Looking back on it, it's extremely difficult to say where it all started. We only can say for sure it didn't begin here. It probably started long, long before, when our world was young, when a distant planet was being conquered by space pirates who built on a dynasty by exploiting the divine powers of the planet's royal trees. But that story's details have been long lost to us by now. And it probably would be too big a story, or perhaps too complicated or boring, for us anyway.
So instead, today we will look at a simple, intimate story that happened one year before the cataclysm, back when our world was relatively peaceful and quiet, and we hadn't realized it yet. Maybe we weren't happy as a whole, but they certainly were easier, simpler days.
Sixteen years ago.
Shin Seiki Evangelion is the creation and intellectual property of Gainax Studios and Kharas.
Legends of Unequally Rational and Emotional.
The Summer Colors of Eden.
Original Story by Sadamoto Yoshiyuki.
Kyoto was sunnier back then, and the Kansai Magic Association held less control over it than it does now. Around those times, the mundane corporations headed by the Fujino Zaibatsu exerted a larger domination over the area, one that diminished after the cataclysm wrecked havoc upon their assets, leaving only the Fujinos themselves as their sole survivors. In the meanwhile, the companies had established a complete scientific system all over Kyoto, leaving it as Japan's then current capital of education and rational research.
Ikari Yui napped all over her research, or at least over one of her thick notebooks, filled to the brim with dense annotations and clipped cutouts from prestigious articles from magazines and newspapers from all over the world. Her glasses rested aside on the desk, at a short distance from her half open drooling mouth.
When one thinks about someone drooling in their sleep and over their line of work, one tends to think about a man, most likely one of a certain corpulence, and gifted with a notable lack of grace and charm. One just doesn't think of a cute girl in such conditions, and yet there she was, this young woman who barely had left her teenage years behind, short brown hair framing an angelic fair face, her nose briefly twitching whenever her slight motions made it rub against the open pages of the notebook. Thinking back about it now, I laugh, but as I actually saw it myself then, it only annoyed me.
Standing at the doorstep of her office, I looked at her in silence, tightening my lower lip. I remember holding my cellphone in a hand, and inwardly debating whether to take pictures of Ikari Yui in those conditions or not. I probably should have, but not for the reasons I had in mind right then. Regardless, I ended up not doing it, and instead just walked closer to her, smelling her soft scent and finally reaching over to touch one of her soft, cold cheeks with a finger. Her skin was most often cool, and indoors, under the air conditioner, it felt simply cold, making me shiver ever so slightly.
"Senpai," I said.
She didn't wake up, as usual. The woman was quite a heavy sleeper, another thing in which she was just like a stereotypical man despite her frail, feminine nature. She only twitched a bit, snorting delicately out a corner of her mouth, before sipping some of her drool and smacking her lips contentedly. Then she kept on sleeping without any care in the world.
She looked truly happy. Which was also annoying. Back then I wasn't as happy as I try to be now, and others' happiness bothered me unless I felt there was a damn good reason for it. Ikari Yui's happiness, however, bothered me because I knew she had so many reasons to be happy. Which I suppose made me an awful person, and even then I knew it, but I didn't let it trouble me so much. At least, not as much as Ikari Yui's happiness.
"Ah, there you are," Akagi Naoko said from the very same spot at the doorstep where I had stood moments ago. "The dean's calling for you. Did you have your phone off?"
I blinked slowly, then looked at the cellphone still in my right hand. "Yes," I observed, mostly to myself, before walking away from Ikari Yui to join Akagi at the door. "Thank you, I'll be there right now."
I'm sure Akagi didn't notice me taking the glasses from the desk on my way out, although she wouldn't have said anything about it either way.
"I don't know," I said as I sat before the dean's desk, trying to look far less interested than I felt. "Moving overseas? I mean, yes, it's my father's country, but... it's my father's country," I finished in a slightly colder tone, so the old man could understand me well.
The old man nodded, popping another mint into his mouth. "Of course, it's difficult for a girl your age to adapt to a change of this nature, and so suddenly, but it's a request from Earl Asplund-sama himself. Doesn't that at least intrigue you?"
