[Gift] Trick or Treat: Make your choice.

Finally, Halloween! Kagetsu, Switchblade, and Giima had been preparing for a long time, probably more than is healthy. It wasn’t entirely unwarranted; after all, this was the first Halloween since they had begun living together. Why not make it a 3 month long event? …Well, at least it was going to end that night.

The three had multiple metric pouchloads of candy ready to give out to trick-or-treaters, give or take a few handfuls Kagetsu may or may not have helped himself to. The decorations Giima picked out were practically screaming Halloween at any passerby. All of the plans Switchblade had for tricks were stress-tested by the other two to see if they were too scary (Most were). Everything was set, and soon enough, the first doorbell rang.

“I’ll take this one!” Kagetsu piped up, grabbing the candy bowl before opening the door.

A group of five young gachagons were behind the door, holding up their baskets. Each one was dressed up in a different costume.

“Trick or Treeeeeaaaat!”

A smile spread wide across Kagetsu’s face. “Well, aren’t all of you scary!” He began placing a few pieces of candy in each of the kids’ baskets. “What are all y’all dressed as?”

“I’m a ghooOOoOoOost!”

“I’m a zombie!!!”

“I’m a wild gachapanion! Rawr!!!”

“I am a tax auditor.”

“Me? I am just a guy :)”

Kagetsu, after giving candy to each of the kids, waved goodbye. “How nice! Have fun, you guys! Be safe!”

The young gachagons, delighted by their candy haul, thanked Kagetsu and bounded their way to the next house.

Once the door closed, Switchblade spoke up excitedly. “I can do a trick on the next one, right? I’m ready to go!”

Giima chuckled and pressed her nose to Switchblade’s cheek light. “You certainly seem that way. But remember, none of the super scary tricks, okay?”

Switchblade couldn’t help but smile. The past year with his partners had caused him to become incredibly soft around them. “I knowww, I’ve learned my lesson after nearly making Kagetsu faint.”

The gachagon in question shuddered, eyes staring at something beyond what he was seeing. “How did you even get a chainsaw for that one???”

“Darling, it was fake,” Giima chimed in. “But yes, that one even startled me.”

Switchblade reached for Kagetsu’s paw and held it. “I’m sorry, it won’t happen again tonight, I promise.”

Kagetsu’s smile returned as he pressed his nose to Switchblade’s other cheek light. “I know.”

The doorbell rang, and immediately Switchblade let go of Kagetsu’s paw and began rubbing his own two paws together. “Time to get to work.”

The green gachagon produced a handheld button panel that was affixed to him and promptly pressed a button. The sound of a jack-in-the-box going off and a high-pitched scream sounded from behind the door.

Giima turned the doorknob. “Starting off with the jack-in-the-box one, hm? Well, let’s see what poor soul we got.”

She opened the door to reveal a very displeased-looking Scout next to the jumpscare toy, which was now fully extended on the ground.

Giima’s eyes widened. “Oh, Scout! We weren’t expecting you. Uhh…” She glanced back at the other two with a desperate expression before going back to addressing their guest. “How… are you?”

Scout cleared their throat and dusted themself off. “...I was just coming by to confirm your attendance for the party later tonight.” Even behind their sunglasses, you could tell they were squinting at the three. “You expressed interest, but I never received an RSVP, so I was allowing you the grace of me coming here myself to check.”

Kagetsu slapped his paw on his forehead. “Right. I forgot to send that in. Yeah, we’re planning on going, if you’ll have us.”

Scout’s expression tightened and mouth opened to say something before they just closed it and gave a nod before turning and walking away. Giima slowly closed the door.

“So… does that mean we’re still invited to the party, or…?” Switchblade asked.

Kagetsu shrugged. “I guess so. He certainly would’ve told us beyond a shadow of a doubt if we weren’t.”

A sigh left Switchblade. “Well, regardless, I think I’ve had my fill of doing tricks tonight.”

Giima patted Switchblade’s back. “Good call, my love.”

The doorbell rang again, and the three looked at each other.

“Guess it’s my turn to get it,” Switchblade said simply before walking over to open the door.

