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The Inabaaaah! Haunted House Attraction, 7:30pm
“Of course I’m not scared,” Chie says, hands on her hips. “We’ve seen way freakier stuff than a measly haunted house.”
Despite the determined blaze in her eyes, which Yosuke is pretty sure could be seen from space, the way she’s bouncing back and forth from foot to foot like she’s revving up for battle still gives the lie to her statement. At least partially. Somewhere from the depths of the haunted house, an automaton is chuckling menacingly, the sound of it echoing outward. The line to get in shuffles forward a bit.
“Oh man,” Yosuke groans. “You’re not gonna sock one of these guys in the face, are you? They’re paid to scare you, you know.”
“I won’t!” Chie says, a little on the indignant side. “I know they’re just actors. It’s not like there’s real zombies and werewolves in there.”
Still, she shoots a sidelong glance at the entrance, currently smoke-machined to max capacity for optimum spookiness.
“Don’t worry, Chie,” Yukiko says, grinning. Yosuke had almost forgotten about her love of the macabre. “Even if they are real, I doubt we’re in danger here.”
“Even?” Chie repeats. “Jeez.”
Yosuke rolls his eyes as, deep in the bowels of the house, someone screams again, and the waiting line chitters in excitement. Next to him, Souji nudges him with his elbow.
“Hey,” he says. “You scared?”
“Me? No way,” Yosuke says, perhaps a little too quickly. He definitely shouldn’t be. Chie’s right; they’ve seen way creepier in the TV world. And besides, Rise and Teddie did this haunted house two days ago, and even Teddie seemed to survive without any mental trauma. If that bear can go through with it, so can Yosuke.
“It’s okay if you are,” Souji says. He wiggles a palm in Yosuke’s direction. “Just in case you need something to hold onto for support.”
Yosuke’s getting the distinct feeling he’s being teased.
“Dude,” he deadpans.
“Ooh, we’re next!” Yukiko says as the line pushes further in. This close to the doorway, Yosuke can make out flashing purple lights and witches’ cackling. His throat works hard as he swallows.
“I’ll protect you,” a voice says by his ear, tickling his neck. Yosuke definitely does not jump before shoving Souji away.
“Dude,” he says again.
--
Marukyu Tofu, closed for business but open for friends, 8:00pm
Rise answers the door bedecked in a glittering purple cat costume when Naoto knocks.
“Hey, Naoto-kun! It took you forever to get here,” she says in cheerful greeting, making no move to explain her over-the-top outfit.
Halloween is never going to be a holiday Naoto will ever fully understand.
“I apologize for the delay,” Naoto says as she steps inside. “The streets were busier than I expected, presumably because of the special occasion.”
“Well, come on in already. Kanji and Teddie already started with their pumpkins ages ago.”
The yelling-slash-growling hybrid—Kanji’s trademark—from around the bend makes it clear that Naoto’s the last to have arrived. She takes off her gloves; it’s fairly chilly tonight given the mild season, and besides, she doubts they’ll be all that useful for pumpkin carving.
Speaking of. Rise pushes the curtains to the Marukyu kitchen aside, revealing a desk fully conquered by pumpkin innards. Kanji’s shirt is flecked with them, thick globs of orange marring the skull decal on his chest, while Teddie is elbows deep in his own beheaded pumpkin, sleeves rolled up high, to clean it out. For the first time, Naoto regrets coming just a little bit. This evening is looking to be a fair bit messier than she imagined.
“Oh, hey,” Kanji says when he notices her. He looks more annoyed than usual, no doubt thanks to the work of balling out a pumpkin twice the size of his head, which would be a frightening sight to behold were it not for the juicy orange pumpkin pulp strung over his wrists and head. “You ever gutted a pumpkin before?”
Naoto looks down at the modestly-sized pumpkin sitting untouched on her placemat. Given that Teddie’s is quite long and misshapen and Kanji’s is big enough to crawl into to use as a shell, Naoto has her suspicions on who’s responsible for picking hers out. On Rise’s side of the table sits a small pumpkin, petite enough to be borderline cute, if pumpkins could be such a thing.
“Can’t say I have,” Naoto says, taking a seat. She’s never given Halloween much thought before, and that includes all the activities that come with it. She’s not one for scaring herself on purpose; her profession does that enough even without her actively seeking out the fright.
“Well, it’s real easy,” Kanji says. “You just gotta use the right tools.”
“And don’t be afraid to get messy!” Teddie chimes in.
Distantly, as she examines the proffered tools, Naoto wonders why she chose to come. Then again, the alternatives had been to join the senpais to the haunted house, or stay home alone watching crime shows. And despite the fact that nearly a year has passed since Naoto has made friends good enough to invite her along to things, the thrill of it still hasn’t worn off. She finds it awfully hard to say no to an invite.
“Right,” she says, picking up the carving dagger presented to her. “Is there an optimal technique here?”
“Just go to town,” Kanji says, plunging the knife back in.
“Right,” she says again, staring at her blank canvas of orange ridges and crooked stems.
She looks around at how everyone else is faring, and realizes in the process that Rise’s not the only one dressed up. Teddie’s wearing a wizard’s cape and has a matching hat lying nearby, away from the pumpkin carnage, and Kanji’s jeans have been painted to reflect the leg bones of a human skeleton. It looks like a handmade job. Naoto looks down, as if checking to see if she’s still in her usual outfit.
“I didn’t realize everyone was dressing up,” she says.
“Duh, it’s Halloween,” Teddie says. His skin seems to sparkle a bit when it catches the lamplight. Is glittering lotion a prerequisite for witches and wizards nowadays? “Where’s your costume, Nao-chan?”
“Uh.”
“She can borrow something from my closet!” Rise says. “I’ve kept loads of outfits from tour. Some of it is wild.”
Naoto has absolutely no interest in testing that statement out. “Uh,” she says again. Perhaps the carving knife will ward off any unwanted accessories.
