+++++ Kirijo Manor. (Friday, August 27th, +6, Last Quarter 1/4)
Waking up alone was something Shinji hadn't expected would be something quite as pain filled as he discovered it to be. Recalling waking up with Yukiko in his arms had been…. Letting out a low sigh, he sought the time on his smartphone's display, sitting on his nightstand. He'd been asleep for two hours, and if he had been hungry before he was ravenous now. Leaving the comforts of his bed was simple, lingering there was antithetical to his entire existence while there was any task to be done, no matter how small. Finding clothing to wear was equally simple, some had been laid out for him on and near the chest of drawers. Opening the door to walk out into an unknown situation…that was the real problem. Food was out there. So were women who needed answers from him. So was, quite possibly, Andreja, Maya, and Ritsuko. He'd fallen asleep, which was terrible of him under any set of circumstances.
He closed his eyes, leaned his head against the door, and tried to push through the uncertainty and doubt. He had obligations…he had…. "I'm an idiot." Turning around, he walked over to the intra-household phone and pushed 'zero'.
"Good evening," a friendly voice announced after a single ring. "How may I be of service this evening, sir?"
He swallowed, not having anticipated someone he didn't know. "I…uhm, I'd like it if…."
After a lengthy pause, the voice once more ventured, "I assure you, there is nothing we will not make every effort to provide. Please, do not hesitate to ask for whatever it is that you require."
"C-could…someone walk me to the kitchen…and keep people away from me?"
"Of course, sir. Someone is on their way right now. Is there anything else?"
"N-no…thank you, ma'am. I…uh-uhm, I appreciate your help." Hanging up the phone before she could say anything else, he scrubbed the folds in his palm with the thumb of the other hand. "Just…just need a bit." Whether he was trying to convince himself of that or not was unknown even to him. "I…I can't…."
A polite knock on his door preceded Yuko walking into the room. Closing the door behind herself, she crossed the distance between them at a sedate pace. "How is your head?"
His fingers instinctively went to where the bullet had grazed his skull. "Oh, fine. I…the pain didn't really linger. I was too…."
"Murderous?" Reaching a spot in front of him, she made tiny adjustments to the clothes he wore.
"They shot Akane," he responded with a darkening tone.
With his attire now properly settled, she looked up at him curiously. "Would your revenge have brought her back, had she actually been killed?"
His head turned away from her. He knew she was right, but he couldn't 'keep them safe' if he never put himself in danger.
"Shinji." She waited for him to look back at her, maintaining an air of calm dispassion so that this didn't become a screaming match. When he did as she anticipated, she kept up her push to retain her place in his circle of trust. "Revenge is not something that must be sought in the moment. It does not have to be doled out all at once, while you are bleeding from wounds received. If they had killed her, and you had rushed headlong into a trap that you could not free yourself from, not only would she be dead but you would have failed her twice over. Think," she caressed his temple, "instead of allowing your enemies to think for you."
Anger faded again into resignation. She was, as he knew she would always be, correct. "I also left Toriumi-sensei undefended. It's…." He shook his head in self-reproach. "No matter what I do, I'm going to get people killed. Whether I sit back and let them fight to keep me safe, or I charge in to try and keep them safe. There's one of me…."
"Is there an 'us'?" Tilting her head at an angle she knew he found attractive, she waited for an answer she already knew.
His voice held little power as he admitted, "I…have several…. There are things I haven't told you." He shrugged one shoulder uncomfortably. "About what happened in Tartarus…." His stomach complaining about the lack of input pushed his pause out further.
"Let us go to the kitchen and see what we have that you wish to make." She took his hand, gently tugging him towards the door. "Your dinner was given to the Sergeant, after her workout. The madam insisted that she eat before leaving, to give them a chance to discuss business."
A hint of relief coated his words, "I'm glad she ate. She…helped me not feel so angry."
