Shu and Ryu's Halloween Escapade
by Aoi Umi
Chapter 2: "Show me the Candy"
Ding-dong.
"Who on earth could that be?" wondered Ayaka as her boyfriend hit the DVD player's pause button and laboriously tried to get up. The couch was so warm and comfortable that it was really very difficult to leave.
"Trick or Treat, Hiroooo!" grinned a familiar black cat at the door. He was accompanied by an anonymous ghost, still recognizable by the pink pirate rabbit held at its side.
"Nice get-up, guys. What are you doing here?"
"I said, 'Trick or Treat!'" the cat repeated.
"Trick or what?"
"Treeeatto! Like candy!" He demanded.
"Um...okay..." Hiro glanced back into his apartment. "I might have some leftover Pixy Stix that Yuki-san confiscated and gave to Seguchi-san for safekeeping, who gave them to Sakano-san, who gave them to K-san, who gave them to me and Fujisaki one day when you were 'sick'..." he mused. He suddenly turned back around. "I mean...! Oops. Damn. Maybe I shouldn't have said that."
Thoughts of getting upset never even occurred to Shuichi as he literally shivered with delight in anticipation of the Pixy Stix. Pure. Artificially Flavored. Sugar.
"Ayaka-chan, could you hit the lights for a minute?" Hiro called behind him into the room.
"Sure..."
Shuichi craned his neck to see inside. "Nyaaa, Hiro was in the dark with Ayaka-san! Hee hee." He winked.
Hiroshi lowered his eyes. "We were just watching a movie."
"Suuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu...."
Hiro walked idly into the kitchen to dig a handful of Pixy Stix out of the back of the cupboard. He returned to the doorway.
"...uuuuuuuuuuuuurrrrrrrrrr— "
He distributed them evenly into the bags.
"—rrrrrrrrrrrrrre—" Shuichi stopped, eyes widened. "Eeyah! Thank you so much, Hiro!" he bowed exaggeratedly. "I'm gonna save these for when I get back home late at night to Yuki! Ha ha haaa!"
Hiro raised an eyebrow but didn't say a word. He suddenly wondered exactly why Yuki-san was so opposed to Shuichi's consuming pure sugar. If it gave him that much energy, then hell, wouldn't you think... He shook his head in an attempt to rid it of these thoughts.
"Well, we've gotta get going now, Hiro. We have a lot more people to hit up for candy! Nyahaha!"
"Bye now," Hiro waved with a faint smile. "Have fun."
"Bye, Hiro! You have fun, too!" He winked again.
Hiro smiled sideways and shut the door, shaking his head.
"Well, maybe I'll have just one right now," Shuichi decided. He poked around in the bottom of the bag and selected a green apple flavored one. "You, too," he encouraged Ryuichi. "Let's have a toast."
"To Halloween!" proposed Ryu with his grape flavored sugar packet.
"To Halloween!"
And they each ripped open their packet and downed the entire thing in one gulp. Most of it melted upon contact, but some of the sugar crystals abraded the throat on the way down.
Ryuichi coughed a little. "Wow, that's some strong stuff, na no da!"
Shuichi laughed. "Yeah, isn't it great? Let the hyperness begin!!"
And so the pair bounced down the street, arm in arm, the only solitary pair of Trick-or-Treaters on the glaring night streets of Tokyo.
"Let's visit Noriko-chan na no da! She probably has candy."
"Ukai-san? Yeah, she has a kid, doesn't she? Where does she live?"
"This way! Whooosh!" He turned sharply and "flew" across the street.
"Na, chotto, Sakuma-san!" Shuichi followed, narrowly avoiding death on the perilous four-lane.
''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''
"Noriko-chan! Pico pico-chan! Open up; it's Ryu-chan! Nori—"
A small girl answered the door. She looked up curiously. "Daddy!" she called. "There's two old guys dressed up funny out there."
Shuichi twitched. Old? Me? You little...brat!
The girl's father came to the door, looked them over critically, and laughed good-naturedly. "Sorry, boys...Noriko is out with Seguchi Mika-san right now. Will you come in?"
"Waaaahhhhh!!" cried Ryuichi. "I wanted Noriko-chan to give us candy!"
"Ano...maybe we'd better go," said Shuichi uneasily. "Thanks, anyway."
"Candy?" repeated Noriko's daughter, peeking from behind the doorframe. "Mommy only gives candy to me," she uttered territorially, "Not to funny-looking icebergs and cat hookers." She glowered.
Shuichi and Ukai-san stared down at her.
("I'm not an iceberg," Ryuichi wailed in the background. "I'm a ghost!")
"Um...a little too much television for you, my dear," said her father, steering her back into the house and away from the visitors, to whom he grinned apologetically.
"Well, um," Shuichi also grinned uneasily. "I think we'd better get going." He pushed Ryuichi away from the door.
"Okay, I'll tell Noriko you stopped by." He waved.
''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''
"I'm not a hooker!" Shuichi protested. "I'm not I'm not I'm not!"
"Hey, sugar," invited a deep voice. A random guy on the street grabbed him by the shoulder. "What are you doing tonight?"
