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“Rannnn, pass me the breaddddd.”
Ran - her back pressed flat against Moca’s stomach, the bun-goblin’s hands firmly wrapped around her abdomen - eyed the convenient store plastic bag lying on the opposite end of Moca’s bed and scoffed. “What, you want me to stretch my arms out like rubber?”
“Breaddddd, Rannn, breeeeeeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaddddddddddddd.”
“You’re going to have to let go of me if you want me to get it,” Ran groaned, attempting to pull herself out of Moca’s flour-coated clutches.
“But…” Moca sniffed. “Then Moca-chan would have to let the 2nd most precious thing in the world to her out of her grasp.”
Ran rolled her eyes. “Har har har. Of course you’d love your bread more than you’d love me.”
“Oh, I was talking about Tsugu, actually. I mean, she’s the most precious thing in the world to you too, right?”
...Ran couldn’t argue with that.
“You know, if Tsugu were here right now she’d get my bread for me.”
Ran sighed. “Get it yourself.”
“I can’t. I have a cat on my lap.”
“And what about me is catlike, exactly?”
“You’re coy with your feelings, meow loudly when your friends aren’t around, and Minato-san has strong feelings for you.”
“Do you want your buns or not?”
“Please. I’m going to die if I don’t eat any.”
“That just makes me want to stay right here, you know.”
“Boo hoo… *sniffle* Ran’s gonna commit manslaughter… she’s gonna be thrown in the slammer… I didn’t raise her like this...”
“Can’t throw me in jail if we abolish prisons.”
“Woah-ho, now there’s a punk ‘tude I haven’t seen in a while. I had no idea bread stoked your anti-establishment spirit.”
“Shut up.”
They sat in stillness, the distant careen of a car outside sounding through the air.
“...I’m hungry too,” Ran admitted.
Those were apparently the magic words, because Moca immediately relinquished her bear hug. “I can’t keep my darling Ran starving, can I?”
Ran tried telling her to stuff it, but the only sound that escaped her throat was some vague, guttural groan. She stretched forward, extending both her arm and her spine out as far as possible to glide her pinky under one of the plastic bag’s handles and yank it back towards her without rising from her seat. She rummaged through napkins and a cellophane packet containing plastic cutlery to pull out two lukewarm pork buns, handing one to Moca before twisting around to sit across from her, their legs criss-crossed and pressed against one another.
“Ah… sweet sustenance…” Moca happily moaned, sinking her teeth into the smooth bread and chewing grandiosely. “Like the gods themselves made it…”
Ran took a bite herself. The tangy, savory mixture of barbecue pork and spices matched well with the fluffy texture of the surrounding dough. But even so… “It’s just bread. I don’t get why you always make such a big deal out of it.”
Moca gasped. “You would dare insult my ambrosia?”
“‘Ambro’...?” Had Moca been talking to Kaoru again? Ran always had trouble understanding her when she adopted that kind of attitude. “Look, it’s just a carb, all right? It’s not even that good. I’d rather have a bowl of rice or some pasta or something.”
She expected the usual chicanery - fake weeping sounds, silver-tongue quips, all finished off with Moca smothering her with a hug and saying ‘you may have terrible taste but Moca-chan loves you anyway.’ Instead, Moca… sat there. Quietly chewing.
“Moca? The hell’s wrong with you?”
A blink. “Mm? Oh, nothing. Nothing.” Moca scooted back ever so slightly.
Her voice carried a tone that Ran hadn’t heard from her before. Low and a little frayed. “Wait, are you… mad?”
Moca’s chuckle came across like a melon bun - roughly-textured and more than a little salty. “Mad? Moca-chan doesn’t have it in her to be mad. She’s an all-forgiving goddess of goodwill, after all~.”
In spite of herself, Ran snickered. “Wow, I didn’t realize you were that invested in which glutens you favored. Guess this makes you… uh… a-a sour dough, am I right?” Damn, she was good at puns.
“Moca-chan’s not mad,” Moca repeated, her timbre infused with a forced calmness. “Really, I mean it. Who would get upset over a little disagreement like this?”
