exsiliumlogs | (OPEN) let me play you the song of my people

Entry tags:

(OPEN) let me play you the song of my people

Date & Time: An indefinite time after the festival.
Location: The music rooms, Unit 208, some musty old club.
Characters: Shinji and YOOOOOOOU
Summary: Shinji wants to kill time after listening to all those merry tunes during the festival. The cello is a potent weapon. Also music in the moonlight with an Angel wow how nice.
Warnings: Depressed teenage introspection. Mumbling. Super gay duets. Uuuh nothing else really.

(OOC: Prose or action is fine by me!!)

If one ventures near the music rooms in the early mornings, or if the residents of 208 happened to be around, they might hear classical music floating through the air. The source of this music comes from one Shinji Ikari, his back faced to the door as his fingers deftly dance across the cello's strings. His eyes are closed in concentration--he's tuned out the world as he plays, looking for once content.

Most days, the network was his anesthesia. But there were times where, as he laid languidly on his bed, staring at nothing in particular, he felt a smothering weight on his chest. Doing nothing only seemed to make it worse. Shinji thought that things would be the same in Exsilium as they had been on Earth. He'd been right, but he'd also been wrong. Seeing his fellow pilots-- seeing Kaworu alive--

Something had quietly begun to change within him. A small seed of unrest had been planted that wormed through his apathy.

The bow drags along the strings with the measured skill of an experienced musician. But to his ears, it's a rusty plod. He hasn't been improving, advancing.

Surprisingly, that irritates him.

The music plays on, harsher and angrier.

[FEBRUARY 14th, CLOSED; FOR KAWORU]
The night air nips at his face, numbing it. As he sighs deeply his breath wavers in the air before fading into nothing. On his back is his cello. The instrument was the reason why it took him so long to leave the apartment. Shinji had internally debated on whether to bring it. In the end, the memory of soft-spoken words (i would love to hear you play) is what decided for him.

The festival is over. The litter of festivities covers the streets. The city feels desolate and mournful as he walks on, eyes trained on his tablet. Occasionally he glances up to make sure he's going the right way, but otherwise he keeps his head down, his pace fast.

He isn't sure how this will end. He's said some harsh words to the Angel during their last meeting and the fact that the other still invited him, out of a patient kindness... it makes him feel guilty. Because despite everything he's said, despite the distance he tried to shove between them, there's a truth he's been burying deep within himself so he wouldn't have to look straight at it.

(I miss you. I'm lonely.)

He's ashamed of himself having such feelings and for hiding them.

The ruins rise gently into his line of sight. He's arrived. Cautiously, he enters, his hand pressed against the worn door frame.

"... hello?" he calls softly.

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"You're giving me too much credit." He says it out of a resigned self-deprecation, but he manages to smile back. Even if he can't accept such a compliment, he can still bask in its kind intent. Maybe he's making a mistake in letting himself feel such a way, but... he almost feel as if they're meeting again at the lake. That feeling he first had when they met, warm and fuzzy, is worming its way through him, though he's done his best to guard against it.

Shinji doesn't answer, but he nods.

Kaworu's ready. With a deceptively calm smile, he pushes himself up and claps the dirt off his hands as he sits back at the piano, next to Shinji. Their bodies are close again. Kaworu can feel his heat against his arm - such a contrast with the cold biting his other side.

With one more devoted look to Shinji, his eyes diverted to the piano keys and he paused for a moment to think of what to play. Right now, he feels... good. A happy, relaxed sensation. But also, strangely, excited... invigorated... volatile.

The choice of song is important. Kaworu had a few ideas while he was waiting for Shinji's arrival, but with a cello here, plans would have to change.

"Are you familiar with Liszt?" he asks. His hands raise and rest on the keys. "Tell me if you like this song."

With that gentle request, he begins to play. Of the three works that compromise Liszt's Liebesträume, number 3 is Kaworu's favorite. He remembers studying it for quite some time as part of his piano education. It begins relatively subdued, but transitions into the second and third act with rapid cadenzas. These chaotic portions are the most difficult to play, and therefore the most fun, but they wouldn't be effective without the sweet, slow verses that they bookend.

Shinji probably isn't familiar with the origin of this song or the poem it was based on. But it doesn't matter. The emotion flows from his core and into his fingertips. I'm thankful to have you near me. I'll do anything for you as long as you live.

Liszt--a composer he's heard of but is unfamiliar with. Nonetheless, he'll trust Kaworu's choice. He faces straight ahead, closing his eyes. The closeness of the other would normally make Shinji uncomfortable, but in this cold, it's comforting.

