Paracosm

Disclaimer: I do not own Evangelion.

/\/\/\/\

"Is this truly what you want? What you desire more than anything else?

"This is your wish?"

/\/\/\/\

Shinji woke.

Sunlight crept through the blinds of his window, sending him back under the thin protection of his bed sheets. He caught a glimpse of his alarm clock and had twenty minutes before it sounded. Just enough time to slip back into that great dream of the seashore and the pretty girl lying beside him in the sand. It was so great he forgot to wonder who was playing with his cello.

Someone was humming softly, trying to match the plucked notes on the instrument. It was actually not a terrible way to fall asleep. Until the plucking turned from a gentle strum to a vicious yanking and the tranquil humming became obnoxiously loud and insistent.

Shinji flung his sheets back with a grimace. Sleep was impossible when Asuka was around.

"Why are you in my room?" he groaned, facedown in his pillow. And why did Mom ever agree to give you a key to the apartment?

"Because you're not up making me breakfast," she told him. She still snapped at the cello strings. "Mama's stuck at the lab again, so I'm forced to rely on you for nourishment. Now make me something and I'll choke it down."

"Make it yourself. You're a girl."

"And you're ungrateful. The only way you'll ever get better is through practice at pleasing my discriminating culinary tastes. I mean, you're too stupid to ever have a career or anything, so housework is your fate. I'm really doing you a favor."

Shinji grumbled something.

"What's your deal?" Asuka asked. "You're usually so chipper in the morning."

"I'm tired," he stated for her benefit, since she clearly had not noticed. He rolled over onto his side to see her. She looked bored. At least she finally left his cello alone. "I was up all night."

"And what were you doing up so late?" Her voice held a mild, insidious accusation of perversion.

"I just couldn't sleep, okay?"

Which wasn't a lie. Hikari had been busy with family, which left Shinji's ear as the backup recipient of Asuka's every thought regarding everything in existence and how it related to her until she abruptly announced sometime around midnight she was tired of listening to him and needed sleep. Which in turn left Shinji with a pile of unfinished homework and precious little time and energy to do it.

Not all of us are geniuses, he thought sourly at Asuka. Some of us actually need to study. He dragged his body out of bed with a groan.

"You're even less pleasant to be around than usual," she told him. "Shouldn't you be at least tolerable today? It's the day we're forced to celebrate your birth. Like it was, you know, a good thing."

"I don't like all the attention," Shinji said, rummaging through his closet for his school uniform. "My parents are making a real fuss this year. They're forcing a party on me and decided to invite everyone I've had any kind of contact with over the past fifteen years." He fished out a serviceable shirt. "You could at least commiserate. You don't like your birthday, either."

"For vastly different reasons. No one ever gets me anything good."

"What? You always tell me exactly what you want, and I always get it."

Asuka sighed louder and longer than necessary. "No, you don't get it."

"I'm taking a shower," Shinji told her, hiding a bitter frown.

"Good. You stink."

"I just got up. And no one's forcing you to be in my room."

"My selfless sense of obligation is," Asuka said, watching him as he moved. "Someone needs to keep you out of trouble and on time. Our childhood proximity forced that role on me. Who else would waste time on you if not someone obligated to do it?"

"Nice to know you care," Shinji said, used to the routine. "Makes me feel all warm and fuzzy." He made to leave.

"It's sickening to know you get that kind of reaction from me. Now go and try to make yourself presentable. We're running late as it is. And you still owe me breakfast," she called after him as he shut the sliding door to his room.

Shinji ran a hand over his face, working through the lingering fatigue. It was going to be a long day.

/\/\/\/\

"Aren't you tired of this yet?"

/\/\/\/\

"Wakey wakey, Shinji."

He dragged his head off his desk and blearily looked around. He was in school, same as when he laid his head down to sleep during Algebra. Shinji glanced at the clock over the door and saw it was lunch period. He grumbled to be left alone and lowered his head.

"Sorry," someone said, disgustingly cheerful, "you can't avoid reality by dreaming forever."

"You're just lucky the teacher didn't spot you zonked out. Be a real shame to get detention on your birthday and miss your own party."

"Yeah," Shinji finally answered. "Real shame." He forced himself upright. Kensuke and Toji were smiling down at him on either side of his desk. Shinji glowered at them. "Thanks for waking me up. Really."

"You will thank us later. This is important."

"Can't this wait? We're going to meet up later tonight."

"Nah. This is business between men."

"Here you go," Kensuke said, discreetly sliding a disc case across the desk. "Your birthday present."

Shinji picked it up. "I repeat: You couldn't wait until tonight?"

"This isn't for public display," Toji leered.

Oh, God. Shinji examined the case. "Magical Girl Lilac-Chan's Color Puzzle Adventure 2," he read, taking in the chibi young girl skating down a rainbow. "Rated E for Everyone." He looked up at his grinning friends. "Um, thanks. You shouldn't have."

Kensuke and Toji broke out laughing.

"It's a joke, man. A joke."

