The Hedgehog'sEntrapment

***Author's note: This is short, and might feel a little rushed at the end. The language is strong, and some of the feelings are overplayed, but that's what you can expect from Evangelion. The German words inserted were taken directly from Google Translator, and probably aren't even close to correct German. If you want to know what they mean, a reverse translation should give you the general idea I was going for, but their implied meaning is all you really need to know (and hopefully you can get that from the story.)***

"Why do you always get to play the sad, reserved, meek little bitch? That's bullshit and you know it, Mr. Daddy-Issues." Asuka seemed to tower above Shinji, her long mane smoldering about her shoulders, cold in comparison to the brilliant, burning blue of her eyes.

"You get to whine about every little thing that doesn't go your way," Asuka took a step closer, continuing her tirade on the boy. "I don't care if you don't want to pilot Eva, you're stuck with it. All you do is bitch about it, but you do it anyway." Asuka's words rushed together in fury. "What's the point of complaining? You just have to do it. Accept it, Third." As her speech advanced Asuka continued forward towards Shinji until she had him pressed close against the hallway wall.

"You want everyone to feel sorry for you," Asuka's face was close to Shinji's, her voice barely a molten, whispered breath. "All you want to do is feel sorry for yourself. It makes me sick, I just feel contempt."

Shinji felt very small, pressed up against the wall, a mouse in front of a lion. He could feel Asuka's hot words against his cheek, and her eyes burned into his forehead. "You're fucking worthless," Asuka's fist slammed into the wall next to his head, burning in the emphasis of her words. Shinji slumped down to the floor like a worn-out rag. Asuka's assault built upon Shinji's own feeling of worthlessness.

"Sie sind ein verdammt schwächling!" Asuka spat the German with frigid contempt as she turned, her skirt swirling up with the careless rapidity of the motion. Shinji caught a brief sight of her backside clad only in thin, yellow fabric. It was a detail that went almost unnoticed by Shinji's reeling mind. Asuka started storming away, as much as a person can storm in any direction through Misato's tiny apartment.

The burning tears were steam on Shinji's cheek, even though his eyes remained perfectly dry. He should have been crying, judging by the emotions he felt clashing in his chest. "It's... It's not that easy..." Asuka paused mid-step in her procession away from the boy.

"What did you say, Third?" Her voice cut a line that pierced straight to Shinji's bowed form.

"It's not that easy, you cold bitch." Shinji's voice almost cracked at the end of his declaration. He managed to hold the outburst's appearance together, if only by keeping his head aimed down towards the ground and his eyes clamped shut.

"Ich bin empört," Asuka's words were a quiet furnace as she turned to face Shinji's sitting form. "Ich bin empört, you worthless fucking bastard." Asuka, surprisingly, didn't scream the words. She should have, it would have been more fitting than the soft whisper she spoke the venom with. The quiet coolness she uttered them with commuted more rage and scorn than Shinji had ever heard in one of her yelling fits.

Shinji slumped lower until he swore his head was pressed against the floor. He could feel the rough carpet against his cheeks, his own hot tears burned cheeks already reddened by shame. "It's not that easy," a hoarse whisper sounded out just loud enough to halt Asuka's storming. "It's not like that." This newest rebuff had the effect of spinning Asuka on her heels to face the sad form on the floor once again.

"Then what the fuck is it like?" Asuka's deadpan question was worse than the screaming tone she had used in past attacks. Her hushed tone commuted a readiness to make Shinji justify and account for his own words. "Please tell me, oh 'complicated Shinji.'" Her words clouded around her in the palpable chill of hot breath in an icy atmosphere that hadn't existed naturally on earth since before the second impact.

"If you're so deep, and hard to understand, why don't you explain yourself and your pitiful existence." Asuka placed her enraged fists on her hips with these words. "All I see is a pitiful child who can't do anything in this world except whine and complain."

"You don't know my past, you haven't been through what I have," Shinji's words threatened to catch in his own throat. It didn't even matter to him that Asuka was nothing but a source of friction in his life, maybe that would be different; if she only knew. "My father abandoned me-"

"And that's a fucking excuse for what you are?" Asuka's words were now an incredulous shout. "You're not special, I'm done feeling sorry for you." Re-advancing, Asuka now stood in front of the slumped form of Shinji.

"I don't want your pity, you can't know what it's like." Tears flowed freely down Shinji's face. He couldn't keep the tremor out of his voice, but there was already no way to appear strong in front of the woman assaulting him. "I was abandoned by everyone I knew as a child, and it's no different now."

