𝐂𝐀𝐑𝐃𝐈𝐍𝐀𝐋 ; 𝐤𝐚𝐳𝐮𝐬𝐜𝐚𝐫𝐚 . ◈

noodles and apples

It's strangely pleasant to have this measure of consistency in his life, after that--to know that whenever he's particularly pissed off or when the menial tasks he's been assigned are becoming particularly unbearable, he can always drop by Kazuha's room and fuck him senseless.

It's good stress relief, it's convenient, and it certainly helps that Kazuha seems perfectly content to go along with the rules Scaramouche lays out for them--no contact outside of Kazuha's room, no hanging around after the deed, and absolutely no feelings.

"Anything you want to add?" he asks, and Kazuha shakes his head, giving him a strange, patient sort of smile.

"Good."

He puts out the light of his cigarette, enjoys the grimace that passes over Kazuha's face when he flicks it to the floor, and then they get out of their clothes and under the covers.

Most of their encounters wind up this way, with minimal talking and maximum activity, and Scaramouche takes extra care not to repeat the one-time circumstance of their first night together, keeps his hands to himself and away from Kazuha's hair. It's a task he exerts himself towards with an admirable focus--and it's perhaps this intense, shortsighted concentration that leads him to break the first of their rules.

To be fair, it's not his fault.

It's Kazuha's, for eating noodles. And everyone else's, for being an incompetent chef.

A little-known fact about Scaramouche, one that he will gladly carry to his grave, is that he loves noodles.

Noodles of all kind had been his favorite dish growing up, and now that he's an independent adult allied with the Fatui, he's found himself distinctly missing the taste of Inazuman food, which is frustratingly difficult to come by in a snow-covered country nearly a continent away.

So when Scaramouche has spent the last week or so living off of the fairly disgusting cooking of the Resistance's designated chef, and Kazuha has the audacity to share his freshly-cooked noodles with Gorou --well, he can't let that stand.

He drops by the corner that the two of them are tucked away in, uncaring that he's standing in front of Kazuha and freely interacting with him, all while in full view of about half the Resistance's soldiers.

Kazuha looks genuinely surprised by his approach, looking up mid-bite, the noodles in his mouth stuffed into the side of one cheek in a way that makes him look like some kind of fluffy chipmunk.

At his side, Gorou looks up too, then between them, and stays silent for a long moment before he reaches out to pat Kazuha's back.

"I'll catch up with you later," he says casually, and then promptly steals an extra mushroom from the plate before happily dismissing himself. "Good to see you, Scara."

Scaramouche inhales sharply, prepares some biting remark in response, but then Kazuha swallows down his food, tilts his head in a helplessly attention-catching way.

"Did you need something?"

Scaramouche needs to be crafty here. He needs to play this at a cunning angle, because Give me your noodles is a little too revealing of his true desires, and Give me your noodles or die is a little less likely to work.

"No one else on this entire forsaken island can cook worth a damn," he says--an appropriately neutral comment for an appropriately neutral situation--then drops himself into the empty seat opposite of Kazuha.

Kazuha glances downwards, presses the sleeve of his kimono to his mouth in a way that hides his expression for the smallest of instants.

Then, without a word, he piles some of his noodles into the empty bowl at his side, and slides it across the table, along with a pair of extra chopsticks.

What follows is a rather unsightly, frightening space of ten minutes, in which Scaramouche stuffs his face with gluten-filled goodness without pause, barely coming up for air. Kazuha watches him quietly nearly the entire time, takes dainty little bites out of his own dish--which, now that Scaramouche is seeing how little Kazuha eats, was very obviously made for more than himself.

"Do you like them?" Kazuha asks pleasantly, lifting a single slice of shredded carrot to his mouth, nibbling at it like a soft baby rabbit.

"It's fine. Nothing special," Scaramouche answers, and takes one or ten more bites in the next second, just to emphasize the mediocrity of it all. "The sauce is better with apples, anyway. Not...whatever this is."

Kazuha takes a small sip of his tea, his slender fingers wrapped delicately around his cup.

"I see."

His reaction, in the moment, is as serenely calm as always, but something in Scaramouche's rightful criticism must have touched at a nerve, because as revenge-- clearly as revenge, and nothing else--he invites Scaramouche to go apple-picking with him the next morning.

"I'm the Sixth of the Fatui Harbingers and you're making me pick fruit," Scaramouche complains, struggling to balance the growing tower of apples in his arms as he watches Kazuha dart through the trees, dislodging apples from the highest branches.

He's not even picking the fruit, actually--he's the fucking fruit basket.

Given his lesser talents in the physical side of things, he's been relegated to the role of standing here and holding the fruit, where he can do no harm to himself or to others.

In a light, catlike motion, Kazuha drops from the trees to land in front of him, somehow making the touch of his boots on the grass incredibly soundless.

"You don't have to accompany me, if you would rather be elsewhere."

Except, of course Scaramouche has to come. If he lets Kazuha go off on his own and select low-quality, worthless apples to use in his next dish, then where would Scaramouche be?

Stuck with inferior noodles, obviously.

"Whatever. Give me the apples."

Kazuha makes to approach him, but seems to hesitate, looking uncertainly between the wobbling tower of fruit in Scaramouche's arms and the dark expression on his face. Something crosses his face, the faintest flicker of a true, unconcealed laugh, and for some reason, Scaramouche finds himself staring.

"What?" he snaps, struggling to make room for the extra fruit as Kazuha leans forwards, placing the new additions on top of the pile.

"Nothing--I simply thought...perhaps we could use your hat as a bowl."

Scaramouche looks up, the outrage in his throat abruptly dying off when he meets Kazuha's gaze and sees the genuine smile on the other's face, for once completely unhidden.

He blinks, once, twice, suddenly at a loss for words--which is when the wind picks up, upsets the delicate balance of the apple pyramid, and fruit goes flying everywhere.