+++++ NERV. (Friday, August 27th, +6, Last Quarter 1/4)
Ritsuko stood in Kyoko's office, waiting for her 'second mother'-slash-aunt-slash-longtime instructor to digest what she'd seen and learned at the Kirijo Manor. Unspooling the entire thread had taken time, interrupted by several important side-tangents that required further exploration. Even if all she'd done was defended Shinji's humanity, it would be enough. That what she was doing would hopefully encourage Maya to recover from the uncharacteristic rage added a second layer to the already delicious cake at the end of the tunnel.
"The initial testing failed on all ten lines," Kyoko began. The statement might have been seen as not being particularly germane to the topic at hand, were it not for the follow-on, "So the lack of another sample is going to make pressing on impossible for the moment. What do you believe we need to do to get him back into a position, whether that's a mindset or a physical location, where he'll be…unburdened by the mental baggage that scuttled this opportunity?"
She blew out her cheeks, rocking her head side to side as she thought. "We'd need somewhere that was both completely secure and free of reminders of the past. I don't doubt that any number of women could manage to acquire what you're asking for, though I'd like to believe you're not so far gone into your dotage that you've lost sight of the emotional damage we'd be risking by having 'just anyone' do it."
"Was he receptive to your touch, or was it more in the nature of a business transaction?"
"…My lipstick got mussed. 'Waterproof', my ass."
"Then 'any number of women' don't need to be involved. You have his trust, and you've retained your faculties." She twirled one finger in the general direction of the Kirijo Manor. "I know that you're smart enough to know that you haven't been hiding your relationship with Lieutenant Ibuki from us, though she's somehow under the impression that you are still 'hiding'. So I'm asking you in full knowledge of the various factors: are you interested in Shinji?"
"Am I interested in being in a relationship with someone who has, less than a week ago, been the victim of horrifying sexual abuse? Someone who is about to be asked to be the father of an entire generation of human beings? Someone who has never known a life free of torment?"
"Could you name two better women to hold him close and coax out the venom running through his veins than you and Maya-chan? A tandem who have each other to cling to when he is off doing what he must to stop humanity from ending?"
"…Why did the ten lines fail? Was it the accelerated growth hormones?"
"We hadn't introduced any. The ovum were torn apart by the opposing gamete's flagella within seconds after implantation, then left to float in the suspension without any further display of interest."
Ritsuko blinked twice. "The sperm showed sentience?"
"I'm not inclined to attribute to sentience what I can explain through evolutionary instinct. The potential issue of the donor's genetics alone could easily explain the problem. We need more studies, including at varying temperatures, before we can have greater confidence in what will and will not work."
Time was not on their side, and that fact made Ritsuko want to join Maya in ranting about the unfairness of it all. "Then that's my answer to you. I need more studies, including at varying temperatures, before I can have greater confidence in what will and will not work." Turning and exiting the room, she determined that propriety could go blow goats. She had a lovely young woman that needed a night of being held.
+++++ Kirijo Manor. (Friday, August 27th, +6, Last Quarter 1/4)
The kitchen was a marvel, in Shinji's inexperienced opinion. The conveniences available, and their ease of use, were empowering him to create something that would have taken him hours in the only other kitchen he'd worked in. Professional knives with immaculate edges, high-tech appliances with hundreds of attachments. A stove that not only lit every flame port at once, but allowed him to manage the heat to a perfect degree. He'd become lost in the experience before he'd known it, producing food as art and not just for sustenance.
It was the misplaced scent of something he hadn't been involving in his recipe that prevented him from reacting poorly, the quiet arrival of a woman that he owed a great deal to giving him an opportunity to test how recovered his control was over his anger. "I'm…sorry. You've done everything you could to help me, from the first moment you met me…and I've been…rude."
Mitsuru leaned her hip against the unused countertop near him, her own personal decisions having found their place in line. "You've been many things, but rude is not one of them. You don't call a horse 'rude' for chafing at the bridle. You don't declare a dog 'rude' for doing what it has been trained to do. You were kept as a pet…and you're having a hard time adjusting to being kept as a man instead."
His lips curled into a small grin. Kept. "I'm glad Yuko-san let you in."
"Benefits of being her employer. She can't tell me 'No' without a very compelling argument." The change in his mood had not gone unnoticed. "I hope you don't hold it against her, considering she only spoke to us about it because she wanted to maintain an even field for everyone, but Yukiko-chan has already told us about what you learned in Tartarus."
