"I should have been a pair of ragged claws..."
It was evening. Shinji lay upon his bed and listened as his father drove away into the distance. He felt no need to ponder as to where he might be headed. He knew exactly where Gendo was going. The same place he went every Sunday, always at eight, dressed impeccably and with flowers to boot. How very strange, his father carried flowers...
Granted, Shinji had never actually seen the place. He was rarely allowed to leave the house, with school being virtually the only exception. And it wasn't as if that were any better. But still, he felt he had a fairly good idea of what it looked like. Small, probably neat, and with little lighting. His father didn't care much for bright places. The man virtually sat around all day in an unlit office, doing God knows what with his time. Yes, Gendo liked the shadows.
And so, his father was off having his little tryst, and where was he? Locked in his dark and dirty room, the room which he tried hard to keep so clean. But despite his best efforts, it always ended up looking like the majority of his wardrobe: filthy and bloodstained. He would probably spend the greater part of the night scraping off the bloodstains, and the remaining hours would be spent putting everything back in its proper place. Even when he was gone, Gendo still made his life a living hell.
But he had no right to talk. It wasn't as if he actually tried to fight back against his father's brutal treatment. He just put up with it, as he had done so for most of his life. "God, I'm pathetic", thought Shinji to himself as he wrung a wet rag. Yes, pathetic was the right word for someone who endured savage abuse from their father and made no attempts whatsoever to stop it. He could have told someone, but what was the point? His father always won in the end, for he was a man who never lost. Ever. And Shinji felt no need to involve anyone else in this. There was nothing they could do.
But there was another reason as well, one far more important than the others. His father had told him one night when he was seven, after Shinji had inadvertently led a few, fat teardrops fall from his bruised and blackened eye. " You're weak, Shinji. That's your problem. You're a weak, cowardly, sniveling little boy who can't stand not having someone comforting him all the time. You're a spineless little crybaby, and that's all you'll ever be."
It was true. In his heart, Shinji knew what his father said was all true. He was spineless, he was a crybaby, but most of all, he was weak. And that was why his father's abuse continued. He was weak, and so, he deserved what he was getting. There was no way around it. He was a pathetic fool who deserved every little thing his father inflicted upon him. This was his life.
His hands immediately began to clench into fists as he realized he was on the verge of crying. Try as he might, he knew they would come. No wonder his father hated him. He hated himself too. "How could you have loved me, Mother ?".