Food and Friendships: Part 3

After the rest of the class returns from their trip, Shinji tries to fulfil a promise.

Shinji unpacks a stack of lunch boxes and barely has time to pick up the red one off the top before Asuka grabs it out of his hands. He's packed as much as he can into the box, between the training and actual Angel attacks they are both hungry by the time it gets to lunch.

Asuka had taken out her annoyance about not going on the trip on both himself and Ayanami, pushing the training as much as she could and making him swim every day. Or at least spend time in the pool trying not to drown anyway. At least Asuka wasn't coming to rescue him any more, which was a good thing - she blamed the weird sensations on him and as he had absolutely no idea what caused them he couldn't actually say it wasn't somehow his fault. It probably was.

He takes the next one off the top and walks over to give it to Ayanami, who had just arrived after some test she'd been needed for. As this is the first time they have seen each other today, almost as soon as he's placed the blue bento on her desk she has stood and wrapped her arms around him. At least the only people left to see it are his friends and Asuka. After half a minute, which oddly feels far too short, she lets go and sits down to eat.

Next up is the Class Rep and why he was up early, much to Asuka's annoyance. He's not sure if Toji is going to try to punch him again for this, but at least with all the training Asuka's been putting them through he can probably dodge if he does. At least Asuka was too busy eating to notice when he picked the top two boxes off the stack leaving just his own on his desk.

"Err. Sorry to interrupt your lunch, and I know it's been a few weeks, but things happened and we haven't been able to plan anything. So I made a sample for you to see what recipes you might like. I made one for your sisters too, in case they wanted to try some."

Hikari looks up at him and her eyes light up. She's kind of cute when she smiles. Not beautiful like Asuka of course, but it's nice to see someone happy, even more so at something he's apparently done.

"Thank you Ikari," she immediately closes up her own barely touched lunch and opens the bento. "Though if you dare tell me this only took ten minutes, you're on cleaning duty for the rest of the week."

Shinji shakes his head, "Longer than that, but it does have the same things I made for myself, Asuka and Ayanami. That helped reduce the time a bit."

Hikari is polite and doesn't point out that that only accounts for three of the six different things she'd spotted so far. She lifts her original lunch box and turns toward Toji, whose eyes are on the food in her hand and not on her.

"Toji, Shinji made me lunch, would you like to have the one I made for myself?"

Toji is already in motion before Hikari can finish her sentence. "Thanks Hikari!" He doesn't notice that his hands brush hers as he takes the bento. She does.

Kensuke was laughing as Toji sat back down, "You going to ask her before or after Shinji adds her to his collection of pretty girls?" Which earns him a "shut up" between bites.

Hikari sits quietly facing away from them in an attempt to hide her intense blush. She eats slowly, hoping the heat in her face will fade and tasting each sample carefully. Who on earth taught Shinji to cook like this? She'd been cooking for her family ever since ... since Kodama started working and she wasn't this good.

Shinji was uncertain what had just happened, he was fairly sure he messed up again but couldn't work out how. Hikari was blushing before she turned back to the bento he'd given her. Rather than pointlessly trying to figure it out, he went quietly back to his own desk and lunch. Which he got to just in time before Asuka looked up from her empty box and started eyeing his hungrily. Maybe if she didn't wear them all out she wouldn't be hungry again. Sooner or later someone would yell at him about whatever it was he'd done this time. Hopefully it wouldn't be Asuka.