--
Deep inside the Haunted House and full of regret, 8:10pm
So the haunted house is… well, not too bad. Yosuke is sure that if he keeps telling himself this on repeat, his brain will eventually have to catch up and believe it too.
It’s just so dark in here. Yosuke has no idea what’s up ahead, and no matter how many times he blinks, his eyes just don’t get accustomed to the black vortex of horror he’s surrounded by. He feels along the wall, helpless. Regardless of what Chie said about the group of them having dealt with way worse inside the TV, Shadows never lied in wait for them only to pop around corners wearing grotesque masks. Whose idea was this stupid house anyway?!
His left hand comes into contact with something suspiciously warm and flesh-like. Yosuke yelps, jumping back.
“It’s just me,” Souji’s voice says through the darkness. A hand—hopefully Souji’s hand—reaches out to steady Yosuke by the shoulder. “You okay?”
“Y-yeah. Don’t be stupid.” Or maybe Yosuke’s the stupid one, considering he’d prefer it if Souji keeps holding onto him for the rest of the evening.
Something smacking hard into his back makes Yosuke cry out again. A familiar feminine shriek followed by even more familiar laughter slows down his rapidfire heartbeat again.
“Yosuke?!” Chie says, equal parts breathless and annoyed. “Sheesh, are you just standing there?”
“What’re getting mad at me for? You’re the one who ran into me!”
“Just stop moving so fast, all right? We’re trying to stick together here!”
“Okay, okay.”
Moving as one giant clump of fear might be a good idea, Yosuke thinks as they all shuffle along, a far cry from the brave line they used to maintain running through dungeons. Has his bravery waned over the past year? At least as a group, the scare actors won’t know who to target, giving him a fair one-out-of-four chance of coming away unscathed. The ominous music playing through the speakers is giving him a bad case of the shivers.
As they round the corner, pushing dark plastic strips of curtains out of the way, a gigantic animatronic robot leaps out of a jack-in-the-box at them, springs screeching. They all scream in unison this time, and Yosuke lunges to grab Souji’s wrist in a moment of blind impulse just as Yukiko’s shriek morphs into snrks. The clown in the box wobbles back and forth before disappearing back inside the box in jerky, mechanical movements. Yosuke can feel Souji’s pulse pumping through his wrist where he’s grabbed it.
Is that weird? Should he be touching there? Is the real haunted house here just two hours of Yosuke second-guessing all of his social interactions with his best friend?
He lets go of Souji.
“BEWARE THE DOOM UP AHEAD!” says a monstrous voice from deeper within the house. “DOOM!”
“Uh,” Yosuke says. “Does anyone know how close we are to the exit?”
No one responds, which can’t be a good sign. The groups that used to be ahead of them, saving them from most of the scares by falling for them first, are nowhere in sight anymore, too far ahead to be a support system. They’ve been in here for what feels like ages; surely they’ve got to be near the finish line. How much more can there possibly be? The darkness stretches out before and behind them, a wormhole of black ominousness.
A purple light abruptly flickers on, revealing a display of wax vampires looming over them, capes billowing and long shiny teeth at the ready. A fresh burst of dry fog bursts out from between their legs, irritating Yosuke’s eyes.
“Man, what’s in this stuff—gyaaah!”
An undead zombie leaping out at them with a growl from behind a curtain cuts Yosuke off mid-gripe. They’ve reached a graveyard now, as smoky as it is infested, half a dozen zombies crawling by the tombstones and wailing as they do so. It’s startlingly terrifying considering the room reeks of face paint, especially when one lunges out from behind a tall gravestone, brain fragments hanging from his mouth. Ugh.
“Not bad,” Souji observes.
“It’s awesome,” Yukiko says, awed. “This zombie make-up makes them look so real, don’t you think, Chie?”
Chie’s answering laugh is nothing short of flat. Yosuke looks over his shoulder, catching a few glimpses of them in the strobe lights. Chie’s all but superglued herself to Yukiko, hands interlaced and arms wound together. It’s a small—very small, but existent nonetheless—comfort that at least Chie is more of a scaredy cat than he is.
The blinking purple lights from hell are somehow still preferable to the dark, lightless hallway they turn into after being chased out by the zombies. Yosuke’s back to not seeing a thing anymore, and although he really thought his other senses would pick up the slack, his ears, nose, and mouth still can’t prepare him for anything leaping out of the shadows at him. He feels out, reaches a curtain, and knows instinctively that someone’s probably lurking behind it, waiting for the opportune moment to make Yosuke shit his pants.
“WHO DARES TO ENTER MY LAIR,” booms a werewolf that has materialized in front of them.
It’s a dummy that’s hanging on strings suspending it from the ceiling, yellow eyes and glow-in-the-dark fangs gleaming in the darkness, but Yosuke falls for it like the little boy he is anyway. The group stumbles to a halt in front of him, screeching, and just as Souji grabs a fistful of Yosuke’s shirt, Yosuke’s blindly fumbling for his hand, holding on tightly.
Wait, what?
Is he seriously holding onto his best friend’s hand right now out of sheer terror?
He goes to fidget free, remove his sweaty ass palm from Souji’s, but Souji’s fingers tighten, not letting him go, and it takes him one hysterical moment to remember that it’s too dark for Chie and Yukiko to notice what’s happening in front of them. Is Souji pretty freaked out too? It’s not super gay if it’s just bros helping each other at a haunted house, right?
“Jeez, that came out of nowhere,” Chie breathes as Souji pushes the dummy out of the way and they shimmy around it. “Man, they really don’t want you to see anything in these haunted houses, huh?”
All the better, Yosuke thinks as Souji’s fingers flex briefly around his. This would be kind of nice if it wasn’t so damp, which is as terrifying of a thought as it is kind of disgusting.
A neon red exit sign hanging from the ceiling points to the left. “Hey, guys, look,” Yosuke says, trying his best not to sound relieved. “We must be close to the end.”
