"I... I should have kissed her."
"Who?"
"Rei. I should have kissed Rei."
"Who's Rei?"
“Rei… Ayanami.”
“That name doesn’t ring any bells.”
I was in therapy again. The fourth doctor in the last six years. I was on my back, staring at another unfamiliar ceiling. I was lying there telling my life’s story to a woman whom I had never before met, who I expected to listen to me.
“Tell me more about this… Rei.”
Rei… I hadn’t thought of her much before this session. Misato? Sure. Asuka? More so than I cared. But Rei didn’t seem to be on my mind much anymore.
“Rei was… she was…”
And suddenly, I didn’t know how to begin to tell this person about Rei. Oh, I could tell her that she’d been a fellow Eva pilot, this woman definitely had the security clearance to hear about that. I often believed that these psychologists had been hired by S.E.E.L.E. to get me out of this rut, and back into the seat of the Eva, so that I could fight their wars for them.
“Rei… Ayanami.” I said her name out loud, to myself mostly. “Rei Ayanami. She was a fellow pilot, but more than that. And less. A specter who, incapable of dreaming her own dreams, readily invaded mine. And I, unable to stop myself from dreaming, readily awaited her every visit.”
“… sounds to me like you were in love with this girl.”
Was… was I ever in love with Rei? I had never stopped to think about that possibility before now! I… I could have been in love.
“Rei wasn’t your normal girl. She was… different.”
“Different? How so?”
Great… I dug myself into another hole. The fact that Rei was created? That was beyond classification. That would put me in the loony bin for sure.
“Inside the empty shell of each Eva is a human soul. But the only vessel that can hold a soul is Rei! These things are empty husks. They have no souls, no right to live.”
That night… that night that I learned what Rei really was… I didn’t know what to do after that. I couldn’t face her; I was too afraid. Knowing what she was, I wouldn’t know how to face her, how to act around her.
“I… can’t really say how she was different. It was beyond the scope of personality. It was deeper… to her very being she was different.”
“Oh, c’mon, Shinji. You can tell me. I’m your doctor.”
“Don’t give me that… you’re my doctor, sure. You’re the fourth ‘psych’ I’ve had since the incident with Kaworu! You’re the fourth to hear my story, and the fourth to ACT like you care, but you forget that I, still being young, can better perceive what’s going on here. You’re here because you’re PAID to be here! You don’t really care!”
I was no longer on my back. Rather, I was sitting up, putting on my shoes and looking for my jacket. I was getting ready to leave. I was tired of this bull… I was tired of relating everything that was my history, and getting nothing but rehearsed answers and expensive prescriptions in return.
“Shinji.”
THAT caused me to stop. My other psychologists… the others that I had exploded at… they had gotten mad. They had stomped and swore, hastily scribbled out their prescriptions and all but shoved me out the door. But this woman was calm. Centered. Controlled.
“Shinji.”
“What.”
“You’re right. I’m paid to be here. But I am interested in what you have to say. I am interested in getting to the bottom of the things going through your head.”
“If you were interested, you wouldn’t pretend like you didn’t know what the hell I was talking about. You already know about Rei. The spark in your eye whenever I say her name gives it away.”
“Okay, Shinji. You’re right, I do know who Rei Ayanami is. What I don’t know is how she was different from you. So lay back down and tell me everything I need to know, and maybe we can get to the bottom of this… and determine whether or not you really were in love with this girl.”
Love… what did I know about love? The first time I ever really talked with Rei, she slapped me. I said one bad thing about my father and she slapped me as hard as she could across my face, saying I should have faith in the very man that never wanted to have anything to do with me until he ‘found a use for me.’ And I very nearly hated her for that, but as I got to know her…
“Rei… Ayanami.” I said the name again, to familiarize myself.
“Rei Ayanami. Tell me about her.”
Deep breath… in through the nose, out through the mouth.
“Rei Ayanami. I was 14 when I met her first… when the first angel since the Second Impact appeared and waged war on Tokyo-3. I… had been summoned to the Geo Front by Genji Ikari, my… my father. To this day I really, really don’t know why I came here. I could have ignored the order and stayed with my old teacher. I really hated that man…
“I was standing in front of Evangelion Unit 01... The angel was waging war on the city… I was apparently taking too long to decide whether I would pilot Eva or not. My father… my father rendered me ‘no good’ and called for Rei. I heard him make the order for her to ‘do it again,’ which I assumed meant pilot the Eva.
