No spoilers here, on the timeline, it would be set around Shinji’s birthday, but I don’t really know when that is.

Genre: Warm and Fuzzy, kissy kissy, love abound.

SHINJI’S BIRTHDAY PARTY

By the Wonderful Me 1999

Shinji watched the candle flames flickering on his friends faces. Misato, Touji, Kensuke, Asuka, Hikari, Rei, Kaji, and Ritsuko sat around the boy on the bamboo mat. They all sat there, staring at him, waiting.

Shinji’s stomach fluttered to be the centre of attention. He stared down at the cake. Misato had made it herself, or at least tried to. The icing was a mess. Shinji hoped the inside wasn’t as bad as the outside. "Happy birthday, Shinji" was written in messy Japanese.

"C’mon, Shinji, hurry up and make a wish!!" Misato said impatiently.

Shinji bit his lip. A wish? For what?

"Just blow out the damn candles!" Asuka said, crossing her arms.

"Okay, here goes," Shinji said, and blew out the fifteen candles in one blow. He looked back up, smiling uncertainly.

"yeeeeeeEEEAAAAAAHHHHHH!!!!!" Misato screamed, crushing a beer can with one hand. She reached for another.

"It’s about time!" Asuka exclaimed.

"Well done, birthday boy!" Touji said, slapping Shinji’s back. "Now that wasn’t so hard, was it??"

Shinji shrugged his shoulders. "What’s the point of all this?"

"It just gives us something to do," Kensuke said, then held his camera up. "Now say, konnichiwa, dude!!"

Shinji shoved the camera out of his way. "I don’t feel like it."

"Aw, that’s not the spirit, Shinji!" Misato said. Then a sly grin slowly spread across her face. "A party isn’t a party without a game of…spin the bottle!!!"

Unhappy faces were plastered on everyone except Misato and Rei as Misato placed an empty beer bottle in the middle of the circle.

"Since you’re the birthday boy, Shinji, you go first." Misato said, shoving between Ritsuko and Kaji.

Shinji reached for the bottle and gave it a little spin. He held his breath as the mouth of the bottle turned to Touji, then Kensuke, then Asuka, then Hikari, then Rei…and stopped. Shinji’s eyes widened and a red blush started to spread across his face.

"C’mon, Shinji, kiss her!" Misato said, finishing off another can of beer. Her face had turned slightly red now.

"It’s the rules." Ritsuko said.

Shinji looked over at Rei, who was sitting quietly opposite of him.

"Yeah, go for it, Shinji!!!" Touji grinned wolfishly.

"Uh…" Shinji murmured as he bent over toward Rei. "…uh…" He could feel his face getting hotter.

Rei suddenly bent over and their lips brushed sooner than expected.

Wolf whistles and laughter echoed through the room as Shinji took his place back in the circle.

"Yeah! Go Shinji!" Misato yelled and passed out next to the pile of beer cans which had accumulated next to her.

Everyone was silent.

Kaji stood up. "Well, I guess I should take her to her room."

"And I should be leaving now. I have some work to do." Ritsuko said, grabbing her purse.

With that, the grown ups departed, leaving the children in the living room.

"Didn’t you say you were going to try to get Kaji away from Misato?" Hikari said to Asuka as the two edged their way from the boys.

"I will!" Asuka said, sticking out her bottom lip. "You just watch!"

Asuka got up from the floor and headed to Misato’s room. The door suddenly opened and Kaji stepped out.

Asuka slapped a sweet smile on her face. "Kaji, can I please speak to you?"

"I can’t right now, Asuka." Kaji said. "I have some work to do back at NERV."

Asuka paused as the door slid open and Kaji left.

"AAAAARRRRGGGGHHH!!!!!!!!! He didn’t even listen to what I had to say!!!"

Hikari grinned. "There, there, Asuka. Look, don’t set your sights so high. Kaji’s twice as old as you."

"I don’t care! Age doesn’t matter." Asuka said, crossing her arms.

"Why don’t you go for someone your age?" Hikari said, glancing at Shinji.

"Are you kidding??? That wimp?!" Asuka shrieked.

Hikari burst out laughing. Asuka frowned. "Say, why don’t I see you do anything about your little crush???"

Hikari paused. "…No!"

