The lunch bell rang and students sprang to their feet, heading off in groups to either buy something or stake out a place to enjoy their home brought food. Kagami sighed and dropped his pencil mid-sketch before standing. At the desk in front of his own, Kuroko spun around to say something to the taller boy but his attention was drawn to the paper Kagami had been drawing on.

"Whats that?"

The red-head fixed him with an incredulous expression. "Don't tell me you've never seen a pumpkin before!"

"I think it has less to do with my knowledge of pumpkins and more to do with the talent behind the artist." Kuroko glanced up. "Why were you drawing a pumpkin?"

"It's almost Halloween, obviously." Said Kagami, motioning for his teammate to get a move on. "And please don't ask me what Halloween is because I will smack you."

"Everyone knows about Halloween." Kuroko replied rather matter of factly as he stood and followed Kagami out of their classroom. "It's just not that popular here. American's are quite fond of it though, aren't they?"

Kagami nodded almost grimly. "It's a big deal over there. I think I read once that its the most profitable commercial holiday and in some ways its even bigger than Christmas."

"You miss it, don't you?"

"Only a little!" The taller of the two insists as they make their way down the stairs, headed towards the courtyard. "It's just that time of year, is all. The leaves are starting to turn gold and red, the air is getting cooler. I spent so many years in America that now these sorts of changes only mean one thing to me: Halloween." Grinning down at Kuroko, he continues. "Trust me, you haven't lived until you've been to a Halloween party and everyone's wearing a costume. It's the greatest!"

Kuroko found himself smiling gently. "It sounds like fun."

"That's what I'm saying! There's music and movies and so much candy you could just barf! And everyone goes out of their way to have the best costume and -"

"Why don't you throw a Halloween party?"

Kagami put on the brakes so hard that Kuroko nearly ran right into him. Backing up a step, he glances upwards only to find Kagami staring down at him with his mouth agape.

"Did I say something wrong?"

(****)

On the evening of October 31st, the entire Seirin basketball team found themselves making their way to Kagami's apartment complex in various states of dress. Teppei, who had decided to come as a Frankenstein monster and had appropriately painted his face a sickly shade of green, knocked on the apartment door. Those gathered in the hallway had a laugh at the cartoonish skeleton cutouts that were tacked onto the outside of the door but when it swung open with more flourish than they'd expected, the humor was quickly wiped off their faces.

"Welcome!" Kagami proclaimed, arms stretched wide. He was dressed up as a stereotypical vampire (as was Koganei who now wanted to cry since he wasn't the only vampire in attendance) and he was surrounded on all sides by Halloween decorations. It looked like a specialty store had exploded inside his apartment and standing next to him dressed as a stoic werewolf was Kuroko.

"Hello." He said calmly, raising a paw in greeting.

"W-what is all this?" Izuki, dressed as a clown, asked in disbelief.

"You really went all out." Teppei commented somewhat awkwardly, not sure what he'd been expecting but knowing that this wasn't it.

"It's great, huh?" Kagami excitedly ushered everyone inside. "I had to go to all sorts of different stores to get everything and I even had to special order a few items. Hosting a full blown Halloween party in Japan turned out to be a lot harder than I thought it would be but I think the place doesn't look too shabby, if I do say so myself."

The basketball team, so far out of their element that they just stood there in shocked silence in the foyer, took in the rooms décor to the best of their abilities. Fake spider webs were literally everywhere, covering almost every available surface. A mechanical bat was wildly flying in a circle from a string attached to the ceiling and yet more, stationary bats lined the archways. Sitting at the kitchen table like it belonged there was a life sized skeleton and before it sat a bowl of eyeballs and there were plastic spiders strewn about everywhere. A glowing, smoking witches cauldron was set up on the coffee table and there was a seemingly endless amount of themed knickknacks strategically placed throughout the apartment. Needless to say, none of the teenagers had ever seen anything like it in their lives.

"Well?" Kagami prodded expectantly, clearly eager to hear what his teammates had to say about his party decorations.

"This is amazing!" Koganei eagerly supplied when the others simply couldn't find the words. "How did you even manage all this?"

"I helped." said Kuroko who was starting to hand out party favors to the team. "It was a little difficult balancing schoolwork and practice but between the two of us, we got it done."

There was a knock at the door.

Hurrying over, Kagami threw the door open to reveal the final two party guests. Hyuga, who was dressed as Date Masamune, and Riko who was wearing a rather spunky rendition of a cat costume with black shorts that had a tail sticking out of the back and oversized, black paw gloves.

"What the hell!" Hyuga exclaimed in shock, far less shy about showing his surprise than the others.

(****)

The party was in full swing when Kuroko suggested they watch a Halloween movie to keep the mood going. With Charlie Brown and the Great Pumpkin in mind, Kagami eagerly agreed but when Kuroko produced a DVD case that was most definitely not that of a child's cartoon he had some second thoughts.

"What is that?"

"The Ring." Kuroko answered, holding up the case for Kagami to see.

"No! We're not watching that!" The red-head shouted, looking a little flustered.

Kuroko seemed a little disappointed at that. "I did some research and every Halloween article said that a party wasn't complete without a scary movie marathon so I brought these." Out of nowhere, he seemed to produce additional DVD cases for The Ring Virus and Ringu.

Kagami looked a little faint. "Why did you bring those!"

"For the scary movie marathon."

"We're not having a scary movie marathon!"

"You're not afraid are you?" Teppei said, suddenly appearing beside the two. "They're just movies, you know. Besides, isn't that the fun of Halloween? A little lighthearted fear is good for you sometimes."

Kagami looked like he wanted to cry. "It's not happening! I'm telling you Kuroko, put those damn th-" Unfortunately for the tall red-head, he made the mistake of looking down at his light haired teammate who, much to his dismay, was staring up at him with blue eyes that seemed to plead with him. It wasn't an expression very different from his usual but something in his gaze made Kagami's resolve weaken. Damn. "F-fine. We'll watch your stupid movies."

(****)

And thats all … for now. Muwahaha. Kagami strikes me as the kind of guy who would love the lighthearted side of Halloween despite how much the darker side might freak him out which is why I decided to follow through on this little plot bunny. I, personally, love Halloween so I'm really excited to be writing this. I don't really have any pairings in mind right now, it's sort of up in the air so we'll see how things work out. And don't worry, the rest of the GoM will make their appearances in the very near future so please stick around! BTW, the rating will go up in the future so brace for that.