The Matsudas were still there when he woke up the next morning. He ignored them, pretending to sleep when he could afford to and simply didn't acknowledge their presence otherwise.

"Do you feel any ringing in your ears?" The doctor asked after they'd decided he was a good medical case and invited several students(?) to watch him being checked up. The Matsudas stood on the sideline, Takato still looking lost as he looked between Shinji and the medical personnels.

"No," Shinji answered simply.

"Any headaches?"

"No, but my head hurts a lot." He cringed. The itch and hot aches tingling across the back of his head almost made him want to smack it for even a brief instance of relief.

"We'll get you some pain killers later." The doctor smiled while she wrote down something on his clipboard. "You're one lucky kid. Had your family worried sick, you know."

Shinji didn't deign her a response but a side-glance to his left revealed a snoring Takato wrapped around his dad's arms. He didn't dare look into the couple's eyes and instead moved his gaze to other beds occupying the hospital room.

"How long does he need to stay?" he heard Yoshie-san ask.

"It'll take a few weeks for his injury to recover. The sutured wound..."

Shinji droned out the adults' conversation and stared off into space. The ceiling was real. So were the walls. And the windows. The floors.

...and the people.

Whether he created this world or simply travelled back to the past, either way he was certain he'd hate it all the same. And given time, it'd return the favor.

"...'ll take Takato home. Do you need me to bring anything?" Takehiro-san's voice pulled him out of his musing. The doctor and her entourage had moved on to other patients, leaving Shinji to listen to the Matsuda couple's conversation.

"Just my clothes. Thank you," Yoshie-san patted her husband's shoulder and leaned in to peck him and her sleeping son's cheeks. "You boys rest up. I'll look over Shinji-kun here."

Shinji's eyes met the man's own for a brief second and even that couldn't prepare him for the tired but genuine smile the man sent his way.

"I'll see you later."

When Takehiro-san and Takato finally disappeared behind the door into the hallways, Shinji let go of the fists he didn't even realize he was and addressed Yoshie-san, his eyes fleeting about without making too long an eye contact with her.

"He didn't sleep all night, did he?"

It was a testament to the family's unending benevolence that she only smiled and took a seat by his feet, shifting the blanket covering his lower body.

"My husband cares about you. I care about you. You probably don't want us around anymore, but we're still your guardians for the time being."

Shinji frowned, finally locking gaze with her. "That's it? You're not mad I shouted at you and told you off?"

The woman bit her lip, her head cast down briefly before she looked at him again. "We're hurt, but what parents are we if we get angry over a child's tantrum. And we've had lots."

Shinji felt a stab in his chest at his behavior being compared to a toddler's outburst. That she wasn't wrong only made it sting more.

"Is that why you're so nice? Because I remind you of your son?" He scrunched his brows further when she kept smiling.

"You're a kid. Anyone would've taken you in," she said with her smile somehow appearing gentler but brighter than before. "But even if you were a homeless old man sitting outside our bakery that day, we'd still have helped you."

"Nobody is that kind."

"And who is nobody?" she asked ever so gentle with her words.

Shinji's voice stuck in his throat, unable to come up with a reply. Or rather, he didn't want to say it.

Yoshie-san leaned forward, carefully cupping his cheek and looking into his eyes.

"Some people are kind, some people are not," she said and planted the warmest kiss he'd ever had on his forehead. She pulled back, smiling softly. "But I am, my husband is. And that's why we care about you."

«・・・»

With Yoshie-san going out for breakfast, Shinji was left in the care of the nurses who brought his own first meal of the day. While he absentmindedly chewed on his rice with a side of painkiller pills, he couldn't help but stare at the bed to the right of his.

There was another patient, a short haired girl not much older than him who didn't quite look Japanese. Her leg was in cast. The whole morning she lay down on her bed and read manga while humming random tunes.

But it wasn't her that he had his eyes on. It was the large instrument on the other side of her bed; a cello.

"You wanna try?" The girl asked, putting her manga down to look at him. She continued when he responded with nothing more than a confused blink. "The cello. I asked my parents to bring it but as you can see, lying down on bed makes it kinda hard to play."

"You sure?" his mouth ran before he could think. It had been awhile since he touched the instrument. Ever since Kaworu...

"Sure," the girl's quick response stopped him from going down the depressing thought.

