A beam of light shone across his face as the boy slept, illuminating his blank expression. His mouth was slightly agape as his chest rose and fell slightly. I tiptoed around his bag, and hopped awkwardly over a small pile of manga, almost falling into the shelf of Shinji's robot models in the process. Lucky, I managed to carry my momentum forward instead, falling away from the shelf and right on top of Shinji… and the giant lump underneath the covers.

Possibilities

An Evangelion fan-fiction.

Evangelion is the property of studio Gainax.

Series created by Hideaki Anno with character designs by Yoshiyuki Sadamoto.

Disclaimer: I do not own Evangelion; all characters and designs have been used without permission. I don't own the name-brand Wonder Bread either, in case you're wondering.

Of course, I had seen it before. I mean, I do wake him up every morning. I mean, it was just yesterday when I slapped him. Twice, mind you, once for that and once for calling me a pain in the ass.

Someone had to keep that boy in check, and as his childhood friend, who better?

"What the- what are you doing on top of me?!" At least he was awake today.

"It's your fault!" I quickly redirected the blame. "If your room wasn't an absolute pigsty I wouldn't have fell!"

Well, it was his fault. Stupid Shinji and his stupid manga. I was exaggerating a bit about the pigsty – my room was much worse. Shinji even properly put his shirts on hangers, instead of strewn around the floor.

"What does my room being a little messy have to do with your lack of balance?" He asked, still a bit testy.

I sighed loudly and decided that it wasn't worth the time it would take to explain – we were actually going to be late.

"Forget it!" I yelled. "Just get ready."

"Alright, alright," he said, walking to the washroom. I took the time to bulldoze the offending comics with my foot into his cello, leaning at the side room – I wasn't about to trip over the same stack tomorrow.

I grabbed a set of Shinji's school uniform out of the closet, along with a pair of socks. Honestly, I did everything for him in the mornings. I chuckled at what would happen if I didn't wake him every day, imagining a half-dressed Shinji running into class halfway through first period.

"Why do I bother…," I muttered to no one in particular.

The little penguin bobble-head doll I bought him for his last birthday nodded in sympathy.

"Put this on!" I threw the clothes at him as I yanked open the bathroom door. The poor boy tripped on his towel in shock at the sudden lack of privacy. Served him right for waking up late.

He awkwardly jumped around, trying to get his legs through the right hole on his pants while closing the door. After a short while, he emerged, hair unkempt. His collar was messed up, half of it sticking up, other half twisted.

"You idiot," I teased softly, smiling. I leaned in and straightened his collar out for him. "You're hopeless."

He grinned sheepishly as I finished up.

"There." I said. "Now you're dressed for success."

My hands lingered on his shoulders for a brief moment, realizing how close we were. No, not a moment - an eternity.

"Um…" I couldn't stop looking into his eyes.

Shinji's mom interrupted us, clad in her apron, a stack of buttered toast in hand.

"Here you go, dear," she offered. Shinji almost leapt to the waiting food, grabbing two pieces.

"Would you like some too?" She asked me, thrusting the plate in my direction.

"No, thank you Mrs. Ikari," I declined. "I already ate before I came up."

Shinji's mom winked at me as she brought the plate back to the kitchen. Shinji, already munching on a piece of toast, missed it.

"Don't forget to bring your lunch!" She called out.

I pushed him to the doorway, bags in hand. Shinji took a break from eating to say goodbye to his mom. His dad had already left for the university. I said a hasty goodbye as I slipped on my shoes.

Today was a welcome change from the usual: instead of running to school, we were actually early enough to just walk. Just as well, I thought, remembering the collision yesterday.

Arguing in class had not been fun. Shinji, the wimp, had been so spineless that I had to defend him. And then the whole "Rei-Shinji-Asuka" love triangle rumour thing had become the topic of the day.

No way. Love triangles? Asuka Soryu Langley is not someone who gets into love triangles. Triangles are unfriendly – nothing good is ever in the shape of a triangle: the Bermuda triangle, shark fins in the water… even Triscuits are square, despite their name.

Shinji was still chomping on the second piece of toast, oblivious to my mind's machinations.

"Hey, Shinji," I asked innocently. "What do you think of that new girl?"

"Who, Ayanami?" He replied between swallows.

"Yeah, do you think she's cute?" I said.

He swallowed the last bite of toast before answering. "She's not bad, I guess," he thought aloud.

