It was the last week of summer vacations and after a long summer, everyone was actually longing to go back to school, especially Shinji, Rei, and Asuka, who would be finally going to college, all three of them were very excited since they were all going to the same university. In the past years, Shinji and Rei attended one school and were separated from Asuka, due to them being step-siblings. Shinji and Rei started living in the same house when they both were 2 years old, so practically their whole life, it happened because Yui, Shinji's mom, had been doing her university's social work at an orphanage, and in her time there, Rei had been abandoned and the entrance of it, Yui was the one in charge of taking care of her, and by the time she finished her career, she just couldn't leave Rei behind, so she and her husband, Gendo, decided to adopt her.
"Come on dude, we're gonna be late if you don't hurry!", those words from Asuka got Shinji out of his thoughts and made him follow the orders his friend just gave him. They were all packing their things into a van to then take a two-hour drive to their new school. It was a new start for all of them so they were pretty nervous but at the same time happy to be able to start this new chapter with their best friends. It took them about an hour to get all of the boxes into the van, including clothes, books, and some other personal belongings, so all they had to do now was to say goodbye to their parents. Shinji wasn't prepared for this, he really didn't want to talk to his dad and he was always known for being a mama's boy, so he knew he'd definitely cry while saying goodbye to Yui.
"Okay, I guess this is it," Yui said making both of her kids turn around to face her, she looked like she was about to cry but was holding back her tears to not make the two young adults in front of her cry too. "Remember to text me every week, at least just to say you're doing okay, I know I'm being repetitive, but if any of you need anything, don't doubt to call me or your dad." Rei turned to see Shinji while Yui was talking to see if he was crying, and by his expression, she figured it wouldn't take him that long to start tearing up. "I've packed you guys some food for the road, it's in the lunchbox I gave to Rei, okay?" they both gave her a nod, and then she pulled them both in for a hug, "I'm gonna miss you so much, remember to be good and to always take care of each other," her voice was weak at the last sentence, she already crying. "I'm proud of you, Shinji and Rei, I'll see you again in six months, I bet the time will go by flying." She finally let them go from the hug and Shinji was looking down, trying to not make anyone realize that he was crying, while Rei was just smiling from the kind words her mother gave her.
"We're gonna miss you too, mom. And don't worry, I'll make sure to text you to let you know that we are both doing great" Rei said with a smile and then headed to where her dad was to say goodbye to him. Shinji stayed looking at the ground in front of his mom, not wanting to have her see him being so weak, not that Yui hadn't seen him cry before, but this was the first time he was embarrassed about it.
"Thank you so much for everything mom, I guess I'll see you in six months then," he said with a small but genuine smile on his face and hugged his mom again. "I'm gonna be okay, don't worry about me." After that, he finally walked away from her and joined Rei to say bye to his dad. They never had the best relationship but he knew Gendo tried to make an effort to make Shinji like him back. Rei and Gendo were already done with their conversation, so when Shinji got there, they both turned to look at him. "Goodbye dad, thanks for the help lifting the boxes." Without saying a word, Gendo just smiled and drew Shinji in for a hug, which at first was a little awkward, but when Rei joined a few seconds later, it got more relaxed. For the first time ever, Shinji was actually happy his dad was hugging him and returned the hug.
"I'm so proud of you kids, I know I can be a little old-fashioned," he said the last sentence looking at Rei, "but I'm really trying, give your old man some time, okay?" Shinji and Rei all smiled at their father and split up from the hug. "Take care, I'm sure you'll have a great time." They both nodded, waved their dad goodbye, and proceeded to go to the van, in which Asuka was waiting for them patiently in the driver's seat. Shinji got in the back seats struggling to fit because of the boxes, and Rei got in the front seat, then they all and waved to Yui, Gendo, and Asuka's mom as the car moved forward, eventually leaving them out of sight.
As soon as they drove off, Rei connected her phone to the van's Bluetooth and played a song all three of them enjoyed a lot, then the three friends turned to look at each other and couldn't help to smile and start cheering and laughing "I can't believe this is real, we're finally leaving" said Asuka not really paying attention to the road in front of her. "Oh my god, we're gonna be living by ourselves now, this is actually crazy, but I'm so excited to be doing it with you guys." Rei and Shinji returned the smile and started to laugh along with her.
