Chapter #4
I own nothing in this chapter except the actions, Neo Gundam, and Sunset
Beach.
Tomorrow came all to fast for Shinji as he woke up to his alarm clock beeping like crazy. 'Must remember to destroy alarm clock' Shinji thought sleepily. Shinji walked to the kitchen periodically stopping to yawn, stretch, or both. As he passed the bathroom, he noticed the water running and figured it was just Misato getting ready when he heard the toilet flush. His instincts took over and he moved out of the way of the door when he realized that no one was there when the door opened.
'That's strange...' thought Shinji just before he looked down and saw Pen-Pen standing in front of him. Shinji's mouth dropped and Pen-Pen just walked past him and into his side of the refrigerator. Misato walked in completely oblivious as to what happened and just patted Shinji on the back, "Good morning, Shinji! So, what's for breakfast?"
"What do you mean? Today's your turn to cook!" "Heh... I'll rock, paper, scissors you for it!"
"You're on!"
After two minutes, Misato was begging Shinji for best 17 out of 30 but Shinji had had enough. "Okay! I'll cook breakfast, but you've got to cook dinner then."
"Oh..." Misato whined, "hey, what about lunch? Are you going to cook it?" "I... I won't be here for lunch."
"Really? Where will you be? Come on... tell me. I'll be your best friend!""I, I, I, I'm just going somewhere I'll be gone from one thirty to sometime this afternoon."
"Sometime this afternoon isn't very specific, Shinji. Are you going somewhere with someone?" Shinji began to blush, "No! I'm just going out to... to... the mall.""Awww, Shinji it's really depressing to see someone at the mall all alone. Why don't I come with you! It'll be fun! I promise. "No, No! It's alright! I'll be fine!""Okayyyyy. So what's for breakfast?" "..."'Well, here I am again. I just hope I don't screw up like last time' thought Shinji. He looked at his watch. It was one fifty five. 'I hope her clocks are five minutes fast.' He began to swing his hand forward to knock on the door when it suddenly swung open. His hand, retaining the momentum started by him, continued to fall until it landed on Rei's head not as gently as he wished. Rei took a step backwards and held her head
"Oh my! I'm so sorry Rei!" Shinji began to use every possible statement to convey how sorry he was, but most of them came out similar to 'I'm so sorry Rei!' After several minutes of apologies, Rei did something that startled Shinji out of his wits.
"Don't be sorry, Shinji. You didn't mean to." She said as she looked at him almost emotionless, "Are you ready to go?""Um... oh, oh yea! I'm ready! Let's go!" Shinji thought to himself, 'well, so much for not screwing up again.' As they walked down the stairs to floor level, Shinji couldn't help but notice that Rei had moved closer to him than when they had left. 'It's probably just a coincidence.' Thought Shinji as he tried to find a reason as to why she still wanted to go with him after what he did.
'Maybe she likes me,' Shinji blushed at the thought, 'no it couldn't be that, she doesn't like anyone, but I can't come up with any other idea.' Shinji was enjoying the walk to the mall where he planned to stay as late as he could with Rei, doing whatever he could think of, just to spend more time with her. Most people would think that the idea was absurd seeing as how Shinji didn't know Rei that well and vice-versa. But then again, Shinji wasn't very normal. As he approached the fated place of arrival, he began to grow more agitated. 'What if she really doesn't like me?' thought Shinji, 'What if she is just doing this to be nice? Boy, I hope I don't mess this up. Come to think of it, I haven't even bothered to see what movies are playing and when! I know Neo Gundam is out, but Rei just doesn't seem like the kind of person who would like that sort of thing. She doesn't seem to care about anything sometimes. Look at her! She still has that expressionless face that she had when we left. Am I making a big mistake?' Then Shinji realized how worked up he had gotten, and tried to calm down.
'Come on Shinji, if Rei can be this calm, then surly you can be calm to. But what is there to see? Even if there is a movie we both want to see, what if it won't begin showing for another couple of hours? What will we do then? I guess we could walk around the mall. But Rei doesn't seem like the kind of person who would like something like that. If fact, I really don't know what kind of person she is. Am I being to bold? What am I doing?' and a thousand different reasons why he shouldn't have done this assaulted his mind when he finally realized that they had reached the mall. He walked up to the ticket booth with Rei walking behind him.
"Uh... Hi there!" "Hello, sir. What movie would you like to see today?" Shinji became fully aware of the dilemma that had plagued him before. Shinji desperately searched for a poster that could give him any ideas.
