2022-04-07: Sakura Nagashi

• Log: 2022-04-07: Sakura Nagashi
• Cast: Kaworu Nagisa, Rei Ayanami
• Where: OCU Japan
• OOC - IC Date: April 7, 2022 (0096)
• Summary: Kaworu plays the piano late at night under the falling cherry blossoms. From a distance, Rei listens.

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<Pose Tracker> Kaworu Nagisa has posed.

        Even at night, the light never truly goes away--or at least, not in the heart of Lilim civilization. Kaworu could wander through Tokyo-3 from dusk 'til dawn and never find a place of true darkness. In some ways, that's nice. In other ways, it's lonely. He doesn't need to wander all night, though; even if he doesn't need to sleep, there are places for him to go in the wee hours of morning, after the shops have closed but before the bars have joined them. The sakura parks are thus relatively quiet right now, as the salarymen are still getting drunk.
        
        It's a beautiful view. He strolls into one of the parks where the blossoms have been falling like snow, delicately blanketing a piano that had been left out by some unknown person. A heavy tarp keeps it from getting wet or dirty, at least. Kaworu comes to a stop next to it, fingertips brushing through the petals. Then, with one smooth movement, he pulls the tarp back away from the covered keys and sits before them.
        
        For a moment, once he pulls back the cover and reveals the ivories beneath, he does nothing--simply gazes upon it as the moon shines upon him and the sakura trees. Then he takes a deep breath--lets it out as a sigh--and curls his fingers over the keyboard.
        
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RQPdzHVakyM
        
        It's only the backbone of a song. The harmony, that would lift up a voice as it sang out its grief or another pianist playing the other half. But there is no voice to accompany this piano; no second set of hands to play the melody. Those hands reached out for someone else.
        
        And that's fine. Because they reached for *someone*. It never needed to be him, as long as He found happiness with *someone*.
        
        So as Kaworu plays, he in time shifts from playing only the harmony to the full song:
        
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iU8lYA3DHZY
        
        There is no voice still, but that's fine, too. Perhaps someone somewhere out there in the night will hear his playing and feel what it is he's trying to convey all the same, and walk away comforted as he comforts himself.
        
        Everybody finds love in the end...

<Pose Tracker> Rei Ayanami has posed.

Somewhere, a ways away.

A hospital room. Release will be tomorrow, some time, when the paperwork is done. The bag of medicines, the compressed inclination pillow, the sheafs of instructions are already taken. The IV line has been removed. The journal, the pens, the cookbook have all been carefully put together in a bag and set with the other things, with more care than any of the medical appliances ever received.

It is silent here, once you allow for the air circulation. Just the sound of space, of time; of existence. Hum of power, flow of pipes. A great composite body.

But...

Something...

Rei listens.

Nothing.

Harder.

Nothing.

Softer.

Something there. A distant sound, coming in. An echo perhaps. One sound in six or seven lost, stolen by inconsistencies in atmosphere or crossing the boundary of a steady-state wave from a distant piece of medical equipment, or a ceiling light, or any of the thousands of other objects.

But it is still...

Soon enough:

Kaworu receives a call. Rei's number. (The telephone was delivered to her. A responsible adult was abstractly pleased in a distant way that she had had visitors, and had made the operation happen.)

It will ring as long as it needs to.

<Pose Tracker> Kaworu Nagisa has posed.

        Someone hears.
        
        Though the sound of his smartphone's chime startles him, Kaworu doesn't stop playing as he looks down at his pocket. He does at least have to pull it out, even if he knows in an instant who the call is from. Indeed, knowing who is calling him the instant it comes in is why he removes one hand from the keys to retrieve his phone and set it down atop the piano. It connects as he returns his hand to the keys, even though he hadn't tapped the touchscreen, to a simple text display of REI AYANAMI.
        