"I know, right? This is something completely new for all of us, even tho, if I'm being honest, I'm not very excited to be sharing an apartment with Mr. Everything Has To Be Organized over here." The blue-haired girl said mockingly as she looked back, meeting Shinji's brown eyes, to which he just laughed and rolled his eyes."No, for real, you're delusional if you think the apartment is going to be clean all the time, I bet after a week you won't even care about it."
The next hour they all talked about their expectations for college, their worries, and exchanged so many stories from when they were kids, kind of reflecting about how much they were all grown. After a while, Rei fell asleep in the front seat and Shinji and Asuka were still talking about anything to fill the silence of the van. "So is Mari going to be in the apartment already or she'll get there after we do?" he said completely changing the topic of conversation.
"I think she's already going to be there, I don't know actually, we talked about it yesterday but she always confuses me a lot," she laughed about the last things she said "you know? I really, really like her, dude, things are going amazing with her, even my mom loves her, and you know how she is with those things."
"Yeah, she can be a bit difficult, but I'm happy to hear that, I actually never thought that you were gonna fall as hard as you have for her, I figured it was just going to be for a while."
"Bro, I thought the same thing, but after spending so much time with her, like, I don't know, she made me see things differently li-" she was interrupted by Shinji who couldn't help but laugh at how cheesy Asuka was being, it was weird seeing her like this. "don't laugh! Oh my god I know I sound ridiculous but I can't wait to see you fall in love with someone, you're gonna be worse than me!" At the last words Asuka said, Shinji gasped and peeled his eyes open, which the red-haired girl noticed and mirrored.
"You love her!?" he said while laughing really hard at Asuka's face being red like her hair.
"Noo, oh god, I didn't m-meant it like that, you know what I meant, you asshole" she turned around to Shinji to give him a deadly look, which made him worried about her poor care of looking ahead while driving. "Besides, we've only been dating for like two months, it's literally impossible for me to love her in such little time and not to mention that we decided to take things slow, dude we haven't even, well you know, yet... it's THAT slow."
"Fine, jeez, I get it. It's cool you guys are taking things slow, not that it's important but I like her a lot too, can't wait to spend more time with her." he gave a comforting smile to his friend and looked outside the window car, admiring the plain fields next to them. "I wonder how Rei's going to be when she starts dating someone, I bet she's going to be all over them, she might not look like it but she is one for physical affection."
"Hell no, have you met her? In the time I've known her she has hugged me like, five times, and only because it was my birthday, maybe it's different with you because she's your sister, but hell no. She might be one for physical affection but she would never do it in front of others," she said looking over to the girl that was asleep in the seat next to her "but do you think she's ready to date someone else, I mean, I still see her pretty sad since things didn't work out with that guy from your school, but then again, he was an asshole to her."
Now it was Shinji who looked over to Rei, seeing her while she slept, he wondered how anyone could be mean to her if she was awesome. "I guess so, but fortunately not every guy she's going to meet will be transphobic, eventually she'll find someone who will like her as she is."
****
Ryo had gathered Asuka and Shinji for an important meeting at their usual spot, it was an abandoned and pretty old house that was right next to the beach, ever since they were allowed to hang out without the supervision of their parents, they would go to that same spot at least 4 times a week, they found it when they were 11 years old and were doing some type of adventure on the beach, and over time they started taking things from their houses to decorate the place, so far there was a couch (which was already there when they found it), a lamp, some blankets, candles, some poorly hanged Christmas lights they stole from a neighbor's house, a lot of food (mainly chips) and three sleeping bags. "Okay, thank you guys for coming, I know it's a bit late but what I have to tell you can't wait another day," the other two could tell that he was really nervous, his voice was shaking almost as much as his hands, it was a Friday night and they were all 14 years old now, "so I have been thinking a lot about this, and it has been really hard to come to a conclusion, so I wanted to share it with you guys, my best friends, because I know you can help me with this"
"Ryo, you don't have to tell us anything you're not ready for," Asuka said while holding his right hand and Shinji proceeded to do the same with his other free hand.
