Disclaimer: I do not own Evangelion.

Warning: This chapter contains lemon/lime. If you're underage, you shouldn't be reading this!

Chapter 2: The Questionable Points

Shinji's mood was perplexed, to say the least; on one hand, the death of a good friend saddened him, though overwhelmed by shock and confusion. If Kaworu really had died twenty hours ago, then how come they could play video games together?

Not to mention they were still chatting with each other – if they were merely playing together, it could still be explained by the assumption that his accounts might've been hacked.

"Ahem." A dry cough snapped him out of his train of thoughts. "Are you okay, Shinji?" Asuka's soothing voice somehow helped clear out the turmoil in his head by a little.

"Yeah, just…" He sighed with a nod. "Hard to accept, I guess."

"I know." Seeing him feel better than before, Asuka gave his hand a gentle squeeze before deciding it was time for some information gathering. "So…care to explain about what happened?" She asked, opening the notebook and putting it on her lap.

"I…" Shinji's mouth opened, though shut off again after spitting out only one word. He then took a deep breath, trying his best to adjust his emotions and articulate the words before speaking up again. "The general idea isn't complicated."

"Kaworu is my classmate in high school. We were good friends back then, but lost contact later on. It's only when I saw his post on Facebook several weeks ago and found out he played the same game as me, I added him to my friend list in the game."

"We started playing games together and talked; our relationship came back a little as well."

"Late yesterday, before the supposed time of death, he asked me if I want to play League of Legends with him tomorrow. I agreed, but he didn't log in to the game on time. It was till ten o'clock after I contacted him via LINE, he finally logged in, and we played…two games together?"

"Then you called me, saying there's a new case. And because of that call, I inted and got us to lose the game. He got a little irritated and threw a tantrum at me because of it and signed off. That's about it."

Asuka frowned as she heard Shinji's words. "Are you sure it was him who played the game with you?" She inquired after taking a glance at the notes.

"I'm pretty sure it's him. We often play together these days, I can recognize his voice." Shinji nodded firmly, though doubted again as his looks wandered to the outside through the police car window.

"Have you noticed anything strange in his behaviors?" Asked Asuka.

"Speaking of which…" Shinji tried to recall with all seriousness. "If I had to answer, I'd say he's less talkative than normal, much more irritable, and…well, unusually bad at the game."

"Oh? Elaborate."

"He used to be a chatbox, but tonight he's much quieter than usual." As Shinji continued to recall and narrate, he started to calm down for real; reason and logic returning to him. "I didn't notice anything odd when we played together. Though, in retrospect, it feels pretty off. He would never get that angry with me to the extent of swearing; normally, he would simply laugh it off, or make fun of me. He never really cared about winning or losing. I just thought he had a bad day and shook it off." He paused for a moment, "so…the deceased, isn't the guy duoed with me, is he?"

"Obviously not." Asuka shrugged. "He's…well, killed at that time. There's no way he could be gaming with you. As for the voice chat… don't think too much about it. It's definitely not some supernatural event. Oppositely, it's a rather significant questionable point."

"Because people can mimic others' accents and tones pretty well with professional training and some talent. I've watched a lot of Donald Trump impressions. Those people pretty much nailed it."

"The…murderer, either has a similar timbre with your friend, or had practiced intentionally trying to sound like your friend. In this regard, this might be a useful clue."

Shinji's mood had pretty much calmed down, his senses kicking back in. "Then just like you said, the person who played with me is very likely to be the murderer. However, what would be the motive of doing such? Delay the time the murder occurred?"

Asuka shook her head, tightening her uniform. "Remember how I taught you before? Don't speculate anything without sufficient evidence. Or you could risk a serious waste of time."

"Gotcha." Shinji nodded.

"Aside from that…is there anything else? Like, do you know if he offended anyone recently?"

"Not particularly." Shinji scratched the back of his head. "Our recent communication is only limited to video games."

"Hm." Asuka pondered for a moment, rubbing her chin as she mused. "Alright then. That's about the end of the written record coming from you." Her professionalism dropped in an instant as she switched to a caring tone. "Say, Shinji. Do you need a rest? I mean, it's pretty late right now. You've been through a lot today, and I understand if you want to rest."

