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Chapter 22: "…Sunset, no regrets…"
"Rei seems different lately." Misato mused to the blonde next to her.
Cruising in her beloved A310, Misato was sure Ritsuko was happy to be going the speed limit for once. The woman figured that it was the least she could do for her friend after their… heated conversation before the Eighth Angel.
"I've noticed, just the cuts I have to keep bandaging on her fingers is enough to show her commitment to this," the doctor said, flipping over the letter in her hand, 'To Dr. Akaji' written on its front.
"the idea of her doing something for someone else is starting… I wonder what brought this on."
"Well, it could be love." Misato said with a smirk.
"Rei in love? You're joking right?" Ritsuko said incredulously.
Misato just smiled, if this was what she thought it was, Shinji might just be in for something wonderful.
ʡʘʘʢ
Standing over the stovetop, Asuka took a sip of whatever Japanese food she was preparing.
"Idiot Shinji would probably like it a little milder, I guess." She muttered as she dumped what little there was left into the sink.
"I'm home." She heard her guardian called as she heard the door open.
The redhead blinked "Huh, Misato, you're home early."
She hadn't expected this, hopefully Misato wouldn't notice the mess she had made of the kitchen.
"Yeah, I have to go back to Headquarters, though. I'm just back to take a bath and change my clothes!" she shouted from around the corner.
Before Asuka could start hiding what she was dong, the director of operations came around the corner and found herself peering into the kitchen.
"Oh my, what's this?"
Asuka just turned slowly to see the woman with a grin on her face.
"If I had to guess you'd be cooking for Shinji." He said stifling a laugh.
"Wha?!" Asuka leaned forward, childishly trying to cover up the mess that currently was the kitchen.
"I'm not, it's for a friend, yeah it's for Hikari!"
"Pfft, what's with both Rei and you getting all romantic all of a sudden?"
"Hey, don't put me together with that pet!" the redhead growled.
"You're right, Rei seems to be taking things to a whole different level."
Asuka blinked, "What do you mean?"
"Well, I get the feeling she's trying to force a bond between Shinji and Commander Ikari."
Pulling a letter from her jacket she showed it to the redhead "Here,"
"She's invited everyone to a dinner party and she's going to serve a home cooked meal."
"It's a pretty direct plan, but it might actually work!"
Holding out a letter, Asuka looked down at it.
'To the Pilot of Unit-02'
Pfft, she couldn't even use her full name.
"Bringing those two together is going to be about as easy as moving mountains."
"She's doing all this for Stupid Shinji?" Asuka said, raising an eyebrow.
"It's meant to be a surprise for Shinji, so don't tell him, ok?" the woman pleaded.
"Oh, like I even care enough!" she growled snatching the letter, muttering 'stupid' under her breath.
Misato just smirked as she made her way to her room.
Scowling, Asuka began to clean up, she didn't want Misato seeing the scale of the mess and she definitely didn't need Shinji seeing it either.
With the kitchen cleaned, the Second Child changed into something more comfortbale and pulled out her books. Taking a seat at the kitchen table, she started on her homework and to a lesser extent, work on her kanji as Misato finished and left.
Even after Shinji's help, the redhead still needed to practice, and was sure that the boy could be of assistance clearing up some things.
Speaking of the Third Child, he had defiantly taken his time coming back to the apartment, who knew where he and the stooges went after school?
An hour or two later the redhead was resting her head on her left hand and found herself reading the same line of text over and over, doing her best to keep herself from powering up her WonderSwan or looking at the phone in her pocket.
That was until she heard the door opened.
Even when he walked into the kitchen, as much as she wanted to, she didn't look up from the paper she was working on.
"Finishing some homework?" he asked, dropping his backpack down on the chair beside hers'.
"I thought that was obvious enough, Stupid Shinji." She muttered.
He said nothing, instead he just walked forward and grabbed her wrist, not hard, but enough for her to stand up in surprise, "C'mon you could use a break.".
"Hey!"
Practically dragging her to the door, Asuka scowled at the boy who just looked back at her and smiled.
Heading out the door, he took her to the right and immediately she knew he was taking herto the roof.
