating and stuff. That's why breakfast is supposed to make you better at studying. Besides, you often go to GEHIRN right after school, right? So you wouldn't have any time to pick up lunch in the meantime – do you remember how Amagi-san said we had to eat properly, so that all the nutrients and everything can go to our brains?"

That wasn't too far from the kind of well-meaning manipulation that my mother would employ, something that I had perhaps unconsciously copied in reaching for something familiar as I was scrambling for something to do. Selling someone on some kind of measure by connecting it to something they already cared about – how had mother once put it, at the beginning of the year? 'School activities will make you better at piloting!'

Which was just the same as my father's harsh utilitarism with a friendly, disarming veneer on top. I couldn't find the proper words to convey what I really wanted to say.

I didn't want Rei to have nice food because it would make her a better pilot or a better student, but because of her. Because I wanted her to feel good, and have nice things, and have a little surprise to look forward to every day, because she deserved to have more than the bare minimum needed to keep one's fleshbag breathing.

But I wasn't sure how to say that without it sounding weird or conceited.

I'm just happy that she took the box.

"Oh, and when you're done, you can just give me back the old box the next day – and you can let me know if you'll be absent from school-"

"I see. Thank you. "

December 12th 2014 – 16:50

T minus 384 days, 7 hours and 10 minutes

Something had definitely shifted between Misato and Mr. Kaji since the other day.

I'd gone to meet her in one of the many office rooms at GEHIRN HQ, only to find her still finishing up her lunch, in quite a hurry, too, as Ritsuko-san and Ms. Soryu were certainly going to scold her if today's training exercise couldn't begin on time, and not far from her, he was certainly teasing her like always...

"Looks like Shinji-kun took over the cooking in your little flat share, hm? I guess you never were too gifted at that."

...and Misato was sort of trying to act busy...

"Well, unlike you, I have a leadership position here, so I'm not exactly drowning in free time"

...but there wasn't the same sort of venom in it, as though the pretense had been made hollow by some revelation of what lay beneath it.

Seeing this very well, it shouldn't come as a surprise that Mr. Kaji was perfectly patient with the vestiges of her resistance: "I'm still not quite used to having to call you'Ma'am' when we're on duty, Major Katsuragi" he sounded that he might have made a joke about getting stepped on y women in uniform, but when I least expected it, his tone turned somewhat serious: "– you've always been a worker bee, which is one of your greatest strenghts, but also a weakness... If you don't take it easy once in a while," he added, swiftly snapped back to silly mode as if he'd broken some rule by acting honest, "You'll never get around to finding a new boyfriend"

"A what concern is this of your-"

Well – he meant this a little differently than she'd thought at first, not so much making fun of her, as quietly volunteered, judging by the way he had slid over his seat and parked himself near to where she was sitting, leaning on his ellbow and facing her way with a dazzling smile.

She didn't even bother with acting annoyed – it seemed too silly even to her.

She just quietly averted her face with a visible blush, and hurried up with the last of her food.

Beside me, just near the door frame, Asuka wasn't looking too happy

"Old flames blazing a new, huh?!" she muttered grimly. To be honest, he was looking scarier than usual, which seemed to go right over Mari's head. "Aww, how romantic~ So our two lovebirds are finally on the way to working it all out. I hope the boss lady stops being stubborn soon, they'd be such a cute couple. Ryoji-kun would always get all misty-eyes when the subject of her came up, even before he started working here."

I could easily see that happening, honestly…

Poor Asuka, though. She must be realizing now that she'd never had much of a chance from the get-go. "No way- That's not true - Clearly, you don't even know what you're talking about!"

"Well, if you say so, your highness…"

Mari was hardly convinced or considering herself reprimanded, she just didn't feel like picking a fight right now… and Asuka would have sensed that.

In the end, I suppose she was left with quite a bit of frustration to channel into today's training.

What was today's training?

Paintball, apparrently. Kensuke thought that it must be his lucky week.

We got ourselves decked out with paint guns and protective gear while Misato-san and Ms. Soryu explained all the basics to us – the latter had greeted her daughter cheerfully, but maybe not acted in the most tactful manner when she remarked on her dauhter's bad mood, asking if anything was wrong, as if Asuka would have answered this in front of all her classmates, including those she'd have considered rivals or annoyances, so of course, she denied being in any sort of mood whatsover, which Ms. Soryu then simply shrugged off, though it seemed pretty apparent even to me that this couldn't be true.

I guess neither mother nor daughter is all too attuned to the feelings of others, not that I should be talking.

We got to wear some protective plastic 'armor' and even shields over our faces. To distingush who got who, each of us god their gun loaded with a different color of paint – Red for Asuka, pink for Mari, blue for me, white for Rei, black for Kaworu, yellow for Marie, purple for Kotone, green for Kensuke, orange for Hikari, and some slate grey ones for Touji.

The training itself was to take place in a storage hall that had been filled with sand, gravel and a variety of wooden or mental 'obstacles' to hide behind, boxes, crates, broken old lab equipment or vending machines – I actually think it was the same room where we'd had the escape puzzle exercise. I wondered what the poor GEHIRN technicians must have been thinking as they'd been redecorating here for what was, on the surface, just plain indistinguishable from a string of children's holiday activities, unless our parents had been fine-tuning some obscure parameters to make it more suitable practice for fighting with giant robots. Or giant cyborgs, if you wanna be strict.

Whatever. I don't care.

Did you know that having a paintball hit your skin can leave a pretty distinctive round red mark? The next day in the shower, it took me a bit to put together where it had come from. It doesn't hurt so much that you'd instinctively flinch away from it.

Misato impressed on us that a real battle is nothing like a video game where you're mostly fine as long as your HP meter doesn't hit zero after a barrage of attacks – a single hit could be enough for you to be killed or seriously impaired.

This of course was where Ms. Soryu had cut in, feeling the need to remark for correctness' sake that an EVA was, of course, much tougher than our squishy human bodies and armored besides, not to speak of the AT-fields we would have – those all-important psychic weapons that would make us the angels' equals.

I suppose she didn't want anyone to downplay the results of her brilliant engineering – in that respect, she was very much Asuka's daughter.

But such had not been Misato's intentions – as she would go on to stress, all the fancy tech in the world wasn't a reason to get careless. She wanted us to be as cautious as possible, so that we would live. That's what it might come down to in the end, isn't it? Life and death.

Anyone whose name wasn't Mari looked a bit troubled at that – except for Rei, who just grimly picked up her paint gun – and Asuka, who has having none of it: "I don't intend to die!"

"Very well," said Misato, "Then I need you all to remember that a real gunfight is all about taking cover"

Kensuke chose this moment to insist that there were plenty of shooter games that had an empasis on taking cover.

Marie Vincennes had some facts about wars to offer, various stuffs about recoil and statistics and all that – none of it really stuck in my head, just that she was glad to be contributing.

Kotone asserted that she was ready; Touji insisted that she wasn't ready.

I'm pretty sure all of them missed the point, and Hikari knew it, too: "Be serious, Suzuhara. If you treat this like a game, you'll be killed – that goes for the rest of you, too."

And then there was Rei, cool as a cucumber. Not even scared. She had known and understood it all along; None of it was news to her. Mari, too, looked just as unfazed, even if the expression fronzen on her face was a big, serene grin rather than a faint, downcast frown.

I think those two were the only ones who even understood – even Kaworu had a look of reluctance to him. I don't think he liked the thought of fighting any more than me, not even name of survival… and unlike him, at least I didn't yet know that I had already seen the faces of my adversaries.

When did the atmosphere get so serious of all sudden?

Is it just me, or is this latest batch of training exercises getting rather… martial?

Why am I even surprised, anyways?

They told us from the get-go that we would be here to be fighting monsters. It was my fault alone if I had somehow forgotten about it in between all the ice-skating, improv concerts and the silly costumes… and they were training us like that in the first place because we wouldn't just be using normal weapons, but untested experimental war machines that involved the involvement of all our minds and souls.

If I'm honest, I wanted to forget it.

But that's gotten harder now that they had us playing literal war games. They'd make us do a few rounds of traditional 'capture the flag', topped off in the end by a battle royale, which Asuka, Kensuke and Mari all awaited with great expectation. Even Touji was sort of getting into it – I guess he considered it close enough to a 'manly' sport – and bragged about how he'd totally beat Asuka.