He nodded, having expected as much. "Was that why everyone was angry at breakfast?"
She swallowed a scoff. "Not as such. Their rather atrocious behavior was largely due to irritation at Yukiko-chan's sleeping arrangements. Several of them believe that the two of you became…intimate."
While the thought of intimacy with Yukiko Amagi was not horrifying by any stretch of the imagination, he was still upset that her friends thought so little of her. "We did not. She let me hold her, as I cried. I fell asleep first, she…chose to let me hold her as I slept."
"Which is in line with what I would have presumed happened," Mitsuru nodded. "She is not a woman to so easily sell herself to anyone, and you are not the type of man to 'insist'. Unless she offered, you simply could not have taken."
Her confidence in him was, as it had been for the past week, a warm blanket on a cold night. "…Thank you."
"For?"
He set the spoon he'd been using to stir the vegetables into the rice aside, then looked at her with the sincere gratitude he felt radiating off of him. "For believing the best in your friend. For reaffirming that I can always trust you to try and help me." His smile showed pain. "I'm very lucky to have you in my life."
"I feel that is a two-way benefit," she tilted her head fetchingly with a soft smile, "one that we should keep in mind as the two of us cooperate on finding the best way forward."
His heart crept upwards in his chest. Looking at him favorably was an achingly beautiful woman, possessed of a strong spirit and a keen mind…he didn't have the first clue as to how to react. "F-forward?"
Slipping closer, she stood beside and against him, sheltering under one of his arms as she perused what he'd been preparing. "Might I have a bit? I'd like to try what you've made, while we discuss the future."
If she had asked for him to tear out his own liver and serve it to her with a nice Chianti, he'd have done so with zeal. "Of c-course." Forcing himself away from her, he plucked out two bowls from the cupboard where he'd found them, and dished out a generous portion for her along with a smaller portion for him.
When he handed her the portion she knew he'd intended for her, she took it and traded it for the smaller portion. She wasn't quite sure if it was a mental error born of what was an obvious bout of anxiety, or if it was just that he felt that she deserved the greater of all things. She was absolutely positive that she'd see him freed of self-doubt before the end. "Thank you. Let's go sit down at the kitchen table, where there's a lot less traffic."
Shinji beat her to the table, slipping his bowl in front of the far less conveniently placed chair before pulling out the other seat for Mitsuru. He watched as she, once more, upended his plan by sliding his meal over to the seat he'd pulled out and seating herself in the other chair. Each motion she took was done with the same meaningful look of contentment, banishing any doubt as to how she felt with a practiced elegance that he doubted he'd ever see matched. Fumbling his way into the seat he'd intended for her, he looked down at his meal, then to her serving. "Is…uhm-"
"I am, at most, half your size," she cut in with a tiny laugh. "I can't very well expect you to have the energy to deal with all of us if you eat meals on my calorie budget, now can I?" Scooping out some of the vegetable medley, she blew on it delicately and then tasted it. There was a simplicity to the dish that eschewed powerful flavors in pursuit of a delicate harmony between ingredients. He had made a wonder of things she would have expected to be merely accents to the 'main feature' of any meal. Swallowing with a hint of reluctance, not wanting to let go of what was the first thing she'd ever eaten that was made by a male peer, she let her joy flow outwards. "This is excellent! Thank you so much for sharing it with me."
"I-it's…it's nothing special," he demurred.
She could see the thrill of recognition for his efforts beat at his naturally dour demeanor. A few compliments by the right person, he'd throw himself into flaming acid for them. Such power would have to be tempered, and hoarded by those who would not abuse it. Taking another few bites, savoring each of them as he ate with a haste born of hunger, she settled her own emotions for the moment. "So," she began, "in order to have a chance of victory, we have to teach you to love us."
He nodded, his happiness diminishing. "I'm…sorry."
