#vancrewver

Making a face at Ryang, Koh wanders over to the kitchen table where Rutherford and Cheng2 are playing doctor. Rutherford’s even got a lab coat and a mask. It’s not even dark yet. Rutherford just likes to party in style.

“Blade, Cheng2.” Cheng2 obliges, handing Rutherford a serrated kitchen knife.

The table’s covered in newspaper, a bevy of cutting instruments arranged on one side. On the other is Ryang’s drawing to Cheng2’s specifications. This surgery was planned out to the minutest detail.

Rutherford sizes up his patient. He begins his incision.

He cuts deft, sharp strokes, cutting a circle into the persimmon-colored crown. Once the edges align, his and Cheng2’s eyes meet. Rutherford levers the knife and with a crack, the contents are revealed. He hands Cheng2 the skullcap. Cheng2 places it carefully on the table.

“What’s the diagnosis, doc?”

“It's…” Rutherford pauses dramatically. He wipes his brow.

“A pumpkin,” Koh supplies. Cheng2 swats at him.

SickSteve snorts and pushed the bowl of gummy worms closer to Lee-Squared’s reach. Nobody’s said anything about Lee-Squared eating all the candy. Racism. There is no other explanation. Certainly not that Lee-Squared is much sneakier than Koh and less apt to shove three candy bars in his mouth at the same time.

“A flesh-eating amoeba,” Rutherford declares.

Koh peers inside the pumpkin. It looks perfectly normal to him. Just pumpkin guts and seeds. Rutherford must be an excellent doctor to tell the difference.

“Is it treatable, doc?” Cheng2’s face is very earnest. Koh applauds his staying in character.

“Not at this stage.” Rutherford shakes his head. “The poor sod. He’s already dead. Well,” here his voice brightens, “we might as well remove his brain.”

What happens next involves two spoons and sprays of orange-white goop. It gets on the floor. It gets on the ceiling. It gets in Cheng2’s hair.

Ryang wrinkles his nose. “Gross.”

Cheng2 flicks pumpkin guts at him.

Ryang shrieks.

The grandfather clock in the living room bing-bongs its way to four o’clock. Normally, Koh ignores it but today-

“Monster movie!” he announces. He grabs Cheng as he’s trying to sneak out the side door. Cheng is very bad at being sneaky. It’s the hair. Very hard to be sneaky with great hair drawing all the attention. Koh has the same problem. “Nope. Monster movie is for everyone. Halloween is all night.”

Cheng’s cries of “no, please, I hate monster movies” go unheeded. They’re lies anyway. Everyone likes monster movies. Especially terrible, cheesy, American ones. Koh is going to make them watch Leprechaun: Back 2 tha Hood. Who could resist?

Koh presses on Cheng’s shoulders until he sits on the carpet in the TV room.

He sets the TV up while keeping a stern eye on Cheng. There’s no party starting yet. Cheng can wait until six to go meet Gansey and their secret girlfriend.

“It’s starting!” Koh yells, though, of course, everyone who’s going to watch is already here. Rutherford and Cheng2 are finishing up their pumpkin since they’re losers who couldn’t get theirs done last week like everyone else. They can listen to the cinematic masterpiece from the kitchen.

Koh looks around for a place to sit. Cheng’s on the floor where Koh put him. Ryang’s got the armchair. SickSteve and Lee-Squared are sitting on the couch with a chaste one foot of space between them. Aha.

Koh steals a handful of orange and brown M&M’s from the bag on Lee-Squared’s lap. He ducks his head to avoid SickSteve’s hand and uses that distraction to plop down next to Lee-Squared.

“Hi, L2,” he says.

“Hello, Koh,” Lee-Squared says back.

Crossing his legs so that his knees are solidly in everyone’s personal spaces, Koh sticks his tongue out at SickSteve. If looks were daggers, Koh would be murdered right now. Good thing they’re not.

Lee-Squared just smiles and continues chewing his M&M’s.

Twenty minutes into the movie, Rutherford and Cheng2 join them. They sit at the foot of the sofa, which is really not that smart of them because Koh is very agile and not at all against leaning down during the scary parts and digging his fingers into Cheng2’s ribs.

Lee-Squared grabs him when he’s about to. Koh pouts. Lee-Squared shakes his head.

“Let’s have a nice night, okay?”

Because it’s Lee-Squared and Lee-Squared is the nicest person Koh knows, he says yes. He sits back, only the slightest of pouts on his face and watches Warwick Davis stalk about in a leprechaun costume. He even leans into Lee-Squared’s side a bit and puts his head on his shoulder, not to make SickSteve mad or anything but because Lee-Squared is really soft and really nice and this is nice, all of them together, even Cheng.

In a couple hours, Koh will be going to one of the public school parties. He might see one of the guys there. He might not. He’ll probably get drunk and call Ryang to drive him home or maybe SickSteve, whoever’s up and semi-responsible. But right now, right here, he gets to have Halloween with his friends and that is very cool, no matter what Cheng thinks.