        "Hey. Good evening, First," he says with his usual casual ease. He plays more softly, so as not to overpower the conversation, but the phone's volume does also increase--seemingly of its own accord, but really because that's what Kaworu willed. He has that sort of relationship with electronics.
        
        "I'm very happy to hear from you--" even happier that it's she who reached out to him, "--but you should still be resting in the hospital, as I recall." Even then, she'll still need a neck brace for at least a couple of weeks, per the doctors. "Do you need something from me? I'm not busy," it's just a bit of self-care, "so I can be there soon if so."

<Pose Tracker> Rei Ayanami has posed.

In the hospital room, Rei hears the voice of the Administrator, and the voice of the piano. They do not overlap with each other, save with harmony.

"I am in the hospital," Rei replies, after Kaworu finishes. "I leave tomorrow."

Silence for several measures. Almost a full bar.

"I thought I had heard your piano," Rei continues. "I wanted to call you."

He trusted Hibiki, and Takarada.
He brought me a reward.
He brought Ikari.

There is the faint sound on Rei's end of the bed elevating slightly. She adjusts it as well, onto the speaker mode, and there are the subtle bumps of positional adjustment.

Another few bars, and Rei says, "Hibiki and Takarada visited me. They offered their facilities for further food development."

The ceiling, dark as it is, seems to grow subtly more revolting to Rei. It's not a swift thing, and so she watches it. The shadows do not grow any larger - in the Geofront they rarely do.

Qivi teleports in.
Qivi leaves for Japan [OCU].

<Pose Tracker> Kaworu Nagisa has posed.

        "Oh...?"
        
        And that truly does make him happy, to the point that he stumbles into repeating a stanza a time or two longer than intended. She heard his piano. She heard what he sent out into the ether. Kaworu's smile deepens as a richness enters his playing, a joy that blooms even in the midst of the song's grief. Music always did make him feel better, and now he feels... refreshed. Will she hear that, too, from where she is? Will their souls intersect even as they're separated?
        
        "I'm glad you did," he murmurs, eyelashes fluttering down. "To be honest, I was feeling lonely before you reached out to me. Hearing your voice has made me feel much more at ease."
        
        He plays another bar, rolling the twinkling notes softly as the stars shine above, leaving Rei in silence to ponder her words. She brings up Yuta and Rikka. "I know. I let them know how to find you," he replies. "I'm glad they went to see you. They're both good people." As evidenced by the fact that they offered to let Rei use their kitchen(s?) for her adventures in cooking. "Rikka's mother runs a small restaurant in her junk shop, so you'll have very good facilities to work with there. I haven't been to Hibiki's apartment yet, so I can't remark on its quality, but I imagine it has more space than you have, at least." The housing situation in Tsutsujidai is generally leaps and bounds better than Tokyo-3's, poor evacuation routines aside.
        
        "Are you going to continue to focus on making pizza? Or will you try to branch out with some new dishes?" he prompts. "Both have their merits. It's wise to focus on one task until you've mastered it, but taking breaks and trying different things can sometimes lead to revelations you wouldn't have otherwise had."
        
        Another wave of cherry blossom petals drifts down over him, shining in the moonlight as they land on the polished wood...

<Pose Tracker> Rei Ayanami has posed.

Why does the ceiling bother her? Rei can't tell. The thought doesn't form concretely. It might be a drug side effect, for all she knows. Sometimes those happen. Once her heart raced all through the night and she never knew why.

The music sparkles. Rei can't see the stars.

She can, perhaps, hear them.

"Yes," Rei says. "Takarada was interested in 'roti pizza'. I think I will be able to make 'roti' and then 'roti pizza'."

Another meditative silence.

There are many things to open up before her.

"I want to finish what I started," Rei says.

A bar passes.

"But, the other recipes... The pictures are smooth, and perfect. I do not recognize them. The ingredients are strange, too. I will research them."

The thought passes to Rei: I could have done so now. While waiting, if I could not sleep.