"No, no, I want to do this, I'm sure you guys will not judge me, but you have to promise not to change the way you act towards me. Oh, and do not stop being my friends either."
He was looking and the floor and nervously moving his feet, constantly changing the weight of his body from one to another, he was too afraid to look at his friends in the eyes. Ryo knew they would accept him and love him no matter what, however deep down in his head, he couldn't stop thinking about the possibility of them not wanting to talk to him ever again, or that he would have to take back his words and continue living his life the way he was doing it now.
"We promise Ryo", "Yeah we promise"
Those words were the ones that gave Ryo the courage to finally tell them, "Okay, so the thing is-" he said while tears started coming out of his eyes, his friends tried to hug him but he refused, "I'm a girl, l-like, well, more like, I'm not a b-boy. Well, I guess that makes me a girl then, well no, but still, like, I would really appreciate it if you guys could call me Rei? Instead of Ryo, not that I don't like the name my parents gave me, but it's just not me," Shinji and Asuka were giving her a big smile watching her stumble all her words and being really talkative. "and it's not like I want to dress as a girl, you know? Well, maybe I do, b-but not yet, so far just call me Rei, but only if you want to, you d-don't actually have to do it, oh god, this is so stup-"
"Of course Rei!" Shinji said interrupting her "I'm so glad you told us, of course we're not going to stop being your friends, we love you no matter what"
They all went in together for a hug and Asuka said almost in a whisper "I think Rei is a beautiful name, and don't worry, you will figure things out as we grow up, just so you know you can borrow some of my clothes whenever you are ready."
****
"Don't worry about it Shinji, she's stronger than you think, she will be okay" Asuka said pulling Shinji out of his memories to which he responded with a smile. In the remaining 10 minutes of the trip, they were just listening and singing to the music Rei's phone was still playing. They finally arrived at their new apartment. As soon as Asuka parked the van in the building's garage, Mari showed up and waved to them from outside the car, immediately, Asuka took her seatbelt off and got out of the car, even before stretching her limbs she ran and jumped to Mari's arms, who received her with a tight hug and a kiss.
Meanwhile, still in the car, Shinji moved gently Rei's shoulder to wake her from her sleep, "Hey, Rei, wake up, we're here already. Oh, and Mari is here already, so come say hello." Rei gave him a nod and proceeded to stretch out her body and rub her face to wake up completely. Shinji got out of the car, not before turning the engine off and grabbing the keys because Asuka was too excited to see her girlfriend that she forgot to do it, and walked over to Mari and Asuka, who was still hugging as if they hadn't seen each other yesterday. He waved to get Mari's attention and smiled at her. "Hey Mari, how are things doing?"
Mari looked over to him and let go of Asuka, who made a pout from separating from her girlfriend and went to now lift up and hug the boy "Puppy! Hello, I've been great thanks. I wanted to thank you for keeping Asuka from falling asleep while driving, she can get distracted really easily, you know?" she put him on the floor again and Shinji gave her a shy smile.
"Tell me about it, we were close to crashing on several occasions." He said looking over to Asuka who was rolling her eyes and waving her hand in a dismissive way to whatever Shinji just had said. "Jokes aside, it was a good trip, we even got here sooner than we expected, the only bad thing is that we have to unload all of the boxes now." Due to Shinji's comment, they all looked over to the van that was full of boxes and saw Rei getting out of it, her eyes were still looking tired but they lightened up when she saw Mari.
"Mari! Oh my god, how are you? How's the apartment, is it big enough for all four of us?" she said while walking over to Mari and gave her a big hug when she reached her.
"I'm great thanks, very happy to see you all now, and surprisingly the apartment is even bigger than I imagined, there's plenty of space for us and even for more. Now that I mention it, come on, you guys have to see it, forget about the boxes, we'll unload the tomorrow, we still have a week to get settled in." They all followed Mari, after closing and locking the van. They got to the elevator and pushed the four-digit pin which would take them to their floor, since it was a very fancy establishment, the elevator would open right at the entrance of their residence. The ding of a bell announced their arrival on their floor and revealed a big, fully furnished, and vintage-looking apartment.
