Painting the Canvass

His desk was in shambles yet his fist was splinter free...

Who knew daydreaming could be so dangerous for the drugged wuss?

"I-I-I-I-IIIIII..."

The class waited with eager anticipation for an explanation; all but for one; Langley. Her attention was hoisted to the same thing as everybody else's, but her thoughts were quite different from the general idea which was what on earth was Shinji thinking...

"That could be my face..." she thought to herself...

Regret would be an insufficient term to describe how she felt at that time. If there was a word to express deep regret with a heavy dose of terror, Asuka would have never thought about it. She stared at the wreckage that was the space Shinji was sitting in right beside the window. The broken table painted a slod image of the predicament she might be in if Shinji had come to his senses to see what kind of person she was and use his newfound "gifts" to express to her just how special she was to him. And just like the scared little girl that she was, she muttered a small "mama" to herself whilst hiding her face in one of her books.

On the other hand, another child had her attention on the scene of the wreckage and had similar (but much less magnified) emotions about the incident. Her face did not show shock or surprise. Hers was that of a person who came across a telvesion with the evening news on.

"Is he gravely displeased with me?"

"Was it because my approach generated a greater amount of astonishment than expected?"

"Was he having what they refer to as a bad day?"

The object of everyone's attention found himself in quite a predicament. The most prominent thing that he was hard pressed to think about at the moment was:

"Is she looking?"

His eyes took a quick scan into the class looking at him. He was looking for a girl. He couldn't forget her hair, it was different that anyone else's. He couldn't miss it. He looked for her face in the class, it was too beautiful and familiar for him.

Was she looking at him? Was she mad? Was she worried?

She had her head in a book. But her hair made it all too easy for Shinji to see her.

"She's not looking. Why?"

That whole process took only about three seconds which made it all the more important for Shinji to provide an explanation to the instructor as to why he just busted school equipment in the name of the girl who was looking at his back, counting the things she could have done wrong.

(Think, bitch)

It had to be cool, so that Langley wouldnt think him a loser. It had to be sensible, so as not to throw off Rei. It had to be believable, so that the instructor wouldnt suspect.

"CONSTIPATION!" he yelled, twisting his face to project the condition.

"I'm sorry, I'm not feeling too well. I remember Rei brings a medicine kit with something for loose bowels."

Cool? Sensible? Believable?

Langley sneered in her book but kept her eyes away from his. Shinji sighed and looked for her eyes. Rei did nothing.

"Pilot Ikari is, constipated? That must be it." She said to herself, feeling a bit of a new emotion; relief. He didn't break his table because he dreamt of her being hurt, he broke it from pain and inconvenience of having to hold in his bowels and he needed her medicine.

The blue-haired child silently went to her things and produced a small kit. Who knew she really had something for the bad tummy?

It was during that time that Rei had given up all hope to bother Shinji at that time. She would never cause anyone else discomfort just for her own personal desires. Even if that was the very first desire she had experienced. her nature had forced her to forget about getting Shinji to smile for her. She began to think how ridiculous it was of her to scheme without anyone knowing just to elicit something from a peer. She then felt queesy about being in the same room as her pilot Ikari. A small sense of shame came unto her and then another emotion crept into her which made her somewhat uncomfpratble; vulnerable.

Shinji saw the gesture being made for him and started to walk slowly towards the girl with the kit in her hands, but his mind was on the girl who hid herself from him. Shrugging the questions in his mind, he made slowly towards Rei and shifted his sight towards hus unlikely accomplice. the whole class followed each step he took towards Ayanami with anticipation the way people gawk at pandas who give birth at the zoo.

"Senseless." She said to herself, thinking of the way she had been acting the whole morning.

"Saved." He said to himself, thinking of the excuse he just made.

Those steps seemed to have taken forever.

"Thank you."

And there it happened once again.

He smiled at her.

That influx of emotions a teenager gets when his dad buys him a car on his birthday despite him expecting something smaller rushed right through the child. In her mind her plan had failed; but there was her goal right in front of her/

His smile.

It was just the same as before. None of his teeth went missing nor did he forget to brush them. His eyes, hair, lips and face all there in the exact way she had that same feeling she thought about the night before was buzzing right inside her like a bee in the midst of a beautiful garden.

Senseless?

Indeed she had become. Forgotten bacame those feelings of shame and vulnerability which Rei didn't know what they were in the first place. Gone were the anxieties she started harboring towards herself the whole time it took Shinji to take the pills from her.

Being who she was, Rei kept calm as part f her nature. The turmoil inside her did nothing to affect the way she looked at Shinji as he took the small blue box in her hands.