Then he turned to Rei, "Um... Rei? Wh... What kind of movie do you want to see?"
"I do not care, Shinji"
'Boy, thanks for the support, Rei. But what kind of movie? Hey! I know! A romance movie! Yea, girls really like movies like that! And Rei isn't that different than other girls, I hope.' "Oh... Okay, I'll take two tickets for Sunset Beach."
The woman behind the counter pulled the tickets out from her desk and eyed Shinji and Rei, and smirked a little. "Here're your tickets." Shinji handed over the money and retrieved the tickets from the woman. He quickly led Rei into the theater and to their seats and got settled in for what he thought was going to be a good movie. Not that Shinji really liked romances, but the simple fact that he was with Rei and he thought that he might be able to get some emotion out of her through the movie.
Shinji could not have been more wrong. He was bored past words through the entire movie and every time he looked at Rei, she looked like she wasn't watching anything at all. Just sitting there, emotionless. Shinji was glad to be out of the theater when another problem that he had debated over before reaching the mall appeared. He had no idea as to what they were going to do next. He didn't want to take her home just yet, but he didn't know what else there was to do. Then he noticed that Rei seemed to only have one or two pieces of clothing that weren't directly linked to, or were, her school clothes. Shinji jumped at the chance to try to get Rei to change clothes, and finally have something to do.
They went; well it was more like Shinji led Rei to, the new department store that had opened. They got to the girls clothes department and Shinji immediately felt his stomach begin to churn. Rei was being emotionless, which wasn't such a big surprise to Shinji as it was to everyone around them. They figured any normal girl would be going crazy if she got the chance to try on and possibly purchase new clothes and the boy that had taken her out on the 'date' was the one who proposed the idea. 'But then, who's normal anyway?' thought Shinji. Shinji was expecting Rei to see something that she liked right away and want to try on, but she just stood there in the aisle looking at the various articles of women's clothing emotionless. 'This isn't turning out to be what I thought it would be,' thought Shinji, 'what am I going to do now? She doesn't seem to like doing this thing, maybe that's why the movie idea was such a failure. I guess Rei just doesn't function like the stereotypical teenage girl. So then how am I supposed to know what she likes to do? I really want to get her something so she has other clothes, but what kind of clothes does she like?'
As Shinji began to tear himself up again, Rei began to look a little more intently on a dress that was hanging up for display. It wasn't very fancy, but then again Rei never really understood why people wanted to dress like that. It was simple, somewhat of a summer dress with the dress coming down to about shin length. It began to narrow until it reached the collar bone when it formed two straps going around the shoulders. Two little bows kept the straps from the front connected to the back. But it wasn't just the simplicity, although simplicity can be extremely beautiful, that attracted Rei. The dress was just a few shades darker that her hair and it was nothing like the school uniform she always wore, which is what, ironically, she is wearing right now. Shinji took a second to tear himself away from his mopping to notice what Rei was staring at.
'This is my chance! Finally, I knew if I just waited long enough that she'd find something!' thought Shinji. He walked over to Rei, although when he stopped he found himself a little closer than he had hoped, and said,
"Well, if you like that dress, then why don't you try it on?" Rei looked at him puzzled. "Yea, if... if you find something you like, then you try it on. And... and if you still like it, then you buy it," said Shinji.
"Then, I would like to try this dress on," Rei said somewhat clumsily. Shinji began to nod and then took off to find a clerk which left Rei staring after him, puzzled again. Shinji came back just as quickly as he left, although it took him a second to catch his breath, with the dress which he promptly gave to Rei. She took it and stared at Shinji. 'She must not have ever been shopping for clothes,' thought Shinji. "Well, um... now you go to the girl's dressing room and try it on," Shinji said, then added somewhat hastily, "you can come out here to see how you like it when you walk around in it."
Rei nodded and disappeared into the dressing room, leaving a still somewhat bewildered Shinji standing in the aisle. Just as Shinji was beginning to worry that Rei might have died, she came out wearing the dress. It seemed that Shinji had underestimated Rei's... size... and it looked like she was about to break the front of the dress, or suffocate because her lungs could not expand. Shinji began to suspect the latter when he heard her trying to breathe. He soon noticed what the problem was. Rei either didn't know how to tie bows, or was very bad at tying them when they're on her shoulder. Shinji reacted instantaneously and began to undo the crudely made bows so Rei could breathe. Before he knew it, the only reason why the dress hadn't fallen to the ground around Rei's ankles was because he was holding the two front straps in the air as he prepared to tie them in bows. Shinji looked down to tie the bows and got a sight that he just about never expected to see outside of his dreams. Shinji quickly tied the bows and looked at Rei's face, doing his hardest to keep from nose bleeding. The next thing that happened would be logged away in Shinji's memory forever.