There is a subtle quaking throughout her body that she does not fully comprehend. A presaging of some sort of momentous shift, a tectonic adjustment. It does not happen; but there is a sense that something has changed. A sense of the world that changed, then return-- but now there was a glimpse of something else.

"Where are journals such as this one purchased?"

<Pose Tracker> Kaworu Nagisa has posed.

        'I want to finish what I started,' Rei says. Kaworu chuckles faintly; the sound might be lost in his piano. But maybe she'll hear it anyway. "That's commendable of you. There are a few recipes for variants of pizza in that cookbook I gave you, as you may have already seen. I wanted to make sure you had the option to do either, if you so chose."
        
        Yet... she says she'll research the other recipes and their ingredients. Kaworu's smile remains strong, though... "As you wish," he replies, and leaves it at that.
        
        Rei lives a life so utterly bound by the scenario. Kaworu does, too. That's why it's important to him that she have a chance to stretch her own wings--even if it's only the tiniest bit, even if it's only in this one small thing, even if it's only once in a while.
        
        Where, though...
        
        'Where are journals such as this one purchased?'
        
        Kaworu considers this question as the melody he plays slows and subtly shifts, little by little. "Why do you want to know that?" he wonders. Regardless of how Rei answers, he'll tell her: "When Shinji and I went shopping for your presents, we went to a book store in Tokyo-3's shopping district. One moment; I'll text you the address."
        
        The screen of his smartphone snaps rapidfire through a variety of sites and apps until the correct address shoots off in a text to Rei. It took two, maybe three seconds at most. Kaworu's playing never wavered... though it has reached a higher key.

<Pose Tracker> Rei Ayanami has posed.

Choice.
The opportunity to decide.
To exert my will.

Rei has already done so, she can reason. But this is more than a pattern of casual behavior. It is not like a pat upon the head, or a statement of casual congratulations, or a 'good work' that comes from a place of routine.

It's cruel.
But it feels pleasant.
A faint feeling. A crepuscular feeling.
...

Rei takes in a deep breath and lets it out, enough to be audible on the phone as a faint sigh. The faintly revolting nature of the ceiling seems to fade. Perhaps it was just a passing quirk of drug density in her bloodstream.

Rei feels a brief twinge of an urge to refuse to answer the question. To not remain silence, or to give a bland 'I can't say'. It's a feeling not unlike the periodic stabs and twitches and cramps in her surgical wound, especially when it has been recently cleaned or when it is near the end of a medication's time frame.

Instead she replies. "I want to get one for Ikari as well."

An address comes. The phone wobbles on her leg for a moment. Her eyes turn down. There's a faint noise, not quite even a grunt, but a sound of what is likely pain.

"What are you playing?"

<Pose Tracker> Kaworu Nagisa has posed.

        Kaworu waits, as he always does, for Rei to work through her thoughts. Free will may be cruel at times, but it's something he values--something he wants to allow her to taste, if she so desires. They are the same, after all. As she sighs, as she feels that twinge to refuse to give an answer, the song comes to a climax, powerful and mournful and sweet even as it bitterly aches. She says she wants to get a journal for Ikari; the song quiets again, as if subdued by her truth.
        
        Any answer she would have given, or not given, he would have accepted. But... so she wants to share the same sort of gift with Shinji...
        
        "Did the two of you have a good talk after I left?" he asks, mild and congenial. This question doesn't require an answer. In some ways, it's better if she doesn't. "...Well, I'm glad that the two of you are growing closer."
        
        The last few notes roll, up and then down, up and then down, when Rei asks her own question. "The cry of my soul," he replies. "'No matter how afraid I am, I won't avert my eyes, so long as there is love at the end of everything.'"
        
        Though this voice actually belongs to someone else. But that person isn't the one who's here now, so it's irrelevant.
        
        Kaworu's hands still. The final note echoes through the night. A single petal flutters down and lands on his hand.
        
