Chapter Text
Scaramouche does not like his job.
He feels another tug on his hands— flippers (‘wings?’), belonging to a 6 year- old boy with a runny nose. He resists the urge to click his tongue, remembering he’s here specifically to do his job.
Scaramouche, currently working as a part-timer at Disneyland, was in the middle of a tug of war between two kids, as they decided on who gets to take a picture with Donald Duck.
A thought pops into his head. Does Dottore own a voodoo doll in Scaramouche’s design? Because each time it was his shift to do character performances, the number of families always seemed to double.
Other than the fact that they always let him be in charge of being Donald Duck, Scaramouche pretty much loathed being the mascot sometimes.
Another tug. Ow . He was starting to feel sweat trapping against his ass and the cotton of his abnormally large Donald Duck costume.
“I want a picture with Donald Duck!”
“No, I want a picture with Donald Duck!”
“Kids, you shouldn’t—“
Riiiiip!
And his wing tears. He sighs.
Scaramouche does not like his job one bit.
_______
The tearing sound seemed to take everyone’s attention. Amazingly, the left wing was still intact, but the other…. wasn’t doing so well. The kid holding onto his half- torn white wing was on the verge of tears and Scaramouche felt almost offended.
It was his costume that was torn, not this kid’s. Tsk. Dottore was going to have his ass for dinner if he didn’t fix this outfit pretty soon.
Or he could leave it in the dressing room and let someone else take the blame, but until then- he has to deal with two crying children and parents to satisfy.
“I am so sorry sir, is there anything I can do to help you? I’ll cover the costs, whatever it is.” The mother bows repeatingly, face flushed as she holds onto Scaramouche’s free hand.
Scaramouche feigns a smile, even though they couldn’t see it. “They’re kids, it’s understandable,” he answers, throat feeling a bit sore after trying to sound like Donald Duck all morning.
“I’ll just take it to the staff’s office, don’t worry.”
The mother nods, and pats the soft shoulder of his costume. “I’ll talk to one of your managers to explain, and again- I’m- terribly sorry.”
Two birds with one stone. He’ll get half a day off early and doesn’t have to pay for damages. Nice.
Though they couldn’t see his wry smile underneath the costume head, they could obviously hear it in his tone.
“It’s the least you could do,” Scaramouche whispers under his breath. The mother raises an eyebrow, but pays him no mind.
“Thank you, ma’am. I’ll go get this fixed now.”
The parents nodded in reply, consoling their children as Scaramouche carefully tries to not happily skip to the breakroom. Even though he has a tear in his right wing, all he could think about right now is an ice cold slurpee to grab at a nearby 7-11.
Ignoring a couple of stares from the passers-by, Scaramouche takes off his costume head, feeling the cold air hit his face like a slap and hisses.
“Damn brats.” Scaramouche clicks his tongue, as he looks over his torn wing. “At least I get off work early now.”
“Scaramouche?”
Was someone calling him? Why do they sound fam— Oh no. That one voice he recognises a bit too well.
Scaramouche prays lightning would strike and he’d turn into ash right now so that he doesn’t have to reply, but alas, the Archons had better plans for him that day. Thankfully he managed to get his obnoxiously large Donald Duck costume head on, right at the moment Lumine called for him.
Maybe if he acts indifferently she’ll go awa—
Lumine’s face obscures his view in the next few minutes, catching him off guard. Surprised, Scaramouche lets out a yelp and Lumine brightens when she recognises the familiar voice.
“It really is you in there, isn’t it?”
She eyes him up and down like he’s an exhibit, and while she’s not entirely wrong about it, Scaramouche would prefer anyone other than Lumine to see him like this.
He doesn’t make a sound, simply ignoring her while he proceeds to walk away. Scaramouche silently prays she’d get the message.
She doesn’t.
“Hey- Scara- Don’t ignore me,” She follows him from the back as he scurries away faster, gathering more unwanted attention.
Donald Duck was being chased by a female blonde with a shorter stature, and it was a sight to behold.
“Scara- HEY!”
He stops midway, the butt of his Donald Duck costume almost hitting Lumine when he turns to threateningly point at her using his wing.
“Lady, I don’t know who you are and who this ‘Scara’ person you’re talking about.” He says annoyedly.
Scaramouche clears his throat a few times to ensure he doesn’t sound familiar. If Lumine finds out, he’ll never hear the end of it.
“I’m just a part-timer trying to entertain families. Got it?”