Shinji waved his hand dismissively. "Nah, I'm just getting started. Actually, I want to go to the crime scene and look around, alright?"

A proud smile bloomed on Asuka's face. "Sure, let's get going then. Though you sure you don't need to…I dunno, something to help you relax?" Her smile widened into a grin.

"I guess I could use a kiss, is that okay?" Shinji smiled back for the first time since he learned about Kaworu's death.

"As if you have to ask." With that, Asuka leaned forward and brought their lips together.

XXXXXX

Shinji roamed through the inside of the convenience store with utter caution – on one hand, he had to avoid causing damage to the crime scene. On the other hand, he wanted to inspect every doubtful trace as carefully as possible.

He even borrowed a tape measure from the trace inspector and started measuring the sizes of the shoeprints himself, taking down notes on his small notebook.

After a long while, just as he was carefully examining a piece of torn nail on the floor, a broad human-shaped shadow loomed over him, blocking the light. Shinji raised his head to see a ponytailed man standing before him with both of his hands in pockets. "Hello, Director Kaji!"

"Hm." Kaji responded with a wave of hand before taking off his gloves. "It's getting late, Shinji-kun. We're going to call it the end of today. You should leave, too." With that, Kaji turned away from his and headed to the exit.

No matter how much Shinji didn't want to go, he had no choice since assistant police officers began shutting the rolling door close. "Asuka! I'm here." After he exited the store, he called out and saw his girlfriend waiting for him as she leaned against her car.

"So, Shinji, how does it feel? Your first time inspecting a murder site?" Asuka inquired in a flat voice after they both settled in the car.

"I don't know." Shinji sulked. After a moment of pondering, he spoke up again truthfully. "To be honest, I feel a bit lost."

"It's only natural." Asuka shrugged, still keeping her eyes on the road. "It's your first time, after all." At the moment the right light lit up, Asuka stepped on the brakes, stopping the car as she turned her head at Shinji. "Anyway, you've stayed at the site for quite a time. Any noteworthy discoveries?"

Shinji straightened up as he heard they were going to talk about serious business. "Right. Even though the site is extremely haphazard, there're only a few trampled goods on the floor. There aren't many traces of crashing or any other violent destruction on the shelves, either."

"And?" Asuka's tone raised.

Shinji pondered for a moment before continuing. "Kaw-The dead, although his expression is rather exaggerated, his posture distorted, he's lying face-down on the counter in a rather good shape with minor signs of struggling. Therefore, it may be assumed that even if there was a fight between the victim and the murderer, it wasn't intense. Therefore, the traces of the site should be the murderer's work."

Seeing Asuka give him a slight nod, Shinji's smile widened. "And combined with the obvious traces of rummaging, it's probable that the murderer was looking for something. So it's likely that this case is murder for money."

"Money?" Asuka shook her head. "Unlikely. Because the real valuable goods aren't on the shelf, but on the glass counter near the checkout. All of the famous brand igniters and high-end red wines remained untouched. Even the cash register was intact. So it can't be for money."

"Well, yeah…" Shinji recalled what he saw and heard on the site, his mind cleared slightly. Getting no further comments from Asuka, he hastily continued, "besides, there are a lot of bloody shoeprints at the site. I think these are crucial clues."

"Oh?" Asuka's voice carried a clear note of curiosity in it. "Tell me about it." She encouraged.

"Right." Shinji opened his notebook and took a glance. "First, the patterns of the sole are wavy and wedgy - they offer great resistance to slipping on dry land, but won't work on wet surfaces. With a great sense of aesthetics, they are commonly seen on casual wear boots or outside sneakers. Even though the marks on the ground are faint, with the above evidence, it's clear that it's Nike sneakers."

"Looking from the features, the shoes worn by the murderer should be rubber soled, produced by press forming techniques, such as basketball or volleyball shoes. Combined with the rather broad forefoot with the deep curved notches as well as other features, I believe that the murderer may have been wearing a pair of basketball shoes."

"Moreover, the degree of wear of the sole patterns showed that the murderer must've been wearing them for a long time. Even the anti-wear patterns suffered a considerable degree of wear."

"At last, judging from the shoe length and step spacing, the height of the murderer should be around 180 to 185 centimeters, rather tall in Japan. From the gait, it's speculated that his support foot is left foot. Over." With that, Shinji turned his head to look at Asuka, waiting for some kind of comment.

