Neon Genesis Evangelion Fan Fiction ❯ Pride ❯ Chapter two ( Chapter 2 )

In Shinji's experience, waking up was something that was only rarely disagreeable. Passing from one state of consciousness to the next was often quick and painless and never really required any sort of effort on his part. But then, Shinji didn't exactly make a habit of staying up past his bedtime, so to speak.

 

So when he was ruthlessly ripped from the land of dreams by way of retractable claws, he was not at all prepared to deal with it.

 

The sudden, unexpected pain forced his reflexes into action, which caused his muscles to tighten and sent him flailing into open space. His impromptu flight ended before he could even open his eyes, when his shoulder slammed into an unyielding surface. The rest of his body soon followed, producing a dull sound that pounded on his eardrums.

 

He didn't move. He didn't peel open his eyelids. He barely even breathed. He just experienced the chilly temperature of the floor as he laid crumpled against it, with his fingers nestled among the tangles of his hair and his sheets entwined around his lower body.

 

He listened to a pause filled with complete silence. Waiting. Expecting.

 

“Wark!”

 

Fold of skin slid off of the smooth surface of his cornea, allowing light to penetrate the surface and bringing perception to his exhausted mind. He rolled to face the visage of his tormenter.

 

“Pen-pen,” he whispered, using cords rendered hoarse by fatigue and dehydration.

 

The bird tilted its head sideways, expressing attentiveness.

 

“Never… do that again.”

 

“Wark…” It seemed disappointed.

 

A notion crossed his mind after a few seconds of silent reproach and he let loose a sigh as realization knocked him over the head.

 

“Right, right… breakfast.”

 

“Wark!”

 

With the eyes of responsibility staring him down, Shinji pushed against the floor and dragged himself to his feet, mindful of the sheet still wrapped around his legs. He stretched tense limbs and yawned strongly, barely managing to hold back a grimace over the feel of his sweat soaked sleepwear hugging his skin.

 

He looked down at his chest, eying the cloth that covered it with a curious eye. Two of his fingers pulled the wet fabric of his shirt away from chest and brought it closer to his face. He sniffed and pulled a face. “Yuck…”

 

The room's temperature wasn't high enough to justify this level of perspiration, so he reckoned that he must have suffered through a particularly engaging dream or something. He half-heartedly tried to recall any nightmare he might have had during the night and gave up when nothing immediately came to mind.

 

“Wark?”

 

Shinji looked down at his little companion. “I don't know, Pen-pen. I kind of want to take a shower…”

 

“Wark…”

 

He sighed and began removing the sheet from his legs. “Alright then, but I'm not making anything complicated.”

 

“Wark!”

________________________________________

 

The faucet squeaked in discomfort as he pushed it around its axis, releasing full liters of hot water every few seconds. He reached for the opposite faucet to adjust the temperature and settled in under the comforting spray.

 

He stayed motionless underneath the showerhead for nearly a minute, until he realized that drowsiness had crept up unannounced and was currently smothering his consciousness with a pillow. Mustering up his will, he charged it, drove it away and reached for the soap.

 

Minutes later, with his body cleaned and his dirty clothes organized for later cleaning, he thrust his damp head out of the bathroom and scrutinized the hallway in both directions before allowing the rest of his body to follow. He stood there for a moment, wrapped in a white cotton towel, giving ear to the subtle sounds of the apartment, keeping tabs on his surroundings, fully aware of his status as a prime target for teasing and embarrassment.

 

He waited for a moment longer, and fell into idleness when nothing untoward continued to happen. The tension flowed out of his neck and shoulders. Supposing that his housemates were either still asleep or absent, he went back to his room and shut the door. With his mind on the day before him, he picked out a clean uniform and started to get dressed. Just after he finished the task of buttoning his shirt and before he could complete the first leg of the expedition to find his socks, one of his eyes caught a glimpse of something unusual. His head swiveled around to face it fully, and he saw that it was a bundle of white cloth on the floor beside his bed.

 

Shinji frowned. He didn't remember owning a piece of clothing quite like that. And even if it was his, he didn't remember wearing it recently, so there was no reason for it to be there. Thinking about where it could have come from, he moved towards it, kneeled and picked it up.

 

The memories hit him like the punch of a heavyweight champion, and he was down for the count.

 

He immediately submitted to panic. The events of the early morning were so far outside of the realm of the possible that any attempt at rationalization would only end with a shattered world view. He knew that he wouldn't be able to make sense of it, so he didn't bother to try. Screw the why. He had much better things to do with his time, like figure out the what. As in: `What the hell am I going to do?'

 

To help him decide, his mind helpfully put appropriate footage inside of his mental disc player and pressed play. He quickly remembered the last time Asuka seemingly lost her mind and sought to increase their level of intimacy. Specifically, he zeroed in on what happened after she got what she came for and regained her senses. She had exited, quickly, and brushed her teeth so as to wash away the filth.

 

He could only assume that her reaction was proportional to the degree of contact achieved. He could only guess, but in this case she would either kill him or chop her own hand off…

 

Then he remembered why the shirt he had dropped was so dirty and recalled that his aim had been unfortunately accurate.

 

Shinji squeezed his eyes shut and desperately tried to forget images ranging from bald Asuka to headless Asuka and from mutilated Shinji to eunuch Shinji.

 

He jumped to his feet. Thoughts of escape filled his mind to the brim. He rushed to the front door and was about to put on his shoes when he realized that he had never found his socks. He contemplated going back to find them, and even thought about cooking Asuka's favorite breakfast to try to smooth things over, but quickly sent those ideas to the pit.

 

His feet were shoved inside black leather and the door was flung open in the space of a few seconds. He took the first step towards freedom but did not take the second.

 

His school bag! He did not have his school bag.

 

He trembled in indecision, trying to convince himself that he didn't really need his bag and that going to school would only make him easier to find anyway. But Shinji clenched his teeth and squeezed his heart, letting his head do the talking. He was no fool. Asuka would find him regardless of what he did, and letting her find him alone meant signing his death sentence. Going to school would provide him with protection in the form of Section 2 agents and valuable meat shields in the form of the other students, and going without his bag would make them ask questions that would alert them of the danger to come.

 

So he sneaked all the way back to his room, dangerously close to the lion's den, without even taking the time to pull his shoes off. He walked to his desk and picked up his bag, while he conspicuously avoided looking towards a certain corner. He carefully made his way back out of the room and left the apartment, closing the door and locking it without incident.

 

At this point, every ounce of restraint in his body was depleted and he took off running.

 

He ran desperately, and used that desperation to push his muscles harder than he'd ever pushed them. He didn't dare look back. It was almost as if he could feel her closing in, with a knife aimed at his neck and hatred glistening in her eyes.

 

Shinji reached the sidewalk in less than thirty seconds and followed the path leading to his school. He dashed past pedestrians, jostling them slightly, but didn't care since the sound of their complaints never reached his ears. He reached an intersection and stopped just long enough to look both ways before moving on, pushing through the red lights and dodging oncoming vehicles. The indignant honks of the early morning drivers managed to pierce through his deaf ears and rattle his rationality, but he was too worked up to stop. He ran hard. He ran fast, and made it past his school's gates before long.

