DISCLAIMER, YO

I do not own Neon Genesis Evangelion; Gainax and Hideaki Anno do. I'm just a 16-year-old fanboy from Alaska.

Sorry this is such a short chapter, even for me. It's worth it, though. ;) Please read and review. Thanks. – C.o.W.

Chapter 2 – Who's That Girl?

School was out for the summer, and a tall, slender young woman climbed into her cherry-red sports car and left her high school behind. The wind played with her long brown hair. She wore a small pink jacket over a yellow paisley sundress. Her brilliant white teeth shone in the morning sun. She wore slim black sunglasses to protect her deep, crystalline dark-brown eyes. Her saucy red lipstick was a "nice touch". Her face was perfect; her body was curvaceous. However, she had eluded every pervert and weirdo during her four years of high school.

She had no need for a map; the bright girl had memorized her route. She had even chosen the most probable place to find her… prey. Remembering this phrase that she had told one of her friends, she laughed aloud. The sound floated along the wind and dissipated, to be heard by nobody else.

She was glad that the graduation ceremony had finished so early. This girl was the top placer in the entire school. She considered herself lucky to have gotten away from the crowds of her fellow students. She had said only a few parting words to her family; they knew this day would come. She would be able to make it to her destination before sundown.

The roads along which she traveled were rural and well-aged. Potholes had become mere depressions in the surface of the dirt road. Puddles spattered the sides of her pristine car, but she didn't care. At about 1:30 PM, she reached a small suburban town. She parked in front of the town library. Getting out of her car, she could see the skyline of Tokyo-2 in the distance. Here it is, she thought, looking around, the place I've been headed to for four years.

As she expected, there was an outdoor basketball court behind the library. A bunch of teenagers, who all looked to be fresh out of high school, like her, were playing a rowdy game of basketball and generally unwinding after what had seemed like an exceptionally long senior year. She sat on the hood of her bright convertible, taking in the town, the sun, the experience. She watched the game from afar. They couldn't see her… yet. She squinted, looking for two people in particular. Soon enough, she found one of them. He was sitting on a bench, out of the action. Instead of watching the basketball players deftly running back and forth in front of him, the young man had his head buried in front of a silver laptop computer. His large, perfectly-round glasses completely hid his eyes. His long, shaggy blond hair fell down the sides of his face.

The girl was impressed. I didn't expect him to grow his hair out, but I did expect him to be fiddling with something electronic, typical.


The boy in question had gotten very good grades this year; he was pretty proud of himself. Right now, however, he had his face focused on something that was completely of no use to his education: computer games. He had been immersed in an extremely huge and complex MMORPG, in which he was currently a level 45 divine elf warrior. He chuckled to himself as he obliterated an orc and gathered a good-sized chunk of gold coins and several rare weapons. The young man was, therefore, oblivious to the watchful eyes of the girl in front of the cherry-red convertible. Due to his near-addiction to this game, everybody now called him Ozzie; his elf warrior's name was Ozicuth. The boy didn't mind at all. He was nearly respected just for being so adept at a relatively difficult game.

At his side was a pile of books, all in English. Four years ago, he could barely understand the English words on the menu at the Tokyo-3 McDonald's. By this time, he had taught himself the incredibly difficult language just for the sake of reading great English series in their original tongue. The Japanese translations were as watered-down as his childhood cartoons were in America. It was ironic. These particular books he was lugging around today just happened to be every work ever published by the British author J.R.R. Tolkien.

The mysterious girl knew very little of this, however. She wouldn't have cared anyway. The geeky kid at the computer was not her top priority. It was the young man who walked up to him as the basketball game broke up. Upon seeing him, the girl's heart skipped a beat. He was looking a lot like the last time she had seen him, only more handsome! I must strike soon, while there are still plenty of people around, and while he is still there. Gathering herself, she straightened her dress and shuffled closer to the basketball court.

The second boy towered over the one at the screen. His arms folded, he looked rather impatient. He had grown just a bit taller in four years, but he was more muscular. He still kept his jet-black hair spiky, short, and full of his favorite brand of hair gel. His toned face was still very serious, even when he laughed. He wore a white tank top and jean shorts. His worn black blazer and black windbreaker pants were folded up in his duffel bag.

"Dude, Ozzie. Let's go, man."

"Okay, I just need to find a spot to take a nap." This meant logging off from Ozzie's new favorite pastime. The athlete sighed heavily and rolled his eyes.

"Fine, fine, finish up. I need to get something to eat. You do, too."

"I just ate."

"In real life, doofus."

"Oh, yeah. I could use a bite."

"That's what I thought. Get me when you're done." The second teen proceeded to meet up with some of the other players. They began to discuss the latest J-Rock bands.

The strange girl struck. She had reached the basketball court and slowly opened the chain-link door. This went unnoticed by the boys. So, she cleared her throat loudly enough to grab everybody's attention. Every pair of eyes surveyed the gorgeous babe who'd seemingly just wandered onto their basketball court. A few rowdy whistles erupted and a dozen or so nosebleeds occurred simultaneously. With some satisfaction, the girl recognized "Ozzie" as one of recipients of a discharge of blood from the nasal passage. He was moaning over having gotten some blood on his computer. "I've been owned by a girl!" he wailed as his precious elf warrior was slaughtered, losing half of his inventory.

"Shut up, Aida," somebody snapped. Nevertheless, it was the prettiest girl that Kensuke "Ozzie" Aida had seen since a certain purple-haired goddess back in his Tokyo-3 days.

The girl's target, the spiky, black-haired young man, was the leader of the pack. He stepped forward to greet the beautiful stranger.

"Good afternoon, miss. How can I help you?" he asked with genuine politeness. Something about this pretty was familiar, but he couldn't put his mental finger on it.

"Actually, I've been looking for you. Are you Touji Suzuhara?"

"Yes, I sure am. Who might you be?"

The girl said nothing. Instead, she took her wild brown hair and twisted it into two pigtails. Then, she took off her sunglasses to reveal her dark eyes. It was then that Touji saw two patches of freckles on her cheeks.

"I think you can answer that…" she began. Then, she changed the tone of her voice to sound more formal and official. It was the same tone she had used over four years ago in Class 2-A. She put on an innocent, purely happy face and finished.

"…Suzuhara."

Touji and Kensuke had both been gawking at her from the time she put up her hair. Now, when they realized who this beautiful girl was, they both promptly fainted. The other basketball players, upon seeing their fearless leader collapsed in front of a girl, freaked out and ran as far away from the court as they possibly could.

Hikari Horaki, now a vivacious 18-year-old, stood in the nearly-deserted court, chuckling lightly. Operation Loverboy has been successfully completed, she asserted. She bent down to whisper in the closer boy's ear, even though he couldn't hear her.

"We're going to make the cutest couple ever, Touji-kun."