From: mew3point14@doramail.com (Daniel Snyder)

"Once upon a time, there was a beautiful bride. She knew love, and she
knew what it was to be loved. But she was proud, too, and resolved not
to
give herself to anyone.

"On day of her wedding, she was dressed in her most beautiful gown and
surrounded by everyone she loved. But she frowned, because she was 
proud and she had only half-chosen her husband-to-be. Although she 
knew him by the word of others, she had never seen his face.

"'Smile and love your husband,' they all shouted, 'smile and love your
husband.' And the longer she did not smile, the louder they shouted,
and
the more impatient everyone became.

"Finally, she swallowed her pride and smiled weakly. In that moment,
her
bridegroom came to her. She saw him for the first time.

"He was beautiful to look upon, and charming in his bearing.
Willingly,
she smiled then. Willingly, she married him.

"What was the name of the bride?"
--
A day passed in the life of Ikari Shinji.

It began before dawn. Shinji had forbidden Rei from watching his 
morning sword practice. He went up to the roof, as far away from the 
neighboring dorm as he could manage, wearing only a t-shirt and a
loose
pair of shorts. He carried a foil and a bokken in a duffel bag.

First Shinji stretched out, beginning with his ankles and working up
to his
neck. His breathing became deeper as his body adjusted to unusual 
geometries, pulling at its own limits. Endorphins and adrenaline
slipped
into his blood. The boy's eyes sharpened as he concentrated on his 
physique. He focused on the material world.

Next came kendo practice with the bokken. Fifty overhand swings, fifty
side chops, fifty straight thrusts. Each one began with a second's 
concentration and emptiness. Then through the air, to stop. Shinji
would
analyze each stroke, clear his mind, and repeat.

Advancing and retreating, practice with his guard up, naturally led to
European fencing. The foil was smaller and flimsier than a katana, and
would be all but useless in combat. Still, the foil's advantage was
that it
could strike precisely, and required fine motor control to master. It
was
well-suited to Shinji's small physique. After moving across the
rooftop en
garde, the young man practiced lunging, feinting and guarding with 
imaginary opponents.

His practice took over an hour, but he finished feeling invigorated.
Shinji
wished longingly that he had not excluded Rei, and stared at her
sleeping
figure for some time before taking a cold shower. He collected himself
as
he relaxed in the furo.

_I can't have Rei be awake when I'm all worked up,_ he thought. He
watched
the overhead light reflecting off the water, becoming a kaleidoscope
of
the color white against the dark walls. The reflected light, ever-
shimmering, tantalized him. _I mean, I don't feel good having her
around me
all the time as it is. And she still acts like we're married! No, it's
not right for me
to set her up to be a victim of circumstances. I have to keep my
self-control.

_I wonder if I should tell her about my past. No, I don't think so. It
hurts too
much, and Rei isn't a really sympathetic audience. I couldn't tell
anyone here
about it, not even Touji. Touji would think I was trying to out-do
him, or
something. And he certainly doesn't need my troubles on top of his
own._

Shinji returned to their room as Rei was waking. She took her bath
while
Shinji prepared breakfast. There were onigiri from the night before in
the
refrigerator, so rather than making fresh rice he put the leftovers
out on a
plate. He made a pot of miso soup and a kettle of green tea, and put a
fish
out for Pen-pen. Rei dressed and they ate together in silence.

They walked side by side to the greenhouse. Shinji liked the sensation
of
being indoors and outdoors all at once. Light came in through the
glass,
but the temperature inside stayed constant. The roses enjoyed the best
of
both environments, and they flourished. The boy could pretend he was
in
a forest as easily as in the greenhouse.

"Do you need help with anything?" he asked politely.

Rei replied, "I think not. I am capable of performing all necessary
duties in
my allotted time. Anything else should be done by professionals, not
you
or I."