"See," Toji explained, pointing out the picture, "Kensuke copied the cover from a game my sister has, slid a different disc in, and then vacuum wrapped the whole thing. He's got some crazy stuff at his place."

"I know." Shinji began picking at the plastic wrapping. "So, what did you really get me?"

Kensuke slapped the game from his hands. "Dude! Do not open that around other people, got it? It's for your eyes only. Super top secret. Way above your legal clearance, okay? It's—"

"I get it, I get it," Shinji said, already coloring. "What are you thinking, bringing something like this to school?"

"That's the thanks we get for hooking you up with the good stuff? This is the real deal. I'm talking instant nosebleed territory."

"Tailored specifically for you," Toji continued. He leaned down, grinning. "I know you like foreign girls."

Shinji blushed harder, glancing around to make sure Asuka wasn't in earshot. "Sh-Shut up." He clutched the disc like a precious treasure. "… Thanks. I guess."

"Of course, of course," Kensuke said, pushing his glasses up. "I mean, God knows you deserve something with all the redheaded stress you have in your life."

"Stress?" someone chimed in, coming up behind the boys. "Maybe I can help."

Mana Kirishima slid beside Shinji, successfully blocking him off from his friends in a single motion. She leaned close, peering over his shoulder at the game cover he failed to hide in time.

"Lilac-Chan, huh?"

"It-It was a present," he stammered as he prepared to die.

"Ah, a present," she said, shooting a bemused grin to his friends. "How thoughtful. They just couldn't wait, huh? Now, what present would I get you that just couldn't wait?"

Mana leaned closer, tracing the top of his ear with her nose. She whispered to him. Shinji went dark red.

"… And my appetite dies," Asuka spat out, stalking towards them with a disgusted glare. Mana slowly straightened and the two girls resumed their aggressively passive-aggressive battle to the death. "I was going to see Shinji about the lunch money he doesn't know he owes me, and here I find him neck-deep in very troubled waters. He'll catch a cold around you. Or something else."

"Soryu," she drawled lazily. "I never knew you needed financial help. I mean, you're always so current with whatever new flash-in-the-pan style's trendy. If you want, I could spot you a few yen for a meal."

"How thoughtful. But I wouldn't want to cut into the profits from your compensated dating service."

"That was a damn rumor!" Mana snapped. She took a breath and forcibly relaxed. "I didn't think you'd be taken in by such tabloid fodder."

"Asuka…" Shinji began, trying to communicate the appropriate amount of disappointment and disapproval on Mana's behalf without incurring a death sentence from Asuka.

She rolled her eyes in graceful dismissal. "Don't get your panties in a bunch. Either of you. Toughen up or high school will eat you alive." Her sight fell on the game. With unnatural speed she plucked it from Shinji's hands. "Hmm. A kiddy game for the kiddy. I'm actually a little surprised you'd reveal such deviancies in public."

Asuka absently dragged a single nail along the seal of the package, staring at Shinji. He did his best not to scream. The last time she found something of questionable content under his bed things quickly turned into a bloodbath for his self-respect. Bribing her to keep from telling his parents was actually the least traumatic thing she made him do.

"I think it's cute," Mana said, draping herself back around Shinji, but eyeing Asuka. She turned to him. "Hey, Shinji. I'm pretty good at puzzle games. If you want, I could teach you how to do it right." Two of her fingers danced down his arm to find his hand. "It's all about hand-eye coordination. Knowing which buttons to press and when to press them to get what you want. Do you want me to show you what button to press?"

"Mother of God," Kensuke murmured to himself, checking for a nosebleed.

Toji recited a prayer for the soon-to-be-departed.

Asuka expertly flung the game back at Shinji, catching the bridge of his nose. He cringed into a ball of pain, effectively prying himself out of Mana's hold.

"Shinji!" she cried, then shot a dark look at Asuka which was promptly ignored. "Soryu!"

"Geez. Great hand-eye coordination, Shinji. Maybe you should let Kirishima stoop to your level." She turned with a toss of her red hair and went back to her seat. "You couldn't set expectations any lower."

The lunch bell rang, ending the period. Toji and Kensuke offered mild apologies and hurried off.

Mana sighed in defeat once again, and inched away. "Sorry, Shinji. Are you okay?"

"Fine, I'm fine." He rubbed his sore nose. No blood. Of course. Asuka was a master of inflicting socially inconspicuous injuries. And mental scars weren't visible. "It's no big deal."

She fidgeted. "If you want, I could kiss it all better."

Shinji went saucer-eyed. Mana chuckled.

"Just kidding! I'd never do that. In public." She left him with a wink and a smile. "See you tonight."

Class began and Shinji let his mind drift. He should be used to this by now. Asuka and Mana seemed intent on not getting along, even for the sake of public civility. Social grudges were common enough in middle school he knew, but the perpetual conflict they engaged in around him was bad enough to make him seriously debate the cause.

