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Scaramouche loves bread.
He especially loves the soft, sweet kind that comes in cute bags from the convenience store on campus. There’s nothing better than a snack of bread that melts in his mouth at the grand old hour of two a.m. He always wants to savor it and eat it all at once, at the same time. Sweet bread is the one thing he knows he can rely on in this life, and he doesn’t know what he’d do without it.
Starve, probably.
He finds the food at the campus dining hall disgusting. The only thing he’ll eat is the breadsticks and sauce that the little Italian place serves. Everything else is food fit for pigs, like the rest of his fellow students. And “fellow” is a bit of a stretch. They pass each other in the dorms and share some classes, but Scaramouche would rather talk to a rat than spend time with them.
On this fateful night, he wakes up after a long nap to find he’s skipped dinner, and it’s nearly eight thirty. Oh, well. It wasn’t like I was going to eat with them anyway. Last time he tried that, that jackass Zandik tried to shove his head into a plate of mashed potatoes. Red-eyed prick.
Scaramouche opens the small fridge in his dorm room, not even bothering to turn on a light. He lives in a double room, but he doesn’t have a roommate because everyone said he was too nasty and left crying. He likes it better this way. Dark and peaceful and quiet. And no one makes fun of his little purple cat plushy on his bed.
As expected, the fridge is empty, so he slides on some sandals and leaves his room. A few doors are open, and he can see light coming from under others. Someone with terrible taste is playing Taylor Swift, and he’s pretty sure it’s Childe. He pounds his fist on Childe’s door as he passes, and the music stops.
Neuvilette walks out of the bathroom looking lost, and Scaramouche scowls at him before moving around him. He really can’t stand how stupid everyone acts. How hard is it to pull their heads out of their asses and act smart?
His bad mood disintegrates when he steps out into the night air. Now all he can think about is bread. Last time he was at the convenience store, there was a new pumpkin brioche flavor he wanted to try, and he hopes they still have some in stock. He can practically taste it, and he fears he might actually be smiling in anticipation. That won’t do at all, so he forces his face back into its usual resting bitch expression.
The little bell over the door rings as he steps inside, and the girl behind the counter greets him. She recognizes him from all of his late-night bread runs. He nods in acknowledgement and heads to the back, where the freezers are. And there it is, behind the glass door of the fridge. Bread in bags with pretty designs on the plastic edges. He grabs one pumpkin brioche and shuts the fridge, searching for a drink to go with it.
He drops his selection on the counter and digs around in the pockets of his shorts to find his card. The card reader chimes cheerily as he pays, and the girl hands him a bag with a smile. “Have a good night,” she calls as he leaves.
Scaramouche has a paper due tomorrow, and while he finished it earlier, before his nap, he plans on snacking while proofreading it before he turns it in. There’s nothing like a piece of bread and some iced tea to help keep the brain awake. And tomorrow, before he has to go out into the hell that is this college campus, he’ll have some toast with butter on top. He has this all planned out, and if anyone—and he means anyone —disturbs his plans, he will kill them.
* * *
Taylor Swift is playing again when he enters the dorm. He kicks the door so hard his foot hurts, and shouts, “Turn that shit off!”
Big mistake. His yelling makes a door open to his right, and he freezes, hiding the bread behind his back.
The girl who looks out at him is his worst enemy, and she finds perverse pleasure in taking his bread. He regrets opening his mouth.
“Mouche-face!” she shouts, storming out of the room she shares with her roommate, Barbara. She’s dressed in some flimsy lingerie-like robe, and he wonders what the purpose of it is exactly, since he can literally see everything.
Not that he’s looking.
“What do you want?” he demands, hoping she won’t notice the bag behind his back.
“I want you to shut your nasty mouth and stop disturbing people,” Mona says, sticking her hip out and then sticking her hand on said hip. “I’m trying to relax.”
“Do you like listening to Childe wail his woes out to Taylor Swift?” Scaramouche asks. “It’s like listening to someone murder an opera singer.”
“Let him express himself,” Mona says, examining the nails of her free hand. “What are you up to, Mouche-face?”
“Nothing,” he lies.
He first met Mona when he moved into the dorm. She was harassing people in the hallway about their star signs and other sorts of astrologist crap. He made an obvious effort to avoid her, and she noticed, and now she likes terrorizing him. He thinks most of the problem is the fact that she’s pretty, and no one yells at pretty girls or tells them to stop stealing bread. It just doesn’t happen.
“Mouche-face,” she sing-songs, and a chill goes down his spine. She moves toward him, poking a single finger in the middle of his chest. “What are you hiding?”