Knowing that, it’s almost possible to ignore the creepy organ music and echoing violin scratches, as well as the wall of oozing blood they pass by. Yosuke’s not coming back here ever again. He’s sure as hell going to make fun of how Chie’s fist is grabbing him by a clump of his jacket once they’re out of here and pretend that he was Cool, Calm, and Collected all the way through, but at home and in private, he’ll be doing his best to actually get to sleep tonight without red eyes burning through the darkness at him.
“Think we’re in the clear?” Yukiko whispers as they ease along an empty room—suspiciously empty, really.
Naturally, they’re not. The house has one last good jump scare to it, left for the end when everyone is down on their guard, and a giant caped man with a plastic scythe comes jumping out of a corner. Souji’s free arm flies out, soccer-moming the girls, except that Chie has already sprung into action.
“Heeeeeeeya!” she cries, and that’s the only warning the poor guy gets before he takes a foot to the face.
--
The kitchen of Marukyu Tofu, which will forevermore smell of pumpkins, 8:45pm
For someone so sweet and small—adorable, perhaps, is the word Naoto’s walking around—Rise sure does carve into a pumpkin like a bloodthirsty sociopath.
“Ta-daaa!” Rise says, swiveling her finished pumpkin around for all to see.
“Hm,” Naoto says, setting down her knife.
“Where’s the blood comin’ from?” Kanji asks.
“It’s just syrup,” Rise says, but she looks inordinately pleased with herself for coming up with the design. Naoto makes a mental note to remember Rise’s grisly side, even if it only does emerge during pumpkin carving. “Whaddya guys think?”
“It’s spooky, Rise-chan,” Teddie says.
“Very appropriate for the season,” Naoto remarks, but wishes those dark, empty eyes would stop following her as she shifts in her chair. To be afraid of a pumpkin is ridiculous, in the same vein of absurdity as believing in ghost stories or holding seances, but despite the reasonable logic, Naoto still feels a shiver run down her spine at those oddly sharp teeth. That’s precision work right there.
Halloween might not be the holiday for her.
Her own pumpkin is very textbook: triangle eyes, a matching nose, and a crooked grin, carved symmetrically to the best of her ability. It would look nice on her study desk, maybe illuminated with a small candle.
“Man, carving these things didn’t take very long at all,” Kanji says. He looks at his hands, smeared with pumpkin innards. His own pumpkin was done half an hour ago, despite the fact that Kanji, who has a craftsman’s hand and astonishing expanses of well-hidden creativity, has carved an intricate scene onto his. “And now we got all these pumpkin guts.”
“Ooh, I know what we can do with it! We can bake!” Rise says.
“Bake?”
“That’s actually not a bad idea,” Kanji mutters. “We could cook too—like a pumpkin soup or somethin’.”
He’s on his feet in seconds, chair scraping behind him as he gathers up the pumpkin insides in his hands, pulpy strings of it peeking out between his fingers. He charges into the fridge like a missile finding its target, Teddie following. Rise turns to Naoto, eyes bright. Naoto doesn’t tell her that pumpkin seeds have found their way into her hair.
“What do you say, Naoto-kun?” she asks. “Want to help me with a pumpkin pie?”
--
Outside the Haunted House, with somehow more regrets than before, 9:00pm
“I can’t believe you got us kicked out,” Yosuke grumbles, arms folded over his chest. Secretly, he’s pleased about it, because it saved him from the rest of that hellscape of a haunted house, but he would’ve preferred to go about it in a way that didn’t involve bodily harming an employee. Leave it to Chie. “That poor guy’s not gonna walk for months.”
“He was okay!” Chie says, although her voice wavers a bit, chagrined. “Right?”
“He looked okay as they were carrying him out,” Yukiko says.
“Maybe save the Galactic Punting for the real attackers,” Souji advises.
Chie looks a little deflated, especially as a few guys in clipboards glower at them as they hustle by. It’s a miracle they weren’t sent to the police station, considering he’s pretty sure Dojima-san would not have found their little anecdote amusing.
“I guess if nothing else, it’s good to know I’m not rusty,” Chie says with an unsteady laugh.
Yosuke pinches the bridge of his nose, looking down. At least no one called an ambulance, even if they did close the house down for a few minutes while they reassembled some of the props that took damage during Chie’s rampage. He just wants to go home. His hand is still tingling where Souji held it, warm and firm.
Souji’s phone ringing interrupts their conversation. He fishes it out of his pocket, ducking aside to take the call.
“Anyway,” Chie says, checking her phone for the time. “Yukiko and I should probably get going. It’s getting late.”
“Hit and run, huh?”
Chie’s entire face goes blotchy pink. “It’s not a hit and run!” she yells, then huffs out her irritation through her nose. “Whatever, Yosuke. Come on, Yukiko. We’re leaving.”
She grabs Yukiko’s hand and all but tugs her along, stomping away from the scene of the crime. Yukiko shoots a little wave at them over her shoulder and then the two of them are swallowed up in the crowd of people still jammed in line for the attraction, leaving Yosuke alone with Souji and the aftershocks of his fright and some undigested feelings he’s not sure he’s emotionally stable enough to do digging into. Best to just shove all that away.
“Sorry,” Souji says, stuffing his phone away as he finishes up his call. “Did the girls leave?”
“Yeah. Pretty sure Chie’s feeling a tad embarrassed.” He turns to Souji. “Everything okay?”
“That was my uncle. He’s stuck at work apprehending some kids pulling pranks.” Souji’s eyes sweep to the ground, concerned. “That means he’s not taking Nanako trick-or-treating.”
“What? Nanako-chan’s home alone?” Yosuke asks. “Dude, why don’t we take her?”
“Really?”
“Yeah. Picturing her at home alone in her costume right now is like the saddest thing on earth.”
Souji smiles. He seems oddly touched, which Yosuke kind of wants to tell him off for—of course he’s going to worry about Nanako. And anyway, it’s not right to leave children uncandied on Halloween night. And heading straight home to sit in his dark bedroom is just a nightmare waiting to happen.