Shinji nodded. He put on his SDAT headphones and listened to Handel's 
Water Music while Rei gardened. The Baroque music was well-suited to 
the ornate, pedigreed flowers. Handel, one of the musical genii of his
age,
had been subject to structure and convention even as he had helped
create
the Western musical heritage. The roses revealed their heritage in
their
flowers; but each was subject to its genotype and the mathematical 
abstractions of its molecular engineering.

Listening to the great music and studying the beauty of the flowers, a
wave of inferiority swept over Shinji. He didn't look beautiful in the
least:
he was a scrawny 15-year-old with a soprano voice and no facial hair.
He
hadn't built bridges, designed engines or composed symphonies. He 
could play the cello, and that was it. Even his feeble compositions
for that
instrument were little more than his best improvisations.

Rei had the rose garden. Although she claimed that she was nothing
more
than his bride, her mornings told the truth: that Ayanami Rei was
greater
than the sum of her parts. She looked genuinely happy, working her 
fingers in the moist soil and sprinkling fertilizer out of a trowel.
Shinji
envied her. He envied her ability to create life. All he could do was
write a
cacophony for strings...

...and destroy.

The word perforated his meditations. At almost the same instant, his
tape
ended; and Rei stood up from her gardening. Shinji followed her out of
the greenhouse and off to class.

The students kept their distance from him, even the one who had 
introduced himself as Kensuke a few days before. Reluctantly, the
seats
around himself and Rei were filled by the last few stragglers moments 
before the teacher came in.

Their homeroom teacher was an amiable elderly man by the name of 
Fuyutsuki. "It has been argued," he explained, "that history repeats
itself in
cycles. But is this what we see? Be careful as we study European
history
from the Fall of Rome to the Renaissance. It could be that, in fact,
there
have been cycles in mankind's thinking in this theater of geopolitics.
Or, it
could be that we have prejudiced ourselves into looking for what isn't
really there.

"As historians, we must describe precisely the vagueness of humans.
You
can think about how your friend, say, leaves the television on when
she
goes out of the room, and you'll think 'Oh, that's just like her.' But
what is
a human personality? I would argue that we filter a person's
second-to-
second behavior in our minds as we get to know them better. A 
psychologist, or a historian, will be objective enough to take the
whole of
a person's history into making analyses of their character. And even
then,
we are still guilty of distilling the truth into an easy-to-swallow
picture. It's
quite a paradox."

After History came Physical Science. They watched as their teacher
made
lengthy remarks about a demonstration he had set up for the class, an 
arrangement of switches, batteries and lamps. The talk was over
Shinji's
head. He could finally feel the repercussions from his delayed entry
to the
class. His spirit, buoyed from Professor Fuyutsuki's entertaining
talk,
began to flounder.

English was their last real class of the morning. English was a
subject Shinji
felt comfortable with, even if his grades hadn't been good. When
called
upon to read from the book, Shinji spoke carefully and clearly,
reading
through the passage without difficulty. He earned a pleasant "thank
you"
from the teacher for his effort.

Boys and girls separated for PE. The weather was good, a blue sky with
a
few cirrus clouds; class was held outdoors. The boys ran sprints of
100, 200
and 400 meters, and then relay races. Shinji was placed on a relay
team
with Kensuke and another boy who didn't seem to fit in either. The 
missing member of their team would be figured in by averaging the
three
times.

"It's all right," the boy said. "It actually works for us. After three
laps,
we've set the time to beat, and everyone else has to do better. What's
your name?"

"Ikari Shinji."

"Aoba Shigeru, nice to meet ya." They shook hands. Shigeru pulled a
hair
tie out of his front pocket and put his hair back in a bun. "You don't
seem
like a bad guy at all. What's the story with you and Touji?"

Shinji related the circumstances of their first meeting. "I didn't
want
to...you know, attack him. But it's too late now. I feel miserable for
it. I'm
going to see him this afternoon after class."

"So, why'd you do it?"