"Not really," I said, looking out the large window to the lively college campus below. "What do they need me for anyway?"
"They want you to round up their new research and development think-tank," the old man told me. "If you meet their requirements after taking their test, you'll be exempt from all study abroad expenses. It's a scholarship at Ashford, Makinami-kun! Just think about it! Most of our students would kill for the chance!"
"Yeah. I don't doubt it," I said. "But why me, specifically?"
"They want a team of geniuses who are as young as possible," he said, "and you are seventeen, so..."
"Sixteen," I reminded him. I had skipped a few grades and gone straight into college after the old Fujino, the unseen financer behind the university, had taken a look at my resume and saw opportunities with me. I figured he'd be pretty ticked off if I left him now, and despite all my flaws, I was and am a woman of my word who doesn't leave any debts unpaid. "Are you sure they want us that young just for our talents?"
The dean laughed, shaking his head, before breaking into a very short cough. "No, no, the Earl isn't that kind of man. I know him myself. It's just... well, his mind plans and schemes in ways most of us might consider eccentric, and even strange."
"Yeah, that's a curse of us Britannians," I said, and idly pointed out the window. "So, is she too old for whatever he's got planned, then?"
The old man squinted, following my finger's pointing until he also saw her, standing by the fountain and talking to a tall, thin young man with short and messy black hair. She still had her open white coat over her clothes, while he had his sleeves rolled up and clad in jeans and a simple white shirt. None of them looked particularly glamorous or romantic. Certainly not what you'd think about when you'd think about a young couple in love under the summer sun.
"Ikari-kun?" the old man asked me, scratching his white mustache. "What about her?"
"Don't you think she's far better qualified than me? Even Akagi-sensei thinks so. Why don't you recommend her instead?"
He shook his head. "Ikari-kun's talent and achievements are certainly impressive, but she isn't what the Earl is looking for," he explained. "And besides, our government won't let her go."
I blinked. "What do you mean?"
"Didn't they tell you? She already received an offer from a new research organization funded by the Secretary of Science. So it'd be pointless to ask her anyway."
I said nothing, and instead kept looking down at the small figure of Ikari Yui.
"Oh, dang!" Ikari Yui lamented after picking the can of Soder that had just come out of the vending machine. "It's grape! I wanted the orange one!"
Sitting cross-legged on a nearby bench under a tree, puffing on cigarette after cigarette, Akagi-sensei lifted an eyebrow. "Don't tell me you haven't found your glasses yet?"
"Nooo..." Ikari Yui groaned, sitting down between us. "I wonder where I could have lost them...? I had them on yesterday before taking my afternoon nap!"
"Why don't you just find yourself some contacts already?" Akagi asked in faint annoyance. "I'm sure Rokubungi-kun would like it better that way."
I flinched slightly despite myself, but neither of them noticed.
"Do you think so?" Ikari Yui asked. "No, he's not the type to worry about things that shallow. He's too cool for that!" and then she beamed one of those annoying bright and wide smiles she did so well.
"'Cool'? Really?" Akagi grunted mildly, and I could do nothing but agree with her in silence. "I don't think so. He's so gloomy, and not even in the 'interesting and intense' way. He's only-" she trailed off, not being able to find the correct word.
"Eccentric," I piped in.
"Yes. That," Akagi said as she blew some smoke out. "But not only that. He's also a dead end. Did you know they arrested him in a bar brawl last year, drunk off his ass?"
Ikari Yui nodded. "He told me already."
"And you don't mind being with a man like that? I guess love is really blind," our teacher said.
Ikari Yui laughed lightly. "Hadn't you guessed that already after your divorce, Naoko-sensei?"
Akagi's glare on her became like really tense and humorless then, although Ikari Yui probably didn't notice, at least not fully. I did, though. That's why I can tell you this now, duh. Anyway, Sensei's glare softened back a moment later, much to my relief. I doubted she felt any better now, but she at least knew she had to keep acting like a decent person. "That's actually somewhat different. Our separation was a mere difference in viewpoints, but Rokubungi-kun is just problems in general. Right, Mari?" She looked at me for support.