"Holy shit this is way better than I imagined, oh my god Mari, did you see the balcony, you can see everything from here, you can see the university from here, this is amazing!" Asuka grabbed her girlfriend by the hand to pull her so they could see all the floor together. It was really nice, too nice actually. The rent was no problem to them since it had been a gift from Shinji's parents and Asuka's mom because they really loved their kids and had way too much money to spend on whatever they wanted, so they figured they could give them that gift. It had been Gendo's idea, surprisingly, because he remembered how in his college days it was either paying the rent or buying food for the week, and definitely didn't want his kids going through the same issues, so he convinced Yui and Ritsuko to rent them a really nice apartment as a congratulations gift from entering college.
Rei and Shinji went together to see the rest of the floor, looking at the rooms (that were 5 in total), the kitchen, the before mentioned balcony, the cleaning room the bathrooms (that came all with bathtubs), and the living room, they were all pretty impressed at how nice the place was and decided to make a movie night to give sort of an opening night to the apartment. Mari and Asuka were the ones in charge of buying some snacks and food while Shinji and Rei stayed unloading some boxes from the van to get something done in the meantime. They focused more on loading off the boxes that contained decorations from their rooms, bed sheets, and clothes. Obviously, Asuka and Mari took so fucking long just to go and buy some food, that by the time they came back, Shinji and Rei were pretty much done organizing their rooms.
"Sorry we took so long, we were kind of making out" Asuka gave Mari a little push because of her comment and told her something under her breath. "What? It's not like they weren't going to realize, your lips are all red, babe."
"Yeah, yeah, who cares. Did you guys get some food, I'm fucking starving." the boy said as he looked through the bags in the counter searching for what he had asked for, he found the box of sushi and took it out of the bag to start eating it. "Oh, thank god here it is"
"Wait, Shinji, we have to eat dinner watching the movie, otherwise, it won't be a movie night" Rei took the sushi box from Shinji's hands and grabbed the other 3 people to lead them to the living room, which she decorated with blankets and pillows so they would all sit and watch the movie. "You guys stay here, I'll bring the food so in the meantime pick a movie please." She got out of the room to get the food and left Shinji, Asuka, and Mari on the couch.
"So what do you guys want to watch? I've been meaning to see 'Eat Pray and Love' for some time now, maybe you guys want to watch it too?"
"Man, Shinji, couldn't you pick a movie that is more boring please? I've seen it like a million times." Asuka took the remote from Shinji's hands and started browsing through Netflix's main page when Rei entered the living room again now holding everyone's food. "Oh, I know what we're gonna watch, we have to" she smiled to herself, and Rei and Shinji knew exactly what movie she was talking about.
"Which one is it? Oh, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World? I've actually never seen that movie, is it any good?" due to no response to her question, Mari turned to look at the three guys who were looking at her with an offended expression.
Rei was the one to speak first, "Are you kidding? This movie is awesome, it has been a tradition for us to watch it every time we make sleepovers, we love it so much" Shinji and Asuka stopped looking offended to nod along to every word Rei said.
Mari smiled at the comment "Well, let's watch this one then, I'm sure I'll love it". They played the movie and finally started eating, they all shared from their plate and proceeded to take out the snacks to pour them in some bowls Shinji had found in the cabinets and ate them while happily watching the movie. Mari couldn't help to notice that they all looked like kids because of the movie, laughing at the dumbest jokes she had ever heard but played along because she knew this was important to them, and they were important to her. After about an hour and a half through the movie, Asuka fell asleep on Mari's shoulder, she was probably tired from driving. Eventually, the movie ended, and with the help of everyone, except Asuka, they cleaned the living room to then go to each of their rooms, again, except Asuka who entered Mari's room next to her. They all wished each other goodnight and turned off the lights.
It wasn't until he was alone, that Shinji started to realize that this was actually happening, he was away from his home, his parents, the town he grew up in. He was happy and very excited to go to college next Monday, everything was going to be okay as long as his sister and his best friend were by his side. He was never much of a social guy, so he knew that making friends would be kind of difficult for him, especially since Rei and Asuka were both in different careers from Shinji, he had gone for English, Asuka was in biomedics engineering and Rei got into medicine. Thinking about it, Shinji laughed at how different they all were, but still, their dynamic was amazing.
