Asuka opened the door to find Hikari and Toji on her doorstep.
"Hikari! Jock-Stooge! What are you doing here?" Shinji would have noticed how false her cheer was and be already brewing tea. Hikari didn't appear to notice, and the stooge was as observant as a brick.
"Hi Red, we brought your roommate back"
For a split second Asuka thinks it's Shinji and a cycle of puzzlement, confusion, concern and alarm flashes by before her mind catches up with her emotions and realises there's only one 'person' any of them would call her roommate rather than something else.
"Hi, PenPen" she greets the bird as Toji helps it out of the oversized backpack he's carrying.
PenPen looks up at her, pecks her ankle and pushes past her inside. "Welcome home, I guess"
"Later, Red" Toji turns and leaves, leaving Hikari on her doorstep.
After a moment Asuka realises Hikari isn't going with him and sighs, "You better come in out of the heat".
Hikari looks around as Asuka goes to fetch her a cold drink. "Shinji's not home?"
"No, he's over at Rei's, cooking or making out or something"
Hikari ignores Asuka's casual tone and tries to decide which line of conversation to risk. There were days she enjoyed verbally sparing with Asuka. She was reasonably sure this wasn't going to be one of them. "Cooking?"
"You know how good his cooking is, right?"
"Asuka, given the way you defend your lunch bentos, everyone knows how good his cooking is. Even if they haven't had the pleasure of actually eating any. It's one of the few things he knows he's good at."
"You know how he's always so non-committal and apologetic and wouldn't criticise a fly for landing on his face." Hikari raises an eyebrow.
"Well, I asked him one day why he made Wundergirl lunch every day, even if he didn't know if she'd be there. I'm expecting some apologetic crap he can barely stammer out. Except he looks at me, 'Asuka' he says, " and Hikari recognises the tone that Asuka is mimicking even if Asuka herself doesn't, "'I've seen what she eats at home. It's like Misato,'" Asuka pauses for dramatic effect, "'except bland' and he sounded so disgusted and outraged that I laughed. Then he threatened not to make my lunch. And I asked why, if it was really that bad - we've both experienced Misato's "cooking" - he was only making her lunch. Which shut him up so I could enjoy my food before class started."
Hikari knew her friend well enough to know there were definitely things left out of that description.
"Anyway," Asuka continued, "now he goes over there every so often and makes a bunch of meals for her so she has something edible. Apparently he's tried to teach her, but he doesn't use recipes and it hasn't gone well. I suspect she's not trying very hard because she wants him to keep cooking for her. Which is stupid as all she'd need to do is ask and he'd do whatever she wants. Obviously she's completely out of anything remotely edible, what with him having been gone for a month, so they left school together."
"So, I have you all to myself and we can catch up?"
"You mean you want to brag and tell me what Toji was doing at your place other than picking up a penguin" snarked Asuka.
"Well, yes" blushed Hikari, "but mostly I'm worried about you."
"Worried?" Asuka looks startled.
"Yes, worried about my friend" snaps Hikari.
"The first time I know anything is wrong is when I get a call from Miss Katsuragi. 'Shinji's been hurt. Asuka's being kept for observation. Can you look after PenPen for a bit?' Except "a bit" was over a month. Ayanami disappeared completely. I didn't hear anything from you for two weeks and then all I got was 'He's still alive'. You could all have been dead and I wouldn't know. Then you come back acting like nothing had happened, except Ayanami is giving you that contented smile she uses for Shinji and Shinji is acting like his mother just died.
Hikari saw the expression on Asuka's face and realised she'd made a big mistake. She just didn't know how big.
For a moment she thought Asuka was going to hit her in a blind rage, then she watched her friend collapse in on herself and that was even more frightening.
"Do not ever mention our mothers ever again. Especially his."
Hikari knew that whatever had happened to Asuka's mother was bad enough Asuka whimpered in her sleep and woke up from nightmares in the middle of the night. What had happened to Shinji's mother that Asuka thought it was even worse? She'd never shared a room with Shinji, obviously, but if his nightmares were as bad they probably woke each other up frequently.
After Hikari's nod in acceptance, the silence dragged on. If it had been one of her sisters, Hikari would have held them for as long as it took. But their mother's death provoked sadness, not night terrors and rage. She didn't know what to do for her friend. Eventually she decided that the loaded silence was worse.
