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Chapter 12: "…I spoke into his eyes…"
A field trip? With Kaji?
Shinji smiled; this was going to be good.
"Kaji, who's Kaji?"
"Mhmm, you haven't met him yet," Misato mumbled from behind her beer, finishing it she tossed the can behind her, "but he'll take care of you, even if he is a rat bastard."
"and he said you could bring anyone you want."
"Will you be coming with us Misato?" Shinji knew the two adults might just need an extra push to get them back together, perhaps if he managed to get them closer sooner Kaji might just make it through this.
Then again, he still wasn't certain Misato didn't know about NERV's true purpose yet, but he was willing to take that chance.
She just shook her head "I've don't have time to go off on field trips like that man, some of us have to work you know."
"Cool than I'll just hang out with you." Asuka called from the other room.
"Nope, you two are still supposed to be harmonizing, so you're sticking with Shinji."
The German peered out from behind a doorway "Is that another order?" she asked, her WonderSwan clutched in her hands, venom in her voice.
Shinji smiled at the interaction between the two and just continued to clean up after dinner while the two of them fought. Well, Asuka fought, Misato just stayed cool and unmoving in her decision.
A twist in his chest reminded him how much nostalgia this brought to him, how much he missed this.
Even if it was strange that Asuka didn't want to go on a field trip, he remembered how much she had raged against the fact that she was forced to stay back from their class trip.
Things could be stranger.
ʡʘʘʢ
Asuka laid there, unable to sleep, that small screen of her game the only light from inside her room while the rest was just barely visible by the light coming through her window.
A part of her had hoped that she would escape those memories after she left Germany, the change in scenery finally freeing her of the cold at night, but it had been weeks now.
So much for that bit of hope.
Now she just laid there, unable to close her eyes, yet too tired to really do anything, not even her handheld appealed to her.
She heard a door slide open or whatever the Japanese considered these thin and flimsy walls that slid.
Then… slowly… hers opened. At first, she did nothing, completely and utterly confused by the situation.
Turning over, she saw the Third Child just standing there, his head drooped down, slowly walking into her room, not bothering to look at her, just… slowly shuffling forward.
The redhead's mind drifted back to Misato warning her that the Third Child was prone to sleepwalking, and how her guardian had seemed intent about her avoiding startling or stopping him.
Then again… he was in her room.
What's the worst he could do?
He had made it very slowly the foot of her bed, his side towards her, when she gently swung her legs over the far side and tiptoed in front of him.
She couldn't see his eyes; his hair covered the direct line of sight. His shoulders where slouched, like he had resigned himself to some terrible fate.
He actually looked quite pathetic compared to the typical boy she had come to know, the one that never seemed to bat and eye at her insults, and more annoyingly would never seem to leave her alone either.
Perhaps this had to do with his sync test the other day? Despite her inability to hear the back and forth between Ritsuko and the boy, afterwards she was sure something had happened, judging by Misato's face alone.
Finally, creeping closer, she leaned in, "Shinji?" she whispered.
Faster than she could react his arms shot up. His head was still lowered but his hands had found themselves clamped around her neck.
It took her brain a half a second to realize she could still breathe.
The Second Child was frozen, doing her best to keep herself from yelling and cursing to wake Misato. Her mind had to keep reminding her that even though his hands were around her neck they weren't actually squeezing.
He wasn't actually hurting her.
Yet.
Asuka had never felt like this, the feeling that a situation could teeter on the edge of some cavern, she knew one wrong move and everything could come crashing down, so she did nothing.
They stood there for minutes, his hands still lightly clasping he neck, and her frozen, unable to bring herself to say anything.
She could feel her heart pounding in her chest, and the arteries in her neck pumping against his palms.
Then, the whimper.
It was coming from the Third Child, it was light, but she could still hear the tearless sobbing noises he made.
What was this?
What was she supposed to do in this situation? There was no training for this, no field exercise she could have gone through, no manual she could think back on. What was she supposed to do?
"Please stop Shinji." She whispered to him.
That was pathetic. Why did she ask that, and so meekly? A feeling? Gut instinct? Whatever it was, it felt… right.
