Chapter Text
It was as blisteringly hot a day as any other recently in Tokyo-3, and its residents were feeling it.
Shinji, beads of sweat gathering upon his face, took steps along the sidewalk’s narrow path, his fellow pilot a couple steps ahead of him, the great, as she so often reminds everyone, Asuka Langley Soryu. Her steps were slightly speedier than his, so he found himself taking larger ones in order to keep up.
Both wore their standard school uniforms, bags sticking to their shoulders by the straps. They did not have the opportunity to drop them off at the apartment earlier, which Asuka pointed out to him as an annoyance when they had ducked into the NERV section car that took them to HQ right after school. It didn't bother Shinji all that much, experiencing the city's heat was pretty familiar to him by now.
The sun is lower in the sky by this time, but the blazing beams it shoots down still dish out a beating upon the people below who are unfortunate enough to find themselves underneath it.
Their movement continues for a few more minutes, and eventually, the apartment building in which the two reside comes into view—Shinji is ecstatic to soon be breaching the indoors and escaping from the baking atmosphere. While he does find the heat mostly manageable, the allure of air conditioning is not something he will ever pass up.
They stride right up to the building’s elevators, and Asuka reaches for the call button on the wall between the dual sets of sliding doors. Immediately after pressing it, the left set of doors shift away from each other, and her fluid motions carry her into the opening. Her precise movements leave an impression on Shinji, he sees much of the same in her piloting methodology.
Shinji then moves towards this gap as well, but as he does so, he glances at Asuka’s face for a moment he instantaneously recognizes as being just a little bit too long, and she catches his eyes with her own. Shinji realizes then that he would soon be dealing with a different type of heat—unique from what mother nature provides, but that he so often recently has been familiarizing himself with.
“What are you looking at?” she barks, rapidly reaching to smush a finger into the button for their floor on the elevator’s panel.
He snaps his gaze away from her face as he steps to her side, doors sliding shut behind him. This is definitely that other form of heat.
“I don’t know, I was… lost in thought, I guess,” he says.
Asuka crosses her arms and twists her neck ever so slightly to look at him as the elevator starts to rise.
“Lost in thought. Wow, good one, Shinji! Please, tell me what wonderful thoughts could have spawned from your head,” she says.
His hands flew to find comfort resting at his side, and he stares ahead at his warping reflection next to hers in the metallic elevator doors. After a few long seconds, he decides to share his internal contemplations.
“I was just… wondering how an Angel got inside HQ… without anyone noticing…” he says, choosing his words carefully. Asuka slightly raises her brow, passive expression of intrigue static otherwise. “Don’t you think that’s a little strange? I mean, the other ones we’ve fought have been huge. You’d assume—”
The blaring dings from the elevator announcing that they’re at their floor interrupts the boy, and the doors shift apart once again. When it's clear that he is not going to pick up his sentence where he left it, she harrumphs and rolls her head around to look back at him, stepping out into the open as she does so.
“Why’d you stop?” she asks.
The sun’s rays glint off Asuka’s hair in a way that Shinji finds particularly fascinating. He did not know how he feels about it exactly, but he recognizes that he likes looking at it sparkle against the lightly coppering sky. He did from the first time he noticed it could, back when they were training to fight the Seventh.
He then realizes that he’s been staring at her for a touch too long again, and that he has not given her any answer to her question. She grunts angrily into exaggerative shakes of her head, and starts toward their apartment at the other end of the walkway.
A small frown begins to spread across Shinji’s lips, but he breaks his short staring contest with the elevator floor and quickly steps out to give chase before the doors can have the chance to close on him.
“Asuka, wait!” He yells out, working to close the distance between them.
Hearing his steps pad closer just as she was about to key open the door to the apartment, she turns to him, frustration plasters all over her face. He knew what he was going to say to her now—he'll ask about her opinion on the Angel. Surely, she'll entertain that.
“What do you think?” he asks.
“Think about what? ” she says.
“That Angel…” he says.
“I don’t care about that Angel. It’s dead now, so why should I? Misato told us in the debriefing we literally just attended that I couldn’t have fought it with my Unit-02,” she says.
Her hands, key between the fingers of one of them, shoot to her hips, and her feet slide slightly to the side of their initial positions, both actions combining to form a pose very familiar to Shinji.
“Or did that pea-sized brain of yours not listen to anything that was said during that three hour waste of time? Clearly, there’s something up with you today. You’re acting even more empty-headed than you usually do.”
Shinji frowns, then begins to open his mouth in defense, when Asuka derails the attempt.
“Now, can you leave me be? You chose to stop talking and stare at me like a perv, so I’ve decided that I don’t want to hear from you,” she says while releasing the keyless hand from her hip, using it to pull the bag off her shoulder.
Shinji quietly stares ahead at the apartment’s entrance.
“It’s too damn hot in this ridiculously over-built excuse for a city,” she pronounces, finally, and fortunately for Shinji, concluding her tirade.
Her key meets the interface on the wall, initiating the door’s mechanical hiss, and she stomps inside, mumbling something to herself that Shinji can’t quite hear, kicking off her shoes haphazardly as she heads deeper in.
In her dust yet again, he stands there for a few moments more, but then walks into the entryway himself. He silently removes his own shoes, kneeling down to place them dutifully in their proper spot.
That was awful. He always sets her off without meaning to.
Why Asuka did not want to discuss something like that in greater detail, he did not know—piloting her Eva to defeat Angels was her favorite thing to do in the entire world. Well, that’s what he believes to be true, anyways. It’s not like he actually knows what her favorite anything is. She never talks to him about that type of stuff, so how can he know.
“Oh, one last thing!” she shouts from around the wall, “You better not be making fish again tonight! I need some variety in my meals!”
He hears a thud that must be from her tossing her school bag down the hallway towards their rooms, and a swift set of wooshes follows thereafter. The explanation for that noise is surely the opening and closing of the bathroom curtain.
He will have to soak in sweat for just a bit longer than her. As with the temperatures outside, he does not mind it much, really. He doesn't even try to go into the bathroom first when they arrive home together nowadays. He just knows she will be upset with him if he ever does. Shinji then notices Pen-Pen peeking at him from around the corner of the entry corridor.
“Did you hear what she said outside from in here?” he whispers to the penguin. Pen-Pen nods.
“Why do you think she’s always like that?”
Of course, Shinji did not really expect an answer to this question. It was one he asks himself almost every day since first meeting the girl out at sea. Still, he wishes for the answer to fall into his lap one day.
Slowly, as to not spill any of the beer he holds in his left claws, Pen-Pen raises his flippers in resemblance of a shrug, but Shinji is not exactly paying attention to him, already preoccupying himself with collecting Asuka’s shoes to place back properly next to his own.
After doing so, Shinji sighs as he stands back up to full height, basking in the cool air of the apartment for the first time since having left for school much earlier in the morning.
It’s a deep sigh, perhaps in recent times rivaling only the one he gave upon saving his confounding roommate from the depths of Mount Asama a few weeks ago.
He’ll make a dish that doesn't include fish for himself, Asuka, and Misato—who knows when she’ll get home—then toss something into Pen-Pen’s bowl. After he eats, he’ll probably head back to his room, listen to the music on his SDAT for a while, and eventually pass out.
He did not want to disturb Asuka again tonight after a rant like that.
“Well, I know you’ll always want fish,” he says, now glancing toward the penguin.
The tuxedo-painted bird holds out his right flipper and extends the outermost claw up to the ceiling, warking in agreement. Shinji interprets the gesture as a thumbs-up, and slips past him into the greater apartment.
As Shinji wakes from his slumber, he notices that he cannot feel his SDAT headphones in his ears. They were usually there upon waking in the morning when he fell asleep with them plugged in. He's pretty sure he was listening to it when he passed out last night.
His eyes creep open, and that’s when he notices that he’s not in his room.
He’s not certain where he is, actually. The lack of light makes it somewhat difficult to see, though not impossible. He is certain that the air in this room feels much colder than what he fell asleep in. Why is it so cold?
If the air conditioning in the apartment broke, he reasons that it would be way warmer, definitely not cooler, and absolutely not cold enough to make his teeth chatter. He feels that even Asuka believes in him enough to figure that all out. Though, he cannot feel any teeth in his mouth with his tongue to chatter together in the first place.
Panic bears down on him, but he did not let it swallow him up. He did not when he pilots, and he will not allow it now. There must be some sort of explanation. He comes up with a plan of attack—he’ll try to take a look at his surroundings.
Shinji sits up, sightline drifting forwards. As his eyes focus, he notices that he can see more of his nose than normal, despite the mild darkness. Shifting that focus even further ahead, he sees what surely are his feet sticking up. Why is that?
He always sleeps under a blanket, so why is he seeing his feet stick out?
Maybe he’d wake up and see one of the two sometimes, if he had kicked the blanket away from his legs due to his tosses and turns, but they were definitely both visible, and there was no sign of a blanket anywhere.
He begins to stretch his arms out, away from the center of his body, but they knock into solid objects on either side before being able to extend fully. The left scrapes against a flat surface, and the right rubs along a thin plastic feeling post. He feels what must be a pull switch for a lamp against his right arm, and manipulating it down to his fingers, he yanks on it.
Bright, yellow light bathes him, and his eyes open wider than they ever have before, pupils honing in on the sight beneath the lampshade to his right.
The cord wraps tightly around shaky claws.
Claws that attach to an increasingly trembling black feathery flipper.
A flipper that attaches to a torso similarly drowning in black and white feathers.
He looks forward again. The feet he saw before are not his feet. They have three prongs and webs between the toes. Surely, he’s still sleeping. This is just a crazy dream, he’ll lay back down, and decide to wake up, in his bed, in his room.
But when he tries to do just that, nothing happens. He continues to lay there for about half a minute, begging his mind to release him from what is rapidly developing into a freakish nightmare—painfully, nothing happens.
Shinji shoots back up, so quickly that he nearly somersaults over himself. It’s then that he notices a reflection in the television that angles towards his seat. He inches closer to the screen, leaning his head right up to it, and confirms his fears.
It’s difficult to make out completely due to the glare, but the penguin in the reflection mirrors his blinking. The faint green eye stares back, following the movements he makes with his pupils, and Shinji lets out a deep, guttural scream—except, all that comes out is a long, squeaky wark.
He whips back to his left, sees the button next to a plaque stating ‘OPEN’ and ‘CLOSE’, and smashes his claws into it. The door glides open, and Shinji frantically tumbles out onto the floor next to the dining table.
“What’s happening!” he yells, as he works to stand back up straight.
But he then realizes that his words are not what came out just now. The only sounds that emerge from his beak are a collection of warks that are full of panic.
“Misato! Asuka! Please, help me!” he cries out, and again, only hysterical warks fly from his beak.
He starts to pace toward the living room, but attempting to move speedily on his tri-toe feet proves consequential, and he trips on the leg of a chair left un-pushed-in from the night before. He stumbles over himself—trying to prevent a full on spill—but is unable to, crashing head first into the wall separating him from his intent.
It is at this very moment that the door to Misato’s room flies open. Her eyes are crusty, set with deep circles below them, her frizzy violet locks framing it all. Pajama clad, she takes a few steps in the direction of Shinji, who is barely visible in the sunrise shining through the transparent sliding door to the balcony.
“What is going on out here? Is that you Pen-Pen?” she says, trying to make sense of the scene in front of her.
Shinji pops up from the floor, perhaps a bit too quickly, as stars overlay his vision. Luckily, they fade as soon as they appear, so he angles his head up to look over at Misato while lifting his claws to brush along what will surely be a bruising beak.
“Misato! It’s me! Shinji!” is what he knows he says, but yet again, the warks are all that come.
Misato’s face scrunches into an expression that probably best fits the definition of confusion, though the generally groggy appearance she provides is not helping Shinji’s interpretation.
“Why are you being so loud this early in the morning? It’s barely after six o’clock,” she says.
By this point, Shinji gets that any attempts by himself to speak will not be met with understanding. Slowing his mind down is helping to reduce his hysteria, and he decides that somehow, he must show Misato what is happening. He walks around in a small circle, working out how to balance himself better, as Misato continues to simply stare at him, bringing a hand up to her forehead to start massaging away the rapidly growing headache. She reaches her other arm to the nearest light switch to flip it, and they flash on throughout the living room and bedroom hallway.
Shinji pauses for a moment due to the brightness, adjusting with his new eyes, then continues, and once he has his gait down, he takes off for the hall towards his room, Misato hot on his tail.
“Where are you going! You’re gonna wake the kids up!” she says, louder at the start, but in remediation with her own sentiments, quieting to a whispery yell by the end.
Shinji reaches the door to his room, and looks up. The sign that Misato had made soon after he first moved in, with the words ‘Shinji’s Room’ written on it, was his target. He leaps for it, reaching as far up as he can, but is not able to cover the vertical distance, even after a few tries. Now knowing that he can’t reach, he stops jumping to look at Misato, and he points at it.
“Yes, Pen-Pen, that’s Shinji’s room. What about it?” she whispers, anger starting to seep into her tone.
This isn't working.
He reaches at the slot that makes the handle for his door, and slides it open, throwing his body through the gap.
“Pen-Pen! No!” yells Misato, forgoing any attempt at a whisper this time. She stumbles forward to try to grab at him, but catches only air, just missing him.
Her attempts to prevent either Shinji or Asuka from waking were worthless, however. Shinji was already right in front of her. As for Asuka, she rips open the door Misato now has her back to, and ear piercingly shrieks out into the hall. Misato jumps nearly out of her own skin, which Shinji does not even see on account of scanning his bedroom, but he spins his focus around when he hears Asuka's yelling.
“Misato! What the hell is going on out here! I should not have to be awake this early in the morning! Unless there’s an Angel right outside the—”
“Asuka quiet down,”—Misato launches back—“Shinji’s still sleeping, I’m standing right here, and I’ve got enough of a headache already!”
To Shinji, they both appear furious. Red like Asuka’s hair coating their faces as they stare each other down, frowns growing. He sees that Asuka is in what was becoming her standard sleepwear—short shorts and that pale blue tank top. The light that emanates from the hallway ceiling does not create any particular sparkles in her freshly awoken and unkempt mane, yet he cannot help but still find it fascinating from his new perspective as he looks up and over at her.
Shinji madly shakes his flippers around, hoping to draw their attention away from each other and toward him. It works, and Misato looks at him, the original source of her headache. Asuka mimics Misato’s head movements quickly, shifting her ire on to its next target.
“Oh, what is the penguin doing?” says Asuka.
“I don’t know what Pen-Pen is doing, but he’s taken an interest in Shinji this morning, for some reason.” replies Misato with a whisper, and she puts a finger up to her pursing lips to shoosh the girl.
“If I’m up already, the idiot should be too to make my breakfast. It’s only fair!” she says, clearly taking offense to the suggestion that she quiet down.
Shinji shakes his head, then moves for the object he knows he will find on his bed. He reaches the bedside, and sees the body that he fell asleep in last night still laying there.
He snatches the SDAT from out of the hands of his body, the headphones flying through the air before settling on the floor, and holds the device up in his claws, waving it back and forth at them.
Misato, now standing in the small room with her arms crossing, and Asuka, clutching onto the door frame while peeking in, are both staring at him blankly, unsure of how to react to his frenetic warking.
“It sure looks upset…” says Asuka, flicking the room's lights on and off a few times before stopping with them on, clearly trying to rouse who she thinks is still Shinji from sleep.
“Stop calling him an it, Asuka, it’s demeaning!” says Misato.
Realizing that this idea isn’t going to work either, Shinji tosses the SDAT back on the bed and turns to it to physically point a claw at the body under the covers—which suddenly begins to stir slightly, the bed frame creaking beneath. Shinji freezes, his flipper at full extension. It is at this time that a new, terrifying revelation consumes him, and he squeaks in horror.
The being under Shinji’s covers steadily lifts its head from the pillow it was resting on, sitting upright. Three pairs of eyes watch the body as it continues to move. It blinks aggressively, attempting to take in the images all around.
Scanning the room, the head pauses on Misato’s visage, and begins to open and close its mouth in a gasp, simultaneously raising its arms to gaze at the hands on their ends.
“Uh, good morning, Shinji. You feeling okay?” says Misato, with a tinge of unease.
“There was definitely something wrong with him yesterday…” says Asuka through a yawn.
Shinji, still frozen as he was just before, cannot move his eyes away from the sight of his body moving on its own. That body then turns its head to him, and mild concern draws across the face that was no longer his.
The head on this body snaps back over to Misato, and sputters out a cough. Then, in what sounds to be an attempt at speaking, a voice that had once belonged to Shinji, though clearly with a rougher, looser cadence, makes one simple request.
“Can one of you get me a beer, please?”
Notes:
Thanks for reading. If you can, please leave a constructive comment telling me what you like and/or didn't like. As outlined, there should be four chapters to this, but that's subject to change. Stay tuned.
