A/N: Here I am again!!! And let me tell you....I have just watched the
(DUBBED) anime of NGE for the first time ever, and I must tell
you....it was seriously, in all honesty, painful to watch. I got
Genesis:2 at the video store and as Asuka would say, "ACH, MEIN GOTT,
WHAT HAPPENED THERE?!" I respond with my own fury of raging power. I
mean, Shinji sounds like a girl. And after hearing the characters say
"Ay-va", not "Eeeeva" and "Evageh-lion" not "Evanjielion" I am confused
at the true pronunciation of those words. After the first episode, I
got used to Shinji's voice (but it still disgusted me) and decided,
that after I get the episode where Asuka comes in, that I'll stick
solely to the Japanese version with English subtitles because it just
makes me too sick to watch the dubbed version. I am SORRY, ADV films.
But that's the suckiness of animation in another language–you have to
get a voice actor/actress who sounds JUST RIGHT. But let me ask
you....WHAT WERE YOU THINKING WHEN YOU GAVE SHINJI THAT VOICE?!?!
I have now expressed my opinion.
Disclaimer: I own nothing of Neon Genesis Evangelion/Shin Seiki Evangelion. Dang, huh?
IMPORTANT NOTE: I need pre-readers!! I've gotten some requests (Rursher-san) but their inbox quotas are over the limit! If you want to pre-read To Asuka, please E-MAIL me. Do not review. E-MAIL me. Thanks!!!! ^______~
Note: In this chapter, and the next, it'll be a bit more focused on Hikari and Touji than Asuka and Shinji. But don't worry! They're crucial! I promise!
To Asuka
Chapter 2
Hikari chased frantically after Asuka as she stopped at every single boy in homeroom 2-A and proceeded to....interrogate him.
"You! You there. Yeah, whoever the hell you are. No, I don't care. Now, have you ever sent me a love letter? AND TELL ME THE TRUTH!!! Oh yeah? You don't wanna say? Listen, li'l boy, I got some connections. You still don't wanna 'fess up? What? Oh, now you're running away? Oh no way! You come back here, you–@#!$@#!!!"
"Asuka!" Hikari eventually screamed. "You need to stop!"
At this, Asuka turned around, her hair sticking out in every single place from running around, her blue eyes cold and icy with fury, and her mouth twisted into an odd shape. Ha! The red devil herself!
"I have to find out who wrote this note, Hikari," Asuka said with a tone of voice that said, "Ya-got-it?" She turned around again. "Now c'mon!"
Not wanting to follow around the axe murderer, Hikari sat down in her seat and closed her eyes.
Asuka gets on my nerves sometimes, she thought tiredly.
No wait, it's more like all the time.
And then she heard a voice. A very...familiar voice.
"Hey," it said.
Hikari jumped up about, oh, let's say a meter at the least but kept her face on her desk, because she knew who it was and she didn't want to turn around. Besides, her face was as red as Eva-02, which is pretty red.
"H-hi," She said softly.
Goawaygoawaygoawaygoawaygoawaynow, she thought, hoping someone–BESIDES her conscience, which had led her to this whole mess in the first place–would hear her and whisk her away to a safe place.
Wherever that was, anyway.
"Um....so, I gotcher letter," The voice said again.
If I could just melt now, everything would be all good.
"Really?" She said breathily.
I didn't know such a romantic moment like this could feel so incredibly weird.
"Y-yeah."
On the other side, the guy himself was starting to sweat.
This is pretty pathetic.
"So..."
"Um...did you like it?"
Hikari decided that she would probably have to be the one to get this whole thing going. If she didn't, they'd be stuck there the whole lunch period saying "So" and "Um".
That is not the beginning of a beautiful relationship.
"Well..." He smiled crookedly, and Hikari just happened to see it. She shut her eyes tight and blocked the image from her mind, because if she remembered it, she'd go into a moment of complete bliss and embarrasment, which was not pretty.
"Well, I mean...I jess wanted to say...that–"
But all romantic atmosphere was whisked away by the reappearance of a red demon. She thrust her aura into the middle of the whole thing, and it was immediately banished.
"YOU!" She pointed at Touji. "YOU, OH MY GOD, I BET IT WAS YOU!"
"Me what?"
"You! You, Mr. I-Like-Lookin'-Up-Girl's-Skirts, I bet it was you that sent me that poem. You, who has no control whatsoever over his hormones. You wrote that poem, didn't you?!? You were just desperate 'coz you couldn't seduce me with your stupid idiotic 15-year-old sexual ways, so you decided to woo me with some poem you plagiarized out of a book!"
Touji had a blank look on his face. "What poem're ya talkin' 'bout, devil woman?"
Asuka smirked. "Don't act like you don't know."
Getting tired of the interruption, Hikari pinched Asuka. "Asuka! Go away! This is an important conversation!"
Asuka stopped then and started to giggle. "Oh, I get it." Then her face hardened. "But that still leaves me with nothing!!! I don't know who sent me that letter. And let me tell you, I'm not going to rest 'til I know who wrote that poem. I mean..." At this, Asuka sighed and her face fell. "It really showed me how I was hiding the real Sohryu Asuka Langley underneath a pile of exterior hatred..."
Hikari immediately felt sorry for Asuka. She knew how sad the real Asuka was, and even though she didn't know why, it still made her feel like her best friend had split personality disorder.