Still holding her by her wrist, Shinji stopped short of the same ledge she had found him on a few nights ago and promptly sat down.
Looking up at her, he just motioned for her to sit down next to him.
"You know you nearly fell off last time." She grumbled as she took a seat.
"You snuck up on me." He countered.
The girl rolled her eyes, "Why are we up here?"
Shinji just gestured to the distance, she hadn't really taken note of the dimming light, but immediate she knew what he was talking about.
The sun was just about to dip beyond the horizon, about half of the burning yellow sphere was still visible, though she could still feel a decent bit of warmth on her face. The typically blue sky had shifted colors to the brilliance if a spectrum of reds, oranges, and yellows with only a few light clouds still hovering to break up the picture.
With Misato's apartment slightly away from the city, Asuka could see the towering retractable skyscrapers reflecting the beautiful light between one another while casting long shadows on the surrounding areas.
She wondered why she never thought to sit up here herself, just sitting out on the apartment deck wouldn't have done the scene justice.
"It's great isn't it?" he asked her.
She gave him no response, just staring at the image before her, trying to drink it in.
"Take a picture."
"What?"
"Your phone, take a picture to keep."
"Why?"
The boy shrugged, "So you never forget the memory, things fade, but you'll have that picture forever."
"Here," he said standing up. "let me take it with you in it."
Asuka scowled, but she relented, giving the idiot her phone, if this meant getting back to her homework faster so be it.
Taking a few paces back, Shinji held up the flip phone for a picture, a stupid grin on his face.
The Second Child continued to scowl at him and just remained seated with her eyes narrowed, only twisted to look back at him as he walked back to her.
Sitting down, she handed her the phone so she could look at it.
He had captured the radiant colors in the sky and the buildings silhouette by the setting sun, but he had placed plenty of emphasis on her scowling figure too.
Slamming the phone closed she rolled her eyes and just looked back out over the city as a warm breeze blew between them.
The German looked at the boy next to her out of the corner of her eye, the sun seemed to make his face glow and with that warm smile on his lips he actually seemed like a normal 14-year-old.
But she knew better, she remembered what he had confessed to her, he was very much like her, not quite the same, but close enough that he might just be able to understand her.
A fellow pilot with no parents in their life, perhaps worse off since he knew his father personally, but the man returned no notion of affection or want to him.
However, he had Misato, and the redhead couldn't help but feel jealous at the sight of the woman holding and comforting him that first night after the girl had left him alone or at the hugs the woman gave him when she had a few too many beers.
A part of her wanted that.
But he wasn't like her, he didn't try to push others away.
He had accepted her, embraced her even, given her warmth when she had come to him the first time, even if she did ultimately leave, but he hadn't held that against her. Even when he had those headphones in and seemed to have the life drained from him, he had still brought her lunch.
Then there was her…
She hadn't even thanked him; she hadn't done anything for him. Not. One. Thing.
Hell Rei was doing something for the boy. Whether it was out of kind heartiness or something else the girl didn't quite know yet.
The Second Child however... she even made him promise to stay, even though she hadn't been back to sleep next to him, she had done quite well on her own since then, with no nightmares to speak of, affording her the best string of sleep she had ever known.
Asuka couldn't help but feel guilty, indebted even, all he ever did was do things for her while asking nothing in return, even when he beat her in combat, he hadn't brought it up to rub in her face.
What kind of person did that?
Why was he still trying and for seemingly nothing to gain so far? It didn't make any sense to her at all.
Would he stop? If Rei could give him something would he stop trying to reach out to her and leave her alone, just like before?
Did she still want to be alone?
"Do you still want help with you Kanji?" Shinji asked, turning, causing her to blink. The sun had finally retreated completely under the horizon, thought the collage of colors in the sky were still beautiful, it was fading.
She said nothing and just stood up, turned, and made her way back down to the apartment.
A few minutes later the door opened again, and Shinji just sat down next to her around the table.
Pulling his books out of his bag, he eyed her work and opened his own book to her page number.
"Roter Drache," he mumbled with a smile.
ʡʘʘʢ
Shinji laid there, his SDAT player next to him unused, staring at the same ceiling all alone like the last few nights.
