"G'bye, Pop! Make sure ya visit Mari-chan for me!"

The two boys watched the truck recede into the distance, finally disappearing behind a bend in the road. Silence overtook them. All around was the verdure of the post-Second Impact world, from one horizon of the hilly terrain to the other, and from the mountaintops to the seashore. Dozens of square kilometers of grass and grain, waving with grace at the breeze, were theirs to explore. A lazy stream flowed beneath the bridge down through a copse of trees, making its peaceful way to the new coastline of the Pacific Ocean.

Touji broke the silence with an excited yell. "Man alive! It is SO good to be out in the wilds again, y'know? I guess it's kind of different for you, you were out here with Ikari just a little while ago."

"A little while ago?" Kensuke laughed. "That was all the way back before the school trip. I have been DREAMING 'bout gettin' back out here. C'mon, let me show you where we're going to pitch the tents."

They fell silent again as they walked alongside the stream. Autumn was on the calendar, and still the air tasted fresh like spring. Newness, novelty. The stream bank was narrow and muddy, with only a few pebbles that had endured the trip through the foothills. Water-striders skimmed the more placid pools, while dragonflies hunted for larvae at the edge where the water met the land.

Presently, the two boys were underneath the pine trees. There was an odor of sap, strong like the Saturday afternoon sky. Kensuke pointed to a flat place between two trees a few steps away from the river. "I figure, if we clear off the needles from over there, we'll be able to make a fire pit safely. We can collect all the branches we need. And there's plenty of water from the stream...I've got iodine tablets to purify it."

"Sweet," Touji said. He set his backpack down by the side of a tree and walked over to the stream. "We got here just in time, too. I gotta take a major leak..."

"Touji!"

The young man turned to see his friend scowling at him. "How many times do I have to tell you, Touji-kun?" Kensuke snapped. "You don't pee in the river! You don't know if there's somebody downstream who uses the water for crops, or even for drinking."

Embarassed, Touji zipped up his fly. "'K, Dr. Health," he said, "where do you want me to go then?"

"I've told you that before, too. Twenty paces away from the nearest clean water source." Kensuke set down his own backpack and unzipped the top. "And let me know if you need to borrow my trowel, I've got it right here. Trowel, rations, rain gear, matche...aw, dammit! DAMMIT!"

"What now?"

"My camera! I TOTALLY FORGOT MY CAMERA!" Kensuke threw himself onto the ground in hysteria. "My sweet, sweet camera, how could I have been so foolish? I was charging all twenty of my batteries last night, and I left my camera to keep them company, and this morning when we were getting ready for school I left them all together in the basement. Oh, woe!"

"Oy." Touji lifted his friend off the ground by his shoulder. "It's not the end of the world or nothin', man. Heck, we'll remember this when we're old bats like my dad."

"But it isn't the same! It isn't the same! Our memories will grow old and feeble, and the facts will all twist themselves around and round, and soon it'll be nothing but a jumbled hodgepodge mishmash of sensory effluvium. Woe!" Kensuke howled. "Such is fate. A cinematographer's lot is not a happy one."

"And what the hell do you mean by 'woe', anyway?"

"It's what you're supposed to scream in a national emergency."

"Yeah, whatever." Touji let his hand fall from Kensuke's shoulder and turned away. "C'mon. The sooner we get started on cleaning up the campsite, the sooner you'll have y'camera off yer mind."

"I'll never get it off of my mind," Kensuke said glumly.

But Touji had been right. The simple details of getting the campsite ready soon cleared Kensuke's head. Setting up the pup tent took only minutes, and removing the flammable pine needles was just as easily accomplished. Finding rocks to line the fire pit, however, was more time-consuming. The necessity was soon lost on the boys as an exploratory urge took over. They wandered joyously and aimlessly across the grasslands below the road, joking and teasing each other, savoring the waning afternoon light.

