Chapter 22.2
Asuka felt rather silly knocking on the door to her own bedroom, especially when there was no answer. For once she was glad for the Japanese convention of sliding doors, as with both hands full it made opening the door easier.
She quietly made her way to the head of Shinji's futon, and the boy stirred as Asuka sat down, placing the glass of water and box of pills she was carrying on the floor next to her.
"Hey..." was Shinji's muzzy greeting as he raised himself up on one arm.
"Hey yourself," Asuka replied. "It's been an hour, but I take it you're not feeling any better?"
"Nnngh, not even slightly." His attempt to sit upright failed, until Asuka gave a helping hand. She removed two pills from the box and gently but firmly pressed them into Shinji's hand. She had to support his back as he tossed them in his mouth and almost fell over. After using the water to wash them down, he remarked, "I really hope that was aspirin, my head feels like an Angel is trying to break in."
"No, actually I gave you some of Misato's contraceptive pills."
Shinji's head must have been hurting incredibly, as he completely missed the obvious sarcasm in the Second Child's voice. She hadn't turned the light on when she entered the room, but it wasn't needed. The partially-open curtain still let in enough late afternoon light to see the horrified look on the boy's face.
"W-w-what?!"
"Oh relax, I was joking." Asuka held up the box for proof. "These are still Misato's, though it's something a lot stronger than aspirin. Probably what she used to take to get over one of her monster hangovers. I'm sure she won't mind you having a couple." As Shinji calmed back down, she squinted at the box. "Acetaminophen. Huh, I think these were bought recently too."
"Maybe she got them to deal with the headache of being Supreme Commander."
Asuka shrugged before picking up the box and empty glass, and stood up. "Maybe. Anyway, I'm going to start making dinner, you feel like anything in particular?"
Shinji thought for a moment before shaking his head, instantly regretting it as the motion aggravated his headache. "Whatever you feel like will be fine."
"Alright." Asuka walked out of the bedroom, stopping in the doorway with a hand on the frame. "The painkillers should kick in soon. Will you talk to me after dinner, about what caused your headache?" she asked hopefully.
From her position, it appeared for a moment that Shinji had deliberately turned away from her. Just as she was about to get upset that he was ignoring her, Asuka heard, "Huh? Yeah, I'll tell you."
"Good." Asuka drummed her fingers on the door frame for a few seconds, before closing her eyes and saying, "Please don't try and hold everything in, Shinji. There are people that want to help. They... they care about you."
She left the doorway before any possible response was made.
**
Misato arrived home shortly after dinner was laid out on the dining table. She expressed concern over Shinji's headache, but as he was already starting to feel better, both he and Asuka seemed to silently agree not to disclose what had apparently caused it. When her headache medication was brought up, Misato cheerfully stated that Shinji could take as much as he needed.
Cleanup duty fell to Rei that night. While it was originally her brother's night for the dishes, she seemed to understand that he was still unwell, and quietly insisted that he go lay down. When Asuka got up to follow him, Rei gave her a meaningful look behind Misato's back that suggested she would like an explanation later, to which the Second Child nodded.
Back in their bedroom, Asuka closed the curtains as Shinji sat down on his futon. Instead of turning on the ceiling light, she instead used the lamp next to her bed to illuminate the room with a softer glow. The redhead then dropped exaggeratedly onto her own futon, before crossing her legs and leaning an elbow on each knee with her chin in her hands.
Shinji smiled a little at the sight. "You look like you're ready for some girl talk."
Asuka grinned right back at him. "Well I'm a girl, and we're going to talk about something personal. Speaking of which..."
"Ah. Right..." Shinji looked downward.
The room turned silent, but Asuka knew not to press him. He was obviously gathering his thoughts together. After a couple of minutes, he looked back up at her.
"How... how much do you know about my role in Third Impact?" he slowly asked.
