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Asuka rolled onto her side with an exasperated huff and kicked the blanket that had been covering her off of the bed. Her simmering frustration was doing the job of keeping her warm despite her low-cut top and extremely short shorts. As was common for her birthdays, when she bothered to observe the date, she was alone. It was just like the Invincible Shinji to abandon her like this, swooping in out of nowhere to steal her moment, strike the killing blow, then run off to who-knows-where. Memories of their previous shared battles against the Angels played for Asuka, like a one-woman audience for the amateur home videos their guardian used to try to make when the three of them had been new roommates. Merely with deadly combat against monstrous foes interspliced with the sounds of frantic battle instead of petty domestic quarrels amid blustering juveniles overlaid with crass commentary from a tipsy warden.
This time, however, easily trumped any other instance in her memory. These are pretty different circumstances, Asuka easily conceded to herself as she flopped onto her back and kicked her legs against the mattress impatiently. But he’s still a jerk. She raised her left arm up, turning the palm of her hand to face the ceiling so she could inspect the ring on her finger. It was too dark in the room to make out any specifics, but she had already committed the fine details to her impeccable memory.
A modestly sized, but still brilliant sapphire set into a thin white gold band, with several smaller crimson rubies nestled around the main stone. Asuka smiled softly at the memory of her then-boyfriend, now fiancé, blushing through his explanation of how he had had the ring specially crafted. He of course had felt the need to almost ruin the moment by trying to apologize for the humble nature of the token, but Asuka supposed he would not be the Idiot Shinji she had fallen in love with if he did not attempt to slip an “I’m sorry” into his proposal.
She, naturally, had other, more pleasing ways to keep his lips occupied that easily silenced his contrition. Besides, I bet this cost a fortune anyway. Just like him to splurge on something for me but never even think about treating himself. Shinji had stubbornly refused her every effort to get him to spend a little extra on nicer clothes or favored treats for his own benefit, citing the need to be frugal—and more than a little bit of a hesitancy to splurge, given the thrifty nature of his upbringing. He had taken charge of both of their finances after one too many times of Asuka perhaps, just a little, only a smidge, really, overspending on what even she could admit were wasteful purchases. It had been an example of what had become one of his more frequent bouts of decisiveness over the years, though one with a mixed welcome on her part.
While Asuka was loathe to admit it to anyone but him, his spending habits and apparently hidden talent for investing—she refused to believe his explanation that he relied on Pen Pen’s advice—left the pair rather well off despite their relatively meager NERV salaries stacked against his expensive post-graduate schooling. The world had done much to recover in the years since Third Impact had, well, impacted everyone’s lives, but times were still rough; luxuries like the one she was now proudly admiring on her ring finger were not something most could afford.
Her examination was cut short at the sound of their apartment’s door opening and a muffled cry of “I’m home!” She quickly turned back onto her side, facing away from the bedroom door, and schooled her face into a pout. The rustling of someone hastily setting things up in their kitchen was soon followed by footsteps, then a soft knock.
“Asuka? You awake?” Shinji softly inquired.
“Go away,” Asuka told him coldly, her façade as strong as it ever was.
“But I love you. And I missed you,” Shinji implored her.
Asuka scoffed, making sure it was loud enough for him to hear through the door. “I love you too. But I’m mad at you, you know,” she haughtily informed him.
“Familiar circumstances,” she heard him mutter cheekily, but her angry retort was averted by the door opening. She spun to face her intruder, carefully constructed pout swiftly replaced with carefully constructed outrage.
“Pervert! How dare you?! A maiden’s bedroom door is—”
“Like the impenetrable Walls of Jericho?” Shinji finished for her, smug smile on his face. “You’re the one who told me what happened to them, remember?” He leaned against the doorway and admired his fiancée. “Besides,” he added boldly, with only a faint blush betraying him, “you’re hardly a maiden.”
Asuka giggled in response, all semblance of indignation lost, then patted the open space on the bed next to her. “Come here, Idiot. I missed you too.”
The young man approached the bed, his stride long and steps light, and laid down. His redheaded companion eagerly repositioned herself against his side, then nestled her head atop his chest and grabbed the arm he encircled her with. With a deep sigh, she used her free hand to draw lazy circles over his abdomen.
“I really am mad at you.” Her tone was light, matching the pressure of her geometric doodling.
“Hmm,” Shinji grunted. His reply was muffled through his nose which he had buried in her hair, and Asuka shivered at the sensation of the warm air blowing over her scalp.
“I had it all planned out months ago. I was sick of waiting for you to propose, so naturally I needed to take charge myself.”
“Naturally.” Shinji brought up his arm not currently encaptured to run his fingers through her hair, carefully loosening the snarls and knots she had gained from tossing and turning while she had professed to be napping.
Asuka allowed herself to melt into the feeling of being cared for. “I had a date picked out. The anniversary.” She stopped sketching and raised her hand to caress Shinji’s face, who leaned into her touch. Her voice took on a more serious note. “I know it’s kind of a somber affair, but—I’ve always thought of it as how we finally came together.”
“All that awful mess, but it led to the best thing that ever happened to me. To us,” Shinji agreed after a deep breath.
“‘Awful mess’ is putting it lightly. But you’re absolutely right, Best Thing That Ever Happened To Me.” Asuka kept her hand on Shinji’s face and gently rubbed a tear away with her thumb. She pressed tighter into him, and Shinji could feel her smile against his chest. “I invited everybody to a little get-together, even your stooge friends. Swore them all to secrecy. Though I don’t think I could have stopped Hikari from bringing her boy-toy even if I wanted to. She volunteered to make food for everyone, and I’ve never seen Toji miss a free meal. Much less one of Hikari’s.”