I hate to be a party pooper, but I think he was being a little bit overconfident here…

But first, we were divided into teams, with the intention that there'd be roughly equal skill levels in each team. This meant that Asuka and Kaworu, as our resident ace pilots, couldn't be on the same team, but I was honestly a little shocked when Mari and I were treated as the next most desirable 'tier' of fighters. Then again, I was a priority candidate, and as such, had done actual battle training, which, say, Hikari, wouldn't have done.

So it was me and Asuka on one team, and then Mari and Kaworu on the other, so that both teams would have both boys and girls. Since Touji had some experience with athletics, he was counted of equal worth to Rei, and then, the less gifted candidates were equally distributed as well.

In the end, it was me, Asuka, Rei, Marie and Kotone against Kaworu, Mari, Touji, Hikari and Kensuke. Touji and Kensuke were going to get earfuls from Hikari if they did anything stupid, not that Team Captain Asuka would be any more forgiving with us – she was pissed off before the exercise even began and wanted very much to win.

She was emotional and not really at her best, which mostly showed itself through her irritability and her limited patience for Marie's propositions regarding our strategy.

Rei, Kotone and I just kept our heads low and did our best to pull of whatever was asked of us in hopes of staying out of the drama. So rather than five versus five, it ended up being something more like Asuka versus the remaining five people, at least in terms of the thinking. Only Marie had anything to add, and she wasn't capable of saying her suggestions in such a way that wouldn't ruffle Asuka's feathers when she was having a bad day; Our team was kind of competing with itself.

It might not surprise you that Kaworu's team won the first round.

It seems that Mari had really wanted to 'duel' Asuka, maybe out of genuine admiration for her skills, or as a means to cheer her up, so she went straight ahead to seek her out, and Asuka, of course, couldn't resist a challenge – so she was distracted while the rest of our pitiful attempts to capture the flag were foiled one by one.

In the next round, Asuka decided to get the flag all by herself, but that didn't really work out, either.

It didn't occur to me then, but I think now that I should have seen some significance in being put in the same team as the two actual pilots.

Misato was carrying it out, but sofar as I know, the plan had probably been drawn up by my parents, who might well have known which of us would see battle in this exact locations, and which had been set aside for other tasks…

As it would one day be explained to us, each of us was intended to fulfill a very specific task – as if we'd never had a choice in the matter. And yet, I can't say that it wasn't my very own choices that led to this result…

But let's not get ahead of ourselves. Back to the paintball exercise.

The actual 'battles' were, in a sense, mostly waiting. Lots of careful peeking out of windows while worrying that you might be spotted yourself. Any change of position was a desperate running for it. Any confrontations were over rather quick – this was no sport for people such as I who weren't given to quick decisions or trusting our impulses. Yet there was a distinct rush when you hit something, an unique, old primal feeling that might be the reason why some of the others loved it so much – Asuka and Mari both seemed to relish down to their bones.

I don't think I did. Not just because I wasn't fast or decisive, but because I could not trust that animal feeling.

In case you're wondering, Asuka did win the battle royal. I think was simply a lot more motivated than anyone else today. Even when she got all caught up in her adrenaline frenzy, Mari had still been playing; She hadn't expected to get her face shield full of red paint in mid sentence. Touji had been defeated because he'd ran just slightly slower in what must have qualified a spectacular feat of athleticism on both their parts; Kaworu, who placed second, ended up owing his final defeat to a simple split second of hesitation.

Me? I was one of the first ones to get hit, preceded only by poor, poor Kotone.

December 12th 2014 – 19:33

T minus 384 days and 4 hours and 27 minutes

There was a lot of running involved in this particular exercise. They'd made us do it in our PE clothes in anticipation of the urgent shower that we would all require when the thing was done.

But I'd learned from experience that Mari and Asuka would need longer for this than I did – nor were we likely to be leaving until Misato was ready to drive us home, which, according to my recent experience, might well take a while – it was usual fr her to stay behind for a bit, discussing various things with either Ritsuko or Hyuuga, typically starting with work stuff but then transistioning into all manner of random gossip.

Which is to say that there wasn't much of a reason for me to hurry up on my way to the terminals. I'd come to learn that I could well be taking my sweet, sweet time and I'd probably still have to wait. So I had plugged in my headphones, skipped to the exact song that I currently craved to hear on repeat, and after that just idly driften through the corridors and catwalks that led in the approximately right direction. I couldn't say that I knew all the complex any more than I could have recognized every single corner of the city above, but I noted with sobering realization that I'd already come to recognize all the areas that my many tasks required me to frequent at least. As if it could be normal, eventually, to walk the labyrinthine corridors of a secret government underground facility just this casually after school.

As if it was no big deal.

I had my headphones in, so I did not hear-

And once I saw what I might have heard, I was so busy staring that it didn't even occur to be to go tugging my earphones.

It seems I wasn't the only one who had been quick with the shower. A level below, on another slender passageway, Rei was already back in her uniform – but she was not alone. At first, I didn't see the dark silhouette next to her against the dim background, were it not separated from the background by the bright color of that crimson jumper…

Father.

He and Rei could just have been talking about work, I'd think, the extra experiments maybe, or a simple report – except that his face was positively animated, especially by his own standards – and look at Rei, not just the way she was smiling, which would be a rare enough sight, but how she was holding her hand, the relaxed posture, the entirely different way she was carrying herself, chiefly in her shoulders.

This was definitely some private conversation, one, it seems, that had my father brimming with pride…

So how come he had time to talk with Rei when he'd barely spoken to me in weeks?!

...that, I see now, was the wrong question to ask myself. A child's question, that would arise from someone who perceived things mostly through how they affected himself because he didn't have a fully developed sense of a larger perspective here.

In my position, a more mature person would have noted the contradictions, including those that were posited by my own existence and situation, or the apparent callousness in many other areas of Rei's treatment, contradictions galling enough to rule out most of the usual reasons why one might be nice to another person.

I didn't even think that far – my concern, lacking perspective, confined to this one moment, was that I didn't want any further discord between myself and the people that I esteemed, still esteemed, in my father's case, but I was weak enough to be beset by childish jealousy as well, and pushed both profoundly unhelpful impulses as far back as they would go, doing all that was within my power to slip away unnoticed.

December 13th 2014 – 7:30

T minus 383 days, 18 hours and 30 minutes

First period fell through today, but old habits had me waking up right on time, even in total absence of any worms for early birds to get, or even the ringing of my alarm clock.

I tried to close my eyes back down, but the effect was much the same as spending that same time staring at the ceiling, down to the frustratingly slow crawl of time that seemed evident every time I snuck a glance at the clock.

Staying in bed was clearly not an option then; I just kept reminding myself of things that I was choosing to ignore.

So I forced myself upright, threw on my clothes, and busied myself with the usual morning chores until I ran out of those.

Then, by force of habit, I took made my usual way to the tram station, and got on a streetcar.

I left some post-its reminding everyone to collect their boxed lunches from the fridge,

Asuka and Mari, like reasonable people, were obviously using this opportunity to catch up on some extra beauty sleep.

I eventually reached the stop where I usually changed street cars, but I felt no hurry to hasten to the next platform. I was near the center of town here; There were shops and other businesses all around. Plenty of perfectly fine opportunities to kill a little bit of time – including the particular shop that gave me a certain idea…

I first wasn't sure what kind of umbrella Rei might like. If I got her one that didn't hit the mark, it didn't seem unlikely that she just wouldn't use it – or worse, use it all the time but secretly hate it. I was thinking maybe something with blue and white stripes but I couldn't think anything to my satisfaction. There was one that was made of transparent, shiny plastic so that you could see all the metal parts embedded in the material and see through it.

I thought that might be something she would appreciate – or at least, it was reasonably thick and sturdy-looking without being overly heavy, and serve the purpose of keeping her from getting rained on and catching the flu.

I wonder now if there was ever a real risk of that second part – perhaps the flu viruses would have found her half-alien cells to be a rather hostile habitat.

She is warm like the rest of us, though, which suggests to me that she's supposed to stay that way, and not lose heat from being drenched in cold water.