"Well, I'll help you find that person, Asuka–"
"SHINJI!" Asuka yelled suddenly.
–When you leave Touji and I alone to discuss our personal matter, Hikari finished her sentence in her head.
Asuka's bent head popped up and her sad face lit up. "Mein Gott! How could I forget about Shinji?!? That dud. I bet he wrote me this. He's always having insane fantasies about me! Always in the morning, always when he's looking at me, always when he's listening to his SDAT. I bet that's why it's his favorite thing. He can't get pleasure out of me, so he's going after a mechanic device–how pathetic..."
She walked off–no, she stomped off–and proceeded to find the pilot of Eva-01.
The two stared after her for awhile while she trudged through the classroom looking for Shinji, then Hikari nervously turned back to Touji.
"So," she said softly, "What were you going to say?"
"Well," He answered back, fidgeting with the zipper on his track suit. "I jess wanted to say...did you...y'know...know the meaning behind that poem?"
At the word poem Hikari immediately pointed a finger at Touji. "So you did write it!"
"Wha–?!?" This caught him off guard. "What're you talkin' about?"
"Well, you see, I thought it really wasn't your handwriting. So I told Asuka–"
"YOU SHOWED THAT THING TUH HER?!?"
Not good.
"Well, yeah!" Oh God, the romantic atmosphere had long gone vanished from the perimeter of the two. "I mean, it was in her locker."
"THAT WAS HER LOCKER?!?!"
Oh my God, dat Shinji is gonna get his death sentence today.
"Yes, actually, it was!"
Touji groaned and put his head on the desk. "Ohmigod..."
Five hours till Shinji dies...
Hikari immediately saw what she'd done and awkwardly put a hand on his shoulder. "Oh, um, I'm sorry, Suzuhara...I mean...she saw it, yeah, but...she helped me with the whole reply thing. I mean, she told me what to do."
He looked up. "She did?"
"Yeah."
He shrugged. "Oh, okay den." Then he stood up. "Well....I'll see ya later." He walked off into the horizon (okay, out of the classroom), where he went to find Shinji, for Shinji was to die for being a carrier of false information, and people who carry false information die earlier than others.
Hikari nodded, disappointed that he'd left her like this, and he walked off, still a bit woozy from the whole thing. She watched after him until he disappeared into the hallway. Then...
"Oh my God! What kind of romantic moment was that??! That sucked!! It should go into the '10 Most Least Romantic Moments of All Time'! Oh my God! I am going to kill Asuka! Where's Asuka?!? YOU THERE! Yeah, you. What!??! Yeah, I'm the class rep. And, li'l boy, you better believe that I got some connections. TELL ME WHERE ASUKA IS!! Yeah, I'm talking about that pretty girl with the really evil personality. Yeah, HER! Oh, now you're running away? WHAT KIND OF MAN ARE YOU!?!?"
The Great Sohryu Asuka Langley was apparently starting to rub off on certain people...
-------------------------------------
Meanwhile, while a posse of people were looking for either himself or a member of that posse, Ikari Shinji was on the roof of his school, looking at the sky.
He held a notebook in his hand and his SDAT player in the other.
Inspiration, he thought to himself, is the beginning of everything.
Well, inspiration had apparently left him, because he couldn't think of anything–not even a line or two–to start the next series of poems to Asuka.
Of course, nothing was wrong. He could have easily started his poem. The sky was bright and blue with just a hint of cloud, there was a nice, soothing Bach concerto on his SDAT, there was a nice breeze, and the ground he was sitting on wasn't too cold or too hot. His pencil was sharpened and he had plenty of room on his page.
The only thing not going click was his brain, however.
He closed his eyes. The last time he'd written the poem–the one Asuka had recently found–he was sitting in his room, listening to the chatter of Asuka and Hikari talking about love letters and Touji. He had his inspiration then. So what? Did it suddenly just get up and leave?
He needed a muse.
And then he looked out into the distance and saw a girl with a red ribbon in her hair. No, nothing special about the ribbon–it was just a normal silk ribbon tied into a bow at the top of a ponytail. But it swished delicately in the wind. And it was red.
Red perfectly described Asuka Langley Sohryu, be it a crimson red, suggesting vivacious, voluptuous, sexy, womanly, or be it a soft red, almost pink, suggesting puppy love, Valentines, sweetness, and cuteness....oh yeah. Red came in a million different shades and Asuka came in a million different personalities.
Shinji, knowing this, decided he'd found his inspiration. He put his pen to work.
-------------------------------------
Asuka was in the halls, on the stairs, outside, and in the boy's bathrooms looking for Shinji. She asked every boy in the hallway and she noticed that half of them didn't even know who he WAS.
"This guy," She said to every single one of them in disbelief, "Saves your lives from evil and you don't even know who he is?!?"
And they usually said "No" or "You mean the giant robot thing?" or "So?" or "Hey, you're that Asuka girl! Wanna go out with me?" and walked on (or Asuka stepped on their foot, forcing them to walk on. Or hobble on.)
She finally got to the stairs that led to the roof.
Oh yeah! This is it! That baka Shinji is always on the roof for some reason! Like he's plotting suicide or whatever. I bet he's there now...
As she put her first foot on the stairs, though, a voice called out to her. "ASUKA!"
