(Affection)
My dwelling was, of course, woefully ill equipped to accommodate visitors.
Before today, I had never considered it, never thought about it.
It was never an issues that would have come into my mind.
I had never had visitors before.
No one had ever thought to visit me, nor had I had any reason to invite anyone.
This room used to be little more than a place for me to store my things – including my body.
So I was never much concerned with making it pleasant to view, generally the priority was to just go about my business with a minimal amount of unnecessary distractions.
There were several things strewn about more or less where I'd thrown them yesterday, or the day before, or who knows when, crumbled envelopes stained all over with black shoe prints.
I had only a single chair for Ikari-kun to sit upon – I supposed that I would have to do on the bed.
I owned very little cutlery, and much of it was sitting dirtied in the sink.
The two mugs I did wash out were two different shapes and sizes – I had never bought a set, and I never bought more food that what I strictly planned to eat over the course of the next few days.
All I had was some tea that one of the technicians had handed me long ago as a moving-in present.
The kettle I'd used mostly to warm up instant food; The teapot, I had found as a hand-me-down by the side of the road and collected in case I might ever decide to drink the tea, but there had never seemed to be much of an occasion that would have seemed to merit it.
But now that one was come, I was uncertain what to do.
I had begun this, so it was up to me to bring this to an end, but that did not change that this was far outside the realm of what had previously been required of me.
If I had planned on this, I would have found myself a guide in the library of the computer, but there was not time for that now when Ikari-kun was sitting there waiting.
I was of course familiar with the basics, so I had figured that it would be simple enough, as making tea was not commonly considered a complicated activity, but before long, I found myself quizzically regarding the tin, searching it for instructions.
"How many tea leaves do you typically require for one serving? I've never actually done it."
Ikari-kun was quick to jump up from his seat and reassure me that his presence wasn't worth even this token effort ("It's fine, you don't have to-"), but I would not impose on him further than I already had by making come here, so I proceeded unheeded, heaping the tin's contents upon the lone big spoon in my possession.
"This much?"
"No, I think that's too much…"
Aha. I see. I was just about to turn to correct this when I made yet another error. I'd been so distracted by ensuring that the excess leaves wouldn't go flying all over the counter that I failed to be mindful of the kettle, and ended up brushing my other hand against the hot metal surface of the kettle in the cramped surroundings.
I didn't generally bother with cooking, so I was inexperienced with regards to the multitasking required – immediately, I flinched away on instinct and couldn't stifle a small high sound, but fortunately, I had already let go of the spoon, so that it rested safely in the tea box.
Despite the radiating ache still left on my fingers, it did not take me long to regain by bearings.
Ikari-kun, however, was alarmed nonetheless: "Are you okay?!"
"There is no reason for concern." I assured him, surveying the angry red spots on the back of my fingers with a dispassionate glance. "I just got burnt a little."
I expect that this would calm him enough, seeing as the damage was fairly minor, but this was not so. He was not reassured in the least: "What do you mean, 'just'?! You've got to, like, put something cold on it!"
Before I knew what was happening, he had reached for my wrist and gently taken hold of my back to guide me towards the sink, letting go only to crank up the faucet as far as it would go, and position my fingers straight into the path of the water.
He made sure, too, that it was turned all the way to the cold side.
For a few instants, we both stood there, left in silence in the aftermath of an instinctive reaction that had interrupted whatever purposeful chains of thought we may have planned on, with only the sloshing of the water between us, and perhaps the distant noises of nearby construction sites.
He was standing basically right next to me, so close I could feel the warmth of his body.
And this had of course happened before, on a couple of occasions, owing to the tumultuous necessities of war. He'd picked me up from the ground when we first met; We had collided on accident on his first visit to my quarters. He had hauled me off the battlefield when I was injured in the fight against the fifth angel, all more or less likely products of circumstance.
But this was somehow different.
Lesser in dramatics, and yet subtler in percolation, somehow.
Somehow, at some point, I noticed this sense of warmth creeping in, filling out my entire being, starting from where we had brushed against each other.
Suddenly it was sweeping over me like a wave, too much of too many things, too much at once for me to sort or explain it. I found myself stepping aside, averting my gaze, my cheeks burning with far more embarrassment than my simple mistake with the kettle out to have merited.
And to my surprise, he did the same, moving aside with newfound suddenness, flushing bright red, attempting to stammer out some words – as if one identical thought had passed between us in this very instant – though I knew of course that this was impossible for a member of this yet un-complemented humanity.