The phantom choke chain Asuka kept around his neck to rein in any behavior she deemed uncouth tightened as he thought of Mana's offer. Maybe… Maybe her behavior wasn't just a maddening torture designed to exploit his innate anxieties. Maybe she meant it. And maybe Asuka knew it.

Maybe, his mind whispered, they were fighting over him.

… Nah.

He had to nip that little ego-booster in the bud. The dangers of getting a swelled head were too numerous to count. So he chalked the feud up to the strange, cutthroat world of girls he occasionally stumbled into. At least when boys fought it was a quick affair. He learned girls could drag out an argument over years of sustained, focused cruelty, using any excuse to bring it to the surface. It was why Asuka still berated him over the time in second grade he accidentally broke her pinky finger during a particularly hostile game of catch. It healed slightly crooked, and whenever she felt he was in the wrong all she'd do was hold up that one bent finger; he marred perfection and she'd never let him forget it.

His private messenger flashed at him. He opened the mail from Asuka under the unspoken threat of further bodily violence.

("Remember to get some penicillin.")

Shinji struggled to figure that out. ("What?")

("I know you're weak against skanks.")

Ah. Kirishima. And then he felt guilty for immediately knowing who and what Asuka was referring to.

Revelation tackled Shinji in his seat. They weren't fighting over him, they were fighting through him.

He slumped. It was the most likely explanation. He was an easy battleground. They both had plenty of ammunition to use against him; Asuka, through their thorny lifetime together, Mana, through her expert exploitation of his insecurities. Their tug-of-war with him was just an indirect battle for social supremacy. Girls were a dangerous lot.

He wondered if it would be easier if they really did like him.

/\/\/\/\

"Aren't you weary of this scenario? It begins to blur with so many others like it."

/\/\/\/\

Asuka made a point of declaring she was walking home with Hikari after school. Shinji correctly interpreted it as her way of punishing him for lunch. How exactly it was a punishment escaped him, but he knew it was how it felt.

Mana had Drama club, Toji and Kensuke planned to loiter around the shopping arcade. Shinji escaped their invitation and dragged himself home under the dire weight of unwanted responsibility. His birthday party wasn't going to prepare itself.

Home was in a high-end apartment complex near the business district. A proper house, he was told, was too much maintenance for his parents' severe work schedule. As it was, nearly all the cleaning was left to Shinji and his parents mostly behaved like the apartment magically sanitized itself.

"I'm home," he called out weakly. He ambled into the kitchen and almost ran into his mother.

"Oh, Shinji dear," Yui said, perpetually rushed yet unfailingly graceful. She glanced at the clock. "You must have flown home today."

"I need to get ready for the party," he answered, piling on the misery in his voice in a last, desperate, passive-aggressive attempt to get his parents to call it all off. Like most of his efforts, it failed.

"Oh, that's right. I'm sorry I won't be here to help you."

"You're leaving?"

"We're backed up at the lab. Again."

Seeing either of his parents for longer than a few hours at a time was a rarity. Seeing them together was practically unheard of. His mother was, as she humbly put it, the country's preeminent authority on artificial and enforced evolution, whatever that was. Whenever she tried to explain it Shinji got a headache.

His father was apparently a fantastic administrator, successfully delegating himself into a cushy position of absolute power within the scientific community. Shinji thought it sounded a little insidious. No one corrected him.

Asuka's mother worked with them under similar ego constrictions, turning her daughter and Shinji into latchkey kids, only one of whom became any good at taking care of anything alone. Imposed maturity was apparently their parents' greatest experiment.

"Doesn't Director Ikari need to be there, too?" Shinji asked, nodding to his father at the kitchen table, absorbed in the newspaper.

"He'll just get in the way," Yui said absently.

Gendo chose to live dangerously and issued a soft grunt of annoyance. Yui ignored it.

She hurried to the front hall, paused, returned to the kitchen to kiss Shinji on the forehead, then was out the door. "Happy birthday," she called as she left. "Love you!"

"She said she'd be back for the party," Gendo said after she was gone, not looking up from the paper. He carefully turned a page. "Be wary of marrying a driven woman, Shinji." He turned another page. "Don't tell your mother I said that."

Shinji wondered if Mana's single-minded ambition in making him uncomfortable qualified as driven. Or Asuka's continued imperious emotional abuse.

"I should start on the food," he said, still puzzled how he was roped into being responsible for the refreshments at his own birthday party. "How many are coming again?"

"Enough to make me regret going along with it."

Shinji cooked and his father read.

"Your mother found the entrance exam results you hid so poorly," Gendo said after a time, still in the newspaper.

"… Oh?"

"You should know better than to keep things from her. She does not suffer privacy under this roof. Don't tell your mother I said that." He snapped the paper into uniformity, then folded in shut. "It seems you'll be able to join Asuka at the Academy in the fall."

"Mmm."

"You should be sure to thank her. She has been tutoring you, correct?"

If by tutoring, you mean threatening me unless I improve, then yes. "I guess."

"It's paid off. Being an Academy student is a mark of distinction."

