With the last Angel fight a few days behind us now, and the return of Asuka's class from their trip on the horizon, she took this particular morning to remind me of the "promise" I had made…

"Come on! Wake up, Lieutenant!" The bossy redhead barged into my room, her firmness giving the impression of expecting me to hop out of bed at her request. Unfortunately for her, I just groggily peered up at her from my pillow, not really in the mood to hop anywhere at speeds faster than a snail's pace. Her hands were balled into fists, planted on her hips, her eyes intensely glaring. "This is the last day before everyone gets back from Okinawa! There's NO way I'm letting them have a bunch of fun beach stories without having any of my own, you promised! So, get your ass out of bed!"

It was briefly funny to me that she was talking about getting on the go when she herself was still in her typical long t-shirt she wears to bed, and her hair still a mess. Briefly, that is, until the word "promise'' clicked in my head. I groaned slightly before trying to get an answer out, pushing myself to sit on the edge of my bed.

"...did you say promise?"

She growled. "Oh don't you dare tell me you forgot! You said you'd take me to the beach if I wanted!" She stomped towards the door. "If you thought letting me flick water around in NERV's stinky pool with Wondergirl was enough to satisfy me, you're sorely mistaken, buster!" My door slammed closed with a heavy clack, her daily complaining about sliding doors growing more and more muffled as she entered the bathroom down the hall.

Even though my body pleaded for a return to the bedsheets, I knew I had to do right on what I said. It wasn't really a promise, no, but having a chance to spend the day at the beach will always be superior to an indoor pool. I should've expected she'd want to do both when I brought them up. So, fighting myself to stand and stretch, I hurriedly got ready.

Luckily, I did have an old pair of shorts I could use for swimming in.

"You got everything you need?"

"Yes, yes."

"Sunscreen, towels, your swimsuit?"

"Ugh, I just said yes!"

I chuckled softly at her irritable responses. I had to make sure she didn't forget anything, since we probably weren't going to be back until the end of the day. Slipping our shoes on and exiting the apartment, the gorgeous sunshine welcomed us, albeit along with a day of dry heat. We both immediately felt like we were sweating, so I quickly locked the door, and we hurried down to the lot, impatient to get into the car and feel the AC blast.

It was a fairly quick drive to the train station, and after a length of time waiting in line for tickets, we were both packed onto the crowded train headed to New Atami Beach. I let Asuka take the seat while I stood, holding onto the grab handle above me. She looked a bit overwhelmed by all this, so I decided to try telling her about where we were going, to cut into the nearly hour long ride.

"Pretty crazy, huh? These trains." I gave her a soft smile, trying to ease the mood. She played with her hair nervously.

"There's just… so many people! I figured by this time of year, travel to the beach would slow down a bit... " She stopped for a second. "Well, I mean, I guess with the way the temperature is here, there'd never be a bad time to go swimming, but it's still an insane amount of people to try and shove into a train car!"

I wasn't expecting her to go off like that so suddenly. I cleared my throat, in an attempt to signal that some people had begun looking at her. She grumbled something under her breath.

"Hey, I know, how about I tell you about the beach while we ride?"

"Hm? Does it have an interesting history, or something?"

I shook my head. "Not quite for this one. It's actually a fairly new beach, they still take time to do construction on it every couple months, last I heard." Scratching the back of my head, I continued. "You see, the last Atami Beach was wiped out during the Second Impact, so there were a lot of… issues with just creating another right away, and thus, the process took a while."

Asuka looked down slightly. "Oh… I was wondering why it was called New, but I didn't realize…"

"Don't look so glum, it's in the past now. We just have to enjoy this new beach in order to honor the spirit of the last one, right?" She nodded excitedly.

After a moment, she tilted her head. "So, what's at this beach besides sand and water, anyway?"

"There's lockers and shower rooms, no worries about risking your belongings and you can get the salt water off of you right there before we come home!" Her eyebrows buckled, I guess she wanted to know about fun things, not features only adults would care about. "Uhh… I think there's a cafe there. A gift store too, I believe."

