mk. 11 (text)

[paraclete]

Who: Kaworu Nagisa + open
Broadcast: fleetwide
Action: Vanquish
When: evening.

You know, it's been happening for billions of years.

What's the best fruit anyone liberated from the planet?

[Any crew members of the Vanquish might stumble upon their captain, who is seated, cross-legged, on the floor in front of the armory's door. He's got a really little, really colorful lizard on his knee—the lizard has been with him almost at all times for the past week or so. But he's instructing it in low tones, occasionally with the help of a triangle. You know, the little instrument. It tings every once in a while, tinny down the corridor.]

Comments

[paraclete]

It's okay if she gets fat. That means she's happy with her strawberries.

We do other things too, though.

[astrobleme]

[Oh, come on... Kaworu just doesn't get it, and Shinji isn't exactly in the mood for an argument right now. He'll have to make sure Elerial gets plenty of exercise, at the very least. Why do I have to be the responsible one?]

What else do you do?

[paraclete]

[Oblivious:]

We listen to music, look at art, and play hunting games. I also tell her stories and watch her climb.

[astrobleme]

So you're bonding with her?

[...

If a text could be quiet and gentle, then this one would be:]

That makes me happy, you know.

[paraclete]

We are bonding. I love her. I am happy to love her.

[One wonders—Kaworu cannot let himself wonder, but one wonders what the world would have been like if Kaworu had bonded with his genetic kin.]

Looks like you and I are both happy.

[astrobleme]

That's what I wanted. That's what I was hoping for.

[Shinji also wanted, and was also hoping for, a reprieve from these strange feelings he's been plagued with for months and months now. He thought giving Kaworu a little bitty life to look after would finally put an end to it. The feelings haven't gone away, though. They haven't gone anywhere.]

But you have no idea how close I came to chickening out!

[If anything, they're getting stronger.]

It's kind of ridiculous, looking back on it.

[paraclete]

Did it make you feel good to give her to me?

[On the occasions Kaworu isn't burying himself alive under shovelfuls of shame, he's just shameless. It somehow works for him.]

[astrobleme]

[Oh, man... A direct question...]

It really surprised me.

[He's too embarrassed for anything more than an oblique answer.]

[paraclete]

Were you surprised? I can't say I was.

[It means something more than that, but maybe he's due for another shovelful of that shame. This is the most natural thing in this or any universe, but anticipating it and its bliss still makes him feel presumptuous in some way. Something about self-worth, maybe. Something about Shinji choosing him for that bliss; something about himself being undeserving of it. A rote neurosis.]

[astrobleme]

[... Don't be a coward, Ikari.]

Were you hoping for something like that?

[paraclete]

[Likewise—cowardice... he's paid a lot for the sake of repression. He's paid so much it's bled him dry. Maybe a touch of the real deal isn't so bad, and it's easier to think that when he's giddy in the face of an infant he calls his.]

I might call myself full of hope, Shinji-kun.

[astrobleme]

I know that. I just meant

[Somehow, being ambiguous is just as stressful as anything else.]

If you have certain hopes

for certain things that could happen.

That's what I meant.

[paraclete]

Do I seem like it?

[Meanwhile, it's perhaps easier for Kaworu when he doesn't need to level his voice, patting down that velvet.]

I have wondered whether I've seemed like it

[...]

I've heard that when a person thinks about a thing, it comes through in their face. Hence why I've always been looking at you... hence why a song makes me smile. So, I have wondered whether I've seemed like it. If I am full of hope, you might see certain hopes in me. And a little bit, I think, I had hope that you would see them.