Whatever was happening here was taking place too fast for me to make sense of it.
I was growing a little uncomfortable, confused.
Maybe he was, too.
"Uh- you just stay put, okay? I'll take care of the tea – just, keep holding it under water, right? If it still hurts afterwards, I've heard putting toothpaste on it hurts. Should I go get it?
Oh, wait, first we should probably get the tea going…"
"Okay…?"
I looked on, still frozen in place and quite perplexed, as he prepared the kettle and then poured the water into it, diligent and practiced in his motions.
"Thank you-" I said.
At the time, I simply blurted it out in the moment without any special meaning behind it, because it seemed in that moment the most fitting or appropriate thing to say. I'm not sure that
I was still processing what had happened. In trying to review the events, I could identify nothing much, just a connected series of chance collisions of various bodies of matter…
The same uncertain agitation that glued me in place seemed to propel him forward into nervous motions, his fingers briefly fidgeting and then moving right onto preparing the cups once the kettle had been put down.
I had been glad for the respite of the silence, but it seems that he felt called to fill it which whatever first came to his mind: "You know, last night, we had this party – You know that Misato-san's been promoted."
"Yes. I am aware."
"Well – As soon as Touji and Kensuke got wind of it, they decided to throw her a party – it was mostly Kensuke who organized everything, he prepared a teppanyaki grill and everything. Even the class rep came. Oh, and Kaji-san and Ritsuko-san. We wanted to invite you, too," he confessed, half-apologetic, "...but you didn't answer your phone, and Asuka says she couldn't get a hold of you, either…"
"It's okay. I don't like that sort of thing very much."
"That's what I expected…" he figured, with half a sensible chuckle. "...but you know… I had a lot of fun. I didn't think I would – it was a real first for me. I used to think that kind of thing was stupid… I always stayed away from big parties if I could... I was made to come a few times, when I was visiting my uncle and cousin, and all the time I'd just sit there being miserable in some corner and keep thinking about how I didn't have anyone to talk to, or how I only had been brought along out of obligation – the happy, festive music cut my heart, cause it just reminded me of how sad and alone I felt inside….
But this time, things were different – I mean, it took some getting used to for sure – so many people in that one room, and they were all making so much noise… but in the end, everyone was really happy, too. I had this interesting talk with Misato, too. It's a whole different thing, when it's with people you actually like – people who actually seem to want you around. So, I was thinking that, maybe next time we do something like this, you should come, too…"
I'm sure that he meant well.
In a sense, I should probably be glad for it – he had made a new, positive experience, and naturally enough, he wanted to share it with others – that is, by and large, what humans seem to do with their friends.
It's good to see him so much noticeably happier than he was when he first arrive here – if he is fated to disappear at a young age, it seems right that he should at least be granted a little respite before the end.
I certainly wished for his happiness, at least in an intellectual way, if this was the closest I could come to returning his human friendship – but still I could not forget that we were different.
That we essentially lived in different worlds, and that he would leave and go back to his world of light and fun and togetherness and pictured hypothetical futures, while I would always remain here, wedged within the dim of unspeakable things and the light of merciless truth.
No amount of parties and games would change what I was, where I had come from, or where I would be going.
There wouldn't be a point.
"I don't know… I'm not sure I would enjoy that. I think I might just get tired…"
That was all I could say. All that was fit to be revealed, or which he would have understood – a pitiful half-truth that did not do me the mercy of dissuading him: "It's okay if you can't stay the whole time, or if you don't want to participate with everything. It's fine if you go home before the rest – I mean, everyone is different. I can't always keep pace with Touji, Misato or Asuka either. Honestly we'd be glad to have you even if it was just for a bit."
He really, really meant that.
His voice was gentle and sincere.
I could tell that he really wanted to share his good experience with me, but the truth remained that I wasn't like him.
"There wouldn't be a point. I'm not certain what my presence would contribute to such a gathering. I'm no good at that sort of thing. I'm no use for anything but piloting EVA."
"You don't have to!" he stated emphatically. "You don't have to be good at it. No one expects you to do anything. We just want to have you there, just for the sake of it. You don't have to do anything but be yourself!
You don't have to come at all, if you don't want to… - please don't get this wrong, I didn't mean to pressure you.
