hand over hand

chapter 3

Hi everyone, this chapter is going to contain some delicate topics so here are the CONTENT WARNINGS:
- Homophobic slurs.
- Self harm.
Please be safe reading this.

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While eating breakfast, Shinji decided to look at the messages he had received that morning while he was still asleep. He had woken up late on Thursday since his first class started at 11:00 am, he was able to sleep for a bit more this day. He was surprised to see that the texts he received were from the same day at 5:00 am, even if Kaworu's first class was at 7:00 am, there was no need for him to wake up that early.

From: Kaworu

Hi Shinji, no need to thank me again.

And of course, we can do it again this week, but next time's on you haha ;)

So there was going to be another... date? No, just two buddies having breakfast with each other. No matter what it meant, Shinji was glad to have a friend like Kaworu, all his life, the only people he would talk to were Asuka and Rei, and even tho he trusted them with all his heart, some things just weren't a topic to discuss with them, they were all pretty inclusive and understanding but their problems were way too different from Shinji's problems. Having a guy friend for the first time was cool and Shinji didn't want to mess it up.

Asuka and Mari had left early this morning, due to having classes at 7:00 am and Rei hadn't even gotten to the apartment last night, it was amazing how she was already getting so much work that she would have to study all night, she had texted the group chat the 4 of them had said that she was okay and was going to a sleepover with a classmate because of the homework they had to do. So after having breakfast by himself, he brushed his teeth and left the apartment to head over to campus at 10:45 am. This day, he took the time to observe his surroundings because there were still 15 minutes until his class started. Shinji walked past a bakery that smelled like fresh-baked bread, even from the outside the smell was pretty strong, and he walked by some other stores that sold fruits and vegetables and a few buildings of offices and residences.

He got to campus at 10:55 and headed to his classroom for his class. He had 'Literature I' on that morning and he was excited to meet his teacher for that class. At 11:00 am o'clock, the teacher arrived and introduced himself to then start giving the class. Shinji has always been really interested in reading, so much that his best friends would gift him a new and big book every year for his birthday. The first book he ever consciously read was The Iliad, from which he had to do a project for school and he remembers being so excited about the story and characters while the rest of his classmates would be annoyed every time they had to read the book for their class. After that, he would ask his parents for permission to go to the local public library and whenever he wasn't with Rei and/ or Asuka, he would go there and spend hours reading in silence, devouring book after book until he decided to start his own collection of his favorite books so he could have them with him wherever he would go and to be able to read them whenever he wanted.

The first book on the collection was The Iliad, the one that started his fascination, after that it was followed by The Odyssey, another book from Homer that Shinji really enjoyed, after that, he thinks that he bought the entire saga of the Harry Potter books, although he never found them quite interesting, it was a great challenge to finish all 7 of them. As he grew up, the collection got bigger and bigger and until this day, it kept growing. It was the thing that Shinji was most proud of, since he was never a guy of many talents, he could at least say that in his teenage days, he would read a book a week. For some strange reason, the kids his age wouldn't find that interesting, as a matter of fact, they would make fun of Shinji for that, sometimes, while he was reading at recess alone, some kids would approach him to call him a nerd and to throw his books around, making Shinji having to get Rei's help to stop them.