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The schoolgrounds were almost liminal, in the sense that much was quiet, controlled, and aching with remembrance. The attention of many had fixated on a particular empty seat– specifically because the fate of its typical inhabitant was anything but unknown. Despite this, it wasn’t a source of gossip or speculation, instead radiating a heavy air of melancholy that silenced the chatter of adolescents.
They were also devoid of direction or drudgery, which was especially uncommon for the school. Their class representative had broken her perfect attendance that day, and their own teacher was left rather shaken– too distracted to even administer any work. So, the students were left to simmer with their unbridled thoughts.
Among those students was Asuka, who didn’t share the look of refutation or desolation that so many of her peers did. She propped her head up with a fist and stared off in indifference laced with something akin to annoyance. As it typically did, her gaze steadied over to the back of Shinji’s head, which was laid down upon his desk in defeat. His hair was unkempt, his uniform was wrinkled, and his headspace was elsewhere.
There the class remained, kept in a web of preference to leave difficult things unsaid. Not so much as a few whispers surfaced for the entire class, until the bell inevitably rang. The world had no care for the feelings of children, and time would not stop despite how desolate one room seemed. Things had to carry on, as things always did.
Outside, without the confinement of such a small room, thoughts and laments spread more freely between the adolescents, though Asuka didn’t have a care to speak on it. She instead simply wandered around with a scornful look on her face, her gaze flickering to each group of peers in judgement. Though, she wasn’t the only pupil who had found a sense of peace in solitude. As she walked, she noticed Kensuke peering precariously off a balcony, the cityscape of Tokyo-3 brandished in all of its glory past the railing.
She didn’t think much of it, until further inspection allowed her to notice a device was wired around the boy's body, trailing up his torso and finding rest in his ears. Tracking the wiring with her eyeline, she found the source of the cables to be a small black box that was firmly clasped in Kensuke’s hands. There was a record in it. Shinji’s record.
Kensuke, lost in the soft melodies of the track, failed to hear the incessant steps of plastic soles on concrete from behind him until Asuka was already upon him. She immediately shattered his dissociation with a bundle of taps to his shoulder.
“Why do you have that?”
Slowly, he turned as he lightly pulled out the earbuds. With a dry swallow, he looked her up and down. “...Shinji gave it to me.”
“As if,” she scoffed, removing her hand from his shoulder quickly as if it disgusted her. “He doesn’t even let me touch the thing– why would he–”
“I… er…” Kensuke began, squirming away. As he moved, his nervousness gave way to dejection. “I don’t want to… talk… Why are you…?”
Asuka groaned exasperatedly. “It’s just a question! Why would Shinji give it to you? You probably stuffed it in your pocket with the rest of your junk, because you can’t keep your hands off anything that isn’t nailed d–”
“I don’t know!” He exclaimed, turning back to the cityscape. “I don’t know why he gave it to me; I… geez, I don’t know a lot of things!” He gripped at the railing with shaky arms, slouching over along it. “I’m glad he did, I can just listen to it and think… which is what I want to do, so leave me alone please!”
Asuka, a touch taken aback, stepped backwards as her expression soured with condemnation.
“I can’t… I can hardly believe you’re still acting the same! If this is how you act with Shinji right now, then… you should just leave him alone too!” His gaze fell upon the floor, his eyes empty as though any emotion behind them had already been poured out, leaving an empty glass in their wake. “None of this is… this isn’t fair…”
Asuka felt her eyes squint subconsciously. With a decadent scoff, she aggressively turned away with two new marks on her psyche– one of anger, another of confusion. Behind her stride, Kensuke remained in his continued state of sulking. Isolation had served him best lately– even with Shinji. He couldn’t bring himself to look at the boy the same after all that happened, even after Shinji had gifted him a possession so closely intertwined with his identity it may have been a part of him.
Shinji’s movements were careful and almost disembodied in a way. He hardly had any motive or thought behind his walk from the train station aside from built-in routine and instinct. He could scarcely even feel his hand reach out to turn the door handle of Misato’s apartment, as it moved devoid of any notion.
As he stepped into the room, he felt his posture shrink and shrivel as though he felt unworthy of having presence. There was no more space in his person for hysteria as a newfound vacuum had overtaken anything that had inhabited him prior, so there was no more need for a melodramatic facade or persona that everyone around him seemed to so flamboyantly wave.