“They rolled her out onto the platform in front of the Eva… she was injured. Some kind of accident less than a week prior to my arrival. I felt so much hatred for my father, and so much sympathy for this girl… and then the angel struck the Geo Front with its weapon, and the stretcher she was on tipped over in the resulting shaking.
“The Eva activated itself to protect me, but that wasn’t on my mind… the first thing I did when the shaking stopped was run over to where this Rei was lying on the ground. I helped her up… and my hand… my hand was all… bloody. It was her blood. She was lying there, bleeding and injured, and HE wanted her to pilot it?
“I made up my mind to pilot the Eva right then and there… made up my mind because of her… because of Rei.”
It had been years since I thought about that incident. The first time I had ever met the Eva. The first time I had ever met Misato. The first meeting with my father since I had run away. And the first time I ever laid eyes on the girl named… Rei.
“So, you piloted Eva to protect her.”
“Yes.”
“Did she ever thank you for that?”
“I never told her. I wasn’t looking for thanks or recognition. In fact, by the time I had recovered enough to tell her… it never really came to my mind.”
That was pretty much the truth… she stayed in the hospital recovering from her injury for a good couple more weeks before I was ever able to talk to her anyway.
“Did you two ever talk about anything privately?”
“Privately?”
“Yes. Were you ever alone together?”
That incident… giving Rei her upgraded ID card… I think I’ll avoid that one.
“Well… I talked to her once while headed into a training session… I told her how much I hated and distrusted my father, and she slapped me. I don’t think she liked me very much after that.”
“And how did you feel about her after that incident?”
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t know, or you don’t want to tell me?”
“I don’t know.”
I don’t know. I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t know! I should have left already!
“I think we’ll end this session and continue tomorrow evening. Thank you, Shinji.”
Thank you? Why…
“Why…”
---+---
“Do you regret not being more assertive during the Angels’ visits?”
Here I was, again, lying in this doctor’s office, telling her my deepest and darkest secrets. This session was new, a couple weeks down the road from our first meeting, and we had finally moved on from… Rei.
“What do you mean?”
She smiled. It was a fake smile, I could tell.
“Is there anything else you feel you ‘should have done’?”
I should have walked out of here that first visit, and slapped you on my way out.
I probably should have said that, but no, I laid there in silence.
“Anyone else you feel you maybe ‘should have kissed’?”
“… Asuka.”
“Asuka was the second child, correct?”
“… yeah. I probably should have tried to make a move on her, but I didn’t.”
“She intimidated you, didn’t she?”
“Kinda.”
“But you two did kiss once, didn’t you?”
Now how the hell-?
“Did you know Asuka?”
It was her time to be silent.
“I know you’re not her, even though I haven’t seen her in years. You don’t look anything like her. She was a spicy redhead, and the way her personality drove her, it’s almost guaranteed she would have never changed her hair.”
Again, silence on the other side of the couch.
“How the fuck did you know her?”
I admit, I was assuming things, but there wasn’t much I could do with the doctor sitting there silent, trying to avoid my question and twiddling her thumbs.
“How… the HELL… did you KNOW HER!?”
Obviously, I was yelling by now. I had sat upright and was yelling and pointing in the doctor’s face, and she just sat there with that plastic smile.
Silence. Endless silence. I’m pretty sure we sat there staring at each other for a good five minutes, my face red with anger, her face red with the effort it took to hold up that idiotic smile.
And then, she answered.
“I think she was intimidated by you.”
I was dumbstruck. I laid back down and stared back at the ceiling. The… unfamiliar ceiling.
“Cowards don’t have the ability to intimidate people.”
“So you think you’re a coward.”
I scoffed.
“I know I’m a coward.”
“How?”
I shook my head.
“How do you know you’re a coward?”
“How about, when I’m afraid of something, I get mad at it? When I don’t understand something, I get mad at it. When I feel that I’m misunderstood, I distance myself from people. When I’m in danger, when I’m mad at myself or upset, when I feel absolutely worthless, or when there’s only one thing that can be done and I’m the only one that can do anything, instead of trying to do the best I can, I hide and cry out for people to save me! I’m a coward!”
“You’re not distancing yourself now. You’re talking to people.”
“I’m talking to you. You’re not people. Doctors aren’t people.”
“If doctors aren’t people, then what are they?”
It was my turn to be silent again.
“I think she was intimidated by you. I think they both were.”
Both?
“One, I don’t think anyone could have intimidated Asuka. Two, I don’t know what you mean by ‘both.’ Three, you still haven’t told me how you know Asuka.”
