For the anon who asked for an arranged marriage AU: an alternate universe where this time, Karl gets to playground marry Shaun, and Shaun is kind of a bridezilla. Part two of the fics I had written for shinkawo day.
“Well obviously, neither of us want to marry you,” Touji told Asuka. Behind him, Kensuke nodded vigorously. “You’re too mean.”
“Good, cause I don’t wanna marry you either.”
“Yeah! And neither do I,” said Hikari, adjusting her stance to match Asuka’s.
This was going nowhere.
“Obviously,” said Asuka, officially stepping into the metaphorical Bossy Pants (+5 authority, +5 negotiation), we have to select a neutral third party from each of our friend groups as a representative. I nominate Stupid Shinji.”
“Oh, that’s a little harsh,” giggled Hikari. “But I guess if he can put up with being friends with you, he can put up with anything.”
“Shut up.”
“Fight with them, not with me.”
“I thought the whole point of this was that we decided not to fight anymore,” Kensuke said nervously. “Touji’s parents are gonna be really mad if you egg their house again.”
“Yeah, that was a good time,” Asuka said in a dreamy voice. She moved that particular memory to the forefront of her mental “things that need attention” pile so as to admire it in greater detail later. “Anyway, who are you gonna pick?”
“Ummm, we could ask Ayanami? She gets along with Shinji pretty well.” Kensuke suggested, glancing up at Touji for approval.
“Nah, she’s still in the hospital. We should’t do that to her.”
“Ooh, doesn’t she have a twin though? That’s like… pretty much the same thing. Right?”
It was not pretty much the same thing. The difference between them that made itself immediately apparent when the four of them visited the Ayanami residence was that Kaworu was more talkative than Rei, albeit in a parrot-y sort of way (admittedly, being more talkative than Rei was not a difficult feat to accomplish in the first place).
“Sooooooo Kaworu,” Asuka began when he answered the door, “good news. We have nominated you — yes, you! — to be the representative of House Ignoramus,” here she gestured to Touji and Kensuke, pleased, as she usually was, that she knew vocabulary that they didn’t and could thus get away with subtle jabs like this (all those accelerated classes had to be good for something, after all). “As such, your role in the truce between our two houses is to join the representative of House Prodigious in matrimony.”
Kaworu rubbed his nose with his finger. “Why?”
Asuka huffed. “Because that’s what people making truces do.”
“Why?”
Asuka sucked in a large breath to puff herself up a little. “Because I’ve seen it in movies and also I’ve read it in books because I’m in accelerated classes and I’ve read more books than you so I would know.”
Kaworu blinked, unfazed. “Why?”
“Because I’m smart and someday people like you are going to work for people like me so you should do what I say to get the practice.”
“Why?”
Hikari could hear Asuka beginning to grind her teeth and jumped in to rescue Asuka’s molars from the jaws of… well, her jaws. “What if I told you the other boy was really cute?”
“Speak for yourself,” muttered Asuka.
Kaworu appeared to consider this new information. “It’s another boy?”
“Is that okay with you?”
“Yeah,” said Kaworu. He wrinkled his forehead as he thought about it a bit more. Then he chewed on his lip and thought about it some more. Then he thought about it some more until he ran out of physical indicators that he was thinking about it some more. Finally, whatever hoops the offer had had to jump through during processing in Kaworu’s mind emerged on the other side when Kaworu hesitantly said, “… And you promise he’s cute?”
“So cute. The cutest,” Hikari was quick to say. “Right, Touji?”
“I dunno, I’m not into guys.”
“Right, Touji?” she asked again, reaching up to grab Touji’s ear and twist it.
“Super cute,” Touji agreed hastily.
“Will I get to kiss him?”
“Well, duh. That’s what you do when you get married.”
“Mmmmmmm…” Kaworu hummed as his mind went back into computing mode, and Asuka thought she could see a little progress bar slowly filling up in his eyes. “Mmmmmmmm… okay.”
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