The sound of Ritsuko's laughter was so raucous that Shinji dashed over to the cubicle, Rei in tow, and drew the curtain aside in a panic. Asuka shrieked, covering herself, but the scream that left Shinji's mouth was ear-splitting. He ran into the dressing chamber, spun around, and spread his legs and arms wide apart.

"Don't look!" he screamed shrilly.

"You got it," Ritsuko teased, drawing the curtain closed. Before it shut, Shinji could see Rei's complexion red with embarrassment.

Shinji spun around. "How could you do that to me?!" he shouted.

"It's not like I wanted to give you a stiffy!" Asuka roared back. "It just happened! I don't know how! How do you make this go away?"

Shinji looked at the tent in the fabric of his old plug suit, then back to Asuka, horrified. "Okay, think about something you hate. Like Rei or something. Or me. Close your eyes and think about me!"

Asuka's cheeks burned. "Well why in the hell would I want to do that! Like that would really work!"

"Well pick anything! A bad memory! A hospital."

The last words Shinji spoke chilled Asuka to the bone, sending chills down her spine. Why had he said hospital? Was it just coincidence, or did Shinji somehow know about what had happened with her mother? She started to panic, wondering what that would mean. She'd have to know if he knew, but how could she find out without being obtrusive about it in the case that he didn't?

"It looks like it's working!" Shinji exclaimed hopefully.

"Shut up you idiot!" Asuka boomed. "Get out of here! I don't want to see your stupid face!"

Shinji looked as if she'd given him another fist to the face. "What?"

"Get out!" Asuka repeated, her voice breaking.

"But… it's not my face you're even looking at!" the third child stammered.

"Get out!" the German hissed, her eyes consumed with hatred. Shinji abandoned his inquiry, and left the changing room.

"She's really pissed," he said. "It must have been something I said."

"Miss Sohryu is not agreeable in the morning," Rei observed cooly.

Ritsuko was still giggling. "Hey, uh, Shinji. What did you tell her to do exactly?"

Shinji shot Ritsuko the trademark Asuka stare. Ritsuko arched an eyebrow. "Forget I asked."

The synch tests were a disaster. Both pilots were testy, and the MAGI barely recorded any readings from the EVAs at all. Shinji felt a slight annoyance at having to sit in Asuka's EVA, and he just wanted the tests to end so he could put as much distance between himself and Asuka as he could. All of her hostility was giving him another headache.

In Shinji's EVA, Asuka's was rambling on and on, each one of her words drenched in syrupy scorn. "I'll teach that Precambrian aardvark never to tell me what to do again! Who the hell does he think he is anyway? Who died and made that loser King of the Castle? What a pervert! Even spying on me when I'm in his body!"

"Ok, take a break, we're cutting this session short early," Misato called irritably over the intercom. There was a hydraulic hiss, and the humming of the EVAs begun to wan.

"Can I go now?" Shinji asked Ritsuko.

"Yeah," she said hopelessly.

Asuka walked past them both and left without a word, slamming the door behind her. Shinji scowled and marched off in the other direction. A moment later Misato emerged.

"Okay what's wrong?" she asked Ritsuko, crossing her arms across her chest.

"Well if I had to venture a guess I would say that the emotional states of the pilots—"

"In English, Rit," Misato cut in brusquely.

"They're angry," she stated flatly.

"Why? At what?"

"I don't have a clue, I thought maybe you would know."

"Well I don't," Misato said with ire. "And we don't have time for this childish shit. Command is gonna have my ass."

"Haven't they already?" Ritsuko retorted angrily.

Misato shot the scientist an icy glare. "You're not a real saint yourself!" She growled something ambiguous, spun on her heel and stomped off.

"What's wrong with everybody today?" Ritsuko grimaced.

---

Gendo leaned forward in his seat. "I want your real impressions. Undigested information. Not this shit," he gestured down to the documents on his desk.

Kaji rubbed the five o'clock shadow on his chin as he sat on the corner of the desk. "Well, the MAGI really don't know anything, so we're safe there. There's no data trail."

"Something I don't know, please."

The NERV informant shifted playfully on the desk. "There's a perspective…popular with SELEE, you might say…that we're secretly manipulating A.T. fields."

Gendo leaned forward, his glasses flashing. "What do they base this on?"

"There's a mole in the upper echelons," Kaji noted. "And they've been doing their own reconnaissance. Their satellite imaging technology budget was just awarded another ten million dollar grant."

"I don't have to remind you how precarious your situation is," Gendo said darkly.