Dusk was almost upon them by the time that the campsite was ready. Kensuke volunteered to light the fire and get a pot of rice going. "After all," he explained, "you were the one who lugged the rocks back here. It's the least I can do."

"Fine by me," Touji said with a smile. He wiped his forehead off on his sleeve. "Ey, yo. Can I clean myself up in the river, or is that off-limits too?"

"Here." Kensuke pulled out a small bath carry from his pack and tossed it to Touji. "Use this. You can fill it with water from the stream and wash yourself off over there."

"Uh-huh. And the green stuff is...soap?"

"Yeah! Biodegradable, good stuff." Still uncertain, Touji took the toiletries and his own towel and washcloth away from the campsite. For his part, Kensuke busied himself with the preparations for dinner, measuring water for rice and choosing a freeze-dried main course.

Dinner was underway by the time that there was a loud splash from the river. Kensuke looked up to see what the noise was, but in the darkness couldn't make out any details. His answer came a moment later when Touji spoke. "Hey, Ken? Get a load of this. The river's warm."

"Eh?"

"I mean, it's not hot springs warm or nothin', but it's still warm. Check it out."

Kensuke left his cooking post and went over to the river to see what Touji was talking about. The athlete was hunkered down in the stream. There wasn't enough water to get up to his knees; most of Touji was dry, but hidden by the shadow of night. He was looking at Kensuke expectantly.

The bespectacled boy put a hand down into the water. Sure enough, it was perceptably warmer than the air above. "Well, whaddaya know?" he said.

"Why d'you think that is?" Touji asked.

"I remember the Demon telling me that water loses its heat more slowly than the land does," Kensuke replied. "I guess the water from the stream got heated up during the afternoon...'cause we are on a south-facing hill...and now it's still warm."

Touji smirked. "Neato," he remarked. He rolled back down onto his rear end, planting his behind in the stream's base. He laughed. "Yep, feels pretty cold down there."

Kensuke said nothing. He was trying not to stare at Touji. Sure, he'd seen his best friend's body before--they'd been in gym class togther for years, and they'd even been to the public bath together. That didn't make it any less weird to see him naked. A quick glance told Kensuke that Touji was also developing both pectorals and hair on his chest--two things the smaller boy lacked and showed no progress towards. Was it really embarassment, Kensuke wondered, or was it envy? He couldn't answer his own question.

Touji was dried and dressed by the time that the rice and stew were cooked. The two ate in comfortable silence, comfort that became drowsiness as they filled up with their dinner. The two boys exchanged only a few token words as they broke out their sleeping bags and prepared for sleep. As the fire died to embers and the stream flowed along its bank, Kensuke and Touji drifted into slumber.

"Touji! Touji! Wake up!"

Touji's head snapped upright. Coated with adrenaline, his open eyes were still blind. He looked frantically about his unfamiliar surroundings. Next to him, sitting up as high as the tent would allow, Kensuke was struggling frantically to bring his friend to full consciousness.

"Touji! Stop it! You're just having a dream, that's all!"

"What? Wuh--what?"

Without his glasses, Kensuke was unable to see sensibility wash across his friend's face. "Touji, you were screaming something at the top of your lungs, I was afraid you were gonna knock over the damn tent. You awake now?"

"Ken? Kensuke?"

"Yeah, it's me, man."

Touji absently ran his hands up and down Kensuke's arms, as if uncertain as to how reestablish what was reality. Then he trusted in his senses again and spoke. "I was havin' a nightmare."

"Yeah, duh. You want to talk about it?"

"Don't know...where we were...couldn't see," Touji said softly. "Someplace big and dark. Me an' Mari. And then I looked up...and...it was huge..."

"What'd it look like?" Kensuke asked.

"It was Ikari. But...he was so huge...it was only his body, above, like, the hips. Big as a building."

