He'd only read about people like them before he'd moved to Tokyo-3; people who stood on street corners and tried to get your attention, sometimes with pamphlets, sometimes with plaintive voices. Sometimes they only wanted you to vote for someone, or donate to some cause, and they were okay. It was the ones who stood there with the desperation and sadness written over them like casual graffiti, the ones that reached for him with some sort of blind love and need- those were the ones he feared.

Because they felt it, too- that something was wrong. Maybe fire wasn't raining from the sky, people weren't raising from the dead, buildings didn't crumble before their eyes, but something was wrong. So they sang their hymns, cried for the sins of the world, and begged conversion, because something was coming.

He hated them. If he'd never seen anyone else with that blank fear in their eyes, not seen anyone else jumping at every sound, never had a grown man sob and take his hand, whispering "do you remember?"… maybe then, he could have forgotten, could have been sure it was all just a particularly vivid nightmare.

He hated them, with a blackness that gnawed hungrily into his chest.

"Shinji! Stop gaping, stupid!"

The schoolbag that crashed into the side of his head was a welcome wake-up call, and he shook out of his smothering gloom, blinking mournfully up into dangerously sharp blue eyes.

"Asuka… I'm sorry." Shinji picked himself up from the bench, forcing the thoughts back. "Were you waiting long? I must not have seen you."

"Nah, just got here, I saw Hikari off." She waited impatiently, a hand on one hip, following his every move. "C'mon, we're gonna be late. It's Friday, traffic's gonna be bad."

He nodded mutely, falling into step beside her. Other students continued to stream out of the school behind them, some to their bicycles, others to the nearest train station. Asuka 'tsk'ed and shoved through the crowd, Shinji falling comfortably into her wake. She always looked like a spark dancing over a pile of ash, long red hair swinging over her shoulders, eyes bright and sharp.

Almost without noticing, Shinji reached forward and trailed a few fingers through the ends of her hair. She'd washed it this morning, several hours ago, but it was still damp, springy and curled slightly at the ends.

"Idiot." Asuka smacked his hand, then pulled him to the car. "Stop being creepy."

"Sorry." Shinji smiled a little, not too sorry at all. It was comforting, to get snapped at every now and then. It was normal, and he liked it.

It was still strange to see Asuka sitting behind the wheel of a car. On some level, he still thought of her as fourteen, the age they'd both been when she'd moved in. It had been years since then, but he seemed to have problems remembering.

He couldn't remember a lot of things.

"Asuka…?" he asked carefully, looking at her out of the corner of his eye as she started the engine. "How long have we been doing this?"

His heart dropped when he saw her hands clench on the wheel, white-knuckling. He wasn't sure what he wanted her to say; whether he wanted a casual answer that everything was normal, or maybe that… maybe that she couldn't quite be sure, either…

"Well, I don't know…" Her tone was deliberately casual. "I've been taking you to practice for a while, since Misato picked up that extra shift."

"When was that?" he pressed. "How long ago?"

"What, don't you remember?" She was laughing, but avoiding his intent gaze.

"Don't you?" he asked softly, a lump in his throat.

Asuka was quiet for a long time, then snorted and reached for the radio. "You ask the stupidest questions," she muttered. "You piss me off, Shinji."

He was quiet after that, knowing that prying any further would just provoke her. It had been useless to try, after all. Sure, she'd been unsettled by the questions, that much was clear, but she had a right to be.

Asuka, after all, was the one who had to take the brunt every time he fell apart. It was Asuka he'd clung to at two in the morning, gibbering nonsense about giant blinking eyes and poles stabbing through his palms. It was Asuka who told Misato-san he was too sick to go to school when he'd accidentally cut his hand and had been unable to stop shaking at the sight of the blood. It was Asuka who told him over and over again that he wasn't crazy.

Even if she hated him, it was okay. Because she was still there.

The sun was setting by the time they pulled into the rundown parking lot, so Shinji was lugging his cello to the door before he noticed the windows were black. He stopped, just blinking in abject confusion.

"I think they're closed!" Asuka's voice sounded perturbed through the open car window. "Check the door."

He jiggled the handle, then discovered it was indeed locked, much to his dismay. Shinji glared at the empty building, feeling somewhat betrayed, then sighed and reversed direction.

"Did your teacher say anything about being on vacation or something?" Asuka raised an eyebrow at him over her shoulder as he eased the heavy case into the backseat, obviously prepared to blame him for the fruitless drive.

"No, he didn't… he didn't say a word, I wonder where he is?" He pushed the door shut with a heavy sigh.

"People disappear every day, you know."

The chill that ran down his spine was paralyzing, and yet while every fiber of his being was telling him to obey his gut reaction and not move a muscle, Shinji couldn't help but look.

It was just an old man leaning on the side of the building, just an old man in a ratty hat and coat, but it brought back the nightmare, I know you, but I've never met you, and he couldn't breathe, mouth dry and hanging open.

The man's eyes were blank, nonthreatening, and yet he couldn't help but think there was something there he wasn't supposed to see. "You look very much like your father, Ikari Shinji."

"Get in the car," Asuka said softly. "Shinji. Get in the car."

He didn't know how he managed to obey her, managed to wrench himself into the passenger's seat and slam the door shut. He could feel his fingers shaking as he locked the door, Asuka's face grim and bloodless as she hit the car into reverse fast enough to squeal the tires.

No matter how he looked at it, it was impossible to believe that everything was like it was supposed to be. This kind of thing shouldn't happen. He shouldn't be breathing shallowly, thumbs pressed into his palms where he could remember the ache, tears lingering in the corners of his eyes. It had probably just been some crazy homeless guy with some sort of luck, maybe he'd seen him before, it wasn't anything. He shouldn't be gulping for air, like he was drowning.

"Forget about it, Shinji." Her voice was curt, each word bit off. "It's nothing to worry about. Just some freak."

"He knew my name, Asuka."

"I said forget it." She turned the radio back on, and that was the end of the conversation.

He knew better than to argue, but it didn't stop him from thinking about it, from hoping to catch some sort of discomfort on Asuka's face every time he saw her for the rest of the night. Once Misato-san got back from work, with long stories about electrical overhauls and a few cases of beer, things felt more normal again. Asuka was sniping and laughing again, and Misato-san was drunk and saying things about her coworkers she really shouldn't, and he was left to watch and smile and think that maybe he was just being stupid after all, maybe this was the way life was supposed to be.

So when Asuka came in at night to steal his CD player, he didn't reach out to touch her arm, to make sure she was warm, even though he wanted to. The memories of her lying in a hospital bed, staring and lifeless- just dreams, he was sure.

"G'night," she called, heading for the door. "No nightmares, all right? I've got a date tomorrow, I need my damn sleep."

"I'll try," he said sheepishly, leaning into his pillows. "I'm sorry, it must be a hassle, dealing with me… Like having a crazy brother you're not even related to."

Asuka stopped at the door, and suddenly wasn't smiling anymore. "You're not crazy," she said quietly, and there was steel in her voice. "Anyone calls you crazy, I'll cut their balls off. You hear me?"

"Asuka…" He tried to shrug it off. "I know I am, I mean… I can't even tell you what I dream about, I-"

"I know what you dream about." There was something in her eyes that hurt somewhere inside his chest, something he wanted desperately to look away from.

"How?" he whispered, regretting it the instant he said it.

"Because I remember it too."

Shinji sat up for a long time in the darkness, no longer sure in his reality.