“I dunno,” said Ran, looking and feeling incredibly smug for once. “You tell me, Miss Lines-Up-At-Yamabuki-Bakery-at-6am.”
Moca’s eyes narrowed. “Well at least I’m not afraid to admit it when I love something.”
So did Ran’s. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“If Moca-chan had a nickel for everytime you sulked on the roof instead of talking about your feelings with everyone else, she’d be a rich woman indeed~.”
“Oh, like I’m the only person in this room who has trouble being honest. How long did it take you to confess your feelings, again?”
“Two seconds. That loaf of sand-bread I gave you when we met was a marriage proposal.”
“Right. So that day you came in here and started crying your eyes out about how much I meant to you was…?”
“You started crying first.”
“I-It was an emotional situation! We started crying at the same time, okay?”
“Impossible. Moca-chan is an unfeeling being. She does not know this human reaction called ‘crying.’”
“That so? So if I badmouth bread for another half hour you’ll be just fine?”
“...Would you like to eat some peas, Ran?”
“Make me.”
It was only now that they realized that, in the course of their bickering, their faces had inched progressively closer and closer until the point where their noses were now smushed against one another.
“I don’t mean to kill the mood here,” said Moca, “but this situation is kinda incredibly hot.”
Ran scrambled for a good retort. “Yeah, hot… er, just like that bread you like so much, eh?”
Moca jammed her lips into hers without hesitation.
Ran tasted that same tangy, fluffy, savory flavor from the pork buns being crushed in their clenched hands, and realized that it might be better than she gave it credit for at first.
After a good twenty seconds of snogging, Moca pulled back, giggling. “Never tasted anything better.”
Ran gasped for breath. “...Wasn’t so bad.”
“Hehehe, back to our ‘same as always,’ huh?” Moca fell back, her head falling onto her pillow as she raised her hand - now covered in bun innards - and let it fall slacken over the side of her bed. “For a second, it was like we swapped bodies~.”
“Is that what it was.” Ran tossed her own smushed bun into the trash can, suddenly devoid of appetite. “...Did I actually make you upset?”
Moca crossed one leg over the other, her raised foot wiggling right next to Ran’s face. “Maybe just a little.”
Ran coughed. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to.”
Moca shrugged. “It’s fine. Moca-chan needs to taste her own medicine every now and then~. Sometimes she makes it too bitter without realizing it and ends up making someone else feel sick, and she doesn’t want that at all.”
“Yeah. I know that feeling.” Ran slid up around Moca’s side to lie next to her, taking care not to smear her stained hand on the wall or the furniture. “Guess we’ve rubbed off on each other more than I thought.”
A breathy heave. “Wow… does that mean I’m as cool as Ran now?!”
“Heh. You wish.” Wait, Moca thought she was cool? Really? Hell yeah.
Moca splayed her feet out limp and straight, dropping the remains of her own bun into the garbage can right by her bed stand. “...But yeah. Everything’s cool.”
“Good.” Ran resisted the urge to run a hand through Moca’s hair, not wanting to smudge it up (and also because that’d be embarrassing). “Just… let me know if I do hurt you, all right? Be honest.”
“Ohoho, that’s a tall order.” Moca tilted her head over towards her. “I’m afraid I have a high asking price for that.”
“Which is?”
Moca reached out and stroked Ran’s chin with her sauce-covered fingers. “You have to do the same.”
Ran felt the corners of her lips twitch up. “That does sound hard. But I think I can do it if I try.”
“Oh, I also want another pork bun. Reimbursement for the one I lost.”
Ran groaned. “Yeah, yeah.”
Moca’s laughter was light and airy - genuine. “Pfftahaha, there’s the Ran I know and love.”
Ran looked into Moca’s teardrop eyes. “And there’s the bread monster I know and… appreciate.”
“Ahem.”
“L-Love!” Ran’s cheeks matched the shade of the sauce dribbling below her lips. “Love.”
“Ranmazing of you.” Moca booped her on the nose and sat up. “Now get up and help Moca-chan clean her bed so her mom doesn’t get mad.”
“Right.”
As they strode over to the bathroom, messy hand in messy hand, Ran couldn’t resist licking off the little bits of bun filling on her chin.
They were delicious.