Asuka frowned. She had certainly not expected him to go back that far in his explanation. It was going to be a struggle to pick her words carefully. "You were... the one who gave everybody the chance to return," she eventually replied, gingerly stepping around the landmine topic of Shinji's control.
A landmine that the boy proceeded to walk directly over. "I was the one in charge. Lilith asked me to decide humanity's fate," he darkly muttered.
"Shinji, we've already gone over how it's not truly your fault," Asuka said, trying to placate him.
"Yeah..." It was clear in both his voice and expression that Shinji still didn't believe it. "A bunch of old men did everything. But they're not the ones that have to suffer." He let out a low sigh. "Anyway, when I... when..."
Asuka put a hand on his shoulder as his voice trailed off. "We don't need to talk about this part."
"Actually, I do," Shinji replied, raising his head slightly. He took a deep breath and tried again. "When... I made the decision... to end humanity, and Lilith began collecting their souls, something happened. They all... passed through me. It was like I was the doorway to Instrumentality, and every single soul passed through mine on their way in."
Asuka shivered at the thought, wondering how strange it must have felt. "But... what does this have to do with your headache now?" she asked.
"Um... I'm getting to that. When each soul collided with mine, something was left behind. Like two cars trading paint in a scrape." Shinji tapped the side of his head.
Her eyes widening in shock, Asuka let out a strangled gasp. "Their... memories?!" When Shinji nodded, she added, "Mein Gott," in a hushed whisper.
"Fortunately for me, the human mind doesn't seem capable of remembering such a thing very well," Shinji went on, cheering up slightly. "I had the combined weight of humanity's knowledge and memories in my head for only a few minutes before I started forgetting things en masse. Before I knew it... all I could clearly remember was that the memories had been there. For everything else, it was like that feeling you get when you can't quite recall something, only magnified a few billion times."
Asuka let out the breath she hadn't been aware she was holding. What Shinji had just described sounded similar to what Misato had recounted of Doctor Akagi's hysterical rant about people not clearly remembering their time in Instrumentality, rendering SEELE's ultimate plan... ultimately useless. If a human's mind could not hope to understand such a concept as Instrumentality, how could they ever become one?
She said as much to Shinji, but before she could get too happy, he said, "Too bad that doesn't seem to apply to me. I remember everything from the point I... gave up... to the point where I made the decision to let people return." He put a hand to his head and chuckled humourlessly. "It was a mindscrew."
Raising an eyebrow at the Third Child's one-word description, Asuka began to think while tapping a finger against her chin. "All of humanity's knowledge..." she mused. "But the memories that come with it wouldn't be worth the price. Not by a long shot."
"No," Shinji agreed. "Imagine seeing a person on the street, and knowing instantly that they were cheating on their spouse. Or that somebody has disturbing, sexual thoughts about somebody else."
"Eurgh." Asuka made a face, which disappeared as quickly as it had formed when something occurred to her. She made a great mental leap. "Wait... what happened today, when you saw our friends... Did you suddenly remember their lives?"
And perfectly nailed the landing.
Shinji looked at her with surprise mixed with not a small amount of admiration. In his eyes the judges held up several tens and a nine. "Yeah, you're definitely still a genius," he said with a smile. "The second they came in and looked at me, I was hit by three lots of memories at once, and..."
"Mindscrew?" Asuka guessed, trying to ignore the tingling sensation she felt when Shinji praised her.
"A very impolite one."
The redhead tilted her head upward and hummed thoughtfully. "Yet you still asked Hikari and Jock Stooge about their relationship. It started before Third Impact, so you knew about it. You asked so they could tell you themselves."
"You're pretty good at that sort of thinking, Asuka."
Again, she had to resist the urge to blush at another compliment. "Damn right, I'm a regular Sherlock Holmes."
Asuka had been anticipating another smile, and had even braced herself for the effect it might have. What she was not expecting for Shinji to give her a look of polite incomprehension and say, "Um... who?"
"...Sherlock Holmes? Famous fictional detective?"
