Archive of Our Own

The new arrival shows up at NERV unannounced. She finds Kaworu and Shinji in their usual spot.

“The thing a lot of people don’t seem to consider,” Kaworu’s voice can be heard saying, “is that when you play piano, a lot of the tone that you end up producing comes as much from the movement of your shoulders as it does the wrist or the fingers.” He has his own right hand raised, fingers splayed, as a visual aid. Shinji is seated comfortably on his left, his legs tucked up momentarily as he leans forward to mark up his sheet music with a pencil. 

“So at this measure,” Kaworu taps Shinji’s copy with a pencil of his own that he keeps resting on the music stand, “I’ll make sure to move my hand out of the way right after I play my F7; that’ll give you room to travel. You’re really good at leading with your wrist when you’re traveling, Shinji-kun; now when you move, try leaning with your shoulder also so that you can really push from your shoulder once you land.” 

Shinji’s one of those people who actually sticks his tongue out a little when he’s concentrating on something, and he does it now as he copies down Kaworu’s directions in a handwriting that’s confident despite the awkward angle of the sheet music. By this point, he’s had a considerable amount of practice. Kaworu waits until Shinji’s nearly finished to say, “You look really cute when you concentrate, Shinji-kun.” 

Shinji’s pencil makes a sharp streak on the paper as his hand falters. Being regularly complimented, it seems, is something he has not yet learned to accept with confidence, even though he’s had a considerable amount of practice with that, too.

Once, Shinji had been minding his own business at the shoe lockers when Kaworu had passed by. Apparently, Kaworu had thought the proper method of reciprocating Shinji’s greeting was stopping in his tracks, making a short detour to where Shinji stood, pinching his cheek and saying, “You have such a cute face, Shinji-kun,” before he promptly resumed his previous path.

Shinji’s classmates had gotten a fair bit of milage out of that one.

“Hello, Kensuke,” Touji said with exaggerated enunciation when they met up after school.

Kensuke made a big show of stiffening with his body frozen in a cartoonish parody of a person about to take a step forward, then abruptly swinging his outstretched leg around to pivot himself into an about-face to look at Touji. Then he marched up to him, grabbed him by the cheek (a bit awkwardly, given Touji’s height), widened his eyes and said in his most melodramatic voice, “Suzuhara-kun… you have such a cute face.” Shinji hid his face in his shirt as the pair of them burst into fits of laughter.

On a separate occasion, their friend group had been exchanging embarrassing stories with some other classmates - such entertainment was valuable currency in a post-Second Impact world, where the only magazines available talked about things like “the UN did this” and “these scientists think such and such about the current state of the ocean.” Sometimes, a high schooler just wanted a nice, straightforward “I was talking to my crush when I got my period” tale of schadenfreude every now and then. So there they all were, and Shinji had been relating the story of Kaji pretending (?) to hit on him.

“Hey Nagisa,” one boy called out in the middle of Shinji’s story. “Did you know about this?”

“I did not,” Kaworu replied cheerily (really, by now, none of them should have been surprised). He cocked his head to one side and smiled with his customary sincerity. “Although I certainly can’t blame him.”

“Nagisa,” Kensuke said through his laughter once everybody had calmed down from Kaworu’s comment, “Can you just talk, like, all the time? Can you just keep a running commentary of everything Shinji does during the day?”

Kaworu blinked, and there was a brief pause before he said, “But if I did that, how would I have time to talk to Shinji-kun?” and he had looked so forlorn that Kensuke nearly tripped over himself in his haste to tell Kaworu that he’d only been joking.

“Shinji-kun has the most adorable expressions.”

“Anything that Shinji-kun cooks is good.”

“Shinji-kun, has anybody ever told you that you have very nice hands?” 

Now, as with all those other instances, Shinji’s faculties seem to get overwhelmed; whichever part of the brain that receives and processes compliments has after all, in Shinji’s case, historically not ever been under much strain. Kaworu takes this opportunity to rub his nose affectionately against Shinji’s temple.

“I really like you, Shinji-kun,” he says. It’s a phrase he has taken to repeating often.

Shinji is temporarily spared from trying to respond by a loud voice suddenly shouting, “NOW KISS!”

When Shinji jumps, his hand that had been resting on the music stand almost sweeps the sheet music off, but he manages to rescue the binder before it hits the ground. When he’s securing it on his lap, he looks to the doorway, where NERV’s latest addition to its DSM Traumatized Underage Action Figure Set (collect them all!) stands.

“Makinami?” he asks.

“Hello!” she greets, waving so enthusiastically that Shinji thinks he hears her pop something in her arm. 

