Disclaimer: Neon Genesis Evangelion is owned by Studio Gainax animation, not me. Should they, or anyone affiliated with them, request it, I will remove all traces of this story from the web. Thank you.
Just a Kiss
By Random1377
"I don't know what you're getting all excited about," Asuka Langley Souryu was saying. "It's not a big deal."
Her best friend, Hikari Horaki, leaned over her bento, her voice disbelieving. "Are you kidding??" she asked incredulously. "You kissed a boy – you kissed Ikari – how is that not a big deal??"
It was lunchtime at school, and Asuka had just finished telling her friend about her brief kiss with her roommate and fellow pilot, Shinji Ikari.
"It was just a kiss," Asuka retorted, "it wasn't even that good – I don't see what the fuss is all about."
But Hikari wasn't listening. Her eyes held a far off, clearly dreamy look, and her right forefinger was running lightly over her lips. Asuka opened her mouth to berate the girl, but before she could speak, Hikari murmured, "What was it like…?"
"It was like putting your mouth on a worm," Asuka said flatly. "It was wet, and his breath was tickling me."
Hikari's eyes remained unfocused. "Yeah…" she whispered, still running her finger over her lips.
"Are you paying attention??" the redhead demanded.
The other girl blinked, blushing slightly as she lowered her eyes.
"Really!" Asuka exclaimed. "You're the class rep! I'd think you, of all people, would be levelheaded enough to recognize a bad experience when you hear about it!"
Hikari's blush deepened, and she murmured something too soft for Asuka to hear.
"What was that?"
"I said… you're lucky…" Hikari repeated, her ears now burning.
Asuka was flabbergasted. "WHAT??"
A small smile crept over Hikari's features, and she cast a surreptitious glance at where Shinji sat, oblivious to their conversation as he ate his own lunch. "I said you're lucky," she said softly. "Shinji's… cute… and he's really nice, and I think… he really likes you."
"SO!?" Asuka demanded. "So what?? Even if he does, I don't like him!"
Abruptly, the pigtailed girl pushed away from the table.
"Where are you going?"
"Asuka," the girl began slowly, packing her leftovers into her bento. "I don't… understand you. You got to kiss a really sweet guy – and you don't even care." She gathered up her things as Asuka gaped at her, turning away and starting for the door as she whispered, "I'd give anything to be you…"
"What is UP with her?" Asuka grumbled, leaning back in her seat and glancing over at Shinji. Their eyes met briefly, and Shinji smiled. Asuka narrowed her eyes and stuck her tongue out, prompting him to quickly turn his attention back to his lunch.
"It was just a kiss…" she muttered.
**
Gathering her books, Asuka fought the urge to throw something at the class representative. The girl had avoided her for all of the remaining periods, even going so far as to shush her – HER! – right in the middle of class.
"Oooo!!" she growled, slamming her laptop closed.
She looked at Shinji's empty desk. He had needed to go in to NERV early for a series of tests she herself had to participate in later.
"S-Souryu sempai…?"
Asuka blinked, looking up to find one of the students from class 1-A (the thirteen year old group) standing in front of her desk, fidgeting with her skirt. "What?" she asked, confused.
The girl seemed to be gathering her courage, looking over her shoulder at her two friends, who nodded their encouragement. "Is it true?" she blurted after a moment, "About you and Ikari?"
Hikari, Asuka thought angrily, I'm gonna kill you! Can't even keep your mouth shut for one DAY! "Yeah!" she snapped, "it's true! Big deal!"
She gaped as the girl practically squealed with delight. "Thank you, sempai!!"
"WAIT!" the redhead shouted as the girl spun around and ran for the door. When the girl stopped, looking over her shoulder apprehensively, Asuka approached her. "Thanks for what?" she asked flatly.
The girl swallowed, looking to her two friends… who had seemingly made a quick retreat when Asuka got up. "F-for… not, ummm… taking him…"
"What are you talking about??"
The girl paled dangerously, her voice lowering to a scared whisper in the face of Asuka's glower. "Well, everyone said that… that you and Ikari were dating… and… and Y-Yukino said she heard you and… and Horaki talking, and… and that you s-said you… weren't going… out with him…"
Asuka put her hands on her hips. "Yeah, so?"
If possible, the girl seemed even more tongue-tied. "S-so I just w-wanted to see if it was… true." She blushed an intense shade of red. "S-so… I could… a-ask him out… maybe…"
When Asuka simply stared, the girl made a shallow bow and dashed out of the room.
"Go out with Shinji?" the redhead muttered, "Who would want to? What a weirdo!" Her face grew dark, "And who said we're going out!"
One of the girls in the front of the classroom looked up, blinking in surprise. "You and Ikari?" she asked, her voice sounding uncertain.
"Yeah," Asuka said coldly, staring the other girl down, "me and Ikari! You're here every day, Aoyama – what the hell is going on?"
Aoyama looked awkward, but managed to meet Asuka's eyes. "Well, you see," she began slowly, "Ikari's been… kinda marked 'off-limits' since you got here…"
The Second Child looked decidedly confused. "Why??"
Aoyama's expression changed from surprise to confusion. "Why?" she echoed, slightly shocked. "Because you guys both pilot… and you live together… and-"
"So WHAT?" Asuka shouted. "That doesn't mean we're dating!"
"Yukino said she heard that you kissed him…" Aoyama mumbled defensively.
"SO WHAT?!!?" the redhead screamed, making the other girl flinch. "It was just a kiss!! JUST ONE!! It meant NOTHING!"
"Oh…" Aoyama replied, blushing faintly.
Asuka groaned. "Don't tell me YOU'RE going to ask him out too!?"