"I am not. This could be far worse, all told. There were a number of young men in my class that would have been overjoyed at being in your position, none of whom would be even a hundredth as worthy of said position on their best day." Keeping her voice away from negative emotions, she focused on the possible good, "We have an incredibly unique situation ahead of us. Training to fight against Tartarus, maintaining our educational pursuits, defending against assaults by whatever madwomen are trying to kill you, and through all of this…we get to help you learn your own value." She popped a carrot in her mouth and chewed thoughtfully. "The price, of course, is that we must allow ourselves to feel lustfully towards an attractive, empathetic, bright, talented young man."
The conversation wasn't going the way he'd thought it would. "Did she…uhm, did she tell you about the 'bond'?"
"While it might be intellectually interesting to experience more than one man's touch, I believe you'll be more than capable of encouraging me to feel like I belong on a throne all by yourself." She gestured for him to keep eating. "If everything beyond what we can see is truly gone, then I never stood a chance at discovering another man who would interest me. If I never stood a chance at that, then I am truly blessed that the man who interests me is also the only man left on what remains of Earth. If I am fortunate enough to earn your love," she gestured sharply, "your true love, then it will be because I also have found my love for you."
He thought about her telling him those magical words, and had to fight to not become consumed by arousal. "W-why is th-that?"
She shrugged. "Because I will not encourage a man to love me who does not inspire me to love him. You are not a weapon, or a tool to be used and discarded when not needed. You are a man, one I expect will do his best to learn how to be a man and not a beast."
The shower he destroyed, and the one he almost destroyed, came into focus. "I…am trying to learn how to control my anger."
"Frustration, not anger, I think." Reaching over with her free hand, she gripped his confidently. "It has to be maddening to see what others have squandered in their lives, to hear words replaying in your mind, to feel the ghost of her touch. I know I can't take any of that away from you…but I really hope that you'll let me try my hardest. I think you're worth my best. I think you're worth our best."
"Ugh," Pixie groaned out as she manifested in her ten centimeter sized form on the tabletop, "trying to convince the other clans of anything is like trying to argue with a bowl of glitter." Hopping up onto the lip of Shinji's bowl, she picked out a larger chunk of radish and took a healthy bite of it. "Shawy, 'm hungy."
Few things irritated Mitsuru as much as someone interrupting a private conversation. "What were you attempting to convince them of, if I might inquire?"
Swallowing her bite, she looked at Mitsuru with a knowing grin. "The disaster at your school wouldn't have happened if you'd had spirits on your own side. If this is where you're going to hole up, you're going to need our help defending it against the Children of Eve."
Shizoku materialized atop Shinji's head, laying flat against his crown, her wings sagged down his temples. "The wards are set for tonight…I am sorry that I cannot do more to help, my energy is very low."
The moment had been broken, though only to those aware of common social norms. Shinji, ignoring the two new additions to the scene, replied to Mitsuru first and foremost, "I'll try my best, too…for what it's worth." Setting some of his food aside for Pixie to eat, he scooped Shizoku off his head and held her more securely in the crook of his arm. "I just don't know how I'm going to love…you're all worthy of far more than I have to give. I want you all around, but I want you all to be happy too. I like being surrounded by people who want to spend time with me, who want to show me the stuff I…." He shook his head slowly. "I'm lost, Mitsuru. I would have been out of my depth even if everything hadn't gone as it has, arriving here into a world that I've never experienced. Now I'm being asked to…."
She let him talk, hoping that hidden within the starts and stops of his thoughts that she might find something that could help him. She refrained from sharing her own worries, those feelings of inadequacy that lingered below even her confident upbringing, to not make him feel as if she was 'one-upping' him. After the pause had lengthened enough that it was clear he'd run aground, she ventured, "Out of our class, is there anyone that you find yourself…disinterested in?" She figured starting with the people he disliked would lead to an easier discussion.
