Disclaimer: This world does not belong to me; I’m merely borrowing it. I do not intend to profit in any monetary way by writing this fanfiction. Therefore, if you sue me for copyright infringement, I will summon the armies of otaku to crush you forever!

Disclaimer II: The reference in the title is purely unintentional and accidental. It just sounded good.

Eva Interlude: His and Her Circumstances

Asuka marched into the classroom, muttering under her breath. Instead of gossiping with Hikari, she sat down immediately at her desk and opened the computer. She jabbed the startup button, plugged a pair of earphones from her backpack into the jack, and rammed a music disk into the reader slot.

For a brief moment after this, she smiled to herself. Then she noticed Touji and Kensuke looking at her. She favored them briefly with a glance that would curdle milk into a solid block of cheese, then glared stonily at the computer screen until class began.

Shinji wandered into the room and sat down, in a stupor, at his desk. He spent the next five minutes staring straight at the blank chalkboard. When the class bowed to the sensei, Shinji performed the motions clumsily and mechanically, as if the parts of his body no longer fit together correctly. His face was devoid of all expression, or even any indication of sentient thought. After a while, his head lolled slightly to the side. His body slumped back in the chair. He remained completely inert and seemingly catatonic until lunchtime.

Touji put two and two together and came up with ‘food’. He went to the cafeteria.

Hikari followed him at a distance, wistfully clutching her bento box.

Kensuke put one and three together and came up with 4.2, which was closer, at least, than the other ‘stooge’ had come to figuring out the Eva pilots’ odd behavior.

"Hey," he said, sliding over to sit at the desk next to Shinji, "what’s wrong?"

"Huh? —Uh, um, I mean, um, (gomen?), I mean, what?" Shinji was startled at this sudden interruption of his trance.

"Come on." Kensuke prodded Shinji with a pencil. He then ducked involuntarily as Asuka passed by and snarled at him. After she left the room, he straightened up. "Come on, Shinji, you know you can talk to me. I’m the second best in the class at keeping secrets."

They both glanced automatically at Rei. She continued her contemplation of the only visible bird in the sky, a lone hawk. She wondered what it was like to eat mice. Ikari-shirei probably would not allow her to experience it, though.

"Shinji, I’m your friend, right?"

Shinji nodded.

"Well, those of us who aren’t as socially isolated as you observe this convention: we share our problems with our friends. Come on."

Shinji stood up. "Excuse me," he said softly. "I need to use the restroom." He left the room.

Kensuke pulled out his lunch and ate thoughtfully. It was blatantly obvious that something was on Shinji’s mind. It had to be bad; else, he wouldn’t be so withdrawn.

But what could it be? It has something to do with either his home life or his work. If it was school, I’d know already. Shinji has no social life, so it can’t be that. Wait! What’s that noise? Some sort of airliner is flying overhead—from the sound of it, it’s landing at the airport just outside Tokyo-3—most likely a Boeing 797…. Where was I?

Kensuke pondered the intricacies of aerodynamics until Shinji reentered the room. Then, while the latter ate lunch with a withdrawn air, Kensuke turned his powers of reason back to the most likely cause of his friend’s unusual reticence.

Well, I can’t know anything about his work until after I’ve asked my father and Sozuhura-san about what’s been happening at NERV lately. I might as well discount that for now. If it’s home life, then it’s either Misato or Asuka who gave him trouble. Asuka is also acting strange. Therefore, it is reasonable to assume that something happened between him and Asuka. She got all emotional, and so she’s refusing to talk to anybody. He got all emotional, so he’s withdrawn into himself. Now, to test the hypothesis.

Kensuke leaned over to Shinji and tapped his desktop. "All right, Ikari," he said in his most authoritative voice. "Tell me exactly what happened between you and Asuka."

Shinji startled so hard he almost bounced out of his seat. "What?!"

"Come on, Shinji. I know something happened between the two of you. I know some of the general situation already, so you might as well tell me the particulars so I don’t need to work them out on my own. You know I can do it."

Shinji actually whitened visibly. "H- how did you know?"

Kensuke smiled proudly. I’m really getting this down. I’ll make an excellent intelligence agent. "Let’s just say that I have my sources of information, and leave it at that for now."

Shinji glanced nervously at Asuka, who had returned from lunch. However, she was once again engrossed in her computer’s music player, safely shut up behind a wall of hostility.

Shinji lowered his voice. "Well, it’s that time of the month, you know?" His complexion had recovered from his earlier shock, and now flushed to a vibrant red. Kensuke nodded sagely and gestured to indicate that Shinji should continue. The latter, however, seemed to be having a hard time finding the right words, especially as the rest of the class was filing in and sitting at their desks. Touji joined them and stood silently, with arms folded. The other two didn’t pay him much attention, except Shinji unconsciously raised his voice so both his friends could hear.

"Well," he managed finally, "she beat me last night."

"At piloting Eva? In a game?"

"No." Shinji shook his head. "I’m talking physical contact, not the other kind of beating."

Kensuke winced. "That demon! I always knew she was violent, but that’s a bit too much! Shinji, you really ought to report her for this. At least tell Misato."

Although it hadn’t seemed possible, Shinji blushed even more fiercely. He leaned forward and hissed as Kensuke, "I can’t!"

Touji finally had to break in. "Whaddaya mean, you can’t? That’s crap, and ya knows it! If it was me, I’d be making sure she never did it again!"

Shinji looked at him with an odd mixture of desperation and anger, which startled his friends. "But I don’t want Misato or anybody to stop her! Asuka said last night that as soon as her period ends, we’ll go all the way!"

He sank back into his chair with the same far-away look he had worn all morning. "Besides," he added dreamily, "it’s so much nicer than when I beat myself."

Everybody in the class was listening in by this time, and all but one of them face-faulted. Even the sensei’s mouth dropped open at what his students were discussing.

Rei’s eyes widened slightly, and she lost sight of the hawk in the pale blue sky.

—

Author’s Notes:

No, I didn’t really write that. It just happened on its own. Yeah, that’s it. I woke up suddenly and there was this story on my computer screen. Just another brain spasm, I guess.

I normally don’t go for lime-scented humor. It just occurred to me suddenly while listening to some "jock talk" while I was trying to study. One of them said to another; "Go beat yourself," and he wasn’t talking about flagellation. I can’t resist a good pun, so I had to write it down.

That’s all. Hope you enjoyed it.

-Worldmage