"Joanna, are you ready?" Hood asked.
"Yes," she replied through the com system. Her face could not be seen except on a few select monitors. Instead, the face of Unit 11 stared at the group in the control room.
"Okay," Hood replied. "Begin the operation." Shinji could see the control room come to life as the operators and technicians began their work.
"Connecting power to all main circuits," one technician said.
"Main power supply connected, another replied. "Commencing activation system."
"Activation voltage at critical level," he heard Bertain say. "0.5, 0.3, 0.2, and rising."
"Beginning second phase, transmitting pulse."
"Pilot has begun linkup."
"Synapses inserted. Junctions connecting."
"All circuits operational. No problems with initial contact."
"All nerve links checking out normal. Checklist is cleared through 2600. Prepare for third stage connection." Shinji could feel himself tightening up, and he sensed that the others were the same way. According to the private briefing Hood gave him, this moment was the most critical point of the activation test, where many things could go wrong. He then remembered hearing that Rei had such an incident with Unit 00.
Counting down to absolute borderline. 0.5, 0.2…" There was a brief, tense pause. "Borderline cleared. Unit 11 is activated." The energy that had been building up was released by cheers and clapping. Shinji let out all the air that he had been holding in as the test continued.
"All right," Hood said. "Good job everyone. Now, let's get started on the interlock test."
A short while later, Shinji was sitting on a bench waiting for Joanna to finish changing. As he was waiting, both Burke and Aida came over to him.
"Waiting for her?" Aida asked, to which Shinji nodded.
"What do we do next?" he added.
"Nothing. You two are done for the day," Burke answered. "So, you guys are free to do whatever you want."
"Oh, okay," Shinji said.
"Actually…" Aida piped up. "…there is something where I would like to have Shinji join me."
"I thought we had cleared everything on the agenda." Burke began looking at his tablet, trying to bring up the schedule.
"No, I don't mean anything to do with Joanna's training," Aida said. "I was just wondering if Shinji would come with me to have dinner a friend's place."
"Who is this friend?" Shinji asked.
"Uh…let's just say that it's a surprise. I will add, however, that this person knows your story well, and I feel it would be wonderful if the two of you could meet. It will also be a surprise to this person as well. Besides, you have to admit that it's been more than a little while since we last seriously talked. What do you say?" Shinji looked in Burke's direction.
"It's your call," Burke stated.
"I would like to go," Shinji answered, but what about Joanna?"
"Huh?"
"They've been making it a habit of going to our place to eat after training sessions," Burke answered for him, "but I'm certain that she'll-" all of them heard the sound of a door opening a closing. "Speak of the devil." Joanna stood in front of the changing room door, realizing they were talking about her.
"Wh-What's going on?" she asked.
"Nothing bad Jo," Burke answered. "We were discussing about something Aida wanted to do tonight with Shinji. I know that you two usually eat afterwords, but I would be willing to take you out to restaurant, to celebrate your successful activation test. What do you say?" She shifted her eyes toward Shinji.
"Don't worry," he told her. "It's just one time. And we can do it tomorrow since there is no training. How about breakfast? That's something we haven't done before." Joanna took a minute to think it over.
"That would be okay," she said.
"Great," Aida said. "Shinji we'll meet in front of HQ in let's say…" he checked his watch, "half an hour or so. Will that work?"
"Sure," Shinji replied.
"Okay, see you then." As Aida walked off, Shinji turned to Joanna.
"Are you sure it's okay?" he asked her.
"O-Of course it is," she said. "I-I mean, you have a life of your own, and people you want to see, and I've been told about your history with Colonel Aida. Besides, the Vice-Commander is a nice person."
"Thank you," Burke said, not looking up from his tablet, "not that I've been eavesdropping."
"I see," Shinji said.
"Besides, if those things didn't happen, I'd be on the phone half the night with my friends."
"Your friends?" Shinji looked and acted surprised.