"That's what I've heard," I shrugged.
"But it's not right," Ikari Yui sighed, looking up at the clear, blue summer sky. "He's been so nice to me, ever since the first time we met, in the cafeteria. He was right in front of me in the line, and asked the lunch lady for a B-meal..."
"Oh! I want one of those, too!" Ikari Yui enthusiastically said as the lunch lady served the grimly serious young man his rations.
"I'm sorry, but this was the last one for the day," the old lady told her while Rokubungi walked away.
"Huh?! Not fair!"
The young man waited, staring back at her in mild, bland curiosity, as she settled for a C-meal instead, and headed for a table with a cutely downcast expression on her face. He sighed, probably chastised himself for what he was about to do, and approached her, his stoic non-expression unchanged.
"I'll switch with you if you want. Give me that one," he suggested.
Ikari Yui blinked, genuinely surprised at having him address her just like that, in such an unexpected way. But the confusion was short lived, and she smiled beautifully again. "Oh! Would you... really do that for me? Thank you!"
"It's nothing. Have a good day," the young man mumbled as he walked away with his new C-meal, to find himself a seat all to himself at a corner, as far from everybody else as he could.
After a moment of doubt, she walked after him. "Um... why don't we eat together?"
He didn't look back. "Thank you, but I prefer eating alone."
"What?" she stopped.
"It's... not you," he awkwardly said, sitting down with his back to her. "It's just... that's the way I am, I guess."
"Don't say that!"
"Even if I don't, that's still the way it is..."
Ikari Yui now closed her eyes and enjoyed the breeze on her face. "He looked, sounded and acted really unpleasant, but I could tell he had a good, warm heart. That was why I tried to break that gloomy disposition of his. And it actually was easier than expected! If you guys just tried to be his friends too..."
"I was under the impression you had become more than friends with him," Akagi observed, discarding another coffin nail.
Ikari Yui's gentle laugh became somewhat shakier. "I guess. We've been becoming closer lately, talking about all sorts of things... until I could get him to smile for me. I thought it was cute. Really cute. But, even so... I'm not sure yet, if he could feel the same way about me."
By this point, she was not really smiling anymore. Akagi just hummed deeply to herself and lit another cigarette. I frowned and shook my head.
"That's... a really lame story, Senpai," I said, getting up and beginning to walk away. "I hope that's not the kind of story you tell that man, or you'll end up making him even worse. As for me, sorry, but I've got another class right now."
"Ah... right, sorry, have a good afternoon, Mari-chan," I could somehow feel her waving behind my back. Which was so annoying, too.
I heard Akagi's faint huff of bitchy disapproval before I walked past enough listening range. Whether it was directed at myself, at Ikari Yui, or at both, doesn't really matter anymore. Hell, it didn't even really matter back then either.
Still, it hardly made me feel any better either.
You won't believe how long I've been hearing (and mostly overhearing) the 'Oh, it must be hard for her, being a genius at that age, that's why she's so lonely and eccentric' bullshit. I mean, I'll be the first one to recognize maybe there's some or a lot of truth to it, but let me tell you, most people who repeat that crap mantra of feigned compassion don't feel it at all and are just going through the preconceived notions of what a girl like me is supposed to be like.
It doesn't matter if they said it back then, when I was much moodier and sulkier, or they say it now, when I've learned how to cope with a grin and I come off as crazier rather than sadder. The basic intent is the same. It's what they say- what you say- when you meet someone who stands apart from the rest and you don't know how to handle it. And that someone happens to be a cute, sexy girl. When that someone is a guy instead, you just call him a wacko.
Looking back on it, maybe I should have realized that by that afternoon, while heading towards that class, when I first walked past Rokubungi Gendo. He was heading the opposite way, as lonely and silent as any other time he wasn't with Ikari Yui. Slow, lifeless steps, and dead, passive eyes not too unlike those of a sick puppy. Mind, not the kind of sick puppy you mean when you tell a really screwed up bastard 'you, sir, are a sick puppy'. At least not yet, not back then. The eyes of a literal sick, tired puppy unable to ask being taken out of its misery, instead.
