Asuka took up two reeking trash bags and marched her charges outside to the dumpsters. One clattered as it held a several weeks' accumulation of beer cans, the other rustled and squished with the remains of half-eaten instant noodle containers. Both stank which helped a chore-shy Asuka far less reluctant to set herself to the task. The still-undiscovered purpose behind Misato's frantic cleaning spree kept her puzzled. She supposed that her boyfriend, Mr. Kaji, was due for a visit, but Misato's urgency felt off.
"He's okay, I guess," Asuka told the trash. "But since when is he worth all this effort? It's not like she's not already getting laid. Pathetic! Imagine rearranging your life around some guy."
Their apartment had never been cleaner. Misato and Asuka had scrubbed, dusted, mopped, polished, picked up, and tidied the place to a degree unlike Asuka had seen ever since Misato had taken her in some years ago. Past visits by Mr. Kaji and his own adoptee had inspired Misato to triage the garbage before, though never to such an extent.
"It's not like he's never been here before. He knows she's a big slob. No offense," Asuka said. "Then again, they're usually wasted when they barge in and then he sneaks out while it's still dark. Like I don't know! Or can't hear! Gross!"
Asuka hurled the first bag into the can collection bin. It sailed in with room to spare and hit the hollow bottom with a deafening racket. Her aim was off with the second bag. It got stuck on the edge of the bin for burnables and didn't quite tumble inside.
"Oh no, is she thinking about marriage? And she tricked me into helping lay her trap? I guess she's getting old. Clock's ticking. Soon she'll be a barren and won't get to replace me with one of her own."
She planted a high kick precisely where she had to to send the bag into the bin. It fell in with a wet smack.
When she arrived back at the apartment, there were two more pairs of shoes in the entrance that hadn't been there before.
"Asuka?" Misato called from the kitchen. "Come in! What took you so long?"
"Nothing, Misato! Coming, Misato!" Asuka growled back, kicking her shoes off and into the guests' to make a chaotic heap. She stomped her way into the kitchen to meet three faces smiling back at her from around the table.
"Hello, Asuka-chan!" said Mr. Kaji. She hated how casual he was with her and how it put her at ease before she could catch herself. Asuka supposed that's how Misato got taken in by his charms.
"Hello, Soryu-san," Shinji murmured towards the floor by Asuka's feet. On the other hand, Asuka enjoyed the deference she received from Mr. Kaji's ward.
"Uh, hi. What's going on?"
Misato gave Asuka her best maternal frown. "Asuka! Please, come sit! Ryoji and I have some news."
"Oh no, you're breaking up? So sad! Hey, that's my seat, Ikari!"
She slapped the back of Shinji's head before he had a chance to stand.
"Oh! I'm sorry!" he mumbled, scrambling over to the other chair. Mr. Kaji laughed while Misato tutted. Asuka scrunched her nose when she sat down: the chair was already warm.
"Alright you two, enough for a while, OK? Me and Ryoji have some news. It turns out that their apartment building was condemned by the city inspector after the last aftershock."
It was then that Asuka noticed the suitcases.
"Oh no," she blurted out. "Oh no no no..."
"And, well, this was something we were thinking about doing, anyway, so..."
Mr. Kaji took Misato's hand and squeezed.
"So I proposed to her," he said.
Asuka's jaw dropped. Out of the corner of her eye she could see that Shinji beamed with joy.
"And Misato invited us to come live here with you two," he said directly to Asuka. "If that's alright with you?"
"It's not," she said.
"She doesn't get a vote!" Misato retorted before planting a big kiss on Mr. Kaji's cheek.
"Well where's that one going to go?" Asuka snarled back, pointing at Shinji with her thumb. "If you think I'll share my room with some perverted little boy...!"
"Oh no, he'll go in that smaller room. That's why we cleared it out."
"But that's barely more than a closet! Where is Mr. Kaji going to sleep?"
Asuka flinched at her own oversight. Am I stupid?
