Despite digging in his memories, Mingyu doesn’t really remember Halloween in school. He remembers it out of school and he remembers trick-or-treating in polyester superhero costumes, toting his pillowcase around and upgrading to a plastic pumpkin come third grade. High school, however, was slightly different. He only went out one of the four years and that would be his freshman year, but after that, he only dressed up to school. Each of those years he’d gone as some variation of vampire or werewolf. That stuff was popular back then and it was an easy and cheap costume to piece together. He’d let the girls in his friends’ group have their fun with the makeup during break period or before the first bell rang and he’d keep it on until he had to wash up before practice.

          He doesn’t remember Minghao dressing up aside from senior year when he came to school in normal clothes, but by lunch, there was talk of Minghao Xu transforming into—quite possibly—the cutest human being to ever set foot on Oakdale’s campus. He’d lost a bet within the dance team, but what it sounded more like was that they had elected their captain for a Halloween makeover and Minghao was outvoted. He probably just did it to humor his kids, but, to Mingyu, it was plain to see that he wasn’t very comfortable walking around with some ridiculous, expensive-looking robe on with stars dangling from the cloth. Someone even outfitted him with a headpiece that was covered in glitter and fairy lights. Instead of his black hair, he sported a fawn-colored wig, curled and cut short. It was an interpretive take on a sandman or something in lieu of that. He can tell that Minghao was also whisked away by his friends at lunch so they could pack shimmer and sparkles under his eyes.

          Minghao’s revenge had been dropping sand into all of their pockets in passing. Mingyu remembers hearing screams of disgust ringing through the hallways and hearing Minghao’s feet pound in full stride in the moments following the sand attack. Mingyu and a couple other popular kids won best costume time after time, but Minghao gave everyone a run for their money senior year.

          His curt and short answer from earlier makes Wonwoo more interested in what’s on his mind, so he tucks away his phone, “Sorry.” He breathes out through a smile. There’s sincerity in Wonwoo’s voice and he locks his screen and pockets the phone again, “Is there something on your mind? Something you wanted to talk about?”

          “Not particularly, why?”

          “You’re doing that thing again.” Mingyu immediately spits out his lip and unfurrows his brow.

          They spend the rest of lunch with some small talk. Wonwoo riddling off tales about working in the city and telling Mingyu how nice it is in a smaller town with fewer people; how he doesn’t mind if he has nothing to do during his time off because he has a collection of books he’s finally been able to crack open. He shares a story about a time he’d rode a bike to work, but a squirrel got caught in his tire as he had passed the city park; that he’s glad that town-squirrels seemed to have more common sense than the glorified, city tree-rats who occasionally pick-pocketed tourists.

          He mentions something about never getting trick-or-treaters since his apartment used to be on the 15^th floor and no kids want to wait for an elevator just to get a little candy. Wonwoo complains a little bit about Soonyoung and how he had bought enough candy for every kid in their current neighborhood to get at least three handfuls, but he only bought it because he thought the Halloween party Palooza pitch would fall through. Since it didn’t, Wonwoo was concerned that they’re going to eat their own weight in candy, so he plans on showing up to the Halloween party with all of the candy since Soonyoung probably won’t bite his head off in public. “I’ll save him a bag of Kit-Kats and it’ll all be good.” Talking to Wonwoo like this, learning about him and what he was like with and before Soonyoung, is really nice. Mingyu misses having conversations like this with people he wants to get to know.

          Of course, the steady stream of texts from Soonyoung to Wonwoo’s pocket doesn’t stop, but the canine cosplayer has afforded Mingyu most of his attention. That is until the texts stop for about five minutes. That’s cause for suspicion.

          It’s the end of their break so they should start walking back to the clinic. Mingyu tosses out their trash as Wonwoo quickly skims through all the earlier messages before opening the most recent one. He has that stupid, big grin on again as he looks at the photo and glances up at Mingyu before shaking his head and pocketing his phone for the umpteenth time. Mingyu takes notice, immediately curious and a little offended that his friend is belittling him with humor.

          “What.”

          “Nothing, nothing.” They begin the short walk back.

          “That wasn’t nothing.” Mingyu wants to know. If he’s honest, he’s curious about how Soonyoung looks dressed up like Wonwoo. He can’t picture the man of bright hair and colorful clothes dressed any different. Also, Minghao. What’s Minghao wearing? Did he pull out the stupid plumbob and actually go as a Sim? Did he stop by the dollarstore? Did Jun or Seungcheol have a cool costume for him to borrow? Well, based on how not-cool Jun’s costume is this year, he’s going to assume that Jun doesn’t have a cool costume in his closet.

          “Well,” Wonwoo takes his phone out again, unlocking the screen and flipping through his messages, “Soon wanted me to show you something, but I feel like I should read you his words first.”

          “Sure.”

          Wonwoo clears his throat as if he was going to read off some incredibly well-written speech, “And I quote, ‘Oh my god. Hao isn’t a ing Sim for once. It’s a Christmas miracle. He looks hot. You should show Mingyu.’ End quote.”

          Mingyu pinches his brow and sighs. He’s not sure why Soonyoung—and probably Wonwoo as well—think that he likes Minghao in an unprofessional way. He literally just wants to be on positive terms with him, nothing more, nothing less. He gave up on making up for high school, so if he’s going to build a future to look forward to he’s going to focus on it instead of hooking up with some guy with a broken leg and sharp eyes that can cut into your soul and pointed ears and soft lips and elegant features and- he’s going to stop there and stop biting his lip, “What’s he dressed as?”