Lumine straight up stares at him, an unamused expression on her face, as he realises the looks bystanders were giving them at this point. Scaramouche sighs and wastes no time when he sees the glare of his manager from another station, feeling sweat roll down his back.
He doesn’t have time to deal with a friend from university, especially when it’s Lumine. He just hopes she mistook him for another indigo-haired male who happened to be at Disneyland. Just… not Scaramouche.
What he doesn’t expect next was for Lumine to pluck the costume head off him easily, golden eyes twinkling when it meets his dark- blue ones.
“I was right.” She grins immediately upon seeing his surprised face, holding the costume head in her arms.
“No way you could fool me with that stupi-”
“Are you crazy?” Scaramouche hisses at her, grabbing her wrist and dragging her away quickly.
He flashes an apologetic nod to his supervisor and grumbles. Hopefully he won't get his pay deducted because of the commotion today.
One after another. First of all, it was a tug of war between his popularity as Donald Duck with a bunch of snotty-faced children, and now- someone he knows from university, aside from Chongyun, has found out he, Scaramouche, works at Disneyland. While he was wearing a Donald Duck costume.
At this point, he was really considering offering himself as fish food to the nearby aquarium.
Scaramouche takes her to a quiet spot next to one of the stalls in Fantasyland and Lumine sets the costume head on the bench. He starts with a sigh, eyebrows furrowing into his usual annoyed expression.
“What the hell were you thinking? Ripping off my costume heads off in public? You could’ve gotten me fired, Lumine.”
He wants to fold his arms, to show how serious he was while he reprimands the blonde for her actions until he realises.
He was still in his Donald Duck costume.
Large wings, large flippers, and a large ass.
Which is why Lumine, instead of taking his lecture seriously, bursts out into fits of laughter while Scaramouche stands there dumbfoundedly in his get up.
“I’m- I- I’m sorry,” Lumine breathes in between laughs, earning an eye twitch from Scaramouche.
Funny? She thinks this is funny? He feels a vein forming on his head and takes in a deep breath.
“I really can’t take you seriously in that get-up, Scara.”
Lumine holds her stomach, somehow seeing the hatchet-faced male with half his body clad in a duck costume with a sailor outfit is too good to be true.
Is it my birthday? The thought crosses Lumine’s mind for a few seconds.
Scaramouche clicks his tongue and glares at her. “What are you even doing here anyways?”
Lumine stops laughing, wiping the remainder of her tears with her fingers and smiles at him. “What do you think?”
Scaramouche gives her a look. “Surely it’s not to rip costume heads off part-timers, that’s for sure.”
Lumine responds with a chuckle. “That's not the primary objective, no,” She places her hands on her lap and smiles.
“I’m hanging out with Aether and a bunch of our friends.”
Scaramouche pauses, face morphing into curiosity and horror at the same time.
“There’s more of you?” He exclaims with a hiss and earns a scoff from Lumine.
“Well was I supposed to go al-”
“Lumine!” The distant call of a male was heard across the stalls, causing both Lumine and Scaramouche to panic.
“Aether,” Lumine looks at the direction of the voice, spotting a familiar looking blond in the crowd. “He probably saw you dragging me away, y’know.”
Scaramouche grabs the costume head from the seat next to her as he hisses. “And who’s fault was that?”
Click.
A camera shutter sound, causing Scaramouche to pause for a few seconds. Lumine’s grin disappears for a few seconds, as she looks at him with an offended face and huffs.
“If you answered the first time, I wouldn’t have-”
“Did you just take a picture?” Scaramouche feels his veins pop out.
“Lumine?” Aether’s voice gets closer, and Lumine abruptly stands up to catch her brother’s eye.
“Hey, you need to-” She turns, to shoo off the grumpy male, but he was already out of sight. “Well goodbye to you too.”
“Lu,” Aether jogs to her, eyebrows furrowing in obvious concern. “Where did you run off to all of a sudden?”
Lumine pats his shoulder for reassurance and gives him a small smile. “I just saw someone familiar and wanted to chat them up for a bit.”
“Really? Because from what I heard; you got dragged off in the midst of an argument with one of the workers here…” He trails off, placing his hands on his hips, a trait he often does when he’s about to catch his sister red-handed.
Lumine laughs nervously, immediately grabbing her brother’s arm and dragging him away from the spot.
“...Hey isn’t that Xiao? Let’s go see if he got the tickets, c’mon!”
“W-Wait, hey!”
Aether still has his frown plastered on his face, but decides to drop the topic. If it was important, Lumine would tell him.
_______
While Lumine was busy enjoying herself with her brother and friends, Scaramouche was at risk of getting fired.
