thiirdboy:
▐░▒▓ ►► 「 ɴᴏ. 03 ; 」
DISCOURAGING, CRITICAL, AND BLUNT; it was just like Shiki, but it didn’t lessen the sting any when she said it. Even so, there was no protest from Shinji, for fear of further chiding. He simply let her take over in the kitchen, where he otherwise might’ve cooked something for the two of them. Instead, he turned his attention to the clothes in question, piled in a corner in the otherwise nearly-spotless room.
Laundry was one of the other tasks, besides cooking, that Shinji had to learn in order to survive in Misato’s apartment, but usually laundry meant handling undergarments, and other people’s laundry meant — well, Shinji didn’t finish the thought. He only moved to the pile of clothes and began sorting through them without much more protest than a rosy complexion.
❝ Uh… ❞ Briefly he glanced up from the piles of laundry to observe Shiki at work with the food, realizing how odd it was to see her preparing a meal, a task he would’ve otherwise considered fairly mundane. But typically, the only sound heard within these simple walls that was associated with mealtime was the sound of the freezer door opening and closing. Water bottles. Hagen Daaz. Not water running in the sink, or a knife to a cutting board, or even the sound of a can opening. It was a totally different living environment than what he was used to.
( Come to think of it, Shiki said, “People like you eat.” Didn’t she ever get hungry? )
Catching himself sliding into a thoughtful trance, Shinji shook himself out of it and resumed sorting silky garments into color-coded piles. ❝ I hope I’m not an inconvenience. ❞
Cooking, flower arranging, kendo. Kimono ceremony, tea making, warm matcha in the hands that flushed her fingers pink. Cutting of hair every month. A schedule, every day used to be a tick-tock. She did not really enjoy it nor did she really dislike it--she was impartial to these sorts of things. Training to become a noble’s wife. That sort of thing sounded indescribably annoying.
Chopping. Now she remembered why Mikiya insisted on throwing the board away. It came as a blank-sounding thump and she quickly pulled her knife out of the countertop. Her cheeks flushed at the miscalculation--she stared for a second at the single tally mark in the countertop--a noble sacrifice--she reckoned. She glanced over, though she couldn’t see him--if he saw her little blunder (or rather, heard it), but why would she be embarrassed about it? Shiki took her fingernail to the green, pulverized veggie remains left in the indent and scratched it out.
The water began to boil, the top of the pot shivered in the vapor heat. Like a little hissy fit. She took the lid off, dripped the excess water back in, and put in half of the vegetables she managed to chop before she nearly killed the counter.
“D-Detergent is on the first shelf of the restroom. You’re not an inconvenience. I appreciate it.”
In a bit of a rush, she started to fillet the fish, pulling out its bones; the sound of its fishy spine made her knife trail down like a xylophone. Soft. It tore apart easily. Put up a little fight, would you?! She took the fish apart a little bit too roughly, the ice of her exterior having cracked a little.
