2023-09-09: Rule of Three
- Log: Rule of Three
- Cast: Rei Ayanami, Mari Makinami Illustrious
- Where: Kaworu, Mari & Rei's Apartment, Tokyo-3
- OOC - IC Date: September 9, U.C. 0097
- Summary: As her dinner for the Ikari family grows closer, Rei seeks advice from her roommate; Mari supplies it in the best way she can.
<Pose Tracker> Rei Ayanami has posed.
The residence of Rei Ayanami and her friends -- for can we not say, now, that they are friends? -- is in some ways spare, and barren, and cool. But barrenness can bring simplicity, and in Japan, cool air can be a pleasure for half of the year.
It is a weekend and nothing in particular has occurred. No actions, no synch tests in the current period, no emergency maneuvers. War no doubt grips the Earth Sphere somewhere, but not here. Even the emergency crews may be taking it easy. It's a great time to curl up with a book.
Unless...
And until...
There is a sudden RAP RAP RAP at the doorway into the largest bedroom. What might be called the master bedroom; it certainly has the best light, the most floorspace, and a private door into the shared and generally not heavily used bathroom. (Sometimes the occupants enjoy a long and private soak. So it goes.)
"I need you," comes a voice at the door.
Rei Ayanami.
When the door is opened - and if left without response for more than a few seconds, Rei will open it anyway - there is, revealed, Rei Ayanami still wearing the apron she wears when she is cooking. Before her is a tray. Upon the tray are three half-sized portions of pasta, each covered with a distinguishably distinct sauce.
There is a fork set on its own saucer, atop a napkin.
Rei does not immediately explain her actions.
<Pose Tracker> Mari Makinami Illustrious has posed.
Tokyo-3 is a very quiet place when it is not on the verge of existential collapse.
It's a sharp contrast, these peaceful days. Where you can hear the tymbal buzz of cicadas in the trees, where the cool breeze of the outside world wafts placidly across wood and tile. Where every minute feels like ten, and every hour an age.
Some might call it stir crazy.
Mari Makinami Illustrious calls it perfect.
For as much as the flighty, bespectacled pilot of NERV seems to thrive in the frenetic and fraught environment of Evangelion piloting, she seems shockingly at home here at - well - home. Back on her bed's mattress, lower body tilted up to rest against the headboard, Mari - despite her eclectic resting position - seems quite at peace in the mundanity as she slowly flips through page after page of the current book capturing her attention out of the very likely literal hundreds walling off significant portions of her spacious room. She looks lost in a reverie, even, absorbed into the world her book paints for her vivid imagination.
It isn't the knocks that stir her from that reverie, then; they're not nearly enough. No;
I need you.
It's the voice that breaks her book's spell on her, directing her upside-down gaze towards her closed door with climbing brows.
"Oho," she croons. "The magic words~."
Rei will here the soft sound of a "yohp!" and something making a gentle but weighted impact on the floor; seconds later, that door cracks open and then widens all the way as Mari reveals herself, turning with the rotation of the door until she is comfortably leaning her shoulder against it, a book labeled 'THE GOLDEN BOUGH' resting on the crook of her elbow as she tilts forward -just- so to peer at the dishes in triplicate resting on Rei's tray.
A cattish curl at her lips and curiosity in her eyes, she whistles.
"Well, what do we have here?"
<Pose Tracker> Rei Ayanami has posed.
And with the magic words comes the opening of the portal and the revelation.
The pasta steams.
"Pasta," Rei explains, even as she blinks once. Her eyes flick to the spine of Mari's book for a moment, but the name is meaningless to her.
"I don't know what would taste the best," Rei continues.
"Ikari wants to know the Commander better... I said that I would have them both for supper," Rei continues. After a moment, she seems to restate her premise: "That I would hold, a dinner, and that they should both attend. Then they could speak."
Rei's eyes turn upwards now towards Mari.
The tray is lifted slightly. *Imploringly.*
"Tell me which is best."
The pasta sauces have been made in small batches, and the fact that Rei has made use of her tomatoes - the orange, lower-acid variety that she preferred to grow in her great and gently-fragrant vines - means that what might evoke the flag of old Italy instead evokes Ireland.
First, a classical marinara; primarily tomato, crushed but with a texture remaining, alongside fine-chopped onion. A sauce that brings the essence of the vegetable to the fore.
