What's this? Actual progress?
---
The air between us simmered. Of course it was Asuka’s fault. And I had to get punished for standing up for myself rather than rolling over and just accepting myself as the inferior.
She stood herself with her back to me right at the lift door, while I settled into the back of the car, one foot on the wall. Neither of us said a word to each other while the counter ticked down through the levels.
Not one single word was spoken in three-minute-long lift-ride back down to the locker room level, or the long walk back to the locker room.
Asuka kept herself ahead of me the entire time, kicking the locker room door open. I caught it with one hand before it slammed shut.
Inside the locker room, dents in the steel locker doors bore witness to how violent we’d gotten. Clumps of rusted hair mingled with strands of black on the tiled floor. Red spatters of blood had begun to turn brown.
We’d made some mess.
Asuka had to force her locker door open. Mine sprang itself open and then refused to close. I grabbed the steel frame with both my hands and bent it back straight. The steel gave off a groan of protest, followed by a hard tin drumbeat as it popped straight.
“Since when did you get so strong?”
I couldn’t tell if she was being sarcastic or not.
“I just do a lot more training.”
I decided not to add - ‘and eat a lot less snacks’. One war was enough for one day.
We both peeled ourselves out of our plugsuits. Dried LCL had turned into a thick, pink gelatinous glue that left us both standing like we’d been spurted out the sphincter of some kind of biopunk cloning machine.
At that moment I remembered exactly what lurked far beneath our feet.
Cleaning it off the body took time. It peeled like vinyl bodypaint when warmed with hot water, taking every hair I hadn’t shaved with it. Cleaning it out of my hair took care - at least, it did if I didn’t want to go bald.
I couldn’t help but start to draw comparisons between myself and Asuka while we stood in the shower separating individual strands of hair out of the glue.
Asuka had thinner, sharper features on her face, with a small nose and a few faint freckles she tried to hide with makeup when she was allowed to wear it. I’d a broader face, with a wider nose and a more natural skin tone. Her feet came to a point, mine were broader. Her hair grew wild and large, mine stayed tight and dense. She remained slim, trim and light in build, while in the space of two months I’d gone from bed-bound skin and bone, to fit, strong and toned. I’d added enough weight that we couldn’t share underwear anymore.
A moment of self satisfaction died when I remembered that, for more than one person out there, an athletic Japanese schoolgirl in uniform would be the ultimate fetish.
I could see her making the exact same comparison the entire time. We compared ourselves to each other, and were each satisfied with the result.
“I’ve never seen Misato that angry,” I said, if only to fill the silence
“You haven’t seen her jealous,” said Asuka. “After she broke it off with Kaji, every time she saw him dating another woman she’d come home fuming.”
Asuka paused a second, grimacing as she pulled a pink eel of slime out of her hair. She flicked it onto the tiles of the floor where it stuck and refused to budge. For the first time in a long time, I considered cutting my hair short just to avoid the hassle.
“She really is a jealous woman” She continued, before giving me a side eyed, leering glance. “Like some people I know….”
“I’m not jealous,” I said, consciously focusing on getting properly clean. “I’m the one who chose not to date Shinji. Nobody else is interested in him.”
And I have nothing to worry about.
“You’re right, I’m not interested in Shinji,” she said with a smirk. “Why would I be?
For a moment, my heart leapt up with a dozen answers all at once, catching in my throat then ricocheting throughout my body and across my skin leaving a warming echo behind.
It died with the realisation that I hadn’t even suggested she was.
It took us time to finish cleaning ourselves, time to dry ourselves off, time to get back into the shower because my hair still felt like it’d been coated in slime, time to get dry again
Of course we talked - mostly about technical matters. An upgrade to the EVA’s operating systems and how one change to the interface made aiming the pallet rifles that bit harder,
At every stage my mind turned to Shinji
Like a child with a new hobby, or a man suddenly finding himself with a new talent - it was all I wanted to talk about. A completely new experience and sensation born out of the blue inside my body.
I liked the feeling.
It left a smile on my face.
“You and the third suit each other,” Asuka said, after a few minutes. Her voice sounded like she hated the words. I thought she might hate me. Another part of my mind could see exactly what sort of future I’d have with Shinji.
“Thanks,” I said, then thought for a moment. “I think we all suit him.”
“And what’s that supposed to mean?”
“We’re each his opposite,”
Only after I said it, did I realise I meant to say we complemented each other. We filled each other’s gaps in a way opposites didn’t.
“That’s such a childish idea.”
I suppose it was. I think I wasn entitled to indulge in a little childish naivete, at least for a few moments, before an adult’s experience could come down hard on the idea.
Asuka dressed herself in her school uniform, ready to go home - or at least to whatever dungeon Misato had decided to stick us into. I dressed in a tank-top and shorts, ready for PT time.
Asuka fixed her hair, taking care over every strand. I couldn’t shake the awareness of how little I did in return. She wore makeup too, to hide her freckles. I washed my face. She plucked her eyebrows into a perfect arch, I had one slightly longer than the other, with a small gap of pale skin towards the edge where a cut had left a scar..
