Disclaimer: All characters owned by Gainax ,yada, yada, yada.
"Shinji-sama, you're so cruel!"
The mecha pilot looked on as the junior schoolgirl ran off. The thoughts of going after Shinobu crossed his mind for a moment before Shinji deleted it from his head like a pedophile might try to flush a harddisk full of child pornography.
"What do you plan to do even if you stopped her? You want to tell her you're sorry, put on some lameass lie and say you just had a lot on your head. Lead her on and say you're interested in her and let's be friends?" Shinji said to his shoes.
Then he lifted his head and slacked on the bench, trying his best to put everything behind. The slow moving cloud Shinji watched by was very much like his life. Pathetic, moves like a slug and a pain in the ass. Cloud sucks.
Approaching footsteps put Shinji out of his daydream. He snapped his head back into attention and found his friend standing in front of him like a fool. Kensuke stood there with mouth agape if he had just stumbled into a bathroom with a very naked Commander of Nerv. Even a badass pimp like Kaji would have problem getting it up for a week if such horror happened on him.
"Shin-man, I saw it man. I fucking saw it!" Kensuke Aida shouted in excitement, which attracted students hanging nearby.
"A dog with eight cock?" Shinji casually sidestepped the question. He knew exactly what Kensuke was implying.
Kensuke paused for a moment before throwing his hands around like people do in shitty rap videos. The sort of hand movement that looked like someone is cutting grass with water or juggling fire or something.
"That was just fucking sweet, man. I never thought you had it in you," Kensuke spoke with creepy adoration, the kind that Shinji serious didn't need at this moment.
Being emotionally drained, Shinji buried his face in his hands and prayed all of this bullshit would go away. The fact that his friend was slapping him on the back and calling the whole fiasco an excellent game disgusted him even more. How could anyone enjoy putting down another human being like they are dirt? Worst still, how could anyone turn such evil acts into art, like Gendo Ikari?
"Look, Ken, I don't need this right now," Shinji muttered while holding a hand up to stop his over-enthusiastic friend.
"But that was just plain pimping smooth. You practically backhanded her twice in the face and dumped her at the doorstep. Touji will go nuts when I tell him about this," continued Kensuke without consideration for Shinji's feeling.
"What is it with you? Do you actually believe that I did the right thing?" Shinji asked in mild anger.
"Well, I wouldn't say that it is the nicest thing you ever did to a girl, but you made a stand, that's the cool thing about it," Kensuke explained in a manner that sounded like it was alright to harass a girl if she was hot.
"The look in her eyes... she is hurt. I'm such an ass."
"Don't think too much about it, Shinji. She is just a kid. She will get over it, I'm sure of that. Tomorrow, everything will be fine and dandy again."
"You sure of it?" Shinji asked in a half gullible tone. He wanted to believe in Kensuke but the spectacled boy was no expert in female emotions and he knew that.
"Yeah, young children - they have these defense mechanism in their head, it helps them cope with problems they don't understand. Their limited reasoning ability and their simplified emotional range, it shields them from getting hurt. That's how kids deal with sexual abuses and rape. They will just box it up and take it until they reach early teens and..."
"Please. Let's not go there," Shinji protested in utter horror. How the hell a topic about relationship conflicts lead to child rape was a mystery he did not want to unravel.
Kensuke noticed the drinks lying on the floor and picked the unopened can of coffee. The sandy haired boy cleaned some dirt stuck to the can before presenting it to Shinji.
"Is this safe to drink?"
"Hrm, yeah, Shinobu... she brought it with her."
The spectacled self-styled nerd popped the drink and sat down next to Shinji on the bench. The bag he was carrying was now resting on his lap. Shinji looked on with curiosity as Kensuke ransacked through the bag with his free hand.
"These should be the music you're looking for. It is said to be the best in its genre some years back. Most western music post 2004 were laced with political comment and bitterness which would be out of context by now, so after some serious consideration, I selected this for you. Real emo lyrics, non-political aligned, just your pure anti authority stance and self-indulgence. No f-words, no gangsta, no bling bling, no shit," Kensuke said in a mouthful as he fished out two CDs in jewel cases.
A strange surge of euphoria surrounded Shinji as he took the CDs in his hand. It just felt right, the way a father feels justified to reap the fruit he sowed. The mecha pilot blew the clear plastic cover once and wiped his hand over it as he view the cover in adoration.
"L-I-N-K-I-N, P-A-R-K," Shinji whispered softly as if the CDs would turn to dust if he spelled it out loudly.
"Yup. I haven't heard the music myself, but reviews were generally positive. I'm sure you will enjoy it," Kensuke said with pride.
Shinji admired the CDs for a moment before realizing how rude he was.