"I still have to agree to it," Shinji mumbled.

"Why wouldn't you?"

Tougher classes, snooty classmates, a longer commute, Kensuke and Toji didn't make it, and Asuka would be riding my ass even harder. "I guess I'll have to. It's not like the son of Ikari could turn down such a prestigious honor, right?"

Gendo paused, then rose from the table and approached his son. "It has to be your decision to go. I won't force you. Your mother on the other hand…" He cleared his throat awkwardly. Best not to joke about that. Yui was a beast when her child's best interests were at stake.

He slumped. "Yeah. I know. I was just hoping you two would be too busy to notice." Like usual.

The abstraction of guilt passed over Gendo's features. Dealing with his son was never a simple affair. "Intelligence and intellect are not the same things," he muttered to himself.

"What?"

He shook his head. "I can only ask you to think hard about your decision. Regardless of what you do decide, know the exam results truly were impressive. Be proud. I am."

Shinji stared at his father.

"Good job, Shinji."

/\/\/\/\

"Wish fulfillment gives you what you want without effort or investment. That is why it feels like cheating. That is why it feels empty."

/\/\/\/\

He couldn't prove it, but Shinji blamed his father for the alcohol. Someone decided serving booze at his birthday party was a brilliant idea, and the adults quickly raced to inebriation. On a subtle level of understanding, Shinji couldn't blame them: he doubted he'd enjoy being stuck at some kid's party at their age. But he also doubted he'd be as loud as they were.

Or as forward. Kodama Horaki, Asuka's friend Hikari's older sister, had deposited herself beside him on the floor by the TV, one hand discreetly wrapped around a beer, the other resting comfortably on his knee.

His friends abandoned him when she sat down, Toji inexplicably afraid of her. Kensuke was dragged away after capturing the scene on his camera. That was footage Shinji would have to destroy later. Ammunition of that nature would only unbalance his already unbalanced world. Kodama seemed not to care.

The party was, as far as Shinji could discern, a mild success for everyone who wasn't him. He wondered if half the people there even knew who he was. A few offered polite birthday wishes, then were off to raid the snack table. Shinji sighed; he'd have to make more before the night was through.

"Don't ignore me," Kodama whined, poking him in the arm. "Girls don't like to be ignored. Well, we do like it a little, but don't overdo it. That aloof, cool attitude will only get you to a certain level." The hand was back on his knee. Shinji sighed.

Why is she even here? He was on good terms with Hikari through Asuka's unveiled threats to be on good terms with her, but had only seen Kodama on a handful of occasions. Not that he was complaining about having a pretty, older girl hanging on him, but there were other people around. Other people that might tease and/or beat him. And the addition of alcohol was not helping matters.

"… Are you old enough to have that?" Shinji asked Kodama, eyeing her drink warily.

"You're adorable." She took a swig. She hiccupped. "Believe me, I'm old enough. Don't let my girlishly youthful appearance deceive you, birthday boy."

"But aren't you still in high school?"

"I meant I'm old enough where it counts."

That sounded like something Asuka would say, but with a radically different meaning behind it. He thought. It was difficult working through the thick hazy mystery of when girls were being contrary and being truthful.

"You know," Kodama began, "my sister talks about you a lot. Well, that little redheaded girl talks about you a lot to my sister. And it's impossible not to overhear. That girl shouts her whispers."

Yes, Shinji thought, and I'm sure she has nothing but praise to shout about me. "She just likes to have people know how she feels."

Kodama's face split into a slow, wide grin. "You are adorable." She recovered with another swig of beer. "So, where is the Queen of Hearts? I haven't seen her all night."

He glanced around the apartment. "I don't know… I haven't seen her either."

"You should go look for her."

"Why? She knows where I am."

"You just lost some adorableness points."

"Oh, Shinji," Mana said through her teeth, coming up before them. "Ah, is that lady a relative of yours?" There was enough emphasis on the word "lady" to infer a vicious slur behind the word.

"Uh… This is—"

"Kodama Horaki," she introduced herself. She eyed the girl in front of her. "You must be Ms. Kirishima. My sister's a gossipy little thing at home," she said by way of explanation. "I'm awash in all the scandalous intrigue of your middle school."

"How… nice for you."

"It can be an amusing distraction." Kodama patted Shinji's knee.

Mana's left eye twitched. It vanished in the flash of a brilliant smile. "Where are my manners?" She produced a small box and pushed it into Shinji's hands. "Happy birthday!" she gushed. "Open my present, okay?"

"Oh, sure. Thanks. But you didn't have to get me anything."

"Of course I did! And you're supposed to thank me after you open it, silly. And maybe later, when you use it."

He unwrapped the box and found a pair of movie passes.

"So I can keep you company," Mana preempted. She gave him a shining smile. "I'd say it's to keep you out of trouble, but, hey, who knows what'll happen, right?" A brutally targeted wink triggered a dark blush on Shinji.

"Thanks," he mumbled, trying not to smile.