The piano isn't properly tuned, but the music that flows from it is still beautiful. He turns his head slightly to watch Kaworu's fingers as he plays, admiring their deftness and dexterity. Shinji's envious--it's a difficult piece, but he still makes it seem so light and easy. Free.

At the end of the piece he's facing away again, but admiration shines through his voice. "... you're amazing."

Kaworu's hands have rested in his lap when Shinji gives his review. Playing this song has left him with a sticky, wonderful, swarming mess inside his chest.

It's because Shinji is here next to him. Although his compliment is such a small statement, it's piercing.

"I can do anything with you near me," he breathes, talking just above a whisper. "If it's amazing, it's because I'm always thinking of you."

They have to play together. They must. Turning his head towards Shinji, he leans gently towards him until their shoulders touch. The piano bench creaks gently as Kaworu's weight shifts.

"There's another arrangement of this song that I've always wanted to play." His gaze is locked with Shinji's. That subdued excitement from before is back. "It's a piano-cello duet."

Was he really worth that much devotion? How could someone as perfect as Kaworu say that about someone as imperfect as Shinji? A blush rises to his face and the hand on his leg tightens into a fist.

Shinji stiffens as Kaworu leans against him--a slight but noticeable movement.

(He remembers the hot bath, their hands touching, the contact he wanted but didn't ask for--)

Kaworu's wrong, wrong, wrong.

He didn't deserve such kindness.

"A duet...?" He pauses. "I'm not sure if I'll know the cello part..."

"It's fine," he says reassuringly. Their stare and shoulders separate as he raises his right hand to the keys again. "We can just try the beginning. The cello portion is simply the primary motif, with the piano serving as accompaniment."

His fingers press out No. 3's main tune. It's slow in its soulfulness.

"I would think that with your skill, something like this would be no problem to play. My part would go like this," he says. Then, raising his left hand, he plays the underside of the song, which sounds fuller and thicker with the right hands's contributions.

"Can you hear the two together in your head? It's beautiful, but I've only ever heard recordings of it." His hands stop and he looks back to him. "Won't you try it?"

Edited 2013-02-17 16:35 (UTC)

Apart, he relaxes, but the shoulder Kaworu leaned against is cold without the other. Shinji listens attentively, his mind setting to work in breaking down the melody. He closes his eyes. It isn't too hard. He can do it.

He nods slowly, raises his bow, and plays the beginning, the song flowing but bare without the other part. He feels as though he's stumbling, even as he hit the right notes.

Shinji caught onto it so fast. He exhales and closes his eyes as he realizes that this is really happening. Something like this has to be fate. Kaworu, alive-- Being here in this place separate from their Earth-- Shinji, knowing how to play the cello, and them both finding instruments - ...

At the next measure, his hands suddenly jump in alongside the cello. The notes mix together and bloom into the air.

"Yes, that's it," he encourages as the main refrain nears its end, but Kaworu's hands don't slow or pause. "Repeat it again. Commit the motions to your memory, make it come out without thought. And then, focus on the feeling."

When Kaworu jumps in the song blossoms. The piano's melody is like a comforting hand on the shoulder, an assurance that he's allowed to exist in this time and space. The tightness in his chest loosens. The tension in his notes ease.

Even after everything, it feels natural to be like this, playing side by side, allowing the music to speak for them.

It almost feels nostalgic.

Shinji keeps pace with Kaworu, listening to his advice. Focusing on the lukewarm feeling spreading through him.

It's clear in the sound of the cello that Shinji was relaxing, focusing, acclimating to the notes. Even with the twangy tinge in the piano, the decrepit room is filled with beautiful noise.

As the refrain starts yet again, Kaworu's heavy eyelids finally shut, and he lets himself listen as his hands continue to move.

Rei had asked him why he continued to live. He hadn't had much of an answer, but he said what he at least knew was true - that he'd stay if only to keep Shinji from being hurt again.

But sitting here next to Shinji, listening to him unravel... he could live just for that, too. To help.

When the third repetition is over, he finally breaks away from the muted accompaniment to improvise a brief coda. The room returns to silence, but the air is summery.

"Did you enjoy it?" he asks as he looks to him. Kaworu already knows the answer, but he asks anyway.

It'd been so long since he's played with someone--and even then it'd been with an orchestra, his own sound buried amongst the other strings. The duet feels oddly intimate, with two different instruments mixing their voices together. It's a little scary. A little beautiful. A little uncomfortable. A little strange and a little welcoming.

So when Kaworu asks him, Shinji hesitates.