        "Do you have any requests, while I have you on the line?" he offers. "I'm confident in my ability to play most songs." A bit of warm humor enters his voice as he adds, "Perhaps I could play something for you to sing to, if you like."

<Pose Tracker> Rei Ayanami has posed.

It's cruel, but perhaps...

"Yes," Rei replies.

'I'm glad the two of you are growing closer.'

"Is that so?" Rei says - and it is something that she has learned, a stock phrase which she has deployed with almost mechanical efficiency in situations where it is simply impossible to go silent without presenting the image of someone who isn't simply 'remote and quiet'.

This time she means it...

... but then the music fades.

'Perhaps I could play something for you to sing to, if you like.'

"To sing..."

"... I don't know how," Rei says.

For some reason this is what makes her face warm in the dark breeze of her room in the city beneath the city.

<Pose Tracker> Kaworu Nagisa has posed.

        'Is that so?' she asks. It may simply be a stock phrase she has learned, to be brought out as a tool to use as a filler for when she knows not what else to say and silence alone is not an option. But:
        
        "It is," Kaworu replies simply, because he means it too.
        
        He smiles--well, he is usually smiling--when Rei admits she doesn't know how to sing. "That's all right," he says, affection audible in his voice. There's no need to be embarrassed, his tone says; what we can and can't do doesn't define us. "Please feel free to remember it for another time, if you ever choose to learn. For now..."
        
        He presses his fingers down in concerted chords, up, down, back, up, down back. "Let us start this time with this," he offers, and dances his hands into a new song. "To better appreciate the beautiful world."
        
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B_KrG51H2Js

<Pose Tracker> Rei Ayanami has posed.

He is gentle. Kind.

But why?

The feeling is not like the one with Ikari. As with the glasses-wearing girl. As with the two from Tsutsujidai. They are all a similar sensation, Rei reflects without forming thoughts of words, but there are differences. She can almost hold them in her hand.

Is it comradeship?

Comradeship would make sense. She thinks that Tsurugi has spoken on such things. Never, quite, by name; but the shape of them. With Ikari she has fought the Angels; and with the others too. Save the Second, but she is unpleasant; it is the only moment when she occurs in Rei's reverie.

A warm and cozy feeling. A gentle contrasting feeling. A flushed and familiar feeling. A -- what is it? Is it both of them? Hibiki or Takarada?

"I will," Rei says, but quietly. It could slip underneath a particularly emphatic note and go unheard.

He is outdoors, Rei thinks, reasons, derives from some quality that has finally reached a threshold of saturation.

"... Administrator," Rei says.

A second passes. Two. Perhaps three.

"... It might rain."

<Pose Tracker> Kaworu Nagisa has posed.

        Comradeship? Yes... That's what Kaworu would like it to be. The feeling of being of one race, one clan, one family. And at the same time, he is willing to trade away all of that so that Rei and Shinji can make each other happy. To offer them up to each other so they can have the closeness he craves with both.
        
        Kaworu will never gain happiness this way. But a large part of him is convinced he's not capable of gaining happiness, anyway.
        
        But she says, 'I will.' Kaworu smiles at the faint promise and keeps it in his heart for the future.
        
        As does her circumspect concern. "Are you worried about me? Thank you," he says warmly. "However, you don't need to. I won't catch a cold, and the piano has a covering to protect it from the weather. I can play for you as long as you care to listen."
        
        He seems quite confident he won't get sick. And he shows no sign of tiring as he plays.
        
        ...Perhaps next time, Rei will get to put in a request for the next song after all. He really will play for as long as she cares to listen, and perhaps even longer than that.

[OOC] Rei Ayanami says, "rei would listen for about 20 more minutes, and then say 'Good night' which I am saying aloud since it isn't good cinema!!" [OOC] Kaworu Nagisa says, "He'll play a few more NGE classics after that, like Fly Me To the Moon, and then some various classical pieces"