October 31st; Halloween.

The very mention of the name was enough to send Tao into complete and utter terror. The first year despised the event, loathed it even.

“I’ve never understood what was so good about Halloween anyways,” Tao huffed as he sat in the club room.

“Oh come now, Halloween is fun! It’s a great way to spend time with friends,” Ahri squealed with delight.

“The best part is no doubt the costumes!” Eunji added merrily and placed a headband of cat ears on Tao’s head. Tao groaned, but made no effort to remove the cat ears from his head. ‘I mean, I do look good in them,’ he thought to himself.

“Best part is the candy, duh,” Kris pointed out.

“No, the best part is the horror!” Jongdae exclaimed, holding his hands up in a terrifying pose and shouting “Boo!” to Baekhyun, who had been sitting next to him. Baekhyun jumped in his seat, then yelled at Jongdae for scaring him.

“I still don’t like it,” Tao rolled his eyes. “There are so many better things to be done.”

“Like combing your dog?” Kai snickered, earning a stifling laugh from Sehun.

“Candy,” Tao started defensively as he stared at Kai, “requires special treatment because she is a princess. And yes, I would much rather be doing that right now.”

“Don’t be a player hater,” Kai clicked his tongue and waved a finger at Tao.

“I’m not a player hater, I just hate you,” Tao sneered.

“If we can’t decide what part of Halloween is the best, we should conduct some experiments,” Minseok suddenly spoke out. “Let’s hold a competition to see which one is the best! We weren’t going to do much anyways.”

“Great idea!” Suho chimed in agreement. “So, our options are: spending time with friends as proposed by Ahri-ssi, costumes as proposed by Eunji-ssi, candy as proposed by Kris, and horror as proposed by Jongdae. Any objections?”

“Well, I don’t even like-“ Tao started but was cut off mid-sentence.

“None!” everyone else shouted.

.::.           .::.           .::.

“This is Jongdae reporting live from POPK high school. A group of students are currently performing extensive experiments to determine which aspect of Halloween is the best,” Jongdae spoke into a sheet of paper that he had rolled up and called a microphone.

“Jongdae what in the world are you doing?” Chanyeol asked.

“I’m a reporter for Halloween!” Jongdae announced proudly as he puffed his chest out. “Got the suit and everything. What are you supposed to be, Chanyeol?” he asked skeptically with a raised brow.

“I’m a pirate, duh,” Chanyeol replied sassily, as if it had been the most obvious thing. “Baekhyun and I coordinated our costumes this year.”

“Does Baekhyun’s costume actually fit him?” Jongdae inquired in between laughs.

“Yes, because Baek wears a M and the stores always have M in stock. But course yet again, the store did not have an XXL size. I had to settle for L, which is why the pants are too short,” Chnayeol sighed as he tugged at his poufy pants. “I really need to ask Kris-hyung where he got his costume from.”

The happy virus stared at Kris, who was dressed up as galaxy. He wore a navy hoodie with a print-out image of the Milky Way taped to the centre, along with black jeans. “Uh, Chanyeol,” Jongdae started. “I’m pretty sure Kris is wearing a make-shift costume he made last minute. So before you go ask him where to buy costumes for tall people, I think you should ask him where he buys his actual clothes from.”

“So, are we having fun yet?” Ahri asked Eunji. The two girls had come in dressed as an angel and devil. Ahri wore a white, lacy dress and complimented it with a halo. Eunji wore a red fitted sweater and black leggings. Atop her head was a pair of devil horns, and she had attached a red tail to the hem of her pants.

“Not sure. Does this count as having fun?” asked a confused Eunji.

“Well, I’m having fun staring at Baekhyun,” Ahri sighed in a dreamy tone. She had her eyes fixated on the prankster, who was dressed as a pirate. He exuded an air of confidence, though Ahri wasn’t sure if it was because he was dressed as a captain or if it was because he knew how attractive he looked in the costume. ‘Probably the former; hopefully not the latter,’ she thought to herself.

“I’m having fun admiring everyone, but I don’t think that counts,” Eunji laughed.

“This just in, the After School Club is now moving on to experiment number two!” Jongdae announced as he placed one foot atop a chair and spoke into his makeshift microphone.

“Are you going to report on everything we do tonight?” asked a slightly annoyed Kyungsoo.

“We go live as we interview the members of the After School Club themselves! Tell us, what are you dressed as?” Jongdae asked Kyungsoo.

“Jack Frost,” Kyungsoo replied coolly.

“And what inspired you to-“ Chen started before he was interrupted by Kyungsoo.

“You know I still haven’t forgotten about what happened at Minseok-hyung’s coffee house, right?”

Jongdae gulped and was starting to break into a cold sweat. He tugged at the collar of his dress shirt and cleared his throat. “I’ll be moving on now.”