"Not really." He shrugged, uncertain as to her motivation for the question. "Chie-san is enthusiastic about those things she likes, and she can always find a way to tie other things to them as points of comparison. It's fun to listen to her talk, and I enjoy the energy she brings to whatever she does. Eriko has an almost…innocent view of the complexities going on around us, if it weren't for her fascination with the oddities I'd wonder if she'd even noticed the world had changed. Rise has done everything she can think of to stop me from dwelling on things, and hasn't been shy at all about touching me to help me remember where and when I am. Sumire is very quiet, and if I'm honest I think she's…hiding something. It's not that she's…wrong? Bad? I like listening to her, and I like talking to her. I just don't think she's as happy as she pretends to be. Ulala…." He frowned down at his bowl. "I get the feeling she'd like to have sex with me, but I don't want to presume that's what she wants. She just seems very…ready. I'd like to spend more time with Yuka, one-on-one. I think she'd be more willing to 'break character', if it was just the two of us."
Mitsuru wanted to slap herself for missing the obvious. She continued to be guilty of assuming that because Shinji didn't comment on things the way that others would that he simply hadn't noticed the things that others would. Her own mother had told her specifically that he was an excellent judge of character, and she reprimanded herself for forgetting that. "What of Yukiko-chan?"
One shoulder hefted in a slight shrug. "I slept without any dreams last night."
He'd held a young woman in his arms, in his bed, all night without once touching that young woman in a way that he ought not. He spoke so casually of sex with Ulala, yet with only seven words managed to sing the praises of Yukiko for something most wouldn't have even put down as a sidenote. He wanted to be around Yukiko, he just wouldn't say it outright. "I see. And me?"
His eyes moved from his bowl to her own, fear of her and contempt for himself shining just beneath the surface. "Something I studied…because she wanted me to, was how in every culture there is a unifying presence. A person, or object, or concept that the people within that culture praised, that they believed gave them the life they held dear. You sit upon a throne, surrounded by opulence, and yet you still reached down into the gutter to dirty your hands touching me. You sit here, at a pauper's table, when you could be eating food I've never even known existed in a dining hall ten times the size of where I spent every night quaking in fear. You sit next to me, in class, when you should be at the front where everyone can see and admire your focus and dedication. I could no more be disinterested in you than I could turn myself into a frog…."
The 'but' that he left unspoken hung heavy in the air between them. "…And yet?"
Standing up quietly, he turned towards the door and began the trip back to his room. "Eventually, every frog has to realize that they'll never touch the moon…no matter how hard they reach for it."
Her tongue was tangled, her thoughts in disarray. She failed to come up with a response to what had been the most endearing praise of her she'd ever heard, and when the door to the kitchen closed behind him she looked back down to the meal he'd shared with her and struggled to put together a plan for how to approach addressing his fears.
Pixie, still idly chewing on what Shinji had given her, smirked as she watched Mitsuru struggle. "I did tell you that there would only be pain at the end of that road, dearie."
Given a point of focus, Mitsuru's eyes hardened. "There is pain on every road anyone takes through life. Pain is nothing more than a signal to us that we are alive."
"A cute saying, but we both know it's just a comforting lie." She waved the piece of carrot towards where Shinji had left. "He could have been all yours, in another life. An honest, earnest, man who would have given you everything in exchange for whatever scraps you would send his way."
More than once she had thought along similar lines recently, but there was a key difference between what Pixie was telling her and what she herself thought. "All we have is this life, which makes any other life pointless. This is the life I've been given, and I'm going to take control of it." Standing, she turned and marched towards her own room to plan a course of action. If Yukiko could be brave enough to let him take comfort from her, she could do no less.
+++++ NERV. (Friday, August 27th, +6, Last Quarter 1/4)
Yui was in a maudlin mood. The reports she'd been reading, regarding the testing that had been performed, had led her to thinking about her own pregnancy with the young man that she'd failed. She remembered her husband reading books to him, as he rested within her belly. She remembered the first time she'd felt him stir within her. Each tiny memory was a part of the larger, horrifying, pastiche that was the thought of her own sister defiling her son. She'd be angry later, for now she wanted to purge herself of the sorrow that would slow her down. A ringtone playing on her phone, however, put that on the back burner as well.