"Prettier than me?" I questioned. I loved putting the boy on the spot. Though lately he'd been showing a bit more backbone, something which I took pride in.

"Yeah," he laughed. "You're too ugly to compare." He stuck his tongue out.

Ouch. I knew he was joking, but that still hurt. The problem with being childhood friends is that sometimes in all the teasing, the truth gets blurred. What did he really think?

"Jerk!" I insulted him playfully to mask my feelings.

"Hey, don't ask the question if you can't handle the answer!"

"Humph," I mock-growled. "Well, you and that blue-haired bi…"

My voice trailed off as I realized who was up ahead in the distance. Speak of the devil.

Great.

"Hey, Ayanami!" Shinji waved. The girl waved back and walked over to meet us.

"Hey, guys, walking to school?" She greeted us cheerfully.

"Yep," Shinji replied, equally as cheerfully.

I was alternating between nausea at how much Shinji was drooling over her and anger over the fact that he was fraternizing with her. Her! The girl who had just run him over yesterday, and then argued in class about it after!

"No hard feelings about yesterday, I hope?" She asked.

"Sure," I eyed her a bit suspiciously. I was being a bit more catty than usual, but whatever. I had good reasons.

"How are you adjusting to Tokyo-3?" Shinji asked.

"It's been alright," Rei said. "All my friends in Tokyo-2 were sad when I left, but it's not like I'm never going to see them again, right?"

"Right!" Shinji beamed at her.

Meh, I thought.

"Why did you transfer?" Shinji asked. I couldn't tell whether he was just trying to be polite, or whether he actually liked this girl.

"Well, my father got a new job at this American bread company that's trying to expand into Japan, and their new offices are in Tokyo-3, so we had to move. He's in charge of marketing: have you ever heard of Wonder bread?"

Wondergirl. Sounds perfect.

Wondergirl over there had hijacked my morning commute. That's right, leave me all alone while you two go on, chatting to each other like you're on a date. In fact, why don't I just go run into the street and play in traffic? It'd probably be less painful than listening to this conversation.

"Asuka?" Shinji asked.

What? Wait, they were talking to me.

"Pardon me?" I said.

"Rei just asked if we wanted to go shopping after school," he answered.

"Shopping…?" I was surprised. I didn't want to spend my time with her. That's great Asuka, be even more catty to the new transfer student.

"Um, I can't," I stuttered, struggling to think of a reason. "Because… I promised to go to the mall with Hikari after school!" Whew, Hikari would cover for me. Wait. Did I just say the mall? Way to think on your feet, Asuka.

"Why don't you just come with us?" Shinji replied, undeterred.

"Yeah," Rei added. "I could use your help picking out clothes! I'm a bit of a fashion disaster."

"With an invitation like that, how could I refuse?" I answered without enthusiasm.

We arrived at the schoolyard – Shinji off to Toji and Kensuke, and Rei off to… well, Rei was still walking with me. I looked for Hikari, but she was nowhere to be found, probably helping the sensei with something before class started. I was stuck with Wondergirl.

"So, what's the deal with you and Shinji?" she asked in a not-so-innocent voice.

Answering a question with a question, I went on the offensive. "Why are you so interested? Are you into him or something?"

"Well, he's a bit of a pervert," Rei giggled. "But he's pretty cute."

I was taken aback by how forward she was – how do you reply to something like that? Luckily, I caught a glimpse of Hikari walking through the front doors of the school.

"Hey, there's Hikari!" I blurted out, walking over to my friend.

"Asuka? You still haven't answered my question…"

I pretended not to hear her as I walked faster.

Last year, Hikari had hosted a sleepover. Me and the other girls had gone over to read magazines, gossip, watch movies and do other girl-related things. During the night, I was mindlessly flipping an issue of Cosmo or some other thing when I saw an article about the concept of the "friend-zone", or how a person can be seen as just a friend forever, instead of something more.

Of course, this was the same magazine that had advertised articles like "Forty-eight tips to satisfy your man" and "How to lose those last 15 pounds", so it wasn't as if it was a great beacon of journalism.

Still, I had read the entire article. I didn't know why – Shinji and I had obvious romantic tension at times, but I thought that was just our bodies talking to each other. It wasn't like either of us was harbouring secret deep feelings of love. All boy/girl friendships go through that, right?

