NOTES:
Oh damn! I'm really sorry for taking so long to release this chapter, personal life and writer's block got in the way, anyway more at the end, enjoy, or at least try not to die of cringe poisoning
chapter 5: Nine While Nine
The door opened, opening a path into the apartment. The apartment itself wasn't empty, but despite that it was filled with an impenetrable silence.
Shinji stood outside of the threshold, just like he did when he first came to Tokyo III, hesitating to enter his home. Just like back then he was still questioning if he really belonged in that apartment.
He noticed Misato staring at him from the other side of the threshold with an unreadable look. He knew he couldn't stand there for long and that the inhabitants of the apartment had things to do.
He put his foot through the threshold and began his return to everyday life.
"Shinji"
His heart immediately started beating twice as fast as before. He heard a voice that he hasn't heard in a very long time, he was missing it for all that time, but now that he finally heard it again it gave him nothing but fear.
He turned around and ran out of the apartment, not having even seen the source of that voice, but he didn't need to, he knew who it belonged to. He ran as fast as he could, running without a direction or destination, just running ahead.
He ran away again, but the idea of facing Asuka again terrified him so much that even running away was better. It was what he was best at after all.
He ran for so long that his feet started to hurt and his legs started to shake. He sat on a bench in some old derelict park, covered in sweat on a surprisingly cold evening.
"I did it again, what happened to not running away?" he mumbled sarcastically while shifting on the bench trying to get more comfortable. Old decaying wood and rusted metal wasn't a very good thing to rest on, but it was better than nothing.
Asuka looked down at the floor, if she wasn't sitting down she would have been slumped down on the ground. She didn't know how he would react to seeing her after these two years, but she never anticipated the possibility of him running away like that.
"So he ran away? Typical stupid Shinji..."
"I guess we should have anticipated that outcome, he just got back to the world of the living and now he's being faced with someone who he never expected to see again" Misato interrupted Asuka's muttering
Asuka just gave Misato an empty look to which Misato continued
"H-he needs some time" Misato sighed
"So Asuka, please don't hold it against him, he'll come around"
Asuka understood what Misato said and took it to heart, but a little voice of dissent in the back of her head kept doubting, and spreading this doubt.
Misato was on her way out of the room, but hearing Asuka's voice made her stop and stand like stone pillar in the doorway
"Misato, I'm just scared that he won't react the same way like you and Kaji did, and that he won't accept me back into his life, I'm scared that he doesn't want me around, and that he won't forgive me for leaving without saying a word and..." Misato stood with a surprised expression as Asuka trailed off as her speech devolved into mumbling under her nose
Misato couldn't help but give a sad smile and reply "We can't know for sure if he will, but my gut says he'll come around and give you a chance, he only needs some time to think, and as you may know; my gut is always right"
They both chuckled as Misato finished
Maybe there was still some hope for a better tomorrow, maybe things will turn out alright in the end
"And it's passing strange, and I'm waiting for the train
Caught up on this line again"
The train station was unusually empty, despite being a train station in a giant metropolis such as Tokyo III it felt like a desolate wasteland, like some empty desert in a forgotten region of some small forgotten isolated failed state.
It was a surprisingly cold and windy day, small paper bags and such flew through the air like birds above the sea. The only thing piercing the silence was the sound of the wind itself.
Shinji stood on the platform, waiting for any train to stop, not bothering to check the schedule, he just stood and waited, the need to leave was the only thing on his mind. Internally he was kicking himself for not grabbing something warmer, but his decision of running away was made on a whim, he still wasn't ready to see her again after those two years.
The second impact caused a permanent summer, but recently some days were surprisingly becoming cold, almost as if the world was slowly becoming normal again, but no matter how much the earth itself healed, Tokyo III was permanently scarred, both structurally and in the common consciousness, five years have passed yet the place still had the subtle hint of a feeling similar to that of a war zone.
Even after all of this time has passed, death and misery still echoed through the city, forever tainted by the angel war of 2015. But most people simply did not care about it, they moved on, ignoring the lingering dread.
The emptiness and isolation of an empty train station gave Shinji time to reflect on many things, from his personal life to the city itself. He was starting to have doubts about leaving home, he was starting to consider going back home and simply facing things.
"I should go see them, they're probably worried, I owe them an apology. I can't keep running away forever, father had the guts to try to redeem himself, so I can't do worse than him."
His pep talk was interrupted by the sound of a train, immediately his cowardly side took over again and without thinking he entered the train.
He promised himself he will stop running away, he promised himself that he will come back home and make things right, just not yet.
"And it's passing slowlyKilling time
But it's better than living in what will come"
The train was empty, except for one person, Shinji didn't really look at them, without paying attention he just sat down and started staring through the window, getting lost in the sound of the train moving through the tracks.
He stared through the window at the blurry world outside, buildings and trees moved past in his vision, but he didn't care about them, they were nothing other than insignificant blurs. His mind was elsewhere; in the past, in the year of 2015.
The memories were so vivid they felt like material reality instead of mental projections. He stood on a rooftop, wind blew through his black hair and made his eyes squint. The LCL covering his body still hasn't dried yet, he was dripping orange liquid onto the roof. Before him sat Asuka, behind yellow emergency tape, but before the memory faded quickly. He was no longer there, he was suddenly transported to a different memory, a much more recent one.
He was reliving his memory of new year's eve 2016 to 2017.
He was on a balcony, alone with Asuka, they were at some official party and they were all dressed in full dress uniforms, some insincere party that was just a front for official business.
The memory came with a barrage of melancholy, he stood there looking at Asuka, just wanting to tell her how he truly felt, but he didn't have the courage to do that, so they just sat in silence on the balcony.
