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“Come on, Misato-san. Do I really have to do this? With him ?
Shinji pointed an accusing finger in Kaworu’s direction like he needed to confirm that it was him who he was talking about. Kaworu just kept his hands firmly planted in his pockets, watching as the other boy attempted to reason with the Major—not all that successfully, from the looks of it.
“Yep!” Misato chirped gleefully. “Consider this a special mission. I’m counting on you two to succeed.”
“It’s just a dumb party. Can’t you handle this by yourself?” Shinji whined, crossing his arms over his chest in defiance. As he kept his eyes fixed on Misato, the older woman began to fidget awkwardly, her eyes darting side to side. Shinji sighed when the realization hit. “...You forgot until just now, didn’t you?”
“N-not really!” Misato fibbed. “I just don’t have the time to put everything together—none of us do. I didn’t realize everyone would be so swamped today,” she let out her own frustrated sigh, pinching the bridge of her nose. “It’s a total disaster. Even Asuka and Rei are too busy with synch tests to help out. I don’t have anyone else to count on right now. I need your help, Shinji-kun!” A moment passed before she remembered Kaworu’s presence. “And you, too, Nagisa-kun.”
Kaworu shrugged, more interested in watching Shinji’s surliness unfold than in anything Misato had to say. It was amusing as ever, especially when it wasn’t fully directed at him for once.
“I have other things to do today, Misato-san. I’m sure Nagisa does too.”
“Pleeease!” Misato clasped her hands together like she was in prayer. “There really is no one else I can ask! We have this party every year, and it’s always a huge hit. It would be such a shame to have to cancel…” she begged, but Shinji seemed no more merciful than before. There was a moment of defeat before her eyes lit up like she just had a fantastic idea. “I’d really owe you if you did this for me! How about after all this is done, I take you boys out for some steak? Or anything else you want, your choice! It’s on me,” she winked. “So, how about it? Does it sound like a date?”
Her last ditch effort didn’t seem all that effective on its intended target, but with it, she had finally won Kaworu’s attention.
A date? That was the reward? If he did this, he’d be able to go out on a date with Shinji?
His answer was immediate. “I’ll do it.”
Shinji turned on his heel to glare at him. “Wha— really, Nagisa?”
His indignant sputtering was interrupted by the loud, whooping cheer Misato made. “Thank you so much, Nagisa-kun! You’re a lifesaver!”
She took a moment to revel in her victory before her gaze shifted over to Shinji, knowing he was rapidly losing his resolve to refuse the request. He looked away from them both, trying to hold onto it a moment more, but ended up relenting before Misato could even speak another word.
“Fine, fine. You win, I’ll help,” Shinji rolled his eyes. “But I won’t pretend I’m happy about it.”
“That’s fine, so long as you get it done!” Misato laughed as she hurried to the door, needing to head off to whatever it was she had in store for her today. “If it helps, think of this as a training exercise to build camaraderie with your fellow pilot. Good luck, you two!”
And with that, she was off. The clack of Misato’s boots against the floor rapidly faded away as she made her escape and left the two alone to their task, to Shinji’s clear displeasure. His amber eyes narrowed when they met Kaworu’s for the first time since they’d been called here, and a long, rattling groan left him.
“Come on, Nagisa. Let’s just get this over with.”
Without waiting for a response he went off the other way, mumbling something unintelligible but undeniably rude under his breath. Kaworu followed his lead, not sure where they were going, but not really all that concerned about it anyway.
“Hey, Shinji-kun.”
It took Shinji a while to answer. “Yes, Nagisa?” he huffed.
“What’s this party for?”
Shinji stopped so abruptly that Kaworu nearly walked right into him. “You can’t be serious, right?” he turned around, scowling at the older boy like he’d asked the dumbest question possible. “It’s Halloween. What else would it be for?”
“Oh, I know that,” he said. “But what is it, exactly?”
“...Huh?”
“Halloween. What is it?”
The look on Shinji’s face, combined with the way his hands balled tightly into fists, made Kaworu think that for the first time he was actually going to follow through with that threat to knock his teeth out.
“Hmm, I see. So it started as a pagan festival to mark the end of the harvest, when they believed the boundary between the world of the living and the dead became thin. So they dressed up in animal skins to ward off wandering ghosts…” he flipped the page and began to pore it over. “Shinji-kun, do we have any of those in these boxes? They seem to be an essential part of the festival.”