The oblivious child went on with the box in his hands and excused himself from class. Each eye followed each step until Ikari was no longer inside the room. As soon as the had left, the class resumed as if there wasn't a broken desk beside the window. The instructor continued with his lesson and the class went on with what they were doing. A certain red-head noticed the exit of the boy and took a sigh of relief and went back to being her abnoxious self. The thoughts of her imminent doom had seemed to have dissolved as soon as she started thinking of herself.

The blue-head took her seat onece again and started contemplating the sudden shattering of her resolve a few moments ago. She didnt think he would smile again. She didnt think she was going to get what she wanted. She didnt think he would make her feel this way again.

All so new to her. As poignantly painful it was for her to have her expectations shattered by his destroying the table to her having her defenses washed off with his smile, she handled herself quite well. Her left hand she placed neatly on the desk while her chin rested on her right hand. Like the swarm of lanterns on the rivers during festivals, questions popped into her mind.

"What had taken place?"

"What had I executed?"

"Why was it successful?"

"Why was he constipated?"

But nevertheless, despite the immense amount of thinking that had to be done, the fact was there, as plain as the remnants of the desk Shinji had left...

She liked it.

It felt good.

That warmth and sincerity she had seen from him the other night had just been shown to her moments ago and she was delighted about it.

What now?

------------------------------

Outside the classroom, the boy had made his careful way to the restroom to collect himself and assess what had just happened. His steps he counted as well as the seconds he saw Langley not giving a shit about what he did to his desk.

"Did I scare her?"

"Did I gross her out?"

"What does she think of me?"

Oh yes, that he knew so very well. He recalled the time she spat on his face. He recalled the words she let rip unto his face. He reminisced that contemptuous look on her face as she ripped out his heart and fed it to penpen. He saw her face in his mind as he was walking...

which was reason for him not to see what he was doing infront of the restroom mirror.

Each time he ran it through his mind, the feeling of self-pity just kept growing and growing as if wanting to be let out.

He then recalled what it was he was thinking about before he broke his desk. He remembered what ran into his mind and what caused him to lose control.

It was Rei.

Was it really?

The sight of her sadness in his mind seemed to have reached out deeper than when Asuka manually gorged his feelings out. The look on her face as he talked about Asuka sent pains down his spine the way fingernails grinded against a blackboard.

Why did it hurt him so much?

As soon as he opened his eyes, the sink was bent over and a small pond was forming at his feet. This wasnt much of a surprise to him as much as realizing that Rei had a lot to do with what he was experiencing now. And like with any other laboratory test, one had to determine the dependent and indpendent variables.

Shinji had seemed to figure that out.

It was then that he heard something from within one of the cubicles. It was a thud as if something fell from where it was placed. Heightened senses urged him to select the cubilced from which the sound had come from.

"What the fuck are you doing here???" He yelled, pointing a wild finger at the man he found hiding in the cublicle with an espionage device in his clutches.

"Well... guess you found me. I told that purple bitch the bathroom was a bad idea." said the man.

"Ok, what does she have to do with this?"

"Oh, she just wanted me to watch you without raising any suspicion." Kaji replied, fixing himself up from his crouched position.

"Why would she want to have me watched?" Shinji asked with peaked interest. Something must be going on and it most certainly involved him.

"Uhhhhh... She thought... Uhhhhh... LOOK! A THOUSAND YEN!"

And with the slickness that only compared to his remark, Kaji made a run for it as soon as Shinji looked down. Bewildered, Shinji stood by the empty cubicle only with a single question in his head...

"How did he pull that off?"

Disregarding the incident, Shinji readied himself to leave the restroom. It just so happened that classes had just ended and the students were all abuzz to head for their homes. Shinji quickly returned to the classroom where he left his things and then headed for the exit.

The day had taken quite a toll on Shinji's reasoning. There were plenty of things he wanted to obtain answers for but he didn't know who to ask.

He hurried out of school in an effort to get home early to ask Misato what was going one, he indeed had a lot on his mind that he wanted to get off.

Why did you have Kaji spy on me?

Why did I wreck that desk?

What was it with Rei that got him so riled up as class?

What does Langley think of me?

How do I get a firm grip on these abilities?

Why is Rei standing by my shoe locker?

---------------------------------------------

Kay I know its been A WHILE since the last chapter so Im REALLY SORRY about that... dont worry... Ive got my life back on track and im sober and twisted enough to get back on that horse... This chapter is a bit slow for the mean time, I wanna take a few steps back before I plunge into the deeper things... Really sorry... The next instalments are going to be more frequent...