Shinji resigned himself to Paralia in relative degrees; headline titles of finicky news papered over every district's window, streamlined efficiency without the M.O. of urban development to set the ball rolling. He trundled everything off on the first day, backpack and all, and took his leave from that strange caricature home, meandering along the hubs of life and vitality that prospered in the city, focal points of familiarity akin to Kairos. The city itself was a strange homage to nostalgia, even if romanticization cut too close for anything more than a maudlin lens of nature at breakneck speed. Summer propagated its form over the environment, evidently enough in the short bursts of Farmers' Markets and flat-out fields of vegetated produce scoping out the entire landscape in a preternatural shade of green with peppered hints of primary colors here and there.
It wasn't sight-seeing, however, that brought him out of his meditatively self-induced isolation, but some medley of ingrained reluctance and morbid curiosity that he set his sights on the bizarre locality of Basileia Plaza that sprung up so shortly in the absence of an en-route expenditure back to his hometown. Out-of-sync with the rest of the demographic, though, left Shinji flitting around the various booths and shoppes like a bird in flight, anxiously seeking out somewhere he could await some sort of change when he tokenly picked up a plate at random, a china dish inlaid with porcelain at its center. Even if only briefly, what came to mind was the spritzing recollection of dunking both palms into sudsy water and washing dishes. Hands drenched in dishes, laughter at a joke long-lost to him, with people whose voices rang out familiarly; fractured fissure-lines of inflections, cutting clean into the air.
The camaraderie of it all threw him through a loop, and in his haste to escape the disconcerting sight, Shinji's feet shuffled through a rag-tag impression of Blues dancing before finally collapsing into someone else, sending his maps of the region flying as he sought to save his bag from the brutality of concrete tiling and ended up grazing his elbow over a particularly jutting corner. The laceration wasn't fazing in and of itself, with shock still reigning clear on his features, but the upturned bewilderment upon seeing someone he did recognize in Paralia, of all places, wasn't feigned by any meaning of the word. Throat closing off with a sudden anxious chortle, he fell back on both elbows, backpack clutched tightly to his chest.
[ sms ]: Mistakenly leaving it open maybe?
[ sms ]: It's no bother but you do have .. something else besides pants covering you right
[ sms ]: .. nvm. dfjskal it doesn't mATTer I'll bring some pants
[ sms ]: Just tell me where I should leave them??
The response fell far short of what he was hoping for, but fulfilling some underlying expectation. The brunet seemed just as anxious as Aichi himself to undo whatever had transported them to the rural counterpart of their hometown, though showing it more outwardly. He voiced exactly what was yet to be inquired.
Aichi’s heart sank at the questioning; if this individual had no idea, then they were as lost as each other. Reluctant to reply, lest it deepen the brunet’s concerns, Aichi shuffled for a moment, biting down on his lower lip and unable to meet eyes. Seems their minds were in the same place, and guiltily, he’d have to answer and confess.
"I’m sorry, I… this is my first time in Paralia. Initially, I’d checked the station, but the trains weren’t running. And the roads seem to be blocked off. There’s…
…—no way of getting back just yet, it seems”.
His heart sank just in enunciating that; how bad would someone feel to hear that? And in bowing his head, Aichi had caught onto the fact that meeting the other boy’s eyes had become all but impossible.
"I’m really sorry! I understand your concerns; we both have to get back there as quickly as possible, and I’d like to help figure out a way to get back, if there’s something that can be done".
It wasn’t much, but it was all he could offer, presumably. Just as astonished by the developments, was there a way of bypassing the disconnection between the two cities? He wanted to hope so - hope was all they had to cling onto.
"I can keep searching, and if anything comes up, then perhaps we could meet up and figure out where to go from there. I- Is that too rash? I’m sorry— I haven’t even given my name; that would make any meetup impossible. M- My name is Sendou Aichi, i- if it helps if we’re able to meet again".
All that confidence he’d been trying to build up, completely demolished by the upheaval. And even attempt to remedy his anxieties was apparently falling flat, perhaps even having the adverse effect. He must have looked such a fool to this poor person having to listen to his borderline nonsensical droning.
The station’s flooded with the torrential downpour of bystanders and confused pedestrians alike trickling in mass exodus, and while impressionably large crowds don’t usually sway him away from his usual roost, they’ve conquered the area in a style befitting a totalitarian regime, seeking out authority figures to question and presumably interrogate. … Well, whatever. It was a mostly counterproductive decision and partially a moot point on his part to go elsewhere. If he’s honest with himself, it was irrational to expect that he’d be completely placated by anything resembling reassurances when he wasn't even fully aware of the circumstances (it wasn’t like he wasn’t masochistic enough to intentionally inflict pain on his already-suffering psyche in the form of force-fed falsehoods).