The night around them was still. They could hear only each other's voices. Even the sound of Touji's frantic heart was an inarticulate within the confines of the tent. There was no way the two boys could know that everything outside the campsite was real and harmless. There was no way to know if there was anything anymore. Control had been lost to the darkness. Where there is no information, pain or pleasure, there is fear. And the night around them was still.

"He looked down at us, and he was as scared as we were. He didn't have no control over his body. It looked like it was all made out of tofu, or glue, or something...somethin' icky. Then he gets this look in his eyes...and slowly, God, I can't even tell you, he started to fall forward onto us...and one of his arms ruh- ruh-ripped out, right here, at the elbow..."

Touji was clutching Kensuke like a leaf clutches the branch of a tree, and he cried like the wind. Kensuke said nothing, staring at the hairs on the back of Touji's neck. The hairs were cut very short, and colored jet black.

"Mari started screaming, and I thought, I have to save her, I have to stop him from fallin' on us...I stood over her body, and I put up my arms to stop him, but when I touched him...his skin folded like dough. Like tofu. And then he started tearing open, while he was still falling, and it all started getting confusing, like if I kept up tearing him open he was gonna die, but if I moved he'd fall and he'd live but Mariko'd be squashed, and I'd lose her forever this time, and I didn't know what t'do, there wasn't no time, I..."

"...and then you woke up?"

"Yeah. 'thout havin' decided who to save."

"Don't think of it that way, Touji-kun," Kensuke said. He slipped an arm around his friend, wrapping the boy in an unlikely embrace. He smiled a little as Touji moved some of his weight onto the arm. Hidden away in his sleeping bag, Kensuke's penis was becoming erect. Up against his leg, lying in his body body heat, it felt very good; almost as good as being needed by a friend. "Your mind tricked you into believing you had to make a choice. You don't. Shinji-kun and Mari-chan both need you. You can be with them both."

"Yeah...I know. But..."

"But you believed you had to decide. Well, you don't." Kensuke gently coaxed Touji's head off of his shoulder and lifted up his face. The tears were fast drying, and hope once again lived in Touji's eyes. "It's all in your head. The sooner you forget about it all, the sooner it'll be done with."

"I guess. Yeah." Touji patted Kensuke's shoulders, then rolled onto his back and stared at the ceiling. "Jeez, what's come over me? Guess I'm losin' it."

"We're all losin' it, man," Kensuke replied. "I mean, c'mon. We got huge badass Angel monster things breathing down our necks every day. Who can blame you if you get a little messed in the head?"

"Good call. I see y'point. Yeah."

"There you go." Kensuke lay down beside his friend and stretched out. The erection was waning , and the only glow he felt now was of amity. "You'll be all right in the morning. And I promise not to tell anyone you let your imagination run away with you."

"Yeah? Promise?"

"A hundred per cent."

Laughing, once again confident, the two boys shook pinkies on the matter. They wished each other good night once again, then fixed their minds on slumber.

They rose with the sun. Above them, the mountaintops wore a halo of the dawn. Around them, the world slumbered. Pungent smoke mixed with the now- familiar pine. The morning's rice felt like fire in their bellies, and the two boys ate the whole pot together.

"Here's the plan." Kensuke was already dressed for the day in his combat fatigues and helmet. He was earnestly doodling in the dirt with a leftover branch from the woodpile. Touji wore his sleeping bag unzipped like a coat. "We're going to begin the morning by seizing the high ground. Moving south, we'll first take that hillock. That should give us an excellent vantage point from where we can decide how to fortify the southern range against future attacks. We'll then move up higher, to the top of the hills. We should be able to look down into the next valley from there. Question, Mr. Suzuhara?"

"Yeah, when are we gonna eat lunch?"

"We'll stop then. After that, we'll continue north along the ridge until we get to the head end of the valley. The road must cross the ridge at some point. We'll take the road back towards camp, and also figure out how we can fortify the beachhead down yonder against invasion. Any last questions?"

"Yeah, who are we fighting?"

"Today..." A steely gleam showed in Kensuke's eyes. "Today...we're fighting the CHINESE!"

