A Table
She sat at the small laminate table in silence, motionless. Her eyes hazy and unfocused. Wearing the same boarding school uniform she had worn the day they met.
"Mari?"
A grunt, dry and throaty.
"Mari, where—"
Another grunt. Louder, more forceful.
Asuka had questions. Mountains of them. But she was left clueless, felt powerless. All she could do was sit there and gaze at the ghost she shared the room with.
The clock read 0415 when Asuka arrived home to find her there. She froze, felt her heart drop. Keys hitting the cold tile floor with a hollow, echoing clatter. Her mind, fuzzy after another night's excursion, snapped back to attention. Thoughts racing, emotions churning. Her memory flashed back to the moment, just over a year ago, when she had watched an Angel draw Mari and Unit 08 into the cold embrace of death.
But in this moment words were not enough. Slowly, as if trying not to startle a wild animal, Asuka slid her hand forward. With each inch closer Mari's brow furrowed deeper, fingers slowly curling inward. Then, in a flash, she raised her fist into the air and drove it down towards Asuka's upturned palm.
The low whump of flesh and bone against cheap fiberboard. The room seemed to shake. Asuka was left panting, her eyes wide in shock. The unconscious reflex that had kicked in moments before impact draining what little energy remained.
The anger swiftly welled up within. Her lips narrowed and curled, her jaw clenched. But a sudden sob caused her to pause. With her head hung low and tears cascading from sunken eyes down gaunt cheeks, Mari seemed to be crumbling. Hands, pressed to either side of her face, trembling uncontrollably. Her mouth moved, as if trying to say something. Again and again in futile attempts to force her voice out. But the only sound to escape was a strange, crackling hiss that turned Asuka's stomach. She rushed to the sink and promptly vomited.
Her knees turned to gelatin, a deep chill set in her bones, and Asuka's world turned to black.
She had left NERV shortly after Mari's death. During one last attempt to sync with Unit 02 the behemoth simply went limp. No amount of external stimulus would wake it. Asuka took it as a sign: this part of her life was over.
They had provided a pension and housing. And the others, Shinji and Rei, Hikari, Toji, even Kensuke, had at first stopped by every few days to check on her. Brought clean clothes and fully-cooked meals. But they more often than not found the cramped one-room apartment empty. As the months passed they came less and less. Then stopped completely.
She awoke with a piercing headache that felt like an ice pick being driven through her eye. The room was empty, silent. As it had always been.
Asuka, you idiot. Get it together.
Reality was slowly returning as the sun breached the horizon. The first rays casting a warm, deep orange glow throughout the kitchen. Reassuring her that it was just a nightmare. That all she needed was a bath and some sleep.
The hot water wrapped around her like a lover's embrace, drawing Asuka's weary body down. As the outside world slowly melted away she thought back to those first days and weeks alone. When she would spend hours curled up in this porcelain half-coffin crying until her voice was nothing but a weak rasp and her lungs burned with every breath. When emotions she had fought so hard to push down finally raged to the surface. When she asked herself the same question every night: would anyone really notice if I was gone?
There is a certain slow unwinding that comes with prolonged exposure to death. The threads of one's very existence slowly, painfully plucked one after another. Until, at last, what little remains unravels completely.
And it was on that day, as she and Shinji eviscerated wave after wave of Mass Production Evas in a shockingly violent assault on NERV HQ, when this happened to Asuka. Forced to watch from afar as Mari was engulfed by that horrid polyhedron of solid black as she attempted to drive an N2 bomb into its core. Her last moments, those yelps of pain and desperate cries for help, reverberating through the LCL. Until, almost mercifully, they were replaced by the empty whisper of static.
Now in bed and half-asleep as the sun rose and the remaining world began its day, Asuka stared across the room. Past the dust covered television, past the emergency bag packed with a month's worth of survival essentials, past the folding chair stacked high with empty food containers the others had never returned for. And past the empty kitchen table.
She closed her eyes and again asked the question that hung around her neck like a lead weight, that she carried like a boulder into each new day. And again she had no answer.
A Walk
This is the last stop, all passengers please exit to the left.
Some nights she would walk the dark alleyways of Tokyo-3 that stank of decay. Watching rats fight over scraps of garbage. Gazing at the moths that collected under the pale blue glare of the street lights. Their shadows, enlarged and distorted, flickering across the streets.
On others, like tonight, she would ride the train out of the city as far as it would go. Arriving at some deserted station in the middle of nowhere. Purposefully losing herself.
The fields stretched before her in every direction. And as the train went out of service and silently drifted away, so did any remaining light. There she stood on that small concrete platform bathed in darkness. Drawing a deep breath, feeling the frigid January air course through her lungs. The sensation almost hypnotic.
She strode out into that unknown land with the frozen grass crunching below her feet and a cacophony of stars above. And like most nights she had no intention of coming back.
She was passing through a stand of pines when the wind suddenly shifted. An eerie sensation of something not right rushing in. As she breached the tree line it revealed itself. The night sky, once filled with innumerable satellites both natural and man-made, was completely empty. The world now one continuous sea of black. It was only by the lingering pull of gravity that Asuka could differentiate up from down.
Then, to her left, a presence emerged. A figure even darker than the world itself.
"…M-Mari?"
Asuka took a step forward, as did the figure.
"Mari, what's…"
Another step forward, the silhouette mimicking every move. Silently, they continued forward until only inches separated them. Asuka raised a hand, slowly moving it closer. As she had the night before. But there was no violence in the shadow's response. Instead, the meeting of hands was blocked by some unseen force. As if a pane of glass separated them.