"Oh. It's my first time, too." he interjects quietly, one hand palming the nape of his neck as he registers the selfsame mystification smeared across the other boy's features as well. Leaving was still the priority, first and foremost, but when thrust into a situation that defied all forms of comprehension, Shinji tended to lose a level head in lieu of backsliding into paranoia and frayed nerves. After a beat or two of deliberation, he retrieves a sheaf of maps he'd snatched from the station nearby and handed one over to Sendou before unraveling one of his own and poring over the contents with a renewed intensity.
It's only when the boy draws his attention once more that Shinji absently lifts his head, eyes immediately directed back at the cartography of the land after a moment. "No, I — ... e-er, it isn't. ... If you want to, I guess. It might be better if we work together until all of this blows over. I think we're both stuck in the same situation." His voice is blotchy, punctuated with the spent release of horror, minted with paranoia like a resonating wire, but he straightens his form, assuming some level of modest decency. It wouldn't do any good to be perceived as rude by someone who appeared as genuinely lost in the environment of Paralia as him. "My name's Shinji, by the way. Shinji Ikari. I'm sorry for scaring you."
(WHAT'S WRONG WITH RUNNING AWAY FROM REALITY IF IT SUCKS?)
It was only a matter of time. Even when downplaying the surging fear and getting sidetracked by the marginally inconsequential issues that assumed the form of his life, there was always the inevitable, triggering snap, and he'd blown the gasket on his acclimatization for mental disturbances. A short fuse. To look ahead, and ahead once again, and ahead once more, to see — himself.
Staring back.
There is a train that hurtles sidelong, impassively, with no destination or regards for the fledgling hopes and fears of a particularly sad child with sadder eyes, utterly convinced that vindication's only a concept. Shinji cursorily glances at him, then past him — at the unchanging twilight seeping into the boxcar through osmosis, staining the seats, their shivering forms in dying, melted shades of orange (the color of rotting apricots, sweet and at once sickening).
"Who are you?" he asks the sad, reed-thin child in a caricature of him at five years old sitting across the passenger seats, hands shivering over his kneecaps.
(Who are you?)
The answer reverberates. Leliel is nothing but a misnomer at that point; the boy sitting in front of him is at once himself and not, a contortion of truth that ripples along the walls and pierces the veneer of autonomy. Shinji glances up at the ceiling.
He raises his head again and again, making an honest-to-god endeavor to direct his gaze past his elongating shadow. "Shinji Ikari. That's me."
(I'm you. Everyone has another self within them. Two figures make one individual.)
"Two?"
(The one seen by others and the one who's looking at them. There are many Shinji Ikaris. The one in your mind, the one in Misato Katsuragi's mind, the one in Asuka Soryu's mind, the one in Rei Ayanami's mind, and the one in Gendo Ikari's mind. Each of them are different, but they're all Shinji Ikari.
You're concerned about the Shinji Ikari in other peoples' minds.)
It's all collateral damage. The brightness of the sun settling across the expanse of his vision is exorbitantly painful, a localized region of blindness where he squints and squeezes his eyes shut, but can't detract from the smearing red staining the back of his eyelids.
"I don't want others to hate me." Shinji shies away from his open admission, guilt ensuing the silence in a sieve, because disappointment and failure are synonymous to people who have never discerned a difference between individual value and collective effort.
(You don't want to get hurt.)
"Whose fault?" His words are engorged, sullenly lopsided excuses to scapegoat the blame onto someone else, anyone else that would take on the blame for his mottling ineptitude.
(My father's fault.)
"It was my father who abandoned me." Shinji replies with point-blank insolence certainty, transposing images of forsaken children gradually acclimating to years of betrayal. And then, when left with no ensuing answer, continues without fanfare.
"It's my fault."
Asuka, irascible and despicably intimate, a serrated knife against the flesh that sings: You tend to think you're wrong. That's so self-destructive!
"I'm useless."
Misato, pitying and disconsolate, a distortion of duty and cloying loneliness: You think you're useless, right?
SLAP.
He reels back from Rei Ayanami's backhand demonstration, cheek stinging with the state of the human condition, empathy for others even as her voice remains bitterly monotone.