"Yes, yes," replied Kaji dismissively.

"Men in your position have gotten lost in that darkness and never come out," the senior commander of NERV continued.

"I've seen it all," he said confidently.

"Yes, I'm sure," Gendo grunted. "But a man with no apparent desires is a man who can't be trusted."

"You can't trust anyone in this business, that's for sure," the other replied distantly.

"So what are you telling them?"

"The usual. Everything is black-ops. It'll take time. Can't confirm or deny."

"I want you tell to them we are experimenting with artificial A.T. fields."

Kaji raised an eyebrow. "Say again?"

"Tell them we're running programs with A.T. field manipulation."

"Why?"

"Don't ask questions."

"I just don't see how that would be advantageous to you right now," Kaji remarked. "I hear UNESCO and the IAEA are crawling up your ass and turning heads in Geneva. You sure you want SELEE planting weeds in your vegetable garden too?"

"Let me worry about the gardening," Gendo replied. "We here at NERV have a green thumb. You just do your part."

"And when shit hits the fan, who's your fall guy?"

Gendo reclined back in his chair and folded his hands. "Do your job right."

Kaji walked out of Gendo's office, turning things over in his mind. Was Gendo serious about an A.T. field manipulation program? If so, how did he not know? He knew almost everything that happened within NERV's twisted corridors. Misato hadn't told him any secrets, even after he'd gotten her drunk and slept with her, so clearly even she didn't know. This was top shelf stuff. And he'd have to find out just what skeletons were hidden in NERV's closets.

And speak of the devil, there was Misato now marching towards him with a furious look on his face. She accosted him, "What are you doing here?"

"Checking up on Gendo's little A.T. field experiment," he said airily, then strode off, whistling the theme to the Twilight Zone.

"What are you talking about? A.T. field experiments? Hey come back here!"

But her words were wasted, and she scowled and walked to Gendo's office.

"What's going on here?" she demanded of the senior Ikari.

Gendo raised his hand. "This display of rude subordination is most displeasing."

"I don't care, and I think what you're putting these kids through is just sick!"

"Fine. You've just been reassigned."

Misato's jaw dropped, then snapped shut. "No, you explain yourself to me! What's the big idea, running all these tests on the kids immediately after such a disaster!"

"I wouldn't say it's been a disaster."

Misato stared at Gendo's lifeless stare. Rei's stare. "What's this I hear about A.T. field experiments?"

The senior commander winced, almost imperceptibly. The whiskers on his chin bristled. "That is none of your concern, Major Katsuragi, and I suggest you forget it unless you plan to tender your resignation."

Misato just glared at Gendo. "You couldn't fire me. My father's name carries too much weight."

"People have forgotten your father's name," Gendo said, giving her an acerbic tongue-lashing. The lines around Misato's eyes tightened and she made a fist.

"You're an asshole," she said bitterly, before leaving the room in tears.

---

Ritsuko walked outside into the sunlight and spotted Asuka in Shinji's body leaning against the rail, the wind whipping his hair. Her lab coat fluttered in the wind.

"Asuka, what's wrong?" she asked?

"Go away," she said, miserably.

"You and Shinji seem pretty angry at each other. What's going on?"

"Would you please just get off my case? God, why is everybody so god damned nosy!"

"Hey, don't cop a tude with me, miss Sohryu," Ritsuko admonished the second child. "All three of you seem ornery and I've a right to know what's going on!"

"What's going on?" Asuka cried. "Look at me! I'm Shinji! How would you feel?!"

Ritsuko nodded. "So adjusting is even difficult for the great Asuka Langley Sohryu."

"I didn't say that!" the second child spat back.

"It bothers you that he's in your body."

"Of course!"

"And it bothers him that you're in his."

"Probably."

"Then you both feel the same way, so you have something in common."

Asuka shook her head. "I've got nothing in common with that geek."

"You both pilot EVAs," Ritsuko countered.

"What's the point? I sucked at the synch test. Okay. Great. Happy? The great Asuka did badly. And Shinji probably passed with flying colors as usual!"

"Actually you did better than he did, but that's not saying much."

"Really?" wondered Asuka. Had she really gotten to him that much?

"Yeah… well also, you did clock* him one in the face yesterday. He could be resentful."

Asuka pouted. "Shinji doesn't feel resentment. He's like Rei; he doesn't feel anything at all."

"If he didn't feel anything he wouldn't be so pissed off at you right now," Ritsuko persisted.