December 13th 2014 – 9:45

T minus 383 days, 14 hours and 6 minutes

When I arrived at school, I realized how long it had been since the last time that it was already day when I'd entered the classroom. During the summer, that had been the case every day, but by now it was already beginning to feel somewhat foreign.

I didn't have to wait for Rei – she was already sitting at her usual spot, with her books and pens already on the table, and what appeared to be a huge biochemistry textbook. Here I'd like to note that I arrived a little earlier than strictly necessary, because I was probably overly worried about how embarassing it would be to be late on a day where they'd let us come in a whole an hour earlier, and also because I felt awkward walking around with an extra umbrella.

I was pretty early - not even Hikari had shown up yet.

And yet, Rei was already here.

I moved over to where she was sitting.

"Ah! Good morning-" I began, somewhat awkwardly.

"You're early."

"I have been here since the usual time, but the teacher hasn't come. Did first period fall through?"

I nodded – "It was on the bullentin board near the shoe lockers."

"I see."

"Did you forget to check it?"

"I did not. I do not usually check it. There are not usually relevant things noted there."

Not relevant to piloting, I suppose.

"Still, didn't anyone text you?"

"As in an instant messaging service? On a phone?"

...I think I was beginning to understand the situation.

"You know, maybe I could give you my number, so you can ask me next time - Or you could ask Hikari, she'd probably know about any changes of schedule before anyone else."

im not sure if Rei was seriously considering this. There wasn't any great change in her face. Perhaps she did not consider sitting an hour here by herself such a a great evil, or rather, couldn't think of any greater good with which to fill the time. She did, however, get out her phone, perhaps simply because I was currently closer and more easily available than Hikari would be.

It was a GEHIRN-issue device with an old fliphone-like design, built for sturdyness over convenience, with the organization's emblem brightly visible. There were some pencil shavings sticking to it – the list of contacts, once she brought it up, was rather short, l such that it did not prompt the appearance of a scrolling bar. Three of four numbers were labeled something starting with 'GEHIRN' and since the fourth read 'secure line', I suppose that it must have been work-related also. I wondered then if dialing that would connect you straight to my father's office.

Now, I think that it was more likely to be Central Dogma – That is, GEHIRN's battle stations command room, which I had not actually seen yet.

If any of these was her handler – that bespectacled second lieutennant – it wasn't marked with his name. In any case, it was obvious that none of these belonged to any of our classmates.

I don't think anyone ever texted her anything but our training schedules in those days.

It never got much longer than that for as long as the world we knew lasted. Kaworu must have made it in there; Hikari, too, I think. Maybe even Yamagishi-san. That would have made the list long enough to require some scrolling. I wouldn't know, I wasn't really in a habit of spying on what she was doing on her phone. I do hope that it eventually got to that point though.

That last remaining year was all that any of us were going to get…

I know that she added my number at least, since I witnessed it firsthand.

This is when I remembered that I was holding this very obvious second umbrella that was due to prompt questions sooner or later as our classmates started arriving.

Rei had not at all commented on it, like she didn't see anything out of the ordinary with it… or maybe she just didn't care to give any indication of having seen it, as it didn't affect any of the few things she tended to see as relevant, much like the school's bullentin board.

I felt that handing over the umbrella after just giving her my number might be seen as trying too hard or laying it on too thick, but since the alternative was to keep carrying it around with me and bring it back home with me, where it was sure to draw teasing comments from my gossip-happy flatmates, it was now or never.

If I did not get this done before Touji and Kensuke showed up, I'd never hear the end of it from them.

So I raised it upward and tried to play it off as a coincidence, like I just so happened to see it, and it just so occurred to me that maybe she might need it, with all the seductive gallantry of how you might let some co-worker take your old vacuum cleaner after buying a new one.

Despite destroying any hope of the gesture possibly being mistaken for a romantic gift by mine own hand, I still agonized about the consequences of my own unvoiced intentions, fearing that those might be betrayed by the, to me, evident focus of my thoughts -

Honestly, Rei must have been rather confused as to why I was acting so nervous.

To her as a latecomer that the way that people act with each other outside of secret government labs, nothing about my countenance and behavior might have been obvious at all.

I made sure that absolutely nothing happened.

She quietly thanked me for the umbrella, and that was that.

I'm not even sure if she like it, there wasn't very much of a reaction on her face.

She did say 'thank you', but unlike the first few times where she had spoken the words first out of some undisguised inner movedness and then with definite deliberate intention, I think that she had by now picked up that this is what you ought to say if someone gifts you something, at least if you have the intention to be friendly, though it was a somewhat stiff, automatic process still, like checking an item, or following a method for doing it properly, it properly absent the usual flourishes that may have looked no less stiff and arbitrary to her, for even this 'formulaic politiness' was, in her, still tied to intention, different from the no less automatic, complicated and counterintuitive dances that we all do, things that are rather performances for the benefits of others than expressions of genuine feeling.

You might call this purity, a disguised warmness of heart, were it not bitter evidence that there was no audience, no one to perform for, no one to answer any message, a more authentic, personal conection absent of the element of role or status.

I'm no fan of silver linings, honestly. I don't believe that some collateral benefit can make suffering into something good. I am tired of seeing myself and everyone I cared about milked like cows in industrial cages for the sweet milk of silver linings.

I don't want to give our tormentors any credit for what little goodness we could preserve inside our hearts. I know that in the end, there was precious little left.

Still, if we discounted all mercies that flowed from one or another wicked spring, we would not be left with very much.

So I want to protest that, whatever its origin, I must think of Rei as a person with a special genuineness.

Who's to say that she would not have been this way one way or another, or even to a greater extent without the breakage of suffering?

Anyways, as you have seen, this incident on the 13th of december just before the Anno Horribilis didn't go as I expected.

It was not exactly what I imagined as I'd made my way to school with that umbrella in my hand and the fancyful flutterings of purpose in my chest.

So what happened?

Back then, the extent of my understanding probably didn't go far beyond 'I screwed up', 'talking to girls is hard' and 'It seems that no amount of combat training is gonna make me less of a bland unremarkable milquetoast with no magnetism to speak of'

If I subtract my nerves, there really shouldn't have been much reason to worry, for nothing I had said or done had gone or pushed beyond the boundaries of polite friendship… which is precisely the problem.

I'd been hoping for something else. But hoping alone is to wait for coincidence, which may be unlikely indeed; Making it happen is something else. Of course you can't actually make somebody like you, but you can nonetheless signal interest, or win someone else's.

But how exactly does that work?

If you ask most people how the love of couples is different from the love for family or friends or indeed for causes and hobbies or a general goodwill towards your fellow man, they will usually point you to the physical component, but that alone can't be it: We get crushes even as children before we have any sense or interest in the physical pleasures, and some people who never develop the urge it nonetheless desire partners; On the other hand, not everyone who is attractive to you physically or even sensually brings out the soft, deamy sort of loving.

So dreamy love must be different from physical love, and physical love just a means by which it may be expressed. Just like you might have wine in church as the body of christ or weed as part of a rastafarian ceremony, where it has a greater spiritual meaning, but that is different from just drinking or for smoking pot fun.

If the physical is discounted, some might bring up exclusivity as a distinguishing characteristic, but there are people who have multiple lovers, who can't choose between two or even have more than one formal relationship.

Neither can love just be the rituals of dating – those are different across cultures, and people can feel great love without doing rituals, or lack all love despite buying tons of commercial valentine's day gifts.

Same goes for the idea that couples love is between man and woman: What about gay people?

And if you look at societies where people think that boys and girls can't be friends and keep them apart from each other, you'll find that the more this is the case, the more repressive and fixed it's institutions are. Finding a mate becomes a question of social status, resulting at best in a mutually agreed upon pragmatic union in which fondness may still blossom by chance or intention, and at worst, that common comedy scenario where the married person only ever complains about the 'ball and chain' or the 'useless lazy husband'. People in these situations aren't really seeking 'love' but rather someone who fills the role of the wife or girlfriend.

Which people do, because it brings them a different reward, of things which must also be different from love. One's first thought might be the sexual need, which is a simple animal need. Beyond that, one might think further: And material bonuses like sharing chores or money. But these are animal needs as well: Social status (escaping the scoff at a man who "can't get laid" or being called "an old maid"), attention, company. Man is a social animal after all.

