"Absolutely not."
"Oh, come on Chizuru."
"No is no, Takeru. You know my house is very small. Tidying up after the fact would take ages, all for a single night," she says, walking away from the stores.
He follows, downtrodden. "Aww… But it's gonna be so much fun!"
"Where would I even put such a large inflatable ghost? No, that's final," she resolves, a finger doing laps on the air.
Takeru's shoulders slump, with a grumpy pout he turns away.
"Siiigh… I'm not saying we can't have a small party," she acquieses. "But why not something more productive? We can watch movies or read books to practice our English, no?"
"Alright, alright… You win this round," he says, still protesting. "But we're still having scary cake."
"Is it really necessary?"
"Yes!"
"Well, I suppose it's fine… What's the worst that could happen?" Chizuru sighs, leaning onto his arm.
One day later…
The slow flow of a pencil, the precise sniping of numbers off a sheet is cut short as her breath when Chizuru hears a heavy thud from downstairs. More so as the echo is repeated, multiple times.
Shaky legs descend and skip the steps, glasss bouncing and blurrying her sight in haste. When she arrives down, the first thing see sees is Takeru wiping his forehead, decked in an exaggerated overcoat and wearing vampire teeth.
"Salutations, my sweet Chizuru," he says with a dramatic bow. "What a fine night for a curse this is."
"…Takeru, what is that?" she asks, brows twitching and pointing at the table.
"Oh? The movies we'll be watching with tonight."
"Why are there three mountains of them?"
"I couldn't decide which one to bring, so I brought them all!"
"How in the hell did you get all these? Your rental pass isn't even the highest tier."
"I know, so I burrowed yours."
"Pardon?"
"And don't worry, I brought all the certified hood classics. Laplace's Demon, Signs of Cthulu, Vampire Masked, The Essense, and more! We have, like, an entire month worth of adventures here."
"I'm going to actually kill you. What use could I get from-"
"I also baked you skull-themed muffins with strawberry filling. We can have those whenever we hold movie nights, right?"
"…On the other hand, maybe a nightly break would help for the end of year crunch. And I do get to make you practice your English vocabulary."
"I love you too, Chizuru. Guess I should give you a treat-"
"No," she pokes his nose, pushing away softly. "First we eat and play, then you can bite me all over."
"…Wow."
"What?"
"Oh, I didn't think you'd be, like, so into it. Do you have a thing for vampires? Oww! H-Hey, stop it! Ahaha, come on, Chizuru!"
"I hate you so much! Shut up and put on the movies already."
A hearty chuckle shrugs, putting on the first of the pile before moving towards the wall.
"Is it really necessary to turn off the lights?" she asks with a stutter, huddling onto the tattered couch.
"Yeah, it's called atmosphere. Come on, let's start it!"
With a small bowl of muffins, the dim and misty moon peeks through the CRT screen. Screams soon do as well.
"…Chizuru, you sure you wanna still watch this one?"
"I am fine."
"You're sitting on my lap."
"M-Maybe I just want to be close. Ahh!" she shivers, hugging harder and burying herself under his chin.
"What did we say?" he grins, returning the pleasantry.
"S-Shut up… And where do you think you're touching?"
"It's to help you distract yourself, honey. But really, if you don't like it-"
"I won't back down… put please turn the lights on…"