"WHAT?" Touji lurched to his feet. "How DARE the Chinese try an' take over our sweet motherland? They got no right to it at all!"

"Yeah! Yeah!"

"Let's go GET 'EM!"

"Yeah!"

"After a little more breakfast."

"Excellent thinking, Mr. Suzuhara. We don't want the Chinese to get their grubby hands on our provisions, do we? Have a second helping."

"Thank you."

The two tired, footsore boys hobbled down the road together side by side. Their enthusiasm from the morning was all wasted away. In its place was a weary, blank look. It was the self-hypnosis from hearing footfall after footfall after footfall, each one accompanied by a constant ache. Their invisible enemies had retreated to the castles in the air they inhabited. The day's only remaining enemy was discouragement.

As they crossed the bridge and stepped down off the road towards the campsite, Touji and Kensuke found a dram more strength in their hearts. They leaned forward to make the most of inertia and broke into a kind of shambling run. Down the hillside, between the clods, through the trees and back to camp they staggered. By an unspoken accord, they were soon sitting in the stream, side by side, allowing the balmy spring water to flow across their withered limbs.

Touji was the first to speak. "That was...a lot...longer...than it looked like it was gonna be."

Kensuke nodded absently. "But we did it, didn't we?"

"We sure did."

The boy took his spectacles off his face and dabbled them in the stream. "Actually, we never quite made it down to the ocean..."

"Ah, let it be." Touji pulled his left foot up above his right knee and began to massage it. "Why would the Chinese attack the east coast first anyway?"

"To gain an element of surprise."

"Maybe we'd attack 'em from the west. They really wouldn't be expecting that, would they?"

"True." Kensuke lifted himself up off the stream bed and walked to where he had discarded his t-shirt. He wiped the water off of his glasses and replaced them on his face. The world around him snapped into focus. In the stream, Touji had switched over to his right foot. "Hey, Touji? What do you want to do about dinner?"

"We got those dried noodles, right?"

"Yeah, but that's not what I'm talking about. I mean, do you want to eat now, or when?"

His friend's reply was lost on Kensuke as Touji stretched out in the stream bed. The cool water had caused Touji's genitals to shrink up close to his body, concentrating them in one tight package. Kensuke stared at Touji's penis and testicles. There they were. It was such a mental leap between the idea and the fact. Suzuhara Touji's virility was only a meter or two away from him. All he had to do, to know, to be gratified, was to reach out and touch...

"Oy. Ken!"

"Eh?"

The two boys made eye contact. Touji smirked. "Sure you ain't still tired? You look kinda pink...didn't get sunburned, didja?"

"Uh...it's nothing." Kensuke hurridly turned away and added, "I'll start on dinner now." It would come as a surprise to few that Aida Kensuke secretly prided himself on his discipline, but many would be surprised to learn just how many-faceted a virtue he considered it to be. Kensuke believed that self-control and attentiveness would bring him many things in life: good grades, a place in the military, a job as a photographer, and even the graces of one Katsuragi Misato. But to achieve these things, Kensuke thought, he needed to control himself at all times; or else, his dreams would not come true. Now--on the cusp of discovering something new about himself--he could not afford to let himself plunge headlong into an emotional frontier.

There's a time for all things, he thought, and now is not that time.

Touji rolled onto his back and stared at the roof of the tent for a few minutes before he spoke. "I should've asked Shinji-kun if he wanted to go an' visit Mari today."

Beside him, Kensuke asked, "You worried about her?"

"Yeah...naw...not more than usual. It's just different." He looked over at his friend and added, "That nightmare I had last night...it's still bothering me."

"Uh-huh." Kensuke tried to sound sincere. He was honestly concerned for his friend's well-being. The hurt was plain in Touji's eyes. Those black eyes looked beautiful when he was wounded. I guess it's OK if I find him good- looking, Kensuke thought. There's no harm in that.