Social animals get attached. They become used to packmates being there, their presence helps regulate their nerves and body, and so they miss them while they are gone.

But one can experience the sensation of 'missing' and struggling to adapt even when all love has gone – even if you ended the relationship!

That's just attachment.

Attachment is 'Why aren't you making me happy?' while love says 'How can I make you happy?'

Is love the defined in that move towards unselfishness? You often hear people say things like 'you wouldn't do that for just a friend' or 'he's too interested in her to see her like a sister', but actually, great acts of sacrifices are most common among family. People die for friends and lovers also, or even for passions or ideals, but the most common example that comes to mind is a mother sacrificing for her children. So that's not couples love, it's just love, without the coloration of a particular type – especially true love that is different from just temporary feelings. It's comittment, choice, dedication. It's a sustained wish and working towards someone else's hapiness. It is making a place for the other in yourself.

There was once an essay about how you might teach a machine or an artificial being how to love. The author was a man of science, who like many of his trade adhered to the following formula: If you can't explain it to a five year old, you don't understand it. Furthermore, he was a programmer: If you can't explain something to a computer (that is, program it) you understand it even less. So understanding must go before programming. He said that love… higher love, not just attachment or lust – would be, like all functions of the mind, soul and will, in the higher brain regions, which are made up many near indentical machines for recognizing patterns.

He theorized that the more important someone is to you, the more 'real estate' they occupy in your head: You allot space for spotting their face, picking out their voice, recalling all their special likes and dislikes. You are shaped by your work and interests in that way as well, so it's quite right to say that you 'love' your hobby, favorite animal, or topic of obsession.

So the saying that grief is just love with nowhere to go is proven very true: If the one you love is gone – you break up, you lose touch with a friend, or your grandma dies – then all these patterns recognizers are suddenly useless. You devoted so much of your life, of the physical substance of your very being even, to recognizing this person, anticipating them, expecting them to be there. You want to talk with your grandma about a recent event, and then you realize that you no longer can. You trained yourself to notice things that your former friend or ex would have liked, but now you can't show them.

So all of that is just love. It's what is there beyond just animal instincts, but it's not just couples love that comes paired or associated with it. As a social animal, we have herd instincs. Procreating is an instics. Just like you might have a partner who doesn't really love you, but only wants the attention or the physical loving, you can have parents who only see you as extensions of themselves. For Procreation, or the status of parents, or the vicarious living of their dreams. And every children's cartoon warns you about 'false friends' who only want a piece of your influence and money.

If 'false love' is using, seeing the other as an extension of you, then real love lies in respecting your separateness, in recognizing something different to yourself in the way that a baby or a childish person can't. The motion towards something outside yourself that you don't understand, akin not to need, but fascinsation.

Not codependence, but interdepence: Doing together what you could not do alone.

So that is the basic recipie of love. But then what set of extra ingredients make it family, friendship or romance?

We're left with something that's diffuse to describe, something that people can get around questioning by just saying things like "you know" because most people usually do.

Often the essence of things is easier to understand by contrast: Love of family can get no less intense and anguished in moments of sorrow, but it is usually an easy, relaxed feeling. Your family is who you find in your home. Your family is who you can act most natural around. It's special beauty is in its permance and ease. Your family takes care of you in body and mind. It's where you feel content and nourished. It is a calm, stable feeling that supports you.

The special joy of friendship is that it's chosen. You find them yourself, or join with those that would find you. It's to do with how you represent yourself to others, to find like people for like purposes, and shared interests: While the mode of family is of rest or maybe the 'sustaining' work needed to rest later, and its bonds are only broken in extreme circumstances, the mode of friends is busier. Alliances can be formed and broken within social networks.

Friendship is more dynamic, requiring reneval: Friends keep track of each other, check on each other, so that they might help each other in times of need, or work together towards great purposes.

So what's particular to couples? What sort of 'energy' characterizes the interactions of lovers?

First you might say that on the scale of stability and volatility, it's even further to the latter side than friendship: Crushes cause strong feelings very quickly, but couples can also fly apart dramatically. Where Friends and family are a steady warmth, a crush is intemperate heat.

And while exclusivity is not always factor, we might ask ourselves why many people do want it when they rarely object to more friends or more family. People who get cheated on often cry that they are 'nothing special' to their love, or that they 'lost the fight' or 'were not chosen'.

So it seems that there is a sense of specialness and chosenness, of a special belonging, that makes a couple. You want to be chosen. So people might beautify their body, brag of their strenght and accomplishment, or gird themselves with the peacock feathers or humor and art.

Playing a guitar or being funny doesn't help you survive, but if your brain can afford extra useless skills, you probably have good genes. Though while this might be why nature made it so, that is not why people do it: People do it because it feel good. That hot guitarist isn't playing guitar to advertise his genes or even to woo girls, but his chances of wooing girls are nonetheless increased from his guitar skill.

And because there is a choosing, couples love emphasize the qualities that make you unique. People often have strong 'tastes', and what attracts one person may repell another. People become obsessed with every detail of the other's exact 'flavor', sometimes literally their smell.

Whereas when you're looking for friends you'd present qualities that you have in common with others, and, once those are met, all you need is that they have morals. And starting a family – or a found family, like becoming roommates – depends on practical concerns: Do you have matching habits and lifestyles? Do your life plans align? Can you provide for children, if you want them?

There is also, and I think this is the sticking point, a 'transformational' quality. Couples love is portrayed in stories as some inherently chaotic, unforseen force, and especially popular are stories where the lovers are transformed or changed by their love; Their rigid lives and indentities might be made rearrange themselves. You cannot want that special belongingness… that 'oneness' even without being changed. If you are one, you are no longer two, and after you split apart you might not be the same people, and be speckled with each other's substance.

While your friends and family more or less form part of your established world, 'creating' you so to speak, your lover is someone who comes to that already semi-finished person and throws that into chaos. Which is why serious couples love only really starts to happen once you become independent and 'finished' in adolescence.

It's not that for the right person, you would recklessly move to a different country, but that if it is the right person, moving to a different country will be your dream, too.

If I said earlier that love is like fascination, then that's especially true for couples love: It's an exciting feeling of rush and discovery. This sort of love is usually over when you perceive the other person as without secrets.

These qualities can overlap to a degree of course – there can be friends who are part of your life for so long that they become your family. The same can be true in a long marriage. And this quality of 'interestingness' and 'transformation' can also win you friends or be found in mentors which you admire – or, in a more negative sense, you can desire jealous attention from friends or from your parents, perhaps competing with your siblings. Further you would hope that both your family and your lover would be someone with whom you share companionship and goals.

But for the most part, romance is the purview of that 'chaotic', 'transformative' love.

If you look at a lover's in a movie, it will be shot very different from a family hug. Any emotional hug will have swelling music and lingering shots, but for a couples hug, there will be swift, fast cuts showing individual small movements, an emphasis on lingering gazes, small blushes, individual reactions. With this, the director would be approximating the feeling of charge, of tension. The 'hot', 'chaotic' feeling.

A happy scene between family would have a relaxed atmosphere of comfort, with friends, a vivid, light sense of fun, with comrades or a mentor and student, maybe steadfast purpose.

But with lovers there is a positive tension of charge and excitement – or rather, building of tension followed by release, in any case, a more 'dynamic' process which takes some skill to create – You can't bring it about with the exact same approach that you'd use to create harmony among friends. You need to subvert expectations, 'pierce' the other person's defences as it were, not in a crass or pushy way, but like a bright feather or beautiful music 'pierces' through the blur of our gray surroundings.

And is always a risk, since what attracts one can repulse another. Trying to be chosen means you can not be chosen.

So when you're barely confident in your skill to create friendly harmony and just barely got it going… especially if the person is important and you don't want to lose them as a friend, making a move, poking the flow of the conversation in a certain direction… that can feel like disrupting everything. It's rocking the boat. It's drawing attention to you – and those attending may not like what they see.

So yeah. That would be why things between us seemed to have remained at a standstill even though I had had more than enough opportunities to become conscious of my own feelings, hopes and wishes.

I was doing all this for the first time, okay? When do you expect me to have picked up any experience, in kindergarten maybe?

What I just explained is the view I have today, shaped by many bitter lessons.