They head back together, Yosuke making sure to keep his hands stuffed firmly in his pockets. As it turns out, Nanako actually is, just as predicted, sitting alone at home in costume by the time Souji and Yosuke arrive. They find her parked in front of the TV in a poofy princess gown, which would be a miserable sight to see if not for the fact that she springs up with a smile upon seeing the two of them.
“You’re home!” she says, rushing over. Aside from her baby blue dress, covered in lace and glitter, she’s also wearing a rhinestoned crown and carrying a tiny silver wand. “Can we still go trick-or-treating?”
“Of course,” Souji says. “If you want to.”
“Yay!”
Souji cocks his head to Yosuke. “Do you mind if Yosuke comes too?”
“Of course Yosuke can come!” Nanako says, looking delighted. “But you’re missing something.”
“What’s that, Nanako-chan?”
She smiles, waving her sparkly wand. “Costumes!”
--
The kitchen of Marukyu Tofu, now covered in both pumpkin brains and other various ingredients, 9:20pm
Naoto’s hands have become a sticky, seedy, pulpy mess. They also may have been dyed orange and the smell of pumpkin will probably not fade from her skin until spring. How she got this deeply roped into helping in the kitchen is beyond her.
She’s also wearing a deerstalker at Rise’s insistence, which was the only thing in Rise’s closet that Naoto decided would be an appropriate costume, even if she is missing the pipe, iconic coat, and currently, Sherlockian elegance that would be necessary to complete such a look.
“Rise-san,” she says, “won’t your grandmother mind that we’re making such a mess?”
Rise shrugs, licking pumpkin puree off her finger.. “Not if we clean up after we’re done.”
From the looks of the Marukyu kitchen, that’ll take at least two weeks. Kanji’s a skilled cook, and Rise’s well-versed enough thanks to working in a tofu shop, but both of them are absolutely terrible at keeping their ingredients contained. And then there’s Teddie, who’s the double threat of being both bad at keeping clean and also bad at cooking.
Also, everyone is making completely different dishes. Naoto feels that working together would be the smarter choice, and probably result in fewer disasters, but to voice such a thing out loud when Kanji is already deep in a soup pot and Teddie is wrangling the blender down from above the cabinets and Rise is getting flour everywhere trying to make a pie crust feels like a futile endeavor. Naoto busies herself with trying to wipe pumpkin pulp away from her sleeves.
Their four pumpkins watch the show from the table, all of them in a line that is admittedly slightly sinister. Teddie’s has been mauled to a point where it’s difficult to tell that it was ever a pumpkin in the first place.
“Hey, Naoto-kun,” Rise says gently, sliding up to her. “You’re having fun, aren’t you?”
“O-of course,” Naoto says. And she is, actually, more than she expected, especially now that she’s gotten the pumpkin skin out from underneath her fingernails.
“Good.” Rise smiles with relief. “I’m always worried we’ll bore you. That you’d rather be off solving some mystery than hanging out with us.”
Naoto shakes her head. “That’s ridiculous.” Especially considering that Naoto has spent much more time with friends the last few months than she has solving mysteries. Not that she minds. Rise in particular has been absurdly friendly over the last few months, ever since deciding not to return to show business. Naoto suspected that Rise spied something of a kindred spirit in Naoto, both of them choosing to stay in a small, unremarkable town instead of chase their demanding careers. Naoto knows why she stayed; she’s not entirely sure why Rise decided to. Maybe it was the same reason.
“Well, I’m glad, ‘cause I’m having a great time,” Rise says. She smacks a ball of dough in front of Rise. “Now roll that out. We’re totally gonna beat the guys with whatever they’re making.”
“It’s a competition?” Naoto asks, wondering when exactly that happened.
“Of course!” Rise stops for a second. “Uh, unless you’d rather be on Kanji’s team.”
“Is there a reason I should be?”
“Well, you know.” No, Naoto does not, although Rise’s expressive eyebrows are starting to give her an idea. “I kinda figured you and him…”
“What? Oh.” Naoto doesn’t quite know how to explain that she doesn’t think Kanji would be ready for something like that, to say nothing of the fact that she appreciates his friendship much more than she thinks she would his… romantic companionship, whatever that would look like. “I think if that were to happen, it would have a long time ago.”
“I see,” Rise says. She scoots a bit closer, bumping their hips together. “So you’re free to be on my team?”
“Uh. Yes.” Naoto tries not to look into that, but her detective’s mind, prone to disastrous overthinking, whirrs into action. Is she missing something here? Or is it actually right in front of her?
The room suddenly plunges into darkness, all lamps losing light with a crackling znnng. Naoto jumps away, blinking furiously, begging her eyes to adjust. She’s been locked in her fair share of crates and trunks before through her sleuthing work, all of which are enormously dark, but she’s usually able to at least anticipate it then. Here and now, she’s just been thrown headfirst into a pitch black emptiness, unprepared.
“H-hey, guys?!” Kanji’s petrified voice—so petrified that it’s actually inspiring Naoto to calm down—wafts over to them from a few feet away. “What’s goin’ on?”
“Hang on,” Rise says. “The fuse box just needs resetting sometimes. Someone has to go into the basement under the store and take care of it.”
“Shouldn’t you do it, Rise?” Kanji is quick to say. “Since it’s your place, and all.”
“Seriously, Kanji?! You’re not going to volunteer?”
“I nominate Teddie,” Kanji says in response. “Teddie’ll be happy to do it. Right, Ted?” A suspicious silence follows. “Ted?”
“Teddie?!”
Naoto feels a small prickle of panic pinch her. It truly is quite dark, too dark to properly see anything, which is already plenty alarming on its own without their team members suddenly going missing. The night is too cloudy to properly provide moonlight as an aid, and as it is, Naoto can see little more than the hazy outlines of shifting bodies and the unmoving block of darkness of the kitchen counter.
“Teddie, this isn’t funny!” Rise cries, sounding as if she’s on the verge of panic herself. “Teddie!”