"Stop being such a scientist!" Asuka shot back. The wind howled between them.

"He's really trying to adjust and you keep putting him down and being so hard on him. What's wrong with you?"

What's wrong with you?

The words of her father to her mother echoed in her mind. The memory was so discomforting she had to steady herself with the handrail.

"Nothing's wrong with me!" Asuka blurted. "It's you! And I'll prove it to you! I'll go back in there and do awesome on those stupid synch ratio tests!"

Without another word, Asuka stomped off back toward the building. Ritsuko sighed, exasperatingly.

The second round of synch tests was a dramatic improvement from the first. Asuka and Shinji were almost dead even, the second child taking the third by only a few points. Asuka emerged triumphant to find Shinji talking quietly with Rei, and she pretended not to notice. She put her hands on Shinji's hips and beamed at Ritsuko.

"So how'd I do? Great, right?"

Ritsuko nodded begrudging, eliciting a bubbly and odd-sounding giggle from Shinji's vocals. This caused Shinji to turn his head in wonder at the sound he'd just heard. Asuka looked from Shinji to Ritsuko sheepishly.

"What?"

Shinji shook his head and concluded his conversation with Rei, who walked off in the opposite direction. She gloated as Shinji approached. "Well that's certainly a new record lately," Asuka bragged once the third child was safely within earshot.

"Congratulations, Asuka," Shinji said. "You really got things together."

"Damn right I did," the German beamed. She basked Shinji in the annihilating glow of her self-righteousness. "Did you expect anything less from the most brilliant of the EVA pilots?"

"You did have us worried there for a bit," he remarked matter-of-factly.

"Worried?" She looked quickly at Ritsuko, who blinked innocently. "Why the hell would you be worried?"

"Well for one, you're in my body," Shinji reminded Asuka. "And secondly, you're my roommate. And my friend."

Asuka started to open her mouth and produce a comeback, but she cut herself off. What in the hell had Shinji just said? My friend? Who the hell did this pompous windbag think he was, deciding he was worthy enough to be a friend of hers? Just as she was about to take him down a notch, the door to the EVA hanger opened and Misato stampeded over to the gathering.

"Ritsuko, you and I need to talk. Now."

The scientist shrugged and looked at Shinji and Asuka. "I'll leave you two at it," she concluded, then followed Misato back the way she'd came. Shinji looked at the German. It was still so strange to look at himself, he thought.

"What should we do?" he said awkwardly.

"Like I have any idea," the second child said rudely, crossing Shinji's arms across his chest. "Why do I always have to come up with the plan?"

"Well, if you'd like, maybe we could go rent videos or something. I'm sick of being indoors at NERV lately."

Asuka sighed exasperatedly. She didn't want to acquiesce to Shinji's idea, but denying it would be an obvious manifestation of her obstinacy. After weighing taking Shinji's suggestion against protecting her pride, Asuka decided on the videos. "But I'm picking out the flicks," she told Shinji.

"That's fine," he agreed willingly with a smile. A smile that was hauntingly genuine.

---

Asuka claimed the couch, as usual, and Shinji sat on a pillow, cross-legged, hunched forward watching the television in earnest. Asuka had chosen one kung-fu movie although she really detested action flicks—she guessed it would at least hold the attention of a primate like Shinji—and one sappy romance flick. After about ten minutes of watching Jackie Chan doing impossible stunts, both of them agreed to give the other film a shot. And here Shinji sat, entranced, really getting into it. A romance film. God, Asuka thought to herself moodily, he's so unmanly! But, he was in her body, after all. Was he just trying to act in character? Was he just pretending to like the movie for her benefit? When she could bear the torment of these unanswered questions no longer, she spoke up.

"Do you actually like this movie?" Asuka muttered.

"Yeah," Shinji nodded absently. "It's good. Good acting and stuff. And the plot's pretty good I guess too."

"I think it's boring," she said.

"We could do something else," the third child suggested amiably.

"No, whatever, it's fine."

"If you really don't like it—" Shinji started, but Asuka cut him off sharply.

"I said it's fine," the German girl moaned. "Just shut up and watch the movie."

Asuka couldn't help but reflect upon the conversation she'd had with Ritsuko earlier that day. You have something in common, she'd said. Asuka had denied it of course, but the scientist was right at usual. Both of them were struggling to adjust. Shinji was trying. Really trying. Suddenly for no reason at all, she felt an overwhelming lust to be close to him. The problem was, of course, that she was him.

"Um, Shinji?"

