His expression should have been answer enough, as to whether or not he was serious. While chewing through his food, he was trying to figure out if it was something strange that he did, as usual. But then Junpei helpfully answered his question.

“Well, yeah, but…” he went back to looking confused again, “is that weird, or something? I touch him all the time. We have that contact requirement, remember?”

If it was, or Shinji just plain didn’t like it, he would have told him not to do it.

“We’ve lived together before, when we were kids.”