Asuka folded her arms and sighed. "So no water slides, or those funny looking boats?"

"Oh… I'm not sure."

"Idiot Lieutenant! Did you not research this place at all before we left!?"

I'll admit. I did not. All the knowledge I have of the place was second-hand info, so I just laughed my usual sheepish laugh and we started making general small talk to pass the time.

As expected, with the amount of would-be patrons on the train ride with us, the beach was absolutely packed. This was my first time really going out to a beach, so I had mentally prepared for there to be a lot of people, and while I thought Asuka would be overwhelmed here as well, the energy boost she got from seeing the ocean sprawling out in front of us was immense. She seemed like she was really in her element here.

"Come on, Lieutenant! Let's get out there!" She yelled back to me, taking off down onto the sand. I called after her, reminding her that we needed to find the locker room first.

Eventually finding it, and entering the respective sides for our genders, I found myself faced with a fairly large room of lockers, open showers, toilets and sinks. I was impressed with the upkeep, having the expectation that it would be a mess inside. Luckily, I found an empty locker in the back and began putting my belongings into it.

….shit. My cell phone. I must've left it back at the apartment in our rush to leave. We should be okay, seeing as the last Angel attack was only a couple days ago, but it still made me worried about work needing to contact me for, well, anything else really. Not that I've needed to be at the NERV facility itself that often in the past couple months, though I did briefly wonder when I would be introduced back to regular shift work again. It seemed like, after taking Asuka into my care, I was slowly removed from their registry, aside from Angel attacks, even if funds were being deposited into my account every month. Shaking the thoughts of work out of my head with the intention of focusing on enjoying myself, I quickly removed my shirt, socks and shoes, laying them all in the locker along with everything else, aside from the beach towel I had under my arm and the bottle of sunscreen in my pocket.

As I was leaving I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror. Not only did I desperately need sun, I needed more muscle as well. I still had a bit of a baby face, which just made the me looking back from the other side of the mirror even more disappointing. Maybe I should grow a beard or something? No, that's probably a terrible idea…

I stepped out of the men's locker room and took a quick survey of the area. Still tons of people around, but not an Asuka in sight. I suppose she did have more getting ready to do than I did, as I wore my swimming shorts on the train ride here, having a dry pair of pants in my bag for afterwards.

I leant up against the side of the building, the small amount of shade providing much needed cover from the sun's assault. We were going to be out in it all day, didn't want to risk getting heat-stroke this early or anything. My eyes closed for just a moment.

"Hey, so tell me. Do I look good, or do I look GOOD?"

I hadn't even heard her approach. My eyes snapped back open as Asuka, clad in her expensive red and white swimsuit, posed in front of me; her chin held high and a hand flowing back through her locks. The interface headset clips she always wore in her hair were gone, letting her auburn length fall in its natural state, a sight even living with her I saw rarely. She was also sporting a pair of chic sunglasses, to complete the beach-fairing ensemble. A fetching look indeed, catching me a bit surprised looking at her.

She noticed and gave me a sly smirk, accompanied by a giggle. "If it can leave someone like you speechless, then I must look good." Wait, what did she mean by someone like me...? She carried on without skipping a beat, turning towards the sparkling water ahead as she spoke. "Hurry up, lazybones, we're wasting daylight! Chop chop!" As much as she was rushing me, it was nice to see her in such a peppy mood, prompting me to smile as we ran down onto the beach.

Running across the hot white sand was certainly taxing for my feet, a testament to just how much time I spent indoors, surely, so I had to slow my pace after a short stint. However, with her energy not injured by the heat in the slightest, Asuka had sped quite a ways ahead of me on her mission to seek out a good spot to put our towels down. By the time I had caught up, I only had her towel and bag, both laying haphazardly on a clear patch of the beach, to find. Sure enough, looking towards the horizon, I saw the redhead hopping playfully into the water, without a care in the world.

"...she did remember to put on her sunscreen, right?" I asked no one in particular, putting my towel down next to hers. I spread my own lotion on my body before following her lead to the water's edge.