She turned around and came face to face with Hikari. She was babbling on and on about some dumb romantic moment and how Asuka had ruined it, but Asuka couldn't think of one romantic moment that involved Hikari.
Oh, how nice of you towards your friend, Asuka. You are so supportive.
"What? I can't hear you," Asuka interuppted. She had an (evil) plan. "Say that again."
She put her second foot on the first stair while Hikari took a deep breath, and when she said the first word (which happened to be 'Touji') Asuka was halfway up the staircase.
"NYAH NYAH! YOU WANNA PLAY, HIKARI-CHAN?!! CATCH ME IF YOU CAN!"
A vein in Hikari's neck twitched. She ran up the stairs chasing after a swirl of red hair. "Asuka! I'm not done talking to you yet! Come back here!"
As she rounded on the second staircase, the strap of her shoe came loose and caught in the crook of the metal bars. Hikari had, however, grabbed Asuka's school uniform as she began to descend, which sent two girls flying down the staircase.
"OOOOOWWWWWWWWWWWWWW!!!"
"SCHEISSE!!!"
----------------------------------------
If he had not been walking by, there would have been a lot of broken bones since the staircase to the roof was at the far end of the hall where hardly anyone came except for Shinji. But Touji was part of the posse trying to assassinate Ikari Shinji, and he was just about to climb that same staircase himself.
But he heard that deafening "OW" and that piercing "Scheisse" and he feared for what he was about to see.
And he was scared anyway when he got to the foot of the incident.
There, at the end of the stairs, was a pile of two teenage girls–Hikari and Asuka–tangled together. Hikari was moaning something about her leg and Asuka was yelling something about her school uniform and her arm and both girls were yelling at each other with mixed feelings.
"HIKARI YOU RIPPED MY SCHOOL UNIFORM!"
"I'm sorry Asuka!"
"It's okay...I mean...it was an accident, right?"
"I guess..in a way...."
"Ohmygod! What happened to your leg?"
"I don't know! It hurts!"
"Gott! Did I do that?!"
"I don't know..."
Touji chose this time to speak up.
"Uh...wut happened?"
They both looked up and sighed. "Oh, Suzuhara," Hikari said. She had apparently forgotten about the morning, acting so casual around him.
Or had she?
"Help me up," She said, reaching for him. He tried not to leave his jaw hanging open as he put an arm around Hikari to support her standing.
"Ey, class rep, I tink yo leg is broken or someting," He said.
"You think?" she winced. "Asuka, how's your arm?" She said, leaning...leaning more than she had to on Touji.
"It's...okay. Just kinda scraped. I'll walk you two to the infirmary."
She got up, clutching her arm, and helped Hikari by putting her arm around the other side. Touji, thankful (FOR ONCE) for Asuka's doing, helped them all limp towards the infirmary...
All three had apparently lost Shinji Ikari from their minds...for now.
------------------------------------
Up on the rooftop, the writer had just finished his latest rendezvous. He smiled in his head, because he couldn't seem to bring himself to smile out loud even though he was the only one around. He made sure his spelling was perfect and the kanji he'd used was just clear enough to decipher from a mile away. Then he folded it up perfectly and symmetrically as possible and stuffed it (well, slipped it in) a nice red envelope.
It was the second. The second of many.
And soon it was to be in the hands of the person it so perfectly described within its words, Shinji thought. He walked down the stairs and, glad to see none of the posse was in the halls (because they were all tending to each other in the infirmary), he stuck the note into her locker and walked off, pretending he had done nothing, nothing out of the ordinary, actually...
---------------------------------------
"So is that better?"
"Well, it's not so sore."
Asuka finished bandaging Hikari's ankle and she sat back on the pillows and sighed.
"How's your arm?"
"Oh, well, I put some iodine on it and then just stuck a band-aid on it. It was just a cut, that's all."
Hikari nodded. Then she turned towards her 2nd nurse. "I guess we should thank you, huh?"
Touji turned red. What is she doin'? Does she even remember dis mornin' or wut??! Coz I shurr do... "Well....I...yuh don't hafta."
Hikari shook her head. "No, no. Thanks, Suzuhara. I mean if you weren't there when you were, Asuka would have been bleeding to death and my ankle would have swelled up..." She bent her head. "So thanks."
Asuka was watching this and wondered the same thing as Touji: did Hikari remember that they had just confessed their love for each other that very morning?
"Hikari," She said again. "Don't you even remember what you said to this dud this morning?"
Hikari looked up, puzzled. "Um...no. In fact, after I fell I don't really remember anything that happened before I reached the stairs."
Touji raised his eyebrows. "You...yuh mean yuh don't?!?"
"No..." She tapped her finger on her chin. "I guess I hit my head while falling down...I...I'm sorry about whatever it is, Suzuhara."
Touji sat down and held his head in his hands and groaned inwardly.
Asuka noticed this and immediately found a space to poke through. "Oh, what's up, Touji? What are you so mad about?"
He turned pink. "Nothin'."
"It doesn't seem like much 'nothin' to me, mister."
"Shut up, devil woman."
Asuka chucked a roll of gauze at him and he threw a thermometer at her face.
"Hey! Stop," Hikari said (being the commanding school officer she always was.) "Now, I'm sure whatever happened this morning, me and Suzuhara can sort it out next time."
