Yin and Yang
It was the middle of the night and everybody was sleeping soundly. It was silent, not a noise could be distinguished that is until a (hissing!) sound could be heard. The fridge door opened to reveal Pen Pen rubbing its stomach in hunger. It walked out closing the fridge door behind it and walked over to the kitchen where it started to fry a fish. The sun was starting to come up.
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"The tables have turned haven't they?" Ritsuko asked staring at Shigeru and Makoto half-naked. It also looks like Maya got back her clothes, and then some.
"S-shut up! L-let's just p-play before we f-freeze to d-death," Shigeru let out. Makoto's teeth were chattering from the cold. Maya silently laughed at her co-workers misery.
"This isn't s-so f-funny!" Makoto let out.
"Quit your complaining, at least it couldn't get any worse," Dr. Akagi scolded. But as if on cue, Commander Ikari walked into the room and saw the game in progress. Everybody quickly sobered up and sat straight, but in the guy's case, they TRIED to sit straight.
"What is going on here? Are you playing…strip poker?!" he demanded to know.
"No sir," Ritsuko replied weakly. Ikari stood there contemplating the words. He walked over to the table and sat down.
"Deal me a hand." The bridge bunnies didn't know what to think, after all, Gendo has one hell of a poker face.
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It was very early in the morning and Misato got up to leave for Nerv. As she walked out though, she spotted some fish on the plate.
"Aww, isn't that nice, Shinji left me some breakfast. It's pretty early though, he must've went back to sleep." Misato grabbed the plate and walked out of the apartment. At the point, Pen Pen walked out to feast on his breakfast but he saw his plate was gone. Its face expressed surprise, hurt, anger, and tiredness. It went over to the stove and started frying another fish.
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"Fate, I've been wondering, do you have any friends at all?" Shinji asked. There had been silence for a while in this dream realm.
"Friends?" Fate let out questioningly.
"You know, people you hang out and have fun with," Shinji explained.
"Oh, friends. I guess you could say Cupid is my friend, more of a co-worker really but we're on really good terms."
"What do you do for fun?"
"I find my work fun, I work for fun."
"Work for fun? What do you do? Looks to me you haven't done much lately."
"There are certain events in a person's life that no matter what must happen. Like you fall in love or die."
"Love or die huh?"
"What I do is make those things happen. Cupid does the love and Death does the…well death."
"Death?"
"Another friend of mine."
"So that's your job?"
"Yeah."
"How come you're not doing that right now? If you find work so fun, why don't you leave me and have some fun?!" he added irritably.
"If I leave you, I wouldn't being doing my job, and besides, Destiny's covering for me anyways. The good thing about me is, I'm not bound by myself. I could do whatever I want."
"Sure," he said responded sarcastically.
"What do you want me to do? Invite Cupid and Death over and party?" Shinji was about to open his mouth but Fate answered before he could respond. "You don't want me to do that, trust me, you'll be flirting with Death, literally." Shinji closed his mouth. A few moments passed.
"Why don't you invite Destiny?" Fate turned and glared at Shinji, he immediately felt the force behind it. "N-never mind," he added quickly.
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Cool Shinji woke up earlier than usual to again dodge Asuka. He entered the bathroom to freshen up. After a few minutes, he exited it and made for the kitchen where there was a fried fish on a plate.
"Looks like Pen Pen has been busy," he commented to nobody. He went over to the stove and started cooking. "Pen Pen!" he called. Immediately, the penguin walked out from its room to the kitchen counter. "Alright, now that you know how to cook fish, I'm going to teach you some more advanced techniques." Pen Pen sat down getting ready for the day's cooking lesson.
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Misato walked with a can of beer in hand.
"Glad everything's back to normal…I think," she said to herself. She walked down the hallways of Nerv until she reached the control room entrance. She opened the door and froze at the sight of her colleagues in their underwear. A thought immediately registered in her mind.
"It's not what it looks like!" Ritsuko blurted quickly. Gendo, fully clothed, got up.
"Would you like to join us?" he asked in a somewhat threateningly tone. Misato anxiously chuckled.
"No…sorry to interrupt your um uh, something bye!" she nervously yelled as she ran from the room.
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Shinji sat at the table enjoying the breakfast he made, Pen Pen was enjoying the breakfast he made too. Shinji took a quick glance at his watch.
"That cooking lesson took a lot of time, I should get going before Asuka gets up," he told himself. At that point, Asuka entered the kitchen.
"Somebody mentioned my name?" Asuka said. "Oh, it's you."
"What's that suppose to mean?"
"Nothing, I'm going to a bath now." Asuka walked out to the bathroom. Shinji sat there continuing to eat his breakfast.
In Shinji's bedroom…
Shinji slowly woke up to the smell of breakfast. He got up from the floor and rubbed his eyes. Something registered in his mind. He needed to go to the bathroom, quick. Drowsily, he instinctively started to walk towards the bathroom door. He opened and saw Asuka…naked…so he passed out.
"SHINJI!!!" she yelled in anger.
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"What happened there?" Shinji asked Fate.
"You passed out," it replied.
"From what?" The camera angle on the screen didn't offer a good look into the bathroom. Fate pulled out a book from its back and started to skim through it. "What are you doing?" Fate put the book away.
"You're going back…for now."
"Wait, back up, what the hell are you talking about?"
"Your good side should be coming back about…now." True to Fate's words, good Shinji appeared in the dream world. Fate looked at the original. "See ya." Original Shinji was about to say something but simply faded from the realm.