Massive thank you to the AsuShin Discord server folks—you all know who you are—who pushed me to try writing something. Special shouts to Pico, Litano, and notyourprob for their specific roles in helping me get this off the ground.
Chapter Text
The morning was not going how Misato had thought it would.
On the days when she was home already and had to get back into HQ early, her routine was rarely unique. She would hastily get ready in the bathroom, eat breakfast that had been cooked by Shinji, then pat Pen-Pen on the head on her way to flying out the door as the teenaged voices that came from her charges bickered about something or other.
Today is a whole new ball game. She’s unable to shower so far. Breakfast is definitely not going to be eaten. Asuka—well, she’s in disagreement with Shinji about something, but this is incredibly different from normal.
Regarding any potential pats she wants to give to Pen-Pen, she simply did not think that now was a good time. The blunt announcement from him that came not twenty minutes ago—stating that he was in Shinji’s body—was quite the shock to Misato, to say the least.
It did make sense, after considering the events she laid witness to. Pen-Pen never acts like anything more than the standard genetically engineered penguin he is. In the years since she took him in, she knows him to drink, watch television, and enjoy scarfing down a hearty fish or two. He doesn’t trip all over himself and run around the apartment like a frightened child.
Misato loves having the little guy around—she lets him know it often enough—and if he ever woke her up like that, she would start to have some second thoughts about keeping him around. Joking, of course. Pen-Pen is the friend she feels the closest to a lot of the time recently. How strange that it’s come to that… Anyways, she needs to get confirmation that he and Shinji did swap, of course, but they absolutely have to discuss their approach before getting to that.
She stands at the front of the kitchen table, arms bracing against its edge, leaning forward, preparing to more deeply assess the situation as only a recently-promoted-to Major can. Taking an extensive sigh, she collects herself, and slightly lifts her head to look out at the lineup in front of her. And what a collection they are, those that share in calling her apartment home.
From left to right, she sees Asuka first. Irritation obviously marking her face, she pulls her right leg up onto the chair, while the left splays out under the table. The moment her and Misato's eyes cross, the girl looks away and up into a yawn, then slams her hands flat on the table. Her left palm smacks down closer to a feathery leg than she meant, obvious by the way she quickly reels that arm back. Misato follows the line Asuka's still flat right arm makes toward the next subject.
Shinji. Definitely not Pen-Pen—yes, this is Shinji. The boy she took in only a handful of months ago now sits upon the table, a centerpiece to his observers. His claws retract, and his flippers settle lightly on top of his thighs. It's almost as if he’s working to hide himself from a pack of wild predators, folding and crumpling into his own small body. He must be the most sullen penguin the world has ever seen. That look he has about him when things aren't going his way shines through to her, even in this state. She does not blame him one bit for being upset, however.
Lastly, is the most mysterious enigma of the three. Pen-Pen sits in the chair opposite the table from Asuka, his mind inexplicably somehow taking residence within Shinji's fourteen year old body. The loose shirt and darker shorts he wears combine to make the pajamas of the body's previous tenant. He sits up mostly straight, with his back against the chair. He does crook his neck out slightly when he leans just his head forward, staring back at Misato.
“So, that beer…” says Pen-Pen.
Misato’s lips tighten in disapproval, and Asuka somehow audibly rolls her eyes.
“No, Pen-Pen. We need to focus right now,” she says.
Asuka stomps her right leg back down onto the ground, the force pushing her chair back slightly, and her face crinkles as she looks at her guardian.
“Misato! Do you not see what’s actually going on here?” says Asuka.
The grown woman relaxes her stance slightly, and lifts a brow while looking questioningly at the teenage girl. She always tries to be patient with her, but this morning is testing that ability.
“Obviously this is all an act! It's a stupid joke that only he could come up with!” says Asuka, manipulating her still flat right palm into a fist, pointing a finger out in the direction of whom she refuses to believe isn’t Shinji.
The actual Shinji compresses himself inwards even harsher, as Pen-Pen gives his retort.
“What should be obvious to you is that,”—he coughs harshly, interrupting his attempt at a declaration, shaking his head a small amount right after—”sorry, not comfortable speaking.”
He looks at Shinji, who continues to sit with a hunch. “It should be obvious that this is real. The boy’s in my body, I’m in his,” garbles out Pen-Pen, completing his statement.
Signs of clear agitation are already coming from him, this might be a new record for Asuka. Welcome to our world buddy, she’s a real firecracker.
Asuka squints out across the table, searching for any signs of weakness—but does not find them from studying Pen-Pen’s astounding poker face. She abruptly bursts up and out of her chair to stand up, and books it toward the hall, while screaming, “this is ridiculous!”
Misato needs to douse the fuse before Asuka completely blows up—she'll listen to her commanding officer, even if she doesn’t want to hear a word from her older roommate.
“Asuka, get back here right now, that’s an order! ” yells Misato, pushing off from the table and heading for the bedrooms herself to reel the girl back in.
Grown faces teenage again, and grown wins this battle, much to the chagrin of her teenage opponent. Asuka’s shoulders droop a bit as she slinks back to the edge of the kitchen, following in Misato’s shadow. Once the two resume their previous positions, the quickly compacting being that still sits atop the table lets out an impossibly quiet wark that Misato barely even registers.
She looks over to Pen-Pen for the translation, as he’s been providing them already in the short amount of time this morning. “He said he’s sorry.”
Misato hones her eyes on the despondent penguin’s. Even distinctly avian, she just knows it’s Shinji by the tell-tale posture.
“Hey, listen, we’ll all”—she pauses mid-sentence to peer over at Asuka’s frowning face—”we’ll all head to NERV and get Ritsuko to take a look. Okay?” she says.
Shinji warks gloomily while nodding a singular time. “He says he agrees, basically,” relays Pen-Pen.
“Basically?” says Asuka. “What does that mean?”
Somehow, this girl that masquerades as a ticking time bomb continuously finds ways to rearm itself. Let’s see, maybe cutting a different color wire will work this time.
“Settle down you guys, getting upset isn’t going to fix anything,” says Misato.
Is this situation even fixable in the first place? Ritsuko is a genius, of course. She did figure out a way to stop the last Angel with literal seconds to spare. But Misato also harbors a concern that even Rits may have limits to what she can do regarding this situation.
“I’ll call the school to say you both won’t be in today, then we’ll head out soon after I shower. It’ll take me less than… fifteen minutes. Does that sound good to everyone?” she says, assessing the reaction from her audience.
“Yes ma’am!” says Asuka, copious volumes of sarcasm dripping from the two word acknowledgement.
“I don’t care what we do, as long as it’ll put me in my own body again,” says Pen-Pen, leaning back slightly on his bottom while he flops his new arms and legs around. “This lanky thing is awful.”
“No offense,” he says, peering at Shinji. The poor boy puts his flippers up to his head, brushing claws through the red crests that flare from his beak out to the sides of his dome, and he looks forwards at Misato.
“Alright then, get ready everyone!” she says, giving her best reassuring smile back to him.
Misato wishes that she can spend a bit more time to simply chat with Pen-Pen, as she can legitimately understand what he has to say now. There’s so many things she wants to ask him about, but then—heavy guilt sets in for entertaining that wish for even a brief second when she sees how terrible Shinji feels. The kid deals with more than enough already, and he needs to somehow be put back in his own body. Pen-Pen does too.
Rits will know what to do about this. She has to know.
Shinji watches Ritsuko as she takes a drag of her cigarette, puffing out the wispy smoke with a huff. She shifts slightly, brushing her free hand against her blonde strands as she grasps the frames of her glasses. She pulls them off, then places them in the breast pocket of her white jacket, doing all of this in one smooth and continuous motion.
She then brings this cigarette to her lips for what will end up being the final time—choosing to then smother what remains of it in the tray that rests on her desk at a nearly perfect forty-five degree angle from the center of the seat in which she sits. The light that glows from within its cylindrical wall fades away, as it joins the rest of its lipstick painted fallen brethren in the soft gray ash.
“I don’t know what to do about this,” says Ritsuko, plainly.
That is the last possible thing that Shinji wants to hear come out of her mouth. He’s still hoping to wake up back in his bed. Anytime now.
“Oh, come on Rits. No ideas at all in that brilliant head of yours?” says Misato.
Ritsuko side-eyes the other woman as she collects the stack of papers in front of her, shuffling through them for what is easily at least the tenth time since entering the room. She blankly scans across the results on each sheet, fanning through the pile, as if searching for something else she can be missing. Setting them back down, she exhales deeply while tilting her head to the side ever so slightly, and lifts a hand up to tap a finger on her chin.
“There are so many problems with this situation”—she takes a moment to gesture her hands toward Shinji and Pen-Pen on the other side of her office—”it’s unbelievable. Yet, the undeniable proof stands right over there.”
Just before leaving the apartment earlier, Misato called Ritsuko to say that her help would be needed with something, but her initial reaction upon their arrival and hearing the news was one filled to the brim with suspicion. After enough convincing from Misato, Ritsuko gave in and ran some relatively simple tests. Everything was completed in a secluded area—down some hallway Shinji had not been to before—to help avoid attention the penguin in their party would have surely brought.
On the way there, Asuka had managed to slip off from their group. She had been at the back of the pack as they walked, but when Shinji didn’t hear her footsteps any longer shortly after having turned around yet another corner—he checked over his shoulder—and she was gone. When and where she went exactly, he had no idea. Though he was the only one to notice that she had left.
He had then asked Pen-Pen to pass his observation along, but Misato had said, “forget about her for now, we’re almost there.” And so, Shinji did. Or he tried to, anyway. He understood why Asuka didn’t believe the situation he and Pen-Pen were in was real, but he definitely did not get why she had to act how she did about it.
When they reached their destination, Shinji and Pen-Pen had some strange looking gear strapped to their heads. Ritsuko told them they were having their brainwaves scanned and compared to the most recent synch data from Shinji’s latest test only a few days prior to the most recent Angel’s incursion. The instant that information started pouring out from the terminal, Ritsuko saw the absurd truth.
The expression that had overcome her face was very distinct in Shinji’s memory. Shock, awe, and many more emotions befitting what was turning out to be some sort of insane scientific discovery had filled it up. Ritsuko immediately led them all to her office to discuss, where she parked herself at her desk to pore through the printouts some more. Misato stood with her arms crossed nearby, while Shinji and Pen-Pen awkwardly presented themselves in the open space near the door.
Everyone was generally in their same locations now.
“Help us understand Rits, if the issue shows up so clearly in the data, is it that difficult to fix?” asks Misato.
“My being able to see it in the numbers is not the same thing as understanding how to fix it,” says Ritsuko. “It’s beyond me, alone. What I can do, however, is throw this problem at the Magi.”
Shinji perks up the smallest amount, but Pen-Pen does not have a change in his own posture when Shinji observes him. In fact, he carries a general appearance of confusion. That makes sense, why would Pen-Pen know what the Magi is. After thinking about it for a split second, he realizes he doesn’t truly know what it is either, but he does know at least that it helps out during their sorties.
“Yes! Rits that’s perfect! Let’s get over to ‘em right now!” says Misato.
“We can move in that direction. The commander will end up insisting upon input from the system anyways once I tell him about all of this, so no time like the present, I suppose,” says Ritsuko.
If the Magi can do whatever it is it does, maybe Shinji still has a chance to be out of his new penguin body by the end of the day. He hears on the comms while piloting constantly about some new thing the system had analyzed about an Angel, so this cannot be a big deal for it. Right?
Ritsuko pushes herself away from her desk, and the chair’s wheels create a reverberating sound against the hard floor. Shinji observes as she grabs the stack of papers yet again. She begins to move to the door nearer to himself and Pen-Pen, with Misato—flashing a hopeful smile at them—close behind. Ritsuko pauses her steps to scrutinize Pen-Pen now that she’s up close. She must also be picking up on his general uncertainty.
“Come on, we’ll walk and talk. You look concerned,” says Ritsuko while waving a hand at them both.
Pen-Pen tilts his head in a slight nod, and all four file out of the office. So far, Shinji insists on walking around without assistance. He is not going to become a bother to anyone. At least, not more than this situation is already making him be.
Ritsuko paces the bunch as they traverse the complex’s vast corridors on their way to the command center. There was no longer a concern about other NERV personnel discovering a penguin in their midst, the proof of the strange situation is literally in her hands—and Shinji supposes that he’s not seen anyone question her before anyways. Misato and Pen-Pen fall in line next to each other behind her, and Shinji holds up the rear in Asuka’s stead from the get-go this time.
He has to waddle along quickly to keep up. Shinji looks at Pen-Pen, and there is an obvious awkwardness to his walk—he’s kicking his legs out a bit more than necessary with each step he takes. It’s pretty funny looking actually, but then he considers how his own waddling may look to Pen-Pen. He can’t be any good at it himself. He can try to offer Pen-Pen some tips on walking with human legs later. Maybe Pen-Pen will even throw some advice of his own back if he asks.
“So, Pen-Pen. What’s the problem?” asks Ritsuko, keeping her gaze forward as she strolls along, her heels clicking against the tile floors.
“Why more tests?” replies Pen-Pen. “My head hurts from earlier.”
“This is different from earlier. The Magi is a comprehensive system designed to assist with running the operations of the city above and here within the walls of NERV. As you may have overheard from one of your roommates, the last Angel to attack targeted the Magi, and we were able to terminate it before it could take over. I plan to plug this data,”—as she shakes the printouts in her hand—”into the system and see if it can determine a method by which to put you and Shinji, well, back where you belong, we’ll say.” answers Ritsuko, in a way that only she can.
Learning all of that about the Magi in such a short time is causing Shinji’s head to hurt too. He brings a hand up to rub his temples, but smacks his flipper into the side of his skull a bit too hard, and stumbles. He is able to catch himself before falling over this time though, unlike earlier in the morning. He jogs ahead on his short legs to regain the lost ground.
After another half minute or so of silent marching, Misato turns her head up, “you stopped that Angel Rits, there was no we about it.”
Ritsuko shrugs. “Regardless of that fact, it was defeated. Let’s hope this situation can be in the past before the next one shows up.”
“My head still hurts,” says Pen-Pen, reaching a hand up to palm it.
Shinji rests in the chair usually belonging to Lieutenant Maya Ibuki, who was away retrieving coffee per the insistence of Misato and Pen-Pen. The soft, pink cushion is incredibly comfortable to laze upon for the quickly tiring penguin-boy, providing necessary relief to his legs. He looks down between them, and sees the white kitten stitched into the pillow looking back at him.
Despite the fact that it is only just before noon, his insistence upon walking himself around is starting to cause him issues—though he will not admit it to Misato. The embarrassment will be too great.
When their group of four had arrived at the command center bridge, they acknowledged the three lieutenants who did much of their work from the location. Ibuki left to get coffee quite quickly after their arrival, and Shinji noticed that Lieutenants Aoba and Hyuga made themselves look particularly busy in the presence of their superiors, apparently disinterested with the penguin who inhabited their workspace.
He thought, however, that he caught Aoba peeking at him from across the platform when he pushed off from the console to spin around in the seat one time. If he had been looking, he was surely not the only one wondering why a penguin was shambling around at NERV that day.
Ritsuko, leaning over, clacks some keystrokes into the console right next to where Shinji sits. “They’re going over everything now,” she says, “shouldn’t be too long before we see what they spit out.”
“They?” questions Pen-Pen.
Ritsuko’s vision flies to lock onto him.
“Y’know, for a penguin, you sure ask a lot of questions.” says Ritsuko, crossing her arms.
Misato jumps to defend him, “he’s just curious, Ritsuko! He’s never had a reason to ask before.”
Ritsuko slightly opens her mouth, eyes tilting up slightly, but then appears to decide against whatever she was going to say.
“I don’t understand. Are you… mad at me?” says Pen-Pen, a bit slower, as if searching for the correct words. Shinji wonders if he’s actively translating all of his inner warks into Japanese for them to understand. No, that’s probably not happening. He isn’t actively doing anything when he warks out loud. He still thinks in Japanese, the sounds just come out in penguin-ese. Or whatever it is. He’ll ask Pen-Pen later, now’s not the time.
Shinji watches as Ritsuko’s eyes narrow on the boy-penguin. “They are the three computers that make up the Magi system,” she says with slight frustration.
Shinji picks up on this, saying “I'm… sorry,” with a downtrodden set of warks, which Pen-Pen translates for the two women. “He’s apologizing again, like this morning. But, I don’t think he’s done anything wrong? Why is he—”
Misato puts her hand on Pen-Pen’s shoulder, which stops him from speaking, and uses it as a light shoving off point as she whisks over to Shinji in his chair, and pats her other hand on the small of his back. “Shinji, I already told you earlier that we'll figure this out, okay? This isn't your fault, even Rits isn't sure how this happened.” she says. Shinji breathes in deeply, then releases the air with a nod.
Misato pulls her hand away, and leans with her back against the row of consoles. “Hey, ya know what? Let’s go meet Ibuki down in the cafeteria. We’re all getting hungry right?” she says.
