Who: Catherine Pinkerton and Yue Katou When: Recently Where: Sweet and Tart Bakery What: Cath finds a dude digging old food out of the dumpster behind her bakery Rating/Warnings: Low/None Status: Complete
Katou’d discovered the bakery completely by chance, but now he stopped by as often as he could. There was clearly someone in there who knew her craft. And while Katou was neither willing nor able to actually afford any of the cakes and pastries inside, he had no problems going out and getting the slightly stale or smashed cakes that they threw in the dumpster.
MP3 players were still brand new back where Katou’d come from, and he’d never been able to afford one himself, but he’d figured out the one he found without much trouble. The problem, of course, was that whoever had owned it before had had shit taste in music, and he hadn’t figured out how to get the music he actually liked on the thing. But he’d made a playlist of the songs that he hated least, and that’s what he listened to now.
He had the music playing loudly in his ears as he hung over the lip of the dumpster, his legs hanging outside and his torso and arms inside, opening garbage bags and looking for something edible.
The bakery was doing well enough, Cath mused. It wouldn’t be long until she was turning enough of a profit to hire someone on. Actually, she could probably hire someone on regardless. It wasn’t as if she was hurting for money. But she wanted to be sensible about these things. Like she and Mary Ann had planned. The thought of her former best friend didn’t stir nearly as much hatred and vitriol as it had once. Cath was without her heart now, so many of those pesky emotions were subdued.
She came out the back of the bakery to toss a bag of trash into the bin, and frowned at the sight of a young man sticking out of her dumpster. She tossed the bag anyway, and it landed right on top of the back of his head. (Thankfully it wasn’t that heavy.)
Katou had been completely unaware that someone had snuck up behind him until the garbage bag landed on his head. He nearly lost his balance, toppling face first into the dumpster, but he caught his balance quickly and then whirled around, ripping the headphones off his head as he did so. Just because he hadn’t known someone was there didn’t mean that they didn’t know he was. Unless they were fucking blind, they’d definitely seen him.
“Hey, what’s the big idea?!” Katou growled, glaring down at her from his perch on the fork pocket.
“I could ask you the same thing,” Cath snapped straight back at him, folding her arms across her chest. She had every right to be angry, there was a man going through the rubbish from her shop. Which meant he was probably looking for anything valuable, or food. Food that the day before was good enough to sell? He was practically stealing. “You’re digging around in my garbage?”
“Yeah, I’m digging through your garbage,” Katou repeated. “As in you threw it out. The fuck do you want with it?”
It wasn't like she could still sell any of the cakes in there. She'd thrown them out, after all.
Disgusting. He looked dirty. Not really a surprise, considering where she’d found him. “It’s garbage. By definition it’s not to be rooted around in or…” Cath’s face lit up a little with understanding and horror when she realized what he was doing. “You’re not eating from my rubbish bins, are you?”
Katou smirked a little at the horror that was in her voice. He’d managed to find a box of cream puffs and had them sitting at the top of the trash pile behind him, so he leaned over, pulled one out, and jammed it in his mouth. “Mmm, delicious, delicious trash pastry,” he said around a mouthful of tasty, if not slightly stale, creampuff.
Cath’s mouth fell open in abject horror. She couldn’t turn away, even though she was desperate not to see. It was absolutely repulsive. How long had those cream puffs been in the bin? They must be mouldy by now, Cath assumed. Finally, she stole herself up, gathered up her skirt, and moved closer to start thwapping him with the palm of her hand until he climbed down from her dumpster. Her words came out in broken sentences between thwaps. “That.. is.. the.. most.. disgusting.. thing.. I.. have.. ever..! I.. can’t.. even..! You.. are.. gross!”
Katou had been startled at first when she started hitting him, but his eyes quickly narrowed. Using his mechanical arm, he grabbed her by the wrist on her next attempt and then kneeled down so he was eye level with her, balancing precariously on the balls of his feet on his perch. “If you want to keep that hand of yours attached to your wrist, I suggest you stop touching me,” he said coldly, squeezing just a little bit harder to coax a wince of pain out of her.
There was a little pain in her wrist, but more shock than anything else. The nerve! How dare he touch her--grab her, like some lowly criminal--when he was the one who was at fault here? Cath didn’t give him the pleasure of a whimper or even a wince as he squeezed her wrist. She simply reached forward with her other hand to grab his hand around her wrist so he couldn’t let go. Then she narrowed her eyes, and growled, “you’d best get out of my rubbish bin before I have your head.” Then she gave a powerful yank. As hard as she could, she pulled on his arm, hoping to tumble him out of the bin and throw him onto the ground.
That was unexpected. It wasn't hard for Catherine to pull Katou off of the dumpster, and landed shoulder first on the ground. He was on his feet in a fighting stance nearly immediately. You didn't survive a war by lying on the ground every time you ended up there. He managed to fight down the urge to kick her ass, and then straightened up to brush the dirt from his knees.
“Whatever,” he drawled, rolling the kink out of his shoulder. “Not like it was much of a loss. The baking here sucked anyway.” He’d come all the way to Summerbridge for it, but hey, at least now he didn't need to waste his time making the trip again.
“I’ll thank you to stay out of my bins.” Cath brought her hands back in to her stomach and rubbed at her wrist, hoping it was inconspicuous. “And the next time you need something to eat, you come inside the shop. I’d much rather work out some kind of payment plan or work schedule than have you getting sick off mouldy pastries.” She turned to head back in through the backdoor, mumbling to herself. “Just my luck he’d vomit and die on my back stoop and the police would be around asking all kinds of questions.”
“Yeah, with customer service with yours, I can totally see that happening,” Katou called, rolling his eyes. He did notice her rubbing her wrists, and felt a sense of mildly vengeful pleasure from it, though not enough to actually show on his face.
Cath ignored the call, and headed straight into the kitchen from the back. The screen door swung closed behind her with a loud clack! and she very much hoped that the dumpster-diver would leave her life with the sound.