Capillary Expansion

Shinji sat down slowly at his desk at school. There was something that had seemed important to remember about today. What was it? His gaze flicked around the room as he tried to remember. The huge room seemed even emptier without having the full capacity of students. A movie, Shinji thought to himself as he noted the addition of a TV in the room, they were watching a movie today. He let his gaze continue to drift around the room until it came to the window. A view of the other side of the school building and a concrete walkway with a few sparse tufts of grass were the only things which could be seen. Why was Rei always looking out there when there was nothing to see?

He shook his head as he readjusted the ear pieces of his music player. There was no way he was ever going to figure out what was going through Rei's mind, much less anyone else's mind. As he took his books out of his bag and turned off his music, the room suddenly seemed to shrink in size as Asuka bounded inside. She regally took in the room then pointedly sat at a desk as far away from Shinji as she could possibly be. Shinji shut his eyes in irritation. It had been one of those crazy mornings. Asuka had stayed up late last night and did not want to get up for school this morning. Only after Misato had yelled at her door three times had she gotten up, and then she took her loss of sleep out on the rest of them.

Misato had recommended that Asuka go to bed earlier, but all this had done was cause an argument which increased in volume until Shinji had walked into the kitchen. He had gone to the kitchen to eat his toast, but decided to take it with him when Asuka started complaining that he was breathing too loudly. When he asked what he was supposed to do about that and she suggested that he stop breathing, he knew it was time to leave.

At least they were watching a movie; that would make the day go by faster. With difficulty he pulled himself out of his thoughts in time to hear the teacher tell everyone to move to the front of the room. Rei silently sat in the desk to the left of him and Asuka nosily pulled out the chair to the right of him. He started to scoot his chair incrementally closer to Rei so that Asuka would be further away from him, when he felt Toji's heavy hand on his shoulder. Shinji turned around to see the twin grins of Toji and Kensuke.

"Be sure to pay attention Shinji" Toji said as someone turned the lights out.

Shinji gave him a puzzled look before he turned around. He had not heard the title of the movie, but he understood their grins when the movie started. He groaned inwardly when he realized the movie was about human development. These movies always made him uncomfortable. Shinji eyed Asuka and scooted another inch closer to Rei. He had the feeling that by the time the movie was over Asuka was going to give him several large bruises.

He was right about the bruises. Not even ten minutes into the movie, Asuka stamped on his foot. He bit back a yell and pulled his injured foot out of her reach. "What was that for?" he muttered. She did not even answer just glared at him.

When diagrams appeared on the screen he started to feel his face heating up. Rather than look at the screen or Asuka, he turned towards Rei thinking that she would be looking out of the window like she always did. Unfortunately, Rei happened to be looking his way and their gazes met. The narrator in the movie mentioned something about becoming a mother and Shinji blushed harder as he remembered the rather thoughtless comment he had made to Rei the other day about her acting like a mother. Rei seemed to have remembered the same thing as a delicate pink spread across her pale face. They looked away from each other and Shinji turned his attention back to the screen to see if the diagrams were gone yet. They were not gone.

Instead they had gotten more detailed. Asuka gave her silent disapproval of his attention to the screen by throwing an eraser at him. After automatically picking it up and handing it back to her, he realized that it was best not to provide her with more ammunition after the eraser hit him a second time.

After the eraser attack, he decided it would be best if he only looked straight ahead at the screen. This worked until the video ended and the lights were turned back on. His face had not lost its red hue and unfortunately those around him seemed to think his blushing was for a reason other than embarrassment. The two behind him asked him if he had enjoyed the movie, but before he could reply Asuka stepped on his other foot. He was saved from having to respond to either of them when the bell rang for the end of the first class.

At least, he thought to himself, neither of the other two pilots were in his next class. Before he had taken more than five steps out of the door, Rei caught his arm and asked him where he was going. He pointed down the hallway in the direction of his next class, but she silently took him the other direction as Asuka stamped along behind them.

Oh yes, he thought resignedly. Another sync test today. Probably the one with the simulation bodies. Nothing could go wrong with this test. It's not like an angel could infect the computers or something like that. Right?