"I... don't think I've ever heard of him," Shinji hesitantly said.
"What?!" The redhead was shocked, almost angry at this revelation, and the Third Child reflexively leaned away from her. "What kind of school did you go to where you never learned about the world's greatest detective?"
His eyes downcast, Shinji mumbled, "I... never went to school. I had a tutor instead."
"O-oh..." The fire disappeared from Asuka's voice, snuffed out by the boy's sad expression. "Sorry Shinji, I didn't know."
"It's fine, Asuka." With a shrug, he continued, "You couldn't have known. My tutor only taught me the essentials. Literacy and numeracy, that sort of thing. Oh, and I kind of had to learn how to cook by myself when I was old enough to start. He basically forced the job onto me, saying that either I would learn or starve."
The anger returned. "Your tutor was a goddamn bastard. How old were you when that started?"
"Uh," Shinji frowned in thought. "Eight, I think."
Asuka raised an eyebrow. "You 'think'?"
"Well after a while of living with him I lost track of time, what with every day being the same thing. Until I came to Tokyo-3 and got my identification, I couldn't be positive how old I was." Asuka tilted her head in confusion, and Shinji rubbed the back of his head, smiling weakly as he continued. "Heh, I actually thought I was sixteen. But that was probably because the years really dragged on, and the fact that I never even got to celebrate my birthday di-"
"WHAT?!"
**
The shout seemed to echo through the apartment, drawing surprised looks from the two people in the lounge room just as the television had been turned off.
"What was that about?" Misato wondered.
"Shinji and Asuka are talking," Rei replied. "He must have simply said something surprising to her."
"So surprising she was probably heard downstairs? What did Shinji do, confess to her?"
"Confess? I do not understand."
"Never mind, you will someday."
**
Back in the bedroom, Asuka struggled to calm down. Shinji was still talking, but in her indignant rage she only caught half of it.
"-sn't allowed to watch television much. Just documentaries that were relevant to my lessons. Apart from the cello I didn't even get to entertain myself. Even then, that was only a couple years before I got called here."
Asuka put aside the surprising news that Shinji had become a good cello player in such a short time, because she had a sudden urge to punch something. Punch someone. To deprive a growing child of any form of entertainment was almost barbaric to her. And to completely ignore a child's birthday?
She would bet an entire decade's worth of NERV paychecks that it was done by the order of his own father.
While she had started Evangelion piloting very early in her life, she had still been given time off so that she didn't burn out. By the sound of things, Shinji had been burnt at both ends and in the middle. And yet here he stood, somehow having survived everything thrown at him. Here he remained.
The only way things could have been worse would be if he had been corporally punished. Asuka stifled a shudder, and fought down the mental image of a Shinji that would be like... like the First Child used to be.
"That... Arschloch is lucky he doesn't live in this city," she ground out through clenched teeth. Almost to herself, she added, "Wonder if he's the reason you don't know anything about Christian religion either."
"Um, what?" The strange subject change threw Shinji for a loop. "Japan is mostly Shinto and Buddhism. All I know of Christianity is that it's a Western religion."
'Well great, it was already kind of an obscure reference. No wonder the 'idiot' didn't come in that night.' Asuka turned away from him slightly, laying down on top of her futon. She stared up at the ceiling and said, "Remember last year, during our sync training week? That one night when Misato wasn't around?"
"Yeah, you moved into her room for the night and said something about a wall of jerks," Shinji replied. "What about it?"
The boy's confusion diffused some of the Second Child's anger, but then she remembered what had happened afterwards with a sigh. Or to be more precise, what hadn't happened. "The next time you're on the internet, look up 'The Walls of Jericho'. Jeh-rikh-oh," she clarified, slowly pronouncing the word.
"Jericho..."
"Yeah. Do that, and..." Asuka voice went quiet. "And then you'll find out why I didn't sleep well that night."
"Okay," Shinji replied, before failing to stifle a yawn.