"Yes." The word drops softly from him like a pebble into a lake, heavy with the words he doesn't know how to say. He meets his gaze, gives a little smile. "It was..."

Different? Warm?

"... new. To experience, I mean. I've never played with a piano before."

"There's even more to this song." His gaze is even and constant, but he's soaking in the sight of him smiling like that, the sound of him speaking like that. "I'll try to find the score, and we can learn the rest."

It can't be understated what a relief it is for Kaworu to have Shinji sitting here. Their last conversation was seemingly so minor... conducted as emotionlessly as possible, over text. And yet, since then, Kaworu had been walking around in a daze. Guilty, ashamed, and so confused by his own confessions to him. When he'd spoken to Death, he seriously considered asking him to kill him again.

Shinji accepting his invitation and coming here with his cello changes everything. There was a strange new appetite in his core... he realizes it now, as he looks at him. And it feels satiated for the first time since he's come here.

Kaworu removes his hands from the keys to reach into his uniform shirt's pocket. "I have something for you," he says casually.

Shinji had been afraid of the outcome of this meeting, even as he had found himself drawn to its invitation. He didn't know what he had expected--terse words, a taut silence. But living in Exsilium has begun to gnaw at him. Made him restless, shoved him out of his safe corner. Because with their world gone, he had nothing. No Evangelion, no father, no mother, no purpose, nobody. Nobody but the other pilots. He needed to hear their voices. He needed to talk to them.

Asuka still burned him. Rei still troubled him.

And Kaworu?

He is the unknown among them, inhuman yet human at the same time, the enemy yet his friend. Shinji can't understand him. He doesn't think he ever will. Because of that, he's tried to cut off their ties.

He meant it when he told Misato on those dark shores that he had loved him. Kaworu had been the only one in his life who handed him such kindness without judgement or a demand.

(Save for that horrible clenched fist.)

And as angry as he tells himself he still is for being betrayed, he wants to relent. He's tired of standing. He wants to collapse and to have someone to hold him up. He wants to be helpless and to be helped. Their duet made him realize how much he missed that comforting feeling. But the other boy's death still sits between them, a wall Shinji hides behind. He isn't ready to come out of its shadow.

So he continues to be a wary animal--wounded, suspicious. He blinks in surprise at Kaworu, tilting his head. A gift...?

"... what is it?"

Kaworu pulls out a small but stuffed envelope from his pocket and offers it to him hopefully. On the front is cursively written, in black ink and Roman letters, To Shinji.

"My Valentine's day card to you," he said, smiling. From what he knew about Valentine's Day, in Japan it was for women to give chocolate to men. But such a senseless distinction was hardly going to stop him, especially when there was no socially mandated day for boys to give chocolate to other boys.

With his free hand, he reached for Shinji's and turned it over gently so that he could place the envelope in his hand.

"...I was hesitant to give you one," he confessed. "But I don't think it's past midnight. So, it's not late yet." A faint pinkness comes to his face, so faint that Shinji may not even see it in the low light. Kaworu's fingers curl around Shinji's, encouraging him to take the envelope. "Will you accept it?"

"Huh?" When he realizes what it is, he flushes. "That's--"

Kaworu probably doesn't understand the full implications of the card. But even knowing that, Shinji can't help his knee-jerk reaction. His hand twitches a little, but he doesn't pull away. Yet. He's still scrambling for a proper response to this.

"Thank you, but-- I--"

For a moment, he wonders to himself if it matters whether Shinji takes it. Undeniably, he wants him to accept it... but there is something so deeply charming about Shinji's hesitation alone.

"You won't accept it?" he asks quietly. Kaworu's hands keep their gentle grip, and his gaze softens - into something even warmer and more adoring. "Are you afraid?"

Shinji bristles at that. "No. That's not it."

He looks down, trying to think on how to explain this. "There's... when you give these things, they have meanings to them. Special meanings. You shouldn't be giving them to me..."

"From my understanding of Valentine's Day, this means exactly what I am intending it to mean," he says, correcting him. Although Kaworu has a sense of what Shinji is trying to say, it's simply one of those artificial limitations that the Lilim made up for themselves, which he has little interest in.

Kaworu's slender fingers press and brush down Shinji's as he pulls his hands away, leaving the envelope in his palm. There's that warmth in his face again. It all feels strange. Yes, yes, he wants Shinji to take it. He can recognize that desire inside himself. But...

"If you don't want to open it, that's fine. You've adapted in a certain way in order to live in this world. I admire you for it, and so, you don't have to accept my love."

After a moment, he breathes out a dreamy sigh.