Shinji shifted uncomfortably. "Every time...every time I'm in a really
tense
situation, I lose my self-control. It's like there's a whole other
part of my
personality in charge, and I'm just watching what's going on. I try to
fight
it as hard as I can, but it never seems to make any difference. I
always lose
it."

Shigeru nodded. "You're keeping something from me, aren't you?"

"What?" Shinji gasped. "I...uh..."

He smirked. "It's as plain as the nose on your face. I'm pretty good
at
reading other people's emotions. I've written a song for just about 
everyone. Maybe I'll write one for you."

"You're a musician too?" Shinji said. "I play the cello, what do you
play?"

"Guitar. Acoustic...I don't have an electric." Shigeru smirked again.
"Touji
and I used to play a little, but I don't think we will now. You and I
can jam,
then."

After a moment's hesitation, Shinji asked, "What instrument did he
play?"

"Drums. He said it helped him work tension out." Shigeru stood up and 
started walking around, impatiently swinging his arms side to side.
"It's
understandable, isn't it, why he doesn't want to play anymore?"
--
His conversation with Shigeru had made him miserable, and Shinji was 
glad when class was dismissed for lunch. He found Rei as she was
walking
to the cafeteria. They sat down next to one another in a sunny place 
nearby. Shinji gave Rei the bento he had made for her, and they ate 
together.

Presently, they slowed their lunch, and finally stopped. They were 
listening to a trio of voices that were coming from the cafeteria
kitchen.
Although the three spoke clearly enough, their voices--as well as
their
subject--sounded inhuman.

"Do you know? Do you know? Do you know what acceptance is?"

"No, I've never heard of such a thing."

"Isn't it the courage to face what's going on around you without self-
delusion?"

"I meant from a clinical perspective."

"I still don't know what you're talking about."

"Oh, a clinical perspective. In that case, I give."

"I hear that acceptance is the last stage of learning to die."

"That's very interesting. I didn't know you had to learn to die."

"Death is for other people. I don't plan on dying."

"It doesn't have to be literally dying. It's also the last stage in
dealing with
divorce, say. Or any major trauma."

"What about happy things?"

"Who on Earth analyzes being happy? People analyze why they're not 
happy."

"They don't analyze how they're unhappy, or what's really making them 
unhappy."

"That's why people are stupid."

"Oh, no, no, people are stupid for an incredible variety of reasons."

"Pride, anger, sloth, gluttony, the whole shebang."

"I hear that boy's done a lot of crying over the past day."

"Says he's lonesome."

"Nobody comes to visit."

"Well, of course nobody visits him. They don't want to be reminded how
stupid people can be."

"Now THERE is a young boy who's got some acceptance to live through."
--
Still trying to understand the conversation he had been privy to,
Shinji
walked with Rei back to class. Their classmates filtered in, not
hurrying to
be in Shinji's presence but not as afraid as they had been. Their
Civics class
was dealing with the Japanese Diet, and the kind of upheavals that
went
on in the early 1950's as Japan began its course of postwar
modernization.
It was a period of history Shinji was ignorant of, and he groaned at
the
thought of how much reading he would need to catch up on.

Mathematics was next. Shinji was surprised at how much he was able to 
understand, even in consideration of the substantial gap in his
knowledge.
The subject was multiple polynomial equations, and the boy was
familiar
with them from a previous talk between his father and a scientist
whose
name he didn't remember. The idea of finding solutions by reducing the
number of independent variables seemed to be common sense, and he 
anticipated a straightforward evening with his homework.

The final class of the day was Visual Arts. Their medium was
watercolor.
Shinji hadn't bought a watercolor set yet, so was excused from working
while the rest of the class painted a still life. Their teacher had a
freshly-
washed bunch of grapes laid out on a marble slab, white with strange
blue
discoloration in the surface. Shinji watched the people around him.
Rei
was paying close attention to the colors, and would test her greens
and
blues on a scrap sheet of watercolor paper before deciding which grape
to
paint next. She held the brush in her left hand. Kensuke sketched his
still-
life in excruciating detail and made notes to himself on the paper
before
he added color. Shigeru kept looking at other people's technique and 
asking them questions, until the teacher told him to work on his own 
painting. His grapes were perfectly circular.

