Two weeks after after Jeonghan’s birthday, and the boys only finished three out of the eight enormous cakes he received. Seventeen was getting tired of sugar, but they would soon have to re-polish their sweet tooth.

    “What are you going to be, Sungcheol hyung?”

    Dino and S.Coups were out refilling on toothpaste at the department store. The only reason they went out unattended was because it was two in the morning. No sasaengs could possibly be out at this time. They were walking past the grocery section when they came across an isle filled to the brim with candy and costumes and trick-or-treat bags. At the sight of this, Dino suddenly remembered Halloween. Oh, how he loved Halloween! He would always dress up as Michael Jackson and play his Thriller album day and night. And the candy! All the chocolate and bubble gum and Jaw Breakers and the cakes…. The thought of more sweets put a bitter taste in his mouth. He already had enough cake to last him a month.

    “So what are you going to be? I might try to pull off Michael Jackson during his Jackson Five days.”

    S.Coups was so preoccupied with finding the largest pack of mouthwash for the lowest price, that it took him thirty seconds to remember someone was with him.

    “Oh, what you said? Halloween? I’ve never really done Halloween…. You still do Halloween?”

    “Well, yeah…” Dino bashfully looked down to his toothpaste tube.

    “Aren’t you too… old for Halloween?”

    “HOW CAN A PERSON BE TOO OLD FOR HALLOWEEN?! Candy is ageless, hyung!”

    “You can get candy anywhere.”

    “Let me restate—free candy—”

    “So are you going to just go alone?”

    “I’m going to ask Hansol to come.”

    S.Coups snorted with laughter. “Chan, you know Hansol. He’d rather stay inside and read freaking Plato’s theories on life than go out trick-or-treating with people.”

    “I’d rather stay inside too—and Plato’s Allegory of the Cave, by the way, is pure genius—but it’s Halloween. It’s worth a try!”

    “Okay… but I think you should just quit it.”

    “Says the person who’s never been trick-or-treating.”

    There was silence. S.Coups stopped in his tracks. Did this boy just challenge him?

    “What are you trying to say?”

    “I bet that you couldn’t even manage to get a bucket-full of candy.”

    “You bet.”

    “Wanna bet?”

    “You’re on!”

    S.Coups stormed over to the Halloween isle and snatched seven trick-or-treat bags.

    “And I’m taking the other hyungs with me!”

    Dino chuckled to himself. There was no way a bunch of lame hyungs could get candy.

    As the days inched closer and closer to the anticipated event, competition between the maknaes and hyungs inched higher and higher in intensity. S.Coups succeeded in recruiting Joshua, Jeonghan, Wonwoo, Soonyoung, Jun, and Jihoon. They had their neighborhood route strategies already planned out. And the hyungs even had their costumes ready! Word from Minghao is that Wonwoo would pose as Jihoon’s  older cousin (Jihoon would dress up as a strawberry) and use the cuteness factor to get candy; and they would dress Jeonghan as an angel and use his beauty to get even more candy.

Dino…. Well….. let’s just say he didn’t get to that level of preparedness—yet. He got Mingyu and SEOKMIN on board right away. It took a few days of coaxing and pestering to get Minghao and Seungkwan to join in. But Vernon. Vernon just flat-out refused. He just would not go. No matter how much Dino told him that he’d be missing out on what everyone was doing, he just wouldn’t go.

    “Does it look like I care what the rest of you are doing?” Vernon sighed. This was the eleventh time he was denying Dino’s offer.

    “But you are second maknae, Hyung!” Dino pleaded. “I need you. We are outnumbered!”

    “Welp, you put this on yourself.” And Vernon went back to his music.

    Halloween arrived faster than you could say “Mansae.”    

    The dusk was turning into a clear night, and the air was as crisp as the crunch of dead leaves under your foot. Seventeen stood on the street outside their studio. It was quiet on the block, but not for long.

    Team Hyung came out in full force. Jihoon came in as a strawberry; Wonwoo tried his best to look like some guy in his early thirties; Joshua dressed up as his Israelite name sake, with the B.C. sandals and everything; Soonyoung seemed to pull off a colorful Cartoon Network character (Adventure Time, maybe?); Jun dressed up as a vampire (pale skin, blood on his face and all); S.Coups was decked out in this old-fashioned, very-European war general uniform (from what Dino learned in world history, it might have been Napoleon); and Jeonghan. Jeonghan. It was as if his very presence lit the room with heavenly energy. His hair was glittery-silvery lavender, elegantly thrown over his shoulders. He was dressed in these white flowing robes, with giant, intricately patterned wings that glistened so much Dino had to shield his eyes. He didn’t have on much makeup, but it didn’t really matter because he was just too beautiful; like, that type of beauty should be outlawed or something. You should have seen how much Napoleon and the Israelite were drooling over the Angel.