****
Shinji and Ryo were in the park after they begged Yui to take them, they were in the sandbox building what appeared to be a pyramid when a small red-haired girl approached them "Hey, what are you guys doing" she said swinging her feet from her ankles to her toe tips.
"We're building a... I don't know what we're building, but do you want to help us?" Ryo scooched over so the girl in front of them could help them. She took the space and started contributing to the build by grabbing lots of sand to add it to the structure and patting it smooth it with her small hands. "I'm Ryo, by the way, and this is my brother Shinji. What's your name?
"My name is Asuka, do you guys want to be my friends, I just moved here and well, I don't really have any friends yet"
"Sure Asuka, me and Ryo will be your friends, I'll tell my mom to talk to your mom so we can see each other more often" Shinji gave her a smile and they all continued doing the pyramid. After an hour or so, Yui and Ritsuko called their kids to go home and they all went running. "Mom, this is Asuka, she is mine and Ryo's new friend, do you think she can come over for dinner tonight?" The three kids in front of the older women were giving her puppy eyes, looking as adorable as they could.
The two women looked at each other and nodded. "I don't see why not, especially now that I know that Asuka and Ritsuko live in the house right in front of ours, what do you think?" She turned to look to Ritsuko who smiled and nodded.
"Of course, anything for my baby" All the kids cheered at Ritsuko's response and walked together over Shinji and Ryo's house. That day they exchanged their favorite colors, favorite movies, animals, subjects at school, games to play, and much more. After they were done with dinner, they were allowed to see a movie because Yui and Ritsuko were too comfortable talking with each other. The three kids fell asleep before the movie could end and the next morning, they were all excited to see each other and talk about how they magically appeared in their beds after falling asleep on the couch.
****
He looked over to the digital clock he had in his nightstand, it marked 2:19 am, he wasn't tired just yet but he figured if he didn't sleep well, he would be too tired to finish unpacking in the morning. Shinji grabbed his phone and sent a quick text to his mom, 'we're doing great mom, the apartment is amazing, but still can't wait to see you again, already miss you' he locked his phone because he assumed his mom was already asleep and he closed his eyes for a moment and tried to sleep, but he was just too excited to be going to college in a few days when he opened his eyes again, he checked the digital clock again and now it marked 3:54 am.
"Fucking great" he muttered to himself and turned to lay on his back staring at the roof, he was able to hear some giggles coming from Mari's room and was glad to realize he wasn't the only one awake. After a few minutes, he was able to fall asleep, even with the now kinda loud and constant giggles.
*****
A week went by pretty fast, mainly because they all had a lot of things to do, like unloading the boxes, going to the market to buy some food for the week, (Shinji was in charge of doing the food for the week), organizing all their stuff and clothes from the boxes and going out to buy anything else they needed for school.
So now it was Sunday, the last day of summer and they decided to go out and get to know the town they were staying in for the next years.
"So where do you guys want to go? I really don't feel like wasting my last day of vacation walking around, maybe we can go for ice cream, or to the movies." Obviously, it was Asuka who said this, as she was always known for not being very energetic. "Or just sit in a park, just please, I don't want to walk."
Rei turned to see Asuka, "I actually agree, I'm still pretty tired from unpacking and shit, so an ice cream sounds great" after those words, Asuka cheered, Mari and Shinji nodded and followed the girls lead heading to god knows where just hoping that they would find an ice cream shop on the way.
After around 10 minutes of walking, Asuka was just about to complain about her feet hurting when Shinji pointed out an ice cream shop about 10 meters away from them. "There! We found it, there it is! Finally. Oh no, they're closing already? What the fuck is only 5 pm, wait, lemme run to see if they can still serve us." After saying that he started running at full speed (he really wanted ice cream at this point) to catch the employee that was picking things up from the tables outside when, even before he noticed, there was another face in front of his face, too close, so all he could do was to close his eyes hoping he was somehow not going to hit the other person but knowing it was too late to try to stop and then he felt his head collide with the stranger's nose. He fell over to his back and so did the other person, things were pretty blurry and his head hurt really bad, he got up leaning on his elbows and opened just one eye to see the damage he caused. There was a bunch of vegetables and fruits around them, Shinji assumed that the stranger was getting groceries and got up to help him pick the things up, he could hear the three girls kind of far away calling for him asking if he was okay so he raised his hand and gave them a thumbs-up, so he started picking things up and putting them in the clothe bags that were also in the ground, he also saw his wallet and so he put it in his jeans' back pocket. "Oh my god, I'm so sorry I just didn't realize you were in front of me until it was too late, oh god, are you okay? Does it hurt?" Shinji kneeled down next to the guy he had crashed with, who was covering his nose due to the pain.