"Yeah, there are some nice people at my school," she replied. "I'm…I'm not comfortable hanging out with them, you know, going shopping or anything like that, not yet, but talking over the phone and video chat works for me."
"That's good. That's really good," Shinji said, a smile forming on his face."
"And you can tell me more about it during dinner," Burke declared. "Better get going, you don't want to keep Aida waiting," he called back as the two walked off.
"You can't be serious," Shinji said as he and Aida walked in an apartment building and up a set of stairs. "They played that song right through the whole battle?"
"Sure did," Aida replied. "You see, because radio silence had to be maintained, the whole operation had to run on a silent count. Katsuragi figured that a song would be the best way to keep everyone on the same page. And of all songs, 'Bohemian Rhapsody' was one of the best choices. Not only is it a song that a majority of people know about, at least indirectly, but also because the song has several sections of different musical styles. It is that, along with having no chorus, that gave it a unique structure making the song easy to organize the whole operation around. For example, you could have a certain part of the operation began or completed by a particular line or piece of music. And since the song was being broadcast on almost every radio frequency in the world, not only we we able to bypass any attempts at jamming from Nerv, anyone from all over the world involved in the operation could listen to the song and know their part, while everyone else was listening to an awesome song."
"Amazing," Shinji said. "I can't believe it worked."
"Sometimes, I think that way too when I look back on it. Many people who were involved say they considered it the most amazing thing they has ever seen. I don't know if this is true, but supposedly afterwords, they were playing 'We Are the Champions' within range of Nerv."
"Wow," was all Shinji could say as the two stopped in front of a door. "Is this the place?" he asked Aida, who answered by signaling for Shinji to get behind him as he rang the door buzzer. After a minute, the door opened, and Shinji couldn't see who it was, but he could tell from the voice that it was a woman, that he swore sounded familiar. He was racking his brain trying to remember where he heard it before.
"Oh, you're here. Come in," the woman said.
"How have you been?" he asked her.
"Oh fine, fine," she answered. "I was just in the middle of doing some laundry. Dinner is in the oven, and it'll be…is there someone behind you?"
"I'd like to introduce you to someone," Aida stated as he stepped to the side.
"I didn't know you were bringing a guest. You should have…" Shinji saw that her hair was placed in one ponytail instead of the twin tails he remembered. She was taller then she was the last time he saw her, and just a little thicker in the middle. The one thing that stayed the same was her freckled face, which at that moment, was expressing complete shock. She was wearing a plain tee shirt and sweatpants, and the laundry basket she was holding fell to the floor.
"It's you…" she said in a soft voice. Shinji and the woman, whose eyes were beginning to fill with tears, looked at each other for several seconds before Hikari rushed towards him, and wrap her arms around him. Shinji didn't know how long they remained in that embrace, only that it was long enough so that a young boy who was holding a toy plane ran around them making pewpew noises before stopping to look upon the scene. She then let go of him and straightened herself.
"I knew that you had been back for a while now," she said as she wiped the remaining tears from her eyes, "but I didn't expect that I would be able to see you again."
"I never expected to see you either," Shinji replied. Hikari then noticed the boy looking at scene.
"Come here," she said to him. The boy came over and gave her a hug. She turned the boy to where Shinji was standing. "There's someone I want to you to meet. He's an old friend of mine. Go say hello." The boy took a few steps towards Shinji and stopped.
"Hello," they boy said, "I'm Ichiro Suzahara." The boy then ran back to his mother, and buried his face into her shoulder.
"That wasn't so bad," she cooed as she patted his back. Shinji watched her holding the child, amazed that she was now a mother. It also made him a little sad, though he didn't know why.
"Come in. Come on in," she told them as she picked up her laundry off the floor. As they were walking in, Shinji took notice of the pictures on the wall. There were pictures of members of class 2A along with those of Hikari with people he did not know. Of those pictures, two stood out for him. One was of Hikari and Toji in what appears to be a wedding photo, and one of Hikari and Sakura with a slightly younger Ichiro at what looked like an amusement park.