After a few long moments, Touji closed his eyes. "I don't wanna go to sleep just yet," he said quietly. "Talk to me."

"About what?"

"I dunno. Anything."

Things were on his mind, but Kensuke remained in control of his heart. "What's the story with you and inchou?" he asked.

"Nothin' new."

"Really?" Kensuke was surprised. "I thought you promised yourself over break you were gonna ask her out."

"I didn't," Touji said sullenly. "I got cold feet. That's it."

Kensuke paused to let it sink in, then said, "Sorry."

Touji continued a moment later. "I don't get it. Me an' her. I mean, I like her an' all that...I think she's good looking...

"But the truth is, Kensuke, I can't imagine actually going out on a date with her."

Kensuke sat up in his sleeping bag. "Really? Jeez, man...I thought you had the whole thing planned out."

"I did! I did! And then the more I got to thinking about it, the more...it's like, there's some kind of an invisible wall or somethin' between us. The closer I get to her...I just feel...out of place. Artificial. I mean, I could imagine me goin' out with Misato-san before I went out with Horaki."

Kensuke swallowed very hard, listened to the sound of his heart pounding in between his ears, and then spoke. "Touji...have you...ever...'cause I've thought about it, y'know...thought about...whatitwouldbelike...to...dateaguy?"

He had just enough time to regret the question when Touji replied. "Kinda...I've thought about it. And..." He chuckled. "It's weird. I'd feel good about it. If it was a guy who wasn't like me...maybe I'd feel better about being in love with someone who I could compete with, rather than compete against. Does that sound freaky to you?"

"No!" Kensuke blurted out. And in that moment, he realized he had squandered his discipline. Touji was looking at him. The night around them was still. All that there was for Aida Kensuke to do was to take responsibility for his actions...and he didn't understand how to. He didn't have a clue.

Going on blind faith, Kensuke raised his head and shoulders up out of the sleeping bag. Next to him, Touji wasn't moving and almost looked calm. Kensuke tilted his head to one and gazed down into the black eyes. "Touji-kun," he said softly, "I just gotta know." He closed his eyes and leaned forward.

There was no electricity when they kissed, no fireworks. There was only calm fulfillment. It was the feeling of the stream flowing into the river flowing into the ocean. It was the feeling of the embers reaching peace below the night sky. It was magical, make no mistake; the kiss was like the final syllables of a ten- thousand-line incantation, spoken to a single candle.

Their imago kisses were exchanged, and then they were arm in arm together, breathing in perfect, beautiful rhythm, sitting upright in the tent.

"Where do we go from here?" the young soldier asked.

"I don't know," his brother in arms replied. "I'm scared, but...I can't go back. I don't wanna. I...want more of this. That's the only thing I know."

"Touji...I'm not ready for...you know...it...yet."

"Me neither. I just...I just didn't realize how lonesome I was. You've always been my friend, but this is superhuman."

"I want to be more than your friend." Kensuke pulled away from Touji. His eyes were watering as he went on. "Touji-kun, I don't know if this is love or what, but I want more times like this..."

"Me too. Ken, I promise you, I won't let you down. I have to know too."

They remained like that for a few moments longer before they lay down beside one another again. "We're gonna talk again tomorrow morning," Touji said. "I need to think about what all o' this means."

Kensuke nodded. Then he added, "Hey, Touji...you were right about the camera."

"Mm? Whaddaya mean?"

He smiled. "I'm not going to forget this weekend. Not ever."

"Yeah. Me neither." They shared the joke together.

Copyright 2004 Daniel Snyder. Permission granted to distribute in any digital/binary/e-mail format; however, any physical printout is strictly prohibited. Based on characters created by GAINAX. Shin Seiki Evangelion/Neon Genesis Evangelion is the intellectual property of and copyrighted by GAINAX, adapted by Sega of America, AD Vision and Viz Comics for North America. Any resemblance to persons living or deceased is purely coincidental.