Malum one shot

Part 3

Calum was exhausted. He had stayed at his parents last night, and slept in his old room. Now, to some people, sleeping in your old childhood bed might be relaxing, however, Calum couldn't stop crying. How was he supposed to be okay? He just walked out on the love of his life. Usually he would go right back, and try to fix things with Michael; he loves the boy, but Michael doesn't need him. He doesn't even want him. Needless to say, he got barely any sleep last night. So of course, he feels like utter shit. And of course, he is assigned to the register today. He has to deal with people. Yay.

He goes to the break room to put on his shirt and nametag. He rubs at the little hearts Michael had drawn on in sharpie and huffs. He sits at the little table and glares at the coffee machine. He's so sleepy, but coffee is disgusting, unless Michael makes it. Michael puts in a lot of things Calum didn't even know they had in the pantry. Calum really likes when Michael would make it wi-. Calum doesn't want to think about it. So he glares. He waits until Ashton gets there to leave to the register. Ashton notices his sadness, and gives him a look of pity. Calum shakes his head and puts on a small, fake smile. He's fine.

When he gets there, he's actually surprised to see someone is at the checkout already. At 6 a.m. He shrugs and walks over. "Sorry. Did you find everything you needed today?" Calum mumbles. "Oh. Uhh, Yea." The customer replies. Calum starts the conveyer and starts to ring up his items. Chicken. Beep. Alfrado sauce. Beep. Rice. Beep. Onions and peppers. Beep. An apology card. Beep. Calum is confused. This guy came in to buy these "dinner" items at 6 in the morning. He doesn't seem like he's rushing, or busy, so why did he come this early? He shrugs it off, and bags his things. "Have a nice day." He says as he gives the man his receipt. Calum see's that he has to refill the paper for the receipts, so he grabs the roll and quickly exchanges it for the empty one, and he sees a customer coming.

The old lady just has some flowers that Calum thinks are very pretty, and a little wine. "Is that all for you today ma'am?" "Yes sir." She smiles. She pays with money instead of a card, and says something about being old fashioned. Calum's not really listening though. He tells her to have a nice day and she thanks him and leaves. Noticing no one else coming, he goes to bakery to talk to the main baker Harry.

Calum doesn't know much about him. He knows that he makes very good cupcakes, and he likes to put scarves in his hair instead of hairnets. He thinks Harry's strange, but he likes him. "Ah. Cal, Just who I wanted to see." Harry says placing a cake on the counter. "Well now that you've seen me what do you want?" Harry gasps. "I'm not allowed to want to see my friend? I'm offended." Calum sighs and picks at the price tags on some freshly made cookies. "I'm sorry; I'm not in the greatest mood right now." Harry picks up a cupcake. "That's okay everyone has... bad days" he said slowly, concentrating on icing it.

"So what did you want?" Harry looks up. "Oh yeah, a customer ordered a special cake, his only instructions were to ice a couple words on top. He asked that I make my favorite flavor and decorated it however I wanted. I was wondering if you could choose for me." Calum looked shocked. "Harry. I suck at baking. You know this." Harry chuckled. "You're not making it, you're simply choosing the flavors and colors. Pleeeaassseee?" Calum goes to stick his finger in the icing bowl, but Harry snatches it out of his reach, holding it to his chest, as if it were his newborn child. "No. Say yes to me, be my faithful minion!" Calum pouts, trying his best puppy dog face, but Harry just squints his eyes and shakes his head.

"Okay." Calum rolls his eyes and sighs. He looks around the bakery for ideas. "Uhm. I really like red velvet, but I hate the cream cheese frosting.... So make it vanilla? Or, remember that really good awesome kind you made for the cupcakes on Thanksgiving? Can you make that again?" Harry smiles really big. Almost creepily Calum thinks. "Of course! That will be amazing! What colors?!" Calum has never seen him so excited to make a cake before. "Well...if it's red velvet, I think it should be white...and you know how they have the chocolate sauce dressing for ice cream...can we use like strawberry kind to drizzle on top? I don't know. It was just a thought." Calum now embarrassed stares at Harry, expecting criticism.