In the middle, something with cream. It smells of garlic, perhaps a little too much, and Mari can discern flecks of crushed black pepper within as well. Rich, perhaps, but doubtless something that would fortify one against the cold.
Finally, a rich green. Pesto sauce, made with fresh basil - though not so fresh as to have been grown here. (Perhaps next year.)
All of them are spread on slightly rough-looking flat noodles. Mari may have seen the simple machinery of a pasta maker in passing, coming up and down. Even for Rei, who has few expenses, it must have been a thing of some cost.
<Pose Tracker> Mari Makinami Illustrious has posed.
Ikari wants to know the Commander better...
Mari Makinami Illustrious' eyes hood behind red-rimmed glasses.
"Mm."
She listens. To Rei's explanation, to her request. She's already glimpsed the pasta -- she's seen Rei at work, even, off and on. After all, an inquisitive mind can't help inquiring, directly or indirectly.
A soft exhale escapes her lips.
"Gendo-kun, huh."
It's a familiar name for a man Rei refers to in formalities. But if there's a window to wonder, it is vanishingly thin as Mari straightens out, tosses her book behind her to land with a perfectly pristine position on the bed, and loops that freed arm around Rei's shoulders.
"Nope. The setting's not right, Vanilla Bean," she denies, but with the caveat-- "If we're gonna do this, we're gonna do this right. With atmosphere! And so our intrepid hero and her loyal sidekick took off, to--"
OUTSIDE
THE TERRACE
It's a quaint, tiny little slice of a thing, the apartment building's roof terrace. There's only a couple plastic chairs. A single bench. An aging table. But it's usually empty. It looks out over the slightly damaged landscape outside Tokyo-3.
And it's enough.
Here at the bench Mari Makinami Illustrious sits, one long leg crossed over the other, tray resting comfortably in her lap. The sun has begun to slowly sink past the horizon, casting its dying colors across the skies in smears of pink and orange and purple.
The fork spears into the very first of the three offerings as Mari speaks.
"So. Is this something you want to do for Puppy Boy's sake? Or for Gendo-kun's?"
<Pose Tracker> Rei Ayanami has posed.
Rei's head tilts five degrees as Mari refers to the Commander in such terms.
It's not that it's inaccurate, of course. Rei knows his full, legal name is Gendo Ikari - how could she not? Rarely has anyone referred to him by his personal name in Rei's presence, of course, but it has happened. (Sometimes her neck hurts a little.)
"Understood," Rei says, turning after Mari -
- and it's as if she simply had the world change around her as she steps up the stairs to the rooftop terrace, with its glittering bubble-like view over the other apartments, all of which have terrace spaces much like the airy living room that for them holds a grand piano and a rich array of tomato vines, even if the latter may be showing their age.
Rei moves forwards, carrying the tray with duty.
Rei's head tilts to the other side, the same amount. Mari gets a dual blink - blink blink - and a look that doesn't comprehend.
Mari might be pleased to see that Rei is visibly thinking through it.
"For both of them," Rei says.
"The Commander is alone," Rei says, and that seems to be that, because she moves on to Shinji: "And Ikari is very sad, I think. It pleased him to hear from his father. They do not speak often. I know that he had been sent away."
<Pose Tracker> Mari Makinami Illustrious has posed.
The points of a fork sink into homemade pasta. The swivel of its handle slowly captures noodles and marinara and between its tines as Rei Ayanami considers the question laid out before her.
It only finishes gathering them up by the time that Rei has finally come to an answer that she is satisfied with.
For both of them, Rei says.
A gathering of sauce and noodles reaches smiling lips seconds before they part to sample them.
"Hohh."
As if the answer to the question was a requirement before she tried that sample of pasta, Mari only starts to taste once Rei's given it; she looks pleased, though whether that's with the answer, or the dish, or both, is freely open to interpretation in those moments where she says nothing and simply savors.
The fork turns between the deft sequential flick of fingers as Mari swallows, and considers.
"What else do you know about them, Vanilla Bean?"
Once again, with the asking of that second question, Mari catches the fork between her fingers and spears it casually into the second dish.
<Pose Tracker> Rei Ayanami has posed.
Rei's cooking, as always, is...
'Good, I guess.'