"I'm sorry, Kensuke. How much are these again?" Shinji asked as he stuck his hand in his pants to retrieve his wallet.
A cool breeze shot past and Kensuke took it as his queue to strike his trademark pose. He pushed the bridge of his glasses the way cool psychopathic anime villain does before they announce their villainy way to the world and subsequently thrashed by super powered girls in high heels. However, Shinji had contrasting opinion to his heroic pose. Kensuke made a rather realistic impression of a hentai rapist gloating in front of his prey - all naked and tied up on the floor.
"It's on me, old buddy," Kensuke said with confidence.
"But I've seen you starve just to purchase the latest model kits and hentai magazines. You can't do this for me," Shinji protested. At his age, he had the best paying job ever. Unless you're a very hot Japanese girl working freelance in the redlight district.
"Just take it, you deserved it. We all owe you something for the times you risked your neck saving our butts," Kensuke said sagely.
Shinji frowned in confusion. It has been two months since the last Angel attack and during this break, Kensuke never offered to take the bill when they go out for grubs or being particularly generous on any occasion at all. Shinji was justified in his suspicion. Kensuke wouldn't just be nice to him without any incentive of sort. Unless the spectacled one suddenly grew a strange sense of appreciation for the mecha pilot which Shinji didn't want to think about.
"Okay then, thank you, Kensuke. But at least tell me why?" Shinji tried to sound polite.
"Remember the website I told you I was working at?" Kensuke folded his arm together and nodded to himself.
"The one where you post pictures of random chicks from the streets?"
"Nah, not that one. It wouldn't have generated enough cash to sustain itself, let alone purchase the server I host on." Kensuke paused and took a gulp of coffee.
"Erm, anyway, I needed cash to fund my mecha resources portal, I sold your shirt."
"You sold my, what?"
"Your shirt."
"I don't remember me giving you any damn shirts of mine."
"I stowed away a shirt you threw away. It was right after you ripped it in a football match three weeks ago. I thought it might worth something to someone. Glad I am proven right."
"You never know what kind of people you can find on the Internet," Kensuke admitted in a proud manner, as if selling someone's dirty and smelly sports apparel was a cool thing to do.
Shinji immediately covered his mouth and bowed over from his seating position. Kensuke could see his face rapidly turning green. The spectacled boy had no idea his friend would take it so bad.
'Shinji had no use for the shirt anyway. How bad can someone paying you for a used shirt be? What can a person possibly do with a torn, smelly shirt? Frame it up and show it to their friends? Tell people the great Shinji Ikari wore this shirt when he was fighting Angels hand to hand? Wipe the table with a USD 500 shirt bought over the Internet?
It is just like schoolgirls selling their used panties. People do healthy things with it, like masturbation. Besides, it keeps would-be criminals in check. It keeps the perverts busy and not do anything crazy like skinning puppies alive. Killing puppies are bad.'
Kensuke reasoning made sense when two equations were conveniently left out from it. Shinji was a guy. So was the proud owner of his disowned shirt.
That afternoon, Shinji came back to his home slightly crept out but overall, a happy man. In addition to the two music CDs Kensuke gave him, his spectacled friend also loaned him a huge collection of mecha animes the sandy haired boy constantly referred to as tactical training videos. The nerd boy thought that it might assist Shinji in his path to become the model mecha pilot, whatever it is.
Shinji laid his bag and fished out a random DVD.
"Gundam Farm:Tactical Agriculture, now with foreword by Greenpeace?"
"What on earth is this show?" Shinji asked in wild amazement. He flipped the DVD and looked at the back description.
"It is the year 2500 A.D when NATURAL laid siege to a CORPORATE farming colony that produces more than 80 food supplies for Earth. With the home planet on the brink of starvation, NATURAL took Earth by storm. All organic food are the menu of the day. However, one man stands in the way of pesticide free vegetables - Kira Yamato. Armed with Gundam Farm, he shall put back bioengineered products on the food pyramid and eradicate tofu once and for all."
Shinji shook his head in disappointment and wondered what kind of bullshit political model which anime was trying to teach children these days. Back then, anime houses only bothered to make mindless harem shows and action packed anime with homosexually charged heroes.
Not bothered with the collection of mecha animes, Shinji strolled to his room to get some music conversion done. Little did Shinji know that his life would be thrown into chaos.
Streetlight poured into the dark room, which Shinji had himself locked in. He has forgotten how long since he has been alone in his privacy. He wondered for a moment if there was anyone else in his apartment he shared with Misato and Asuka. Shinji got up from his bed and pulled his earplug out. He swore his ear would bleed if he left it on any longer.
