Lunar's POV

I looked at Mathis, pain, and annoyance in my voice, "Do I have to go with her?"

"You had the chance to trade costumes and you didn't, so suffer!" She taunted with glee before pointing to the makeshift map that we had made when we were kids. It was a map of the town and the trick-or-treating areas. It had the best candy spots, the ones with healthy stuff, alcohol, pranksters, safe zones, literally fucking everything, "Bugs and Lola will take these routes, my group will take this one. Cool Cat, you guys do these streets. Daffy Duck, this route. The others do these. We will meet up back in this area and split the profit evenly. Remember, play 22 by Taylor Swift so we can hear one another and once it's finished playing the rest of the soundtrack, we need to keep track of ourselves, so we don't follow the other. Once we are done with our streets, we'll switch in a clockwise radius. The more candy the goddamn better!"

With a groan, I followed Clarissa, looking over to the Black Cadillac with a weak pout. Mr. Hayes and Mr. Lincoln only chuckled and waved at my torment, watching as we began taking our path. She pulled out her Bluetooth speaker as I pulled out my phone, connecting it as Taylor Swift started playing. That signaled to the rest to do the same.

"Happy Birthday," Clarissa chimed at me with a flirty grin, my roll of eyes only seemed to encourage her actions as she reached for my hand to hold it, "You look very cute as Bugs Bunny."

I shot my hand away in an instant, jogging up to a house with her close behind, "Happy Hallow's Eve, Lady Anne!"

Lady Anne frowned at me, she was the town grump and she hated Hallow's Eve, "Aren't you a little old to be Trick or treating?"

"Would you rather us be out doing drugs and alcohol or would you rather us be getting candy? Your choice," Clarissa shrugged with a raised brow, she was always confrontational.

With that response, Ms. Anne shoved two handfuls of candy into our bags with grumbles, "Get lost."

"And a happy night to you, Lady Anne. For your collection," I bowed, pulling out a pressed rose for her. This surprised her. The rest weren't so kind to her, but I never took any harm to her. She looked at it with hesitance as I grinned, "tell your husband that my mother would love to stop by with some roast sometime. She's very pleased to hear he's back from his Country Visit."

With that, I waved and headed off. Unlike my friends who liked to mess with the old bat, I had no desire to tease or taunt her. She had her reasons to be so grumpy and who was I to act on it with more aggression? In a world of cruelty, more will only cause further suffering. If you want to help the world grow, you must also grow.

"Th-Thank you," She called back with a slow grin on her lips. I smiled back at her as she headed into her home, looking down at the rose and caressing it. I had heard a few months ago from my mother that Lady Anne had a very large pressed plant collection. She had a deep interest in all sorts of plants, mostly roses but one particular rose didn't grow around these parts anymore. During the second honeymoon, I had asked her to bring back said rose and when she came back, I pressed it just for this occasion.

With a delighted sigh, I headed to the next house, "Trick-or-treat, Ms. Osborn."

She did a laugh at the costume, "Don't you mean 'What's up, Doc?'"

"Oh, haha," I dry-laughed as she gave us candy, 22 by Lily Allen beginning to play on the speaker, "I absolutely hate this costume."

With another giggle, she fed me a bit more candy as Clarissa began to head to the next house, "At least you get candy out of it for your birthday."

"I'd rather be partying, and I hate parties. Have a Happy Hallow's Eve! If you ever need a babysitter don't be afraid to hit me up! I miss your kids," I called, she waved as I followed Clarissa.

"Why are you always so kind to everyone in town?" Clarissa cocked her head towards me, curiosity in her voice as she followed me to the next house, "Even when they treat you like shit you give them respect. It doesn't make sense to me."

"Well, if you'd quit with your flirting all the damn time and paid attention, you'd learn more about the town. Did you ever stop to wonder why she hates this Holiday or why she is rude to our friends?" I replied, pointing to Lady Anne's home. She looked at her shoes as I continued, "Lady Anne had a son who went trick-or-treating in the old town she used to live in. It was unusual to check candy, so she didn't bother to do so and allowed her son to eat some. She ended up having to drag him to the hospital because some teenagers thought it would be funny to put razors in the candy. She saw her child go from laughing and enjoying himself to him being unable to breathe or cry out because a razor was cutting out his throat. He died on his way to be saved because she lived twenty minutes from the hospital and with kids all over the streets, that time doubled to even tripled."

"Ms. Osborn has a daughter around our age. She has a learning disability and is considered slower than us. Because of that, she wasn't capable of seeing warning signs from some guy in our grade and went to a party with him. He got her so out of it on alcohol she doesn't even remember him raping her, she only knows that parties make her cry and the sight of alcohol makes her panic. She can't even identify his face, just his voice. The child I babysit for them is Ms. Osborn's grandchild," After pointing to Ms. Osborn's house we left the third house, I kept talking, "Mr. Alles tells people to watch their backs all the time because when he was younger, he took the safety of the town for granted and once believed the town couldn't be dangerous. One day he was traveling to the store and some lady threw acid on his face just simply because he had brown eyes on her street. Everyone who lived on the street had blue eyes and because she absolutely hated African Americans his eye color triggered her hatred and she set out to change his eyes just to please herself. He tells us to be careful because he fears that we will take our safety for granted."

I pushed her passed the next house, "Have you ever wondered why Mr. Hines looks and flirts with you the way he does? You're blonde, fair-skinned, and have stunning blue eyes. A princess in the eyes of Hitler."

She looked back at the house, her skin going paler than it was, "I-I-I just thought he liked me. Also, did you just call me pretty?"

I rolled my eyes as we hit a few more houses, "This house belongs to Mr. and Mrs. Stork, they only ever leave the house at night. Why? Because Mrs. Stork has Xeroderma Pigmentosum. Xeroderma is a rare skin condition where your flesh is extremely sensitive to sunlight and burns. They have to keep the house dark just for her to survive. Although it is tedious to take care of, Mr. Stork loves his wife so much that he prays to Goddess Elysium every Sunday that the condition will magically come to him, so he suffers it instead of his wife."

Clarissa scuffed her shoe against the pavement as we finished our first street, "What about me? You don't seem to pay much attention to me."

"You mean, I don't have any romantic or sexual attraction to you, Clarissa. Just because I don't like you that way doesn't mean I'm not paying attention. You never talk about him, never mentioned him in the group but you had an older brother. He was very protective of you even though he dirt raced with dirt bikes. You loved watching him ride as a kid and once he was finished, he'd let you wear his helmet and pretend you were driving his bike. During a race, his opponent cut the brakes on his bike, and he went riding off. He drowned in the lake because he couldn't get uncaught from his bike. You fill your bedroom with things he likes and often go to the track and make sure the riders are safe and enjoying themselves," She looked at me surprised as I continued, "You often stay after school to clean the whiteboards and chalkboards for the teachers, even volunteering to help grade papers and tests when they have a bad day. You flirt with me because I remind you of Ulquiorra Cifer, Kisuke Urahara, and Sōsuke Aizen from Bleach, your favorite anime. You have an attraction to me because of how protective and kind I am to those around me, but you struggle to accept that I am Gay and have no interest in dating you. That's because you suffer from abandonment issues from males because your father neglected you as a child. Although he is better, the trauma is still there."