Sorry for the delay on this one. I don't even really have a good reason like 'reality got in the way', because that didn't happen. Instead, my excuse seems to be 'procrastinating to put off writing the next action scene.' Which, once it's actually in words and not just in my head, will make more sense than it does right now.
**
Chapter 30.3
It didn't take long for Kyoko to find out about the young upstart apparently attempting to knock her off her German cooking throne. The next day after school, Shinji was almost traumatised by another interrogation before being challenged to a cook-off.
Since Shinji would have had something of an advantage thanks to Rei's birthday present, it was decided that both he and Kyoko would use the same kitchen. But because they were each going to be cooking for five people, they wouldn't be able to use it at the same time; instead they would be taking it in turns.
The two 'contestants' hadn't even gone out for ingredients before poor Asuka began to feel divided about her loyalties. Shinji had proven time and again that he could practically create works of culinary art, and 'winning' would certainly give him a much-needed boost of confidence... but there was a reason phrases such as 'just like mum used to make' existed. And in this case she hadn't had any of mum's cooking in a decade.
Kyoko knew her daughter well though, and at least partially solved the problem by bringing the other members of the Katsuragi household in as extra judges. Misato readily agreed to it after arranging for a couple of early nights off from her busy schedule. The offer also extended to Pen-pen, who felt brave enough to accept since Misato the Culinary Catastrophe wasn't involved in any part of the cooking process.
Rei diplomatically left that last part out of the translation.
Tuesday came around, and Kyoko took her turn that night. Everybody was shooed out of the kitchen except Asuka, who was kept back so that the two Soryus could chat about Shinji. Unlike last time, the conversation was much more relaxed, as Kyoko began gently inquiring about the boy's condition after Third Impact. As Asuka began telling the story, it dawned on her just how far back she had really begun to fall for the Third Child.
Before Third Impact, it was at best a bit of infatuation mixed with simply trying to get Shinji to pay attention to her. Anybody looking at their interactions back then would have considered it a love-hate relationship, and Asuka would have hastily clarified that as 'I love to hate him'. She still occasionally felt guilty about her actions back then, and she said as much to her mother, but Kyoko simply smiled and said that it sounded like the girl had more than made up for her past behaviour.
Their conversation came to an end at almost the same time the food preparation did. Asuka brought out the dishes and cutlery while Kyoko applied the finishing touches, and the Katsuragi household was soon sitting around the table.
Misato was surprisingly the last person to finish their meal. It had been agreed beforehand, or more precisely Asuka had decided and everybody else acquiesced, that rather than immediately saying what they thought, the judges would hold all comments until after Shinji's turn.
But despite her efforts to keep Shinji's spirits up for his attempt, Asuka caught the look of trepidation on his face when they got into bed that night.
"Hey, you'll do great," she reassured Shinji as she slipped an arm around him.
Shinji hummed absently, before looking into Asuka's eyes and smiling. "Yeah. I don't think I'll be able to beat a native, but I can at least do my best."
"That's what I want to hear!"
The next evening after school, the Katsuragi apartment's kitchen was almost an exact duplicate of the day before, only with Shinji in Kyoko's place as they talked about her mother. Knowing the boy like she did, Asuka could easily detect the occasional flicker of darkness on his face, presumably caused by Shinji remembering his own mother.
The mother who had consciously chosen to essentially kill herself in front of her own child for some insane reason.
The topic of conversation was swiftly changed to something much lighter, and a smile was back on Shinji's face by the time the food was ready. Once again, everybody crowded around the dining table and dug in. This time, Asuka was last to finish.
"Alright," said Misato once the dishes were cleared away. "We've had two wonderful meals over two nights, and now it's time for us to decide who did it better. I'll go first, if there are no objections?"
"Can I say something first?" asked Shinji. Misato nodded, and he addressed the entire table. "I won't be unhappy if you liked Ms. Soryu's dishes more than mine. Asuka has said several times that I give apologies when one isn't needed, and there isn't a need for one tonight. After all, it's just dinner."