Misato burst out laughing. Mr. Kaji struggled but failed to keep himself from smirking knowingly at his wife-to-be. Asuka felt her face flush deep red. She turned to Shinji and saw he was similarly blushing.
"I'll tell you all about that when you're older!" Misato laughed.
After the other two had left to gather more of their belongings, Asuka helped Misato wash the dishes. She was typically difficult when it came to chores, but recent events left her too unsteady to affect her usual attitude.
"Talk to me. I know you're angry," said Misato. She bumped Asuka lightly with her hip.
Asuka let the dish she scrubbed splash down into the sink.
"I'm not angry with you! You deserve to be happy. I don't—! I'd never—!"
"I know that, Asuka-chan," Misato said. She pulled her into a soapy side embrace. Asuka flinched at Misato's damp touch.
"Can't we just get a pet?" she suggested. "How about a penguin?"
Misato laughed. "A penguin?!"
Asuka rested her head against Misato's collarbone. She listened to the beating of her heart and waited until her own was just as steady before continuing.
"It's just that they might hear me. When I cry at night, you know?"
Misato let out a breath. She sat down at the table and pulled Asuka sideways into her lap.
"What if we tried to get you some help again?"
Asuka shook her head. She clamped her eyes shut.
"Asuka, I know I'm not your..." Misato said, eliding over the difficult word. "But since you came to me, since you entered my life, I've tried to do my best to do right by you. What did I know about raising a kid? What do I know now? I'm not all that much older than you."
Asuka snorted.
"You little—!" Misato yelped and gave her a little shake, which also shook loose a tear from the corner of her eye. It fell with a pat onto Asuka's cheek below.
"I've made a lot of stupid mistakes in my life. One of them was pushing Ryoji away. Then I made a lot more mistakes before I realized I could undo some of them. When I looked him up, the worst part wasn't worrying if he had found somebody else. Isn't that strange? I could have taken heartbreak. Goodness knows I've had my heart broken over and over. My worst fear was if I could say the words I couldn't say all those years ago."
Misato paused, her face all aglow. Asuka looked up at her and was taken by how beautiful Misato looked when her mind was elsewhere.
"It meant admitting how all of our time together had meant more than it appeared on the surface. That not letting him in was a choice and that I chose poorly. I don't know if any of this even makes sense. Just don't give up on yourself, okay? I'll never give up on you, I promise. I love you so much."
Visions took the place of sight. A doll. A noose. Her mother swaying back and forth.
Asuka shook her head again.
"I can't. I can't, I can't, I can't."
On the walk to school the next day, the bright glare of the morning sun nearly met its match in how Asuka glowered at Shinji.
"Come on, Ikari, keep up!" Asuka said, taking hold of Shinji's hand. "I agreed to walk you to school, not carry you there!"
Shinji kept gawking at the sleek, modern skyline of Tokyo-3. Like many children, he had been orphaned by the Second Great Kanto Earthquake. Somehow he had come into the care of Ryoji Kaji who lived in Tokyo-2, a ramshackle development thrown together by the UN emergency authorities to house millions of homeless people as expediently as possible.
Asuka, on the other hand, had grown up in the so-called earthquake-proof Tokyo-3 developed by the NERV Corporation, an NGO that employed her own guardian and formerly her parents. Asuka considered herself orphaned by the same cataclysm, but it wasn't the earthquake that killed her mother.
Pushing those feelings back into the deep numbness within her soul, she yanked Shinji along the sidewalk towards the school.
She felt a twinge inside herself pulling her away from the wrong path, like a tug at her sleeve. Asuka stopped hauling Shinji forward and let him draw even with her.
"I'm sorry, that was rude of me," Asuka whispered, hardly believing the words coming out of her mouth.
"Oh no, I'm sorry for being so slow. It's just I've hardly been here before. It's all so new to me. Mr. Kaji and me come from Tokyo-2. I'm sorry, you probably know that already."
She bit her tongue before she could call him a wimp.
"I did but that's OK. You were orphaned by the Second Quake, too?"
"Too? Oh, uh, yeah."