"Th...than... thank you, Shinji" Rei said very unsurely. Her eyes seemed to become softer, not as cold. Those eyes had always been forbidding to Shinji, but now they were not a red that kept people away, but a red that seemed to beg for any human interaction, seemed to be welcoming. What happened next surprised both Shinji and Rei, but thankfully no one but they were around. Shinji hugged Rei. He could feel how unsure she was so he started to back off when he noticed that Rei was attempting to imitate him. Shinji hugged her again to try and show her that she wasn't failing as to what the correct response is, 'although,' Shinji thought, 'maybe I'm wrong. Oh well!'
Shinji slowly pushed Rei back by her shoulders and said, "Now just come with me and we'll get that dress."
Rei looked away from Shinji and to the floor and said, "I... I do not have enough money" 'Is she scared?' thought Shinji.
Shinji used his hand to move Rei's head so their eyes made contact, "don't worry, I'll pay for it." Rei showed just the littlest bit of happiness that only someone as close to her as Shinji could have seen, but she still showed it. 'Now that's the kind of face I like seeing Rei,' Shinji thought as they made their way to the register. They were no longer standing as close together, Shinji didn't want people to be staring anymore than they already were, but nearly in the middle of the aisle Rei stopped.
"How will you purchase this dress if I'm wearing it?" Shinji had nearly forgotten that little detail. Luckily Shinji had brought his pocket knife with him and snipped off the tag with his scissors. Shinji smiled at Rei and Rei smiled like she did before, but Shinji was too far away to notice. He brought the tag and Rei to the cash register and paid for the dress, and then they were off after a brief argument with the clerk as to whether the tag should be accepted or not. Shinji was feeling pretty happy that he had been able to do something nice for Rei and not mess the entire day up, and that Rei seemed happy. Or at least happier than in the movie. Still, only if you had known Rei could you tell that she was happy. Her face expressed nearly no emotion still, but Shinji knew Rei well enough to know that it wasn't the same emotionless face. She seemed brighter, her eyes had a slight glint to them, and her step seemed to have a bit more of a spring. Shinji looked at his watch and realized that it was only 5:30. They still had plenty of time before Shinji felt they needed to go home. He was also enjoying the company of the somewhat happy Rei. As they walked down the strip in the middle of the entrances of all the different stores, Shinji heard a loud, happy scream coming from the inside of the local arcade. A thought struck Shinji and he immediately took a left turn into the arcade, hoping Rei would follow him. She did. Shinji began to walk towards the ticket winning machines when he noticed Rei staring at a Dance-Dance machine.
"Do you know what kind of game this is Rei? Have you ever played it?" Shinji asked.
"No... what is the point of it?" Rei asked in a matter of fact way.
'She must have grown up in a box or something.' "You just try to time when you hit one of the arrows with your feet with when the corresponding direction is displayed at the top of the screen."
"Why would you do that, Shinji?"
"Because, it's just fun."
"Fun, Shinji?"
"Uh, yea. Do you want to try Rei? We can play together."
"Yes Shinji." Shinji quickly dug out some coins from his pocket and ran over to a token dispensing machine to get the tokens for the game. Rei just stared quietly after him. Shinji got back and stood on his platform as he began to feed tokens into the machine. Rei stood there and looked at him questioningly.
"What's wrong Rei? You have to stand on your platform, the one next to mine."
"Oh... Okay Shinji. Now what do we do?"
"Just wait for the arrow to come into the little box on the top of the screen, and press the arrow with the same direction with your foot." The game started and Shinji got the first few moves, but began to mess up when the beat got faster. Rei, on the other hand, was doing quite well until it began to get faster and asked for two directions at once.
'She really doesn't know that the game has a rhythm' thought Shinji as Rei's turn ended.
"Rei, do you happen to play an instrument?"