None of it had mattered to me before.
Standing, waiting for the lift to arrive, I just felt that little bit less than I could’ve been. The sansation crawled across my skin, prickling in every little imperfection.
The intercom in the ceiling picked that moment to come to life.
“Lieutenant Nagato of Operation division. Lieutenant Nagato of Operation division.. Report to Doctor Ritsuko Akagi, Director of Project E. Report to Doctor Ritsuko Akagi, Director of Project E.”
Oh. Bollocks.
Asuka looked at me, a grin drawing across her lips.
Maybe I could ignore it. Pretend I didn’t hear it? All I had to do was say I’d already made it down to the accommodation level where there’d be no announcements.
A buzz from my phone robbed me of even that excuse.
I felt myself sicken at the idea of another exam on her cold vinyl table. We were Evangelion pilots. We were the hope of the world. We were the lab-rats in the world’s greatest experiment.
“Hah! Busted!” Asuka offered her sympathies.
“You’ll be next!” I thanked her for it.
I’m convinced that the only people who want to be Eva pilots, have never seen the reality of being an Eva pilot. That includes the people who’ve watched it on television.
--
I left Ritsuko’s office convinced there was some massive conspiracy humming behind closed doors. Immanentizing the Eschaton had taken a back door to the Nagato Raising Project.
Suffice to say, I knew far more about the birds and the bees than she expected. That didn’t save me from the one talk nobody ever enjoyed.
Disgust warred with embarrassment warred with righteous anger as my mouth struggled to form the words in any language I knew. My face warmed, my stomach churned and I wanted nothing more to scream bloody murder at them all.
I left that office before my mouth could get me in even more trouble, instead looking forward to working out that anger on whatever machines waited in the pilot’s gym.
My ID card opened the door. The sound of heavy breathing rushed out to meet me, mixed with the rhythmic pulsing of a fan, and the rasp of a chain running over a ratchet.
My eyes fell first to a t-shirt, folded neatly at the foot of a rowing machine dead centre in the room. I stood in the doorway, enraptured as it’s shirtless operator pulled himself through simulated stroke after stroke, chasing the rhythm of the music in his headphones.
I watched the muscles of his body pull taught and release in time, beads of sweat glistening across his skin, sparking in the overhead lights.
The thought occurred to me, that animation staff really had been unspeakably cruel to Shinji when they drew his body.
And I suddenly became very aware of mine standing there.
—-
---
The air between us simmered. Of course it was Asuka’s fault. And I had to get punished for standing up for myself rather than rolling over and just accepting myself as the inferior.
She stood herself with her back to me right at the lift door, while I settled into the back of the car, one foot on the wall. Neither of us said a word to each other while the counter ticked down through the levels.
Not one single word was spoken in three-minute-long lift-ride back down to the locker room level, or the long walk back to the locker room.
Asuka kept herself ahead of me the entire time, kicking the locker room door open. I caught it with one hand before it slammed shut.
Inside the locker room, dents in the steel locker doors bore witness to how violent we’d gotten. Clumps of rusted hair mingled with strands of black on the tiled floor. Red spatters of blood had begun to turn brown.
We’d made some mess.
Asuka had to force her locker door open. Mine sprang itself open and then refused to close. I grabbed the steel frame with both my hands and bent it back straight. The steel gave off a groan of protest, followed by a hard tin drumbeat as it popped straight.
“Since when did you get so strong?”
I couldn’t tell if she was being sarcastic or not.
“I just do a lot more training.”
I decided not to add - ‘and eat a lot less snacks’. One war was enough for one day.
We both peeled ourselves out of our plugsuits. Dried LCL had turned into a thick, pink gelatinous glue that left us both standing like we’d been spurted out the sphincter of some kind of biopunk cloning machine.
At that moment I remembered exactly what lurked far beneath our feet.
Cleaning it off the body took time. It peeled like vinyl bodypaint when warmed with hot water, taking every hair I hadn’t shaved with it. Cleaning it out of my hair took care - at least, it did if I didn’t want to go bald.
I couldn’t help but start to draw comparisons between myself and Asuka while we stood in the shower separating individual strands of hair out of the glue.
Asuka had thinner, sharper features on her face, with a small nose and a few faint freckles she tried to hide with makeup when she was allowed to wear it. I’d a broader face, with a wider nose and a more natural skin tone. Her feet came to a point, mine were broader. Her hair grew wild and large, mine stayed tight and dense. She remained slim, trim and light in build, while in the space of two months I’d gone from bed-bound skin and bone, to fit, strong and toned. I’d added enough weight that we couldn’t share underwear anymore.
A moment of self satisfaction died when I remembered that, for more than one person out there, an athletic Japanese schoolgirl in uniform would be the ultimate fetish.
I could see her making the exact same comparison the entire time. We compared ourselves to each other, and were each satisfied with the result.
“I’ve never seen Misato that angry,” I said, if only to fill the silence
“You haven’t seen her jealous,” said Asuka. “After she broke it off with Kaji, every time she saw him dating another woman she’d come home fuming.”