Makinami Mari (there was also an “Illustrious” thrown in there somewhere that she’d been attempting, to mixed reception, to get the students to use as some sort of honorific) had transferred into Class 2-A relatively recently. Asuka thought she was irritating. In other news, water was wet. In other, real news, Kaworu was beginning to sympathize with Asuka and, unbeknownst to them, Satan paused his daily task of dangling some fruit in front of Tantalus on a fishing rod, looked up, and said to himself, “That’s odd. It feels very chilly in here all of a sudden.” 

Let it never be said, though, that Nagisa Kaworu was not a friend to all, excepting certain Second Children, so he sets his expression to its default “mild summer breeze” setting before he speaks. “I guess this means you’ve been recruited as an Eva pilot? “

“Oh, that was decided ages ago,” Mari says, flicking her wrist in the gesture that’s usually read as “pssshaw.” “I was piloting Eva for a while already before I got transferred; they just hadn’t finished the paperwork until now to make me part of NERV. You’d think that omnipotent government agencies would have their bureaucratic act together, but… apparently not. Anyway! I should stop talking before the omnipotent government agents of the omnipotent government agency come to take me away for badmouthing them on their home turf. And you two,” she says with a finger-gun salute of her left hand, “should get back to your homoerotic piano times. Oh! Real quick! Before I forget…” She pulls out a small camera she had tucked into the waistband of her uniform skirt, and there’s just enough time for the synthesized shutter sound and the flash to reach them before Mari’s voice singing “Byyyeeeee~” is fading away from down the hallway.

They are formally introduced to Makinami Mari a bit later on in the day after their standard round of sync tests with Ritsuko. 

“Makinami will be piloting Eva with you now. I’m sure you know her from class, and she’s not going anywhere, so I want you all to play nice,” Misato says, ostensibly to the group, but everyone there knows who she’s really talking to.

“Say hello,” Misato prompts, a bit patronizingly.

“Hello Makinami,” they recite, with Asuka’s begrudging “Hello, Makinami,” trailing just a little behind everyone else.

In response, Mari pulls her camera out again to snap a picture of the group. “It’s all right, Misato,” she says. “The Princess and I are practically already colleagues. Hey, this is gonna be really great for the blog, isn’t it, Princess? Now that we’re both here.” She takes another picture of Asuka’s expression; piloting Eva with the verve that she does has clearly permanently removed her instinct for self-preservation.

“Blog?” Shinji asks, blissfully unaware of the Pandora’s Box he’s just opened.  

 Mari had enjoyed telling Class 2-A’s resident celebrity couple about their celebrity couple status with an unholy gusto. 

“You mean,” she had stage-whispered with a gleefully scandalized look at Asuka, “that they still don’t know about the blooog?” She wiggled her eyebrows up and down on the drawn-out enunciation of blooog. 

“Nah,” Asuka said, making a show of picking something out of her fingernails to demonstrate how bored she was. “They were always too busy making gay piano noises and avoiding making out to pay attention to anything else.” 

“Ohmygodohmygod,” Mari began to chant, obsessively clicking the button on her camera as she jumped around to catch Kaworu and Shinji from various angles. “So this means… I, as in me, myself, and I, get to document Puppy-Boy and his boyfriend’s reactions when they hear about it? Ohmygodohmygodohmygod…” 

“…Oh yeah, you’re Puppy-Boy, and then we’ve got all sorts of nicknames for your boyfriend, don’t worry. There’s… ‘Prince Charming,’ - that’s when we call you ‘Shinjirella’, Puppy-Boy. Then there’s also ‘Moon Prince’ or ‘Moon Princess,’ depending on the day. ‘Sailor Moon’ - these were all after you told us that really great story of how you met Puppy-Boy over here; oh man that was a good day for the blog. ‘Gay Space Jesus’ is my personal favorite. I think Touji came up with that one…” 

“… There were a couple people writing fanfiction, I think, but we had to put our foot down, collectively, as the mods, after the first few, because we didn’t know if those were the sort of things you’d want to be reading about yourselves if you ever found it…” 

“… Ooh, the buttons! We have these little buttons you can get; they say stuff like…” she had rummaged around in her purse for examples, reading off their captions as she fished them out. “‘Good things happen when we’re together… ‘Have I made you gay’… ‘We have to pull our spears out together, Shinji-kun,’ that one’s our best seller.” And she had yanked up her uniform shirt to show them the T-shirt she had on underneath that bore the same caption. “All of the mods have them,” she stated proudly. “I can hook you up with some if you want.” 

Kaworu was intrigued. Shinji was horrified. 

Shinji was even more horrified when he looked to Misato to validate his horror, only to discover that she had been complicit in the entire thing. Misato mumbled something about needing some way to check in on him and make sure he was doing okay, and besides, they were a cute couple, and she and Pen-Pen needed something light and happy to read after a day of working at NERV, so what was the problem? Pen-Pen shipped it.