What’s making all those splindy, shifting shadows in the kitchen? Were those there before? Naoto trains her eyes director ahead and takes a deep breath in.
“Perhaps he went down to the basement of his own accord,” Naoto theorizes, even if she’s aware of the unlikeliness of that scenario. “Let’s—let’s find a way to turn the lights back on and search for him then.”
“Kanji should do it,” Rise says. “He’s the guy!”
“S-so what?!”
“I’ll do it,” Naoto speaks up, voice only wavering slightly. It’s what any good detective would do, especially in a potentially dire situation. None of them know where Teddie is right now, and the sooner they can locate him, the better. Assuming he’s still in one undisturbed piece.
Naoto shakes those thoughts from her mind. Best not to let her judgment get clouded with something as ludicrous as self-imposed fear, but rather take a leap of bravery and descend into the dusty, musty, heavy den of ghosts and restless spirits—no, the basement—with a clear head.
“Wait, Naoto-kun,” Rise says. “Are you going alone?”
“I assumed as much.”
“I’ll go with you,” Rise says.
“What?!” Kanji howls. “You’re leavin’ me here alone? In the dark?”
“I gotta show her where the fuses are, dummy!”
Without seeing him, without needing to see him, Naoto knows that Kanji is an unpleasant, reddening blend of horrified and angry, fumbling for the right way to demand that they all stick together for the sake of his own fear. Naoto has little sympathy for him right now—there’s a situation at hand, and Teddie’s well-being possibly at stake, and it is currently just not the time to squabble over who waits where with whom.
Although, it does briefly occur to her that splitting up is a classic horror movie mistake.
This isn’t a horror movie! Naoto reminds herself quickly. “Nothing’s going to happen,” she tells Kanji, and also herself. “Just wait here for us.”
Rise grabs her elbow, pressing close. “C’mon,” she says. “The door’s this way.”
They carefully make their way over to it while Kanji broods in the kitchen. When they swing the door open, the hinges squeal like a bad omen.
The stairs are unerringly dark. Naoto can make out nothing beyond the creaks emanating from the floorboards as she eases her way from step to step, but her eyes remain relatively useless, unable to make out a single thing, not even a rough outline like she could in the kitchen.
Creeeeeeeak, say the stairs, rather loudly.
Next to her, Rise is unbearably close. She is the closest Naoto thinks she has ever been, if not the closest anyone has ever been to her. Naoto cannot get the scent of Rise’s sugary perfume out of her nose.
“Teddie?” Rise calls out as they reach the landing. “Wait—I think I hear something moving.”
Best to just ignore that. Just a few more steps to wherever the fuse box is and Naoto will be almost guaranteed survival. Ghost story victims are hardly ever slaughtered in full lamplight.
Naoto walks headfirst into a shelf full of ingredients, a sack of soy flour falling with a thud off of its rack. Fresh nerves run through her at the sudden break in the silence, Rise’s fingernails digging into her arm. She can’t very well protect her honor (or Rise) if she keeps staggering into storage units.
“Rise-san,” Naoto says, hurrying to remember the purpose of their trip down here into this dank, disturbing basement. “Where’s the fuse box?”
“Huh? Oh.” Rise grabs her hand, pulling Naoto to the left. “This way.”
Rise’s hand is startlingly soft, which is a stark contrast to the way everything else feels exceedingly sharp right now, including the prickly atmosphere that implies something may come snarling out of the shadows at any moment.
Stop it, Naoto chides herself. Such wandering thoughts regarding the softness of Rise’s skin are entirely inappropriate for the situation, or any other. Detectives’ attentions aren’t swayed hither and thither by a pretty girl or a noticeable boy. And not just that, but Rise’s a friend, a good friend, and when these lights turn back on and the spook clears, what will be left of them? What’s going to happen next?
“Here it is,” Rise says. She seems to be feeling along the wall with her free hand.
Naoto wonders what madness possessed her that convinced her it would be a good idea to go into a cellar without a flashlight. She squints through the darkness, trying to make sense of the fuse box switches. To mess about aimlessly would be pointless.
She’s just about to suggest the idea of heading back to grab some form of illumination when a detail catches her attention.
“Rise-san,” Naoto says carefully. “I believe the door to the fuse box was already open.”
“W-what?”
“Yes. It appears that we were not the first to arrive here,” Naoto notes as an uncomfortable tremor coils its way up her spine. She has the feeling she’s about to be made a fool of. That, or they’re about to be brutally murdered. She’s hoping for the former. “Do you think we might be the subjects of a prank?”
“A prank?” Rise’s voice filters down to a hush. “Naoto-kun—do you hear footsteps?”
Naoto stops and listens; indeed, in the shadows, she can make out the gentle noise of shuffling footsteps. Before she can elaborate, perhaps investigate a bit further, if not suggest they hastily retreat to the safety of the upstairs, something, a heavy weight, leaps unprompted onto Naoto’s back, and Rise’s shrieking fills the air.
So it’s to be the brutal murder, then.
--
The shopping district, 9:30pm
“That was fun,” Yukiko says, looping her arm into Chie’s as they walk through the shopping district. “But we can’t end the night here.”
“Can’t we?” Chie says, feeling a little deflated.
“Why don’t we go back to the inn and watch a movie?” she suggests. “Something scary. What do you think?”
“Eh,” Chie says. “I dunno. What if I kick through the DVD player ‘cause I get freaked out?”
“Oh, you won’t,” Yukiko promises her with a giggle. She squeezes her arm as reassurance. “I’ll be there to protect you.”
Chie manages an unenthused smile. She had really been hoping this evening would have turned out differently, like with buying a shitload of candy from Junes and then cuddling up with Yukiko on her couch while watching a semi-spooky film that would really just be the latest samurai movie the video store had available. She had also imagined the haunted house to be mere child’s play and that she could’ve strutted through, unperturbed, while Yosuke’s teeth chattered in fear behind her, and it didn’t quite turn out that way.