"Yes, Shinji. I do"
"Well, the game is kind of like that. You have to find the rhythm in the music and then follow the arrows. Oh yea, when it has two directions at the same time, you have to use both feet at the same time in order to get it. Just try to loosen up and dance to the beat. Let's try again." Shinji fed more tokens into the machine and the game started up again. Shinji noticed that Rei was trying to mimic him and bounce to the music, but not entirely succeeding. Still, once Rei got the rhythm down, which didn't come very quickly, she did better than Shinji had ever done. This left Shinji in somewhat of a bitter mood. As Rei began the next string of dance steps, Shinji went over to where he had originally planned to go. The ticket machines. Shinji always was very good at these and he didn't really know how much of it was skill and how much of it was luck, but, either way, Shinji was good at it and he wasn't going to be the one to complain.
Today, however, he had a reason that wasn't selfish for winning tickets. He planned on winning a stuffed something for Rei. After several minutes of tickets spilling out of the machine, Shinji began to wonder where Rei was. He didn't think that she was still going on the game, but he thought that when she was finished that she would just go over to him. Shinji looked up at where the prizes were to determine how many tickets would be needed to get what he wanted, quickly won enough tickets, and redeemed them for a cute ½ meter tall teddy bear. Shinji took the bear and half walked, half jogged, and half stumbled over to where Rei was. She was still on the game. She had finally gotten the beat and was doing better than anyone Shinji had ever seen. Of course, most of the people Shinji watched were show offs and ended failing when they didn't see one motion go by. Rei, on the other hand, was doing it almost mechanically, but she was at least trying to bounce to it. Shinji just stood there looking at her back as she concentrated on the screen. Shinji thought for sure that she had started a new game, but when he looked at her score, his mouth dropped. Rei heard Shinji and turned around to see him.
The machine, however, did not care that Rei had stopped playing and promptly flashed the dreaded 'GAME OVER' sign after 5 motions passed by without so much as a try at getting them correct. Rei was startled when she saw the huge stuffed bear in Shinji's arms. For a good reason too. Shinji had been standing right behind her and when she turned around; she saw the bear before Shinji. Shinji just began to laugh as he put the bear down so Rei could get off the platform. Rei looked quizzically at the bear once she got off the platform and wondered what Shinji was doing with such a strange thing.
"Here, Rei. I won this for you. I... I hope you like it." Rei looked even more puzzled when Shinji handed her the bear. Not being ready for it, Rei struggled around the bear until Shinji finally tried to help and to stop laughing. Now Shinji was getting scared. Although he was somewhat prepared to carry bags of stuff in case Rei liked shopping, now he was stuck carrying a bag of Rei's school clothes because Rei was having a hard enough time holding the bear. He looked at his watch. 5:50. Shinji chuckled to himself at the thought that Rei would make a good digital watch, always stating everything so matter of fact like. Then he saw Touji. Touji looked like he was holding shopping bags himself and it looked like a walking wall of bags was next to him. Shinji tried to get far away from Rei when he realized that not only he had her clothes in a bag, but every time Shinji went to far away, Rei followed thinking that they were going to the other side of the walkway. Shinji was beginning to sweat as Touji got closer. He didn't need Touji to see him with Rei, as he knew Touji would never let up.
Then Shinji began to wonder if the wall of bags was with Touji, or just a person who happened to be walking along side Touji. Shinji tried to get as far away from Rei as possible without triggering her proximity sensors again, when a little kid started running straight for Rei. Touji was only a few meters ahead of them now and it looked like the kid wasn't looking where he was going. Shinji didn't know what to do. Then time seemed to slow down. The kid ran right into Rei's legs just as Touji was about a meter away and caused Rei to lose her balance. The stuffed bear flew into the air and landed behind Shinji. As Rei began to fall, Shinji instinctively ran over to Rei and caught her in his arms.
"Are you okay Rei?" asked Shinji.
"Ye...Yes Shinji, I am fine" responded Rei who was a little more than shaken up. Shinji began to loosen up and let out a sigh of relief before helping Rei back on her feet.
'From now on,' Shinji vowed to himself, 'I will never get so far away from her. You almost didn't catch her, baka!' But Shinji's thoughts were quickly interrupted as he realized his arm was still around Rei from helping her up and Touji was staring right at Shinji.
"Shinji? Tell me I'm hallucinating. What are you do' in here, and with Rei? Oh, 'scuse me, you're on a date aren't ya?" Touji said.
"No! No! It's nothing like that!" Shinji pleaded.