Shrugging, Shinji inched himself to the end of the bed and climbed down. It wasn't like he had anything else to do anyway. He took a glance at the name by her headboard on the way to her bed's other side.

Lee Jaarin, the given name written in Katakana. Not a foreigner going by her fluency. Half-Japanese? All thoughts of a stranger's genealogy went out of his mind when his fingers reached for the instrument and he took a seat next to her. He noted the heaviness when he tried to adjust its position, but it was to be expected with his puny size.

This body didn't have the muscle memory gained from all the years playing alone in his room, but whatever gap in motor skill he had, he made up for it by course-correcting his misses.

It took a while to get reused to the feel of the bow's angles and position as it moved along. Jaarin cringed and even laughed at his first several attempts, but as the seconds went on, her laughing voice gradually became a rapt silence as he played a nostalgic piece.

"Whoa, you really can play."

He muted out the mutters emerging in the room focusing his attention solely on the bow and strings.

Johann Sebastian Bach was a name he latched onto since his fledgeling cellist days, sheets upon sheets of his music etched into every muscles and joints of his fingers under the tutelage of his teacher guardian until he could play them even without a cello in hand.

He didn't particularly like it, but he didn't dislike playing it either. Guiding his bow back and forth in a dance over the strings, the ever so familiar Bach's Cello Suite no. 1 flowed free under his finger tips, circling around him in a comforting and gentle melody.

Kensuke.

Tooji.

Ayanami.

Asuka.

Kaworu.

Misato—

"Are you okay?"

His hand halted.

Somewhere along the way he'd closed his eyes and when he opened them back, Jaarin was looking at him with concern. It wasn't until something salty seeped between his lips that he realized he'd been crying. Tears slid down his cheeks in drove that no amount of wiping could stop and only made his vision blurrier.

He laughed despite himself and shook his head, all the while a sob was choking his throat. "No. No, I'm not."

Shinji considered putting it on his mental age regression for being so easily upset, but it wasn't like he was all that mentally stable in the first place.

Jaarin had a family of five, a fact she somehow thought useful to stop his waterwork. It wasn't, but the humiliation alone was enough to give him sufficient willpower to hold back another batch of tears.

"I'm sorry," he dipped his head down in shame, trying his best to ignore the now curious eyes from around the shared room.

She grinned and gave him a thumbs up. "Don't worry, my leg hurt a lot too after I got in here and I cried so much my little brother told me to shut up. I whacked him real good, then my mom whacked me back. Didn't feel like crying anymore after that." She thumped her chest in inexplicable pride.

Shinji appreciated she assumed he was crying from the pain. Still, he prayed the girl won't attempt the same on him and changed the topic to something else. Just in case, he inched further into his seat.

Wiping the last of his snots and giving up on the slow leaking tears escaping his eyes, he sniffled and readjusted his bow angle to continue playing.

"I'm Jaarin, but friends call me Rin. What about you, kid?"

She was barely older than him but okay. "Shinji."

"I'm eight, third grade. You?"

"Six," he approximated. That was the number he told the Matsudas anyway. "Was about to enter school before I almost died," again, but he left that unsaid.

They went on a back and forth QA session that admittedly helped take his mind off things. If the girl had planned this all along, the only indication was her ever-present grin.

His playing was soon interrupted again, this time by a surprised Yoshie-san who approached his bed to see him on the other side.

"I should go." Shinji nodded his goodbye to Jaarin and returned to his bed to devour the rest of his untouched food.

"Did you make a new friend?" The woman asked as she handed him a cool boxed milk from the grocery bag she brought.

He neither nodded nor give any kind of affirmation, but he did glance in Jaarin's direction who sent a peace sign his way.

«・・・»

"Niinii!" A tiny unstoppable ball of energy met a pair of immovable giant arms before it could leap onto his bed. Takato struggled in his dad's arms. The man looked more refreshed now thanks to some good sleep. Though with the toddler in the equation, it might not have been all that peaceful.

Yoshie-san greeted her husband and took the bundle of chaos into her arms before he could cause any more trouble.

"Have you been a good kid?" She rested him against her hips and bopped his nose. He nodded.

"Takato good. Takato helps daddy make dinner for mommy and niinii!"