 

The school courtyard seemed sparsely populated, but he didn't stick around to take a closer look. He charged through the open front doors, flew up flights of stairs, stumbled down an empty hallway and collapsed inside one of the unused rooms, on a slightly dusty seat that belonged to no one.

 

Silence surrounded him, broken only by the sound of his ragged breathing. His upper body flopped forward onto the desktop. His arms moved to cushion his head. His legs burned unpleasantly, but his heart and lungs weren't too taxed by this level of exertion. He might not exercise regularly, but he did regularly pilot an Eva. And while his body stayed mostly stationary, his heart and lungs always got quite a workout inside an entry plug and were used to functioning under stress.

 

As he was getting reacquainted with his old friend mister Oxygen, drowsiness returned from exile and resumed its vendetta against his consciousness, only this time he was too much weak to offer much resistance.

 

His eyelids drew closer together. The image provided by his eyesight blurred. Sounds suddenly seemed as if they came from a great distance. Light gave way to darkness, and for an undefined moment, there was nothing.

 

“Brrrrrrring!” screamed the bell.

 

The racket frightened his cowardly eyelids into hiding. With his defenses decimated in such a manner, light perforated his borders, forcing all but conscious thought to the fore. His body moved on autopilot, getting to its feet, clutching his bag's leather handle with unnecessary force. The door commanded his focus. He needed to get to class, he knew, dimly. His feet shuffled him in the right direction, leading his arms and hips to bump lightly into school property along the way. He left the room half-asleep and set out on a trip he would never consciously recollect.

 

Untold minutes later, Shinji was fully roused from his torpor by the familiar sound of his name being uttered. He blinked, once and then again as he raised a hand to cover his yawn. When his eyes next opened, he found his way blocked by a hundred pounds of backbone, guts and female parts.

 

“Ikari.” She spoke his name shortly with something that tasted of disdain, glaring into his eyes.

 

All traces of drowsiness vanished in the face of such huffiness. In the space of an instant, he noted the wrinkling of her brow, the downward curve of her lips and the position of her hands, cocked and loaded on each hip. All of them, signs pointing towards trouble.

 

“Um… Good morning class rep,” he greeted, eying her for any sudden movements.

 

Horaki Hikari disregarded his greeting and leaned forwards, almost managing to cast a shadow over him. “Where is she?”

 

“Uh… Asuka?”

 

Brown eyes rolled in their sockets and arms crossed underneath modest breasts. “Of course I mean Asuka, who else could I be talking about?”

 

In lieu of a proper answer, Shinji just shrugged and turned to stare at the wall.

 

“Well?”

 

“Well what?”

 

Her finger jabbed at the flesh above his heart. “Asuka! Where is she?”

 

With a pained grimace marring his face, he stubbornly refused the urge to rub his chest. “I don't know. She's probably on her way here.” God, he hoped that wasn't true.

 

“How can you not know? You live together.”

 

“We didn't leave at the same time.”

 

Her glare intensified. “What did you do?” she accused.

 

No. No way. Asuka's most recent lapse in sanity was not his fault. “What makes you think I did anything?” he asked, indignant.

 

“You two always get here together.”

 

“Not always,” he protested, somewhat ineffectually.

 

“And you always wake up first, so the only reason you would get here separately is if you didn't wait for her.”

 

Shinji grit his teeth. This conversation needed to end. “Why do you want to know, anyway?”

 

“She was supposed to meet me for something.”

 

“Well, she didn't mention it.”

 

Hikari pursed her lips and tried another tactic, “She's going to be late.”

 

“Nothing I can do about that.” He watched as she drew a breath and cut her off, saying, “Don't you have things to do, class rep?”

 

Her eyes narrowed, and he felt a feather of apprehension tickle him until she turned to eye the wall-mounted clock. Her freckled face curdled, like her tongue felt the touch of juicy acids. That look said it all. It was his win.

 

But before he could fully wallow in his success, she turned to face him and focused her eyes on him, staring hard enough to spread a thin layer of ash over the inside of his mouth.

 

“This isn't over,” she promised.

 

He watched her leave, and with the cremated remains of his smug satisfaction covering his taste buds, he knew only bitterness.

 

“I'm sure it isn't, harpy,” he muttered, under the sound of his breath. Naturally, she failed to hear him as her ears lacked any kind of superhuman qualities.

 

Following in the representative's footsteps, he entered the classroom and navigated his way between the desks to his seat. Waiting for him were his friends, looking intrigued.

 

Demonstrating an impeccable sense of timing, Suzuhara Touji spoke up the very instant his cheeks met the surface of his chair. “Yo Shinji, what was that about?” At Touji's side, Aida Kensuke chose to remain silent, though he too was clearly interested in the answer.

 

Shinji held off answering the question. He made himself comfortable, keeping one eye on his friends' fidgeting. His bag took its place next to his chair and released a notebook and writing implements. He opened his notebook and flipped pages in search of blank spaces. Kensuke didn't react in any obvious way, but Touji's fingers began to tap against his desk. Shinji pressed the switch to initialize his computer's startup sequence and decided that it was time to say something. His friends were probably on the verge of pestering him anyway. “Nothing important.”

 

Touji scoffed. Kensuke just shook his head. “Oh come on, Shinji. What did you do to make the class rep jump down your throat like that?”

 

Shinji glared at Kensuke, embittered by the fact that even his friends doubted him. It wasn't his fault! He would not accept the blame. Before he could begin to protest his innocence, their class' elderly teacher walked into the room. In the front row, the class representative stood to perform her duty.

 

“Stand!” Hikari commanded.

 

The class stood.

 

“Bow! Sit!”

 

The class obeyed. The old teacher smiled in the face of such coordinated obedience. Standing over his desk, he opened a manila folder and took attendance, marking Asuka Soryu Langley as absent. Much to Shinji's relief, the teacher did not bother to ask for a reason from him, her housemate and coworker.

 

With the formalities out of the way, class was put in session and things proceeded smoothly for some time. Shinji received several private messages on his terminal but he ignored them and managed to avoid making eye contact with anyone. His eyes were glued to his notebook and he delved into his studies in an effort to forget all of his misfortune. Even so, he would not learn a thing.

 

It happened almost an hour and a half later, interrupting the class in the middle of a physics lesson. A cell phone heard a whisper of its name amongst a million other whispers and screamed in exuberance. Its cry reached every corner of the classroom, bringing silence to the teacher and his students. Every one of them turned to watch the pilots in the room.

 

Everyone in that classroom knew that in case of an attack, the distress signal would only be activated after the pilots were inside the geofront, so as to not block their path with hundreds of thousands of evacuees. At school, the ring of a pilot's phone was often the best indicator of upcoming danger.

 

Shinji closed his eyes and cursed under his breath. This really wasn't his day. Getting yelled at by Misato (or God forbid, his father) because his phone was still plugged into the wall socket in his room might just push him into doing something that would land him into a cell again.

 

Feeling like the world peed in his bathwater, he turned towards Ayanami Rei's seat, located towards the back next to a window.

