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This loop is different from the others.
In this loop, he is the Third Child. He is the pilot of Eva-01. His is the body with dark eyes and darker hair.
He still looks like himself, he thinks. He still has the same cheekbones, the same mouth. (He isn’t Shinji. He can’t fathom what this loop would be like if he were.) But he doesn’t really have anything to compare to other than see-through memories and flitting recollections.
But that’s not the only thing different. When he is introduced to Rei for the first time (properly introduced, not staring at her mangled body) he sees the knowing look in her eyes and he knows that she knows. She’s figured it out.
Kaworu wonders what will happen now that he’s not the only one who knows. (What will Lilith do?)
She confronts him about it in a blank hallway. He knows what she’s going to say, so he hides his face with a façade of calm smile and kind eye. “Ah, I was just looking for y—“
“Stop.”
He does.
He stares her down with the same mask, the same smile.
“I think I remember you.”
He doesn’t say anything. His smile is gone now.
“I understand now.”
He tastes something sour in his mouth.
“This is all just a loop, isn’t it? We're just doing pointless missions and we all die. The only constants-“ (She’s so calm. He can’t stand it.) “-are you and me. But I think you remember more than me.”
He turns away and inhales again. He’d stopped breathing in panic. He leaves her standing there with her knowledge and he’s helpless. He doesn’t know what to do. He’s so afraid, for the first time since the first loop. (First birth, first death.) He wonders how many he’s gone through when he’s back home, safe from the First Child.
**
Shinji doesn’t arrive. He isn’t there when Kaworu has to take down the First Angel, or when he moves in with Misato. He isn’t there until months later, when he appears out of nowhere. (Just like he himself was supposed to.)
Kaworu nearly faints when he sees him for the first time. This Shinji’s hair is his hair – and this Shinji has his eyes – The crimson and the ivory are enough to make him dizzy and he connects the dots instantly. Shinji is Tabris. Shinji is an angel. Kaworu himself is just a human. Shinji is going to be the one that dies for him. Shinji is going to be the one that betrays. His beautiful Shinji is going to be just – like – him.
He excuses himself to go to the bathroom and promptly vomits the contents of his stomach. He’s standing at the sink, staring at his hair (Shinji’s hair) and wiping tears from his eyes (Shinji’s eyes).
(To be fair, he and Shinji have only swapped palettes. But Kaworu knows that it means they’ve swapped much, much more.)
“Er- I noticed you kind of ran into here, so I came to see if you were alright.”
Kaworu’s blood runs cold even as he turns to look at Shinji with his blue, blue eyes.
Shinji is pale and beautiful and unsure, shy. He looks uncomfortable.
Kaworu wonders if this Shinji is like him – going through loop after loop after loop after loop after loop after loop after loop after loop after loop after loop after loop after loop after loop after loop after loop after loop after loop after loop after loop after loop after loop after loop after loop after loop after loop after loop after loop after loop after loop after loop after loop after loop after loop after loop after loop after loop after loop after loop after loop after loop after loop after loop after loop after loop after loop after loop after loop after loop after loop after loop after loop after loop after loop after loop after loop after loop after loop after loop after loop after loop after loop after loop after loop after loop after loop after loop after loop after loop after loop after loop after loop after loop after loop after loop after loop after loop after loop after loop after loop after loop after loop after loop after loop after loop after loop after loop after loop after loop after loop after loop after loop after loop after loop after loop after loop after loop after loop after loop after loop after loop after loop after loop after loop after loop after loop after loop after loop after loop after loop after loop after loop after loop after loop after loop after loop after loop after loop after loop after loop after loop after loop after loop after loop after loop after loop after loop after loop after loop after loop after loop after loop after loop after loop after loop after loop after loop after loop after loop after loop after loop after loop after loop after loop after loop after loop after loop after loop after loop after loop after loop after loop after loop after loop after loop after loop after loop after loop after—
He wakes up cradled against someone. He inhales and opens his eyes. Whoever’s holding him smells like nothing, the way I should smell, he thinks, and his eyes go wide.