“Calm down, Puppy-Boy,” Mari chided. “You’re going to hyperventilate if you keep that up. Although… Moon Prince, if he does start hyperventilating, you could always let him breathe into your mouth,” she added, raising her camera suggestively and wiggling her eyebrows again. 

“Hey, you know what would be a really good idea? We could make, like, an event out of this. Like, have a dinner party or something where we get to show you the blog and read you stuff from it and record your reactions; that’d be fun. Plus, it would give you two an excuse to make dinner and be all housewifey together, since you like cooking anyway - ugh, it’s so cute it’s disgusting and I’m only imagining it.” 

“No,” said Shinji flatly at the same time Kaworu said, “Sounds fun.”

“Pleeeeeeaaase?” Mari wheedled, bringing her hands forcefully together and bowing with such force that Shinji wondered if he should be concerned about her throwing out her back. “You should listen to your boyfriend, Puppy Boy. He asks for so little.” 

Shinji made the mistake of looking to Kaworu, who had upgraded his expression’s pity-inducing level from “saint” to “martyr.” Mari watched their nonverbal exchange triumphantly, having been the mod of Project: If You Were Gay long enough to know exactly what Shinji’s response would be.

Shinji shifted his weight back and forth on his feet. “I guess Misato could stand to eat some real food,” he finally said, avoiding anyone’s eye contact. 

“I’m still your legal guardian,” Misato warned. 

Shinji’s standing in front of the refrigerator back at the apartment he shares with Asuka and Misato, gazing at its contents with a look that says he’s incredibly disappointed and incredibly unsurprised. Misato gazes at him with a look that says she’s incredibly familiar with that expression.

“I don’t even know why I bothered looking to see what groceries we would need when I should have just known to write ‘all of them’ ,” Shinji says, before he lets the refrigerator door swing shut with a resigned sigh. The view of the interior before it shuts reveals pyramids of sideways-lying beer cans and a lonely half-eaten tin of sardines that they use to feed Pen-Pen. “In fact, I don’t even know why I’m still holding out hope for the pantry; I think I’m just opening it out of habit,” he throws over his shoulder as his hand reaches toward the pantry door in question. 

“You get very judgmental all of a sudden when you talk about food; has anyone ever told you?” Misato’s voice is a bit muted from trying to talk through the beer can she has raised to her lips. She takes a few gulps and pulls the can away with a forceful, satisfied gesture before she continues, “And besides, beer has nutritional value. It provides calories, and therefore energy. You can read about it on the nutritional information.” She holds up the can, and taps it sharply with the index fingernail of her free hand to the rhythm of “nutritional information.” “Right, Pen-Pen?”

Pen-Pen squawks off in the distance somewhere. 

“Misato,” Shinji says calmly, “You really should have other food in the pantry besides…” he pulls out two boxes of cereal, the pantry’s sole occupants, and reads their labels, “ ‘Happy Shapes’ and… ‘40% Bran Flakes.’ “

“I can feel you judging me with your eyes and I am choosing to ignore it,” Misato replies, turning her chair resolutely to the side so that she’s not facing Shinji anymore. 

“What does 40% Bran Flakes even mean? What’s the other 60%? Doesn’t that bother you?” 

“Choosing to ignore,” Misato repeats loudly, taking another long draught of beer. There’s a few awkward seconds of silence before she says in a more serious tone, “I think Rei’s going to be really happy about this. I know when the last dinner party she wanted to have ended up not working out, she seemed really disappointed.” 

“When was that?” Shinji asks. This is the first he’s heard of it.

“Oh yeah, a little bit after you and your friends from school visited that environmental rehabilitation center, she was really excited - for Rei, anyway - about making dinner for you and Asuka and some other people. She sent out these little invitations and everything; it was really cute. She sent one to your dad, too.” 

Since Misato’s turned around, she can’t see Shinji stiffen; she just drains the last of her beer and presses on. 

“It was going to be a big surprise. I think she was hoping to be the one to nudge you two a bit closer together. She really wanted him to be there.” 

Shinji holds his breath and stares very intently at the lettering on the cereal package that reads “Happy Shapes” in loopy letters, being very careful not to blink. The letters blur a bit as the tears creeping in from the corners of his eyes slide to the bottom of his eyelid, pulled by gravity and the curious bonds between water molecules. He tips his head back to redirect the flow and waits until he thinks they’ve mostly receded back to wherever they came from before he scrubs at the area under his eyes with his fingernails to get rid of any excess wetness that may have escaped. 

