Notes from GobHobblin: Okay, me and my dad played, like, the worst game of golf a week ago. It was fun…but shameful to the game. I kid you not, we both did three mulligans on the first tee-off. It kind of influenced the direction of this chapter…

Japan was known for having quality golf courses, and Fuyutsuki enjoyed a game every now and then. Primarily, the most he did with golf was to go down to a local driving range and work through a bucket, or to practice pitching in the park with a few golf balls and a pitching wedge. When taking a break between writing or grading, he would putt in his office with a coffee mug as the hole. For him, golf was a gentle, almost cathartic exercise in strength and release, knowing when to hit the perfect sweet spot between bodily motion, muscular strength, and physics itself to produce a long drive or a on-spot putt. When he offered to take Gendo golfing, he thought he was doing the younger man a favor.

Ten strokes into the first hole, and Fuyutsuki was beginning to regret that decision.

"Oh, come on!" Gendo snapped, as his eleventh stroke went far and too the right, sailing past the fairway's boundary and into some bushes.

"I'll let you drop it, but I don't have an unlimited number of replacements," Fuyutsuki sighed, leaning gently on his five-iron. Gendo raised the club to drive it into the ground. "I like this club, don't get us kicked out. And those clubs are rentals! Do you have the money to pay for replacement clubs?"

"This is supposed to be relaxing. You said this was relaxing," Gendo snapped, still gripping the club like a weapon.

"It is relaxing. You don't have to be good at golf to enjoy it," Fuyutsuki insisted. "You just keep over-controlling your swing. It is absolutely killing your game."

"I have 'a game?' This is having 'a game?'" Gendo snapped.

"Yeah," Fuyutsuki said, "It's a game based on scaring off local wildlife and threatening our fellow golfers, but it is a game." Smiling ruefully, Fuytuski swung his club in a tight arch before resting it on his shoulder. "Never said it was a good game you had, did I?"

Gendo glowered at Fuyutsuki for a moment before lowering the club. "All right, explain it again."

"Watch this time, I'll put this one on the green for you." Fuyutsuki dropped a ball on the manicured grass, and took up a spot next to it. He waggled a moment, releasing tension and settling into the triangle. The shoulders to the arms, meeting in apex at the club, the pinkie of his dominant hand locking with the index finger of the non-dominant. "Okay, you see, there's all the normal advice, right? Keep your eye on the ball and all that. You focus your attention on the ball, all the way through the swing. It's your target, right?"

"Yeah," Gendo mumbled, studying Fuyutsuki.

"That means you keep your head on the after-image, as well. When you make contact, you continue to look at where the ball was. Lift your head up too soon, you've skinned the ball and it'll just go bouncing along the ground and that's a mess."

"I get that," Gendo said impatiently.

"What you don't get is the physics," Fuyutsuki said, slowly raising the club over his shoulders and then lowering it again. "You have to balance your swing between control and chaos."

"…What?"

"You have to muscle it a little. Push with one hand, pull with the other, all that. Muscle it too much, and your shot careens left or right. You have to let the club drop, you see? It has to be at the perfect center point of your triangle." Fuyutsuki raised the club. "Like so…."

The club whistled down almost gently, connecting with the ball. It shot up in the air, floated lazily through the sky, before passing the green and landing in the rough beyond. Fuyutuski made a face.

"Well…it's not a hundred percent every time, but still…." He shrugged and returned to the cart. For a moment, Gendo gazed after the departing image of the ball. Chaos and control were new concepts to him. Most of his life had been spent finding control in one way or another, muscling through and over obstacles or fleeing from the ones he couldn't. Fight or flight.

He attempted to apply Fuyutsuki's lesson for the next eight holes, with varying degrees of success. By the time they reached the clubhouse on the ninth hole, Gendo was all but begging for an end to the game.

"Shut up and drink your beer," Fuyutsuki told the red-faced man, handing him a cold glass. "Yui's right: you are a whiner."

"The hell I am," Gendo grumbled, accepting the glass.

"Then finish this game. Nine more holes. And drink your beer." Gendo glared at the glass, as though skeptical of it. "Seriously, though, you are an atrocious golfer. Didn't your dad ever take you golfing, or…get you into sports?"