Rei, honest and composed, expression bleeding with perfidious hope and stringent emptiness, all at once: Don't you trust your father?
"I think I hate him, but I'm not sure now."
Gendo, the profile of his back a silhouette in the montage of his mental psyche: Well done, Shinji.
"Father called my name. Father praised me."
(So you want to live with that happiness.)
Shinji doesn't flinch, doesn't even react to the change in narrative psychoanalysis by anything other than a spasmodic twist of his fingers, curling inwards, always curling inwards and never articulating himself as he means to, as a form of livelihood instead of merely going through the motions. "If I trust his words, I can live."
(By deceiving yourself ... ?)
"Everyone's the same. Everyone lives by doing that." His defiance is acutely defensive, and even as he bolts upright, he shies back, his body in warring conflict.
(If you don't believe you're doing right, you can't live.)
"There are too many hardships for me to live in my world." Ikari retorts, lapsing back and staring away, anywhere that isn't marginally occupied by the sad-eyed child who mocks him with every parenthetical notion of sympathy.
(For example: you can't swim?)
"Humans aren't born to float." Black-and-white concepts of good and bad are detrimental to piloting an EVA or earning his father's approval; he can take a plane or a boat or don a life vest and achieve the same result. Two sides of the same coin.
(It's self-deception.)
"Whatever you want to call it!" Hateful, hateful, hateful.
(You've closed your eyes and shut your ears to unpleasant matters.)
Kensuke, reluctantly responding to his query about Toji and why he'd resorted to brutish ferocity, to pummeling fistfights with the Third Child: In that incident, his sister was —
Misato again, abrasive, her displeasure grating on his ears, spindling nails on a chalkboard: It doesn't MATTER what others think!
Gendo again, facing him now, clear as day, the light around him a filtering halo: Go home.
Shinji violently curls into himself, hands clamped over his ears, and screams.
"NO, I DON'T WANT TO HEAR IT!"
(See, you're running away again. You can't live by spinning only a thread of happiness.)
To: Shinji
From: Carlos
Message:
Oh not long at all. Unless you have a lot to say which seems unlikely given the nature of the test
The link is here! ( link ) Thanks again Shinji!
[ sms ]: /Erm./ It was no big deal.
[ sms ]: You always seem to have an answer for everything, so I'm happy I was able to assist but
[ sms ]: what is this research for? Is it important w/r/t class or is it some research you're doing on your own maybe??
It made no sense! The day before had the same ordinary passage, but upon waking, Aichi had discovered himself in someone else’s house. At least, that what it seemed to be. His most important possessions were there; phone, wallet - what he needed for survival, yet…
This landscape wasn’t Kairos. He’d heard of Paralia, but never taken the opportunity to visit it. Somehow, this fitted the descriptions. But how did he get there? What would someone gain by sneaking in, removing him from home in his sleep and transferring him to their dwelling?
That superstition was quickly quelled upon checking online at the local news - apparently, numerous others had reported the swap. As if the two cities had been completely reversed!
He was eager to find out the cause, to understand the meaning behind all of this. And there were ulterior motives he had for wanting to get back to Kairos. But in sprinting to the station, he’d discovered the transfer was impossible. Apparently, according to the news feed on his phone, every way back was suffered the same.
Retreating towards the shore, his thoughts were scrambled. It wasn’t as though he disliked Paralia; far from it, this tranquil setting was quite pleasant, but there was an anxious want to get back. A pedestrian ahead was the first that he’d been at a slow enough pace to encounter other than racing by.
There aren't many ways to interpret mass abduction, but if he's begrudging the pilfered arguments of half-skimmed consciousness and a sentience only found in somnolent sheep, then the real kicker is the scathing nightmare percolating in his consciousness, a feint from wakefulness in lieu of a hyperrealistic delusion. His derision ricochets in folds, and he finds his awareness in intervals. Registering the bed beneath him first arrives first, the rumpled inexactness of textured fabric with the consistency of distended loaves of his bread, and the world segues into clarity in degrees. Past the lackluster pulse of his heart keeping time through palpitations, the perturbation instantly quadruples upon assessing a patterned tile ceiling that doesn't even bear a marginal resemblance to his home.