Shinji lay slumped against one of the hefty boxes of supplies he and Kaworu had spent the better part of an hour lugging all around NERV, too worn out to be properly upset. “No , Nagisa. And we don’t need them, either. Everything we need for the party is right here,” he weakly smacked the box closest to him. “Just give me a minute.”
“I was just trying to be thorough,” Kaworu grumbled as he shut the book and gracelessly tossed it back into the box he’d plucked it out of earlier. “You aren’t helping me understand this at all. I just want to make it easier for you.”
“If you want to make things easier for me, then shut up and start unpacking,” Shinji snapped as he slowly regained his temper along with his energy. “I’m sure it’s all pretty self-explanatory. It shouldn’t be too hard to figure out.”
With a grunt, Shinji finally heaved himself up onto his feet and got to work. He said nothing more to Kaworu as he began carefully taking out the supplies given to them, his back turned to his partner. Kaworu followed suit, snatching up whatever he thought looked most important and placing it on a table, trying to figure out each item’s purpose.
“Have you ever been to one of these parties before, Shinji-kun?”
“...Parties aren’t really my thing,” he answered quietly. “Too many people, too much noise. I was hoping that I’d get to skip this one too, before you decided to open your big mouth earlier,” even without seeing him, Kaworu could tell he was pouting. “I never thought I’d see you volunteering to help someone out.”
Kaworu wasn’t sure if that was a compliment, an insult, or both. He considered reminding Shinji of their promised reward—it was the only reason he’d wanted to help out in the first place, after all—but stopped himself just as he opened his mouth to do so. He had a feeling that would annoy him even further.
“What can I say? I’m in a charitable mood right now.”
“Yeah, sure,” Shinji scoffed. “Maybe I should’ve let you do this all by yourself, then.”
Shinji didn’t just sound mildly miffed like he usually did when he spoke to him, but actually, truly, pissed off. Something about his tone left Kaworu with a strange, sinking pit in his stomach, but he brushed it aside. Or at least, he tried to.
The words tumbled out on their own. “I wonder what First would say if she knew you left all the work to me, though. Do you think she’d be disappointed?”
“Nagisa…”
He should’ve stopped, but kept going. “Would you have volunteered to help had she been in my place? Too bad she’s too busy.”
“Nagisa, enough ,” Shinji groaned. The lack of an answer was all Kaworu needed to figure it out. “Just shut up and get back to work.”
Kaworu felt like he was the angry one, now—why, though? It was a peculiar feeling, and one he didn’t have a proper explanation for. All he knew is that it made him want to egg Shinji on even more.
“Maybe if you do a good job, she’ll compliment you on your work when she gets here. Who knows?”
Shinji didn’t respond, but the rustling of plastic as he sorted through the supplies grew more hasty, like his motivation had been renewed. Kaworu almost wished he hadn’t said anything at all.
It took a while, but soon enough, all their supplies were unboxed and displayed before them just waiting to be strewn across the room. Long black-and-orange streamers, masks and hats and other items to wear, and little paper decorations for them to tape to the walls to set a festive mood, to name a few. Everything would’ve been fine, had they not all clearly seen better days.
“So…” Kaworu picked up one of the streamers, which immediately fell apart right under his fingers. “What are we supposed to do with all this?”
“Throw it in the garbage. That’s what I’d do,” Shinji griped as he balled the torn plastic shreds in his hand and stuffed them into the now-overfull trash can on the other side of the room. “Why is all this stuff so… old? Have they really been using it year after year? Misato-san, you could’ve warned me…” he said as if his complaint would somehow reach her ears. “We don’t have any food, we don't have any decorations, we don’t have anything. This is a total disaster.”
Kaworu leaned against the wall as he watched him. “So what? I thought you didn’t care for parties.”
A flash of sheepishness flew across the other boy’s features, like he’d been caught in a lie. “Well, I mean, we’ve already committed to seeing this one through. If I have to do it, I’d like to do it right. Though I think we’re beyond that point by now,” he rested his cheek on one of his hands, drained. “I don’t know what to do.”
A few minutes passed in silence as the boys brainstormed possible solutions to their problems. Or rather, as Kaworu did—Shinji was too busy indulging in some moping to bother with it. He sat on one of the chairs scattered across the room with his head in his arms, so lost in his own head that he nearly jumped when Kaworu placed a hand on his shoulder.
