Sparks Will Fly [Kawoshin: Kaworu x Shinji]

Chapter 10 - I Want to Be Happy

ANOTHER WARNING: This chapter contains characters talking about suicide, recalling past suicidal thoughts, etc. but with no actual attempts. If this will trigger you in any way or you just don't want to read it then you should probably just skip this and go to the next chapter.

Shinji stared at the ceiling. Kaworu had been gone with Hikari for two hours now. It bothered Shinji but he didn't know why. He just kept staring at the ceiling until an hour had passed. He checked his phone and saw that Kaworu hadn't responded to his texts. 'His phone is probably off...' Shinji sighed and set his back on the table. With every passing minute he was getting more frustrated.

Eventually, he decided to get up and do something because lying around and meditating wasn't helping anyone. He looked in the fridge, but remembered that Kaworu had eaten all of the frozen dinners while staying up even later than usual. 'Maybe I should go to eat...'

Shinji pulled his jacket over his shoulders and walked out the door, locking it behind him. It felt awkward to leave the apartment by himself. He walked across the street and about two blocks east before reaching a small, family-owned sandwich shop that he'd eaten at with Kaworu a few times. He didn't actually order a sandwich, though. Once inside, Shinji lost his appetite and resorted to sitting in the back corner of the shop and looking through his phone's pictures rather than just walking outside again. Nine out of ten pictures in his gallery were ones that Kaworu had insisted on taking of themselves on the spot, usually when progress had been made on the project. He smiled as he looked through them and after about ten minutes got up and left to go back.

Shinji had felt unusually sad about Kaworu going to dinner with Hikari. She was a really nice person, so it wasn't that he disliked her in the slightest, but he'd much rather have Kaworu with him. He found himself back in the apartment and it reminded him too much of how annoying it was, so he decided to walk up to the roof.

The elevator was working fine, but Shinji thought it would be good to stretch his legs and walked up six flights of stairs to get to the top of he building. He didn't bring up a chair, so he sat on the wall surrounding the roof that acted as a sort of barrier to keep people from falling off. He sat in silence for a long time and stared at the skyline. Many of the buildings in front of him were tall and blocked large parts of the view, but it was pretty none the less. Shinji then looked down at the street, his feet dangling from 15 stories in the air and realized no one would know if he fell. Just a few months prior, he might have jumped off the roof after realizing this, but Shinji had someone to live for now. Besides, he'd promised Kaworu he'd stay up and wait for him to come home; he would've upheld that promise even if he'd still wanted to die.

Shinji backed up from the wall and stood up, ready to go back inside. The door opened before he could reach for the handle, though. "Kaworu..." Shinji said. "I didn't realize you were back."

Kaworu looked concerned. "Are you okay?" he asked. "You were... sitting on the edge..."

"Oh, yeah... Don't worry, I'm not- I'm a lot healthier than I was earlier his year..."

The silver haired boy sighed with relief. "Thank God."

Shinji was surprised by this. "D-did you think I was going to..." he trailed off.

"I saw you sitting on the edge of a high-rise at 2:00 a. m, so yeah..."

"Sorry..."

Kaworu gave him a relieved smile. "It's okay, I'm just... glad you didn't." He looked up at the sky for a moment. "Do you want to watch the stars?"

Shinji nodded and they lied down next to each other. Neither of them said anything for a while, but there was tension in the air. 'Why is he being so quiet?' Shinji thought. 'Should I be the one to start talking or-'