Shinji nods at this idea—realizing that his stomach is empty—and Pen-Pen agrees shortly after.
“I’m staying put for now. I want to watch the progress on this,” says Ritsuko.
“Suit yourself. Gimme a call if you figure something out,” says Misato.
The two women nod at each other, and the now simply party of three heads out. After several minutes more of marching through NERV’s confusing interior, Shinji sees the scruffy face of Inspector Ryoji Kaji at the far end of a hall opposite them. And… Asuka is right next to him! So that’s where she went.
The man is attempting to entertain the girl’s excessive enthusiasm towards him as they walk. Shinji watches as Kaji keeps a calm stride, while Asuka is almost skipping along next to him, talking his ear off about something or other that he can’t quite catch because of the distance.
“Oh, great…” says Misato, barely loud enough for Shinji to hear.
As the groups approach each other, apparently heading for the same doors in between, Misato has a particular non-amusement at seeing the man. It’s at this time when Kaji notices the group opposite him, and he waves. Upon having gotten close enough to speak, both groups stop in front of each other.
“Katsuragi, Shinji, uhhh,”—he pauses briefly at seeing the penguin—”Pen-Pen,” he says, looking at who he thinks is the bird with interest. “I must’ve missed the memo that it was Bring Your Pet to Work Day, huh?” continues Kaji with a chuckle in Misato’s direction.
“I'm her roommate, not a pet,” says Pen-Pen. Kaji immediately detects the different sounding voice that comes from Shinji’s body.
With genuine concern, Kaji asks Pen-Pen, “Shinji, are you… feeling sick or something?”
Asuka throws her hands up in the air. “Are they still playing this stupid game? How have you not seen through this yet Misato?”
“Actually, Asuka, now we have proof for you. Ritsuko ran all the tests,” says Misato. “The Magi are scanning over everything to figure out what to do about it right now.”
The eyes on the teenage girl’s face nearly bug out of her head. “There’s no way that they aren’t making this up…” she says, with the possibility of the situation being legitimate slowly sinking in by the time she finishes her sentence. Shinji holds hope that Asuka will believe in the news coming from Ritsuko. He knows she doesn’t like the woman very much, but surely she’ll trust her authority on something like this.
“Can someone fill me in?” says Kaji, “Miss Soryu here didn’t mention that anything strange was going on.”
“I’m hungry, let’s keep going to where the food is.” offers Pen-Pen.
Deeper concern blankets Kaji’s face, hearing the voice a second time. Misato draws a sigh, and says “Come with us to the cafeteria. We’ll explain to you once we’re there, alright?”
“That… works for me,” he says, the uneasiness remaining on his face.
When they finally reached the cafeteria, they found Ibuki, held up by a busted coffee maker. She was sent on her way back to the command center by Misato, offering that Ritsuko would appreciate the help back there more than they still wanted coffee. The news of the swap was then revealed to Kaji, and Shinji thought that he took it better than anyone aside from Misato so far. The man attempted to play the circumstances off in a joking way, but it didn't help Shinji feel all that much better.
After so long, Kaji left the table, stating that he “did need to go and get some work done today.”
Once he had, they continued to sit around in the cafeteria, waiting to hear something from Ritsuko. While they did, Pen-Pen tried a handful of offerings from the cafeteria’s menu, but didn’t really seem to enjoy anything aside from some sushi that Shinji thought looked absolutely rancid. He wished that Pen-Pen hadn’t put it in his body, but he realized that battle was not one worth fighting.
He had been starting to feel ravenous himself, but he did not want to touch any of the food available at NERV, and Misato had promised to pick something up on their way back home later in the day.
And so, they sit in the cafeteria in mostly cold silence, seemingly allowing the weight of the situation to impart itself on them, but no one wants to acknowledge it. Even Asuka had stopped pushing the issue a little bit ago.
As the afternoon wears on, Shinji stops counting ticks of the hands on the large clock opposite him across the room. He then notices that Misato and Pen-Pen have fallen asleep, heads lazily lolling over. He isn’t sure how long he has been staring at the clock for, but it feels like no one has spoken for a while now. Hope that the situation can reach resolution today is quickly slipping. He doesn’t know why he thought it could be fixed that fast in the first place. There are a lot of things that Shinji doesn’t know about these days.
One of those things, he realizes, is currently gawking at him with unknown intent. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Asuka peering at him from her position to his side. She’s leaning back and forth in her seat as she studies him, almost as if she’s competing against herself to see how far she can tilt back on only two of the chair’s four legs without falling.
When Shinji twists his head—her bright blue irises realize he’s gazing back at her—and she’s starting to tilt just a little bit too far backwards. In an instant, gravity wins the contest. She falls to the floor with a bang, the chair clattering to the ground sideways next to her. Misato and Pen-Pen both lurch awake at the noise her crash creates, as she quickly tries to stand back up.
Asuka collects herself with a huff—brushing off the skirt of her school uniform—and yanks the chair up to sit back down. Her face reacts in a light blush from the embarrassment, matching her neural connectors.
“You… alright?” says a sleepy Misato, raising a brow.
“Yes. I’m fine. Pen-P—Shinji was… staring at me,” says Asuka.
“You were looking at me first!” groans Shinji via warks. Pen-Pen conveys this to her, and Asuka responds quickly, “yeah right, in your dreams you perv. I don’t have to take this from a penguin.”
Shinji jumps up in his chair, standing as tall as he can on it, when Pen-Pen butts in. “What’s that supposed to mean?” he blurts out, leaning forward to clutch the edge of the table.
Misato then pipes in, “settle down you guys, you shouldn’t be arguing all the time anyways, let alone right now.”
Asuka humphs in defiance, and Pen-Pen also leans back with a cross of his arms. Shinji then sees a crop of blue hair push through the doors from across the room, and apparently Misato does as well. She waves at Rei, causing the girl to start in their direction. Shinji can tell that Asuka is not thrilled to see Unit-00’s pilot.
“Hello, Rei,” says Misato, “did you need something?”
“Hello Major Katsuragi. I was sent by Dr. Akagi to retrieve you all.” she says. She then looks over at Shinji in his chair, her red eyes locking onto him. “Hello Ikari.”
He warks in astonishment, but before Pen-Pen can translate, Asuka speaks out. “How did you know that the sad animal there is Shinji?”
Rei does not respond immediately, calculating her best option.
“Come on wondergirl, answer me!” says Asuka.
“Dr. Akagi… she mentioned the state of Ikari and,”—tilting her head down, ever so slightly at him—”Pen-Pen.” says Rei.
“And you actually believed her?” says Asuka.
Rei clasps her hands together. “I had no reason to think she was lying.”
“Oh, that’s typical of you.” jabs Asuka, but Rei does not say anything more after a few moments.
Sensing the awkwardness, Misato picks up, “well, if Rei came to collect us, we should head back to Ritsuko then.”
Asuka groans, but they all get up, Shinji hopping down to the floor. The pack leaves the cafeteria and enters NERV’s halls again, Asuka taking the rear position as she had when they first got to HQ.
After a few minutes of quickly waddling along to keep pace with Misato, Pen-Pen, and Rei ahead of him, he checks his six to see if she’s still there.
He discovers that she is. In fact, she’s already surveying him—like just before—when he turns his head. Their eyes meet once again, somewhat startling her, and she quickly snaps her focus forward to look away. No words come from her lips as they continue their hike back to the bridge.
Pen-Pen watches Shinji as the boy does his best to practice walking on his new feet. They had taken over the living room not too long ago now, and were working to help each other out with their respective locomotion issues.
To Pen-Pen, this whole being a human thing was a pretty interesting change of pace, at least.
What other penguin could say they had the chance to live in the body of a human teenager? He had no idea why any other penguin would ever want to say that, but it was new, and he was trying his best to take things as they came. He always strived to be chill—stressing out about stuff he clearly had no control over was not going to be helpful. He absolutely wants to be back in his own body, however. The thing he wore now was just not right .
The day was not a fun one. Waking up in the boy’s body was enough of a surprise. Having to then spend it almost entirely at NERV, that was just not his idea of a good time. Living with who he did, he of course knew about the place and some of what went on there, but never in his wildest dreams did he imagine that he’d step foot inside one day.
He figured that the really smart lady… the doctor… he'd seen her at the apartment a couple times before... Ritsuko… yes, that’s it. She seemed to not like him very much, and he didn't know why—but Misato trusted the woman, and that was enough for him. She would be able to get things fixed soon enough. At which point he could get right back to living in pure relaxation.
When they arrived home at the apartment, the first thing he did was try to grab a beer from the fridge. That was what he always did around that time of day. Instantly, he was scolded by Misato. She had never truly gotten upset with him over anything before that moment.
She was probably just letting out some frustration from the day’s events—which he was okay with, once he thought about it for a bit. He didn’t usually dwell on what his roommate’s typical days were like, but he figured that this situation was making things more stressful for them. He can tell obviously that that's the case for the boy, at least.
He’s known Misato for several years now. She would never intend to be mean to him. He had the thought that he might try to snuggle up with her after she got home, to show her that he's not upset back at her, but then he remembered... Trying that probably wouldn’t be a great idea right now. Misato would freak out if he did that in his current form.
When Pen-Pen asked why he couldn’t just have a beer, Misato reasoned that he shouldn’t be allowed to if he was in Shinji's body. This made some sense to Pen-Pen, as the body he was in wasn’t able to drink according to the human rules, but the boy came to his rescue.
Shinji told him that he could have a beer or two sometime later in the night, saying that he didn’t want to prevent his roommate from going about his normal routine. After Pen-Pen brought this information forward, Misato asked Shinji if he was sure, and he nodded profusely. She dropped it after that.
Asuka didn’t bother inserting herself into that conversation, which Pen-Pen found surprising. He thought he noticed something was off with her on their ride back home. She seemed… speechless. Like she didn’t want to talk for some reason. She always had something to say, and it’s not like she was all that affected by this situation.
Whatever, Pen-Pen didn’t care. He was actually glad, in a way. No whining, no questioning, no insulting—the girl dug right into the takeout that had been picked up, for some reason off in her own world. He and the other two joined her at the table right after the drinking agreement, eating with a silence that was not standard in recent weeks.
Next to him, he had taken notice of the way Shinji was scarfing down his food. Misato’s cooking had never been the best… but the arrival of the boy was a boon to the penguin. He didn’t know how to cook a lot of meals—but the ones he could make—tasted really good. It helped that so many of them contained fish of some kind.
He had wondered if the girl would try to cook anything when she showed up, but he decided that was never going to happen by this point. Pen-Pen wasn’t extremely hungry this evening, as he had tried a handful of items cooked by the humans at NERV. The sushi he slurped down there was especially delicious.
As they finished eating, Misato stated that she needed to head back to NERV to deal with a load of paperwork from the recent Angel attacks. Before she left however, she told Asuka that she’d have to go to school the next day, and this caused some strife as Asuka immediately retreated to her room. After she had, Misato told the other two left at the table that she’d notify the school about Shinji's absence for the foreseeable future.
Pen-Pen was just glad he wasn’t being made to go to school for Shinji. Now that, he reasoned, would not go well for anyone. As Misato flew out the front door, she yelled back to the apartment’s residents to say that she’d probably be gone all night, and that she’d call if something new came in from Ritsuko.
The Magi were still working out a solution when they left NERV—that Rei girl had only been sent to collect them so Ritsuko could say that it wasn’t looking likely for a solution to be found today—and so they decided to head home instead of waiting it out back in the cafeteria.
He didn’t know what to think of Rei. He had met her before at the apartment, but her eyes… they scared him. Maybe scare was too strong of a word, but there was something unsettling about them to him. He had caught her leering at him that time she visited before—when the other two were doing that crazy dance training. Her red discs laser focused on him, and it brought about some innate feeling that he thought had been engineered away. She was always polite to him though, so that was nice. He didn’t actually think she wanted to eat him…
After Misato left, Shinji asked Pen-Pen for some waddling tips, and in exchange, he agreed to supply information on using longer human legs. They worked at it for the last half hour or so, and they were both starting to become more proficient with their respective techniques.
“What are you two doing?” says Asuka, walking into the apartment’s living room from the hallway. Pen-Pen sees that she holds something in her hand, but does not care to ask what it is.
“We’re walking,” replies Pen-Pen.
His voice sounds cleaner than earlier in the day, evidence of becoming familiar with using the vocal cords in his new body. He does not really want to use them, however—that fact is clear by his regular short responses. It was easier to not have to talk, more often than not.
Asuka observes them as they pace back and forth across the carpet for a few more minutes, having settled into a spot on the floor near the entryway to the kitchen, whatever she holds still in her lap. After a few more ovals around the room, Asuka asks Shinji to step over to her.
Pen-Pen watches as the boy carefully approaches. When he gets close, she shows him what she has. It’s the plaque that usually rests on the door to the boy’s room, with a thin string tied carefully through the holes that previously had been used to keep it fastened in place. He's pretty sure he can recollect sitting with Misato when she made it for the boy originally.
“Here,” says Asuka, with the tiniest smile, “you can wear it as a necklace, so no one forgets it’s you in there.”
She swiftly lowers it around Shinji’s neck, and it hangs down covering the metal brace on his upper chest. Immediately upon its placement, Asuka giggles into a slight smirk. Shinji grabs the corner of his new pendant, and turns it up slightly toward his head to examine it a little harder.
“What is funny about this?” asks Pen-Pen, with authentic curiosity.
“It’s just,” she chuckles again, “the way that it—” she cuts herself off with a little bit sharper of a laugh, leaning backwards into a couple more, before managing to stop herself.
Shinji, still holding the necklace, pulls it back over his head and holds it out to Asuka, providing a low wark. Even sitting, she’s able to look down at him, with an expression that Pen-Pen understands to be disappointment. He can’t recall ever seeing it on her face before. This is not going to be good, he can feel the energy in the room shifting.
If he had ever felt a situation even close to this coming up between the two before—a disagreement about dinner, or something like that—he would deal with it by closing himself off from them in his fridge, or by just getting drunk.
He can drink—Shinji agreed—but he does not want to drink so much that Shinji’s body breaks. He’s pretty sure that he will need to if he wishes to forget the magnitude of an event that this will be.
Shinji repeats the same exact low wark, and Asuka looks at Pen-Pen expectantly. He pulls his arms tighter to his sides and translates. “He’s… asking why.”
“Why? Why what?” says Asuka, a bit louder with each individual word.
“I… don’t know. That’s all he said,” says Pen-Pen.
Asuka regards the penguin in front of her. “Talk, Shinji! Explain yourself!” she exclaims, while standing up.
As she does, Shinji waddles a few slow steps back, and then trips when a claw gets caught in the carpet. Right when he lands on the floor, a crunchy snapping sound comes from under him. He quickly rolls over, pushes himself up, and takes off for his room down the hall without another wark.
Pen-Pen can see that the pink and white object that lies where Shinji fell has a crack down the center, splitting it almost perfectly into two halves. It’s technically still being held together, by a few threads of material—that is until Asuka takes a step over to it, winds her leg back, and kicks the thing across the room. It lands near the sliding door to the balcony.
“What the hell is his problem?” she asks the room, hands gracing her hips as she stares in the direction of the balcony itself.
Pen-Pen sees the girl’s face reddening into a mix of anger and confusion. He does not know what it is between her and the boy, but vastly more often than not, when the two interact—one or the other somehow comes out worse for wear.
“I think that he did not enjoy being laughed at,” says Pen-Pen.
Asuka shifts her gaze towards him, and throws out a penetrating “what do you know?”
She stares at him for a few moments more, as if expecting him to launch a volley of his own back. Pen-Pen only responds with silence. She spins on her heels, stomping off in the direction of her own room.
Pen-Pen scans across the floor, and his eyes fall on the broken pieces of plastic. His knowledge of human culture comes almost exclusively from whatever he sees watching television—but the shattered item reminds him of something.
Before breaking, it was in the shape that humans call a heart. Real human hearts can’t actually look that simple, he’s sure—but he’s seen scenes like this in enough movies and shows to put two and two together.
How does Misato live with these two? Oh, right. The drinking.
He simply lowers himself to sit on the floor with a sigh. He then lays back flat, spreading his limbs out as far as they’ll go, taking interest in the shadows they cast along the wall across from him. He eventually stops caring to watch the silhouettes dance, and focuses his vision on the ceiling. Whatever those Magi are better figure something out sooner than later, because handling these two humans himself is going to kill him before any Angel will have the chance.
Notes:
Thanks for reading. If you can, please leave a constructive comment telling me what you like and/or didn't like. As outlined, there should be four chapters to this, but that's subject to change. Stay tuned.
Massive thank you to the AsuShin Discord server folks—you all know who you are—who pushed me to try writing something. Special shouts to Pico, Litano, and notyourprob for their specific roles in helping me get this off the ground.
