Chapter Text
Izumi hated Halloween.
Alright, hate might be too strong of a word. But she sure did very strongly dislike it. She preferred cute and fluffy things to scary and disgusting ones. And unfortunately for her, one of her best friends were none other than Yuka Nakagawa; self-proclaimed Queen of Halloween (a title she had proudly patented, at least amongst their friend group, where no one else were desperate for that title anyway).
Every year, Yuka insisted on making a big deal out of the holiday. The older they got, the spookier it got too; what had innocently started when they were younger with maybe hiding a fake spider in Izumi’s pencil case, had developed into dressing up as such a realistic looking zombie that previous year, it had made Izumi burst into tears when she jumped out in front of her on her walk home from Ikebana and threatened to eat her.
Izumi wasn’t sure what she could expect this year, but she knew she already started dreading it the week leading up to the day itself. Halloween happened to fall upon a Saturday this year, and Yuka could not be more thrilled.
“That means we can have a proper fun sleepover! And marathon scary movies all night long!” she beamed at them that Monday during lunch break. Yuka had of course started planning the party several weeks ago, more specifically plan what kind of scary look she could have, what movies they could watch, and what kind of snacks they would munch on. Now she figured it was probably time for her friends to become equally invested.
“How about… We watch one scary movie and then maybe something light, to make it easier to sleep afterwards?” Noriko suggested quietly, and Izumi could feel her friend’s eyes linger at her in particular. Well, her and Chisato, probably. They were known to be the two least enthusiastic about the yearly Yuka Halloween Party, with perhaps the inclusion of Noriko herself.
“Something light? No, no, no, Miss Second-Cutest Nakagawa,” Yuka teased her light-heartedly. “This is my one night! We can watch something light closer to Christmas or like… White Day when we have to be each other’s dates again, or something. But at Halloween, we go all out!”
Izumi bit her bottom lip gently. Really, it was the same every year. As much as she dreaded it, and prayed Yuka wouldn’t make good on last year’s promise of borrowing real-life spiders from the exotic pet store in town, she knew there was no avoiding it.
“Thank you for fighting for the cause of us weaklings,” Izumi told Noriko with a soft smile. “But you know how this will end –“
“- In tears and nightmares and horrible trauma!” Chisato joked dramatically, while shaking her head. “Like every year!”
“Lighten up! One day you will thank me for preparing you for the Zombie Apocalypse for so many years,” Yuka hummed, giving them a quick wink.
“That is highly unrealistic. In fact, I can guarantee you that won’t ever happen,” Satomi interjected, frowning. “There’s no point in scaring them with these supernatural scenarios that have a zero percent chance of occurring.”
Yuka thought for a second, tapping her chin with a finger. “Okayyy. If they ever get kidnapped and put into elaborate traps where they have to endure physical and/or psychological torture in order to escape and earn back their freedom, they’ll be prepared for that too! Better?”
“Better,” Satomi nodded nonchalantly, as Izumi could feel Chisato give her arm a tight squeeze under the table.
“Lovely!” Yukie agreed, smiling brightly as she easily ignored the expression on her three lesser brave friends’ faces. She was always ready to plan an event, no matter what it was. “I assume you got food and drinks covered too, Yuka?”
“Well, of course. That was top priority on my list!” Yuka grinned, snapping her fingers. “We’re going with finger food this time. Little baby sausages with ketchup, looking like chopped off fingers on sticks. Delicious, right?!”
Izumi swallowed.
“Oh… Yum…” she managed to reply, forcing a stiff smile. She made a note to eat something before she arrived, as she doubted she could stomach a lot of Yuka’s servings of severed fingers. At least there were only about five months left until White Day.
Keita loved Halloween.
He was typically full of creative ideas on how to scare his friends, though sadly, his execution was not always on point. It was Tuesday now, and Keita had started his pranks that previous day, placing a whoopee cushion on a random chair in the classroom. It had turned out to be Megumi’s, and she had burst into tears when several people laughed at her as she sat down on it. Keita had pointed and laughed too, pleased that he was off to such a good start.
During their break, Hiroki had reminded him he might be mixing up Halloween with April’s Fools, and that there was not really anything scary about farting.
“You’ve clearly not been around Nobu after eating cheese!” Keita countered with a laugh, causing Yoshitoki to pout and deny it all.
Of course, Hiroki had made a good point. Keita did need to up his game a little this year. He had already tried to capture spiders out in his garden, thinking it would be fun to send in an army of them into the girl’s locker rooms, but sadly, he was too afraid himself, and had screamed and panicked when one accidentally crawled on him. So that had been an instant fail.
He had a small stack of fake blood and vampire teeth hidden in his backpack, wondering if he could fool one of the guys into thinking he was a real vampire. Shuya would probably be his best bet. Even if he didn’t actually believe him, Shuya was the kind of guy who would pretend to, just to let Keita have his fun. But then, was that the kind of pity scare something which would really make him happy?
After some debate with himself, Keita decided that yes, he would take pity over nothing. He just needed to lure Shuya into a dark corner by himself and get the job done. It would have to be after next class though, as everyone were already scrambling their things together to head to History class.