Asuka flinched at her own slip-up. Of course Mr. Kaji must have told him her family history. Of course he'd know that his mother didn't really die in the quake, just that she died because of it. She swallowed another bitter outburst and decided to let that pass.
There has to be a better way to go about this... Woah, I'm still holding his hand.
"So, I don't know, what was that like for you?" she asked.
Shinji eyed Asuka carefully.
"It was hard at first. I'm sure you know. But after a while I learned that you have to focus on living, you know? When things calmed down, Mr. Kaji found me. I realized that there was still life all around. Maybe even that I owed it to my parents, to everyone who died, to keep living for their sake. I know that it can be harder for others..."
He gave her hand a squeeze before releasing it. They had reached the schoolyard.
"Yeah, I guess," said Asuka, not sure about the jolt that ran up her arm.
Mr. Fuyutsuki raised his eyebrow when he saw Asuka enter class 2-A with Shinji in tow.
"Has Soryu-kun met a young man?"
"You mean my future stepbrother?"
Mr. Fuyutsuki's eyes bulged out, but he recovered from his initial shock quickly.
"Ah, so you must be Shinji Ikari-kun, our new student? Why don't you introduce yourself to the class?"
Shinji did as he was told. He wrote his name on the blackboard in thin, tidy strokes. The other students murmured half-hearted greetings.
"Now why don't you sit in that empty desk by the window, Ikari-kun?"
"Yes, Fuyutsuki-sensei!"
"Perfect, let's begin today's lesson on life before the Second Kanto Earthquake."
The classroom groaned in unison.
When the lunch bell chimed, Asuka shot out of her chair and made for Shinji but she was too slow. The class dunce squad, Toji and Kensuke, had already cornered him.
"Hey Ikari, welcome to Tokyo-3! My name's Kensuke Aida!"
"I'm Toji, nice to meet ya! When we heard about a transfer, we were afraid it was going to be another chick. They can be so stuck up, y'know?"
Shinji smiled pleasantly and bowed to each.
"Yeah this class is already, uh, whatever the opposite of a sausage fest is. Hey! Speaking of die Wurst..." Kensuke began before Asuka shoved the two of them aside.
"Back off, Dummköpfe, he's mine for lunch."
"Woah, slow down, we saw him first!" whined Toji.
"Actually I did because I saw him right after I woke up! So if you'll—! No! Wait a minute!"
The boys in the class broke into a low whistle.
"It's not like that!" she snapped.
"Children, children! Let's act rational, please," Mr. Fuyutsuki called out.
"Soryu-san," Shinji said, "I'd love for you to show me around sometime, but I'd like to meet some new people first, okay? We'll have plenty of time to catch up at home."
The girls in the class oohed and ahhed this time, but were shut down by an icy blue glare from Asuka. I still get all those notes from your so-called boyfriends! Don't make me read them out loud!
She turned to Shinji.
"Fine! See you at home, then, bye!"
Pivoting on her heel, Asuka stormed out of the class with her bento.
Asuka sat under a shady tree in the schoolyard. The cool spring air along with the shade was uncomfortably cold, but she refused to budge. She also refused to eat, instead gripping her bento box shut with white knuckles.
"Why am I in such a rush? What is wrong with me? I have all the time in the world to do this! Calm down! Stupid! Stupid! Stupid!"
In the distance, she could hear Toji speaking.
"Your funeral, bud! See ya back at class!"
Asuka looked over in the direction of Toji's voice to see Shinji approaching her while his newly made friends rapidly retreated.
"Hey, Soryu-san! Mind if I sit here?"
Asuka scowled at him, but remembered herself. She scooted over to allow him to sit, which only increased her discomfort. The new patch of bench where she sat was cold. She patted the empty spot rather than speak lest she spit some venom and ruin the mood.
"Thanks! Hey, I hope I didn't hurt your feelings earlier. I wanted to get off on the right foot with Suzuhara-kun and Aida-kun back there, that's all."
"No, that's fine, Ikari-kun," Asuka said. Then, swallowing bile, she forced out, "Sorry for being a bitch about it."