Chapter Text
Pen-Pen shoots awake, popping up off of the futon he lies on in the apartment’s living room. The morning sun is shining through the glass behind him, and he swiftly remembers the unfortunate events of the previous day when he sees his human hands. What a mess, all of it.
He throws the blanket off, and stands up to his full teenage boy height. Despite the youth of the day, the sun’s rays are warm on the areas of his skin that are not underneath any clothing. It’s a very strange feeling, not having his feathers. He steps over to the sliding glass door to stick an arm out, confirming that today, like every other, will be a hot one.
Pen-Pen then gets an idea. He rushes into the kitchen, and throws himself to the floor, sliding up to his previous standard sleep spot. He can’t get inside it to cool off due to the circumstances, but leaning up against the door to the refrigerator room he usually naps in is good enough. The refreshing cold spreads down the backside of his body, as he closes his eyes. He replays the previous night in his head, over and over—like a rerun on television.
What is he going to do about his two teenage roommates? He wants there to be peace in the apartment, seeing as he can’t block himself off from the two problem starters. Yes, something along those lines—he needs to figure out a way to stop the issues from even cropping up.
After last night’s theatre, he did not see either of them for the rest of the evening. He isn’t sure what to make of it, exactly. Why did Shinji run off like that? And why did Asuka attempt to give him some sort of peace offering if she was only going to laugh at him?
He sees them argue about random things a lot, but this really does feel like something bigger between the two. Even with everything going on with him and Shinji. He’s missing something, but what is it?
Perhaps the key is with the plastic heart necklace. The one Asuka made out of his door sign. Pen-Pen calls on all of his knowledge of humanity, channeling it through the countless films and programs he watches often. If a human gives another one a present—like a fancy, hand-made necklace—it usually means that that human wants something back in return.
He stands up, regretting not feeling the frostiness at his back for a quick moment, but then starts toward the corner of the living room with determination. He finds what he is looking for when he arrives. The pieces of pink and white that sit on the floor speak to him, and it finally clicks. The shows where humans fall in love with each other is where that sort of thing happens.
Using his abundance of knowledge to inform his process—if Asuka tries to give Shinji a gift like that… then she wants him… to give her… his love? There it is, the exact thought from last night. Does Asuka want… Shinji’s love?
Pen-Pen crosses his arms, pondering deeply. He isn’t sure what this love thing is, actually. The word comes up in the stuff he watches a lot, and hearts are often a big part of it. So that definitely must be what’s going on here. Love. Asuka wants Shinji to love her. Pen-Pen does a great job convincing himself.
If so, why does she not say that? It goes well for the humans that do say it to each other in a number of the movies he sees, anyways. If Pen-Pen can get her to say it—or somehow get Shinji to recognize the possibility that she really does want his company—then the two will surely be more pleasant to live with.
Alright, what does he do about this revelation? Does he go directly to Asuka to tell her that he knows? No… that will probably go very poorly. She’s certainly still mad about last night. Pen-Pen then hears a door open from down the bedroom hallway. Speak of the devil and she doth appear—that’s another one he knows from the television. It really does teach him a lot.
Asuka steps into the living room in her pajamas, a fresh school uniform drapes over her shoulder. She stops moving when she sees Pen-Pen, realizing that he's in the room.
“What?” she says.
“I’m thinking,” replies Pen-Pen, in earnest.
“Oh, you’re still thinking? That’s great,” she says, as if the idea is an affront to all she knows. She turns away into an audible yawn, and some mumbling that Pen-Pen can’t quite make out precedes her continuing on the path to the kitchen. The bathroom curtain swooshes back and forth moments later. Yes, the girl is definitely still irritable at this point. Or maybe it’s because she only just woke up.
Pen-Pen steps back over to the futon he will be sleeping in until this ordeal is over, and lies upon it to think a bit harder. If he can’t try to talk about it with Asuka yet, then he’ll need to try talking to Shinji. The boy is usually more approachable anyway. Though, he’s probably still asleep right now—not having to wake up and go to school—and this futon feels pretty comfortable. Maybe he’ll rest his head again for a little while…
An ice cold bottle of beer, condensation dripping down the side, flanks a massive cut of tuna that lays out on a tray in front of Pen-Pen. The sea breeze feels nice on his feathers as he takes in the sight of other beachgoers frolicking across the shore, into the low and steady waves. He leans over the small platform his meal lies upon, with utensils in his claws, and he begins to dig in. Instantly after swallowing the first bite—a voice calls to him from somewhere behind him at his spot on the sand.
He sets the cutlery down, and turns around to look for the source. No humans are in sight, however. He then hears the voice again, more clearly. It’s a woman’s, for sure. What is it saying? Steak cup? He’s eating tuna, not steak… and he’s drinking from out of a bottle…
Once more, the voice fills his ears, despite no obvious origin. As it pounds his eardrums, he begins to feel pressure building on his shoulder. He can hear it clearly now, it says, “Wake up!”
The sand nearby then disintegrates into black nothingness, and he’s falling very fastly into it—the delicious banquet that had been laid out in front of him comes along for the ride. He looks below, and sees a massive heart shape, the words ‘Shinji’s Room’ flashing with neon color upon it, nearly as wide across as the parking lot of the apartment building he lives in. The instant he makes contact, crashing into it beak first, he jolts awake in his futon in the living room. He’s hyperventilating, as reality welcomes him back.
Misato is clutching Pen-Pen’s shoulder, almost shaking him, but she stops when she realizes his eyes are open. She eases her shoulders in relief, and lets go.
“I was trying to wake you up for way too long there bud!” says Misato, “don’t scare me like that!”
Pen-Pen takes a deep breath, and releases it, settling back into proper existence. “Dreaming… it was a dream.”
He takes in the sight of the woman as she steps back from him. She’s wearing her normal work outfit, minus the red beret. It’s rare that she ever does include it. In fact, Pen-Pen recalls waking up a few times with that hat on top of his head before—likely from Misato placing it there. Her clothing is the same as what she wore on the way out the door yesterday evening, maybe she is just getting home. The bags under her eyes tell him that she’s incredibly sleepy, probably because of her working through most of the night.
“Well, I’m glad you’re up now,” she says, smiling at him. “I know you didn’t have a good day yesterday. I don’t think any of us did. Unfortunately, I gotta take you and Shinji into HQ again.”
Pen-Pen’s shoulders sag slightly in reaction to the information. “More tests?” he asks, hesitantly. He feels small annoyance at potentially needing to undergo extra study, not to mention at the possibility of more literal headaches like yesterday's.
“Something close to that. Ritsuko needs a bit more data, and there’s only one way to get what she needs.”
“The Magi… can they not fix this?”
Misato takes a moment to respond, and her lips shift, as if she’s doubting her thoughts. “They can, they just need a little more input.”
“What do we have to do?”
She sighs, “you and Shinji are each gonna hop in the Eva, one after the other. Unit-01, to be exact. There’s one more piece Rits needs to fit into the puzzle, and she says this is the only way to get it. I’m really sorry, Pen-Pen.”
He stands up from the futon for the second time this morning, giving a nod to Misato. It's not a nod of certainty or knowing, but it is one nonetheless, and she seems to accept it without questioning him.
“I’m gonna go let Shinji know. Once he’s up and at ‘em, you should go change. Just wear the same thing you did yesterday. One of his school uniforms.” says Misato. Pen-Pen nods at her again. She spins around, likely heading for Shinji’s room.
Pen-Pen looks out at the landscape beyond the balcony through the glass. They’re actually going to put him in the Eva. Misato says they'll hop into it anyway, whatever that means. He knows what the giants look like from the news reports on television, but even during his visit to NERV the previous day—he did not come face to face with one. One more thing he could say he's the only penguin to ever do, but a tiny pang of nervousness about it does start to settle in him.
Talking to Shinji about Asuka and everything else will have to wait until later in the day. For the time being, Pen-Pen is mentally preparing to be a pilot. The anxious feeling grows a little larger.
He'll just have to sit in the pilot’s seat, they will not have him give commands to the thing—right? If they do, they're insane. He's assuming there’s even a spot for the pilot to sit. Wait, how do they pilot those Evas anyway?
“Flooding entry plug,” says Ibuki’s voice from over the comms.
Pen-Pen grips tight onto what must be the Eva’s controls. The orange fluid—Misato says they call it LCL—pumps in from below him. He tries to relax as it washes against his legs, but he can feel it even through the plugsuit. It’s not very enjoyable. The substance is cooler than the air, but not as cold as the inside of his refrigerator. He tries to imagine that he’s laying back inside of that small room, and his breathing calms a bit.
That is, until the liquid reaches his face. He jerks sharply when its level crawls over his mouth, but grounds himself with his hands to the yokes, and thinks about the scrumptious meal that Misato promises to get him once this is over. Shinji, Asuka, and even Rei go through this every single time?
“You’re doing great Pen-Pen, hang in there for me okay?” says Misato over the channel.
He goes to garble out a response, but when he opens his mouth, the rush of fluid into it prevents him from getting any words across. He hears Shinji—watching from Unit-01’s observation deck with the others—wark to him through the comms. “It doesn’t hurt at all. Let the LCL flow through to your lungs.” he says, though everyone else tuning in hears “wark waaark.”
Pen-Pen takes his advice and shuts his eyes, allowing it to do just that. After a few more seconds, the plug completely fills up, and Ritsuko’s voice comes in.
“Maya, initiate level two contact on my go,” she says. “Pen-Pen, all you need to do is sit there. This will feel strange, I’m sure, but we need the data if you want to go back to normal. If you’re actually able to synch, we’ll talk about it then. Nod if you understand, we have a visual of you on the screen.”
He dips his head, and right after he does, he hears Ritsuko telling Maya to begin. A vast array of colors flash all around him, replacing the silver walls of the inner entry plug with a rainbow flair. The LCL starts to get warmer, and he feels the pressure of a hand on his shoulder akin to the experience in his dream. He turns his head slightly to check for the cause, but as suddenly as it is there—the sensation is gone. The walls of the plug go dark, and fade back out into their original metallic sheen. The fluid runs cold again.
“Is it working?” says Pen-Pen.
“It looks like it won’t synch with you, which is what we thought,” replies Ritsuko. “We got the data we need from that, I’m sure of it.”
“So I can get out now?”
“We’ll extract the entry plug to drain the LCL, and after that you’ll be able to climb out. Sit tight.” says Ritsuko.
“Awesome job Pen-Pen!” says Misato, and Shinji warks a similar message.
Pen-Pen raises his arm to brush a hand through his hair, and feels one of the two neural connectors that sits up there. He can’t wait to get them and this skintight suit off. Humans can have this responsibility. Fighting Angels is no job for a penguin—not Pen-Pen, anyway.
“Do you think the Magi have what they need?” asks Pen-Pen, sitting with a slight hunch on a bench in the men’s locker room.
“I hope so, Ritsuko and the others seem to think that it’s enough. I was even able to synch still, somehow. My score was way lower than it’s been though…” says Shinji, with disappointment. Pen-Pen understands the boy's warks cleanly.
“Is LCL normally…” Pen-Pen pauses, working to find the right words.
“Normally… what?” asks Shinji, when nothing more comes out of Pen-Pen’s mouth after a few seconds.
Pen-Pen merely recounts his brief exposure to the liquid, “cold… then warm.”
“Oh. Yeah, that’s normal. It always starts really cold, but then it warms up when you synch. If you ask Asuka she’ll agree, it’s the same for her.”
The boy is clearly thinking about the girl, and he’s at least not upset by said thoughts. This is good. The gears of Pen-Pen’s plan are now in motion. He has to be subtle, otherwise they will stick—maybe even break. Sometime after they get back to the apartment, probably later this evening, he will ask Shinji to talk with him some more. He needs to poke around for extra info to really make sure his project can go off without a hitch.
“Why is it like that? The LCL.”
“Umm… I don’t know. I never thought to ask.” answers Shinji.
He puts his flippers up to his head, and yanks the white connectors out of the crimson tufts of feathers. Unfortunately, he rips a feather or two out by doing this. He yelps, abruptly throwing the connectors to the floor to free up his claws, and puts them right back up to the top of his head to place pressure on the throbbing area.
“I’ve done that before. It hurts.” says Pen-Pen, offering some form of consolation.
Shinji continues to keel over in pain. “You’ve ripped your own feathers out before?” he asks, a strain in his wark.
“Never on purpose. But it happens.”
Shinji’s pain seems to subside, as Pen-Pen sets about wriggling the plugsuit off. He grabs at the neckline and tugs—as if he is trying to tear it into pieces. The penguin across the corridor between the lockers notices what he’s doing, and motions for Pen-Pen to stop.
“Press the button on your wrist. The same one that tightens the suit will make it loosen.” offers Shinji.
Pen-Pen takes the boy’s piloting advice for the second time, and pushes the button in with his thumb. The suit reacts precisely as Shinji says it will, slackening all over his body.
“Now you can take it off way easier.”
Pen-Pen pulls the suit down to his feet while Shinji is still looking, and he yelps once more and turns away, almost catapulting himself into the locker behind him.
“It’s your body…” says Pen-Pen.
Today is laundry day. One of several chores that Shinji takes on around the apartment, since his other roommates either cannot or are unwilling to do most of them. He doesn’t mind it though. He knows it makes Misato happy, and it keeps Asuka off his back at least. He has a suspicion that Asuka does enjoy his cooking way more than she lets on. She always cleans her plate, and she rarely complains about anything that isn’t superficial about the meals—he should try to learn some new recipes though.
His current situation, however, presents multiple challenges with regard to completing his chores as he expects of himself. Misato will understand if he can’t get something done, but Asuka? Last night wasn’t great. Why did he run to his room? He’s pretty sure she was genuinely trying to be nice, because she has never attempted to give him a gift before, but when she started giggling and he tripped over himself, he felt his only option was to scramble away.
Upon reaching his room and diving into his bed, he regretted it. But he couldn’t go back out there so soon after, Asuka would get more upset than she already was. So he has to make it up to her in other ways, by showing her that he can still be useful—even as a penguin. Getting into a routine will help keep his mind off things too.
When he and Pen-Pen were done at NERV for the day, Misato did not have the time to take them back to the apartment, so they had to take the trains. She said she would be home before too late, however. Riding in the metro car as a penguin is much easier than attempting to synch with Unit-01 as one, anyways. At least he knows that the Eva will work with him like this, but he hopes the additional data from today will be enough to fix things before that matters. Ritsuko says it will be, so he has to trust that.
Shinji pushes a laundry basket around, going from room to room to collect clothes to put in the wash. He is able to carry the receptacle, but it’s much easier to shove along the floor instead. He slides by the living room, heading for the washroom, Pen-Pen watching him do so.
“Still don’t want help?” he asks.
“I got it. I always do my chores on time, I still need to now.” says Shinji.
Pen-Pen nods at him, and allows Shinji to continue pushing the dirty clothes on his own. Upon reaching the washroom, he begins to toss items into the machine. On one particular grab, he misjudges the positioning of his claws, and slices a cut down through one of his white shirts. A huge gash, all along the reverse. He acknowledges the mistake with a beaky grimace, chucking this shirt into the waste bin behind him, and continues to fill the washer. Add this blunder to the loss of feather he had undergone earlier in the locker room.
Upon emptying the basket, he carefully lifts the detergent bottle from the floor between the wall and the washer, tentatively screwing off the cap and pouring some of the contents inside. He does not want to spill a bunch of detergent everywhere by screwing something up with his flippers again.
After managing to not mess it up, he sets the bottle back in its place, and realizes he might have a real problem. He needs to be able to get to the washer’s knobs and buttons to turn the thing on. Then, a spark of brilliance. He moves to grab the stool from where it rests next to the bathtub, placing it in front of the machine. He can get up there, and start the cycle all on his own.
He steps onto the stool, and attempts to climb up the machine face to be able to reach the top. Trying to pull himself over the edge, he’s only able to put a handful of tiny scratches in the metal, before losing his balance on the stool and falling with a warky yelp, thudding into the tile floor. The first thing he does is notice the marks his claws made on the appliance. He’ll need to apologize to Misato for that.
He then hears rushing footsteps rapidly nearing him, and Pen-Pen brushes the curtain entryway to the bathroom barely aside. He pokes his head in and looks around until his eyes find Shinji, who lies on the floor, staring at the light in the ceiling above.
“Heard a bang. You okay?” he says.
Shinji folds up, and stands back on his flippers. “I tried to climb on the washing machine to press the cycle start button.”
“Do you want me to start it?”
“I just… wanted to do it by myself,” says Shinji.
Pen-Pen casts a gaze around the whole room again, pausing when he notices the utterly torn shirt lying over the circumference of the room’s trash bin. “What happened there?” he asks, lifting his arm along the fabric of the curtain, revealing a finger to point at the shirt in shreds.
Shinji holds up a flipper, retracting and extending the claws. “I’m not good with these yet.”
