Food and Friendships: Part 2

Asuka is refusing to spend any time near Shinji after the aftermath of their synchronisation training and resorts to bothering Hikari for lunch.

Asuka plopped down next to Hikari on the grass.

Hikari looked over at her, this was not entirely a surprise, the loud German girl was becoming the closest thing she had to a girl friend other than Kodama, and Kodama was, well, Kodama. Part friend, part big sister, part parent. There were some things she couldn't talk to anyone else about, and some things she could never even mention to her sister.

At least Soryu was a little more restrained than when she first arrived, even if she still didn't put much effort into fitting in. She had rapidly found that sitting with any other group while she ate lunch started rumours of her picking favorites, she couldn't sit with Toji and Kensuke because the pair were always in trouble for something so she couldn't even use the childhood friend excuse. Different sorts of trouble since they'd befriended Ikari, but trouble nonetheless.

However when she'd first tried to sit with Soryu for lunch, all she'd gotten were sympathetic looks and the occasional "good luck". And even though their personalities were very different, she was starting to appreciate Soryu's company. Sometimes anyway.

"What can I do for you today, Soryu?"

"Sheesh! You're still all uptight Hikari. Call me Asuka for heaven's sake. Even the idiot manages that."

"Very well, Asuka, you look like you have a question for me."

"What did you do with them?"

She is already lost, not that that was unusual, she had started to realise that Soryu Asuka had a habit of leaving out things she thought were obvious, "With who?"

"The bitch pack. I figured out most of the cliques, they aren't much different here. The boys groups are as simple as they are: nerds, jocks and loners, though even the jocks here study as if they actually want to learn. The girls are the usual, the beauty queens who are more concerned about how they look than anything else, the dumb boy mad ones, those are sometimes the same unless you've got lesbians."

It hadn't taken long to work out even with the weird way the Japanese kids behaved. Underneath they were still the same as the ones in Germany when her father's wife had insisted she go to school. 'It will be good for you to be a normal girl for once' as if the Great Asuka would ever be anything normal. She'd been bored bored bored bored bored! So bored she'd made charts of the other students interactions just to have something to do. One time she'd even tried getting all zeros in her tests so they'd kick her out. The teachers had been annoyed, her father had been angry, Misato had laughed and added a course in applied statistics to her real studies.

"Well we don't," Hikari lied with conviction. Asuka might be becoming a friend, but there were some things you didn't admit to knowing. She didn't know Asuka that well yet, and she knew Kensuke had somehow managed to find out that Tanaka-san's father worked on her Eva. How he'd managed that when his ability to communicate with girls was only slightly better than Toji's she didn't know and had decided she was probably better off not asking.

Asuka snorts, "There's being a proper little Japanese girl, and there's being blind. You've got at least four. Two of the letters I burned had perfume on them."

Asuka was wrong, one of those had been from a boy who had actually put a lot more thought into it than his classmates. Unfortunately the boy didn't know about lesbians either and thus his efforts went up in smoke with all the others.

Hikari probably shouldn't be surprised by Soryu's inflammatory response, but she is, "You burned them?! And what do you mean two of? How many did you get?"

"You think I counted? My locker was full! I opened a few and it was either terrible poetry or only about my looks. If someone wants my attention they'd have to do better than that!"

Hikari tries to steer the conversation back, "You had a question?"

"Oh, right, the cliques. Beauty Queens, Boy Mad, Sports Mad, Swots, Loners and the Bitch Pack - except you don't seem to have the last of those. So I was wondering how you managed it. You're probably one of the youngest in the class, but everyone listens to you."

"Bitch Pack?" Hikari was fairly sure her curiosity was about to get her into something, she just didn't know what.

"Every class has them, two or three girls who think they can do whatever they like. They roam in a pack with hangers on using them for protection. They never leave any actual evidence you can punish them with. You can't tell me the Japanese are too polite for that, that sort turn politeness into a weapon. So where are they?"

You couldn't respond with an appropriate level of force either, Asuka grumbled to herself. She wasn't allowed to step on their houses, blow them up nor apparently break their noses. Though at least she'd actually gotten to do the last one. It hadn't been quite as satisfying as she'd hoped but the girl had finally shut up. Worse, the next month of her physical training had been zero impact so she wasn't allowed to even hit anything. At least she hadn't had to go back to that kindergarten.

Hikari decides not to point out that she's sitting next to a girl who thinks she can do whatever she likes and answers the question, "2C."

"2C? What is that? The problem class? You exiled them? Good for you."

Hikari shakes her head, "2C is no different than our class, except their classroom is closer to the back door. They requested the transfer."

"To get away from you? What on earth did you do?"

Hikari shakes her head again, "Not from me. From Ayanami. She stabbed the ringleader with a chopstick."

Asuka blinks, this made no sense whatsoever. "The Doll? Stabbed someone? You're making fun of me. She's so emotionless the class calls her the Ice Queen when they think she can't hear."

Hikari laughs, "That's not why. You know Ikari makes lunch for her?"

"Of course. He makes mine too, as he should."

"So the only thing she ever says in class is 'Thank you, Ikari' when he hands her lunch. If she were the one giving him lunch, everyone would assume they are dating, but he's the one making hers and she's always very formal accepting it."

"Those two? Dating? Now I know you're having me on. They couldn't manage a date even if they were ordered to."

Hikari refrains from mentioning that Shinji does actually know how to go on a date, but if Soryu hasn't heard about it yet she's not going to be the one to tell her. Especially as the poor boy had obviously developed a crush on her. Shinji insisted he wasn't dating Ayanami, so despite him making her lunch and them being physically affectionate with each other, she had to take his word for it. If it were Toji, she'd definitely have counted falling asleep on his shoulder after lunch as a date. Not that he'd ever ask her. She shook her head, back to the actual conversation.

"Anyway, the ringleader apparently decided that if she's actually thanking him it must be good food and decides to help herself. Ayanami stabs her hand with a chopstick, pinning it to the desk."

Asuka is looking incredulous.

"Then she says 'Do not attempt any further interference with my nutritional intake' pulls the chopstick out, puts the broken pieces in the girl's other hand - the one that isn't bleeding everywhere - and instructs her to 'Have the nurse dispose of this hazardous waste'. Then she gets out a second pair of chopsticks and goes back to what's left of her lunch."

Asuka is just staring at her.

"The next day she comes in, calm as ever as if nothing had happened. At lunch she takes her box from Ikari as usual but hands him back the chopsticks. Instead she gets out a pair of metal ones, 'These are less fragile' and eats her lunch as if this was perfectly normal. That's why they call her the Ice Queen."

"I don't believe you."

Hikari shrugs, "I can't make you. They were both allowed back to school the next day. I don't know what happened with Ayanami but the other girl only has two very small scars and no permanent injury so perhaps that helped her case? The three main members of that group asked for a transfer to a different class and it was granted immediately."

What they'd actually asked for was a transfer to a different school, in a different city as far as possible away from 'That blue haired freaking monster'. What they got told was to stop their theatrics and that they could move to a different class to avoid upsetting Pilot Ayanami again. Whatever their behaviour they were still pilot candidates, they weren't going anywhere.

There was, of course, no record of Ayanami's subsequent conversation with Commander Ikari.