"Yeah?" the third child said, looking over his shoulder. He laughed.

"What?" Asuka blurted nervously.

"It's still pretty weird looking at myself," Shinji admitted.

"Yeah, well don't get used to it, dimwit," the German retorted. "Hey, are there any leftovers from whatever you made last night?"

"No, Misato finished it off. I could go see if there's anything in the fridge to cook."

"Yeah, fine, I guess," the other replied begrudgingly, feeling Shinji's stomach groaning with hunger. "Do you normally get hungry a lot?"

Shinji nodded. "Yeah. I have a pretty high metabolism I guess. Sorry."

"I thought I told you to stop apologizing!"

"I'm really trying," said Shinji earnestly.

Asuka sighed in annoyance. "What's in Misato's fridge?"

Shinji stopped the movie, got up, and padded into the kitchen. Asuka watched her own hips sway rather femininely as he moved. It caused her to blush, and she shook Shinji's head back and forth, disgusted with herself.

"Not much in here but beer and microwaveable dinners," Shinji frowned. "How does that woman live like this?"

"Who knows?" Asuka replied. "She's really a hopeless case."

"We all have our vices," Shinji informed her.

"Not me," she declared proudly. "Hey, how many beers does she have in there?"

"Um, about five or six. Why?"

Asuka smirked. "Bring 'em out. Let's get wasted."

"Wh-what?" Shinji stammered, turning red in the face.

"You heard me. Let's get hammered drunk."

"Why?"

"You don't need a reason to drink, you just do it," Asuka educated the third child on the ethics of drinking. "C'mon, bring 'em over here. This is what you do when things suck. Drink."

"Misato will get angry if we drink her beer," said the third child.

"She won't be angry with you, Shinji, so what are you worrying about? It's me who will have to deal with her shit."

Remembering that arguing with Asuka Langley Sohryu was a futile enterprise, Shinji breathed heavily and carried the beers from the fridge to the living room. "What now?" he asked, clueless.

Asuka snatched one of the beers and popped the can open and started guzzling.

"Hey, take it easy!" Shinji moaned. "That's my body you're putting that into!"

"Right, and you'd better start putting some of that in mine too," the German warned him. "If I stay sober for too long, I might hit you again."

Shinji acquiesced to the girl's demands, and started sipping one of the beers gingerly. Asuka glared at him.

"What the hell are you doing?"

"Drinking the beer like you told me to," he replied.

"That's not drinking," the other scowled irritably. "Here, like this." She finished the remaining half of her beer in one chug, coughed a few times, then wiped her mouth and grinned. She stared at Shinji, her eyes glowing. "And that is how it's done."

Shinji nodded nervously, and tried to repeat Asuka's demonstration, but could only manage three gulps before he brought the beer away from his lips and started to cough and hack. The German grinned. "Figures," she asserted. "I've even got you beat in drinking beer."

As time went by, both of them grew increasingly inebriated. After only two beers, Asuka became a rip-roaring drunk and suggested they play a game of Truth or Dare.** Shinji, who had loosened up considerably after his first beer, agreed.

"Truth or dare?" Asuka said.

"Dare," Shinji replied.

Asuka thought for a moment before an enormous grin arrested her face. "Undress me," she stated flatly.

The look of shock on Shinji's face was priceless. "Wh…what?!"

"What are you deaf as well as dumb? I said undress me, third child!"

Shinji shook his head, his cheeks glowing partly from the beer and partly from humiliation as he recalled the unfortunate incident in the changing rooms earlier that day.

"No way! I'm not going to do that!"

"Shinji, it'll be just like undressing yourself. What's the big deal?"

"I… I just can't! It's weird!"

"Fine, then I'll do it myself," Asuka replied curtly, beginning to unfasten the buttons of Shinji's shirt. The third child just watched in horror.

"What are you doing?!" he said shrilly.

"Undressing. If we're playing drinking games, we gotta be more comfortable than this, dorkwad."

"Fine!" Shinji howled, defeated. "I'll do it!"

Both of their hearts were thundering in their chests as Shinji unbuttoned his own shirt, revealing his plain white tank top beneath. He breathed a sigh of relief that was immediately cut short when Asuka added, "And the pants."

"What? Why?"

"Shinji, really, are you a man or a woman? I can't tell sometimes."