The knowledge that after that party their lives started becoming more chaotic and that moment was his last true opportunity to confess before she suddenly disappeared made the memory painful. Despite the pain he wasn't able to stop himself from mentally submerging himself in the memory and embracing it.
"Hey Shinji"
Shinji was immediately pulled out of his memories by a familiar voice, he turned around and looked at the person that the voice belonged to
"Kensuke?"
"Hey Shinji you look like you have seen a ghost! What are you doing over here in a train instead of your home?" Kensuke asked in an energetic tone of voice
Shinji looked down at his feet and mumbled quietly
"Asuka is there, I-I can't confront her yet, I'm scared I'll fuck up and that she will leave again, and I don't want her to leave again."
Kensuke looked at the troubled Shinji with an understanding expression
"She won't go again, I'm sure of it, you know, when you were in that coma she ran into me in front of the hospital, she was rushing to see you. I think YOU were her main reason for coming back here, there is no reason to fear that confrontation."
Shinji sat silently presumably thinking over everything that Kensuke just told him
"It's not that easy Kensuke, she'll berate me again and call me an idiot and..."
Shinji completely trailed off
"Don't worry about that, people change, and from how she acted when she ran into me I'm sure she's not the same aggressive volatile Asuka you remember."
Shinji looked at his feet and responded in a quiet voice
"I'll take your word, I hope you're right."
Katsuragi apartment
Asuka was putting on her shoes in a manor that suggested that she wasn't really sure about what she was going to do. Still wearing Shinji's old jacket and with a distracted expression on her face she turned towards the apartment door
"Where are you going?"
Asuka turned around as she heard a voice she didn't expect, Kaji's voice
"I'm going to look for Shinji…
I can't just sit around and wait for things to happen on their own, I have to find him!" she responded
"Well.. What are you going to do when you find him?"
"I don't know yet… We'll see what happens"
He was wandering through the city's streets aimlessly for hours. As the day slowly faded into the evening and the evening faded into the night, losing himself in the urban jungle, losing himself on purpose. The weak cold wind hit him as he stared at the highway from a bridge above, he was waiting for something to happen.
His phone rang
Caller ID: Rei
He answered the call
"Hey"
"Kensuke where are you?"
"I'm on a walk"
"You left 10 hours ago, please come back, I am worried"
"No need for that, I'll be back soon"
She ended the call
"Still awkward after all these years…" he mumbled
"Shinji's taking his sweet time,
but never mind that, I just hope he does what he has to and get's his happy ending" Kensuke kept mumbling as he left his post overlooking the highway and started heading home, as he made his way to his destination he slowly started feeling the exhaustion getting to him
The lonely journey through Tokyo III back to his apartment above a Balkan restaurant was a perfect time to think, and one topic kept nagging him because of his phone conversation that happened around ten minutes ago
"I've been with Rei for around… two years now… and we're still a bit awkward. I can't help but to feel like something's wrong because of it, I know why it's like that but I can't stop having this bad feeling deep inside where it keeps getting at me. I know she's slow at opening up and she still needs time to get used to having relationships, but I can't help but feel like this is somehow my fault and I'm doing something wrong… ah whatever! A good night's sleep should help me think, I'm too tired right now."
And so he continued his way journey home, he knew it would be a long one, many kilometres on foot, and through buses and trains. Kensuke was prepared for such a long way home, he knew it would take a long time when he left home, he didn't decide to go to the other side of the city without having that in mind.
The longer he travelled the more time it gave hime to reflect, both on his and Shinji's situation, things were looking hopeful for once
But now the thought that was the most important to him was just laying down and sleeping off the exhaustion, and seeing Rei, his Rei
"And I've still got some of your letters with me
And I thought sometimes
Or I read too much"
Walking through an empty hallway, dusk outside the window, thoughts of home creeping up
A disembodied voice speaks, it's voice sounds familiar
home
why?
why go home?
what waits for you at home?
peace
safety
but they're not alone
I know what you fear
what you fear the most waits for you at home, where you feel the safest
rejection, pain, and desire
you have to choose
you can have good, but also bad, or you can have nothing, you can just run away again
"No."
Hallway, that like the one in your old school, why do you think of your school? Do you long for the good times during which you used to attend it every day? Do you want to return to the days when you weren't empty?
You're silly, you were empty back then, you want something else
Safety and acceptance, you want safety and acceptance
But you still have to choose
You can't just keep on running away from the choice? Yes you can still run away but that choice would be final, you can still stop running and face them
You still have the choice to face home, to face what awaits you there
Although…
What happens to you has no more significance to the world, your fate no longer matters, but don't think this means you are nothing, you still have a life to take care of
You are no longer a pilot, you don't fight for humanity's survival anymore, but your struggle has not ended yet
You no longer have the means of imposing your will upon reality that were the EVA units, you are no longer a man-god who can take on armies and cities
On a bigger scale you are nothing, but your will still can be imposed, through different means and for different reasons, you are severely limited, but you can still make your personal life right
Go, impose your will upon reality, shape it, even if it's in the smallest ways
And so he opened his eyes, he feel asleep on the train, now he must make the choice, the final choice
EXIT NOTES:
Well, I hope this wasn't too bad, once again I apologise for not releasing anything for such a long time, and also for this chapter being shorter than usual. I read all of your reviews, sorry but I genuinely have no clue how this website works so I don't know how to respond. Most likely the next chapter will be the end of this story, after that I will make an entire chapter of author's notes to provide some insights and really bookend the abomination that is Some Kind of Stranger
