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He visits Noisette cafe once, and he visits it as himself. The Vigilante already knows the man underneath the Pizzaface persona, and if Noisette thinks to tell anyone he doubts she’ll be believed. A bell above the door jingles as he steps inside, and Pizzahead grins wide as he’s heralded. All eyes are turned to him. The Vigilante eyes him suspiciously and takes a deep sip from his mug. The motion is slow and deliberate, but not a threat. As for Noisette, she smiles wide at him. He can tell from the way her fingers tap against the countertop that she’s just as wary of him as her cheeseslime friend, but once again not a threat.
His smile stretches so wide his cheeks force his eyes shut, and he walks to the counter snapping his fingers. “Welcome to Noisette Cafe!” Noisette greets, “What can I get you?” He closes his mouth and grins without teeth so he can open his eyes. She’s not at ease, but she seems to have snapped into business mode with the same gusto as her boyfriend does when he snaps into his on-camera persona.
He jabs a thumb in the Vigilante’s direction. “I want what he’s having,” Pizzahead answers. The Vigilante glares at him, and Pizzahead stretches his smile so wide his cheesy skin threatens to split. The Vigilante’s attention suddenly snaps back to whatever drink he’s enjoying (though given his expression he probably doesn’t actually like it).
Noisette places a mug before him, and the contents inside slosh around. The drink, if it can even be called that, is a brown two shades away from being black. His two guesses for what it could be are coffee and motor oil. Before he can ponder what she’s just served him further, his attention is torn away from the mug by a jingling sound. She’s shaking the tip jar at him with an expression of joyful anticipation while two pitiful quarters cling against the glass muffled by a single dollar bill.
Pizzahead widens his grin again, and again his eyes are forced closed. “Do you know who I am?” He asked her.
“No,” she answers; her voice wavers. Her anticipation switches tracks from happy to nervous.
“I’m your boss,” he informs her. He says it in a sing-song voice, but the message is clear.
Noisette moves the tip jar back to its proper place, and as if it was an apology the Vigilante slips in another bill when she’s not looking. “So your Noisey’s employer,” she hums, finding an empty coffee mug to clean idly with a wash rag. It’s just repetitive motion, scrubbing small circles in one spot that was already spotless.
Pizzahead nods. “Real feisty, that one. I trust he’ll finish this job.” He can feel the Vigilante glaring daggers at him; he’ll admit it was a back-handed remark.
“And he’s supposed to… Kill the other pizza guy,” Noisette remarks.
Pizzahead chuckles at that. “Naturally. What else?”
Noisette shrugs. “Nothing else. But why?”
Pizzahead’s smile falters. “Peppino has it all,” he answers with malice tainting his upbeat tone, “He gets the customers I cannot, he has the cooking skills I do not, he has everything I do not.”
“Isn’t competition healthy?” Noisette asks with full sincerity.
Pizzahead laughs again, and this time it's laced with condescending. “Oh, now, don’t be stupid.” She grimaces- does he see a trace of anger?
He continues, “No, I gave Peppino a chance. I told him about the Pizza Tower, but he didn’t want a job. And if my tower doesn’t have him for a chef, no place can.”
“You wanted him, but now you’re-“
“Don’t fret over details,” he interrupts, “I always get what I want.” His voice gets frighteningly dire.
“That’s certainly something,” Noisette says. She’s no longer scrubbing the cup, just holding the damp rag against the porcelain. A long pause hangs between them as Noisette deliberates on another comment. “You gave up that quickly?”
Pizzahead’s smile falls completely. “Do you think that just because we’ve never met, I don’t know you?” He muses, “That you didn’t spend months upon months just trying to catch his eye? And yet when I wanted The Noise it only took a single exchange.”
“That’s different,” Noisette tells him, "That was a business deal."
“It’s true, unlike you, I don’t take not getting what I want as a personal failing. If I don’t get what I want, I take it, I make it,” Pizzahead explains, donning his usual smile, “But. What you and I feel is the same. Desire. Hunger. Want.”
Noisette shakes her head and puts the mug and rag down. She looks outright disgusted, which is strange to see from her, with her pink dress and bunny-eared hood. “Love. What I feel is love,” she corrects him, “Whatever you just described isn’t love.”
Pizzahead gives her a hard look, scans her up and down. She looks so funny right now, with her scrunched up face and the conviction in her voice. “This is why people call you stupid, you know,” he jabs.
Noisette looks more hurt than angry this time. It looks like he might get the last word in until the Vigilante butts in. “Is there a problem, sir?” He asks. Attentive and obedient in the same old maliciously compliant kind of way.
Pizzahead smiles at the Vigilante in a way that says, Remember that you work for me.
The Vigilante doesn’t back down from the matter this time. Something’s different this time, and Pizzahead knows exactly why. The cheeseslime is easy to read, laughably so. Observancy keeps people quiet, though. Except for Noisette. He doesn’t have to do anything to keep Noisette quiet; she’ll complain to The Noise about what he’d said today, and The Noise will brush her off. The only person in the whole Pizza Tower who dares believe that Noisette might not be just an airhead, that she might be another living person who was capable of complex emotions, was right here. And he would stay quiet.
Pizzahead pushes away his untouched drink. He won’t give the Vigilante the satisfaction of being told no. Instead he turns around and heads toward the door. He can hear Noisette squeak, “He didn’t pay!” The jingle of the bell above the door signaling his departure muffles the sound of the Vigilante offering words of comfort to his friend.