Love is not Extinct ~ HALLOWEEN SPECIAL
Hocus Pocus
Haruhisa hummed and swung his legs back and forth as he sat at the bar in their kitchen, watching his father make breakfast. It had become part of their morning routine since Haruhisa had started living with his father. Tsukishima hadn't been one to worry too much about what he ate for breakfast when he lived alone. He would grab leftovers, or pick something up on the way to work without thinking much of it. But his son couldn't live like that.
The first few months after Haruhisa moved in, Tsukishima's mother came over a lot to help out, and during that time he had made sure to take the time to learn some things from her so he could make sure that he was preparing proper meals for a growing boy.
Now it had just become second nature to him.
Tsukishima dished them both a portion of rice, a warm bowl of miso soup, and a plate of koachi and natto. By the time he finished that, the grilled fish was done and he carefully pulled it out of the pan and portioned it onto each of their plates.
"Itadakimasu." Haruhisa pressed his palms together and bowed his head before shoving a large clump of rice into his mouth. "Thank you, otousan," he mumbled with a full mouth. Tsukishima smirked, chuckling at his son.
"Don't talk with your mouth full. You'll choke and then you'll throw up on my floor and that would upset me."
Haruhisa pouted as he looked back at his father whose smile didn't falter. "Otousan…" he whined. "All you're worried about is the floor?"
"Humm…" he replied, tapping his finger to his chin as if he was really pondering this. "You're right that's not the only thing I should worry about." Haruhisa perked up, pleased, before his shoulders slumped again at his father's follow up remark, "I would hate to see that food go to waste."
"You're mean." Haruhisa frowned and Tsukishima laughed.
"Stop your pouting, you know I'm teasing you."
His son eyed him warily, but his father was right. He had in fact known his dad was teasing him. "Meanie face," was his intelligent reply as he stuck another big clump of rice into his mouth before sticking his tongue out at his dad, saliva-covered rice and all.
Tsukishima wrinkled his nose. "Oi! That's nasty kid." He chuckled, reaching up and, with his palm on top of his head, he turned his son's head to face back towards the rest of his food. Haruhisa put his tongue back in his mouth and began the chew again, smiling brightly as his shoulders shook with laughter. "Make sure you eat the rest of your food too. You can't just have rice for breakfast."
"Mess-ser" Haruhisa mumbled incoherently through his food.
"So..." Tsukishima started up the new conversation between bites of his own food. "Halloween is only a couple days away and you still haven't told me what you want to be. You know if we don't get you a costume soon they won't have any good ones left and you'll have to be a rainbow unicorn or something."
He looked over, expecting his son to have an expression of horror at just the thought of being caught wearing something so embarrassing. But to his surprise the boy seemed indifferent to the idea as he picked up his bowl of miso soup and drank some of the broth.
"I already know what I want to be," he said very matter-of-factly.
"Oh, is that so? And what is it that you want to be?"
"Can't tell you," Haruhisa replied and his father looked down at him puzzled.
"Uh, why not?"
"It's a secret. Don't worry, Yamaguchi-sensei helped me get my costume." He put down his bowl looking up at his father with an expression very intense and serious for a seven year old boy. "You are not allowed to see it, okay?"
Then the boy turned back to his breakfast and continued eating as if the matter was settled. Tsukishima was so shocked that he didn't even know what else to say. When had Yamaguchi taken his son to get his Halloween costume? And why was he being kept out of the loop? Was it something he was too embarrassed to tell his dad about but he trusted Yamaguchi? It didn't really make much sense.
After dropping Haruhisa off at school Tsukishima got back onto the train to head towards the museum. As he stood there among the other commuters he pulled out his phone, texting his friend.
[08:35] Tsukishima Kei: Alright, what are you and Haru up to? Why is there this big secret revolving around his halloween costume that you apparently already bought him?
It was only a few minutes before he got a response, which meant that his morning practice with the volleyball team was probably over at this point. Opening up the text, he rolled his eyes at the reply.
[8:38] Yamaguchi Tadashi: It's a secret. I promised not to tell
This text was followed by a gif of a cartoon character repeatedly bringing his finger up to his lips in a 'shushing' motion.
[8:36] Tsukishima Kei: Why are you teaching my son to conspire against me? I thought you knew better than that.
[8:40] Yamaguchi Tadashi: LOL. Don't worry he has his reasons
[8:41] Yamaguchi Tadashi: And for the record he approached me about this it wasn't my idea
[8:43] Tsukishima Kei: Yeah sure it wasn't. You are corrupting my son Yamaguchi
[8:45] Yamaguchi Tadashi: Sorry Tsukki. LOL
Tsukishima shook his head but smiled, sending one last response before he pocketed his phone, knowing they were pulling up to the station he needed to get off at.
[8:46] Tsukishima Kei: Liar
That evening, when Tsukishima got off of work, he picked up Haruhisa from his after-school program as usual. On their way home they stopped at the store to buy some groceries and items they would need for the different Halloween events that they would be attending. Tsukishima had never been as busy around this holiday as he was with his son, it seemed like he had managed to get involved in everything.
"Alright, what should we get first?" Tsukishima asked as they walked down the seasonal aisle in their local grocery store that was stocked and overflowing with a wide variety of candy and halloween related goodies.
"Ummm...treats for class," Haruhisa decided as he took off his backpack to pull out a half sheet of bright orange paper with bold, black print. "Suga-sensei says that I need to bring enough treats for all of the class. We have twenty-two students. And…" He paused as he slowly read the next line to himself before relaying it to his father. "We should make something without any nuts because Ito Himari-chan is allergic to them."