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Shinji slowly opened his eyes and saw Asuka leaning over him.
"Asuka?"
"Pervert!" (SLAP!!!) Shinji quickly regained his senses and found himself lying on the floor. "What do you think you're doing?!" He quickly got up and rubbed his cheek. He surveyed his environment and concluded he was indeed back in the real world.
"YES!!! I'm out! I'm finally out!"
"What's all the yelling about?" cool Shinji asked as he looked into the hallway.
"But you're still here…what the hell is going on? Fate?! Fate?!" Cool Shinji and Asuka looked at yelling boy like he was some raving maniac. "Damn it! I don't believe it. What the hell did it mean when it said for now?" Shinji moved to the living room and sat on the couch deep in thought.
"Shinji?" bad Shinji asked. "Are you alright?"
"I'm wondering too…" Asuka added very confused. Shinji got up and grabbed his cool side's shoulders.
"Of course I'm alright, I'm the original! I'm you and the other Shinji combined!" he yelled.
"Sure," he replied sarcastically.
"No, really, I am!"
"If you're here, then how could I still exist hmm?"
"That is EXACTLY what I want to know! But Fate is so screwy."
"Fate?"
"Damn it, there's no way to reach Fate. I can't have my bad side running around in here!"
"Shinji?" Asuka called.
"WHAT?!" he screamed.
"What the hell is going on?!" she screamed back.
"Well-," She took a look at the clock.
"Never mind, I'm going to be late for school. Which one of you is going to go today?" she asked. Cool Shinji was about to speak but-
"I will!" original Shinji yelled. He ran out grabbing Asuka's arm.
"But-," before cool Shinji could say anything, Asuka and Shinji had already left. "What just happened?"
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"This place again…" Shinji let out as he observed the purple and green surroundings. Fate was sitting on a couch watching him.
"Welcome." He turned towards Fate.
"Who are you?" he asked.
"I am Fate, who else?" it bragged.
"What is this place?" Fate took a look around.
"This is a dream world where your original self had resided," Fate explained.
"My original self?" Shinji went over to the couch and sat down.
"You and your brother together."
"I don't get it."
"You are one half of Shinji; his good side. This was where the real Shinji was. He was watching you and your brother with that screen," he said as pointed to the television.
"If that's true then where is he?" he asked suspiciously.
"Back in the real world."
"But my bad side is in there. How can they co-exist?" he wanted to know.
"They can't." Before coward Shinji could say anything Fate explained. "In 24 hours, you'll be back to yourself."
"How did this even happen in the first place?!"
"Freak accident, it was supposed to happen, according to my Fate book anyways," Fate was holding up a notebook entitled 'Fate Book.'
"Fate book? Could I see it?"
"Knock yourself out." Fate tossed the book over to Shinji. He caught it and opened it. He tried to read it but most of the words were made up of crazy looking weird symbols.
"What the hell does it even say?"
"If you could read it, I would've never given to you in the first place," Fate said in an obvious tone.
"Oh, hey, this looks like the fate of Shinji." He could make out his name. "What's this, the pairing?" On the page was whom Shinji was fated to be with. "It says S/-," Fate quickly snatched the book away.
"Don't read that!" it scolded.
"Sorry. What else am I suppose to do right now?"
"Watch your life of course," Fate said tiredly while pointing to the television.
"Anything else?" Fate rubbed its chin and took out a sheet of paper from its back.
"Here's a piece of paper that I used to work with," Fate handed a piece of paper over. The paper was entitled 'Shinji.' Shinji grabbed a hold of it.
"What do you mean, used to work with?" he distrustfully asked.
"You see your name right?" Shinji looked down and saw his name in big shiny gold letters.
"Yeah."
"Whatever you write on it will be fated to happen to Shinji."
"So if I write the word die? I die?" he nervously asked.
"Yup."
"Isn't it a bit dangerous to give me something like this?" he asked disbelievingly that Fate would give something with so much power.
"Don't worry, the effectiveness of it has expired. I use a computer now."
"I'm just wondering, which Shinji is it referring to?"
"Shinji Ikari."
"But there are three of me."
"So it counts for all three of you except it doesn't apply in this dream realm so you're safe."
"Isn't there a limit to what I can write?"
"Well yeah, it has to be reasonable. It's not like you can make yourself be chopped to bits and somehow still live. You also can't do death or love, you'll need Death and Cupid's help on that one. Why are you asking me anyway? It's not like it still works." Shinji had already begun writing and paper and ignored Fate. Fate glared at him but Shinji wasn't looking. "Did you hear me?!" Shinji quickly looked up.
"I'm sorry but what did you say? I was too busy writing. Fate grabbed the piece of paper.
"Give me that…" Fate's eyes went over it. "Fall down?" it read.
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Shinji was walking with Asuka to school. Asuka was running with Shinji following behind. All of a sudden he felt something block his leg and he fell over. Asuka looked back and rolled her eyes.
"Hurry up idiot!"
"That's weird, I could've sworn something tripped me…" Shinji said to himself.
"Ugh, just hurry up!"
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Shinji sat on the couch watching television at the apartment.
"I'm getting thirsty, I should get a drink." He got up but immediately tripped and fell down. "What the hell?" he said as he got up recomposing himself.
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Fate gave the paper back to Shinji.
"So what are you going to write?"
"I don't know, a story?"
"About…?"
"Oh wait, I got it! I'll think I'll call it…"
You'd know what would be really funny? If he writes a story from fanfic.net. Don't expect an update for a while. I'm beat, later.