Disclaimer: I don't own Evangelion and all rights go to their respective owners. Also, all OCs are the creation of JimmyWolk himself.
SPOILER WARNING: This contains spoilers for the fanfic "The 2nd Try " by JimmyWolk. So If you haven't read that then you should stop right here and check that out first.
Summary:
Once again Shinji battles another night to get Aki to take her daily bath, but Aki won't go down with a fight.
"Closet Baby"
"Aki, where are you?" Shinji called out, as he looked around for his runaway daughter. Not finding any sign of her around the living room, Shinji moved on with a sigh.
He knew this was his fault. He knew that once he uttered the word "bath" in Aki's presence she would always run away in a futile attempt to not take it. He just couldn't understand why his daughter was against having baths now. She used to love them as a baby, always laughing and playing with the water, especially with the bubbles and many of her bath toys that he and Asuka would add in to make it more enjoyable for their little one that taking her out of the bath would result in Aki crying.
Now it was becoming a routine to find and catch Aki to even put her in the bath. Seriously, he couldn't recall himself being this difficult as a child. Maybe Aki's hatred and/or fear came from Asuka's side of the family? Nah, given the fact that Asuka spent a long time in either the shower or bath immediately put that theory down.
Still searching for his little girl, Shinji tried looking into his and Asuka's room and once inside turned on the lights. "Aki, where are you?" Shinji called out.
Shinji smiled when he heard the sound of a quiet but still noticeable giggle somewhere in the room. One of Aki's favourite games was playing hide and seek with him and Asuka but his daughter would always give away her hiding place due to her being unable to keep herself silent for too long.
"Ok, I wonder where my little girl could be hiding, hmm?" Shinji said playfully. "Could she be hiding…underneath the bed?" Shinji called out as he ducked down and checked under the bed but found no sign of Aki. At his failed check he heard Aki giggling again but it gave her position away and Shinji knew for certain where she was hiding, which was the closet.
"Could she be hiding in the sock drawer then?" Shinji continued playing this game just to cheekily mess with his daughter, not really checking the sock drawer but still opening it and quickly closing it to make Aki aware of what he was doing.
"Is she perhaps behind the door? No, she's not behind there. I wonder where she could be hiding. Could she be hiding in the closet?" Shinji proclaimed and chuckled when he heard Aki gasp, knowing her papa was on to her now.
Making his way to the closet and grabbing the handles to the doors, Shinji prepared himself if Aki might run once he opened the closet. So mentally counting down to three, Shinji quickly opened the closet.
"Found you…Aki?" Shinji trailed off as he was not only surprised by the fact that Aki didn't run out but the fact that he couldn't see her visibly anywhere in the closet.
"…Aki? Aki, where are you?" Shinji called out as he was now digging deeper in the closet, looking everywhere but strangely still not finding his daughter. The closet wasn't in disarray as it was once before as he and Asuka had sorted out the contents not too long before due to his wife requesting his help quite urgently in sorting everything out (mostly her stuff and belongings) shortly after she and Aki made their new scarecrow. It wasn't till later that Asuka told him that Aki nearly found one of her special night-time "toys", specifically the one he had gotten her long ago as a way to further spice up their love life, much to both their shyness and embarrassment, he immediately agreed to help organise her side of the closet to prevent any future awkwardness and embarrassments from Aki finding stuff like that again.
Baffled at where Aki could be, Shinji backed up and was about to call out to her again but he heard the sound of a cute sneeze coming from the very top of the closet. Looking up he was relieved to see the obvious movements of his daughter who was using a towel to cover herself in an attempt to hide herself.
Smirking, Shinji prepared himself. "Where's Aki…there she is!" Shinji quickly pulled the covers as he exclaimed causing Aki to squeal and then giggled at having finally been caught by her papa.
Smiling at her, Shinji reached out to stroke Aki's brown locks. "Honey, what are you doing in the closet…and how did you get up here?" Shinji asked and even wondered how his three-year-old daughter had managed to climb to the very top of the closet on her own.
It was becoming a habit of hers as of late as Aki was beginning to climb and explore places that she shouldn't be doing which was starting to scare not just him but Asuka too.
"I climbed, Papa," Aki simply stated as if it was a fact which didn't need further explanation.
Shinji sighed before giving his daughter a cheeky smile. "You are becoming a little tree-climbing monkey aren't you," Shinji said to Aki, making her giggle again.
Remembering the main reason for trying to find Aki in the first place Shinji went in to grab Aki and bring her down. "Come on honey, we need to get you down and have you take that bath,"
And like the idiot that Asuka always told him he was, Shinji said Aki's dreaded word and he watched as her face went from smiling happily to a mad frown in an instant.
"Nooo," Aki whined out as she backed away from her Papa's attempt to grab her by the sides, even swatting his hand away when he tried again.
'Ok, this is getting annoying,' Shinji thought as he repeatedly kept trying to reach out for Aki to get her out of the closet but she was at the very top which made it awkward and difficult for him to grab her, combined with Aki fighting against him just made it even more impossible.
Losing some patience, Shinji tried being firmer, hoping that this would persuade Aki.
"Honey, come on, this isn't funny anymore, come out of the closet now!"
"Nooo! No no no no no!" Aki whined out again repeatedly and much louder than before, clearly showing her defiance at not wanting to take her bath.
It must have been loud enough as Asuka came into the room. "Baka, what's all the commotion in here? The bath is starting to get cold." The redhead reminded Shinji of the task at hand tonight when she looked at the scene before her of Shinji trying to get Aki from up top of their closet.
Upon seeing her mother come in, Aki's face went back to being a happy and smiling one. "Mama!"