Takehiro-san shrugged, gesturing to the paper bag in his hand.

"He helped me burn the eggs a few times," he said before addressing Shinji, smiling. "How are you holding up?"

Not well, Shinji wanted to say. He was exhausted in every way possible. Mentally from the deep realization that he had no way out of this world, and physically from his tingling wound chipping away at his pain tolerance.

"I'm okay," he tried his best to say with a straight face. His flinch at a sudden spike of pain didn't help his case. The man's smile somehow remained in spite of it.

"We brought you food. I'm sure hospital food is good and all, but they don't give you the Matsuda Special, do they?" he said and set the bag on the bedside table.

The Matsuda Special came in a bento hidden under the toiletries and change for Yoshie-san. Inside, it was decorated in slices of different breads mixed together, all of them smelling fresh from the oven. Accompanying them was an out of place set of egg rolls.

"Rin-chan!" a pregnant woman said and that was all Shinji understood from her sentences as she entered the room along with her two sons, one Takato's age and the other a bit older than Jaarin herself.

The little one must be the baby brother she mentioned. From the way she talked about him she expected them to be acting cold to each other, but the moment he approached her bed with the rest of their family she reached her fist out to give him a noogie, all the while grinning.

"Missed me yet, you little brat?" Jaarin, finally, brought back an understandable language insteas of what her family had been speaking.

"No," he answered cooly but didn't make any attempt to swat away her hand and simply accepted the treatment.

"Oh, you guys should meet Shin-chan. He's really good with the cello."

Shinji flinched at suddenly being addressed with a cute name, amplified with her complimenting him.

"Who's Shin-chan?"

"That kid who's trying to hide under the blanket."

Darn.

Peeking his head out of his failed fort, Shinji met Jaarin's family's curious eyes. A glance towards the Matsudas affirmed that he had no way out of this with Yoshie-san encouraging him to respond.

Internally sighing, he raised his hand and waved. Takato didn't get the memo and waved along with him which made Jaarin's mom chuckle.

"Are you Shin-chan?"

"It's Shinji actually," he answered quietly and studied the clump of blanket under his fingers. If she took of her glasses and grew her hair a bit, she'd be a dead ringer for his guardian.

"Shinji-chan, then."

He could live with that.

He nodded, finally readying himself enough to look her in the eyes.

"Nice to meet you."

"Why, what a polite young man."

Shinji blushed and thanked the heavens that Yoshie-san chimed in and took over the conversation.

"I was worried Shinji-kun would feel lonely by himself. I'm glad he made a friend here. Thank you, Rin-chan," she addressed the girl.

Jaarin grinned at the praise.

Meanwhile, the appearance of another boy his age prompted Takato to walk to him after finally wiggling out of his dad's grasp.

"Your name? My name Takato," the boy said bouncing up and down on his knees.

"Jenrya."

"Jeya?"

"Jenrya."

"Jeniya?"

"...Jen."

"Jen!"

Shinji couldn't help the snicker at the déja vu and did his best to hide it behind his hand. He couldn't fool the adults however, but at least they didn't bring attention to it.

Though they did ask Shinji to play the cello one more time. It was awkward to explain why Takehiro-san and Yoshie-san didn't know their "son" could play, and it was even more awkward afterwards with explaining his disowned status, but music had its way of making people move onto the next topic such as the budding prodigy cellist in front of their eyes.

Come nighttime, it was Takehiro-san's turn to look after him with his wife taking Takato home.

"I don't wanna leave!" the toddler whined and even resorted to tantrum to keep his parents from picking him off the ground.

"Takato—" whatever his dad tried to say, the other boy, Jaarin's untalkative brother, cut him off but not by words. He squatted to meet Takato's eyes, staring at him until the toddler stopped crying entirely. With just a grunt and a gesture to Yoshie-san, the boy managed to get Takato willingly stand and run to her side, hugging her leg to hide from the boy's intense stare.

The adults chuckled awkwardly at the unique but efficient method. That said, Takato still wasn't too keen on going home and did his best to give Shinji the puppy dog eyes.

Sharing a look with the Matsudas rewarded him with confused shrugs. He relented, dropping his shoulders and beckoning the boy to come closer. At once he dashed onto the bed and held Shinji close.

"Takato wants to stay with niinii," the boy said into his shoulder.

