Terribly sorry that I wasn't able to get the Halloween chapter out on time, but I was a bit… caught up in some things. For a very long time.
Café Munio: Chapter 11
"I don't think this is a good idea," Tsuna said nervously as the group traipsed down the street in their costumes. Haru was attracting quite a lot of stares with her extravagant sushi get-up, but Tsuna felt very out of place as a couple of five-year-olds ran past, giggling.
"Let's go to this house!" Haru declared, "Eh, Haru likes that pumpkin," she said thoughtfully, pointing to a Jack O'Lantern with a 2% battery sign carved onto it. "It's certainly very realistic!"
Haru leapt up the stairs as Kyoko followed behind her, both of them shouting 'Trick or treat!' at the same time as the door opened.
An elderly woman stood in the doorway, holding a basket still full to the brim with candy. "My, don't all of you look dashing," she said with a motherly smile once the 'Three Muskteers' reached the door. She dropped candies into each of their outstretched bags, smiling as she did so.
"Happy Halloween," Tsuna mumbled, before turning around immediately and dashing for the gate. This whole idea of greeting many random strangers at their house (for free candy too) was steadily becoming more horrifying by the minute. There was going to be more human interaction in this one day, than Tsuna had in the past year!
Well, the past year wouldn't be so accurate, since Tsuna had begun working at the cafe around that time—last year would be a better estimate.
"That house," Haru called over her shoulder as she dashed off.
"Come on, Tsuna-kun," Kyoko said with a smile, "Trick-or-treating has barely started!"
"Ooh, don't remind me," Tsuna mumbled under his breath, following the two energetic girls on to the next house.
Roughly two hours later, all their bags were about to split open with how much candy was stored inside. They'd walked around Namimori two times and had passed the Varia three times, as the assassins paraded around town with their boss on their shoulders.
Belphegor laughed his creepy, whispering cackle as he swung his bag around to shove it in front of Tsuna's face. "See that," he announced theatrically, "The prince has more candy than you do, of course."
"What do you mean by that?" Haru said indignantly, waving her pack of seaweed around as she walked right up to the blonde assassin. "I'm sure we all have the same amounts of candy! We went to the same houses! It's just logic!"
"The prince doesn't care about logic," Belphegor sniffed haughtily, looking mortified at the thought, "The peasants probably recognized the prince for who he is and gave him more candy as tribute!"
"Why would they pay tribute to an arrogant donkey like you?" Haru looked annoyed by the prince's attitude.
"A donkey?! You dare…?" Belphegor said, outraged.
Tsuna gave a little high-pitched shriek and stumbled forwards, eyeing the knives that Belphegor held with no little amount of caution. "Be careful—be careful, you two, please don't destroy anything!"
Haru produced a golf club from somewhere inside her costume (had she been carrying that around the whole time?) and said firmly, "Stop influencing the little children around you with your bad behavior! You're corrupting their angelic minds!"
"Tch, what do I care about the mental health of peasants?" Belphegor scoffed, and Haru launched into a long lecture regarding the issue of social manners and the importance of the next generation as Tsuna watched from the sidelines and whimpered.
"Let's count all the candy!" Haru decided, sitting down on the floor and turning her bag of candy upside-down.
Belphegor swept half of it into his bag the way one would use a small dustpan and broom, and cackled as he leapt out the window, and onto the tree.
The others sat on the floor (Gokudera took Haru's hurriedly vacated spot) to count, while Tsuna settled for a safer way of counting candy, and he sat with his back against the corner as he dropped the candy one by one into another bag.
"You… you reverse mop!" Haru shouted as she whacked the other with the end of a bamboo stick.
Tsuna pitied any mind readers that might exist in the world, because they were certainly in for a shock if they ever came to Namimori.
"80," Yamamoto declared. "This was quite fun!"
Gokudera was busy unbuttoning the Musketeers coat and tossing it to the far end of the room. The Musketeers hats had left the trio's hair all tangled and the coat was very stuffy, which lead Gokudera to run an annoyed hand through his hair and grumble. (Kyoko later informed Tsuna that yes, the majority of Namimori Middle's female population did think that the silver-haired foreigner was, to quote her words, 'really, incredibly hot and swoon-worthy.' Tsuna had been rather suspicious about this for months.)
Haru chased Belphegor through the house, shrieking. 'Varia Quality,' Tsuna thought dryly as Belphegor's knives split the bamboo stick into eighths, 'For all his arrogance and posh attitude, he can't outrun a middle-school girl.' Then again, Haru was Haru, and in a class all of her own.
It's short, I know, but I'm planning for things to get more serious in the next chapter. It's just a short, adventurous/mystery arc, and it'll last around three chapters or so.