“What’s left of my sanity,” he snaps. He thinks about shoving her away, but that would mean he would have to put his hands on her, and every bit of her body is a mine-field right now.
“My face is up here, babe,” she says, patting his cheek.
“I wasn’t fucking looking at your breasts!”
“But you were thinking about them, weren’t you?”
His face is on fire, and he wishes it wasn’t, but since when has anything he wishes for come true? Never, that’s when. And he’s at such a loss for words that he doesn’t notice her snatching his bag until it’s not in his hands anymore.
“Ooh,” she says, opening the bag. Plastic crinkles. “The new pumpkin flavor? How sweet of you, Mouche-face.”
“It’s mine! I didn’t get it for you!”
“And tea, too. Well, I know what I’m having for a snack.” Mona turns her back to him, humming a weird tune, and Scaramouche feels defeated. It’s not a feeling he likes. Nobody has ever gotten the best of him, so why can a lace-wearing, self-obsessed astronomy girl get away with stealing his precious bread?
“Give me my bread back,” he orders, taking a single threatening step toward her. “Now.”
“I’ll consider it, if you make me a good offer,” she says, tapping her mouth with her finger. He hates the fact that he notices the precise color of her nails. Royal purple. “What are you willing to give me in exchange?”
“Not giving you a swift kick in the ass?” he suggests, glaring.
“Not good enough. How about…I know,” she says, and the smile on her face makes him nervous. “A kiss. For each piece of bread.”
“How about one kiss for the whole loaf?” he argues, even though he doesn’t know why he hasn’t just gone back to his room and abandoned the bread. It’s not worth it.
Or is it?
“Nope. One per piece.” She holds the bag up and counts. “Seven, eight, nine, ten. Ten kisses, Mouche-face. Get started.”
He sighs and picks up her hand like it’s a maggot, placing a barely-there kiss on the back of her knuckles. Her skin smells like lavender. “That’s one.”
“Doesn’t count. Has to be on the lips.”
“Oh, come on!” he shouts, and Barbara pokes her head out of their room. “Everything okay out here?”
“Yes. I’m just securing us a snack because Mouche-face is a wimp,” Mona says confidently.
“Fuck you to the moon,” he says, grabbing her face and mashing his lips against hers. She freezes, not expecting that, and Barbara laughs, “Well, I’ll leave you to it.”
“That’s one,” he says, trying not to look at her. Her blue eyes are wide, and she looks shocked. “Let’s finish this up. I have a paper to proofread.”
“The rest better have tongue,” she demands.
He slams his hand against the wall above her head. “Woman, I am this close to throwing you out a window.”
“You’re so romantic, Mouche-face.”
“Stop calling me that.” Somehow, her face is only inches away from his, and he thinks he must be going nuts. And then he knows he’s nuts when he presses his mouth against hers for a second time. Bread is not worth it, his mind screams. It’s just fucking bread! Go eat cardboard for a snack!
He’s a lot gentler this time, mostly because his own lips are going to hurt from the aforementioned face-mashing, and mostly because he values his tongue and he doesn’t want Mona biting it off. That’s exactly the kind of thing she’d do.
She tastes like blackberry candy, and she’s soft when she presses against him, her nails scraping gently against his scalp.
“I hate you,” he says, feeling dizzy. How many has it been now? Four? And is that a door he hears opening behind him?
“No you don’t, Mouche-face.”
“I told you to stop calling me that.” God, he’s practically going boneless, and he’s never been more embarrassed in his life.
She does that hair-pulling thing again, and he stops caring.
He even forgets why he’s doing this in the first place.
* * *
Ten kisses later, he stumbles into his room and slams the door, sinking down on his bed. The bag of snacks falls to the floor at his side. His lips are numb, and he can still taste blackberry.
When he glances at the clock, he realizes he’s just spent half an hour staring blankly into the dark, and now his eyes are dry and he’s wasting precious time. He turns on a lamp and opens his laptop before breaking the seal on the iced tea.
He glares at the bread on the floor. “You weren't worth it. I should’ve left you to the wolves.”
The bread doesn’t say anything to defend itself.
He proofreads while grinding his teeth and devouring bread like it’s his last meal. For the first time, he doesn’t feel satisfied by his favorite snack.
Great. Mona has ruined bread for him.
Fuck you, he thinks.
* * *
The next morning, there are pictures circulating of him and Mona in the dark hallway, kissing, her hands in his hair and his hands on her hips.
Scaramouche tears at his hair and howls before hunting down Childe.
