The high collar of Jaehwan’s red cape was messing with the back of his head and the ruff around his neck was itchy. The horns on top of his head had probably collected half of the loose cobwebs hanging down from the ceiling, but he couldn’t care about them anymore. He didn’t want to be here among all these monsters: tens of witches and werewolves and ghosts and… skeletons. What’s up with all the walking skeletons, anyway?

From his peripheral vision, he saw pitch black, velvety feathers moving towards him between the strange creatures, a tacky grey scythe helping its owner advance towards Jaehwan. When the Angel of Death finally stopped in front of him, Jaehwan saw how rosy his cheeks were under the dark shadows framing his eyes.

“Next time you need to get your own drink,” Hakyeon grumbled as he handed an open bottle of beer to Jaehwan. “It’s so ing hot in here; why isn’t anyone opening a window?”

“Decorations,” Jaehwan shrugged, pointing at the paper bat garlands and sticky cobwebs in front of the windows.

Hakyeon mumbled something about ‘useless ’, but then a blonde girl dressed in a racy cop costume stopped in front of them, flashing white teeth from behind her luscious red lips.

“Hello, guys,” she said, giving both of them a once-over. Her smile seemed to widen as she looked up at Hakyeon’s face again. “Trick or treat?” She fluttered her long, false eyelashes, holding up a pair of plastic handcuffs in one hand and a small basket already full of sweets in the other.

“I’m gay,” Hakyeon declared flatly, resuming scanning the crowd for something or someone. (Definitely someone.)

“And I choose treat, thanks!” Jaehwan said happily, grinning as he grabbed a handful of the sweets in her basket and put them in his pocket.

The girl’s smile faltered and she grimaced, saying “s” before turning around, deliberately swaying her hips in her blue mini dress.

“There he is,” Hakyeon said and practically started vibrating next to Jaehwan.

“Taekwoon?” Jaehwan asked wearily, taking a sip of his beer. “Thank God, I’ve been beginning to think he died.”

“Seems like he did,” Hakyeon said cheerfully, like that was something to be cheerful about.

And indeed Taekwoon’s face looked greyish green with some fake dark wounds and stitches above his left eyebrow and on his right cheek, the dirty and torn T-shirt with the similarly disgusting zip up hoodie making him look like a homeless guy about to puke. Hakyeon looked like he could swoon from the sight anytime.

“He hangs out with that Sanghyuk guy way too much,” Hakyeon scoffed when Taekwoon and Sanghyuk greeted each other with some kind of pretentious bro-handshake. “Why is a 4^th year Engineering student hanging out with a Chemistry freshman anyway?”

“They could be friends with benefits,” Jaehwan offered, laughing at the murderous glance Hakyeon sent him. “Or they could just be friends.”

Sanghyuk then reached into his pocket under his stupidly authentic vampire cape, grinning with his stupidly white teeth as he shoved a small plastic bag into Taekwoon’s hand, seemingly trying to hide the mysterious item from those who were standing around them. Jaehwan narrowed his eyes.

“And business partners,” he murmured. “Do you think it’s some kind of drug?”

“No!” Hakyeon exclaimed, indignant. “Taekwoon wouldn’t use drugs.”

“Well, he’s giving Sanghyuk a nice wad of cash though,” Jaehwan said, not approving of the shady exchange whatsoever.

The thing was that Jaehwan didn’t like Taekwoon, but he felt an even deeper antipathy for Sanghyuk. He didn’t know the boy personally, but he had heard about him from Hongbin who had gone to the same high school as him, and so Jaehwan knew Sanghyuk had a history with the police. Hongbin could never really tell him about the details—“I just heard he did something bad,” he said. But ever since Sanghyuk had come to study at their university, Jaehwan kept an eye on him. Hakyeon always joked about how Jaehwan had a crush on Sanghyuk, but that was absolutely ridiculous and Jaehwan always felt like slapping Hakyeon for such comments. True, Sanghyuk had stupid shiny black hair and a stupidly cute fleshy nose and a pair of stupid, nicely-shaped eyes as well as stupid pink lips he liked to wet with his tongue a little too much between two stupid smirks, and he was also stupidly tall, but Jaehwan would never have a crush on him. He didn’t like bad guys.

“It can’t be drugs,” Hakyeon said now, sounding a bit devastated.

Sanghyuk, however, leant close to Taekwoon, whispering something into his ear, and then Taekwoon nodded, skittering away and getting lost in the crowd.

“I’m going there,” Hakyeon said determinedly and grabbed Jaehwan by the wrist, tugging him along as if Jaehwan was his belonging without which he couldn’t show up anywhere.

“But I don’t want to go!” Jaehwan shrieked in vain. “Wait, my pitchfork!”

Hakyeon didn’t wait for Jaehwan to get his plastic pitchfork from where it stood in the corner, and instead hurried to Sanghyuk.