Touji sighed and Asuka tsked. "That might be and it might not be, Hikari."
Of course, having had a nasty fall, Hikari didn't know what it was. She kind of wanted to know, because it seemed pretty big, but she didn't want to know, because she might not be able to take the whole thing. But overall, Hikari was a girl. Girls want to know things, whether it's their business or not. It's nature.
"Well, I'm getting out of here. I'm not going to stay my life in a room smelling of dorks and disinfectant," Asuka smirked, nodding to Touji. "I'm talking about you."
He stood up and stepped in front of Asuka's warpath. "Maybe you should geddout if yeh don't wunna be hit," He snarled.
Asuka threw up her hands. "Oooh, I'm so scared, I'm going to get hit by Touji," She giggled. "Let me remind you I've handled evil monsters about a hundred times your size! You, on the other hand...you're not a problem."
He raised his fist. "Oh yeah?"
Hikari stood up and grabbed his ear. "Yeah. You can hit all the guys you want when school's out, Suzuhara, but when you're in my sight you AIN'T gonna hit one girl in your life, you hear me?!?"
He nodded. "Um...yeah," He stuttered.
"Good." She released his ear and you could definately see a red pinch. Then she walked after Asuka, who was trying not to laugh, out of the room.
Touji sat there and tried not to have a panic attack about the so-called "next time" Hikari had said.
------------------------------------
Asuka walked into the locker room with a haughty and not-so-discreet aura around her and kicked her shoe locker open.
"So, Hikari," She said. "You swear that you don't remember anything about this morning?"
"N-no..."
"Oh, alright then. Nothing about this?" Asuka held up an envelope with Hikari's name on it.
Hikari took the letter and examined it. "Oh...oh!" She raised her head. "I know! I think I know!"
"So you remember!"
"No."
Asuka sighed and shook her head. "Alright, then. Whatever. She took her shoes out, but as she pulled them out, a red envelope fell out with it.
She blushed (she blushed!) and pulled out the envelope, admiring the perfect way whoever was sending her these letters wrote Asuka on the front–just clear enough to see, graceful and calligraphy-like.
Another one...
"Hey, Hikari," She said. She picked up the envelope. "Let's read this love letter I got and see if you can remember anything about this fateful morning, eh?"
She shrugged. "Sure. I mean, it might come as a shock, huh?"
Asuka smirked. Like you know.
She carefully opened the envelope and took out a nicely folded piece of paper. Together, the two girls read it as they slumped against the cold locker walls...
To Asuka, for Die Liebe besiegt alles.....(*Love conquers all)
You, who can be
scared and weak
little and afraid
a flawless masterpiece of
beauty and red
You, who can be
surrounded by the flames
that burn me in the night
and yet you can't be scratched
or burned
by those burning orbs of light
you, who can be what you want
a million shades
a million ways
you, the girl of red
the woman of crimson
the goddess of pink.
I–
I am blank–
white gray space nothing
would it be fit, okay, would it be
right
to hold the woman of the blood red sea
in my arms?
~.~
Asuka stared at the letter, trying to figure out how in the world these words, these clusters of letters, could come out of someone's brain in such a beautiful and musical way like this that it could sound exactly like a song, and when read to herself, sounded like someone in her brain
was serenading her, soothing her to sleep...
She turned to Hikari, whose eyes were open in shock and her pale, freckled face was turning bright red.
"I take it you remember," Asuka whispered.
Hikari groaned. "I wish I didn't. We never really finished that conversation this morning, and now..."
"You've gotta face it tomorrow," Asuka said. A tear slipped down her cheek.
Hikari turned to Asuka and her mouth dropped open when she saw the tear, the salty water, the symbol of sadness, roll down her cheek....the weak (emphasize weak) tear...going down Asuka Langley Sohryu's cheek?!?!
"A-Asuka..." Hikari stammered.
Asuka breathed in. "You, you have the guy you love right in your homeroom. Me, I don't even know if the person of these poems is a guy..." She smiled and wiped the tear from her cheek. "Hey, lucky you, Hikari-chan. You're in love and he loves you back. Me, well, I'm falling in love with a piece of paper..."
Hikari stood up. "Asuka, don't think like that. You'll find him."
"Do you know for sure?" Asuka turned around, the cold glare once again pasted back on her face. "You're my friend, Hikari, but you can't tell the future." She grinned and waved. "It'd be nice if you could, though."
Before Hikari could say another word of what only an idiot would call comfort, the red-headed German girl was out the door, out of the classroom, and nearly out of the school.
Meanwhile, Hikari was sitting on the floor with her own letter inside her pocket. Slowly, she took it out and unfolded it, and read it over, and over, and over again....trying to feel what Asuka felt...but she would never know, because–
"Hikari?"
Hikari looked up and her heart started to race a million beats per second.
Why me?
"...Touji?"
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
End Note: I BET YOU HATE ME. I BET YOU HATE ME!!! HATE ME!!! GO AHEAD!!! THROW EGGS!!! *accepts eggs from crowd* I know y'all peepsh hate cliffies, but in my duty as an author, it is my honor to leave you on a cliffhanger. I know you hate me, but as soon as you review, I'll go out and make the 3rd chappy!!!!! I already made part of the next chapter. Oh yeah. I'm on a roooooooooooooooooooooooooooollllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll.
