"I got smarties," Sora sighs, rooting around in his candy bag. "I hate smarties. It's like eating sidewalk chalk."
"It's cos your costume sucks," Riku counters. His own bag is full of peanutbutter cups and mini candy bars, and his hair has been sculpted into bangs that Sora would think impossible if he hadn't seen them before. "You're the one that wanted to do this. I thought you'd put more effort into the outfit."
Sora stops to adjust the duct tape fraying off the handle of his tinfoil covered buster-sword. "It's easier when you've got fairies to make your clothes for you," he mutters.
"We're too old for this, you know," Riku says, as a fleet of tiny pink ballerina toddlers streams down the sidewalk past them, on their way to a party.
"I know," Sora admits. "I just thought it might be fun, you know. To be kinda a normal kid for once."
"You were never normal."
"Shuttup."
"You shuttup."
The sidewalk has turned into boardwalk, and then into beach. The tide laps on the shore like a sea of liquid heartless, moon sailing above the horizon like a single baleful eye, half-closed. Sora shoves his tinfoil and cardboard weapon into the sand; Riku's expertly painted fiberglass katana joins it.
"Your sword's cooler," Sora grumbles.
"I didn't make it. The guy at the surf shop did."
"Cheater."
"Hey, who's got the better candy?"
Sora brings out a fistful of powdery sour-tarts and hard pink bubblegum that could be used for bullets. "Trade you?" he asks, hopefully.
Riku's nose wrinkles a little. "I don't want any of that. What else have you got?"
"Um," Sora begins, sifting through his bag of candy like an archeologist looking for pot shards in loose dirt. "There's some laffy taffy, and uh, some of those sticky roll-up things that turn your tongue three different colors--" He is interrupted in his search for a good barter as Riku catches Sora's chin in one black-gloved hand, and kisses him.
"I'll take some of this," Riku says, his smile another half-moon rising. "As much as you've got."
Sora's blush clashes with the gold color hairspray hosed over his carefully arranged spikes. "Hey," he says, to counter it, "I've got plenty of that." The candy dribbles from his fingertips into the sand as Riku's fingers work their way under Sora's costume to bare golden skin, hotglued velcro and safety pins giving way under an onslaught almost as relentless as the man whose clothes Riku is wearing. Sora shucks back Riku's black coat; his greedy hands undo the efforts of several cans' worth of Riku's mom's hairspray.
Trick-or-treating and childhood is traded for something else, something better than candy. The treats and the toy swords are forgotten as they find the rewards are sweeter when they aren't for make-believe.