The long silence doesn’t go ignored by Misato, who realizes she’s accidentally crossed a line and makes a point not to turn around so Shinji can have his privacy. “But you and Nagisa-kun will be doing the cooking for this one, so it’ll probably end up much better, anyway,” she says quickly, in an attempt to break the tension. “There’s some money on the counter; you can take that for groceries.” 

“Oh, thanks,” says Shinji, glad for the exit he’s been given. He stuffs Happy Shapes and 40% Bran Flakes back into their exile to be forgotten for another few months and scoops up the money in his hurry to the door.

When she hears the click of the door closing again, Misato calls down the hallway, “Asuka?” 

“Yeah?” Asuka shouts from her room.

“Could you text Nagisa-kun and tell him he needs to go to the grocery store and comfort his boyfriend?” 

“Fine.” 

“Oh! Good afternoon, Kaworu-kun,” Shinji says to the Space Jesus in question, who is standing waiting for him as he emerges from the depths of the supermarket where Misato dares not tread. 

“It certainly is a good afternoon now that I get to see you,” Kaworu says, not even waiting for Shinji to finish being flustered before he adds, “May I assist you in carrying your groceries?” 

“Um, if it’s not too much trouble,” Shinji says gratefully, awkwardly handing off some of his bags to Kaworu’s outstretched hands. “Thanks. Were you waiting here for me?”

“Asuka informed me that you had gone to obtain supplies for Makinami’s dinner party and that you might need assistance carrying them back home,” Kaworu replies blithely. He’s paraphrasing a bit; Asuka’s actual text had read, “Hey Moon Princess ur bf is being all mopey - basically himself - and hes 2 emotionally constipated to ask 4 help so u need 2 go 2 the grocery store & be gay w/him so he can finally shit out his emotions or w/e. Kthxbye.” 

“What an interesting metaphor,” Kaworu had texted back.

“Stfu asshole.” 

“（＾ｖ＾）”

“Something troubling you, Shinji-kun?” he asks, noting that indeed, Shinji does seem a bit more distant today. 

“No, it’s nothing.” 

Kaworu’s smarter than that; in fact, most people would be, but here Kaworu has the advantage of caring on top of being perceptive. He decides to apply the slightest bit more pressure. “If you don’t feel comfortable having it, I didn’t mean to coerce you.” 

“Oh, that’s no problem.” Shinji can’t wave dismissively with his hands full, so he shrugs instead, the plastic bags in his hands rustling with the movement. “I guess I am a little curious what everyone’s been saying. Still kind of weird, though.” 

“I think it’s charming,” Kaworu says. “Your classmates care about you.” 

“Debatable.” 

“I care about you. Indubitably,” Kaworu throws in at the end, pleased with himself for being able to come up with something close enough to a negative form of “debatable.” 

Shinji opens his mouth, then shuts it when he realizes he doesn’t have anything with which to contest that. Kaworu’s pleased with himself about that, too. “See? You can’t argue with that,” he vaunts, his gait acquiring a little spring as he says so. Buoyed by this, he gathers together some more words to build another probe. 

“And since I care about Shinji-kun,” he begins carefully, “I want to make him happy. And in order to make him happy, I would like to know the cause of his concern, when he has it, so that I have a better chance of helping him. But of course,” he’s quick to add, “Shinji-kun doesn’t need to tell me anything if he doesn’t think it would be productive. Or if he’s uncomfortable.” 

They listen to the rustling of the plastic bags for a short while, long enough for Kaworu to identify the rhythm they form with the cadence of their steps. Shinji’s looking off into the distance, and Kaworu’s looking at Shinji. 

“It’s such a beautiful day,” Kaworu eventually says, making a conscious effort to face forward and avoid staring Shinji further into his Shinji-shell. He thinks pretending to move on to another subject in the hopes of luring him out is a bit cruel (insert “Cruel Angel’s Thesis” pun of your choice here), but he is firmly of the belief that he can’t make Shinji do anything. He is, after all, not the Angel of Free Will for naught, and he thinks that certain fathers whose names rhyme with “Shmendo Shmikari” could do with a careful reading of that thesis themselves. 

Kaworu internally frets over this all the way home, and when Misato looks at him expectantly after she greets him, he can only shrug helplessly. Asuka catches this, and snorts, “You had one job, Space Jesus.” 

Shinji pokes his head out from behind the open refrigerator door. “Sorry?”

“Nothing,” all three of them say. Shinji looks at them suspiciously, and Asuka knocks him back with a well-timed, “Go back to housewifing and make me a sandwich.” Shinji sticks his tongue out at her and returns to shoving Misato’s beer pyramids (beeramids?) aside to make room for the groceries, after which Kaworu flits over to the tune of “You should let me help you, Shinji-kun!” 