Asuka: Speaking of rolls, I'd like a California roll.
Ladyx: You kiddin'? No way I'm passin' these babies up!
Asuka: GIVE ME THE DAMN ROLL!
Ladyx: MAKE ME!!!!!!!!!!!
Asuka: Let's go.
Ladyx: RARRR!!!
Asuka: RARRY RARR RARR!!!
Shinji: Can I have a latte?
Waiter: Yes, Master Shinji.
Shinji: Girls fighting, my own waiter, a latte. What else can I ask in life?
I have now expressed my opinion.
Disclaimer: I own nothing of Neon Genesis Evangelion/Shin Seiki Evangelion. Dang, huh?
IMPORTANT NOTE: I need pre-readers!! I've gotten some requests (Rursher-san) but their inbox quotas are over the limit! If you want to pre-read To Asuka, please E-MAIL me. Do not review. E-MAIL me. Thanks!!!! ^______~
Note: In this chapter, and the next, it'll be a bit more focused on Hikari and Touji than Asuka and Shinji. But don't worry! They're crucial! I promise!
To Asuka
Chapter 2
Hikari chased frantically after Asuka as she stopped at every single boy in homeroom 2-A and proceeded to....interrogate him.
"You! You there. Yeah, whoever the hell you are. No, I don't care. Now, have you ever sent me a love letter? AND TELL ME THE TRUTH!!! Oh yeah? You don't wanna say? Listen, li'l boy, I got some connections. You still don't wanna 'fess up? What? Oh, now you're running away? Oh no way! You come back here, you–@#!$@#!!!"
"Asuka!" Hikari eventually screamed. "You need to stop!"
At this, Asuka turned around, her hair sticking out in every single place from running around, her blue eyes cold and icy with fury, and her mouth twisted into an odd shape. Ha! The red devil herself!
"I have to find out who wrote this note, Hikari," Asuka said with a tone of voice that said, "Ya-got-it?" She turned around again. "Now c'mon!"
Not wanting to follow around the axe murderer, Hikari sat down in her seat and closed her eyes.
Asuka gets on my nerves sometimes, she thought tiredly.
No wait, it's more like all the time.
And then she heard a voice. A very...familiar voice.
"Hey," it said.
Hikari jumped up about, oh, let's say a meter at the least but kept her face on her desk, because she knew who it was and she didn't want to turn around. Besides, her face was as red as Eva-02, which is pretty red.
"H-hi," She said softly.
Goawaygoawaygoawaygoawaygoawaynow, she thought, hoping someone–BESIDES her conscience, which had led her to this whole mess in the first place–would hear her and whisk her away to a safe place.
Wherever that was, anyway.
"Um....so, I gotcher letter," The voice said again.
If I could just melt now, everything would be all good.
"Really?" She said breathily.
I didn't know such a romantic moment like this could feel so incredibly weird.
"Y-yeah."
On the other side, the guy himself was starting to sweat.
This is pretty pathetic.
"So..."
"Um...did you like it?"
Hikari decided that she would probably have to be the one to get this whole thing going. If she didn't, they'd be stuck there the whole lunch period saying "So" and "Um".
That is not the beginning of a beautiful relationship.
"Well..." He smiled crookedly, and Hikari just happened to see it. She shut her eyes tight and blocked the image from her mind, because if she remembered it, she'd go into a moment of complete bliss and embarrasment, which was not pretty.
"Well, I mean...I jess wanted to say...that–"
But all romantic atmosphere was whisked away by the reappearance of a red demon. She thrust her aura into the middle of the whole thing, and it was immediately banished.
"YOU!" She pointed at Touji. "YOU, OH MY GOD, I BET IT WAS YOU!"
"Me what?"
"You! You, Mr. I-Like-Lookin'-Up-Girl's-Skirts, I bet it was you that sent me that poem. You, who has no control whatsoever over his hormones. You wrote that poem, didn't you?!? You were just desperate 'coz you couldn't seduce me with your stupid idiotic 15-year-old sexual ways, so you decided to woo me with some poem you plagiarized out of a book!"
Touji had a blank look on his face. "What poem're ya talkin' 'bout, devil woman?"
Asuka smirked. "Don't act like you don't know."
Getting tired of the interruption, Hikari pinched Asuka. "Asuka! Go away! This is an important conversation!"
Asuka stopped then and started to giggle. "Oh, I get it." Then her face hardened. "But that still leaves me with nothing!!! I don't know who sent me that letter. And let me tell you, I'm not going to rest 'til I know who wrote that poem. I mean..." At this, Asuka sighed and her face fell. "It really showed me how I was hiding the real Sohryu Asuka Langley underneath a pile of exterior hatred..."
Hikari immediately felt sorry for Asuka. She knew how sad the real Asuka was, and even though she didn't know why, it still made her feel like her best friend had split personality disorder.
"Well, I'll help you find that person, Asuka–"
"SHINJI!" Asuka yelled suddenly.
–When you leave Touji and I alone to discuss our personal matter, Hikari finished her sentence in her head.
Asuka's bent head popped up and her sad face lit up. "Mein Gott! How could I forget about Shinji?!? That dud. I bet he wrote me this. He's always having insane fantasies about me! Always in the morning, always when he's looking at me, always when he's listening to his SDAT. I bet that's why it's his favorite thing. He can't get pleasure out of me, so he's going after a mechanic device–how pathetic..."
