“I- I said it’s not mine! Don’t- Don’t look at it! Don’t look at stuff like this! It could warp you! I’m serious, Nagisa!”
“Then it is already far too late for me, Shinji-kun. Eros saturates lilin culture and so it is something I have looked into myself as well.”
“Although I must admit, I do not see the allure of the corncob.”
Shinji finally stops screaming himself hoarse.
“Faith…how…I don’t know how to do that….I don’t know how to believe in anything anymore…”
“Adam? He just said he was the first Angel…how could he be one of the Adams?”
“Adam is the First Angel, of which there is usually only one in most worlds. Yours differs from others and the past of your Kaworu is more complicated than most.”
Keeping an arm around the other boy, he leans downward to lock their eyes together.
“Yet after all of this, does he not deserve your trust, Ikari Shinji-kun?”
“What- What!!?”
“It’s not mine! Somebody littered on my beach!”
Merely tilts a silver head to the side in query.
“… Boku no Sexual Harassment?”
- lypophrenia: a feeling of sadness seemingly without a cause
- drapetomania: an overwhelming urge to run away
- escapism: a mental desire to retreat from unpleasant realities through fantasy
- wanderlust: a desire to travel, to understand one’s very existence
- dysania: the state of finding it difficult to get out of bed in the morning
- sanctuary: a small safe place in a troubling world
- metathesiophobia: fear of change
Shinji stares at Kaworu for a long moment. Something akin to despair, far worse than ever before, begins to slowly enter his eyes.
“You mean…he’s trapped in that thing forever?”
Shinji quivers, his eyes bleeding red, and glowing blue nerves, reminiscent of the Ninth Angel, begin to crawl down his flesh.
“The kindest person I ever met is stuck inside that abomination…and it’s all my fault…?”
Shinji throws back his head and screams like a dying animal.
“Shinji-kun…”
A red gaze slightly narrows. The creeping blue veins are watched with some trepidation.
“If any can overcome that fate, then it is one who was once Adam.”
Gently he pulls the other boy into his arms, a tight embrace as the other’s wail reverberates through the room.
“He said that you would meet again, yes? Then have some faith in Nagisa Kaworu.”
The shadow at Shinji’s side goes unnoticed. Happiness radiates from him, cutting off basic functions. He drifts sedately in a cloudy archipelago. A sound like a fusion of a sigh and a giggle wells from him as he wades into a dreamy bliss. Resolution firms. Whatever he can do to make Nagisa smile, he will do it.
For now, he basks in the peace and loveliness of being happy, and…
The tips of his wings graze life, freezing him. Yelping, he flutters in reverse. Found!
“Um. That- That didn’t count!” Shinji makes it rain plumage as he attempts to make an exit backwards.
The other boy has been found, yet he remains silent and still, for the moment their game forgotten. Instead the sight of Ikari Shinji, contented and happy, is drunken in, a sight so rare to find these days, especially for this particular Shinji-kun.
Yet it seems in the end that he, in his fascination, has wandered too close. The tips of feathered wings gently brush against him. The other boy tries to bolt, a new challenge issued.
“No?” A quiet murmur with the sound of laughter underlying it. “How about this then?”
A newfound chick can not hope to match the soaring power of one who was born with wings. Lightly he swoops in and wraps his arms around the other boy’s waist.
“… caught you.”
“There’s no need to apologize, Kaworu-kun. Your feelings are just as valid as anyone else’s, and a birthday is just another day, after all.”
His smile radiates enough warmth to melt the coldest snows of winter as he looks at the other boy with tenderness in his eyes. Kaworu’s hand delicately covers his. The other boy’s cheek, though pale and smooth like marble, warms his palm with body heat. Shinji wonders if the angel can hear the pulse that pounds just below the thin skin of his wrist.
“I’m always happy to help you in any way that I can. You can tell me anything you want… burdens become lighter when shared, or so I’ve heard.”
Obfuscation had never been one of his strong points — Ikari Shinji has always worn his heart on his sleeve. The affection in his gaze is as clear and plain as day. Here is someone for whom he would willingly do anything.
“Only because you have a soft heart, Kaworu-kun. When you say things like that it’s a miracle that every Ikari Shinji you’ve spoken to hasn’t fallen for you.”
The moment crystallizes. A tableau, the two boys standing face to face, hand to cheek, hand to hand. His own gaze softens at the look in the other’s eyes, the pull of the other boy’s heart to his own. Unbidden, the music box begins to play once more.
A soft laugh. Dangerous, more so without the existence of his other self as a reminder.
“I have heard something similar, yes.”
At the other boy’s final words, he laughs again, slightly louder this time, yet still a delicate silvery sound. His own gloved hand gives a gentle caress, a soft squeeze to the other boy’s hand to assuage any hurt feelings at his reaction.
“You greatly overestimate my allure, Shinji-kun. Far beyond the natural pull of Nagisa Kaworu to Ikari Shinji.”
“You mean…I…I…”
Shinji’s throat almost closes up. The words come with difficulty.
“He’s stuck inside that thing? How do I get him out!?”
“Shinji-kun…”
He shifts slightly backwards and leans down, so that their gazes are level once more.
“I do not know for certain, nor if it is possible to retrieve him into a human form once more. In a way, this would be more difficult than trying to salvage your mother or Ayanami Rei from Unit 01.”
A gloved hand shifts once more, so that it lightly cups the other’s cheek.
“And that is what it would be… a soul salvage.”
“I do.”
Shinji turns, in pain from more than just the aftermath of his battle.
“You mean he’s become…but how? I saw him d-d-d-d-“
Shinji shudders powerfully, before mastering himself.
“I saw him die! How could he be in there!”
The slightest of hesitations. He has long withheld his suspicions here, but if his other self had truly started to manifest within Unit 13…
“It is because he has died in there that it is perhaps possible.”
One hand shifts upward to lightly stroke at the other boy’s hair, a soothing motion. Yet his words remain burning in their honesty.
“The Evangelion is a shadow of the form Nagisa Kaworu once held. Being so, it is far easier for him to control it or for him to be controlled by it.”
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Point of Origin : After Matariel
Location : Dimension sliding
Mood : Serene
Status : The call is heeded, decision made, fate accepted -- collar worn.
Magic Anon :None
