Disclaimer: I don't own Evangelion and all rights got to there respective owners. Also all OC's are the creation of JimmyWolk himself.
SPOILER WARNING: This contains spoilers for the fanfic "The 2nd Try" and it's sequel comic Aki-Chan's Life" which is all done by JimmyWolk. So If you haven't read that then you should definitely stop right here and check those out first before continuing.
Summary:
The Ikari family, along with Rei Ayanami journey into Tokyo 3 to shop for necessities and new clothing for Aki.
"Shopping Trip"
"I still do not see the need for me to be part of this activity. The clothes I have are..." Rei tried to finish but was promptly cut off.
"Mein Gott Rei, we've been over this already." Asuka sighed as she, Shinji, Rei and Aki walked along the road that lead to one of the many train stations of Tokyo 3. Shinji and Aki were further ahead of the girls due to the three year old's excitement at her new surroundings and Shinji being the cautious father kept her very near him and in sight while making sure she was away from any potential dangers. "It's not about being sufficient it's about both looking and feeling good about yourself."
"But the main reason for this activity is to find more clothing for Aki to wear," Rei stated.
"Yes, that's the main reason for this trip and it's not just clothes we need to get her, there's finding her a new tooth brush, get her some toys that she can play with now, a nightgown or two and especially better shoes than the cheap ones we managed to find before," Asuka explained.
"I don't want any more shoes!" Aki shouted from her distance ahead, having somewhat heard her Mama say that dreaded word, especially since she was forced by her parents to wear the ones she had on currently despite her protests.
"You're getting new and better shoes, Fräulein and that's final!" Asuka shouted firmly back to her daughter.
"Awww."
Asuka turned her focus on Rei again. "Also it's not just stuff to get her, you definitely need a new wardrobe. Trust me Rei, by the time I'm finished with helping you look for clothes, you won't even recognise yourself in the mirror," Asuka proclaimed with confidence.
"I very much doubt that, my facial features are quite distinguishable," Rei said.
Asuka sighed heavily at that response. Figures that Rei would take that quite literal.
A small part of her was wondering why she was doing this for Rei Ayanami. An old and ugly part of her somewhat still resented Rei, but Asuka shook her head at that dark thought. Rei had not only prevented the end of the world but most importantly she had found, saved and brought her baby back to her and Shinji, for which she was eternally grateful to her.
The walk to the station was uneventful with the exception of Aki getting overexcited over everything, from the billboard and poster advertisements, moving escalators and lifts, the local stores and lastly the trains themselves which originally Aki thought were huge cars. This made Asuka and Shinji chuckle while Rei told Aki the correct name for the moving trains before they got on to one. After a few stops the group made it to their destination, the Tokyo 3 mall. Upon entering the main entrance, the trio plus the little girl noticed the lack of people.
"There doesn't seem to be anybody here," Shinji said while looking around. Eventually he turned to look at Asuka. "Are you sure that the mall is open today Asuka?"
Asuka looked at her partner with a small glare. "Of course it's open today baka. I checked the news outlets and they specifically said the stores are reopening today. Look, many of the stores are open," Asuka said while pointing at the obviously open shops, many of which showed the employees inside through the clear open glass.
"She is correct that the stores are indeed open. It's just that the inhabitants of the city have not returned to the city which is the reason why the mall is so devoid of people," Rei added in giving the logical reason why the mall was so empty.
"Well, that just means that we can do this a lot more smoothly than expected, plus it also means that we can grab the best stuff here first," Asuka proclaimed while turning and looking back at the family and Rei, especially giving Aki a grin. "So let's get to it then."
Aki was also just as excited. "Yeah, let's do this!" Aki yelled clinching her small fist before raising it. She would have run further into the mall without Rei or her parents if not for Shinji securely holding her other hand. At best Aki only managed to slightly tug her father forward, which got a chuckle out her parents and a small smile from Rei.