Surprisingly, he ever so slowly let his hands go from her neck and just stood there. Then… he turned to leave through the door.
As she watched him leave her hands went up and rubbed where his had only just rested. The warmth was still there from his palms.
She watched as the sleepwalker slowly went back through the door he had come through, closing it.
Once again, leaving more questions than answers.
ʡʘʘʢ
At first Toji had objected to the idea of Hikari coming along. He knew exactly what the Third Children was doing, and Shinji was pretty sure Hikari was sure about it as well.
Not that she complained, she was the one who obviously liked the jock.
If she was trying to keep her crush on the boy secret, then the girl had done a spectacular job keeping Toji oblivious, everyone else, not so much.
Besides, if that plan failed maybe she could bond with Asuka like she had before.
Looking down at his feet, Pen Pen had been surprisingly easy to deal with so far.
Somehow Misato had forced them to take the penguin at the last minute, Shinji figured the bird would appreciate an aquarium. If he didn't spend all his time trying to eat the fish.
The group had been standing there in front of those doors, waiting for Misato's ex to let them in. Judging by Asuka's posture it had been a bit too long of a wait.
"Alright kids, gets more complicated from here." He called out through a speaker, while waving through a window next to the door.
Shinji had left the familiar cross back in the apartment for the fear that something like this might happen.
All of them had been stripped down to their underwear and were currently standing in an empty chamber awaiting 'decontamination'. The girls glaring daggers at his friends who were doing their best to advert their wandering eyes.
"Taking a peek again? Oh, you're just spoiled this time."
She just leaned against the wall away from them all and watched the group with a death glare.
Then the shower started, a scolding spray of pressurized water shot out at the group. He would have watched with a smile as all his friends ran around yelling about the heat, it wasn't pleasant for him either, but what was the easy part.
The hard part was how it brought back memories.
He was back on the slopes of that volcano, Sandalphon had made it to the surface despite Asuka's best efforts, now Unit-01 was being doused in magma.
The Angels lunged at him as lava exploded through the slopes of the volcano, the whole mountain was starting to erupt.
Next the room seemed to fill with water, each of them floated around aimlessly while holding their breath. Rei seemed the most comfortable out of all of them, definitely due to her long sessions submerged in LCL.
For him…
He tried to free himself from the Angel, as it pushed him further down into the depths. He heard the armor creaking and groaning from the rapidly increasing pressure. There was no chance for him to get back to the surface this time.
At least Asuka wasn't with him, she would survive.
A cold spray was soon upon them, even Pen Pen was finally being affected by the routine, being a warm water penguin and all.
He dragged an unconscious Rei behind him on a makeshift sled through the blizzard. Pulling his coat around him closer. the Third Children was sure he was lost, the best thing to do now was look for shelter before they froze to death.
Hell of a way to see snow for the first time.
"C'mon Rei, you got me into this, even if you don't really know it, help me out here." That was half for his own sanity and to keep him from collapsing into the snow.
Another round of being submerged…
His LCL filtration system was starting to fail, it was getting harder and harder to breath, he was sure of it. His vision was starting to darken at its edges. Why hadn't he made it out of Leliel this time?
Next, they had to endure what felt like a wind tunnel at full blast, with each teen did their best trying to keep from being knocked down. Hikari had taken the opportunity to hold onto Toji for support, who had spending just as much time blushing as trying to keep himself on his feet.
Shinji dug his foot into the earth as the shockwave hit him. He watched Unit-02 have to fight Zeruel alone. His mind raced, he had to do something, anything!
But he wasn't even a pilot here.
A final round of sterile water.
He was drowning, choaking on water while he clawed at the glass. The blonde doctor just looked at him in mild fascination from the other side. He couldn't get out of this tank, no matter what he did.
He'd kill that bitch one day.
As the water drained, they all just collapsed, too exhausted to do much more than suck air into their lungs. Looking over his friends he smiled at the sight of Hikari still holding onto Toji, while the boy was doing his best to convince her that she could let go now.
