The morning sun shone through the window of Toji's apartment, cutting a shaft of light across the bed Toji and Hikari had slept in. The first of the two to wake sat up in the bed, and ran a hand through her hair, noticing as she did so something different. Hikari brought her hand down to look at it, noting the difference of a golden band around her finger that caught the morning light. She stared at the ring Toji had given to her last night, down on his knee, formal and sincere, that sweet and passionate side that only really came out when he was with her. A smile crossed her face in the early morning.
I'm getting married...Mama would be proud of me.
She leaned down to give Toji a sweet kiss while he still slept, and then lay back down in his arms.
------------------
'Hello, Katsuragi residence.'
'Hi, Asuka?'
'Hikari! Hi!'
'Guess what? I'm getting married!'
------------------
Shinji stood in the line to sign in to the university, waiting and watching the other students in order to avoid being bored. His attention was currently occupied by a girl in the front of the line beside his. She had long brown hair with a tint of red through it, which she kept tucking behind her left ear, revealing the fair skin tones of her face to Shinji. She spoke with a European accent, which, while not being heavy, seemed as if it would be able to revert to its native language quickly. This girl was reminding him of Asuka, someone he had not thought about for...for a long time. On the rare occasion that he let himself remember that part of his life, she was one of the-
'Excuse me?' asked the woman behind the counter. Shinji was now first in line.
'Oh...I'd, uh, like to sign in...'
She handed him a series of forms. 'Fill these out and submit them to the main office before the closing period stated at the top of the cover sheet.'
Shinji took the sheets, and when he was filling them out in his apartment, he would remember the brown haired girl and, in a non-focused daze, write down the wrong information under the heading of "Current Address".
------------------
'Asuka, could you get the mail?'
'Already doing it.'
'Is there anything for me there?'
'No, nothing I...'
'What? What is it?'
'What's this...?'
------------------
Rei gazed out of the window, watching the scenery around her, all passing by at roughly ninety kilometres per hour.
'You should slow down, Asuka,' she remarked.
'Will you relax? This is a major highway,' Asuka said, in a slightly off-hand manner, as all her concentration was being taken by the road ahead.
'Do you know where we're going?'
'Yes, I know exactly where I'm going...'
'Does Misato know where you're going?'
'...Well...I...left her a note...'
Rei glanced at Asuka. 'She is going to be so pissed that you took the car without asking her.'
An odd expression crossed Asuka's face, and it was clear to Rei that Asuka hadn't thought this idea through in the slightest.
'That won't matter to her, when she sees who we come back with!' Asuka finally said triumphantly, after being under Rei's uncomfortable eye for several moments. Rei decided to leave the conversation alone on that note; she wanted Asuka to have her full attention on driving, as she had seen how Misato looked whenever they had been driving together, and was beginning to get the idea that Asuka may one day be as notorious for her driving skill as Misato was for her cooking. She turned her gaze back once more to the passing road, and turned her mind to the person they were looking for. She remembered Shinji, but only vaguely, and in a very odd way. It was like she could only remember anything about him once she heard it: her mind was not able to make the connection to other information she had stored about him...perhaps in the same way an amnesiac feels after they have woken in a hospital bed in unfamiliar surroundings. She could remember what he looked like, the way he spoke, but Rei could not remember under what circumstances they had met, or even how she had acted towards him when she had known him. There was a memory, of him being in a place she didn't remember, and her thanking him for something, but the memory was incomplete. Where was this place? What was it she had thanked him for, and why had it been so significant?
Rei shook her head. There were days when she felt this way often, almost as if she did have amnesia, as there was much of her past she couldn't recall. But Misato had never mentioned anything about it, and neither had Asuka, or anyone, and so Rei simply accepted it. It wasn't a burden, merely an inconvenience...and after living with Misato Katsuragi for almost four years, she was sure she had enough lasting memories to make up for the ones she felt she had lost.
------------------
Shinji ran the back of his hand over his cheek, still feeling a slightly rough texture under it. He picked up the disposable razor that lay on the sink and drew it down his face again. Razor back on the sink. Hand back to the face. Still there. Shinji grimaced into the mirror, and he brought the razor down this time with more pressure than his skin could handle, as it cut through it, leaving a red flow following the blade. He quickly placed pressure it to stop the bleeding, inhaling at the sting he felt on his face.
