Space and Time

Just a Bit Haunted by it All

A/N: Surprise! A double update! Since I missed an update due to travelling, I decided to write a little more and give you guys the next chapter early. :)

"Aika, I told you to be a bit more creative!" Lev's already complaining about my costume and he's only just gotten into Dad's car.

"Listen, I had a perfectly good witch costume that I can only really wear on Halloween, so of course I'm going to reuse it." I mean, it's like recycling, right? And everyone's all gung-ho about recycling.

"I gave you an entire tub of paint, and you still scream "Black Void." How did you even manage that? Even Takumi's got a better costume than you." Takumi, the little shit, is sitting next to me with a dumb grin on his face. He's wearing a perfect red power ranger suit.

"That's so not fair; Takumi bought his whole getup online. I at least thrifted and used some creativity to throw my costume together." Now even Dad's chuckling. What did I do to deserve this? This is why I hate dress-up. I just want to have fun without being judged.

"Well, Lev, Aika did at least put some splotches of your glow-in-the-dark paint on her clothes," Dad says. Yeah, Lev, take that!

"She could've at least made a skeleton out of it! How cool would that be? A skeleton-witch! Or she could've drawn some sort of coherent shapes! Had a theme! Not blobs..." Lev groans. "Man, this is the last time I'm helping you out," he says. I roll my eyes. I highly doubt that. And hey, I did my best. I think my costume looks cool, and they'll let me in the haunted haystack maze with this, so I count this as a win. Plus, at least people will know what I'm trying to be. Lev, with his sweater and white wig, just looks like his grandma. It's a pretty convincing getup, but he'll probably have to spend five minutes explaining every detail of his costume for people to get exactly who he is. Even then, people might not. I sure don't.

"All right, kids, have fun!" Dad says as he pulls into the fairgrounds parking lot. There are tonnes of weird monsters and characters all making their way through the entrance gate the organizers made out of hay bales. "Aika, call me when you want to be picked up. I might fall asleep and miss the text."

"Wow, so reliable, Dad," Takumi jokes as he gets out of the car.

"Thanks for the ride, Mr. Inoue," Lev says as he lightly shoves me out of the vehicle. Billowing robes are not easy to move in.

"You're very welcome, Lev! Takumi, call me if something goes wrong with Alex. Now, if you three have everything, I'll be driving off to go take a nap."

"You do that, Dad," I say as I wave him off and start heading to the entrance to the fairgrounds.

The Fall Fair always has its staple craft market and agricultural awareness tents, but as the sun sets I can see most of the kids piling out to go home, some sporting some rad face paint and others completely muddied. Probably from the tug o' war event, or the tractor pull. I always liked watching the adults struggle to get that giant hunk of metal moving when I was a kid, and everyone got a little bit messy even just from spectating.

"Hey, who's playing? This is some good music." Lev's question pops me out of my reminiscing. There are a few people huddled under the roofed platform stage thing that sits in the park near the entrance. They're playing some vaguely folk-sounding music, but I can see that one member of the band is hammering away on an electronic keyboard. It must be them who are adding the occasional whooping effects.

"It does sound neat," I add before Takumi makes a noise of recognition.

"Oh, hey, that's Alex's band. I'm gonna go over and say hi," he says before he takes off and ditches us.