 

Even with twenty-odd people watching her every move, each showing varying levels of trepidation, Ayanami showed no haste. She reached into her schoolbag and pulled out the noisy device. She checked the number. She stared. She blinked.

 

Several seats away, Shinji began to sweat.

 

Ayanami pressed the button to open communication lines, interrupting the eighth ring. “Hello?” She remained silent for a few moments, presumably so as to listen to the other interlocutor. “How did you get this number?” she asked.

 

Shinji bowed his head. He heard the sound of chair legs scraping against the classroom floor and cringed. He wondered if he should make a break for it, and was wondering still when a shadow moved over him.

 

“Ikari, it's for you.”

 

The object held in Ayanami's pale hand had the allure of a serpent. He watched it warily, but took no moves towards it.

 

A moment of silence passed with another nipping at its heels.

 

“Uh… Shinji,” Touji, that bastard, called out. “Aren't you going to get that?”

 

Shinji clenched his jaw before answering, “Yeah… just… just give me a second here.”

 

A long second settled into the room and stayed long past its welcome.

 

“Is something the matter, Ikari?”

 

Shinji immediately shook his head. “No, it's fine,” he said. The last thing he wanted was to get Ayanami involved, lest she turn towards Nerv and its commander for instruction. Honestly, he wouldn't be able to stand it if his father learned about all this. He'd rather deal with Asuka.

 

He reached for the phone and brought it to his ear. “Hello?” He was prepared to deal with many things. Screaming, rage, tears and disgust. His heart and mind were hardened to many forms of attack.

 

“Third Child.”

 

Shinji checked the phone's screen and noted the number displayed in grey lettering. The call was indeed coming from Misato's apartment.

 

He spoke into the cell phone's microphone and felt his voice wrestling with his uncertainty. “Asuka?” he asked. He almost didn't recognize her voice through all of that placidity. She sounded calm and casual, like she was dictating groceries, and he'd expected that so little that he almost believed that he was speaking to somebody else.

 

Asuka didn't appear to share his confusion. “You need to get here Third. There's something that needs to be taken care of, concerning your piloting. You have fifteen minutes. Don't be late.”

 

“W-what? What is this about? What about school?”

 

“Nerv related matters take precedence.”

 

Shinji was speechless for a moment, caught completely off guard. This was not what he'd expected the conversation to revolve around. It was like they were talking about homework in the living room while a burglar broke into the apartment and stole the TV. “Well, what about Ayanami?” he asked.

 

She didn't answer right away. “…The First has shown admirable aptitude when accomplishing her duties. This meeting concerns you alone, Third.”

 

“Asuka, who put you up to this? Is Misato going to be there?”

 

“No one and no. This is something that I decided on my own. Everyone just keeps skirting around the issue, like it's not even there. If I can't count on them to take care of it then I'll just have to do it myself. I'll make sure it doesn't ever become a problem. It's gotten worse recently, so we have to settle this now, before the next Angel comes.”

 

Shinji's defiance was smothered by the strength of her conviction. He could understand her perfectly, even through the phone's speakers. It was easy. He had done it before, often, and this time he didn't have gallons of LCL to hear through. Asuka's determination had moved into her larynx and rearranged the furniture there to suit its tastes. She didn't sound angry, she sounded impassioned. It was the difference between a slap to the face and a prog knife to an Angel's core. She was serious. Deadly so.

 

And yet, something about that tone of voice reassured him. Maybe it was because he always heard it when Asuka fought at his side, when he had to trust her with his life, but it compelled him to take her at her word.

 

There was always the possibility that it was a trap, but somehow he didn't think so. Still, couldn't it wait? Did he really have to skip school again? And what the hell did she want to talk about again? “But Asuka—“

 

“Just get here, Third. I'll be waiting.”

 

Shinji frowned. Damn it, why didn't she ever listen to him? His thumb moved over the end button and pressed down, interrupting the dial tone.

 

“So? What's up?”

 

Shinji glanced at Touji and put the phone in Ayanami's waiting hand. “I don't really know. I think it's some kind of individual special training or something. It's nothing serious.”

 

The class breathed out a sigh of relief as Shinji closed his terminal and stuffed his bag with his school supplies. At this point, he was moving on automatic. This wouldn't be the last time he left class while it was still in session and he had long since learned how to leave with the least amount of fuss. The teacher let him go in silence and just over thirty seconds after the call ended he was walking through deserted school hallways on his way home.

 

Thoughts bubbled up from a vat of ideas and popped in an attempt at drawing his attention. He ignored them all, he was tired of thinking. Too many ups and downs sickened him. It was unbearable.

 

Asuka's behavior triggered something in him. He knew from experience that at times like this it was better to run along screaming right at the enemy, regardless of its strength, regardless of the terror it inspired. Win or lose, it did not truly matter. The confrontation itself was what took center stage. If he could not run away, then he would run towards. Such was Shinji's philosophy.

 

In this moment he felt cornered and surrounded, as if his enemy was in the very air that he breathed, but it did not bother him so much anymore. He walked at a comfortable pace. He could not afford to arrive tired. Shinji was running on his instincts now, where the first reaction was always the best. There would be no room for lies, but he accepted the tradeoff. Reckless courage at the price of truth.

 

Even under the light of the morning sun, the apartment building resembled nothing less than a haunted castle, complete with gargoyles, bats and miscellaneous spikes. Shinji made his way past the squeaking front door, up the creaking, flimsy stairs and down the cobwebbed, dim hallway to reach the apartment door. Having passed dozens of imaginary obstacles without flinching to get here, there was no hesitation in him when he reached for the grimy doorknob.

 

The door was unlocked.

 

The inside of the apartment looked the same as it always did, like it had just that morning. There were no signs of any tantrums or berserker rages Asuka might have fallen into upon awakening. None of the lamps were broken, the furniture was unmarred, the television was whole and the kitchen was clean. Also, all of the knives were in their proper places. God is in his heaven and all is right with the world.

 

“Asuka! You here?” he called out, having already searched through the public sections of the apartment.

 

“I'm in here!”

 

Shinji followed the voice to its source and found himself confusedly staring at the door to the bathroom. “Asuka? You… uh, wanted to talk about something?”

 

“I did. Come in.”

 

He blinked, twice and then once more, but decided not to ask any questions. He opened the door that led to the changing room, took a few steps inside and was immediately struck by the sight of a pair of cotton panties lying in the clothes hamper. A very familiar pair of panties.

 

In his mind's eye, a vision appeared of those same cotton fibers hugging the curve of her hips, the swell of her butt, the crest of her pubis…

 

Shinji squeezed his eyes shut and tried to focus on other things. “Okay, so what's the problem? Why'd you have me cut classes?”

 

For a few seconds, his only answer consisted of the sound of splashing water. “I thought I told you to come in? There's no point if I have to stare a wall the whole time, Third.”

 

Like a neet living in his parents' basement, his breath refused to leave. Once he finally managed to force it out, his teeth squeezed together for comfort in the face of his anger. So that was it? When would she stop playing with him? He couldn't take it anymore. “Fine!” The word leapt out of his mouth like an action hero jumping out of an exploding warehouse. That's how she wanted it to go down? Then that's how it would go down! He would give her exactly what she wanted!

