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There was once a time in which Shinji would cry himself to sleep at night. He’d retreat to the little room his aunt and uncle had given to him out of a feeling of obligation, shove his earbuds in his ears, and wallow in his own self pity.
It was a nightly routine back then, yet now he was not even granted the familiar solace of tears. Shinji hadn’t been able to cry since… he flipped over in bed onto his other side, not wanting to go down that train of thought.
Everything had changed. He hated piloting the EVA. All it did was bring alienation and horrible, horrible memories that replayed in his head every night when he closed his eyes. They were like tracks 25 and 26 in that regard; songs that Shinji replayed over and over until he hated them, yet he couldn’t bring himself to stop clinging to the one remnant his father had left before he had abandoned his only son.
He had been abandoned again. Ayanami was dead, and so was Mr. Kaji, the closest thing he had to a father figure. Everyone at his school had evacuated the city, not tethered to the EVAs in the same way that he was. Miss Misato was too busy grieving, drinking, and working to even come home most nights. Even Penpen was gone, sent off to live in an animal shelter in a different city where he would be safer.
So why, then, did he continue to pilot the EVA? Those… things only brought pain and death. He knew why, though he hated admitting it to himself. It was because it earned him some tiny morsel of praise. Because sometimes, ever so rarely, he could pry out a “Well done,” from his father’s perpetually frowning mouth when Shinji scored particularly high on his sync tests.
No. He hated his father. He didn’t care what that man thought of him, right? He piloted unit 01 because he wanted to save people, right? Because he was the last one who could. That’s what they told him anyway. A selfish part of him really enjoyed being the only candidate as the Third Child, even if it meant doing something he absolutely hated.
Asuka’s relentless abuse was preferable to being all alone with his thoughts like this, yet even she was gone, in a medically induced coma after trying to fucking starve herself. Why? Why her? If even the most self-assured, headstrong and cocky person Shinji had ever had the displeasure of meeting was secretly in enough pain to want to die, surely there was nobody left in the world who was truly happy with themself.
It didn’t matter why, though. The truth of the matter was that Shinji had been abandoned once again. Just like his father, his mother, everyone he had ever cared for. He'd been left alone again.
It’s fine, though. He prefers it this way - or that’s what he told himself. There was only one angel left to fight. He’d kill it, and then things would go back to how they were before, where he was just some nobody who no one even acknowledged. That was much better than all these people who pretend to care about him just to get him to pilot the EVA.
Maybe then he could finally disappear. It’s not like anybody would care, not really. Maybe Miss Misato would cry a little at his funeral, the rest of her team might come up with some bullshit speech about how he “will be missed,” but they’d all get over it and forget about him soon enough.
But fuck, why, as soon as he’d made up his mind to just give up as soon as the last angel was dead, did someone else have to come along?
Why did that someone else have to be the most gorgeous, kind, and so painfully open and loving boy Shinji had ever met? It wasn’t fair. He didn’t want to care about anyone else anymore. It was so tiring. All it did was bring pain and rejection.
Shinji didn’t dare to hope that this Kaworu boy was any different. He was just using him like the others, right? As soon as he got what he wanted, he’d leave just like everyone else.
But then there were those redcurrant eyes and that silky voice that spouted such beautiful words to him like a fountain made of the richest chocolate. That gentle smile filled with genuine, unbridled love and compassion. Shinji had never seen anyone bear their heart so openly in such a naked display of earnesty.
Well, now they were both literally naked in NERV’s communal hot spring. How could he say no when offered to spend more time in Kaworu’s ethereal presence? It was normal for two guys to chill in a hot tub together. People do that all the time.
Shinji tried to pass off the stubborn blush that painted his face every time he was near the silver haired boy as simply a product of the heat from the bath.
“You certainly go to extreme lengths to avoid first contact. Could it be that you’re afraid of rejection?”