Her shrill voice cut through the bustling crowds of people occupying the beach on either side of us. "THE WATER'S GREAT, LIEUTENANT! HURRY, HURRY!" Gauging the truthfulness of her statement with my foot, the water was certainly warmer than I expected it to be, at least near the edge. She waved her arms to me, and being about 20 or so feet from her, I took a couple quick steps out.

I guess my first mistake was not watching where exactly I was stepping, since I immediately lost my balance on the slippery rocks hiding just past the sand's reach. My second mistake was putting my hands out to catch myself instead of plugging my nose, getting an extremely unpleasant airway-full of seawater, as my arms crashed ineffectively through the surface, followed quickly by my face. The water was shallow enough for me to kneel up in, thankfully, as I sputtered my way back to reality.

Half expecting Asuka to be doubled over laughing at my blunder, I was surprised to find she was actually making her way over to me, yelling.

"Are you stupid? What were you thinking, just running in like that!? Why didn't you watch your step!? Mein gott, you're useless!"

Still catching my bearings, coughing and wiping salt water off my face, I stared at her in shock for a moment, feeling like she was blowing the tumble out of proportion. "Ah… it was just a misstep. See, I'm fine... well, besides feeling like I just drank half the sea…" Trying to laugh it off, she still stared at me sternly.

"You're ruining my ocean time, Lieutenant!" She whined. "Go sit on the beach if you're just going to get in the way!" Honestly, she didn't sound quite as mad as her words seemed, more worried than anything, but it's true that I did knock the wind out of my own sails, so sitting on the beach for a moment was probably a good idea.

I brought my knees up and crossed my arms over them, laying my chin in-between. Asuka went on ahead, frolicking in the water, looking back every so often to make sure I was still there. A short time passed and I felt well enough to try again. Asuka had a different idea though, coming back towards the beach, wringing water out of her hair.

"Hey, Lieutenant? I actually have something in my bag I think we could use while we're here!" My head tilted to the side questioningly. "It's nothing fancy, just a little something I picked up that I was going to smuggle to Okinawa, but we both know how that turned out." The two of us walked towards where the towels were laid.

I scratched my chin. "...you were going to smuggle something to Okinawa?"

"It was a joke, dummy." She reached her hand into the bag, producing a crumpled piece of plastic, quickly raising it above her head as if it were treasure. "Ta-da!~"

Without fanfare, I stared at the object, before asking bluntly. "What is it?"

"Gah, are you kidding!? How do you not know what a beach ball looks like?"

It didn't look like a ball at all to me. "Uh… I guess I don't really have an excuse. I've just never seen one be so… flat?"

Asuka's palm moved across her mouth in amazement. "Wow, okay. You need more help than I thought! Oh dear." She waved the plastic in front of my face. "There's no air in it, Lieutenant. That's why it looks like this!" The cap over the air spout clicked off and she stuck the end in her mouth, blowing steady, measured breaths into the plastic. In no time it had grown bigger than her head, and she speedily capped the spout once again, proceeding to bounce the ball satisfyingly on her wrist, giving me a look of pride over the display. I clapped my hands, chuckling at the simplicity of the moment.

We made our way back down into the water, with me making certain to carefully watch my step this time. Wading out to our torsos, Asuka bounced the ball towards me without warning. Almost stumbling again after my more careful trek, I managed to hit the ball back to her while maintaining my balance. We kept the back-and-forth going for quite a while before she put it over my head, prompting me to have to swim out a couple feet to retrieve it.

"I'm pretty great aren't I? I've played my fair share of volleyball, so it shouldn't be much of a surprise." She lauded. I bounced the ball to her softly and we started again.

"I was never that into sports, so I can't say I'm much of a judge, but…" I catch the ball with my fingertips, sending it fluttering through the air weakly, landing with a soft slap just in front of my companion. "...you're definitely outshining me."

Asuka picked the ball up and twirled it in her hands a few times, staring at its movements patiently, a strange look coming over her face. "...this is probably your first time playing with someone at the beach, isn't it?"