 

And then, he was in the bathroom, feeling the hot tile on his bare feet, wading through a cloud of steam and closing his eyes as water condensed and blurred his vision. Entering the room exposed him to a significant increase in temperature. At this rate, he would start sweating in moments.

 

He felt his way into the room and stopped beside where he knew the bathtub to be. Only then did his eyes open.

 

He felt as though steam would seep out of his orifices if he dared take a breath. She was naked. She was… wearing nothing. His eyes freely indulged on a wide expanse of skin; glistening, creamy, unblemished skin. So much skin that he couldn't look anywhere without catching a glimpse. So much skin that he could not even conceive of modesty or propriety. He watched. He stared.

 

In the back of his mind, he recalled another situation quite like this one, only with another beautiful young girl. Things had been so different then. He had been touched by guilt then, crushed by shame. That one had been dispassionate, almost disdainful, as though her beauty meant nothing. He had felt so small back then, for caring so much about something that meant so little.

 

There was none of that here. No guilt. No shame. There was only fire, and he burned in its dancing flames.

 

She was staring at him too. Though he was fully clothed, he almost felt nude under the weight of that stare. He felt vulnerable, almost fearful. His eyes were inadequate. She could see him, truly so, while his sight could not even pierce her skin. He did not know Asuka. He could not understand her and it was more apparent now than ever before. He felt an almost overpowering desire to know, to dive into her mind and drink of her secrets. It almost drove him mad in its yearning. He couldn't stumble around blind in the dark anymore. He couldn't do so and retain his sanity. Why? Why would she do this? Nothing made sense anymore.

 

He stopped thinking. It would not help him here. Keep running, he told himself.

 

That was all he had to do.

 

She spoke almost the moment he regained a semblance of composure. He felt no surprise at the timing. She could see him, after all.

 

“Do you know why you're here, Third?”

 

Asuka stopped for a moment, waiting for an answer that wouldn't come. “You're here because you are one of the few people in this world capable of piloting an Evangelion Unit. That is why you are here.”

 

Shinji shifted. “What does that have to do with this?”

 

“Do you enjoy piloting the Evangelion Test Type Unit-01?”

 

“No.”

 

“Then that is your answer.”

 

He frowned. “You're doing this because I don't like piloting the Eva?”

 

She looked up at the ceiling. “As one of the few people in the world capable of piloting an Eva, you're also one of the only people in the world capable of saving it. This isn't a game, Third. If we lose, that's the end. I've watched you pilot for months now. You're not like the First. You have real talent, but no motive. You do what you're told, and that's it. You're like a mercenary fighting beside the resistance.”

 

Those words hurt. She was essentially spitting in the face of all the sacrifices he'd been forced to give, of all the pain he'd had to endure, saying `You could have done better'. It wasn't the first time he'd heard those words, but somehow, they hurt more coming out of Asuka's mouth. “Well, what do you want me to do? Find my inner peace? Follow the way of the samurai? Take steroids or something? I'm doing the best I can!”

 

She looked at him carefully, looking almost surprised by his outburst. It made him feel better, to know that she could still be surprised by him. “I know,” she said. “I understand that. Like a lot of children born after the Second Impact, you aren't very attached to this broken world. Because there's nothing here that you really love, there's nothing that brings you true joy. You find passion in nothing. You're just going through the motions of life. You're just copying what everyone around you is doing. You study because you're supposed to study, not because you actually want to learn something. You fight, but you don't fight to live. You fight to not die.”

 

For the first time since entering the bathroom, Shinji looked away from her bare form.

 

“I understand, Shinji. You don't want to die, because you haven't found anything you want to live for yet. You fight, but you hate it, because it only brings you closer to death and you aren't ready to die. Being a pilot takes all of your spare time, so you don't even have time to go looking for something to love. At this rate, it seems as if you'll die without ever finding it, doesn't it?”

 

“I'm not stupid,” he mumbled. “If I don't fight, I'll die anyway.”

 

“That's true. As long as the Angels are here, no one is free. But that doesn't make you hate them. No, you aren't attached enough to humanity to hate the Angels absolutely. You feel anger towards them, but you really don't hate them.” Asuka sat up, sending small waves crashing against the edge of the tub. Though her breasts were now further exposed, Shinji didn't look her way. “You doubt when you fight,” she said. “I've seen you. You ask yourself if the Angels really deserve to die, if we humans really deserve to live. Those thoughts make you weaker, Third. They're nothing but distractions, and they're not the only ones running through your head. After your lack of motive, your biggest problem is your lack of focus. Listless obedience does not focus make, Third Child. You need to eliminate all of your distractions.”

 

Shinji almost laughed. “And you think you're going to achieve that by prancing about naked in front of me?” Ha ha. Asuka, you so crazy.

 

She leaned against the edge of the tub and climbed to her feet, exposing her naked body to his direct gaze. Standing there, immersed in knee-deep water, covered with thousands of clear water droplets, with the rising steam curling around her curves, her every move sending dozens of beads of water on a journey along the hills and crevices that formed her own personal world, she looked like a water nymph, a naiad immersed in a pool of sweetness. His eyes mapped out every inch of skin they came into contact with, so that they may never be forgotten. His visual sense explored the newly familiar regions of her breasts and reveled in their aesthetic appeal. Their shape and size invoked the desire to caress, to pet, to worry the skin until the sweetness inside seeped out. Lower, past her abdomen and the hollow of her bellybutton, was an area covered in sparse red hair a shade darker than what grew from her head.

 

His heart began to jump around in its cavity and his extremities began to tremble from the excitement. His face felt hot and he wasn't sure if it was from the heat or because of the blood rushing to his cheeks. He inhaled and choked on nothing when she put a foot on the edge of the bathtub, revealing more of the hidden cleft for a brief, agonizing moment.

 

And then, she was standing beside him. Her hair, weighed down by the water was plastered against her back, hiding nothing, and her blue eyes giggled at their superiority over the pair he possessed. “Am I distracting you?”

 

He did not trust his tongue to speak in any comprehensible dialect so he nodded.

 

“Do you understand then?”

 

He shook his head.

 

Asuka sighed and moved towards the wall where a lime green towel hung from a hook. His eyes remained glued to her backside as she turned her back to him, but his ears did not fail him. “Am I going to have to spell it out for you, Third? No matter which way you look at it, I am the biggest distraction in your life. Since we can't remove my presence from your surroundings we have to find the reason behind the distraction and deal with that.”

 

She squeezed the water out of her hair and began to dry it off. “By all appearances, the basis behind the distraction is lust. So in order to increase your focus we have to start by dealing with your lust for me, and there aren't exactly twenty ways to assuage lust.”

 

Wait. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, “Wait,” he asked. “What are you saying?”

 

She turned towards him, stared him down, and spoke frankly. “I'm saying that you're too horny, Third. You spend too much time with your eyes on my naughty bits. It's distracting you from your duties, so we are going to take care of that.”

 

His head was filled with one thing, a thought, an impossible fantasy. “You don't mean… We aren't going to…” He could not finish the phrase. The very idea sent his confidence staggering and filled him with nervous energy. Below, his pants felt unbearably constricting. It was as if they could no longer stand to stretch around their expanding contents and could only dig into the sensitive flesh. He shifted around, twisting his hips from one side to the other, hoping to dislodge something without drawing any attention.