“And what the hell were you doing out there, causing a commotion like that?” Dottore, his supervisor, folds his arms while frowning at him.
Scaramouche had changed out of his outfit since it was the end of his shift, but instead of going home, he was stuck in the office, getting reprimanded by the one person he hates most (he’s got a long list, but by far this man tops it.); Dottore.
Scaramouche is convinced the Archons put Dottore as his supervisor just to smite him.
“I don’t know who that was, Sir,” Scaramouche feigned ignorance.
“She just came up to me and started calling me names, I’ve never seen her my entire life.” Bullshit.
“Well then you’ve must’ve done something to piss her off,” He sighs.
“Remember, Scaramouche. The customers are the King. Don’t forget that, or your days are numbered.”
The Archons put Dottore here, specifically at Disneyland as his boss, to piss him off, and Scaramouche knows it.
He puts on his customer service smile that could give his acquaintances the creeps, but it does the job anyways.
“Yes Sir.”
Lumine owes him a big, fat favour for almost making him lose his job today.
_______
Monday morning meant 8 a.m classes for Scaramouche because applying for classes suck, especially when wifi is shared amongst thousands of other students.
But it also meant Scaramouche has to decide on an escape route, in case he runs into Lumine. Being a music major, it was a fact that Lumine’s classes are located in the same building as his, since she’s also an Arts student, majoring in Culinary.
He plays with the wrapping of his riceball, thinking about taking the stairs from the back entrance when he enters instead of—
“Scara,” Chongyun snaps his fingers in front of the male’s face. “Class is starting in 10 minutes and you’ve barely eaten.”
Scaramouche shifts his attention to his roommate, a Psychology major (and also the leader of an occult club (?) Scaramouche cannot recall for the sake of his life). He scrunches his eyebrows in reply, but eventually starts eating his breakfast.
“Is something bothering you?” The pastel-blue haired male eyes him with interest, and Scaramouche could already tell he was going to offer his third talisman of the week for ‘protection’.
He doesn’t have the heart to tell him for the third consecutive time that he certainly thinks ghosts and aliens are two peas in a pod.
Ergo, they do not exist.
(To which it caused Chongyun to be downright offended and stopped giving him talismans for a week when Scaramouche admitted his personal feelings regarding the topic.)
Scaramouche huffs in reply, mind conflicted on if it was even worth telling Chongyun about the trivial matter. Lumine is pretty well known on campus, and what are the chances that she wouldn’t spread the news that Scaramouche, an ‘edgy’, ‘emo’ person, actually works part-time entertaining kids and their family at Disneyland?
Their university didn’t have a restriction on students who wanted to work, but Scaramouche would prefer his job being kept as a secret. Simply because he just wants to get through university life in the smoothest way possible.
“It’s nothing,” He answers while shrugging, but it doesn’t seem to please Chongyun. Scaramouche inwardly sighs and shoots him a look.
“I’m a bit tired from my part-time job, that’s all.”
“Oh,” Chongyun nods, a bit relieved it wasn’t something serious. “You should take it easy then, today.”
“Lack of sleep won’t kill me,” Scaramouche stands up to discard the trash and Chongyun follows him close. “What are you doing? Go to your class, cryo slime.”
Chongyun frowns at the nickname. “I thought I told you to stop calling me that.”
Scaramouche merely walks off, giving him a half- hearted wave. Chongyun sighs and walks in the opposite direction to his classes.
_______
Scaramouche has tried, very much, very hard, to avoid Lumine.
So why was this blonde suddenly making her way to the vacant seat right in front of him, out of all the other empty seats in the university library?
What was he supposed to do? Seeing Lumine after that event is absolutely the last thing he wants, confrontation being the first runner-up.
He eventually realised that Lumine herself was somehow unconcsious about his presence. Meaning, she sat there purely because of coincidence.
Scaramouche wants to laugh. The Archons do have a bone to pick with him, don’t they?
He leans his cheek against his palm, lowering his gaze against his laptop so that Lumine wouldn’t see him. He silently wishes he had a gigantic hat to camouflage himself.
Oh no. His back was starting to hurt now. Maybe deciding to study at the library on a Monday wasn’t the best choice he’s made. Or maybe- it wasn’t his fault. Why was Lumine even here on a Monday anyways? He always sees her at the cafe at this hour, enjoying her afternoon with her friends.
Dammit. He was supposed to finish up his assignment by this evening, but attention is definitely on other things instead of tonal analysis. Lumine rises from her seat, and it almost causes Scaramouche to sink even further into his.
