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Characters: Chika and Mulan, Chika and Shinji
Location: Triple A arcade
Rating: PG-13 at worst
Time: June 28th
Description: Chika introduces Mulan to what exactly video games are. And Chika runs into Shinji as he's passing by the arcade and goes to bother him.

[Mulan: After training]

Chika really couldn't believe how much of a pain in the ass it could be to actually set something up. She had meant to show Mulan around the Arcade a lot earlier in the month, and she was JUST now getting to it. Over two weeks later.

Still, what was important was that, finally, both she and Mulan didn't have anything important coming up to keep them from this. So that's why Chika was leading Mulan over to the Arcade now, so that she could finally show the other girl what video games were. She wasn't sure how well Mulan was going to do at them, but there were plenty of simple games in there that she should be able to pick up and play without too much trouble. At least, once Mulan figured out the controls.

Chika turned to Mulan once they got within sight of the Arcade. "Well, here we are," she said, giving the other girl a smile. "I'm sorry it took so long for our schedules to actually, well, work out."

[Shinji, Afternoon]

Chika sighed, stepping out of the arcade and stretching a bit. So far the day hadn't really been too busy, which was good, because she was still a little bit tired after her mission with Asuka yesterday. There wasn't anything to complain about there, the mission had gone really well.

Didn't mean she couldn't be a bit tired though. There's a reason why Shibusen wouldn't let them take mission after mission. And it was a good thing that they could rest, she was really out of practice. She turned to look over at the signs outside of the arcade, wondering if any of them needed to be updated. It didn't look like they did, and the 'Now Hiring' sign was pretty much a basic fixture of the Arcade window at this point. She really wished that it didn't have to be that way, but well, there wasn't really all that much that she could do about it now.

With BREW taking people away like it has been, the chances of getting a full staff at the Arcade that weren't Shibusen students was pretty much nil. She shook her head, before turning around again.

She was distracted about any more thoughts about employment when she saw a family face walking by. Her lips curled up into a smile, and she couldn't help but wave over to him. "Ikari-san! Hey!"

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Shinji had been feeling particularly antsy lately. With his upcoming first mission weighing rather heavily on his mind, he couldn't bring himself to stay inside for very long. It was making him feel a little stir crazy.

Which is why he decided to take a walk. There wasn't any real expectation for him to run into anyone he knew, and mostly he wanted to see how much of the city he could cover before returning back to his apartment, but upon hearing his name called out, it seemed like his trek was cut short.

"Oh, hello, Daimon-san." He quickly made is way over to her - maybe a chat would help take his mind off things for a little bit.

Chika smiled when he came over to her. "How've you been?"

It had... well, it had been a while since Chika had really talked to him. Not since that first resonance attempt with Asuka. What she had learned then was still... well, it explained a lot. Even if she wasn't sure what she was supposed to think about it or even how true it was.

But still, she couldn't just ignore Shinji. Not when she didn't have anything remotely resembling the full story.

"Pretty good," all things considered, really. His mind has been awfully occupied with thoughts of the upcoming mission, but if that's the worst thing that's been going on with him, well, things could be awfully worse.

"What have you been up to?"

Chika shrugged. "Well, Asuka and I came back from a mission yesterday, but other than that I've just been doing the normal stuff like running the arcade and training."

She stretches a bit, giving him a wide smile. "The two of us really worked well together on it. It went pretty awesomely."

He had kind of assumed that their mission had gone at least well enough, Asuka seemed pretty pleased with it when she returned back, anyway, but it's good to actually hear it from the other half of the party too.

"That's great," he replies with a small nod. It's nice to hear that nothing particularly unsavory happened during resonance or anything. At least, nothing of that nature was being brought up.

Chika nodded. "Yeah. It really is. It's been forever since I've been on a regular mission like that. It was pretty nice getting back out there."

Though she was pretty sure that she was going to have to do a lot more in order to feel like she was really contributing to the whole war thing again. "Have you thought about going on missions, Ikari-san?"

"I'll be going on one in a few days with Takuto-san, actually." Not that it had exactly been an idea he jumped at at first, but he was actually pretty interested in seeing how it would go at this point. Not that he wasn't getting awfully anxious about it, though.

Chika blinked, looking over at him for a moment. "With... with Takuto?" She... well, okay, she really shouldn't have been so surprised. But didn't he try punching Shinji once? What could've changed with that?

Either way, staring at Shinji wasn't going to be good. And well, she shouldn't let her history with Takuto color what she was about to say either. "I hope the two of you don't run into any problems, and that you work well together."

Shinji is always more than happy to pretend that there is no negative history between himself and anyone he's on at least somewhat good terms with. Case and point, Takuto, Kaworu, hell, he's even fairly confident that Chika's knowledge of how awful he and Asuka were to each other is foggy, at best. Though maybe not as much as he would like, considering what happened when he was around for their resonance attempt...

Still, he's not about to assume Chika knew what went down with himself and Takuto, so he arched an eyebrow slightly at her surprised tone. "Right, with Takuto-san... Do the two of you not get along, or something...?" Kind of a wild guess, but it's the best he can think of, given her reaction.