 

He needn't have bothered. Asuka was looking pointedly at the bulge in his trousers. “No, you aren't going to put that thing in me. I'm not giving you my virginity. But there are a few things I am willing to do, if it will help you fight harder.”

 

Shinji gulped down. His mouth felt like a dried up oasis. “L-Like what?” In retrospect, without the terrifying uncertainty looming over everything, as if his father was watching over his shoulder while he was trying to do something difficult, like fitting a thread into a needle in the middle of Mardi Gras, the tender mercies delivered by Asuka's hand proved to be much less traumatic. Now that he was cutting off avenues of thought like diseased men cut off gangrene infested limbs, he found that the thought of repeating the event was… titillating. His penis felt like it was going to tear a hole through his trousers and his preoccupation with the tight confines of his clothing faded as his rising hormones dulled the pain. He stared at her, in the face this time, and watched for her reaction.

 

She smiled. It was a tiny thing, marked with secrecy and shallow humor, but it still made him feel something like admiration, and fuelled his lust like kerosene. “Hm… I'm not sure. I guess we'll just have to find out as we go along, won't we?”

 

His heart played something like a drum roll in his chest. He wanted her. He wanted her so very badly. The surplus of energy in his body demanded action, like steam in an 1850 train engine, and he began to fidget. “R-really?” he asked, stuttering his way through the short question.

 

Asuka bent over to dry her legs, drawing his attention away from her eyes yet again. “Don't you trust me, Third?” He honestly didn't know the answer to that question, but luckily he wasn't asked for it. “Well, even if you don't trust me at my word, trust that Eva is important to me. I won't be able to keep my focus if I have to worry about my teammates and I can't fight if I keep looking over my shoulder. Even if you won't trust anything else, trust that I put everything into my Evangelion. If this is what I need to do to be a better pilot, then this is what I'll do.”

 

Hearing those words was like receiving a bucket of ice water in the face. It cooled him down, but it stung quite a bit. “So you're doing this for you? Because you'll look better if I stop holding you back?”

 

Asuka flung her towel over his head, obscuring his vision. He wrenched it off and glared as she walked through the open door into the changing room. “Haven't you been listening?” she complained. “If you were inept or lazy I wouldn't bother, I would just hate your guts. But it's not like that. You're doing what you can. You're not bad, but you might not be good enough either. We're teammates, you know. Your strength is my strength and vice-versa.”

 

Mollified, but with his ardor dripping wet and freezing, Shinji found himself hesitating between cowardly retreat and pressing on towards the rainforest ahead. He ended up following her into the room and found her walking towards a small wooden bench, carrying a pink bottle. “So, what now?” he asked.

 

Asuka sat down and twisted the cap off of the bottle. She poured a milky cream into the palm of one hand and began to rub it into her arm. “I can tell you're not exactly comfortable with this yet, but you'll get used to it. You're a boy, after all. When your thing feels like it's going to burst out of your pants, come to me and I'll do something about it, even if we're out of the apartment. You don't have to get me every single time, but I know how often you get a stiffy. We'll have problems if you try to hold it in and it isn't really effective if you take care of it yourself. It's more convenient if you just come to me, but don't think I'll just let you blow this off. I don't want to have to force you into it again, but I will if I have to.”

 

Shinji sort of felt like protesting, but much of the resources needed to work his thoughts into words were already being used by his eyes and his genitals. It was already challenging for him to listen and comprehend. Speaking was for the moment completely beyond him.

 

Asuka was applying moisturizer. Asuka… was sitting naked before him, pouring moisturizer into her the palms of her hands and applying it directly onto her skin.

 

She's touching herself…!

 

He almost couldn't believe it. Right there, in front of him! Her hands were rubbing lotion into her skin, displaying a level of comfort in her movements that he never would have been able to imagine. Her hands slid over her hips and stomach repeatedly, her fingers making indentations into the skin as she rubbed the lotion into it. It was embarrassing, but he sighed so hard as to nearly groan when her hands moved to handle her breasts. He had thought them so delicate as to require feather light treatment, but Asuka's fingers seemed to exert more pressure over the soft, pliant flesh of her chest than they had over the muscles in her abdomen. It was fascinating.

 

Her legs parted open slightly in order to give her hands access to the inside of her thighs and he froze.

 

Shinji was oppressed by desire. He wanted to see the most private region of her body. No, more than that. To say that he merely wanted to see was wholly inadequate to describe the feelings that constrained him. He wanted to know her body, to learn of it, to experience it in every way available to him. He wanted to see her, to smell her, to taste her, to hear her and to touch her.

 

He wanted her to know him in the same way, and accept him. In essence, he wanted her to love him. Or at least, to enjoy him like he enjoyed her.

 

Shinji closed his eyes and tried to regain his bearings. He needed to leave. Right now, before he did something stupid. “Asuka…”

 

“Hmm? What is it?”

 

“I think… I'm going to take a walk. I need time to think, without any distractions.”

 

A short pause preceded her response. “What's there to think about?” she asked.

 

Shinji kept his eyes closed. He wouldn't be able to find the words otherwise. “Please Asuka. It's just too much. I can't think straight like this. I… I just… don't want to do anything I'll regret.”

 

“Oh? Are you really that horny Third? I don't recall ever saying that we had to start right now.”

 

His eyes blinked open. “Really?”

 

She watched him, grinning, with her legs crossed. “Yes, really.”

 

“But then, why are you…”

 

“Why am I naked?”

 

He nodded vigorously.

 

“I'm naked because I just finished taking a bath. What you want to know is why you,” she pointed towards him, “are here. You're here because I thought giving up a little of my privacy might make you a little more accommodating. I mean, if this is going to work, you're not going to have a lot of privacy and I know that will make you uncomfortable. I thought showing some skin would help you relax. Apparently I was wrong. I finished saying what I had to say five minutes ago. You're the one who decided to stay and watch me put on lotion.”

 

“Oh.” His face burned in utmost embarrassment.

 

Asuka watched him. Shinji watched her. “Weren't you going to take a walk?” she asked.

 

Shinji shook his head and started edging towards the door. “No. I'm just going to go to bed. I'm tired.”

 

She waved at him. “Sweet dreams, Third.”

 

She was teasing him. It was disheartening, to know that she could have more poise and dignity without a stitch of clothing than he did whilst fully clothed.

 

Shinji slid the door closed and sighed. Sweet dreams, huh? He hoped not. He would have to wash the sheets.

 

 

 

Her eyes were pinned to his back as he shambled out of her lair, closing the door behind himself and leaving her alone.

 

Her composure cracked after only a few seconds of solitude. A shuddering breath escaped her lips, and her shoulders, kept so strong and firm in front of him, buckled under the strain of her emotions. She was horny, aroused to the point of anguish, but she couldn't do anything about it, not even now. Asuka bowed her head, closed her eyes and tried to master herself. She had to keep it in. If she tried to relieve herself now, she would wind up breaking the floodgates, and she would ruin everything.