When the other girls and Hikari saw the article, they started the whole "Shinji and Asuka are a couple" talk, which only stopped when I threw a pillow at Hikari's face.

Still, the phrase had stuck in my head. Not that I've ever seriously thought about the boy like that – just… when you're best friends with someone of the opposite gender for so long, you can't help but wonder, you know?

Today, Hikari was doing her own wondering… about that stupid track-suited dimwit, Toji.

"I just did it," she breathlessly mentioned as I approached.

"Did what?" I asked.

"You forgot? Today? You know…" Hikari blushed.

"The letter!" I quickly recalled. I had even stayed after class with Hikari last week to write it - a love letter to be shoved into his shoe locker. Anonymous, of course, saying that they had the same homeroom, asking him to meet her on the roof after class.

"Do you think he'll come?" She asked. I opened the door to the hallway as we walked to class.

"Yeah," I said. "He'll be there." I didn't exactly approve Hikari's taste in men, but even an idiot like Toji would leap for the chance to be with her. And if he didn't… well, it'd probably be better for her. Probably.

"Ahhh," I remembered. "Sorry I wasn't there to help you with the letter this morning."

"It's alright," Hikari giggled a bit. "I know how important waking up Shinji is."

I opened my mouth to retort, but then I decided against it. I wasn't about to get into that again. Instead, I avoided the conversation again.

"Are you sure you put it in the right locker?"

"Yeah, positive."

We reached the class, where the idiot trio were already sitting together, deep in thought. I caught a peek of what today's subject of discussion was – Hikari's letter. I nodded at my friend. It was a good thing that the boys never bothered keeping their voices low.

"Who do you think put it in there?" Kensuke asked. "She's in our class?"

"I don't know," Toji scratched his head. The image of an ape doing the same thing entered my mind.

"Well, take a guess," Shinji offered. "Maybe it's Hikari?"

"Nah," Toji said. "The class rep hates me ever since I dumped sand over her in second grade."

I stifled a giggle.

"Can't be Asuka," Kensuke stated the obvious. "What about Mizuki?"

Mizuki Musashi was a classmate of ours – she, and just about every other girl in the class knew that Hikari had a crush on Toji.

"Maybe," Toji said. "I don't know."

"Well, are you going to-" Shinji's question, the only one I had been interested in hearing the answer to, was cut off by the screech of tires as our teacher announced her presence.

The three ran to the window to give Misato their daily V signs, complete with matching idiotic grins. Great.

"Rise! Bow! Sit down!"

Too bad Hikari had to start class. The rest of their conversation would be by computer.

The morning came and went. Miss Katsuragi wasn't as bad as say, our last sensei, but honestly, sometimes she was too relaxed. When the lunch bell rang, she let us go for the day.

"I have a date," Misato grinned. "And I've got to get ready. You guys have been great today, so you can have the rest of the day off. Remember that your math homework is due tomorrow!"

And she left with a wink, keys in hand.

"How does that woman keep her job?" Hikari scowled

"I heard that her dad has some pull with the principal," I answered. "Something about them working together...

"Wait, why are you still here?" I remembered the time. "You're going to be late: the note said after class!" The entire room had emptied in a hurry, excited at the unexpected early release. Shinji, Toji, and Kensuke had left in the crowd, Wondergirl tagging along. I'd have to deal with the trip later.

Hikari wouldn't look at me, instead preferring to look at the ground. "Asuka… would you do me a favour?"

"What are you… oh no…" I groaned, as I realized what Hikari wanted me to do.

"Could you go to the roof first?" Hikari pleaded. "Just to see if he comes! I'll be there too, just hiding!"

My eye twitched a bit. It has a tendency to do that. "You're lucky I'm such a good friend…"

I grabbed Hikari and broke out into a run to the roof – we had to beat them there. We ran through the hall and up the stairs, but not before carefully slipping past Toji's little group while making sure we were out of sight – lucky that they walked so slowly.

I threw Hikari behind one of the giant vents as we broke out into the sunlight, tossing our bags to her. We didn't have too much time to catch our breaths; the boys were juts behind us.

The door opened to reveal…

"S-Shinji?"

"Asuka?!"

"Why are you here?" I almost screamed.

"WHY ARE YOU HERE?" He screamed.

"Toji was supposed to come!" I replied.

"Wait, you're the one who gave Toji the letter?" Shinji's voice rose higher in surprise.