"Sure it isn't Shinji, and your arm just coincidentally happened to be around Rei, right?" Touji said sarcastically
"I... I was just helping her up. Didn't you see that kid? And we aren't on a date! Tell him Rei!" Shinji said.
"Suzahara, what does it mean to be on a 'date'?" Rei asked emotionlessly
"Well, you normally go see a movie,"
'Damn you Touji,' Shinji thought,
"Then you sometimes go to a department store and pick out some clothes,
'Double damn you Touji!'
"And then you sometimes either go home or, in the girls' case, have some kind of toy won for ya."
'Triple Damn you Touji!'
"Oh..." Rei started, "then, yes, Suzahara, we are on a date." Rei stated
'Thanks for the support Rei!' Shinji thought
"Ha! I knew you were trying to be sweet on her, Shinji, but I didn't think you'd have already taken her out on dates before."
"What are you talking about!? This is our first date." Shinji said smugly, and then the color from his face disappeared as he realized what he had just said.
"Ha! I knew I could get it out'a ya Shinji."
"What? Shinji is there? Is that why we stopped?" The wall of bags said
"Hey?! Who's that, Touji?"
"It's, it's, it's just the class rep. I saw her and she asked me to help carry some of these bags. So I thought..."
"Oh, so that's why this card attached to this teddy bear says, 'To: my dear Hikari and From: Touji Suzahara' right?"
Touji began to blush but Shinji didn't see. Seeing the bear Hikari had made him remember about the bear he had won for Rei. Shinji quickly turned around to face Rei and found her standing right behind him struggling to hold both the bear and her bag of clothes.
"Oh! Here let me help you Rei!" said Shinji hastily. By the time Shinji got the bag from Rei and turned around to Touji and the wall of bags that held Hikari somewhere, Touji and Hikari were gone with no trace as to their whereabouts and the direction they went. Shinji sighed,
"Well, we'd better be getting back home, it's getting dark." Shinji noticed out the window and the fact that his watch now read 6:00. As they left the mall, Shinji thought the day went fairly well, even with Touji's appearance. That also gave Shinji something to think about on the way to Rei's apartment. Why was Touji with Hikari? And what was with the card? Before Shinji knew it, they were in front of Rei's door once more. Shinji was feeling much bolder on the way over, but under the gaze of Rei's red eyes, although they seemed so much softer than he had ever seen them, his composure faltered and then broke completely. Rei went into her apartment to put the bear down and left the door open for Shinji to follow in after her. Shinji quickly looked around her room for a place to put the bag and remembered how very bland her entire apartment was. Shinji just set it down next to her dresser. It had been a while since Shinji had gone into Rei's room, and even then it was for NERV business. Now he was in here for purely personal reasons and it looked like the room had brightened up since he had been there last. Or maybe it was Rei. Shinji couldn't tell. Then came the part he dreaded the most. He knew he had to leave, but after today he didn't want to just walk out. He tried to work up enough courage to try and hug Rei again, but it wasn't working. Shinji began to say something, but was cut off by Rei.
"Shinji, I believe the customary thing to do after exchanging gifts is a hand shake." Shinji turned around to face Rei; he had been facing the window ever since putting the bag down, and noticed just how close she was. It startled both of them and caused them to take a few steps back.
"Oh... Oh yes, that's right." Shinji managed to get out as he took a step forward to shake her hand. Unfortunatly, Shinji's foot got caught on the bag handle and caused him to nearly fall on Rei, causing Shinji to be in perfect position to hug Rei. All it took was for him to wrap his arms around her for it to really count, and Shinji finally threw caution to the wind. He hugged her, much to his and her surprise. Shinji immediately let go and stumbled backwards, on to the bag again.
"Uh... So...Sorry about that. Um, so how about that hand shake?" 'Boy you really screwed this one up, Shinji' Shinji thought. Rei moved forward, hand extended and shook Shinji's hand. 'Wow, I guess I've never felt her hand before. It feels so soft. I wonder what she does to keep it so soft?' Shinji thought. Rei let go and began to refold her school clothes to put them in her drawer.
"Well, um... I guess I'll see you tomorrow when we meet the Second Child, right?"
"Yes, Shinji, that is correct." Shinji could not help but hope he had heard just the slightest softening of her voice that for so long was so monotone.
"Well... I... I ... um... well, goodbye then." And Shinji beat a hasty retreat. Even while leaving, if he had listened close enough, he would have heard Rei say 'Thank you'. Alas, Shinji was already out the door and running down the stairs.
End Chapter #4