“Hi,” he greeted the boy who seemed to wince in surprise as he glanced down at Jaehwan and Hakyeon’s duo. Jaehwan felt like a Hobbit looking up at an Ent.

He wouldn’t watch The Lord of the Rings ever again.

“Oh, hey,” Sanghyuk smirked.

“Nice vampire costume,” Hakyeon said, stretching his neck to look for Taekwoon. His head looked like a periscope in the sea of people.

Sanghyuk laughed and shook his head.

“I’m not a vampire.”

“We must have different ideas about what makes a vampire,” Jaehwan grimaced, motioning vaguely at Sanghyuk’s white-painted face, slicked-back black hair, and the cape that looked a bit too short and only reached his ankles. He looked like a little boy who had outgrown his favourite trousers.

“No, you’re misunderstanding me,” Sanghyuk said, unfazed by Jaehwan’s biting comment. “I’m dressed as Bela Lugosi.”

Jaehwan cocked an eyebrow and tried not to roll his eyes too conspicuously.

Bela Lugosi – how snobbish.

“So, you’re a human dressed as a human dressed as a vampire,” Jaehwan drew the conclusion.

“Basically, yes.”

“How cool,” Hakyeon said and then his voice changed to a higher pitch as he said, “Oh, hello, Taekwoon.”

Taekwoon mumbled a ‘hello’, suspiciously rubbing his nose and sniffling as he handed Sanghyuk a cup of disgustingly turquoise liquid with something white and steam-like floating up from it, but the drink somehow still looked cold, if the condensation on the side of the transparent plastic cup was any indication. Taekwoon took a tissue out of his pocket and blew his nose. Jaehwan and Hakyeon shared a look which, on Jaehwan’s part meant “I told you” and on Hakyeon’s meant “Please, tell me this isn’t what it looks like”.

Jaehwan was sure it was . Well, he was only sure it was because he didn’t really know much about drugs (except weed which he had tried twice before), and was the only one he knew was meant to be consumed through the nose. Taekwoon looked shady enough to use such things and Sanghyuk looked shady enough to trade such things. It was as clear as day.

“This is really good,” Sanghyuk nodded at Taekwoon after taking a sip of his drink. He turned to Jaehwan then, holding up the cup. “Do you want to try it?”

Jaehwan opened his mouth to say something—to lecture Sanghyuk about human relationships and especially about the non-existent relationship between the two of them, and about how he would never even want to touch something a criminal like Sanghyuk had touched before him.

But Jaehwan was weak and he was extra weak for neon-coloured, syrupy, sweet-looking drinks. He took the cup, keeping his eyes on Sanghyuk as long as he could. He might have just imagined it, but Sanghyuk’s cheeks looked a bit pinker than they originally had when Jaehwan gave him back his drink which tasted extremely good.

“Can I try it, too?” Hakyeon asked, blinking at Taekwoon innocently, smiling that sweet smile of his that made humans of all genders and ual orientations melt. It had made even Jaehwan melt once, but that’s another story and by now Jaehwan knew the raw and almost animalistic intention behind that smile. He shivered from the thought.

Taekwoon frowned momentarily in confusion, but let Hakyeon take the cup from him, holding it with two hands as he took a sip, his eyelashes fluttering prettily when he returned the cup to Taekwoon and somehow managed to influence the movements of his oesophagus, swallowing slowly and pursing his lips like a kitten drinking too cold milk. Taekwoon seemed a bit dazed.

“That was… sweet,” Hakyeon giggled, his lips. Taekwoon followed the movement with his eyes, mesmerized.

“Okay, we really need to go now,” Jaehwan said, grabbing Hakyeon’s arm. He really didn’t want to spend the night in the common room of their dorm, sleeping fitfully on a couch and waiting for Hakyeon to materialize next to him in a T-shirt he had haphazardly thrown on, smiling like a fool and telling Jaehwan he could go back to their shared bedroom. He also didn’t really want to freeze to death from having the window open in order to let out the stuffy, sweaty air that screamed . (But if he had to choose, he’d rather freeze to death than inhale the scents of Hakyeon and someone else’s condemnable deed.)

Hakyeon made a wailing noise, but it was now Jaehwan’s turn to drag him away. Before they could have fought their way through the crowd though, Jaehwan felt a hand on his shoulder.

“Jaehwan,” Sanghyuk said and when Jaehwan his heels, they were so close to each other the tip of Jaehwan’s nose almost touched Sanghyuk’s lips. Jaehwan was sure the piercing sensation in his chest was a delayed reaction to the ice cold beverage, just as the sudden change of the speed of his heartbeat was. He took a step back. “Um, good night,” Sanghyuk said almost sheepishly and Jaehwan nodded jerkily.

He saw from the corner of his eye how Hakyeon glanced longingly at Taekwoon one last time before they left the main hall and in it, two possible criminals.

Jaehwan dreamt about Sanghyuk that night and woke up with an annoying and embarrassing morning wood.