“Yeah!” Rikkai Dai’s Trickster grinned. “Akaya and I thought we’d do something interesting for this year’s fall festival. You in?”

            mirrored the tennis player’s face. “Of course.”

Haunted House Project

            “.”

            turned to the source of the voice and found her classmate, Yagyuu. “Hey, Yagyuu!” She smiled at the gentleman and he returned her greeting with a nod.

            “I hear you’re collaborating with Niou and Akaya for the festival.” He sat down on his place behind her. “A haunted house, Niou said.”

            The girl nodded with enthusiasm. “Yup! We haven’t had one of those in ages!” Her eyes sparkled as she looked at him, smiling. “You can help, too, you know!”

            Yagyuu paused, his face carefully blank. Moments later, he finally replied. “Alright. Since you asked.” At that, gave a cheer and wrapped her arms around him as a sign of gratitude.

            “You’re the best, Yagyuu!”

            She didn’t seem to notice the faint blush staining the gentleman’s cheeks.

-

            “This shouldn’t be hard to do, eh, senpai?” Kirihara leaned on the table, a huge grin plastered on his boyish face.

            Niou casually leaned back on his chair. “Probably not. We just need a classroom and couple of easy-to-get stuff.” The trickster turned to his attention to his doubles partner. “You think you can get us a room?”

            “That should be no problem.” Yagyuu said. “I know our classroom is free.” He gestured to and himself.

            smiled and clapped her hands together. “Then we’re good! Operation haunted house begins now!”

            For an hour, they talked and contemplated about all the things they needed to put and all of the materials they’ll need. The meeting was productive, but it was cut short when had abruptly stood up, exclaiming that she had to get home early and bidding her goodbyes.

            The three tennis players just sat there minutes after her departure. It was Niou, unsurprisingly, who asked Yagyuu a question.

            “What’s with the change of mind, na, Yagyuu?” He asked, eyebrows raised.

            The bespectacled third year was silent. “I have no idea what you are talking about.” Hiroshi simply stated.

            Kirihara blinked. “But I thought you were against this? You said, quote, ‘as part of the student council, it is part of my responsibility to ensure that you two make no trouble during the fall festival, like last time. So it’s better for the welfare of everyone in Rikkai Dai that I stop you from this haunted house business. God knows what you two can do to terrorize the students. I’ll see to it that your application will be denied’, unquote.”

            Yagyuu couldn’t deny he said that. “I…” His mouth formed a thin line as he thought of a retort to that. “Well, I was trying to be a responsi - “

            “Responsible student, I know.” Niou rolled his eyes. (Yagyuu twitched. Rolling your eyes at someone was always a sign of disrespect and rudeness.)

            “Fine. said I could help. I accepted.”

            The two troublemakers looked at each other. “But senpai, she said you could help. You didn’t have to.” Akaya pointed out.

            “It was a request by a lady. I simply could not refuse.”

            Niou snorted. Yagyuu glared back in return. “You’ve kindly refused other girls before.”

            “That does not matter.”

            “Oh, whatever.” Masaharu stood up, stretched and grabbed his bag. “I’m heading off now. Your love life is pretty boring, Yagyuu.” He yawned. “But don’t you think he and make a good match, Akaya?”

            The second year looked from Niou to Yagyuu. “Wait.” He blinked. “You like -senpai?!”

            Yagyuu groaned.

-

            “Alright, we’re all set!”

            Weeks preparing for the festival zoomed by just like that. It was now October the 31^st, the perfect day for a haunted house.

            “You all know your positions, right?” Niou looked at the small group as they nodded. “Good! Let’s do this thing, puri~!”

            The grins stamped on Niou, Kirihara and ’s face were almost frightening, Yagyuu had thought.

            Surprisingly, it was a big hit. At first, no one seemed interested, but after a few couples went in and came out shaken up, everyone knew it was worth a visit.

            “This might as well be one of the best earning booths this year.” Yagyuu commented, a hint of bewilderment in his voice. Niou laughed as he ate his lunch and patted his partner on the back.

            “Told ya this’ll be a good idea!”

            nodded in agreement and turned to the gentleman. “You helped in this too, Yagyuu!” She grinned at him and he didn’t restrain himself from smiling back.

            “It was my pleasure.”

            “I’m sure.” Niou whispered to Kirihara who in turn, snickered. Yagyuu gave them a glare from behind his glasses.

            packed up her bento, and clapped her hands together. “Break’s over! Back to business!”

-

            The day was ending and they were all pretty tired. They sat on the classroom floor, drinking some juice boxes.

            “Well, today was great!” Akaya exclaimed and gave a cheer of agreement. Hiroshi sat quietly, staring at her with a small smile on his face. Niou, noticing this, suddenly got an idea.

            “Hey, why don’t you two try out the haunted house?” He suggested. “Akaya and I will man all the stuff.”

            “Wait, what – ?”

            “I think that’s a great idea!” ’s face was bright and any protest Yagyuu had disappeared. “Come on, Yagyuu! This’ll be fun!”

            Moments later, the pair stood in front of the classroom door and the tennis player gave a small sigh. It was hard, managing with these three. And so with a small tug from the , they entered their own haunted house.

-

            Nothing had surprised the two as they approached the middle of the room. After all, they made the booth, so they knew what was going to happen.

            “…Hey Yagyuu. I don’t remember having a ghost girl.” said, pointing over to where the window was supposed to be. True enough, a white girl was there, floating.

            Yagyuu blinked. “Maybe Niou and Akaya just added it to scare us.” He reasoned, and glanced to her for a second. She looked at him, face sort of contemplative.

            “You think so?”

            “Yeah. It’s most likely – …” Something caught Yagyuu’s eye. “Hey, where did the ghost go?”

            pouted. “Don’t joke with me, Yagyuu. She’s just right – … Well, she was right there a moment ago.”

            The pair looked at each other, eyes widening.

            “Will you play with me?”

            screamed, and holding on to Yagyuu’s hand, she ran out.

-

            Niou and Akaya were laughing real hard.

            “You should’ve heard yourself, !” Akaya said.

            glared at them. “I was just surprised!”

Yagyuu felt her hand still wrapped around his, but didn’t let go. Niou seemed to notice, since he looked at him amusingly and smirked. Then, he felt a tug from and looked at her, questioning.

“But you were sooo cool, Yagyuu!” She exclaimed, eyes sparking. “You didn’t even scream a bit!” Her wide smile made Yagyuu turn an interesting shade of pink and a certain trickster snickered in the background.

“Anyways,” Hiroshi turned his attention back to his two teammates. “The addition of the girl ghost was sneaky of you two to add just to scare us.”

            The room was silent.

            “What ghost?”

            Niou and Akaya looked genuinely confused. Yagyuu and quietly turned to each other.

            “Will you play with me?”

            They screamed.

©Karu, October 2007