Flourish

By the end of the school day, Asuka Langley Soryu was the most popular student in the entire school. "Call it animal magnetism," Kensuke said when all the girls and boys crowded around Asuka during each and every class break, lunch, and last bell.

"Ha!" scoffed Toji. "Surprised that she-devil could keep it up that long." He was of course referring to the red haired beauty's– Shinji called it, in his head, her 'split-personality'. To the "three stooges", which was Asuka's pet nickname for Shinji-Toji-Kensuke, she was the snarky, sarcastic, haughty pilot they had met climbing off the Eva, but to everyone else she was– well, Shinji thought, she was acting like she did with Dewey.

'I wonder which is the real her,' Shinji pondered as he saw Asuka walk toward the bench where Rei was sitting after school. Half the school was still following her.

"Hi! Sorry about the whole 'director's pet' thing– it was just a joke! Let me properly introduce myself," Asuka flourished her hair back magnificently. "I'm Asuka Langley Soryu. Let's be good friends!"

Rei had endured her fellow pilot's flaunting without looking up from her book. "Why?"

A slight twitch passed across Asuka's face, but her back was to everyone except Rei, so no one notice. "Because," she said with strained kindness, "it would be convenient."

Rei closed her book and began to walk off. "I will if I'm ordered to." Asuka watched her go, breaking her cheery demeanor for a moment. "Freak-a-zoid," she muttered to herself. "Oh," Asuka said, as she followed Shinji with her eyes. He was running after the first children. "So it's like that. . ."

Shinji caught up to Rei quickly enough, but didn't say anything for half a block. He walked right next to her. She had stopped reading when Shinji had caught up, put the book away, but continued walking silently. 'She doesn't seem to mind. I should say something,' but Shinji couldn't think of what. . .except–

"I didn't know," Shinji began, apropos of nothing, "that other countries were also making Evas. . .or that there were other pilots. . .Did you know, Ayanami?"

Without looking at him, Rei responded, "Yes."

"Hmmm. . ." The two continued to walk in silence. 'She looks no different than before, but even when she doesn't smile...'

The two had come to a bridge, and though Shinji didn't notice, it was the point at which he had to turn right down the street to get to Misato's apartment, and Rei had to turn left. Rei's voice alerted him of this: "See you later, Shinji."

"Ah– wait," Shinji definitely didn't want to go home, where Asuka was sure to be waiting for him. "I'll walk you back, if it's alright."

Rei turned back to face him, still stoic, and pointed to a point some twenty feet behind Shinji. He looked back and saw two figures rush behind a building. After a few seconds, Toji and Kensuke's heads popped out from behind the corner. 'Those two,' Shinji thought with a good deal of anger and frustration. He turned quick to see Rei walking away. "Ok, see you later then!"

A heavy sigh escaped Shinji's mouth, and before he could catch his breathe again, Toji hit him hard on his upper back. "What was dat about?"

"C'mon," Kensuke told both of them. "I want to check out this supply store before heading home."

"Supplies?" Shinji said distractedly, as he followed both of them down the street.

"Military supplies," explained Toji, rolling his eyes. "Ya should see 'im out in da wreckage playin' soldier." Then Toji rounded on Shinji again. "Don't try to slink outta dis!"

"Ayanami! She talked to you. She's never just talk to someone like that before!" Kensuke was peering at Shinji so closely, that Shinji was actually beginning to miss Soryu.

"Somethin' happened between youse, didntn't?"

"Like what?" Shinji said innocently.

"Dammit Ikari," Kensuke said. "You always get the good parts. Can't you just be satisfied living with such a beauty."

"Ha!" Shinji scoffed seriously, "You wouldn't be saying that if you knew what a slob she was. Not to mention how absolutely terrible Soryu is in the morning– oh, excuse me. Captain Sory–"

'Shit!' Shinji thought before Toji and Kensuke descended upon him like a couple of hungry dogs.

"Youse gotta be kiddin' me!" Toji began shaking Shinji furiously: the latter had resigned himself.

Kensuke, on other hand, was nearly in tears. "I'll never forgive you, Shinji. . .Shinji . . .Shinji! Ayanami– she...she called you Shinji!"

Shinji was glad to be home. Toji and Kensuke had kept him till well into the night– good thing it was Misato's turn to make dinner. After the verbal interrogation and beating he just endured, even Asuka's complaining wasn't that bad. After Shinji got out of the shower, Rei's advice had come back to him, and he headed back to his room and pulled out the cellphone Misato had given him.

As he lay face up on his bed, Shinji stared at the phone for a long time. Finally, with a scowl on his face, he hit send.

". . ."

