Plug Suits and Penguins

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Chapter 2: Another House Visit

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The apartment complex was quiet, even if it was just after school and adults were still working. She didn't pass anyone on her way in and up. It would be eerie if she was paranoid. But she told herself she wasn't, so it was simply quiet.

She reached his apartment and hesitated. A week passed since he visited her home and so far no one else in class seemed wise to anything that transpired. Hikari did not allow herself to hope he forgot everything, but instead concluded he was perhaps smarter than his school transcripts implied. Still, the nagging worry he was biding his time, waiting to blackmail or humiliate her or worse remained.

But she wasn't paranoid, she recalled.

So Hikari rang the front bell of Shinji Ikari's apartment and waited, not on pins and needles, not woozily flop-sweating in barely-reined panic.

The door slid open. Shinji appeared, in shorts and a t-shirt, looking drowsy under mussed hair.

"Class Rep," he said, blinking sleep out of his left eye.

"Ikari," she replied. "Did I wake you?" While the content was benign her tone communicated disapproval for snoozing in the afternoon.

Shinji was too tired to notice. "Uh, kind of. Last night's battle took a while."

Somehow, she forgot he was routinely risking his life for everyone else's sake. The disapproval weakened a degree. "I won't keep you then. I'm just here to deliver the printouts for today."

"Right. Thanks."

She gave him the stack and saw his bandaged hands, thickly wrapped. "Are you okay?" she blurted.

"Huh? Oh." Shinji tried to flex his fingers, didn't make it halfway. "I will be."

Stuffed in a shelter for most of the night, trying to both corral Nozomi from wandering off and keep Kodama awake to help corral Nozomi from wandering off, all the while striving to remain a calm, composed role model for other students during the nation-wide blackout had claimed all of her conscious mind to this moment. Waiting, in the dark, shoulder-to-shoulder with the rest of Tokyo-3's civilian populace, for death or salvation, hoping not to dare hope, was a draining experience. At least Hikari got to avoid physical wounds.

But communicating all that was beyond her then. She barely knew this boy. And she was operating on Kodama-levels of sleep deprivation.

"I'll ask our teachers to extend the deadline for the printouts," she decided, unable to offer anything else.

Shinji stared at her a moment. "Thank you."

And Hikari felt absolved of any guilt. "You're welcome."

They both waited, the door threshold between them. Shinji was the first to feel discomfort. He took a breath to mumble how late it was but she was faster.

"About last week," Hikari began. Sensing an upper hand, she pounced. She had just generously bestowed an academic favor, and not so subtly reminded him she was indeed the class representative. The balance of power was clearly tilted towards her.

"Last week?" he asked, trying to get his Angel-fried brain to remember the current decade.

"Yes. When you stopped by my house. When I was out sick."

Flashbacks of wading through chunky burnt carrot soup assailed him. "Oh, yeah."

"I, I don't need to tell you that being as ill as I was the majority of household chores fell to the wayside and that meant a severe shortage of clean laundry available so I was forced to wear the only set of clean pajamas and also, being so ill, sickness entails certain embarrassing bodily functions that are totally natural and unavoidable and also, since I was terribly, terribly sick, with a very high fever the day you stopped by mind you, that I perhaps said a word I would never normally say under normal, healthy circumstances. And that, any one of those things that I just rationally explained, if revealed to the student body, could instigate a class-wide collapse of discipline and control. But you know all of that, right?"

Shinji rubbed tired eyes. "I, what?"

"Did you tell anyone about what you saw that day?" Hikari asked, ordered, pleaded.

"Oh. No."

"You haven't told anyone? Anyone at all? Not even Aida or S-Suzuhara?"

He shrugged a shoulder. "No."

"And, and you won't? Not ever?"

"I guess I—"

"Promise."

"I—"

"Promise."

"… I promise."

Still, she waited, poised on the razor's triangular edge between acquittal and begging and bringing the full force of the class representative to bear. Shinji sighed.

"I promise I won't ever tell anyone about what happened that day."

Hikari retreated a step, outwardly composed and taking the victory in stride, inwardly riding fireworks into an expansive sky of relieved freedom. "It's a promise, then."

"Alright," he replied, hoping to end the encounter and sleep through next weekend.

"Yes, right. Because we both know… Because…"

Hikari trailed off, her eyes bending around Shinji. He followed her gaze to Penpen, waddling out of the kitchen into the front hall to see what was keeping Food Boy.

"Is that…" Hikari swallowed. "Is that a penguin in your apartment?"

"Yeah. That's Penpen." He turned back. Hikari's eyes were wide and shining. "Uh, he's one of my roommates…"

Despite the lack of it in his own life, Shinji could recognize joy in others. And despite how battered he was, fear of breaking social decorum won out over his bed. He took a step back.

"Do you want to meet him?"