Pen-Pen draws the curtain fully open, and steps into the bathroom proper. Shinji wonders why he’s approaching him, when he swiftly grabs the boy-penguin around the waist. Despite the initial struggle from flapping about at being snatched unexpectedly, Shinji finds himself on top of the washer.
“Now you can start it, right?” says Pen-Pen.
Shinji slowly turns and takes a step to the buttons, and after fiddling with the dials for a brief moment, he pushes one, causing the appliance to whir to life beneath him. He then turns back to Pen-Pen, and plops himself down to sit, feet flippers dangling over the edge.
“I’m sorry that you got involved in my chores,” he says, “but thank you.”
“We gotta work on that,” says Pen-Pen.
“Work on what?”
“The sorry thing.”
Shinji simply stares back at the bird in his skin.
“Saying sorry so much. It doesn’t make sense.”
“Oh.” says Shinji, as he shimmies his way off of his perch and back to the washroom floor. He waddles past Pen-Pen and into the kitchen, attempting to escape what he sees as a possible confrontation, but Pen-Pen speaks up again.
“I’m serious. All the time. Even before the girl got here.”
Shinji stops in his tracks at the mention of Asuka. He gazes out through the entryway on his right between the kitchen and the living room, past the balcony and to the barely tinting orange sky as the sun is beginning to fall further from its daily peak. The sky like that reminds him of her.
Pen-Pen is definitely smarter than the average penguin, but is he really perceptive enough to notice that he says sorry a lot? Even from before their current predicament? He’s aware that he does say it often—historically it keeps people from digging at him deeper—but why is Pen-Pen different from anyone before? Why won’t this tactic work on him?
“Let me assist,” says Pen-Pen.
Shinji looks up at him from where he stands several feet away, and asks a single word question. One that he hopes will provide him with an answer much deeper than such a query initially appears to warrant.
“Why?”
“Why not?” replies Pen-Pen.
Shinji considers this response for a moment. He can’t understand why Pen-Pen wants to help him with anything. Does he just feel bad for him? Why does he deserve help from anyone? All he ever does is make people around him upset.
“Kid—Shinji, come on. I have ideas.” says Pen-Pen.
If Pen-Pen really wants to try helping, then perhaps he shouldn’t decline. Besides, they’ll be back to normal sooner than later—talking with him before it’s not possible again might be truly helpful.
Shinji huffs, and admits defeat. “Okay. You can try to help.”
Pen-Pen appears to radiate with victory, a small smile growing. “Tonight. Late. On the balcony. We’ll talk more then.”
“What time—” starts Shinji, but he’s cut off by the mechanical woosh of the front door. Before either can really react, Asuka presents in the opening to the apartment’s entry corridor. Both look at her as she comes around the corner, and she freezes when realizing that they’re standing in an awkward staring triangle. She’s undoubtedly feeling effects from the weather outside, face flush with perspiration.
She appears to want to say something, but instead breaks the standoff by stomping forward between them, blasting toward her room. At least she isn’t calling him an idiot. She must not be too upset about last night.
“Midnight,” says Pen-Pen with a whisper, seemingly so Asuka can’t hear from her room, “I’ll call Misato. She owes me food still anyways. So you don’t cook tonight.”
“Thanks,” says Shinji.
Pen-Pen turns to the phone on the wall, and after grabbing it—he stares at the device in his hand.
“I… don’t know how this thing works,” says Pen-Pen over his shoulder. “Help?”
Shinji rests on his bed, feathery head against his pillow, looking up at the ceiling. He intends to make his way to the balcony in a few minutes, recalling Pen-Pen telling him to meet him out there at exactly midnight. What does Pen-Pen have in store for him? He isn’t sure what his penguin-minded roommate will say, but it will be interesting to contemplate at the very least.
The penguin-bodied boy sneaks his door open, and tip-toes on his flippers out into the hallway. He puts his ear up to Asuka’s room, and does not hear anything. She must be asleep by now. The apartment is completely quiet, the only sound comes from his intentional padding along the floor toward the sliding glass balcony door. He finds it open already, and passes through into the outside air.
Pen-Pen is lying back in one of the lounge chairs, his chest steadily rising up and down. Shinji steps over to him, and pats a flipper on his shoulder. After some seconds, his eyes shoot open—almost in a panic—but he calms just as fast when he realizes that Shinji is who’s touching him. He sits up taller in the chair, scooting back a bit while pulling his legs in, and pats a hand in front of him on the white plastic to show Shinji where he intends him to sit.
“Were you followed?” asks Pen-Pen.
“No…” warks Shinji, with an inquisitive up-turn of his beak.
“Good. The movies say you shouldn’t let your enemies follow you to a covert meeting.”
“What enemies?”
Pen-Pen puts a finger up to his lips and shooshes, “they may be listening another way.” He shakes his head moving the finger back down, “but that’s not the point.”
Shinji relaxes his posture a bit as Pen-Pen continues.
“The point here… is you.” he says with a jab of that finger into Shinji’s belly.
“Please don’t poke there.”
“Understood,” he says with a slight grin.
Adding this brief interesting interaction to the list of those Shinji has had directly with Pen-Pen since the beginning of this ordeal still does not help him to paint a full picture of the penguin’s soul. He’s already committing to listening to more at this point, since he’s out here.
“So what are your… ideas, as you put it earlier?” asks Shinji.
“Yes. Ideas. I need you,”—the finger pokes near but not so far as to touch this time—”to relax a bit more,” says Pen-Pen.
“Relax?”
“Exactly. Relax.”
“How can I relax, when I have to pilot? When someone…” he pauses, and Pen-Pen dips his head encouraging Shinji to continue warking. “When someone like Asuka talks to me like she does?”
“I’ll admit, the piloting part is hard. Sitting in that plug was not fun, you humans can have all the credit for that.” Pen-Pen grips the sides of the chair they sit upon, “but relaxing when someone talks to you? That, I know all about.”
At least he acknowledges that piloting can be dreadful. This time, Shinji looks to him for a continuation.
“Before all of this, I talked with you, Misato, and Asuka all the time. I was even with those two in that other country for a bit… what was it…”
“Germany?” answers Shinji.
“Yes! Germany. I was there with Misato and Asuka for a bit. Losing the point again. I talk with them a lot. Even if they didn’t understand what I was actually saying until now. And have you ever seen me not relaxed prior to two days ago?”
“I guess… not…”
“So if I can do it, why can’t you?” says Pen-Pen, unclutching the armrest with his right hand and getting dangerously close with the finger again.
Pen-Pen makes an interesting point. If a penguin can handle that, Shinji should be able to. But the doubt begins to creep back in.
“I’m just Shinji… I’m not you Pen-Pen…” he says with slight dejection.
“Look at yourself. What are you right now?”
Shinji lifts his right flipper, and stares into the center of it, extending and retracting the claws a few times. Maybe Pen-Pen is right. He’s still himself, but whether he likes it or not, right now—he is Pen-Pen. He can try to act like him more, now and into the future.
Not the drinking and whole-fish-swallowing, but if Pen-Pen’s laidback nature works for him, it probably can for Shinji too. That brings Shinji’s thoughts to another person he’s met recently in his life. Ryoji Kaji is a pretty nonchalant type of guy, and Asuka likes spending time around him.
She says he’s a real man often—is this whole thing that Pen-Pen is talking about what she means by that? He makes some crude jokes sometimes, and has some sort of weird history with Misato going by her reactions to him, but the overwhelming confidence the man exudes may be doable for Shinji, if he tries. He doesn’t have to go all out like that, but even a small percentage of it can likely help.
“Do you know Kaji much?” asks Shinji.
“Yes. He’s a bit of a smooth talker, but I think he acts a little like what I’m saying you should try. I also know that Misato… talks about him in her sleep.”
“How?”
“I sleep in her room sometimes. Mostly when she’s drunk, and not always by my choice. She just picks me up and carries me there. On TV, I’ve seen humans sleep in their rooms with their animal roommates. Never any penguins in those, mostly cats and dogs, but it’s something like that.”
Pen-Pen leans in a bit closer to Shinji. “Watch out for that actually… she might forget you’re not me if she gets to drinking.” He then leans back again.
“Why are you so talkative right now? Trying to help me and everything.”
“Hopefully, I won’t be able to talk for much longer. I’ve decided that if I can say my peace before then, well, I think you know what I mean,” says Pen-Pen.
Shinji shakes his head in a brief but sure nod.
“Alright. I have some not so top secret information that I think will help you out even more.”
“What’s that?”
“I think you… enjoy spending time with Asuka. And I think she enjoys spending time with you.”
Shinji’s eyes open as wide as his penguin eye-lids allow. “What makes you say that? She calls me names all the time.”
“You two spend a lot of time with each other already.”
“We live together…”
“But you two always get home at the same time. You always eat together. She helps you with your school stuff. When you were doing the training together, I saw you both in perfect harmony. That tells me there’s potential. I think she even tried to give you a gift last night.”
“I think that’s what that was too… but I ran away.”
“Put it behind you, that’s the old Shinji. With your new outlook thanks to me,”—Pen-Pen fists his hands, motioning toward his chest with both thumbs up—”you can try to spend time with her a little differently.”
What does Pen-Pen mean by that exactly? Is he suggesting that he should… ask Asuka on a date? No way—that’s too much way too fast! Asuka does spend a lot of time with him, but to ask her out? He can’t do that. Not when he ran away from her like he did so recently.
“I like being around her, mostly, but I can’t just ask her out. She’s probably still upset with me about yesterday.” says Shinji.
“Right. That was yesterday. Now, you’re the new Shinji. Here’s an idea. You like cooking right?”
Shinji nods.
“And she likes your cooking?”
“I think so.”
“Then get her to cook with you.”
Shinji mulls this suggestion over for a moment. “That… could work.”
“So what day is it tomorrow? Saturday?”
“Yes, but why does that matter?”
“She may be more willing to help you cook, and I’m sure you’ll need it looking how you do now, if she doesn’t have to go to school the next morning,” explains Pen-Pen.
The idea plants in Shinji’s brain. Tomorrow, or today by now as it’s past midnight, he’ll see about finding a way to get Asuka to cook dinner with him. If he doesn’t think about it too hard—per the Pen-Pen method—he’ll be able to figure it out.
Pen-Pen raises his arms to stretch, and leans back again, though he keeps his legs tight to not kick Shinji off the chair. At the height of his stretch, he holds his arms up, gaze locking on something to his right. Shinji turns his head in the same direction, catching a phantom vision of red hair along with the sliding glass door into Asuka’s room slamming shut.
Shinji starts to speak, “was she—” but stops when Pen-Pen grabs his shoulders.
“She was listening I’m sure. Not sure how long. And she’s not an enemy either,” says Pen-Pen.
Shinji slumps over, but as Pen-Pen is holding him from running, he doesn’t scramble away this time.
“The new Shinji just has to relax. She can’t understand your warking anyways. If she’s upset with either of us for talking about her, it’s more likely to be me.”
Pen-Pen is right. New Shinji. Sorta like Kaji. Pen-Pen method. Asuka will let him know when she’s upset, she ran away just now. Not him. Wow, this might already be working.
“Thank you, Pen-Pen.”
“Don’t thank me yet, you need to put in the work here,” he says, bringing his hands back to his sides.
“Okay, right,” says Shinji, climbing off the chair. “I’m going to try to sleep now.”
Pen-Pen gives a thumbs up, as he enters back into the living room. He realizes quickly that Pen-Pen is not following him inside, so he looks back out around the door at him. Somehow, he’s already asleep again in the chair. Shinji decides to leave him be. Seeing his own body lie so peacefully in the moonlight is a sight to be sure.
At Misato Katsuragi’s apartment, the combination of a dry cupboard and mostly empty food refrigerator means two things. Number one: Shinji needs to do some grocery shopping. Number two: the pilot of Evangelion Unit-02 is sure to remind him somehow about number one.
Shinji scans around the inside of the kitchen’s standard refrigerator, finding not much other than a more full than usual rack of beer cans. If he wants to eat tonight, he needs to acquire some ingredients. Problematic, given his current conundrum. He hears sock padded footsteps enter into the kitchen from behind him, and cranes his head around to ensure it’s the one person it can possibly be.
“I’m hungry,” says Asuka, who he’s seeing for the first time since he caught a ghostly flash of her hair on the balcony the night prior. He had spent most of the day in his room, attempting to learn to write by holding a pencil in his claws. Not much progress on that.
He was also thinking a lot about what Pen-Pen had said to him. And about what Asuka might have heard while she surveilled them. If he’s going to be the new Shinji, and Asuka has some sort of idea that that is what they discussed, now is the time to prove it.
“What do you want to eat?” he warks, while turning to face her—Pen-Pen provides translations from where he sits leaning back in a chair at the kitchen table.
Shinji has not been able to interact with her nearly as much these past couple days, but seeing her face in an expression of mild intrigue as a reaction to his question begins to fill him with something close to hope. She then settles on an answer.
“Breakfast. Not the usual Japanese stuff either,” she commands.
“But it’s not breakfast time…” warks Shinji.
“I want breakfast food. I don’t care if it’s not the usual time for it,” says Asuka.
“Okay. Then we need to go buy things. We’re out of almost everything.”
Asuka turns to face Pen-Pen, and stances into her familiar hands-on-hips pose. “What does he mean by ‘we need to get ingredients’?” she questions, leaning forwards a bit extra over the course of the last five words. “That’s his job.”
“If you’ve forgotten, he’s currently in my body. I don’t think a shopkeep would sell to a penguin alone,” answers Pen-Pen, in Shinji’s stead. His beak nods along to that explanation.
Asuka leans back, standing up as straight as she can. “You go with him then.”
“I’m not hungry,” says Pen-Pen, in a tone not quite mocking but treading that line. He must be doing it to try to get Asuka to see reason here. Something else Shinji recognizes as admirable that Pen-Pen can even attempt. Somehow, it seems to work.
The girl, still in her school uniform despite the early Saturday release, takes a deep breath and relaxes her posture.
“Fine. Let’s get this over with,” she says, focusing back on Shinji, and starting toward the front door where her shoes are. Once she’s made the turn around the wall separating the kitchen from the corridor, Shinji looks over at Pen-Pen and nods emphatically. Pen-Pen returns this, and gives what is quickly becoming a trademark thumbs up to go with it.
Shinji rushes to catch up to Asuka, nearly getting a complete tail feather removal by the front door closing automatically as he passes through it. He feels the air rush against his backside, and continues to rush on his flippers down closer to the elevator where Asuka paces ahead of him. When they reach the call button, she pushes it, and turns to him.
“I don’t wanna keep waiting for you and your stubby little legs to catch up to me, so I have an idea.” she says, with the workings of a devilish grin curling on her lips. Before Shinji can even get a chance to think about what she’s planning, Asuka arches down and grabs him—pulling him up to hold with her forearms crossing over the front of his torso.
Before Shinji can even react to this development, the elevator door dings open, revealing their guardian inside it. He sees her raise an eyebrow mightily high, as Asuka’s arms tense around him into a tighter squeeze. The woman steps out of the metal box and onto the walkway next to them.
“I’m too tired to even ask. Have fun with whatever it is you’re doing,” says Misato with a half-hearted wave, bags under her eyes appearing heavier than normal. She turns away from them to surely head directly for her bedroom to sleep. Asuka ducks into the elevator, Shinji’s flippers flailing at the sudden acceleration.
Once inside Shinji squeaks, some sort of natural feedback to Asuka’s arms relaxing around him from Misato not being nearby any longer. He shifts around in her grasp as she raises a leg to poke the ground floor button with the tip of her shoe, causing the elevator doors to slide shut. She then backsteps to the center of the small space.
The first thing Shinji notices as they begin to move downwards is their warping reflections in the metallic doors—as he has done so during other rides in the lift lately. He can see Asuka’s apparent amusement clearly on her face, poking out above his own, somehow avoiding the twists of the metal surface’s reflection.
But truly, no coherent thoughts are firing from the synapses in his brain at this point. Asuka is holding him, and he doesn’t know what to do about it. He’s going to let her continue, of course. Perhaps the one functional cell in his head right now is telling him that if he wriggles out of her arms, he’ll be dealing with some new absurd form of heat. Something closer to the fires of Hell, is what his cranium might come up with—if it were possible for it to do anything grander than perform basic motor functions for him at this exact moment.
The penguin looking into the distorting mirror attempts to adjust himself—some of the use of his mind is starting to come back now—and he feels he’s beginning to slip. Asuka makes the adjustments herself when she notices, and Shinji settles in, with another small unintentional squeak. He then hears her voice, flowing directly into his ears.
“Don’t even try to act like you don’t enjoy this, Shinji.”
It’s working. Just that quickly. Pen-Pen goes slack in the chair he sits upon at the kitchen table, considering these most recent events. Shinji seems to already be taking his words to heart. It’s astonishing what a little push like that can do. He was right about that love thing. He sees the spark between the two clear as a Tokyo-3 day. Interrupting his musing, is the opening and closing of the front door again. Maybe he got ahead of himself.
