Happy Endings Are Allowed
I slide the door open as quietly as possible and slip carefully inside, tiptoeing until I can slip off my shoes. My father is playing the cello in the next room and I have no desire to disturb him. For as long as I can remember I've loved listening to him play, ever since he played lullabies for me when I was a baby. I steal down the hall as quietly as possible, knowing that he'll break off at once to greet me if he becomes aware of my presence. Peering around the corner into the living room I can't help but smile as I see him curved over his cello, eyes closed, lost in the music. Mother says that he meditates when he plays, sorting out his thoughts and feelings so that he can come to terms with them. If that's true then I can't help but feel that there's a lot I still don't know about my father - and probably never will.
I know that my parents were pilots, of course, ( no way could my father ever hide his scars ) although they prefer not to talk about it. I can understand that - but it leaves me with a lot of unanswered questions. Aunt Misato ( who hates being called that, by the way ) talks about it sometimes but I can tell there's a lot she either won't mention or simply doesn't know. I do know that the course of true love most definitely didn't run smooth, but that's about it. I don't think it's unreasonable to want to know how my parents met and fell in love. After all, I wouldn't be here if they hadn't.
Lost in my thoughts it takes me a moment to notice that father - though he says I can call him Shinji now if I want - has stopped playing and is giving me the same look of warm affection that I gave him a minute ago. "Please Kaoru, stop leaning around the corner and come in." My father is smiling as he speaks, and his smile is somehow present in his voice. For as long as I've been old enough to notice he has always had the most beautifully expressive voice.
I quickly walk over and hug him before he has time to put down his cello, forcing him to hold his arms out wide and submit to my show of affection. We used to play this game all the time when I was younger, after I saw my mother do it to him once and decided, as only a little girl could, that it looked like a lot of fun. It was. Now it's a way to remind him how much I love him. "I'm glad to see you too, sweetheart" he tells me as I finally let go of him. "How have you been?" "I'm fine. College is going great, I like my new roommate and . . . do I smell cookies?" This earns me a legitimate grin from my father - who was once so shy, according to Aunt Misato, that a smile from him was less likely than hearing her pet penguin speak - and he stands up to lead me into the kitchen.
"They're delicious, as usual. You should open a restaurant like mother and I keep saying you should. A lot of people like western food and you're so good at it!" "Too much bother for me Kaoru. I'm happy being a humble music teacher." Another smile, this one a smaller and much more personal quirk of the lips as he makes the joke. "Humble. Suuuure" I drawl in reply "if you say so." And I acknowledge the joke with my own small smile.
We sit and talk over cookies and his equally excellent tea, catching up on news, telling stories, exchanging a little gossip. He tells me about the latest antics of his students and I regale him with the tale of how my roommate nearly got caught sneaking into the dorm at half past two in the morning. I've always been able to just talk to him, without any awkwardness or uncertainty. When I mentioned this to him once he told me he'd learnt the importance of being open the hard way. Eventually it's time for me to leave and I tell my father goodbye with a distinct sense of regret. He reminds me that I'm coming for dinner at the end of the week 'So you mother can see you as well' and the next thing I know I'm outside, headed for the nearest train station.
Love you, I think, staring up at my parents' apartment for a moment before I walk away.
As he goes to stand in front of the window so that he can watch as his daughter walks down the street, a dozen stories below, Shinji quietly shakes his head in mingled amazement and joy. He has had a quarter of a century of peace and happiness but after all that time he remains deeply aware of his good fortune. "I guess it all worked out after all" he murmurs to himself with a soft chuckle, before returning to his cello.
Author's Notes
Yes, Shinji named his daughter after Kaworu, using the female version of the name. This may seem cliché but I felt it was a very Shinji-esque thing to do. Besides, Kaoru is the name of a major character in one of my other favourite anime series, Rurouni Kenshin.
On a separate issue, when I first sat down to write 'A Fleeting Glimpse' more than a year ago I had been inspired by another shortfic and had a specific character in mind for the story (and no, I'm not going to tell you who). However, before I posted it I noticed that a lot of reviews in the NGE section of ff net praised or abused a story based solely on which pairing it featured (usually involving Shinji) and nothing else. This is something that royally pisses me off, for a couple of reasons. The first is that the relationships in Eva, especially the possible romantic ones between Shinji and, well anybody, are pretty damn ambiguous. There's no solid evidence in NGE canon that Shinji is more likely to end up with one girl over any of the others. Secondly, it's unfair and unreasonable to judge a fic based purely on which coupling it endorses. Don't plot, characterisation, description, etc matter at all? I have seen some shockingly mediocre stories praised for no other reason than their main pairing, and good fics trashed for the same reason. It would be nice if people were more discriminating. And this brings me back to my reasons for rewriting 'A Fleeting Glimpse' with the woman's identity concealed.
During my original irritation over this story favouritism I looked over Glimpse again and realised that it would be relatively easy to swap the female character I had chosen for any one of several other female NGE characters. The very fact that this was possible seemed to me to be proof that there's no definitive romantic relationship between Shinji and any of the ladies. NGE doesn't have an equivalent of Ranma and Akane or Keitaro and Naru. So in an attempt to illustrate this point I decided to rewrite my story as a kind of fanfiction Rhorscach test, where everyone would be able to insert their own preferred character into the story.
'A Fleeting Glimpse' received a modestly positive response and I was motivated to write a sequel, as much to further prove my point as anything else. After that I let my plans for a third ( and definitely final ) instalment waned. Just recently I found myself with some spare time on my hands, rediscovered the draft I'd written of 'Happy Endings Are Allowed' and noted another rash of biased NGE reviews on ff net. So I decided to re- release the first two stories along with this one as one package, which had been my original plan, and write this little essay to clarify what my intentions for this trio of stories are.