“Both, Shinji. Both Asuka and Rei. I think they were both intimidated by you.”
Rei… Ayanami.
Full circle, it always came back to… Rei.
“You’re wrong. I was intimidated by them, not the other way around.”
“So you think that explains your cowardice?”
“The fact that I was intimidated by them and couldn’t speak much around them? Isn’t it obvious?”
“Fear of someone, or being intimidated by them, doesn’t automatically mean you’re a coward.”
That was new.
“A true coward wouldn’t regret being intimidated. They’d still be intimidated by the mere memory of the person.”
“How do you know I’m not still intimidated by their memory?”
“Because you regret not kissing them. Because they’re still on your mind as more than a memory after all these years. Because you still want to kiss them. ”
“Tell you what… lemme want in one hand and shit in the other, and I’ll tell you which one fills up faster, okay? Just because I want it, it doesn’t mean it’s gonna happen. Even if somehow I’m given the chance.”
“Things are easier said than done, Shinji. It’s easy to say now that you may or may not do something when given the chance, but you don’t really know unless you get the chance.”
“I know that!” Hesitation. “… I had the chance to kiss Asuka once, when she wasn’t expecting it, and I passed it up.”
“Why?”
Silence.
“Why, Shinji?”
“ … because I realized she’d never be interested in a coward like me. A coward who had to wait until she was asleep to make a move on her.”
“Maybe that’s what she wanted… to be taken by complete surprise.”
More silence.
“Maybe she wanted to intimidate some aggressiveness into you.”
Silence. And… a memory.
‘Get mad, Shinji! Get mad! Attack me, hurt me! KILL ME! It’s always yes and no with you… you’re a man! Act like one!’
She approached me with a fury, grabbed me by the shirt, and pushed me backwards into the table, knocking it over and breaking the coffee pot. Of course, that would be my fault.
‘Never mind. You’re always just a fucking kid. You’ll never amount to anything.’
Something clicked. Disappointment. Sorrow. Anger. Betrayal. HATRED.
I rose. I stared at her as I rose, no emotion on my face. Some tears, but no emotion.
One step. Two steps. My arms rose. Another step. She was frozen in her tracks, watching.
Another step. My hands wrapped around her throat. I was squeezing, watching her eyes register with approval, then shock, then absolute fear. Her hands clutched at mine. She desperately tried to breathe.
And then, my hands slackened. She passed out as I let go, her unconscious body crumpling to the floor. I picked her up and carried her to her bed, then returned to clean up the broken glass.
“Shinji.”
“… I think… after a while… Asuka became afraid of me.”
“Shinji.”
“I think she thought I was going to kill her.”
“Why would she think that?”
Silence, on my part.
“So she was intimidated by you.”
“Intimidation is not the same as fear. Intimidation can lead to a deep rooted respect.”
“And fear cannot also lead to respect?”
“Surface respect. Fear leads to respect on the shell, but a deep sense of loathing and… regret.”
“Regret isn’t always stemmed from fear, Shinji.”
“I…”
I hesitated. Another memory. One I don’t care to recollect.
“Is there anything else you regret, Shinji? Anything related to Asuka or Rei?”
I hesitated. Silence.
“Anything you wish to apologize for?”
Deep breath. In. Out. In. Out.
“Regret sometimes means you missed an opportunity to repent for your sins against another.”
“… I regret being a coward.”
“What makes you a coward?”
Didn’t we already go over this?
“I told you already.”
“I think there’s something you’re not telling me.”
“I think we’re done.”
“I think you’ll regret not telling me.”
“I told you, I think we’re done.”
“I think you’re being a coward now. You’re trying to run away.”
I mustn’t run away. I mustn’t run away.
I mustn’t run away. I mustn’t run away.
I MUSTN’T RUN AWAY!
“Shinji?”
“… while she was in the hospital… when she tried to starve herself… when she tried to kill herself…”
Silence. Respectful silence, or mocking? I couldn’t tell.
“… I… I tried to wake her up. To snap her out of the trance… I pulled too hard and she rolled over… her gown fell open.”
Still silence from the other side.
“… I’d never seen such beauty.”
“You loved her, didn’t you? You loved her on the same level that you loved Rei.”
“Love.”
“You’re saying you still love them? Even though you’re afraid of them?”
“I’m not afraid of them. I’m a coward towards them.”
“I’m afraid I don’t understand, Shinji.”
“I masturbated at the sight of Asuka’s open gown! All over my hand and all over her chest I shot… and when I could have told her about it, when I could have admitted my cowardice and failure, I held back. When I could have admitted my love, I held back. When I could have finally GOTTEN OVER my cowardice towards her, I HELD BACK!”