Hikari was already in the apartment, scrambling her shoes off before he finished. "Yes."

The front door slid shut. She was past him, and then stopped. The simultaneous wonder and apprehension seemed to ping off her in electric waves. She hesitated in the front hall, fidgeting in place.

"Do I…" she began, tilting her head back slightly towards Shinji but not daring to take her eyes off Penpen. "Can I, like, just go right up to him?"

"Sure."

All worries about Shinji Ikari were vacated. Hikari Horaki was utterly focused on taking one faltering step forward, then another, closing the distance to a real live penguin.

Shinji watched behind her as she inched down the narrow hall with an awkward shuffle. He saw this stretching out for his foreseeable future. The Angels would be long defeated, he old and grey, and his middle school class representative would be still be hobbling deeper into his apartment, perhaps with a walker or stately cane.

Penpen observed Food Boy, deep in barely awake thought, not fixing him a snack. And a new human, yet to be named by his avian brain, approaching at a crippled snail's pace. He waited, idly curious to see if this culminated in violence or food, and grew tired of waiting. He waddled back to the kitchen.

Hikari spun on Shinji, looking stricken. "He's leaving."

Shinji fought back sleep, and got by her, stumbling into the kitchen. Hikari tailed him like a shadow, peeking over his shoulder as he cut Penpen off at a fridge, sat on the floor, and gently spun him around. Shinji looked up at her.

"I'll keep him here," he told her, loosely holding the bird.

Hikari sat on her heels, almost reverently. She reached out one hand, one finger of one hand, then withdrew before contact.

"I, I won't hurt him, will I?"

Only from the agony of waiting. "He'll let you know if he doesn't like something."

"Okay." She steeled her nerves. "Okay."

Hikari carefully, awkwardly patted him on the head. He lifted his beak up, searching for food. Hikari thrilled at the reaction. She pet him again.

Finding nothing edible after the eleventh time, Penpen glumly sagged in Food Boy's arms and allowed Snail Girl to tentatively muss his feathers. A low, sighed wark from his throat was his only futile protest.

Hikari squeaked in delight. A wide, innocent grin refused to leave her face as she used the utmost concentration and care to prod Penpen. Had he not been so utterly worn, Shinji might have thought it cute. As it was, he was merely slightly mystified at the reaction to Misato's gluttonous pet. He supposed a penguin was indeed an unusual discovery in an urban apartment but did it necessitate such focused childlike glee?

Shinji could be tap-dancing on the ceiling in a cat costume and Hikari wouldn't notice. Her whole world was Penpen's bead eyes and flippers and claws and beak and everything. He even had a little backpack with his name engraved on the front collar!

He gave a glance back at the sleepy Food Boy. It seemed they were both trapped.

Until Penpen squawked sharply, beating his flippers against his sides and clawing at the floor. Hikari was instantly concerned.

"Is he okay?" she fretted. "Did I hurt him?"

"He just needs to use the bathroom," Shinji explained as he stood, letting the bird escape. He made a beeline to the restroom.

"Oh." Hikari watched him go. She saw the clock by the cupboard and was startled back to non-penguin reality. "It's after six!?" She had been clumsily petting him for over an hour? "I have to start dinner. My sisters are going to kill me."

She retreated to the front hall, stepping into her shoes. She paused under the open door as Shinji saw her out.

"Sorry for keeping you," she told him. She looked conflicted. "Thank you." She formally bowed.

He decided in the split-second before she rose to leave.

"You're welcome." He cleared his throat just loud enough to stall her departure. "Thanks for the printouts. Uh, it seems like I'm missing a lot of school lately. I'll probably miss more."

"Yeah…"

"So, the next time I need printouts, if you happen to deliver them, I mean, we'll be here. Me and Penpen."

Hikari stared at him. Her face and spirit lifted, and she beamed brilliantly. "Okay! I'll definitely bring them. I'm looking forward to it." She realized what she said and waved her hands before her. "Uh, uh, no. I mean, not, I'm not looking forward to you getting injured or anything."

"It's okay. I understand." For the first time that day Shinji managed the energy to smile. "See you in school, Class Rep."

"See you in school, Ikari."

She left with a smiling bounce in her step, nearly skipping down the stairwell. Shinji went back into the apartment and recalled he was exhausted. Oblivious slumber beckoned. Until Penpen, returned from the facilities, blocked his path to the bedroom. He offered a single wark to remind Shinji he was still snackless.

He opted for a can of sardines. Lazy, but fast, and reluctantly approved by both of them. Shinji dropped the plate on the floor, looking over his shoulder on his way back to bed. Penpen absolutely ravaged the sardines, sluicing them down his gullet in a mad, messy dash for sustenance. And Hikari and Misato found that cute. Maybe it was a girl thing.

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Next chapter: No penguins, even less plug suits. I regret the title already.