Chapter Text
October! The month where people finally admit that the leaves are indeed falling, and the year is slowly creeping to a close. The days grow cooler, the hues turn warmer, and the seasonal drinks, slightly spicier.
And if there’s anything October promises, other than pumpkin spice lattes and a whole lot of raking, is Halloween. That’s right, the tradition of questionable origin that is well-loved by candy-makers, candy lovers, and people who can’t wait to dress up and not be fully judged.
A tradition that Gura fully embraces. Free candy? Count her in! The highlight for Gura, however, is having the wondrous opportunity to both terrorise and impress others through her décor skills.
She’s even managed to make quite a bit of money helping to decorate houses for Halloween. Some people are competitive but not quite mobile, you know. After a while, your name spreads. Just last year, she was tasked to create a small-scale haunted house (a dimly-lit room with dusty curtains, fake bats and spiders, complete with the classic anatomically incorrect skeleton). All paid for by the local college.
But why stop at a room? Why, this year, she has huge plans. She finally acquired a proper haunted house! A pop-up one, somehow funded by the community center, and it promises to be a, if not, the star attraction this October. With her business partner in charge of finances and logistics, and her, in charge of the props and costumes, it's going to be perfect!
Gura pulls her coat tighter as she walks on, a spring in her step as she thinks about how far she can go with the decorations. Spray paint, fake blood, making young children cry on government property? Legally? It excites her, and she takes faster strides.
“Nothing can stop me!” She thinks
She trips, and stumbles. The concrete floor kisses her arms.
Fuck.
Someone rushes to her, helping her up. “Are you alright, o…”
A door swings open and the hinges scream to announce a visitor. Behind a mountain of boxes and bubble wrap, a dishevelled head of pink pops up. Gura’s best friend and business partner sighs intentionally loudly.
“Welcome to Bone Bros, we are open on Halloween, so please haul your- oh it’s you Goomba.”
“I’m never putting my hair in a bun again.” Gura shrugs off her coat and tosses it on top of a skeleton prop. The skeleton collapses beneath the weight, and Gura looks at it blankly. “Not holding up so well, eh?”
“Hey! Hey! Mr Bones is an employee and will be treated with respect!” Calli weaves through the unorganised decorations and sets Mr Bones upright again, tossing Gura’s coat onto the chair. “What happened, got mistaken for a granny?” Gura’s silence is an admission. “No way! Granny Gura! Ha!”
“Hahaha, I’m still very nimble-” a hop over some flattened cardboard boxes, “-and sprightly.”
“Uh huh. Maybe you could dress as a nimble and sprightly Granny for Halloween. Like Yoda.” Calli grins and starts opening another package. It’s a precise slit with her cutter. She tosses a dismembered hand at Gura. It slaps her on the forehead.
“Hey! Wait, isn’t Yoda that brown bear?”
“What?! No that’s Yogi bear you doofus!” Calli cackles and tosses one more hand at Gura, who catches it. “But nice to see you getting in character, Granny.”
“You know what, I’ll do it if you dress as a fairy princess.” Gura grins, and puts the hand with the other freed props - ready to have a sprinkle of gore thrown onto them later.
“No.”
“Pwease? Pwetty pwease Kawaiiope Mowi?”
“Are you really trying to use that voice on me? Do you think it’s effective?”
“Yup.”
Calli sighs.
“Nope. That’s not gonna work- and uh,” she notices Gura’s shit-eating grin grow wider, “now now, Gura, we have some applicants, and I’m too busy moving all of these crap to look at all of them.” Calli nods towards her laptop, set up and ready. Gura shuffles past the mess on the floor, slinking over to steal Calli’s chair.
“Okie-dokie, Calliope. Gwandma’s going to figure out technology. Oooh! Beep boop beep!”
[Halloween Actors wanted: Costumes Provided]
It’s such a simple listing, straight to the point. The only thing Bone Bros doesn’t provide is food. They don’t take pride in their catering knowledge, but they (mainly Gura) take pride in their costume tastes. Nothing but the best. With Gura’s experience, she can turn even the lamest Wellmart costume into something a kid would cry at.
And yet, some people love to test Gura’s patience. She does get a couple of “I have my own costume, can I get a higher pay”, and photos attached. It’s your generic party store costumes, nothing fantastic, and falls short of Gura’s expectations. She’s dead serious about Halloween. She wants to scare people, not have sexy nurses or a pair of giant hotdogs parade around. She takes a hard look at a clearly homemade costume of a “werewolf” – the fur is glued together hastily, some parts falling out. It looks closer to a wet hairball with ears. But well, with the lack of lighting, it could possibly work. She marks it as “to consider”.
The next one catches her eye.
No photo. Other than a name, an email, and a brief statement, it’s shockingly blank. Whoever did this is either really confident, or drunk. Gura reads the one line.
[I don’t need a costume]
That’s it. That’s the entire application. It’s really bold, and while Gura can give it some credit, the one thing bubbling out from her stomach and surpassing every other emotion is pride. This, if anything, is a challenge. Gawr Gura never backs down from a challenge.
She schedules a Zoom interview.
“Goombus, we only have enough slots for 2 more actors. I’ll be setting up the sound system in the office, but I will tune in.” Calli looks through the list of roles, and frowns. There’s a good zombie, but her friends come as a package deal. There’s also someone with a very impressive devil outfit. Devil? Nephilim? Eh, it looks great. Not that it matters, Gura will provide them with better outfits. Well, this next Zoom interview has to be impressive enough. Gura seems to be extremely keen on this interviewee.
Calli feels her hope swell larger and larger.
“I know, we need someone scary. Intense. Reallllly scary.”
“Yeah, I’m counting on you.”
“Heck yeah, I’m counting on this…”
“Nanashi Mumei.” The girl on the screen says.
It’s a girl.
A cute girl.
A cute girl who doesn’t seem scary at all.
Holy fuck.
“Good. Uh, no, nope, noppie, not good. Here it says, on here, on-” Gura takes a deep breath. “-on your application here it says… well it do be sayin’ nothing. Why so?”
Fuck. She sees Calli shaking her head from the office window.
“Oh! Right. I panicked and sent out the application. I was- I was going to write more.”
“Uh huh.” Gura tries not to crack, forcing her lips to remain still. A difficult feat, because whenever she makes eye contact with a cute girl, screen or not, a “goof smile”, as Calli puts it, just appears. And Gura’s professional! No goofing around, not even if - oh crap, she forgot to speak.
“I can scare people. My friends say I’m scary.” Mumei smiles, tilting her head a little as she does.
Wowee! That sure must be a cold-blooded smile of a psychopath, lined with nothing but deadly threats and murderous intent, because… because Gura’s heart sure is beating faster. She has to put a stop to this quickly, or she’ll make a larger fool of herself. How can she possibly cut short this interview?
Her brain isn’t working, so she resorts to Plan H.
“Ok you’re hired aaaaand-” Gura turns her gaze to catch Calli’s desperate figure waving her arms from the window. Oh boy, does Calli look annoyed. Amused, but annoyed.
Back to Mumei – oh no, not those eyes. Is this how Calli feels everytime Gura turns on her charm? This has to be a taste of her own medicine. It’s kinda deli-
Back to Calli – palms facing upwards, fingers curled, as though she’s holding two invisible melons. She mouths ‘WHAT THE FUCK’, her furrowed brow and widened eyes doing little to calm Gura’s erratic heartrate. Whoops.
“-and we’ll emailyouthedetailsthankyoubye!” Gura abruptly ends the meeting as the office door explodes from within.
“GURAAAA!”