Day 48: Courtyard [Fourth Shift]

[gald_digger]

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

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[moral_liberty]

Kaworu hardly said a word to his nurse as she led him out to the courtyard. If she seemed concerned, Kaworu took little notice. His mind felt as though it were spread too wide, and yet lacked the room for all of the thoughts Shinji had inadvertently put there. Seeing Shinji elated him, but the pain in his heart only increased each time Kaworu saw him. Shinji as reconnecting with life, which could never be painless.

The Lilim reacted to him with confusion and discomfort, even Shinji who spoke to him about his heart readily and offered him smiles. Their pleasant murmurs amongst one another seemed alien. It was something he only managed to experience periodically, and the circumstances changed so rapidly between personalities that he couldn't predict them. It was something beautiful about Lilim, but it put Kaworu outside of them. Shinji was his only connection; what else was worth living for? What value did Kaworu hold to himself?

He didn't feel as though he was really there at all as he walked through the door. Outside, he felt the cold as it bled through the openings in his coat, and that finally led him back to the present. The ground beneath his feet was hard, and the girl in front of him was real. He noticed her almost too late, but he knew he was not mistaken. A conversation flashed through his mind. A comparison, a denial. And then a face, watching him impassively as he died. Someone like him. The only one.

"I hadn't expected I would see you again," he confessed, as he came to stand next to her. He watched her as intently as she watched the pond. "Rei Ayanami."

[hasnomeaning]

People had passed her without a glance, and when feet trod to a stop, Ayanami did not look up. Words, however, pulled her gaze to lock on eyes the color of her own. Hair light as well. A sensation passed, of something known, but it slid across the edges of her consciousness fluidly. Because that remained fact. She did not know this person. And here, they claimed knowledge of her. Speaking her name.

She watched him for a moment. "I have never seen you," she spoke quietly.

[moral_liberty]

The response was unexpected, and a look of faint surprise and curiosity crossed his face. His smile changed to suit it.

Time meant very little now. It was expected to be constant, unfailing, but here it remained shattered and hastily connected. But he knew that the girl could be no one other than Ayanami. She was Lilith, as he was Adam. He had seen her face in photographs before he had met her, when he had finally felt that sameness. It was something that Lilim always had, and Kaworu absorbed the novelty of it. The same, but so different.

"You are the First Child, Rei Ayanami, aren't you?" he asked, although he already knew the answer.

[hasnomeaning]

The other's response created caution, an awareness moreso than she had held the moment before. Others knew about her, others knew of her, but she found it strange that this person knew of her existence so easily. Unless Ikari or the Second Child had shared the meaning given to them. Logic dictated, deeper than anything more. Because she could not find familiarity before her. Because they had never met.

"Yes," was her response, concise. She blinked once, red eyes on red still when she opened them. "Who are you?"

[moral_liberty]

"Kaworu Nagisa, the Fifth Child," he recited. It was only a name, and while Kaworu had a developing attachment to it, he knew it would mean little to Ayanami. Despite its faults, his claim as the Fifth Child would be that which connected them, more so than any personal familiarity. It meant ally, but that was a lie. He bore no resentment towards any Lilim, he loved Shinji, but it was beyond his nature to be all that the Fifth Child should have been to the others. Kaworu wondered if she would see that. However, it was only another name. Lilim entered it into a database, printed it onto a card, and that was all it needed to be true. It was no different than being Kaworu, or being Tabris, or even Adam.

"We have met," he said, but then reconsidered. "Or will meet. With you here now, it doesn't matter. It was inevitable that our paths would cross."

[hasnomeaning]

There was a moment of delay, a whirl of synapses cracking as pieces fell into place. Comprehension lacked the reasons, but the words were simple enough. The Fifth Child. Ayanami had not known that they had found the Fifth. Which was. Strange. A lack of information seemed altogether strange in that subject. Still, she would--

The other continued speaking. Something about the words rang correct within her; sense and reason countered and denied it. Instead, suspicion slid briefly through her, covered in a moment by neutrality. Casually, she looked back at the water, the internal effort to maintain eye contact harder than she would have assumed. "It's not inevitable."

[moral_liberty]

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."

[hasnomeaning]

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.

[moral_liberty]

"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.

[hasnomeaning]

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.

[moral_liberty]

"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."

[hasnomeaning]

"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?"

[moral_liberty]

"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."

[hasnomeaning]

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.