She walked off–no, she stomped off–and proceeded to find the pilot of Eva-01.
The two stared after her for awhile while she trudged through the classroom looking for Shinji, then Hikari nervously turned back to Touji.
"So," she said softly, "What were you going to say?"
"Well," He answered back, fidgeting with the zipper on his track suit. "I jess wanted to say...did you...y'know...know the meaning behind that poem?"
At the word poem Hikari immediately pointed a finger at Touji. "So you did write it!"
"Wha–?!?" This caught him off guard. "What're you talkin' about?"
"Well, you see, I thought it really wasn't your handwriting. So I told Asuka–"
"YOU SHOWED THAT THING TUH HER?!?"
Not good.
"Well, yeah!" Oh God, the romantic atmosphere had long gone vanished from the perimeter of the two. "I mean, it was in her locker."
"THAT WAS HER LOCKER?!?!"
Oh my God, dat Shinji is gonna get his death sentence today.
"Yes, actually, it was!"
Touji groaned and put his head on the desk. "Ohmigod..."
Five hours till Shinji dies...
Hikari immediately saw what she'd done and awkwardly put a hand on his shoulder. "Oh, um, I'm sorry, Suzuhara...I mean...she saw it, yeah, but...she helped me with the whole reply thing. I mean, she told me what to do."
He looked up. "She did?"
"Yeah."
He shrugged. "Oh, okay den." Then he stood up. "Well....I'll see ya later." He walked off into the horizon (okay, out of the classroom), where he went to find Shinji, for Shinji was to die for being a carrier of false information, and people who carry false information die earlier than others.
Hikari nodded, disappointed that he'd left her like this, and he walked off, still a bit woozy from the whole thing. She watched after him until he disappeared into the hallway. Then...
"Oh my God! What kind of romantic moment was that??! That sucked!! It should go into the '10 Most Least Romantic Moments of All Time'! Oh my God! I am going to kill Asuka! Where's Asuka?!? YOU THERE! Yeah, you. What!??! Yeah, I'm the class rep. And, li'l boy, you better believe that I got some connections. TELL ME WHERE ASUKA IS!! Yeah, I'm talking about that pretty girl with the really evil personality. Yeah, HER! Oh, now you're running away? WHAT KIND OF MAN ARE YOU!?!?"
The Great Sohryu Asuka Langley was apparently starting to rub off on certain people...
-------------------------------------
Meanwhile, while a posse of people were looking for either himself or a member of that posse, Ikari Shinji was on the roof of his school, looking at the sky.
He held a notebook in his hand and his SDAT player in the other.
Inspiration, he thought to himself, is the beginning of everything.
Well, inspiration had apparently left him, because he couldn't think of anything–not even a line or two–to start the next series of poems to Asuka.
Of course, nothing was wrong. He could have easily started his poem. The sky was bright and blue with just a hint of cloud, there was a nice, soothing Bach concerto on his SDAT, there was a nice breeze, and the ground he was sitting on wasn't too cold or too hot. His pencil was sharpened and he had plenty of room on his page.
The only thing not going click was his brain, however.
He closed his eyes. The last time he'd written the poem–the one Asuka had recently found–he was sitting in his room, listening to the chatter of Asuka and Hikari talking about love letters and Touji. He had his inspiration then. So what? Did it suddenly just get up and leave?
He needed a muse.
And then he looked out into the distance and saw a girl with a red ribbon in her hair. No, nothing special about the ribbon–it was just a normal silk ribbon tied into a bow at the top of a ponytail. But it swished delicately in the wind. And it was red.
Red perfectly described Asuka Langley Sohryu, be it a crimson red, suggesting vivacious, voluptuous, sexy, womanly, or be it a soft red, almost pink, suggesting puppy love, Valentines, sweetness, and cuteness....oh yeah. Red came in a million different shades and Asuka came in a million different personalities.
Shinji, knowing this, decided he'd found his inspiration. He put his pen to work.
-------------------------------------
Asuka was in the halls, on the stairs, outside, and in the boy's bathrooms looking for Shinji. She asked every boy in the hallway and she noticed that half of them didn't even know who he WAS.
"This guy," She said to every single one of them in disbelief, "Saves your lives from evil and you don't even know who he is?!?"
And they usually said "No" or "You mean the giant robot thing?" or "So?" or "Hey, you're that Asuka girl! Wanna go out with me?" and walked on (or Asuka stepped on their foot, forcing them to walk on. Or hobble on.)
She finally got to the stairs that led to the roof.
Oh yeah! This is it! That baka Shinji is always on the roof for some reason! Like he's plotting suicide or whatever. I bet he's there now...
As she put her first foot on the stairs, though, a voice called out to her. "ASUKA!"
She turned around and came face to face with Hikari. She was babbling on and on about some dumb romantic moment and how Asuka had ruined it, but Asuka couldn't think of one romantic moment that involved Hikari.
Oh, how nice of you towards your friend, Asuka. You are so supportive.
"What? I can't hear you," Asuka interuppted. She had an (evil) plan. "Say that again."
She put her second foot on the first stair while Hikari took a deep breath, and when she said the first word (which happened to be 'Touji') Asuka was halfway up the staircase.