I was absolutely clueless back then.

As most 13-year-old boys would be. Unless they are especially sucessful, popular or attractive, it is pretty normal for people to remain somewhat clueless of all this well into their twenties!

I didn't know that this was going to be my only opportunity!

(2.4.2: Miss Everything Daydreaming)

December 13th 2014 – 12:30

T minus 383 days, 12 hours and 6 minutes

I kept thinking about that whole incident for most of the morning, too distracted from class by contrived efforts to avoid furtive glances at Rei, putting my face behind laptops and schoolboards only to hide from being discovered by her, though she barely did anything more than to keep looking at the rainy courtyard.

The odds of me passing my exams were growing ever dimmer with every passing day…

A smarter, braver man would have used the handy excuse of bringing Rei that lunchbox I'd promised her to start a conversation and maybe even eat with her, but by the time the noonbell rang, I was thankful for any distraction that might offer itself, so I was curt in my delivery and then took my very usual everyday path toward where Touji, Kensuke and Kaworu were sitting...

December 13th 2014 – 16:11

T minus 383 days, 7 hours and 49 minutes

Today, I was on cleaning duty, as fate would have it, with Rei.

But let it not be thought that I used this chance to say more than some vaguely friendly basic pleasantries.

It wouldn't have worked out anyway, because Hikari had stayed behind to make sure we actually clean, and I doubt that she would have sanctioned any amorous distractions.

Not wanting to be yelled at, I obediently started stacking up the desks and chairs.

I wasn't trying to look at anything but the chairs, but getting the stairs out of the way required me at times to turn in various directions, and if I was walking up and down the room with handfuls of chairs, it might be excused if my eyes brushed against the other presences in the room.

You might say that they didn't have to stay glued there, but you weren't there.

Rei had filled a bucket with water with which to wet the dust cloths for the purpose of swiping the floor, and at some point, I suppose that she must have dipped the cloth inside, but when I caught sight of her, she was already wringing out the excess water, and it was coming off her slender fingers in glittering streams. So as not to get any water on its long sleeves, she had removed her blue uniform jacket and pulled up the sleeves of the dress shirt beneath, so that all her white arms were stretched out before me.

She knellt there, dutifully, her face and silhouette in profile, her eyes focussed on the task, wrapped into an aura of separate distance… maybe not exactly like Hikari and I were not in the room, but at least, as if there were a wall between us – like seeing something through a window… though, just as this perception filled up all of my mind including whatever space would normally have been dedicated to the perception of time, some opposing 'ying' portion began stirring like a leviathan under water, mixing up the ocean like it was but a small tin filled with ocean, floating to the top despite my will, and without ever fully realizing its implications, I found myself thinking that something about the way she was crouching there looked oddly… familiar, like something that did not belong there-

But I could not consider this further, Hikari had noticed me spacing out.

"Oi! Less daydreaming, more cleaning!"

I'm sure that she only ended up waving around that broom because she happened to be using it just before, and even so, I doubt she meant to hit me with it. Under other circumstances, she would simply have performed some emphatic gestures with it, or, at post, lightly poked my hair.

...I have mentioned before that I kind of startle easily, yes?

Because this would be the sort of situation where this might relevant. When I sensed the motion coming, I fliched backwards, no doubt without any involvement of my higher brain functions.

This is obvious because I immediately proceeded to lose my balance and fall so unfortunately that I scraped the back of my right hand on the old wooden floorboards, dragging an uneven edge against my skin.

Ouch.

This made enough noise for Rei to look up from her floor wiping.

"Shinji-kun, are you alright?"

"Yeah, yeah-" I answered at once, even as the pain from my poor hand reached my face despite my best efforts. I think I'd bumped my ellbow, too, but at least that had been covered by my jacket. "It's nothing-"

"No way!" exclaimed Hikari, rushing to help me up, her comand voice all but dropped, like the broom that lay forgotten on the floor. "You really should disinfect it!"

There's no escaping the Token Responsible Person.

"I'm sorry, Ayanami-san!" she said, already beginning to usher me towards the door, "Please keep cleaning by yourself for a bit, alright? We'll be right back in a bit."

Before I knew it, I'd been sat down at the already abandoned nurses' office while Hikari got out the gauze and desinfectant – I think it fell under the umbrella of her duties to accompany sick students on their way here and to patch up anyone who got some scrapes during PE. Accordingly, she found the implements right away, skillfully picking up the ball of gauze with a pair of tweezers.

"Sorry again - it was half my fault." she lamented.

"Hey, don't worry about it – it's really nothing…"

This didn't slow her down, though. I guess it was too late to protest now that she had already opened the gauze wrappers and everything.

"You're such a nice dude. Sometimes, it puzzles me that someone like you hangs out with a goofball like Suzuhara."

Ah, come on. Why bring Touji into it?

"You're going to become stupid by association."

Bold of her to assume that I was ever anything other…

But though I was flattered by her unwarranted faith in me, I felt obliged to make at least some feeble token effort at defending my friend's honor.

"He's not stupid. He likes attention, sure, but you can count on him. And he's a really nice guy, too! You should see how he dotes on his little sister."

As I spoke, I suddenly noticed a strange change coming over her face, a loosening of the reins maybe -

"Actually, I think so too…"

"Huh?"

"J-Just kidding!" suddenly, she was frantically waving her arms in front of her.

After that, she was quiet for a bit.

Thinking, maybe. An odd warm heaviness settled over the room as she busied herself with my scrapes.

"This might sting abit..."

Can't be worse than EVA combat simulations.

Once she had finished cleaning it & inspecting my poor hand for any possible wood splinters, she decided to cover it up with a larger, rectangular piece of gauze and some medical tape.

But just when she was nearly finished, the deft movements of her fingers came to a stall.

"Say… does Suzuhara ever say anything about me?"

Huh?

"...like what?"

"Oh- Nothing in particular. I was just wondering if he thinks I'm a busybody, or shrew, or too picky- That's all! If he doesn't mention me at all, that's fine too…"

It's not like her to be so timid.

And what am I supposed to answer to this? I didn't want to make her feel insecure.

But if I told her about that one time Touji said she was hot she would probably just get mad at him. Besides, that was confidential…

I didn't have to come up with an answer, though, since she promptly asked a different question:

"I wonder if he likes Asuka."

"What?! Why her, of all people?"

"Well- they always seem to be having fun together."

...fun, she says. Last time I checked, they were constantly arguing. It's honestly hard to get them to stop.

Did Hikari think that boys only care about looks?

Though, in the name of fairness and objectivity, I had to admit that Touji's own tendency towards macho tough talk might be to blame for that impression; He thinks it makes him look tough in a reliable way, but that's not really the effect that it's having…

Though whatever might be the case there, there was at least one thing that I could reassure her about: "Touji and Asuka? No way! I think he'd prefer a more, uh, old-fashioned sorta girl, if you know what I mean…."

"I bet he does!"

Now, everything I'd previously mentioned about Hikari & the entire flow of this conversation might lead you to believe that she said this in some sort of scolding tone, but in reality, she ended up looking oddly happy, for reasons that were wholly beyond me at that time.

I didn't get to pursue the matter since she was finished patching me up by then, and despite my feeble protestations, told me to just go home and leave whatever was left of the cleaning to her and Rei.

I was soon to be enlightened, however…

December 13th 2014 – 19:42

T minus 383 days, 4 hours and 18 minutes

We had no training today, no experiments, no GEHIRN stuff whatsoever.

You might think that this would be just the right opportunity to finally do some studying, but somehow, we all just ended up lounging in front of the TV.

I'd lingered to see what was one when I'd come home, not yet intending to so much as sit myself down on the couch, and once umhooked from the marching drumbeat of structure, my mind proved rather reluctant to get back on its train, content to exist for a limited time in some inert state that required absolutely nothing of me, like a subatomic particle stuck in the state of lowest energy.

It might be far too presumptious to postulate that Asuka and Mari might have been drawn to the tube for like reasons; for all I knew, they were already caught up on their studying and enjoying the well-deserved rest of the rightheous that is the crowning glory of hard work and archievement… or that is, Asuka was, for upon closer inspection, it would seem that Mari, though positioned on the sofa, was not paying very much attention to the TV at all, and instead had her attention occupied with the book inside her hand and whatever music might be coming out of those huge, conspicuous neon pink headphones.