"You think you're special?" The venomous words burned the carpet in front of Asuka, tracing a trail closer to Shinji. "You think because your mommy died and your daddy walked out on you you're fucking special?" Again Asuka's voice reached a shrill shouting. Shinji's eyes tightened shut against the woman before him, and against the tears behind them.

"I've heard you calling for them at night," Shinji's words poured out in a rush before the little common sense he possessed caught up to them. Bringing up Asuka's slumbering cries probably wasn't the smartest thing Shinji could attack with. "But you can't understand: being left on a street-corner, standing in front of a strangers house as your only parent walked coldly away."

The slap sounded like a pallet rifle shot, echoing around the hallway. Shinji's eyes were startled open, his head frozen in the direction the slap had directed it. "Ich hasse dich," the cold, German words came out like a plea. Shinji had heard enough of Asuka's native tongue to divine the meaning ("I hate you") but her foreign tongue sounded out like a curse and an appeal to his senses. Shinji had mixed Asuka's own feelings up in his rebuttal, and the German girl was, as expected, displeased.

Asuka planted her foot firmly between Shinji's outstretched legs and grabbed his head, her fingers a vice, pressing into the soft spots behind and on the underside of his jaw, pulling his head forward and upwards so that his eyes were forced to gaze into hers. Her eyes had an edge of wetness emulating that around Shinji's, the shiny streaks down her cheeks reflecting more freshly than Shinji's.

"My mother, Third, killed herself when I was six. And I was the one who found her body." Asuka's cold hiss struck Shinji's ears directly and left him unable to look away, even if her firm grip wasn't preventing the movement of his head in any direction away from her's. "She didn't just kill herself," Asuka spat each word in Shinji's captive face. "For months she coveted a doll, pretended the doll was me. For the last few months that I knew my mother she pretended I didn't even exist." Her words were now a subdued, reminisced pain that seemed to well in her eyes.

"When my mother finally did herself in," Asuka sucked in a ragged breath, and a single tear rolled down her face. "She hung the doll by it's neck, right next to herself." More glistening water began to mar Asuka's cheek at an increasing rate. "Don't try to pretend like you're fucking special." Her last words were a hoarse whisper. Asuka released Shinji"s head. This is it thought Asuka. I've told this niedrig bastard everything about me. Everything I bottled up. More feelings surged inside of Asuka, spilling onto her cheeks in salted moisture. Everything I said I'd never tell anyone, never cry about again.

"Don't pretend likeyou're fucking special." Asuka's harsh words were not warning enough for Shinji. He was still slumped against the wall looking away from Asuka when her body crashed into his, knocking the wind out of him. "I said I'd never cry again, I said I didn't need anyone again," Asuka's words were a short, hot, whisper barely audible over the dull thud of her fists striking Shinji's chest.

"Idiot, idiot, IDIOT" Asuka shouted in rhythm with the kicks that she brought crashing down on Shinji. Through the sharp flashes of pain Shinji felt burning drops of blood splash on his forehead. They turned out to just be Asuka's tears flowing freely now.

"Ow, Asuka, stop," Shinji choked out, gasping trying to refill his lungs. In truth, Shinji had always expected Asuka to one day break every bone in his body. Asuka was clearly trying her hardest to live up to his expectations.

"Stop acting like your someone special, Third," Asuka's voice had reverted to it's chill whisper. She sat atop Shinji, her face wore the beginnings of a sheen of sweat, and her breath came in pants. Beating up on whimps was hard work, after-all.

Shinji had just laid there passively, besides his single plea for the redhead to halt. His laborious breath still attempted to fill his own lungs, and the German girl (as light as she was, or may at least pretend to be) sitting on top of him was not helping him reintroduce air into his lungs. "I didn't mean to-" Shinji's weak defense was torn down instantly by Asuka's fist crashing down onto his ribcage.

"It's not always about you, Third," Asuka's voice was again almost filled with tears for some reason. "You're so selfish, you even push your self-loathing onto other people." Asuka bowed her head, now her wild red hair shadowed her features, and a sniffle of emotion slipped past the impassive pose. "You say things like 'I'm sorry' so often, but did you ever realize that you don't really mean it?" Shinji was confused, and it showed clearly upon his face. "Idiot," Asuka brought her fist down on his chest again, but with much less force, an action fraught with futility.

Sure, I don't like myself, but how have I ever put that on anyone else? No one likes me to begin with, so why should they care if I don't like myself? Shinji's thoughts ran with complete contradiction to the point Asuka was trying to make with her words and fists. "I'm not worth anything, and I don't want anyone to waste their time on me." Shinji attempted to word his response in a way least likely to piss Asuka off (further than she was already pissed off, anyway.)

