Can You (Not) Adopt Feelings?
When Mr. Ayanami returned home, he immediately noticed that Rei's shoes were still in the exact same position as they were when he left the flat in the morning. "So she really hasn't gone to school", he thought while taking off his winter coat and boots.
"Rei?" he whispered and when a weak voice answered "Yes?", he dared to take a look into her room. Even without switching the lights on, he could see that she was crouched into a fetal position under her blanket. She looked even more pale than usually.
"Still feeling cold?"
She nodded in response.
"Maybe another cup of tea will warm you up."
Because he didn't hear any objection, he walked to the kitchen and turned on the kettle. That's just what a dad needs to do, right?
It was almost half a year ago when he first met Rei. He had just started his new job at the tax department and as a new employee he of course was given the most horrible assignment. And what could have been more horrific than suspecting an orphanage of committing tax fraud? He gulped, swallowed his pride and walked through the gate of the Neo-Tokyo-Orphanage (NTO). "Every non-profit foundation has to be checked thoroughly", his boss Mr. Kubo had told him, "You wouldn't believe how many of them use their tax exemption for all sorts of shady dealings." He didn't want to argue with that, especially not on his very first day – but investigating the finances of an orphanage nevertheless felt wrong on a fundamental level. Before being able to take a look at their PnL and tax reports, however, he first had to be able to find the NTO's office room. Unfortunately, he had no idea where to go and decided to ask the first person he'd meet on the campus for directions. He didn't know whether it was the hot summer air or the embarrassment of asking an orphan where to find the documents that might screw up their orphanage's finances, but he started to sweat when he approached a teenaged girl whose light-blue hair stood out from the rest of the children.
"Hi there!" he greeted her and tried his best not to sound too weirdly creepy.
She looked up from her book with an almost expressionless face and he was a bit surprised to see her red eyes.
"Hello", she replied with a monotonous voice.
"My name is Mr. Ayanami", he continued and bowed down a bit in order to pretend to be overly polite, "And what's your name?"
"Rei."
"Nice to meet you, Rei", he reached out his arm to give her a handshake, but she didn't react at all. Luckily, a large tree provided them some shade or else he might have started to sweat even more.
"Can you tell me where to find the NTO's office?" he asked.
"Room 0-14."
"Thank you", he replied and wanted to leave, but in the very last moment he saw that the girl's book was titled "Advanced Mathematics: Examples and Applications".
"Isn't that book a bit too difficult for you?" he asked and thought "I've read that in college and even then struggled to comprehend it."
"It's alright", she replied and for the first time in their conversation he believed to notice an emotion in her eyes, "I like mathematics. It's always nicely structured and ordered."
"I see", he answered, "You know, I also like maths. That's why I studied accounting at college. It opens up a lot of opportunities to use mathematics at your job!"
She nodded with a smile and when he said goodbye to her, he thought that maybe he might have helped a young girl to pursue a worthwhile career. When he entered room 0-14, he found a middle-aged man sitting on a desk chair surrounded by a veil of smoke. Ayanami hated the smell of nicotine, but a job is a job.
"Hello Mr...", he looked at the nameplate in front of the room, "Zaburo."
"Who're you, kiddo?"
Great. First day at his job and already meeting an asshole.
"My name is Inspector Ayanami", he replied with the sternest voice he could muster, "and I'm working for the Governmental Department of Taxation and Fraud Detection."
Suddenly, Zaburo's demeanour changed.
"Ah, Inspector Ayanami, please take a seat! Would you like to have a coffee?"
"No, thank you", he answered, "the only thing need is to see your revenue and expenditures of the last 24 months."
He had only been assigned to check the last year, but he decided it might be worth putting in some extra hours, if only to screw with Zaburo. The orphanage's secretary gathered a bunch of files and gave them to the young inspector. They were anything but neatly ordered and Ayanami sighed at the prospect of having to analyse them. When he left through the orphanage's main gate, he saw that Rei was still sitting under the tree with the book in her hand. He waved at her and to his surprise, she actually raised her head out of her textbook and waved back at him.
"That'll keep you warm from the inside", he said as he handed her a large cup of tea, "It's a bit bitter, but the herbs will help you with your cold."
"Thanks", she mumbled and took a sip from the hot cup.
"Have you spent the whole day in your bed?"
"No", she answered and took another sip from her tea, "I tried to get up during noon. But after an hour, my eye hurt again."
"Did it get better?"
"The eye or the cold?"
"Both."
"Neither nor."
He gently brushed over her right eye. It was almost impossible to see it, but if he touched her eyebrow, he could clearly feel the scar. "That's something that'll keep bothering her during every winter", the doctor had said. Something about the tissues not healing correctly and that cold temperatures would always lead to the feeling of pressure on her scars, even if they seemed to have healed. He clenched his fist. "That bastard."
"Thank you for the tea."
He smiled at her and continued to gently stroke her eyebrow. Her skin felt awfully cold.