Asuka and Misato had arrived before him, which was to be expected– he had no hurry or rush in his pace, and his tedious introspection brought his travels to a snail’s pace. He noticed he had tracked a touch of dirt into the room, so with a few silent hums he took off his shoes and cleaned any presence he had left, brushing it out of the room. Quietly, he attempted to sneak past the attention of Misato and Asuka, though his efforts were futile as Misato and Asuka both turned to him before he could reach his room.
Asuka spoke up first, lacking the sensitivity Misato attempted to hold. “You’re late.”
Slowly, Shinji peered back over to her with a lack of expression.
“You’re all out of whack today– you even forgot to make me lunch! I could hardly find you at school, so I didn’t bring it up then, but I’m still upset!”
Shinji clicked his tongue and slowly raised his head. “Oh. Sorry about that.”
She exhaled a curt, offended puff. “Do you just expect me to starve?”
He lightly tilted his head. “Of course not,” he murmured ethereally, “I’ll just make you something now.”
Asuka bit her tongue and stared at Shinji with a touch of contempt. He wasn’t even upset, just carrying a terribly annoying serene acceptance to whatever she said. It was such a trivial matter that she obviously had no grounds to get that upset over. Even she knew that. Yet there was Shinji, taking it without a care– almost dreadfully out of character.
“Good, then.” She muttered, slouching back into her seating position in front of the television.
Misato, though, didn’t carry that same ‘serene acceptance’. She watched Shinji huddle over to the kitchen before necessarily speaking up. “You don’t need to do that, Shinji.”
He stopped for a moment before turning back to her with a light smile. “No, she’s right. I shouldn’t have forgotten– that’s on me.”
Asuka’s eyeline danced between Misato and Shinji as her thoughts dove into contemplation.
Misato frowned. “Well… you don’t need to cook for her if you don’t want to.”
He exhaled lightly, an action that was likely meant to be a laugh, though he lacked the emotion to do so. “It’s fine. It’s the least I can do for her putting up with me.” With that, he continued towards the kitchen, leaving his two roommates in bewilderment.
After a beat, Asuka put up a hollow show of satisfaction. “You’re right about that,” she remarked after a scoff. “Especially since you aren’t even a pilot anymore.” She turned away and felt the smug gratification drain from her face as she furrowed her brow.
Misato felt her jaw hang open for a moment before she herself sat down. Shinji’s demeanor was horribly off putting, especially for someone who had just gone through what he had. “Okay…” she murmured. It was all she could.
He heated a pan to a simmer and began to chop away at scallions, attention entirely focused on the knife. “Oh, and Misato…” he began.
She perked up and glanced over to him. “Yeah?”
“You’ve been really kind… thanks,” he remarked without so much as a smile, despite his tone suggesting otherwise. “For letting me stay here and all that, I mean.”
The apartment fell into an immediate silence, as if nobody in it aside from Shinji could even move. The only noise remained a knife tapping along a cutting board and the quiet whispers of a flame, until Misato hesitantly responded.
“Don’t even mention it…”
Asuka continued to watch him cook, her own deadpan expression matching his. Slowly, she herself felt her posture shrink, as an awful sense of recognition washed over her as if his actions weren’t foreign to her.
The sun had long since set outside, leaving Shinji to bask in nothing but moonlight as he calmly sprawled over the living room mat. His eyes were drawn to the nearby window, almost instinctively. The sky was rather eerie that day, being bathed in an exquisite yet dainty purple hue, although the light that perturbed from it was still dim, blue, and cold all the same. The moon was full and lush, patronizingly shining like a mockery of the sun.
The apartment was quiet, which was to be expected as Shinji was the sole inhabitant of it at the time. Misato had left abruptly after yet another call from NERV– all Shinji had overhead was something about the press and paperwork. It hadn’t been out of the ordinary lately– after such a tragedy that NERV was inherently responsible for, it was to be expected. Shinji did find it strange how much care they put towards one specific boy instead of the hundreds who had died in every past Angel attack. With that much rubble, destruction, and turmoil, it was an inescapable truth that no matter how good he piloted, no matter how much effort he put forth, people would die. They usually do– it’s nothing unnatural.
