Morg: Heyo! So I might be gone for a few weeks (not like I haven't waited that long between updates before…). Anyways! So I'm attempting to update a bunch before I go IF I go.

Ikuto: So you don't know if you are going yet?

Amu: Wouldn't that be what the 'if' is for?

Morg: It is for work. They might need me but they might not. I'll find out for sure tomorrow. For tonight, however, let's just enjoy being together and updating!

Ikuto: Whatever.

Amu: Don't have to because you don't own us.

Morg: Party poopers!

~Killed With Kisses~

Amu knew he was coming before he ever touched the gate that led back to where she lived above the garage of an older couple. What she didn't know, was what he was bringing. Imagine her surprise when she opened the door only to be greeted by a giant orange pumpkin and a struggling Kukai. No wonder he hadn't sounded a quick as he usually was. "What's this?"

A grin appeared from around the side of the pumpkin as Kukai shifted its weight to see the pinkette in the doorway to her apartment. "A pumpkin!"

"I know that, but why did you bring it?"

"So we can carve it!"

"Carve it into what?"

"Oh come on, Hinamori! Halloween is right around the corner and since none of us are dressing up or going to any parties, I figured we could at least carve a pumpkin and eat the seeds and put a candle in it!"

Amu was about to agree when a screech sounded from behind her. With her super human abilities, Amu had heard Utau's approach. She hadn't been expecting the reaction the blonde gave to seeing Kukai standing there with a giant ass pumpkin in hand.

"A PUMPKIN! LET'S MAKE IT SCARY!"

"NO WAY! I WANT A FUNNY FACE!"

"SOUMA!"

"HOSHINA!"

Sighing, Amu stepped aside so that Kukai could finally enter her apartment. She followed him to the kitchen and listened as he and Utau fought the entire way. The thud of the pumpkin hitting the table was rather impressive. "Hey Kukai, is anyone else coming over for this?"

Grinning, Kukai took a seat before leaning back on the chairs back to legs with his hands behind his head. "You betcha! Ikuto, Nagi, Rima, Yaya and Kairi will be here shortly!"

"Are they bringing pumpkins as well?"

"Yep!"

"So what are Utau and I supposed to do?"

Frowning, Kukai dropped his chair back onto all four legs while scratching his head. "Well, I think Ikuto said he was going to bring you one, Amu. I don't know about Utau though."

"Share with you me you asshole! This pumpkin is big enough for both of us!"

Looking completely offended, Kukai crossed his arms in front of his chest. "What makes you think that I should share with you when you're calling me names!?"

There were not enough sighs in her body to handle the amount of times she felt the need to release air in such a way when hanging out with these humans. Of all the small towns for her to hide in, this was the one she had to pick. "Guys, this pumpkin is huge. Carve a face of each side and call it good."

Seeing that Amu sounded annoyed, which Amu never sounded that way, the two quickly agreed to her suggestion and began planning out what they were going to do while Amu got out the things that she thought that they would need. Carving a pumpkin was something the nonhuman had never done before but knew how to do because of her programing.

There was a knock at the door just as she'd finished placing newspaper down on the table to make sure that any pumpkin guts fell on that instead of the wood. "Coming!"

Kukai and Utau continued to lightly bicker as Amu went to answer the door. Kairi and Yaya stood there with pumpkins in hand.

"Hello, Amu-chan."

"Kairi, Yaya, please come in. I've got the table ready for you."

Yaya slightly pouted as she moved inside the apartment. Amu heard her whisper to Kairi as they moved down the hallway. "Yaya still thinks that Kairi-koi should have let Yaya pick a bigger pumpkin."

"The one you have is perfect, Yaya." Seeing that his assurances weren't getting through to the girl he was walking with, Kairi decided on a new approach. "The size of the pumpkin is perfect because it is cute just like you."

Yaya immediately blushed before squealing about how much she loved her pumpkin.

Amu smiled a little at the exchange. Humans. She didn't bother walking away from the door since she knew that Nagi and Rima were not far away.

