Treats and Tricks! Ch1

# Chapter 1 - Tricks

### Yume

    "It's our first holiday together as junior idols! Bring on the candy! I bet I can eat more than anyone else! A lot more!"

    "Oui! Joyeux Halloween! Prepare for candy and spells!"

    "It's 'trick or treat', not what you said." Kazue, our self-proclaimed Halloween expert, corrected Anette quickly.

    ”Eh? Non, en Francaise it is better, because we do not want just any treats, we want bonbons! And if not, then we shall cast a spell on those who do not have the Halloween spirit. It is much more specific, and therefore better."

    Kazue thought on this and determined that it does make a certain amount of sense, but it still didn't sit quite right on the tongue. Trick or treat has a certain alliteration that makes it much easier to say. Something I had said seemed to bother her as well.

    "Why are we *junior* idols though?"

    "Because we're the youngest. Everyone but you and me are still first years."

    "But I'm older than all of you by a whole year."

    "Yeah, but you're still brand new to being an idol, so…"

    "Well, I passed my exams over *five years ago*. Technically I've been an idol longer than anyone in the group except Eimi, and we passed at the same time. I just didn't actually perform until now…"

    "Well… We're also all really…" I was going to say 'small', which is true for me, Anette, Kanon, and Chiyo, but even though Kazue is small in most respects she's the tallest out of all our friends, so she would probably argue that she doesn't count because of that. I thought for a few moments before deciding that all of this doesn't really matter. She's still one of us, because given the choice between whatever the older girls are doing and hanging out with us she chose us, which means she's part of the cool group. "Then you're an *honorary* junior idol. You have all the best Halloween stuff so we need you in the group."

    "Yeah, we couldn't do any of our pranks without the rubber bugs you had in your drawer…" The same ones that Kanon was busy arranging into little attack formations to guard her pile of candy from grabby hands.

    "You brought the best snacks too!", added Chiyo between chews of some of Kazue's saltwater taffy.

    "Plus you're très hilarious! You're almost as good at pranks as moi! The look on Eimi's face!"

    "That wasn't a prank though. I think roaches just like the smell of her perfume…"

    "Yeah but the way she screamed and threw her bag when they started crawling out of it was still pretty funny."

    "I'm just glad none of them got hurt. They're still shocked. They barely want to come out of their aquarium anymore. Poor little guys."

    "That's why we used the fake ones to shove under Eimi's door. She's gonna freak out when she gets home. What other tricks should we play?" As I understand it, Halloween has two main purposes: playing tricks on people and eating treats. We've already got an entire huge box of treats that we've pooled together from our rooms so that's pretty well covered, but we're lacking in the trick department. Some of the older girls went out to do… something, who knows what they do when they aren't here. We've drawn a blank on anything else to do though… "Maybe we can play the same prank on Lina?"

    "Yeah, or just go hang out in her office… That always gets her annoyed…"

    "I played a très hilarious prank on Mademoiselle Akira. When she goes to get dressed tomorrow she'll find her running shoes aren't where she left them. They'll be très chilly."

    "Anette! Stop putting weird stuff in our fridge. Especially shoes! I don't want our snacks to taste like Akira's feet."

    "Non. It is a classic prank, and she falls for it every time."

    "I stole one of Junko's notebooks… That's kind of a prank… But, I really just needed a new notebook and she has like ten, so she probably won't notice…"

    "I don't know much about tricks, but we could make costumes for a couple of you so everyone has one. It's not really Halloween if you're not in costume and only me and Chiyo are dressed up. I could paint your faces! We could be an entire horde of zombies! Then we could shamble around the halls going 'braaaiiinnnsss…' and freaking out everyone!"

    "I dressed up…” Kanon protested. "My costume goes with Chiyo's…"

    "So that's why your hair is like that! I thought… I don't know what I thought, but it sure is different."

    Everyone did their best to make a costume, but we planned this pretty last minute so most of us had to improvise. Kazue is dressed like a zombie, with greenish white face paint and torn up old clothes. Chiyo, on pretty much the other end of the spooky-cute spectrum, is wearing an adorably fluffy hamster onesie instead of her usual buns, and Kanon is wearing a pair of Chiyo's overalls and put her short hair up into two teeny little balls to imitate her best friend. Anette is dressed as a "French princess", which looks suspiciously like how she looks every day, only with the addition of a plastic tiara, which she's worn before just for fun so it's easy to mistake it for her normal sense of 'fashion'. As for me, I've never actually celebrated Halloween before. I never really even heard of it until I moved to Japan, and even here it's not like it's a real holiday, just a bunch of decorations that pop up in store windows for a few days at the end of October. So I was completely unprepared for the need to have a costume other than 'teenage girl' when Kazue told us she wanted to have a Halloween party.

    "Sorry. I don't really have anything that counts as a costume. All my clothes are normal…"

    "Wait! I know… does anyone have an extra hair tie?" Kazue was looking at me like she had just had a grand epiphany. Chiyo ruffled around in the pockets of her overalls - which was funny because Kanon is the one wearing them - until she found several, which she placed on the table in front of Kazue. "Perfect. Yume, stay still for a sec…" The other girls looked on curiously while I was accosted by Kazue, who pulled my hair up into a side ponytail. "There! Now you're Akira."

    "Magnifique! Mademoiselle Yume, you make a perfect teeny Mademoiselle Akira. Excuse me for a moment. I need to run down to our rooms quickly…"

    "Non! Leave my shoes alone."

    "Hmph." Anette pouted at how quickly I saw through her plan. "Why don't we try to play pranks on the *other* girls? If we focus on each other then we won't all get to watch."

    "We could go trick or treating through the dorm! Maybe people will give us candy?" Chiyo excitedly suggested.

    "I don't know… Is an idol dorm the best place to get candy? I think most of the junk food in the building is probably already here." The table we had commandeered in the dorm's common area was covered in candy, junk food, soft drinks, and pretty much every snack you could possibly want. We had gone a little overboard because Kazue said to "bring snacks", and everyone assumed they had to get enough for at least five people.

    "That's because I was hoping some of the other girls would be trick or treating…" Said Kazue sadly.

    "We've had lots of girls stop and ask if they can have a piece… That's kind of like trick or treating…"

    "Yeah but it's not the same if they aren't in costume. It's like nobody has the Halloween spirit…" Kazue lamented the lack of excitement over the holiday. Not that it's really anyone's fault. It isn't a Japanese holiday or even an Asian holiday, and most countries have their own sort of equivalents, like Qingming or Obon, which are observed a lot more regularly. But still, every time she hears someone coming down the hallway she gets an excited look on her face, only to end up looking like a puppy when someone only pretends to throw the ball.

    "We have all this food…" Observed Kanon. "Maybe we should try making special Halloween treats… Since we're kind of bad at thinking of tricks…"

    "Non! We can… We could… Maybe it would be funny if… Oui! Let's see who can make the best spooky treats!"

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