By the time she's out of the shower, breakfast is waiting on the table for her.
There's no sign of Misato, which is a relief, she really didn't want to deal with what Misato's reaction to last night would have been if she'd known.
There's no sign of Shinji either, which is not. His door was ajar when she went past so he wasn't there. She'd just come from the bathroom after dropping her towel and sheets in the laundry pile. Where was he? Had last night scared him as much as it had scared her? He had to know abandoning her right now was the worst thing he could do, right? No, there was a bento box on the other end of the table with a note.
A bento. Which meant school. The last thing she needed right now. Though maybe she could talk to Hikari. No, there was no way she could explain last night to Hikari. She couldn't explain it to herself.
Maybe the note explained where baka-Shinji had gone.
"Don't forget we have a sync test after school"
Was that better or worse than school? Maybe sitting in the comfort of her Eva for a few hours would help.
"Meet you outside"
Maybe he thought she needed the place to herself for a while, that was her considerate-baka, but it felt too distant. No he felt too distant. Maybe last night's synchronisation was finally fading. No, it wasn't less it was far. Where had the idiot gone? Where ever it was he better be back by the time she'd finished eating.
He wasn't.
He wasn't outside when she left for school either.
She stomped down the stairs rather than letting the slow elevator spoil her mood further.
That was probably a good thing she thought as she spotted him. Walking towards her. Holding Rei's hand and talking to her animatedly. He'd left her to go see Wundergirl? Was he utterly insane and without any sense of self-preservation? Worse was he telling her about last night? There'd be nothing left of him after she'd finished stomping him into the ground.
What happened next initially made no sense. They both spotted her at the same time. Their hands parted. Shinji didn't look guilty like he should, he smiled at her. Rei paused for a moment and then ran at her at full speed. Rei was fast. Asuka braced for impact, fearing an attack by the charging girl. Instead Rei stopped barely a foot in front of her, tilted her head in that way and simply asked "May I?".
By the time Shinji arrived, they'd been wrapped in a tight hug for several minutes, "I guess I was right"
"About what?" growled Asuka over Rei's shoulder.
"You mentioned last night," Shinji started then realised he was on very dangerous grounds, "Before you get even more angry at me, no I didn't say anything about it to Rei." He started over carefully, "You mentioned last night that Rei missed hugs while I was away. And you haven't seen each other since I got back. So I thought you both probably needed that" he nodded towards the pair of them.
'Damnit baka, you're either very lucky or smarter than I think you are'.
"I'll meet you at the gate. If I don't see you I'll tell Hikari you were delayed because of pilot business." With that, Shinji left them behind, ignoring Asuka glaring at him.