The group decided to get Aki's essentials first before looking for clothes. Next item was also easy as despite her dislike of brushing her teeth every morning and night, Aki took a liking to a particular bright red coloured kiddie toothbrush.
The next stop was to get a few new toys for Aki to play with now, which turned out to be a challenge, since with her birthday coming up soon, Asuka and Shinji couldn't let her have everything she saw and thus had to restrict their desire to spoil her. They also had to limit the budget spending and had to consider the carrying capacity.
Fortunately for them, Aki surprisingly somewhat understood after being told firmly by her parents and after they promised to buy her very top favourites for her upcoming special day to appease the little girl. After picking out a bunch of toys which Aki wanted and could have now to play with, a question came up from the little one's mind when they arrived at the cashier.
"Hey Mama, why does Papa need to give little pieces of paper to other people?" Aki asked while pointing to the Japanese Yen notes Shinji was giving the store cashier after the items where scanned. This comment also earned a bewildered and confused look from the guy when Aki said Mama and Papa, something both parents tried to ignore.
"Um, well, Schätzchen, the reason is…the reason is..." This question from Aki turned out to be a difficult one to explain especially to a three, soon to be four year old. Normally Asuka would try to push the more tough and difficult questions Aki wanted answers to on to Shinji (mostly getting a bit of fun watching him squirm) but since he was distracted with paying and placing the toys into the plastic bags Asuka turned to their companion Rei, deciding to let her answer this. "Oh Rei knows the answer to this, don't you Rei?".
Rei nodded at Asuka before fully turning her attention to Aki. "The pieces of paper you see are notes of the Japanese currency called Yen. The reason why we give them to other people is because we live in a capitalised and economic society where in order to obtain goods or services one must give payment to those that service us in exchange."
Aki looked up and stared blankly at Rei for a bit, clearly confused on many parts on what the blue haired teen had just told her. "Oh..um…okay?" she said while scratching your head.
With the group finally gotten most of necessities for Aki, they finally could get to the main part and the biggest clothing store in the mall. One that catered to men, women and children.
Upon arriving at the entrance, Shinji, Asuka and Rei noticed that like the rest of the mall the shop was practically empty of customers. It also seemed that there weren't many of employees present either as they saw only one female retailer plus the cashier present. The female retailer looked bored out of her mind and was on her phone either checking her texts messages or playing some game on her phone, all while not having noticing the group that had entered the store.
Asuka however decided to change this and get some decent customer service. "A-HEM!" Asuka exclaimed rather loudly, startling the woman so much that she almost dropped her phone in surprise. After the initial shock and seeing the trio plus the small child, she took a second to put her phone away before quickly going over to them and presenting them with the classical retail smile.
"Hello there, welcome to our store, how might we be of service?" the clerk said.
"Um hello there, we're looking for the clothing section for children age three to four," Shinji said to the female retailer (who, according to her name tag, was named Yua), while looking down at Aki who herself gave a small smile and a wave at the two female workers.
"And which way is the older female section? This one needs a major wardrobe overhaul asap," Asuka proclaimed while pointing at Rei. Rei herself turned her head to Asuka looking slightly confused.
If the female worker was put off by Asuka impolite directness and demand, she didn't show it as she still had that smile on her face. "Well, you're all in luck as both children and women sections are right next to each other. Please follow me."
Following the woman, Asuka looked down at her daughter with a grin. "Ready to try on some new clothes, Schätzchen?"
Aki grinned back at her raising her small fist. "YEAH!"
x-x-x-x-x-x
"I DON'T LIKE IT!" Aki yelled out a cry, echoing across the shop.
"Come on honey, it's not that bad." Shinji said trying to reason with his daughter who was not happy with the childish clothes and shoes she was currently trying on. "I mean this one has cute kittens on the top and you like kittens, don't you?"
Aki however gave Shinji a mean glare worthy of that of her mother before she took a deep breath. "I DON'T LIKE IT! I DON'T LIKE THE SHOES AND I WANNA CHOOSE MY OWN CLOTHES!" Aki screech was heard throughout the store.
