Shinji is standing in the doorway watching Asuka sleep. It was a rare event, one of them waking without the other. If she knew he was there she'd either threaten to kill him for being a pervert or demand to know what he was waiting for.
What her baka was waiting for.
She'd been slipping a lot recently, like she didn't care who heard her any more. As long as it wasn't him. As if he wouldn't notice. The only person who paid more attention to her was Rei.
Shinji didn't know what he felt for the redhead tangled in sheets before him. Fear and pain he understood. Anything else. He'd seen Toji and his younger sister together and as much as his friend would do anything for his sibling - as he would for Asuka, or Rei - it didn't seem like that. Hikari and her siblings had different relationships and while it was clear they supported each other, it didn't seem like that either. It obviously wasn't anything like his relationship with his father, his only direct experience with family. He pushed the images of his mother's dissolving face away faster than they formed. It certainly wasn't the objectifying lust that some of his classmates seemed to have as their only expression of reaction towards girls. Nor was it the odd combination of friendship and desire that Megumi and Chihiro had for each other. Maybe it was the same thing that had driven Asuka to demand he hold her never mind how, but even if he dared ask her, he'd seen her expression when she'd said "We don't talk about this", he doubted she knew either.
Whatever it was, it was no longer something he could run away from.
Not that running away would actually work any more. He'd felt Asuka's anger all the way out at Rei's apartment as if she'd been right there, glaring in his face. He'd felt like he was sitting right behind her the way they'd been when they fought the fish Angel together, not separated by a hundred tons of Eva and a hundred metres in the cages. He'd felt her pacing as he sat in the hospital down in the Geofront answering repetitive questions about things he had no memory of, and avoiding those about things he now did. Asuka would know where he was.
Not that running away was something he wanted to do anymore. He still hated and feared piloting. But he had people to protect now. Including the confusing girl in front of him. People he cared about. Including the confusing girl in front of him. People who seemed to care about him. Including the confusing girl in front of him. And Rei, who was confusing the girl in front of him.
He withdrew quietly back to his own room so as to not accidentally wake her.
'If I'm yours Asuka, I wonder how long it's going to take you to notice you're Rei's' he wondered as he let her shallow breathing pull him back down into a dreamless sleep.