[X] Talk to Rei about Home
You catch Rei sitting on the couch in her school uniform watching television with Pen
2. She's never owned one before, apparently. She's been flipping back and forth between a documentary on life in the Patagonian Sea and some crappy romance film from pre-Second Impact. She doesn't take her eyes off the screen while you talk, but she's listening.
She says that you're right, your apartment is an improvement over her old one. She didn't know how nice it was to take a hot shower, or to sleep on clean sheets, or to have carpeting was. It feels…warm here. Rei does something you've never seen her do before. She smiles. It's very small, and disappears after only a second, but you know she smiled. You feel warm and fuzzy inside.
Rei hopes she can be of use here. When she's not at NERV or school, anyway.
Pen
2 says
wark, by the way. In case you were wondering his feelings on the matter.
Investigation Results
You dig around in some old files trying to figure out who the hell ordered Rei's old living arrangements. It's difficult work. For reasons unknown, almost all of Rei's records are blank. You can't find when she started living in Apartment 402, when she started working at NERV, anything about her parentage, when Gendo adopted her, her blood type; you can't even find a birthday on file. The only clue you can find regarding her entrance into NERV is the earliest of the expunged records being dated 2005. It's unnerving, given the amount of detail in
your file.
You cannot find any details regarding who approved it, but you can work out that at least three people
knew about Rei's living situation prior to your own discovery of it: Gendo Ikari, Ritsuko Akagi, and Kozo Fuyutsuki. So whoever approved it, it is most probably one of them. You find yourself wanting to avoid all three of them having learned this information. Especially Ritsuko.
Will you tell Rei about their neglect of her?
[ ] Tell Rei
[ ] Do not tell Rei
[X] Synchronization training
Rei's sync rate has risen to 46.2%, almost 8 points. Ritsuko is baffled at the change. Rei's range has always been fluctuating in the 30% range her entire time here at NERV. That said, Rei's range isn't exactly stable, and it dips occasionally into the high 20s. Ritsuko notices that her psychograph outputs show some irregularities similar to those that appeared during the Angel's sonic attack. This worries her. Rei is eventually taken out of the simulation plug and whisked away for some sort of special testing.
When Ritsuko returns, she shrugs at you and says she isn't sure what's wrong with Rei. There's no evidence of mental contamination or organic brain damage. The issue must be psychological in nature. Have there been any major changes in Rei's life lately?
You hesitate. You're having trouble trusting your old friend. It feels...awful, to be honest. For the time being, you keep Rei's move quiet. Ritsuko looks at the both of you questioningly, but doesn't press the issue. Rei, to her credit, also keeps quiet.
[X] Arts program
Rei's art remains Rei's art. Some of her pictures are at least slightly more normal looking, though. She seems to enjoy drawing pictures of Pen
2. You notice that in addition to her pictures of human silhouettes, she seems to draw the Third Angel in various states of injury or crossed out. But seemingly for every picture of the Angel she draws, she draws a picture of herself crossed out instead. You tentatively ask why she's crossed out the Angel. She tells you that it's because she…wants it not to exist. That she…h-hates it. That's the correct word, right, Captain? It's the first time she's ever used an emotion word to talk about her feelings.
You tell her that you hate it too. Rei seems to relax a little after you tell her that.
But what about the crossed-out drawings of Rei?
Rei doesn't answer.
[X] Write-in: Cleaning up the apartment or buying groceries seems rough, impossible, and honestly boring. But Rei needs at least some role modeling. Misato will do her best to battle the beer cans and take out trash.
You reluctantly try to step into the role of a parental figure for Rei. You have some misgivings about this, but what Rei needs in her life is some structure and routine. Rei has for the most part spent her time in her room reading her books or watching television on the couch with Pen
2. Neither of you have been doing many chores, and it's not very long before your apartment reverts to the state of disarray typical of it. This has to stop.
You make a chores list and do your best to divide it fairly. You consider playing rock-paper-scissors for each day, but you feel like Rei would just experience a freakish stroke of luck or read your mind or something and make you end up doing everything. You show Rei how to clean dishes (she initially tries to use bar soap rather than dish soap), clean the bathroom (she tries to use the toilet cleaner on the bathtub), sort and take out the garbage (she considers all garbage "flammable" because in theory everything you throw out does have an ignition temperature), and teach her how to cook some basic meals. Mostly for you (so far). Rei, thankfully, does not have any problem with
other people eating meat. She considers it her personal choice. The thought of eating meat makes her feel nauseous, apparently. Oh, and she can't have dairy, either. Not because of any philosophical stand, but because it gives her a stomachache. She doesn't seem averse to cooking eggs. She can't eat them, but she's fine with making them when she's on breakfast duty. You take some time during the week to find some vegetarian recipes.
Rei's cooking isn't bad, but it's mediocre. She's inflexible and not great at problem-solving, so if anything goes wrong, she has difficulty correcting it if it's not written in the recipe. It's something to work on. Your cooking is also fairly mediocre, but mostly because any time you try to get creative you invariably overseason whatever you're attempting. Whatever, you're not on Iron Chef.
After a week of eating actual real food, Rei's complexion seems noticeably improved. She's still incredibly pale, but she looks more alive than she did before.
You also make some plans to introduce Rei to Shinji, under your supervision, of course. You're going to try to take them out of the very narrow world they currently inhabit without the entire encounter lapsing into protracted and awkward silence. After that you're going to multiply some loaves and some fishes. Good luck!
Where are you taking them?
[ ] Arcade (kids like that sort of thing, right?)
[ ]
Aquarium (apparently this one got blown up by the N
2 mine, sorry. You probably shouldn't tell Rei about this.)
[ ] Mahjong parlor (you want vengeance)
[ ] Fishing (You-Know-Who was really into this)
[ ] The beach (it would give you an excuse to buy Rei literally anything that isn't a school uniform)
You
will make them talk to each other and they
will participate in some activity together. Neither of them are very talkative, but there's no way you're going to let them sit there in silence. You're filled with dread. You kind of half-hope an Angel attack interrupts your plans.
Anyway, what are you trying to accomplish here?
[ ] Friendship. Rei
needs a friend that isn't you. You know, if she considers you a friend. You're not sure about that.
[ ] Romance. The matchmaker in you definitely sees this as a potential opening for Rei to expand her emotional horizons. Maybe having another person to fight for will help Rei's obvious self-esteem issues.
[ ] A working relationship. They are coworkers, and they've never met. They need to be able to trust each other if they're going to be backing each other up. Not exactly going to be easy to manage them the way things are now, either.
[ ] A friendly rivalry. Pushing both of them into a friendly competition will help them improve faster.
You spend a good part of the week procrastinating telling Gendo about Rei's new living arrangements. Yes, you promised Rei you'd talk to him right away, but, uh, you were busy. Yeah. With um, moving Rei in. Rei has not asked you about it yet. In fact, you think she probably assumes you've already done it. You've been pacing up and down the floor his office is located on.
[ ] Break the news to Gendo
[ ] Pretend nothing has changed for now