Quickly reaching for the electronic leash, she turned it over and saw a message from Shinji. He'd made annotations to a specific letter that the lying whore had sent while pretending to be him. Scrawls that detailed how his life had actually gone, mixed in with grammatical and syntactic mistakes that were purposefully used to obscure the true author of the letter. There was no malice in his words, no poison to drip into her mind…her son was simply correcting the record. He was reaching out, ever so slightly, to let her into his world.
Setting the missive down, she pressed the button for her Executive Assistant on her desk phone. She had just received a gift, and she would not see it wasted.
+++++ Kirijo Manor. (Friday, August 27th, +6, Last Quarter 1/4)
"One down," Shinji breathed out in a sigh. "Too fucking many left to go." Sitting back in his chair and shoving the heels of his hands against his eyes, he growled in frustration. He had no idea why he was doing this. Why he was sending his mother pointless ruminations on a past she'd forced him to live through. "I should be studying." A quiet knock on his door disturbed his irritation, and he moved to answer it with the alacrity he'd been trained to use.
Waiting on the other side was Eriko Kirishima. "Good evening…can I come in?"
She looked, to Shinji, far different out of her school uniform. She was always immaculately dressed for classes, never appearing anything less than the picture of a model student. The young woman standing outside his room, however, was wearing a loose set of sweatpants that barely hung onto her hips and a cropped tank top that showed a number of scars that had been earned while practicing her preferred martial art. Shinji pulled the door open further. "Good evening, Eriko-san. Please," he gestured into his room, "come in."
"Thank you," she responded with a playful grin. Her long, well-maintained, black hair was pulled back into a ponytail that sat high on the back of her head, kept in place by three bands of mismatching color. Once she was inside, and the door was closed, she bounced giddily. "I did it!"
Perplexed, Shinji asked the sensible question, "Did…what?"
"I entered a boy's room!" Turning her excitement towards him, she struck a heroic pose. "Bucket list item checked off."
Having less than no idea what she was talking about, he nonetheless gave her a smile. She was happy, and that was really what mattered. "Not much of a room, but you're welcome in it."
Her lips pursed, and she looked around. "True. We need to get you some clutter to make it feel lived in. Maybe a few Gundams, or some posters of half-naked women."
"I…uh…."
"If you'd rather," she looked innocently at him, "I could pose for some pictures that you could turn into posters?"
"I-I…."
Her innocence faded back to mirthful glee. "You are so adorable when you're flustered!" Walking past him, towards his personal bathroom, she tickled under his chin. "But seriously, we need to get you stuff that you can display. Stuff that tells people who walk in here, 'This is who Shinji Ikari is'." Peeking into the bathroom, she shook her head in disappointment. "We also need to get you different towels. You are very much not a 'Spring'…more of a darker 'Summer'."
He'd heard something similar from the women who'd made his clothes, and seized on that as a conversational fulcrum to stop himself from lurching around. "I…uhm, I heard that before. I don't know what it means, though."
"It's a fashion thing," she turned back around and gestured vaguely to her clothing, "dictates the color palette that you should wear. Eye color, skin color, hair color, it all blends together and changes how you look in varying colors of clothing. I, for instance, should never wear the same colors you wear. I have a different complexion, and you have blue eyes. We'd probably go split complementary if we tried to dress as a couple, to avoid clashing garishly."
"So…it's like the color wheel in art?"
"Pretty similar, yeah. The theory is, at least. It's all chromatics," she waved airily. Moving past him again, she took his hand and dragged him over to the balcony to stand outside in the cold air. "It's so weird having only one giant ball in the sky. I miss the moon."
The chaotic conversation kept him on his toes, but it also provided a window he didn't know existed into the woman that was bouncing from topic to topic. "I do too. It was one of the few things I'd see out of the venting window in my room. Only every once in a while, but it was nice to observe."
Eriko seized on the shared point of reference, the entire point of her scattershot method. "I wanted to visit it. Walk on the surface, feel what it was like to be in low gravity, and throw a rock as far as I could."
"With how strong your arms are, I bet you could throw it pretty far." He gestured towards her well-defined biceps. "Fencing seems to do well for you."
