Food and Friendships: Part 4
Shinji attempts to make breakfast before Asuka wakes up.
Shinji can hear Asuka grumbling as she enters the kitchen behind him. It doesn't matter how quiet he is getting up, she's always complaining about him waking her.
"Move over and give that to me."
Shinji carefully puts the knife down and looks at her. Asuka never helps. She criticises what he cooks but never makes anything herself. For a moment he thinks she's going to push him out of the way. But she'd never do that. They haven't touched since she started teaching him to swim. Not even accidentally, or when she's angry with him. Which is often.
"I can't exercise while you're chopping. It's distracting."
"I'm sorry. I'll try to be quieter."
"It's not the noise, baka!"
'Then what is it Asuka. I can't do anything about it if you don't tell me' Not that he dared say that out loud. She was already angry about whatever it was she thought he'd done. Though he had an idea. Which he wasn't going to mention or she'd probably slap him again for being a pervert. Which he used to think he wasn't, but he knew she exercised in the morning while he prepared breakfast. He didn't know for sure what she actually did in her room, but he'd been having increasingly vivid thoughts of her stretching. Not how she looked, as long as she didn't notice him looking he could see her beauty every day. But of the way her legs stretched, how the fabric of her shirt moved across her skin as she bent, the way her sports bra was just a little too tight. He blushed. He really was a pervert.
"Stop staring at me like what little brain you have fell out and do your bit!"
Asuka gestured with the knife she'd taken, he backed away carefully and moved to the other side of the sink.
Asuka started chopping the vegetables aggressively but in the precise pattern and spacing he used every morning. This was seriously weird. He wasn't about to ask her about it.