Silence.
“… and now I’ll never get the chance to tell her anything.”
Silence.
We both sat in silence.
And then…
“I’m not supposed to tell you, but Asuka’s another patient, Shinji.”
Again, we both sat quietly.
“Silence is loud.”
She stared at me, her mouth open slightly.
“… I think I’m done for today.”
“Goodbye then, Shinji. I think we made some good progress today. Until next meeting.”
---+---
"Eighty six degrees. I can't believe it's still eighty six degrees! Every day!" I sat back with a huff, and crossed my arms.
She looked at me with a puzzled look. "Asuka, you know as well as I do that Second Impact threw our climates for a loop."
I sighed. "I know, I know, but still. As long as it's been, you'd think we'd see more than just an everlasting summer. Is it too much to ask to see some snow around here?" I uncrossed my arms, and laid back on the lounge chair. "Constant heat, constant humidity, almost unpredictable rain patterns... I might as well not even fool with my hair anymore. It's like since I came back here, I've gone from the red-headed stepchild to the curly red-headed stepchild. I can't remember how I managed to keep my tresses straightened back... when I was a child."
She smiled. I hated that smile, it always signaled a change of subject. "You get used to it. And speaking of your childhood, are you ready to talk about it?" Just as I thought.
"Talk about my childhood?" I cocked my head sideways, giving her a look of mock confusion. "Whatever do you mean, doctor?" I scoffed. "There's nothing to talk about. I was a child, my mother killed herself, I became independent. I didn't need anyone but myself."
That damned smile never left her face. "I've read your files, Asuka."
"Files? What-"
"I've seen your diary. I've seen journals that NERV copied to keep tabs on you. For an independent little girl, you sure did seem to want to gain the affection, attention, and adoration of quite a few males. Almost like you were looking for a mate."
I don't think she noticed my glare. Or she was ignoring it, just scribbling away at her little clipboard. "What's your point, doctor?" That last word hissed from my mouth, like acid eating away at a metal cage.
Her scribbling stopped, and she looked up at me. "For an independent girl, you seemed quite intent on finding someone to depend on."
Silence. That awkward silence that fills the room when two people are talking, and one says something to the other that seems to pry into a space that they're not meant to pry into. That silence was permeating every nook and cranny of the woman's office, and it was all her fault. She gazed upon me with a look that spoke not of understanding, but of prying; a look that screamed, 'I will understand you, whether you want me to or not!'
The silence lasted for a good five minutes before she spoke again. "Who was Kaji, to you?"
The question caught me off-guard. It pried into the deepest, darkest, most repressed corners of my mind, grabbed a handful of the shiest emotions, and pulled them forth; my eyes began to water, but I shook them dry again.
"Didn't we go over this already, during a previous session? I told you who Kaji was-"
"You told me why you wanted him, yes, but you never explained who he was to you. There's a difference between wanting someone to be someone to you, and what that person actually is to you."
Scribble, scribble.
Deep breath. I closed my eyes, forcing myself to answer, though deep inside I really didn't want to. "Kaji..." I paused, looking for the right words. Even after all these years, I still struggled with some Japanese phrases. "Kaji was my guardian... no. He was my guidance. He was the person I looked up to, who encouraged me to be everything that I could be. He offered wisdom when I could find none, logic when everything seemed illogical." I sniffled, fighting back tears. Even after all these years, I missed him. "He was my role model. He was my friend."
I looked up, and she was handing me a tissue. I accepted the tissue and blew my nose softly.
"Did you know about any of his... alternate activities? The things he did, playing traitor to NERV?"
I took another deep breath, calming myself. "Yes, I did. But I kept that knowledge to myself, even from him."
The look on her face was thoughtful. "And even though you held this knowledge, you wanted him to be your lover... your mate, if I may. Even though you knew that if he was eventually found out, it was guaranteed that he would be killed."
"That was part of why I wanted him to love me. I thought that maybe, just maybe if I could be his lover, I could get him to abandon his activities and then there'd be no more risk of me losing him." I laughed, in spite of my emotions. "But he didn't want me. I wasn't old enough, wasn't developed enough for him. Wasn't experienced enough. He preferred that... that..." I was at a loss for words. I didn't know what to call...
"Miss Katsuragi?"