After they had picked themselves up, each of them was handed in what at best could be described as scrubs, while they waited to be let through the final door.
A rather insulting microwave-like ding announced their entrance as the doors slid open to reveal an amazing sight.
In front of the group a gargantuan tank shot out before them, sea creatures swam in a massive collection of mystical moves to each of his friend's awe.
Toji and Kensuke both exploded into childish glee, exclaiming their awe at the mass collection of sea life. Hikari just giggled at the two while letting her eyes follow the exotic creatures.
Even Rei seemed entranced by the movements of the fish, dolphins, and turtles that seemed to fly in their massive blue tank.
In the back, his lip twitched at the happiness and excitement each of them felt, and he himself had a genuine feeling of euphoria at the sight.
This could have been them in his life. The class trip to Okinawa, he knew it had the largest aquarium in the world on the island. He imagined if it would have been like this if he had been able to join them.
He watched Soryu as she walked up to one of the tanks, trying to put her hand on the glass, trying to just feel the chill from the water.
"So, this is what the ocean looked like before the Second Impact."
"Wow look at that one with the shell on his back."
"I think those are called turtles…"
Shinji's joy was interrupted by that comment, he stopped walking for a moment and watched his three classmates with their imaginations captured by the simple sight of sea life.
They've missed this.
They had no notion of an ocean teaming with life.
That one detail, the one that he looked over, a red ocean, a dead ocean, it had stripped everyone of idea of sea life.
And yet it had given them this one glorious moment to rediscover it.
But him… he couldn't fully partake in either experience, he couldn't understand it no matter how he tried.
A grumbling voice caught his attention, Kaji had left them to go talk to some of the staff, and Rei was entranced by a pillar of small fish, but a certain German was seated away from them, not taking an interest in anything.
Don't leave me.
He had made a promise.
He walked over to her, to the bomb that he now had to disarm, if that was even possible.
She was on her WonderSwan again, despite the sight around them, did she really want to drown out the world that much?
"Do they have aquariums in Germany?" he asked, in truth he couldn't remember if they did or if he ever asked her before.
"Of course, they do idiot," she mumbled, not bothering to look up from her game
He frowned at looked at her seated on a pipe, a sinking dread in his stomach. This was very much unknown territory for him, but he had to do this, for her.
Shinji sat down next to her, he could practically feel her tense up, and her eyes narrow, she wanted him gone.
"Tell me about them." He asked.
"Look at the tanks and you'll see for yourself." She growled at him, he anticipated a kick or a punch, but nothing came his way other than the venom in her voice.
"I want to know about your German ones" he said looking over to her. "They must be pretty great if you're bored here." He said eying her game, then looking back at the tank that was behind them.
"I'm willing to bet that it didn't have whales though…" He said as one lumbered past them, casting a massive shadow on the wall that was in front of them.
"No idiot they didn't have whales," she spat "they're not that great anyways."
"So, what's your idea of a cool sea creature?" he asked, god that sounded so weird.
"Haie," she said with a smirk "evolved to be perfect predators."
He nodded, but frowned slightly "Orcas are mine, insanely smart to, they work together as teams you know…"
He smirked back at her "they're known to kill sharks."
"They were known to, idiot." She said glaring at him, he shrugged, that little slip wouldn't hurt anyone.
Getting up he rubbed his arms from the chill radiating off the tanks.
"I made a surprise for lunch."
"Another bland serving of rice." She shot at him.
"Not exactly."
He walked off, heading up to Rei who was still entranced by the pillar of fish.
She held her hand against the glass, seemingly bewitched by the slowly rotating sea life.
"I'm glad you got to come with us Rei, how are you feeling?" What was he supposed to ask the clone, 'hey I know you're being 'backed up' by Gendo, wanna spill any secrets you've got?'.
"Fine… I was able to come today since I finished my late assignments."
He leaned back against the railing for the catwalk they were on, she hadn't made a single movement, her hand was still on the glass.
"It must be horrible for the fish in there… going around in endless circles." He mused.
"No… these little ones couldn't live outside this tank."
He shrugged "Maybe they'd grow bigger and survive if they got out."