"I know a lot of it is probably classified, but is there anything you can safely tell me?" Hikari tried to choose her words carefully, giving Asuka as much room as possible to both share and withhold whatever she needed. The word "safe" was doing a lot of heavy lifting.
It takes a while for Asuka to answer her.
"Shinji wasn't in the hospital. That's why no one could visit. Something "classified" happened during the last attack and he was trapped in his Eva. The only thing keeping him alive was the Eva's life support system. Those are only designed to keep you alive for a few hours. Long enough for a fight and for recovery afterwards." Asuka knows exactly how long, even if she hadn't already had the spec memorised, she'd counted them down to the last second twice now.
"Hours?" prompted Hikari.
"Hours. Then days. Then weeks. Akagi's a bitch, but she's a brilliant bitch, and she's got Ibuki and multiple supercomputers. I grew up with my Eva, but she's worked with his almost as long. I only caught a couple of things that she missed. All I could do was double-check the technicians for any mistakes and make sure Rei didn't fall apart.
'Rei. Not Wondergirl. Not First.' Asuka was holding back a lot that probably wasn't classified. Ayanami was one of Asuka's few exceptions to her "call everyone by their first name, Japanese sensibilities are stupid" approach. And she'd just offhandedly mentioned noticing things that the head researcher at Nerv, her staff and several supercomputers had missed. What had happened to her boastful friend?
"And you looking after Rei meant you couldn't call your best friend to let her know you were alive?"
Hikari had all but given up trying to predict how this conversation was going to go. Shinji would have been apologetic. Her sisters would have given a long excuse as to why phones didn't work. Asuka, Asuka screamed at her.
"They gave up on him. They were just going to let him go. Too much time. Too much money. They were going to put his plug into storage and find another pilot. I couldn't let them do that. They can't replace my baka."
Hikari barely heard Asuka's whisper, "He wouldn't even be dead, just 'missing'. As if they didn't know where he was. As if I didn't know where he was".
Asuka was much more subdued when she continued, "So no, I didn't call you. I didn't call anyone. I had to make sure we got him back. I had to make sure his girlfriend was still alive when they did."
For a moment Hikari wasn't sure if Asuka was talking about Ayanami or herself there. Things were obviously a lot worse than she'd known, and far more complicated. Asuka had been calling Ayanami Shinji's girlfriend for a long time, no one had taken it as anything other than Asuka teasing Shinji. It was obvious to everyone, except perhaps them, that Asuka and Shinji were a couple. But Asuka sounded deadly serious, literally.
Diversion or conversation killer, take your pick, "I thought she was the wife and you were the girlfriend?"
Asuka stared at her, "Oh no. You're not getting me this time Hikari. Not that I could get between them if I wanted to. Which I don't."
"I'm not so sure about that, it sounds to me like between them is exactly the position you want to be in" Hikari smiled suggestively.
Asuka blinked and asked in a sugary tone Kaji would have recognised instantly, "So tell me, Hikari-dear, does Toji get any bigger than when he's freezing his balls off mooning me on the deck of an aircraft carrier?"
Hikari covered her mouth and blushed furiously - diversion but certainly not in the direction she wanted. "He didn't?"
Asuka grinned, "He did. The three of them came out to the carrier fleet bringing my Eva over. Misato brought Shinji to meet me for some reason, why that couldn't have waited I don't know. Anyway, he dragged the other stooges with him. Kensuke was beside himself of course. So they're walking across the deck towards me when the wind blows my dress up and they all get a free panty shot. Aida is too busy drooling over some ancient aircraft, Shinji lies and says he doesn't notice, Toji decides to pay me a 'viewing fee' by reciprocating."
Hikari groans, "That's such a Toji thing to do. Though Shinji wasn't lying."
Asuka looks confused, "What makes you say that about the pervert? Of course he was looking"
"Asuka, Shinji is the least perverted boy I know. Toji could probably tell me what colour your panties were. Shinji told me how proud you looked and how the angle of the sun made your eyes seem an even more brilliant shade of blue."