Which now felt smooth under the back of his hand.
------------------
Asuka, after about half an hour of navigating through city streets, pulled Misato's car to the side of the road in the shadow of an old apartment building. She turned to Rei, who was gazing out the window at it.
'So...this is the place,' Rei said to the building.
'Yeah...let's go in.'
------------------
Partway though buttoning his shirt, Shinji heard a knock at his apartment door. He ignored it. The knocking came again, this time stronger and more rapidly. He walked to the door, and asked absently, 'Who is it?'
'Shinji?' came the reply. 'Shinji Ikari?'
'That's the right address...what do you want?'
The second he heard the voice from the other side of the door identify itself, a million memories rushed from Shinji's subconscious, all fighting to be part of his current thoughts.
'It's Asuka...Asuka Sohryu...'
The grip he had on the doorhandle, which he had placed his hand on to open for whoever stood on the other side, now increased greatly. His heart rate became rapid, his breathing shallow, as the past leapt out of his dreams and into his mind.
------------------
Rei looked at Asuka, who was waiting apprehensively for an answer to her name. Asuka glanced at her, as if to ask for direction on what to do now. Rei did not know either.
'Shinji...?' Asuka asked again.
'Leave! I don't know you!' came the reply, startling both Asuka and Rei after the silence. The man's voice that had spoken before was gone, now replaced by the trembling tone of a child Asuka knew well indeed.
'Shinji...'
'Go away! I'm not coming with you! I'll keep running forever!'
Something in Rei's mind spoke up: repeating of the words, 'I mustn't run away...', words she had forgotten that Shinji had ever spoken.
'Shinji,' she asked the door, 'What is it you're running from?' Asuka paused and looked at Rei, trying to figure out the motives behind the question she just asked.
Shinji's voice held for a moment, and then spoke back: 'My...father.'
'Shinji...your father is dead.'
For a long moment, the balcony was deathly silent, as Asuka and Rei awaited an answer. Finally, Rei heard the sound of a lock being unlatched, and the door opened.
'Then why are you here?' Shinji asked, as uncertain as Asuka remembered him as.
'We'll explain,' she said, and as Shinji moved from the doorway to let them inside, Asuka thought briefly of how Rei had managed to turn the situation so easily, despite not being able to remember almost anything past four years ago. She dismissed it as a lucky judge of character, and began to take off her shoes.
------------------
Shinji's thoughts were mixed on the ride back to Tokyo-3. However, that statement was like saying Misato Katsuragi was not very apt in the kitchen. The fact that he had just found out his father was dead still shocked him, despite how often he had wished for it. How many times had it been? How many days spent wondering why he was still in Tokyo? And how many days after spent trying to forget them? A low lull of fear was at the back of his mind, after being away for four years. Would everyone want to ask him, question him, interrogate him, as to why he ran away, when the answer was so clear? Would they be disappointed in the fact that he had failed? Then if they were disappointed, why then did they seek him out?
------------------
Rei, for the duration of most of the ride back in, watched Shinji do much the same thing she had. He would stare out of the window for a moment, and then quickly glance away, as if a dark idea had entered his thoughts, and he was trying to shake it from the eye of his mind. She felt like she remembered watching him do this...seeing him seem so alone, so afraid of what surrounded him, and wanting him to be much stronger, like...like...
Rei mentally cursed whatever it was that was making her forget.
Her eye traced the line of his jaw, which was now hard and solid, compared to that of when he was a child, around to his short hair. She looked at his profile for a moment, and finally realised that there was something missing from it. Something was making the face incomplete.
Glasses, Rei thought, He's missing glasses.
------------------
The apartment block was still there. It had been rebuilt in the heavy reconstruction of Tokyo-3, of course, over the four years that Shinji had spent away, but that fact didn't enter his first impression. The apartment block was still there.
But there's one occupant that isn't, he thought to himself.
From here, carefully counting up to the seventh floor, he did not know if he could see the apartment or not. He still remembered the right room number, the right floor to go to, the right number of doors to walk past. Maybe even the right number of stairs to climb.
Why could he still remember all this at a place he had only spent one night in, when it had taken him almost three weeks to be able to recite the address of Misato's apartment? Why was he able to find his way here with ease, when if he wanted to walk anywhere else in the city, he would be lost in the teaming crowds? Why did this reconstructed apartment block conjure up so many memories?