The brunet glanced up in surprise at Kaworu, whose eyes were closed and his face relaxed as if he hadn’t just started psychoanalyzing Shinji while they bathed naked in a hot tub together.
Without waiting for a response, he continued. “But then, if you refuse to open up, you’ll never be able to escape loneliness.”
That’s fine, Shinji thought to himself. I prefer to be alone anyway. It won’t hurt as much if I’m the one who’s choosing to distance myself before I can be abandoned .
“Mankind is ultimately alone, yet through the blessings of getting to know one another, you are able to forget.” Kaworu’s slender fingers interlaced with his own calloused ones as he spoke.
Shinji let out a shaky breath. Okay. Now, not only was he being psychoanalyzed naked in a hot tub with some guy he’d just met, but now that guy was holding his hand. He was reading too much into this. His stupid emotions were getting the better of him again, his secret longing for validation. That’s the only reason he was feeling this was towards another boy, why his heart raced whenever those sparkling, intense eyes met his own. It was simply because Kaworu was kind to him. He was trying to make Shinji lower his guard so he could manipulate him, just like everyone else.
But why, after telling himself all of this, did Shinji still feel the overwhelming urge to further link their fingers together?
Before he could continue his train of thought, the fluorescent lights in that bland, industrial room shut off, leaving the pair in complete darkness.
“Ah… closing time. We- um, we should go to bed,” Shinji murmured. He winced at the sound of his own voice, his relentless stuttering and lack of confidence was extremely apparent when juxtaposed with Kaworu’s cool, collected way of speaking.
Kaworu opened a single crimson eye, turning to look at him with an almost playful air. “Together?” He smiled, innocently.
Ears burning, Shinji shook his head vehemently. “N-no! NERV should have given you an apartment! A- a separate one!”
His flustered denial was met with a somewhat amused hum as Kaworu rose, moving to ring the water out of his silver hair. Shinji found himself entranced by the way the boy’s lean muscles flexed and stretched as he brought his arms behind his head, how pristine and delicate his inhumanly pale skin looked, untouched, like porcelain. Well, everything about Kaworu’s appearance was inhuman, extraordinary. It reminded Shinji of the way angels had been depicted in paintings before the Second Impact. The brunet realized he was staring and quickly averted his gaze before he could get caught.
“Lilin have such delicate hearts. Yours especially. It’s like glass.” He mused, that stupidly angelic voice echoing off the sheet metal walls. “Yes, you are worthy of affection, Shinji. Will you let me provide it for you?”
Shinji, trying very hard not to stare more than what would be considered socially acceptable, kept his wide eyes fixed on the way those slender fingers fluffed out his hair. “What do you mean?”
Kaworu turned to face him, vermillion eyes crinkling at the corners as his ever present smile widened.
“It means I love you.”
There was silence as Shinji tried to process the meaning of those words. The steam rising from the now rapidly cooling water gave the atmosphere a dreamlike quality. Yes, that’s what this is. A dream. It must be.
“What?”
“I love you, Shinji.” He said it with such tenderness as he grabbed his tanned hand into his own once more.
The brunet shook his head, blinking furiously.
“No. Please don’t say those things to me.” His voice was cracking around the heavy lump of dread collecting in the back of his throat. He can’t do this. He can’t come to love someone else again. It’ll just make it hurt so much more when he inevitably leaves.
“But I do love you.” There it was again. 3 times he’s said that now, and Shinji still can’t comprehend it. He didn’t know how to react, and so he lashed out.
“Stop lying to me!” He cried, swatting Kaworu’s hand away. “You- you don’t know me! You don’t care about me! Nobody does, not really. You’re all just- just using me!” Shinji hated those hot tears threatening to spill over. Asuka would be calling him a crybaby right now.
Kaworu’s expression morphed into one of slight surprise, and then something Shinji couldn’t recognize. Pity? No, it was softer than that, more caring.
“I won’t ask anything of you, Shinji. You don’t need to give me anything. All I want is your happiness.”