"Not half-bad," Asuka remarked with a satisfactory smile. "You pretty much nailed everything in the textbook."

"Err…" A wry smile crossed his face. Maybe since Asuka was his girlfriend, he didn't need to act restrained in front of her. "Only in the textbook? So you're basically telling me that I'm too rigid?"

"Ahem." Asuka coughed dryly. "You don't need to feel ashamed about it. You had never been at a murder site before, after all. I'm actually impressed that you've got everything in the textbook remembered." Suddenly a mischievous grin crept up her face. "I mean, if I have to rate it, I'd say you earned a higher score than your first time having sex with me."

"It's not like I had any experience!" Shinji said back, his face rapidly turning red despite the fact it was almost a daily topic for them right now.

"But I told you to be gentle! Who would do that to a virgin, anyway?" Asuka huffed. "It hurt a lot!"

"I thought you said you were experienced!"

"What I said was I had knowledge, dummkopf!" Asuka countered. "Theories are entirely different from practicing!" Pouting, she slammed her foot on the brakes, causing the car to deaccelerate abruptly. The tires left several black tire marks on the road while white smoke rose from under them.

"Ouch!" Shinji promptly regretted not wearing the seatbelt after headbutting the glove compartment. "Hey, what was that for?"

"We're home," Asuka replied, sticking out her tongue at him. "Now let's get in. We still have more details to go over with." She parked the car, put on the handbrake, and shut off the engine. "Say, did you take any pictures of the site?"

"Um…are we allowed to?" Shinji probed carefully, getting off the car. "I thought it's banned to take photos in private."

"Of course not, but it's okay as long as you keep your mouth shut," Asuka smirked smugly.

"If that's the case…then I did," Shinji said with a hint of guilt in his voice.

"Take a more careful look at them." After making sure the door was closed behind them, Asuka quickly took off her uniform and shirts, leaving only her bra and panties covering her body.

Somehow Shinji wasn't visibly distracted by the alabaster sight in front of him, as if it was to be considered perfectly normal. When he focused on work, barely anything could take his attention away. "Hm…actually, the gait…is rather suspicious."

"Oh? Is that so?" Asuka leaned over, looking at Shinji's phone together with him after putting up a comfortable oversized yellow shirt. "What is it?"

"The general pattern is that all of these footprints are shallower on the heels and deeper on the front." Shinji rubbed his chin as he mused. "Initially, I thought it's only an instinct of the wearer to put his center of gravity on his forefoot. However, after a closer look…"

"That he might've been deliberately wearing a pair of oversized shoes to confuse us." Asuka followed; Shinji nodded in agreement. "The errors in calculations range from seven to twelve centimeters when I used the foot size and step spacing to deduce the murderer's height. Considering we have shorter people walk in strides, while some tall people prefer small steps, this method can be only used as a reference."

"You're right." Even though Shinji had always been the assistant, Asuka had to admit that sometimes he could provide crucial insights. "So, what evidence do we have in stone?"

"Pretty much nothing useful." Shinji sighed in resignation. "Maybe we have to wait for the full Autopsy to come out. I mean, we still don't even know about the direct cause of death yet."

"I wanna ask, though… what's your thoughts on the motive of the murderer? I mean, his motive to play the game with you?"

"I've thought about it, but didn't reach any meaningful conclusion." Shinji shook his head. In fact, he had been guessing about the identity of the murderer ever since he learned about Kaworu's death. "When I was observing the murder site, I came up with multiple hypotheses, but they were all rejected by me."

Asuka's interest was picked up immediately. "Keep going." Even though speculations were unhelpful, some insights from a litigant were always welcomed.

"Well, the first idea came to me was that he wanted to keep the crime unexposed for as long as possible through stalling. On second thought, though, his motive would be no other than to buy time to process the scene to impede our investigation progress. But it's been twenty hours since Kaworu's death; there's plenty of time to do that, why would the murderer still stay there? In fact, there weren't even so many processing traces at the site."

"Then I thought, what if the murderer was just diffident? After my call was picked up, subconsciously wanted to avoid the crime being exposed, only then the murderer disguised as Kaworu and played the game with me."