I leaned back, letting myself float in the salty water. "Yeah, I guess so…" I felt the way it rocked me, as the back of my head entered.

The sun felt nice. Hot, but nice.

An echoey "pang" sounded as the beach ball bounced off my chest into the water, causing me to flail for a second. This time, Asuka did laugh, and quite hard at that. I joined in on the laughter, and we continued to toss the ball back and forth, enjoying the sloshing of the waves and the scoreless game we were playing. It was fun. Maybe the most fun I've ever had. It was weird to think of it that way, but… it was true, wasn't it?

We spent a couple hours doing beachy things, like swimming, and trying to build a sand castle by hand (poorly), and before we knew it, we were both happily tired out and ready to relax for a little while, so we strode up the sand to our towels. Asuka dropped flat onto hers and let out a pleased sigh.

"This place is a hundred times more fun than the underground pool, no competition whatsoever!" She flipped onto her back, placing her hands behind her head, as I sat on my own towel. "Not a wimpy Shinji or Wondergirl in sight! True bliss!"

I gave her a slightly worried look. "Do they really bother you that much?"

Asuka grumbled a bit, as if trying to find her right words. "I… don't know. They piss me off, absolutely. They're both stupid kids who don't respect how great it is to be able to pilot the Eva! Heck, I've never even seen Wondergirl get in hers! How am I supposed to put my faith in allies who act like they don't even want to fight?" She let out a long groan and fell back once again onto her towel.

Somehow, I felt like I understood Asuka a little better from that outburst, though I did feel bad for bringing it up in the first place. She still has a lot of weighty feelings in that way, I guess. I had hoped after her sync training with Shinji, she'd not have quite as harsh words towards her allies, but even with that... she does bring up a good point. She still hasn't had a chance to fight alongside them yet as a full team. With Unit-00 now in working condition, Rei'll be able to show Asuka her way of fighting, whenever the next Angel rears its ugly head. Maybe that'll ease the tension a little? I could only hope.

"I'm sorry for bringing it up, I guess."

"Ugh, it's fine. It's not your fault they're both worthless. But…" She trailed off before looking at me with an eyebrow raised, all her frustrations apparently being blown away by the seabreeze. "...you could pay me back with a snack though! I'm starving!"

"There's nothing like ice cream after a nice meal!" Asuka exclaimed elatedly, passionately licking into her coned treat. We only had some cheap bento boxes the cafe had put together for lunch; they were good, albeit not much better than store-bought quality, but they sufficed. The ice cream vendor outside, however, was quite the display in comparison. An array of flavors and cones that I didn't even know existed. My young ward was once again overwhelmed by such a situation, it took her nearly 15 minutes to decide on a flavor, only to find out there was a deal for triple scoop, prompting even more deciding. Eventually, she claimed the tall tower of chocolate chip, lemon and strawberry, and we sat back at the table where we had just eaten.

The sun was beginning to make its descent on this nice day. The more I thought about it, the more I didn't mind the idea of trying to take Asuka out to more places between fights and training. A girl like her didn't deserve to waste her time just sticking around with me, or the places in the city within walking distance. Tokyo-3 had many things to offer; hiking trails, an amusement park, multiple districts with shopping centres and activities, plenty to sight-see and enjoy. Watching her just sitting back, gazing at the people on the beach still playing and hollering, I almost forgot who she was.

She wasn't Asuka, the fiery pilot of Unit-02, here.

She was just Asuka Langley Soryu. A girl who liked shopping and snacks, a girl who wanted her own fun beach stories to share with her friend when she returns from the school trip.

Asuka's eyes caught me looking at her. "...did you want some ice cream, or were you just enjoying the view?" She said slyly.

"Please don't say things like that in public where someone might get the wrong idea…"

"Oh, you're no fun." She pouted playfully. "Kaji would've flirted back at me!" I let out a bemused sigh.

"Somehow, that doesn't surprise me. That man has a lot less shame than…" I noticed her hand was shaking a bit, and her relaxed expression had twisted slightly. "...are you still mad at him?"

"Why do you care?"

My brow furrowed. "You know he didn't mean to hurt your feelings."