He had every reason to not want the kid around him anymore, yet his body reacted faster than he could speak. Hugging the boy back, he looked up at the Matsuda couples.

"Takato has always behaved well at home, hasn't he? Yoshie-san has been here the longest and needs her rest. Takato won't stop crying if you bring him home, but I'm sure he'll behave himself here. Will you, Takato?" he turned back to the kid who nodded so quickly he'd have broken his neck had Shinji not hold his head in place.

"Takato be good here. Please?" He begged his parents.

Jaarin's mom addressed them as well. "If it's any help, I'll stay here tonight to accompany my daughter. My husband is coming to pick up my boys so it's not too much work for a pregnant lady either."

Takehiro-san smiled. "That'd be great."

Yoshie-san sighed and gave a disapproving look to her son but nodded at the offer. She hugged her husband first and gave him her bye-bye kiss. Both Shinji and Takato got one too, but the kid got double the smothering.

«・・・»

Late into the night when everyone was asleep, Shinji woke up for nature's calling and miraculously didn't hit anything while he ran around in the dark. When he returned, he found Takato who'd been sleeping beside him now snuggled in his dad's lap. The man was shifting on his chair to fix his position when Shinji managed to climb back onto his bed.

"He was looking for you when you went to the toilet. Almost woke up," the man whispered, a faint smile visible on his lips from what little amount of light in the room. "Do you not like it here?"

"Well, it's cramped here—"

"I mean with us. Are we too overbearing on you?"

Shinji paused, not sure if he even knew the answer for that. If the light was on, his pitiful face would've been clear for all too see.

"I hate it. That you're good people. That you're so nice to me. That you treat me like family." He sighed and turned around on his bed away from the man. "It makes no sense when I say it out loud, doesn't it?"

"You know, I do consider you like a son," Takehiro-san said with a voice surprisingly much softer than his wife's. Shinji's own father could never reach the level of gentleness that the man behind him was exuding just by existing. "But if it helps, looking after you is as much beneficial for us as it is to you. The government pays us to keep you well fed and clothed, so if it bothers you, you can think of us as... personal caregivers who'll look after you alongside our own kid."

Shinji didn't reply. Only after a brief period of silence did he continue.

"I wish my father were more like you."

"How was he like?" Takehiro-san's voice was just as gentle as it'd been, but there was an edge to it that Shinji barely caught.

"Only the worst father alive or dead. Good spouse though." He huffed. "While his son was crying for him after his wife's death, he pushed the son away to grieve on his own. He didn't disown me. I disowned myself."

Takehiro-san was silent for a second but his following words rang loud in his ears from the moment he uttered them.

"Our door is always open for you if you want to stay."

"Some people are kind, some people are not. But I am, my husband is. And that's why we care about you," Yoshie-san's word replayed in his head.

"...I'll consider it," he said and covered his head under his blanket to get a quicker shut-eye. He never did, struggling to keep his thoughts away from those genuine words.

«・・・»

The next several days rotated between the Matsuda couples on who would look after him. Takato kept his promise to be on his best behavior and didn't seem to miss the world outside the hospital.

Being bed neighbors, it was inevitable he'd get to know Jaarin's visiting family members. Jan'yuu the dad, Mayumi the mom, Rinchei the older brother, and Jenrya the younger one. Two notable things about Rinchei was that, one, he shared a nickname with his sister with only either "-kun" or "-chan" to distinguish them both—

"Rin-chan, please don't put the cello on your bed."

Or,

"Rin-kun, don't tease Takato-chan too much."

Both of which the siblings would begrudgingly obey lest they anger their mother.

—and two, he was very talkative despite not talking that much. He might not use his voice, but he knew how to use his hands and confuse Shinji with the speed he was signing things, but the rest of the Lee family understood him just fine from what he saw.

Jaarin herself was a bubble of energy rivalling even Takato. In fact, she got scolded more often than the toddler for making noise and sometimes trying to walk on her bandaged leg, saying she'd recovered enough.

"Rin, are you suicidal or stupid?" Shinji said when she kept falling onto the floor. Thank the heavens she at least had a brain to use her crutch.

"I don't know what one of those words means."

And then there was Jenrya who Takato had taken a liking to. The latter was a huggy kid, and the former barely accepted any form of affectionate touch that didn't come from his mother.