A sly grin spread across Asuka’s face. "Come on, Hikari. You can do it. Or are you too…CHICKEN?????"

Hikari gasped. "No! I’m not chicken! I can do it!"

"Watcha gonna do??" Asuka said. "Huh??"

"I’ll figure something out!" Hikari said, a determined look set on her face. "You watch me!"

With that, she stomped off.

"Hey, Touji, look at that!" Kensuke said, pointing his camera behind Touji.

"Hm? What?"

The three boys stared at Asuka and Hikari bickering.

"What’s so interesting about that dog and the Class Rep?" Touji said, turning back around.

"Gee, wonder what they’re talking about! Hikari looks pissed off," Kensuke said. "It looks even funnier when you can’t hear what they’re saying!"

Shinji looked at the two girls. "Uh…Hikari’s coming this way."

"And she looks kinda angry," Kensuke said.

Hikari stopped behind Touji. "Touji!"

Touji stopped, slowly turning around. "Wha…What do you want?"

Hikari suddenly brought her face down onto his, and their lips brushed together.

"Oh my god! What a haul!" Kensuke screamed, holding his camera up.

Touji’s stomach fluttered. What the hell’s happening here???

Hikari’s lips wrapped around his and a warm fuzzy feeling surrounded him. Hikari closed her eyes.

Asuka’s eyes went wide. SHE’S REALLY DOING IT!!! Oh my god, how can she actually KISS that pervert?!?

Kensuke chuckled. "They’re going for the world record!"

Hikari’s breaths tickled Touji’s nose. This was strange. He didn’t mean strange in a yucky way, but it was nice. Like it made sense, though it didn’t really, why Hikari had just suddenly decided to come up and kiss him like that. Then why wasn’t he resisting?

Perhaps because…

Hikari opened her eyes, breaking from the kiss. She could feel Touji’s hand on the back of her neck and the two stared at each other for a while.

The room was silent.

At that moment, panic and nervousness finally overtook Touji. "Oh my god! Oh my god!" He shrieked, pulling his hand away.

Hikari’s eyes widened with a sudden realization of what she had just done. "Ech!!"

Asuka, Kensuke, and Shinji broke out into laughter.

Rei stared at the rest of her friends. What a strange night. It makes me wonder why I came. She glanced at Shinji, remembering the kiss.

Shinji stopped laughing, his eyes turning to Rei. Then they quickly darted away.

Rei’s heart fluttered. Strange.

It was getting close to 11pm now, and the children lay about the living room talking quietly.

Shinji glanced over at Rei, sitting by herself. Why is she so recluse? "Rei?"

Rei looked up. "What is it?"

The rest of the group became silent.

"Why don’t you come and sit here with us?"

Quietly, Rei got up and sat beside Shinji on the bamboo mat.

Touji cleared his throat. "Uh…it’s kind of late. I better go. What about you Kensuke?"

"I can stay a bit longer." Kensuke replied.

"I have to get going too," Hikari said. "or else I’ll get chewed out for staying out so late."

They followed Touji and Hikari to the door, and said good bye.

Touji and Hikari stood a few feet apart as the door slid closed behind them. Touji cleared is throat again. "So you walking home?"

Hikari nodded. "Yep."

"I’ll go with you. It’s dangerous to be walking home alone at night time."

Hikari smiled, her heart fluttering. "Sure,"

The two walked around the corner and toward the elevator. And, to Touji it made sense, slipped his hand in hers.

"Well it is late, see ya later, buddy!" Kensuke said, picking up his camera and heading for the door.

"Bye." Shinji said. He pressed the button and closed the door behind Kensuke and turned around. Hm…I wonder where Asuka went.

It was now just him and Rei left. Shinji sat back beside her.

Uh…the End???

As you can see, I stuttered a bit at the end because I didn’t really know how to end it. But this isn’t the best story I’ve written. So why the hell am I putting it up on the net??? Anyway, what did you think? If you think any characters are out of line, or there’s something terribly wrong with it, you can email comments to: hienglao@hotmail.com and I’ll make everything better!

And here’s my Neon Genesis Evangelion site:

www.oocities.org/Tokyo/Field/3497

Hey look, the numbers at the end are the same, but in different ways!! How weird is that???

-Hieng.