“I actually knew about all of it,” Shinji confessed. Asuka quickly withdrew her hand from his face to seize a fistful of his shirt, craning her neck to glare directly into his eyes.
“Who squealed?” The temperature of the room seemed to drop several degrees for Shinji.
“Rei. But it’s not her fault!” He insisted, eyes pleading. Asuka scoffed and rolled her eyes.
“Some best friend. I should’ve known; you’re both lousy at keeping secrets.” She released her hold on his shirt and smoothed out the material over his chest but settled her head to maintain eye contact.
“She’s been pestering me for the last two years, always asking when we were getting married. Frankly I’d always thought you had put her up to it—”
“I should have.”
“—so when she suddenly stopped three months ago I got suspicious. I made a dumb joke, something like ‘I’ll never propose if you forget to remind me’—”
“That is dumb.”
“—and, well,” Shinji shrugged his unencumbered shoulder.
“I understand.” No more needed to be said about his family’s desire to be honest with each other. Asuka placed a chaste kiss on Shinji’s cheek, smiling at the way even a small gesture like that could still elicit a blush from the love of her life. She angled herself to whisper directly into his ear, ensuring her voice would have just the right seductive purr she knew would draw out even more of a reaction. “So, you knew all about what I had in mind.”
“Yeah.” Shinji’s voice was a guttural mumble, and Asuka could feel the hand she had been comfortably cradling over her stomach work its way under her shirt. She smirked.
“You knew I was going to propose to you. In less than a month. In front of all our friends and family.” She finished her statement by lowering her mouth to his neck, kissing and nipping at the tender flesh. Ever one to get caught up in her own games, Asuka could feel her heart racing, and her breath was coming in short gasps as Shinji’s hand continued to wander.
“Mmph.” Shinji’s other hand, the one that had been combing through her hair, was now firmly holding her close to her ministrations against his neck, though at the moment she was not worried about her voice not having the desired effect with it no longer coming in so close to his vulnerable ear.
“And yet—mmm—and yet you went and upstaged me anyway?” With her last three words, she dropped the sensual tone in favor of one of harsh interrogation, pulling away from Shinji; though only just enough so she could bring her face directly in front of his, nose to nose. She could feel the heat radiating from his flushed skin, as he could feel from her, and she struggled to retain her wrath while his lidded eyes locked with her own and his hands sustained their roaming.
“I’d just commissioned the ring right before I found out. I couldn’t get the money back,” he said with a small smile, then pulled her in for a deep kiss. Asuka at first chuckled into the kiss, but quickly allowed herself to be subsumed by it. Neither knew, nor cared, how long they kept it up, only that eventually they parted, each softly panting. “I knew you’d prefer it this way,” Shinji eventually added as the two held each other on the bed, limbs intertwined. “Plus, we’re always busy on your birthday. I wanted to do something special for once.”
“I don’t care about my birthday, Idiot,” Asuka mumbled into Shinji’s neck as she hid her blush from view. “But I’m glad you proposed to me, not the other way around. That’s the proper way these things are done.”
Shinji remained silent, preferring to enjoy the tranquil feeling of laying next to the woman he loved. Until she remembered she had another reason to be mad at him.
“And why exactly did you need to take off in the middle of the afternoon, on my birthday, the day you proposed to me, just to go to the store?” She had a playful edge to her voice, but it was an edge Shinji recognized as still being able to cut if he should falter. “You should have gone yesterday to pick up whatever was so important.”
He opened one eye slightly to look down at the top of Asuka’s head. “Well, I thought the lunch I made—remember, the one where I proposed to you?—and the, erm, ‘quality time’ we spent together before I left were enough for a private, romantic engagement party.”
“You—thought—wrong,” Asuka, with her head still burrowed into Shinji’s shoulder, kissed his neck in between each word of her refutation. “You Idiot.” She added as an afterthought.
“Yeah, but I’m your Idiot,” he replied. He kissed the crown of her head. “You’re stuck with me now, sucker.”
“Somehow, I think I’ll manage,” Asuka derided with a light jab of her elbow to his ribs.
“I also thought that if I brought home a bunch of snacks and Misato’s favorite beer just before your birthday that you’d get suspicious, and the surprise would be ruined.” Shinji continued from his earlier explanation.
“You—thought—correctly.” After the last kiss, Asuka rolled herself so that she was laying directly on top of Shinji, arms crossed over his chest and chin resting on her arms. Shinji locked his hands behind his head and met her content grin with a goofy smile of his own. “So, I take it the family is stopping by tonight?” She asked him, bending her legs at the knees and kicking them rhythmically in the air.
Shinji grimaced as her knees dug into his thighs with each kick but made no move to reposition her. Her question, meanwhile, was answered with the sound of Shinji’s phone vibrating. Asuka groaned and spun off of him while he gave a nod in resignation and rose to grab his phone.
“It’s Rei,” Shinji said while sitting back down on the bed.
“Blabbermouth,” Asuka quietly complained before she crawled over to sit up next to him, resting her head on his shoulder.
“She says: ‘Sorry, I delayed her as long as I could. We’re on our way now. Please make sure you’re presentable when we get there. Misato might think it’s a fun game trying to catch you guys going at it like farm animals as often as she can, but I’ve seen my brother in flagrante delicto with my best friend too many times for one lifetime.’ There’re some symbols after that. I think it’s supposed to be a face? And it’s gagging?”
“Well, come on then, Shinji.” Asuka finally rose to stand next to the bed, extending a hand out to Shinji. He grasped it, and she pulled him into a tight hug. “With the way Misato drives, we’ve got ten minutes before they get through the door. Let’s make them count—somewhere Rei can catch us.”