Later -
beege
I slide the door open as quietly as possible and slip carefully inside, tiptoeing until I can slip off my shoes. My father is playing the cello in the next room and I have no desire to disturb him. For as long as I can remember I've loved listening to him play, ever since he played lullabies for me when I was a baby. I steal down the hall as quietly as possible, knowing that he'll break off at once to greet me if he becomes aware of my presence. Peering around the corner into the living room I can't help but smile as I see him curved over his cello, eyes closed, lost in the music. Mother says that he meditates when he plays, sorting out his thoughts and feelings so that he can come to terms with them. If that's true then I can't help but feel that there's a lot I still don't know about my father - and probably never will.
I know that my parents were pilots, of course, ( no way could my father ever hide his scars ) although they prefer not to talk about it. I can understand that - but it leaves me with a lot of unanswered questions. Aunt Misato ( who hates being called that, by the way ) talks about it sometimes but I can tell there's a lot she either won't mention or simply doesn't know. I do know that the course of true love most definitely didn't run smooth, but that's about it. I don't think it's unreasonable to want to know how my parents met and fell in love. After all, I wouldn't be here if they hadn't.
Lost in my thoughts it takes me a moment to notice that father - though he says I can call him Shinji now if I want - has stopped playing and is giving me the same look of warm affection that I gave him a minute ago. "Please Kaoru, stop leaning around the corner and come in." My father is smiling as he speaks, and his smile is somehow present in his voice. For as long as I've been old enough to notice he has always had the most beautifully expressive voice.
I quickly walk over and hug him before he has time to put down his cello, forcing him to hold his arms out wide and submit to my show of affection. We used to play this game all the time when I was younger, after I saw my mother do it to him once and decided, as only a little girl could, that it looked like a lot of fun. It was. Now it's a way to remind him how much I love him. "I'm glad to see you too, sweetheart" he tells me as I finally let go of him. "How have you been?" "I'm fine. College is going great, I like my new roommate and . . . do I smell cookies?" This earns me a legitimate grin from my father - who was once so shy, according to Aunt Misato, that a smile from him was less likely than hearing her pet penguin speak - and he stands up to lead me into the kitchen.
"They're delicious, as usual. You should open a restaurant like mother and I keep saying you should. A lot of people like western food and you're so good at it!" "Too much bother for me Kaoru. I'm happy being a humble music teacher." Another smile, this one a smaller and much more personal quirk of the lips as he makes the joke. "Humble. Suuuure" I drawl in reply "if you say so." And I acknowledge the joke with my own small smile.
We sit and talk over cookies and his equally excellent tea, catching up on news, telling stories, exchanging a little gossip. He tells me about the latest antics of his students and I regale him with the tale of how my roommate nearly got caught sneaking into the dorm at half past two in the morning. I've always been able to just talk to him, without any awkwardness or uncertainty. When I mentioned this to him once he told me he'd learnt the importance of being open the hard way. Eventually it's time for me to leave and I tell my father goodbye with a distinct sense of regret. He reminds me that I'm coming for dinner at the end of the week 'So you mother can see you as well' and the next thing I know I'm outside, headed for the nearest train station.
Love you, I think, staring up at my parents' apartment for a moment before I walk away.
As he goes to stand in front of the window so that he can watch as his daughter walks down the street, a dozen stories below, Shinji quietly shakes his head in mingled amazement and joy. He has had a quarter of a century of peace and happiness but after all that time he remains deeply aware of his good fortune. "I guess it all worked out after all" he murmurs to himself with a soft chuckle, before returning to his cello.
Author's Notes
Yes, Shinji named his daughter after Kaworu, using the female version of the name. This may seem cliché but I felt it was a very Shinji-esque thing to do. Besides, Kaoru is the name of a major character in one of my other favourite anime series, Rurouni Kenshin.
On a separate issue, when I first sat down to write 'A Fleeting Glimpse' more than a year ago I had been inspired by another shortfic and had a specific character in mind for the story (and no, I'm not going to tell you who). However, before I posted it I noticed that a lot of reviews in the NGE section of ff net praised or abused a story based solely on which pairing it featured (usually involving Shinji) and nothing else. This is something that royally pisses me off, for a couple of reasons. The first is that the relationships in Eva, especially the possible romantic ones between Shinji and, well anybody, are pretty damn ambiguous. There's no solid evidence in NGE canon that Shinji is more likely to end up with one girl over any of the others. Secondly, it's unfair and unreasonable to judge a fic based purely on which coupling it endorses. Don't plot, characterisation, description, etc matter at all? I have seen some shockingly mediocre stories praised for no other reason than their main pairing, and good fics trashed for the same reason. It would be nice if people were more discriminating. And this brings me back to my reasons for rewriting 'A Fleeting Glimpse' with the woman's identity concealed.
During my original irritation over this story favouritism I looked over Glimpse again and realised that it would be relatively easy to swap the female character I had chosen for any one of several other female NGE characters. The very fact that this was possible seemed to me to be proof that there's no definitive romantic relationship between Shinji and any of the ladies. NGE doesn't have an equivalent of Ranma and Akane or Keitaro and Naru. So in an attempt to illustrate this point I decided to rewrite my story as a kind of fanfiction Rhorscach test, where everyone would be able to insert their own preferred character into the story.
'A Fleeting Glimpse' received a modestly positive response and I was motivated to write a sequel, as much to further prove my point as anything else. After that I let my plans for a third ( and definitely final ) instalment waned. Just recently I found myself with some spare time on my hands, rediscovered the draft I'd written of 'Happy Endings Are Allowed' and noted another rash of biased NGE reviews on ff net. So I decided to re- release the first two stories along with this one as one package, which had been my original plan, and write this little essay to clarify what my intentions for this trio of stories are.
Later -
beege