Misato rounds the corner, possibly the most sleepy and out of it that Pen-Pen will ever see the woman. She crash lands into the chair across from him, slumping awkwardly on top of the table. She’s a sluggish heap, but at least it’s not Asuka storming back to her room.
“I need a beer,” she says.
“Just one?” replies Pen-Pen, sitting up.
“You’re as witty as I thought you’d be,” says Misato, gliding to her side as if she’s literally dripping off the table. She reaches for the fridge behind her, and pulls out two cans of her favorite Yebisu. One slams down on the table next to her, while the other hangs between the two as an offering.
“I wish, but not now,” says Pen-Pen.
Misato draws her arm back, setting the can down next to the first. “Shinji said you could.”
“I know, but… I don’t wanna mess his body up.”
The woman exudes a sort of admiration. “Good for you. I need this right now though.”
She whisks her original can up, pops the tab, and practically inhales the contents. Pen-Pen isn’t sure how she’s able to do that, but he cannot recall a time where she ever has not done that with her first beer of a binge. After her last gulp of this can, she sets it down and looks at her roommate across the table.
“Y’know, we haven’t really talked. Since all this,” says Misato.
“You’ve been busy,” he replies.
“I know, I know. But I thought this whole thing would be wrapped up that first day. If we have the time to chat, then we should, right?”
Pen-Pen nods in agreement.
“Okay, so, Rits told me the Magi might have this all solved by tomorrow. She seemed real”—Misato hiccups—”confident about it earlier.” She then shifts back in her seat a bit. “Sorry, I should’ve called to say that when she told me…”
“That’s okay. Any updates are helpful.” he says.
“So if you aren’t going through beers, what have you been doing around here all day?”
“I have a project.”
“And what would that be?” asks Misato, in a tone that implies she doesn’t quite believe him.
“About Shinji and Asuka. I think they…” he pauses, considering if he wants to share this information with Misato or not, and ultimately decides that he will. She lives with them too. And she’s starting to look like she wants him to continue. “They enjoy spending time with each other.”
Her expression doesn’t change.
“You must know this already,” he says.
Misato reaches for the second can, yanking the tab back on it as a mischievous smile grows on her face. “You’re trying to play matchmaker! Oh, that’s so cute!” She then lifts this can up and takes a gulp similar to the previous.
It's obvious to Pen-Pen that she’s more alive now than she was when she walked in. Whether it’s the alcohol, or news of his ‘project’ that's the cause, he isn’t able to tell.
She then perks up even more, a streak of understanding flashes across her face. “That explains what I saw just now! Oh my gosh, what did you do already?”
Did she run into them? That makes sense, she did get home right after they left…
“What did you see?”
“Asuka was holding him! Carrying him around as if he was a prize she won at the fair!” she practically yells out.
Well then. He's pretty sure his advice to Shinji is working in some manner. This ‘hold like a prize’ thing sounds good, anyways. He can't recall that one from the TV at all, however. When Misato holds him sometimes, it’s a nice feeling. That must be close to what she means.
“I told Shinji to relax more,” says Pen-Pen.
“Whatever it is you said to him, you’re making something happen,” says Misato.
“Hopefully. If they’re nicer to each other, the apartment should be simpler to live in,” he says.
“That’s probably true… but the proximity could potentially make things more difficult. That’s how it got for me and—” she cuts herself off, some of her excitement starting to fade away.
“Kaji?” says Pen-Pen.
“Yeah…”
He didn’t mean to get her thinking about him. She still harbors feelings for the man—she’d not mumble about him in her sleep otherwise. His brilliant penguin mind then comes up with something else. He only really has one way to go at this plan, though. Misato then shrinks into herself a bit. After seeing that, it’s still worth trying.
“However you feel, he might feel the same,” he says.
Misato slides down in her chair. “I don’t know how I feel about him anymore… I’m sorry, I shouldn’t be putting that on you…”
“You wanted to chat, right? I’ll be back to normal soon enough. Secrets will be safe with me.”
She then brings a hand up to her forehead. “I’m getting a headache actually… I should just go lay down.”
It was a good effort, but Misato’s history with Kaji makes this a much more difficult angle to work. He doesn’t want to try to talk to Kaji somehow, he just told her that secrets would be kept. Perhaps he’ll try again at some point.
“Good idea. They’re cooking when they get back from the store, I’ll have them make some for you too.” says Pen-Pen.
“They’re cooking?”
“Shinji can’t cook by himself right now.”
“Oh. Right,” she says, the exhaustion falling over her harder as she works to stand up. Once she’s on her feet, she turns again to Pen-Pen. "You really think Asuka is gonna help him cook?”
“I don’t know how to. Besides”—he shrugs—”she’s the one who’s hungry,” he says, to go with a knowing look.
Misato looks away—making a ‘hmmm’ sound after a brief second. “You are good,” she says over her shoulder, beelining for her bedroom.
Asuka steps up to the storefront entrance in silence, still carrying Shinji as she had the entire time on their walk from the apartment. Shinji’s lower flippers touch the sidewalk as she puts him onto the ground, and the shop’s automatic sliding doors open for them.
On walking in, one of the shopkeepers waves at them, the sight of a penguin unfettering them. Living in a city with the Angels being a constant threat makes his standout factor as a seemingly intelligent bird a bit lower. Asuka scouts out a basket to carry their items in, and they begin to make their way to the area where a selection of grocery items are.
The journey to the store was pleasant. He saved some wear and tear on his legs, but Asuka was right—he did enjoy being carried by her. And he’s pretty sure she enjoyed carrying him. It reminds him of the feelings he gets when he sees sunshine glint off her hair. Or when he can tell she likes his cooking. Hearing her laugh, even if it’s at his expense most of the time. And really, generally being around her at all.
“Earth to bird-brain? How many eggs are we getting?” says Asuka, snapping him out of his trance.
He’s recognizing how right Pen-Pen is about this, now that he’s spending time thinking about it. That’s not the focus right now, however—he needs to help pick out their ingredients. He holds up a singular claw, intending to mean ‘one.’ At this, she grabs a carton from the rack, setting it in the basket. She inspects the other breakfast options from the short row of refrigerated shelves. Finding a tray of bacon, she places it next to the eggs in the basket, closing the windowed door.
“Is there salt and pepper back home?” she asks.
Shinji nods.
“So we don’t need to get more then.” She steps over to the dry goods section, and pauses to examine a box of what can be either pancake or waffle mix. “Don’t want to deal with stirring that up,” she says, as she continues scanning down the shelves. Shinji probably can—even with his claws—and would try for her at least, but he lets her move on from it. She then grabs a jar of some fruit spread, jelly or jam. He can’t read the label from where he’s standing, but she puts it in the basket.
“Do we need a loaf of bread?”
Shinji thinks for a second, and recalls throwing the last one out due to a small spot of mold. He shakes his head for ‘yes.’ She chooses one and sets it next to the other items.
“Is there any butter left?”
Shinji shakes his head for ‘no’ this time. They do have a stick left, but they’ll need more at some point anyway. She huffs, sidestepping him and heading back for the fridge shelves. So what do they have already in the basket? Eggs, bacon, bread, jelly or jam. She’s getting butter, not ten steps away. That’s probably enough stuff for now. He suddenly feels a presence approaching him from behind.
“Pen-Pen! What’re you doin’ out with Red?”
Shinji about-faces, and locks eyes with the classmate that’s addressing him, Toji Suzuhara. Not far behind him is Kensuke Aida.
At this moment, he realizes he has no clue what Asuka has said about him during his absences at school the past couple days. Not good. He squeaks in panic, and scrambles toward Asuka, who is making her way to them.
“What’s he running from? He remembers us right?” asks Kensuke.
Shinji has no option but to let Asuka take the lead here. Hopefully she’s weaving a good story about the situation to these two and any other classmates that ask at school.
“He’s always skittish outside the apartment,” says Asuka, “what are you geniuses doing here?”
“We were gonna drop by the apartment, check in on Shinji!” exclaims Kensuke. “Stopped to get some snacks first.”
Doubly not good. He appreciates their concern, but he really needs Asuka to come up with something to get them to go away for now. He can make it up to them somehow once things are back to normal.
“I told you both already at school. Shinji is very sick, locked up in his room. Do you numbskulls think I’d be out buying food to feed myself with if he wasn’t?” she says.
“Settle down Red, I’d be sick having to live with you too,” says Toji, turning his back to her and Shinji.
“What was that?” says Asuka, raising her voice and stepping towards him, but Shinji grabs onto her back leg that hasn’t lifted yet, as an attempt to get her to stop. What ends up happening is that Shinji takes her leg for a ride as she raises it to take a stomp, and he tumbles off when her shoe plants back down.
Kensuke seems to recognize the immediate danger that Toji has put the two in, and communicates this to his partner in crime while tugging on his sleeve. “Hey Toji, we should get going, it seems like the patient isn’t currently taking any visitors,” he says, with a chuckle forcing its way out after.
Toji gives his friend a look of annoyance, but he capitulates, and they then begin to walk away down the aisle in the direction they came. “Tell Shinji we said hi.” says Kensuke, turning back to them before exiting the row. Shinji nods as he stands back up on his flippers, though he isn’t sure if Kensuke recognizes that the penguin in front of him did so.
“See you Monday, Red!” yells Toji without turning around, as they head for the front of the store. Shinji looks up at Asuka, and she’s obviously mad—but he’s glad Kensuke can recognize it and get Toji to retreat. Now he has to try to handle her though. Remember, new Shinji. Relax.
“You need people to hang out with that aren’t those two idiots,” she says.
Shinji lowers his head sheepishly, but then gets an idea. This is something only the new Shinji would try. He raises his head back up, and points a claw at Asuka, who he swears he can see steam still rising off of.
“Are you pointing at me?” she asks.
Shinji nods resolutely. The gears in her head are turning.
“You’re saying you want to… hang out with me?” she says.
Shinji bobs his entire head up and down, so that there’s no way she can misconstrue his answer as anything but an emphatic ‘yes.’
The anger seems to drift away, a tinge of embarrassment or something like that replacing it in the look on her face. “Don’t be as big of an idiot once you’re back to normal then.”
A smaller, yet still definitive nod comes from Shinji.
Her face flushes a tiny bit more, but she starts to walk away before Shinji can stare at her for much longer. “Come on, let’s buy this stuff and get back. I haven’t eaten since yesterday,” she says.
Shinji scuttles alongside the shelves and catches up to her as she marches forward.
The sounds and scents of the sizzling bacon that come from the pan Asuka tends to strike Shinji as better than normal, somehow. He doesn’t make western foods that often—very rarely, actually—but his senses are strong even as a penguin. He’s really not even instructing Asuka all that much, she’s doing well mostly on her own. She needs reminding to flip the strips occasionally, but she’s recognizing that cooking isn’t all that hard. It only takes a little effort.
“Why isn’t it getting crispy?” she asks with a hint of vexation in her voice, placing her spatula-less hand on her hip. Pen-Pen watches from the same position at the table as earlier, waiting for Shinji’s warks to translate.
“That store doesn’t have the western stuff that cooks like that. We would’ve needed to go to one of the specialty shops at the mall,” is what he warks, and he nods as Pen-Pen passes this along.
“Well that’s stupid,” says Asuka.
Shinji shrugs his flippers. He stands on the counter near the stove, observing all that goes on atop it. “It’ll taste basically the same,” he says. Pen-Pen relays.
“I’ll be the judge of that,” she says.
Shinji mimes a spatula motion with his flipper, and points to an empty plate with his other. Asuka then lifts the bacon out of the pan after a couple stabs with the utensil, and eventually ends up with a collection of strips on that formerly empty plate. She sets the spatula down, and begins to dress some other plates per Shinji’s pointings.
Two platters are done up with the delicious looking breakfast items. A few bacon slices, pieces of toast lathered in either butter or a fruit jelly, and a solid dollop of scrambled eggs are what make up their meals. It really does all look tasty. She probably doesn’t need his help if she tries to cook this stuff again in the future. Honestly, she might not have even needed it now.
After marveling at her work for a few moments, Asuka looks at the penguin to her left. “Careful Shinji. I know I’m a better pilot, but I might be a better chef than you too,” she says with a teasing smirk.
Shinji crosses his flippers and warks, “I guess you’ll have to cook instead of me all the time then.” Pen-Pen converts this remark into language she can understand as he stands up and steps over to them, grabbing a single slice of bacon as Asuka gives her retort. “Well maybe I will. There’ll be a lot less fish coming through this kitchen then.”
Pen-Pen frowns, but amends the expression speedily, saying “that was good teamwork you two. Nice job.” Shinji warks out a thank you, and Asuka gives a light nod. He then turns and makes way for his futon set-up on the living room floor. It’s still relatively early in the evening, but he must be tired—especially considering the situation.
Asuka then grabs the plates and puts them on the table with precision and fluidity befitting her piloting. She steps back to the counter, and when Shinji is just about to leap off, she grabs him and carries him to the chair that Pen-Pen was sitting in moments ago. Shinji stands on the chair and stares at her while she walks around to the adjacent side of the table to sit—and when she does settle into her seat—she notices his gaze. When their eyes catch, as they have several times these past few days, they break quickly and attend to something else. In this case, the food in front of them.
The girl sitting beside him picks up a strip of bacon, and takes a bite. “You were right. It does taste basically the same,” she says, almost immediately.
Shinji forks some of the scrambled eggs into his beak with his claws, and warks happily after tasting it. He watches briefly as a small but genuine smile spreads across her lips in reaction to his delight at the flavor. As he continues eating, those same feelings about Asuka that he’s never been able to describe wash over him in waves.
Pen-Pen slowly drifts awake to the sound of the living room television. It must be late at night, as the room is completely dark when he slowly scans it from his position lying down—though the light from the TV is decently bright. What he also finds is Asuka and Shinji asleep in the room with him.
The girl is strewn out along the floor with her upper body and head on a larger pillow, and the penguin-boy is lying flat on top of a pillow of his own, less than half a meter away from her. Both must have fallen asleep while watching something together. No arguments or anything like that either, as he’s sure he’d have been woken up if there were.
An incredible contrast to only nights earlier. He has no clue what the following days have in store, but he’s proud of the progress he’s been able to make with his ‘project’ in such a short time. It’s certainly more fulfilling than drinking until he passes out in his fridge.
He realizes now that he forgot to let them know the updates Misato wanted to pass along from Ritsuko earlier—but he’ll tell them in the morning if he wakes up and finds that Misato still hasn’t. He’s not going to wake them up now, and besides, this futon isn’t his fridge, but it’s still very comfy…
Notes:
Thanks for reading. If you can, please leave a constructive comment telling me what you like and/or didn't like. As outlined, there should be four chapters to this, but that's subject to change. Stay tuned.
Massive thank you to the AsuShin Discord server folks—you all know who you are—who pushed me to try writing something. Special shouts to Pico, Litano, and notyourprob for their specific roles in helping me get this off the ground.
Chapter 4: The Beast that Shouted 'Wark' at the Heart of the World
Chapter Text
The daybreaking sun beams into the Katsuragi dwelling, bathing Pen-Pen, Shinji, and Asuka with its radiance. The trio sit in various positions on the living room floor, paying differing amounts of attention to the Tokyo-3 morning news that plays on the television in the corner. Pen-Pen tries to watch the daily reporting as much as he can. He likes to stay up-to-date with all the goings on of the city.
Today is Sunday. The normal rest and relaxation day for the two teens—one still residing in his body—that repose all over the top of a few pillows in front of him. Essentially, they’re in the same positions as they were late last night. In each other’s presence just as peacefully too.
He himself is sitting on the blankets that make up his futon, leaning back against the wall opposite the TV. Pen-Pen looks over his right shoulder, and notices that the door to Misato’s room is slightly ajar. He leans over to peek inside, and she’s not there. She must have left for work already without waking any of them up some time earlier in the morning. She’s at NERV all the time. Once the Angel stuff is over, they’ll go on a vacation. That’s what Misato said to him right after they moved into the apartment, anyways.
He recalls the party just a few weeks ago, a celebration for the woman’s promotion. One of the teens’ classmates, freckles… pigtails… what’s her name again… Hikari! Yes, that’s it. He sat in her lap that evening. She had even held him for a brief moment on that day when Asuka and Shinji were starting their training—the dance pad set-ups were exactly where he sits right now.
That girl had studied him with fascination on those two occasions, apparently having never seen a penguin in person before him. The other two, the ones Asuka doesn’t like, didn’t seem to be interested in him very much.
Tuning back into what’s happening on the news, the hosts mention that no one is sure when the next Angel attack will be. Pen-Pen isn’t either, but he hopes they’ll wait another few days before making their next appearance. He’ll be back to normal by then, if he’s to believe Misato’s words from yesterday.
Speaking of that, he still needs to inform the two. “Shinji, Asuka,” he says, and they both adjust their positions to face him.