She doesn’t seem to acknowledge him, to his relief. Lumine disappears behind a tall shelf and Scaramouche begins to gather his things. Sliding his laptop into his bag, his eyes dart to the isolated window seat and almost darts towards it.
He gets a few dirty looks from the students because of his loud shuffling, but he shoots them a glare to shut them up. Scaramouche smirks in relief, almost reaching the secluded seat when he bumps into someone, causing their stuff to scatter on the floor.
“Shit,” He grimaces, reaching down immediately to gather the books. “Sorry, I’m a little out of it, rig-”
On Food and Cooking by Harold McGee… Culinary Encyclopedia… Book of.. Soups?
This person has absolutely shit taste in books, I’ll give you tha-
“Scara?”
That voice. It’s familiar. Why is it familiar?
Scaramouche looks up from the books in his hands to the person in front of him, and meets the golden- coloured eyes that he definitely can recognise, even from a distance.
“Lumine.” He croaks out, almost sounding disappointed and Lumine stifles a laugh. She rises, more books in her arms and reaches out for the ones in Scaramouche’s hold.
“Thanks,” she struggles a bit with the heavy weight and Scaramouche almost feels conflicted.
Almost.
“And sorry, I wasn’t really paying attention.” She purses her lips as Scaramouche nods.
“I see you’re not in your usual get-up today, huh?” A teasing tone finds its way into her sentence and Scaramouche feels a vein pop up on the side of his head.
He takes the rest of the books and places them on the table beside them, clearly within the comfort zone of another student sitting there, but Scaramouche ignores them.
Scaramouche takes hold of the blonde’s wrist and drags her to a secluded part of the library. Lumine was about to make a snarky comment at him until she realises the familiar setting.
Upon reaching the back, Scaramouche glares at a couple (who was clearly not looking for books) and they scurry off from the spot reluctantly.
“Jerkface.” Scaramouche ignores the comment and turns to Lumine, who was clearly unfazed at his action.
“Listen, you-”
“I’m not gonna spread the picture of you in a Donald Duck costume, if that’s what you’re thinking.”
Scaramouche grimaces, giving her a look that obviously meant ‘keep it down, ’ as she chuckles. He folds his arms, eyebrows raising. The confession seemed to be almost too good to be true.
“Unless,”
Ah. It really was too good to be true.
Scaramouche glares at her through his lashes. “What do you want?”
“A favour.” She grins, sickeningly sweet and Scaramouche wonders if she realises she has a small dimple on her left cheek.
He clicks his tongue. “Are you blackmailing me?”
“It depends,” She takes a few steps closer to him, and Scaramouche could smell the vanilla scent she always has on her.
“On what you do.”
Lumine leans back and shoots him a grin. “I’m kidding- I’m not that evil, y’know?”
It earns a huff from the indigo- haired male. “Though I highly doubt that. You and your brother both look like you have hidden agendas.”
Lumine is more surprised than offended. “And how would you know that? We’ve never even exchanged more than a few sentences in our whole life of knowing each other.”
The corners of his lips rise, a pleasant tone taking in its place. “I just have my way of figuring out people.”
Lumine gives him a look. “I guess you’ve really embraced your Donald Duck persona, haven’t ya?”
Scaramouche frowns almost immediately, and it makes Lumine laugh. “Alright, alright, I’ll stop.”
“Tsk. Just tell me what you want.”
“Nothing,” She smiles. Scaramouche hopes it’s not the smile of a devil.
“For now. I just want to keep this favour with me, until I need something from you.”
His frown deepens as he lowers his eyes. Scaramouche takes a step forward, going into Lumine’s comfort zone. Although Lumine stepped back, the smile on her face never disappeared. She looked almost… amused.
“And how do I know you won’t tell on me?”
Lumine purses her lips. “Well I won’t gain anything by doing so, no?”
He quiets. She does have a point— Scaramouche wasn’t exactly well known around campus, all he knows is some think he’s a dick, while the other 1% knows he exists. He doesn’t really give a shit, but if this were to mess with the future of his job? He could have a problem with money.
He leans back while folding his arms. “You’re weird.”
“I prefer the term opportunistic, my good man.” She taps his shoulder and walks away from him.
“Well. I’ll see you when I see you, I guess!” Lumine grins, giving a small wave.
Scaramouche tilts his head. “How are you even—“
“Bye!” She walks away from the corner, ignoring his question completely and he sours. Scaramouche clicks his tongue. Just what did he get himself into now?