'Because he was the only one to have ever said...'
Shinji turned away and walked, his head filled with sounds, images and parts of the past, that all eventually faded under the steady beat of his shoes upon the concrete.
------------------
'You'll be alright with sleeping in the lounge, right Shinji?' Misato asked.
'Yes...that'll be fine,' Shinji said over the table.
'I can't believe you...you've gone back to being as formal as you were when I first met you.' Misato, over a can of Yebisu, gave him a look. 'Chill out, will ya?'
'Well...it's not easy to do that...'
Rei listened to the conversation carrying over the makeshift table Misato sometimes used in the lounge room from her comfortable position on the floor, while pretending to watch the television. She was a little surprised at what Misato said next.
'You want a beer? It'll calm you down.'
'What?'
Misato sounds a little more drunk than usual, Rei thought. Maybe she had a couple of drinks when it started to get dark and Asuka wasn't back with her car yet.
She smirked at that thought. Asuka had managed to find her way well enough, but when the sun started to touch the horizon on the way back, she had gotten a little panicked, and they had spent a good half-hour on a stop on the side of the road checking where, if at all, they had gone wrong. Asuka obviously wasn't as good a navigator as she claimed to be.
Misato's loud laughter drew Rei's false attention to the television away. Shinji had apparently given into Misato's persistence, and had taken a sip of her drink, only to promptly screw up his face in disgust. Rei, in spite of herself, let a laugh slip out.
'I'm going to get a drink of water,' Shinji announced, a slight flush crawling across his face. Rei, with a fading smile still on her face, turned back to watch the television, now giving it her full attention.
------------------
The sound of a car driving past the apartment drew Shinji's attention to the ground, several stories below. He watched it drive up the street, its headlights casting a white glow onto the street. He continued to observe it drive up a hill into the distance, its red tail lights finally disappearing into the night.
The sliding of the large glass door that led to the balcony drew Shinji's attention elsewhere. He saw Rei standing in the doorway, with a slightly nervous and hesitant look.
'Can I join you?' she asked. Shinji turned back to the street. Rei came out and stood beside him.
'I never did this enough when I was here,' Shinji remarked. 'It's very quiet...it's very peaceful.' Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Rei nod in affirmation.
'Shinji...' Rei started, her voice trailing off. She swallowed, and then spoke again.
'Do you ever get déjà vu?'
'Do I ever what?' he asked, confusion showing in his voice but not his face, as he continued to look down.
She leaned next to Shinji on the guard rail. 'It's French. It means...feeling like you've done something before, when you're doing it.' Rei glanced at him for a second. 'Does that ever happen, Shinji?'
'No...not really.' His gaze remained unchanged.
Rei now stood back up, and looked back down at the street, and remarked quietly, 'I get it a lot.'
She thought that what she had just said was the first thing Shinji had really taken notice of, as he lifted his head off his arms and stopped leaning all of his weight on the balcony railing, to stand and visibly pay some attention to her.
'What about?'
Rei took a small step closer to him, saying, 'Things...' She cast her eyes down, and said softly, 'You.'
'Me? But...' Shinji quickly stopped, as he was now confronted with Rei's eyes locked with his. For what seems like eternities, not a word was said, not a muscle moved.
Rei's instincts gripped her, and she drew herself close to Shinji, her head tilted slightly. There they both waited for another moment, perhaps for Shinji to stop Rei, perhaps for Rei to stop herself, and then, their lips embraced. Rei's heart beat harder in her chest, and she went to move her hands around Shinji's back, except...
Except he's not kissing me back.
He's nervous he's surprised he's in shock he hates me I was wrong...
Shinji pulled back from her with open eyes, filled with a look of confusion. Rei's hand rushed to cover her mouth, whispering into the night, 'I'm sorry.'
Shinji watched her run back inside, still with confusion in his eyes.
------------------
Asuka watched Shinji chew his toast at the table in the morning, slowly and deliberately, with his head lowered. She would occasionally glance across to Rei, who's glance was focused somewhere on the walls. Every so often, the one of the pair would look at each other. Once or twice in these instances, they would catch each other's eye, and then quickly look away.
It was beginning to get annoying.