Shinji laughed lightly, which gave Asuka a light feeling in her stomach.
"You weren't, truly! You seemed like you wanted to talk to me, though, so here I am. What's up?"
Asuka cocked her head at Shinji.
"Huh? Now it's too easy?"
"Huh?"
Asuka waved away his confusion.
"Well," she started, placing her bento box aside and smoothing her skirt. "It was about what we were talking about earlier. You know. Orphans and stuff?"
Shinji nodded. He turned his full attention onto her.
"Well, my father died in the quake but not my mother. My mother, she died later than that."
"I know," Shinji whispered, then gasped when a strange grimace crossed Asuka's face. "Oh, I'm so sorry! I mean, Mr. Kaji had told me so I'd know, you know? But you tell it. I want to hear it from you."
He reached over to Asuka to give her shoulder a brief squeeze. Her soul felt like it was somersaulting across the sun. Her eyes stung but she found it was easy to smile at him.
"It started with a doll."
On the walk home, Asuka indulged all of Shinji's curiosity about Tokyo-3. The elaborate stress dampeners built under every highrise fascinated him. He showed a great interest in earthquake engineering which mortified Asuka. She couldn't understand why he'd want to study the force that killed his family. Each stop to examine this or that mechanism delayed them, but that worked to her advantage. It gave her time to think.
She had spilled her guts about her mother back at the schoolyard. Some of the details she gave didn't feel quite real, but they rang true and he accepted it all without question. After she finished, all he did was lean forward and embrace her. She thought she might pop like a balloon.
Look at that idiot.
Shinji leaned over a ledge to peer into an aftershock absorber he found particularly engrossing.
Asuka felt her cheeks tingling.
I think I could love him.
"Come on, silly, let's go home," she said, hooking her arm through his. Shinji, his eyes agape, let her lead him away.
Back at the apartment, they found a note in Misato's hasty scrawl.
Dear Shinji ❤ and Asuka ❤
Your very responsible guardians are
getting very drunk at the reception
tonight and will stay at hotel.
Food in fridge.
ASUKA:
(1) NO BEER
(2) BE NICE TO SHIN-CHAN
❤LOVE❤
She had signed it with a lipstick print.
Asuka threw the fridge door wide. "So you want a beer?" she asked Shinji. He stammered out a polite refusal.
Suddenly self-conscious, she added "I only drink one occasionally, honest. Guess it makes me feel like a grown up, you know? She keeps herself so stocked up that she never notices one or two gone."
Shinji shrugged. He still didn't accept one. Asuka cracked hers open and sipped.
"Sorry about the food in advance. All we got is instant crap and frozen stuff."
Shinji stopped staring at the beer in her hand. His eyes lit up and met Asuka's.
"I could cook something if you like," he offered. Asuka raised her eyebrow.
"So my new roommate cooks, huh? You any good?"
"Well, Mr. Kaji thinks so!" Shinji said. He puffed out his chest. "I've had a lot of practice. He doesn't exactly keep a regular schedule so I'm on my own when it comes to meals. He gives me an allowance and calls it my 'chef's salary' but I'd do it for free, anyway. It's not like I pay for the food, and he's done so much for me."
"Wunderbar! Then the kitchen is yours, Chef Ikari," Asuka said with a sarcastically deep bow.
"Wun-deru-ba-ru?" Shinji sounded out. "That's funny! What's that?"
"Yeah, sure. I'm going to go change." She tugged her red ribbon loose and off her neck.
Shinji looked away shyly.
Mein Gott, he's so precious.
"Hey, Shinji? Can I call you that?"
Shinji smiled at her for the first time.
"Yeah, um, Asuka."
Asuka let herself shake once she reached the privacy of her room.
"A whole night alone with him? Misato, thank you for being so neglectful!"
Asuka drained the beer.
Asuka took off her school dress, blouse, and socks, tossing them every which way. Ordinarily she and Misato dressed quite casually around each other. It's just us girls, nothing to be shy about, she'd say. Asuka supposed that would have to change. Misato had said some comments to her about how she was "filling out" recently. Asuka supposed she had meant it as a compliment, but the memory filled her with cool apprehension.