She had come to him, she hadn't just pretended to sleep next to him like Soryu had originally done, he had asked to sleep next to him. She had pleaded, even if she had called him 'Stupid Shinji'.
Even if she wanted distance, to keep that sense of independence that he knew she craved just like the first time, he didn't want her to run away, he would make sure that she wouldn't push him away.
He looked over at the empty space next to him, his hand fiddling with the cross pendent around his neck, he was sure to leave it open for her, just in-case she came through his door.
"Another cold night for you then hmm." Soryu mumbled, standing there just peering out the window.
No sooner than the words left her mouth, the door slid open, and soon a familiar weight found itself laying next to him.
Looking over, Asuka was on her right side just like the last two times, her back to him.
He rolled over and put his arm over her waist, only this time moving just that bit closer to her back, but not quite resting up against it.
"The nightmares came back." She said softly, it sounded to him like she was trying to excuse her behavior, to herself at least.
He understood that behavior all too well.
"It's ok," He whispered reassuringly, "you can always come here."
"I made a promise, didn't I?"
She said nothing, instead she just brought her left hand up to grab his wrist.
The Third Children smiled softly to himself, perhaps she could find a small measure of peace, even for a little while.
"Smile all you want Third," the redhead grumbled from the window "you'll just find a way to mess all this up somehow."
He ignored the specter, and just stared at the mess of red hair in front of him, enjoying the warmth from her body as her breathing rose and lowered his arm around her.
He wouldn't get a minute of sleep tonight, which was ok if it meant he wouldn't risk disturbing her with his dreams. He could do that for her, anything for her…
He owed her more than a dreamless night.
I like how for the Rebuilds it's still 2015 and they have don't have smartphones like we had in 2015, even if 2.0 came out in 2009 you don't see people with a lot of advanced technology. It makes sense since the 2nd Impact probably would have redirected pretty much every industry towards dealing with the fallout instead of consumer goods. So NERV can have advanced technology but normal people don't feel the effects in their daily lives nearly as much as they would have. Or maybe I'm full of crap haha.
SHOUTOUTS! (wow, lots this time)
Greg242 – I mean I think we all enjoy it when he has a backbone, but its not who he is.
EvaPilotFair – Thanks!
Akomis – Mari's going to be interesting since we know so little that she's basically a blank slate for the story haha.
UltraSpink of Da USA – Glad you're liking it. I'd say this is really just a continuation of the fieldtrip's conversation, at least that's what I tried to do.
AK-103 – Oh there's plenty of better stories out there, but I'm glad you're enjoying it!
Su Exodus – If it were almost anyone else, they wouldn't know what the heck you just wrote haha, choo choo!
Duckz – Thank you! I don't intend to!
Soryu-asuka-langley – Shhh! That's the title for a future chapter! At least someone's getting the songs. IDK maybe, I'm not sure Kaji's would be blabbing his mouth to everyone, even Gendo, but to Misato…?
Gleaming Onyx – "I may have gone to far in a few places…" yeah, it's a thin line between being a bit dark and going to straight edge. But I do want to point out it was meant to be an OOC moment for our Shinji, kinda, he's not like that to be cool, he wants to scare Mari (since he doesn't know who she is) and Kaji (into action), I'll try to keep from going straight edge.
Why!- Thank you for pointing that out, can't believe I got this far with realizing it/someone pointing it out! It should be fixed now, IDK why I kept spelling that way, I had it Toji in my notes, but regardless, it should all be fixed now. Let me know about anything else!
skyf0x – Yeah, if I do I will defiantly be putting a warning in the summary and above those chapters! But I'd like to get some canon answers to things even if I've unintentionally paved over them. Hope you enjoy the rest of the story!
Comedy Guy – Thanks! I wanted a reversal of the scene we got in 2.0, which I think fits really well haha.
calborghete – I'm kinda indifferent to her as a character simply because she's kinda a null variable, she doesn't contribute to the story very much (apart from fighting Zerual, which means I can tweak the character without guilt (almost like a canon OC, even though I don't do those).
Alright it's a bit shorter this week but, I'll post this weekend hopefully, classes are getting hectic so expect Wednesdays and one other chapter on the weekends.
Until Next Time