The world abruptly segues into clarity, and wrenching himself to his feet, Shinji doggedly avoids his knees buckling by the width of degrees and uses one side of the bedpost as leverage, and bewilderingly glancing around, then — slinging his backpack onto his shoulders, he veers down the stairs and out the entrance, leaving the door ajar. There were small mercies for being left his school uniform and the few accommodations left in his backpack, but he wouldn't be paying any residual veneer of deference to the kidnapper for the grievances accrued for unlawful seize-and-capture.
Staring down the kitschy tableau of undulating hills and verandas decked out in the viscera of potted plants (leaves like exposed veins, green tendrils akin to seeping organs) his eyebrows knit up in concentration and he abruptly veers to the other side of the street, only to be right on the dot for a punctually face-to-face encounter with a stranger harboring the same insatiable perturbation. Rocking back on his heels, he shortly exhales, shifting from foot to foot, the question of conflicted intent plastered over his features. It's no time to get sidetracked by bystanders suffering a similar conundrum, but he languishes at the traffic light all the same. In the end, Shinji's searching for an anchoring solidity to rationalize the situation when the incontrovertible facts he's deciphered thus far skim along the intangible.
"... No, I don't. I'm sorry. I was hoping you had some idea about the quickest route back to Kairos? I-I can't stay here. I've got to — I really do need to leave. Do you know a way out of Paralia?"
He’s pleased with the reaction he gets and returns it with a closed lip smile that stretches across his face, he feels oddly content for some reason or another. “I suppose you could say I visit often. I stop by it after school on occasion to sort my things and sometimes I’ll bring the younger siblings around with the dog when the weather is nice.” It sounds oddly domestic, something that Kaworu paid no attention to until it’s spoken out loud. He’s not even family oriented, but he likes smaller children and most animals, so maybe that’s why. “We should hang out more, I think. I do enjoy talking to you to at school. That is, if you don’t mind of course.”
Shinji does things that sometimes make Kaworu confused, but never questioned them. Why curl away when your ideas are definitely being listened to and taken into account? Kaworu wants to pat his back and let Shinji know that he can talk all he wants and every word will be listened to. He leaves the boy be though, hands curled loosely in his lap and mind processing what was said. “I don’t like being angry, it makes me tired and I never tend to think straight when I’m upset. I don’t understand how some people can be angry all the time. It’s harder to enjoy things with a frown on your face. It’s easier doing things for my own benefit, just like it’s easier being calm rather than angry.” In a fleeting thought he wonders if that makes him lazy or borderline uncaring, but doesn’t want to place either label on himself. To him, selfish sounds better than lazy and Kaworu finds himself to be quite selfish at times.
“Even if the teacher did ask, I’d more than likely say no.” there is no fear of playing in front of others which would make him deny the request, but more so the fact that he prefers playing to himself. He doesn’t mind people listening, not recognizing their presence until he was a good few steps away from the instrument. (Music is such a consuming aspect he’d be content with being alone with just a piano as company.) “The orchestra plays beautifully, but I’d rather experience it from the outside. The most I could probably do is a duet with someone. Also two things, Ikari-kun.” He breaches the code of personal space, albeit slightly, upper body leaning closer to the brunet because words tend to be taken into more account if he pops the metaphorical personal bubble that so many people tend to have. Kaworu doesn’t have one and pays very little attention to the ones that others have. “One, we play two extremely different instruments, give me a cello and I’ll probably falter and hold something wrong. Two, I’m sure anyone can play well if they’d done so for long enough. Routine is the same as practice to me. You play wonderfully, so have more faith in yourself.”
The word admirable catches him off guard, any words that he even thought about saying now dead in the middle of throat. Red eyes blink owlishly and it probably seems odd being the only splash of color on his body. A few seconds are taken for the teen to get his composure back and he shakes his head, leaning until back comes into contact with the hard wood of the bench. “I’m not kind or admirable.” He shrugs his shoulders, because he really isn’t, or doesn’t think he is. He could have turned out a thousand and one different ways, but chose a personality that melded to his skin and made him feel like himself. He likes people well enough, but in a way where he’d rather see them struggle and figure something out themselves than aid them each time they hit a hard spot. He’s made people cry and get angry before, but everyone seems to forget those cases. Shinji more than likely isn’t even referring anything akin to that anyway, but it’s better to get it out of the way before hopes get too high.
“I do apologize for embarrassing you though. It wasn’t my intention, but I do mean every word that I said.” Someone once said that Kaworu lacked a filter between his mind and mouth and even if he did have one, it barely did the job. It doesn’t bother him however, nor has he ever bothered with fixing it. Lying never helps and bending the truth takes too much work. It’s easier to just say how he feels so nothing becomes questioned. There’s a method to how and why he does the things he does, one that people have yet to properly notice.