'What happened to you two last night?' Asuka burst out, slamming her fist in the table. Both Shinji and Rei jumped, startled, as what seemed to be a guilty expression crossed their faces.
'Nothing!' they replied in unison.
'Don't give me that! You can't even sit here and look at each other! What did you do last night?'
'Nothing,' Shinji repeated, as Rei stood up from the table. 'I'm leaving,' she quietly announced.
'Hey. Hey! You can't leave! Come back here! Rei? Rei!' Asuka jumped up from the table and followed her, remaining very audible throughout the apartment, leaving Shinji to finish his breakfast.
------------------
'That's it?' Asuka asked, disbelieving. Rei nodded slightly, her head lowered.
'You kissed him?' A nod.
'And you're this worried?'
'Look, could you just leave me alone about it?' Rei shouted, glancing up angrily at Asuka.
'Alright.' She sat down on the bed next to Rei. After a moment of silence, Asuka asked, 'Why?'
'Why what?'
'Why did you kiss him?'
After another moment of silence, Rei finally replied, '...I don't know.'
If Rei had been looking at Asuka at that point, she would have seen the stunned expression on her face which, under different circumstances, or even the same ones, would have been remarkably comical.
'You...don't know?'
No response.
'Why don't you know?'
No response again.
'Well...I guess I can see why you're worried.'
------------------
The car was quiet. Asuka, from the back seat she shared with Rei, would every so often glanced at Shinji in the front, and then to Rei, and then to Shinji again. She smoothed and brushed phantom crumbs off her dress, the silence beginning to make her nervous. Glancing at Shinji again, she recalled Hikari's voice on the telephone, when she had told her about Shinji. She had been so surprised, and she had said jokingly that she should postpone the wedding for the reunion. Asuka had said that five people wasn't really a reunion, after sharing a laugh. That was when Hikari had told her that there was going to be one more student of the 2-A class at the wedding: Kensuke was able to conveniently arrange leave for a week from the base he was stationed at. She had tried to imagine Kensuke's untidy hair shaved into a uniform army cut, as she had on the day he had left the school, and a smile crossed her face. That same smile made its way back to her in the car, and it didn't seem as silent.
------------------
'I do.'
'I do.'
------------------
Rei stood aside from the collection of people spaced out on the dancefloor, a glass in one hand. She was watching Shinji and Asuka, enough to know only what they were doing but not enough for it to be overtly obvious. Although the image that had come to her on the balcony of her and Shinji kissing seemed right, so did what she was seeing before her; the two of them, together on the dancefloor, standing so close, yet thinking almost nothing of it...
And yet she also thought nothing of it. Whatever it was that had made her walk onto the balcony that night, it was now telling her that this was the way it should be, the way it was going to be.
God...I'm going to go mad by the time I'm twenty, Rei thought, and took another sip from her drink.
'You look like you're really concentrating on something,' she heard Kensuke say from beside her. 'Mind sharing?'
She looked across at him, no longer trying to see the boy's face that was hidden behind his short hair and contact lenses. 'No...not really.'
'Well...okay. But if you won't tell me anything...can I ask you something?'
Rei's eyebrows raised slightly. 'What would that be?'
Kensuke smiled, extended his hand, and asked, 'May I have this next dance?'
Rei smiled at him, accepting his hand, and the pair of them walked out onto the dancefloor.
------------------
Shinji contemplated the bed on the floor of the lounge room, the images of the wedding still in his mind. He had heard Asuka tell Misato that Rei wouldn't be at the apartment tonight, and Misato had already gone to sleep, so he and Asuka had stayed awake for a while longer, talking about the day that had passed, the years that had also. That was a completely foreign experience for him, as in all of his memory of Asuka, he couldn't remember any of their conversations lasting longer than five minutes. Now, the light in the kitchen turned off behind him, and he heard the shuffling of feet.
'Goodnight, Shinji,' Asuka said, looking back at him in the dark.
'Goodnight, Asuka,' he replied.
She disappeared into the darkness of the hallway, and Shinji lay down to sleep.
------------------
I'm home.
You're the Third Child, right?
Welcome home.
I have no time to waste on an insolent child...
...The Commander's son...
That...bastard.
Do it!
I mustn't run away...
Don't you have faith in your father's work?
I mustn't run away...
Good work, Shinji.
I mustn't run away...