“Yesterday Misato said the Magi will have a solution today, that Ritsuko is confident about it.”
“Really?” warks out Shinji in clear surprise, somewhat lifting his upper body off of the cushion where he lies. Asuka nudges his pillow a small amount with her foot, “I told you it’d be sooner than later!”
The two must have talked about a possible timeline some point the evening prior when he was sleeping. Asuka seems… playful towards her fellow pilot, for lack of a better word. Pen-Pen isn’t sure if he’s ever seen her like that except when teasing something in a mocking way. But her tone is not truly sarcastic currently. The early returns on his ‘project’ look incredible. He can only hope that progress continues once she can actually hear Shinji’s voice coming from him directly again.
Pen-Pen begins to stretch his arms up over his head—about to say something—but he catches a whiff of a not so good scent. A better descriptor is a stench, actually. Is it coming from him? He leans his head slightly into the pit of his right arm, and instantly confirms that the smell originates from there, his eyes widening a bit at how bad it is.
He realizes that since the swap a few days ago, he hasn’t bathed one singular time. He looks back over at Shinji, and sees him performing the same maintenance checks under his flippers. The outlook does not appear to be good for him either. Asuka looks between both Pen-Pen and Shinji in slight confusion, but then seems to understand what they now do.
“If one of you isn’t on the way to the bathroom in the next five seconds…” says Asuka as she jumps to her feet.
Shinji bursts off of his pillow, almost flying through the air as he cuts a path out of the living room, the curtain separating the bath from the kitchen audibly opening and closing. Asuka flops back to a soft landing beneath her, lying down again. “You’re getting in there right after he’s done,” she groans.
“Trust me, I didn’t mean to forget. I’m sure he didn’t either,” says Pen-Pen.
“I know, I know, this whole whatever…” she says. She then folds herself back up to a standard sitting position again to peer into his eyes. With a quieter voice, not all the way down to a whisper, she says “with him out of the room, you’re gonna talk about what I heard on the balcony.”
Pen-Pen steels himself for whatever wrath he is about to face.
“Explain all of it. Right now.”
“Did you hear everything that night?” asks Pen-Pen, responding to her question with one of his own. She’s put on her backfoot by this, and she crosses her arms.
“I was about to go to bed when I heard you two out there. I opened my door just enough to listen better. And I caught everything. I don’t know what he said exactly, but I’m not stupid. You were both talking about me.”
Pen-Pen needs to tread incredibly lightly here. Her reaction doesn't seem to be solely one of anger—to his surprise—but there’s a curiosity in it, or something close to that. If his ‘project’ is going to bear any real fruit, it’s make or break. Right now. Hopefully Shinji takes a bit longer in the bathroom so there’s more time to clarify for her.
“Yes. I talked about you with him,” says Pen-Pen. Making up lies will only exacerbate things.
She dips her head forward, asking him to continue without saying any words.
“All I did was say things that you both already knew.”
A frown begins to spread across her lips. Not great—change gears. Trying to tip-toe around it isn’t working, there’s only one option he sees left. It reminds him of baseball, a game humans play that he understands from viewing on the TV a lot. He's up to bat in the bottom of the ninth inning, there’s two outs, and his team is tied. He’s going for a homerun—here comes the pitch.
“The fact that you like him is obvious to me. It has been from soon after you moved in,” he says, swinging his metaphorical bat.
Her face flushes a shade of red deeper than a tomato, and she turns slightly away from him. The ball is soaring, ripping through the air down the left field line.
“The synch training”—she pauses to lift her arms over her face—”ever since then…” She then creases into herself a small amount. “Figured out by a damn penguin…” she says.
“You two matched each other’s movements perfectly by the end of that week,” says Pen-Pen. The wind carries the ball a bit closer to the seats. Come on, stay fair!
She lurches for the pillow that Shinji had been sitting on, grabbing it, turning back to him, and throwing it across the room in his direction all in one unbroken motion. Somehow, he reacts with enough time to catch it before it crashes into his face.
“Fine. I like him. So what?” she says.
He got her to say it. The ball clangs off of the left field foul pole. That counts as a homerun right? He’s pretty sure it does.
“So, I was trying to get him to admit he likes you. That’s all that was the other night,” says Pen-Pen, softly tossing the pillow back towards her. “It’s up to both you and him to decide what to do with that information.”
Asuka lets that marinate for a few moments. “Do you really think he feels that way?” she asks. She seems to be craving a certain answer.
Pen-Pen gives a soft smile—something he can’t do with his body’s beak. “Last night’s cooking wouldn’t have worked out so well if he didn’t,” he says.
She doesn’t say anything to this initially, but right when it looks like she’s about to, the sound of the bathroom curtain shifting fills both of their ears. Shinji is out of there way faster than Pen-Pen had hoped, but he got what he needed done anyways.
Shinji steps back into the room with a towel draping over the wet feathers on his head. He looks back and forth between Pen-Pen and Asuka a couple times, perhaps noticing that the cushion he was sitting on is not where it had been.
“I’ll be quick!” exclaims Pen-Pen, rising up from the blankets and zipping toward the washroom. Brushing the curtain aside and entering, he decides that he’s going to take a long time on purpose. He figures the less he’s an active participant at this point—the better.
That brief chat with Asuka confirms basically everything that he’s intending to accomplish between her and Shinji. His only real concern is what might occur once things are back to normal. Whatever it is that happens, a rock solid foundation is setting.
The evening was going much better than Misato had thought it would.
On the days when she was able to get home from work early, she would usually arrive to find her charges bickering about something, pat Pen-Pen on the head on her way through the kitchen—detect a whiff of whatever Shinji was cooking—and continue stepping towards her bedroom to change into more causal clothes.
Today, she’s seeing things she never had before around the apartment. Shinji and Asuka were genuinely getting along. The dinner they had been making smelled great. She’s pretty sure she even saw Asuka pat Shinji on the head a few times—right between his red feathers—as she rounded the corner from the entry hall. Shinji was really leaning into Asuka’s hand, but that stopped when they noticed her footsteps coming closer to them. Evidently, they hadn’t heard the front door open and shut.
Asuka’s face went red, and she pulled her arm back behind her body as if to hide evidence of her fingers being anywhere near him. Shinji’s embarrassment was palpable too—even as a penguin. Misato didn’t ask, and they didn’t tell, however. She simply greeted their silence with a hello and moved along in the direction of her room, finding Pen-Pen closely watching a baseball game on the television as she walked behind him. That sequence had all transpired about sixty minutes ago.
By now, the household’s four occupants gather around the kitchen table, just finishing up with their ramen.
“Tasted pretty good, right?” asks Asuka, glancing at Misato.
She nods her head, “You and Shinji fixed this up together? ”
Shinji warks from across the table, flapping his flippers.
“We went to the mall to buy the stuff earlier,” says Asuka.
The penguin standing in the chair next to her warks a few more times. He, Misato, and Asuka each turn to look at Pen-Pen. “He’s asking if you’ll take them to the mall again soon to buy more food. Said he wants you to buy a lot of fish,” he translates.
Shinji warks quickly in response to that. “Alright, I added that last part. But the first half is actually what he said,” says Pen-Pen, with a modest grin. Misato’s penguin-minded roommate is much more mischievous than she had expected him to be. As it turns out, he’s smart too. She more or less understood that already, but legitimately hearing his thought processes aloud helps to enforce that.
“So you both wanna go, you and Shinji?” asks Misato of Asuka, still in a sort of amazement at how the girl is acting. Has Pen-Pen talked with her too? What exactly did he say if so? Whether or not he’s chatted with Asuka, his ‘project’ is having an effect on his roommates.
“If I’m going to be the best cook around here, I need to pick out the ingredients!” exclaims Asuka.
“Is that so?” says Misato. She continues, focusing on Shinji now—“your executive chef title might get taken sooner than later.”
“He already said he’s fine with that last night! I can’t stand all the fish he makes,” says the girl.
“Whatever you say. I’ll be at the front of the line when you open your restaurant then,” replies Misato.
More upbeat warking flies over the table from Shinji. “He says he’ll be in line with Misato.” interprets Pen-Pen. “I’ll come too, if you’ll allow penguins.”
Asuka smiles, and Misato offers one back. The woman can count on her fingers how many times she’s seen Asuka smile authentically. And at least half of those relate to recounting her piloting exploits.
Now comes the part Misato has been waiting for—explaining the plan for tomorrow. She can’t crack a beer open until this news is out, and she’s over waiting any longer. She brushes her hands through her hair, converting to Major mode to deliver it.
“Okay everyone. Tomorrow—at exactly zero nine-hundred—the operation to put Shinji and Pen-Pen back in their own bodies will commence in Unit-01’s cage. We will arrive at HQ by zero seven-thirty, where Ritsuko will then divulge the finer details before getting underway. Is that all understood?”
“Yes ma’am!” cries out Pen-Pen. Misato and the other two occupants at the tableside look at him with a mild amount of confusion.
“I always wanted to say that,” he says. Shinji then looks back at Misato and nods in agreement with the plan. Misato simply shakes her head and chuckles at her friend’s exuberance.
“Does anyone have any questions?” she says.
“What do you need me to do for this?” asks Asuka, almost immediately.
“Your job is to be on standby in Unit-02’s cage,” says Misato.
Shinji warks, without as much joy in his tone this time. “He’s asking why Unit-02 might need to be ready,” says Pen-Pen.
“Purely as a failsafe,” says Misato with a healthy amount of poise. “Rei will also be on standby for Unit-00. Ritsuko has assured me that the Magi’s calculations will work, but the commander has deemed it necessary for all options to be available should something happen.”
Shinji turns his beak down upon hearing this. Misato can tell that bringing up the commander is dampening his spirit.
“Nothing will go wrong if I have anything to say about it,” says Asuka. This causes Shinji to perk back up a bit.
“So… what exactly are Shinji and I doing with Unit-01?” asks Pen-Pen. Shinji warks out in accordance with that.
“A couple days ago, we had you both attempt to synch individually. Using the data from that experience, Ritsuko—along with the Magi’s help—have come up with a new startup sequence of sorts. There’s just one small hitch,” says Misato, pausing briefly. “You will both need to be in Unit-01’s entry plug at the same time.”
Reactions to that are mostly silent, though she notices Pen-Pen fidget out of the corner of her eye.
“It’ll be similar to when you and Asuka shared Unit-02’s plug,” she elaborates, giving a sure look to Shinji, which he returns. His penguin eyes are full of determination.
“Any other questions?” asks Misato.
“Nope!” says Asuka.
Misato nods, and dismisses them from the table. She’s not done that before, but she’s also never given out operation particulars at home either. The closest thing might have been when she explained to Shinji and Asuka how the synch training would work.
She really has no idea how exactly the operation will go down once Shinji and Pen-Pen are in the plug. Her knowledge of the Eva’s functionality comes from official handbooks and whatever Ritsuko happens to disclose to her. She’s not a scientist, she’s a soldier—a damn good one at that.
She places her trust in Rits, and all she can do is hope for the best.
Sitting out on the balcony for what he hopes will be the final time in Shinji’s body, Pen-Pen stares up at the moon. The stars shine and twinkle, dotting the sky around it. The city’s lights pollute the view a good bit—but he’s able to make out the brightest ones well enough. He even swears that he can see a constellation in the shape of a penguin.
Suddenly, a commotion comes from within the apartment, breaking his calm. Warks of panic fill the air as Pen-Pen rushes to his feet to find out what’s happening. One step back inside and he wonders no longer. The only light that’s on is the one from Misato’s room. It glows faintly into the living room and then barely further than that into the kitchen itself.
Misato, clearly drunk, is chasing Shinji around the kitchen table. She grabs onto it to stop her momentum, causing the tower of cans that was sitting precariously atop it to topple over, some rolling onto the floor. Shinji stops moving too. They’re now on opposite sides of the table from each other, and Misato says “stop running you little rascal, I want my hug!”
Shinji breaks for the living room, but Misato steps out in front of him as an attempt to block his progress. He lunges through her legs as she leans down to grab for him, but she loses her balance due to lowering herself so quickly, and collapses over on her side. Unfortunately for Shinji, his decision to take the path he did makes him stumble over a beer can with a squeak—which sets up Misato to adjust fast on the ground and perform a maneuver that brings her arms over her head to snatch him up.
“Gotcha!” she yells, as the penguin-boy flails against her grip. It’s not enough to get loose however, and she pulls him close to her chest with her arms. Shinji keeps struggling but can’t get away.
Pen-Pen isn’t sure why he’s still just watching and not helping yet. Maybe because he wishes it was him? Regardless, the show needs to end sooner than later for the boy’s sake. He steps into the kitchen, turning on the light.
Misato’s eyes are not open, and her face carries a content smile. Shinji still flounders, but is starting to slip away by himself as Pen-Pen says, “hey Misato. That’s Shinji you’re holding.”
Her eyes burst open, and the drunken redness seems to wash off her face in an instant. Her grip relaxes and Shinji is able to climb off of her. He stands to his flippery feet. Misato then sits up and alternates gazing between penguin and boy.
“I’m… so sorry Shinji…” she says as her lips begin to pout. She brushes her bangs back and pivots toward him.
“Sometimes… after I drink… I’ll—” Misato starts to explain, but allows herself to be cut off by Shinji’s confident warking.
“He understands, and he’s not that upset by it,” conveys Pen-Pen. He then continues with his own words, “we talked about something like this, right?”
Shinji nods his beak up and down.
“That doesn’t make me feel much better…” says Misato, still downcast.
“It’s okay. Nothing is normal right now, please don’t worry about it,” says Pen-Pen. Shinji sympathetically warks along with this.
Pen-Pen doesn’t want his friend to feel bad. Everything about this situation is insane. The fact that any of them are getting through this at all, let alone with possible positives, is amazing. Pen-Pen did not care about much of anything except to do what he wanted just a few short days ago. Trying to help his roommates out is making him happy.
He reaches a hand out to Misato to help pull her up to her feet, and she accepts. She kneels down a small amount and opens her arms out wide, as if asking for a hug from both of them. Pen-Pen and Shinji share a glance, and they both choose to embrace her.
“You guys are the best,” she says as they wrap arms and flippers around her.
They stay like that for a few seconds, when Pen-Pen hears footsteps coming from the bedroom hall, but they do not break the hug yet.
“What’s going on here?” asks Asuka groggily, announcing her presence. She rubs her eyes as they adjust to the light in the room.
“Clearing up a misunderstanding is all,” says Pen-Pen, finally ending the group hug.
“Well clear it up quieter next time…” says Asuka with a yawn, as she continues to the bathroom.
Once she’s beyond the curtain, Misato turns back to the boy and the penguin. “I’m gonna head to bed guys, I’ll make sure everyone’s up in the morning.”
“Sure thing,” says Pen-Pen, offering a double thumbs up. She brushes past them and heads for her room, sliding the door shut.
“Big day tomorrow. We should go to bed too,” says Pen-Pen, looking down to Shinji.
“Right. Thanks again,” warks Shinji. He turns and makes way for his own room.
Pen-Pen steps over to the sliding glass balcony door to close it. He does so, and plops down onto his futon. He fumbles with the blankets and crawls under them, eventually getting comfortable and laying his head on his pillow. Asuka paces along back towards her room a few minutes later.
One last night on this futon.
One last night before he can fit back in his fridge.
One last night of being human.
But his newfound humanity will always stay with him.
The darkness of the apartment shrouds Shinji as he stands motionless in front of the door into Asuka’s room. The comment Misato made earlier—about when he and Asuka synched together with Unit-02—got him to reflect. He wants to try ‘talking’ with her one on one for the final time as a penguin. Their communications via yes, no, and I don’t know-able questions are going well enough so far since his initial chat with Pen-Pen.
New Shinji. Just knock on her door. At worst, she won’t hear because she’s sleeping. He gathers up his courage, and raps his claws against the plastic liner of her doorframe. Shinji continues to do so until he hears the shuffling of blankets from the other side. Then footsteps. The door skates open slightly, and she instinctively lowers her eyes to look for him.
“Shinji?"
He acknowledges her, and points a flipper into her room.
“It’s nearly two in the morning…”
Shinji shrugs, lowering his raised arm a noticeable amount, but he continues to hold it up. He really wants to try talking.
“Come in then,” she says with a small sigh, and he does. She slides the door back shut, then steps to her bed and sits on its edge, watching him to see what he will do. Shinji settles on a nice looking section of floor nearby. They can see each other with help from the moonlight bathing them through her window.
Asuka leans forward. She places her elbows on her knees, and holds her head up by connecting her wrists together such that her palms support her chin—fingers splaying over her cheeks and to the sides of her ears.
“Why aren’t you sleeping?” she asks, and he shrugs again. “I should be too, if I’m the ‘failsafe,’ or whatever Misato said.” Then comes a big yawn. Shinji never gets to study her face in the moonlight. It doesn’t glint off of her hair in quite the same way as the sun’s direct rays, but it still tries against her mildly disheveled bed-head.