"Still poking around that topic?" Gendo mumbled. The beer was set on the table between them. He had yet to drink from it. Fuyutsuki took a cautious sip from his own glass.

"The man did break into my office," Fuyutsuki retorted. "I think you owe me something of an explanation to that."

"I haven't even told Yui about this. What makes you think I would tell you, huh?" Fuyutsuki gave Gendo a withering glare.

"He broke into my office," Fuyutsuki insisted. Gendo grumped, sliding down into the chair and gazing out over the golf course. The day was bright, and the first, eighth, ninth, and eighteenth holes lay splayed before them, four great expanses of bright and sloppy green, separated by neatly manicured trees and cart ways.

"It was after my mother died, okay?" Gendo mumbled. "He…lost his spark after that, I think. I was too young to know my mother, or know him when he was with her. All I know is that now, the man can't zip up his pants without instructions on it. He just…" Gendo shrugged.

"You made your own way of it, did you?" Fuyutsuki asked. Gendo said nothing, unwilling to continue. "You should talk to Yui about it."

"I…have no desire…to talk to anyone about it," Gendo snapped.

"How are things with you and Yui?" Fuyutsuki responded, casually. Gendo turned towards him in surprise at the shift in conversation.

"They're…fine. It's all fine," Gendo said. "Better than fine, actually. She seems convinced I'm the man she needs to marry."

"And you?"

"…I…wouldn't mind it."

"You're being coy," Fuyutsuki said, placing his half-empty glass on the table. "You are head over heels for that woman and I know it. Hell, I'm head over heels for her. I think every man that walks into her life finds himself falling in love with Yui Ikari." Gendo studied the professor with something like wonder. The man had a wistful look on his face, almost sad. "I could resent you for what you have, but I don't." The man turned back to Gendo, and gave him an honest smile. "I can envy you, and support you in having something that's quite wonderful."

"…Did…Does Yui know that you—"

"No, no. Well…I take that back. I'm certain she does. She wouldn't have acted on it, and she would certainly have shot me down if I tried to. No, I wasn't the man for her." Fuyutsuki waved distractedly at the air. "The point is, I'm more concerned about you and her."

"In what way?"

"You have a habit of building walls, Gendo. I swear, you have to be one of the biggest cowards I have ever met." Gendo made a fist, and stared at Fuyutsuki, his lips tightening. Fuyutsuki pushed Gendo's beer closer to him. "It's true, you know. You have a habit of running from things."

"When have I run from anything? Hell, the first time we met, you were bailing me out of prison for a fight."

"Fights are simply one way of running," Fuyutsuki said. "You think that fighting with your fists is confronting something? For you, it's catharsis: the justification that you deserve punishment and pain. That you need to feel pain."

Gendo narrowed his eyes. "And here I thought you were a metaphysical biologist."

"It requires something of a grasp on psychology, Gendo. You should have figured that out, by now," Fuyutsuki sighed. Gendo finally picked up the beer, and sipped cautiously at it.

"So you say I run from things," Gendo grumbled. "You don't see me running from Yui."

"But you are, Gendo," Fuyutsuki insisted. "Perhaps you wish to spend your life with her, and perhaps you will. You can't do that while hiding portions of yourself from her. That's running in place, you see. You run away without leaving."

"I don't like where this is going…."

"You can sit on this with me all you want," Fuyutsuki said, "But I insist you stop hiding it from Yui."

"…I just…don't feel…right about…." Gendo mumbled, intensely uncomfortable at the thought of talking about his past with his girlfriend.

"Stop thinking about it now," Fuyutsuki said, "Just focus on the next nine holes."

Yui had her kitchen knives laid out in front of her on the counter. She perused them with her arms crossed. "Okay, troops," she said, "Here's the deal: in this modern Japanese society, certain things are still expected from ladies. Sexist though that may be, a fact is a fact. I need to learn how to cook." She gave each and every blade a look of utter contempt and scrutiny. "As tempting as it would be make Gendo a stay-at-home hubby, I think it's safe to say that the world would be lessened by such a decision. And while I have no intention of spending the rest of my life bundled up in an apron, it is only proper that both members of a healthy relationship take on their fair share of things. If he cooks, I cook, you see."