Afterward, the two of them sprawl themselves out as much as Misato’s tiny apartment balcony will allow and page through some heavy sheet music compilations, shopping for pieces to try in the future. “Hey, Shinji-kun,” says Kaworu, rolling over, “What do you think of playing the cello part for ‘The Swan?’ It doesn’t look like it would be too complicated.”

“Um,” Shinji responds quickly but speaks slowly, in the manner of someone who knows exactly what their opinion on the matter is but wants to express it politely. “Actually, Kaworu-kun… I’d rather stick to duets where I can play the same instrument with you. If that’s okay.” 

Cute, Kaworu says to himself as he says, “Certainly,” aloud to Shinji and smiles. He rolls back over and covers his face with the music book so that Shinji can’t see the little parade of Helikesmehelikesmehelikesme marching across his eyes. His internal squealing is suddenly broken when Shinji speaks up again.

“Kaworu-kun?” he asks, shifting himself into a sitting position with his legs tucked in.

“Yes?” Kaworu says, popping up into a matching pose so enthusiastically that Shinji thinks he ought to hand off his puppy epithet to him. 

“You know earlier, when you were… uh, asking me what was wrong?” 

Kaworu somehow manages to blink in an encouraging way.

“Uh, before I left to go to the store, I’d been talking with Misato. And she was saying that, actually, uh, Ayanami had been planning something like this before. The dinner party, I mean.” Shinji fiddles with the corner of the sheet music he’s opened to, folding and unfolding it over and over. “And Misato said something like… Ayanami really wanted my dad to be there. She had somehow gotten him to agree to go, and she was really disappointed when the whole thing ended up not happening.

“And it’s… I’m not even that upset about him not being there, since, I mean, no one was; it didn’t happen. But you know, I wish he’d shown up - if it had - because he wanted to fix things with me himself, not because Ayanami told him to. Not that I would have really expected anything from him at this point, but…” he breaks his train of thought when the corner he’s been unconsciously toying with develops a tear, and he flips to a new page, a new thought. 

“You know, I visited my mom’s grave with him. Not that long ago. And… And I was thinking - I was hoping - that we might be able to have this kind of nice bonding moment. I even told him that I was really glad he had come there with me, even though I really wasn’t, but that’s the sort of thing you’re supposed to say, apparently, when you’re doing something like that. But I was hoping, a little bit, that maybe he might say something like that back to me, and then it might turn into me being glad he was there for real because we’d have this nice moment. 

“Anyway, he didn’t. I mean, I don’t know what I was even expecting; it was stupid to get my hopes up, and I can see that now. But then the real kicker was that he got into his helicopter and was smiling and talking to Ayanami about 30 seconds later. And I’ve seen him like that on multiple occasions. I shouldn’t -” he presses the heel of his palm against his eye socket, the edge of the sheet music well and duly mangled, “I shouldn’t hold that against her. It’s not her fault. But… I kind of do, sometimes. And I don’t like that I do. And I… really don’t like that I keep getting my hopes up about having these interactions with my dad that I know won’t happen…” 

His voice breaks on the first syllable of “happen,” and he claps his hand over his mouth to muffle the unattractive sound that accompanies a sudden, involuntary inhalation. 

“It’s stupid,” he says, and Kaworu can tell that he’s smiling cynically behind his hand. “The whole thing.” His smile gives way to bitter half-laugh-half-sobs. 

Through the noise, he can make out Kaworu’s voice going, “Shinji-kun?” 

“Yeah?” he manages to force out between shuddering breaths.

“May I hold your hand?” 

“Sure, I don’t care,” he says, shoving his free hand toward Kaworu, who carefully wiggles his fingers into the space between Shinji’s. 

“I guess this is just another thing you can add to the list of why we’re good together,” Kaworu says after he’s settled in comfortably. “Because for the longest time, I was really jealous of Ayanami, too.” 

“Are you just saying that to make me feel better?” 

“When have I ever lied to Shinji-kun?” asks Kaworu, looking somewhat hurt. 

“You’d lie if you thought it’d make me happy,” Shinji replies with startling conviction. 

Kaworu’s not sure what to say to that. In the empty space that now exists where their conversation had previously been flowing, the humid air hangs, stagnant. It settles on their skin, and Kaworu feels his sense of overall discomfort heighten with this physical, atmospheric prompt. 

He scoots himself a little bit closer to Shinji, making his way over in increments of centimeters, and picks his words just as carefully. “It concerns me that you seem to be so convinced of that. I wish you weren’t. But we will discuss that at another time. As I was saying, I used to be envious of Ayanami because she was so close with you. It seemed like every time I saw you two together, she was doing something to make you smile without even trying. And as you have just stated, making Shinji-kun happy is an objective rather close to my heart. So, because I can empathize quite strongly with your position, I think I am qualified in offering some words of support. 

