Notes: Welcome to a much-overdue series of updates. This was written on my Tumblr for Promptvember 2014 (which was unfortunately life-intruded and so currently uncompleted.)

This prompt was: Usagi and the day after Halloween. It was consequently written from a very western perspective to accommodate the prompt as, to the best of my knowledge, Halloween (and particularly trick-or-treating) isn't really a thing in Japan.

(2 November 2014)

Treat-or-Treat

The knocking on the door was polite, almost shy. Delicate apologies in bursts of three. So sorry to bother, but might I have a moment of your time?

It was that way at first.

By the time Mamoru emerged from his bathroom, a damp robe around his body and his hair dripping, there was nothing polite about the knocking. It was an incessant, booming demand. PAY ATTENTION TO ME MAMORU CHIBA OR I WILL PUNISH YOU.

It had to be Usagi. Nobody else would be banging on his door like that.

His hand froze on the doorknob.

What was he saying, there were anywhere from five to ten people who would bang on his door like that.

Mamoru ran down a quick mental checklist of things he might have done wrong. It was a checklist he kept handy and frequently updated. It was something of a disappointment to him to find it often wasn't a guarantee against doing something wrong, but it had saved him on more than one occasion and was the best tool he had, so he clung to it and hoped desperately it would divine to him the best path: open the door, or transform and leap out the window?

It was the first of November. Nobody's birthday (right?), nobody's anniversary (at least not his). He hadn't made any specific plans (he hoped), and there was nowhere special he was supposed to be (please be true). As far as certainty went, it wasn't much. If his checklist were real and possessed something along the lines of vaguely human shape, it would have shrugged. By now the pounding at the door was beginning to reach critical levels, so Mamoru decided to do as Usagi had taught him.

He believed.

Mamoru opened the door, and thought he might need to come up with a new strategy.

On one count, he was entirely correct. It was indeed Usagi at the door, and some manner of luck god was shining on him, because she didn't appear angry.

She appeared like ...

"What are you wearing?" Mamoru asked, one eyebrow raised in confusion.

Usagi gestured at herself, as if he could have somehow possibly missed her outfit the first time. "I'm a ninja! Honestly, Mamo-chan."

Usagi was easily the reddest ninja in the entire history of ninjas. Her costume was so vibrantly red in fact that it seemed to single-handedly defeat the entire concept of "ninja". Mamoru felt questions rise within him. He wisely decided to swallow them, settling instead on, "Ah! I see!"

This was more than sufficient for Usagi, who was quick to get to the entire point of this visit. She thrust out a plastic grinning pumpkin around the size of her head, dangling beneath a thick black handle.

"Trick or treat!" she said, then grinned at him expectantly.

Mamoru went back to his mental checklist, which included a handy date feature. He verified again that it was, in fact, the first of November. Still keeping one eye on Usagi, he leaned back until he could steal a glance at the calendar on the wall. It confirmed, with a picture of an adorable kitten leaping into a pile of autumn leaves, that it was indeed November.

Man, that kitten was cute. Mamoru was lost for a moment in its adorableness. Look at how her white fur contrasted with the leaves! And so fluffy! What it would feel like to pet that soft fur and dangle a leaf in front for her to bat with her precious little bean toes while—

Usagi cleared her throat, and Mamoru had to force the dreamy smile from his face. This was a serious matter for serious people. Usagi the Red Ninja shaking her off-season giant plastic pumpkin confirmed this.

"Uhm," began Mamoru, uncertain of the best way to break this news. "It's not Halloween."

Usagi looked at him like he'd just told her supermarkets were the most amazing places on earth. "I know that!" She shook her pumpkin again. "Trick or treat."

Mamoru began to feel his stomach clench. She knows. He decided to take refuge in logic, because how could that possibly fail against Usagi Tsukino. "If it's not Halloween, then we don't do trick or treating."

It was with a mighty sigh that Usagi lowered her pumpkin. She stood in the doorway, one pumpkin-holding fist against her hip, her free arm dangling at her side. "Mamo-chan," she said in a clipped voice. "That's not what you're supposed to do."

It was true, it wasn't what he was supposed to do. Mamoru knew the routine. Mamoru LIVED the routine. There was really no holiday that Mamoru didn't love, but Halloween was something special. The costumes, the pretend, the spirit of it all. Mamoru did not, of course, hold with the "trick" part, and while he had several speeches prepared to deter young pranksters, he was glad that the need to use them had yet to arise. Halloween remained about dressing up and having fun.

And candy.

As Usagi the Red Ninja was quick to point out.

"Candy, Mamo-chan! This is where I get candy!"

"Don't you have candy?" he replied. He could feel beads of sweat beginning to form, but hoped it would be hidden by the fact that he was still half soaked from his shower.

Narrowed blue eyes peered up at him. Oh no. "I HAD candy. I ate my candy."

"But Halloween was only last night." Mamoru was surprised at his surprise, really.

Usagi didn't bother to respond to that. Instead she took one step forward, then another. Mamoru was rooted to the spot, unable to move. The end was coming for him, and it had a bunny head patch sewn onto its gi. Pressing forward until she was no more than an inch away, Usagi again raised her pumpkin. "Trick. Or. Treat."

It was useless. Some part of Mamoru screamed at him to fight back, to refuse to surrender. Maybe if he threw a rose at her? But no. This was his Usako, and if there was one force to which he would always lose in the end, it was her.

Head hung in defeat, Mamoru shuffled into the kitchen. He returned with a clear glass mixing bowl full of individually wrapped chocolates. Mamoru over-bought on the candy, of course he did, that way he'd have plenty to save for himself.

It was with a heavy heart that he grabbed a handful and placed the fine, delicious chocolates into Usagi's pumpkin. It was with a heavier heart that he noticed the pumpkin did not lower at all. It merely hung there, a frozen plastic smile on its orange pumpkin face.

He fed it another handful.

Still it dangled there.

Innumerable handfuls later, and Mamoru peered into his clear glass mixing bowl and counted. He didn't even reach "five".

"Thanks, Mamo-chan!" Usagi cried in a sing-song voice as she skipped out the door. Her voice drifted into his apartment from the hall. "Oo, I bet Rei-chan has some Starburst left!"