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"You smell like sunscreen," Shinji mumbles against Kaworu's shoulder.
"I'm wearing sunscreen," Kaworu says, and the breath of his laughter stirs the hair at Shinji's crown. "The sun is still bright in the fall."
Kaworu is so angular; his bones can be a bit much. From Kaworu's first embrace, Shinji could feel those elbows catch him between the ribs. They've known each other for two weeks now, and Kaworu had wasted no time in jabbing Shinji with his limbs. "Your skin is really sensitive, isn't it?" Shinji asks. His eyes are low and his ears are beginning to itch for how warm they are. The sunscreen smell isn't bad. If it's still there during the winter, maybe the days will feel a little more like summer.
"It is," says Kaworu. He's holding Shinji more tightly than he needs to be, which Shinji doesn't really understand; it's strange to feel such urgency from someone so placid. Kaworu has always looked calm and never otherwise, but when Kaworu clutches like this, Shinji can feel the tightness of his tendons and the wild livelihood of his heart. Kaworu's body says to Shinji, I need to have you here. It's still novel. When Shinji is being held, he feels like he's in another country.
"Is that why your skin is so cool?" Shinji asks vaguely, and then starts at himself. He's embarrassed for asking, and for having noticed, and for being this close at all. What Kaworu wants from him, exactly, is still unclear. Why grasp at someone you barely know? Shinji can't imagine that Kaworu does this to every student who transfers in. Or, he hopes not— and this embarrasses him further.
Kaworu laughs, and it sounds mocking, but Shinji thinks that with the way his arms tighten, it might not be. "It might be," he tells Shinji. "If I'm out in the sun for too long, I'll get dizzy."
I'm dizzy right now. There are children playing on the stairwell outside of the apartment, and their sounds are jarring next to Kaworu's heartbeat. "Misato-san will be home soon," Shinji says, wanting to pull away.
"But she isn't." Kaworu buries his face in Shinji's hair. "Not yet."