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Myungjun looked down at the pumpkin he'd been working on for the past three hours. Granted, it shouldn't have taken him three hours to carve a simple face onto the pumpkin, but he was still proud of accomplishing this feat alone.
His eyes flickered to the calendar pinned on the wall of his kitchen, where October 31st was circled in bright red. Tomorrow. In their small town, Halloween was one of the most celebrated events in the year, and the promise of safe, spooky fun always drew every family out of their houses for the evening. Myungjun no longer participated in trick-or-treating himself, being a senior at the local high school, but he still took great pleasure from the looks on children when they received candy, and their costumes of choice that year.
Preparations nearly complete, Myungjun carried the pumpkin to the front steps of his house. The jack-o'-lantern's empty, grinning face looked out on the street, where other houses had similar decorations adorning their properties.
He was just about to go back into his house when the neighbourhood black cat dashed out of nowhere, upsetting his balance. No one really knew where she came from, or who took care of her, but the ancient cat had become something of a mascot for their town, a protector spirit of a sort.
Benevolent spirit or not, she had the mischievous personality all cats seemed to inherit naturally, and she loved playing with the humans. Like this incident, running across Myungjun's porch so fast that he fell to avoid stepping on her. He stumbled right into his pumpkin, who rolled down his front walkway with its face laughing as it spun in circles. It came to a stop on the sidewalk, landing on its side but otherwise looking unharmed. Myungjun breathed a sigh of relief, walking down the steps to heave it back.
His relief turned into horror - not the type that came from watching thrillers, but the kind that came from watching your hard work amount to nothing. His new neighbours, two boys that had just moved in two weeks ago with their family, were joking around with each other on their way home. However, the younger one had pushed the older one in retaliation for something he'd said, causing him to trip and fall right on the pumpkin...squashing it in the process.
Completely not expecting to land in pumpkin instead of hard cement, the boy let out a yelp, looking as confused as he was horrified when he realized what he landed on.
His eyes met Myungjun's, apology rising to his lips at the less than impressed look on Myungjun's face.
"Was that your pumpkin? I'm so sorry, I'll pay you back somehow," he babbled, before noticing that he was still sitting in a pile of pumpkin mush. The boy brushed himself off sheepishly, and Myungjun noted that he had a cute smile. Not that it deterred him from taking revenge in the slightest.
In their town, there were certain unspoken rules about Halloween that everyone followed. It was common courtesy. Rule number 1: Don’t scare the kids off. Everyone is here to have fun. Rule number 2: Harmless pranks are okay as long as no one is hurt in the process. Everyone in the neighbourhood is fair game. Rule number 3: Never, ever break someone else’s jack-o-lantern, even by accident, or it’s on.
Myungjun pasted a smile onto his face. "Don't worry about it. You're new, right? What's your name? I think I've seen you around the high school." He extended a hand towards his neighbour.
The cute boy took his hand hesitantly, clearly uncertain whether it was really fine to not worry about ruining the pumpkin, even if it was by accident. "Uh, I'm Jinwoo, but you can call me Jinjin, I guess. Yeah, I'm new here. Moved here two weeks ago with my devil of a brother."
He gestured to the younger boy, who was looking at him with the most innocent face ever since his brother had fallen. Now that he was standing closer, Myungjun noticed that the boy was taller than either of them, and he no doubt used his height to bully Jinjin constantly.
"I'm Sanha," he piped up.
"Nice to meet you, Jinwoo and Sanha. My name is Myungjun," Myungjun told them. "I'm a senior at the high school, so feel free to ask me anything if you run into me!"
Jinwoo scratched the back of his head. "Thanks. My brother and I have to be home now, but see you around." His eyes flickered to the pumpkin again, half of a crooked smile still visible in the ruins. Jinwoo looked like he wanted to say more, but clearly Myungjun's words had put him at ease. Myungjun prided himself for his natural ability to talk to people.
"Anytime. See you around," Myungjun answered. He watched the boys unlock the door of the house next door, and it wasn't until they disappeared into the house that he began cleaning up the mess.
Once the mush had been disposed of, Myungjun pulled out his phone to send a text to allies that would help him get Jinwoo back for destroying his pumpkin.
To: MJ + soap (3)
MJ: hey, I need your help
MJ: my new neighbour crushed my pumpkin
MJ: this is war
cha eunwoo: we're on it
binnie: you can count on us hyung!