Shinji is holding him.
“Shinji-kun.”
Shinji opens his eyes. He must have been asleep.
“Did I faint?”
“Ah- yes...” Shinji rubs his eyes with one hand. The other is still caging Kaworu to his small body.
(Kaworu hope against hope Shinji doesn’t look at him. He doesn’t know if he’d be able to stand it if he did.)
Kaworu takes the chance to orient himself. They’re laying on a couch – the kind in doctor’s waiting rooms. In fact, the entire room resembles just that, with the exception of the dizzying high ceiling and a fancy dark marble floor. The couch faces the impossibly tall windows framing the walls.
Kaworu gently picks Shinji’s arm off of himself and stands. The back of the room opens up into another spacious area, this one a sort of greenhouse looking structure.
“…where did you take me?”
“Oh. The gardens.” Shinji is slightly flushed, Kaworu notices. Maybe he didn’t mean to have held Kaworu so closely.
“Thanks. For bringing me back, I mean. Sorry to have passed out like that!” He smiles one of his carefree smiles.
Shinji blushes.
Kaworu looks away. He can’t stand to be near this particular Shinji. It’s a painful reminder of what he can’t control, of what’s going to happen. Kaworu half wonders to himself how he himself is going to die. Will he suffer the same fate Shinji did in that first loop?
He hopes not. Asuka hates him, after all. He says goodbye to Shinji, runs to his room and cries.
**
Rei walks with him to the geofront, meeting him on the escalator. This time, she watches his face from a few steps below him. “What is different with you this loop?”
Kaworu stares at her. He is tempted to say something, but he doen’t know how she would react. Besides, he’s still a little nauseous whenever he sees her.
“I think… all your colors are off. I remember you with hair like mine, skin like mine,” Rei continues, “eyes like mine. Does it mean something?”
Kaworu wonders why this Rei is so talkative. “It means I’m human,” he half-mutters.
“Did you say something?”
Kaworu looks up and smiles. “No.”
**
Shinji is more physical than in past loops. Maybe it’s because of his new role. Maybe it’s a fluke of the loop. Who knows? Certainly not Kaworu.
(Kaworu doesn’t know anything now.)
They eat lunch together at the school. Shinji is fast becoming friends with Kensuke and Toji – they’d never liked Kaworu himself, but the two of them seem to have become somewhat amiable towards him. Kaworu is happy now.
He watches the other boys change now. It’s gym class. He’s never truly done this kind of thing before, and even though he’s been in this school for months, gym class has never truly fallen into place for him. “Kaworu-kun?” Shinji asks, pulling on his gym pants. Kaworu shakes his head dismissively, smiling, and undresses and redresses accordingly.
Today in gym, they play volleyball. Shinji can’t set at all, Kensuke always lets the ball drop, Kaworu is much too slow, but Toji has a surprisingly impressive overhand serve.
Kaworu supposes this is fun. He always feels so distant from things. He’s never had a chance to really have fun.
They’re sent to the locker room early so they can shower. He, Toji, Kensuke and Shinji are always the last ones in- being late to class doesn’t really bother them, with the exception of Shinji. (He goes along with them anyways. )
**
Kaworu is floored, to say the least, when Shinji confides in him that he thinks Toji is cute. “Of course,” he backtracks, embarrassed, “I think he and the class rep have something going on. I don’t really want him as a boyfriend, though, that’d be weird, right?”
All Kaworu can do is push his dark hair out of his face and nod empathetically. Part of him wonders if Shinji is faking this. The rest is mildly hurt, and tense for the rest of the day.
**
He sits on the rooftop with Shinji. They’re skipping today. Toji and Kensuke went off somewhere to find some “scratch,” Toji called it.