“I think that Shinji-kun… focuses a lot on the difference between what should be and what is. And that you judge yourself very harshly for being as you are and feeling as you do. I think that if someone is sad, even if you can’t understand their reasoning… you can’t tell them that they’re not sad, which is what you seem to do to yourself a lot.”

Kaworu scoots even closer. “I think that if you would remember that feelings are not thoughts, and that they will occur regardless of social propriety, it would be easier, because… Instead of feeling angry all the time just for feeling sad, you could just feel sad now. Does that make sense?” 

Shinji gives another wry smile, though it’s a little squished from resting his cheek on his knees to look sideways at Kaworu. “Not really.” 

“Well, I tried,” says Kaworu, laughing a little. “Anyway, it’s not really good advice; those are just things that I think. What I know is,” and here he leans in to rub his nose against Shinji’s temple again, “that I really, really like you, Shinji-kun, and I wish I could like you enough for both of us, but I can’t, so I wish that you liked yourself, too.” 

Shinji’s not sure what to say to that.

 At school, the day before the dinner party is set to occur, Shinji becomes aware of an odd humming noise in the background of his music. Then he takes out his earphones and realizes that the noise is actually being produced by Mari, who’s crouched behind his chair going “HnnnnNnnnNnnGGgggNnnnng.”

“I know that face,” she sings when Shinji turns around to face her. “That’s your judging face. Misato and Shikinami talk about it all the time.” 

“What are you doing?” 

“You’re cute when you’re bitchy. I’d pinch your cheeks right now if I didn’t know that was your boyfriend’s thing. Ah, what the hell,” she says, grabbing a substantial chunk near his mouth and wiggling vigorously. “Space Jesus would just agree with me anyway. Are you excited for tomorrow? You’d better be. We’re gonna take lots of pictures. Shikinami told me you two were getting all cute and cuddly the other day, but I need you to save all that gay robot energy for the photo op, mmmkay?” 

“Ow,” is Shinji’s only response when she finally frees him.

“I hope you’ll have more to say for your fans tomorrow.” 

Shinji frowns. “You are really convinced that there even are fans.” 

“Ooohhhh,” Mari says with relish, “Oh, my sweet summer child. Let me tell you. Let me show you. You know,” she perks up, apparently having spotted another conversational topic in the way that a dog spots a squirrel, and she promptly reaches over to invade Shinji’s personal bubble by tugging at his shirt collar, “you and Nagisa are so warm and fuzzy together that every once in a while, I think I’m gonna see you come into school with hickeys or something, but you never do.” 

Shinji looks scandalized. 

“I guess,” Mari looks right in his eyes and cracks an absolutely wicked smile before raising her voice conspicuously, “it must be because Nagisa’s so pure.” A startling number of students in the class stop their conversations and snap to attention in what appears to Shinji to be some weird Pavlovian response to whatever code Mari just uttered. 

“How pure is he?” someone shouts gleefully.

“Nagisa is so pure that the choir accidentally summoned him the other day when they were practicing a hallelujah chorus,” yells one girl, answering the call. 

“Not bad,” says Mari, making herself comfortable on top of Shinji’s desk and swiveling around to face their audience, propping her feet up on the desk next to them. “I think you can do better than that, though.”

“Nagisa is so pure that when the moon looks like it’s waxing, that’s just him walking across the surface,” says another student.

Mari hums thoughtfully. “Interesting. Keep going; I believe in you.”

“Ooh! Ooh! Nagisa is so pure that any music you’re listening to immediately turns to religious music in his presence.”

“Nagisa is so pure that he sweats holy water.”

“Nagisa is so pure that his skin automatically repels dirt!”

 “Nagisa is so pure that he can never go swimming, because at any body of water he comes across, he just ends up walking on the surface.” 

“Nagisa is so pure, the Virgin Mary is jealous!”

“There we go,” Mari says approvingly, snapping her fingers and pointing at their last contestant. “And there you go.” She turns to address Shinji with this, smirking knowingly. She flashes her little “We need to pull out our spears together, Shinji-kun!” button at him. “You sure you don’t want one?” 

Suddenly, Kaworu looks up from the sheet music he’s been analyzing to fix a curious stare upon them. “Are you talking about me?” 

Mari smiles. “I was just telling Shinji that you wouldn’t mind me pinching his cheeks cause he’s just so cute.” To Shinji’s dismay, she demonstrates. 

Kaworu just beams. “He is, isn’t he?” 

“HnnnnNnnnNnnGGgggNnnnng.”