Angrily, Shinji leaned forward. His hot breath, Asuka's breath, tainted with alcohol, tickled her skin. Goose bumps rose along the back of her neck. His trembling hands sought the button on his trousers. Suddenly, Asuka thought that maybe this hadn't been a good idea at all, and she panicked, fearing she might experience another erection. It was incredible unnerving, being undressed by herself, but perplexingly gratifying, having her body do something to Shinji's she'd longed to do many times before. Shinji stripped his pants off Asuka, revealing black boxer-briefs that were unfortunately very tight-fitting, and the outline of his manhood was clearly visible. He looked away quickly, shame filling him like EVA cockpit liquid.

"It… it's your turn," Asuka burped.

"Truth or dare?" Shinji muttered.

"Truth," Asuka said brazenly.

Their eyes locked with one another's. Shinji glared at Asuka, and she was sure that he was about to hit her with something good and hard. What if he asked her questions about her mother? She could always lie her way through the game if the questions were too personal. But then she'd have to live with even more guilt. Damn it, I should have said 'dare', she thought.

"Why did you kiss me that time?" Shinji asked her, the candidness of the question completely taking her aback.

Asuka looked around the room uneasily, then took another long swig of the beer.

"I was bored, remember? No reason," she answered blushing. But Shinji's gaze saw through the deception easily, and she knew it. But he didn't press the issue any further.

"Your turn," he said after a while.

"Truth or dare?"

"Truth."

Silence. Awkward silence. The air in the room was so heavy the adolescents felt as if the Earth's gravity had suddenly increased.

"Are you gay?" Asuka blurted out.

"N-no!" Shinji croaked.

"Then why don't you seem interested in girls at all?" the second child demanded.

"I just… I don't know… It's not that I'm not interested…"

"Then what?" said Asuka hopelessly.

Shinji's cheeks were burning. "I…I can't tell you."

"'Cause really," Asuka babbled on. "Touji and I thought you had the hots for Rei, but clearly that's not it. There's plenty of pretty girls at school you could try asking out. For God's sake, Shinji, even if it was just for sex, at least you'd show some signs of being normal for a change."

Normal. Was he really that abnormal, Shinji pondered inwardly. Drunk, he started to feel anger, humiliation, frustration, and helplessness swell inside him, the same feelings he felt whenever he confronted his father. In image of his mother Yui rushed into his mind, and for the first time, he hated seeing her face.

"Really, Shinji, I don't know what to do with you!" She burped again. "Why don't you open up to anybody? That's all I want to know!"

"Like you're one to talk!" he shot back angrily, catching Asuka totally off-guard. "You never let anyone inside your oh-so-special little world of yours, and you flirt with virtually every hot guy you see. Oh, a plain and simple guy like me, someone who's not normal, would never have a chance with someone like you! How can you be so short-sighted and cruel all the time?! You don't really care about how I feel! You just want to humiliate me even more!"

Misato fumbled with the keys to her apartment. It had been a long day, and the things Ritsuko had told her in confidence disturbed her greatly. She'd have to talk to Kaji, and soon. She fit the key into the lock.

"What are you saying?" Asuka roared. "The only reason I humiliate you all the damn time is so that you'll stand up for yourself for once in your damn life!"

"I stand up for myself every day!" Shinji said, fighting back tears. "Do you know how difficult it is to face my father? Do you even have any clue?"

The argument was getting personal.

"So it's all about you!" the second child retorted. "How typically emotional of you, Shinji! Can't see past the tip of your own damn nose! Everyone else has shit to deal with that's just as bad!"

"Like what?" Shinji growled.

"It's none of your business!"

"Go figure."

Asuka opened her mouth in preparation to unleash a barrage of verbal artillery, but the words that came out were hardly what she'd intended.

"I can't tell you because you'll hate what you'll see!"

Shinji recalled the darkness he'd seen inside of Asuka. And he recalled that he didn't care, no matter how terrifying it was. He sobered up almost instantaneously. "Asuka…" he said softly.

The second child began to weep profusely. The door to the apartment swung open just as Shinji swept Asuka into the most caring embrace he could muster. She turned her head and sobbed against him. "I'm home!" Misato bellowed cheerfully from the doorway to the apartment, but dropped her bag of groceries to the floor when her eyes fell upon Shinji and Asuka huddled together in an embrace and heard him whisper into her ear:

"Asuka…you're the only thing in my life I care about."

---

*Slang for punching someone.

**A game, not necessarily accompanying drinking, similar in nature to 'Spin the Bottle', in which players take turns asking each other personal questions or requesting them to perform outrageous actions based upon the opponent's selection of answering a question truthfully (Truth) or bravely volunteering to do something ridiculous (Dare).