"Every single thing that has ever happened to me," Chara said solemnly, "Has brought me misery."

"Chara..."

They ignored Frisk's voice in their head, bowing their head still lower. "Is there even a point to going on? What use is determination when there's no future?"

"Y'know you kinda deserve this."

"Blame the victim, as always. You, Frisk, are what is wrong with human society."

"If you hadn't slept in there might be one left," Frisk said, annoyingly reasonable. Ugh. Weren't they supposed to be the silly one? Chara groaned, pressing their face against the bakery glass in defeat.

"Ahuhuhu ~ ," an airy voice interrupted out loud. "We just cleaned that, dearie..."

"My apologies," Chara said stiffly, standing up straight. They again eyed the selection of baked goods through the glass display, counting their disappointments. Muffet's bakery had made many improvements since coming to the surface—the lighting was good, the items were no longer ridiculously overpriced, and she now sold food in flavors other than 'spider' and 'fermented spider.' (The thought of how many of those donuts Frisk had shoveled down their shared gullet still made them shudder.)

She had quite the assortment of diverse muffins here nowadays. Banana, lemon, blueberry, coffee cake...

...but...

No chocolate. Apparently one of the more popular options among the monsters and increasingly numerous humans who swung by here for breakfast, the chocolate muffins were long gone. Gone, like all their hopes and dreams.

...alright, so maybe they were being melodramatic. Still though. They always had a chocolate muffin when they came here. Walking out of here without one would feel off.

"The blueberry ones look good," Frisk offered. "Let's get one of those."

"I don't want the blueberry."

"You know you've got a really one track mind, right?"

"I rarely have strong opinions, but when I do, they are stronger than life or death."

"If your pastry opinions are THAT freakin' strong, why don't you just bake your own? Mom's got tons of ingredients at the house."

"I haven't baked anything since..." Chara trailed off, uncomfortable memories coming to mind. "The point is, it's better to just buy what I want. Even if that means coming in here. With the spider who fed me to her pet a dozen times."

There was an awkward silence in their head, as they both spared a glance at the spider girl. She was smiling innocently at them, lashes fluttering over her massive monochrome eyes.

Frisk sighed, dropping that avenue of discussion. "What about the coffee one? You like coffee, I like coffee, but we've never had it in a muffin before. It'll be fun to try something new."

"I'm not spending my money on something I don't want. It's not as though her goods are cheap all of a sudden, and we're not made of GOLD."

"Look, I'm hungry too," Frisk said finally, a hint of irritation in their tone. "Just buy one with my half of our allowance. "

They continued staring forlornly at the display case.They were hungry. Or at the very least, craving something sugary. They were on the verge of giving in when Muffet spoke again.

"Pardon me, dearie ~," she began in her peculiarly sing-song voice. "But I can't help but notice you seem a bit... conflicted. Can I help you?"

Chara shook their head. "No, I am fine."

A faint glimmer of hope shone within them once more.

"Unless you have any more of the chocolates in the back, that you haven't brought out yet?"

"Ahuhuhu... terribly sorry, but I don't think we do. ~ " The way she giggled didn't sound terribly sorry. "The chocolate certainly goes fast, doesn't it?"

Hope again was snuffed out. Chara sighed.

"Very well. We will take a-"

"Although... ~" Muffet interrupted. "Far be it from me to disrupt a sale, but since you are such a special customer, I feel... obligated to let you know of a... special deal we could make."

Her smile was as sweet as her old products line. Chara squinted at her suspiciously, but she had their rapt attention.

"I am listening to your proposal," they said.

"A simple trade... ~" she purred in reply. "I give you the first of a new chocolate pastry we've put together, and in return..."

Her smile stretched to show a full compliment of fangs.

"Y o u g i v e u s y o u r S O U L."

The shop went deathly quiet. Chara stiffened in tension, trying to process whether they'd heard her correctly. Some primal part of them made their blood run hot. They were primed and ready to fight or run away.

"Sounds like a deal," Frisk said happily.

Chara let out a strangled croak out loud, causing Muffet to start giggling across the counter and Frisk to start laughing from inside their head.

"Ahuhuhu! I'm only kidding, dearie! ~" She cupped one of her six hands over her mouth, trying—but only barely trying—to conceal her mirth. As professional as she could come across when she wanted to, she wasn't many years older than Chara and Frisk. She could be as playful as a kitten.

A kitten who'd just caught a bird.

"Ha," Chara laughed weakly. "V-Very funny. Did you actually have a deal, or...?"