"Uh...um," Shinji was trying to respond to the dead air on the other end of the line. "This is Shinji Ikari. Is the commander– is Commander Ikari there?"

"...Just a moment, please."

"..." He gulped. "Shinji, what is it?" His father's voice.

"Uh. . .eto..."

"If you have something to say–"

"Do you remember what day it is tomorrow?"

"...What day?"

'I knew it.'

"Tomorrow?" Gendo Ikari's voice was impatient. "What about it?"

"Oh, well...nothing. I was just wondering if you wanted to have lunch tomorrow. "

". . .No, I'm busy. Do not call unless it's important." The dial tone rang out as he hung up.

'What a useless father,' Shinji thought; then out loud, "Tomorrow: It's the anniversary of Mom's death, father."

"You as well: No mom, huh?" The female voice was casual, but something in it sounded condescending– definitely not Misato– she would be teasing him.

"What are you doing in my ro– hey!" Shinji jumped back as Asuka sat on the edge of the bed. "Say. . " she said, eyeing Shinji with interest, and a hint of disgust. "Do you have a father complex?"

"Now what are you yammering about!" This topic was the only thing that could make Shinji stand up to Asuka.

"I'm right, right? You wanted to have lunch with the commander, didn't you? Now you're all depressed because he said no."

Shinji's face was red, but he calmed himself down and turned away from the red haired pilot. "Look...I don't have a complex. I hate him. I hate that he's my father. But. . .I don't want to hate him– it's jut how I feel deep down inside."

Asuka surveyed him for a while, then said airily. "Sounds like a complex to me."

Shinji was about to yell back at her, but he paused when he recalled Asuka's first words. "What about your father and mother?"

"My mother's dead." Asuka didn't look angry or sad when she said it, but there was a coldness in her voice– as if she had forced herself not to care about it, like Shinji. Asuka looked over toward Shinji, and read the question behind his eyes instantly. "She died testing Unit-02, over ten years ago."

'We really are alike,' thought Shinji. 'Yet we act so differently.' Asuka seemed to read his thoughts yet again. "I don't have a father."

"Did he die, too?"

"Nope never had one in the first place." Shinji had a puzzled look on his face. "I was conceived in a test tube. . .what's your problem!" Shinji's blankness and– if he was honest with himself– slight revulsion must have shown on his face. "Listen, I'm not just any test-tube baby! I was specifically born through the combination of elite genes. Which means," she continued when Shinji still had a puzzled look on his face, "that I was a chosen being: a special person!"

"So that's what she was really trying to say.' Shinji looked Asuka up and down. 'But how does an elite turn out to be as dysfunctional as this girl.'

"But don't you get lonely?" Shinji managed to say after a long silence. "Having no family, I mean."

"That doesn't matter to me either way." Asuka's face was now both sad and serious. "As long as I can pilot the Eva, fight and defeat the coralians, and help save mankind from the Third Impact. . .and if everyone acknowledges those accomplishments, then I'll be happy." Asuka now looked as if she had forgotten Shinji was there. "And. . .there's Dewey."

"Dewey? You like him that much, huh?"

"EEEHHHH!" Asuka looked toward Shinji incredulously. "I– well. It's not that I don't, but. . ." Asuka put her fingers together and looked very sheepish. "He just ignores me all the time. I mean, I was in love with Mr. Kaji, but he told me that I should look for someone my own age– and I know he was right, I mean I even. . ." Once again she looked up at Shinji. "GOD! Why the hell do I have to tell YOU all this! STUPID SHINJI!"

'It's not like I asked to hear your life story,' Shinji looked away and thought to himself, but in a moment Asuka was hitting him up and down with his own pillow. "Will you knock it off already."

Outside, in the kitchen, the noise had sobered Misato up for a moment. She spoke to Pen pen, who was half as drunk as she was, "Guess those two are getting along well enough. I think. . ." Pen pen squawked.

Back in the room, Asuka had calmed down, but she hadn't left Shinji's bed. Shinji was extremely uncomfortable. 'I wish she would leave, or at least say something.'

Then Asuka said, suddenly, "So have you and the first kissed yet?" Shinji stammered and chocked on his own shocked. Asuka stared at him dryly.

"Wha're y'talkin' 'bout!"

"C'mon," Asuka said. "It's obvious that you two are together." Asuka stared at him blankly. "Don't quite get the whole puppet attraction, though," she added.

"We–were," Shinji was red again. "We aren't like that!"

"Oh," Asuka said sarcastically, "it that so?"

"Really," Shinji said pleadingly. He calmed himself by looking away from Asuka. "What I feel for Rei– Ayanami." Shinji added quickly, "it doesn't go with words. Things like 'like' and 'want to go out with', aren't what I feel. It's as if she's part of me that was torn away a long time ago."

