Hello again. Sorry for the slow update, but posts will be somewhat unpredictable because school is still an obstacle I have to deal with. I hope you all enjoy.

"om nom" - talking

'om nom' - thoughts

Genesis and Requiem

Chapter 2

Sunrise

I wake up to the song 'The Lightning' by Kyle Landry playing in my ears and the smell of something good cooking. I make my bleary eyes look down at the screen of my MP4 and find that it's about 6:00 a.m. I get up and walk out of my room and into the kitchen. I find Shinji already dressed for the day making bento and breakfast.

"Ohaiyo gozaimasu [1]," I croak out groggily.

"Tomoe, ohaiyo gozaimasu. I'm making breakfast still, so you have time to take a quick shower."

"Arigatou."

I quickly fetch my new uniform and make a bee line for the shower. I hop in after making sure the water is warm. The shower's warmth relieves me of my early morning muscle pain. I finish in about 7 minutes, 4 of which I used to comb my hair. I dry off and put on my uniform, pulling my hair back in a light blue headband, and place my glasses on my nose.

Then I notice something, the skirt goes to mid-thigh, way too short for my liking. I zip into my room and find a pair of my black jeans to replace my skirt with. I also remove the blue part of the uniform's top, leaving the white shirt and red bow and I change my blue headband to a red one. I slip on some socks and walk back into the kitchen. Shinji looks up from setting the table and starts to blush saying, "I'm not sure the school will allow you to change your uniform like that."

"I honestly don't care what the school wants, the skirt was a bit short for comfort," I respond as I glance at the table, breakfast consisted of rice, a little miso soup, toast, some steamed vegetables and a glass of orange juice.

"Breakfast looks good."

"I'm done with cooking and we have time to eat. It's about an hour and a half till school starts."

I glance at the clock and it reads 6:27 a.m.

"Misato still asleep?"

"Yeah, I usually leave breakfast on the table for her. Let's eat."

We both sit at the table and say "Itadakimasu" together quietly. Breakfast, although quite simple, is very flavorful and tasty. As soon as I finish I say, "Thank you for the meal, it was very good."

"It wasn't that great," Shinji responds sheepishly.

"Non-sense. Don't make yourself out to be less than you really are. I think your cooking is good."

Shinji looks up at me with a surprised expression. "You really think that?"

"I wouldn't lie about such a thing, so, yes I do think that."

"Arigatou," he says with a small smile.

"Come on and grab your stuff, we still have to go to school."

I look up at the clock. Right now it's 7:30. Shinji reappears from the hall with our bags and his SDAT player, handing me mine while opening the front door for me.

"Arigatou, Misato never mentioned you being such a gentleman."

He flushed a bright red stuttering out, "I-I'm not! I-i-it's just that…"

"No need to be so flustered silly. I think we're going to be great friends." I flash him a gentle smile before walking through the door.

"Come on, let's go Shinji."

"Hai."

He starts to follow me as I walk to the elevator. As the elevator begins its descent Shinji glances at me and accidentally meets my eyes. He mutters a quick "sorry" and averts his gaze to the elevator doors that soon enough open. As soon as we get to the sidewalk I say, "You lead, I don't know how to get to school."

He nods and turns right. We quickly come to a train station; apparently school is on the complete other side of Tokyo-3. I must have spaced out because we were entering the school campus without me remembering how we got here. My gut is a twisted knot of anxiety now. I vividly remember my middle school days of my previous life; they were nothing short of torturous. From the social life to the bad teachers, it was terrible. My emotions must have shown because I noticed Shinji looking at me with confusion evident on his face.

"This should be easy for you; after all, you went to college already."

"I know. It's just that I've never had peers my own age before."

Realization dawned on his face and then curiosity sparked in his eyes. "What were the adults at your college like?"

"My peers never bothered me unless we were assigned a group project. They were probably miffed that a little kid was learning stuff that took them years to even begin to understand. The teachers called me an 'adorable little prodigy' and treated me very kindly. It was a bit lonely; I never had anyone to really talk to."

Shinji had a strange look in his eyes as we walked down a hallway. We stopped in front of a room labeled 2-A.