And yet, they cared all the more that it was a child that had died. That it was a soon-to-be pilot that had died. Or maybe they cared that it wasn’t an accident. That it was Shinji’s fault in more ways than one. Perhaps that’s why they cared.
Misato was gone, but her belongings and equipment weren’t. They remained in her room, just a few simple paces away. He felt his gaze linger a touch too long, so he quickly turned away. His coy shyness didn’t make any difference in his already-made decisions, though. He knew why his gaze had lingered. He knew what he had come to.
“Self-defense” was the purpose Misato had granted to the spare weapon she left at her bedside, so Shinji sought to use it that way. It was the fault of her own ignorance that she left it loaded, anyway– so Shinji repeated that line of thinking over and over to make his actions redeemable. She had gone so far as to tell them how to use it, so it was hardly his fault for using the tool for its intended purpose. He was going to protect them all.
There wasn’t any more room for cowardice, and so he rose. With a slow yet calculated turn, he dejectedly began to walk down the hall. Things would not be expected of him, and he wouldn’t continue to carry the horrendously strong ache to be acknowledged. Despite all this mental fortitude he propped himself up with, he immediately froze like a deer in headlights as he heard the door handle shake, before he curled up and began to backtrack to the living room, the cowardice returning in droves.
The door swung open in a grandiose fashion, revealing Asuka behind it. The sight reminded him of her absence. Though unlike Misato, he didn’t know where she had gone. Confused, he watched as her arm swung, and with it came a box and a jumble of wires that slowly clattered and slid across the floor, eventually stopping a few paces away from his feet.
“Why’d you give it away?” She spat, lightly tapping her foot in front of the door.
His eyes fell upon the S-DAT like a weight propping into place, and he nervously gripped at his shorts, before allowing his defeated demeanor to return. “How’d you get this?”
“From Kensuke.”
Shinji inhaled sharply. “You shouldn’t have taken it from him.”
“I didn’t. He took it from you.”
Shinji lifted his chin and stared at Asuka’s silhouette in the door, which prompted her to enter. “He didn’t take it. I gave it to him.”
Asuka’s expression worsened as she angled her head downwards. “Then that goes back to my first question.”
Shinji scratched at the back of his head. “I just thought he needed it. It was the least I could do after–”
“That’s not true.”
He swallowed dryly and took a step back. “I don’t know what you–”
“YES, you do!” she interjected, walking up to the living room and staring at him. “Why’d you give it to him?!”
“I thought I didn’t need it anymore,” he confessed, realizing any deflection was futile. If he couldn’t convince her otherwise, all he could do was simply get her away long enough for him to do what she seemingly assumed. It was better than continuing to be there and hurt her, anyway.
“Why?” Asuka pushed, though her tone was softer than the exclamation she had made earlier.
Shinji’s fingers twitched at his sides. His throat felt too tight to speak, yet somehow his voice still escaped– thin, cracking around the edges. “…Because it doesn’t matter to me.”
Asuka’s brow furrowed, her expression warping into something more terrible than anger. “What does that mean?”
He flinched. “It just doesn’t. Not anymore.”
“You’re lying.”
There was no bite or arrogance in her words. It was simply an accusation she desperately wanted proven wrong. Though, as the silence stretched on between them, that desperation morphed into confirmation. Her breath hitched.
He continued to not answer. He didn’t need to. The silence had said enough, and even if he wanted to, he doubted he could’ve found the words, or the confidence. He knew what he was doing, he had decided it for himself– and yet, he didn’t stand strongly enough by that stance to admit it, or to be caught, or to be stopped. He hadn’t thought of how others would care, because he assumed they wouldn’t. No, they still wouldn’t. He just didn’t want to be around for the embarrassment of them knowing how pathetic of a choice he had made.
She took a step forward.
Shinji took a step back.
“Stop,” she barked.
He froze, as the command hit him too sharply for even his void mind to ignore.
“…Asuka, please don’t–”
“No.” She crossed her arms tightly as if she wanted to exude discontent and disgust, though the action only came across as her holding in her own trembling. “I’m not stupid.”
Shinji breathed out half a plea, though his own desperation stopped it from being comprehensible.
“You’ve been acting… weird all week! Way weirder than usual!” Her voice wavered as she paused. She stopped to look Shinji up and down, before continuing.
“You’re giving away your things, thanking everybody for little… stupid things, and you’ve been settling affairs! Not even I can tell what the hell is going on!”