She stood up with her ice cream still in hand.

"I know that! Of course I know that. It doesn't make it any easier though." She angrily bit into the melting desert before tossing out more words in a huff. "If he wants to go fool around with that drunken slugabed, I'm not gonna be losing anymore sleep over it! Now let's stop talking about stupid Kaji and go back down! I'm gonna kick your ass at beach volleyball, and not waste anymore time thinking about him! Stupid, perverted, jerkhead Kaji!"

Gobbling the remainder of the cone down, she took off down the steps of the upper platform with a burst of energy. In an attempt to recover from the whirlwind that just hit me, and the people around staring awkwardly at the situation, I just scratched the back of my head, offered a quick laugh, and just said "Teenagers, right?", before making my way after her to spend the remainder of the day at the water's edge.

For the record, I didn't stand a chance against her in an actual game of volleyball, and she guffawed happily over my terrible form for the whole afternoon.

Luckily, the train ride home wasn't nearly as congested as this morning. In fact, the car we got onto was quite sparsely populated, so we both sat, relaxing ourselves against the soft seats. Even with my use of sunscreen, I think I still managed to burn my neck, which I'm sure will be a bother for a few days, but the cool shower I took at the locker room before leaving was so refreshing that I could barely feel it right now anyway.

I didn't realize just how tired Asuka was until her head softly bumped against my shoulder. She was already asleep, her soft snores and peaceful expression once again making themselves known to me, reinforcing my earlier thoughts about this version of her being almost alien from the competitive, prideful spirit I usually saw.

She wouldn't show this side of her to Rei, or Shinji, or Misato. That was easy to assume. I did wonder for a moment how often Kaji had seen this side of her, though. He was the person she seemed to hold on a pedestal above all others, only to now find herself re-evaluating her opinions of him after a moment so quick. That must be tough. I knew this side of her wasn't something that comes out easily, so I guess I shouldn't take moments like these for granted.

Asuka feels like she can let her guard down around me, same as I can with her. That's important, for both of us. I'm eternally grateful that I didn't push her away for good with my problems, and that she didn't give up on me either.

So I just smiled and let her head stay slumped against my arm for the ride home.

We both entered the apartment in a sleepy air, Asuka letting out a yawn as she took off her shoes. "I think I'm going straight to bed." She groggily informed me, walking through the kitchen. She paused for a brief moment before turning into the hallway, almost like she was about to say something, but continued anyway, without a word.

The thought passed through my head concerning what she may've wanted to say, but I quickly changed my focus to the voicemail light blinking on my cell phone, which was, in fact, left on the countertop all day.

Walking over to the device, I flipped it open, and the screen read as follows.

*12 Missed Calls
*12 New Voicemails

My blood ran cold for a moment, staring at these messages. This was my work phone, so I was half scared to even open anything, somewhat frightened of finding out what I had missed. However, when I scrolled, it showed me the last text I had received.

It was from Misato, simply saying "u there? :("

1 hour ago.

"...surely if she's sending faces in her message, it can't be too serious." I sighed after saying this aloud. I really should've let her know where we were going, but between leaving quickly this morning and forgetting my phone, it just didn't cross my mind until right now.

Oh well, I'll leave it for tomorrow. Much like Asuka, I was exhausted, and the phone's battery was almost dead to boot. I'll just simply explain everything when I get up, hopefully she won't be too mad. I popped it on charge, and headed for my own room for a night of well resting after this scorching, funny, yet interestingly meaningful day.

Author's Note: Hey all, sorry for the long break between chapters!

I ended up having a bit of a personal issue with where the fic was headed, so I took some time to reestablish where I want it to go, and also did some research to try and better understand the version of Asuka I want to present with this story. My biggest fear is doing a disservice to her, as she has become one of my favorite fictional characters in the months since I first watched Evangelion. Luckily, my plans now for certain things down the line are more concrete than ever, meaning I just have to work on my story-telling ability in order to get it all across the way I intend.

I hope you all continue to enjoy, and look forward to the next chapter! Peace.