"Misato enrolled you in the same class as me. Umm… If you need anything you can ask me or the class representative, Horaki Hikari."

"Arigatou, Shinji."

The bell rings as Shinji and I walk in. Shinji continues on to sit at a desk in the back with two boys I recognize as Touji Suzuhara and Kensuke Aida, while I stand just inside the classroom as everyone sits down. An old, weathered man, whom I presume to be the teacher, stands and says, "Today we have a new student," He looks towards me and says, "go ahead and write your name on the board, then introduce yourself."

I walk to the board and neatly write my name in kanji and then turn around to bow and introduce myself to the class. "My name is Tomoe 'Mydna' Kitajima. I'm vegan and compose music as well as play the piano in my free-time. I hope to have a good school year with you all."

"Now, Kitajima-chan, you can take a seat at any of the empty desks."

I glance around and quickly notice that there are more empty seats than I expected and that most of the guys are signaling for me to sit next to them. A boy wearing a tracksuit yells, "Hey new girl, you can sit over 'ere."

I notice he's sitting next to Shinji and a nerdy looking boy wearing glasses and holding a camera. I walk over and sit behind Shinji, next to the boy who yelled whom I know to be Touji Suzuhara. The nerdy boy I also know to be Kensuke Aida introduces himself and his friends, "Hi, I'm Kensuke Aida, the jock is Touji Suzuhara, and that guy is the pilot of the wonderful Evangelion Unit-01, Shinji Ikari, but from what he says you already know each other."

I find myself giggling at the overenthusiastic introduction and ask, as to feign not knowing, "Shinji-kun, are they your friends?"

"Yeah…"

A girl with dark hair pulled into pig tails stands and shouts, "Kiritsu [2], kyotsuke [3], rei [4], chakuseki [5]!"

Everyone sits back down on chakuseki and when the teacher greets them as usual everyone reciprocates. As the teacher begins the day's lesson, which is apparently a lecture on Second Impact, Touji inquires slyly in low voice as to not be caught, "So, how did ya and Shinji meet?"

I can tell he's looking for an opportunity to tease us and say, "I've known Misato Katsuragi for years and she invited me to live with her after my mother passed away."

"Oh... sorry," the jock says as he looks down guiltily.

"It's fine, you did nothing wrong."

"Doesn't it hurt though," Kensuke asks.

"I'm sad, but it was time for her to pass on. She would want me to be happy and move forward so I learned to let go and move on." It wasn't as hard to, considering I wasn't as emotionally attached to her as my previous mother.

Touji speaks up, "Dat takes some serous inna' strength; I can respect dat."

"So… what is there to do around here anyway," I ask, trying to change the topic.

Kensuke immediately lights up.

"Nothin' much other than arcade games and going to school, but you can make your own fun by pulling pranks and other stuff. We're going down to the arcade after school, wanna come?"

"Sounds like fun, I'll go."

We turn our attention to the old man who was now deep into his tangent about how Second Impact affected his grandfather and his cabbage stand.

Time Skip

(Lunch Bell Rings)

"Kiritsu, kyotsuke, rei!"

"You are dismissed. Hayase-kun, please show Kitajima-chan around campus," says the old man.

"Of course Sensei," replies a young male ravenette.

"Hey, Tomoe! Don't forget about the arcade afterschool," Touji yells as He, Kensuke and Shinji leave the classroom.

I yell back quickly, "I won't!"

"Now, Kitajima-san. Please let me give you a tour," the young man identified earlier as Hayase-san, "My name is Jiro Hayase; you can just call me Jiro."

"Then you can call me Tomoe, Jiro-san. Could we possibly start with the music room if you have one here."

"Of course, right this way Tomoe-chan."

I feel a sharp chill crawl up and down my spine and the hairs on the back of my neck rise at the way he said my name as he walks to the door. I follow him and we start walking down the hallway and up a set of stairs. Two doors down on the right is a room labeled 'Music Room'.

"You said you play the piano earlier; could you play for me," Jiro asks. I'm still getting bad vibes from him.

"I promised my flat-mate I'd play for him when my piano came."