She didn't like the attitude of the paring knife, and pointed an accusing finger at it. "Don't you dare go judging me. I can cook! I can build a living cell-culture out of a glob of protein and carbon shavings. You think I can't cook?" She sniffed, and grabbed one of the six cookbooks she had that had never, once, been opened. It was titled Thirty Minute Recipes, so she figured it was a good place to start.

"Here," she said. "Udon noodles in beef broth with pan-cooked chicken cutlets. I can do that. Easy." Forty minutes later, and nowhere near done, Yui was trying to figure out why hear chicken cutlets looked so sad when she heard the front door open. She heard someone stomp through the apartment, and realized they were wearing shoes. In mild alarm, she turned, to see Gendo standing in the kitchen doorway. He looked like he had been lost for weeks.

For his part, Gendo had entered the apartment with a purpose. He planned to follow through on that purpose no matter how much it made him want to vomit in panic. He hadn't stopped to remove his shoes, because it would have given him time to second-guess himself. He simply pushed in, deciding he would simply buy Yui more tatami mats. He made it to the kitchen doorway, and almost forgot what he was going to say: it looked as though a bomb had gone off in there. Yui's hair was quite disheveled, what appeared to be beef broth stained her hands and apron, and something was boiling over on the stove. For just a moment, he almost forgot why he was there. And then he remembered, threw his hands open wide, and forged ahead.

"I hate my dad!" he said. "He slapped me around a lot, left us starving from gambling problems. He was lazy, good for nothing, and never got over my mom's death. When I was sixteen, I got in a fistfight with him and left home. I spent the rest of my high school years living at my sensei's apartment before getting into Tokyo University on good grades. I got kicked out my sophomore year when I got into another fistfight with my dad on the student commons. I transferred to…what the hell happened here?"

"…I was cooking," Yui said. Gendo studied the small kitchen. This was not cooking, this was complete and utter chaos. His gaze passed to the right, and he flinched back when he saw that the large kitchen knife jutted from the door frame.

"I…have no idea how that happened," Yui said cautiously, putting a hand on one hip and pointing with the other, "But, I got to tell you, I bet it was a-maz-ing."

"…What were you cooking?"

"Um…udon noodles. What were you saying, about…Tokyo University and all that?"

"…I can't remember," Gendo mumbled, reaching out and taking the knife by the handle. At least an inch of the blade had been buried into the frame. "Seriously, did you…throw this or…."

"I can cook!" she snapped, indignantly.

"I…didn't say you couldn't," Gendo replied.

"You were thinking it," Yui accused.

"How are the noodles?"

"…Burned."

"How do you burn noodles?"

"I don't know," Yui whined, throwing her arms up. "I can't believe how complicated I've made this. Fix this right now, Gendo." He sighed, rolling the knife on his palm and reversing the blade smoothly. "And teach me how to do that, too," Yui whined.

"Why would you need to know how to do that? No, never mind. I don't want to know," Gendo sighed. He decided the first thing to do was clean up the kitchen.

As Gendo went about the business of clearing away the mess, he felt Yui's head bump into his back. "You were telling me about your dad," she said. "I'm sorry I interrupted."

"You didn't," Gendo said. "I just…needed to tell you. Fuyutsuki said I should."

"Did you tell him first!?" she whined.

"Some of it, but not all," Gendo said, his tone defensive. "He took me golfing today."

"How did that go?"

"I may have killed a duck," the man grumbled.

"We're both screw-ups, aren't we?" Yui sighed, bumping her forehead into his back a little more insistently. He turned around, and she nestled against his chest. "You don't have to tell me now, but thank you." Gendo wrapped his arms around her and sighed, relaxing into the hug. "So…" Yui ventured, "Who won the first fight?"

"My dad broke my nose and threw me out of the house. Down a flight of stairs."

"Good God,"

"Yeah, I broke my wrist and two ribs. I walked the whole way to my sensei's house sobbing."

"And no one helped you?"

"Of course not. No one wants to get involved. You know how it can be," Gendo mumbled.

"What about the next fight?" Yui asked, pulling away from the hug by pushing Gendo lightly against a counter.

"Oh, I won that one. I was a second-year college student without a lifetime of bad decisions behind me."

"You were just starting to make your bad decisions, right?" Yui said mischievously.