Good work, Shinji.
I mustn't run away!
------------------
Shinji woke, inhaling sharply. He had almost left the nightmares of his past behind him, but now, returning to the familiar environment of Misato's apartment, he had half-expected them to come back instantaneously.
What he did not expect was how reassuring the apartment was in the darkness.
He sat up in his bed on the floor of the lounge, his eyes rapidly adjusting to the darkness, and ran his hands through his hair. Breathing deeply, he lay back down, staring at the ceiling, until finally realising that he wasn't going to get back to sleep any time soon.
------------------
And the light was so bright. It was the light of God. But it always brought the Devil to her.
We have to be good now...
Mama...?
We have to please your father, Asuka...
Mama?
You see that girl in the corner, Asuka?
Mama...I'm Asuka!
That girl isn't coming with us...not yet...
What's wrong with you, Mama?
But she'll be coming with us soon...
Stop it Mama! You're scaring me!
You'll come with me...You'll die with me...
No!
Live with me...and die...
No! Mama, no!
------------------
'No...' Asuka whispered in the night, her eyes flying open to see nothing but darkness around her. For a moment, the only thing she was able to focus on was her breathing, shallow and rapid, until it finally slowed itself. She then realised that her hand was gripping her pillow tightly, still through waking from the dream. Releasing it and inspecting her face, her fingertips touched moisture in the corner of her eyes. This was the way she had woken from almost every dream she had ever had about her mother; frightened, crying, and feeling very alone.
Asuka sat up, and swung her legs over the side of the bed. She stood, and walked out of her room, feeling her way until her eyes were able to perceive vague objects in the apartment.
She had never liked the dark, anyway.
------------------
Any location, regardless of its position in the world, would always look completely different at night than it did in day. The lack of lighting, creating all manner of fiction to the observer's eyes, remaining until the light returned. This was something Shinji had been considering for several minutes, having just realised that the coat fallen at the base of the large pot plant in the kitchen was not Misato's pet penguin. However, as much as the darkness was able to fool the eye, it always had a hard time fooling the ear. This was something Shinji did not realise, when he thought he heard his name being whispered, until Asuka sharply hissed at him from the doorway, 'Idiot! Is that you?'
Shinji lifted his head up off the table, and saw a shadow that seemed to be overlooking him, despite being several feet away. 'I wasn't paying attention...sorry.'
'Still always sorry...' Asuka remarked, but Shinji was pleased to hear her say it, as he could hear the smile in her voice. Shinji saw Asuka's hand reach out to touch the chair sitting next to him. Once she was sure of where it was, she pulled it away from the table and sat beside him.
'Couldn't sleep either?' he asked, taking his gaze back to the doorway.
'Bad dreams,' Asuka replied, and the curtness with which she replied made Shinji think to quickly change subjects.
'They looked...nice today, didn't they? Toji and Hikari?'
'Yeah...I guess.' Asuka sighed. 'I don't think I could do what she did, though.'
'What? Get married?'
'Yes. Get married. I don't think I could do it.' She rested her head on her crossed arms.
'I think I'd be too afraid.'
Shinji looked across at her. 'What if you found the right person?'
'That's what I'd be afraid of. That there is no right person.'
Shinji, as he watched Asuka speak, found himself observing the rise and fall of her lips...
'That it's never going to be perfect.'
...The way the very scant light in the apartment showed the lines of her face...
'That's what Toji and Hikari were today: perfect.'
...The way a small strand of hair was falling across her face. Asuka brushed it away from her view, and something inside Shinji from a past he thought long since dead awoke again.
'Sometimes I wish it could...' Asuka paused as she turned her head, to see Shinji watching her. The strand of hair that Asuka had tucked behind her ear now fell back into place, and without even considering, Shinji brushed it back for her. He tilted his head...
'...All just be...'
Inches away, Asuka accepted Shinji's approach openly. For a second they waited, and then simultaneously, closed their eyes, leaned in closer, and kissed. For a second there was nothing but the sweet taste of Asuka's lips in Shinji's mind; everything else didn't matter. It had all been forgotten. It was, for lack of a better word...
They separated, both letting short sighs escape their mouths, and as Shinji looked at Asuka in the darkness, he completed what she had been saying.
'Perfect.'