Shinji sighed heavily at this. Both he and Asuka knew that this was gonna be difficult as they knew all too well that Aki preferred to wear the clothes she would choose which all tended to be big and more loose fitting. But now that they were no longer in a post third impact world they had to force this issue onto her in order to fit her into normal society. Truthfully a part of him was always concerned with this even back when it was just the three of them, but Aki's stubbornness and Asuka's dismissal of the whole thing made him also give up.
He also wished that he weren't alone with this right now. Soon after finding clothes for Aki, Asuka gave Shinji the task to make Aki try on the clothes they chose for her while she accompanied (or more like forcibly dragged) Rei into the woman's section to find clothes for the blue haired teen. Shinji suspected that she did this on purpose to avoid becoming the bad guy in this situation.
It had been forty five minutes since he had last seen them and in that time he had made Aki try on dozens of kids clothes, all of which she hated and given her state she was on the verge of running off which again made him really wish he wasn't alone in case that were to happen.
"Is everything ok there, Shinji?" Asuka called out.
Shinji turned and was thankful for Asuka and Rei walking towards them. He noticed Rei wasn't wearing her usual school uniform but was now wearing a pure white sundress, which Shinji had to admit looked beautiful on her.
"Soo what do you think you two, does this look good on her?" Asuka asked while presenting Rei to the two.
"Wow, Rei you look really pretty," Aki said in amazement.
"Yeah you look great in that, Ayanami," Shinji added in.
Asuka looked incredibly proud of herself and looked to Rei with a smug look on her face. "See Rei, told you that they would think it looks good on you too."
A small tint of a blush appeared on Rei's face. "Thank you."
Shinji noticed that Rei was holding a basket that had not only her old clothes but also something else that was coloured blue. "Did you get anything else, Ayanami?".
Rei nodded to him. "Yes, pilot Soryu recommended several items of clothing that she evaluated were suiting me the best. She also instructed me to keep this particular piece on me to wear out."
Shinji nodded to that and was happy that Rei was experiencing new things and was thankful to Asuka for doing this for her.
"Soo how is it coming along here with Aki?" Asuka asked her husband.
Shinji sighed again and Asuka knew it wasn't going so great since even she heard Aki shrieking from across the store. "That bad huh?" Asuka said.
"She hates everything that I put on her. Even the stuff which she liked the look off on the displays she hates having to put on. And don't get me started on the shoes," Shinji mildly complained to his wife.
"Baka, of course she's gonna complain. The goal today was to find anything proper that fits her when she's out in public. At home she can dress in her usual rags if it makes her happy," Asuka told Shinji while picking up a child t-shirt and trousers set from their clothes pile. "Ok Schätzchen how about we try this…on?" Asuka trailed off, realizing that Aki was no longer with them.
"Aki? Aki? AKI!" Asuka shouted in panic while both she and Shinji frantically looked in all directions. Shinji also noted that someone else was missing from their group.
"Rei's gone too," Shinji stated.
"Do you think she's with Aki?" Asuka quickly asked still somewhat worried.
"I'm sure she is. Remember we told her to always watch Aki and Rei always follows through," Shinji said while bringing out his cellphone and calling Rei's phone number. After a couple of rings the phone was picked up with a soft and familiar voice.
"Hello?" Rei answered over the phone.
"Rei w..oh hey!" Shinji tried to answer but Asuka quickly snatched away the phone from his grasp and putting it up to her ear.
"Rei, is Aki with you!?" Asuka demanded over the phone.
"Yes," Rei simply replied but it really calmed Asuka down knowing that the blue haired girl was with her baby girl.
"Oh dem Himmel sei Dank." Asuka let a huge sigh of relief. Shinji hearing this also let out his relief and took back his phone from Asuka's hand.
"Rei, where are you and Aki at?" Shinji asked the most important question.
As he expected, Rei's answer was very direct. "We're on the second floor of this store, men's department."
