'Unspoken thoughts'

"Spoken dialogue"

[A Sunday, early afternoon]

I don't own NGE. Gainax, Sadamoto, and Anno do. I'm just playing in their sandbox. Please don't sue.

~-~-~

"Knock my socks off, third."

"What?" Asuka walked into the apartment just as he was getting out his cello. Misato had left for her office earlier that morning, muttering darkly about damage reports and paperwork. Asuka had left shortly after, without bothering to say why, or when she would return.

"I mean, I want to hear what you can do when you go all-out . . . when you just do your damndest." Her attitude was challenging.

"I'm not really that good, Asuka." But because he had been planning to practice anyway, and he really didn't feel like being on the receiving end when Asuka didn't get what she wanted, he placed the sheet music on the stand, tuned up, added a bit of rosin to the bow, and worked at playing what was written.

"No. No!" She interrupted before he finished the first line. 'I've heard him playing when he thought there wasn't anyone else around. And it -was- good. He wasn't worried about mistakes, or other people's opinions. I don't know if he plays like that for himself, for someone else, for the music, for where it takes him, or what. What he was playing that other time must have meant something to him.'

"I heard you playing another time when you probably didn't know I was listening. Unless I'm totally mistaken, and I never am, you weren't playing from some music that was sitting on the stand in front of you. It might have been there, but you weren't really reading it. Play -that- way. It sounds completely different when you're reading the music."

"What do you mean?" He knew he sometimes just played what came to him. He didn't think of it as a composition, a piece of music. . . and he didn't think it was anything special. Really, all he did was kind of let his hands do what they wanted.

'You and that cello . . . were having a conversation . . . an -intimate- conversation. No, that's not quite it. OK . . . maybe it was like you were out in the middle of a desert or on a mountain top, or in a big cave . . . and there's no one around at all . . . not for miles. And you used the cello to say whatever you wanted, what you never say when anyone's around. You weren't worried that it would sound foolish or embarrassing. You whispered, you yelled, you raged, you cried . . . using that cello, you did that. You described a beautiful vision, you were wistful and longing. You bled out your misery.'

The conversation was making Shinji really uncomfortable. This was Asuka. There wasn't anything about him that she liked . . . well, that she ever -said- she liked. "Why do you think I could do that if I knew you could hear?"

"Damnit! I've had a bad day in a bad week! I'm in a bad mood! I'll probably -damage- something, or someone, if I can't get some distraction pretty soon. Do you want that?!"

"No." He'd gotten samples of that damage on other occasions, and he wasn't in a hurry to get more. "But I'm not sure I can do what you want . . . at least not while you're glar- uh, looking at me like that. I'll do the best I can. But I only play that way when I feel like no one can hear. So if you could try to be quiet and be where I can't see you, it might help. I usually practice from sheet music first. It gets me focused or something. After that, maybe I can play that other way."

Asuka nodded, looking part angry, and part sad. Shinji wondered what had put her into such a state. 'Asking her would just be . . . asking for it.' The play on words made him grin briefly, and Asuka caught it.

"What's with that smirk?!"

Her expression told him he should tread very carefully. "Uh, I wasn't smirking. I guess I just smiled at the thought that you've never asked me to play for you before. Usually you just ignore me when I practice."

Asuka 'hmmph'ed and headed for the kitchen in search of something to drink. So taking the bow in hand he began with an easy piece for a warm-up, one he had long ago memorized. Then he touched up the tuning again and started on the piece sitting on the stand in front of him. He heard Asuka in the background as she stomped her way from the kitchen to her room, distantly aware that she had left her door open.

This was one that had always given him trouble in some passages. Here and there, the fingering was tricky; causing him to either make mistakes or slow way down so that he could get through without error. It demanded his total attention as he stubbornly tried to get it right. The last two pages were a kind of reward for hard work. He found it beautiful and inspiring. And either it was not as difficult as the first three pages, or he managed to play it better because he liked it so much.

Asuka wasn't the only one who had been having a hard time. He did use the cello to vent. All the sad, happy, intense, terrifying, and enraging experiences he had in his life found their way out of his soul through the cello. The loss of his mother and his father abandoning him had long eaten away at him. They became background for everything that had happened since he had come to Tokyo-3. The mind-numbing terror and pain he experienced in the "angel" battles, the mystery of Ayanami and the confused feelings interactions with Asuka always produced . . . they had to have an outlet somehow. He had finally made friends at school. And despite all the embarrassing behavior and teasing from Misato, for the first time in his life, he felt a sense of belonging, of acceptance, even of family.