"But I overthrew this hypothesis as well. If it was only subconscious, there's no way the murderer's voice could match Kaworu's so perfectly, as if already been expecting this to happen in advance and practiced speaking like Kaworu for a long time."

Asuka nodded slowly. "At least you're getting somewhere."

"Asuka, what are your thoughts on the murderer's motives?"

"I don't know, that's why I asked you, idiot." With a shrug, Asuka started walking toward the living room with Shinji following closely behind. "I mean, think about it." She started again after seeing Shinji's incredulous look. "If the murderer could mimic Kaworu's voice so well, it must be a crime by acquaintance. Since you guys are familiar, whom do you think has the motive to murder? Or, who has the motive to mimic his voice and play the game with you? Or, who has the prerequisite to mimic his voice?"

"Well, it's not like we're that familiar," Shinji smiled a sheepish smile. "We've reestablished connection only for a few weeks, after all."

"Can't be helped, I guess." Asuka yawned, stretching her arms and revealing some flesh. "It's getting late, so on-site interviews have to wait till tomorrow. Maybe we can get more clues then. We can't speculate too much without any solid evidence." None of the two could remember how many times Asuka had said it, though it was the truth that had to be rooted in their minds.

"Right."

"Now…" A seductive smile crept up Asuka's face, eliciting a similar smile from Shinji, her previous professionalism all but gone. "I have you all to myself." She then walked up in front of Shinji and stroked the side of his face softly, and pulled him into a deep kiss.

"Hmmm…" Asuka moaned in pleasure as Shinji's hands traveled through her back, to her waist, then her stomach, and finally rested on the sensitive area of her breasts. "Gott… musician's hands…"

Asuka returned the favor with no less passion as she leaned in to nibble and suck gently at his neck; Shinji hissed in pleasure. "Eww…gentle! I don't want other people asking me weird questions!"

"I don't…ahh…c-care. W-We're…ohh…already official t-to them, anyway." Asuka managed to reply between soft moans, feeling her body get aroused more and more by Shinji's tender touches and kisses.

Asuka grinned as she felt Shinji's stiffness pressed against her lower abdomen. "I see you're ready for this, pervert." Said Asuka as she reached for the hem of his pants and pulled it off in one swift move, leaving his hard member completely exposed.

"Ah-Asuka…" Shinji gasped and groaned as she gently stroked his hard cock. "Don't w-we need to take…woo…showers first?"

"I remember you had one before, right?" Asuka bit down on Shinji's shoulder, eliciting another sudden gasp.

"But…we just came back from…ah, murder site, didn't we?"

"Fuck." Asuka's eyes went wide as realization struck her. "Fuck, you're right." She pushed herself away from Shinji, taking a deep breath. "Well, bring me to the shower with you, then." The grin came back to her face.

"Sure." Shinji mirrored her grin. This time, he saw no reason to hold back anymore.

XXXXXX

"…as the evidence shows, we assume the victim is killed around 6 to 7 am. The footprints and…"

Shinji sat on his chair in the meeting room as Kaji Ryoji, the director of the criminal investigation task force, delivered his speech about the known information of the murder case. He felt somewhat prideful that a significant part of his speech contained information coming from him – as if aroused by his thought, Asuka, who was sitting beside him, gave him a thumbs-up under the table, though still keeping her eyes on the big screen.

Last night was wonderful, to say the least – as wonderful as every other night they had sex. They would always find new exciting positions and different places to have fun with, though it didn't help him getting utterly worn out in the morning. Asuka was always energetic; being more like a semi-automatic instead of a single-shot had certainly granted her numerous advantages in bed.

Fortunately, Shinji had already learned just about everything this meeting would deliver.

A sudden vibration of his phone snapped him back to reality. He took out his smartphone from the pocket, his eyes widened a little as he read the message. "Asuka." He whispered, touching her lap with his fingertip, trying to get her attention.

"Hm?" Asuka responded, though still not looking at him.

"The Forensic Science Laboratory Division is demanding my presence. They say there's something crucial for me to identify."

XXXXXX

AN: I hope the details satisfy. The lemon scene is just an attempt, I promise there will be more in later chapters.

Special Thanks to SheriffJohnStone, nonamasushin, sjyf0x, HydrationStation, and Greg242's reviews!