Plug Suits and Penguins

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Chapter 6: Din-din Din

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Vegetable soup? Simmering at a pleasant boil. Without peas, of course. Kodama hated those since she was a kid, when she imagined she was chomping through little wrinkly exploding bugs. And with carefully peeled potatoes, of course, because Nozomi hated the skins. She said they were like soggy paper.

Noodles? Nearly the exact right firmness, between uncooked and dissolving on your fork. A somewhat happy compromise for her sisters. She was just thankful to have any at all.

Breaded chicken meatballs? Crispy and cooked. Nozomi was off a brief stint of vegetarianism, after a school trip to a farm outside the city. Kodama was pleased with anything she could drown in hot sauce.

Not an elaborate or favored dinner but more than enough nutrition for hungry minds dedicated to bettering themselves through study and service. Or also, for her two sisters.

"It's dinner time!" Hikari called from the kitchen.

It was not dinner time for another ten minutes. Nozomi just had to finish a television program of loud flashing colors and Kodama was reluctantly struggling out of a nap. So the vegetables in the soup got overcooked. The noodle consistency was ruined. The meatballs cooled. Too freaking bad.

"Jeez, who peed in your bento?" Kodama yawned.

"We're really supposed to eat this?" Nozomi asked.

Hikari reminded them they were free to make a meal they wanted to their specifications on their own. They all sat.

The sisters gathered around the kitchen table, a circular glass top that looked more at home at a trendy café. Dad sometimes told the tale of him and Mom stealing it from an outdoor bistro when they were irresponsible teens on their second date, the story getting more dramatic and outlandish with every recitation. Last time he implied they eloped in his father's pickup truck afterwards, table in the back, with the cops hot on their trail.

The chairs were an eclectic collection, one antique wicker, another curved loops of metal, a folding chair, and a plastic deck chair. No one argued for uniformity because that was the way it had always been. Seat designation was largely first come first served. Tonight the wicker chair was empty; Dad was at work late, and no one really liked the wicker chair.

They ate, none of them pleased with the quality of the meal but unwilling to admit they were partly responsible for it. They dined in an uneasy silence, each sister mulling the last few days to avoid tasting what they ate.

Kodama, in the metal chair, shoveled her meatballs on top of her noodles, then poured hot sauce until they swam in the shallow bowl. She lazily stirred the morass.

"So," she broke the quiet, "how's school?"

"Terrible," Nozomi replied from the deck chair. "Mr. Ueda yelled at all of us because we laughed when Junoichi threw his math book out the window, again, and then he gave us a quiz, like it was punishment. Then Ms. Hirasawa made us draw her dumb cats in Art, again, even though we did that last week. And the week before. And then—"

"Sounds awesome and all but I was asking Hikari."

"Oh."

"School?" Hikari repeated, posture immaculate on the weathered folding chair. "Okay. No problems."

"Good, good. Just asking since you stayed pretty late yesterday."

"I explained. A classmate asked for help with an assignment he missed."

"I see, I see. Nice of you to help."

"Just doing my job."

"Without pay or benefits. That is dedication."

"Someone has to be class representative." God help the students of 2-A without one. Not that total anarchy would reign with just Mr. Nebukawa against the tide of ill discipline and tomfoolery. Simply near-anarchy. Lord of the Flies, but with fewer dead animals.

"They're lucky to have you," Kodama stated. She tilted her head. "Who needed your help? You got in so late we never heard."

"Why do you want to know?"

"Why are you being evasive?"

"Why are you being invasive?"

"Heaven forbid I take an interest in my dear younger sister's life outside these walls."

"Yesterday when I was telling you about my day," Nozomi broke in, "you told me to shut up and then fell asleep on the couch. I had cereal for dinner."

"Nozomi…"

"Kodama…"

"Bad cereal. Dad's cereal. I don't need extra fiber in my diet."

"You should have helped her make something—"

"She can handle herself. She's what, nine?"

"You know she's eleven!"

"And the milk was expired so I had to eat it dry—"

"Okay!" Kodama groaned. "I'm sorry. But who bought you new milk today?"

"I did," Hikari answered.

"See? The problem resolved itself."

They returned to the meal under a brief, poorly negotiated armistice.

Kodama sipped at the soup. She held some in her mouth, frowning around it. She gulped. "So," she began, "this soup."

"Yes?"

"It reminds me." She conducted with her spoon, coaxing the memory out. "It reminds me of the soup we had a couple weeks ago."

"Oh?"

"Yeah, the soup that guy made."

"Oh, yeah," Nozomi encouraged. "Mister…" She tapped a chicken meatball against her lower lip in thought. "Mister…"

"Iraki?"

"Ogata?"

"… Ikari, right?"

"Oh, yeah."

"Yeah. He made a mean soup. Even with the peas and all."

"Oh, yeah."

"I mean, no offense, Hikari, but the way he magicked those ingredients together was something else. Like, he didn't need no cook books or nothing. Right, Nozomi?"

"Oh, yeah."

"It just looked so effortless and natural. And the taste."

"Oh, yeah."

"Maybe it was merely the novelty of trying something I haven't had ten billion times before but Ikari's soup was fan-tas-tique."

"Oh, yeah."

Hikari calmly slurped noodles. "Ikari made soup here, you say? Wasn't I terribly ill? I don't really recall it."

"Oh, it was special. Like, fancy date night special. Like, let me blow my entire paycheck on some artsy-fartsy restaurant in the vain desperate hope of getting lucky special."

Slurp, slurp. "It made quite the impression, then?"

