I haven't done anything wrong!
"Asuka?" said the brown-haired premier pilot of NERV one night, as his red-haired roommate lay in the same bed as him causing him to shake and shiver in great fright with her mere presence.
"What is it, idiot?" she eventually deigned to reply after a few moments of tense silence.
"Why do you hate me so much?" Shinji quietly asked, ignoring the insult he had gotten so used to hearing now that it had just become a normal part of how he viewed himself on a day to day basis without complaint. "What did I ever do to you?"
The suddenness of this question seemed to genuinely shock the red haired German as her jaw dropped the slightest bit unseen by him since he was looking the other way, hoping that by doing so he would reduce the risk of being labelled "a creep" and given another kick to his face.
When she didn't initially answer, he steeled himself and continued his line of questioning. He sensed he had the advantage for once, and he was not about to let this one chance go to waste. He didn't know how much more of Asuka's abuse he could take before his skull cracked open and as much as he did want to just kill himself and end it all, the place that would put the other EVA pilots and the world that needed him and his pilot skills, kept him from wanting to die just yet.
He was no messiah, but he knew that as corrupt as the majority of the world had become after the first impact with everyone blaming each other left and right, that there existed innocent bystanders who had nothing to do with anything and did not deserve punishment for crimes they took no part in.
For every totalitarian government leader brutalizing their people in the most inhumane way possible, there existed a group of servants, forced labourers, people like Rei and Dr Akagi who were simply following the rules and unable to do anything else.
It was these thoughts which calmed him down each time he saw the edge of a balcony and readied himself to make a leap. It was these ideals which stopped him from reaching forward each time he was left alone in a room where there was a rope and a chair.
His meetings with Rei, had revealed to him that he was not alone in his misery and his search for some sort of companion in this bleak, uncaring planet.
He was not the only lost child whose life had amounted to nothing more than one humiliation conga after another no matter how hard he seemed to try.
And if nothing else, he wanted the world safe so that those other unfortunate souls, wherever they might be could find the friendship and happiness he knew he'd never find himself.
And he did not need a cracked skull to pilot effectively.
The nicest man in the world had a breaking point. His breaking point came today.
They say that an innocent man would break down angrier and angrier each hour with the injustice he suffered while a guilty man would become more quiet and passive.
And Shinji liked to think that after all he had gone through for the simple sake of making Asuka a little happier, he was at least partly innocent.
"Did something I do make you angry, Asuka? Or do you just like seeing other people in pain and sadness so that you can feel better about yourself? I need to know."
Asuka made no reply.
"I cooked your meals." Shinji insisted impatiently. "I tidied your room, I let you share my room when you felt lonely, I massaged you when your body was sore, and I sat at your bedside when you were sick.
And if that wasn't enough, I pilot an EVA even though I can't stand piloting just so I can keep you safe from harm. I mean, how many times have I had to save you by now when you nearly got yourself killed by an Angel? How many?"
"A lot…" Asuka uncontrollably blurted out, her brain and mouth not cooperating in that one second.
"Do you know how bad it is for me, Asuka?" Shinji demanded, getting angrier with every word completely uncharacteristic of the gentle introvert he was supposed to be. "Do you know how terrifying the prospect of being in one of those horrible machines which could malfunction and kill me dead at any moment in the most slow and painful way possible is? Do you realize how scary it is to then have to fight an even worse monster which wants nothing more than to eat me alive in said machine?"
"It's not easy for me either." Asuka could not help but admit, once again her rational thoughts giving way to instinct and humanity.
"Well at least for you when you come back from the battlefield, everyone is there to congratulate you and say" Here he broke into a deliberately bad imitation of Misato's voice. "Oh well done Asuka. Congratulations. You rule."
He reverted back to his own sad and broken voice.
"While all anyone does to me, is tell me I suck. They tell me I did nothing right, even when I did everything in a battle while all you did was sit there complaining. They tell me I nearly caused another impact even when I had just as little clue as anyone else that I was doing that, and no one even bothered to inform me of the risk because they didn't know either."
He turned to look his roommate straight in her now lightly trembling eyes as he raised his voice to a frightening extreme which could crack bones.
"So don't make that excuse, Asuka. Don't pretend the struggles we go through are equal. And even if we were equal, that doesn't give you the excuse to punch and kick me on a whim every time you're having an off day. It doesn't give you any right whatsoever to treat me like a pile of rubbish when I don't treat you that way. I don't insult you. I don't beat you up. I don't ask you to do my chores for me even when I'm still covered in injuries from an Angel attack and it hurts like hell just to get out of bed. So why would you do these mean things to me if you don't hate me?"
"B, but." Asuka tried to say only to be cut off mid sentence by a now hysterical Shinji.
