Several rounds of racing along virtual tracks later, Seungcheol left his companion alone to walk around the room and put away all those candles that had gone out already.

He couldn’t help but sigh to himself.

Joshua paused, unwrapped bar in hand. “Hyung, anything the matter?”

“I just… It’s stupid, but I thought about…”

“Yes?”

“Don’t get me wrong. I love you and you’re great company, but I feel there are more exciting ways to spend Halloween.”

“I thought you didn’t like this day much?”

Munching small bites, Joshua stared at his friend. They both had changes into new “costumes”, Joshua being a plant with a green sprout on his head – adding to his pumpkin-esque appearance, and Seungcheol having donned a cat-ear-headband.

Seungcheol stared into the flame of his biggest candle. “Admittedly, you’re the spook-enthusiast between us, but I keep thinking about the others. Little Chan and Hansol trick-or-treating out there.”

“We’re a bit old for that. I’d love to go, but I’d feel a little weird.”

“Right, but Meanie couple is doing their own thing, too.”

“Why do we even call them that?”

“I just hope they stay out of trouble. Did you see how many toilet paper rolls Wonwoo was carrying? Anyway, it’s like I’m getting into the spirit of things but a little too late. You don’t think you have a ritual for that?”

“I can see if anyone’s posted something on Tumb-“

“No!”

The doorbell rang again.

“Ooh, let me,” yelled Joshua, rising from the sofa. “The next batch of kids. I’m gonna scare them.”

“But no toothpaste.”

“Why not? Their parents will appreciate it.”

“It’s embarrassing. This is my house. I’ll be the toothpaste-man to the entire neighborhood.”

“I can try, though.”

“No toothpaste.”

“Fine.”

The little one’s outside barely reacted to Joshua’s “scare” as he hid behind the door while opening it. Probably because he revealed Seungcheol standing in the middle of his living room. When Joshua jumped out and yelled, he earned nothing more than eye rolls. Maybe he wasn’t exactly the first adult who had tried his best at fearsomeness that night.

Dropping sweet stuff – but very little of his hoarded chocolate – into bags, gave Seungcheol time to rearrange the pumpkins into more prominent positions. Because he thought he had carved them quite well and they deserved exposure, but also because he had absolutely nothing better to do.

Joshua closed the door and put his bowls down. He hadn’t managed to get rid of any of his hygiene articles. Seungcheol figured they wouldn’t run out of toothpaste for a good year after this. What a silly thought. Who ran out of toothpaste? You had to be some kind of complete idiot for that.

“Hey, look here!”

Joshua gesture outside, door reopened. Seungcheol followed his friend to the stairs and saw what he was pointing at. A stuffed animal was laying in the dry grass next to his front entrance. He took a step outside. A parrot? Not a real one, though. Hadn’t that been part of the little pirates costume? The one who came with the scary pink haired boy?

Debating whether this was an elaborate prank, a stupid prank, or merely an accident, the boys plopped the fluffy bird on the table right next to a Jack-O’Lantern, held up by a bag of candy corn on either side.

“Should we keep it and wait for them to come back?” Seungcheol reasoned out loud. “If the boy dropped it, he probably doesn’t remember where so they might have to go to too many houses. But if we just leave it outside for them to see someone else might take it. And I don’t know how to find out who- Josh! Are you on Tumblr again?”

“You know what?”

“I know you should put that phone away!”

“We did that ritual wrong. I just reread it and it says-“

“How does that relate to our current problem?”

“Isn’t our lack of boyfriends a permanent problem?”

“And one we’re not going to solve tonight. Focus on the parrot please.”

“Actually, this is perfect. We can use the parrot to channel the spirits into the room. Like... an animal sacrifice.”

“You think a mighty demon from the beyond would be very happy popping up in a brightly colored plushie? Seriously, you need to get your head out of- …Stop pouting right now! Again!”

It wasn’t difficult since all the not burned out candles were still in place. Seungcheol held his controller ready to unpause the game the moment Joshua was done with his Latin blabbering. The parrot looked upon the scene with glistening button eyes.

A few more rounds of racing rainbow road later the boys took a break, both to give their fingers a rest and to get away from the self-service candy stock pile they had too liberally taken from. They had to leave some for the kids that might still come. Seungcheol didn’t want to risk getting his house or garden ruined by some angry preschooler.

Joshua now wore googly eyes on springs, hovering above his head and Seungcheol had put on alien antennae. As much as it annoyed him that Soonyoung kept forgetting theater stuff at his house, he was glad to have a use for it at last.

Once more the doorbell rang.

Joshua made no effort to stand up. “I wonder if that’s the parrot crew, searching for their feathery member lost at sea.”

“Let’s hope not. If the boyfriend ritual got the scary strawberry-mop boy back to me, I’m suing Tumblr.”

With a smile on his face, Seungcheol opened the door. The sight made him lower his arm so that the bowl of candy lost much of its content before he recovered.

“Hello, I’m Jeonghan.”

“H-H-Hello?”

The stranger was an angel. There was a fuzzy halo on his head and… That was it. Unless one counted the plain white shirt that was the entire costume.

But the celestial being was ethereally gorgeous regardless. Seungcheol fully expected to see wings unfold right from the long haired boy’s back. His gracefully falling blond strains of hair framed his angular jawed, but otherwise effeminate, flawless face. The warm eyes and twisting smirk gave him the expression of a benign royal, examining his lowly subjects. Or – to stick to the present theme – an agent of the heavens, who wasn’t here to judge the simple minded mortals but found it a bit difficult not to.

“My nephew lost his cuddly toy somewhere on this street. You haven’t see it, or anything? It’s a parrot.”

“Who is it?” yelled Joshua, apparently unable to look up from his phone to see for himself.

Seungcheol swung his head back and forth between the divine creature at his door step and the old, lazy friend on the sofa. “P-parrot! Yes, here, much... parrot... found... we… toothpaste?”