I huffed. "Yes. Her." I stared at my hands. "I guess I never forgave her for stealing my Kaji. At least, that's what I thought she had done." I sighed. "From the moment I set foot in Japan and started at school, I was the most popular girl. It's something I was used to; being the most talked about, the prettiest, the most lusted after. But the boys at that school, and pretty much all around me, never gave me the kind of attention that they gave her.
"I saw the way they all ogled at her, the way most of them stammered when she asked them a question, their rush to attention when she walked into a room or knocked on a door. I wanted to be respected like that. I wanted to be the object of males' desires the way that she was. I was jealous, mostly. Jealous that she could make boys behave like idiotic fools just by walking into a room.
"Well, most boys..."
This time it was her face that showed confusion, but it was genuine. "Most...?"
"Perhaps it came from living with her, but Shinji didn't act like the remainder of his gender around her. Granted he didn't ogle me that way, either, but he seemed to respect me more than he did her. I dunno, maybe respect isn't the right word here." I sighed.
"There was once a test we all had to do that required the three of us to be naked inside our plugs in our EVAs. We had gone through heaven knows how many showers before we had to walk through a white room, completely naked, to get to our plugs. I threw a fit about it, but secretly I wanted to be watched by the Third. I wanted him to peek at my form, and admire me, even though I knew he'd never do it. And he'd never admit to it even if he did peek."
"So the air of independence you kept about you was a ruse. An act, if you will, correct?"
I stared at her. "No. All I had was myself, and it was all I needed. But no matter how independent one becomes, one always wishes to have followers and admirers. I didn't want someone to fall back on; I wanted someone to take the fall for me, so that I didn't have to fall and depend on someone to help me stand back up."
"You know what they say, Asuka; pride comes-"
"- before the fall. Yes, I know that saying well." Another deep breath.
"Well, if you could go back and do it all again, is there anything you would change?"
I thought about the question for a moment. "Knowing what I know now, or only knowing the outcome?"
"Only knowing the outcome."
"If only knowing the outcome meant that I could change it, I wouldn't do anything. Things were bad, and the trials were horrible, but everything came out right in the end."
She smiled. "And if knowing how it ended meant that you could only change the acts within the story, but the story's ending stayed the same?"
"I... I wouldn't be so mean to the Third. I would have treated him as an equal, rather than an underling."
"And Kaji? What about him?"
"What about him?" I sighed. "I wouldn't pursue him so hard. If at all, really... I'd probably stop fighting the feelings I held for the Third, maybe even act on them."
"Well, Asuka, I-"
"I wish I could apologize..." I whispered, though not low enough. She stopped in the middle of her sentence.
"What was that?"
"Nothing, nothing." I shook my head.
"Well, I think we've made some excellent progress today, Asuka. What do you say to another session in a couple weeks?"
I rose from my seat. "Fine, fine..." I was preoccupied with the thoughts rolling about in my head. I often left these sessions with more questions than I had when I entered the session.
"Alright then. See you in a couple weeks." She smiled.
I turned and headed out the door.
---+---
“I don’t want to be here.”
Another day, another session. It was beginning to get tiresome.
“I know you don’t. I can see it in your eyes. But you have to be here. You’ve no other choice. So why not just-”
“Just grin and bear it? Like you’ve told me from the start? Except I’m tired of grinning and I’m tired of bearing!”
I clutched my head, closing my eyes and shrinking to my knees. I curled into a little ball in an effort to let her know that I was done talking. I wasn’t the same as I was so many years ago. I don’t like confrontation. I don’t like to fight. But everything in my world becomes a fight.
I felt a touch… a gentle hand on my shoulder. Different from the sessions before. Different from the screams, the attempts to be better than I was. I’ve always been good at bringing out the worst in people.
“… you regret, don’t you?”
Regret. There was a loaded word if I had ever heard one.
“I… should have acted on my feelings.”
“What feelings?”
She never said my name. That’s the way it always went with this one. The other therapists had always been quick to use my name, to call me out in a vain and fake attempt to befriend me, and get me to open up. And when I showed them I wasn’t as easy to get into as their other patients, they shuffled me out the door with some slip of paper and a scribble of medication to try.
Medication I have never used. And will never use.
“… deeper feelings. Feelings other than pride and vanity. I cared more about my dignity than I did about the people around me, except for one.”
I took a deep breath, and sighed, then paused. “No. Two.”
I uncurled. I sat on the floor, my legs crossed, Indian-style. My hands went from my head to my lap, and I stared downwards, concentrating on an old scar on my knee.
“Were you mean to the people around you?”
It was an innocent enough question, though not the one I was expecting.