She cooks well. But is there heart there? Sometimes it shines through. (More often with pizza, or the flatbreads with toppings which bear little resemblance to the product you can buy at the Pizza-la.) Shinji's is finer, or at least more diverse.
Rei blinks, but once, at the question.
Considering.
"They are both men," Rei offers as an initial sally.
"They are involved in Evangelion operations. They are father and son. They are not close; since Ikari was very small, they were separated. For the sake of the Eva project, I think." She thinks, but she does not know.
Rei's hands fold as Mari samples the pasta. "... I had rarely thought to ask."
Time passes, gently.
"The Commander enjoys beef," Rei extends. She says it neutrally, but in a somewhat cooler neutral than usual.
"He hurt himself for me."
"I suppose I cannot think of more."
<Pose Tracker> Mari Makinami Illustrious has posed.
Good, I guess.
Mari likes it;
it's a style that's still finding itself.
What's not to love about that?
It's a perfect reflection of its cook, who starts out an answer to Mari's with coldcut surface facts before delving just deeper enough.
For the sake of the Eva project, I think.
Thinks, but does not know.
"Hum."
It's an answer that's still finding itself.
All the same, it seems to be an acceptable one to Mari; she brings her second sample to her lips, and slurps it up with languid flourish. Flopping back against the bench, she takes her time to enjoy it just as much as she did the last, letting Rei further amend her answer with the facts of Commander Ikari and his love of beef and his sacrifice for her. Lidded eyes roll towards Rei, considering her as she reaches that conclusion.
"That isn't exactly why," Mari begins, tracing her steps back toward that answer that Rei thought, but didn't know. "Because of the Eva Project, maybe, but it was for the sake of something else."
She speaks with the rare weight of experience that she shouldn't rightly have, seconds before her fork taps the edge of that third, final dish.
"But if you want to know the answer to that, there's only one way to really know. Which brings us to our last question!"
The rule of threes is sacrosanct, after all.
"Do you want to know more about them?"
In other words...
Is Rei doing this just for them,
or for herself, too?
<Pose Tracker> Rei Ayanami has posed.
Rei waits. She waits easily and comfortably; she is very talented at it. She has put in a lot of practice in a lot of time. Marking time. Waiting. Something will come. It's taken longer than she had thought it might, but that's alright. The journey isn't unpleasant at all.
Rei blinks as Mari speaks.
Rei trusts what Mari says. Months of co-residence and months of interaction beforehand have done so. Y et it is a surprise; Mari can see it in the slight widening of her eyes. She can tell, too, that however reserved she may be, however like a simple bean, this has intrigued her.
"Yes," Rei answers, without thinking.
There is a momentary frown as if she might be checking herself, examining her motives. Feeling out what she said. Was it true? Was it honest? And it seems that it was; because she does not know the Commander, in the way, it would seem, that Mari does.
"The Commander is important to me. I want to be closer to Ikari."
<Pose Tracker> Mari Makinami Illustrious has posed.
Flat noodles spin 'round the eloquent dance of Mari's fork as it pirouettes across the pasta dish. Rei's answer comes immediately, and Mari's eyebrows rise a good fraction's inch, but doesn't say anything.
She lets Rei examine the motives behind that instinctive response in peace and quiet, blue gaze turning towards the sunset-painted skies.
Yes. Because...
The Commander is important to me. I want to be closer to Ikari.
Mari smiles as she tries that last dish, feeling the taste. It's taken longer, but it's okay. Sometimes a journey is necessary to come to the right answer.
Some time the long path is what you need to really find what you were looking for.
Mari Makinami Illustrious swallows, and sighs, head tilting back until the back of it bumps against the bench.
"Atta girl," she proclaims. "Just remember -- whatever you find in the process of learning more about them is worthwhile because you made the choice to learn it. It, and the way you respond to it, will become part of the rich flavor that is 'Rei Ayanami.'"
And then? She pats the open space besides her on the bench, as if inviting Rei to join her.
"Alright! Come here, come here. I've come to a decision. Wanna hear it~?"
<Pose Tracker> Rei Ayanami has posed.
Spin, spin. Gather, gather. Bring all together as one.
The answers weren't quite the same, were they?
Rei shifts herself in her seat. She does something that she doesn't do often; one leg comes up and crosses over the other. As she does it, she leans back, a little.
Comfort? But with what? Or who, perhaps.
Whatever she finds will be worthwhile, because she made the choice to do it.