"Damnit Shinji, have you ever even tried?" Asuka put more feeling into his name than Shinji had ever heard from her off-handed references to him as the Third Child. "Have you ever tried to like yourself, to care about yourself?" Asuka's dark tone struck something inside of Shinji's mind, a realization that maybe she was more than just pissed off at him; maybe she was right. "Did you ever even try to care about someone else, if you consider yourself so worthless?" Tears fell from Asuka's shadowed face onto Shinji's chest with these words. Shinji was beginning to catch on, that Asuka might not have started this assault simply to beat up on him. Afterall, dinner couldn't have been as bad as she made it out to be. Shinji's thoughts ran through his head as a comic relief of realization to the situation.

Shinji jumped out of his mind's reasoning when the object of his wondering's fist came down next to his head. "Maybe, if you hate yourself so God damn much," Asuka leaned over him now, her face just inches from his own, a red wall falling around the peripherals to focus Shinji's attention upon the tear-streaked face before him. "You could try loving someone else."

Asuka finished her entire tirade, breathing faster than normal, brilliant blue eyes burning blindingly close to Shinji's person, angry tears dropping hot upon his face. The climax of her attack, her screamed lesson to Shinji, unveiled a part of her person buried even to herself. "Asuka, I'm sorry. I- I didn't know." Shinji, at this point, didn't know anything. He didn't know why Asuka had berated him in this strange manner, he didn't know exactly why he was apologizing, and he didn't know that the slap, which suddenly stung his cheek, was coming.

"Dumkhov," Asuka hissed venomously after she delivered the slap, flying back from Shinji's face while maintaining her firm seat upon him. "If you can't live for yourself, than live for someone else. If you hate yourself so much, then try to love someone else. We're all sick of your 'poor little Shinji' routine, so cut the crap and grow up." Asuka crossed her arms beneath her breasts, her tone becoming strangely scolding, with a touch of sorrow. "If you don't want to save the world for yourself, then save it for someone else. No one wants to die, so stop acting like you do."

All of Asuka's words began to stitch themselves together in Shinji's mind. Instead of an angry, pushy, German girl he instead saw a sad, lonely girl sitting upon his chest, trying to help him, in her own violent way. Her entire attack wasn't focused on her hate of Shinji's actions, it was about her displeasure in Shinji's refusal to make something of his existence. Her words made sense, even to Shinji's hurt, confused mind.

"Asuka I-" Instead of Shinji's normal excuse, his mask of 'I"m sorry' (which Asuka was clearly expecting, as she readied her hands into fists at her side) Shinji felt a sudden and scarily abrupt shift in himself. Reaching up, Shinji ran his hand against Asuka's salted cheek and laced his fingers through her hair to gently cup the back of her head. He could only focus now on the image of the sad, hurtfully helpful girl in his mind's eye. A strange contradiction to the image Asuka normally painted in his head.

In a simultaneous movement, Shinji sat up to bring his head forward to meet Asuka's fairly astonished face. The words again almost formed on his lips. 'I'm sorry' he wanted to say, his own way of attempting to make the situation better while also running away from it. Asuka's eyes sharpened into a glare as she saw the excuse form on his lips. The glare was silenced by Asuka's own eyelids (after being briefly replaced by pure astonishment) as Shinji guided her head towards his own and their lips met. In a soft, emotion-filled hurt, the pain, and all the feelings of the two children's past seemed to wash together in the midst of that kiss.

When their mouths parted Asuka opened her eyes slowly, contemplatively. Shinji's eyes opened quickly in fear. "I was going to punch you as hard as I could manage," Asuka said slowly, as their eyes remained locked onto eachother's "if you had dared to say what I thought you were going to say." A slap erupted on Shinji's cheek. It wasn't the hardest Asuka slap he had ever experienced, but it wasn't exactly soft. "Maybe you have a few surprises, Third, but you will learn not to steal kisses from me." Asuka's eyes were clear from the tears which had stained the evening, instead shimmering like the ocean on a clear day. Hope, it was an emotion that had never been associated with Asuka's gaze, but it was the only word Shinji could attach to her look now. "Remember this, Shinji," Asuka said, raising herself off of the still semi-cowering boy. "If you won't live for yourself, for your own happiness, I'll make sure you live for something." Asuka walked into her room, and closed the door on an astonished, emotionally wracked Shinji still sitting in the hallway.