"That's more like a gift for yourself," Kodama said to Mana, leaning heavily into Shinji. "Planning on committing some nefarious deeds with little Shinji, all alone in a dark movie theater?"

"A dark theater would be more discreet than the middle of his living room." She eyed the hand still on Shinji's knee. Which then inched up towards his thigh.

Shinji shot to his feet. "I need something to drink." Kodama jiggled her half-empty beer at him in invitation. "Something legal." Kodama pouted.

"I'll keep your seat warm. Come back, you hear? Unless you find that mouthy redhead. You know what I mean. Make her give you something special for your present." She gave him a toothy grin.

"And just what is that supposed to mean?" Mana demanded from her.

Shinji hurried away, glad for the distraction. He idled by the drinks and scanned the room. He found his mother in an intense discussion with Asuka's mother in the kitchen, jabbing her finger at something in a folder between them. His father was idly watching them, nursing something dark in a tumbler.

There were other kids milling about, acquaintances he made in class and Band and Track, people he was friendly with but didn't know if he considered friends. But they weren't enemies, and that was more than enough.

He spotted Mayumi Yamagishi from Band, buried in a novel by the stereo. Who brings a book to a party?

She paused to adjust her glasses, saw Shinji watching her, and glanced away with an awkward smile. Shinji sighed and turned back into whatever horrible melee was brewing between Mana and Kodama. Shinji sighed again. At least Asuka wasn't nearby to misinterpret anything.

He scratched his head. Where was Asuka? At least she made her feelings hard to misinterpret. If she was angry, she was angry. If she was happy, she wasn't around him.

But there was a sick kind of comfort he gleaned when he was with her. She knew so much about him, too much he thought sometimes, but he could relax his emotional guard around her. She wasn't like Mana, frighteningly eager and over-responsive. She wasn't like Kodama, inscrutably playful. She wasn't like Yamagishi, quietly unapproachable. She wasn't like his mother, hurriedly affectionate but unconditional.

Asuka was Asuka, he thought. A different world close enough to be familiar with. An Other known so well for so long the terror of connection was a kind of uncomfortable comfort.

A harsh reality. A harsh reality he thought he knew. A harsh reality he knew would kill him if he ever referred to her as such.

But she was reality. Challenging, infuriating, goading reality that was never content with how things were. Asuka seemed to always want to rework the world to her specifications. Or beat it into submission of her will. It was a drive and determination that never failed to mystify him.

He'd never tell her any of that, though. There were simply things their awkward association did not condone. Like compliments and truth. He knew she'd be disgusted with him, or worse, laugh at him.

Shinji looked around the room again and did not find her. With a determination born of capitulation he meandered back to his seat by Kodama. No need to waste the entire night looking for someone who didn't want to be found.

He couldn't help but feel a little hurt.

/\/\/\/\

"These fantasies cannot last forever."

/\/\/\/\

Shinji slid his bedroom door open and stopped. "Asuka?"

She was sitting on the floor by his closet, idly plucking at his cello again. She wore a carefully ironed sundress and was lightly made up. She was, he hated to admit, beautiful.

Why is she so dressed up?

The party was over, the guests left, their mothers were back at the lab. His father was unconscious on the living room couch, his glass amazingly still clutched in one hand. Shinji assumed Asuka slipped out with the others after avoiding him all night as punishment for some new imagined sin against her.

"Where were you tonight?" he asked, entering his room and shutting the door halfway.

"Around. Not my fault if you didn't notice. Your attention was certainly occupied." Asuka clinically examined the cello. "How long have we been friends?"

Uh-oh, Shinji thought.

"Years, right?" she went on without waiting for a response. "Most of the time it feels a lot longer since I have to take care of you so much. Being around someone like you all the time, burdened with your incompetence and boorishness, is draining. It saps the youth and vitality from me."

Happy birthday! Shinji thought. Your parents got you a suit for graduation, your friends got you porn, and Asuka gave you the deathblow to your self-esteem.

Asuka plucked a single string sharply. "And then there are days like today, where I feel like I hardly know you at all. It's unnatural to see you at the center of attention and not totally freaking out. It's unnatural to see all those girls draped over you. Even if it was just a pity-grope for your birthday."

Shinji tactically assessed the situation. His mother was drowning her familial responsibilities at work, his father was passed out, and no one else in the apartment complex would probably hear him if he screamed. Yes, he decided, it was the perfect opportunity for Asuka to murder him.

"Look," he began, trying to stay as diplomatic as possible to hide the tremor sneaking into his speech, "all that was… I mean, I think Ms. Horaki was a little tipsy. She was sneaking beers. She just happened to sit next to me. That's all."

"And you were certainly trying to stop her, weren't you?"

"Ah… I didn't want to spoil the party atmosphere."

"What atmosphere? All I saw were boring kids and drunk adults. And you enjoying your private little harem."

Shinji was sure two girls did not constitute a harem. Kensuke would back him up on that. But best not to argue the point. This was a dangerous kind of anger from Asuka.