Asuka had ditched her school uniform already and clipped some star-shaped hairclips in the usual place of her interface clips to keep her hair out of her face. I had the distinct impression that she had stolen one of Misato's shirts, but I thought it wiser not to bring this up.

Maybe wearing it made her feel more grownup, though the visual result was very different – being notably smaller than Misato in stature, she could wear the shirt for a nightgown, but even so, she had draped herself across the sofa in such a way as to take up the most space of us all, and once she was perfectly settled in the coziest spot and leisurely snacking on a watermelon-flavored popsicle, she couldn't be expected to leave it for such a menial task as switching the channel… which is why she demanded that I should do it.

But what right do I have to complain?

I did exactly what she told me to.

In doing this, I slid off the sofa and scuffled towards the TV (since the remote was once again missing in action) which would have given Asuka a good view of the piece of gauze stuck to the back of my hand.

"What happened to you there?" she asked, at once, impelled by a gossipy sort of curiosity.

"Ah, that's because I fell during cleaning duty."

"What are you, stupid? You're not gonna beat the angels if you keep being so clumsy!"

I know. I'm not to keen on being killed by monsters, either…

"Hikari patched me up after that," I said, at first, just to answer something, but then I just kept going, hoping that hearing someone else's perception might help me to at least figure out how to begin making sense of it. "...she kept asking me those strange questions, too… about Touji of all people… like if he ever talks about her, or if he likes you..."

"WHAAT?!" at first, Asuka's response seemed somewhat out of proportion to me.

Then, the penny dropped: "Who would have thought that such a sensible girl like her would have such bad taste!"

"What do you mean, 'bad taste'?"

"Well, duh! From what you're saying, it sounds like she likes him."

Huh?

"EEEEEEHHH?!"

That was Mari. I'd been wholly convinced that she was completely distracted by her book and music, but it seems that she had ultra fine sensors for other people's business. Seconds later, the book was closed in her lap and the headphones slid down to her shoulders.

At least I wasn't the only one surprised here.

"For reals? That's so exciting!"

"More like regrettable – she's way too good for that monkey. Though actually, now that I think of it, that explains a lot… That's why she was so happy that I brought her along to the moving in party – I guess she just wanted an excuse to han out with him… But why didn't she confide in me?" bemoaned the Second Child. "God knows I'd be more helpful than stupid Shinji here…"

"Never mind that! The real question is: Now that we do know, what shall we do to keep those two a little push towards their happiness?"

You know, I think this is exactly what Hikari was trying to avoid by not telling you two.

If there's even anything to tell: The speed at which Mari was convinced by this proposition did rouse me to scepticism: "Why would you think that? She's always yelling at him."

"You don't understand anything, do you? What a baby!"

Thankfully, Mari had somewhat lower expectations of my psychic powers, and graced me with an explanation: "Sometimes it's the people who are most important to you that can set you off the most – if it's just some rando off the street, you wouldn't even care and you'd just stay out of their way after deciding that they're a jerk."

I wonder what this implies coming from someone who's always so unfazed and nonchallant about everything. I wonder if there's anyone who could drive her up the walls. Though I know she's attached to Asuka at least… even so, I think I could think of another example for what she was saying...

"Is that how it is with Misato and Kaji?"

So impressed by the wisdom of my barely-elders, I blurted this out before it could occur to me that saying this in front of Asuka was probably a poor choice…

"So!" cried Mari, before the air had any chance to settle, "What are we gonna do about the class rep's situation?"

I can't tell if she's just not sensing the akwardness, or running some aggressive campaign to raise Asuka's spirits in her own heavyhanded way.

December 13th 2014 - 21:00

T minus 383 days and 3 hours

I ended up in bed without opening a single textbook. Behind the door, I could still hear the girls sheming and snickering to each other; It was easy to imagine them rubbing their hands together.

Honestly, in their place, I'd me more reluctant to meddle in other people's business – what if I wreck it, or put them I an awkward position because of a misunderstanding on my part?

It's not like I don't want to help others, but what if I make it worse? What if people get mad at me? What if I screw up and only end up making people feel bad about themselves?

But if I never take action, I was sure that my supposedly valuable 'formative years' were just gonna rush past me like a high-speed train, and I would come out of this without any of the treasured memories that people make movies or TV shows about, never getting my first kiss, or first date, or any deep, influential experience that would inspire my future career path, and I would just continue to walk down the expected path of least resistance right up to the crematorium.

Well, the older and wiser ones among you would probably advise me that there's nothing wrong with having your first relationship or finding your true passion at a later age and maybe send me a long list of influential famous people who didn't become sucessful or get married until they were way older. But who's to say that I'd even live to be older? For all I knew, I could just die in a car crash tomorrow – or in the coming war, thought that was a thought I was trying very hard to stave off. Also, I didn't really have that sort of perspective back then.

I just saw myself as fubling and flailing, questioning & overthinking every step while others already seemed to know how you do things. Sometimes, it was easy to dismiss them as reckless and tell myself that I was being the responsible one, but in other cases it was pretty undeniable that I was the one missing out. I mean, I'd joined a secret government project to change myself, but there was no way that any sort of passive agreeing was going to stop be from being the same old me… I'd added all these new activities to my schedule, met new people and started new habits, but on the other end, I was still very much basically the same. No matter how far I might run, I would have to take my little old self along with me… kind of a frustrating thought, and as it was my wont in those days, I swiftly saught distraction when frustration presented itself.

I was already changed and in bed, so I decided to check my text messages one last time before trying to sleep, so that I would have at least a theoretical possibility of keeping up with tomorrow's classes.

I grabbed my phone from it's usual charging spot at the side of my bed, and opened up my messages. There were some photos of Kensuke posing with a model gun, and Touji cracking a joke underneath.

There was one of that glitter-filled 'Happy [Weekday]' gifs from Mana. There was a notice from Ms. Ritsuko about next week's testing schedule, and a bunch of cat memes from my cousin which he'd probably sent to everyone in his contact list. Kaworu, bless his heart, was inquiring how my exam preparations were progressing. I wondered if I should bother him with the truth, but ultimately went with something vague and noncomittal before wishing him a nice evening. In general, I made sure to reply at least a buch of friendly-looking emojis to each one.

But what I saved for last, because it intrigued me the most, was an unexplained message from an as-of-yet unknown number, which was truly displayed as a number since it was not yet associated with any name on my contact list. It simply read [Is this working?]...

[What do you mean?] I typed, and then added [Also, who is this?]

I realized then that this would not be very indicative on its on, in case the sender had just typed in the wrong number, so I appended the following for the sake of clarification:

[This is Ikari, btw.]

I hope that this didn't count as giving out stategic information. I didn't actually recall too much from the information safety lecture they had made us sit through at GEHIRN.

When there was no reply not any change of the corresponding icon indicating that the sender had seen my message, I decided to call it quits and try to sleep.

December 14th 2014 – 7:30

T minus 382 days, 16 hours and 30 minutes

It was only in the moring that I would find out how to file away this number.

When I plucked my phone from the charger to put it back in my bag, I could see that I'd received another message, in the early morning no less -

[It's Ayanami Rei. I contacted you using the number you have me. You can let me know about developments at school this way, just like you suggested.]

...!

[That's very good! You definitely reached the right place then.]

That would have contained a whole lot more 'ahs' and 'uhs' if I had said it out loud instead of typing. It's good that she couldn't see my trembling sweaty fingers.

I did not put the phone in my bag.

I left it sitting on the bed, hurrying through the motions of getting dressed so that I could grab it right away in case it started ringing. It didn't, but I picked it back up anyways. The little icon definitely indicated that Rei must definitely have seen it by now, at least, but there was no reply.

The phone went into the right pocket of my uniform trousers.

As I went about the business of packing the right school books and getting everything ready in the kitchen, it's weight was ever on my mind, though I was reluctant to pull it out where I might be seen and teased about it by Asuka, Misato and Mari.

I got lucky when I happened to sneak into the bathroom after Asuka left but before Misato or Mari had the chance to besiege it, and only then did I pull out the phone, but it was just as I thought: There had been no telltale vibration, no return message of any kind.