Shinji blows out a thin stream of vapor. Toji gave him the habit (filthy filthy filthy Kaworu thinks) and Shinji has been doing his best to slowly wean himself off. He keeps saying how nicotine gum is the next step, but the vape cigarettes look cooler. Kaworu has never smoked cigarettes or cigars or anything of the nature. He doesn’t want to have to drag something like that around. It’s disgusting and he could never wrap his head around why it’s so romanticized.
It’s a bright, breezy day. Clouds scud across the sky. Kaworu says nothing and watches the vapor whip away from Shinji’s pale pale face.
Shinji looks a bit uncomfortable and takes another drag.
“Why do you do it?” Kaworu blurts. The question has been asked and answered at least twelve times.
“Stop asking me that,” Shinji says, not even bothering with the usual “What?”
Kaworu exhales, setting his jaw. He turns and watches the few stray adults milling around in the noontime heat. He sees a familiar head of pale blue hair moving amongst them. The Rei below them looks up, frowns, and heads into the building they’re on. Kaworu sighs and stands. Shinji looks up at him in question , then turns back to his music and vape when Kaworu waves him away. He can hear Childish Gambino blaring from Shinji’s headphones. The synths of 3005 and the sirens of the chorus’s intro follow him to the rooftop door. He hears the music in his head as Rei steps through the door.
Hold my hand even if you don’t understand hold up..
Hold up(hold up)
Hold up(hold up)..
He remembers when he first heard it; he thought the lyrics were oh love. He pretends they are and thinks about Shinji when he hears it.
He doesn’t realize Rei was talking until she clears her throat impatiently. This Rei is definitely somewhat more … self assured.
He shrugs at her. “Didn’t hear you; pardon?”
She sets her jaw and jerks her chin at Shinji. “Are you going to tell him?”
Kaworu feels himself start to laugh. It’s absurd. He could never tell Shinji that. And yet maybe he could. This loop is different, after all. Shinji is Tabris now.
He turns back to Shinji. His music is still so loud. He doesn’t hear Kaworu. When Kaworu pulls one earbud out he can hear the Pound Cake freestyle. He catches one line – “It goes deeper than that”- before Shinji is snapping his head away from him in annoyance. “What is it?” He half-snaps, turning around to look at him and Rei. He loses his balance a bit and Kaworu feels his heart plummet at the same time his hand does to grab Shinji’s arm. Shinji jerks it away from him, looking mildly confused/irritated.
“You almost fell,” Kaworu says lamely. Everyone is venomous to him today.
Shinji turns towards Rei for an exploration. Pound Cake is on repeat now. “They don’t know what to do when the world’s burnin-“ Shinji pauses it.
Rei looks pointedly at Kaworu, who looks at the ground. He looks at Shinji’s hair and then asks the question the same time Rei does. Rei asks a different one, though: “Are you Tabris?”
Kaworu: “Are you in a loop?”
Shinji:
The world does a strange pulse thing around them. Of course it may just be only his vision.
He steps back, unsettled. He prays to the Mother that this loop doesn’t cut off right here.
Shinji answers after a moment but his words slide off Kaworu’s ears like slippery black slime or tar or something, he doesn’t know. The pulse happens again. Again. Again again again as Rei starts towards him, saying something. He backs away more. Kaworu racks his brain to try to remember if a loop can cut off without him dying. His heel hits the small rim running around the roof. (There’s no real guard other than this one- no fence, nothing. ) He feels dizzy. Pulse pulse pulse. His hearing feels like it’s muffled; sound pushing through layers of fabric.
Rei reaches a hand to him, but her palm is parallel to him and he doesn’t want her to touch him; he wills himself incorporeal but he’s not quite an angel here and all he can do is trip over the useless little rim and fall down the five or six stories.
The world keeps pulsing as he falls, and it – everything – slows down, down, standstill; He hears everything with perfect clarity and the pulses push open new birth nanoseconds beneath him. He hears Shinji’s answer to both his and Rei’s question at the same time, even though it was answered years, eras ago: