Angel

Shadows

School was a relatively normal affair.

Or at least, it would have been, had Shinji not been constantly glancing over his shoulder, mumbling something like 'He's still standing there...' over and over again.
Asuka stared at the boy's back in front of her, wondering if he had finally snapped. He had screamed most of their neighborhood awake earlier, not to mention the unexplained 'nightmare' he'd had and the way he had...
Asuka blushed furiously as she remembered how tightly Shinji had been holding her earlier. She would have preferred a slightly more romantic situation, but her curiosity was starting to get the better of her.
Why had he been crying? Why had he been acting like she had been killed or something?

By the window, Rei Ayanami was having similar thoughts, albeit with some jealousy of not having received a hug herself.
Spinning her lead pencil in her hand, her crimson eyes glared at Shinji's back.

There! He did it again. Looking over his shoulder, not at her, but at something in the back of the class, his eyes quivering as they found what they were looking for.
Those same eyes quickly darted towards her, meeting her own, before quickly turning back to his desk, back hunched, sweating profusely.

What on Earth had Shinji Ikari so spooked?

Not being able to bear it any longer, both Rei and Asuka had frogmarched Shinji to the roof as soon as the lunch break bell had tolled, with Mana, Toji, Kensuke and Hikari following suit.

"Shin-man, you feeling okay?" Toji, ever-so-delicate in these situations, opened the interrogation as directly as possible. But to no avail.

""I'm fine, I'm okay, I'm not crazy."

"Shinji, no one's calling you crazy. Yet." Asuka was really beginning to consider calling the mad scientists Shinji had for parents, but felt it was best to wait just a little longer before calling in Shinji's funny farm family.
The feeling was replaced with the idea that she should call in the big guns with all haste when she caught him looking at what must have been a strange looking patch of oxygen floating over her shoulder.

"Shinji, what in god's name are you looking at?" She groaned as she physically turned around to see what it was. But all she could see was the remainder of the roof, overlooking the school sport's field.

"Wait a minute..." She squinted. Something was... bending light? Or at least, that was the only way she could accurately describe it.
Something was weird with the air in the direction Shinji was looking at. Was she going crazy too?

She was suddenly distracted by Rei standing up violently behind her. Her bracelet arm was outreached and pointing to the same patch of weirdness Asuka had been looking at.

"WHO ARE YOU?! SHOW YOURSELF!" Everyone in the surrounding area jumped at Rei's sudden outburst. Hikari, who hadn't yet noticed the oddity in the air around them, giggled slightly.

"Rei, not you too. There's nobody the-..." Hikari's voice caught in her throat as she turned to face what everyone else was suddenly looking at-
-And saw Ghost Shinji, looking as maniacal as ever, grinning to the crowd of astounded teenagers. Save regular Shinji, who looked ready to climb over the roof's fencing and launch himself into oblivion.

"What..." Asuka began.

"...the actual..." Toji continued.

"...fuck." Rei finished, eyes wide in shock. Asuka tore her eyes away from the spectral version of Shinji for a moment to glare at the blunette.

"Since when did you learn how to curse?"

"I must admit, I'm just as surprised." Shinji's ghostly twin laughed, the same mirthless and almost evil laugh the original had heard before.