Two weeks after he had first been to the NTO, Inspector Ayanami returned with a formal request to double-check the expenditures for medical services. He was a bit suspicious about the receipts that Zaburo gave him and Chief Inspector Kubo did not stand in his way to investigate this further. "Do whatever you want", the old geezer had said, "but please do not be surprised when you find something that you might find distasteful." Whatever that meant. The rainy weather was just as bad as Zaburo's mood when he had to give the young inspector even more files. During the afternoon, Ayanami was starting to get tired and decided to walk to the NTO's cafeteria to get a fresh dose of caffeine. As he waited for the coffee machine to fill up his cup, he noticed a strikingly unusual hair colour from the corner of his eye.
"Studying maths again?" he asked her.
"Yes", she answered and turned around. He winced when he saw her eyepatch.
"Ouch. What happened?" he pointed at his own right eye, unsure whether this question might have been a bit too private. She just shrugged.
"Bad vocabulary test."
He noticed that she saw the confusion on his face.
"Just got disciplined", she added, "nothing special."
He clenched his teeth. Looking into the darkness of his coffee, he had suddenly lost his appetite for something to drink.
"Wanna have a hot chocolate?" he asked her.
"We don't get any pocket money here", she replied. "Interesting", he thought, "their expenditure reports claim something else."
He threw a couple of coins into the machine and pressed on the button for hot chocolate. She was genuinely surprised when he handed her the cup and he had rarely seen a more grateful face.
A few hours later, he was finally finished with the reports and he could have headed home. However, he instead decided to go to the tax department's local headquarters. It was already past 9 p.m. when he arrived there but he knew that Chief Inspector Kubo would still be sitting at his desk.
"I see", the old man needed a long time to think about how to reply to Ayanami, "But I'm afraid we can't do much about that."
"What?"
"Our bureaucracy isn't made to act decisively. We are the tax department", he continued, "We check the tax report. And if we find evidence of tax fraud, we act. But if we find anything else, we are not authorised to do anything about it."
Inspector Ayanami shook his head. That wasn't the answer he had hoped for. His supervisor lit up yet another cigarette and took a deep breath.
"You're upset."
"Of course!" Ayanami shouted at his superior and needed a second to calm himself down and apologized for raising his voice.
"Inspector Ayanami", his boss continued, "You're still young. You should be able to get creative."
"What do you mean?"
"We are not allowed to do anything beyond punishing tax fraud. But that's enough to make people deeply afraid of us. They care about money more than about their principles", he looked his younger colleague deep in his eyes, "We may not be allowed to report them. But they don't dare to report us. They fear retribution."
He vowed to take this advice by heart for his next appointment at the NTO.
"Asuka's already written me an email", Rei said after taking another sip from her cup of tea, "Luckily, I haven't missed too much schoolwork."
He gently stroke her hair. Because he felt that she was still shivering, he brought an additional blanket and covered her with it.
"You shouldn't bother with that now", he said, "Just get healthy again."
"You're not even married", Zaburo exhaled a mouthful of blue nicotine smoke, "You ain't allowed to adopt anyone all on your own."
"I know that all government agencies can make exceptions to their rules", he replied with the smuggest grin he could muster, "Otherwise, my colleagues might be interested to investigate your orphanage's medical bills from last summer. I checked your bills and thought that you ordered an awful lot of morphine for just 30 little kids."
Now it was Zaburo's turn to clench his teeth.
Even though Ayanami had prepared his flat for her arrival, he didn't feel as if he had prepared himself sufficiently enough for that. Nevertheless, he guided her to her new room – his old office room – where he had spent the last day setting up a bed and a wardrobe for her few belongings. Rei was utterly confused. Within half an hour, everything had changed. But when, after a long day, she laid down in her new cosy bed, she thought that whatever was going on right now could only be a good thing.
On the next morning, he knew he should have woken up Rei half an hour ago. But wouldn't it be weird if he just burst into her room? What if – he gulped – she was just getting dressed? Or if she gets scared when he shakes her awake? He looked at his watch. Crap. She shouldn't be late on her first day at the new school. "Rei?" he shouted and knocked at her door so loud that even their neighbours got woken up, "You need to get ready for school!" If she didn't stand up immediately, she'd have to eat her breakfast toast on the way to school.
When he returned home during the evening, the flat was dead-silent. He saw that her white shoes were neatly placed in the hallway.
"Rei?" he asked, but she didn't answer. He opened the door to her makeshift room and found her sitting on her bed, her knees pulled up against her chest.
"How was your first day?" he asked and feared the worst. There was a painfully long silence. Has she been bullied? Being the new girl, an eyepatched orphan and shy clearly wasn't a good combination.
"Alright", she answered and his heart skipped a beat. She pulled a piece of paper out of her schoolbag. "But we had a grammar test", she pointed at the red notes on her paper, "I didn't pass."
When he stepped towards her, she knew what was about to happen next. Her eye started to hurt in anticipation. He'd unbuckle his belt and all she'd hear for the next minute was the crack of whips. A small tear ran down her eye but was absorbed by her eyepatch. Instead of his leather belt, soft fingers carefully touched her shoulder.
"A test on your first day?" he asked in disbelief.
"Y-yes", she mumbled after a second, "They announced it last week."
"But you weren't even attending their school back then", he said and raised an eyebrow, "I'll talk to your teachers about that. I'm sure you'll be allowed to redo it."