“Why don’t we just do it ourselves?”
Shinji looked at him like he’d grown another head. “...What?”
“Most of these decorations are made of plastic or paper, so they shouldn’t be too hard to make,” Kaworu explained. “Food can be bought, as can costumes and anything else we need. I think we should be able to pull it off,” he grew more confident in his own idea the more he spoke of it. Honestly, it sounded kind of fun. “So, what do you say?”
Shinji shook his head. “I mean, I guess we could if we had enough time. But it’s already well into the afternoon—we have a few hours left at most,” he frowned. “I doubt we’d be able to get it done in time.”
Kaworu shrugged. “There’s no harm in trying.”
“I guess we don’t have many options here, do we,” Shinji murmured as he looked around the room full of unusable junk. He thought about it for a moment before getting up, having made his decision—though he didn’t look all that happy about it. “Yeah, sure. We can try.”
The next few hours were spent in a frantic haze. Thankfully, not all the materials they’d brought up were completely useless; at the bottom of one of the boxes, they’d found a heap of colorful construction paper, scissors, and some tape that, while hardly new, were at least well-kept enough to hold together. Under Shinji’s instruction, they cut the paper into thin strips and taped them together at the ends to fashion them into interlocking loops, making a chain that could be strung across the room in place of the pitiful garlands they had thrown away.
It proved to be much more difficult than anticipated.
“How do you get yours to stay together like that?” Kaworu held up the few sad, limp paper loops he’d managed to keep together, a pile of failures littering the space around him. “Mine keep falling apart.”
“That’s because you aren’t securing them properly, Nagisa,” Shinji sighed as he scooted closer to assist. “You’re not taping the strips together well enough, and the coils are too loose. You need to make sure they’ll hold together—here, like this,” he snatched Kaworu’s latest disaster out from his hands and carefully disassembled its pieces so he could make the structure more stable. Kaworu tried to watch the process carefully, but was quickly sidetracked looking at Shinji himself—thankfully, he didn’t notice.
“There. Just copy what I did and you should be fine,” Shinji dropped it into his hands once he was finished. “Try not to waste too much paper from now on.”
Kaworu held up the chain in front of his face, tugging it lightly to test its stability. Not only was it staying together now, but Shinji had arranged it so the links formed a repeating pattern of orange, black, and purple that was pleasing to the eye. “It’s much better than before. Thank you, Shinji-kun,” he smiled, genuinely. “I appreciate the help.”
Shinji whipped his head away, but the Angel still saw the hint of pink beginning to color his cheeks. “J-just hurry up. We don’t have all day.”
The rest of their decoration-making went off without a hitch, to the surprise of them both. Once finished with the garlands they switched over to cutting out shapes from what paper remained; ghosts, bats, pumpkins, and whatever else they could think up that would suit the spooky mood. They taped them all across the walls and tied some to strings to hang from the ceiling, and before they knew it, they’d created a truly festive scene.
“This… isn’t all that bad, honestly. I was expecting it to look way worse,” Shinji remarked after he finished hanging the last bat up and took a step back to admire their work. “It’s actually pretty good.”
His posture stiffened and he balled his hands at his sides like he was psyching himself up for some arduous ordeal. It still took him a minute to get the words out. “I, uh… thanks, Nagisa. You had the right idea about all this.”
Kaworu would’ve been absolutely over the moon to receive a compliment from Shinji, no matter how reluctant, had his attention not been firmly fixed on the book he was reading. “We still need a few more things before it’s complete.”
Shinji’s charitable mood evaporated instantly. “That again? I already told you, we don’t need any weird… pagan stuff. This is a normal party.”
“I know that, Shinji-kun. I’ve been on the section covering modern Halloween celebration practices for some time,” he said matter-of-factly. Shinji just rolled his eyes. “Typically, they involve dressing up in costumes, consumption of candy, and various other activities. One of them involves retrieving apples from a basin of water with your teeth,” he turned to another page. “How interesting.”
“I don’t think you’re going to find any of that here. We’ve gone through all our supplies already, and that was everything they had in storage,” Shinji said as he trudged over to the large table at the far end of the room to throw one of the tablecloths they’d found over it. “We should just try to make do with what we’ve got.”