"If you're happy alone, that's fine. But it should be by your own choice. Not because there is no one to give you whatever love you might desire. I'm happy to give that choice to you."

He's at a loss for words. Shinji looks down at the envelope, its weight a minimal presence in his hands. Even as he pushed Kaworu away, Kaworu is still trying. Even now, he's telling him that he deserves to be loved when no, that's not true, because he's a pilot without his machine, a boy whose father abandoned him--

Shinji's eyes sting. His throat tightens. His fingers crinkle the envelope slightly.

What's there to be admired about him?

Seeing Shinji react with such pain is a poignant thing to behold. He's tempted to touch him again - Kaworu is barely able to contain his affection when he sees Shinji cowering like this - but he remembers their first meeting after coming here, and the way Shinji flinched away from his touch that night.

"Shinji-kun," Kaworu murmurs, leaning in, wanting him to look up but expecting him not to. What should he say? Shinji is withdrawing, and Kaworu wants to call him back to that warm place where they had reconnected, but... usually, his attempts to comfort him when he's like this don't go very well.

He smiles at the piano keys, suddenly feeling "guilty." It mixes with his love and confounds him yet again. Why? It didn't make any sense.

"...I called you here because I had to express myself to you. You don't have to stay. I wish..." He stops himself abruptly, and then drops the thought. "...My feelings won't change if you need to go."

He's causing him so much trouble. Shinji knows this. He doesn't look up when Kaworu speaks, his gaze fixated on the envelope. A small gesture of kindness that he's shoving away because he feels unworthy of it. It's not out of spite or fear this time--it's out of a feeling of worthlessness that consumes him. Kaworu deserves to lavish his attention on someone who would accept it wholeheartedly.

"... I'm sorry." It's quietly spoken.

Rejection. Kaworu's body doesn't move for a moment, still leaned in close. He meant every word that he said... if Shinji leaves, if he doesn't want him, it is just as right and proper. The thick, swarming, knotted feeling inside him is so strange - so new... it's invigorating somehow, in a wonderful, horrible, ecstatic, despairing way.

Finally, he sits up straight again. His fingers weave between each other and hang loosely from his wrists in his lap.

"If you need me," he begins, his head bowed, "just call my name, or come to this spot. I'll be here."

Even as he says it, his head is filled with questions - is it me? because of what I am? or is it him? punishing himself? not believing me? he was so open to him at nerv - is it because of what i did, still? - but he forces them away and focuses on this moment and the boy in the corner of his eye.

He had accepted Kaworu's invitation here... and Kaworu had been allowed to say what he wanted to say. That was all he wanted, and in that way, this night is a success.

When he turns back to him, there's sadness in his eyes, but the calm adoration hasn't left.

"Do you want me to walk you back? I'll carry your cello."

Silently, Shinji shakes his head. But he doesn't return the envelope. It stays in his hands, trembling like a fragile bird. He can see the pain he's causing Kaworu. That's all he's capable of, isn't he? Even if he does nothing, even if he accepts his misplaced affections...

"I can find my way back," he mumbles. He lifts his gaze to meet Kaworu's. Still, that loving expression is there, mixed in with the hurt. Shinji suddenly feels like crying. He's tired of keeping everyone distant from him. He wants to be helped by someone. Anyone. He wants to apologize to Kaworu again, for killing him and for running away yet again. He wants that warm feeling they shared during the duet back.

Instead, he turns around and begins to pack up his cello, sliding the card into his jacket's pocket.

It's plain as day that Shinji is hurting from this, and it's impossible for Kaworu not to wonder why again - why he is turning him down. Perhaps it is not much of a mystery, really... The complexity of Shinji's emotional strife is beautiful, and it's likely a mixture of all those possible justifications that ran through his mind. Or, perhaps, it can be boiled down to one of them after all. Either way, it makes no difference except as part of Kaworu's personal curiosity, and he understands either situation.

As much as it makes his own chest ache. A bittersweet, consuming feeling. A feeling he would happily live a thousand times for.

He continues to calmly watch Shinji as he packs his cello away, his outer demeanor concealing his thoughts. The envelope is gone from his sight. Shinji must be taking it with him.

As Shinji prepares to leave, he pauses at the crumbling doorway. The streets look dark and lonely from here. His hands curl at his side. What's waiting for him back at the apartment? There would only be more silence and darkness. Did he really want to return to that?

It seems for a moment like he would to turn around and speak--the slight tilt of the head, parting of the lips--but it's fleeting. He resolves to take the coward's way out and walks away, leaving Kaworu alone.

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(OPEN) let me play you the song of my people

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