Asuka looked down.
"I should at least wear a shirt or I'll shock the poor boy."
She ducked into a loose yellow tee and put on a pair of blue shorts.
Asuka flopped down onto her bed. Her stomach ached with two kinds of hunger. She rolled over and stared up at the ceiling. The fluorescent fixture above her bed threw light without warmth. Asuka stared into it until her vision became a milky blur, then she draped an arm over her eyes.
"Shinji," she rehearsed in a whisper. His name—too well-suited to say with a sneer—she practiced over and over until it slipped out like a sigh.
"Shinji, I know that we barely know each other, but it feels like we have always known each other."
That's so lame, she thought.
"Shinji, I know that we barely know each other, but it feels like we understand each other better than anybody."
Yeah, that's better.
"I've never been able to talk about my life like that. You made it so easy. I..."
I love you.
"I think I love you."
Damn it.
"Do you think you could love me, too?"
Asuka took a deep breath. The air tasted like a fresh meal. She got up, bleary-eyed, and stumbled out of her room. She was starving.
Shinji spun around when he heard Asuka approach. He wore Misato's immaculate green apron, still creased from its long rest tucked away in a drawer. He nodded to her shyly, then turned away to serve.
"Kawaii. That's probably the first time somebody's worn that."
"Sorry, I hope you like it," Shinji said, gesturing to the food to deflect attention from himself. "There, uh, wasn't much to work with."
Asuka dropped into her seat.
"I'm not surprised," she said, feeling embarrassed at her and Misato's living situation. Her stomach growled as if to chide her.
"Well maybe Miss Katsuragi will take me shopping with her sometime? Or I could do the shopping myself."
"If you took over groceries, she'd probably marry you, instead. Hah! Are you seriously blushing right now?!"
Shinji laid out the food and took off the apron. Asuka noticed that he himself had changed into something more casual. She smiled a secret smile to herself.
"Look at you, already making yourself at home. With me."
Shinji nearly fumbled the serving platter. There was rice and some kind of meat and vegetable in a sauce. Asuka gulped, hoping the meat was still fresh. Shinji described all the ways he improvised to make the food, mostly looking at the serving dishes or down at his own in between quick glances at her. Asuka only looked at him. She felt her cheeks flushing but didn't care. The food was delicious. She dreaded dessert.
Asuka finished first since Shinji talked so much. He hardly gave himself time to eat. She made a point to consume the final morsel on her plate with one big lick. She beamed at Shinji, who smiled and nodded back. Before his own chopsticks hit his empty plate, Asuka was already up and out of her seat to collect their dirty dishes.
"We can save the rest for lunch tomorrow. I'll pack it up," Shinji said, starting to get up.
"Yeah, yeah. Wait a minute, though?" Asuka said, dumping the dishes in the sink.
She sat in the chair next to Shinji's. Her heart was pounding.
"Hey, Shinji?"
Shinji turned towards her. He quickly glanced down, then back up to her face. She realized he might have noticed her hands were shaking so she gripped her knees.
"Yes?"
Asuka took a deep breath.
"Shinji, do you want to watch TV?"
Several hours later, Asuka was back in her bedroom and alone with her thoughts. They had watched TV, washed the dishes, and parted for the night without her ever mustering the courage to say what had to be said. She felt as though a train was barreling towards her but it never came. She'd have to jump in front of it first.
Asuka held her breath and listened. There wasn't a sound in the apartment aside from her heartbeat.
"No snoring. Good. Would have been a deal-breaker."
She hopped out of bed and made her way through the silver darkness towards her door. Not carefully enough since she tripped and fell over the clothes she had shed earlier. Stifling a curse, she held her breath again and listened. Stillness. Silence.
I'm afraid to make a sound but I'm about to go wake him up. Are you stupid, Asuka?
She got up and kicked the tangled clothes into a dark corner then marched out into the hall.