"RED DEVIL?" Toji clambered out of the hallway, pointing at me in shock. I heard a thud behind the door – Kensuke probably.

"HOLD IT!" I yelled. "I'M NOT THE ONE WHO GAVE YOU THAT STUPID LETTER!"

"I did," Hikari meekly said, coming out from behind the vent.

Shinji and Toji both deflated a little.

"Come on," I said. I took my bag, grabbed Shinji by the ear and dragged him out to the hall. "Let's go."

"H-hi," I heard Toji stammer.

I gave Hikari a little smile as I walked through the open door, pushing aside Kensuke. The boy had recovered from my surprise appearance, and was recording Hikari and Toji's awkward rendezvous.

"Where's Rei?" I asked, "Wasn't she with you?"

"She went home," Shinji said. "After she heard that we were going to help Toji, she said that the mall could wait till another day. She's eating lunch under the tree."

"Oh." I said.

Kensuke interjected. "Well, as much as I'd love to stay here and make fun of the happy couple, I'm going to join Rei down there and see if she wants some company."

"So just to be clear, you were-"

"Only there to help out Hikari." I confirmed.

"And the letter…"

"All her." He didn't need to know that I helped write it. Heck, I didn't even want to know that I helped write it.

"When do you think they'll be done?" He asked.

"I don't know… she's planned this out for a while; Toji has class duty this week too. I bet she'll stay back to help him, and then they might go eat?"

"Want to get lunch then?" Shinji asked. "I didn't bring mine."

"I knew I forgot something this morning," I realized. "Sorry." Today was just one of those days… I had forgotten so many things, including packing my own lunch, too.

"It's fine," Shinji smiled. "So, lunch?"

"Sure, you can buy me lunch," I grinned.

"Fine," he said. "Where to?"

"I coouulldd make you take me to that expensive French place I've been talking about… hmmm…," I teased, smiling at him. "Let's just go get burgers and then the arcade?"

"Alright," he smiled back. We left the school and started walking to the entertainment district.

See, this is what I like best about what we are. Nothing's complicated. I don't have to hide a note in his locker to meet for lunch. We don't even have to talk while we're walking. Shinji, just smiling like an idiot at everything around him. Me… well. Yeah.

And we have the same interests – I mean, would Rei go with him to the arcade to play video games? We've known each other for forever – we know practically everything about each other, and we don't care about our differences.

Shinji has no idea what I'm thinking. He's looking at the window of a practical toy shop.

We just enjoy each other's company. And in the end, that's what makes me think – no, feel… sometimes, like there might just be something more lurking there. Yeah, I'll admit it to myself. Sometimes.

"Hey, they have fake vomit!"

And then he does something like that.

"No, you are not getting fake vomit," I chided, gently taking his arm and forcing him to walk.

The burger shop was emptying out. Businessmen and other kids from our school alike had already eaten and were hurrying back. I guess that whole rooftop escapade had taken longer than I thought. At least we had the rest of the day off.

I grabbed a booth while Shinji went to place our orders and pay – he didn't even need to ask me what I wanted. He probably even knew where I was going to suggest for lunch – my American heritage cried out for a burger every now and then. He didn't even complain about paying: Japanese burger places could be pretty pricey.

The scary thing was, I could imagine us as a couple pretty easily. It wouldn't be that much of a change – just instead of me leading him by the arm away from fake vomit, it would be us holding hands. Instead of him paying for lunch… well, he'd probably still pay for lunch. We were growing up, and I didn't know how things would turn out. Rei said she thought he was cute. He said he thought she was cute. Two plus two equals four. But what did Shinji and I equate to?

There wasn't a line-up, so he was back pretty quickly.

"The burgers should be done quickly," he said, handing me a milkshake.

I sucked on the straw, focusing on my drink. Dammit. Asuka Soryu Langley does not get pushed into anything. I was not thinking about this.

"Penny for your thoughts?" Shinji awoke me from my reverie.

"Huh?"

"You're spacing out a bit – are you alright?"

I didn't reply – should I tell him about thinking about us? How would he react? Or would he tell me he's been thinking about the same thing?

"I'm just thinking about what Hikari did today," I lied.

"Yeah, the look on Toji's face was priceless," he laughed.

"Yours wasn't too bad either," I teased. "But seriously, she's liked him for so long, and now she actually did something about it. I wonder if they'll get together?"