"NYAH NYAH! YOU WANNA PLAY, HIKARI-CHAN?!! CATCH ME IF YOU CAN!"
A vein in Hikari's neck twitched. She ran up the stairs chasing after a swirl of red hair. "Asuka! I'm not done talking to you yet! Come back here!"
As she rounded on the second staircase, the strap of her shoe came loose and caught in the crook of the metal bars. Hikari had, however, grabbed Asuka's school uniform as she began to descend, which sent two girls flying down the staircase.
"OOOOOWWWWWWWWWWWWWW!!!"
"SCHEISSE!!!"
----------------------------------------
If he had not been walking by, there would have been a lot of broken bones since the staircase to the roof was at the far end of the hall where hardly anyone came except for Shinji. But Touji was part of the posse trying to assassinate Ikari Shinji, and he was just about to climb that same staircase himself.
But he heard that deafening "OW" and that piercing "Scheisse" and he feared for what he was about to see.
And he was scared anyway when he got to the foot of the incident.
There, at the end of the stairs, was a pile of two teenage girls–Hikari and Asuka–tangled together. Hikari was moaning something about her leg and Asuka was yelling something about her school uniform and her arm and both girls were yelling at each other with mixed feelings.
"HIKARI YOU RIPPED MY SCHOOL UNIFORM!"
"I'm sorry Asuka!"
"It's okay...I mean...it was an accident, right?"
"I guess..in a way...."
"Ohmygod! What happened to your leg?"
"I don't know! It hurts!"
"Gott! Did I do that?!"
"I don't know..."
Touji chose this time to speak up.
"Uh...wut happened?"
They both looked up and sighed. "Oh, Suzuhara," Hikari said. She had apparently forgotten about the morning, acting so casual around him.
Or had she?
"Help me up," She said, reaching for him. He tried not to leave his jaw hanging open as he put an arm around Hikari to support her standing.
"Ey, class rep, I tink yo leg is broken or someting," He said.
"You think?" she winced. "Asuka, how's your arm?" She said, leaning...leaning more than she had to on Touji.
"It's...okay. Just kinda scraped. I'll walk you two to the infirmary."
She got up, clutching her arm, and helped Hikari by putting her arm around the other side. Touji, thankful (FOR ONCE) for Asuka's doing, helped them all limp towards the infirmary...
All three had apparently lost Shinji Ikari from their minds...for now.
------------------------------------
Up on the rooftop, the writer had just finished his latest rendezvous. He smiled in his head, because he couldn't seem to bring himself to smile out loud even though he was the only one around. He made sure his spelling was perfect and the kanji he'd used was just clear enough to decipher from a mile away. Then he folded it up perfectly and symmetrically as possible and stuffed it (well, slipped it in) a nice red envelope.
It was the second. The second of many.
And soon it was to be in the hands of the person it so perfectly described within its words, Shinji thought. He walked down the stairs and, glad to see none of the posse was in the halls (because they were all tending to each other in the infirmary), he stuck the note into her locker and walked off, pretending he had done nothing, nothing out of the ordinary, actually...
---------------------------------------
"So is that better?"
"Well, it's not so sore."
Asuka finished bandaging Hikari's ankle and she sat back on the pillows and sighed.
"How's your arm?"
"Oh, well, I put some iodine on it and then just stuck a band-aid on it. It was just a cut, that's all."
Hikari nodded. Then she turned towards her 2nd nurse. "I guess we should thank you, huh?"
Touji turned red. What is she doin'? Does she even remember dis mornin' or wut??! Coz I shurr do... "Well....I...yuh don't hafta."
Hikari shook her head. "No, no. Thanks, Suzuhara. I mean if you weren't there when you were, Asuka would have been bleeding to death and my ankle would have swelled up..." She bent her head. "So thanks."
Asuka was watching this and wondered the same thing as Touji: did Hikari remember that they had just confessed their love for each other that very morning?
"Hikari," She said again. "Don't you even remember what you said to this dud this morning?"
Hikari looked up, puzzled. "Um...no. In fact, after I fell I don't really remember anything that happened before I reached the stairs."
Touji raised his eyebrows. "You...yuh mean yuh don't?!?"
"No..." She tapped her finger on her chin. "I guess I hit my head while falling down...I...I'm sorry about whatever it is, Suzuhara."
Touji sat down and held his head in his hands and groaned inwardly.
Asuka noticed this and immediately found a space to poke through. "Oh, what's up, Touji? What are you so mad about?"
He turned pink. "Nothin'."
"It doesn't seem like much 'nothin' to me, mister."
"Shut up, devil woman."
Asuka chucked a roll of gauze at him and he threw a thermometer at her face.
"Hey! Stop," Hikari said (being the commanding school officer she always was.) "Now, I'm sure whatever happened this morning, me and Suzuhara can sort it out next time."
Touji sighed and Asuka tsked. "That might be and it might not be, Hikari."
Of course, having had a nasty fall, Hikari didn't know what it was. She kind of wanted to know, because it seemed pretty big, but she didn't want to know, because she might not be able to take the whole thing. But overall, Hikari was a girl. Girls want to know things, whether it's their business or not. It's nature.
"Well, I'm getting out of here. I'm not going to stay my life in a room smelling of dorks and disinfectant," Asuka smirked, nodding to Touji. "I'm talking about you."