Asuka gave her daughter a bright smile before walking over to Shinji and reaching out to stroke Aki's face gently, which the little brown-haired girl leaned into. "Schätzchen what are you doing up there?" Asuka asked.
"Trying to avoid taking her bath tonight," Shinji explained to Asuka instead.
"Well, Baka, just grab her already, we don't have time to play around," Asuka told her husband.
"I'm trying to, but she won't let me get her," Shinji complained even demonstrating to Asuka by once again trying to grab his daughter. Aki's face again switched from happy to deep frown while she scooted away while also swatting and flailing her little hands to his large ones when they came near her.
This continued for a few minutes with Shinji and even Asuka trying and failing to get Aki down from the closet. They tried different things from telling Aki a white lie that she doesn't need a bath, to trying to bribe her with either sweets or a new toy she could pick out during their next supply trip to the city, yet despite this Aki still refused to budge.
Eventually, Asuka grew tired of this as well and went to get a chair from the kitchen which she moved in front of Shinji, who gave her a nod of thanks before he got up and was on level to finally retrieve his daughter. Aki knowing that she no longer had the advantage tried scooting further back but found she was already back against the closet. This split-second realisation allowed Shinji to grab her by the underarms.
With Shinji finally able to get a hold of his daughter he then gently began to pull her out but Aki still refusing to give up turned slightly and grabbed the edge of the top closest and held on all while growling like an angry cat.
Shinji thought that this was ridiculous and tiresome, though he heard Asuka giggling from the side, possibly seeing the humour in this situation and the way her daughter was acting with maybe a bit of pride thrown in there due to seeing the stubborn Soryu blood in her.
Eventually, Aki didn't have the strength to hold on for very long, even though Shinji was only gently pulling her away.
"No no noooooo," Aki cried out I do what in an overly dramatic tone as she finally lost her grip and she once again started growling like an irritated cat.
Shinji turned his daughter around to face him, he saw that Aki was glaring at him but Shinji just found it funny and adorable.
"I'm sorry honey, really I am but you need a bath. You're dirty all over," Shinji said and he wasn't joking. Aki had patches of dirt, dust and even different coloured crayon marks on her hands and don't even get him started on the state of her feet.
"But I hate baths and I'm not dirty," Aki stubbornly mumbled while still glaring at her father.
"Yes, you are," Shinji countered back as he carefully got down from the chair while still keeping a firm hold of his daughter.
"No, I'm not!" Aki said back not yet noticing that they were moving to the bathroom.
"Yes, you are honey," Shinji countered back again but he was smiling at this back and forth between them as it was distracting his daughter as they made it to the bathroom. Shinji also saw Asuka move from behind Aki.
"No…I'm NOT!" Aki screeched out all while her mother had managed to remove her baggy top, bottoms and underwear, leaving the little girl fully naked all while Shinji still had a hold on her.
"Ok, fair enough, you're not that dirty…but you are still having a bath," Shinji finished saying as he finally lowered his daughter into the bath.
Aki hissed as her feet touched the bath water, expecting the water to be either too hot or too cold but she was surprised to find that the bath temperature was just about right as her body was fully submerged in the water. Aki grumbled, and she then lowered her head further in with just her mouth which made bubbles as she continued to sulk.
Shinji, now having his daughter in the water finally chuckled as he began to wet the washcloth. "Do you want me to use the bubble bath, honey?" Shinji asked though he already knew the answer.
"…Yes," Aki said while still continuing to sulk even as her papa began to wash her with the cloth. "And I want my bath toys too!"
"Already got them," Asuka claimed as she was already opening one of the bathroom cupboards and got a small plastic box filled with toys which she let the contents all fall in the bath. Aki turned away from her parents while she grabbed a toy boat and rubber duck in the water.
Seeing that his daughter was still pouting and facing away from him made him sigh. "Honey, listen, you know why you have to take baths right?" Shinji asked with Aki's response being her to submerge more of her body in the water as she played with her water boat. More bubbles coming from her where her mouth is.
"You know you can't always be dirty right?
"…No," Aki grumbled as she let go of her toy boat and duck and was searching for something else in the tube.
"I mean do you want to be smelly all the time and have all those bugs and flies all over you?" Shinji continued with a teasing tone, knowing his daughter's dislike for bugs in general.
Aki finally seemed to lighten up as Shinji heard her make a small giggle. "Noooo."
"So you understand, right?" Shinji asked with a bit of hope that he was finally drilling the idea into Aki's head of proper cleaning herself.
Aki's response was to duck her head underwater for a few seconds before she surfaced facing him but with…a squirt gun?
"No!" Aki declared defiantly before she started shooting shots of water at her father's face, forcing Shinji to shield himself with his hands.
"Hey, hey, Aki, come on, stop that!" Shinji tried to reason with his daughter, who was not letting up soaking him with water. Fortunately for him, Aki's squirt gun eventually ran out of water thus Shinji was able to snatch the toy gun out of her grasp when the girl was temporarily confused why the thing stopped firing. "Where did you even get this?" Shinji honestly asked as he didn't recall ever getting his daughter such a thing before.
Shinji slightly jumped in surprise when he unexpectedly felt a jet of water hit him from behind which also allowed Aki to once again grab her squirt gun from him. Slowly looking back he saw that the culprit was none other than his wife Asuka, who was holding an even larger water gun with a mischievous grin on her face.
"I got them for her, Liebling," the redhead said before she resumed fire at him and her daughter followed suit by continuing as well with her squirt gun after refilling it.
In the end, Aki had her bath and did the normal nighttime routine to get her into bed though poor Shinji was forced to mop and clean up the bathroom as well as get himself some dry clothes.
End.