“Not really mean, per se… I put them down to keep myself up. I put them down and made them out to be lower than I was so that I wouldn’t have to think that I needed to depend on them. I had been independent the majority of my life, up until that point, and I wasn’t about to give them the chance to make me think I needed anyone but myself.”
Another sigh, another silence. An awkward silence. I could hear a barely audible scribble, as she wrote something down in her notebook.
“I treated him awful, though.”
The scribbling slowed. “Who?”
“… the Third.”
More scribbling. “How was your treatment of him any different from the treatment of the others?”
I was silent. I didn’t want to admit to it. But deeply, in the back of my mind, I knew I had to… I stayed silent anyway.
“… who was the other that you had feelings for?”
I blinked. Was I really that easy to read? I placed my hand on the ground beside me to steady myself, and swung my head around to look at her. “The other? I haven’t even told you who the first was!”
She was staring at me. It was unnerving. I was expecting her head to be down in her notebook, her eyes concentrated on the scribbles, but no… she was actually giving me the attention.
“… fine. The other was Ryoji Kaji. A man like no other. Handsome, intelligent, flirty, playful… I looked up to him like a father, like a brother… like a man. I wanted him in ways I knew I could not have him, and yet it didn’t stop me from trying.
“When I got to Japan, after the sea battle with Gaghiel and meeting the Third child and his friends, I found out that Kaji was staying in Japan too. At first, I thought it was because of me. I thought maybe my insistence that I was a grown up had finally gotten through to him, that maybe he would take a chance and love me like a grown up. Do to me all the things that grown ups do, now that we were away from Germany and out from under prying eyes…
“But I was wrong. I soon found out that he still had lingering feelings for his old girlfriend Katsuragi.”
My voice trailed off, and I sighed.
“Did you feel betrayed?”
“No… I mean, yeah, a certain part of me felt betrayed. But it was on the surface, insignificant to the big picture. I had an Eva to use, Earth to defend from the Angels. I had to prove my superiority to the other two pilots. I had to integrate myself into Japanese society, and begin to juggle Japanese school with a social life and NERV duties. I didn’t really have time to feel betrayed.
“Plus, beyond all that…” I paused, looking up at the therapist. Her eyes beckoned that I continue. “Beyond all that extra stress, there was this odd emerging feeling with the Third child. I didn’t know what it was. It was foreign to me, and though it wasn’t necessarily a bad feeling, since I didn’t know what it was, I began to fight against it.
“It started during the battle with Gaghiel, when he and I shared the same Eva to fight it. I felt his determination to beat it, and though I would have been the last to admit it, I was impressed. That feeling triggered something in the back of my mind, and in the bottom of my heart, that continued to grow after that day. I was falling for the Third child, and I was fighting that feeling because I didn’t want to depend on anyone.
“I treated him the worst. I berated him day and night. I pushed him around, intent on putting him down so that maybe I could convince myself that my feelings for him were a fluke. But the more I pushed him around, the worse I felt. Soon, I wanted to confess to him my feelings, but I just couldn’t bring myself to do so. I feared his reaction. I feared that he would reject me, but I think I feared that he would accept it even more. His acceptance would mean that I admitted I needed someone to depend on, that I would willingly depend on him, and that he would be happy to let me.”
“What’s your greatest fear?”
That question stopped me. “What do you mean? Now, or back then”
“Well, both. But let’s start with back then. What was your greatest fear?”
I thought for a moment, but I already knew the answer. “To fail. To do something on my own, with the full intent of completing that task on my own, and failing, and having to have someone else finish it.”
“Are you over that fear now?”
“Yes and no. I failed so many times over the course of attacks that you’d think I’d be accustomed to it, but I’m not. I still fear failing, but it’s a different kind of fear. I don’t fear failing and relinquishing the task to someone else. I fear failing and having nobody there to lend a helping hand.”
She nodded, scribbled something down, then looked back at me. “And is that your greatest fear now? Failing without having someone there to catch you?”
I shook my head. “No. My greatest fear now is to die alone.”
She blinked. “Alone?”
I nodded. “I don’t have anybody. I want somebody to share my life with… no. I want the Third.”
“What’s so special about the Third, Asuka?”
That question echoed in my head, and I stayed silent.
She sighed, then closed her notebook. “I want you to think about that question, and perhaps you can give me an answer the next time we talk.”
I nodded, rose, shook her hand, and headed for the door.
What is so special about the Third…?
---+---
“Good afternoon, Shinji,” she said. It was cheerful, and for once, I had an attitude to match.