"We're going Trick or Treating!" Ryuichi interrupted childishly.
The guy raised an eyebrow. "Oh really? You both wanna come with me and get some special treats?"
"Run!" Shuichi grabbed Ryuichi by the arm and hurriedly dragged him all the way to the corner, out of sight. "Well," he panted, "I guess Yuki was right." He sighed defeatedly and then laughed a little in spite of it all.
''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''
Eiri Yuki sneezed. "It's still cold in here," he mumbled half-coherently. Sleepily he stepped out of bed and into his slippers. "You'd think three blankets would be enough," he complained, "but this cold is one hell of a—"
He stopped dead in his tracks. From a bunched-up end at his feet, his eyes followed the trail of toilet tissue through a lamp, under the coffee table, around the television and across the couch. At this point he looked at the entire living room and took in the general picture all at once. It was a far-from-pleasing picture.
"That kid is going to learn the meaning of the word 'dead.' If he lives long enough," he snapped. Then he carefully grabbed another blanket from the couch, a box of tissues from the table, and went back to bed.
''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''
"Yaaa let's visit Tohma now! Tohma Tohma Tohma-kuuun!" Ryuichi paraded down the street.
Shuichi's face fell a little. "Ah...I'd rather not." He looked away.
Ryuichi got in close proximity and cocked his head. "You don't like Tohma-kun?" he inquired disappointedly.
"Uh...he makes me kind of nervous." He didn't feel it was appropriate to elaborate that he actually sometimes feared for his life when he was around Seguchi. That guy has the most terrible brother-in-law complex ever, he thought sourly. Yuki is mine, Yuki is mine!
Apparently his fixated expression was quite noticeable, for Ryuichi waved a hand in front of his face in an attempt to break him out of this trance. "Shuichi is not smiliiing," he whined sadly. "We need to get more candy in him, fast!" he decided. He dutifully grabbed Shuichi, held him above his head, and hustled him down the street.
Shuichi blinked. With Ryuichi's sporadic leaps and bounds, it was rather a bumpy ride. "Where are we going?" he called.
"Didn't you say your producer, Sakano, makes really good desserts?"
"Um...yeah?"
"Then that's where we're going. Destination: Sugar!" Ryuichi cackled maniacally.
"Knock Knock!" Called Ryuichi.
"Who's there?" replied a pleasant, effeminate voice. The door opened to reveal none other than Tohma Seguchi.
Shuichi swallowed a gasp.
"Trick or Treat! Hi, Tohma! It's a ghost who is not Ryuichi and a cat who is not Shuichi-chan!" Ryuichi announced.
Tohma smiled indulgently. "Come in, Ryuichi, Shindou-san," he invited. "I'm sure Sakano won't mind. We've been making 'Love' all afternoon. He's out at the moment getting something crucial we needed in the middle."
Shuichi choked and nearly fainted. "You...you don't say?" he replied weakly. This was certainly a piece of news.
"Yes, you see, we had the fruit, the flour, and the sugar, but we ran out of vegetable oil. I do hope he's able to find it at that store on the corner," he mused as he delicately brought a hand to his face.
Shuichi's mind spun. Wow, they really do it in style. I wonder what kind of fruit, and what it's for...? he thought dazedly.
At that moment Sakano burst through the door. "Shachou! I got two different kinds; you can pick which you prefer..." his eyes rested on the two visitors. "Oh, guests." He adjusted his glasses nervously.
"Please don't call me Shachou, Sakano. Thank you for getting that...let's go into the kitchen and continue." He turned to Shuichi and Ryuichi. "You two are welcome to come watch."
"NO!" Shuichi panicked. "I mean, I'd really love to, but I really have...something...to..." He turned away and clutched his heart as in an attack.
Tohma disappeared into the kitchen and returned a moment later with a delicious-looking fruit soufflé. "Do take one, at least, if you're going to be on your way, Shindou-san. We made this batch earlier."
Shuichi blinked.
"It's called 'Love.' Sakano found the recipe in a magazine and invited me to try it with him since my anniversary with Mika-san is soon," he explained.
"Ohh," laughed Shuichi. "It looks wonderful. Thanks," he smiled a little and accepted the desert.
Ryuichi paraded back into the living room, wiping crumbs from his mouth with the end of his sheet. "Eat it, Shuichi!" he encouraged. "It's really sweet."
Shuichi obliged. As he chewed, he supposed that Seguchi had been messing with him the entire time. But damn, he could make delicious deserts with Sakano's assistance.
"What do you think?" Tohma smiled.
"This dessert has been approved by Kumagoro-sama!" Ryuichi endorsed, waving above his head the fuzzy pirate-turned-food-tester. "It tastes like sugar na no daaa!"
A/N: Is this pushing PG-13? If anyone complains, I'll change it. nn;; I was too lazy to do research concerning appropriate honorifics between each of the characters, so I basically guessed. Gomen if something's inaccurate in that department. Looks like I didn't finish on time. There's still at least one more chapter left. Sigh.
Reviews are appreciated. They are sugar for that part of the brain responsible for creative writing. ::winks::