“Are you having a stroke?” Asuka asks with a hearty helping of side-eye.

“Sorry. Actually, no, I’m not sorry.” Mari fixes her eyes across the table, where Shinji and Kaworu are sitting. To her right is Asuka, and on her left is Rei, who sips from her cup of miso soup and stares coolly back at Shinji’s accusatory glare, unfazed. 

“I’m really excited to finally show you guys the blog,” Mari says, and she opens up her laptop, where the homepage is already displayed. 

“Sit up,” Rei says to Shinji. 

Shinji slides even further down in his seat so only the top of his head is visible. 

Mari clicks her tongue. “Well, at least Moon Prince is happy.” 

“That’s not saying much,” says Asuka, talking through a mouthful of fish. “You could tell Moon Prince that you want to show him a picture of the crap you took this morning and he’d make the same face.” 

“Okay, okay,” Mari barrels on undeterred, sliding the laptop to face Kaworu and Shinji. “Nagisa, remember that time I asked you to tell the story of how you met Shinji for a video? And I said I was doing it for some club project?” 

“Oh, yes,” Kaworu says blithely. “That’s a good story.” 

“Well.” Mari reaches over to scroll down with a flourish to one of the blog’s featured videos. “Now you know what the project was.” She points to the blog header: Project: If You Were Gay. 

“Sit up, Stupid Shinji,” Asuka says, kicking Shinji under the table as Mari presses the play button. 

“So,” Mari’s voice can be heard as the camera focuses on Kaworu sitting on the steps to the school, “Can you tell the story of how you met Shinji-kun?” 

“This is such a good story. Oh my goodness,” Kaworu says, his face lighting up like he’s been waiting for someone to ask for a long time. “So I always thought that I was supposed to meet Shinji-kun. Have I ever told you about how I was born to meet him?” 

“Yes. Several times.” 

“Oh, good. Well, I had this feeling that there was someone I was supposed to meet. And I waited for - I don’t know, but it seems like forever - I waited for the day when I’d get to see him. Then I finally woke up! And when I woke up, I looked around and I saw my Eva that they were building on the moon -”

“Wait, wait, wait. You came from the moon? As in the moon, the moon?” 

“Did you not know that? I’m sorry. Yes, so I’ve just woken up on the moon, and the people from NERV are telling me that today’s the day and I’m going to get to meet Shinji-kun. Oh my goodness. That was such a good day.” The Kaworu in the video pauses to revel in his memories for a little bit. 

“So I got my plugsuit and my Eva, and this is right when Shinji-kun was in the middle of trying to save Ayanami during that really bad Angel battle - you’ve probably heard about it.” 

“Yeah.”

“Shinji-kun is wonderful that way. Anyway, I was basically told that if Shinji-kun wasn’t careful, the process of him trying to rescue Ayanami could potentially cause Third Impact, and I needed to… um… more or less stab him with this spear in order to make sure that didn’t happen.” Kaworu attempts to form an approximation of the spear with his hands. (Never mind the fact that he’s not being entirely truthful - the ramifications of what happened the day he descended to Earth are a matter between him and Gendo Ikari. But he’s not about to let anyone else at NERV know that he’s onto them. Shinji, of course, remains the sole exception that proves the rule, were he to ask.) 

Somewhere in the background, someone shouts, “Yeah, I bet you did,” right as Mari’s voiceover goes, “Oh my god. This is where the spear thing started, isn’t it?”

“Sorry?”

“Nothing, nothing. So what you’re saying, Nagisa, is… you’re actually a Moon Princess? Like… Sailor Moon Moon Prism Power Magical Girl Moon Princess?” 

“Maybe. What’s that?” 

The rest of the video consists of Mari telling him in great detail. 

“I did wonder why people randomly started singing the Sailor Moon theme song around him,” Shinji muses. 

“Oh yeah, we did the Sailor Moon theme, ‘Moondance,’ ‘Moonage Daydream,’ ‘Fly Me to the Moon,’ “ Mari counts the song titles off on her fingers as she names them. “Oh man, when we were taking bets about what song Kaworu was gonna woo you with, a lot of people were really rooting for ‘Fly Me to the Moon.’ We eventually had to tell people to stop trying to subliminally persuade him by singing it around him all the time.“ 

“I think I do remember that happening,” murmurs Kaworu thoughtfully, tipping his head to the side. “I guess I didn’t really pay it much mind, though.” 

“Yeah, that was before people figured out that you don’t pay much attention to anything besides being homo for Shinji,” Asuka says.

Shinji finally sits up. “Wait, you took bets?” 

“And apparently the feeling was mutual,” Asuka says flippantly before she returns her attention to stirring the rice in her bowl around. 