"YOU KNOW I CAN'T PILOT WELL IF YOU KEEP INJURING ME AND YOU STILL DO IT! YOU ACCUSE ME OF BEING A BAD PILOT EVEN WHEN IT'S YOU'RE FAULT THAT I'M THAT WAY.
YOU ACCUSE ME OF NOT NOTICING YOUR AFFECTIONS EVEN THOUGHT IT'S ONLY BECAUSE YOU'VE SCARED ME HALF TO DEATH WITH HOW YOU CONSTANTLY BULLY ME AROUND LIKE I'M YOU'RE SLAVE."
He stopped briefly to catch his breath as he clutched his incredibly sore head which had been injured by the loudness at which he had been shouting, unaware of how truly afraid he had made his roommate with his outburst of righteous fury.
"You want to do the world a favour? Go back to Germany, where you belong." He ordered to a now almost crying Asuka, his voice softer but no less dangerous. "You might think you're some sort of saint Asuka. But the truth is, you probably did less damage when you were just a normal schoolgirl back in Germany."
"Shinji wait…" Asuka pleaded through a sob.
"Why? So you can keep insulting me and telling me how useless I am? So you can lecture me on how I'll never measure up to anything even when I'm literally the guy that picks up all your slack!?
Spare me your lies, Asuka and just leave me in peace. Leave me alone so I can wallow in the misery you've caused me in silence. At least do that."
He stood up with his back turned to her, knowing that if he took a look at her fake tears he would be fooled once more into thinking she had any feeling for him other than contempt.
"Everything I did. I did to make you proud. Every choice I made, I made to try and make you see how much you meant to me. I've tried Asuka, really, I've tried. But I can't keep trying. I can't keep taking punches to my face. I need to keep my skull intact for when I pilot my EVA and save my friends, my real friends who do actually give a damn about me and everything I go through. Like Rei and that new girl, Mari."
Asuka said nothing.
"And you can tell Misato that she's a terrible guardian for letting me take so many punches to the face without any sort of care in the world for me." He barked as he stepped closer to the doorway.
"If there's anything, absolutely anything bad you can think off that I've done to you to deserve a fraction of the abuse you've put me through, now's the time to tell me."
Asuka opened her mouth to insult him hotly, but terror took the sound before she could make it.
"I'm going to call child protective services." He said, with a sob of his own as tears blurred his vision unseen by her.
"I'm going to have you arrested for assaulting a minor. For harassing a desperate fool at the end of his pitiful rope, whose mum died and whose dad blames him for everything wrong in the world. Punch me now and you'll just give me one more incident to report."
"Wait, come back." Asuka tried to protest as she tried to move from the bed, but Shinji's cold, bleak stare of utter contempt and loneliness kept her paralyzed.
"Actions have consequences, Asuka. And now you're paying yours. You can try and convince me that you care. You can try and lie to me that I have actually made you proud and try to get me to believe your lies. But until you really can show me that you're not going to keep punching me in the face ,when I've done nothing wrong, this is goodbye."
And he resolutely turned away from the bully that had domestically abused him since the day she arrived in his life and shut the door behind him as he went to find a phone.
As he walked across the apartment floor, he could not help but feel that a great load had been lifted from his shoulders.
He was still an underpaid minor who was given pennies to risk his neck and his sanity while the higher-ups raked in the dough.
But at least he was now an underpaid minor without any bruises on his face to inhibit his performance in each battle.
Maybe he had been a little too harsh on Asuka after all. Maybe her own tragic past should have warranted her more sympathy points from him.
But he still knew deep inside of him, that not having to worry about being punched in the face every day he came back from his deeply unpleasant job was more than worth what he had done.
It probably is just played for laughs in the series. But the biggest problem I always had with Asuka's character isn't her rough mannerisms or her brooding over her past. It's the fact she thinks it's a good idea to constantly beat the guy who basically saved her life several times over by now, and who does all her chores everyday while she lazes about. And this is one aspect that I know the show is never, ever going to improve in. The show is never going to acknowledge that what Asuka did was wrong and that she should be thanking the guy who saved her life several times over instead of insulting him.
Not even Rebuild of Evangelion Asuka ever thanked Shinji. Rebuild of Evangelion, indeed.
Even Gendo and Misato occasionally gave Shinji a small congratulations if he did well.
Watch the entire series and you'll see that in spite of saving Asuka's life almost every few episodes, the number of times Asuka has ever given Shinji any kind of thank you, is zero. Absolutely zero.
And since Asuka has had a childhood of being ignored by her parents, she should know exactly how Shinji feels. So at least in my opinion, its her fault that Shinji didn't save the world and her fault that Shinji doesn't pilot as well as he could.
How could you pilot if you had a broken skull?