    Team Maknae came out in half force. Seokmin wore all grey with some black combat boots, white belt, white gloves he stole from the cafeteria, and some type of mask; he claimed to be the Grey Power Ranger. Mingyu just threw on his old basketball uniform and grabbed a soccer ball (don’t ask). Seungkwan literally took a bed sheet and threw it over himself; like he didn’t even _bother_ to cut in holes. Minghao actually did a good job; he found every white and fluffy thing in the Pledis building and stuck it to himself, painted his nose pink, glued on some whiskers, and actually got white bunny slippers and ears from the store. Dino was decked out in a flashy low-cut, tight shirt, bell-bottom pants, 60s-style shoes, and a giant afro.

    For what seemed like a good three minutes, everyone was marveling at Jeonghan’s beauty—all but Dino. He was still trying to figure out what neighborhoods Team Maknae would bust first.

    “So…” Dino started. He looked around at every member—trying to get their attention—but they were all staring at Jeonghan. Dino finally glanced at the source of distraction and made eye contact with it. He realized, by looking into Jeonghan’s eyes, how uncomfortable Jeonghan was. It was obvious now. His eyes seemed to say “I only did it for Sungcheol and Jisoo.”  Jeonghan looked straight back at Dino, and at that moment there was mutual understanding. Neither of them knew exactly what type of understanding it was, but the both knew that the night would somehow turn out differently than expected.

    Jeonghan cleared his throat.

    “SO!” Jeonghan boomed. “Are we gonna just stand here?”

    Joshua blinked. “Huh? Oh!” he said, snapping out of it. “Let’s go now!”

    The Maknaes ran to get a head start. As Dino was running across the street, he looked at Jeonghan one more time. The Angel gave him a quick nod, and turned to run in the other direction, leaving a thin trail of glitter.

    Things weren’t going well for Team Maknae. They went through twenty-two blocks. And these weren’t ordinary blocks. They were, like, those rich family blocks that decorate their houses head to toe and buy ship loads of high quality candy to give away. But Team Maknae only filled two bags. TWO! Seungkwan kept tripping and falling because he couldn’t see through his oversized sheet.  No one gave Mingyu candy because they kept thinking he was a chaperone.

He and seven seven-year-olds went up door and rang the bell. An elderly woman opened the door, but before Mingyu could even start to say “trick or treat,” she said:

“Awww, you’re the new babysitter, aren’t you?”

“Huh?” Mingyu had never done childcare in his life.

“Or are these your children?”

“Ummm…”

    “What a responsible young man! Spending time with his children!”

    So Mingyu didn’t get much candy, but the fortunate children who were near him got a whole bunch!

    The only ones who managed to get a decent amount of candy were Dino, Seokmin, and Minghao. It was really hard, because Team Maknae seemed to pick the neighborhoods that every other ten-year-old picked; so there wasn’t much candy left for a bunch of teenagers. Dino got half a bag of candy through his Michael Jackson impersonation skills. Seokmin… well no one really knows how Seokmin got half a bag full; he was acting like an idiot ninja 80% of the time. Minghao did the best, bunny-hopping from door to door and using his aegyo to get his trick-or-treat bag filled to the brim.

    An hour and a half passed, and there was no sight of Team Hyung. Dino and squad decided to take a break after Seungkwan tripped over his sheet a little too hard and sprained his ankle. They found a small playground and congregated around the swing set.

    Minghao sighed. “We lost, didn’t we?”

    “Of course not!” Dino assured. “The hyungs were probably all stuck in Mingyu hyung’s situation.”

    “If you say so—ouch! My ankle!”

    The hyungs were doing great! The Jihoon/Jeonghan plan had worked. They stocked up on so much candy, that they needed to stop by the store to get more bags!  Soonyoung decided to create a makeshift street show entitled “Joshua and the Israelite Squad” (don’t even ask!), with the villain played by Vampire Jun, comic relief Soonyoung, and secondary hero S.Coups. The show was such a hit that families actually tipped them in candy.  

    “Wow! We got so much candy!” Jun exclaimed, munching on a Kit-Kat.

    “And we might have beat Team Maknae!” S.Coups answered.

    Team Hyung was walking down the street. It was an unfamiliar urban neighborhood, quite far from the Pledis studio. But it wasn’t unfamiliar to Jeonghan. In fact, he asked S.Coups if they could come to the neighborhood on purpose. Before debut, Jeonghan and Joshua would visit an orphanage in this neighborhood to sing and play to the children.  

    “Hey, look Jonghan,” Joshua said. “Remember this place?”

    They were approaching the orphanage.

    “Yup,” Jonghan answered. “It’s been a while.” And with that, he led them straight through the orphanage’s doors.

