exsiliumlogs | [Closed] I'm not expecting you to care

Who: Asuka Langley Soryu, Shinji Ikari
What: Derpy teenagers.
Where: Shinji's current living quarters.
When: Evening of the 22nd.
Warnings: Derpy teenagers.

It wasn't that Asuka actually wanted to see Shinji (OK, maybe she did), but she was quickly running out of things to do on the moonbase. You could only screw around with the VR or train or eat the crappy food for so long before you started to go a little stir crazy. Besides, she hadn't really seen him since the weirdness that had been their little escapade in a U.E. fighter craft.

Which had been pretty cool, all things considered.

She paused just outside the door and then rapped on it with her knuckles. There. If he wasn't in, she could just go back to her room or something. He probably wasn't here, anyway. Asuka folded her arms and glanced down the hallway, trying to act as nonchalant and indifferent as possible.

Just because she was finally admitting that she needed other people (sort of) didn't mean she had to show it.

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"I couldn't bring any drinks." Which is a roundabout way of saying that there was only water. Simple things like soda have become scarcer, to nobody's surprise. He takes out a water bottle, pours some into the cup before handing it to her. "Sorry."

Asuka rolls her eye and accepts the the cup with a shrug, "It's not your fault."

She pauses to take a drink. At least it doesn't taste like chemicals (small favors). She lifts her other hand to gesture in Shinji's direction, "You still apologize for everything."

So he still did. Shinji dares to smile a bit as he takes the water bottle for himself. "And you're still bossy."

"Bossy?" Asuka gives him a look over the rim of her cup, "I'm not bossy!"

She is totally bossy.

"I'm just trying to give you more of a spine, that's all!"

Shinji unscrews the cap, taking a sip before he answers. He doesn't quite look at her face, but that smile is still on his face. "It doesn't seem to work well..."

"It would take if you were more receptive!"

Asuka sounds incredibly confident of that. She tilts her head back and drains about half of her glass in a few large gulps.

"I guess this is the thinks I get for watching out for you...."

Hearing that earns a somewhat amused look from Shinji, though he makes sure to turn his head away.

"I don't think following what I do on the network counts as watching out for me."

"You make it sound like I'm stalking you!"

Asuka sounds horrifically indignant. Although, to be honest, that's pretty much what she's been doing.

"You've done it since I got here."

He's not dense, after all.

"That's not true at all! Why would I want to follow you around, anyway? You're boring!"

When in doubt, deny everything.

"I've been asking myself the same question, you know."

He's nothing special. He acknowledges that--aside from piloting the Eva, he's essentially a nobody compared to Asuka. If anything, shouldn't he be the one jealous here...?

"No point in asking it, because I'm not following you!"

All evidence to the contrary. She grimaces at him and takes another swig from her bottle of water. She stares at the bottle for a moment and in a very brief moment, her voice has gone from simply angry and offended to angry, resentful and bitter.

"You'd probably be happier if I stopped showing up anyway. Right?"

Edited (spaces) 2013-11-13 23:43 (UTC)

Ah. It was easy to forget when they were bantering that this was a side to Asuka to, the side that greeted him when he first came to Exsilium. Even after all this time, was she still angry at him?

... it's selfish of him to think that way, even though he feels like it's the truth.

"Don't say things like that." Shinji says it quietly, not sure if he wants her to hear. He looks down at his own water, tilting it. "... I'm tired of people I know disappearing."

Asuka always has an angry side. It's buried from time to time, but she carries a lot of resentment around with her and it doesn't take much to bring it back to the surface. She doesn't meet his gaze (more accurately, she doesn't look at him) when he responds. She wants to believe that, but it's hard to. Especially when she feels like she's a third wheel.

"It's not like you actually care about me," Asuka shoots back venomously, "I'm just someone you know, right? A familiar face that you like to have around to make yourself feel better."

To be fair, that's how she feels about him sometimes. Besides, this is more to draw reaction (and maybe make herself feel better via anger).

Shinji can't exactly deny it. There was a comfort in having Asuka with him, in being able to turn to a familiar presence that he doesn't have to work to break down and open up to.

If he thinks about it that way, could he really say that he cared about her? Or was he using her like she was using him? They aren't friends. They aren't anything anywhere near that anymore, not that they were on good terms in the first place.

"But you care about me." He doesn't answer the question right away. "Do you...?"

Asuka stares at the wall. Her response isn't immediate. She actually has to think about it and that makes her more uncomfortable than if she'd had an immediate answer. She wants to say 'no', to watch him crumple and deflate, but it'd be a lie. She settles for a shrug.

"Why should I?"

He answers without much hesitation: "The same reason I should for you, I guess."

It sounds harsh when it's presented that way. Unlike her, he doesn't want to hurt her. That... was definitely too much effort and ill-will for him to muster, both in the act and the aftermath. And in any case, he was invested in her in some way, whether it was as a support or as a friend.

That, he can't deny.

"Because you have to," Asuka responds flatly. She wants to scream ath im, but she can't muster the energy.

"I guess I have to, too."

Not that she sounds very happy about it.

So that's how she viewed it. Shinji looked down.

"You don't have to do anything."

"Who else is going to tell you when you're an idiot?"

Certainly not Kaworu. Somehow, Asuka manages to make the insult sound semi-affectionate.

Though it was an insult, Shinji was all too familiar with how Asuka spoke by this point. So he accepts it, tilting his bottle as he thinks.

"... I guess that's a way to look at it. Thanks, I guess?"

[Closed] I'm not expecting you to care

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