"Shinji? You awake? Shinji? I'm coming in."
She slid his door open a crack. A thin rail of light from the hall illuminated Shinji in bed. His back was to her.
"Hey Shinji?"
Shinji stirred.
"Asuka? Is everything alright?"
"Well... Shinji, can I come in? Please?"
"Okay," he said, rolling over to face her.
Asuka crossed the threshold and sat at the foot of his bed. Shinji propped himself up on his elbow. He blinked.
She inhaled a big breath.
"Shinji, I know that, um, that we barely—"
"Wait! Stop, please," Shinji said. He drew himself up into a sitting position. "I heard you."
Starbursts erupted across Asuka's vision. Her heart tumbled into her gut. He had changed clothes before dinner, she realized, which meant he had gone into his new room. The room just across the hall from hers.
"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to listen! But you said my name! I thought you were talking to me, at least at first!"
"You idiot," Asuka said to herself. "So you heard everything?"
"I think so."
Asuka nearly cracked. She twisted her face tight to keep it all in.
"Okay. You heard. So how do you feel about what you heard?"
Shinji hugged himself into a ball. He may as well have dove into the sea and swam for another continent. His body language said everything she was about to hear.
"To tell you the truth, I worry for you. I don't think we have as much in common as you think. I mean, we do. We have Miss Katsuragi and Mr. Kaji. And we're both orphans. But, well, I'm sorry, but there's some hurt in the past that I've left behind. It's hard, I'm still working at it, but I'm doing my best to move beyond it."
Asuka clenched and released her fists. She wanted to pound on Shinji's face to show him how it really felt to be hurt, even though her pain lay in a place so deep no one could ever reach it from the surface.
"And I'm not saying that whatever you feel, what you're struggling with, that it's not hard for you. That you should just get over it. I'm not saying that at all. But it's not good for me to talk about what happened to our parents when I'm trying to put that into the past."
"I don't know if Miss Katsuragi and Mr. Kaji getting married makes us brother and sister. We don't have to call each other that. I'd so much like for us to become friends, though, Asuka. I can tell you're in pain because I was in pain. I want to help you. There's just stuff I can't help you with myself."
Asuka held her face in her hands and let the tears flow. He made it so easy to betray herself.
"To answer your question, though, we're about to become family, Asuka. I'll love you and Miss Katsuragi just as much as Mr. Kaji."
"You know that's not what I meant," Asuka hissed through her hands. Shinji had no response.
"So was that enough?" Asuka said to nobody in particular. "Is my humiliation over?" She looked up at the ceiling expecting it to come tumbling down.
Shinji cocked his head to the side.
"Please don't feel embarrassed, I won't tell."
"I wasn't talking to you, you idiot!"
Asuka ran back to her room and slammed the door.
When Asuka woke up, it was a fine summer day for a wedding. The ceremony went without a hitch. Asuka was shocked to see how sharp Mr. Kaji looked with a fresh shave and an unwrinkled shirt. She was also shocked at how low the neckline was on Misato's gown.
The newlyweds danced their first dance while all the guests gawked. Asuka used the opportunity to slip away from Shinji, his new girlfriend from a different class, and the rest of the wedding party gathered around the dance floor. She spotted a familiar blonde lady with an empty seat beside her.
"Anybody sitting here?" Asuka asked, flopping into the seat without waiting for an answer.
"Asuka? I work with Misato. Well, we're friends. We've met, don't you remember? It's Ritsuko Akagi."
"Cool."
"Want to talk?"
"No."
"Then I'll talk."
"Can't you go sit somewhere else?"
"You're clearly eyeing her new ward and look like you need a distraction. We call you her 'ward' at work, too. Whenever somebody refers to you as Misato's daughter, she protests."
"Thanks, that makes me feel super."
"Ah, it's not like that. She feels like she doesn't deserve the honor of being called your mother. At first we thought it was a clumsy expression of humility, but at this point some people worry. I don't. She told me not to, so I don't."
"Misato should make better friends."