“Oh boy, did we,” says Mari.

“Yep,” says Rei. 

Mari grabs Rei by the shoulders and shakes her. “This one. This one somehow manages to guess correctly for every single frickin’ betting poll we put up on the site. Like, okay -” She seizes the laptop back and scrolls back through the blogroll until she finds what she’s looking for. “She’d been getting so many right, that just for shits and giggles, me and the other mods started a new betting topic about what Kaworu would say Shinji smelled like if we asked him, just to try to break her streak.”

“So that’s what that was about,” Kaworu says to himself.

“Yeah, so in this post, we were collecting ideas from the readers - we actually had to start hiding Rei’s responses to keep people from just copying her. And we got…” she squints at the list, “Cucumber melon, LCL, hormones - that was from Asuka; I asked her if she meant hormones in a good way or hormones in a bad way, and she wrote ‘First one then the other,’ so I put them both on the final list. Uh, vanilla, sugar cookies, cheap deodorant, papaya… All this random shit, you get the point. And do you remember what you said when we finally asked you, Moon Prince?” 

“Sweet milk,” Kaworu says without hesitation. Shinji makes a face. 

 “Yeah. And what did Rei write?” Mari jabs her finger at the screen where Rei’s comment can be read. “Sweet milk.” 

“I told you that First had weird voodoo powers, but you didn’t believe me,” snorts Asuka. (Incidentally, her screen name on the blog is Firstistheworstsecondisthebest. Mari’s is TheIllustriousAngharad, and Rei’s is Rei.) 

Mari makes grabby hands around Rei’s head. “I want your mind! Give it to me!” 

Rei just blinks, takes another sip of miso soup, and says, “No.” 

In the meantime, Kaworu has quietly dragged the computer closer to his side of the table with his fingertips, and is currently perusing Project: If You Were Gay’s cybernetic stock. Shinji’s pretending not to read over his shoulder when he lands on one of Asuka’s updates.

Okay you perverts, I have some actual news for you today so set an example for the gay robot pilots and keep your pants on. 

“What’s a pervert?” 

“Ooh, can I tell him?” Asuka asks, rounding on Kaworu with an unsettling smile. 

“Later,” Mari reassures her in a hushed voice as she pulls Asuka back into her seat. 

Kaworu looks puzzled, but he returns to his reading. 

Okay you perverts, I have some actual news for you today so set an example for the gay robot pilots and keep your pants on. So Kaworu and his drowned rat-looking ass were waiting for Stupid Shinji outside the changing rooms, and at this point everyone can see him creeping over there and they’re just like “meh whatever” cause their gaydars aren’t broken. Stupid Shinji comes out and Kaworu’s all “Hey bb plz don’t hate me for trying to make you play that duet with me that wasn’t supposed to be a completely subtle move on you at all” and then Shinji was all “Oooh Mr. Nagisa I could never hate you you’re too perfect” and then they done sex.

Ha! You perverts would like that, wouldn’t you.

Ok so actually Shinji was all “Oooh Mr. Nagisa I could never hate you you’re too perfect” and then Kaworu’s like “Hey bb plz don’t hate me but I’m gonna make you play this other duet with me that’s not supposed to be a completely subtle move on you at all”

And then Shinji was gonna turn him down but Kaworu actually grew a spine for a few seconds and was all “Wait bb I meant we could try playing piano duets instead because it’s the perfect cover for sitting my homo self right next to you all the time and you’ll love it”

And Shinji was all “Wow you’re right I do love it” 

And so now they’re gonna go be gay in the music room probably so if you wanna stalk them you should probably go do it there.

The end.

“Shikinami has such a unique narrative voice,” Kaworu says, giving Asuka his Special Smile for Special Frenemies. 

Asuka knows exactly what that’s supposed to mean, but she’s just pleased to have something to bother Kaworu with now. So she returns the smile with one of her own and says, “I know, right?” 

At the end of the night, Kaworu maintains his original position on the blog’s existence. “I think it’s charming,” he repeats, trying to gently coax Shinji out of his hiding spot under the table so that Mari can take a picture. 

Because it takes Shinji a while to finally emerge, he doesn’t see Mari lean over to whisper something in Kaworu’s ear, and he doesn’t see Kaworu agree to whatever it is. So when Mari, camera in hand, counts down from three, in the split second between the “one” and her finger pressing the button, he doesn’t see Kaworu quickly turn his head to kiss him on the cheek.

Goodness, but he feels it, though.

Several days later, Misato will walk into NERV to see a traumatized looking Kaworu sitting across the table from Asuka.

“Nagisa-kun? Are you okay?” 

Kaworu will slowly turn his head to face her, his eyes wide. “Asuka just told me what a pervert is.”