Angel Grace and Lilin Heart

Where the Sea Meets the Sky

It was the same sky Shinji had gazed at for his entire life. The scene wasn't unfamiliar to him: collapsed buildings emerging from miles of still water like mangled icebergs, strung with wire from fallen telephone poles drained of their electricity. He'd watched the sky bathe those buildings in a fiery red, the water speckled with shining lights of white and yellow from the setting sun plenty of times. But this was the first time he had actually found it all so beautiful.

He knew it was because of him.

Shivering, still dripping with water, Shinji fumbled with the buttons on his shirt, trying to put it back on. He had invited Shinji to swim with him in that endless expanse of shining lake, and now the two of them were dressing themselves again. Ashamed of himself, Shinji couldn't decide if he'd rather continue to look at the sky or turn to the other boy. How was it that his body seemed so pretty?

"The sky is beautiful now, isn't it?"

"It is." Shinji stared down at Kaworu's arms as he said it. He could see there the only blemishes Kaworu had on his entire body; his wrists were lined with slashes, some clearly put there long ago, others fresher. He wanted to touch them, to ask about them, but he couldn't. "It really is..."

Kaworu turned to him when he'd buttoned up his navy sleeves, covering the scars. Shinji almost felt giddy, as if the marks were a secret of Kaworu's body only he knew of.

Blue eyes sparkling in the sunset, Kaworu murmured, "Hey, you were crying earlier - what happened? I wasn't trying to scare you by letting go."

His clothes hung off him a little strangely, but Shinji didn't attempt to fix himself further. He turned away from Kaworu's eyes. "It wasn't that," he returned, voice shaking. He knew it wasn't the chill of his moist skin that was making it shake like that. Tears pricked at the corners of his eyes. "Y-You didn't hold me when I came closer, and I thought I was gonna drown. When you grabbed me, I didn't feel relieved. I-It made me wish you'd let me drown."

Kaworu was staring at him, almost innocently curious. "Why would you wish for that? That would kill you."

Shinji shook his head, continuing to shiver. "It's when I'm near you, Kaworu-kun... it's because the way your arms felt around me made me think about how little I deserved to feel it. I'm so pathetic... I don't deserve to have you near me. I just felt like it would be better if I'd died. Then I wouldn't have to be in your future."

Blonde hair rippled lightly as Kaworu turned back to the sky. Shinji was having a hard time reading his face in the shadows. "Is that really the kind of stuff you think about when you're with me?"

He looked down. It was like something was lodged in his throat, but it wasn't the kind of lump formed from crying. It was urging him to say something bold. He didn't like it.

"I can't help it. I can't help but hate how I am when I'm with you... but it's the best kind of hate I've ever felt. I shouldn't like it; I should know this isn't right, especially because we're both-" he swallowed.

"I hate myself because of how good you make me feel. I've never felt like this before..."

Shinji looked up at him, but Kaworu was almost entirely in shadow. The sun had set. "Kaworu-kun, I-"

"I'm sorry, Shinji-kun."

The lump had risen then quickly disappeared. Shinji felt his insides empty, and his voice died away. All he could see now was the back of Kaworu's head.

"But I can't... not like this." He turned very slightly in Shinji's direction but didn't make eye contact. "It seems no matter what I do, I end up hurting you."

Distant, his tone almost sounded like it'd come from another person. Shinji could barely hear a trace of the boy he'd laughed with so many times over the past week. For some reason, Shinji almost thought it sounded more familiar, more sincere and pained than he'd ever heard.