damned_institute | Day 48: Courtyard [Fourth Shift]

So much for a relaxing shower. Anise couldn't possibly relax around someone with a voice like that! This was beyond weird. How could a girl who didn't have any relation to Sync have the exact same voice as him?

And what made it even weirder was that this wasn't even the first time Anise had encountered something like that. There was a boy, who also had tattoos like hers, who sounded just like Luke. What was his name? It was so long ago, Anise couldn't remember. Maybe she'd know it if she heard it again, but...

That gave her an idea. She wasn't using her journal for much besides cooking notes, recipes, and a few room numbers, right? Maybe from now on, whenever she saw or heard something really strange or suspicious, she'd write it down. Then, if it happened again or she learned more about it, she could look back to the entry and add the details. She'd call it... 'Anise's Mystery Diary.' That sounded kind of cool!

During the lunch shift, Anise worked on putting as many memories as possible to paper. The radio man, the rumored third floor, the ruins she found last night, things like that. By the time fourth shift rolled around, she wasn't quite done yet. It was getting harder to think of more things to write about, even though she was sure there were hundreds of mysteries in the institute. Maybe she'd feel more inspired if she took her writing outside.

"Oh, Dolores!" A nurse came to stop her as she was walking out the door. "If you're going outside, you should put on a coat! We wouldn't want you catching a cold." Even though Anise disliked being assisted by the nurses, she cooperated as the woman helped her into the coat, quickly putting Tokunaga back in its place on her back when they were finished. It did look kind of cold out, so there was no point in arguing.

Outside, Anise found herself a bench to sit on while she wrote some more in her journal. Occasionally she'd pause and fidget with the pen for a bit, or doodle some stars and other shapes into the corner of the page she was on, unsure of what to write next.

[free!]

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When she broke eye contact, Kaworu smiled. He felt her building distance between them, although in the end it would accomplish nothing. What they shared could not be altered. It was the same as before, and still he wondered why she pulled away as he drew closer. She found no comfort in the overlap, but did he? Kaworu could not say that he would have been incomplete without Ayanami, but he was. They filled their roles, her and Lilim, he and Eva, despite how the truth slid through his fingers. He knew this, but could not hold it.

"But I know you, and now you know me," he insisted steadily. "Still, it is impossible to say if it is fate that created this moment. If fate exists, and all is predestined, then it does not impact life at all. It has no power, but offers comfort or dread in turn."

Kaworu paused, and followed her gaze to the water. "However, I believe this is meant to be."

The air remained thick, something close to palpable. If it gave itself as tension, Ayanami wasn't one to notice. It simply filtered as attention. Drawn to the fulfillment of space in the air near her. The other spoke words. The Fifth Child, he had said. It didn't seem to underline his purpose. It was a flawed title. Like the words he was speaking. Some transcendent and some that faded away.

She glanced back, as always, unfathomable. "I do not know you," she answered. "Your knowledge of myself is only what you've said. You do not know me."

If there was an enunciation on the last word, it was barely noticeable. One could not know another truly. Not like this, if at all. Still, his last sentence pulled her attention. A similarity, then. Something. This time she kept the gaze, staring at him.

"I know what it is we share," he murmured, audible only to her. "It defines us."

He met her eyes, and a smile resurfaced. She made him smile. And yet Kaworu could not deny her words. It was not Ayanami who brought him joy, but the connection. He knew nothing of her heart, only her path, and how she walked it with him. What meaning did that hold beyond Kaworu's own reality? Beyond Ayanami's?

Kaworu did not know her, not as she would have him. He did not know what she loved. He did not know what she feared. How she lived, how she hurt, what she desired. This was what she spoke of, he knew, but what he possessed was the knowledge of a deeper connection. It was beyond his ability to express. It pulled at him, pulled him in, pulled him down.

"Do you wish for me to know you more than this?" he asked with the sharpness of curiosity. Her eyes had been offering him few answers.

Edited 2010-03-23 23:05 (UTC)

To the first set of words, Ayanami said nothing. She stared at the other, not blankly, merely watchful. Taking the words he said and not agreeing or disagreeing. Perhaps there was truth. Perhaps there were things unsaid. She gave no inclination.

More words were given to the question asked, though the watchful expression slipped back into a firm neutrality. Did she wish it? She didn't particularly wish for anything. A flawed question. She paused. "You will know me as you will," she responded.

"It is not something that is determined by just one," he said, maintaining his stare. His eyes didn't change, but his smile softened. The breeze blew strands of hair into his eyes, adding to its disorganization. He felt it, but ignored it.

"If you do not wish to be known, then you will not be. If I do not wish to know you, then you will not be." It was rare for Lilim to find one they wished to know, who wished to know them. Lives came and went, where the individual never found that mutual desire. Even if it failed, the attempt could soothe the heart, and make one forget that they were alone. Kaworu had found Shinji.

"However," he began again, voice airy, "I do wish to know you."

"I do wish to know you."

Ayanami frowned. The sentiment was unknown, and from this one that she had just met, despite threads of familiarity, strange. The question came unbidden, a light accusation in the word. "Why?"

"You have been made separate from the world," he responded. "You exist only as yourself, and connections to others are seen as unnecessary to live. Yet, I believe you feel them, and you desire them. No individual soul is without loneliness. It drives every life." Kaworu watched her. The narrowing of her eyes, the rejection of the unfamiliar, or that which was too familiar. She said little, when she spoke and in the way she moved. She was innately unlike Shinji, whose movements spelled out great wounds. He opened up, she closed herself away. But perhaps, it was in Ayanami's nothingness that she could be found.

"We are alike," he continued. "It means we are not alone."

The answer was detailed and wholly unsatisfying. The words themselves causing something close to unease to filter through her. Unease? Perhaps not. Something closer to unsettling. A steady wariness growing. If anything, after a spark of something else that flitted through her eyes, her expression shut down more.

There were many things she could have said in reply, denials or affirmations. In the end, she said none, choosing silence over exposition.

Day 48: Courtyard [Fourth Shift]

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