"Oh gosh, is my nose bleeding?" He said, taking the hands off his face so Shinji could check his nose, and when he did, Shinji was surprised at how pretty the guy was, he had pale white skin, gray almost white hair, really soft facial features, and bright red eyes, he looked to be around Shinji's age, maybe one year or two older, "hello? oh my god was the hit so hard that you forgot how to speak?" if the guy hadn't had a worried face Shinji would have thought he was making fun of him.
Shinji started to blush due to the guy pointing out he was staring, "Oh, sorry, no, I do know how to speak, and no, your nose is not bleeding, again, I'm so sorry this happened, here are your groceries, I've put them back in their bags."
"Oh it's fine, don't worry about it, it was both of our faults and thanks." The guy finally stood up and took the cloth bags from Shinji's hands, "Are you okay tho?" he asked while grabbing the bridge of his nose, even when he knew it wasn't bleeding.
"Well my head does hurt, but nothing to worry about, I'll just have an aspirin when I get back home" Shinji gave him a shy 'thank you for worrying' smile.
"Okay, good to hear, well I gotta go, so take care dude." He waved his hand to Shinji and continued his way to wherever he was going. Shinji had actually lied to him, his head did hurt really bad, but there was nothing the guy could have helped him with, either way, why would he lie?
"Hey loser" Shinji turned around to see Mari, Rei, and Asuka with ice cream cones, Asuka holding an extra one besides the one she was eating. "We brought you a cone, I figured you wanted chocolate so here you go." the girl passed the cone to Shinji who accepted it with a smile. "So are you okay? You guys crashed really hard against each other, we were going to help but we really wanted some ice cream, sorry."
"Yeah I'm fine, my head hurts a bit tho, I'm sure the ice cream will help, thanks by the way."
"Sure, no problem pups." Mari said with a smile and then grabbed Asuka's free hand. "Well, what do you guys want to do now? Do you want to go back to the apartment or maybe we can eat our ice creams at the beach"
"Yeah, the beach sounds good, unless your head hurts too much, then we can go back home, Shinji." Rei said with a worried look on her face. He hoped she wouldn't tell their mom about this, he didn't want her being too worried.
"No, it's fine really, let's go to the beach" he gave them a reassuring smile and all headed towards the beach, following the helpful signs that were in the walls of the town. Shinji's pain surprisingly went down thanks to the ice cream and the walk. Out of nowhere, the guy he crashed with showed up on his thoughts again, he was kind of weird-looking, but not in a bad way, it's just that Shinji had never seen anyone with red eyes, so yeah, that was kind of weird. The really pale color of his skin reminded him of Rei, the kind of looked alike, he wondered if it could be a really far relative from her, but quickly dismissed the idea, there was no use in thinking about it.
They kept following the signs and eventually got to the beach and as soon as they saw the ocean, they all ran to the water, taking off their shoes with difficulty on the way there.
"The water is fucking freezing" Rei said while running back to the ground but Shinji stopped her before she got away. "Hey man, let me go, I swear my feet are going to fall off, I can barely feel my toes now!" She tried to get off her brother's grip but he was stronger than her.
"Oh come on, don't be such a baby, just keep moving and you'll forget about the water." Shinji pulled her sister so she started running with him, they were followed by Asuka and Mari and even tho their feet were splashing cold water all over their bodies, they really didn't care, because they were in the right company. The sun was just going down as they were running, completely forgetting about watching the shoes, and they were laughing and screaming, just enjoying the moment.
NOTES
Hello! This is my first time ever writing a fanfic, if you have any comments about the text, characters or story, please let me know! I hope you all like the story, hopefully I'll be writing again soon <3
-nat