Rei said nothing, the Third Children was about to say something when he heard a rather loud 'gark' from a certain penguin he had forgotten about.
Dashing off, the boy hoped that Pen Pen hadn't found himself in too much trouble.
ʡʘʘʢ
"Here you guys go," Shinji said pushing boxes into the hands of his friends, while glaring at Pen Pen. Somehow the bird had gotten into one of the keepers' buckets of fish that should have been for the other penguins in the facility.
It had taken them 10 minutes to calm the irate penguin down after taking the bucket from him and now he was going to happily chow down on even more food.
Shinji swore that penguin should be heavily overweight after living with Misato for so long.
"Its amazing how good 90% artificial meat can taste!"
"Seriously Shinji how can you cook this good?" Hikari asked after swallowing her first bite.
"You know Shinji, men who can cook get all the girls." Kaji said winking at him.
Kensuke nudged Toji at the comment, who simply grumbled to himself. The Third Children was sure it had to do with the pig-tailed girl sitting next to him.
Shinji was about to come up with an excuse for having several lifetimes of cooking experience and how plenty of that was with subpar ingredients, but a redhead saved him from having to explain.
"Oh, so everyone else gets lunch but me!" Asuka raged at the now sheepishly looking boy who picked a last box from his backpack.
"One last specialty for our German pilot." He quipped as he pushed the box in front of her.
Everyone else took bites of their food, complimenting the chief as Asuka opened hers.
She stopped.
Königsberger Klopse
She just stared at it, not quite accepting the reality of it being there.
"Thought you might want a something more familiar for a change." He said, "Hope I didn't butcher it too badly."
That was a bold-faced lie, he'd perfected the recipe a long time ago.
Asuka steadied her hands as she grabbed a meatball, it looked fine, the white sauce seemed perfect, and it smelled good, so she took a bite.
.
.
.
Home
For the first time since she landed in Japan, she felt a foreign feeling in her stomach.
Was that homesickness? Her mind wandered to what happened last night, before the Third Child walked into her room, how she couldn't sleep because of those thoughts of home, but now…
No, why would she want to be back there!
Asuka suddenly realized that Shinji was still looking at her, waiting for her response. Luckily, everyone else was busy scarfing down their food to notice what was going on.
"Its… acceptable." She mumbled before taking another bite.
ʡʘʘʢ
Kaji just leaned against the railing, soaking in the sun and the breeze.
This kid was with him, he didn't even realize the others had gone up to the tower next to them, all except Toji who was being dragged down the wall by Hikari. Kaji smiled at the sight of the two, he could tell that they could be great for each other.
He looked at the boy next to him, he'd seen the boy from a distance when he first arrived at the GeoFront, but he hadn't seen the boy that was depicted by his file. Instead, he had seen just some normal (as much as any of them could be) kid, not a socially inept introvert who cowered at everything.
He also would have never guessed the boy had been a corpse for 6 hours either.
Just looking at the 14-year-old, he looked old, too old. The spy had caught glances of him when the others weren't looking and well…
Those eyes…
Sometimes he seemed colder than his father, older to.
Right now, he could swear those eyes weren't looking at the facility, instead at the crimson sea beyond or even something farther that no one else could see.
"You know Shinji, I'm surprised we were able to restore the environment enough for your generation to be born."
He nodded "I guess," then he sniffed the air "I barely noticed the smell."
The older man must have taken it as a small joke, but the boy was serious, the smell of the natural sea had gone unnoticed to him until now, only after it had been absent.
"It's what the oceans supposed to smell like, this world was once brimming with the vast and beautiful diversity of life,"
He paused looking up at the others in the tower.
"I wanted you guys to know that."
A small silence came down between them as the soft breeze put out the man's cigarette. He lit another, before the kid finally spoke up.
"Misato should have come, you two used to live together right?"
Kaji couldn't help but raise an eyebrow, "How'd you know about that?"
The kid shrugged "You two know each other, you make her happy, it makes sense, so what happened?"
This was a little weird, talking about his love life to a kid.
Then again, who was he to judge, the man knew there was more to the Third Child than meets the eye.