Noises coming from the television in the hall confirmed someone was at home beside him. Time to cook something before anyone got violent. Shinji calmly placed his SDAT on his desk and proceeded to move to the door. But before that, he took a long look at the blue-lit screen on the music player.
"In the end."
"Where were you all these times, old friend?" Shinji chuckled to himself as he placed his finger on the OFF button.
Standing by the hallway, Shinji squinted his eyes in disbelieve as he saw Asuka watching one of the DVD anime he brought back. The proud German girl always mocked him and the general male population for being such massive perverts when it comes to anime. For once, Shinji was excused for not making a comeback, for most anime were created for young teenagers and featured female characters that were into slavery.
"Kiraaaa, your evil corporate, non-vegetarian, puppy killing, boyfucking ways will meet a grisly end today!" shouted a pretty mecha pilot with shoulder length hair. Shinji noticed the character on screen was a boy.
"I do not fuck boys and I can prove it by sleeping with Flay!" replied another young man, which would probably be Kira.
"So, you do admit to being a meat eating corporate whore who killed puppies!" the guy who hated Kira shouted back from the inside of a mecha cockpit. It seemed that both the participant were taking part in a space battle with their respective mecha.
The screen pan out and showed two robots facing off in space amidst random explosion.
The mostly white mecha with blue torso and shoulder armor clashed with another - a mecha painted with awful homosexual pink.
"Why do you hate bio-engineered food so much, Athrun?" Kira asked in painful anticipation as he pulled out his light saber.
The pink mecha replied in similar manner. "What do you know about eating chicken flavored cereals all your life?"
The lamely colored mecha swung its sword with wild abandon.
"It's unnatural!" cried Athrun with the hatred of a thousand dictators who had committed racial genocides.
"And being openly homosexual is not?" retorted Kira, who had discarded his broken shield, destroyed in a flurry of blows.
"Shut up!"
The girlish colored mecha flew back some distance and whipped out a pair of big ass guns. The other guy was horrified and the ending theme kicked in, much to the dissappointment of Asuka.
"Gawddamnit, those stupid Japanese sure can screw up a simple act of killing each other with dramas, flashbacks, reflections, and more dramas," Asuka whined to herself as she lifted her cute ass to replace the DVD.
"What show was that, Asuka?" Shinji asked innocently from his point, a few paces behind the couch Asuka was sitting on.
"Gahhhh!" The pilot of Eva-02 dropped the DVD.
"I swear I will shove a lightsaber up your ass if you creep me out like that again," Asuka turned around and allowed Shinji a glimpse of contained frustration eager to be unleashed on him.
Shinji just held up two hands in surrender.
"Stop bringing back these idiotic kiddies show. There should be some laws against watching this kind of crap. All the saving the world bullshit, cute retarded princess, pacifist metaphor, guns-a-blazing... it turns the mind into a heap of goo. I'm surprised you haven't turned into the sort of moron like your two friends."
The only male in the house glanced at the disc lying on the floor with its label side up.
"You seem to be enjoying...Gundam Farm Disc 05. Not accusing you of anything, of course," Shinji said with a non-accusing smile.
"Getting smarty now, are we?" the self-proclaimed expert at Angel slaying folded her arms under her breast.
"Or do I have to explain to you why I'm the only adult around here disregarding Misato for the miniscule amount of time being sober - and therefore, I have the rights to view retarded anime as solely intellectual pastimes."
"Okay..."
"And it's all your fault for locking yourself up in your room whole day. I am bored out of my head. Now go make dinner while I continue watching these animes so that I can provide you with proper instruction to view it without the loss of sanity."
"On the way," Shinji answered, not realizing the irony in his reply.
A/N: This will not be a songfic, so no worry. I am not that well versed in music industry, so whatever spewed by Kensuke was the word of a 14 year old living in an uncertain future. Gundam Farm, heh, now that's a cool show I would like to watch.
Warden: First reviewer, sweet.
Hououza: Do I pronounce your name like 'Whooshah' or 'HooAhh'? Heh. Thanks for reviewing.
Rusty Knights Productions: Asuka + dreadlocks hawt. When will we get to see Shinji covering himself in mud and get medieval with the yautja disciple?
Adam: Thanks.
Shinji the good sharer: Whoa, you sure have many fics.
Elijah Snow: Holy cow, it's Frodo. Er, wait that's Wood. Glad you like it. I suck at badass ultra violent fic, so I just write what I can.
Babel Matrix: Shhh, no spoilers!
PhantomR: A puppy for you, sir!
Mister Cynical: It's the guy that writes all the crazy 'Shinji the badass Marine' fics! I'm honored, really.
Keep the reviews coming!
PS: How on earth do you put more than one blankline?