It came as a complete and utter surprise to Naota Nandaba, that another, pink painted model of Canti, landed directly in front of him, cracking the concrete as it did so.

He stared at it with disbelief for a moment, before the realisation struck that this had been the machine he’d been looking for.

On it’s screen face though, was displayed the symbol for Venus, in red,

He looked to Canti beside him.

His screen, flickering somewhat, showed the symbol for Mars, also in red.

Naota had just enough time to wonder what this meant, before the came a twin whoosh of hot jet exhaust, and the two mechanicals streaked into the sky. He watched their contrails for a moment, thinking they were going to fight it out, much like the night Canti had first appeared.

He watched as the Macross’d around each other, pirouetting and dancing, like a pair of steel ballerina’s.

And then, they shot off across the sky together.

“Well, that was unexpected,” he sighed.

In a job where the unexpected was generally expected, it came as an unexpected joy that something truly unexpected had actually happened. Though, with Haruko back, not only would they have to expect the unexpected, but unexpect the expected, and still get caught in the butt when the unexpected unexpected happened, exactly as it could be expected to do.

Naota realised he had a headache. Which one could expect not to be entirely unexpected.

I………………………………………………I

When Shinji’s wooden door finally exploded, it wasn’t entirely unexpected. Instead of getting caught in a round of expected unexpectedness, all his he could do was cream half in fright, and half in terror at the pounding guitar rhythm thumping against his eardrums.

Know your place in life is where you want to be
Dont let them tell you that you owe it all to me
Keep on looking forward, no use in looking round
Hold your head above the ground and they wont bring you
Down

“Too Loud!” Shinji screeched.

The Vespa woman paid no heed, jamming away.

Live for yourself -- theres no one else
More worth living for
Begging hands and bleeding hearts will
Only cry out for more

“Stop it, It’s my room!” He roared, a fury building deep inside him, and anger at this invasion of his inner sanctum, hared of this woman for right royally screwing with. “Get out! Get out! GET OUT!!”

The boy jumped up and pushed against the woman’s body, interrupted her damned fine guitar solo. She stuttered, stumbled and grumbled in surprise, protesting as she was practically manhandled through the splintered door.

“So, you will push back then Shin-kun,”

“Stay Out!”

Shinji tried to slam the ruined door shut, but all he succeeded in doing was bringing the wreckage down on top of his own head. His skull rang like an agonised bell, never had he felt more sympathy for the bronze chimes, and he dropped to his feet, clutching at his throbbing skull.

“It still hurts, doesn’t it, Shin-kun,?” the woman questioned, in rasping tones, not unlike her Vespa..

The boy looked up at her shadow, looming over him like a Hitchcock Zoom.

“Something happened. Something came out.”

Shinji gulped. How could she know? Nobody had been there, nobody had seen. Hell, he wasn’t too sure it hadn’t been a concussion induced dream in the first place.

“Out of your head , didn’t it? It was a robot.”

Shinji glared up at her, shivering with a swirling, flushing mixture of terror and anger. In fact, he didn’t know what the hell he was feeling. All he could do was just sit there on the floor and wait and pray that she left randomly of her own accord.

Unfortunately, only two things ever did so. And, Haruko Haruhara was nothing like communism or snow.

“What colour was it, Shinji?”

He held his tongue. He didn’t want to answer.

“Was it red? Was it green. Blue, was it blue?” she slipped around him, orbiting him, her tongue tickling her ears.

“Orange, yellow, violet, Pink even…”

“No, it wasn’t anything!” Shinji blurted.

“So then, it did exist. There was something.”

Shinji could’ve kicked himself for his stupidity, but Haruko saved him the bother. How nice.

“No,”

“What did it say? What symbol did it show you?”

“I DON’T KNOW!” the boy screamed once more.

Silence fell for a moment. The guitar on the alien’s back twanged peacefully to itself to fill the void, some randomer fly thinking itself a great guitar hero.

Then, the door chimed.

Both occupants of Shinji’s room peered out the door to see just who it was.

“I’m home!” the screech own cry went up.

“…” her companion said.

“Furi Kuri,” Shinji said, before rubbing his eyes to be sure. Yup, they weren’t lying to him. It was Asuka, with her arm around a rather annoyed looking Rei Ayanami, who was carrying an armful of tattered textbooks, and a suitcase.

“Welcome home Asuka,” Misato answered, “And Rei, what brings you here?”

“I have been ordered to reside her by the Commander,” she answered, with that same, off colour tone of anger on her voice. She definitely wasn’t pleased about , but Shinji was glad. It least she might inject some sense of sane normalcy to things.

“Well, take your things inside Rei, but we’ll have to find you some place to sleep first.”

She ruminated for a moment, while Rei was left alone to heave her things inside.

“Hiya Shinji-kun!” Asuka blared, “I didn’t see you there my good roommate,” the redhead lunged forward, locking Shinji into such a tight, warm and cosy bear hug that he didn’t have a chance to react, or do anything but go as stiff as a bloody pole with fright.

“Why so uptight, we’re good friend’s, aren’t we?” Sorhyu pouted. “Hell, we even slept together twice,”

Shinji cringed. Misato giggled. Haruko was rooting in the boy’s room for something, and Rei scowled at the Third child for dirtying himself.

“I hope you used protection,” Misato commented.

“We didn’t!” Shinji howled.

But, what was the use? It was one of those days wasn’t it?, the kind where the whole world seems to be spinning around you, and spinning backwards at that down into some twirling infinity of doom and pain and hatred.

Misato scowled.

“Not Like that! Fuck… I mean… I apologise for my bad language, em… crap,” he glanced to the smiling Sorhyu, looking for a way out.

“Relax,” she swatted. “It was while we performed super intense training for the Seventh Angel. We had to sleep together to synchronise properly, It was purely professional.”

Rei looked like she wanted to kill herself. Misato looked disappointed. Shinji looked Relieved. Asuka looked into his eyes. Haruko looked for a cassette. Pen-Pen found his dinner.

It was then, that Shinji wondered why Asuka was acting so conspicuously out of character. But, he noticed the bandage, and concluded that he wasn’t the only one to have hit there head hard that day. It seemed to him, as if the whole world might’ve been acting a bit concussed.

Either that, or he was still hallucinating somehow.

Or so, either was good.

Eventually, Misato came to her decision.

“Well, since lumping a fourteen year old boy in with two teenage girls is obviously a bad idea, This isn’t Love Hina you know, Asuka and Rei can sleep together, while Shinji, yourself and Haruko can share your room together. It might be a squeeze, but it’s doable,”

He wanted to scream, he really wanted to tell her where she could shove that, but frankly, he’d stopped caring. It wasn’t worth fighting anymore.

At least, Rei seemed as thrilled with her own roommate, as he was with his.

I………………………………………………….I

Sleep never came easy to Shinji, and that night was no different. Things weren’t helped by the fact that the Vespa lady’s bracelet kept jingling.

Right when he got a headache too, how annoying!

That, and her snores sounded somewhat like an old diesel tractor clagging up a never ending hill.

I……………………………………………………...I

Cocked up in an hour between classes, because I had nothing better to do…Not even preread or anything. Grammarfixed and error fixed, for the most part. Most are intentional, for whatever reason, I'm tired and have a Maths lecture now.

Anyboidy know anything about Normal Distributions?

-Dartz