"We did, but I'm sure that's not the only reason she didn't come here."
"She doesn't like to talk about it, but she survived the Second Impact… She was there at the South Pole; her father was a man who lived in his research and his dreams. She despised the very thought of him.
Although, in the end… she was saved by the very person she hated the most. When you go through something like that, accepting those who you've lost, and what they died for…it's a heavy burden being the sole survivor."
Shinji was being a bit too quiet after that last comment.
He looked at the kid, his eyes… unfocused, he'd seen that stare before, but never from someone this young.
"Just know, we all have our pain."
"I think she wanted share that with you… "
Kaji just blinked.
"She pushed you away, because she didn't want to risk feeling that pain again and you let her."
Kaji stared at the boy, waiting, there had to be more to this. Was that desperation he felt?
"Someone once told me the kanji for 'she' means 'a woman far away' and that women are on the opposite shore of a river wider and deeper than any ocean, so we can never truly know them."
He said that with such conviction and they might've been the truest words the man had felt in a long time.
"Sounds like he was a wise man."
"He was an idiot… in the exact situation as you, only he missed his chance… and didn't realize until it was too late."
"That opposite shore is closer than anyone thinks… all you have to do is take that first step and it'll be so clear. You'll never know what you were so scared of."
Clearing his throat and reminding himself this was a kid, Kaji did his best to compose himself.
"Listen, it's a bit more complicated, you'll know once you find someone."
Shinji just stared at the distance, silent, ah maybe that was it.
"Unless, you already did?" God was young for that, but if every mission was a ticket waiting to be punched, who was he to judge?
"Shinji with the smooth moves, what's she like?" Kaji asked, glad to be on the offensive, he was a damn spy, extracting information was his job.
Shinji's face remained unchanged, not even a blush.
"It was a lifetime ago."
"You're too young to be saying that" he joked.
"hmm."
"What was she like?"
He hesitated, Kaji thought he could see him wrestling with himself, deciding whether or not to show him a piece of his heart.
In the end the heart usually wins though.
"Fire… and ice… she meant everything she said, but at the same time she didn't."
He stopped and raised a lazy hand up, his thumb brushing against his lips. Kaji could tell this wasn't some teenage crush, whatever this kid had… there was a stab of jealousy in the man's heart.
"Pain, pleasure… she… hated me… just knowing me… it hurt her; I didn't know it… but she wanted me… needed me… I ran, because I didn't understand then, even though I wanted her as well, even though I could have understood her too."
"all I ever did was run then… because I was scared…"
The boy went quiet as another gust of wind went between the two of them. His eyes never leaving the distant horizon.
"Well, c'mon now, you're the dashing pilot of EVA Unit-01, I'd bet she'd fall head over heels for you now."
"No… it's not that simple."
"Don't you remember her phone number, what was her name?"
He shook his head.
"I'd bet if you gave me her name, I'd be able to find her for you..." but he was cut off.
"Kaji..." Shinji turned to look at the man and the spy's face fell.
Those eyes, they weren't the same as the ones from his file picture, no one his age should have them, there was, so much pain…
Yet, there were no tears…
"I failed her." the teen said, for a moment Kaji didn't understand "She needed me and I failed her."
"She's gone."
He deflated, and if the man understood those words right… no kid should feel responsible for that.
Oh Shinji...
Yeah, that's the stuff right there. I think when I wrote this chapter it was the most fun I've had so far this story. I've spent hours just tweeking the dialogue and I'm still not truly happy with it, but I think it's the best it can be.
Plus, I don't know if it was intentional or not by Anno, but the world's 2nd biggest aquarium is on Okinawa (the largest when it opened in 2002), and the class trip in NGE Epsiode 10 is to Okinawa. Could be a coincidence for 2.0 but I thought it was cool.
SHOUTOUTS!
The mysterious…
Guest!- Well thanks for that, hope you enjoy all the chapters to come!
All rightly, I'll be back in a day or two with the next chapter. By the way, this is the longest chapter to date, but I don't really think they'll stay this long.
Until Next Time!