We walked past each other in the same blunt silence, without really looking at the other. Perhaps, back then, my eyes were those of a sick and tired puppy as well. How could I know? Back then, I never looked into mirrors any longer than I strictly needed to.
Maybe I did let that vulgar, unremarkable incident linger in my mind longer than it had any right to. Because over the next two days, I grew kind of careless for my standards. It wasn't until the second day I realized I had forgotten to give Fuyutsuki-sensei, our department supervisor, the mid-term report I was supposed to deliver to him. Very early that morning, I headed to his laboratory with the report, and rang the door.
"Sensei?" I asked a moment later, after getting no response.
The silence from the other side of the door continued even after ringing a second time, so I pulled my cell phone out and began marking Fuyutsuki's number. In hindsight, maybe I should've done that even before heading there in the first place, but why should I have thought there would be a need for that? The Professor never missed a day and was an early riser, unlike...
I paused when I managed to hear, against all of my expectations, her soft voice coming from the inside.
Ikari Yui's voice.
"-ain-sama?" the barely audible voice was asking someone. "Are you sure that'd even work at all? No, I mean yes, I know, I'm just saying that... never mind..."
And then there was a loud crash and a shrill shriek, and I pushed the door in, to find it unlocked much to my not-really-a-surprise. I stormed in, asking "What the heck's going on?!" and saw a nervous, shaky Ikari Yui on her knees on the floor, trying to push herself back up with her hands, amidst a mess of scattered papers, books and pencils all across the floor. Not to mention a cage turned upside down, its doors flung open, very close to Ikari's feet. A few white mice ran in all directions looking for cover, with diverse degrees of fortune and panic. Ikari Yui looked the most panicked of all, however, as she turned huge and nearly tearful eyes back at me.
"Ah, ah, Mari-chan!" she told me. "Sorry, I was trying to reach up for some books on the highest shelf, and, and I got on a chair, but the chair had wheels, and I lost my balance, and stumbled and tried to break my fall, and...!"
"Okay, okay, I get the idea!" I angrily told her while quickly rolling my sleeves up. What a stupid woman! "Just help me to catch these mice, okay?! They're important test subjects!"
We must have looked very funny then, scrambling frantically in all directions after a pack of mice that, quite frankly, couldn't escape us only because the old man's lab was so well kept it didn't have any crannies or chinks where they could hide. Of course, only I had any degree of success, first catching the smallest of all the mice, who looked like it barely could run around with the weight of its abnormally large head, and then catching the rest by pairs, holding one in a hand until I could catch another. At that point I quickly would dump them back in their cage. Ikari Yui, on the other hand, just tried her best but still failed pathetically, squinting almost painfully as she lamented over and over for her clumsiness.
I ignored her for the most part until I cornered the last mouse, a deceivingly fast slender critter that moved surprisingly fast on apparently blundering feet, making all sorts of odd little noises as it scurried away. "Okay, I got you now!" I said as I tried to get my hands on it, but it only slipped between my fingers and landed belly first on the middle of the face. "Gahh!" I protested as its furry little body blocked my view, and its tiny feet clutched onto my skin. "Senpai, do something! Take it offa me, NOW!"
"Going, going!" she gasped, taking a thick piece of cloth from a nearby chair and plopping it on my face, making my breathing even more difficult. "I think, I think I got him now!"
"You're suffocating me, you idiot!" I cried while trying to take the cloth, her hands, and the mouse off myself. Paying my protests little mind, Ikari Yui held the mouse in the cloth and pulled them both away, holding on to them with great effort as I gasped for much needed air, taking a hand to my chest. "Ghargh, how can someone who is so much of a genius be so much of a moron!"
"Narf!" I heard the mouse say.
I blinked and threw a curious look their way. "Did that thing just say 'Narf'?" I asked.
Ikari Yui, somehow a little paler now, shook her head very quickly. "Ah, no, that was, that was me! Narf!" she repeated, not sounding at all like what I had just heard moments ago. "It's, it's a verbal tic of mine when I'm very nervous! Narf!"