He stood up and stepped in front of Asuka's warpath. "Maybe you should geddout if yeh don't wunna be hit," He snarled.
Asuka threw up her hands. "Oooh, I'm so scared, I'm going to get hit by Touji," She giggled. "Let me remind you I've handled evil monsters about a hundred times your size! You, on the other hand...you're not a problem."
He raised his fist. "Oh yeah?"
Hikari stood up and grabbed his ear. "Yeah. You can hit all the guys you want when school's out, Suzuhara, but when you're in my sight you AIN'T gonna hit one girl in your life, you hear me?!?"
He nodded. "Um...yeah," He stuttered.
"Good." She released his ear and you could definately see a red pinch. Then she walked after Asuka, who was trying not to laugh, out of the room.
Touji sat there and tried not to have a panic attack about the so-called "next time" Hikari had said.
------------------------------------
Asuka walked into the locker room with a haughty and not-so-discreet aura around her and kicked her shoe locker open.
"So, Hikari," She said. "You swear that you don't remember anything about this morning?"
"N-no..."
"Oh, alright then. Nothing about this?" Asuka held up an envelope with Hikari's name on it.
Hikari took the letter and examined it. "Oh...oh!" She raised her head. "I know! I think I know!"
"So you remember!"
"No."
Asuka sighed and shook her head. "Alright, then. Whatever. She took her shoes out, but as she pulled them out, a red envelope fell out with it.
She blushed (she blushed!) and pulled out the envelope, admiring the perfect way whoever was sending her these letters wrote Asuka on the front–just clear enough to see, graceful and calligraphy-like.
Another one...
"Hey, Hikari," She said. She picked up the envelope. "Let's read this love letter I got and see if you can remember anything about this fateful morning, eh?"
She shrugged. "Sure. I mean, it might come as a shock, huh?"
Asuka smirked. Like you know.
She carefully opened the envelope and took out a nicely folded piece of paper. Together, the two girls read it as they slumped against the cold locker walls...
To Asuka, for Die Liebe besiegt alles.....(*Love conquers all)
You, who can be
scared and weak
little and afraid
a flawless masterpiece of
beauty and red
You, who can be
surrounded by the flames
that burn me in the night
and yet you can't be scratched
or burned
by those burning orbs of light
you, who can be what you want
a million shades
a million ways
you, the girl of red
the woman of crimson
the goddess of pink.
I–
I am blank–
white gray space nothing
would it be fit, okay, would it be
right
to hold the woman of the blood red sea
in my arms?
~.~
Asuka stared at the letter, trying to figure out how in the world these words, these clusters of letters, could come out of someone's brain in such a beautiful and musical way like this that it could sound exactly like a song, and when read to herself, sounded like someone in her brain
was serenading her, soothing her to sleep...
She turned to Hikari, whose eyes were open in shock and her pale, freckled face was turning bright red.
"I take it you remember," Asuka whispered.
Hikari groaned. "I wish I didn't. We never really finished that conversation this morning, and now..."
"You've gotta face it tomorrow," Asuka said. A tear slipped down her cheek.
Hikari turned to Asuka and her mouth dropped open when she saw the tear, the salty water, the symbol of sadness, roll down her cheek....the weak (emphasize weak) tear...going down Asuka Langley Sohryu's cheek?!?!
"A-Asuka..." Hikari stammered.
Asuka breathed in. "You, you have the guy you love right in your homeroom. Me, I don't even know if the person of these poems is a guy..." She smiled and wiped the tear from her cheek. "Hey, lucky you, Hikari-chan. You're in love and he loves you back. Me, well, I'm falling in love with a piece of paper..."
Hikari stood up. "Asuka, don't think like that. You'll find him."
"Do you know for sure?" Asuka turned around, the cold glare once again pasted back on her face. "You're my friend, Hikari, but you can't tell the future." She grinned and waved. "It'd be nice if you could, though."
Before Hikari could say another word of what only an idiot would call comfort, the red-headed German girl was out the door, out of the classroom, and nearly out of the school.
Meanwhile, Hikari was sitting on the floor with her own letter inside her pocket. Slowly, she took it out and unfolded it, and read it over, and over, and over again....trying to feel what Asuka felt...but she would never know, because–
"Hikari?"
Hikari looked up and her heart started to race a million beats per second.
Why me?
"...Touji?"
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
End Note: I BET YOU HATE ME. I BET YOU HATE ME!!! HATE ME!!! GO AHEAD!!! THROW EGGS!!! *accepts eggs from crowd* I know y'all peepsh hate cliffies, but in my duty as an author, it is my honor to leave you on a cliffhanger. I know you hate me, but as soon as you review, I'll go out and make the 3rd chappy!!!!! I already made part of the next chapter. Oh yeah. I'm on a roooooooooooooooooooooooooooollllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll.
Asuka: Speaking of rolls, I'd like a California roll.
Ladyx: You kiddin'? No way I'm passin' these babies up!
Asuka: GIVE ME THE DAMN ROLL!
Ladyx: MAKE ME!!!!!!!!!!!
Asuka: Let's go.
Ladyx: RARRR!!!
Asuka: RARRY RARR RARR!!!
Shinji: Can I have a latte?
Waiter: Yes, Master Shinji.
Shinji: Girls fighting, my own waiter, a latte. What else can I ask in life?