Kaworu’s eyes stayed on the page. “Where would we even get that many apples…?”
“Nagisa, are you even listening to me?” He didn’t even need to ask, but did anyway. “We don’t have any of that stuff. Now help me with this tablecloth. We still have work to do.”
As reasonable a plea as it was, it still fell on deaf ears. “I want to try it.”
Still too tired to pick a fight, Shinji just clicked his tongue in disapproval. “Why are you so hung up on this apple thing? It’s a foreign custom. We don’t even do it here.”
Kaworu ignored him. “That’s not just it. We don’t have costumes either, nor do we have any candy. It seems we’re still quite lacking, despite our best efforts.”
“Well, there’s nothing we can do about it now. We’ve only got an hour left until people start showing up,” Shinji said. “Why do you even care? You didn’t even know what this holiday was until a few hours ago.”
“Exactly. I’ve never celebrated a holiday before, so I wanted to fit as much into it as possible,” Kaworu answered honestly.
“Well, we can do all that next year. Assuming we’re given more of a warning,” Shinji groaned. “Come on, we have to—”
“I wonder if I’ll still be around by then.”
The words slipped out. Shinji’s voice, which had been competing with his own to be heard, dwindled to a whisper, then to even less than that. An uncomfortable silence filled the room as the reality that next year wasn’t a guarantee for either of them set in, souring the already precarious air between them. Kaworu pursed his lips; he hadn’t meant to say that. At least, not out loud.
“You… you’d just get your hair all wet if you did that, anyway. You’re probably not missing out on much.” Shinji finally broke the silence. “...Do you even like apples?”
“I dunno. Never had one. But they have to be pretty good if people will dunk their heads in water for one.”
A silence once again fell over them, one far less heavy than before. Shinji’s thin body started to shake slightly, and for a second, Kaworu wondered if something was wrong with him. When a series of low, stifled gurgles began to accompany the tremors, he put down the book to walk over to him, wanting to see if he needed help. He’d almost made contact when those noises bloomed into full, hearty laughter.
“W-what the hell, Nagisa…” Shinji got out in between poorly repressed giggles. “I don’t get you at all.”
As Shinji struggled to regain composure, Kaworu watched him in awe. He’d never heard such a lovely sound before, nor seen anything as stirring as Shinji looking so happy —that it was at his expense was completely irrelevant.
More than anything, he wanted to see more of it.
“I think I’m going to try to get the rest of the materials. Stay here and finish up the rest while I’m gone, okay?”
Shinji managed to get his giggle fit under control just as Kaworu reached the door. “What? There’s no way you’d be able to leave NERV, find everything, and bring it back on time. We have an hour .”
“Have some faith in me, Shinji-kun,” he said, but the look on Shinji’s face let him know very well that he absolutely did not. “I promise I’ll be back before people start to get here. You have my word.”
Shinji’s mouth curled into the familiar frown Kaworu knew so well. “...If you aren’t here by the time the others start arriving, I swear I’ll knock your—”
“I know, I know. I’ll hold you to it.”
He darted off before Shinji could say any more, but heard the echo of his shouts bouncing through the halls as he bounded down them.
Kaworu raced down the corridors faster than it was safe to, especially when carrying such a load. He heard a few clinks along the way as bits of his haul fell off and onto the floor along his path, leaving a trail of candies and little baubles in his wake. He didn’t stop to pick them up; he was barely on time as it was.
Had it been a tremendously bad idea to use his powers for something as trivial as this? Yes.
Had he risked his cover, and the entire plan he was created to fulfill for a handful of cheap junk and bits of sugar? Yes.
Would the old men tear him a new one if they found out? Also yes.
Did he care? When he saw Shinji’s surprised, bewildered face as he ran through the door with time to spare, not at all.
“N-Nagisa? How the hell did you get back here so quickly?”
“I just put my heart into it,” he lied. Shinji didn’t look like he believed him at all, but also didn’t look like he was prepared to question him any further. “There wasn’t as much left as I’d hoped, but I think I got a fair amount. Take a look.”