Shinji centers his flippers on each other, and places them up next to his head. He leans into them while closing his eyes, miming his earlier attempts to fall asleep. He then rips his flippers back down, and shakes his head side-to-side in a vehement ‘no.’
“You can’t sleep?”
He nods slowly.
“I can’t either,” she says with a huff of annoyance. “You’re not worried about tomorrow are you?”
He hesitates, wanting to shake for ‘no,’ but then ends up achieving something half way between that and a 'yes.'
She appears to think momentarily, then allows her hands to fall from her face, resetting her posture. “I have an idea,” she says.
Asuka lifts her legs, and slides along her bed until her back is on the wall next to the window. She points toward the edge, near where she was just sitting. “Your half,”—then drags her finger across the mattress lengthwise, ending with it pointing next to herself—”my half.”
She wants him… to lay on her bed… with her? Shinji freezes to the floor, not reacting at all outwardly.
“Hurry up, before I change my mind.”
He needs to relax. As he keeps telling himself—new Shinji. Steadily rising up from the floor, he takes a few paces until his beak is centimeters from the sheets. The bedframe stands tall before him, but he can climb over it on his own if he tries. Jumping up, he barely clears the height necessary, and tumbles on to her blankets.
“I guess you aren’t that big of an idiot after all,” she says, with scarcely perceivable delight. “Good night, Shinji.” She then lowers her head to one of her pillows, turning to face the wall—her back now facing him.
Shinji flops down to the surface of the covers such that his back is also to her—scooting himself a little bit further away from the side of the bed—getting slightly closer to the invisible line she drew. He doesn’t want to fall off of the bed. Not after the effort it took to get up.
Several minutes later, he hears Asuka rolling over even though he’s pretty sure her breathing pattern indicates she’s asleep. Shinji then feels her hand on the side of his feathery torso, and he tenses as she pulls him toward her and across the line. The apprehension melts away after a little bit. Slumber takes him as well without much more time passing.
The metallic purple and green hues of Unit-01’s armor are an especially hopeful sight for Shinji today. Recently, piloting against the Angels has gone well. He did not find much to enjoy in his first several weeks at the controls. Seeing it this morning gives him aspiration for something new, as it is to be the conduit by which he and Pen-Pen will return to their normal bodies.
He’s looking out at the Evangelion through the window in the cage’s observation deck. Asuka stands to his right, and Pen-Pen flanks his left. Both of them are in plugsuits already, Shinji with just the neural clips in his head feathers. He hears the large doors swing open behind him, and he turns to see Ritsuko enter the room, joining her is Kaji and Lieutenant Ibuki.
Misato sits in a chair to the side, swivelling around, probably trying to ease the tension she feels if last night is anything to go off of. She plants a foot to stop herself when she realizes who is now in the room. Turning to the trio at the window, she says “looks like it's go time for you three.”
Heels clacking along the tile, Ritsuko makes way to the large center console near the window. Ibuki takes her seat next to her, and begins to type away at the keyboard. While this happens, Kaji addresses Misato with a sharp nod and his usual, “Katsuragi.”
She gives a half-hearted smile back at him, and shoots back with “good morning, Kaji.”
Shinji looks up at Asuka with a modicum of surprise, she’s not flying over to the man yet. When it appears as though she’s about to start stepping towards him, Ritsuko says “he’s here to escort you to Unit-02’s cage. Rei is already with Unit-00.”
Asuka pats Shinji’s head incredibly quickly—so fast that no one else can notice—and begins moving. “I know how to get there myself, thank you very much,” she says.
As she steps closer to Kaji, he says to her, “I know you do,” in his standard chaff tone.
He then looks at Shinji and Pen-Pen. “Good luck you two, you’re in good hands with the doctor.” Ritsuko rolls her eyes, and the man turns to follow Asuka, both leaving the room.
Standing up from her chair, Misato focuses on the now duo near the window. “Let’s move boys,” she says. A handful of technicians that Shinji has seen before but does not know by name file into the room now, taking seats at various stations around the room.
Pen-Pen begins to pace away from the window, and Shinji chooses to get moving himself. “I’ll be back up in a few minutes Rits!” exclaims Misato, as her and the two subjects of today’s operation follow her out the door.
They take a few flights of stairs—then another couple hallways—and they finally end up pushing open a door that puts them on the catwalk that spreads across the face of Unit-01. They proceed closer, and when they reach the diversion in the pathway that leads up to the entry plug, Misato stops and turns to them.
“That damn Kaji already stole my line back up there. Good luck, both of you. I’m not supposed to do hugs at work, but once you’re both out of there, here’s fair warning: I might not be able to stop myself,” she says, beaming at them both.
“Thank you,” says Pen-Pen, and Shinji affirms this with a wark of his own.
She waves her arms at the metal staircase next to her, directing them up to the plug itself. When they reach the top, Shinji watches as Pen-Pen turns to look back down the steps at Misato.
“If this is the last time I’m ever able to truly speak, hear me out on something,” he says almost pleadingly.
Misato stares back, giving Pen-Pen her unflinching attention. “Talk to him, Misato. I trust you know what I mean,” he says.
Shinji has no clue what he’s talking about, but his guardian flashes a miniature smile while nodding. Something between those two, he’s sure. He’s got more important things to think about right now anyways.
The penguin in his body reaches over to the handle on the entry plug’s hatch door, and pulls it open. Shinji then climbs up the ladder carefully, so as not to fall, and then gets over the lip into the plug itself. He settles into the chair, as Pen-Pen follows behind, closing the hatch. Shinji slides forward a bit to allow Pen-Pen room to slip into the seat behind him.
Instruments begin to light up, and the visual comms channel blinks open in front of them. It’s Asuka, from the inside of Unit-02’s plug. “Looks like it’s a tight squeeze in there,” she says giggling, “see you both in a couple minutes.” Synchronized vertical head shakes come from Shinji and Pen-Pen, as Asuka’s picture blinks away. In its place, comes another image.
Rei pops in, sitting back in Unit-00’s plug wearing her white suit. Shinji hasn’t seen her much lately at all, obviously because of everything going on. “Hello Ikari… and Pen-Pen. As Soryu said, I will see you both soon,” she says. This time, Shinji and Pen-Pen wave in synch, as Rei’s face closes out with the usual orange flash. He will have to tell her more about what’s been happening sometime in the next few days.
They sit in silence until Ritsuko’s voice chimes in over the channel—no visual along with this one. “Everything is ready to go on our side. Asuka and Rei are as well, as you just saw. Give us a sign that you’re both set,” she says.
For the third time in as many minutes, the two sitting in Unit-01’s entry plug give their signals in synchronization with the other. A thumbs up from both, though Shinji’s is of course with the claws of his flippers.
“Flooding entry plug,” says Ibuki, her cadence as mechanical as every other time Shinji has gone through this.
Shinji grips on tight to the metal seat with his flippers, and braces for the LCL to submerge him. Feeling it against his feathers, it slowly fills the plug up. Pen-Pen doesn’t have any audible issues from behind him, he must be remembering Shinji’s advice from before. Once the plug is completely full, they hear Ritsuko again.
“Maya is preparing the startup sequence now. Initiate in three… two… one.”
Colors from the walls of the plug fill his vision, and Shinji feels a pressure building on his shoulder. He turns to look behind him, but Pen-Pen’s arms are still at his side. He also sees that Pen-Pen’s eyes are closing. Shinji believes he’s hearing Misato’s voice over the channel—but he can’t make out what’s being said—and he starts to feel his own perception fading away…
Shinji finds himself in a train car. Everything he can see is very hazy orange—like the sunset—and he sees the sun itself low in the sky on the distant horizon. He notices that the train is blowing by rural farmland at incredible speeds, but the far off positioning of the sun and the mountains that frame it are unchanging even though the car is clearly able to be felt moving.
He goes to stand, pulling himself up off of the bench by grabbing onto one of the dangling handholds above him. That’s when he notices—he’s clutching onto it with his own hand. He looks down at the rest of his body, and all of the events of the last few days blast through his mind at once. So quickly in fact, that he almost falls back down to the seat below him.
The door between compartments on his right slides open before he can really take in the fact that he’s back into his own body, and Pen-Pen steps through it. He’s also back in his penguin form. The bird waves a flipper at him, and warks, “Hey, kid.”
Shinji’s eyelids spread wide. “I just understood you! How is that possible?” he exclaims his question.
“Not sure, this place feels weird though. Are you getting that too?” says Pen-Pen.
“Yeah, it’s like… everything is… warmer or something. We were… in the entry plug right? Do you think that’s where we are still?”
“That would make sense. You told me it feels warm when the LCL is working properly.”
“Right, but I’ve never gone through anything like this,” says Shinji.
Pen-Pen turns his beak up in ponderance. “Looks like we’re back in our bodies though.”
“So whatever Ritsuko and the Magi came up with, it must’ve worked,” says Shinji.
“How did we get here though? You’re sure you’ve never had something similar happen?”
“As sure as I can be.”
“I have an idea. If I imagine myself, as me, back in the plug—I bet I’ll end up back there,” says Pen-Pen, stepping closer to Shinji and climbing up onto the bench.
Shinji sits back down next to him. “I’ll try that too,” he says.
He shuts his eyes, allowing the sounds of the train rushing along on the tracks to overcome his senses. He pictures Asuka, Rei, Misato, and everyone else whose faces he saw before getting in the entry plug. But nothing happens. He looks to his right, and Pen-Pen is still there as well.
“What if we sit like we were in the entry plug?” asks Shinji.
Pen-Pen cracks his eyes open and turns to him. “If you think that’ll work, I’m open to trying.”
Shinji presses his back against the upright cushion of the bench to allow Pen-Pen as much space as possible in his lap. The penguin climbs between his legs, and sits down.
“I’m gonna focus again,” says Pen-Pen upon settling in.
As before, Shinji shuts his eyes. He imagines all the people he did a few moments ago, and feels himself almost melting into the bench as the pressure from before returns to his shoulders.
“Shin—! Pen—!”
Misato’s voice garbles over the channel as Shinji slowly blinks his eyes open. More voices of concern flow into his ears, but the overlapping panic and general static makes it incredibly difficult to discern who’s who. He remembers passing out in the plug, but then—nothing. What he does realize however, is that he’s back in his body. He sees Pen-Pen—who must be back in his own body too—sitting in his lap.
He pumps a fist in jubilation, and grabs Pen-Pen by the shoulders, yelling out, “we’re back!”
The sight of the cage through the eyes of Unit-01 slips away, as it flows into rainbows, then into the plug’s inner gray walls. Pen-Pen turns and looks up at him, his beak hanging open. Shinji lets go of him, and Pen-Pen pops up in the seat and squeals a noise of excitement.
“It really worked!” yells Shinji.
The voice channel to the observation deck stabilizes, and he can hear Misato’s next words loud and clear.
“You both had us worried sick!”
“Maya, begin the plug removal sequence and get them out of there. We’re not risking anything more,” says Ritsuko’s voice.
“Yes ma’am,” says Ibuki.
“I’ll meet you both down there!” says Misato, and he can hear her take off away from the console.
Shinji feels the entry plug lift back and out of the Eva. It stops moving once it’s at full ejection height, and he pushes out on the hatch. The artificial light from inside the cage floods the plug, as LCL begins to drain through the opening.
“We’re getting out of this thing Pen-Pen, hold on,” he says. Before the bird can reply, Shinji grabs Pen-Pen and holds him against the side of his body. He braces against the plug door handle and pulls himself and the penguin out and back onto the metal platform. Moving around in his body again feels incredible. Better than ever before. He’ll need to thank Ritsuko and Ibuki—a million times over, at least—for helping to fix things.
He sets Pen-Pen down next to him, when the doors on his left fly open. Misato runs full speed along the catwalk to greet them. Pen-Pen practically skips down the stairs, and leaps into Misato’s arms from the final step. Shinji rushes down the stairs now himself, and joins their hug—soaking his guardian in LCL as he wraps his arms around her.
“I’m really back, Misato…” he says, straining to hold back tears. Back at the beginning of these awful circumstances, he wasn’t sure if he would ever be able to say that.
He is back. And the penguin he smooshes against is too.
To his left, he hears the doors swivel open again. Shinji steps away from the hug and turns to see who it is this time.
Asuka bounds in his direction, and comes to a stop about a meter away from him.
“If you’re really back, then prove it to me,” she says, hands shifting to her hips, LCL from her own entry plug dripping off her red plugsuit.
Shinji relaxes. He moves forward, and throws his arms around Asuka’s to pull her into a tight embrace. His head settles in next to hers, and he says, “I promised you, I won’t be as big of an idiot anymore.”
He holds tight for a few long seconds, and then lets go when he hears “nice job, kid,” from behind him. Asuka’s face matches the color of her suit. Possibly even a deeper shade of red than that, actually. Her mouth is sticking open, and her blue eyes are wide.
Wait, Misato’s voice isn’t that deep. So who said that last thing he heard…
Shinji spins around and finds Pen-Pen clapping his flippers together. His beak flaps some more. “Really, that was great,” he says.
“Pen-Pen! I can understand you!” exclaims Shinji.
“Really?” asks the penguin, in amazement.
“Yes! Come on, talk some more! Asuka, Misato, can either of you hear him?”
Intrigue grows on Misato’s face. “No, I can’t. Just the normal warks,” she says.
Pen-Pen points a claw past Shinji in Asuka’s direction. “Is something wrong with her?” he asks, crystal clear to Shinji.
Asuka is still staring off into space when Shinji turns to her. “Hey, Asuka, are you alright?” he says.
This seems to snap her out of her trance, and she hones in on Shinji standing in front of her.
“Asuka?” asks Shinji again, concern growing.
“You hugged me,” she says.
“I did. Did you understand Pen-Pen just now?
“No. Why did you stop?” she questions, taking a step closer to him with her hands still on her hips.
“I could tell what Pen-Pen had said from behind me… Asuka, are you okay?”
“Hug me again,” she commands.
“W-what?” Shinji’s face burns red this time.
“Don’t make me say it again, Shinji.”
He advances toward her, and obliges. This time, Asuka is the one who holds on a little tighter.
Lying back in his favorite pillow, Pen-Pen watches the nightly news on the living room television. His body is exactly as he remembers, living in it again for the past ten days or so. He spends less time in his fridge nowadays—but the beers still flow. They never really got him that drunk to begin with. Probably something to do with his genetic modifications.
The development with Shinji being able to understand him is a great one. He’s able to communicate with him and his other roommates much more effectively now. He’s also glad that Misato seems to have taken his ‘final’ words to heart, she’s out with Kaji tonight.
The newscasters talk about the repairs that are underway in certain areas of the city. Large portions were lost during the most recent Angel attack. Allegedly, massive circular sections of streets and buildings are completely missing. He doesn’t know about any details beyond what the news is telling him right now—he hasn’t asked Shinji about it yet.
Something had to have happened with him and Asuka during the battle though. He knows this because in the last couple days since the Angel was defeated, the two attach to each other at the hip. He’s pretty sure he did a good job telling Shinji to relax a bit, but the results are truly fascinating so far.
A noise from down the hall distracts him from the TV, and he decides to get up to investigate. Padding slowly along the floor—beer can in tow—he sees something interesting. Asuka’s door is not shut fully. He shouldn’t, but silently so that the occupants he expects to find don’t notice, he’s going to peek in anyways.
Asuka and Shinji are sitting on the edge of her bed, facing each other, moonlight shining down on them. Asuka’s hands are behind her back, and she pulls them around to show Shinji something she’s holding. It’s the heart-shaped sign that had been on his door. The same one that she had tried to offer to him as a necklace. It had been split into pieces during the commotion of his and Shinji’s swap mess. She must have collected it off the floor at some point while Pen-Pen was sleeping, and had been keeping it until now.
The object is glued back together, and she offers it to him. Shinji looks between her face and the gift a couple times, and then accepts it.
“Thank you,” he whispers. Asuka then cranes her neck out to kiss him.
Pen-Pen digs a claw tip from his free flipper into the door’s material, and without piercing it, slowly slides it shut fully. He takes a sip from the straw sticking out of his beer can, and carefully pads back to his seat in front of the television. He’s been right the whole time, it’s impossible to second guess that original idea he got from all of those movies and shows now. Love.
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Last Edited Fri 11 Jul 2025 08:06PM UTC
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Pandastical on Chapter 1 Thu 10 Jul 2025 11:16AM UTC
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Tim (Guest) on Chapter 2 Sat 12 Jul 2025 12:38AM UTC
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hariton on Chapter 2 Sat 12 Jul 2025 01:02AM UTC
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bigdingus on Chapter 2 Sat 12 Jul 2025 06:37AM UTC
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jayseaaa on Chapter 2 Sat 12 Jul 2025 05:08PM UTC
Last Edited Sat 12 Jul 2025 05:09PM UTC
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Picocok on Chapter 2 Sun 13 Jul 2025 05:18AM UTC
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