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Kaworu has absolutely nothing on his body.
He has no scars, no freckles, no moles, no bug bites, nothing, and it bothers Shinji. He doesn’t even have a white mark on one of his nails from accidentally banging it against something. How can someone’s skin be so literally flawless?
Shinji once counted the marks on his right forearm, and then tried to find marks on Kaworu’s bare back one night as the white – haired boy lay beside him. He had found none. Confusion had written itself across his face in wrinkles and lines, and so Shinji twitched the sheets covering Kaworu’s lower back down. He expected to find nothing more, but he did find something: a small, dark brown mark – a mole – in exactly the small of Kaworu’s back. Shinji had stared at it at first in wonder, wondering how something as irregular and unplanned as a mole could be so exquisitely centered. He had reached forwards without thinking and gently tapped it with his index finger.
Shinji had felt a shudder run through Kaworu’s body as he touched the other boy. Kaworu had rolled over almost immediately after, ending up rather too close for Shinji’s liking.
“You touched me.” His eyes were shining, and Shinji thought for a moment they looked like the kind of red you’d see in a marker – something synthesized, something unnatural. “Why?”
“You have a freckle in exactly the centre of your back. Your lower back. How is that?”
Kaworu had propped up his head on his elbow, smushing his cheek. “I don’t know. It happens.”
Shinji had narrowed his eyes in sleepy confusion. “But you don’t have anything anywhere else, I’ve che—“ Shinji stopped himself before he said something strange, then remembered that it’s Kaworu. Kaworu who says strange things and won’t mind if Shinji says things like that. “I’ve checked. There are no scars, no freckles, nothing… I don’t understand.”
Kaworu had shrugged as best he could have whilst lying on his side. “I don’t know why it’s like that.” But then he’d grabbed Shinji’s hands and compared them to his own. Shinji at first jerked his hands away, but then, when Kaworu had gently grasped them again, allowed the strange boy to inspect his freckles. Kaworu had ran the pads of his fingers over every freckle, tracing lines between the dots speckling Shinji’s arms. It was rhythmic and disarming, and Shinji felt himself fighting to stay awake.
As he finally gave in to sleep, he felt something much colder than hands touching his arms and opened one eye to see Kaworu pressing his lips to each freckle with as much precision and care as Shinji had ever seen. “Wh- what…” he mumbled, trying to piece together what his sleepy mind had scrambled.
Kaworu had finally raised his eyes to Shinji’s, pressed one last kiss to a freckle on Shinji’s wrist, then said, “You said you checked me earlier. When? Why?”
“Hm.” Shinji had blinked twice, and drew one hand out of Kaworu’s grasp to rub it across his eye. “Um. I don’t know. I wanted to know why your skin was so empty, I suppose … even Rei has more freckles than you.”
Kaworu smiled with his wide, wide mouth like he knew a secret. He had simply watched Shinji after that, the two lying in silence on opposite sides of the bed. Kaworu had started tracing the constellations Shinji’s freckles made again, once again lulling Shinji to sleep. This time, when he felt Kaworu start kissing his freckles on his flawed skin, Shinji let him and even rubbed his thumb on Kaworu’s cheekbone if he could.
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The next morning, Kaworu had his eyes closed. Shinji had snuggled up to him in his sleep and their legs were tangled together, their arms bunched up between them. Shinji heard Kaworu’s irregular, wide – awake - sort of breathing and wondered if Kaworu had ever fallen asleep.
He doesn’t realize he’s been staring until Kaworu opens one eye slowly, then the other, and gazes at him. He notices the freckle on Kaworu’s lower eyelid as the other boy untangles himself from Shinji and stretches like a cat, smiling lazily.
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“I want to die by your hand,” he’d said minutes before, before Shinji blabbered empty excuses and see – through lies so he wouldn’t have to hurt the only person who’d ever wanted Shinji for Shinji, not so they could further themselves by using the Eva pilot.
Shinji can feel tears bubbling down his face as he imagines how crushed Kaworu’s perfect skin would be, how he’d lose sight of those two lone freckles forevermore. He can’t stand the lump in his throat bigger than a fist or how he can’t see clearly because of his tears or how he feels like he might throw up. He can’t stand how he can’t say goodbye the way he wants to, or how there’s something in his chest crushing him from inside. He breathes out shakily, feels the tears pour faster and pulls the trigger that will close the Eva’s hand into a fist.