Katsuragi

Disclaimer: Neon Genesis Evangelion © GAINAX / ProjectEva - TV Tokyo - NAS, Hideaki Anno, and AD Vision.

Someone once joked with me that love was an accident, a fey creature that jumps on your back, holds its hands over your eyes, and yells "Surprise!" when you least expect it.

He compared it to a butterfly; one that you know will fly away someday, no matter how hard you try to keep it.

He told me that when loves chooses to alight in one's soul, the best thing that one could do was breathe gently and try, try not to scare it away; attempting to catch and hold it will only make love flee that much faster.

It's too bad I didn't believe a word of what he said, because I knew he was a liar. If I had believed him, maybe I would have been more ready.

Or then again, maybe not. I doubt that anyone knows how to deal with love, not even those in love, simply because love just… happens.

I never meant to love anyone; not my father, not Ritsuko, certainly not Kaji, not Shinji, not Asuka, and not myself. Finding out that I loved myself, despite everything that I've done (especially in the past few weeks), was the biggest surprise of my life.

After all, don't you have to love something in order to hate it?

God knows I hate myself right now, and I have every right, now that everything I love's gone away… man, am I starting to sound like a country-rock song gone platinum or what? Can you imagine it? "I got the EVA blues sooo bad… waa waa waa.."

It's true, though. Too true for the fragments of my sanity.

Shinji… my last words to him were a lie. Par for the course. I wish I could fulfill my promise to him -- maybe loving him while I had the chance would make up for not loving Ryouji when I could have -- but the pain tells me that I'll never be able to. This cold steel, this warm blood, is penance due.

Ryouji… I didn't even know… I didn't even wait for him to finish speaking… why? Why didn't I wait?! Even for a single sentence? Was I that afraid of what he would say?

Yes. Yes, I was.

Finally, all my luck of fifteen years ago has caught up to me with a vengeance. At last, all that I've done, all the things that Commander Ikari has ordered me to do, has jumped on my back. My luck's just run out.

Ain't karma a bitch?

I'd laugh at that, but I know that the pain won't let me do anything but weep silently, each sob sending a new lance of agony through my body.

I hope for an end; I hope for a new beginning; and yet, knowing that all hopes are hopeless, I still hope, I still wish, that I could change it all.

Webmaster: Larry F
Last revision: January 7, 2006