"Okay, so a treat for twenty-two kids that has no nuts in it. What would you like to bring?"
"Humm…" He pondered this for a moment. "Can we make a treat?"
Tsukishima hesitated, not sure he wanted to take on that type of project when they were as busy as they were, but one look at his son's big brown eyes and he couldn't say no. He would just rope Yamaguchi or his mother into helping them as well, they would be thrilled at the idea he was sure. "Sure, we can make something. What would you like to make?"
"Dango dumplings. And we can color them orange, and purple, and green for Halloween colors. Is that okay?" He looked up, a little worried, at his father's unsure expression. But Tsukishima just smiled.
"Yeah, I think we can do that, but let me text obaasan and see if she can help. I don't think I am good enough in the kitchen to do that."
Haruhisa's eyes lit up with excitement at the prospect of his grandmother coming to help them. "Will Sobo come help us make all the Halloween treats?"
"I sure hope so." He smiled, reaching over and ruffling his son's hair as he texted his mother. "Okay, so what else do we need to get?"
Haruhisa held out the orange flyer from school to his father before taking out another slip of paper from his pocket: the prized shopping list that his father had entrusted him with. Looking over the list, he found the next thing they needed to plan for. "Candy for trick-or-treaters," he read aloud, before looking back up at his dad. "Can I pick out the candy for the trick-or-treaters?"
"Yes. Pick out three bags of candy, one is for home and the other two are for the museum trick-or-treat event."
"Okay!" The boy ran over excitedly, examining the many choices of candy bags before deciding on the three he thought looked the best and carrying them over to the shopping cart. He then looked back down at his list. "And we need prizes for the booth at the Karasuno Halloween Festival." He looked back up at his father. "Otousan, what booth are you helping with at the festival?"
Tsukishima had to resist sighing just thinking about it. He couldn't believe that he had even gotten roped into helping out with the sports center's annual Halloween festival this year, and he didn't even work there.
"I am helping with the bean bag toss."
Harushia looked around the aisle thoughtfully until his eyes fell on a small section at the end of the aisle that had little knick-knacks and toys that were Halloween themed. Going over, he scanned the selection for a moment before coming back with a bag full of bouncy balls in Halloween colors and prints of spiders, ghosts, pumpkins, and witches on them. "What about these?" he asked.
Taking them from his son, Tsukishima examined the bag which had a dozen balls in it. He figured it was as good as anything. Kiyoko had told him that the prizes should be something small that he could give out to every child who participated, nothing too expensive but something fun. And of course, she assured him that the sports center would reimburse the cost.
"These should work. Go grab three more bags so we have enough for everyone who wants to play." Harushia nodded, running back over and grabbing another three bags of bouncy balls and placing them in the cart. "Alright, anything else before we get our regular groceries so that we aren't living off candy for the next week?"
His son giggled at the idea, looking back down at the list. "No, that's all the Halloween stuff."
"Okay, good." He reached over, ruffling his son's hair once more before leading the cart out of the aisle to precede with their normal weekly shopping. About halfway through the trip, while he was looking for ingredients for the dango dumplings from a list of ingredients his mother had texted him, Haruhisa grabbed onto the hem of his shirt. Tsukishima looked down to see his son staring up at him.
"Otousan, can we make extra dango dumplings for the volleyball team as a Halloween present?"
"Are you planning to make treats for everyone we know?" Tsukishima shook his head, putting a bag of rice flour into the cart. "Yes, if you want to make Halloween treats for the volleyball team then we can make extra."
"Thank you!" He hugged his father's waist before going over to push the cart for him, toward the next item on their list. And so began the chaos of the next few days of Halloween celebrations.
A/N: Coucou mon petit choux!
I hope that you enjoyed my first Halloween special chapter. I decided that I will be doing a set of nine "Halloween Special" chapters - one chapter for each letter of HALLOWEEN - for this FanFiction (because I love halloween and had too many fun ideas I wanted to do! Haha!) As I mentioned previously, these chapters follow the timeline of this story but don't necessarily have any relevance to the story plot, they are just random fun scenes that I had ideas for and for many of the chapters have some focus on other characters and shippings that I don't focus on as much in the Fic.
My intended schedule if I am able to keep up with this will be: two chapters today, tomorrow, friday and saturday and then the final Halloween Special will be posted on monday with my next regular chapter.
Happy Haunting! (∩ᄑ_ᄑ)⊃━ ﾟ*･｡*･:≡( ε:)
Also for anyone who might be interested, I attempted making Halloween colored dango dumplings myself! It was my first time making and trying dango dumplings. From what I know of them the texture and taste turned out great, but boy were they ugly! haha They are supposed to be relatively round but mine looked like weird flat discs. Haha! But still fun none the less. (If you want to see pictures of how they turned out, check out this Fic on my Wattpad I have a picture posted in my author's notes at the end of the chapter)
Kobachi: small side dishes that usually consist of vegetables
Natto: Fermented soybeans
Itadakimasu: Often translated as "I humbly receive," but in a mealtime setting, it's compared to "Let's eat," "Bon appétit," or "Thanks for the food." Some even liken it to the religious tradition of saying grace before eating.
Otousan: Father
Sensei: Teacher
-chan: Is for anything cute. That means you'll usually attach -chan to girls names, young boys, babies, and even sometimes pets. But also you'll hear it used with celebrity names, boyfriends, girlfriends, close friends, siblings, grandparents etc.
Obaasan: Grandmother
Sobo: Obaasan is the Japanese word for grandmother, but Japanese boys and girls are much more likely to call their grandmothers Sobo.