Behind the door this time was just one gachagon. Drac had grey fur and gold accents. The energy drac gave off was a weird mixture between cozy and mysterious, like you could sit down them drei and unearth all your darkest secrets together. Drac smiled gently before holding out dreir basket. “Trick or treat.”

Switchblade very nervously dropped a few pieces of candy into the strange gachagon’s basket. Drac seemed to catch onto this immediately.

“Oh, you mustn’t be afraid of me. I was simply but taking a stroll before finding a discarded basket on the sidewalk. I merely wished to try my luck at trick-or-treating in this neighborhood. Very good it is to see that it paid off, ohoh.”

Kagetsu walked up to stand beside Switchblade. “Are you new to the neighborhood, sir?”

The stranger lifted up a paw. “Ah, the ‘sir’ is not necessary. I am very likely younger than you. Please forgive my manner of speaking, I picked it up from my grandfather.” Drac lowered dreir paw and smiled wider. “But yes, I am new here. My name is Kusuri. Well met.”

Kagetsu gave a smile back. “Nice to meet you, Kusuri! Hopefully we’ll see you around?”

Kusuri gave a nod. “Indeed. You may visit me at my shop anytime you wish. ‘Tis not too far from here. You may be needing to take quite a few detours on the way, however.”

Giima came up to Switchblade’s other side. “We’ll keep that in mind… we suppose. Take care.”

Kusuri gave a small wave. “Farewell.” Drac then picked up dreir basket and walked away. Switchblade closed the door.

“That seemed like a nice fellow!” Kagetsu chirped. 

A few hours passed, and the three went through several more batches of trick-or-treaters before bedtime for most young ones rolled around and the activity slowed way down. The three began to prepare for the party, dressing up in their costumes. Switchblade was dressed as a demon, Giima as a vampire, and Kagetsu as a wolflike gachapanion. They were about ready to head out, until…

Ding-dong!

The doorbell rang once more.

Kagetsu, as cheerful as ever, spoke up. “A little night owl to close us out, huh? Okay, I’ll get it and turn off the light after.”

The wolf costume-clad gachagon made his way towards the door before suddenly stopping in his tracks.

“What’s wrong, dearest?” Giima asked.

At once, Kagetsu whipped his head to look at the other two with an expression that conveyed an emotion far beyond bewilderment.

“I hear like…” His ears swiveled towards the door. “The sound of… seagulls? Outside the door. We don’t usually get those around here, do we?”

Switchblade and Giima looked at each other, looked back at Kagetsu, and shook their heads in unison.

Kagestu, not exactly brimming with confidence, slowly turned his head back to the door and opened it.

Before him stood an orange six-legged gachagon with a single horn and shrimplike whiskers. It said nothing. It only stared at Kagetsu.

This was more than enough to weird Kagetsu out. He briefly considered the possibility that this was one of Switchblade’s tricks before immediately ruling it out. 

“C-Can I help you?”

Again, the other gachagon said nothing. Only silence was exchanged between the two for a good few moments.

Suddenly, the orange gachagon shook slightly, and three differently-colored gacha balls were dispensed from it, rolling onto the ground in front of it. Yet again without a word, the gachagon slinked backwards into the darkness of the night.

Switchblade and Giima walked over beside Kagetsu and looked down at the three newly-dispensed gacha balls.

Giima raised an eyebrow. “It didn’t even need currency? It just… gave you those?”

“I think they’re for all of us,” Kagetsu replied. “There’s exactly three. I wonder what’s inside them…”

Switchblade picked up the cyan one. “Only one way to find out, right? I’m not gonna look a gift gacha ball in the pouch!” He opened it up… and immediately spilled soda on himself. The gacha ball was filled with soda. “WHAT?!”

“Oh no, honey…” Giima immediately came over to inspect. “Well, nothing got on the costume, at least. Here, let’s clean up before we go. Good thing we got ready early.”

Just as Giima said, the three cleaned up the sodalicious mess before heading out to the party, making sure to also put away the two unopened soda balls. Perhaps they would find a way to actually drink them later.

The three arrived at the party on time. Despite all the odd occurrences, or maybe in part because of them, that Halloween was one of the fondest memories they had ever made.