Not two minutes later a knock sounded on her door. Amu pretended that she wasn't standing just on the other side of it for a few seconds before she opened it to find Nagi and Rima. "Hey guys."

Smirking, Rima entered the apartment with nothing in her hands. Nagi followed behind her with a pumpkin tucked under each of his arms. "Hey Amu, glad you had us over for pumpkin carving. I didn't think I was going to get to do it this year."

"Yeah well, you should really be thanking Kukai."

"YOU ARE WELCOME!"

The three laughed as Amu walked Nagi and Rima to the kitchen where Kukai and Utau were drawing on the faces they were going to carve while Kairi and Yaya were already scooping out the insides of their pumpkins and slopping it into the buckets Amu had gotten out.

Considering that Ikuto was supposed to be bringing her pumpkin, the pinkette had nothing to do but watch her friends as she waited for her last guest to arrive. Suddenly, a knock sounded at the door that she hadn't been expecting. Confused, Amu-with every part of her body on alert-moved to answer it.

Smirking, Ikuto moved into the apartment past Amu with two rather small pumpkins in his hands. "Hey there, beautiful. I thought we could try a less traditional route and just paint on our pumpkins rather than getting our hands full of pumpkin guts."

Amu stood to the side of her door with a slightly confused expression on her face. One that should have never been there to begin with considering she could mask her expressions and emotions completely. In fact, most of the time she was faking what she was expressing. Not this time, however, she was truly confused as to why she hadn't known Ikuto was coming.

"Amu? Are you okay?"

Shaking out of her thoughts, Amu smiled. "Yeah, sorry, just a little out of it today. Kukai sort of just showed up and sprung this on us."

Not at all surprised to hear that, Ikuto shook his head. "Sorry, Amu. Did you want us to go? I can just tell the guys that you aren't feeling well."

"No, no! I don't want to ruin everyone's fun and I'm not feeling unwell. Just sort of unprepared. I'll be fine. Let's go paint those pumpkins!"

With his smirk back in place, Ikuto followed Amu to the kitchen to be greeted by several loud hellos-mostly from Kukai-and some softer ones.

Kukai hadn't been paying attention when Ikuto walked into the room. Why would he be when he had a pumpkin to plan out? When he did look up, however, the sight that met his eyes caused him to pause his actions. "What is that?"

Raising an eyebrow, Ikuto followed Kukai's line of sight to the pumpkins he was holding. "A pumpkin."

"No way man! This is a pumpkin! That's obviously a joke!"

Coming to the table with paints in hand, Amu was lucky she had some; the pinkette frowned at Kukai's words. "Still a pumpkin even if it is little. You just cut up yours and we'll make ours. Don't worry about us."

Shrugging his shoulders, Kukai just couldn't understand why they'd waste their time on something so small and uncool. "Whatever, up to you."

Utau couldn't help but smile at Kukai's behavior. "Come on, Souma. Let's cut this thing open and get the seeds out so we can start putting the faces on."

"Okay! Hey Hinamori! Can you bake the seeds for me?"

"You eat them?"

"You don't?"

The two stared at each other before Amu shrugged. "Sure, I guess that's fine. Just put them into a different bowl then."

Kukai cheered as he raced out of his seat to get a bowl from Amu's cupboard for his seeds. They were going to be so delicious. Once he returned, Kukai took up the knife to begin cutting the top off the pumpkin. Once he had it open, he and Utau instantly began digging out the insides. The usually careless boy was very cautious with his precious seeds.

Amu watched for only a few moments before she took up her paintbrush and opened the paints that Ikuto wasn't already using. She knew exactly what she was going to paint.

Already at work, Ikuto concentrated on his pumpkin while keeping an ear on the rest of his friends. Yaya and Kairi were hard at work with the smarter of the two helping the hyper one with the cutting so she didn't get hurt. Nagihiko and Rima were doing things much of the same way. Meaning that Nagihiko was doing all the work. However, this was because Rima simply didn't want to. It had nothing to do with her hurting herself. Utau and Kukai continued to work while occasional fighting about what they were doing. Amu, on the other hand, worked perfectly silently as she painted her pumpkin.