The tears were flowing freely now. How embarrassing that the first time he’s been able to cry in so long, it’s in front of the person trying to love him. Trying to give him the one thing he so dearly craves. And yet, here he is, denying it with all his might.
He trembled and wrapped his arms around his still very naked form, feeling very exposed. Shinji hated being laid bare like this. He hated that Kaworu seemed to know everything about him, always know exactly what to say. Though, at the same time, it made him feel almost comforted. And he dare not consider the familiarity he felt in the boy’s touch.
“I’m scared,” he whimpered, voice barely audible. It was more of an admission to himself than anything. Kaworu crouched down beside him once more, yet not making any move to come closer. A traitorous part of Shinji wished he would.
“There is nothing to be afraid of, Shinji. I am only telling you the truth. All I ask is that you believe me when I tell you of the love I feel.” Shinji met his eyes, desperately searching for any hint of untruthfulness or malice, but he could find none.
The words slipped from his lips before he could stop them. “Why?” He hated how pathetic he sounded right now.
The silence that followed his question was just about to make him get out of the onsen and run away. It was deafening. Now even the industrial noises that plagued NERV’s facilities were inaudible, having long been shut off. It was just the sound of the two boys’ breathing bouncing off the ripples in the water.
Finally, the sound of that honeyed voice came to the rescue once more. “I wish I had enough time in this world to tell you all of the reasons why I’ve come to love you, but alas, that would take decades.”
Shinji hated how easily those cheesy, flowery words made him blush. A shiver ran through his body as he became acutely aware of how cold he was getting. A hand gently grazed his cheek, making him jump.
“I’ll try though, if you’ll let me. But first you need to get warmed up. The water is getting cold.”
Kaworu pulled back, reaching out a hand to help Shinji up and lead him to the locker rooms where they both retreated to their individual shower stalls and got dressed. When Shinji emerged, his companion was there waiting right outside the bathhouse, seemingly keen on fulfilling his promise.
Despite having denied Kaworu’s… tease? Invitation? Request? Whatever it was from earlier, Shinji found himself nodding along when he invited him to stay the night. What was it he wanted to gain? Was he really hoping Kaworu would be able to make him genuinely believe that he was worth loving? Plain old Shinji, the cowardly pilot of Unit 01?
He continued pondering this as his seat on the edge of Kaworu’s bed was shifted slightly by a weight beside him.
“Now then,” Kaworu’s voice prompted Shinji to meet his gaze, realizing the two were much closer than he initially thought. “I believe I was just about to attempt to convince you of my love.”
Shinji swallowed. A part of him hadn’t expected Kaworu to actually follow through on that promise, though he should’ve known better. When Kaworu said he was going to do something, he meant just that.
“You are the most beautiful soul I have ever laid eyes upon, Shinji. I adore everything about you: the blush that so easily shows when I compliment you, the way your cheeks dimple ever so slightly when you’re thinking, how your eyes always carry a doe-like quality to them, wide and soft and filled with wonder. Their sapphire hue will never cease to enamor me.”
It was too much. Shinji had never been able to look at himself in the mirror and feel anything but contempt, or total numbness at the very least. And here Kaworu was, the most charming, enchanting, and handsome boy in the world, telling him that he was the beautiful one. Shinji opened his mouth to object, to thank him, to say something to make the onslaught of affection stop, but Kaworu continued on.
“I love the cowlicks in your hair, how the rareness of a brunet of your ethnicity compliments the rareness of a soul so beautifully, painfully human. Your voice is soft and hesitant, no doubt accustomed to being spoken over or ignored, but I love how your eyes glow when I listen and respond to it. And yet,”
Kaworu paused for a moment, taking Shinji’s hand into his own as he had done at the bathhouse.
“Whenever you do see something that grants you that sparkle in your eyes, you deny yourself. You avert your gaze when I try to admire you, you bite your lip and hunch your shoulders when I tell you how precious you are. It saddens me. You deserve to let yourself be loved.”