"We're trying out a new recipe for chocolate muffins, ~ " Muffet sang. "If you'd care to test them out for us, you can have one for free. As I said. A special deal for a special customer."

"That... would be very nice of you," they said, smiling politely. "I accept your deal."

Muffet laughed again and backed away through the doors into the kitchen. When the doors flapped they could briefly make out the sight of a massive spider web scurrying with tiny crawlers. They suppressed a shudder.

"Did you actually think she was after our SOUL?" Frisk asked, still amused. Chara glared into the thin air while letting their heartbeat slow back down.

"N-No. Stop laughing. And stop trying to sell your SOUL."

"Aww, cheer up." Frisk still plainly found this hilarious, but a hint of concern started to bleed through their tone. "Are you really upset?"

Chara's smile was a thin line at this point. Though scaring people had once been their favorite variety of prank, personal experience had made getting spooked a bit less fun than it had been once. This particular trip to the bakery had so far brought a lot more stress than it had luxury. Still... it wouldn't be all bad if they could just walk out of this place with the chocolate muffins they wanted.

"...just a little startled. I'm surprised you took it so well. "

"I could tell she was joking." They knew Frisk still had some reservations about the spider girl, but they could also tell Frisk felt a certain affection for her. "She's even offering us a free sample of her new line! Think about that--Muffet, a free sample! It's probably her way of making up for... y'know."

They trailed off uncomfortably, but Chara nodded. That they could understand. Saying 'sorry' directly could be difficult, but maybe this was Muffet's love language. As strange as that was.

Muffet came back shortly with a tray of muffins that looked just like the normal chocolates. Except... were those lumps chocolate chips she'd added? Was that the new recipe? Chara's mouth started to water. If these were as good as they looked and smelled, they would forgive every scare they'd ever taken at her too many hands. Maybe even all the deaths. Chocolate was serious business, after all.

"Those look delicious," they said earnestly, trying—and probably failing—to not look particularly ravenous.

"We decided to experiment with the recipe, ~ " she giggled. Some of her hands set about removing muffins from the tray while others played with her pigtails. "It's gotten so boring back there in the kitchens. We wanted to improve the flavor and texture... and who should be the first to enjoy our improved recipe other than the first human to show kindness to the spiders? Pleases, help yourself, dearie."

Chara didn't need any more prompting than that. They ferociously plucked one off the counter and dug into it, not caring how messy they might be.

It was heavenly. It had the rich chocolate flavor that Muffet baked into her goods so well, perfectly moist at the same time. This was half the reason they didn't try baking themself. Aside from bad past experiences, it would just be too hard to compete with how perfect the spider's baking could be now that she'd stopped-

Crunch.

Their chewing stopped abruptly. Their head went dead quiet, Frisk seeming confused by the unexpected crunchy bit as well. Muffet remained smiling.

"...that... had better of been... an eggshell." Chara grated the words in their head, eyes closed, before finally building the courage to peek down at the muffin.

The 'chocolate chips' had legs. And wings. They appeared to be assorted flies and half of a cockroach.

"We really do owe you so much, ~" Muffet sang with a happy sigh. Her sigh was echoed by what sounded like a million tiny voices from the kitchen. "Thanks to you freeing us all from the Underground, the spider clan doesn't have to be anywhere near as territorial. We don't have to cannibalize one another just to keep our numbers down anymore. But I'm sure you miss the old... high protein recipes as much as we do. After all, you're a spider fanatic. We all saw you wolfing down those donuts back then."

So. Muffet was being generous. She just had a very skewed idea of what humans wanted.

They stared at the muffin for a long moment before Frisk shrugged, taking control of their hand and trying to bring it up for another bite. Chara drew the line, seizing back control and stopping it halfway to their face.

...alright, so the real worst part of this was that if Frisk didn't mind eating this stuff, maybe it wasn't even a bad idea. Maybe modern humans actually would like this stuff. Chara'd been dead for a hundred years—how could they know what other humans would swallow these days? As for them...

Maybe they could get used to coffee muffins after all.

"Well? ~ " Muffet asked expectantly. "What do you think? Do we have a new favorite? I'm thinking we'll start transitioning to these one flavor at a time."

Chara burst into the house so loudly that Toriel jumped, startled out of the book she was reading. She immediately looked to them with concern.

"My child? What's wrong? Is there an emergency?"

Chara took a deep breath. "Mother."

Their empty stomach made a rebellious sound.

"...I need you to teach me how to make chocolate muffins."