Ritsuko seemed on edge even though they were far from the commotion and energy on the dance floor. Asuka's intuition tingled.
"Do you smoke?"
"Hmm?" Ritsuko snorted. She sniffed at herself and shrugged. "How could you tell?"
"You want to go smoke?"
"Do you smoke?"
"No, but I've been meaning to take it up."
Asuka and Ritsuko rounded a corner of the function hall so they could have some privacy from the other smokers by the entrance. Ritsuko lit a cigarette and handed it to Asuka, then lit another and took a deep drag.
"My girlfriend just broke up with me. She told me that she needed me and I called her a liar. I made her cry. She looked so pathetic that I had to leave for a while and when I came back she broke up with me."
Asuka burst out laughing.
"Damn. That's cold, lady."
"She was lying! Nobody needs me. If I walked out of NERV tomorrow, nothing would change. They could continue on as though I were never there. I'm too good at writing documentation, you see. I'm told the secret is to make yourself indispensable, otherwise you're disposable."
Asuka glanced over to Ritsuko only to catch her looking back.
"You going to smoke that?"
Asuka looked at the strange burning thing in her hand.
"I don't know how."
Ritsuko sighed. "Ok, first put it between your lips. Suck in just a little into your mouth but don't inhale! Oh no!"
Asuka was already coughing and retching. She hurled the cigarette to the ground and smashed it under her heel.
"Alright, enough smoking lessons for one day."
Ritsuko held out her phone to Asuka with the photo app open.
"This is my ex. Am I stupid or what?"
Asuka thumbed through a few images of a mousy woman with short, brown hair. She was clearly a few years younger than Ritsuko, but not too young. Asuka could tell because she had a pleasant aura to her in all the pictures. The world hadn't beaten her down yet. She was very cute. There was one picture of the two of them. Ritsuko wore an official-looking lab coat and her ex held a NERV mug.
Asuka rolled her eyes. "You worked with her, too? You really are stupid."
Ritsuko chuckled.
"You live with him, don't you?" she said, indicating the hall with her cigarette. "Talk about awkward."
Asuka gritted her teeth.
"Who are you, the NERV therapist?"
"What's awkward is that I did need her," Ritsuko said. She blew some smoke away from Asuka. "Desperately, in fact. But I still behaved so irrationally around her, like she threatened me."
Asuka recalled the mousy girl with the earnest eyes.
"She threatened you?"
"Sure. It put me on the defensive. Fight or flight, an atavistic reaction. Have you ever heard of the Hedgehog's Dilemma?"
"What's that? Sounds like a cartoon for babies," Asuka was impatient with all Ritsuko's meandering. She crossed her arms to make her displeasure known. "How'd she threaten you?"
"By being essential, of course. I made an empirical observation: I needed her because when she wasn't there it destroyed me. It's a lot of power to cede to somebody. I held on to the self-destruct code, though. Look at us. Two strong women talking about their lost loves."
Ritsuko pulled another drag from the cigarette and ashed it.
"Here's a hypothetical, instead: What would you do if, say, you were trapped and somebody else was in control of your air supply? Would you try to escape? Would you beg?"
White rage blinded Asuka.
"I'd hold my breath," she muttered.
"So you do understand. Irrational behavior, in my opinion, though I'm not that kind of doctor. I made my role in her life very clear to her, but I obfuscated what part she played in mine. I thought that would make me indispensable. I think it made me vexing to be around."
"Did your cats take her side?"
Ritsuko tittered, but she did brush away a gray cat hair from her dark blue dress.
"Well I'm not like you," said Asuka. "I told him. I made it very clear. What idiot hasn't heard about what happened to the Walls of Jericho? Should I have said the Maginot Line, instead? That'd be slutty!"
"Hmm, yes, slutty," Ritsuko agreed.
"And you know what he did?"
"Blew his horn, no doubt."
Asuka flushed crimson.
"No! He did nothing! Nothing."
Asuka held herself taut for as long as she was able, then let herself collapse. Ritsuko puffed to her side.