------------------
Hikari woke to the sound of blood pumping rhythmically in her left ear. For a second she associated it with her father, and how he used to hold her until she slept, after her mother had died. She then noticed that her view of the world, which had been slanted at an angle, was slowly rocking back and forth. After a moment of observing this phenomenon, she realised that it was from Toji's breathing, her head resting on his chest, her arm falling across the skin of his stomach.
A hand brushed through her hair, and rested lightly under her chin. Toji's hand. Hikari looked up at him, into his deep brown eyes, at his warm, open smile.
'Good morning,' he said softly, and leant down to kiss her. Hikari welcomed his openly, holding him tighter as their lips embraced.
'Oh my God,' she said, a slight smile crossing her face and a large spark lighting in her eyes. 'Where did you learn to kiss like that, Mr Horaki?'
'Well, I don't know,' he replied, Hikari's smile becoming infectious, 'But I'd be happy to teach you.'
------------------
Why is the light so...bright?
...Where am I?
Ouch...my head hurts.
Rei's eyes slowly opened. Snapped shut from the blinding light. Opened again. Closed again. Rolling over, she saw out of her blurred eyes the digital readout on the alarm clock: six fifty-three. She tried rolling back, but the light was still too strong.
She ran her hands through her hair, leaving them to rest on her face, where she slowly spread her fingers, peering out from the cracks they made. Her head hurt, and felt so unimaginably heavy. Taking in the little bit of the room that she could see, she didn't recognise it. She didn't even remember getting here...
Or any of last night.
That thought made her sit up, sluggishly, once again remembering her head.
Think back.
The wedding. Toji and Hikari's wedding. The...
The champagne. I must have...
As if on cue, she heard a noise with her in the room. Rei lowered one of her hands, looking with one eye to see a vague figure standing at the foot of the bed. He was buttoning up a shirt. He realised she was awake. He turned around.
'Good morning,' Kensuke said, with a guilty face and an ashamed voice.
'Oh my God...' Rei lowered her other hand and let herself fall backwards onto the bed. After a few moments, she felt the weight of the bed shift. Kensuke was lying next to her.
'Um...did we...?' she asked, hesitant.
'Yeah...I guess.' His voice had now changed, as if they were both talking casually about something that had happened to them long ago...which, in a funny way, was what had happened.
'Did you...?' Rei asked, a tone of concern now making its way into her voice.
'Yes.' A note of humour crept into Kensuke's voice. 'One thing they teach you in the army is to be responsible for your actions.' Rei smiled at this, but it seemed the humour was a little forced. For a few more moments they lay together, contemplating in the silence.
'So...'
'So...'
'Can I have my shirt back, please?'
A laugh. 'Yes...turn your back.'
------------------
The stirring next to Shinji drew him gently out of his sleep. He opened his eyes, and firstly began to question why he was lying on the floor. In a quick flash, his mind made the connection of what had happened to him in the past day: The wedding, the apartment, Asuka...
Asuka?
He slowly scanned the room, finding that Asuka had woken up before him, and was now standing in front of the glass door that lead to the balcony, which still had its curtains drawn. She had her back to him, and so hadn't realised that she was being watched. She stretched her hands up above her head, and Shinji saw that the light wasn't playing games with his eyes, and Asuka hadn't put her shirt back on yet. She turned around, her face screwed up in her morning stretch. When she opened her eyes, she was greeted with the sight of Shinji, his arms behind his head, gazing passively at her.
'Good morning,' he said, with a slight smirk on his face.
'Oh my God!' Asuka exclaimed, quickly folding her arms. 'Shinji! You...pervert!' Her anger was spoiled by the fact that her last word was beginning to break into laughter. Shinji smirk grew into a grin, but was cut off from becoming fully-fledged laughter from a bean bag aimed at his head. He managed to move his hands quickly enough to intercept it, the grin still on his face. Tossing the bean bag across the other side of the room, he was greeted by the weight of Asuka's body on his, and her face, menace on her lips but laughter in her eyes.
'I'm sorry,' he said, and as he reached to kiss her, Asuka's pretence of anger dropped, and she met him, almost savagely. Shinji could feel her breasts gently pressing against him as they had in the night, and as Asuka broke their kiss and lay down beside him, her arms holding him close, he was for the first time in coming back to Tokyo-3 completely sure about his choice to do so.