Maybe Rei was busy packing for school? Or maybe she had already left and set the phone to silent so it wouldn't ring in the middle of the tram, or in the classroom…

I don't know…

Tentatively, I decided to post one more message. I wasn't going to leave an annoying heap of desperate texts, but just one more couldn't hurt, right? Let her know that it was ok to write me for things other than just school stuff… who am I kidding, I was definitely hoping that she would text back…

[Anyway, have a nice morning!]

As soon as I sent it, I began thinking that I should delete it – that was totally awkward right? Wasn't it way too obvious…? Before I could make up my mind, though, the little icon next to the message switched to the color that indicated that it had been both seen and received it.

So it was too late now – would she write a reply?

So far, she hadn't, nor was there any indication that she was currently writing.

Maybe she'd write later… or maybe she had to catch her tram now.

Maybe she'd write once she was on board….

Anyway, Misato was already banging on the door and asking how long I was gonna take in here, so I really ought to take care of my business quickly lest I make her late for work…

I shouldn't have bothered. There was no reply, none at all, not all morning.

I guess she was busy, or in a hurry or whatever.

When she came in to school this morning, she acted like usual, and she didn't say anything out of the ordinary when I handed her today's lunch, so I don't think she was mad or anything… though even then, I couldn't help but notice that her hair was no less damp than it had been on the days before.

Did she forget to grab the umbrella? If she did, that would only strenghten my impression that she was simply too busy to text me back much, so there was probably no reason to read anything into it – maybe she just didn't know what to reply, or she didn't want to bother me? I know that's happened to me on occasion.

It's hard to not know what she's thinking. It just makes me uneasy…

I keep wanting to hear her voice, any sort of sign that she still likes me, that she's maybe thinking about me, too – and all the while, the more reasonable parts of me are kind of embarassed, if not concerned even. It's not like I want to go and threaten her with a gun until she 'confesses' whatever she's thinking. It's her good right to think her busy morning thinking of other things than me.

She doesn't even know what I am thinking because I can't bring myself to tell her, so if nothing seems to be happening that's entirely my own fault.

I should probably stop obsessing over this, or, at least I shouldn't be so easily thrown off balance.

I've always been so damn sensitive, I know this already, I don't need Asuka or Misato to tease me about it...

I guess that's what people mean when they say that someone has 'stolen your heart'.

Your inner balance starts to be no longer just entirely up to yourself.

You start to give another power and influence, in a way – you begin to care about what they say and what they think about you. It's just like Mari said: Your heart becomes more sensitive to the people you care about. You can't just dismiss them or tune them out. You might endure things from them that you wouldn't put up with from anyone else. I needed that explained to me then, but after all I've been through, I can no longer doubt it now that I've been sold and betrayed by the ones I trusted the most, like a lamb led to the slaughter…

I couldn't even have fathomed that back then, taken up as I was with concerns that now seem blissfully simple.

What wouldn't I give to have those same worries now again – would that I could peer over at Rei – alive! Palpable! - sitting close by in that classroom, filled with those same lively voices.

December 14th 2014 – 12:15

T minus 382 days, 11 hours and 45 minutes

I wonder just how long Hikari had been glancing over at Touji's seat like this.

I'd never noticed it before. Now I couldn't unsee it.

I mean, if I had seen her looking our way, when we'd been talking during breaks, I would have assumed that it was simply to keep track of us, as some of our class' notorious troublemakers were included among our number - I would just have dismissed it, and not even recorded it in my memory. That, or I would have responded by lowering my voice or leaving the room. I'd had a suspicion, for a while, that she had caught onto us after I'd let Touji copy my math homework once too many.

He was currently trying to peruse my services once again.

"Please, master, you gotta help me out here - I'm not smart like you!"

Pretty sly, though, since you always seem to find someone to copy from... Normally I'd have easily granted Touji's wish, seeing that he was one of my best friends (and that I was, as you might have noticed, something of a pushover), but between the 'special training' and the challenges of adapting to my new living situation, I was still way behind on everything even in the face of the looming exams. I could use someone to copy from myself!

For all that he would have preferred to help me by legitimate means such as explaining the problems to me with sufficient time, I'm sure that Kaworu wouldn't have left me hanging if I asked him in an emergency, but I wouldn't have his perfect records besmirched on my behalf.

"I'm really, really sorry, but I'm afraid I can't help you this time. I could let you copy my homeworks, but I don't think that would do much good – I only did the first and third problems, and I'm not very sure about my solutions there, either…"

"Aww, schucks!"

"You know, Touji, this is exactly the sort of problem you wouldn't have if you did your own homework for a change." observed Kensuke sagely, with just a wee bit of a teasing undertone.

"You want me to do it now? In twenty minutes? Besides, you didn't do yours either because you were camping in front of that store to get your hands on that limited edition model gun, if I'm not sorely mistaken!"

"That's different. That was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. A man has got to have priorities. You've got to save your three strikes per school year for the real emergencies of life."

Helpful as it might be for the future, none of that advice could help Touji right now – the dismay was plain on his face.

Some might say that he had brought it upon himself, but I felt sorry for him, and a little responsible, since he'd been counting on me to have the solutions, which I might have had if I weren't always so distracted these days.

"...maybe you could copy from someone else?" I suggested tentatively "Might be a good idea anyways, you know, for strategic reasons – I don't know, maybe the class rep?"

"WHAT? HER? The stingy square of class I-A? As if she'd ever condescend to that simple act of charity!"

"WHOS A STINGY SQUARE?"

"I WASN'T TALKING ABOUT YOU!"

"YOU WERE POINTING RIGHT AT ME!"

Oh dear.

...this is exactly why I thought that we should stay out of this…. But everyone kept suggesting that we give this situation a little nudge, so I thought – I thought wrong, clearly.

In the end everyone went quiet at oce when the door to the classroom was opened from the outside – and good thing we did, since it was the old math teacher who came in.

"Suzuhara? Are you here? You're wanted at the principal's office."

Oh dear.

"What the heck did you do now."

"Nothing I can think of – Whatever it is, I didn't do it! ...but I'm going, alright?"

And then he left, growing up his hands in some half-hearted placating gestures, and Kensuke followed soon after: "I'll make sure to get him something at the cafeteria in case they keep him for the whole break!"

I think he mostly just wanted to secure his own place in the often rather long lines. There's a reason that I decided to make my own.

But for those of us not beholden to the whims of the cafeteria, a different concern now floated to the top of the agenda.

Before Hikari could even fully wind down from her displeasure at this latest squabble, she found herself cornered by both Mari and Asuka, the latter of which grabbed her right by the shoulders:

"Hi-Ka-Ri! That won't do! There'll be no progress the way that it's going now!"

"Huh? What?"

"Let's discuss this with some privacy!" - and that was all the warning poor Hikari got before Asuka went to steer her out of the classroom by the shoulders, making straight for the stairs that led to the roof.

I was just left standing there, blinking several times, until Asuka, who had by then already reached the hallways, happened to have another incidental thought:

"Oh, and, Four-eyes, do grab Baka Shinji!"

Resistance was futile.

I'm not entirely sure how I ended up getting dragged into this. I guess Asuka tends to think of me as something like a fashionable acessory of hers – and Mari has no sense for propriety whatsover, so she thought little of all but kidnapping me – as you shall see later, she was in a habit of 'napping giant robot, so what is the theft of one unimpressive little boy compared to that?

Before either myself or Hikari knew what his us, we were already on the shool roof, faced with a very amused Mari and a rather determined looking Asuka, both eager partners in crime.

Mari however was perfectly content to lake Asuka take the spotlight: "Honestly, you really should confide in me more often! Why didn't you come to me sooner?!"

"What do you mean?"

"Don't play dumb! It's that stupid monkey Suzuhara! I honestly don't know what you see in him, but, to each their own."

"It's fine the way it is-"

"No it's not!" declared Asuka, incenced by some surprisingly genuine passion. "Just think about the days we're living in! Sure, we're all having fun here and now, but there's no telling what might happen to us next year! There's a war coming for Pete's sake! We could all get maimed, or even killed, or the whole damn world might end! And if that happens, and you haven't told him, you'll regret it forever. Just do it, okay?