"… I wouldn't say I enjoyed any part of tonight. These kinds of events are just stressful. Worse that it's my birthday. Everyone's gifts just added to the stress."

"So you don't care I didn't get you anything?"

"I didn't want a party or presents to begin with."

A flash of wounded annoyance danced over her face. "So I'm just like everybody else?"

"What? No. I just meant—"

"Don't lump me in with them." She flicked a disobedient lock of hair out of her eyes. "You're just going to make me feel guilty unless I give you something, so here it is: I'll give you one wish, from me, that I have to grant. Anything your theoretical heart desires. So you can't whine about it later."

"… Anything?"

Asuka squinted angrily and crossed her arms, covering herself. "You really do have a one-track mind."

It took him a moment to comprehend. So do you, always jumping to conclusions. "I wasn't thinking about that."

"Thinking about what?" she asked with a snide grin.

"Never mind." Shinji rubbed his eyes. He recalled what Kodama told him. "So, anything? Since I don't trust you to honor a rain check, it'll have to be quick and easy. It's late and I'm tired."

Asuka steeled herself.

"I'd like you to say something nice about me," Shinji told her.

She recovered after a breath. "I thought you said it would be something easy."

"Ha ha. I'm serious. Just one nice thing. I don't care if you go back to treating me like a useless idiot tomorrow…" He checked the clock by his bed. "… later today, but this is what I'd like for my birthday."

"I never knew you were such an egomaniac."

"I assumed you'd grant this without question or insult."

"You assumed wrong."

"Obviously." Shinji offered up a mollifying smile. "Come on. This is the one thing I actually asked for today. Everyone decided everything else without my input. At least you asked me."

Asuka peered at him like he was a smear of feces on the street she nearly stepped in. "It's not my fault you have no backbone." She stood up with a sigh. "Fine. I'll grant you your unimaginative, selfish wish. Don't say I never did anything for you."

She did an impressive pantomime of puzzling out the request for nearly a full minute. Shinji, in a bout of sleep-deprived foolishness, vowed to wait her out.

She finally saw she wasn't getting out of it and gave up with an annoyed huff, like the whole situation was specifically designed to ruin her life.

"You're my friend," Asuka declared with meaning. "You're my oldest friend."

Shinji stared at her. He gestured for the rest. "And…?"

"And what?" she snapped. "There's the compliment you were so desperate for."

"What? How is that… That's just stating a fact!"

"It's more than that! Because…" Asuka frowned and looked down somewhere near his left foot. "Because I know it can be… a test of maturity to be my friend. And I don't always… make the test a totally fair one. For people like you."

"People like me?"

"Stupid people."

"Oh."

"Yeah."

Shinji sighed. "I guess that's as good as I could hope for. Knowing you think I have patience and courage is actually pretty nice." He held up his hands to placate her angry rebuttal. "I'm grateful. Thank you. That was the nicest thing I got today." Which is kind of sad. "That being said, could you please leave now so I can sleep?"

Asuka did not leave. "Because you really are stupid, you know. I give you all the opportunities in the world and you don't take them. I practically tell you what you're supposed to do, and you don't do it. You really are defective on some fundamental, basic human level."

"At least things are back to normal," Shinji said, pulling his sheets back. He set his alarm and suppressed a yawn. "If you're planning on staying over, you'll have to use the kitchen. Dad's still in the living room. The spare futon is—"

Asuka strode over to him and pushed him down onto his bed. She stepped up on it and planted a foot on either side of his waist, trapping him. She dropped to her knees, then bent forward and slid her hands up to cradle his face. Shinji was ashen and still, awaiting humiliation or death or worse.

"You always blow every chance I give you," she breathed, their noses nearly touching. "I really shouldn't even bother. But it's your birthday so I'm feeling charitable. I'm giving you a bonus wish. Don't waste this one."

She stayed above him, holding his head, demanding he meet her gaze. Shinji watched her with wide eyes. He stayed frozen in place.

"Coward," Asuka murmured, and kissed him.

She was not hard and acidic, or steely and cold. She was softer and warmer than he ever dared imagine. Her lips were gentle and yielding against his. The hands on his face turned kind, carefully tilting him for contact. He already knew how infuriatingly good she always smelled, and felt heady being so close to the source. He noticed her eyes were closed, and did the same.

She pulled back before he could rally the proper mental faculties to tell his hands to hold her. She stared down at him, intense and deadly serious. Her hair fell all around them. Shinji could not see anything but her face.

"You're not allowed to go to the movies with Kirishima," Asuka whispered. "Or talk to Kodama Horaki or that Yamagishi girl. Or look at anyone else from now on, understand? I am your world now. I always have been, but you were just too afraid to say it." She was blushing.

"… Why am I not afraid to say it now?" he whispered back.

"Because you're tired of being afraid. Of what other people think and say and do. You're tired of being afraid of what you'd think and say and do." Her fingers tensed. "Of course, you'd never, ever tell anyone else you were afraid. You know that, don't you?"

"Yeah."