Shinji’s eyes widened as he looked through the bounty. It made their earlier supplies look like even more of a bad joke than before; heavy bags of brightly-colored candy, a pile of shimmery ribbons and streamers, a veritable horde of little plastic spiders and eyeballs and tissue paper ghosts—and that was just what he could see. At the bottom of it were two peculiar bundles of fabric that immediately caught his eye; he reached out, but Kaworu managed to snatch them away just before his fingers could make contact. He ripped the two out from the pile and held them out in front of him, proudly displaying them to Shinji like they were invaluable treasures.
“These were the only two costumes left in the store. Pick whichever one you want, and I’ll take the other.”
Kaworu didn’t understand why Shinji’s face fell so dramatically when he presented the costumes. In his opinion, both were appropriately festive—a pair of fluffy black cat ears and a pumpkin hat that tied off under the chin, made to look like a jack o’ lantern at the top. He tried to picture what each would look like on Shinji, but couldn’t decide which he liked better. Both seemed equally enticing.
When the sullen boy still hadn’t come to a decision a full minute later, Kaworu made one for him.
“Here, I think these will suit you best.”
“Hey, quit it! Get off of me!” Shinji struggled against Kaworu as he put the cat ears onto his head, shooting him his finest scowl once they were on. “Why did you—”
“They’re the same color as your hair,” Kaworu marveled, wanting to touch the silky strands. He refrained, valuing his front teeth just the slightest bit more. “They look really good on you.”
Kaworu prepared to dodge the fist he assumed would be hurled in his direction for that one, but it never came. To his amazement, Shinji didn’t rip the ears off, either; he fidgeted like he wanted to deck Kaworu with all his strength, but all he managed to throw at him was a half-hearted glare accompanied by the deepest blush he’d ever seen on the boy.
“...Whatever. I’ll wear it as long as you wear one, too.”
Kaworu pulled the pumpkin hat over his head without a moment’s pause, and just in time, too; as soon as it was on his head, the party’s first guest arrived.
“Shin-chan! Nagisa-kun! Wow, you actually did it!” Misato waltzed into the room wearing a cheap, tattered witch hat over her regular clothing. Better than nothing. “Just look at this place!”
Kaworu felt a sense of pride swell up in his chest before he remembered that they technically hadn’t finished setting up yet. Quickly, he began to sort through the pile of materials he’d just brought in, divvying up candy into bowls and scattering tiny decorations around wherever he could as Shinji exchanged some small talk with an ecstatic Misato. A few more of the staff had filed in by the time he finished, and he was just about to turn around and start enjoying the party he’d helped set up when a small, hesitant tug on his sleeve caught his attention.
“Um… here. I got it from the cafeteria. I know it’s not the same, but it’s the best I could do,” Shinji said, just as bright red as before. He almost looked the same color as the contents of the bowl he was holding. “Just take it and be grateful.”
Kaworu accepted the bowl gently, not wanting the water within it to slosh out. It wasn’t that big; unlike the basins he’d seen in the pictures, this one could only hold a couple of tiny apples at most, and even then they were pressing up against the sides. He couldn’t have cared less.
“Thank you, Shinji-kun,” he beamed at Shinji, making the other boy look away in embarrassment. With the cat ears on, he looked somehow even cuter than usual. “Do you want to try this as well?”
He curled his nose. “No way. I’m not doing that.”
“Your loss,” Kaworu shrugged. “But it can wait for later, anyway. Let’s try to take it easy for now.”
“Yeah. I could use a break…” Shinji mumbled, only to be interrupted by a loud smash as Asuka barrelled through the door and announced her presence, dragging in an ambivalent-looking Rei along behind her. Shinji sighed yet again, but there was a hint of affection within it. “Well, it was nice while it lasted.”
The two took a moment to relax as the party unfolded bit by bit, watching as more people piled in. Their eyes grew wide as they walked through the room admiring what the two boys had done, stopping to gawk at all the little details they’d put into it. Shinji crossed his arms over his chest, trying to seem like he didn’t care, but the look in his eyes made it obvious just how much he appreciated all the attention his work had earned. When he looked at him, Kaworu couldn’t help but feel like all the effort was well worth it.
“Do you think they’ll let us plan the next one, too?”
“I hope so,” Shinji whispered. A cheeky smile found its way to Kaworu’s face, one that grew wider with every second it took Shinji to realize what he’d said. “I-I mean, uh…”
“...Just shut up and enjoy the party with me, Nagisa.”
Kaworu chuckled. That, he could do no problem. “Right behind you.”