Even as he called him out on just that, Shinji couldn’t help but feel the urge to look away, to run away from the fluttery feeling in his chest that he got when he looked into those crimson eyes for just a bit too long. But at the somber, genuine note in Kaworu’s voice, he willed himself to keep looking, to dig a little deeper, even as he felt his face growing redder by the second, and his heart picking up speed.
“That’s it,” Kaworu beamed, recognizing the change. He brushed his fingers over Shinji’s bangs as though he were moving them out of his eyes, though they were too short for the gesture to actually do much more than intensify the giddy feeling in Shinji’s stomach.
“Just for a while, I want you to think of what you want, and only what you want,” Kaworu murmured, his voice lowering to a tender note. “What is it that you want, Shinji?”
The brunet froze. He had always turned up his nose at the idea of doing anything for himself. Even when he did act selfishly, he told himself that it was for the sake of others, dressed it up in a fancy little package that made him feel less guilty for indulging.
What did he want? Well, he knew he wanted to be free of the EVA series, to be free of his father’s disdain. He wanted to live a peaceful life where he could blend into the background, just as he used to. Though, Kaworu could not grant any of that. What was something else that he wanted?
Shinji wanted to let himself get lost in the sweet waves of emotion that he got when he allowed Kaworu to get just a bit closer than most people were willing to get to him. Wanted to indulge in the sweetness of his voice. But he couldn’t ask that of Kaworu, not after everything he’d already done.
“W-well, you’re always talking about me… what do you want, Kaworu?” He hoped that the flipping of the conversation would at least partially take the pressure off of himself. And besides, he was admittedly curious to know more about the mysterious Kaworu Nagisa, who’d just waltzed into his life that day and was already making him feel things he’d never felt before.
The silver-haired boy chuckled warmly, tilting his head. “I want you, Shinji. I want to give you everything you could ever hope for, I want to see your eyes sparkle and I want to watch as your smile grows from a meek tilt of the lips hidden behind your hand to a bright, unapologetic grin.”
Shinji felt his face grow impossibly redder. Did Kaworu always mean to make things sound so… romantic? They were both boys. It was weird, right? But Shinji couldn’t bring himself to think of the boy as anything other than perfect. Kaworu didn’t seem ashamed, so perhaps he was just overthinking.
“But you just deflected my original question,” Kaworu chuckled again, leaning in ever so slightly closer. “What is it that you want?”
It was too much for Shinji to even acknowledge that he was allowed to want things, let alone to say them out loud, to another person. And yet, here he was. There was no way out of this, was there? And besides, Kaworu said that he had wanted Shinji. Even if it was wishful thinking to hope that that angel of a boy could reciprocate Shinji’s affection in such a way, at least it wouldn’t hurt for him to be just as ambiguous as Kaworu had been.
“I… I want to believe you when you say that you love me.” His words were barely a whisper, but a contented hum from Kaworu let him know that he was heard.
“May I try something then, Shinji?”
He may have been dreaming it, but Shinji could’ve sworn that Kaworu was leaning closer to him by the second. He felt a little dizzy, but he couldn’t tear his eyes away from Kaworu’s face. Shinji nodded his head wordlessly.
And with that, the silver haired boy’s smile grew as his eyes slipped shut, prompting Shinji to do the same. He felt a cool hand against his cheek as the distance between him and Kaworu closed ever so slowly. Time seemed to pause as he felt the gentle puffs of the boy’s breathing tickle his nose. Was he dreaming? Was Kaworu really going to…
Yes. Yes, he did. Their lips met ever so gently, and yet the fingers gently stroking his cheekbone served as proof that Shinji was not in fact dreaming. He was kissing Kaworu Nagisa, the boy who’d softened the walls around his heart in just a day.