"You have a boyfriend," he inquires quickly with a strange tone in his voice.

"Umm… no we're just friends."

"Good, I insist you play. We have a very nice baby-grand."

He drags me over to the piano, a Yamaha I notice, and sits me down in front of it. 'Fine, if he wants me to play, I'll play.' I begin to play 'Nyan Cat' at a rapid pace, taking a quick glance over my shoulder to gauge Jiro's reaction. He has a look on his face I can only compare to one of Anakin Skywalker's creepy faces that he made in the 'Star Wars III' movie that totally wasn't worth its PG-13 rating. As I finish the melody he says, "Very nice."

"Let's move on," I say, eager to leave his company. As soon as we finish the tour I utter a quick "arigatou" and do my best to get away from him. As soon as I'm sure I've lost Jiro I make my way up to the roof to eat the bento Shinji slipped into my bag this morning.

As I walk through the door I hear loud chatter. I look towards one of the benches and see Touji, Shinji and Kensuke. Touji's head perks up when he sees me.

"Hey, Tomoe! Come over 'ere and talk wid us."

As I walk towards them I say, "Hello."

"How was the tour," Shinji asks.

"Boring. That Jiro guy was creepy though," is my response.

"In what way," Kensuke asks.

"He appears as a bright red blip on the stalker-slash-rapist radar."

"Don'cha worry. If he does anythin' I'll sock 'im in the face for ya."

"Thanks Touji, but you'll have to be quick, because once Misato gets to him he'll be a goner."

"You and Misato are close," Shinji states in a questioning way.

"Yeah, she's been my friend my entire life. Misato was there when I was born."

"Eh, hontou[6]," Kensuke asks in a surprised tone.

"'round a beautiful goddess your entire life, wads it like?"

I look up from eating my bento, chopsticks in mouth, humming to make it seem like I was thinking.

"Don't get me wrong, she's nice and all, but, she's a slob and pretty scatter-brained when not at work."

Touji and Kensuke look surprised and in unison they look at Shinji and ask, "Is that true!?"

In an exasperated tone he replies, "Yeah, it is."

Then his gaze travels to me and Shinji asks, "Do you like the bento? I made sure that I didn't put any animal products in it."

I smile gently and say, "Aa, it's delicious. Arigatou."

He gives me a small smile back replying, "That's a relief. I was worried you wouldn't like it."

Touji gives him a look that says 'you're fuckin' weird'. "Why worry about dat stuff? It's a woman's job anyway."

"I like to cook," Shinji retorts.

"Sometimes I wonda if ya really a guy."

"Eeh!?"

I decide to intervene now, snidely saying, "You shouldn't question people's manhood Touji, it makes one wonder if you're actually a guy or just a bitchy teenage girl."

"So cruel…," Kensuke remarks.

"Wh-why you lil'…"

"I kid you."

"You're feisty for a new kid," Touji comments, still disgruntled from my previous statement.

"I take pride in the fact I'm strange."

Kensuke asks curiously, "Aren't you worried about fitting in with the other girls?"

"It's up to them to decide if they like me as me or not."

"You're weird," says Touji.

"That's because I'm Tomoe."

"So, are there any guys that catch your eye," Kensuke asks, genuinely interested.

Looking out across the landscape from our high vantage point, I reply, "If you mean love interests, not yet. I don't decide based on appearance or gender, but who the person is at heart."

"So weird, hmm… what about hobbies," asks Touji.

"I like to draw, write, play piano, compose music, listen to music, cook, read, watch anime, mess around with computers, play video games, and hang out with close friends and family."

(Bell Rings)

"We better get back to class," says Shinji.

"Yeah, we can continue after school," Kensuke states.

-Chapter End-

Raziel's Gossary of Japanese and Random Terms:

1) Ohaiyo Gozaimasu- It means good morning. This is the formal form, if you drop the gozaimasu it becomes informal.

2, 3, 4, and 5)Kiritsu, kyotsuke, rei, and chakuseki- Stand, sit, and bow is what this translates out to. It's traditional to use as greeting to one's teacher at the beginning of class.

6) Hontou- Truth, true.