Chika sighed. But figured that she shouldn't lie to him or try to keep it a secret or something. "Back when we first showed up here, Takuto and I dated for a while. It... didn't really end on the best of terms. Even now it's still a bit awkward between us, though it's a lot better than it used to be."

Much, much better. Hell, she had been able to come across Takuto and Yako during the carnival a while back without feeling jealous or upset or any of the other confused emotions that Takuto usually provided for her.

"Ah... Sorry, I had no idea..." Welp. At least now he knows that Takuto is a potentially sensitive topic around Chika. Maybe it would be for the best if he changed the subject a little.

"You and Asuka went to... Australia, right?" At least, he was pretty sure he recalled Asuka saying that.

Chika nodded, really appreciating the change in topic. Not saying anything else about Takuto, at least for now, was a pretty good idea. "Yeah, we did. It was pretty nice. And well, those toadstool like Kishin eggs really weren't anything to worry about. It really went well, especially when you consider that it was Asuka's first mission."

Part of her was actually regretting taking that mission on, because Asuka didn't really seem to need an easy first mission to get used to things, from the looks of it. Oh well, she'd at least know that for next time.

Shinji nodded to himself a little bit. That sounded about right to him.

"Asuka... always seemed to be in her element on the battlefield." It's no surprise that they had very little trouble, taking even just Asuka's drive to battle into consideration.

"Yeah. It... well, it makes a lot of sense," Chika admitted with a smile. "I mean, if she's always been used to that, then it really makes sense that she'd be able to handle missions pretty well."

She pauses for a moment, before deciding to ask a question, and hoping that this wasn't too forward of her or whatever. "Is it the same for you, Ikari-san?"

"A-ah, me...?" What a question. While there where surely at least a couple people back home who would think so, Shinji isn't so sure. It's really complicated, at least in his mind, and he's probably not the best judge of it to be honest.

"Not really. I don't like fighting." That's probably the simplest answer he can give.

Chika nodded. That... well, that was an answer. Though it didn't really tell her much, since there was a difference between enjoying fighting and being good at it. After all, you only really had to look at her to see that.

... Though she did have to admit, fighting against unrepentant, irredeemable monsters was a lot better than having to fight against something sentient.

"I see. Do you think you're going to be okay on your mission tomorrow?"

"I wouldn't be going if I didn't think it would probably go well." Most of the assuredness comes from his trust in Takuto's abilities if nothing else, but, yeah. Still going to keep that thought to himself.

"I mean... It can't be any worse than anything we went up against back home..." he rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly. A part of him was still pretty hesitant to try and explain too much about the war back home to people, but Chika had already gotten some information about it from Kaworu, and undoubtedly Asuka as well. He figured that it wouldn't be too bad of an idea. "And having someone fighting too always makes this kind of thing easier."

Chika nodded, giving Shinji another smile. "That's good. I'm not really sure what exactly you were fighting against back home, but from what I've heard, I think the kishin eggs aren't as bad as what you're used to fighting."

"And yeah, I know what you mean there. I don't think that I'd be doing anywhere near as well on missions if I had to fight alone."

Not too keen on going in to details, Shinji was content at leaving the Angels as 'maybe worse than Kishin eggs'.

"It was really rare that we ever went up against anything back home without back-up, but it's... kind of awful." Not that any of the pilots were ever alone in the Evas, per se, but, details. "The way things are set up here makes everything a lot easier."

Chika wonders about what he said with that. It was... kinda weird how he said that it was better here. Even though sometimes the only people there were meister and weapon. But then again, just having that connection had to have counted for something, right?

"Yeah. It'd definitely nice knowing that there's always someone fighting with you that you can trust."

Well, most of the time, anyway. She was sure there had to be a few cases of someone partnering up with someone that they actually didn't trust. Though Chika was even more sure that those were rare.

He gave a small nod of agreement to that, but wondering if the subject wouldn't be getting too heavy if he perused this line of conversation too much further, he decided to shift the topic a little once more.

"So, is this where you work...?" He inclined his head slightly toward the arcade. He seemed to recall her saying as much previously, but a confirmation is always nice to have.

Chika smiled at him, going along with the change of subject. "Yep. I'm the manager of Triple A. It's... honestly it's not anywhere near as fun as you'd think." She admitted, sighing. "I mean, as a clerk the job was pretty awesome, but there's just so much stuff to do as the manager that needs to be done that it takes up a lot of time."

Time that could've been spent training or playing some of the games. That said, it did make decent money, all things considered, so it could've been a lot worse.

"Mmm, that's usually how it works with higher up positions, right?" Not that he had any sort of real experience with it, but he felt like he could at least make a pretty good assumption. "That's sort of how it was with our guardian back home when she got promoted."

... 'Our' referring to both himself and Asuka, naturally.

"Yep. Pretty much," she said. "I really don't know how Minato-san or Junpei actually handled it... well, okay, Minato-san maybe. He was pretty efficient and stuff."

She gave a bit of a nervous laugh, but it was in a good way. "But even though it's hard, it still makes me feel really proud that I'm managing it okay, you know? I mean, business could be better, but there's a lot less of us 'guests' around than there used to be. And that anti-us group that's around hasn't been helping things much either."

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