Work Text:
Junior high is boring for Asuka. It's not just that the material of the classes is too basic for her, but also that the quality of the company is sorely lacking. Teenage boys mature slower than girls, and nowhere is that more apparent than in Asuka's class where Toji and Kensuke are the loudest voices and the most consistent attenders of class. They are, in other words, inescapable, and even if there were any more mature boys in their class, they wouldn't last very long with Tweedledee and Tweedledum as examples. The less said about those particular two the better.
Admittedly, Shinji is marginally better. Still not particularly grown-up, but Asuka can at least see there's promise there. Maybe in five or ten years he might have a bearing that approximates Kaji's, but he's certainly not there yet. Working as an EVA pilot at least gives him a tiny bit of gravitas; Asuka appreciates he knows what work is. What it means to be a hero responsible for the world's future. She wouldn't say so, but she likes going into NERV HQ with him. He's a calming presence and Asuka feels like an adult, going into work with her coworker.
Nobody compares to Kaji, of course. Kaji, also a coworker she commutes to work with sometimes, Kaji with all his secretive, knowing smiles (is anything more grown-up than having secrets you keep from everyone around you?). Part of Asuka's frustration with her male classmates is they don't even seem to recognize the huge gulf between them and Kaji. He's in a different league entirely -- sophisticated and international and cool; able to talk intelligently and insightfully about anything and everything. Kaji treats Asuka like a child and she can even forgive him for that since everyone is childish compared to him.
Asuka likes Hikari -- another girl in school who way outstrips the boys their age. Hikari's one childish trait, though, is that she actually finds the boys in their class interesting, keen to get their approval and attention. Asuka has told her a million times that their classmates are way beneath them and the two of them need to set their sights higher, much higher, but it never seems to stick. While it's not a possibility anytime soon, sometimes Asuka entertains the idle fantasy of taking Hikari on a trip to Germany with her. Just to broaden her horizons, you know?
Rei is a tough case. She's definitely different from the rest of the kids in their class and while not all of that differentness is because she's mature, Asuka supposes some of it is. But Rei's maturity isn't the type of maturity that Asuka wants -- sophistication and glamour and all that. Rather, it's the maturity of middle age, plain, almost flabby. Rei is what older Japanese textbooks might have called the "salaryman": thoughtless and compliant, a little worker bee giving her lifeforce to the company. Asuka hopes that when she grows up, it will involve a great deal more vivacity.
That brings her to Misato. Yes, there is something disappointingly childish about Misato's beer-chugging, slobbish behavior at home. And yet at the same time, there's something unnamable that marks her as a grown-up. The sense of style that infuses her clothing choices; the way she looks like the ruler of her space; the shape of her body -- it's a kind of adultness that Misato achieves so effortlessly, just from life experience. Asuka observes each of Misato's mannerisms with envy -- the way she stands, how she laughs in conversations with coworkers, how she checks the time -- determined to master it herself.