"Oh, yes," Gendo agreed, pecking her on the forehead. "I'm taking you out tonight. I'll show you how to make tempura tomorrow, okay?"

"I like tempura."

"That's why I'm going to teach you," Gendo agreed.

There was a ramen stall not far from Yui's apartment, where the pair liked to eat when quality was not necessary. The food was still good, though, and Yui liked the garlic tofu ramen while Gendo enjoyed their shrimp ramen and miso. It wasn't great food, but it was filling, and tasty. The two of them made their orders, and sat happily munching their food while washing it down with fruit sodas. They were halfway through their meal when Gendo detected a shift in Yui's mood. He turned to her, and watched as she stirred her noodles nervously.

"Gendo," she asked, cautiously, "When you say you stayed at your sensei's…was that…I mean…." Yui trailed off, suddenly uncomfortable. Gendo smiled, looking down at his noodles.

"You think I took advantage of some poor single woman with bad self-esteem issues? Like in a manga?"

"I just…"

"Fifty-three year old man with a wife and a grown daughter. The daughter had moved out, they let me have her room. They were…very nice to me." He blinked at the memory. "I haven't…kept in touch like I should."

"That's…a much better scenario than I thought it would be," Yui murmured.

"Would you have been jealous?" Gendo teased.

"Horrified," Yui said, seriously. Gendo's smile faded. She continued, "I already know that you had a rough childhood. I'm sorry for asking it, I just…it would have been awful. If that had been how you grew into adulthood. That's too young for something like that."

"I was too young for a lot of things that happened to me," Gendo countered. "But I see your point."

"You don't seem to be having trouble talking about it, right now," Yui suggested. Gendo cocked his head, surprised at that observation.

"You know, you're right…I was so worked up about doing this…huh." Gendo shrugged. "I never thought it would be easy to do, but I imagine it's like…rolling a boulder down a hill. Once you give it momentum, it just…goes."

"I'm glad you're comfortable about this," she said, smiling.

"What about you?" he asked. "You and you're father?"

"Pumping me for information?" she asked, coyly.

"Well…"

"Saito Ikari," Yui declared, "Is a very important man with very important things to do." She waved her chopsticks as though pointing at a board. "A very wealthy man with great influence on affairs of industry and state. The very man to carry forward the proud Ikari family tradition into the future." She smiled meekly. "That's what the pamphlet's would say."

"You have a good relationship with him?"

"Sort of," she said with a squint. "I'm…an only child, and a girl. My mother passed away as well, I'm sure you know. He sort of…spoiled me after that."

"You turned out all right," Gendo observed.

"Not many kid's grow up the way I do," Yui said, raising an eyebrow.

"Let me guess: all girl's school, private, probably Catholic for the education. Member of the student council, equestrian club, science club, softball club…"

"You're not guessing, you creep, you already researched all that stuff," Yui pouted. "It's no fun talking about my past to someone who already knows it!"

"You lived away from home."

"Well…yes." Yui glanced at him. "You want to know why?"

"A bit."

"…When you meet my father, you'll see."

"When will that happen?" Gendo asked, picking at a piece of shrimp.

"After we get married."

"Af…After!?" Gendo dropped his chopsticks, and stared at Yui in surprise.

"Yes, after," she said. "In which case, you will be married to me, have taken my name, which will show deference to a more 'important' family." Yui had placed an odd emphasis on the word 'important,' and rolled her eyes as she did. "It will be easier to induct you into Seele at that point. He will have no choice but to, or be made to look like a fool to the other members."

"I take it that will not leave me in very good graces with him…"

"It will not. On the other hand, you will be where you wish to be." Gendo laid a hand across Yui's, and she turned to him with mild surprise. The look he gave her was intense, and she swallowed under its pressure.

"Yui, sometimes I think you have your own agenda in these things," Gendo said.

"Whatever makes you think that?" Yui asked sweetly, but her voice cracked a bit. Gendo's eyes softened, but it made him look sad, or defeated. Yui felt a pang of guilt, then.

"Perhaps I see things more than you realize," Gendo replied.

"If I did have my own agenda…would you walk away?" Yui asked.

"…No." Gendo turned back to his food. "I don't think I could." The rest of the dinner was in silence.