I swirled my straw around in quiet contemplation.

"Maybe," Shinji replied. "I don't think Toji's never thought about her that way – he's definitely stared at her in class before though."

He took a sip of his milkshake, and then continued.

"I don't know if Toji'll ever live it down," Shinji chuckled. "Having a girl ask him out."

"What are you laughing at?" I replied. "You're the same way too. I can't imagine you asking a girl out to save your life."

Oh why was I doing this to myself? Why why why…

"I'm not as bad as Toji," Shinji argued. "I wouldn't need a girl to ask me out."

The server came by and brought us our burgers, along with a basket of fries.

"Oh please," I said as I grabbed the bottle of ketchup. "You're as thick as this bottle. Stupid ketchup."

I was now whacking the bottle violently on its butt, as the red paste inched slowly towards my plate.

"You know what?" He said. "I'll even prove it to you. The next time I really like a girl, I'll ask her out."

"That'll be the day," I snorted. Uh-oh, what did I just do? The ketchup had finally made it onto the plate.

I dipped a fry and popped it into my mouth.

"Alright," I said. "I'll hold you to that."

I just picked at my burger after that, barely listening to Shinji talk.

After we finished eating, we wandered over to the arcade. It was mostly deserted, but there was the odd teenager there, either skipping school, or high school dropouts who were killing time.

Shinji and I grabbed change and went to go play a shooting game.

"So I noticed you didn't actually go to the mall with Hikari," Shinji casually remarked, as he blew the leg off an approaching zombie.

"Well, I couldn't exactly say 'hey, I'm helping Hikari confess her undying love for Toji today," I explained, shooting a gross maggot-zombie.

"Yeah, but what does that have to do with the mall? You could've gone after." Shinji replied, blowing holes into both my explanation and another zombie.

I blew another zombie's head off before it could reach Shinji's side of the screen.

"Fine, I just didn't want to interrupt your little date, happy?"

"Date?"

I turned to face him, ignoring the undead. "You and Wondergirl. I didn't want to be third wheel on your little date. We don't have to do everything together, you know?"

I swivelled back to shoot zombies.

"Asuka, it wasn't a date," he said. It was Shinji's turn to face me. "And I like doing things with you."

"I know, but I just don't like her. She just ran you over yesterday!" I concentrated on the screen.

"She apologized," Shinji stated, a bit icily.

"Yeah, well, I still don't like her," I repeated. "Can we just drop this?"

"Alright," he said, tossing a grenade.

"Besides," I offered. "We're doing something together now."

He hmmed in response. We weren't a couple, but why did it feel like a couple fighting?

I felt a sense of unease sweep in, as the giant boss zombie died in slow motion.

So many things had changed today - Hikari had told that meathead she liked him. Rei said she thought he was cute.

Shinji yelled as a zombie bit him, and his health ran out. At least the zombies were still the same.

Author's (Long and Rambling) Notes:

For all four of you (yes, you!) who either haven't seen the entire series or who are still hopelessly lost, this takes place during that little slice of "normal Evangelion" in episode 26.

I actually wrote the first paragraph of this story about three or four months ago – it was just sitting there while I explored other ideas, and then I came back to it recently, deciding that the alternate reality presented in the end of the series was much more interesting. I know the setting's been done to death, but I haven't actually read an fic set in the alternate reality that's finished, written well, or which goes beyond a one-shot (not to say that they don't exist, just that I haven't found them… feel free to recommend some).

Also, the manga adaptations of Evangelion in high school (Shinji Ikari Raising Project and Angelic Days) are ridiculously slow to be translated, either officially or fan-translated (and let's face it, Angelic Days was a bit of a letdown).

I also like writing Evangelion characters in the alternate universe – it's fun writing them as (much more) well-adjusted people, having actual families and everything (gasp, Asuka can apologize?).

Speaking of which, Asuka's quite the unreliable narrator of the story – if she seems self-contradictory (especially about Shinji), that's just the fun of writing in first-person POV.

Mizuki Musashi's name comes from a character in Full Metal Panic! along with the Evangelion naming convention of Japanese battleships – Musashi was the sister ship of the Japanese battleship Yamoto. Figure I should be honest about any names I create – even if they have no bearing in the story.

Reviews, comments, and criticisms are appreciated.

(Dec 17 2009)