"As I was trying to say earlier, dinner will be ready in a short while, so please make yourself comfortable," she said. "Just let me deal with this first, and I'll join you pretty quick, okay?"
"Sure thing," Aida replied. "Take care of what you need to." Hikari went off humming to herself, Ichiro following her, leaving Shinji and Aida alone.
"Bet you were surprised, huh?" Aida leaned towards him.
"You have no idea," Shinji replied. "To be honest, I haven't thought about her for a long time." He couldn't lie, he was surprised. He didn't know she was still alive, and if that was the case, could it be that he still was as well? That thought made him nervous and excited at the same time.
"I wanted you to meet her for a good while now," Aida stated. "You know, to show you that everything wasn't all bad."
"Thanks, I really mean it."
"Sure thing," Aida said. Hikari and her son returned to the living room and sat down next to Shinji.
"So," she began, "Aida told me that you work at the Wille base?"
"Yes and no," Shinji replied. "I work as a liaison officer. I help the new pilot with the ins and outs of piloting an Eva."
"Sounds pretty hard," She said to him.
"It is. For example all of the names for everything and the acronyms. Just to give you one," he turned to Aida. "I keep forgetting what the official name of Headquarters is. I know it's the Tower of Something, but it sounded weird." Aida chuckled in response.
The Tower of Belisarius," he said. "It's named after an original tower in the first Constantinople that was in turn named after a great general. It's also hard to pronounce. Most of us call the place either the Tower or just Headquarters."
"That's pretty interesting. I didn't know that," Hikari said, her son leaning against her.
"You…you have a nice child," Shinji said, blushing.
"He sure is," she said tussling the boy's hair. "I'm sure that before today, you still saw me as your class representative and wearing twin tails." She chuckled. "I'm proud of him…and I'm sure his father would have been proud of him as well."
"Would have? I don't know what you mean." Shinji saw her look at Aida with a look of confusion and something else, like sadness. He shifted his eyes towards Aida and was surprised that his usual cheery self had faded, and he was looking down at the carpet, the color drained from his face.
"Toji had a job as a floor manager at a manufacturing plant." Hikari stood up and and walked over to a part of the wall covered by a curtain. "One day, a major fire broke out on the floor, and the fire suppression systems failed." She opened the curtain to reveal a small alter that had Toji's picture surrounded by a black ribbon. "I was told later that he kept going back to find his employees and bring them out to safety. He rescued around twenty people…he went in to find some more, and never came out." She lit two sticks of incense, and laid them in a tray, their perfumed smoke drifting to the ceiling. "I do miss him terribly, but I am grateful for the years that we did have." She stood up and turned around to find Shinji with tears, trembling in short shudders. Hikari went to him and grabbed him by the shoulders.
"I'm so sorry," he whispered.
"It's okay," she said. "Toji always talked about you and the other pilots, and about how brave all of you were fighting the Angels. I like to think that you were an inspiration to him to do what he did that day. I know he would have been glad to see you again, and to talk of old times." Her reassurance only made his tears flow even more. She pulled him into another hug and even Ichiro came over and wrapped his arms around one of Shinji's legs. They were that way for a minute or so before they let go.
"This is all my fault," Aida said. "It never crossed my mind to tell you and I should have known it would come up one way for the other. I even figured the Commander or Vice-Commander had told you months ago. Man, did I screw up."
"It's all right," Shinji said. "When I first came out of Unit 01, I thought that there was a lot less of the world than there is. I have been so happy that thing's aren't as bad as I thought, but I couldn't assume that it was all going to go my way."
"In any event then," Hikari gestured towards the altar. "Shall we?" The three former schoolmates all stood abreast of each other, folded their hands and stood in reverential silence for about a minute, Ichiro following suit right next to his mother. Hikari broke the silence, a few tears forming in her eyes.
"I'll go get the rest of dinner ready," she said as she wiped a few tears away, before turning to her son. "Honey, stay here, and play with Kensuke, okay?" The boy nodded.