 

She let out a steady breath. Her eyelids opened halfway. “Good,” she whispered. The set-up was complete. Now, she could begin to up the pressure.

 

Asuka stood, and immediately grimaced. She looked down and poked gently at her labia, breathing in sharply at the instant of contact. Her fingertip slid over her moist skin, sending pangs of pleasure rocking down the nerve endings. She bit her lip, and reined in a shiver.

 

It was probably just her imagination, but she almost heard a little squish as her finger dabbed at her lower lips. She was wet, almost ridiculously so. She would have to clean herself up a little before getting dressed, but… thinking about what she needed to do to clean herself down there sent chills down her spine.

 

She would have to make sure her fingers didn't linger.

 

 

 

Almost two hours later, Shinji slipped out of his room and hurried down the hallway. Nature came calling half an hour ago, and was now so far beyond its stock of patience that it resorted to charging the exit repeatedly, trying to break the door down. No matter how much he didn't want to face the world after the events of the day, when you gotta go, you gotta go.

 

He sprinted with his legs held together, hunched over, straining to hold it in. His teeth were clenched together, and certain muscles he couldn't name started to cramp. Clearly, his body was dealing out its punishment. Maybe next time he would learn to listen.

 

He reached the bathroom door and shoved it out of the way. The toilet bowl was hidden behind a door to the left of the entrance, just opposite of the bath's entrance. Within seconds, his pants were scrunched up around his ankles and his ears were treated to the delightful tinkling song of release.

 

His head tilted back towards the sky. “Aaah…” he groaned. The pleasurable feeling of relief was almost worth all the trouble.

 

When he was finished, Shinji tucked himself back inside of his pants and zipped up. Like a good boy, he immediately headed for the sink to wash his hands. He took a single step into the adjoining room and stopped cold. Something had appeared in the corner of his eye. Something red… and familiar. His guts twisted about and attempted to escape in a display of abject cowardice. He couldn't handle another meeting with her, not so soon. He knew she wouldn't like it if he avoided her, but he didn't know what else to do. However, before he could come to a decision, Shinji noticed something strange.

 

His eyes focused on her. She was sitting on the floor slumped against the wall. She wasn't moving.

 

“Asuka!” His knees knocked against the floor in his haste to kneel beside her. It hurt, but he ignored that. She was still naked, but he managed to ignore that too. It was happening so often lately that he might be starting to develop a resistance out of pure necessity. But maybe it was just that he always performed better with adrenaline pumping through his veins. Either way, his hands settled firmly onto her shoulders and began to shake her noticeably, but gently.

 

“Asuka… Asuka! Can you hear me? Are you okay? Wake up!”

 

Thankfully, her eyes quickly fluttered open. “What? Shinji?”

 

Relieved beyond measure, Shinji squeezed her shoulders tightly and sighed. “Asuka, what are you doing here? What happened?”

 

She didn't answer right away. Her eyes flitted over the room, blinking often, taking in the surroundings. Her right hand moved to cover his left over her shoulder, but didn't try to take it off. She seemed a little groggy, maybe from fatigue or something a little more serious.

 

He grew impatient and worried after a few more seconds of silence. “Asuka, maybe we should call Dr. Akagi.”

 

Her blue eyes settled on him. “Why?”

 

“Why? Why not? I just found you on the floor, unconscious! Why aren't you more worried?”

 

Asuka shook her head. “I'm fine, Shinji. Nothing happened.”

 

He wasn't satisfied by that answer, not at all. He knew she would lie to him if she wanted to, and she definitely wanted to avoid spending her weekend in Akagi's lab. “Really? Why were you unconscious then?”

 

“I wasn't unconscious. You wouldn't have woken me up if I was. I was just sleeping,” she said.

 

Her thumb was rubbing over the back of his hand. It was beginning to distract him, but he didn't skip a beat. “Fine then, why were you sleeping,” he asked.

 

She shrugged. “I was tired.”

 

“Why didn't you go to bed then?” This. This was the question that she wasn't going to be able to answer.

 

“I told you, I was tired.”

 

He was right, she didn't have an answer. “That's not right, Asuka. I'm calling Dr. Akagi. You shouldn't be so tired for no reason.”

 

Asuka's fingers wrapped around his wrist before he could stand. “I never said there wasn't a reason.”

 

“Why then?”

 

“I was masturbating,” she explained.

 

She shrugged his hands off of her shoulders and braced against the wall, using its support to climb to her feet.

 

As he watched her stand, it was like his blood cells suddenly became twice as heavy, twice as hard for his heart to pump, and everything slowed down as a result. “W-wha?” His tongue malfunctioned, or maybe it was his brain that stopped working. He couldn't have heard that right. He managed to gain control over his tongue long enough to ask… no, demand that she explain herself. His sanity required nothing less. “What did you just say?”

 

Asuka looked down, her stare reaching his eyes and going lower still. He followed its lead and quickly wound up realizing what had been brought directly before him.

 

A neat patch of hair grew on the crest of her mons and marked the beginning of her cleft. It looked like a precious flower, it really did. It looked like the deepest, innermost folds of a dewy rose were nestled between her thighs. The tight lines of her reddened labia glistened before his eyes. It enflamed him. It consumed him.

 

The weight of the situation hit him squarely in the chest and spread over his entire body. His eyes widened, his breath deepened. His body needed more oxygen, more energy. It was preparing itself, but for what? He didn't know. He couldn't make sense of anything.

 

She crouched before him, smiling enticingly. Her red hair spilled down to her shoulders, framing her face like a portrait. Her blue eyes, so much more vibrant than his pair, gleamed within their shrines. She was beautiful, truly. His heart ached to touch her.

 

She giggled slightly, and he was lost. “Gee, Shinji. That looks like it hurts,” she said, pointing at his tented trousers.

 

His stiffness pulsed within his pants, straining once again to burst out of its confines. It failed. It had not the strength to tear through garments. It burst into tears, slowly spreading its viscous fluid into the fabric.

 

His mind took pity on it, and commanded his hands to give their aid. They rebelled.

 

Asuka's eyes widened, and shot down. “Shinji…?” she whispered, wonderingly regarding the hand that had settled over her thigh and was rubbing the flesh softly.

 

He swallowed his words. He had no answer for her. The only things driving him on were lust, longing, a dimly remembered invitation and total lack of resistance.

 

His hand rubbed her thigh close to the knee with awkward but tender movements. His breath grew stronger with every second she failed to stop him, as did his nervousness. He was inexperienced and unattractive, personality-wise at the very least. He did not know why she let him touch her, did not know if he really believed the reasons she had given him.

 

In the end, he touched her because he wanted to. He touched her because the urges that assaulted him had broken down his self-control to the point where the merest excuse sent it all crumbling down.

 

His eyes were nailed to the floor, but he managed to bring them up, over her folded knees and to her perky breasts. Her nipples were jutting out, seeming swollen, reddish and succulent.

 

His raised his hand and reached out towards them. The breasts flinched as their owner took a sharp, short gasp.