"At work, I program all kinds of earthquake models to accurately predict how a structure will respond to different scenarios. You'd be easy to model: a seamless concrete cube, about yea high, filled solid. I could throw a Third Kanto at you and predict zero casualties, but that's because you don't let anybody inside."
She took another drag.
"Have you ever seen those videos of dogs who won't walk through an open glass door? They stand there begging to be let inside until their owner steps over the threshold themselves? So cute."
"Doctor Animal Fetishist, you might have a point. I should have kept the idiot on a leash. And neutered him."
Ritsuko flicked her spent cigarette into an uncertain oblivion. Asuka could no longer hear the boisterous party inside.
"If you do depend on somebody, you should let him know. Test him all you want, but reach out just enough so he knows it's not a trick."
"Depend on somebody like you do on nicotine?"
"An imperfect analogy. Cigarettes don't keep me in their purse. Make yourself the first one he seeks, not the last. Do you want him to feel relieved when you're not around? Be indispensable."
A chilly tightness tugged in Asuka's chest.
A memory from his mind echoed into hers: "I'm scared of both Misato and Ayanami... Help me, help me, Asuka... Come on, wake up... Call me an idiot like usual!"
"What if he did something bad?"
"Who? That nice boy inside?" Ritsuko said, gesturing to where the function hall had been. It had been consumed by an expanding whiteness as well.
"You know who I mean. You know which one this is about."
Ritsuko looked away. Earth and sky had lost distinction to an all-encompassing pale glow. A cold wind blew out of the north. Asuka hugged herself to stay warm. Ritsuko wasn't affected.
"That's right, you wouldn't remember winters," she observed.
"I know what a 'winter' was, I'm not stupid."
"Knowledge can be a poor substitute for experience, in my experience," said Ritsuko. "So back to my point: Don't forgive him. I've never forgiven anybody for anything in my life and look how far I've come. Immortality and with somebody who loved me all along. And I never would have let her in otherwise. Is she your plus one?"
Ritsuko pointed to a figure in the distance. Asuka squinted.
"You wore a school uniform to a wedding? You're embarrassing, Ayanami."
Asuka stepped forward. Her foot fell with a cold crunch. She looked back to see the final guest had disappeared. She looked down and saw her toes were covered in snow.
"And you're late."
"I do not choose when to come."
Asuka jabbed a finger at Rei. "Why is it that when you and the idiot play god, you get everything you want? But when I try it out for myself, all I get is punishment?"
"The human soul abhors a vacuum, thus Complementation within Instrumentality. Here you can leave aside all pretense though not your truly held desires."
"I didn't want to get stuck here with that limp imitation that shared his name."
"You are not honest with yourself. You would rather suffer defeat than be proven wrong. It is untenable."
Asuka pressed ahead into the wind. Rei, while facing Asuka, stayed always the same distance apart. Although Rei's voice pierced the wind, Asuka found that she had to shout to be heard.
"I'm never wrong, not about him! I proved it again: the Shinji I needed doesn't exist. I proved that I don't need him to live. Empirically!"
"You perceive defeat as a decision, but fallibility as fate. What is forgiveness? Is it to lose? Or is it to acknowledge error? Which would put forgiveness within your power?"
Rei sang. Asuka recognized the melody from when she was young but not the English lyrics Rei used.
"I think as I please
And this gives me pleasure
My conscience decrees
This right I must treasure"
"Those aren't the words!"
"Not the words of your mother."
Rei faded into nothing. Asuka trudged forward towards where she had been. Shapes separated out of the nothingness: the ground, trees, houses. The featureless white sky lost its brilliance. Gray cracks appeared from which jagged blackness bled in twitching, spreading rays. A shapeless shadow of a figure darted between the darkest gaps.
It whispered to Asuka a memory in her own voice: "I don't even want kids!"
"Go away!"
Black spread across the white until only pinpoints of brilliance showed through. The stars had come out. There was nowhere left in the heavens for Balthazar's ghost to hide so it left her alone. Asuka stepped into the crunching cold winter's night.
つづく