"All right buddy," Aida said to the child, as she went off. "Could you show me that plane you were playing with earlier?" Ichiro ran to pick up his plane and hand it to him.
"Ooh, pretty cool," Aida said as he looked at the plane. He gave the child back his toy, and as Ichiro started to play with it, he turned to Shinji.
"I have to say it again. I'm so sorry for not telling you about Toji earlier."
"Don't worry about it," Shinji said. "I mean, "I'm sad that I never had the chance to say goodbye."
"None of us had the chance when you think about it," Aida replied.
"True, but my point is there are a lot of people, both alive and dead, that I wish to talk to again. But I feel, at least for the ones who are still alive, that can't happen now. Too much time has past, so much has happened."
"I…don't think you're right," Aida stated, his face betraying sympathy. "There's me, there's Hikari. It may not be like when we were in school, but we're still here, and we're still your friends. There's even Shikinami. I'm sure you need to talk to us, you can.
"I know, but sometimes, it doesn't feel that way." The two sat in silence for a few minutes until Hikari announced that dinner was ready.
"Are you sure that he won't be a bother to you?" Hikari asked.
"No, it's okay," Shinji replied holding Ichiro. "I'm used to it."
"Shinji has been working at the daycare center on base," Aida said, holding a cup of after dinner coffee. "He's used to small children."
"I see," Hikari said, looking impressed. "Maybe I could have him babysit some days when Sakura is not here." At hearing her name, Ichiro began to squirm.
"I want to see Auntie," he said.
"I do too honey, but we have to wait until she comes back," Hikari stated. The boy got off Shinji's lap and ran over to his mother, laying his head on her lap.
"He's getting tired," she said. "Perhaps we should call it a night."
"Yeah, Shinji has school tomorrow and I have morning duty, so it's probably a good idea," Aida concurred, draining his cup. The three got up and headed towards the door.
"It was nice of you to have me," Shinji said.
"Well, it was a pleasure to have you," Hikari replied. "I hope to see you again real soon." When she closed the door, the two began to make their way out of the building.
"So…" Shinji began, trying to find the right words. "You have been visiting them often?"
"Ever since Toji died," he said. Why do you ask?"
"Well, it seemed to me that you and Hikari seem to have some…what's the word I'm looking for?"
"Rapport?"
"Maybe," he said. "You two definitely have something, at least."
"Well, Toji was my best friend," Aida stated. "I felt that it was only right that I should look after her and her son, help them with whatever they need."
"I see," Shinji said. "So you do care for her?"
"Of course," Aida replied. "It's more than just obligation. Over the years as I've gotten to know her better, I've started to care about her in her own right." Shinji stopped walking and looked at him.
"Is that the same as being in love?" This time Aida stopped in his tracks.
"I…don't know," he answered. "You know, I found out over the years that love is a very complex thing, nothing like the movies. I…really need to think about these things." He said those final words more to himself than to Shinji. The two continued their walk until Aida said they had to separate here for him to get to his place. When he split off, Shinji continued to walk, but also took out his phone.
"It's me," he said into it. "We're all done, but it might be a while before I come back.
"Why?" he heard Burke say through the speakers. "Are you going delinquent on me?" He half-joked.
"No," he replied stifling a chuckle. "I didn't eat much and I'm still a little hungry. I thought I would get some ice cream, if there's a place that is still open."
"That's okay," Burke said. "Just be back home in the next hour or so."
"Sure thing," Shinji told him before he hung up. He took a train to the third ring, and found that the place was within fifteen minutes of closing. After getting his cone, Shinji walked along the sidewalks, looking through the shop windows, and taking notice of the people who walked past him: an elderly gentleman out for a stroll, couples to took no notice of anything else except each other, even other kids his own age, whether they were alone or in groups. More than once, he saw girls giving him a wave or even winking at him, which made him blush. There was something about the atmosphere, he couldn't tell what it was, that seemed to make him serene, even content with his life at that moment. He finished his ice cream, and seeing the time, made his way to the station to take him home.
