The Plant

The best Halloween outfits

Suddenly someone came up to us. "Hey! There's going to be a best outfit voting now. You two should join too. You could be the winners."
"Winners? There's more than one?"
"Yes. If there's a good pair of outfits for example." He pointed back and forth between our outfits. "You two probably have a good chance" then he left to tell the other people about the voting too.
We looked at each other's outfits. I guess being in the same movie does make us seem like a good pair. I wonder how he really feels about this. He doesn't look too happy. Or maybe he just seems tense. Wait. Now he changed somehow. What is wrong with him today? Has it anything to do with this Halloween party? Or the costume?
"Let's win this one."
"How can you be sure that's going to happen? It's voting. It all depends on what others think."
"I know. But we just have to win."
"Huh? Sure. But why? How? You haven't rigged it or something?"
"Of course not. I'm not going to cheat to win. You should know that."
"Sorry. I trust in you. But you have been acting weird for some time and I'm just worried."
"I didn't mean to worry you. I just had private things to think about."
"Which means that you won't tell me what it is I guess."
I looked down on the ground. Then I realized that we were the only ones still outside. "Well. If we're going to have a fair chance to win we better get inside." I said trying to sound encouraging. He got the motivational courage and we both hurried inside.
The voting had started. Everyone was listed on a chalkboard in the front where the tables had been standing. Each one of us got a sheet of paper and a pen.
"Remember. You can only vote on someone else. Not yourself." The ghost yelled out.
Hmm. Who should I choose? Would it be okay to write his name? I tried to look at what he was writing but he hid it from me. I got a bit disappointed but I decided that if he didn't show me I wouldn't show him mine either. If he wanted to win that badly we should have made a plan to vote for each other. Or maybe he wanted it to be a gamble on people's opinions on his outfit? Maybe both of our outfits for that matter. What if he wrote my name?
The guitar playing vampire collected all the pieces of paper and went to the board, writing it down one by one. "The first vote goes to....!"

I looked at him smiling curiously but also excited on how it would turn out. He seemed to be excited about it too.

I went to the bathroom while they were counting votes. Inside I puzzled together the pieces of why he was so secretive about the outfit and the moments of the movie and his reactions. I keep wondering if I'm just imagining things...

When I got out I saw him standing there in the small room outside of the bathroom and I immediately froze in place. He was looking at the floor clearly in his own thoughts. I suddenly felt a bit nervous. Even though nothing had happened. Stop overthinking things. Stop overthinking things. I repeated but it still didn't work. I was thinking of acting like normal, but the moment I tried to walk I stepped wrongly and fell.
"Ah! Ouch!"
This was like a wakeup call to him as he rushed to help me up. But instead of helping me up he just froze right in front of me too. And as if we both got captured by a magic spell I leaned forward and kissed him on the mouth. There was no doubt anymore. I saw his serious face and nervousness disappear into a big smile and it made me happy.