Misato has never believed herself truly warm or kind or generous or any other qualities to describe the tenderness of her heart. Leave that to someone else (someone else now six feet underground). She thinks herself rigid and callous, body composed of stiff scar tissue and her heart is no exception. But she pretends sometimes, when it suits her, when she wants to make herself believe otherwise, the act as draining as drafting insincere apologies to arms of the Japanese government knowing all the while that remorse and mercy count for nothing in a world nearing its end.

It's all contrived. If before she would go through the motions to maintain a tenuous grip on the so-called normal life, now she is much too exhausted, bled dry. And if before she would put on the act of cheery surrogate mother in front of the two misfit teenagers, now she won't even bother. She has had enough.

But. But Asuka has always needed more than she could give. Tonight is no different.

The words on her screen pose a tempting respite from the very loud, very public pronouncements of hatred coming from the bathroom. The walls are thin. Shinji's in the other room with his earphones, pillow over his head, and look, replace the SDAT with a laptop and pillow with distinct apathy and she's just the same, both running away from what scares them. What, exactly? An upset fourteen-year-old girl. How pathetic.

She clenches her hands into fists as if readying for battle before rising to her feet to make her way to the bathroom, not deigning to hesitate over the mess of school uniform on the floor because if she does then she might stop and turn around. She doesn't knock. The girl can see her silhouette against the blurred glass door.

"Asuka," she bites back her usual I'm coming in, the insistence she reserves for Shinji. "You've been in there for some time."