“Oh, man! I left my book in the locker!” Keita groaned, after a quick search of his backpack. It had felt way too light, with only his props and notebook in. “Guys, wait up for me, ‘kay? I’ll run get it!”
He laughed nervously, not wanting to be the only one to enter the classroom late on his own.
“Oh, sure, man,” Shinji replied with a wave, though instantly turned around to head towards the classroom the second Keita ran off into the other direction.
The rest of the boys sent each other awkward glances, unsure what to do.
Keita was quick to reach his locker around the corner of the hallway, trying to catch everything from falling out the second he opened it. Maybe one day he would bother to organize it. An old sandwich did reveal itself in the landslide though, which he was happy to pick up. He could just scrape the mould off, after all. However, Keita spotted something else as well just as he had grabbed the right book and was about to close his locker. It was a small, white piece of paper. It wasn’t folded or anything, and seemed to have been slid right into the crack of the door, now finding itself stuck between an old Gameboy game and a book which he should have probably returned last year.
Curious, Keita wedged the note out, holding it up in front of him. It was pretty short and straight to the point, written with… Red ink?
The simple message read: “I know what you did. Confess.”
Frowning, Keita stared at it for a moment. What he did? What did he do? His mind racing, he couldn’t really seem to think of anything. Well, nothing which would warrant such an ominous message, at least.
Is this about me not returning Hiroki’s pen to him? Or the fact that I stole Yutaka’s joke and claimed I made it up? Or when I drew on Nobu’s face when he fell asleep last guy’s night? The riot I started at the alpaca farm? Or, damn, is it when I stole the last slice of pizza and blamed it on Shuya…
Looking around, Keita tried to see if he could spot anyone. But the hallway seemed more abandoned than he had ever seen it before. Feeling slightly nervous, he crumpled up the note and shoved it into his pocket, thinking maybe he could forget about it.
Ryuhei thought Halloween was okay. Any chance to get drunk and watch bloody or gory shit was pretty cool, he had to admit. What wasn’t cool, was when Hiroshi always tried to make it into some costume party (even less cool when he insisted they should go trick or treating. No one except Ryuhei had showed up to that last year, and he and Hiroshi had just been chased from every household on account of being “too old”). This year Hiroshi had his heart set on dressing up as different types of “scary fruit”.
“The fuck does that even mean?” Ryuhei groaned. There were still five days left until the actual evening of Halloween, yet Hiroshi seemed insistent on locking a theme down right now.
“Like, I dunno. A rottin’ banana. Half-eaten apple. Pears are sorta freaky already,” Hiroshi tried to explain, chewing on his second egg salad of the day. Ryuhei thought it was weird he hadn’t suggested an egg theme yet.
“We ain’t doin’ the dress-up shit, Hiro,” Mitsuru sighed, probably finding it unbelievable they kept having this discussion every damn year. “Remember last year? Everyone thought ya ‘n Ryu came to their houses to rob them! That one old woman called the cops, didn’t she?”
“Yeah…” Hiroshi mumbled, before perking up. “But that one house we did rob, didn’t even suspect a fuckin’ thing!”
“Ryuhei stealing a garden gnome and running is not a robbery,” Sho snickered.
“’Ey, it counts. I’m proud of that trophy,” Ryuhei cut in, crossing his arms. “But I ain’t doin’ the door to door thing ‘gain. I don’t wanna waste my time bein’ busted for not even doin’ shit wrong.”
Hiroshi finished swallowing the last piece of his sandwich and licked his fingers to soak up every last flavour.
“Yeah, so I was gonna say, we can just chill at Zuki’s this year, right? Get wasted, watch scary stuff, maybe go hang outside when it gets dark -
“- That don’t sound too bad, y’know,” Mitsuru agreed, nodding.
“- Dressed as scary fruit!” Hiroshi finishe, causing Mitsuru to groan and slam his head against the table.
“No, fuck. Ya ruined it!”
Kazuo, who had been quietly observing the group like he so often did, spoke up.
“I’ve read about Halloween. It seems it dates back to an old Celtic festival, relating to how the boundary between the worlds of the living and the dead became blurred on the last night of the year. I do not understand how it has gotten to the point of scary fruit.”
“It hasn’t!” Mitsuru argued, frowning lightly. “’Cause we ain’t doin’ scary fruit!”
“Does anyone find fruit scary? Who determined what is “scary” and appropriate for this type of holiday? Fears can be very individual,” Kazuo continued in the same monotone voice. Ryuhei felt himself zone out a little, figuring only Mitsuru was really listening to this anyway.
“What is your worst fear?” he heard Kazuo ask the group, to which Sho laughed and replied that this seemed weirdly like some kind of trap.
It was always hard to read Kazuo’s expressions, but as they got up and slowly made their way to the classroom to finish up their day, Ryuhei thought he looked even more lost in his own mind than usual.
If he shows up dressed as a scary orange on Saturday, I ain’t fuckin’ hangin’ out with this gang ‘nymore, he thought bitterly.