“C’mon, Chie, it’ll be fun,” Yukiko needles, giving her hand a squeeze. “What about Teke Teke?”
Great. Teke Teke has definitely never given Chie crippling nightmares before. Her shoulders slump.
“Aaagh, fine,” she relents. “But with the lights on.”
--
The suburbs of Inaba, among oversugared trick-or-treaters, 9:45pm
It doesn’t take long for Nanako to be hauling around her own weight in candy in her pillowcase. Souji starts carrying it for her after the first two neighborhoods, leaving her to dump in her loot after each house hands her another sweet treasure. Yosuke sighs. He wishes trick-or-treating would’ve been a thing in Japan when he was Nanako’s age.
He also wishes this evening hadn’t been such a bust. Souji’s only back in town for a few days, and Yosuke’s plan was—as it always is—to make his stay in Inaba incredible. Teetering on incredible enough to convince him to stay for just a bit longer. A few more days. Maybe a week? Maybe forever?
The problem is, Yosuke’s pretty sure he failed miserably on that account this time. Aside from getting kicked out of a freaking haunted house thanks to Chie’s martial arts, it probably didn’t help that Yosuke was all over Souji the entire time. Grabbing his arm, holding his hand, squeezing the fabric of his jacket, all but leaping into his arms bridal style. It’s frankly a miracle that Souji hasn’t told him off yet.
Maybe it’s the zebra mask. It’s hard to reprimand someone while you’re wearing a zebra mask, especially one that’s too small for your face because it’s meant to fit an eight-year-old girl. Especially if the person you’re reprimanding is also wearing a ridiculous mask. Yosuke can hardly breathe through his.
He pulls it up over his forehead when Nanako runs up to a front door to collect more candy, the string digging into his neck. He peeks into the pillowcase.
“Damn. She’s going to be working off that candy until next Halloween.”
“Don’t worry, she’ll share,” Souji says. The mask muffles the words. It’s also a little freaky, even if it is too small. Yosuke can see Souji’s eyes blink behind the plastic, only a portion of them visible under the slits of the mask, as if holding secrets. Yosuke briefly gives his thanks that Nanako didn’t have a matching outfit to complete the zebra look. The mask alone is terrifying enough.
A few tiny kids in dragon costumes go racing by them, their bags of candy merrily swinging alongside them. Yosuke wonders if they could all disguise themselves as kids and go trick-or-treating next year. That might venture into the realm of totally creepy, though, even if it would be a better alternative to going back to another haunted house and creating more injuries.
“Hey, man,” Yosuke mumbles as Nanako runs up to another house while he and Souji hang back on the street. “Uh—sorry about before. At the haunted house.”
“Sorry about what?”
“Just—you know. Me grabbing at you like that all the time.”
Even in the chill, Yosuke feels himself go hot. He looks away, unable to handle seeing Souji’s expression right now as Souji pulls the mask aside.
“I didn’t mind,” Souji says, voice low and private. He sounds earnest, confusingly so, and then what feels like Souji’s hand, a gentle knuckle, bumps into Yosuke’s. “You know, you don’t need a haunted house as an excuse.”
“W-what?”
“To hold my hand, I mean,” Souji says.
The fact that he’s saying any of this out loud is already baffling to Yosuke. It’s that leader quality in him, Yosuke reasons. Yosuke’s just fine with confrontation when it involves murderers and kidnappers, but when it comes to personal matters such as feelings and dates and romantically-charged small talk, he’s lost. He swallows.
“Oh,” Yosuke says.
This isn’t a nightmare, right? Or some horrible prank where in two seconds, Chie and Yukiko are going to come springing from the bushes in devil costumes and everyone’s going to laugh at him? Trick or treat, right? There’s no way this is the treat.
Souji, dipping into wells of bravery Yosuke can only guess the depths of, pushes further and briefly touches Yosuke’s jaw with his thumb, brushing over the bone there. He looks like he wants to say something else—an encouragement, perhaps, or an explanation—but then Nanako comes sprinting up.
“Look, I got a chocolate bar!” she says, jumping in front of them. Yosuke leaps aside, his heart rate pumping into exceeding the miles-per-hour speed limit measurements. “Isn’t it your favorite, big bro?”
“Yeah, it is,” Souji says, sounding annoyingly composed. “You up for sharing with me and Yosuke?”
“Yeah!”
“Told you,” Souji tells him, smiling.
That smile is doing unfair things to Yosuke. He sort of wishes they were both wearing masks again. Yosuke quickly jams his over his face, deciding to just endure how hot and moist it gets in there for the sake of preserving his pride.
--
The Amagi Inn, Yukiko’s room, 10:00pm
Chie remembers Halloweens she’s had with Yukiko before, nearly all of them sleepovers at the inn. Two years ago, they went ghost hunting through the rooms at Yukiko’s suggestion-slash-begging. It was a horrible experience, truly one of the worst in Chie’s existence, but it was also one of the first nights when Chie realized something about their slumber parties had changed. She was looking over at the girl in the futon next to hers differently. She was thinking—practically for the first time—about what it would be like to slide closer, to share a blanket, to feel Yukiko’s body heat touch hers. It would take a while longer for her to put names and shapes to those feelings and figure out what they meant, and even longer for her to act on them, but the buds of those emotions had just begun to peek out from beneath the soil.
And now, a few Halloweens and many sleepovers later, Chie’s somehow still not old enough to get through a scary movie without wanting to hide behind her hands. It doesn’t help that Yukiko insisted on turning off the lights—to better see the movie, Chie!—and that the movie has gotten real intense, real fast.
“You’re not hiding, are you, Chie?” Yukiko says. It also sounds like she’s holding back laughter, which Chie is absolutely taking offense to. “It’s not that scary.”
Chie doesn’t say anything. Chie is not going to rise to this petty taunting. Chie’s going to ignore the suspenseful music and pretend she’s at Souzai Daigaku on a nice spring afternoon. She looks up for a split second just in time to see Teke Teke charging at the car like a scuttling spider. She quickly looks away again.