Next to Shigeru, Shinji recognized Hikari and Asuka, two of the girls
he
had met his abortive first day on campus. Hikari, he had learned, was
the
class president. What her relationship was to the mysterious Student 
Council Shinji didn't know, but he had seen no ring on her finger.
Hikari
spent more time looking at the scene than painting, taking care to
make
every brush stroke count. She was also gossiping with Asuka, though
the
latter girl was doing most of the talking. Asuka was hurrying through
her
painting, clearly eager to be done with classes for the day. Still,
her work
was impressive. She was going without any kind of pencil sketch to
guide
her. Shinji watched as Asuka swirled blue onto her brush, then dragged
it
across her paper, all the while following the shape of the
discoloration
with her eyes. _She's got great hand-eye coordination,_ Shinji
thought.

After they were dismissed, Shinji carefully approached Hikari, trying
not
to appear threatening. "Uh...inchou?" he said meekly. "Do...do I have
any
printouts? Homework? Do you have anything for me?"

"Oh, Ikari," she replied in an eerie echo of Akagi. "Yes, but I don't
have
them with me. Can you wait until tomorrow?"

"Yeah, I can. That's better for me, actually. I'm going to see
Touji-kun
right now."

Hikari's tone warmed instantly. "Oh, really? Is he awake? How's he 
doing?"

Shinji was left with the impression that her former coolness had been
an
act. "He's all right," he replied, daring to smile. "We talked for
quite a while
yesterday. But I guess he's lonesome. That isn't a surprise, really,
is it?"

"No, I guess not. Asuka! I'll be right there!" Shinji turned to see
the
redheaded girl standing impatiently in the doorway. She made eye 
contact with Shinji and stepped outside without a word. Hikari's
attention
returned to the boy. "Well, I'm glad that he's better. Maybe the class
could
make a get-well card for him."

Shinji smiled. "That's a great idea! I...ah. I WON'T tell him, will
I?" Hikari
managed to laugh a little at his joke, much to the boy's delight. They
walked to the door. Outside, Rei was waiting for Shinji while Asuka
paced
back and forth a little ways away. Shinji waved goodbye to the two
girls,
and he and Rei walked off down towards the infirmary. As they were 
about to turn off onto another walkway, Shinji happened to look back 
over his shoulder. Hikari and Asuka were being intercepted by another 
girl. Shinji recognized her as Maya, the dormitory president.

Shinji quickly turned back and followed Rei down their path. A
familiar
feeling of uncertainty came over him. Something he didn't understand 
was going on, and while he was left out of the picture, he somehow
felt
that it involved him. It didn't matter that he couldn't do anything
about
the situation, it was still frustrating.

Touji was awake in the infirmary, staring thoughtfully out the window
to
the outside world. He played five games of chess with Shinji while Rei
read a book. Shinji won three. "You're pretty good," Touji said when
Shinji
had won his third victory.

"Ah, not really," Shinji stated modestly. "I mean, I don't really know
how
to construct an offense or a defense or anything."

"Oh, I dunno. You looked like you had a couple of good ideas there.
Like
in the last game, keeping all your pawns over there on the left side
until
you'd bagged my castles, and then just marching down the board."
Shinji
smiled bashfully--it had been a technique he'd read about in the paper
once, and hadn't really experimented with. He packed up the pieces as 
Touji continued his thought. "You know who you should practice with? 
Misato, the Social VP. She's good, she's real good. When she's sober,
she
can beat almost anyone on the campus."