~
Jinwoo walked to school the next morning in an uplifted mood after dropping his brother off. Settling into a new neighbourhood was never easy - his family had to move around a lot due to his father’s job as freelance photographer - but he was starting to get used to his town after spending two weeks in it. His run-in with his neighbour yesterday had done wonders with calming his nerves; something about Myungjun’s demeanor put him at ease immediately. Even though their encounter had been awkward and could have gone over better, he was still glad he’d met Myungjun sooner rather than later.
He hummed a tune under his breath as he walked into his classroom, thinking about his neighbour’s poor pumpkin that he sat on. Although Myungjun had told him it was alright, Jinwoo still felt apologetic and he considered different ways he could repay him. Jinwoo absentmindedly opened his locker, but his hand met something fuzzy instead of his books. He looked at his locker in surprise. Everything was as he left it, except there was a thin layer of fake spiderwebs covering his supplies. Confused, he brushed it aside and grabbed his books, wondering who on earth would break into his locker just for a silly prank.
Since he didn’t think much of the incident, having disposed of the string-like cotton before first period, Jinwoo forgot about the prank until lunchtime. Myungjun had smiled at him when he entered, beckoning him to sit at his table, so Jinwoo had obliged. They’d gotten along fantastically, Myungjun helping him relax with his good natured jokes and jabs. Near the end of lunchtime, two of Myungjun’s friends - Dongmin and Moonbin - had excused themselves to prepare for their next class, leaving Jinwoo alone with Myungjun. He’d become hopelessly enamoured with the senior over lunch, so the prospect of being alone made him nervous.
His nervousness was what ultimately led to his being distracted again, or else he would have seen the green goo all over the floor of the exit once everyone else had left the cafeteria. Yelping, Jinwoo slipped on the slime, landing in the sticky substance which made Myungjun laugh loudly. He offered him a hand up.
“Be careful. It’s Halloween today, and it’s tradition for kids to prank each other as long as it’s relatively harmless. Gotta watch out for your back in case anyone’s out for you,” Myungjun explained.
Jinwoo nodded, embarrassed that Myungjun had caught him falling once again in such a short time span. Following Myungjun’s advice, Jinwoo had kept an attentive look out for anymore spooky surprises after they’d parted ways.
That was how he’d narrowly avoided sitting in a pile of plastic spiders that had been scattered across his desk and chair. Jumping back with his heart beating wildly, Jinwoo tried to calm down and not make any fuss, gathering the realistic-looking insects with a grimace to throw them away. He wondered in confusion again why anyone would want to prank him, specifically, but given that none of his classmates had bat an eye, he assumed this sort of thing was of regular occurrence around this time of the year.
He walked home alone after school since Sanha was over at a friend’s house, though thankfully the trip was uneventful. His confusion was quickly cleared up, though, when he approached his home, seeing a boy set up a jumpscare above the front door so a ghost would fall down when the door was opened. Being too short to properly reach the top, he was standing on his tiptoes, straining to secure the material in place.
“Myungjun?” Jinwoo called, bewildered. Wasn’t he the person who warned him about Halloween pranks? “What are you doing?”
His neighbour turned so fast it was hilarious, eyes popping out wildly as he was at a loss for words.
A light bulb went off in his head, and Jinwoo knew that he should have made the connection sooner. “You’re getting me back for the pumpkin, aren’t you? Come on, I’ll get you a new one and we can carve it together. I’m sorry about your other one,” he apologized again. Jinwoo had been thinking about a way to pay him back, and carving a new jack-o’-lantern together would also be a perfect opportunity for them to get to know each other better.
Myungjun blinked at him for a second, but he accepted quickly. “It’s rude to break someone else’s pumpkin, you know. Even if it was by accident,” he huffed adorably. “Why are you just standing there? Let’s go, then.”
~
Carving a pumpkin together turned out to be more counterintuitive, since they couldn’t stop messing around and arguing about what to actually carve. Jinwoo wanted a happy lantern while Myungjun defended his original idea of a really scary one. In the end, they’d compromised with a smiling lantern with empty, gaping eyes and laugh lines around its eyes.
Even though it took them longer to make the new jack-o’-lantern, the two of them managed to light a candle inside and place it on Myungjun’s porch before sundown, when trick-or-treating started. Jinwoo had made motions to go home, but Myungjun convinced him to stay, pointing out that if he went home he’d be all alone, and that he lived right next door anyway.
Jinwoo accepted his offer to stay, and they spent the entire evening chatting, judging the children’s costumes, and eating candy until Jinwoo was sure he’d wake up sick the following day. But when he glanced over at Myungjun giving the kids candy, laughing at something Jinwoo had said, he didn’t regret a single moment. Even though he’d lived in countless places before this one, Jinwoo thought that he’d finally found home.