"But it's more than being tired," she continued softly. "You can… You want to admit what you want. Because you want to move forward. Even if it changes things. Even if it's scary." She swallowed. "But it won't be as scary if I'm with you."

He felt warm and calm. The doubts and anxieties bothering him all day quieted. The world beyond his bedroom became vague and unimportant. Reality became less harsh.

"So try not to be so stupid from now on."

A little less harsh.

Shinji readied himself. Don't be so stupid. Take the chances before you.

"You, ah, you look really… nice tonight," he told her. He was hoping for a blush. He got a smug grin.

"Well, duh. It took you this long to notice?"

He frowned. "Sorry."

"You're going to have take pride in your own appearance," she ordered in a strangely soft voice. "The suit you got tonight is a good start. The Academy uniforms look almost as good. So that means you'll have to go there with me next year."

Shinji suddenly found his mind made up on the matter and was okay with the result. "Okay."

"I'm sleepy," Asuka announced. She fell on her side and stretched out beside him, awkwardly twining their legs. She rested a hand on his chest and her head on the pillow beside his. She stared into his eyes, holding him in place. Shinji suddenly felt maddeningly hot, her body blazing at every point of contact. He swallowed audibly.

"You, ah, appreciate how… difficult this is for me right now?"

"Yes."

He took a breath. He raised a hand and brought it towards her. She tensed. Shinji gently slid his hand under her hair and brushed it behind her ear.

"So I can… see your face."

She relaxed. She reached up and covered his hand with her own, keeping it on her cheek. Her breath was even and long.

"I don't think you stink," Asuka whispered.

/\/\/\/\

"I applaud yet another successful dream. Has this one made the famous Shinji Ikari happy, at long last?" Kaworu's voice was not vindictive or mocking. He was earnest. "Has this made you happy, at long last?"

He watched the apartment's bedroom and the two teenagers in bed. He sighed inaudibly and smiled softly, sadly.

"I wonder… I wonder if he'd appreciate you exploiting his image for such self-serving exercises."

"Silence."

Existence trembled. Kaworu had the good manners to stay quiet for a time. Of course, at that point time was largely irrelevant to them. In the orange Between of earth and the two moons a second, an hour, a century were becoming indistinguishable.

He glanced at Rei beside him, silent now, focused on the bedroom before them.

"It is interesting," Kaworu said after a stretch of years, drifting closer, "that in all the myriad worlds you created and recreated around him, you have never injected yourself directly. You have never interacted with him within the confines of these worlds. I wonder why."

She was silent.

"I am, regrettably, still in the dark regarding much of humanity," he went on. "These proxies have offered an… interesting insight into its motivations and longings, but that's all they are: proxies. I do not understand why you seem so intent on creating so many, with such narrow definitions, drawing on so little for inspiration."

She was silent.

"I do not understand."

Rei kept her sight on the bed, the boy she knew, and the empty shadow world fabricated around him.

"Why this human? What was he to you?"

Rei shut her eyes.

"Leave me," she spoke.

Kaworu smiled in resignation and let his body drift away. After another few worlds and she might be more open to conversation again.

The bedroom hung suspended in the liquid Between. Shinji and Asuka lay frozen side-by-side staring at each other, her hand still keeping his on her cheek. The entire universe consisted of the space around them.

Rei looked over her Shinji. Was he always this tall? Did his hair always fall so far over his forehead? Were his eyes always so blue? How many of his traits and characteristics had become warped by time and her recollection? She could create his body an infinite number of times with an infinite number of variations in an infinite number of worlds but they were all subject to her finite perspective.

She concentrated and tried to recall how he looked the last time she saw him, the real him.

The Sixteenth Angel was detected and she was sent out alone to observe. Pilot Soryu was catatonic and Unit-01 was frozen after its encounter with the Fourteenth. The Angel hung in the sky, a living bend of light, then straightened and carved the air towards Rei.

It sliced through Unit-00's AT Field without difficulty and buried itself inside her. She remembered the feeling of infection, of a million icy needles sliding through her to find all her secrets. She recalled an encroachment, a touch of someone or something, and then the thundering pressure of Unit-01 behind her.

He called her name, she remembered. He called her name.

The Angel rushed out of her, like her insides fell out, immobilizing Unit-00 in the process as it tore through its internal systems. The Eva collapsed and Rei watched helplessly as the bend of light slithered into Unit-01.

Rei's link to the command bridge was severed when the Angel left her. There was no way to ask for orders. The decision was left to her discretion. She knew where to aim, how to fire, when the shots would earn the most damage.

The comm. link between 00 and 01 remained open. Shinji was talking, incoherent murmurs as his physical body was overtaken inside the plug. She tried to speak to him, to warn him what she must do, even as she targeted his vital systems.

There was no choice, she had told herself. There was no time. Unit-01, Shinji, was devoured by the Angel. NERV must be protected, at any cost. That was what the Commander taught her. That was what she must do. So she fired.