Asuka paused a second, grimacing as she pulled a pink eel of slime out of her hair. She flicked it onto the tiles of the floor where it stuck and refused to budge. For the first time in a long time, I considered cutting my hair short just to avoid the hassle.
“She really is a jealous woman” She continued, before giving me a side eyed, leering glance. “Like some people I know….”
“I’m not jealous,” I said, consciously focusing on getting properly clean. “I’m the one who chose not to date Shinji. Nobody else is interested in him.”
And I have nothing to worry about.
“You’re right, I’m not interested in Shinji,” she said with a smirk. “Why would I be?
For a moment, my heart leapt up with a dozen answers all at once, catching in my throat then ricocheting throughout my body and across my skin leaving a warming echo behind.
It died with the realisation that I hadn’t even suggested she was.
It took us time to finish cleaning ourselves, time to dry ourselves off, time to get back into the shower because my hair still felt like it’d been coated in slime, time to get dry again
Of course we talked - mostly about technical matters. An upgrade to the EVA’s operating systems and how one change to the interface made aiming the pallet rifles that bit harder,
At every stage my mind turned to Shinji
Like a child with a new hobby, or a man suddenly finding himself with a new talent - it was all I wanted to talk about. A completely new experience and sensation born out of the blue inside my body.
I liked the feeling.
It left a smile on my face.
“You and the third suit each other,” Asuka said, after a few minutes. Her voice sounded like she hated the words. I thought she might hate me. Another part of my mind could see exactly what sort of future I’d have with Shinji.
“Thanks,” I said, then thought for a moment. “I think we all suit him.”
“And what’s that supposed to mean?”
“We’re each his opposite,”
Only after I said it, did I realise I meant to say we complemented each other. We filled each other’s gaps in a way opposites didn’t.
“That’s such a childish idea.”
I suppose it was. I think I wasn entitled to indulge in a little childish naivete, at least for a few moments, before an adult’s experience could come down hard on the idea.
Asuka dressed herself in her school uniform, ready to go home - or at least to whatever dungeon Misato had decided to stick us into. I dressed in a tank-top and shorts, ready for PT time.
Asuka fixed her hair, taking care over every strand. I couldn’t shake the awareness of how little I did in return. She wore makeup too, to hide her freckles. I washed my face. She plucked her eyebrows into a perfect arch, I had one slightly longer than the other, with a small gap of pale skin towards the edge where a cut had left a scar..
None of it had mattered to me before.
Standing, waiting for the lift to arrive, I just felt that little bit less than I could’ve been. The sansation crawled across my skin, prickling in every little imperfection.
The intercom in the ceiling picked that moment to come to life.
“Lieutenant Nagato of Operation division. Lieutenant Nagato of Operation division.. Report to Doctor Ritsuko Akagi, Director of Project E. Report to Doctor Ritsuko Akagi, Director of Project E.”
Oh. Bollocks.
Asuka looked at me, a grin drawing across her lips.
Maybe I could ignore it. Pretend I didn’t hear it? All I had to do was say I’d already made it down to the accommodation level where there’d be no announcements.
A buzz from my phone robbed me of even that excuse.
I felt myself sicken at the idea of another exam on her cold vinyl table. We were Evangelion pilots. We were the hope of the world. We were the lab-rats in the world’s greatest experiment.
“Hah! Busted!” Asuka offered her sympathies.
“You’ll be next!” I thanked her for it.
I’m convinced that the only people who want to be Eva pilots, have never seen the reality of being an Eva pilot. That includes the people who’ve watched it on television.
--
I left Ritsuko’s office convinced there was some massive conspiracy humming behind closed doors. Immanentizing the Eschaton had taken a back door to the Nagato Raising Project.
Suffice to say, I knew far more about the birds and the bees than she expected. That didn’t save me from the one talk nobody ever enjoyed.
Disgust warred with embarrassment warred with righteous anger as my mouth struggled to form the words in any language I knew. My face warmed, my stomach churned and I wanted nothing more to scream bloody murder at them all.
I left that office before my mouth could get me in even more trouble, instead looking forward to working out that anger on whatever machines waited in the pilot’s gym.
My ID card opened the door. The sound of heavy breathing rushed out to meet me, mixed with the rhythmic pulsing of a fan, and the rasp of a chain running over a ratchet.
My eyes fell first to a t-shirt, folded neatly at the foot of a rowing machine dead centre in the room. I stood in the doorway, enraptured as it’s shirtless operator pulled himself through simulated stroke after stroke, chasing the rhythm of the music in his headphones.
I watched the muscles of his body pull taught and release in time, beads of sweat glistening across his skin, sparking in the overhead lights.
The thought occurred to me, that animation staff really had been unspeakably cruel to Shinji when they drew his body.
And I suddenly became very aware of mine standing there.
—-
Oh sweet meteor of death
Fall upon us.
Deliver us in fire
To Peace everlasting.
Fall upon us.
Deliver us in fire
To Peace everlasting.