Aoi hung backwards over the sofa, kicking his legs in the air, and asked the rest of the GazettE, "What are you all going to be for Halloween?"

"I dunno," Ruki said, not looking up from his iPhone.  "Why do we even all have to dress up?"

Uruha was instantly staring at Ruki, his hazel eyes huge.  "Ruki!  Of COURSE we have to dress up for Halloween!  That's what you're supposed to DO!"

"It's not like the police come and arrest you if you don't dress up, Uruha," Kai said.

"They don't?" Uru asked, puzzled.  "Huh..... I guess I was completely delusional, then.... Here I was, all these years, thinking that if I didn't dress up I'd go to jail....."

"I wanna be L," Aoi said suddenly.

"From Death Note?" Reita inquired.  

"Yeah.  The guy with the black hair and the dark circles under his eyes.  That'd be fun to do," Aoi said.  "Oh!  We can all be Death Note characters!"

"I get Mello," Rei said instantly, raising his hand.

Kai pouted.  "Aw, I wanted to be Mello.... I'll be either Ryuk or Near.  Probably Near, Ryuk's costume would be really hard."

"Dibs on Light."  Ruki raised his hand, suddenly interested in dressing up.

"What about me?" Uru complained.

"You can be Misa-Misa," Aoi said dismissively, waving a hand at him.

"WHAT?  I don't wanna be MISA!" Uru objected violently.

"Someone has to be her – remember how important she is?" Ruki tried to persuade him.

"But she's a girl!"

"And you look more like a girl than any of us," Rei pointed out.

"OI!  I do NOT!"

"Do too."

"Why does Kai get to be Near?" Uru persisted.  "I wanted Near!  Or!  Or!  Ruki could be Near – aren't they both really short?"

Ruki smacked him on the arm.

"Actually, so's Misa!  So Ruki should be her!"

"I'm not being Misa, I already claimed Light," Ruki said.  "My hair's best for being Light, anyway.  I guess."

"Wait a minute," Kai said.  "L has black hair – Aoi, yours is way too light to be L.  Your hair is, like, silvery, kind of."

"Wanna trade?" Aoi asked.  "You can be L, and I can be Near!"

"Sure!" Kai said.  "Sweet, I get L!"

"And I'm Mello," Rei said.  "The scar should be fun!"

"I REALLY don't wanna be Misa," Uru said loudly.  "Why do you guys always make me be the girl?"

"I already said: cuz you look the most like a girl," Rei told him, and Uru made a horrific face at him.  

"I'm not being Misa!"

"You are."

"So it's all settled?" Kai asked brightly.

-

Over the next two weeks, they scoured costume stores – and, in Uru's case, girls' clothes stores, as he had (very, very grudgingly) agreed at last to cosplay Misa.  "I even have to get a wig," he complained, as he was studying in the mirror how a skirt looked on him.  "My hair is all dark, and Misa's blonde."

"So?" Ruki asked unsympathetically – he got to be his favorite character, and he didn't have to do a lot to his hair to look right.  Uru stuck out his tongue at him and went back to trying on Gothic Lolita skirts.

At last he had his outfit together – it took the longest of any of the others' to find.  All Rei needed was black leather, Aoi some white pajamas, Kai some jeans and a plain white shirt, and Ruki got a slightly dressy-looking shirt and tie.  

In the late afternoon of Halloween, they all met at Ruki's house to get their things on.  Everyone else took only a few seconds to put on their clothes, but Uru poked his head reluctantly out of the bathroom several minutes later.  "Do I HAVE to wear this, guys?" he asked.

"Yes," Ruki said firmly, as he was starting work on Rei's scar makeup for him.  "Hold STILL, Rei, you make this way harder than it needs to be."

Uru gave a deep, long-suffering sigh and slowly came out, looking at the floor.

Rei blinked at him in astonishment, Kai bit his lip, Ruki sniggered, and Aoi burst out laughing.  "Uru, you look..... like Misa," he said, collapsing over the arm of the sofa.

"I thought that was the point," Uru said, glaring at him.

"You make a cute girl," Kai said, in a strained voice – it was obvious he was trying his hardest not to laugh like Aoi was.  

"I'm taking that as an insult," Uru sniffed, wobbling over the sofa.  "I hate wearing high heels."

"It's not that bad," Ruki said.  

"Of course YOU would be used to them," Uru said.  "You're so tiny, you need them to be a normal height."

Ruki reached over and flicked him in the head.

"Oi, stop that, you'll mess up my Misa wig," Uru said, slapping his hand away.  He straightened out his short, lacy black skirt, making a face at the ripped fishnet stockings covering his legs.  His shirt was white and sleeveless, with a tight-fitting black vest over it, but his arms were covered anyway by long, black-and-white striped, fingerless gloves.  The wig he was wearing had Misa's signature two ponytails on the sides, and he'd tied them with black ribbon.  All this, however.... it was all nothing compared to the shoes he had to wear.  He'd dressed like a girl before, in the earliest days of the GazettE, with little skirts and tall socks and ponytails, but he'd never gotten used to high heels.  And these..... they were these huge boots, that came up a bit above his ankle, with massive platforms.  Uru was going to kill himself trying to walk in these, he just knew it, and he said so to the others, finishing with, "And it'll be all YOUR faults."

"You won't kill yourself," Aoi said, hard at work putting dark circles under his eyes.  "Ruki wears high heels all the time, and he's not dead yet."   