Shinji’s mouth opened, but nothing emerged. Subconsciously, his gaze flickered to Misato’s bedroom, then back to her.
Noticing his eyeline, she traced it, only to find herself staring at Misato’s bedroom door. Though, each gear slowly began to click into place in her mind as she gathered her thoughts. Eventually, her gaze focused upon a small, locked black box in the corner of Misato’s room, and her eyes widened. Painstakingly, she stifled an inhale before shifting over to stand between Shinji and the hallway.
Shinji’s composure cracked as he realized the gravity of the situation, his words turning into pleas. “Asuka– move.”
“Why?” She snapped. “So you can go finish whatever pathetic decision you’ve already made?” Her voice began to rise and shake violently, any resemblance of indifference or perplexity replaced with anger. Though, that infliction only betrayed the fear beneath every syllable.
“You really thought you could just do that? Just leave?!”
“It wouldn’t hurt anyone,” Shinji murmured weakly, shrinking under her words.
“Bullshit.” She spat, her words shifting from calculated and decided to emotional introjections. “How stupid are you?! It’d hurt everyone. You’re going to just run away from whatever you did?!” Her voice cracked loudly, sharp enough to make him recoil.
She scoffed patronizingly, hands on her head in a culmination of disbelief and fury. “Tell me this much– does lemon juice really work to get out blood stains, or is that just a rumor? Because I’m clearly going to need to know when I clean your brains off the wall! You’re just going to leave and make me clean up your mess… again! Like you always do!”
Shinji’s subconscious winced at the words. He truly had failed to account for that– there he was, continuing to be an awful parasite on the minds of others, forcing Asuka to deal with his shortcomings. Maybe he should’ve chosen to do it somewhere else, somewhere secluded and quiet, where they wouldn’t have to witness or clean up after his final action. Though, then he wouldn’t have been acknowledged for it; both options were tremendously awful to him.
He pressed his nails into his palms as he began to advance towards her. “Asuka… it’s better if I’m not here.”
“Better for who?”
“For everyone!” He exclaimed, flailing his hands. “If I pilot, I kill people! And if I don't, people die! So… that doesn’t make a difference!” He backed up away from her violently and hit the wall with desperate force, causing a painting overhead to slip and fall out of its frame.
His resolve was shattering, with every word from Asuka being like another nail driven into his fragile confidence– sending the pieces of his facade off in shards which took the form of words and spilled out of his mouth, no matter how desperately he hoped to lie or hold them back.
“I’m tired of everyone expecting all this from me!” He cried, clutching his head. Though, as his tangent continued, the line blurred as to whether or not he was begging for Asuka to stop consoling him, or for her to continue. “If I wasn’t here, no one would have to forgive me again! I’m sick of it! It’d be better for everyone… for… for…”
Asuka’s body remained entirely still in front of him, as though even someone like her couldn’t find words. Slowly, her figure trembled before him.
“For you,” he whispered.
At that, Asuka stopped breathing. Her expression bent, like something inside her was tearing in half– though, whatever it was was indecipherable. She stepped forward again, slower this time, the hurt in her eyes raw and unmasked for the first time Shinji could recall. “Don’t you dare decide that for me.”
Shinji swallowed, his voice breaking into something small, apologetic and barely held together. His last thread of resolve in his decision was already teetering and under tension, fraying at the edges. “I thought you’d be relieved.”
Her face contorted. “Relieved?!” The shout echoed off the empty apartment walls, then fell into a gut-wrenching quiet. Asuka brought her hand up to her mouth, and lightly let it slide across the lower half of her face. “God, you really don’t understand anything.”
Her voice was shaky, as if her own vocal cords couldn’t say what she wanted– that, or they didn’t know how to put it correctly. Shinji continued to let his feet slide on the floor and back into the wall, until they eventually gave out and let him slide down it. Asuka hovered for a moment– her mind indecipherable– before kneeling down in front of him to match his eyeline. She leaned forward, searching his empty expression. Though, as she remained there, the two refused to find words.
A terrible burden began to smother itself upon Shinji as he truly processed her words. He didn’t want to be an inconvenience anymore– he didn’t want to hurt anyone anymore, yet would dying really do just that? He had failed to consider it in his haste, and it dragged on him. It was a burden to be alive, yet to be dead would be a burden on others– what the hell was he to do?