"Oh-kayy..." I said while dusting myself off and standing up. As Ikari Yui gently returned the last mouse to the cage, I asked her, "So, what were you doing in Sensei's lab this early?"
"He asked me to look after it today, since he and Rokubungi-kun are going to be- Mari-chan?" she asked me. "Is everything alright?"
"Huh?" I babbled, and only then I realized I was rubbing one of my eyes, not to mention that eye felt like it was on fire. "Oh, this. Looks like my contact got out of place. That damn animal did it with all its kicking around!"
Ikari Yui softly approached me and reached over for me. "I'm sorry, that was all my fault in the first place. May I help you? Your hair's all messed up too..."
Instinctively, I tried to pull away from her before she could touch me. But much like the clumsy mouse, Ikari Yui was faster than appeared, and she got to slide a few fingers between my hairs, smiling fondly. "It smells so nice, though. Like flowers..."
"N-No, cut it out!" I stammered with a new effort to get away from her, this one being marginally more successful. I say 'marginally' because, while I got to untangle my hair from between her fingers, I miscalculated my movements and my elbow hit the handbag I had left on a table before setting out to catch mice. The bag fell, and its contents spilled all over the floor. I froze instantly, my mouth moving down in a sour grimace. For one of the things that had just spilled out had been-
"Ah!" Ikari Yui gasped, narrowing her eyes to better recognize the pair of glasses that had just been revealed. "Aren't these my-?"
I sighed, steeled myself for the now inevitable confrontation, and decided to simply be brave enough. "Yeah, they are," I told her.
She picked them up and looked at me in confusion. "I had been having so much trouble without them! Why did you have them, Mari-chan? I thought you had said, when I asked-"
I stopped her with a gesture, and Ikari Yui obeyed instantly, simply pausing to wait for my answer, with a cute look of a deer caught in the headlights on her fair face. However, I couldn't supply an answer so easily, and so I remained silent for the next couple of seconds, without meeting her eyes. Then I fully realized I couldn't lie to her this time either, and that I had to be honest again. No matter how hard it was. So I did.
"Because you are so annoying, Senpai," I told her, with my voice tightening.
"Seriously? Why?" Ikari Yui asked quietly. Actually, it was sort of a whiplash from how cutely flustered and nervous she had been moments ago. It made me wonder, honestly, but most of my mind right then was on how awkward I was feeling.
"I don't know," I admitted. "I guess it's because you're so damn perfect. I mean, even when you're being a mess of a person, no one will ever hold anything against you. Everything seems so easy for you, you'll even have time for people like Rokubungi-senpai or me. No one should be that perfect. It makes others feel bad about themselves, got it? Even Akagi-sensei."
She nodded absently. "I'm sorry," she said.
I rubbed the space between my eyes. "Don't say that! It doesn't make anything better! It's not your fault, it's ours. It's mine. There's so much wrong with me, and you're a constant reminder of that. You're pretty and cute, you're the most brilliant of us all, and you're too nice. It's so easy for you to get people like you. While I, I am this gangly oddball of a person who doesn't fit anywhere..."
I shook my head and lowered my gaze, because I couldn't bear to keep looking into Ikari Yui's placid gaze. "I just wanted to tell you that before I left for Britannia. I'm accepting the young Earl's offer. Did you know about-"
"Yes, Fuyutsuki-sensei told me," she nodded.
"Ah. Well, I won't be bothering you anymore, then. So-"
"When did you decide to take that offer?" she asked me.
"Right now," I had to be honest. "After this, I just can't stay here anymore. There's no place for me under your shadow, Sempai."
"You don't have to move overseas to grow up from under my influence, Mari-chan."
"Yes, I do. Don't tell me about myself, I know myself far better than you do!" It was so difficult to find the strength to protest, but I just had to do it. "You aren't that perfect."
"Yet," she cracked a small smile.
I sniffled. "Perfect people are so damn cruel. Mocking others who aren't perfect, just because they can. Then again, that's their divine right. It's our fault for being able to suffer."
I knew I was just being a petty, spoiled child, which is why I can sympathize and understand Asuka-chan now. But I didn't care. Which I suppose still puts me above Asuka-chan, who doesn't even realize enough to care or not. The poor thing.