Asuka felt the first twinge of loneliness deep within her stomach. And as she moved the rest of her body forward, until they stood in that void a mirror of each other, the twinge turned to a deep wrenching. In profile she could see the outline of Mari's glasses, the subtle rise and fall of her lips, the slenderness of her fingers.
"Mari, please...say something…"
But there was only silence.
"It should've…that stupid…I…"
Her teeth began to chatter as a deep, overpowering sensation of emptiness manifested. With all her strength she pressed herself against that invisible barrier as tears welled behind her eyes. If only to be a hair's breadth closer.
"Mari…I want…"
Pressing harder still, as if physical force could shatter this distance.
"I want…"
Her knees wobbling, her voice shaking as the tears began to fall.
"I…I need…"
She slid to the ground in desperation. Knee against knee, palm against palm, face against face.
"One more time…just…"
And these final words she bellowed.
"Just tell me you love me!"
But there was no response. Only a slow, rhythmic breathing that seemed to surround her. Moments later the illusion shattered, Asuka finding herself slumped over on the first Tokyo-3 bound train of the morning.
A Life, Interrupted
They lay there together one early Sunday morning. Asuka gazing at Mari's pale back and the beckoning cat tattoo that sat just above her right shoulder blade. With her index finger she traced its outline, feeling the gentle rise and fall of bone, the tautness of muscle, the subtle resistance of skin.
"Did it hurt?"
"Not too bad. It's like…here, give me your arm. It's kinda like this."
Asuka felt a fingernail dig into her forearm before scraping back and forth. She winced, but the pain quickly grew tolerable. She let her arm go limp, resting it across Mari's body.
"Didn't hurt that much, right?"
"Yeah, not too bad. Like a bad sunburn."
"Yup. So...you wanna get one?"
"What?"
"Oh, come on! I know someone in London who still has a shop open. We can be back before tomorrow's briefing. I could even, you know, show you around a bit. That'd be cool."
"I, uhh…I'm not…I can't really think of anything important enough to have etched onto me like that."
"Ohh, really?"
Mari's voice rose playfully as she rolled over, now face to face with Asuka. Feeling the warmth of Asuka's arm still wrapped around her hip. She slid a hand behind Asuka's neck, cradling her head. Softly pulling her forward for a deep, enveloping kiss. Body against body, face against face.
"You can't think of…anything?"
"Oh, shut up. You know what I mean. Besides, what time is it?"
Mari again rolled, this time away, seemingly forever. The western furniture had always comforted Asuka. The oversized couch, the claw-foot bathtub, the grandiose china cabinet. And especially the king-size bed Mari had petitioned endlessly for.
"4:15. Ugh. Well, if we're not going to London today then is it too early to get breakfast?"
A quiet scoff was all the answer she received.
"Well then, I guess I'll just spend the rest of the night over here. Good night."
"Hey...wait…"
Asuka rose, revealing her porcelain skin. Almost glowing under the pale light of the moon. Crawling over and tightly wrapping herself around Mari. Conforming to every curve. Their hands intertwined.
"Hey, Asuka?"
"Yeah?"
"You should take a bath when we wake up."
"I…well…you should too!"
"Hey, don't threaten me with a good time."
"Pfft...pervert."
She felt Mari's giggle through the rise and fall of her stomach. They lay in silence for some time like this. Both slowly drifting away, their breaths shallow and even.
"Hey...Mari?"
A grunt, dry and throaty.
"I…I…"
Another grunt. Louder, more forceful.
"I…I love you."
She was quick to fade after finally saying the words she had kept tucked away for so long. A muffled reply came from Mari, the words indistinguishable. For a moment her heart sank. But then she felt Mari's grip tighten, pulling her closer. Shattering the distance between them.
A Sunrise
It was the otherworldly glow that woke her. Even with eyes closed she could see the rainbow flowing through the room, could almost feel it. As she rose and looked towards the foot of her bed Asuka was overtaken by a calm warmth. There Mari stood, dressed in a plugsuit that radiated color. As if the outfit itself were some prism continuously rotating. Dispersing every wavelength on the visible spectrum from some internal source of pure light. And in that moment Asuka felt whole.
On the other side of Tokyo-3 and deep within the bowels of the Geofront a strange signal was detected within Unit 02. Something that couldn't be identified but couldn't be ignored. As if the beast had chosen to revive itself. As if some natural will to live had been restored.
The sun broke bright under a clear, brilliant sky. Hued in the pale blue that only comes with early winter mornings when the world is still. Asuka stood on her apartment's small deck, looking out at the city below. Cradling a cup of coffee in her hands. Shivering. But feeling, for the first time in ages, alive. She thought about the question that had haunted her for so long:
Would anyone really notice if I was gone?
She inhaled sharply, her lungs burning as the frozen air rushed in. Filling her throat, her chest, her stomach. And she roared. Her voice echoing through the dark alleyways that stank of decay, across the empty fields, disappearing into the endless void of the cosmos above.
With that, the question vanished.
Now inside and wrapped in a heavy blanket, Asuka pulled a small box from the furthest corner of her closet. A box she had asked Hikari to tuck away, well out of sight. She opened it and smiled. A small ceramic cat looking back at her, its right hand raised. Asuka poured another cup of coffee and sat at her small kitchen table, placing the trinket in the middle. For anyone who came to visit to see. For her to see. For her to remember. And for Mari to be remembered.