"Do you think that it happens," Rei asks Mari, "when the action is performed, or when the decision to make the action is performed?"
But then her head tilts, not just five degrees, but EIGHT degrees to the left at the question of what pasta is the best one. "Yes," Rei says.
Why not? She asked.
<Pose Tracker> Mari Makinami Illustrious has posed.
"It happened when the seed of desire was planted in your heart, Vanilla Bean."
It's a rare thing, the pose Rei adopts. There's something more comfortable about it; more relaxed.
Something familiar, but also, different.
Like when you see a child echoing the action of a parent and you think, 'well, aren't they just the spitting image?'
Maybe it's that thought which brings a fond if bittersweet smile to Mari's lips as her gaze turns from the comfortable sight of Rei to the heavens above.
"You're different now, just for wanting it. Aren't you? It's a part of you that you didn't know was there before. You can't just forget it now. You can't just lose it. Maybe there'll come a day when Gendo-kun isn't quite so important to you. Maybe there'll be a day where Puppy Boy is far from your thoughts. Or maybe your feelings for both of them will intensify!" Mari's shoulders lift, in the ultimate 'who knows!' of hapless gestures.
"But it doesn't change the fact that it was there, once. That you wanted it, once. And that has worth."
Mari's eyes squeeze shut; the smile on her lips now is a gentle, serene thing, as she just enjoys the feeling of the breeze against her skin. She sets that fork aside.
"There's a lot more discoveries like that for you to make, Rei Ayanami."
And that arm drapes across Rei's shoulders, offering the gentlest squeeze.
"It deepens the flavor profile of my Vanilla Bean in ways that can never be replicated, or replaced."
But now, the answer. To get an answer, one needs to ask a question. To know more, you have to seek more. Mari considers for a second. And then:
"Between these three dishes," she begins,
and then she taps the index finger of her free hand against the third dish, the pesto affair with hints of fresh-enough basil.
"... This one's the best. But here's my suggestion to you, Vanilla Bean: consider the way you answered those questions, each one. Consider everything you know about Gendo-kun, and Puppy Boy. Consider the things you want to communicate to them the most. And then decide on the best flavor."
She looks sidelong towards Rei, sharing a conspiratorial smile.
"Who knows? Maybe the answer you find won't even be on this tray at all!"
The rule of three is sacrosanct. If Rei chooses the one Mari picked, that's worthwhile too.
But sometimes you get the best results from engaging in a bit of heretical rule breaking.
<Pose Tracker> Rei Ayanami has posed.
Desire. A strange thing. A poison, perhaps.
But it's all about the dosage.
"Yes," Rei says, about being different for wandering. Her brow furrows at the rest of what Mari says, as if it held some obscure insult, far from mortal but enough to notice. Perhaps to pique her. Her legs do not uncross.
She must not know, thinks Rei. For some reason, she thinks of Tetsuya Tsurugi's infant child.
The arm comes round her shoulder, and Rei's head tilts down. Where no one can see, perhaps there is a wry smile. That obscure momentary prick of offense, you see, was on behalf of the Commander; and perhaps she can understand it, in its way.
After all, Rei thinks: She must not know.
Mari, then, indicates the green. The pesto sauce - the rich and vegetative growth. The food that is not something familiar. The one that is neither red, nor blue, nor even purple. Rei reaches down to dip a finger in a stray space where sauce came to rest on the side of the dish, putting it in her mouth afterwards.
"I think I know what to do," Rei says. Her head turns now, to look at Mari straight on, the ghost of that smile on her face, and perhaps more meaningfully, in her eyes.
"... Thank you."
<Pose Tracker> Mari Makinami Illustrious has posed.
She must not know.
At the very least, Mari lets that brief pique rest where it lies without comment, catching just the glimpse of it from the corner of her gaze. She just memorizes the moment, before her gaze turns towards the sky as it deepens from evening towards night.
She must not know.
Right?
Rei tastes the sauce. She comes to her conclusion. And in at least this much, she finds resolve in the answer that Mari provides. And as the blue-haired girl finally looks her way with that smile, Mari glances back with a grin of her own. It's as fond as the way her hand squeezes Rei's shoulder.
"Any time, Vanilla Bean," she says, sincerely, certain that there will be more.
"I know whatever you do...
"It's gonna be great."