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[imusntrunaway]

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[Beeeeeeeeeeeep.]

Comments

[substitutable]

Are you sure? If you go back and you end up being like, way behind...

[imusntrunaway]

[That earns a pause. Then, an emotionless answer:]

That's okay. My world is gone.

[substitutable]

[He jumps, drops his spoon.

He suddenly wonders if "Elmer C. Albatross" and "Shinji Ikari" might be from the same world.]

I-Ikari...?

[imusntrunaway]

[He looks up at that. Did he deliver it too bluntly...?]

It's fine. I knew when I got here.

[substitutable]

... You're not from that place, a few days ago, are you?

[imusntrunaway]

[Ah. That's what he assumed. He shakes his head.]

That wasn't my Earth.

[substitutable]

[Shintaro looks a little shaky anyway as he picks his spoon back up.]

I see. Then, your earth..?

[imusntrunaway]

[He notices that.]

... it wasn't yours. You don't have to [act] be sorry.

[substitutable]

... Not really. I'm not sorry about it, unless you wanted me to be.

I was just thinking, how'd I feel if that happened to mine.

[imusntrunaway]

[He shakes his head at the first statement. He hates faked sympathy.]

I can't go back to mine because... something happened. [A clarification:] It wasn't because of the UE.

[substitutable]

[He won't be getting much of it from Shintaro.]

... I see.

[He looks away for a few seconds, clearing his thoughts. He doesn't have to think about that world around Shinji, then. Stop, stop, he tells himself. Then he looks back at Shinji.]

I won't ask any more. Sorry.

[imusntrunaway]

[He's glad the conversation topic's moving away from his home. Some of the tension in his shoulders ease and his gaze softens. If he thinks about it too much... if the topic was brought up again... he might start wondering and never stop.]

It's fine. I shouldn't have brought it up.

[substitutable]

... Aah, but it would suck if you stop studying for so long that you get dumb. So make sure you at least read books.

[back to square one, hopefully in another direction.]

[imusntrunaway]

I do read... what about you? [It's not meant to be a challenge. It's to see if Shin's been keeping up too, while he's lecturing him about this.]

[substitutable]

High school drops outs don't need to study.

Kidding. I go to the library every week.

[imusntrunaway]

I've been there a few times... [He can't say it's out of curiosity. It's more out of boredom--even someone as withdrawn as him can't live completely shut in with only a music player.] What sort of books do you usually read?

[substitutable]

Anything. The history of this world, anything from other worlds, sometimes I find something similar to what I see in mine.

[Knowing the history of Exsilium doesn't change his powerlessness in doing anything in this war. Knowing about the history of other worlds, the mechanics of their technology and magic, don't have any merits to him either. So what's the point? What's it got to do with him? What can he do with all this knowledge? He tries to shove them away into a drawer in the back of his mind as he continues.]

It's just to kill time, so it doesn't matter what I read.

[imusntrunaway]

... there's books from other worlds, too?

[That was something he didn't know. And it actually stirs Shinji's interest, if only for a selfish reason. If there was a history of other worlds, would there be a history of his? Could he maybe pull a book from a shelf, flip a page and see his name--Shinji Ikari, the Third Child, murderer coward pilot of Evangelion Unit 01--scrawled in there as a footnote? Did they finally give him the praise he desperately craved...?

... no, it's ridiculous to think that in the first place. His world ended. He's supposed to focus on drowning those thoughts.]

[substitutable]

[Shintaro, unaware of what's happening inside Shinji's head, just answers without much thought.]

Yeah, here and there. There aren't a whole lot, but sometimes, you can find a novel or a book that talks about somewhere that isn't Exsilium or the United Earth.

[imusntrunaway]

And you said there's similar histories to your world?

[substitutable]

[He nods.] The same countries, the same incidents, the same wars, the same names. Sometimes, there are differences, but some are close. I guess not every world is completely different from the others.

... Exsilium, too. Countries like England, Japan, and America existed in my world, too.

[imusntrunaway]

[He takes a moment to think over this information. Does he really want to proceed with his next question?] ... what's your Japan like?

[substitutable]

[That's a hard question for a two-year-shut-in to answer. Maybe it'll be hard for Momo, Kano, or Kido, too.]

The thought I had a day before I got here was that things got peaceful. Not a while ago, the news was all about an upcoming apocalypse predicted by some ancient civilization. But that passed. The meteorites never came. Despite all the hype, the news that morning was about some idol's first drama series.

[And then he got dragged into a terrorist attack, but that got quelled by a bunch of teenagers.]

[imusntrunaway]

[So his world seemed to have its apocalypses in better order than Shinji's did.]

What about the weather?

[substitutable]

We've got seasons -- it snows in winter, and this summer was as hot as usual. Clear skies and blazing heat. [Ene said people had heat strokes. Really, he would never understand that virus and her ways of trying to persuade him to do anything.] There's spring, and fall, too.

[Not that he's seen any of in two years. Only from the window on days he opened the curtains and either online or on TV.]