“I wonder why Teke Teke hates red so much,” Yukiko muses, like one discussing a brunch menu might. Chie looks at her; Yukiko’s examining her red cardigan thoughtfully. “Guess she wouldn’t like me very much, huh?”
An unsettling crawl settles over Chie’s stomach. Yukiko and her multitude of red accessories really would be the worst person to have around if Teke Teke was real.
Which she isn’t, Chie reminds herself. Totally not real.
“Maybe you should take that off,” Chie suggests, fighting to keep her voice light and airy and unperturbed.
“Hm?”
“That cardigan,” Chie says. And maybe the red hairband too while she’s at it.
One lone snicker sneaks past Yukiko’s lips. “You want me to take off my cardigan?”
“Um. Or, y’know. Whatever you feel like doing.”
A hand sliding up the side of Chie’s thigh, curling across her leg, almost sends her through the ceiling. It isn’t until she feels Yukiko’s soft nose nudge against her cheek that she realizes a carpet-dwelling monster isn’t crawling through the blankets to pull her into the abyss.
“Whatever, huh?” Yukiko murmurs. “Okay.”
She trails a few feather-light kisses down Chie’s neck. Chie can’t help but think that if a ghost were to ever kiss her, this is probably what it would like, just the barest breaths of touches, very dry and very light.
Why is she thinking about that? She should be thinking about Yukiko and her gentle, wandering hands, now slipping underneath Chie’s shirt and brushing over her stomach. The movie plows on, the music as suspenseful as ever—the girls have abandoned the car now, running frantically through the woods. Chie wishes she could just grab the television and yell instructions at the characters. No, don’t go into that creepy forest—no, don’t stop running now. Her entire body is rigid as a wooden board just from watching them make stupid decisions.
“Are you a little scared?” Yukiko asks in Chie’s ear, the words warm against her earlobe. “I can distract you.”
“Distract me?”
Yukiko chuckles again, and then her tongue is darting out to lick against Chie’s jawline while her hand plays with the waistband of Chie’s skirt.
Chie’s eyes narrow. “Hey! Was this your plan all along with this stupid scary movie?”
“Maybe,” Yukiko says, the word almost lost where it’s whispered into Chie’s neck.
The spooky soundtrack from the movie isn’t calming down at all. If anything, it’s rising in pitch, making Chie squirm and wish she was wearing earplugs. She groans, her body stuck between two combative states: total terror, and mounting arousal. Not two emotions she typically experiences together. She grabs Yukiko’s wrist before her roaming hand can reach Chie’s bra.
“As if you need a scary movie to get it on with me,” she grumbles. “Jeez, couldn’t we have done this without Teke Teke scaring me half to death? I’m already on edge from that haunted house.”
“It was more fun this way,” Yukiko says. She has something of an evil grin on her face, another one of those special sides to her personality that most people would never dream existed inside of sweet, quiet schoolgirl Yukiko while they’re in class. Chie has it on good authority that Yukiko is a teensy bit wicked.
“More fun, my butt,” Chie grouches, grabbing Yukiko by the arms and flipping them over so she’s on top, legs bracketing Yukiko’s hips. She leans down and kisses her, which helps quite a bit with tuning out the rest of the movie.
--
Marukyu Tofu’s basement, possibly somewhere between life and death, 10:10pm
“Teddie! I’m going to kill you, you stupid bear!”
Naoto is still on the ground, dazed, when she realizes exactly what’s going on, Rise’s angry yelling narrating the story perfectly. Kanji comes thundering down the stairs with his phone as a light a moment later, breaking through the darkness of the basement. Her mystery assailant stands, fifty percent chagrined and fifty percent trying not to laugh, in front of them.
Make that forty-sixty.
“Did I fool you? Were you scared?” Teddie asks, absolutely giddy.
“No!” Rise screeches. With every passing word, her voice goes up a raging octave. “Did you plan all this?! Did you turn the lights off in the first place?!”
“What the hell’s going on here?!” Kanji demands.
Naoto’s head is hurting just a little bit. Did she hit it on her way down? She doesn’t entirely remember. She definitely collided hard with the ground after Teddie sprung on her back, that’s for sure; her knees are aching, likely having taken the brunt of the fall.
“Happy Halloween!” Teddie cries, still as cheerful as ever. “It’s important to get at least one good scare in. It’s part of the holiday!”
“That’s April Fools, you moron,” Kanji says. He looks about as white as a sheet, even whiter than Rise, who is slowly but steadily turning a furious shade of red. He pivots the light of his phone around the room, the rectangle of light landing on Teddie’s wide grin, the storage shelves, and the open fuse box. “Can someone turn the damn lights on already?”
He stomps over to the fuses while Rise, still huffing steam out of her nose, kneels down next to Naoto. “Are you all right?” she asks, anger fading into concern. “I’m going to kill that bear, I promise.”
“That’s quite all right,” Naoto says, letting Rise help her up. Rise’s cat ears have been knocked askew in the hullabaloo, which is more adorable than Naoto feels comfortable confessing. “We must admit that he managed to catch us off guard.”
“Did you think I was a burglar?” Teddie asks, still enthusiastic. “A big monster? Tell me, tell me!”
“We thought you were an inconvenience,” Rise snarls. She draws her arms around Naoto, as if protecting her from any additional ambushes from Teddie. “Actually, we thought you were dead! Or worse! We came looking for you!”
“Worse than dead?” Naoto repeats, a little dryly.
Kanji’s tankering with the fuse box seems to be successful when he flicks a light switch and a few bulbs hanging from the basement ceiling crackle on. He’s regained most of the color in his face, which has returned to its default frown now that he’s realized the danger has passed, or rather, never existed in the first place. He slings his phone over his shoulder like a baseball bat and heads for the stairs.
“I got a soup that needs work,” he mutters.
“Ooooh! And Teddie has a smoothie!”