He took a closer look at her test answers.
"Let's practice a bit tomorrow", he suggested and she got even more confused than before, "You know, grammar is all about structure and logical rules. Not like analysing poems or anything like that. I think you'll manage to get good at it."
After an hour or so, he decided to check on Rei again.
"Are you still awake?" he whispered and, unfortunately, she answered with a silent "Yes".
"Still feeling cold?"
She nodded and he started to make her another tea.
"May I ask you for something?" she said and blushed a bit while burying her chin in her chest. Noticing how carefully she pronounced every word, he realised that she must have thought a lot about how to phrase this question.
"Sure."
"Can you...", she started to nervously stroke her left arm with her other hand, "read me a bedtime story?"
He hadn't expected this question. Wasn't she a bit too old for that? Then again, she had always been living in orphanages, hadn't she? Even if any of the employees at the orphanage had ever offered the children to read them a bedtime story – he shuddered when he remembered their disgruntled faces – he couldn't imagine that any kid had ever wanted them to do this. Maybe as a horror story during Halloween. Seeing her wide-eyed stare at him, he realised that he had been lost in his thoughts for a few too many seconds.
"Of course", he answered and her face instantly relaxed, "I'll just have to check if I have any suitable books in my flat."
What kinds of books did he have in his bookshelf? A few philosophical works, some popular science books about astronomy a recently-bought book titled "Survival Tips for Raising a Daughter: Teen Edition" – she shouldn't know that he owned this one – and an old book filled with Shakespearian poems. Hidden behind his other books, however, he found a book from his own childhood. Looking at its hand-drawn cover, he remembered reading it as a young boy. Even back then, he had realised that another layer of deeper themes lied beyond the superficial story, but he only got a better grasp at it after reading it again as a student when he was sick and had nothing else to do in his dormitory.
"I found something", he said as he returned to her room, "I hope you'll like it. It's a story about a girl and a group of men who try to steal time itself."
Even though he still thought it was a bit strange for a teenager to listen to a bedtime story, he did his best at impersonating the different characters' voices. He was sitting on a chair that he had put next to Rei's bed and dimmed the lights such that he could just still manage to read. After the first chapter, she sleepily took his right hand and he then had to try hold the book and turn over the pages only with his left hand. Her steady, regular breath showed him that she had eventually fallen asleep. But just to be sure, he finished the chapter anyway.
A loud rumbling ripped him out of his sleep. "What the hell is going on", he mumbled and looked at his alarm clock. 2 a.m. Great. The noise clearly came from the kitchen and he walked towards it with sleepy steps. When his tired eyes had adjusted to the faint light of the full moon, he saw Rei, covered in a blanked and standing next to the kettle.
"Sorry", she murmured. Even through the darkness of the night, he could see that she was shivering.
"Did you want to make another tea?" he yawned. He hated to be woken up in the middle of the night, but knew not to get angry right now.
"I woke up and felt too cold to fall asleep again", she said and added, "Sorry."
He took a deep breath. Being a father was a bit more complicated than he had envisioned. But being a daughter must also be a bit confusing for her, too? Even after a couple of months, he hadn't fully adjusted to this new life. But to her, it must be even a lot weirder, right? Being a teenage girl is already difficult – but suddenly living together with a man she hadn't even known before must have been outright scary to her. At least at the beginning.
Another deep breath. She probably gathered all her courage to ask me for the bedtime story, he thought. That must have been a very vulnerable situation for her, right? He gulped. Maybe he also had to be a bit courageous.
"You know", he tried to sound as casual as he could while pouring the hot water into her cup, "When I was young and sick, I used to sleep in my mother's bed."
He quickly glanced at her face and was relieved to see that she didn't appear to already be grossed out.
"If you think it may help you to fall asleep, you can sleep in my bed", he blushed and quickly added, "It's fairly large so you can have enough space for yourself."
"Okay."
Her nonchalant matter-of-factness had always impressed him. While she was warming herself up with a tea, he brought her pillow and blanket to his bed. "Is this really happening right now?" he wondered, but before he could second-guess his decision, she was already lying on the left side of his mattress. Luckily, he hadn't lied about there being enough space for the two of them.
"Good night", he said as he turned off the light and laid down on his back.
"Good night", she replied. Suddenly, he felt something heavy on his upper left arm. From the corner of his eye, he saw a blue-haired head resting on his arm. For a second, time seemed to stand still. Then, Rei curled up a bit and shivered. Her small, irregular movements brought him back to the present, but it was as if a switch had been turned on in his mind. He felt something deeply rooted, almost primal within himself and instinctively rolled over and turned himself towards her. With his free arm, he grabbed the girl's petite body and gently, but firmly pulled her closer to him. He briefly shuddered when she pushed her cold legs between his and he finally understood just how cold she must have felt that night. She buried her face in his chest and the ups and downs of her body became more and more regular.
"You're the dad I've always wanted", she dreamily whispered as she fell asleep. His heart stopped for at least a minute. He wanted to pull her even closer to himself, but feared that this would just wake her up. His fingers started to gently caress her back. Today, he truly had become a father.