Ikuto couldn't help but be curious as to what she was painting. So far she'd only selected four colors. "So what are you doing?"

Smiling, Amu brushed a strand of her pink hair out of her face as she looked down at her work. Seeing as her pumpkin wasn't the biggest, Amu was using the little space wisely. So far she had a green clover and a blue spade. "Just some cute signs. What are you doing?"

"I like cats."

Amu stopped her work on her red heart to look up at the boy that had brought her a pumpkin. "What?"

"I'm putting a cat and a fish on mine. I like cats and fish."

Mostly because she didn't believe him, Amu moved around to look at Ikuto's pumpkin. True to his word he had a fish already painted on and what appeared to be the outline of a cat started. "Wow that looks great."

"I know."

Scowling at his smug response, Amu went back to finish her pumpkin. Once the heart was done she'd have just enough space for the diamond she wanted to put on there. Hopefully the yellow would look okay on the orange skin of the pumpkin.

Yaya was rather pleased with how her pumpkin came out. She told them all, too. "Yaya thinks Kairi-koi did an amazing job! Kairi-koi is so skilled at cutting pumpkins!"

Kairi simply pushed his glasses back into place after being released from Yaya's hold. He wasn't all that proud of his work, but when Yaya praised him, he couldn't help but feel pleased. Not like the baby face he put on hers was that difficult. Not compared to the samurai mask he'd carved into his own.

Leaning over, Rima looked at her pumpkin that Nagi was carving. She'd asked for a clown and surprisingly, that's what her pumpkin looked like. "Not bad."

Nagi beamed as he carved music notes onto the side of his pumpkin as he finished the touches on his face. "Thanks."

Utau was far too concentrated on her half of the giant pumpkin to be paying attention to anyone else. She was going for the half angel half devil look. So half of her pumpkin looked innocent while the other half looked scary.

Kukai, on the other hand, was simply making a funny face and a soccer ball. Once he finished, they were all rather impressed that he'd been able to pull off something so complex for his half the pumpkin.

With her friends cleaning up their mess, not that Amu wasn't going to rescrub everything again later, the pinkette placed Kukai's clean seeds on a cookie sheet before sprinkling a little seasoning over them and sticking them into the oven. The boy she was baking them for could hardly stand to wait for the oven to signal that the seeds were done as he sat outside the little window and watched them bake.

Amu smiled at the sight before glancing over to see that Ikuto had finished his pumpkin. The kitten he'd painted on there looked so cute that she could hardly believe that Ikuto was the one that had painted it. "That looks great."

Ikuto smiled back before motioning towards her pumpkin. "Why did you pick those symbols?"

Considering that Amu couldn't tell him that they were the symbols that her creator designated to her while she was being created, Amu made up something else. "I really like playing cards and I enjoy those symbols. I don't really like that they are just black and red so I picked some other colors as well."

Ikuto nodded to her answer though he could tell that that wasn't her real reason. Amu would tell him if she wanted to though. Before he could even think of pressing further, the timer on the oven went off along with any patience that Kukai had left. He wanted those seeds.

Instantly moving to retrieve the pan before Kukai could open the oven and take it out himself without the aid of a hot pad, Amu had to leave Ikuto in the middle of their conversation. Unfortunately, she didn't have another chance to talk to him before everyone-except Utau-left for the night.

.

Morg: Felt like throwing something Halloween related into this chapter.

Ikuto: Sort of lame.

Amu: Naw, I liked it.

Morg: Well, I just wanted a normal chapter before throwing the plot into play. Things are about to happen.

Ikuto: Too bad you are leaving.

Amu: Not that Ikuto is actually going to miss you.

Morg: I won't be gone for that long! Besides! I don't even know if I am leaving yet! I'll make sure to let you know if I don't go!

Ikuto: I think this is the part where she begs you to review.

Amu: I wouldn't really call it begging.

Morg: Although reviews are always nice!