    The attendant at the front desk recognized him right away.

    “Oh, Jeonghan!” she squealed while jumping up from her desk. She scurried over to the hyungs and gave Jeonghan a big hug. When she let go, her blouse was drenched in sparkles. “You got so talllll! and skinny…” she looked to Joshua. “Are you eating well?”

    “Yes, ajuma.”

    “So what brings you here? I see you brought some friends! You all had fun trick-or-treating.”

    “Oh, yes,” Jeonghan said, nodding through nervous laughter. He knew that S.Coups would not like what he would say next.

    “Yes, well, we want to donate the all candy we got from trick-or-treating to the orphanage.”

    S.Coups was so shocked that he dropped his bag on the floor, spilling candy everywhere.

    “WHAT????”

    See, Jeonghan kind of felt bad for Dino. Because of the huge , Dino and S.Coups never really saw eye-to-eye. And it usually turned out that Dino had to submit to S.Coups. Jeonghan wanted to give Dino a chance to triumph tonight.

    “Hyung, no!”

    “But we worked so hard!”

    Jeonghan expected the protesting. “What they mean is that—”

    “OOHHH! CANDY!”

    A little boy, no older than six, seemed to have snuck out of his room. He seemed to be hypnotized by the giant lollipop lying near S.Coup’s foot. The little boy slowly inched towards the candy—before S.Coups stopped him.

    “But we can’t give them the candy!” he persisted. “Don’t you remember why we did this in the first place, Jeonghan? We did it to beat—”

    “OH WHO CARES?”

    Wonwoo had been quiet for so long that the hyungs forgot he existed. Wonwoo grabbed every single lollipop off the floor and gave it to the child.

    “There you go!” Wonwoo said. “Enjoy!”

    The boy didn’t seem to know how to handle himself; he just stood there in baffled delight for a good thirty seconds.

    “But…. They never let me get candy,” the boy said, nervously eyeing the attendant.

    Wonwoo patted his shoulder and smiled. “Welp, today’s your lucky day!”

    “Aigo! Are you Hoshi?” a timid voice said. Another orphan appeared in the lobby. She was a little older, maybe twelve years old.

    Soonyoung, turned around. “Yes, I am. The one and only 10-10!” Soonyoung declared as he pulled the straps of his overalls with his thumbs and squinted his eyes real hard.

    The girl giggled almost inaudibly. “I am a dancer too. I like your choreography!”

    And almost involuntarily, Soonyoung gave the girl a handful of chocolates.

    And then there were six kids in the lobby. Ten. Seventeen. Twenty five. Thirty. And Team Hyung was giving out candy left and right and playing make-believe with the kids like they planned this visit for weeks. And after re-enacting “Joshua and the Israelite Squad” and seeing the happiness on the children’s faces, S.Coups forgot all about the bet.

    It was very late when the hyungs got back to Pledis. The maknes had returned earlier, and they were in pretty bad shape. Seungkwan had crutches and a cast, SEOKMIN and Th8 looked about ready to vomit from an excess of sweets, half of Dino’s afro was ripped off, and Mingyu was sitting in a corner sketching the whole scene.

    “Well. Well. Well,” S.Coups said. “If it isn’t the one and only Michael Chanson.”

    “Stop rubbing it in, Seungcheol hyung.”

    “Oh my this is a very lively victory party you all are having?”  S.Coups teased.

    “Stop it.”

    “Looks like the outcome is a little… different from what we expected? Hmm?”

    “OMG JUST STOP I KNOW YOU GUYS WON OKAY?”

    S.Coups tried to put on the best confused facial expression. “Win? Oh, no we didn’t win.”

    “Stop playing.”

    “No, Seungcheol is right,” Jeonghan said. “We have absolutely no candy.”

    “BUT OF COURSE YOU DON’T!”

    Dino was dumbfounded by the results, but he wasn’t about to let it show!

    “HAHA! I TOLD YOU!”

    “Yup, you were right,” S.Coups said while shrugging his shoulders. “But it was all Jeonghan’s fault, to be honest.”

    “Yeah, I guess you can say it was,” Jeonghan said with an innocent expression on his face—a little too innocent.

    Dino looked at Jeonghan. He didn’t know exactly what happened, but he knew right away that Team Maknae’s victory had something to do with Jeonghan.

    S.Coups sighed, “I guess I owe you a month’s-worth of toothpaste, deodorant, and soap, don’t I?”

    “YUP!” Dino was feeling on top of the world right now. He had beat Hyung!

    “So….” Jeonghan started. “Does this mean that we won’t be doing trick or treating again? Like ever again?”

    “Guess not.”

    “GOOD.”

    And Jeonghan hurried to the dorms to get that ugly, itchy angel costume off at last!