"Fine," Ikari Yui told me. "If that's the way you really want it, you're already mature enough to make your own life decisions."
"No, I'm not. But that's why I have to get away from this place. To grow up."
Which would end up being a totally ironic statement in hindsight.
"I love you," I muttered, rubbing my mouth with the back of a hand, as if to take some unexplainable bitter taste out of it. "That's the most annoying part of it all. You're so perfect I can't help but love and hate you at once."
"I see."
"I want to be you, but I don't want to be you. I want to be like you, but in my own way. I want to be as good as I can be... but I'll never find my own way if I have you constantly around to measure myself up to."
"That's understandable."
I dared glance at her. She was not smiling anymore.
"Aren't you going to comment on that sudden declaration of love out of nowhere?" I bitterly asked.
"Sorry I can't. I'm not good at all with love confessions." And she placed a hand behind her neck. "I guess that makes me a little less perfect, eh?"
Then she reached over and gently caressed my scalp. I flinched.
"Sit down," Ikari Yui told me. "Your hair's a mess right now, thanks to me. So I have to fix it."
It was so stupid. I didn't want to be there doing that, and yet I sat in silence as Ikari Yui carefully, slowly, combed my hair down. With a comb she had pulled from her purse, of course. For some reason I've never been able to carry combs or makeup on me; even when I intend to, I keep forgetting them. It was that way back then, and it's still the same right now, despite all things that have changed.
"I'm sorry I said you were annoying," I finally said to break the thick layers of Arctic ice between us. "It's more like I found you annoying, which only makes it a matter of a wrong perspective, right?"
"One is never one's best character judge, so I wouldn't know about any of that, Mari-chan. Sorry," she told me. "But I think I can judge you, and I don't think you are a person of wrong perspectives. Not too much at least."
I snorted softly. "I take that back. You are indeed annoying. How could I ever lose sight of that?"
She laughed lightly. "You know, I've been thinking of getting contacts anyway. Gendo-kun likes it better that way. You can keep them if you want."
It was only then I realized I still had been keeping Ikari Yui's glasses on my lap, between both of my hands. "Ah, well, this is, you'll see..."
"I'll understand if you don't want any reminders of me while you are at Britannia, and I don't think they are the right strength for you..." she softly elaborated while picking them up and placing them on my face, "But they look better on you than on me."
I looked into the hand mirror she had just placed before my face from behind- I forgot to say I can't be bothered to keep mirrors on me either- and chuckled saintly. I have never seen anyone else who is able to chuckle saintly. Ikari Yui, woman of impossibles, everyone. "He he he. You're cute."
"Enough with that," I grunted, looking at the blushing face before me. That girl had her formerly loose hair made into a long tail at each side, flowing over her shoulders and falling to her chest. And Ikari Yui's glasses rested squarely on her face, in a way that actually, after all, felt and looked right. "Not bad, I think."
"It really makes you look your age," Ikari Yui complimented me. Or at least I think the intent was to flatter.
"I suppose that's a good thing," I nodded. "Enjoy your sixteen while you still have them, right?"
"That's the idea," Ikari Yui told me.
I pondered that in silence for another moment, then said, "I wish for your happiness and Rokubungi-kun's."
"That's very nice," she said, resting her hands on my shoulders. "Thank you, Mari-chan."
I lifted my gaze to the window, and to the warm sun rays that washed over the room, blanketing us in a quiet, lulling safe of safety and comfort. The room's colors under that light were, sure enough, dull and subdued, and yet vivid and bright enough as to paint a really striking picture in my mind. It was a moment I made sure to savor and file properly in my memory, hopefully for the rest of my life.
It was my personal short lived paradise, before I kicked myself out of it.
And that was how it all really began for me. Makinami Mari Illustrious.
That is the only start I really can supply you with.
I imagine the next person you'll talk to will be able to give you a better story, a better starting point, though. I mean, it'd be hard to come up with a lamer one than this inane rambling of a literal womanchild who got blandly turned down more than fifteen years ago, right?
Right.
The End.