"Boy, are you dense," Asuka said. This time, it was Shinji who had momentarily forgotten that the other was in the room.

"What do you mean?" demanded Shinji.

"Isn't that what love is?" Asuka asked, half-sincerely. "Your other half: soulmate: the person you care about so much that you can't even think of words to describe it." Shinji pondered over her words for a moment. He wasn't sure what he felt for Rei, but it wasn't exactly all that. Asuka sighed loudly and she began to walk towards the door, bringing Shinji back. "I wish Dewey felt like that for me."

Shinji had a strange dream that night. It felt more like a memory. He was in a park, playing with the other children his age– about 7 or 8 years old. After a moment or two, the kids all ran to their mothers, and he was left sitting in the dirt. But he could still hear them say:

"Look. . .It's him, Look! Poor little thing...Did you hear about his father? He's some kind of mad scientist! ...I heard the boy's mother was killed in one of his experiments. How horrible, to make your own wife into a guinea pig."

'Stop it,' Shinji thought.

"But there's more! Then he abandoned him...he hasn't come to see him once. . .Oh! Poor little thing."

'Stop it. What do you know...Waddya you know about my father?' That was his last thought before the dream ended.

The next morning Shinji had gotten up early, made Asuka and Misato's breakfast and lunch, and packed up his bag with some snacks and homework– it would be a long way to the cemetery.

'How many years has it been?' Shinji thought to himself, as he made his way up the row of graves. 'When was I last here? I still can't believe that Mom's asleep–' Shinji surveyed the endless sight of graves in every direction. 'beneath a place like this. . .I don't even remember what she looked like. . . !'

Shinji had looked up and seen a tall man standing a few inches away at his mother's graves. He was laying flowers there; and as he stood up he looked toward Shinji. "Shinji," the glasses-clad man said with a tone of mixed surprise and sadness.

"Father," Shinji responded, surprised that the man he hated would have any emotion in his voice at all. "I can't believe it: you came to visit her grave...Do you come every year?"

"...Yes," Gendo Ikari responded simply, reminding Shinji horribly of Rei. Shinji decided once again to take Rei's advice. But what could they talk about? 'Mom...'

"What...was mom like?" There was no response. Gendo had turned his back to look at the grave. "Do you have any pictures of her?"

"No."

"So, it's like uncle said," Shinji said with desperate laughter in his voice. "You burned everything."

"Yes," his father responded– then, "Even this grave is just for show. Nothing remains. . .In the mind: that's all that's needed, for now."

'For now?' Shinji thought lazily.

"Shinji," the commanders voice regained its authority. He looked into Shinji's eyes then turned to walk away. "Don't look for my anymore."

"What are you saying?" Shinji said, perplexed and desperate.

"People only live by their own strength," the Commander had stopped walking, but did not turn to face Shinji. "They only grow by their own strength. . .Only infants need parents, and you are no longer an infant. Stand. On you own two feet, and walk...I learned to do the same."

Shinji's voice now showed his desperation. He was rasping and choking on his breathe, soundlessly. All he managed to get was: "But. . .I–"

The Commander turned slightly, so that he could see Shinji out of the corner of his eye. "Don't try to think we can understand one another. For some reason, people think that– Remember they can't: never completely. Never enough." Hearing his father's words had steadied Shinji some how. He closed off his heart, and his face became cold– if he could see himself, he might be terrified to see how like his father he looked. "People are such sad creatures."

Shinji could barely hear his last words. A Nerv, aerial transport vehicle had touched ground a few yards away. In a moment, Gendo Ikari had walked away and entered the vehicle. Before it pulled away from the ground, Shinji saw through one of its windows that Rei was there inside the massive transport.

"Stand. On you own two feet, and walk..." Shinji felt that was it: that was his advice: those were his first and last words as a father.

On the large transport, Gendo Ikari had taken a seat across from Rei. "How's it going, Rei?" She had been staring out the window toward Yui's grave, trying to see how long she could keep sight of Shinji. Gendo asked again, when he saw Rei face him, "How do you feel?"

"Oh," Rei snapped to attention, "No problems. I'm going to see Dr. Akagi tomorrow, and to school the day after that."

"I see. And school? How is it?"

Rei had looked back, out of the window. She could not longer tell Yui's grave from the thousands of others. "No problems."

"I see. That's fine." Rei had stolen a glance back at the Commander.

'All we talk about is work. He seems to care about me, but he's really thinking about someone else. Shinji...' Rei grasped her finger, which was still wrapped in the band-aid Shinji had put on it days before, when she had burned herself. 'I'm the one, for whom nothing is going to change.'