Eventually, the weight finally caved in on Shinji and he slouched forward. “I don’t want to be here,” he murmured. “I don’t want to keep hurting people.”
“You’re hurting people right now.”
The bluntness of it nearly made him recoil, but Asuka’s voice trembled as she continued. “You’re hurting me.” Though, as soon as she said it, she made a face that conveyed the idea that she regretted it. It was far too open; far too vulnerable.
Shinji’s eyes shot up. And for the first time, he saw it clearly: the redness gathering at the corners of her eyes, the frantic tightness around her mouth, the tension in her throat that meant she was fighting something she didn’t want him to see.
“You don’t get to leave,” she said, breath shaky but firm. “Like a coward. You don’t get to just run away from everything– we all deal with it too. Are you really so much of a… a weakling that even just asking you to stay is too much?!”
“I killed him,” he whispered, opening his hands helplessly. “I don’t know how to stay… with that.”
“You don’t have to know,” she spat. She leaned back and outstretched her arm, swiping the S-DAT off the floor. She pressed it into his hands with a forcefulness that was more desperation than anger. “You… clearly can’t do anything else, so you just hold onto this. And you hold onto you. And you don’t get to throw either of those away.”
Shinji stared at the device numbly, his fingers curling around it automatically, like muscle memory.
Noticing his silence, her voice softened to a whisper. “You think you’re worthless? Fine. Then let me decide if you are. Let me… let someone… be here and see. For once.”
Shinji finally looked at her and found none of the superiority or scorn he expected. Just fear– real fear, the kind that mirrored his own. His voice emerged as little more than a murmur with a weak apology, though Asuka just shook her head angrily at it.
“Don’t apologize,” she shot, though the last word cracked in half as she said it. Upon finishing her reprimand, she let out a breath that had been held for far too long, before moving forward. Slowly and cautiously, she leaned over him and slid onto the wall beside him, allowing herself to fall to the floor just as he had. Their shoulders touched, but nothing more– and yet that was enough. Like a lifeline, Shinji felt as goosebumps perked up at the point of connection, as though even his body itself was reaching out. Weakly, he turned his head and allowed his shoulders to shake as he moved, something within him that had been so tightly held and wound finally loosening.
Shinji stared at her, though she simply looked ahead with the slightest of quivers at her lip. Slowly, he turned away and let the moment continue. Nothing was forced, nothing was uncomfortable. Asuka had made her point, and seemingly she had found the answer to her question. Shinji couldn’t be worthless if he was there, providing comfort to Asuka.
And for the first time since Toji’s entry plug had burst, Shinji didn’t feel alone.
The apartment door slid open with its familiar, exhausted heave. Misato hesitantly walked in with a sigh, the day having wrung out any cheerful attitude she had left. Yet again she had to answer questions for the press and clarify the fate of the Fourth Child, and who was to blame. She shut the door quietly, as if afraid the walls themselves might shatter with too much noise and wake her two wards. At least, she assumed they were asleep– the lights were off. Though, she still asked out into the darkness for clarification.
“Asuka? Shinji?” Her voice came out hoarse, likely from the amount of talking she had done prior.
No answer came to her query, so she walked further inside, her eyes adjusting to the soft glow of moonlight spilling across the floor. Though, as if on queue, a beam of moonlight illuminated the living room, and there she saw them.
Shinji sat slumped against the wall, head bowed and fast asleep. Next to him, curled with the stubborn rigidity of someone trying not to seem gentle, Asuka rested against his, as his own had fallen upon her shoulder. Shinji’s right hand loosely held his S-DAT, the wires tangled on the floor as it threatened to slip out of his weak grasp.
The other, however, was loosely placed on the floor, his fingertips resting atop Asuka’s. Not yet close enough to be held, but just enough for a start.
Misato froze, her expression immediately being plastered in bewilderment. A dozen questions rose in her throat as she crossed her arms. Though, she didn’t ask any. And she didn’t turn on the lights.
Instead, she exhaled the smallest breath, one that trembled with guilt she would never name. She approached them and eased the fallen frame of the crooked painting back into place on the wall.
She stood there for a long moment, watching the two children who carried more than she ever could. The moonlight softened them, made them look younger. More human; less alone. With a light laugh, she turned away, walked to her room, and slid the door closed without so much as a sound.