Seven: Silence.
Twelfth Ward, Tokyo-3, Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan.
July 20th, 2015.
If I take another shift at the drugstore—let's see, that'll be nine thousand yen more per week, thirty-six thousand per month. We'll be able to pay off Sakura's surgery in ten years—
"Toji, are you listening to me?"
Suzuhara Toji jerked upright in the backseat.
"Yeah?"
The lanky man in the driver's seat clicked his tongue. A cracked traffic light shone a bleary red eye over the empty intersection, scratched plastic barricades blocking off a deep chasm in the asphalt.
"Pay attention when I'm speaking to you. I know you aren't taking this seriously—" Oh, piss off.
"I was paying attention," Toji muttered. "Anyway, I can't pick up her prescription."
"Why not?"
"I got another shift at old Takeo's shop. Won't be back till after the drugstore closes."
"No way. Your grades are bad enough as is—"
"At least we know where your priorities are," Toji mumbled.
"What did you say, Son ?" Toji bit back a curse. He shoved the car door open, stepping out onto the curb.
"I'll walk. I'll be home after my extra shift." His father opened his mouth to voice another reprimand, and Toji slammed the door shut hard enough to rattle the windows.
A heavy, oppressive silence lay over the district. A scab of tumbled rubble and churned up earth marked the grave of an entire neighborhood, crushed beneath one step of the Angel. He kicked at the post of a FOR SALE sign planted in dead grass. The house-fronts leered at passersby, broken windows and ragged holes standing out starkly like knocked out teeth against the bleached stucco.
He halted before a crushed house, a fallen tree lying atop a pile of splintered beams and pulverized slates. It barely looks like Minoru's place anymore. With a quick glance over his shoulder, Toji hopped the chain-link fence and disappeared into the lot, ignoring the laminated condemnation notice. Not like anyone's still around to care, anyway.
Twelfth Ward, Tokyo-3, Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan.
July 20th, 2015.
"You're late again, Suzuhara. You'd better have an excuse this time."
Toji shut his textbook and sighed. As expected, Horaki Hikari stood over his desk, hands firmly on her hips and nose in the air.
"I was only fifteen minutes late today." I wouldn't miss anything if I skipped the whole period. Sensei gets through maybe one chapter a week.
"That's not an excuse." She looked him over. "And you aren't wearing your uniform. I told you—"
"I'm not wearing the stupid uniform." Not like we can afford it anyway.
"Rules are—"
"It looks stupid, okay?"
He gestured at the next desk down, where a uniformed student dozed on his keyboard.
"Specimen one: Kensuke. No offense, Kensuke." Kensuke murmured something in his sleep, a dopey grin tugging at the corners of his mouth—Hikari's eyes narrowed dangerously.
She pinched the bridge of her nose. "Just show up to class on time and I won't hassle you over the uniform. Deal?" Toji nodded slowly. She smiled at him. "Thank you."
She strode off, and Toji returned to the algebra textbook—or rather, to the latest release of Phoenix Cube hidden between the pages. He glanced back at Hikari just as she crossed Kensuke, delivering a swift thwack across the head. He jumped up, tripped over his desk, and went sprawling onto the ground. Toji sighed and pushed back his chair. Kensuke gave him a rueful grin from the floor.
"Mind giving me a hand?"
Toji hoisted him off the floor. Kensuke straightened his glasses and rubbed a trace of drool from the corner of his mouth. He booted up his computer. "How long was I out?"
"You passed out in the middle of first. Third is starting in a few minutes."
Toji scooted his desk over, the metal legs dragging against the linoleum. "What's that?"
Kensuke glanced furtively over his shoulder. "Someone leaked the schematics of the JSSDF's new tank on the internet." Toji leaned closer to the computer screen, casting a quick glance around the room—Hikari was diligently stapling a stack of equation sheets well out of earshot.
"How did you get your hands on that?"
Kensuke smirked. "Same way I got a map of White Sands. Some gamer got into an argument over the specs and decided to post the maintenance manual into the thread. I took a screenshot right before the jannies scrubbed it."
"What are you going to do with it? It's not like you have a tank—"
Kensuke yelped. A sharp pain shot into the lobe of Toji's ear.
"You know, Aida-kun, Suzuhara raises a valid point." Hikari loomed behind them, her eyes fixed immovably on the autoloader diagram on the screen. Her expression was deceptively placid, her white-knuckle grip alone betraying her anger. "What exactly were you planning to do with that?" Although hardly louder than a whisper, her tone promised bloody retribution.
"Class Rep…uh…" Kensuke made his best imitation of an ingratiating smile and utterly failed. Hikari's eyebrows drew together like gathering storm clouds.
"Are you trying to get us arrested, or are you just completely brain-dead?"
"I'm not entirely sure I understand the question?" She tightened her grip. Toji squirmed and tried to break away, nearly pulling off his own ear.
At that moment the classroom door slid open. The teacher rubbed his eyes and blinked sleepily at the tableau. Hikari relinquished her hold on the boys. She leaned in on the pretense of brushing dust from Toji's shirt. "Delete it," she whispered ferociously, "or I delete you." Kensuke nodded mutely. She straightened back up and strode to the front of the room to start the class. Toji and Kensuke exchanged a quick glance. He's not deleting that manual, is he?
"Ah, Ikari-kun, did you get the forms I asked for?"
Touji frowned. In the corner of his vision Kensuke's head snapped up.
A slightly built boy with vivid blue eyes stood in the doorway, a heavy folder full of yellowing papers tucked into his elbow. The newcomer tugged at his collar, leaning a little further into the room.