Flexing the arm closest to him, she grinned. "Thank you. I'm glad to know that someone appreciates a girl with some punch." She rolled her eyes, then relaxed her arm and leaned against him. "Whenever I'd put on my swimsuit and go to the pool for gym, the boys would always tease each other about how I had bigger arms than their friends did. It's not that I was ashamed of myself, I'm rather proud of how hard I work to get in shape, more that I was just annoyed at them acting like I wasn't 'feminine'."
Shinji ventured to put one arm around her shoulders, letting her lean into the embrace. "I…think that if someone thought that you weren't a woman, they were very, very blind." He kept his eyes away from the cleavage she was displaying, her low-cut top serving as a very revealing portal to pleasantly shaped flesh. "Besides, Andreja-san is bigger than I am, and she's still very feminine."
"Oh, I had meant to ask about that!" Slipping her own arm around his waist, she secured her spot beneath his arm. "She was that foreigner, right? The one who came with the other two ladies from your work?"
"Yes. She works for the Engineering teams, the ones responsible for the maintenance of Unit-01. She helped me out, several times, and we've…well, I hope we're becoming friends. I trust her, and she's been protective of me."
"Then I hope to be her friend too," Eriko declared firmly. "I'm sure she has all sorts of strange things to share, and any woman you think that highly of has to be interesting to talk to."
Without the history to understand how his question might be received, Shinji asked after another point that had been confusing him. "You…are speaking very differently…or…you know…."
"Not in uniform, not in combat." She looked up at him, a question of her own in her eyes. "Does it bother you?"
"N-no!" He shook his head fiercely. "I…it's…a change."
"Ah, and you don't deal well with unexpected changes. Makes sense." She nodded amicably, turning her body so that she was hugging him from the front while leaning back against the railing to look up at him. "I try to relax when I'm not 'en garde', so that I don't become a ball of anxiety."
He could respect that. "I…wish I could relax. I wish I knew how to relax."
"Have you tried breathing exercises?" Her hands dropped lower on his back, to just above his posterior. "Emptying your mind of anything, focusing only on moving your muscles as you breathe?"
His focus had moved well away from what had previously occupied it, her touch reminding him that she was not only an interesting young woman, she was an attractive and interesting young woman. "N-not really."
Thrilling in the reaction she was receiving, she lifted one eyebrow playfully. "Something…interesting you?" His hesitation, to her, was obvious. "Shinji, listen to me very carefully, ok?" His curt nod gave her the go ahead. "I was upset this morning because most of the others were jumping on Yukiko-chan. It's perfectly natural for her to want to lay down and sleep in the arms of a man who protected her. It's also perfectly natural for her to be attracted to you. I mean, if we were in any other world I have no doubt that Yukiko-chan's mom would have dragged you two to an altar somewhere to marry. You're basically her dream come true."
Gripping the railing, trying not to crush it in his desire to not grab Eriko, he shook his head. "She's…better than me."
"Mmm, I have a different perspective, but I'll respect your point of view as valid." Hooking her thumbs between his pants and his back, she gave him a challenging grin. "If you'd bent her over and gave her an evening to remember, I'd still not be upset at her. We're supposed to learn how to lust after you, which seems awfully silly to me considering the first time I saw you I wondered if you'd be interested in some alternative cardio. Lust kind of indicates that sex is possibly going to happen. Now I need to teach you to love me, in return. So, I'm going to ask you again…is something interesting you? Be honest."
"You're…not…." His teeth were clenched hard enough to cause his nose to ache. "M-meat…."
"No, I'm not." Rolling her hands, she slipped them into his pants and caressed his rump. "Meat doesn't ask. Meat is just used. I don't want to be used, Shinji…I want you to answer my question. Are you interested in me?"
"Y-yes."
Her smile showed that his hunger was not the only present in the room. "Good. Then let's go lie down and see what comes up."
+++++ Author's Note:
TheHiddenLettuce: RE: Andreja.
Yeah, no, you're absolutely right. She's built like the muscle form of Biscuit Kreuger, and has a face that's been weathered by exposure to the elements, to combat, and to a machine shop. She's not Gonk, more of a Brawn Hilda if anything, but she's definitely not an Amazon Beauty.