Disclaimer: Studio Gainax animation is the sole owner to the rights of Evangelion. I own no privileges to anything currently, (probably never will) and will understandably remove, edit, or delete my writings if needed, rather than getting into a mess dealing with copyright infringement. Everyone has enough of their own troubles as it is. Authors Notes: This is my very first fanfic, and if the reviews are acceptable, others may follow. Up until last week I had absolutely no intention of ever writing a fanfic. However, when you have a combined round trip of 22 hours on a plane to Japan and back here to Dallas, one can start to do things out of boredom they never even considered of before. Just to let the reader know before hand, this is a Romance/Waff triangle story revolving around S/A/R but only one couple gets together in the end. Of course, I'm not at liberty to say which one, for that would take away the suspense of the fanfic. Hope you enjoy! Chapter 1 - The Kiss: "Dammit! I'm not going to kiss her!!!" "You have to! You lost!" Shinji was trying to argue his way out of the losing end of a bet that he had made with Touji, but was having no such luck. His mind was racing, thinking up of as many reasons as he could to deter his friend's persistence. Sadly, Shinji already knew that he would have to go through with what he promised, but before that happened he was going to delay the inevitable as long as he could. "You already knew that Hikari would say yes if you asked her out because you talked to her yesterday on the phone about it!" Touji grinned. "Well, if I remember correctly, I just said that if I asked Hikari out, you would have to kiss Rei." Kensuke nodded and turned to look at his distressed friend. "He's right Shinji. Touji didn't mention anything about having to tell you that he already talked to Hikari before hand." Shinji took an exasperated breath and shook his head. "But he had an unfair advantage over me!" Touji just laughed. "Considering you're an Eva pilot, that would have been the last thing I expected to hear." At that moment, the lunch bell decided to make itself heard and Shinji knew that his time was up. He looked at his friends, trying to see some look of compassion in their eyes. He found none. Instead his so-called "friends" were basically dragging him to class. Shinji mentally kicked himself, not believing that he could've been so stupid to fall for such a trick. He should have been suspicious as to why Touji seemed so confident and now as a result of his own ignorance, he was paying a very high price. The three walked towards the classroom, or rather two of the three, one being dragged, and stood just outside of the classroom, waiting until it filled up before entering. Still being held in what felt like a death grip, Shinji managed to stick his head past the door and take a quick glance around the room, hoping that this would be one of the days where Rei would be absent from class. He sighed in disappointment when he saw her, sitting in her usual 'looking out the window' position. "Great..." ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ After Hikari had done her "stand, bow, sit" routine, Kensuke and Touji finally let him go and walked into the classroom. Hikari turn her head towards the group and gave them a flustered look, a look that probably said, "Why are you guys late?!". Touji just gave her a smile and gestured towards Shinji with his hand. Shinji quickly started to head towards his desk, but the hand of Touji Suzuhara pushed him out to the front of the classroom. Both taking a seat at their own desks, Touji and Kensuke just looked at Shinji, bright smiles on their faces. Still standing, Shinji looked around he room, noticing that practically every pair of eyes in the class were focused on him. Taking a deep breath, he forced his legs to move and walked slowly up to Rei's desk. Finally hovering close to her, Shinji took a look one last time around the room, hoping that the student body had turned their attention away from him. On the contrary, now everyone was staring at him. As his eyes searched the room, he let out a small sigh of relief at seeing the empty desk where Asuka usually sat. Considering his situation already, it was good luck within bad luck that the redhead had decided she would be 'sick' today. If she had been here...well... Shinji didn't even want to begin to think about it. Blinking his eyes, he turned his gaze away and looked at the blue haired girl in front of him. 'Here goes nothing' he thought. "Rei?" She turned her head away from the window and looked up at Shinji. "Yes Pilot Ikari?" Hesitating for just a second, he bent over and his lips met with hers. The class gasped, catcalls were heard, people whistled - essentially ...the room became total chaos. "Shinji, you lucky bastard..." "When did you guys ever hook up?" "Way to go man!" "Damn! Who would've thought that? " "Have you guys done it yet?" Questions and comments filled the room in an instant to the point where Shinji couldn't even make out any of the sentences they said due to the sheer volume. However, as shocked as the class was at this revelation, they were even more so when their attention shifted specifically to Rei. Her eyes went wide and her cheeks flushed with a deep crimson red. The students who knew the girl would say that they probably never saw her show any kind of emotion before, much less one this obvious. Trying to tune out the class, Rei broke the kiss and turned away towards the window again, her face still flushed. Shinji basically jumped towards his desk, wondering what the hell he'd just done. Enjoying this moment, Kensuke and Touji just looked at each other a big smirk on each of their faces. To put their friend in this situation was one thing, but to put Shinji Ikari, the Eva Pilot who defeated demonic angels once and again, the same Shinji Ikari who couldn't defend himself from the barrage of questions coming from his classmates, was quite something else. Oddly enough, the sensei, with his back turned to the students the entire time, was still continuing to give his lecture, oblivious to what all was happening .... ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ After having told the sensei about the 'events' during class today, Hikari had to assign both Shinji and Rei for clean up duty that afternoon. Since the sensei did not actually see these events, he considered that he couldn't be a fair judge as to what disciplinary action to take, so trusting the class representative, he let her choose the repercussion. Knowing that Shinji wouldn't have done anything so rash by himself, clean up duty seemed like the most lenient thing she could do. However, something else bothered her. After seeing Shinji do what he did today, should she tell Asuka what happened? Even though the redhead said that she didn't like Shinji, her own feminine instincts told her otherwise. How would her best friend react to the news? Would, she be sad? Angry? Jealous? Both? Should she even tell her? Either way, she thought, Shinji would be receiving the sharp end of the spear from Asuka. Giving Rei her mop and bucket, Hikari walked over to Shinji and pulled him outside of the classroom. "What the heck were you doing today?" Hikari whispered. He sighed, turning his gaze to the floor. "Isn't it pretty obvious?" Hikari raised an eyebrow. "Do I detect some sarcasm?" Shinji blushed. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to sound rude ... it's just that today's been rather ... hectic." Hikari's gaze softened. "I understand. So, what made you decide to kiss her, huh?" Shinji blushed even harder. "I um ... well ... you see ...Touji and Kensuke ..." Hikari waited a moment, but seeing that Shinji wasn't going to finish his sentence, or rather wasn't going to finish it anytime soon, she completed his statement. "Touji and Kensuke put you up to this didn't they?" Shinji just nodded. Hikari rolled her eyes. 'I can't believe those two sometimes' "May I ask the reason why they made you ... nevermind, I probably don't want to know." Shinji seemed to wilt with relief when she said that. She was about to question why he reacted that way, but decided instead that she would talk to Touji later about it. "Well, don't worry. I'll have a very ... 'stern'...talk with them about this. Sorry that I have to assign you guys clean up duty." "It's okay." Shinji said dryly. "Well, I have to head back to the house now. I guess I'll see ya tomorrow for class ... hopefully on time..." She teased. Shinji just lowered his head. "Bye Shinji." "Wait." Hikari turned back around. "What is it?" "Ummm..." Shinji started. "Could you not tell Asuka what happened today?" Hikari frowned. "Why not Shinji? She is my best friend you know." "I realize that, but could you please not? I'd never hear the end of this from her." Hikari thought about it a moment. Well, she bound to find out about it sooner or later. I guess I don't need to tell her yet. "Ok, I won't. But I'm doing it just this once because Touji and Kensuke were the ones that made you do this." Shinji seemed to wilt with relief. "Thanks Hikari." Giving him a quick smile, Hikari turned around and disappeared down the hallway. Shinji let out a breath he'd not even realized he'd been holding and walked back into the classroom to start cleaning. "I'm so confused..." Upon entering, his eyes immediately spotted Rei as she also looked up to see him come back in. Blushing for what seemed like the umpteenth time that day, Shinji turned his gaze downward, picked up his mop and started cleaning the floor. Had he not turned away from Rei so quickly, he would have noticed she had continued to look at him, her face also flushing crimson. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Shinji and Rei had mostly worked in silence as the time passed by, both of them taking occasional glances at each other. Shinji wanted to say something to her, but he simply ...well... didn't know what to say. Was she angry at him? He knew that if this had been someone else ... specifically a certain redhead, he would have been in the hospital by now. However, Rei seemed to be pretty calm about it. Then again, to his knowledge, she always appeared calm. How am I going to explain this to ... "Why did you kiss me today?" His line of thought broken, Shinji paused, not really knowing how to respond. Of course he knew the reason why he kissed her, but considering it, he thought that if he told her the truth, it might hurt her feelings. So, in a compromise, he gave his usual 'strategized' answer. "I don't know." Hoping that Rei wouldn't question his answer, he unconsciously started cleaning the floor even harder. Think Shinji! Think! Make up an excuse fast! He turned to look at her again, and found that her gaze was still fixed on him. Putting down her mop, Rei slowly started to walk towards him, her eyes continuously locked on his. Shinji sat down a desk, his legs feeling like they were about to buckle underneath him because he was so nervous. Stopping in front of the desk, Rei leaned over, her face bare centimeters from Shinji's. Is she going to slap me? He thought, his mind flashing back to the incident on the escalator when he insulted in father. Not that a slap would be the worst thing in the world, but ... "Do you like me Shinji?" He almost fell out of his chair. To be continued...