Slowly, Kaworu pulled away as Shinji’s eyes flew open wide. He peered at him, vermillion eyes partially veiled by long, silver lashes. Shinji felt the tiniest twinge of satisfaction when he saw that his pale cheeks were dusted with the tiniest bit of pink, though it surely paled in comparison to the tomato that had become Shinji’s own face.
“U-um…” He froze, the reality of what had just happened sinking in. Did he have feelings for another boy? Sure, this boy may have been the prettiest boy Shinji had ever laid eyes upon, but he was a boy nonetheless. He had only ever had these feelings for girls, yet it was an undeniable truth that he’d enjoyed kissing Kaworu, more so than the time he kissed Asuka all those months ago.
What would she have said about this? What would Miss Misato, or Toji or Kensuke? What would his father say?
The thought sent Shinji into a panic as he recoiled from the gentle hand tracing patterns up his arm, raising his shoulders slightly towards his ears as if to protect himself from a threat. He flinched with wide eyes as Kaworu’s hand tentatively raised towards his shoulder, prompting the pale limb to fall back into its place by his knee.
“Shinji?” He whispered, voice gentle, as if he were afraid of startling him.
“I-I’m sorry, I-“ Shinji’s breathing picked up, an all too familiar feeling of dread settling in the pit of his stomach. “Did… did I… did we just…?” He began scratching at his arms, an anxious habit he’d had since he was a kid.
“Shinji-“
“I- that- it’s not… normal ! None of this is normal, not the EVAs, the Angels, nothing about any of this has been normal. We- You’re the only person who… everyone’s gone… Why are you still here? Why did you just- why did you just kiss me??”
His voice rose in volume as he spoke, tainted with panic as his eyes darted around. He hated how he always felt as if he were being watched whenever he was in one of these NERV apartments. Like he was a bug underneath a magnifying glass, feeling his wings slowly being ripped from his body as the dissector judged him and called him cowardly for trying to escape the scalpel. Before his thoughts could spiral further, Kaworu spoke, with enough conviction to be heard over Shinji’s pounding heart.
“I said before that I love you. That being said, If you don’t like it when I touch you, I won’t d-“
“N-no, um, I…” Shinji swallowed, finally starting to come to his senses. “It’s not that. But I’m scared.” Once again, his voice was barely audible.
“Scared of what?” Kaworu’s eyes were gentle, the soft frown he wore completely new compared to his ever present smile.
“Scared that… I don’t deserve this. I don’t deserve your affection.” Shinji felt as though the words spilling from his lips were totally foreign. He was completely unaccustomed to being honest with himself. Slowly, cautiously, Kaworu raised both of his hands to cup Shinji’s face, giving him enough time to move away if he wanted. He stayed put, looking nervously into Kaworu’s eyes as if what he was about to say determined the fate of the night.
“You deserve everything, Shinji.” The brunet felt tears brewing once again when he saw just how tender and genuine Kaworu’s expression was. “If you liked kissing me, I’ll do it over and over until you believe me.”
With that, something in Shinji’s mind finally clicked. He really did like it when they kissed. And he came to the startling realization that he wanted more.
“I…” He swallowed, letting his eyes shut for only a moment before he turned his gaze back to Kaworu’s, resolve burning in his eyes. “I want that. I want you.”
Kaworu’s eyes brightened as he nodded in understanding of Shinji’s request, his usual smile returning to his face. Shinji admired it before closing his eyes and awaiting the anticipated contact.
When it finally came, it was even better than Shinji had remembered it being from five minutes ago. He leaned into the touch, savoring the softness of Kaworu’s lips upon his own. He would give anything to feel it again and again, though it seemed that wouldn’t be necessary.
When Kaworu pulled away once more, it was Shinji who closed the distance between them, pausing a few inches away from his target, as if asking permission. When Kaworu pressed their lips together again, Shinji could feel him smiling into it.
It would be slow going, but maybe - just maybe, Kaworu could finally get him out of his shell. Maybe he could hear an “I love you” back one day.