Silence reigned for a few moments, before Misato cleared her throat. "I know you guys tend to think my taste buds have been killed off, but I believe that ever since he came into my life, Shinji's meals have done a good job of resurrecting them. He cooks from the heart and that shows; there hasn't been a single meal of his that I didn't like."
She nervously scratched at the side of her mouth. "That being said... on this occasion I'm afraid I have to say that my vote goes to Kyoko. It's hard to compete with someone who grew up with foreign cuisine, but you gave it your best shot and came a very close second, Shinji."
The boy nodded and smiled as Misato took her seat, not a hint of unhappiness on his face.
Rei was next. While she didn't have as much experience with Shinji's cooking as Misato, she still cast her vote for her brother.
"Wark."
Pen-Pen expressed his regret that he couldn't tell the difference between either chef's cooking. Somehow, it took Rei close to half a minute to fully translate, and Asuka couldn't help but question that.
"Wait, you got all that from one 'wark'?!"
Three people at the table stared at her in confusion. Asuka blinked, before letting out a huge sigh and slapping a hand over her face. "Alright, what did I just say?"
"You said 'How's your granny off for soap?'," Misato replied. "Penguin is an... interesting language. All about inflection and tone."
Asuka muttered something in German, but unfortunately for her most of the people in the room understood it, and she got a warning look from Kyoko.
With nothing left to delay the inevitable, Asuka now had to make a decision. With Pen-Pen's non-vote(?), it was now a tie and she was back to having to question her loyalties again. But... this was a relatively minor event. It wasn't as if either Kyoko or Shinji would gain anything besides a bit of recognition or bragging rights... as if Shinji were the type to boast.
Time to bite the bullet.
"Shinji, you did a wonderful job again," she began. "Even without my help, you turned out a stunning German meal." Asuka turned to her mother. "Mama, it's been so long since I last ate anything you made for me, but your skill has obviously not declined during... your time away."
Her view shifted to rest somewhere between the two contestants. "You both gave it your all, and I'm sad that I can only pick one of you." Her blue eyes moved to look into Shinji's cobalt gaze, before moving again to stare into the sapphires that she had inherited.
"...I know you said not to, but I'm sorry Shinji," she said with a sigh. "Maybe it's just the years of separation talking, but I enjoyed Mama's meal just a little bit better than yours."
To her relief, there was no sign of hurt or betrayal on Shinji's face, just a simple smile full of understanding and acceptance.
And with that the first Soryu/Ikari Cook-Off, as Misato later called it, came to an end.
But even though the contest was over, Kyoko wasn't done. Just as Shinji was about to retire to the lounge, he was once again dragged away by the woman right out the door. Nervous looks crossed the faces of most of the spectators, but Asuka remained confident that nothing bad was going to happen to Shinji.
Or at the very least, nothing permanent.
It took nearly two hours for Shinji and Kyoko to return, and when they did the surprise that the boy brought with him ended up putting Misato into a food coma. The rest of the Black Forest cake disappeared almost as fast into the stomachs of everybody else.
Being a school night, Kyoko departed not long after guiding Misato to her room, and the teenagers soon made their way to their own beds.
"So, what did my mum want to talk to you about this time?" Asuka inquired once she and Shinji were in her bed.
"Your mother said I had promise, and took me through a couple of her German recipes," he replied. "I'm not really sure why though..."
The girl chuckled and rolled her eyes, unseen in the dark. "You dummy," she whispered, throwing an arm over his chest.
They both soon fell asleep, but it was only a few hours before Asuka was pulled from her slumber by the quivering of the boy next to her. She swiftly sat up and began to gently shake him by the shoulders, calling his name in an attempt to wake him up. It took a few seconds before Shinji's eyes shot open and began casting about the room as if searching for something. Asuka gingerly placed a hand on his cheek.
"Shinji, what's wrong? A nightmare?" She did her best to disguise her nervousness. The biggest reason for them sleeping together was to help the other fight off the demons that attacked in their sleep. If that was starting to not work anymore for him...
"No, not a nightmare," Shinji mumbled as his body ceased its shivering. "More like... a bad memory."
