"I don't know about this, guys. She's gonna beat me up!" Shinji was pleading with his friends not to go through what they were planning.
"Man up, Shinji, she's coming this way!" Kensuke said, pushing Shinji out into the hallway. He almost collided with a few students switching classes. Asuka was a few yards away at her locker, but she would have to come his way in a few moments. Kensuke and Toji were grinning at him from behind a corner as Shinji looked up at their handiwork: a sprig of mistletoe had been hung from the ceiling. The plan was to leave Shinji under there until Asuka joined him, leaving her under peer pressure and tradition to kiss him. Which was common knowledge that this was the last thing on the planet Asuka would want to participate in, making this a brilliant prank.
Asuka slammed her locker shut and began making her way across the hall to Shinji. He steeled himself and tried to look like he was preoccupied with something else. "Shinji, I have something to ask you," a cool, quiet voice said. Shinji's head jolted upward in surprise so fast that he barely recognized Rei approaching him from the other side of the hall.
"Yo, get outta the way, that ain't part of the plan!" Toji said while Kensuke sniggered beside him. Shinji hastily moved from where he had been standing so that only Rei was standing where he had been. She raised her eyebrow at him, but before she could do anything else Asuka bumped right into her.
"Watch where you're going, Wonder Girl!" she said indignantly.
At that moment, Toji jumped out from where he had been hiding. "Ha, look who's under the mistletoe!"
Asuka looked up and immediately cringed at the sight of what hanging directly above her and Rei. "N-no way! I can't..not with her!"
"I'm afraid I don't understand," Rei said thoughtfully, but Asuka was too busy getting in Toji's face to hear her.
"Hey, you're the one that walked under it, you know the rule! Unless you're too chicken, that is."
"Are you stupid?! I've never chickened out of anything, ever!" Asuka said, growling. A crowd had begun to congregate around the scene.
"Then pucker up already!" Kensuke teased, pushing Asuka face to face with Rei. Students around them were whispering excitedly, putting Asuka on edge. Rei just looked at her questioningly. Her expression was unreadable, not shedding any light to how she felt about her current situation.
Asuka stared her down for a good minute, a few time almost looking like she would make a move, but she always faltered. Finally she shouted something angrily in German at the crowd to silence them. "This is stupid! It's a children's tradition and you're all stupid for trying to make me play along!" She turned away from Rei, pushing past the group of students and making a beeline towards the restroom.
"It was a joke, geez!" Toji said, apparently satisfied. Everyone turned away, slightly disappointed as they went to class instead. Shinji sighed and turned towards Rei, but she wasn't there.
"Do you even realize what they wanted us to do? Like we'd ever kiss like that, just for that stupid boy's amusement, I mean really, when I get my hands on him-"
"Why didn't you go through with it?"
"Do you really have to ask?"
Rei shrugged. Asuka found it disturbing how little regard she had for personal space. She pondered her words as the two sat together in a corner of the girl's restroom, far away from the door and immediate attention of anyone who happened to walk in. Admittedly, Asuka was still a little shell shocked from the scene that had just happened and did not feel up to dealing with nosy classmates.
"Because that kind of thing is personal! You don't just kiss someone as a joke for other people to look at, it's disgusting! That stuff should be just between the people involved, you know?
Rei processed this information then said "So what if we had been alone? Would it have been different?"
"Of course it would have been! Without a million people gawking at us I would have been able..I mean, you know if I had wanted to, which I..well.." Asuka's face was flushed and she turned away. Why was she spilling her guts to Rei like this? Clearly she herself was the disgusting one around here; all this sap must have been affecting her brain, she reasoned.
She felt a warm, unmistakeable brush of lips against her cheek and felt herself begin to heat up all over again. Rei had leaned over and kissed her, just like that. Asuka touched her cheek gingerly and then said, a little too loudly, "Now what the hell was that for?"
Was Rei smiling...mischievously? "If it's true what you say, then refusing to kiss me out there was noble of you. I think you deserved at least that for your trouble."