"It sounds nice. I'm sure they appreciate it." Even casual domesticity is a foreign concept to Shinji Ikari. For as far back as he can recall, he's always been shuffled off to the care of his uncle and aunt with varying degrees of ambivalence, from point-blank neutrality to mild consternation, and his presence was always generally unwelcome in their household. Their children were brighter than Shinji, regardless; athletic and rambunctiously peppy, taking front and center for affection while he retained his fixture at the fringe of attention. Whatever remained of his mother, if anything, remained under the jurisdiction of his father, who'd never thrown anything more than a detached stare. But now that their conversation had taken familial connotations, even Kaworu must've been welcome with his relatives, enough that they held regular outings to the park as a pastime, not an obligation.
With loneliness crowding him in on all sides, Kaworu's off-handed comment leaves his disposition eddying like a shaken snow globe, the emotions knotting up in his throat as if he's swallowed a lungful of glass. It couldn't have meant anything much to Nagisa, as he didn't circumspectly appear perturbed with personal contact (it was quite the opposite), but the nuances of his statement alone leave Ikari at a loss for words. Sheepishly, he rubs the nape of his neck, his embarrassment hitting a crescendo and leaving an itching rash over whatever remained of his composure. "I wouldn't mind. ... Ah, I mean — I like talking to you too. You always have interesting things to say." There's no hint of dishonesty when it comes to Kaworu's slightly philosophical spiels bordering on existentialism, just enough to make him consider hypotheticals free from the constraining doctrine of normality everyone typically operated by.
"I think I understand. Still, I think it takes a lot of willpower to remain calm, especially when it's easier to just get upset." There'd been countless times Shinji lost his temper — contrary to popular belief, he didn't remain placid 24/7, but turned to his cello as a sort of constructive outlet — a way to vent the surplus of heady exasperation and self-loathing that had become quintessential to his character. He never demonstrated that aspect to anyone else, but just because it remained latently dormant didn't mean Shinji was ignorant of frustration and its homogeneous derivatives. "Mm. Music is a universal language, so I think you would do just as well if someone accompanied your performances." If Kaworu's talent was established, there wasn't any doubt that he'd racked up the renowned esteem he deserved, being a veritable prodigy on several instruments besides the piano, although the latter seemed to be his preferential choice.
Abruptly starting at the other boy's comment, Shinji flusters through a myriad tableau of emotional conflict, effectively stunned out of his wits. "That's — ... you've heard me play?" The second Kaworu sidles marginally closer, Shinji seizes up. His fingers grapple onto the bench on either side of his legs with an excessive amount of perturbation, but oddly enough, he retains his ground. "Thank you for saying so, Kaworu-kun. It's one of the few things I'm alright at, so it would be a huge loss of time that I spent on lessons if I couldn't play well enough to keep up with everyone else." Meekly shaking his head, Shinji scrabbles through his discombobulated mental state, fishing about to articulate his gratitude at a recognition lobbed straight out of left field. "Ah, no, don't apologize ... ! It just surprised me. I wasn't aware you had such a high opinion of me. I haven't done anything that's worth anyone's recognition like that."
As the sun continues receding along the horizon, the time for an incoming curfew remained stationary in his mind. Nagisa indisputably had a family waiting for his arrival — he distinctly a polar opposite from Ikari in that regard, who had no one to answer to, perpetually arriving in a house that lacked a mother's touch or a father's guidance. As the only child, nights at home were typically spent alone. With the compulsion for a a change from the lackluster monotony of another evening spent in alienation, he visibly straightens and solidifies his gaze on Kaworu. "Please forgive me for being so forward, but are you busy tonight? I know we've got school tomorrow, so you probably have homework to do, but — we could study for the history test later this week if you're already finished with it. If it isn't an intrusion on your time. Or anything." Finishing lamely, Shinji automatically ducks his head away, shoulders tucked in and eyes turned downcast. "I'm sorry. You aren't obligated to. Just if you and your family wouldn't mind."
To: {randomly selected contact}
From: Carlos
Message:
Hi, I'm conducting a study on bad ways of gathering data.
Would you be interested in filling out a survey?
Thanks for your time
[ sms ]: Did you leave your locker open?
[ sms ]: If it fell out then the janitor might've mistakenly placed it in another locker. And
[ sms ]: I
[ sms ]: do not. Um. I could get you some assistance from the staff if it would help?