          Wonwoo is about to turn the screen over before he stops walking and looks at Mingyu, “If you let me send a picture of you to Soon, I’ll show you.” Mingyu has one of two choices to make. It’s either he takes the picture and essentially admits to Wonwoo and Soonyoung that he’s interested, or he simply says no and is infinitely plagued with curiosity about what Minghao Xu is dressed up for as an adult for Halloween. He ends up picking the first option after they cross the street, “Thought so. C’mon, give me the Handsome Squidward face.”

          “Wonwoo, I’m not making the Handsome Squidward face.”

          “At least try to look less like a potato. Smile or smolder or something.” Mingyu rolls his eyes and cracks the most painstaking smile at Wonwoo’s phone, exposing his snaggle-teeth and holding a fist up to his cheek like a cat paw—a fist that might end up launching that phone into oblivion if Wonwoo pokes fun at him later, “Good boy.” It takes him a few seconds to send the photo, then he flips the screen around to show Mingyu, but the face isn’t Minghao’s, “First, Soon’s costume because he was really excited about it.” It’s almost the same as Wonwoo’s except better-executed. His hair is styled up and to the side. It’s still sunset orange, now with a few streaks of yellow. His ears are white and his outfit is black with a blue leather collar. Soonyoung even has a striped tail in yellow, orange, and white in that order- oh, he’s a candy-corn werewolf. Okay. Weird, but not unimaginable for the fiery dancer. He pulls it off nicely at that, “You can’t see it, but he has fangs on that are also painted to match the theme.” Wonwoo laughs before taking his phone back.

          Mingyu grabs his sleeve, “Hey, the deal was Minghao’s picture, not Soon’s.”

          “I don’t remember saying that.” Whoops. Mingyu backtracks through their conversation. Nope, no mention of Minghao at all. Damn, he was played, “But I’ll take pity on you.”

          Mingyu doesn’t comprehend right away why Minghao’s costume made Wonwoo look at him and shake his head. It takes him a minute of strict staring to add up the facts. Even though elements of Minghao’s costume look more expensive and well-made, they’re uncannily the same. Minghao’s now-black hair is messily tossed to hold two, pointed black ears. His hair is also sprayed with this deep silver shimmer, nothing blotchy or bright like Mingyu’s; you can barely tell it’s there. He’s got these golden contacts on and a clean set of whiskers lined onto his cheeks along with a small reddish triangle on the underside of his nose. Smokey eyes with pointed, flicked wings at the corners of his eyes add to the cat-like appeal. Mingyu won’t even bother talking about how the loose, ripped up, black cable-knit sweater reveals too much skin because Minghao has a thin black ribbon around his neck with a tiny silver bell at the base of his throat.

          “You’re going to choke on flies if you don’t shut your mouth.” Wonwoo snatches his phone back and pockets it, he laughs when Mingyu shakes his head and snaps out of his trance-like state, “It’s kinda crazy, right? You didn’t tell Hao about your costume?” Mingyu shakes his head. Obviously, he didn’t since this ‘costume’ was scavenged for in a backroom from some mysterious box and Minghao’s costume was a loaner. Wonwoo laughs, “The universe has a weird way about telling us things, huh.”

          “I don’t know about that.”

          “C’mon, Gyu, same costume, same ty silver hairspray, same silly Sharpie whiskers. Aside from Hao looking a good 200% more put together than you do, you guys are essentially wearing the same thing.”

          “Wonwoo. I hate to break it to you, but it’s not like dressing up as a cat is an uncommon Halloween costume. I can bet you that there are at least twenty kids in town dressed up in crappy cat costumes-”

          “Yeah, but how many men in their mid-twenties are wearing unplanned cat costumes with silver hairspray?” Wonwoo jabs a finger into his side, “Two. You and Minghao.” They enter the parking lot just as Wonwoo gets a call on his phone and excuses himself to go and answer it. Mingyu takes the lead and gets to the breakroom first to give himself a once-over before going over the paperwork for the next two patients. There’s nothing cosmic about him and Minghao being handed the same costume even if they both don’t really care about Halloween and they both only deviated from their annual routines this year- absolutely nothing but coincidence!

          Mingyu manages to wipe off most of the crooked whiskers and finds someone in the imaging department to borrow eyeliner from. He redraws the lines on his cheeks with a little more finesse and debates about going in for the eyes, but decides against it since he doesn’t have the slightest clue how to apply it without jabbing himself and going blind.

          When he returns, Wonwoo is also back, “Soonyoung called to freak out about the costume situation.”

          “There’s no situation, Woo.”

          Wonwoo shrugs, “You believe what you want, but he says you can come to the Halloween party if you’re free. I’m going, but it’s not going to be super exciting. We’re just ch-”

          “Chaperoning for a bunch of high schoolers? Yeah, I think I’ll pass.”

          He’ll regret that decision for a few hours, but the two kids he has to deal with that afternoon take a lot out of him and he forgets his regret when he lunges through his door and flops onto his couch for a nap instead of worrying about some Halloween party. He’s sure Wonwoo will have plenty of photos to share tomorrow and that Minghao will come to him with a fun story soon.

          The main reason why he said no?

          Well, Mingyu doesn’t think he can keep his professional composure. A torn sweater that loose and low-hanging, exposing collarbones and that stupid, ing choker. Yeah, Mingyu would be anything but not-obvious. He’d like to hold onto his dignity for another few nights at least and dealing with Soonyoung and Wonwoo’s feud to get him to acknowledge his nonexistent feelings for Minghao is more than troublesome. In fact, he might make it a thing now to avoid any situations where Wonwoo and Soonyoung can be in the same room as him and Minghao.