"Misato," Shinji mused, "I think I met her briefly. She's tall, right?
Purple
hair? And she's on the Student Council too?"

"Yeah. Kind of weird, isn't it? We have, like, so many people on the 
Council, but no honest-to-gosh faculty members. I tell you, Ikari, 
Feuervogel's a weird place."

Shinji and Rei left the infirmary a short while later. As the
departed, they
ran into Hikari, the class president. She had been pacing around
outside
the front door as they came out. Hikari opened her mouth, as if to
speak
to Shinji, but thought better of it and swept inside. Nonplussed,
Shinji and
Rei walked back home across campus.

Pen-pen met them at the door of Akumafune Dormitory. His squawking, 
jumping up and down and pointing Shinji took to mean that the furo 
needed to be emptied. He drained the tub, scrubbed out the bath ring, 
then refilled it with nice hot water. Pen-pen hopped in as soon as it
was
ready without any kind of thanks. Back in their room, Rei had made an 
immense salad for dinner. Spinach, lettuce, cucumbers, tomatoes,
broccoli,
carrots and peas. She had three kinds of dressing ready as well. Both 
youngsters settled for oil and vinegar. They ate dinner as quietly as
they
had eaten lunch. Shinji washed their few dishes, then the two of them 
settled in to do their homework.

It was about nine in the evening when they were done. Rei took out her
book and resumed her reading. Shinji felt claustrophobic: the utter
silence
around him, that almost permeated his body, was like an alien kind of 
pressure. He walked up to the roof of the dormitory and paced around 
for a few minutes before he felt more at ease.

A row of trees surrounded the walls of Feuervogel, blocking his view
of
the city. Certainly in Feuervogel itself, there were plenty of lights.
Shinji
picked out a few in the buildings on campus--meetings of student and 
faculty groups, he presumed. He could also see where the boys' 
dormitories were on the other side of campus, and the faculty
dormitories
in between.

Immediately in front of him was Kazarashi, the large girls' dormitory.
Lights were on on every floor. The sight of girls unaware of his
presence
didn't stimulate the boy, to his surprise. Instead, he found it
calming.
There were people like him all around--people with lives they lead as
best
they could. People who could get swallowed up in the world's cares. He
was no different than any other soul.

On the second floor of Kazarashi, Shinji could see a group of women in
an
animated discussion or argument. He recognized three of them as
Hikari,
Asuka and Maya. The fourth's face was hidden by bandages and plaster. 
With a shudder, Shinji realized it was Akagi Ritsuko.

His curiosity got the better of him. Shinji leaned forward on the edge
of
the roof to observe. Try as he might, he couldn't parse what the
argument
itself was about. Nor were the sides clear. Hikari was obviously on
one,
and Ritsuko was on another, although she wasn't moving around a lot. 
Maya seemed to take Ritsuko's point more often than Hikari's. Asuka 
looked like she had her own agenda, frequently pointing at people in 
rapid succession and gesturing as if for others who were not present.

After twenty minutes or so, the conversation was concluded by order of
Ritsuko. Nobody seemed happy with the decision. Then Hikari 
disappeared for a moment, reappearing with a deck of cards. Maya and 
Ritsuko played as a team, and the cards were dealt. Shinji quickly
lost
interest and returned to his room.

Rei was crawling into bed with Pen-pen when Shinji came into the room.
"Good evening," she said tiredly.

"Good evening," he replied. Not noticing that it was the first time
she had
greeted him of her own accord. Not noticing the way her eyes moved 
beneath her half-closed lids, or the way she clutched the covers on
the bed
as if she was sinking into the mattress.

Shinji changed into nightclothes and crawled into bed. He lay awake, 
thinking of the events of the day, as Rei's breathing underneath him
grew
softer. The more he thought, the worse he felt about it all. Finally,
he
resolved not to think about it anymore, and rolled onto his side.
Sleep
came quickly after that.

A day had passed in the life of Ikari Shinji.