“Good afternoon, ma'am.”
“You're in a good mood. Ready to have that mood ruined by another session?” The bemused tone in her voice almost completely obscured the sarcastic rhetoric of the remark. I nearly answered the poor woman, but managed to cover it with a half-hearted snicker.
“... hmm. Shinji, you've come a long way in these months since your sessions began. Today is your final session. After today, you'll be issued a clean bill of mental health.”
“That's amazing-”
“... if you can stand to talk about your father.”
“... -ly depressing!” I attempted to recover.
She set her clipboard and pencil down upon her lap and stared at me in an easily transparent show of interest. Silence permeated the room as we stared at each other, and it lingered for a full five minutes before either of us deigned it our responsibility to speak up.
“My father is dead. What is there to talk about? Any issues I haven't resolved with him can no longer be resolved through the common courtesy of closure, and history has shown that I am no good in resolving my problems through any other means.”
“Shinji, history has shown that you're no good at resolving your problems through any means,” she countered.
“My point exactly!”
“Surely there's something about him that you wish you could get off your chest.”
I sighed. “Another session filled with wishes, eh? Okay, fine, I'll humor you. I had several face-to-face confrontations with my father, and not a single one of them resulted in my favored conclusion.”
“What conclusion was that, Shinji?”
“My inward anger building large enough that it overcame my fear of him and allowed me to sock him in the jaw, and damn the consequences.”
“Violence is not the answer, Shinji.”
“I don't know about that, doctor,” I replied with the blankest face I could plaster upon my skull. “It solved our problem with the Angels rather exquisitely.”
It was her turn to be silent. Her face rang loud with feigned offense, however.
“Look. My father had his favorite and non-favorite children. His favorites just happened to be artificially created in a lab and held more usefulness in his eyes because each one was a replacement for the previous one. I suppose if one were truly desperate for paternal affection, one could say that he pushed me away to protect me from losing my life in some freak EVA-related accident, but then how does one explain his insistence that I come pilot one anyway?” I paused to take a breath.
“Maybe he-”
“... what? Maybe he 'finally had a use for me'? You sound just like him. He was a control freak with a god complex, and almost enough technology to make that a viable outcome. His only flaw (and he would agree with me on this one and only point) was that he had to use mentally unstable teenagers, ones who were close to their mothers when said mothers died in horrific circumstances, as pilots of his monstrosities because their minds were more easily connected to the creature(s) the Evangelions were built upon in the first place. If the dummy system had been more viable as a starting option, he would have left me where I was, and I would have never needed this therapy in the first place! That bastard of a man is the reason why I'm here!”
I was out of breath from my explosion. It was a conclusion I had come to many years ago, while the Angels were still attacking.
“Shinji,” she began, keeping her voice low so as not to provoke a second emotional outburst from myself, “when the dummy system didn't work, and Rei's use of Unit 01 didn't work, who was his first choice?”
“Ah, trying to appeal to me as the 'first choice' are you? That would normally work on any other patient, but not on one that was often referred to as the Third Child.”
I seemed to have finally stumped her.
“I wanted to hit him. I wanted to swing my closed fist at his face. I wanted to connect with his nose. I wanted to shatter his olfactory capabilities, and perhaps break a couple of my knuckles doing it. How dare he abandon me when I needed him the most! How dare he call for me as if I were some socket wrench sitting in his toolbox! I was not a tool to be used for his machinations! I was- no, am- a human being! I deserved to be treated as a human being! Even if I wasn't worth his attention, I was at least worth his damned respect!”
“Stop.”
I paused in my diatribe. “What?”
“Stop.”
“I heard you the first time. I mean, what for? This actually feels like it's helping!”
She laughed. “You already hit upon that which I was aiming for: respect. Do you respect yourself?”
I thought about the question. “Back then, I didn't respect myself. Well, not in any emotional capacity. I bathed regularly, I ate right, I exercised, but I closed myself off from most people in a pointless attempt to keep from failing those whom I felt I mattered to most. I felt that if I did fail, and we were all still around after I failed, they would abandon me in much the same manner as my father had.
“Now, I really only care about how I feel about myself. I've no social skills to speak of, and have reconciled with the fact that any form of relationship I might attempt to have would need to be arranged. I have a job to which I devote 90% of my self and my time, and the other 10% is divided equally between minuscule home-based hobbies, and therapy appointments. I accept that I am emotionally damaged, and respect my lifestyle choices because of it.”
She smiled. “So, no spontaneity?”
“How do you mean?”