"Yes, sir. The ones in room 321, right?"
"That's correct." The boy crossed the room, keeping his eyes glued to the far window. He set the folder down, made a perfunctory gesture towards the teacher, and slunk to a desk in the middle of the room. He sat down, dropping his backpack beside the desk.
Toji pulled out his computer. It flashed up the boot screen, and after the interface opened he navigated over to the chat window.
SUZUHARA_T whos the new kid?
KENSTAR_1274 ikari shinji
KENSTAR_1274 hes nerv
Toji frowned.
SUZUHARA_T you sure?
KENSTAR_1274 saw him going into GF that day.
SUZUHARA_Thuh
SUZUHARA_Tyou were stalking nerv again?
KENSTAR_1274 what else is there to do
SUZUHARA_T GO INSIDE
KENSTAR_1274 boo
KENSTAR_1274 besides, nervies are hot
KENSTAR_1274 like REALLY hot
SUZUHARA_T ikr? Ritsuko-chan smiled at me once
SUZUHARA_T on the subway
SUZUHARA_T it was a courtesy smile but ill take it
KENSTAR_1274 lucky bastard.
A sudden commotion distracted Toji from the computer. He looked up to find what looked like half the class clustered around Shinji's desk, pelting him with a barrage of questions about the Evangelions. Toji glanced over at Kensuke, who now bore a grin as wide as a kid on Christmas day.
"What's going on?"
Kensuke pointed to his computer screen, before joining the fray around the bewildered pilot. Toji opened the chat window again, where a notification marker sat besides the class chat. He clicked on the flashing red button and scrolled to the end.
Naganohara_Y: Are you the pilot of Unit-01? Y/N
Miyahara_S: You are, aren't you?
Ikari_S: Yes.
Toji slowly looked back up. Ikari Shinji was attempting, and failing, to describe what it felt like to synch with an Evangelion ("It's like putting a battery on your tongue, but it's your whole body, and it doesn't really feel like a battery, and the air is orange water that smells like blood. And there's strobe lights in there—") It's him. That kid put my sister in the hospital.
"Do ya think Ikari'll talk to us after class?" Kensuke stowed his computer in his school bag, reverently lowering his camera into the padded camera case sitting next to the bag.
"Probably. Doesn't look like a diva. You want his autograph or something?"
"Something like that." Toji zipped up his bag, shouldering it.
They found Shinji sitting under a withered tree in the courtyard, idly tapping a desiccated stick against a gnarled root. The blazing afternoon sun glared against the patches of dusty earth between clods of dead, sunburnt grass, casting glowing portals where the light broke against the grimy windows. Ikari's eyes were closed; a pair of wires snaked from a SDAT player loosely held in his right hand up to his ears. Toji wondered idly what song he was listening to. He felt drops of sweat bead on his skin, dripping onto the packed dirt.
Shinji finally noticed them: he reached up with one hand to pull out the earphones, glancing between the two. Kensuke spoke first, although Toji heard him as if from a great distance. The heat pressed on the courtyard like molasses, the cicadas filling the air with a static drone. Toji noticed dimly that Shinji had stood up.
"You're Ikari-kun, right? The Eva pilot?"
"Yes…you're Aida-san?"
"Yup. My friend Toji wanted to talk to you."
Shinji turned towards Toji with a polite smile. He started to say something…
He's got the same eyes…he's got Sakura's eyes.
Toji felt his right hand move; he looked down dreamily to see what it was doing. Shinji saw the fingers curl into a loose fist, his own smile fraying.
A sudden pain shot through Toji's hand as it darted forward and struck the side of Shinji's jaw. The boy reeled back, tripping on a root and sprawling onto the dusty grass. He touched a hand to his bleeding face; his fingers came back red. Shinji's stare was terrible, accusative. Toji stared down at his hand, now hanging loosely by his side; the knuckles were stained. Kensuke was saying something to Shinji. Toji thrust his hands into his pockets and turned his back on the fallen pilot.
"Let's go, Kensuke."
"I didn't want to do it." Toji stopped dead in his tracks. Shinji stared at the tip of his shoe, jaw set and lips pressed into a thin line. When he spoke his mouth hardly moved.
Shinji pulled himself to his feet, leaning heavily on the tree. He sullenly stared at the ground, still refusing eye contact. "I didn't want to pilot the Evangelion. They made me do it. They would have killed her."
Toji surged forward, pinning the pilot to the tree by the collar. Shinji put up no resistance, staring over Toji's shoulder. Toji took a wild swing at him; his fist slammed into the boy's mouth and burst his lip. A steady trickle of red dripped down Shinji's chin, leaving irregular splotches across his white shirt. Toji released him in disgust, storming off towards the school building. Kensuke hurried along to keep pace.
A girl with red eyes stood just inside the door, staring through the grimy window at the pilot of Unit-01. As Toji and Kensuke passed, she glanced briefly at him before returning to her silent vigil. Toji walked a little faster, prompting Kensuke to break into a jog. He checked over his shoulder—she had returned to the window. Since when does Ayanami-san care about Ikari?
They made it down the hall, out the door, and about two hundred meters down the street before the wail of the air raid sirens filled the city.
Notes:
PREVIEW:
Yo, Ryoji here with your preview. The Angel of the Morning descends on Tokyo-3. The Third Child faces his toughest fight yet. Misato faces a difficult decision. Next time on Herz und Seele, Chapter Eight: Dawn, and an Afternoon Rain. Don't worry, there'll be plenty of fanservice!