 

That sound slammed into consciousness and brought everything to a screeching halt. His indecision regrouped and began the battle anew. She was nervous, it told him. She was only doing this… no, allowing this to happen, because he was a failure as a pilot. Who was he to take advantage of her determination? Could he really just take what he wanted, do what he wanted, leaving her to deal with the consequences? Could he really be that callous, that self-serving? Wouldn't he just become his father?

 

Shinji squeezed his eyes shut and grit his teeth.

 

No, he could not. He would not.

 

His hand drifted away from her.

 

 

 

Her fingers slipped around his wrist and squeezed at the first sign of retreat.

 

Asuka had had a plan coming into this. Honestly, it wasn't a very good plan, roundabout and as blunt as a hammer. But it had been working. She had been making progress.

 

So why had she done that? Why was she holding on when she should have let him go?

 

He was staring at her, Shinji. He looked surprised, perplexed, with a question etched into his features. She knew the answer he was looking for, but she wouldn't tell him. Couldn't, really. Her pride would not survive such a thing, and without her pride she was nothing.

 

She could not speak the words he wanted to hear, so the only thing she could do was to lure him in with her flesh. That way, it would hurt less if he refused. Kaji had struck her down once already, but somehow, she knew that it would hurt more if Shinji turned her away now.

 

Still, it was too late. The urges were too strong, the feelings too powerful. Her fingers still ached from her recent masturbation session, and with him in the room, with his eyes on her and his breath cut short by her endowments, the fruit of her existence, she still craved more.

 

She wanted him to touch her. She wanted to feel his hands on her again, only in more sensitive, more private places. All those feelings forced her to do something, anything, to alleviate the pressure.

 

So with his wrist secured inside her grip, she brought his hand close to her heart, used her left hand to pry his fingers open, and pressed his palm against her breast.

 

A moment passed by, clinging to her heart as it was pushed by the unstoppable current of Time. Her blood was boiling; her tender insides were leaking tears of yearning, staining the lining of her thighs, but it was her heart that held her ear, for it was dying with every second of uncertainty and born again with every second of hope. It pleaded. It prayed. It begged.

 

It happened in a flurry. Shinji lost all semblance of restraint, all sense of timing, of rhythm. His hands were everywhere, pawing at her roughly, squeezing her breasts one second and sliding down past her waist to clutch at her ass the next. It was a little painful, but it did not bother her. Her heart was sobbing in relief, overwhelmed by gratitude. She did not mind the pain, so she arched closer to his touch even as it left its mark on her body, moaning, surrendering to the sensations with abandon.

 

 

 

Her hands were buried alongside the roots of his hair, holding on for all she was worth. It hurt, but he did not mind. He just continued his exploration of her body, taking it all inside, memorizing it, imbibing it like vintage wine, and was intoxicated.

 

Her breasts were completely different from anything he could find on his body, soft, pliant and warm, unlike anything else he could remember, a landmark of her femininity. He didn't understand why they held his attention so completely, but he surrendered to their bewitchment regardless. He cupped them both and squeezed.

 

“Aaahhnn…” She groaned and wiggled, but did not shy away.

 

The sounds she was making… He had never heard their like. One moment they were more like whimpers, like she was trying to hold it back against her will, and the next, it was like she couldn't wait to throw it out, like it was killing her from the inside. He tweaked a nipple and she hissed, he pinched both and she howled. There was no rhyme or reason, no pattern to discern. Her reactions were unique, and therefore utterly precious. She moaned and groaned and hissed and yowled but she never said a word. Her blue eyes were locked on him whenever he dared to look, but she did not ask him to stop, to slow down or to change in any way. She just sat within his grasp and adjusted to him, accepting whatever whim drove him. Something about that was very erotic, and caused his obscenely turgid member to rub against the fabric of his pants in its haste to stand at attention.

 

Her fingers slid beneath the collar of his shirt, tickling the skin of his neck and prodding him to immediately shed his clothes and frolic with the maiden in celebration. He let go of her and hurriedly worked at the single button holding his pants together, trying to get them off as quickly as humanly possible. Clumsiness and haste impeded his movements, and he was further distracted when Asuka began to unbutton his shirt with quick precise movements. Frustrated and impatient, he grabbed the waistband of his trousers and shoved them down to his knees, finally squeezing out through the tight waistline moments before she removed the last button. His pants and underwear were kicked aside and his shirt was quickly flung across the room.

 

With the loss of his clothing, his inhibitions and rationality seemed to dissolve into mist, a thick combustible vapor that only served to fuel his purpose. She was close to the wall, too close for what he had in mind, so he took hold of her and pulled her away, employing swiftness and perhaps some excessive force, some unwitting roughness. With one hand wrapped around her wrist and the other at her waist, he shifted her around and, with a small shove, encouraged her to fall against the floor.

 

“Ah!” Her elbows bore the brunt of her landing, forcing an expression of brief pain onto her features, but it was quickly swallowed by an unfamiliar look in her eyes. She looked angry, only without the actual anger. Her cheeks were flushed red and her eyes were lidded and heavy, but he didn't get the sense that she wanted bad things to happen to him. Her eyes held all the intensity of her anger, but none of the hostility. Her chest rose and fell like the tide, exchanging breaths through her gaping lips at an accelerated pace. She didn't bother to move from where he'd basically thrown her, on her back with her tits aimed for the sky, like cherries on top of cream pudding.

 

She looked appetizing, and he wanted a taste, needed one really.

 

“Asuka,” he whispered, and crawled between her legs.

 

She did not try to close the path.

 

He climbed on top of her and she did not try to move away. She put her hands on his chest but did not try to push him back, did not try to shove him away.

 

Her eyes were still a mystery to him, but now he knew that she would not stop him, she would not say a word against him. The consequences would come, but now he had to take her. His heartbeat established the rhythm as his blood sung an aria of instructions, and he followed them with eagerness born from the siren's song. With his lewd dagger clenched in his hand, he prepared himself to cut through her, to penetrate her moist core. He positioned himself at her opening and jabbed forwards, but misjudged the angle of approach and ended up sliding his length across the slick surface of her lips.

 

“Ah!” A shocked gasp escaped her and her hips rolled up to meet his thrust, maintaining contact, humping his thickness with short jerks. The knuckles of his hand were dipped into her juices, and he was forced to resist the temptation to have a taste.

 

Her eyes were wide open now, and she stared at him as though he was a nasty wolf with big teeth on the prowl for young maidens.

 

The tip of his aching dick found its way back to her dripping slot. Her hips became agitated, shifting anxiously beneath him. It bothered him, so he used his free hand to hold them still, pressing down on her abdomen just underneath her bellybutton. Her slender fingers wrapped around his forearm and squeezed tightly, but did not try to move it away. He took a deep breath and pushed onwards, cutting through her insides in one hard thrust, burying himself several inches within.

 

“Aaaaaah! Ah, ah… Shinji! W-wait! Slo-slow down! Slow down!” Asuka struggled beneath him, and yelled at him to stop between gasping breaths.

 

But he couldn't. The feeling was unlike anything he'd ever experienced. Nothing in his life had prepared him for this. The tender mercies of her hands had not prepared him for the pleasures of her coveted canal. The slick walls of her depths fit around him like second skin, gifting warmth and goodness to his entire body, by way of his root. Not even the greatest anguish he'd experienced in his Eva had prepared him for the intensity of this. These feelings jealously stole every whit of his attention and infiltrated his psyche with insidious urgency. He couldn't think. It was like he was underwater, running out of air and he had just caught sight of a ray of sunshine. There was no way he could stop swimming towards it, no way he could stand still.