“You can't see yourself going out to a bar, having a couple drinks, and engaging people in a social setting?”
I sighed. “The mere idea of such a scenario scares the absolute shit out of me in more ways than any Angel ever did.”
“I guess it's good, then, that your social ineptitude is something that only you can train out of yourself. You have to be willing to step outside of your comfort zones and engage other people in a public setting. Doing this on a routine basis should help you conquer your fears of failing, but you have to want it.”
I chuckled. “The only thing I truly want is the ability to go back in time to when the Angels were attacking, while retaining the knowledge I have now, and acting on some of my impulses. I always was pretty good at suppressing my impulses.”
She was still smiling. It was a genuine smile, something I had finally gotten used to since the beginning of our sessions. “Well, Shinji, I believe we're done here.”
That was odd. “Really? Kind of an abrupt ending. You really feel that there is nothing left to discuss?”
She nodded. “We have covered, closed, and concluded upon everything that I am able to help you with. Some of the biggest changes in your life are things you have to do on your own. I do have a few suggestions, though.
“Firstly, now that NERV has finally been disbanded and all of their most secret information has been released to the public consensus, I think you should write a book on your experiences with the Evangelion program as a child. Not only do I believe this will help with your closure on the events that took place, you may even be able to make enough money with it to quit your job.”
I pouted. “But I like my job.”
She shook her head. “Nobody likes a cubicle job. Writing a book will let you work from him. And I'm sure you could write volumes upon volumes of books relating to your experiences with the Evas and the Angels. I believe you would make a fine writer.”
“I'll keep your suggestion under consideration. Anything else?”
“Yes,” she continued. “This Saturday, go out and have a drink.”
“This Saturday?”
“Yes, this Saturday. Try to loosen up and mingle. It's not nearly as scary or complex as you might think, Shinji, and science knows you could use some social interaction.” She paused. “Your former roommate Katsuragi went out drinking often and look at how much social interaction she got.”
I got it. “Oh... so this is some psychologist's way of saying I need to get laid.”
“I didn't mean it like that, but if that's the only logical conclusion that you could come up with then I'll step back and let you answer for yourself.”
I gave her the most blank stare I could muster.
“Look, hermitism isn't a mutation; it's a disease. It's a chemical imbalance in the brain, and allowing that chemical imbalance to run rampant denies the very core mechanisms of the humanity upon which you have been built. In layman's terms: go out, get drunk, relax, and have some fun. And damn what anyone else thinks.”
I breathed deep, and nodded. “Anything else?”
She stood, crossed the room to her desk, and brought out a medium-sized box. It flipped open to reveal a cupcake tray, with two cupcakes sitting upon it. She picked one of the cupcakes up and brought it over to me.
“What is this for?”
“It's a cupcake.”
“I know what it is, but what is it for?”
“It's for you.”
I sighed. “I mean, what is it for? Am I celebrating something? Did I miss your birthday? Is there weed in it?”
She laughed. “The first option, Shinji. This is for a successful bout of therapy, after which you can claim you have a clean bill of health. Take it and be merry, Shinji.”
She checked the clock on her wall, and then stood and pointed me to the door. “I apologize for rushing you out this way, but I have a dentist appointment in fifteen minutes and I'd prefer to not be late. My dentist gets rather cross with me when I'm late.”
I thanked her for her help in settling the problems that she could settle, shook her hand, and exited from the room with my eyes downward, concentrating on my cupcake. That whipped peanut butter frosting on top of a swiss chocolate cake... it was absolutely the moistest thing I'd ever-
“I see your appointment went well, Third?”
I nearly jumped out of my skin, and dropped the cupcake. It's eventual settling upon the ground was of no consequence to my current predicament; indeed, in the presence of that red-haired demon princess in front of me, nothing else could garner my attention. I hurriedly wiped my mouth clean.
“Well enough, I think. How are you, Asuka?”
I looked straight at her, into her eyes, and was surprised not by what I saw in them, but by what I did not see. There was no more anger, no more self-righteous pride. Her eyes were by no means gentle, but she no longer gave off the air of a predator stalking its prey. She even ventured a genuine smile in my direction.
“I am about as well as one can expect to be, given the circumstances.” She rose to meet my eyes, and the smile never left her face. “It has been many years, Ikari. Those years have been good to you.”
I didn't know how to answer her. To be honest, I panicked. Those bright eyes of hers flashed, and I was overcome with weakness, so I did the first thing that popped into my head; I kissed her.
Then... well... that's a story for a different time.