If you don't want to come, that's okay, I won't be mad. And if you try it out, and decide that it's not for you after all, then that's okay, too! I just thought that it would be nice to have everyone together for once is all..."
He trailed off there, sort of losing his momentum. He chose to fill the time, or to keep himself going, by pulling up the strainer from the bottom of the teapot. Yet as he went about it, the stray thought that had stopped him in his tracks bubbled its way to the surface either way: "...say, Ayanami? I've seen you talking with my father pretty often. What do you usually talk about?"
I could not answer this straight away.
I was not really expecting it.
I could recall many individual conversations between myself and the Commander of course, but it had never occurred to me how all these disparate instances might be summarized and categorized. Besides, much of the subject matter we discussed was classified – not all, though. Some of it might be fine to disclose.
I thought I might better be able to answer if I had a better idea of what exactly Ikari-kun wanted to hear about. So I requested for him to specify:
"Why do you ask?"
"It's just- I was just thinking- I was wondering what it might have been like, if father had been at that party too. Maybe then, I could have talked to him a little… I doubt he would have come even if we had invited him, though…"
"You want to speak with your father?"
"Yeah…" he admitted, somewhat wistfully, as he went about pouring the tea into the cups.
"Then again, I'm not sure that anything would even change, if we did talk. Maybe it would just be pointless. It's just that, since I came here, I'd been hoping that maybe I'd get to know him better, since we'd been working at the same organization. But even though I've been an EVA pilot long enough that Ritsuko-san thinks I'm fully trained and caught up to the others now, we've barely spent any time together. If I see him at all, it's only ever for EVA stuff.
I mean, Misato-san tells me that he must be proud of me and I heard from Ritsuko-san that he had faith that we would come during the blackout, but, I'm basically taking their word for it.
Everything just keeps going the way it is, and we keep just… living past each other.
And that doesn't make it easier to stay strong and keep going…"
I couldn't say that I didn't understand his worry.
Of the future stretching before him like a fallow field.
It was pristinely, exceedingly clear as crystal what would end up happening if things were left to plod along at their current pace, pushed forward only so far as circumstance would stray by accident, like the capricious ebbing and sloshing of water being carried inside an unsteady vessel.
It was certain how this would end.
"...you… should tell him."
"Huh?"
"You should tell your father what you're really thinking. If you don't take proactive action – if you don't take matters into your own hands, then nothing is going to change for you."
Of course, things might change just as little if he did speak up and say his piece, but if he did nothing, they were guaranteed to stay the same.
Of course, I could say whatever I wanted – what I said, and what he would end up doing were two different pairs of shoes.
One could easily see him considering it and then bowing out, at any point between 'right away' and 'at the last possible minute' due to his timidity and reluctance -
All I could accomplish by pressing the issue further was to cause him further insecurity, or even give the impression that I wanted to tell him what to do – it would not help, not would any attempt to cushion the harsh reality that he could only do this himself.
In the end, his actions were wholly and completely out of my hands.
I had no further advice to dispense here, no relevant wisdom or experience.
What sort of experience could I have, I, who ever had a family, who never had concerned myself with human bonds in the concrete?
I had nothing left to add, even as I beheld the apprehension on his face.
There was nothing I could do. What were my feeble little hands to the wheels of destiny?
We were all dying, every single one of us. Everything that lives and breathes.
All suffering and decaying, all barely able to offer each other any sort of reprieve or respite.
Even if we were in the same place.
What can we really change or do for each other, but keep each other hollow, unsatisfactory company in which the most crucial things must perforce remain unspoke, because circumstance bids us to keep them hidden, or, because we lack the capacity to find the words for them?
Will not the red seas swallow us all the same in the end, if we don't get to watch each other melt away under the onslaught of reality long before that?
I had opened him the door, and bid him to come in, yet in the end I had only managed to remind myself of the insurmountable gaps between us, the kinds that were easier to forget when it was just me alone with ideas of him that might be as inaccurate as my knowledge of him was limited.
Just as anything was limited, with regards to this yet uncomplemented humanity.
All that was left for me to do was to keep playing the goddamned part.
"...Is the tea ready?"
"Uh, yeah."
"Can I drink it?"
"Sure."
I picked up the cup.
Straightaway, my heavy stream of thought was interrupted by an unfamiliar scent -
Did you know? The reason that memories seem to rush by ever faster as one ages is because that which one experiences grows more and more familiar. Human brains are mostly built to recognize patterns, so familiar experiences no longer leave a trace of change.
