“So I just did Bloody Mary in the bathroom upstair—” but Seyun doesn’t get to finish her bland statement because Junghae is choking at her spot on the living room floor, a pumpkin and its guts spilled around her. Did she eat a seed or something? What the ? The dramatic woman is almost too much for Seyun sometimes.

Junghae slaps her chest and gargles on her spit. She then swallows before snapping her head towards the blonde woman, disbelief mirroring. “Why—” she rasps, “why would you do this to your family?”

Seyun dares to roll her eyes. Just because she’s the youngest, they always pull the family card. She crosses her arms and thins her lips. “Who said I consider you fam—”

“Oh,” in walks Kyungri, drying her hands with the kitchen towel. Her face is as always (dubbed by Seyun herself): default . “You did Bloody Mary?” The expression cracks and Kyungri smiles, but to Seyun and Junghae, it’s a sinister grin. “Yixin and I contacted with the Ouija board last night.”

Junghae gags with fright and jerks her head away. She feels a cold shiver rush down her back. Seyun, on the other hand, has difficulty swallowing her saliva. It feels like slim.

“I—… I still stand by my—” but Yixin walks in with two huge pumpkins and Sehun’s words fall flat. It’s weird, but there’s just something too spooky for words about Kyungri and Yixin, present, in the same room, during October. Whether superstition is believed or not.

Junghae clears and she tastes dinner. She cringes. “Could the two of you, just...just not smile? For the rest of the month?” It’s a plea but it’s not whiny like usual. 

Kyungri rolls her eyes, leaving the living room in favor of getting the tools needed to carve the pumpkins. And the last missing person to help them with their activity.

“Well that’s rude, Junghae.” Yixin moves pass the frame of the living room and Seyun is quick to relieve Yixin of one less pumpkin.

Junghae watches the two settle the orange fruits to floor that she herself organized with newspapers. Seyun was supposed to help her with that, but she had disappeared then. Now she knew what that brat was doing.

Planning their demise.

Yixin and Seyun plant their bottoms to the newspaper, sitting opposite of Junghae.

“Listen, Yixin, I love you to death but not enough to follow—”

“So I heard the little one did Bloody Mary without us?” Luhan interrupts smoothly like a sharpened knife piercing the skin of a pumpkin. It peeves Junghae.

Seyun perks up, eyes bright at the sight of Luhan. “I did. I was up there for, uh, like, how long? Junghae?” She looks to the brown-haired woman.

Junghae scrunches up her face. “Ten minutes.”

“Ten minutes.” Seyun nods, looking back to Luhan. “Honestly don’t know why I was ever scared. Nothing happened.”

Luhan chuckles to that as she and Kyungri join the others on the newspaper, taking the left spot beside Junghae.

“So if I told you that if you drink too much water that you’ll die…” Kyungri begins with a look, “you’d drink the amount of water to die—to not die—to prove that wrong?”

Luhan and Junghae look aside and cover their lips with a fist, begging themselves to not laugh at the confused expression printed on the youths' face.

Seyun blinks. “Can you repeat that?”

Kyungri opens , gladly to do just that, but Yixin cuts in with a sharp glance at her. Kyungri feels as if she was just punched in the throat. Yixin then smiles and tells the others they should begin carving since Junhee wanted at least two pumpkins down before she got home from her family trip. Which is tomorrow.

She’s been gone for three days and they finally decided last minute to carve.

On that note, Luhan decides to jump back into the previous topic by handing a carving knife to Junghae. “I heard something about a Ouija board—”

“I swear on all things holy,” Junghae drawls out with anger, eyes focused on carving around the root, “if you feed them more fu—!” 

Three solid sounding banging sounds from the front entrance. Everyone freezes except for Junghae who has nicked her thumb by the fright of the sound. Thankfully it’s only a buzz of pain since she’s using the kid set that Misook bought specifically for Seyun, Jungin and Zitao.

No one speaks. Not even Kyungri or Yixin.

It’s past midnight.

Luhan straightens her back. She peers over her shoulder as her and Junghae are the only ones with their backs toward the front entrance. “What the was that…” she murmurs.

Seyun’s eyes jumps to her as she turns around and they make eye contact. “I don’t—”

Again. Three knocks. If anything, they were heavier than the first set.

“Nope. Nope. Nope!” Junghae violently shakes her head and pushes the pumpkin away from her, making it tumble and roll to the side. She struggles to get to her feet with wobbly legs. “ this. It’s in three’s.”

Yixin glances to Kyungri who’s already looking at her. She frowns. “We said goodbye, no?” Her voice is fragile.

Kyungri nods, face mute, but Seyun squeaks.

“Goodbye?! You were serious!? Because I wasn’t!” Seyun screeches in a whisper that only her voice could pull off. She looks absolutely terrified.

Luhan snaps her head to the three. “What the ? I thought you were jokin' too! You did that in this house?! Are y’all outta ‘ur in’ minds?!”

The knocks sound again, in their fashion of three.

Junghae collapses on the newspapers, caring nothing of the fact that she has pumpkin guts on her clothes. Seyun crawls up into the tiniest ball they’ve ever seen her long limbs get and Kyungri and Yixin share nervous glances to each other.

Luhan looks away from the quiet scene and glances back to the entrance. Her heart is ramming against her ribcage, wanting to flee from the scene just as her body. But she can’t because everyone else is frozen in fear.

With shaky breaths, she rises.

“Lu!” Seyun whimpers but makes no movement to actually stop the older woman. All she can command her body to do is stare at the older blonde with tear filled eyes.

“I’m sure...it’s not what we all think it is…” Luhan tries to assure them, but more herself. If Yixin and Kyungri aren’t even reacting as they normally did when teasing others about spooky stories and such, then something’s definitely up.

“Wa-wait!” Yixin’s voice is too shaky, but as she rises to her feet too, her body seems stable enough. “I’ll go with you.”

Luhan doesn’t have any words to that but nods nonetheless to her.

They leave the three and make their way to the front door. Luhan is leading with an arm behind her to keep Yixin at bay. Once arriving at the door Luhan spots the metal baseball bat Kris keeps safe in the corner. 

The second Luhan pivots towards it, the door and it’s side windows vibrates.

It’s a set of three’s again.

Luhan looks to Yixin behind her and gestures to the handle of the door. Yixin nods in understanding, sneaking her way beside Luhan who holds the bat ready.

Although neither speak a word, they knew on the count of three, they’ll face whatever it is on the other side of the door.

One.

Two.

Three—

(“Pumpkins!” Junhee squeaks in that mother tone for the umpteenth time that night as she aided to Kris’ throbbing elbow. “You’re supposed to be carving pumpkins and decorating for the party! Not telling stories.”

“Ey, no fuss, Junhee. We just had horrible timing.” Kris tries to take the icepack away from Junhee and get moving because exhaustion is real, but Junhee's too persistent. Kris turns to Luhan who still looks like she’s beating herself up. “Plus side here, we can count on Lu for no hesitation.”)

a/n:
first things first, this isn't my greatest work but it's something. granted calling would be something Yixin/Kyungri would do first, but then that's no fun.
second, i apologize for not updating in months.
the vibe for this series is currently very, very, very difficult for me to get into.
has been for months.
with that, i will state that this series is now currently PAUSED. updates will not come after this one.
i do not know when updates will be active, but i will let readers know in the a/n of this series.
thank you to all the readers who stop by; new and old. i appreciate every one of you.
until then, readers.
happy holidays. stay safe.