 

“Sorry, Asuka. I-I can't…” His tongue was tied in knots, but there was no real need for words. He pressed his hands against the floor on either side of her flushed face and buried himself even deeper inside.

 

“Hiiii!” she squealed as his swollen tool pried her open. Her blue eyes glistened with unshed tears before she squeezed them shut and her nails dug painfully into the skin of his back. “Idiot!”

 

“I'm sorry!” He pulled out of her, and pushed back in. He did it again, and again, and again, establishing his rhythm. Not slow nor gentle but not manic, not cruel. His thrusts were merciless, pushing aside any resistance in its path. She tightened around him at odd intervals and in odd places, the unpredictability making her flesh seem more alive, pushing the awareness that he was inside a person to the forefront of his mind, the awareness that he was inside Asuka.

 

The smell of her impregnated his perception, fruity with whatever product she used, but heavy with her own personal scent. He breathed a lungful of it and almost choked. She was just so intoxicating. He groaned, becoming almost lightheaded, and increased his pace, using shorter, sharper, desperate strokes, slapping his sack against the swell of her ass. Sweat dripped off of every inch of his skin as he entered the final run. The end was coming, he could feel it.

 

Her arms tightened around him, lifting her torso off the bathroom floor and mashing her breasts against his chest. Her knees bent and pulled towards her head, leaving her feet floating in the air before he instinctively grabbed one of her ankles and docked it over his shoulder. His angle of insertion changed, and Asuka howled.

 

“Shinji!” she screamed his name. “You-you're fucking me!”

 

That was it. That was the last straw.

 

He pulled out halfway and began to hammer into her with everything he had, as fast as he could manage, using her lubrication to the limit, to the point where droplets of her secretions were flying off of their genitals as his pace accelerated. The warmth that encompassed their joining swelled into throbbing heat, and his balls tightened in preparation.

 

He was almost there. Almost there!

 

Shinji let loose a bellow and shoved himself all the way inside her tight, wet hole. His semen burst out of his dick in thick gobs and stained the fabric of her walls, mixing with her juices and making a drippy mess out of her pussy. She lay trembling beneath him, and took it all.

 

He collapsed on top of her, gasping and out of breath, completely exhausted, feeling like he had to say something. Anything. “Asuka…” he trailed off. What could he possibly say to her after what he'd just done? I'm sorry? Or maybe thank you? What?

 

“Are you finished?”

 

His face flushed in embarrassment as the haze of his desire parted and he was left standing in the wastelands of his passion. “Asuka… I… I'm sorry…”

 

Apologies would not be enough. The moment he pulled himself off of her was the moment her arms began to fly at him like angry bees. “You beast! What did you do to me?”

 

Shinji got the feeling that he wasn't in as much trouble as he would have expected. Asuka was trained for combat. If she wanted to hurt him, she would, especially since he was still on top of her, weakened and practically defenseless. Instead, her hands slapped at the skin of his arms and chest, open handed and ineffective.

 

“Are you okay? D-did I hurt you? Ow!” The blows didn't carry much strength behind them and probably wouldn't even bruise, but certainly stung enough.

 

She glared at him. “Of course you hurt me, you idiot! Were you unconscious or something? You plowed through me like you were digging for gold! You brute! Gorilla!”

 

Okay, that was enough hitting. He scrambled about, trying to catch her wrists as she doled out punishment. “Okay, okay! Stop hitting me!”

 

Amazingly, she listened. Her arms stopped their assault, and wrapped around her breasts, hiding them from view. “Sheesh! You give someone an inch and they take a mile! I thought I told you not to put that thing in me?”

 

What could he say to that? Common sense dictated that he fall to his knees and beg for forgiveness, but something about Asuka's behavior put him on the defensive and forced him to say something incredibly stupid. “You could have stopped me…” he croaked.

 

Thankfully, she ignored his stupid, stupid words. “You took my virginity, Shinji. You ripped through it like it wasn't even there. Well, you owe me now. From now on, you've got to do what I say, when I say it.”

 

What? “I thought I already did that… Ow!”

 

She punched him in the bicep. Hard. “Really? You must not be remembering right, because I distinctly remember asking you to slow down! And no backtalk!”

 

Shinji let himself fall on top of her again, pinning her against the floor under his full weight. Maybe that way she wouldn't be able to hit him as hard.

 

Asuka didn't bother to shove him off, or to scream at him some more. Under all appearances, she just seemed to relax underneath him.

 

Her behavior was very peculiar, because it wasn't at all unusual. She was acting just like she always did, not enraged or tearful or anything, like she wasn't bothered by what they'd just done. What he'd just done. It bothered him, because he had no idea what that meant. Did she want it to happen? Did she like it or something?

 

No, no. He was pretty sure she didn't like it.

 

“Hey, Asuka? Can I ask you a question?”

 

“What?” She sounded tired, sleepy.

 

“Did it hurt a lot?”

 

She hummed an affirmation. “Kind of, at first. It kind of faded after a while. But it wasn't that bad, even in the beginning. Piloting an Eva hurts more.”

 

“I'm sorry.”

 

Her finger flicked him in the neck. “If you're really sorry, don't make empty apologies. Make amends.”

 

That was easy to say. “How can I possibly make this up to you?”

 

“You can start by not finishing inside me. You could also try not being so self-centered. This is supposed to be fun for the girl too, you know.”

 

He pushed off of her again and stared down in utter amazement. “What do you mean by that?”

 

She shrugged. “Well, I figure that what's done is done. I meant what I said about helping you focus, but I guess I am a little curious about sex, and you aren't such a bad partner, Shinji. You're a brute and a jerk and you're totally insensitive, but I don't hate you. You're a comrade, a teammate. You're my friend.” Her hand moved to caress his flushed cheek. “I think I will let you fuck me again, brute child, but only if I get to hold your leash.”

 

Her mouth slacked open in surprise. “Ah! Again? Already? No. Absolutely not. I'm too sore. Pull that thing out of me, right now!”

 

She pushed him away and out of her before he could even think to move, and did it with such ease that he began to wonder why she had ever let him do such terrible, unforgivable things to her body. At least, he wondered until a passing glance to his resuscitating little friend revealed that not all the wetness it was slathered in was of their combined juices. Streaks of fresh blood garnished its length, hammering the full realization of what he'd truly done into his head.

 

I… I fucked Asuka. I took her cherry.

 

He grinned. It was completely inappropriate considering the amount of pain he was directly responsible for, but he couldn't help it. He began to laugh, at first hesitantly, then shamelessly, deliriously even.

 

She poked him in the chest. “Are you still sane, Third?”

 

He sat down against the wall, and shook his head. “I don't…” He laughed some more. “I don't know. You might have broken me.”

 

She smiled, amused. “Good. Don't worry Third, I'll build you back up again, better than you ever were.”

 

He smiled back, gladdened by the sentiment. “Thanks Asuka.”