While Asuka is having her perspective on Shinji rearranged again, Hikari is pondering how much to share with her friend. Asuka had been the one to break the ice between her and Toji, and she certainly couldn't talk to anyone else in class about it - some of the girls might have more experience, but she was the Class Rep and had to keep up appearances. She couldn't talk to her older sister about it without another uncomfortable conversation. Asuka might tease her mercilessly, but she would listen and she wouldn't tell anyone. She might talk to Shinji about a lot of things, but this was never going to be one of them.
"And to answer your question," Hikari makes a gesture with her hands.
Asuka looks at her for a moment before realising what the gesture means, "Oh. Definitely larger then. Smaller than Shinji though" she replies casually.
Hikari does not know what to do with that information. She waits for Asuka's brain to catch up with what her mouth just said.
Asuka sighs and looks almost sad "I'm sure you found out in a much more enjoyable way than I did."
"Shinji's no good in bed? I'd have thought he'd be very considerate."
"Shinji's perfectly fine in bed, when he's not too afraid to touch me."
"Asuka, are you winding me up again or are you really sleeping with Shinji?
"I'm not this time, his hands are distracting me. Of course I sleep with him, it's the only way I get any rest."
Hikari stands, deliberately scraping the chair across the floor noisily, "Asuka, if you can't stop daydreaming about Shinji I'm going home".
Asuka jolts at the noise, "What? Huh?" then replays the last few minutes of conversation. "Shit. It's not like that."
Hikari sits back down, "So tell me what it is like?"
Asuka gets up and gets a fresh drink, wishing Misato's beer was even remotely drinkable and settling for a coke instead.
"Cooking"
"Sex with Shinji is like cooking?" Hikari looks confused.
Asuka manages not to spit her drink all over Hikari, but it's a close call. "What? No! I've never had sex with Shinji. I never want to have sex with Shinji".
"Well, if you don't want me to draw the obvious conclusions from your words, you'll have to be a little clearer."
Asuka sighs, "You've seen us cooking together. Perfect synchronisation. I chop. He stirs. He reaches past me to grab some spices. I step behind him to drop the vegetables in the bowl next to the pan so he can add them. He nudges the cutting board the moment the knife gets too close to my fingers. We work very close to each other and we never touch."
"Never? When I cook with my sisters we're always bumping into each other, grabbing for the same pan at the same time, and so on."
"We don't because we know precisely where each other is. He nudges the cutting board because he's felt how close the knife is, not because he knows I'm sometimes careless when I'm cutting, he's busy - he's not even looked my way. No one really notices because it just looks like we're well coordinated from when we had to do everything together for that Angel. No one notices that we don't touch because of course we do, how would we avoid it?
"We avoid it because sometimes it hurts."
Asuka reaches out and puts her hand on Hikari's lightly. "Feel that? Pleasant? Gentle? What happens if I double it?" She presses a little harder, "And again?" Hikari starts to look uncomfortable. "How many times until it hurts? How many times until I start breaking your bones? How many times before your bones are dust?" Hikari is looking scared by the time Asuka pulls her hand away.
"Now imagine you went to hug your little sister and half the time it would be a happy hug, and half the time it felt like your bones were shattering before she'd finished putting her arms around you. And you'd never know which until you tried. How long would it take before you stopped hugging your sister no matter how much either of you wanted one? What if she fell and scraped her knee and you had to call someone else because you were afraid to touch her?
"Now imagine waking up from a nap and seeing your sisters cuddling on the couch asleep. How do you feel watching them? Imagine your little sister waking up and running towards you. Are you going to hug her? Or flinch and move out of the way? How's she going to react?
"That enough of a nightmare for you?
"That's the risk I take when I go to lie on the edge of Shinji's bed. That's the risk he takes when he lets me. Because we discovered that if we are both asleep at the time we touch, it doesn't happen. If we can do that then the worse nightmares don't happen. And we always wake up at the same time, so we can coordinate letting go without accidentally touching again.
"So this started when you were doing that dance training?" asks Hikari before Asuka can get lost in thought again.
"No, not until later. That really was all timing and practice. It had to work when we were attacking the Angel with giant robots and half a kilometre between us. The close proximity synchronisation like the cooking thing wouldn't be enough."
"Not that distance seems to have been a problem for a while," Asuka added in a tone that could have been bitter, sad or wistful.
"How do you know?"