"Yeah," said Kai, who was looking almost scarily like L.  "If anyone died from high heels, it'd have been Ruki, a LONG time ago."

"And," Rei began, but Ruki smacked him on the cheek.

"Don't talk, you're messing up the scar," he said bossily, dabbing more reddish makeup onto Rei's face.  "When you're done you can speak, but not now."

"Fine."

"I just SAID, don't talk!"

Rei rolled his eyes, but kept silent.

Uru pouted for another minute, then wobbled up from the couch and began applying his Misa makeup.  "So, what do I need here?" he asked uncertainly.  "Just.... black eyeliner?"

"Lots of it," Aoi told him.  "And lots of mascara.  And maybe pink eyeshadow?"

Sighing, Uruha flipped open his black eyeshadow.  "Do I HAVE to wear the pink?"

"Hey, even Miyavi wears pink eyeshadow sometimes," Kai pointed out.  

"So?  He's MIYAVI.  I'm not."

"Come on," Ruki said, putting the finishing touches on Rei's scar.  "You'll look cute as Misa.  Just remember to pretend like you're madly in love with me – that shouldn't be hard, right?"

Uru rolled his eyes.  "Good grief...."

"What?  I'm just going with the story!" Ruki said, straightening his tie and putting the lightest bit of eyeliner on.

"Light doesn't wear makeup, does he?" Rei asked, inspecting his scar in the mirror.  "Hey, Ru, this is pretty sweet, thanks!"

"Light doesn't, but I do," Ruki said.  "It's just a little.  And you're welcome."

"I'm done!" Aoi announced, standing up and flinging his arms out to the side to show off his.... pajamas.  "Don't I make a great Near?"

Kai studied him with an appraising look in his eye, from where he sat on the sofa with his knees pulled up to his chin.  "Pretty good – you just need some toys."

"And you need tea, or a piece of cake."

"Good idea, Aoi!  Will you go get me some cake?"

Aoi rolled his eyes.  "No.  Besides, L would just steal Misa's.  Remember: 'I don't care what you say about me – I'm taking your cake.'  Or something like that."

"Oh, right.  Hey, Uruha, do you have any cake?" Kai asked, glancing over at Uru.

Uru gave him an evil look.  "I have a Death Note, remember, and the Shinigami eyes, so I can see your name."

Kai gasped in mock horror.  "You can't have outsmarted me!  I'm the great L!"

"Well," Uru said, pretending to pull out a notebook and open it, "I just did."  He scribbled something in midair and said, "There, you have exactly forty seconds to live."

Aoi couldn't help but laugh as Kai clutched at his heart and slumped down, gasping, "No.... outsmarted by a girl.... the indignity...."

Uru stood up and pretended to whack him on the head with the imaginary Death Note.

Rei and Ruki were laughing by the end of this exchange, and then Rei said, "You know what I need?"

"What?" Ruki asked.

"Chocolate.  I AM Mello, after all.  And you know he eats nothing but chocolate."

"So we all need props?" Aoi asked.  "I need toys, Kai needs anything sweet, you need chocolate specifically, Uru needs.... well, not a prop, but to pretend to love Ruki, and Ruki needs.... what DOES he need?"

"A massive ego and twisted personality?" Kai suggested.

"Oh wait...." Rei sniggered, and Ruki smacked him upside the head, making Rei complain loudly, "OW....."

Uru flung his arms around Ruki, crying, "I love you, Light!  You're so sweet and kind, Misa loves Light more than the world!"

Ruki looked worriedly at him, seeming slightly disturbed.  "Er..."

"I was just getting in character, LIKE you said," Uru shrugged, and let go of him.  "Fine..."

"Do it again, do it again," Aoi said, laughing.  "That was funny!"

Uru again wrapped his arms around Ruki, who sighed deeply.  "Misa can't live in a world without Light!" he cried, clinging to Ruki's arm and gazing at him with wide, loving eyes.

"No, it would be very dark," Kai said.  "Didn't L actually say that at one point?"

"I don't know – oh, oh, listen!" Aoi said excitedly.  "A world without Light would be dark, but a world without L would be just a WORD."  He cracked up laughing.  "I saw that on the Internet somewhere."

Ruki rolled his eyes and said, pushing Uru away, "Please, get off me now."

"Fine.  You SAID I should pretend to be madly in love with you."

"Well, now I'm sorry I did."

Uru pouted at him, looking even cuter than usual in his Misa costume.  "Ruki no love Ruwa?"

Ruki rolled his eyes again and patted his head.  "Of course I do, dear."

"Hey," Rei inquired.  "What do we do, now that we're wearing these, anyway?  Are we actually going trick-or-treating?"

"Yes!  Yes!" Aoi said excitedly.  "We should!"

"I agree," Kai raised his hand, and Uru jumped up and down.

"I wanna go trick-or-treating!"

"I guess so," Ruki said, glancing at Rei.  "I wonder if people will think we're too old?"

"Don't worry, no one will think YOU'RE too old," Aoi said consolingly.  "You're just as small as a kid still."

"I am NOT!"

"Are too."

"Am not!"

"Are too."

"Am not!!"

"And look, you argue like kids, too," Kai said, trying to break it up.  "Ruki, you ARE short, but Aoi, you don't need to tease him about it.  Not so much, at least," he added, as Aoi went, "AWWW!"  

Ruki glared at both of them.

Kai continued, "Let's find bags and go out now, shall we?"

"Even though he's just pretending to be L," Rei whispered to Uruha, "He does a pretty nice job of settling arguments."