"Yeah. Whoever gets to eat that kind of chefing every night is super lucky."

"Oh, yeah."

Slurp. "I suppose."

"What, ah, do you know his family situation?" Kodama asked far too casually. "Just, you know, making conversation. He seemed a bit…"

"Cool?" Nozomi piped up. Her sisters looked at her.

"Uh, sure," Kodama recovered. "That."

"And generous?"

"I suppose—"

"And—"

"And," Kodama cut in, "a bit, you know, a little sad. Like a neglected puppy. A neglected puppy that has to look after his own irresponsible master."

"… You two got all of that from his brief visit to drop off some homework for me?" Hikari asked.

"Yes."

"Yeah."

"And," Kodama continued quickly, "what every neglected puppy needs is a good friend."

"He has friends." Adding the modifier good might be stretching it but that was a debate she'd continue to have with herself in private.

"Great. But what's to say he doesn't need another—"

"You should marry him!"

"Damn it, Nozomi!"

Hikari placed her utensils atop her empty stacked dishes. "I'm done. I thank myself for the meal." She rose from the table.

"Oh, come on!" Kodama and Nozomi both exclaimed.

"No, I will not!" Hikari replied with a stamped foot. "Where is all this coming from?"

Her sisters avoided eye contact.

"The, uh… The soup. And all."

"Oh, yeah."

She shook her head. "I know Ikari is, well, important, but this line of conversation is totally inappropriate. I—"

"Important?"

"Yes. Because of his… responsibilities."

Not that his after school job was a secret, he spilled the beans himself in the middle of class, but it developed into a taboo subject once the initial excitement died down. She got the feeling some of it was behind-the-scenes managing from Suzuhara and Aida.

"Responsibilities?" Kodama repeated. "Like, a very, very dirty home?"

"Old grandparents?"

"Very, very old, dirty grandparents?"

"No," Hikari started. "He's…" She gestured.

Her sisters craned their heads forward, trying to hear that.

She sighed. "He's the pilot. Of the robot."

The moment of silence in the Horaki household was a profound rarity. The racket of the TV on too loud to drown out the neighbors was muted. The stereo blasting inappropriate music to be heard over the TV was unplugged. The dog across the street that woke up at five-fourteen every morning like clockwork was muzzled. All of that noise was, for a brief, wondrous instant, forgotten. Quickly replaced by the shattering uproar from Kodama and Nozomi.

"OoooOOOOOOOOOOoooooooooooooOOOOOOOOOOOOOooh, shiiiiiii…!"

"He's the pilot boy!?"

"… iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiitttttttt!"

"You two didn't know!?"

Of course they didn't know. Chronically sleep-deprived Kodama and spacey Nozomi would not pay attention to the middle school rumor mill. Hikari silently prayed forgiveness from Shinji. Somehow, she felt she just made his life much harder.

"This explains so much!"

"I know, right?"

"What does it explain?" Hikari asked.

"Uh… the soup. And all."

"Oh, yeah."

She tried to convince herself: "It's a moot point. It's not like we'll be running into him every day." It was a big city. Too big for her ridiculous sisters to wreak too much havoc.

"That's a big fat lie," Kodama said. "He's in your class at school."

"By we I mean you two."

"We could visit your class!"

"No, you cannot!"

"You could invite him over!"

"No, I will not!"

"What are you so bent out of shape for?"

"I am in perfectly normal shape!"

"Then why are you yelling?"

Hikari closed her eyes, took a breath, held it, counted to three, let it go. She channeled Mom, who she always felt needed the patience of a saint to marry Dad and want more kids after Kodama.

"I was not yelling."

"You were."

"Yeah, and not like when you holler at us to eat dinner."

"Or when you order us to clean the house."

"Or take out the trash."

"Do you want me to yell?" Hikari posed.

"Now, now, that isn't very ladylike," Kodama said.

"Yeah. Ikari wouldn't like it."

"He's used to disruptions."

Hikari felt, at a basic level, that was fact. He interacted with Ayanami regularly. And the school conference his guardian screamed into and out of was still a topic of eager discussion on campus. While different types of unrest, those two women in his life weren't exactly promoting stability, ladylike or otherwise. And there was the robotic elephant in the room.

"So you know what he's used to?"

"Or you think you know what he's used to."

"You think about him all the time!"

More often of late, yes. She quietly rearranged the student chore schedule to allow for maximum flexibility in case of Ikari absences. There was a penguin to better connect with, after all. And spending time with Shinji wasn't terrible, either.

"I think," Hikari said, "you two are being absurd." A calm, measured declaration to end the subject. She turned to leave on a mature note.

"Absurdly accurate, I'd say," Kodama spoke. "And what kind of salary does a mecha pilot get nowadays? Think of your future, Hikari."

"Now you should definitely marry him!" Nozomi called after her.

An exhausted Hikari left the kitchen. She trudged upstairs to her room. Each step felt slow, heavy, her feet hitting the floor like sonorous bell tolls. Church bells, almost. Unbidden, she was in a veiled white dress, making her way down the aisle to meet Ikari's giant robot, painted into a tuxedo. Penpen was officiating. She demurely rode the cherry picker up as vows were exchanged. The robot lifted her veil, picking her up in the process and accidentally flinging her away. She plummeted.

Onto her bed. Face down. She groaned into a pillow. At least it turned out better than the basketball court wedding daydream.

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Next chapter: Sunday! Sunday! Sunday! A no-hold barred steel cage grudge match! Horaki v Suzuhara! Preorder your tickets now! Kids are still just five bucks! No penguins allowed.