Jongdae interviewed everyone who showed up the “Halloween Experiment Extravaganza”, or so he named it. Tao was dressed as a cat (thanks to the cat ears he had received from Eunji), Sehun dressed up as Waldo, and Kai dressed up as a vampire. Yixing came dressed as a unicorn, Suho was dressed as a Prince, Minseok as a barista, and Luhan as Harry Potter.

Tao couldn’t hold back a smile after seeing everyone dressed in various get-ups. “Ok, I’ll admit, the costumes are kind of fun.”

“Kind of, or very?” Luhan asked teasingly and poked the younger member in the arm.

“Don’t push me, hyung,” Tao scoffed and held up his hand in front of Luhan’s face.

.::.           .::.           .::.

“Breaking news! Experiment number three is about to commence!” announced a very enthusiastic Jongdae.

“Jongdae-ah,” Yixing tapped the shoulder of the news reporter. “Is it really necessary to comment on every little thing?”

“Yixing-ah, I’m just getting into character! That’s why we’re in costumes,” Jongdae replied.

“But I thought these costumes were just for Halloween. Do we need to get into character?”

“Of course! And as a side note, unicorns don’t talk,” Jongdae waved his finger at his classmate.

“So I should stay quiet then?”

“Of course!” Jongdae replied in the most serious tone he could pull off.

“Do I neigh?”

“Excuse me?”

“Unicorns are like horses, and horses neigh. So do I neigh?”

“No, don’t neigh.”

Yixing cleared his throat and made an incoherent sound. After he finished, he said it was the best “neigh” he had ever done, and patted himself on the shoulder. Jongdae stared at him in disbelief, sighed and said to him, “You do you, man.”

Suho, who had left the room earlier to buy candy, returned holding bags filled with treats. He emptied the bags onto a desk. “Toffee, gummies, chocolate, potato chips, and apples!” Suho said proudly.

“Apples?” Baekhyun asked with furrowed eyebrows.

“Ah, you must mean apple-flavoured candy,” added Chanyeol.

“No guys, it’s the fruit,” Luhan pointed out as he inspected the treats. “Well that’s no fun.”

“We need to be slightly healthy!” Suho exclaimed, sounding slightly offended.

“Guys, I’ve set up the movie,” Minseok joined in the conversation and announced. Minseok had been setting up the projector during their dispute, and explaining that they should enjoy the treats while watching a horror film. “I hope everyone’s alright with Paranormal Activity.”

“Yeah, that’s fine I guess,” Kyungsoo sighed.

“What’s Paranormal Activity?” asked a confused Tao. When Luhan translated the title of the movie into Mandarin, Tao’s eyes widened with fear. “I am not watching that! That’s a ghost movie, isn’t it?”

“More like a movie filled with fake-looking special effects and a poor script,” Kyungsoo rolled his eyes. “It’s really not that scary, Tao. Trust me.”

“But Kyungsoo-hyung, you’re not scared of anything!” Tao whined, to which Kyungsoo simply nodded his head in agreement. Regardless of his whining, Minseok pressed the play button and the movie started rolling.

“Let’s not talk during the movie. I can’t hear,” Yixing said in excitement. After ten minutes, the unicorn fell into a deep slumber. His head landed on Tao’s shoulder, who shrieked by the sudden movement but then broke into laughter when he saw a sleeping Yixing laying.

“How can Yixing fall asleep during this?” Baekhyun cried, cupping his hands over his eyes.

Kyungsoo, Jongdae and Minseok didn’t understand why the air seemed tense. Kyungsoo was playing a game on his phone while Jongdae was busy trying to sneak up on Baekhyun to scare him. Meanwhile, Minseok attentively watched the movie, genuinely interested in the content. Kris tried his best to remain calm during the film, but was rattled at each jump-scare. Luhan didn’t pay much attention to the movie either; he was busy deciding which Halloween party he wanted to attend after the film ended. Eunji and Ahri were holding onto each other, and hugged each time something terrifying happened. Suho started crying during the movie, and had to be comforted by Kai and Sehun.

Halloween wasn’t fun. But Tao had to admit that spending time with his 13 friends in costumes, watching a horror movie and snacking on candy on a day that happened to be the same day as Halloween was undoubtedly, fun.

A/N: Sorry I haven't been updating as frequently! I got an internship, which will start tomorrow! I'm super pumped about it but at the same time I just wanna stay bundled up in the bed all day writing for you guys :D (Doesn't help that I'm currently working on another fic, which has yet to be published but I may do so soon). ALSO ISN'T THE NEW POSTER AND BG AMAZIINNNGGGGGGGG??? GAH I LOVE IT; much thanks to kookie from REboot <3

\\ xoxo