"Jen, surprise hugs!"

"No! Don't wanna!"

"Jen, come hereee!"

The Lees as a whole weren't as touchy-feely like the Matsudas, but what they lacked in physical affection, they made up for it with thoughtful gestures and well-meaning but sometimes overdramatic comments.

"Eat your veggies or the doctor won't let you leave," Mayumi-san would say to Jaarin when she spat out her bellpepper. He and Takehiro-san worked together to cover Takato's ears and eyes from such atrocity. No way was Shinji going to let his hardwork making sure Takato eat his bellpeppers be ruined just like that.

But regardless of how they treat each other, the Lees were just like the Matsudas. They loved differently, but they loved all the same. And that was an idea Shinji found hard to accept and harder to make himself do so.

His time in the hospital would soon come to an end faster than Jaarin who the doctors had to hold back lest she get too daring at hurt herself again if she was let off the hook. It was actually rather anticlimactic.

It was night and Jaarin was fast asleep after running around— Under her mom's watch— the whole day playing with Takato. He and the Matsuda couples bade their goodbye to Mayumi-san and promised her family a lifetime of discount buying bread at the bakery.

Home was not sweet home when Shinji took the first step into his room, but it was familiar, and familiar was good. Sleep never came, but Takato did. And so with an almost unbearingly clingy but annoyingly lovable kid dead asleep hugging his arm, his gaze roamed across the ceiling trying reconcile his emotions.

Was it his own will that forced him to cross the hallway and walk down the stairs? Was it his own hand that slid open the door to the Matsuda couples' private abode? Was it Ikari Shinji that surprised the two adults by stepping into their room and kneeling into a seiza while they were deeply making out?

"We need to talk," he said, his seriousness washing away the red on Takehiro-san and Yoshie-san's face.

«・・・»

"What will I get from being adopted?" Shinji asked with the tone of an interviewer looking to assess potential employees. His age and high pitched voice ruined that image before he even uttered those words.

"You'll get... a family?" Takehiro-san said, trying to match the level of formality by awkwardly pulling himself into a seiza as well.

Shinji turned to Yoshie-san whose hair was at its unruliest state he'd ever seen. "What will you get by adopting me?"

He was certain Takehiro-san would follow up with "a son?" but his wife replied faster than he could.

"You want to get adopted?" There was disbelief, but also pleasant surprise etched across her face that their foster child was offering such a thing.

"I'm considering my future." Shinji looked straight at them, no longer afraid to meet their eyes. "I have nowhere else to go, not when there's no one I can trust. But you two took me in and treated me well. That is more security than I could ever ask for."

Shinji let his eyes wander to the family pictures adorning the room before returning to the Matsudas once again.

"I'm jealous of Takato who has such great parents. I'm jealous of Rin who has a very loving family. I'm jealous of all the kids who don't have to fight for their mom and dad's attention." His clenched fists trembled on his knees. "I... I may sound mature and talk like a grown-up. But deep down I'm just an insecure child. A child who only knows how to throw tantrums and whine at his misfortune. Can you take in someone like that? Someone who'll only bring trouble to you?"

Shinji should have expected the rush of hugs coming his way, but he could never be prepared for the pair of tiny arms that suddenly wrapped around him from behind.

"Niinii was gone, so Takato comes look for niinii," the toddler drawled, still groggy from sleep. "Mommy and daddy no fair taking niinii to sleep with mommy and daddy. Hmph."

The serious air around them dissipated with a chuckle from the amused Matsuda couples.

"You can sleep with us too, Takato. Now come on," Takehiro-san said, gently pulling Shinji up and guiding him to the man's futon. Yoshie-san closed the door and brought Takato to her own.

Shinji let the adults do as they please, allowing himself to be lain down between Takato and the two adults. He and Takato shared a space in the middle with Takehiro-san spooning him from behind. Yoshie-san smiled at him from the opposite end, her soft hand joining Takato's to hold his. With Takehiro-san's big arm stretching across him and the toddler to wrap around his wife, the four of them were snuggedly lying next to each other.

"Does that answer your question?" Takehiro-san asked, his voice as soft and warm as the body hugging him from behind.

Shinji didn't answer, only embracing Takato tighter and praying for this sweet dream to never end.