She couldn't help it. The contagion spread, and Asuka yawned too. "Wow, we must have been talking for a while. We should probably turn in."
"...Alright."
Asuka knew him well enough by this point to know when something was worrying him. "What's the matter?"
"It's nothing," the boy defensively said as he lay down. This time, it was clear he was trying to end the conversation as he put his back to Asuka.
She sat up and put a hand on his left shoulder, forcing him to turn back over and look up at her. "Shinji, tonight we've learned new things about each other. I've even given you a hint to something I would never have mentioned even under torture last year. Don't backslide on me now!"
For a long while the two teenagers stared at each other, his cobalt eyes filled with worry and fear mixed with reticence, while her sapphire eyes radiated determination and concern. Finally, Shinji sighed and began to sit up. Asuka removed her hand, but didn't move, staying almost on top of him.
"There's... one other thing I got from the souls that passed through me," he quietly said. "And I wouldn't even wish it upon my father."
"W-what was it, Shinji?" she hesitantly asked as she moved back slightly in surprise. She would later regret not letting him drop the subject.
"How many people alive do you think there were when I triggered Third Impact?" His eyes began to turn hollow.
"Shinji, don't change the subj-," Asuka began.
Shinji quickly interrupted. "How many people, Asuka?"
The Second Child ran a hand through her hair, and made a guess with a shrug. "It was about three billion, right?"
"Three billion, three hundred and twenty-nine million, nine hundred and sixty-seven thousand, five hundred and fourteen," Shinji corrected without hesitation.
Asuka was stunned for a long minute, and Shinji's eyes drifted to the ceiling. It took her a long, agonising minute to work up the nerve to say, "That's... incredibly specific."
"Do you want to know how I know?"
Fear bloomed inside the redhead, but Asuka couldn't stop herself from opening her mouth and uttering one word. "How?"
Shinji met her gaze, and Asuka stared into the eyes of a boy who had hang-glided over Hell. The expression would be forever seared into her memory as Shinji replied, "Because I hear them every night in my dreams."
**
Rei paused at the open door to her room. She frowned, and looked across at Asuka and Shinji's closed door. Something was worrying her, and she couldn't understand exactly what it was. All she could fathom was that it involved her brother. The bluenette was wondering whether she should knock and see if everything was alright, when the feeling suddenly vanished.
**
The moment control of her body had returned after the shock had worn off, it had moved without any conscious thought on Asuka's part. She had almost knocked Shinji over, wrapping her arms tightly around the boy. Only his arms, thrown desperately backwards, had halted a sudden impact with the floor.
They sat like that for a long time, until Shinji finally mustered up some courage. He cleared his throat and said, "Um... Asuka? Did I say something wrong? You... seem to be slowly trying to crush me."
Asuka didn't let go, but she did loosen her grip a miniscule fraction. "It's a hug, you idiot. I'm hugging you."
"O-oh..." An eternity passed, and then another. "Um... Asuka? W-why are you hugging me?"
She closed her eyes and sighed into his shoulder. "Because you need one, dummy."
The warmth seemed almost addictive, and she refused to break the hug and reveal her incandescent face. It was far, far too late to pass this off as just a gesture of emotional support.
'But Shinji wouldn't be Shinji if he clearly understood something like this,' Asuka gladly thought. 'I guess I'm... hah, safe for now.'
Asuka had lost track of the number of times she had gone over the scenario in her head the previous year. It always seemed so easy to do in the safety of her own mind. Just admit that she might possibly consider... thinking about liking him. But the words could never be said. The only time she had made an attempt, Shinji had had to ask her if something was wrong as she stared at him, unable to force anything out of her mouth.
That had been a restless night.
Even now, something was still holding her back. She was hugging him already, so why couldn't she say anything? Was it just not the right time? Would she ever be able to get past that nagging insecurity that somehow nothing would go right if she admitted her interest?
For the time being, she would gladly settle for Shinji being in her arms.
The words would just have to wait.