"I felt it when the baka got to Rei's because she hugged him. And I was distracted by his hands because he was chopping vegetables and I could feel the motion. It's faded now, but that doesn't seem to be dependent on range, there's no pattern to it that either of us has found."
"If it didn't start when you were trying to synchronise, when did it happen?"
"When I kissed him."
Hikari looks stunned, "You mean when you spent two days at my place upset because you'd tried to kiss him and it had gone badly?"
Asuka looks sad, "I mean the least painful part of that encounter was him throwing me across the room and landing on my arse."
"Wait? He threw you all the way across the room? And that was the best part?"
"Why do you think it took me two days to be willing to go back? I'm not some melodramatic hormonal teenager."
Hikari just looks at her.
Asuka rolls her eyes, "That's good coming from miss 'my best friend is having my crush's secret lovechild'. I still haven't come up with a way to top that yet."
Ignoring the barb, Hikari continues "And I thought he'd just rejected you"
"Well, you have to admit that was a pretty convincing rejection at the time".
"Anyway, when I went back he was just normal Shinji, apologising for everything and saying he just wanted it to stop hurting like the coward he is. It took Rei explaining it to me before I understood what he actually meant. Just like Rei isn't afraid of dying, Shinji isn't afraid of physical pain - he gets his arm ripped off by an Angel and just keeps going despite how much it hurts - so it wasn't his pain he wanted to stop, it was mine, he was just faster than me to react.
Hikari studies her friend for a moment. She's heard Shinji mention that fighting in an Eva hurts, and Toji's description of Shinji seeming almost an entirely different person when he shared the Eva with him. Asuka's description of it ... she didn't say 'having the Eva's arm ripped off' she said 'his' as if all the pain was felt by Shinji. And Asuka was so casual about her possibly-boyfriend being hurt, and Shinji made it seem like it was just something to deal with, like math homework. What did that say about either of them? What could she possibly do for her friends in the face of that?
"So you know Shinji's bigger than Toji because you sleep with him? Shinji I mean!"
Asuka grumbles, "No, it's more embarrassing than that."
"More embarrassing than falling asleep on the couch after a movie and waking up with your boyfriend's erection pressed against your butt?"
"Well, now I know how you know about Toji," Asuka teases, "but no it's synchronisation weirdness again."
"Oh, like you can feel pain as well as position?"
Asuka looks at her questioningly.
"Shinji mentioned it once. How when one of you hurts the other sometimes feels it."
"Position, pain, pressure, texture. No sight or sound thank gott, we aren't forced to watch each other shower. No taste or smell either. No thoughts, involuntary telepathy would be even worse than feeling each other pee.
"So I know how big he is for the same reason he asked Misato to take me bra shopping.
Hikari laughs, "He did that? That sounds as much like Shinji as Toji mooning you in payback".
"He asked her not to tell me of course, but it's Misato, there's no way she could resist. Fortunately, it was 'I do all the laundry and her bras are getting worn and she's not replaced them herself' and not 'the band's hurting my ribcage and her nipples are chafing in the heat'. Thankfully Misato found it easier to believe that I didn't want to go shopping than that Shinji somehow knew how uncomfortable most of my bras had become."
"Well, I think it's great you can talk with him about things like that.
Asuka stares at her, "What? You think I've said any of this to baka-Shinji? Weren't you listening? We know things about each other because we have no choice, not because we talk."
"Asuka, I know I can't know what it's like for you. In some ways you're already closer to him than I'll ever be able to be with Toji. In others you may as well still be in Germany for all the difference it seems to make. So please, work out how to talk to each other. Before you learn what you have by discovering what you've lost.
"Wark!" agrees PenPen.
"So where is Miss Katsuragi anyway?"
"Some special assignment according to Frau Doctor. Which just happened to start the day baka-Shinji got back. I haven't been able to reach Kaji either... " Asuka trails off, leaving the assorted possible implications unsaid.
"So it's just me and the idiot for at least a few days more, if you and your stooge wanted to come for dinner."
"Wark!" notes PenPen impatiently.
"I think that's your cue to feed poor PenPen, and mine to go and feed my sisters."
Hikari hugs her friend briefly. "I'll get back to you on dinner. I don't know Dad's schedule for the rest of the week yet."