“I can’t believe them,” Rise mumbles. “We have to find a way to repay the favor.”
Naoto grimly readjusts her deerstalker. She pushes her sleeve back to inspect her watch. “It might be too late today to come up with an adequate retaliation.”
“That’s okay,” Rise says. “There’s always next year, right, Naoto-kun? Never too early to start planning.”
Next year. Naoto wonders if it’ll be anything like this year, and if they’ll all be crammed in the Marukyu kitchen working on pumpkin masterpieces again. It’s nice, having that sort of promise, rather than the unknown of wondering what city she’ll be in, what case she’ll be solving, what mystery awaits her next.
“I agree, Rise-san.”
Rise reaches down and grabs her hand again, and Naoto wonders if that’ll be part of next year too, if not somehow differently. Rise grins, bright and mischevious. “For now, let’s just find a way to ruin Teddie’s smoothie.”
--
The Dojima residence, way past Nanako’s bedtime
Nanako’s candy haul has grown to mountainous proportions by the time they all return to the Dojima residence. It doesn’t look like Dojima-san will ever have to buy sweets ever again, or chocolate, or bon-bons, or lollipops. He will need to buy an extra pantry for all the Halloween loot, though.
“Halloween was super fun,” Nanako says through a yawn as they toe their shoes off by the door. Unlike the candy supply, Nanako’s energy has shrunk after running through what feels like every single neighborhood in Inaba, and her eyes are drooping where she stands, tiara lopsided on her head. “Can we do it again next year, big bro?”
“Sure we can,” Souji says. “But maybe for tonight, you should get some sleep.”
“Okay.”
She goes toddling into her bedroom. Yosuke idles around in the living room while Souji tucks Nanako in, flipping through the TV channels and getting comfortable on the sofa. He’s more exhausted than he expected, maybe because today didn’t go quite as intended. Every time Souji visits feels like 48-hour increments during which to do everything he can to lure Souji back to town, back to all their friends, back to him, and he can’t help feeling that he messed this particular increment up.
Then again, that thing Souji said earlier—
“She’s already fast asleep,” Souji says, appearing in the doorway. He’s since taken that horrid mask off, but it’s left his hair a little ruffled, a little disheveled. The urge to fix it feels like an itchy mosquito bite. “Do you want to stay for a bit?”
“Yeah, sure,” Yosuke says, not sure how to articulate that he’d like to stay as long as Souji will tolerate him being here. He hands Souji the remote as he gets settled on the couch next to him. “Want to find something scary?”
“‘Tis the season,” Souji says, smiling, and looks for something Halloween-themed.
They land on some show about the paranormal, something that, as far as Yosuke is concerned, is really just background noise. He’s still preoccupied with thoughts of Souji, particularly how close he is now, and what he meant by what he said while they were trick-or-treating, and is that his hand brushing against Yosuke’s all of a sudden?
Yosuke bites back his initial urge to jolt away like a scared hare, if only because he’s a little jumpy after the haunted house. Yosuke looks down as discreetly as he can: there’s the back of Souji’s hand gently, barely pressed up against the back of his. Is it an accident? Is it a hint?
Is he an idiot for not grabbing his chance here and now?
“So, uh,” Yosuke says, fighting to keep his voice level. “Tonight was fun.”
“Yeah. Definitely. Especially the bit where Chie got us kicked out of the haunted house.”
“Wait, really?” Yosuke asks, more than a little surprised. “You liked that part?”
“Well, it’s kind of funny, isn’t it? And exactly the sort of thing that makes me miss you guys so much.”
Oh. It’s possible that in his determination to make every one of Souji’s visits picture perfect, Yosuke’s forgotten that the whole lot of them became friends through big, bumbling messes and mistakes. He allows himself a little chuckle.
“We really miss you too,” he says. Especially me, he thinks, but decides saying that out loud might be a little weird. This is Halloween night, not freaking Valentine’s Day. They should be out apple-bobbing at a party or something, not cozied up on the couch together while Yosuke internalizes over whether or not he should go ahead and hold Souji’s hand already.
Screw it.
“Uh. So you said I didn’t need an excuse, right?”
“Huh?”
Yosuke feels the sweat start reporting for duty all over his body. He gulps, tries to remember that same courage he felt the night they all fought Izanami, or Adachi, or any single one of their Shadows, and tries to summon it again now. He cautiously folds his hand around Souji’s, loosely enough that either of them can pull away in a snap.
“To hold your hand,” he says, swallowing again. “You said I didn’t need an excuse.”
Souji goes a little pink on the cheeks, eyes widening. It’s the single most horrifying thing Yosuke’s ever experienced, seeing that poorly contained shock on Souji’s face, waiting that eternity for him to decide whether or not Souji will encourage this or back down. Yosuke doesn’t care what anybody says, he’s having the scariest Halloween of all.
Just like that, the shock is gone, melting away into something like fondness. “You don’t,” Souji reassures him. His hand closes more tightly around Yosuke’s, threading their fingers together. “You don’t need one to kiss me, either.”
“Wha—what?!”
Souji chuckles. His mouth, which is a mouth Yosuke has never explicitly thought about kissing, suddenly seems unthinkably kissable. “Just saying. Although without the masks, preferably.”
Much like in a horror movie, it happens in painstaking slow motion. Yosuke licks his lips, then immediately regrets it, then licks them again in his bubbling nerves, and leans in to meet Souji halfway. The kiss is on the softer side, something careful and still yet to be fully discovered, but like a surge of lightning, it simmers through Yosuke’s every appendage. Now that is way better than the release of getting scared shitless in a haunted house.
“Hey, partner,” Yosuke mumbles when they pull apart, close enough that Yosuke can still sort of taste the candy bar Souji ate on the way here. “You’re coming back for next Halloween, right?”
“Next Halloween?” Souji repeats. He gives Yosuke another short kiss, the thrill no smaller. “I was actually thinking next weekend.”
“That works too,” Yosuke says, and reels him back in.