Unit-01 shuddered and collapsed in a ruined pile of blood and limbs. The Angel was too deeply embedded to escape the crippled Evangelion. What was left of it flailed gently in the air, then went stiff and curled into itself like a dying spider's leg.

She called his name, she remembered. She called his name.

She watched his face in the comm. window, grotesquely twisted beyond human recognition, bleed and gasp, and then burst apart in the split second before the Angel self-destructed, obliterating itself and Unit-01.

Afterwards the Commander became directionless, abandoning her without explanation. She did not see the Sub-Commander at all. The Major ceased all contact. The rest of the crew looked at her differently, their usual suspicions and fears amplified and focused. She learned what true solitude was.

The few things tethering Rei to existence were cut, one by one. Shinji was gone, the Commander was lost, and with them, all sense of purpose and place in the world. And when she confronted the Seventeenth, Tabris, Kaworu, under the dead gaze of the white giant slumbering in Terminal Dogma, he placed the decision for humanity's future in her hands. She chose the only thing left she knew. She chose death.

Yet death did not come. The Commander surrendered himself and she became bound to the Mother-God crucified beneath NERV. It was the rest of mankind that was granted her desire for nonexistence while she ascended to cursed omnipotence in the crucible of Third Impact.

But even with the ability to reshape the Earth, life and reality, she could not salvage a single soul. She could not make Shinji return to her. She needed to earn some degree of atonement for her crime against him. To somehow diminish the insane gnawing guilt binding her immortal psyche.

She created worlds that would give him happiness, what she believed would have given him happiness. Entire lifetimes dominated by a secure childhood with two attentive parents, or a normal, peaceful life, or social popularity, or heroic adulation, or a successful career, or a devoted marriage, or a fulfilling parenthood.

She crafted worlds shaped by every source of human satisfaction she could imagine, no matter how dark or distasteful; Sadism, masochism, torture, emotional abuse, theft, drugs, rape, murder. The gleeful destruction of societal taboos and law, absolute freedom from the demands and wants of others.

She crafted worlds of pure emotional fulfillment for him, from parents, children, peers, classmates, adults, animals, every living creature on the planet. A collective embrace from any and every Other.

She crafted worlds of unending carnal bliss, pairing him with anyone she thought might catch his interest, alone or in groups, in utter devotion or in equal lust. She gave him the power to fulfill any and every physical urge she ever imagined he might have.

But after every freedom was explored, every corner of his heart was filled, every sexual stimulus was exhausted, there remained the inescapable truth: that he was an empty shell she poured her failings and regrets and guilt into. Shinji Ikari's real body and heart were gone forever, obliterated by her hand.

With a thought the most recent world dissolved into nothing. The bedroom, the bed and Asuka all dispersed and Shinji was left alone, frozen in place, the look of awed affection etched on his face. Rei straightened him and brought the shell before her.

"Would you permit me to create for you, just a little longer?" she asked him.

She manipulated her AT Field and Shinji nodded and smiled, the smile he gave her after the Fifth Angel, the smile of relief and need and gratitude and tentative yearning for a connection. The smile he would never smile again on his own.

Rei found her hands creeping towards him, to know his warmth and form. To know him. He remained before her, smiling obliviously.

Rei's hands dropped. She still could not bring herself to touch him. After trillions of constructs of every age and type, she still could not reach out for this hollow imitation. The hand that reached out to her in that burning entry plug eons ago was lost forever. Shinji was gone and she remained. Shinji was gone.

"Just a little longer."

/\/\/\/\

End

Author notes: My God… I essentially made Rei into a fanfic writer… I'm a monster.

Would Rei really be that obsessed to do something like this? My fractured, infantile understanding of her character says yes. Well, maybe manga Rei would.

This whole premise is pretty sick now that I stop to really think about it. Well, it is a Kadmon fic, so… yeah.

OMAKE

A billion years later in the Between…

"… Oh, come on," Kaworu whined. "Just let me into one world. That's all I'm asking. One human lifetime of tenderly ravaging Shinji Ikari is all I want. Please? Pretty please?"

"No," Lilith-Rei said, and continued crafting Shinji Pimp Universe #3991764.

"But the only other option I have is… you." He shivered in disgust. "A girl." He kept shivering. "A creepy girl."

"I am less than pleased with my prospects, as well." She paused in having Shinji absolutely devastate Maya Ibuki on the command deck as the rest of the crew cheered him on, to sigh helplessly. "You'd think an omnipotent demigod would not be wanting for companionship. Heavy is the crown." She resumed the scenario as Shinji tore Maya's Hello Kitty underwear from her splayed legs.

"A creepy girl with a genocidal streak and a taste for voyeurism," Kaworu went on. "What did I do to deserve this fate?"

"You were cloned from a frozen moon monster to obliterate mankind."

"Oh. Right. That whole thing."

"Yes."

Maya moaned in reluctant ecstasy.

"Not how I envisioned spending my immortality," Kaworu sighed, watching the spectacle.

"This is actually fairly close to my vision," Lilith-Rei said.