It happened. When he got to the end of the sheet music, he just kept playing, not seeing anything but what was in his mind, not feeling the weight of his instrument or the pressure of his fingers against the strings. The sounds he heard were mostly from his memories, his playing only providing a background score to match his visions and the emotions they evoked. He was not aware of time passing. He was not aware that he smiled or cried. The tears were ignored as they slowly seeped from his eyes and ran down his face to fall from his chin. It was a miracle that his storms of rage and frustration did not break the cello's strings. He glanced at what might be his future, and his music was dark, the bow's strokes grated against the strings and moaned his fear and despair in the lowest, murkiest sounds the instrument could produce. He saw bright sapphire blue eyes and he saw blood red eyes of unknowable depth regarding him, piercing him. And he played his wistfulness and longing, his uncertainty and his confusion, his desire and his hope.

When he became aware of his surroundings again, the afternoon sun had descended to the horizon, bathing the apartment in fading red and orange light. The muscles in his back and arms ached. The fingers of his left hand were cramping, the tips raw. His eyes stung.

Slowly and carefully, for he did not trust his strength or reflexes, he put away the cello and its bow. He wondered if his mother had experienced something similar when she had owned the instrument.

Prompted by the grumblings of an empty stomach, he recalled that he had skipped lunch, figuring he would eat after he practiced. A quick, giddy chuckle escaped him at the thought and emphasized the otherwise unbroken quiet in the apartment. He lurched unsteadily to his feet and made his way slowly down the hall to the doorway of Asuka's room. Enough of the ruddy light found its way here to reveal that she had fallen asleep in her clothes, the wetness of spent tears gleaming on her cheeks and in her eyelashes.

'Does she have things in her life that are as bad as mine?' He dismissed the thought with a shake of his head. 'If she wanted me to know, she'd tell me. If I ask, she'll just get angry.'

His hunger became more insistent, so he turned away and headed for the kitchen. Instinctively, he sought the ingredients of what some would call "comfort food" and began to prepare dinner, enough for two in expectation that Asuka might awaken hungry and therefore, cranky.

The muted sounds of Shinji's activities only began to penetrate the redhead's slumber. The aroma of some of her favorite foods did a better job at bringing her to wakefulness. At first she couldn't remember falling asleep or what had come before. She felt spent, lethargic, empty. Empty. Hungry! She was starved! She pushed herself up into a sitting position and rubbed her eyes. 'Was I crying? I guess so. My pillow's wet.' But it wasn't the usual dark dregs of one of her nightmares she felt; somehow it was more like how she would feel if she'd poured out her troubles to a close friend and they'd had a good cry over it all together. 'Shinji? No. Never in a million years.' She would never let him know those things. Still, she felt as if she had let it all out. There was relief from the pressure and the dread. Things were not any better in reality, but for some reason she felt that she had regained some of the strength she needed to face it all again.

She got up and stumbled to the bathroom, urged by a familiar feeling. Glancing in the mirror as she washed up, she thought 'What a wreck!'

Still too wiped out to do more than wash her face and run a brush through her hair, she called it good for the moment and followed her nose to the kitchen to find out what Baka had made her to eat. 'There is something to be said for having a domesticated male around.'

Shinji heard her come into the kitchen as he was dishing up the food onto a couple of plates. Asuka plopped down on her chair and glanced at Shinji, briefly meeting his eyes.

"Hungry?"

"Starved. You're lucky you had something prepared for me or you would have regretted it."

Her answer was vintage Asuka, and he recognized the bit of humor she hid behind a false scowl. "Then eat up. I hope you like it."

They attacked their plates with quiet enthusiasm, and little was said as the food disappeared. All the while, one or the other would glance up at the person across from them, and would quickly look back down at the food if they were caught. As hunger was dealt with, some of the higher mental functions gradually came back in play.

"Thank you, Baka."

Shinji's chopsticks froze part way to his mouth and he looked up at her again, only to see the top of her head and the bit of her face not shadowed by the golden-red hair hanging in front of her eyes.

"Uh, you're welcome, Asuka." The chopsticks finished their journey and he contemplated the possible meanings of her brief utterance as he absent mindedly chewed and swallowed.

"The food is OK, too."

He looked up again and found her looking intently at him this time, her eyes expressing something that he couldn't quite make out.

"You look like hell."

He almost answered with what was in his mind at the moment. 'And you are so beautiful it takes my breath away.' It was what he always thought when he saw her face. True, her eyes were still a bit red, and the side of her face still held marks from being pressed into a wrinkled pillow, but none of that really made her less beautiful in his eyes. Instead, he just nodded his acknowledgement of her comment.