You'll feel better, even if it doesn't work out…" and here her voice got softer, in a way that I had not often heard it. It's a rare thing to see her admitting the real dangers of our employment even to herself. For the most part, she doesn't even consider that she might loose. But here, at least, she was being completely honest: "– and even then, at least you won't have to keep wondering forever whatever might have been, and you could move on with a clean conscience."

Asuka exchanged a quick glance with Mari, who nodded at her approvingly and then extended that same big smile to Hikari.

Under such a bombardment of earnest support, Hikari was getting rather close to accepting our support – at least, she no longer bothered to deny it.

The manner in which she shyly wrung her hands together in front of her chest made me remember that she was indeed a normal girl barely older tha Asuka, for all that she usually acted the part of the authority figure.

"...but what if he's already got someone he likes?"

Asuka wasn't having any of this:

"Like who?"

"I don't know – maybe Ayanami? He didn't want me to come with when he was bringing her her stuff…"

Oh dear. I was beginning to see Asuka's point. Poor Hikari must have it really bad if she spends this much time thinking about Touji's hypothetical love life.

At least I wasn't the only one who starts acting all useless in front of their crush.

Out of solidarity, if nothing else, I tried by best to reasure her: "Ah – I think he just took me along cause I know where he lives."

"Yeah!" added Asuka, though what she said was not exactly in line with what I was thinking: "You don't need to worry about the First. Believe me, I've worked with her a good while and lemme tell you, that girl has absolutely no interest in other human beings. If that one ever gets a boyfriend, I'm eating my interface clips with ketchup on top!"

"That's awfully harsh", I mumbled, "Why couldn't Rei have a boyfriend? She's a bit reclusive alright, but this is going too far… - not Touji though!" I added hastily, suddenly realizing how this might be misunderstood.

Asuka sighed: "You know, sometimes it's like you're only slightly less cluesless about people than she is."

"Maybe. Could be. But I'm still sure that things with her and Touji are completely platonic. She's not even his type. He only started hanging out with her because she's friends with me."

"Really?"

"Yeah – so far as I know he doesn't have a girlfriend, or anyone that he likes. If he did, I'd know – or, at least, you'd think that Kensuke would have caught on to it at least."

Hikari's whole face lit up.

It seems like she was at last beginning to believe that she actually might have a chance.

"Alright then!" declared Mari, "We have now confirmed without a doubt that Mister Suzuhara is in fact an eligible barchelor! Sooo, how shall our dear Miss Class Rep work her charms on him?"

Asuka had some idea:

"Shinji! You're friends with him! Come on, think of something! How can Hikari and that hot-headed goofball get all lovey-dovey?"

I was beginning to see why I had been dragged along.

"Uh, he always eats the cheap cafeteria food. Maybe you can bring him lunch?"

Yeah, because that had worked so great on Rei so far. Though the fault for bungling it was entirely my own. I was worried that Asuka might yell at me for that clumsy suggestion, but instead, she actually agreed:

"We can use that! Is it crude? Yes. Is it corny? Also yes. But it might work on an idiot like him! Besides, didn't you just tell me the other days that you always have leftovers because all the recipes are for four people? Seems like you could kill two birds with one stone here!"

Hikari was a little embarassed by the suggestion. She would probably be reluctant to put it into such calculating terms

"I would have shared with you, but since you like your own lunches so much-"

"There's no need to say anything uncessary now – let's focus on the plan!"

Aha! Seems like my culinary efforts are at least not completely in vain. That's nice to know, at least…

"So! Shall we do it?"

"We could try," admitted Hikari, which was precisely what Asuka (and Mari!) had been wanting to hear.

"Excellent!" concluded the redhead, "We'll be calling it 'Operation Icebreaker!'" that might have been laying it on a little thick, but then again, neither Mari nor Asuka had any settings between zero and eleven. They both got looots of energy…

Though in this case, maybe it had turned out for the better. I found myself sporting a small smile as I observed them. Seeing their passion in wanting to help their friend was honestly quite refreshing. If you caught Asuka on a bad day, you might easily get impression that she was, like, a rather egocentric sort of person concerned only with her glory and success, but right here you can see that she definitely has some kindness in her, when she relaxes enough to let its leaves taste the sun...

I ask that you please remember this part of her, even when I tell you what became of her later…

I think Mari was thinking something pretty similar, smiling fondly even as Asuka left the room, still in the process of giving Hikari various pep-talks and confidence boosting speeches.

Mari herself had lingered on the room as the others left, carelessly bouncing her feet past the bars of the railing.

She grinned right at me when she spotted me looking at her.

"What's up, puppy boy?"

Though she has a good heart, her sheer blunt energy is still sometimes a little bit overwhelming.

"Uh- ah- nothing really. I was just thinking that you seem to like playing matchmaker."

"I like seeing people happy.", she mused. "I just like people, honestly – I think almost anyone has some qualities that you can admire or feel sympathy for, once you get to know them."

I felt made aware of my own inadequacy there.

I'm not sure that I'm able to take a genuine vested interest in others to the same degree. Maybe the people that immediately surround me and are important to me, but when it comes to the larger world, I just don't know….

I suppose that, as her friends, Asuka and I are pretty lucky that Mari thinks so.

---

Well, look at that! The odds that Tsubame gets born in this timeline just increased a whole lot!
But what of the tenuous standstill in Shin-chan's own lovelife? Perhaps he shall have more luck in the next chapter… As a subject, the struggle of strong introversion as a relationship roadblock is very close to my heart, because, as the old saying goes, "I'm in this picture and I don't like it".

Contained in the second half of act II (& we're defs past the halfway point now, I think) is my wish that everyone would at least have gotten a brief honeymoon of bliss before it all went down the drain.
No looming EVA 03 anywhere in sight yet, none of that 'but before she could convey her heart, she exploded' stuff, there'll be plenty of time for explosions later...

I'd make some joke about how the universe would probably implode if the main characters got a break for five minutes, but then I realized that this is pretty much the exact plot of 2.0.
I'm not just talking about Shinji and Rei here, poor Asuka gets hit by a face full of horrible body horror about half a second after having this sweet bonding moment with Misato and producing a genuine smile.

Other than that, I'm noticing a lot of words that the English language apparently doesn't have:
- "wohngemeinschaft" – a household of roommates, or the appartment where they'd live
- "umsteigen" – dedicated verb for 'to change trains'
- "bunt" – a color word specifically for "bightly multicolored"
-"kiffen" – a specific verb for "to smoke pot". How come English got one for meth('tweak') and MDMA('roll'), but not for weed which is even legal in some English speaking countries? Here's to hoping the coalition talks go well… though honestly, at this point I only care about the environmental policies... It's Allerhöchste Eisenbahn (super urgent), as we like to say...
- the phrase "Tu, was du nicht lassen kannst" ("Do what you cannot stay away from doing") or anything with the same specific connotations… the closest match would probably be 'Suit yourself' or 'do as you like', but I miss the 'what you cannot let be' part of the phrase.
- "dann müssen wir sie wohl zu ihrem glück zwingen" – roughly 'we'll have to take matters into our own hands', but literally 'Then we'll have to force them into their happiness'. That seems very much like a sentence Mari would say… and probably one that she did say at some point, given that she speaks like ten languages.
Those words/phrases would all have been real handy for this. Im always stumped when I google something & don't find it.
Well. To be fair there are also many instances in my life where I really wanted to noun a verb in a conversation with my mother, but I couldn't because while my mom speaks 3 languages, none of them is English. There are so many funny internet things that she just cannot understand :(
'accountability' is a nice word, too. We have words for various subsets of it but not their union

I wonder though, now that I think of it: Does the seasonal length of day and night even vary this much in Japan? I'd been writing this under the assumption that it's roughly the same since the weather looks about the same in the animes, but it's easy to forget that Europe is a great deal warmer than it 'should' be given its latitude because of freak sea currents; I got out a long/lat map and realized that japan is a good chunk further south….

My main intention was to throw in one or two details that would give the story a distinct flavor like something retold from memory and to underline the enormity of the responsibility of being responsible for so many people that you can't even properly imagine them, but part of the reason that Shinji can't seem the recall of that one second lieutennant in charge of Rei's finances is that he's very vaguely based after the protag from Ayanami raising project, whose name is up to the player.