Asuka breathed a tiny sigh of relief. "Well since I'm awake too, you want to talk about it?"
The boy turned his head away to gaze out through the gap in the curtains. He took several long, slow, and deep breaths before speaking. "I remembered... when you showed up on the beach."
The redhead stiffened for a moment, before relaxing and placing a hand on Shinji's chest. She murmured, "That's in the past, it-"
"Doesn't matter now, I know," Shinji interrupted. "But... I feel like I should tell you."
Asuka sighed. "I'd be lying if I said that I never cared about what happened back then," she admitted. "At one point I was completely ready to try and slap you out of your catatonia to try and get an answer out of you."
Shinji chuckled humourlessly. "Wonder if that would have worked..."
"Just remember, you don't have to say a word about it now. I know now that you had just gone through a terrible experience. You probably didn't even know what you were doing to me."
"I did."
The flat and sudden response was like a broken rail in front of Asuka's train of thought. "W-what?"
"I knew exactly what I was doing," Shinji reiterated, his voice a dull monotone. "I saw you on the beach, with no way of knowing how you even got there. I thought my mind was just playing tricks on me, taunting me with your image. I remember thinking over and over again, 'she's just a doll'. But then you touched my face, and I suddenly realised that you were real."
As if mirroring that far off event, Asuka laid a hand against his cheek and smiled sadly. "It was the only thing I could do at the time to apologise for my rancid behaviour towards you. There was so much pain and confusion back then."
Shinji brought up a hand to cup the one on his cheek, but then the smile starting to grow on his face was cut off. "But then... you said something... horrible."
Asuka frowned, trying to remember what she had said. All she could recall was feeling...
"You called me 'disgusting'."
'Ugh, I feel so...' Asuka's eyes widened in shock. "Oh Gott," she whispered. Now she knew just why Shinji had fled from her at the beach. At possibly his most vulnerable moment she had, purely by accident, crushed the small glimmer of hope that he had begun to build. "Oh god, I'm so sorry, Shinji!"
It was probably the tightest hug Asuka had ever given Shinji as she choked out her explanation of that moment on the beach, that the pain due to her injuries and somebody sitting on her stomach had made her feel 'disgusting'.
A hand placed itself on her back and began to stiffly caress it. She wiped away the tears that had sprung forth and looked at Shinji, who was staring upwards at the ceiling.
"Evangelions seem to bring a rather nasty curse with them," he remarked after a few minutes, smiling brittlely. "They make anybody connected with them incapable of communicating like rational people. One word had me hiding from you for days, and it turns out that you weren't even talking about me!"
"That... couldn't have been it though, surely," Asuka hesitantly replied.
Shinji's voice turned sarcastic. "Oh, of course not. My mind decided the best thing to do, instead of working out what had happened, would be to traumatise me with your image telling me just how pathetic I was." He sighed. "I tried to shut it out, but it's impossible to get away from a voice that's inside your own head. You may as well try to stop breathing."
"So when you saw me in the pharmacy, you thought I was just another trick."
The boy nodded. "Yeah. And I thought I had just gotten away from one only to run into another."
Asuka rolled onto her back, dragging Shinji with her so that his head was resting on her shoulder. "And then I didn't see you until I found you unconscious near the Geofront crater."
Shinji shifted his head slightly in order to speak clearly. "I... don't think I remember anything about that bit."
"No surprise, you had a pretty nasty head wound and a broken hand. A doctor later said that you'd obviously punched something."
"...No, still don't recall anything," Shinji said after a moment of hard thought.
"And it doesn't matter now anyway," Asuka declared. "Screw the past, think about the future, Shinji."
Shinji burrowed into her shoulder. The room was quiet for a while before he quietly said, "The future holds more Revenants, you know."
"...Okay screw that too, for now. Think about the present instead."
Asuka could literally feel the smile forming on his face.
"The present feels... warm..."
"And comfortable."
"'n' comf't'ble..."
This time, when the two teens fell asleep, their slumber remained uninterrupted until morning.
...When the Angel alarm rudely brought them back to reality.