Aoyama's blush deepened… and she gathered her books quickly, muttering that she really had to be going.
"Unbelievable!" Asuka grumbled, shaking her head. "It was just a kiss!!"
"I'm the only sane girl in school…"
**
All through the remainder of the day, Asuka found that she could not stop thinking of Shinji, and all that had been said about him.
"Shinji's… cute… and he's really nice…."
"He is… kinda, I guess…" she murmured in the test plug, looking over at the display marked 'feed from Unit 01.' "Not great… but he's not too bad…"
"Because you guys both pilot… and you live together…"
"That's true," she mused, pulling her shirt on in the locker room after the test. "And he's not too bad on the cello…"
"Is it true? About you and Ikari?"
Asuka sighed as she caught sight of Shinji twenty minutes later, slinging his backpack over his shoulder as he made his way out of NERV headquarters. "I guess I COULD use a boyfriend," she muttered. "And he's the only one that's even CLOSE to my level – even if he's kind of a dork."
With an air of defeat, the redhead marched after the Third Child, deciding that – at the very least – she could go out with him a couple times to show those little tramps at school how a REAL woman got a man.
Hoping someone else would step aside – how pathetic!
"Hey Shinji, wait up!"
Shinji turned around, offering a halfhearted wave. "H-hi…" he mumbled, automatically lowering her eyes. "How are you… Asuka?"
"Fine, fine," Asuka panted, slightly winded from running to catch up. "I'm sure you heard everyone in school today," she said airily, brushing some of the hair off her shoulders. "Talking about us, I mean."
"Yeah," Shinji whispered, blushing fiercely.
"Well," Asuka said, giving him her best magnanimous smile. "I've thought about it a little and I just wanted to tell you… you can."
Shinji simply stared for a moment. "Can…?"
"I'm saying I'll go out with you!" the redhead muttered, rolling her eyes in exasperation. "Is that clear enough for you?"
"Oh…"
"Oh??" Asuka demanded, planting her fists on her hips, "That's all you have to say??"
Shinji considered this for a moment, his thumbs absently running over the straps on his backpack. Finally he stepped past her, murmuring, "No thank you…"
For a horrible, absolutely unreal moment, Asuka literally could not move.
"W-what did you say?" she asked incredulously, turning to face the boy's back. "Did… you just say no??"
Shinji sighed, his posture indicating that he would rather be anywhere but where he was. "Well…" he said softly, still facing away from her, "we don't really have a lot in common… really…"
"What are you talking about?" Asuka cried, feeling her anger rising. "We've got lots in common! We both pilot… we both…" her eyes widened as Shinji looked at her over his shoulder, a look of pity and sadness on his face.
"Yeah?" he prompted as she struggled to add another similarity.
"We both… play an instrument…" Asuka finished lamely.
Shinji turned away, shaking his head.
"Wait!" Asuka shouted. "Everyone in school says how much alike we are!! Even… even Touji is always calling us the newlyweds! They saw it before we could, don't you see?" She wet her lips, wondering why she sounded so desperate. "They all figured it out! We…" she took a deep breath, "we're good together, Shinji! When we kissed…"
She trailed off as Shinji started walking again.
"Wait…" she pleaded, her voice cracking. "Shinji… we… we're good together…"
Shinji stopped for a moment. "No," he said quietly, "we're not. I think you're really pretty, and you think I'm just a loser… and maybe you're right, maybe I am, but I don't see how us agreeing on that makes us good together."
"I don't think that!" Asuka protested, blushing brightly.
"You could have fooled me…" Shinji whispered. "When I talked to Kaji about it, he said that you probably just kept me at a distance to keep yourself from getting hurt – and that was why you always tried to make me look bad in front of everyone, so no one would think you liked me." He shook his head again, his eyes tilting skyward to regard the stars. "But the more I thought about that," he mused, "the more I realized that it wasn't true. If you really thought we were good together – even if you treated me like garbage at school or NERV – you would still be nice to me when we're alone… and you aren't."
"That's… not true!" Asuka replied, her tone disbelieving. "I'm… nice to you, Shinji! I am!"
"Name me one thing you've done or said that was nice," Shinji whispered. "Just one, Asuka… and then we'll talk about going out…"
"There was that time I cooked dinner!" Asuka said triumphantly, pleased with herself. "You weren't feeling well, and Misato said I should…" she stopped cold.
"Anything else?" Shinji prompted.
"Give me a minute!" the redhead hissed, frantically racking her memories for one instance – one time she had done something for the Third Child that wasn't prompted by Misato, Commander Ikari, or Ritsuko.
She could not think of one.
"See you at home…"
"Shinji!"
The boy paused, sighing wearily.
"There was… the kiss…" Asuka said hopefully. "I… wasn't really bored – it wasn't just to kill time, I really wanted to kiss you…"
There was a long, silent pause before Shinji spoke, and when he did, Asuka was stunned to hear his voice thick with pity.
"It was just a kiss…"
Asuka felt her legs buckle.
"Just… a kiss…" she whispered, watching helplessly as Shinji slowly, silently… left her behind…
The End
Author's notes: the title of the story is what started the ball rolling. I was just kinda tired of reading – and writing – Shinji as the needy, impossibly clingy one. Yes, he is kinda that way, but he's not entirely spineless – go watch ep 19 again, if you think that – so I figured he would probably only take so much abuse before finally figuring it out. I also wanted to play off the idea of the kiss being used as the staring point for a story (which I, myself, have done) and turn it into the ending point – an ending to a relationship that was never given enough of a chance to flourish.
Pre-read was courtesy of Ryoma. Thanks, mon ami.
Feedback is always welcome at random1377@yahoo.com