With the finals winding to academic fruition and a duration of his time spent nose-deep in the stale cartography of textbooks and practice manuals, his time's divided between parsing chemical equations and crumpling up the vestigial wads of old homework assignments to lob at the trash bin. The AC sputters on with the tenacity of a lawn mower, inhaling dry air and exhaling reprocessed oxygen as a mechanical beast of burden one good rap from dying. His sense of agency's rational enough to switch it off mid-falter and wedge one musty window open in a show of good faith for electronic appliances everywhere.
On whatever bundle of nerves induces cathartic impulse for menial chores is beyond him, but nevertheless, Shinji takes five on the studying track marathon to clean. Crouching along the floor, his knees smear with static and carpet burn, his fingers snatching around doodads and knick-knacks accumulating in surplus beneath his bed and swiping loose change under the mattress.
Springtime is as exuberant as ever, but the seasons melt in mass exodus and he's left vaguely unsatisfied on the precipice of summer. It's just another year halfway through it's cycle, already worth its weight in pyrite. As fool's gold for the particularly nostalgic, sentimentality came with an expiration date, but he wasn't on the acting on the expectation of dredging up family heirlooms.
Ikari's father threw away everything, leaving recollections solely to the volition of the heart. He's scratching out the old tags stickered onto a ragtag traveling suitcase with his index finger, when a flash of fabric brightness catches in his periphery, the object itself folded up and propped neatly against a scruffy pair of tennis shoes that have nondefinitively seen better days.
Shinji tentatively reaches out.
It starts like this.
He is so very young.
The straw hat falls past his eyes, obscuring his view. With his shirt bunching up at the nape of his neck, he's twisted this way and that to straighten out his disheveled appearance with no avail. The sandals are definitely busted, or maybe faulty, with the way they keep slipping off his feet. The cicadas hum intermittently, the somnolent buzzing of low-happening days encapsulated in the near-cloudless sky, the sun like a shining beacon.
He's learned about that in class, too — that the lemon-yellow drop of gold swung lazily in the sky helps all the trees and grasses and flowers to grow. All of them point heavenward toward it, and Shinji — Shinji, at the height of four years old, wobbily rocks back and forth on his cooling heels, stretching his arms up until his elbows pop.
The sky is wide and endless, depthless enough to drown him, but Shinji will persevere. Maybe he'll grow as well in the sun! So cool. It would be wonderful to be so strong, so brave, so tall. He'd be able to go anywhere he pleased, free as a bird, answering only to himself. But such willful thoughts subside as his mother snaps the umbrella she was idling twirling shut and bends down beside him, willowy legs bent beneath her sundress.
She is so very kind.
His mother is the most beautiful lady in the world, for sure. Her eyes are almond-shaped and her hair fractures softly and her laughter is flyaway wind chimes in a greenhouse made entirely of glass (sparkly and bursting with light, reflecting the entire world). Unwaveringly enough, any mild slipknots of anxiety or tangled dregs of self-consciousness immediately ebb away at her smile. She clasps both hands around his wrist warmly.
Slowly, ever so slowly, they link pinkie fingers like a sworn oath, and he blinks confusedly at his sweet mother whom he loves with his entire heart.
Her voice is like water vapor, drawn out in whispering empathy and abruptly dissipating in the wind. He strains his eardrums to hear her speak.
"Never forget ...
... the promise we made ...
... whatever happens from here on.
... You will be the one who ..."
His voice cracks to respond.
With one small, punctuated gasp he leans too far into the hyperrealism; he lands on the carpet with a particularly leaden thump, staring blankly up at the ceiling for a long, long time. The shock is slow-bidden. Between his clammy palms are a lab coat, the standard type of sartorial attire more befitting of a doctor, or perhaps a scientist, than to a teenager childishly swiping at his eyelids like it'll halt the prickling tears. The condensing memory incurs misunderstanding.
Shinji has no recollections of his mother, after all. She died long before anything like lulling compassion or homespun affection could become anything like a ritual. There are no photographs because his father threw them all away, begrudged his son the right to remember. For far too many times he's sought out to find the love for his mother in his father's eyes and seen only brittle emptiness, letting the ghost of her be his own, solitary secret.
Arbitrarily hollow, he carefully, carefully re-folds the coat (horribly shuddering hands, every ligament shaking) and stows it away in the bottommost drawer of the bureau, closes it shut, and slumps back against it, knob digging into his spine. How strange.
