Their first Halloween in America was absolutely fantastic. The decorations started long before the actual holiday, and it was their favorite thing to walk around, hand-in-hand, just gaping at everything. Every so often Shuuya would point out something that Shinji would like, or that Nobu would like, or that Sugimura would like, and then Noriko would watch him fight back tears.

They watched as costumes disappeared from shelves, and Shuuya insisted that they buy costumes themselves. They looked around a costume store for ages, trying to find something that wasn't incredibly expensive or incredibly stupid, and they eventually decided on matching vampire outfits. Shuuya looked good in his; he filled it out so well, and Noriko's was about two sizes too big.

Shuuya tried to deny it, but she knew that it looked horrible on it. For the next meeting of her creative writing class, they were encouraged to wear costumes, but she didn't know if she could quite wear hers without fear of exposing herself.

Which was why Shuuya was sitting behind her, trying and failing to take it in.

"I feel like it should be easier if you're in it," he said, voice muffled from the thread in his mouth. "Because you're in it, and it won't be too small. But it's not- working-"

Noriko turned her head to catch a glimpse of what he was doing back there. It was mostly the chest area that she was having problems with, though the waist was a bit too large, too. They hadn't had a smaller size for her, like they had for Shuuya.

Shuuya gave another tug and the string snapped off in his fingers. He sighed. "Can we safety-pin it together?" he asked. Noriko glanced at the clock. Two hours until her class. "Hold on, Noriko, I'll be right back."

With that, he disappeared. Noriko sat on their bed and held the fabric to her chest. The holiday was a strange one, and Americans certainly got very into it. Trick-or-treating, haunted houses, costumes costumes costumes. Everywhere she turned, there was something Halloween. Horror movies played on their cheap television constantly, and Noriko wondered if there was ever anything else played in October.

"We got this," Shuuya said, and he pinned her dress in three places. Then he pinned her dress in those places again, and leaned back, satisfied. "There we go. Then you won't lose your innocence."

He propped his head on her shoulder and turned it to kiss her cheek. She blushed a little, and swatted him away. "I should do my makeup."

"You should do my makeup, too. I wanna come with. See that new friend of yours, maybe she'll buy us coffee again."

Noriko shook her head and laughed a little, and Shuuya grinned at her with that puppydog way of his. "Come on! Let's go do our makeup, and then we'll go to your class."

"Alright," Noriko said. She slid off of the bed. "What's the next holiday?"

"Christmas, maybe," Shuuya said. He frowned, then snapped his fingers. "American thanksgiving. That's next. November. I wonder if we get to dress up like food? Isn't that what that one's all about?"

"I don't want to dress as food," Noriko said, and Shuuya laughed.

"I love holidays," he said. He sighed. "And I love America."

The last of the Halloween oneshots, Shuriko in America! Hooray! I'm going to go to bed now I just wrote six oneshots in like two and a half hours.