So, experiences that are novel, the learning of new things, the sight, or even the imagination of new horizons – all that literally has the power to slow down the rush of time.
I knew of this.
I'd read of it in books.
Yet I had not thought that this would ever become relevant to my day to day experience.
I had already drifted off into pictures of the inevitable course of our days when I smelled the warm liquid.
I felt its heat reaching my fingers, the surface caught in the dim light.
Though it was called 'black' tea, the liquid was more of a honey-dark golden brown color, like the amber that might preserve a fleeting moment forever.
"...such a pretty color… thanks again for making the tea."
"I think it turned out a little bit bitter…"
"But it's warm."
I hadn't often bothered with warm beverages, really.
It hadn't seemed worth the effort.
I knew in theory that some drinks would best release their aroma at some particular temperature, but it hardly seemed worth the wait of those extra minutes just to have it be, allegedly, tasting a little bit better. I existed not to taste things – what did it matter?
What had seemed to matter was to water the tissues of my physical shell so I could go right back to forgetting about it.
By the time that Ikari-kun left, I was already kind of wishing that he would.
I was already getting a little straining, a little desiring to escape into the freedom of unaccountable solitude – especially since I was still tired from the long exertions of the previous day.
As the encounter wound down to an end, I didn't have it in me to reply much and sent him off with a wan, but genuine greeting.
I then flung myself on the bed, without even bothering with the covers, and passed out of consciousness.
But I would come to waken again, when the light of day had almost drained from the sky, and in the merciful cool of evening, the events of before passed again before my mind's eye like shadowy afterimages, refusing to make way for anything else.
Thus, what once had seemed diffuse, or far too sudden, or all too much at once could now be carefully fractioned into its components, questioned and expounded upon, until one crucial stood out in the clarity of hindsight like a golden key glinting in the mysterious dark:
"… 'Thank you'. The phrase for gratitude. I have never used it before.
I have never thanked anybody before..."
"Not even him.", I realized, stealing a glance at the discarded glasses on my dresser.
This was not because I had not known its meaning – As one of the most common phrases in the Japanese language, it was certainly part of my linguistic programming, and if that could only grant me a second-hand understanding, then the many books I'd read should at least have provided ample opportunity to witness it in context.
It was precisely because I understood the meaning that I had never made use of it before, rather than copying its echo-like, thoughtless regurgitation in many conventional phrases of everyday politeness:
I had never said it without meaning it.
And what it means is that you express your appreciation when somebody does something for you.
Thus I had never needed it:
For nobody had ever done anything for me.
Many had done things to me that had even been to my benefit, out of obligation, expediency, convenience, or simple habit – because it was expected according to the rules of the school, or, because it would further the Human Instrumentality Project.
Some did as little with me as they could get away with, others, like the Commander or even Major Katsuragi, had done things that went beyond the bare minimum that was expected, but they had ever done those things for 'the pilot of Unit Zero', or, 'the key to instrumentality.'
No one had ever done anything for me as a simple, existing being.
No one even seemed to take note that there was somebody in here at all.
In essence, they were doing it for themselves. For the advancement of their own goals, to which I was only ever the means – even if this had sometimes, incidentally, had the side effect of making my existence more bearable. I appreciated this. I had to, for, sofar as I knew, it was all I was ever going to get. All I could ever hope for – so this, I would hold onto.
All that there would ever be.
Or so I'd thought.
But Ikari-kun? Had he done this just now for a pilot, or for the instrumentality project?
He'd moved at once to spare me further pain, without even thinking about it, without, it seems, the time to consider any reason at all – he had been moved at once to lessen my pain, as if there had never been any other option –
Simply because I had been in pain, and he'd rather spare me any more of it.
He'd gone and treated me as something precious, delicate or innocent -
Nothing but a fellow sentient being.
Something capable of pain that was worth being shielded from further suffering.
And that alone had touched me so, that at its simplest, barest level.
Because it had been so, so rare for anyone to consider me as such.
Because even I had long since given up on treating my own pain as anything that matters.
And because I'd been so foolishly, pointlessly, humiliatingly happy to know that he cared.
That he was… concerned for me.
Though I doubted not that he would have done much the same for any other living being in pain, for it was what most living beings did, when they beheld the pain of others, was it not?
Usually they would tend to feel sympathy, unless they had hardened their hearts against it by necessity or vindictveness.