"Ok stay right there, we're on our way right now," Shinji said and turned to Asuka. "They're on the second floor, the men's department."
Not saying anything both teens rushed to the second floor and upon getting there, they saw Rei just standing alone next to discount clothes pile of men's clothes.
Wasting no time, Asuka grabbed Rei by the shoulders. "Rei where is she!?"
"She's in there." Rei pointed towards the discount clothes bin pile next to her, which both parents saw was moving and shifting for a moment before a familiar little girl burst out wearing a white greyish zipper hoodie jumper that was way too big for her, given how large the hood covered her whole head and the sleeves were too long for her little arms.
"BOO!" Aki shouted in an attempt to scare everyone as she got out but was disappointed that it didn't have any effect on them. "Aww, I thought I'd got you."
Asuka however was not in the mood. "Aki, why did you go off on your own? You know your not supposed too!" Asuka said as she slightly scolded her child.
Aki pouted at her Mama. "I wanted to find my own clothes. Oh and I wasn't on my own, Rei was with me." Aki said while pointing at her friend at the last part, believing she's gotten away with disappointing/worrying her parents.
Asuka kept up her stern look for a moment before she, along with Shinji, sighed in sync. Her worries dissipating, Asuka moved to hold Aki tightly in a bear hug with Shinji wrapping his arms around both of them.
"Oh Schätzchen, just don't wander off without telling me or Papa, ok?" Asuka whispered to her daughter while slightly rocking her.
"Ok Mama," Aki agreed before breaking out of the group hug of her parents before presenting the outfit she was currently wearing. "Can I keep the ghost costume, Mama, Papa?"
This gave two parents a small laugh while Rei grew a small smile of her own. "Honey, that's not a ghost costume, it's a hoodie," Shinji told Aki.
"A hoodee?" Aki repeated while giving her current attire a look over, as well as lifting the hood up revealing her face fully. "Well I like it! Can I have it please, Mama, Papa?" Aki asked while giving her parents the puppy dog eyes look.
Shinji was about to try to say that she couldn't but Asuka intervened quickly. "Ok Schätzchen, if you want it then you can have it, but you still have to have some of the clothes that we picked ok, sounds fair?" Asuka reasoned while she gave Shinji a knowing side wink to him which he understood that his wife was trying to compromise.
It seemed to be working as Aki pondered for a second before nodding, ultimately agreeing to the arrangement.
After that, the gang decided that they had done enough for today, paid for the clothing and went home, with Rei having to take a different train to her apartment but not before bidding farewell to her friends though not before Asuka and Shinji reminded her of the date of the party.
Upon arriving back at the Katsuragi apartment, with Aki doing a routine 'I'm home' greeting, they were met with Misato who looked like she had just come home from another day at NERV headquarters herself. PenPen who was seen only briefly seen running into his freezer upon hearing Aki's greeting, still somewhat afraid of three year old girl.
"Hey guys welcome home. How did the shopping trip go?" Misato asked.
Aki responded to the question as best as an energetic kid would. "It was fun, auntie Misato! Me, Mama and Papa and Rei walked around and went on the big ca..train thingy and we went to the shopping mall which had lots of kinds of neat things. I got new colouring books and crayons and Mama, Papa and Rei got me new toys as well but I was only allowed a few things as my birthday is coming up really soon and they told me I'd had to wait to get more. Are you gonna get me something?"
"Uh…"
"Also Rei told me about why people need the yen paper even though I still don't understand why as Papa and Mama just took things without it before. I even got new clothes though I really, really didn't like the ones Papa and Mama choose for me but they said I had to now, oh, but I was able to find something for myself which I really liked all on my own which was a hoodee even though I thought it was a ghost costume at first."
Misato chuckled at the long story Aki told, petting the brown haired girls head as she sat down on the chair at the kitchen table. "Sound like you you had a great day kiddo."
"Yeah the best day ever!" Aki said out loud.
End.