in this purple dream • hyerim

hyerim

The festival was held in an open area, and Hyejoo dressing in the inky color of the nightsky shivered upon the contact of the sharp wind on her skin, considering she's taken too many of the red iced tea. She tightened her grip on her half-full pumpkin basket, half being already either eaten or given away. She cannot deny, the festival was already getting dull, and they were seemingly running out of party game prizes. "Purple carved pumpkins? Who would even want those?"

"Hey," Hyejoo's eyes snapped up, soon lowering down to the name tag after seeing the stranger's heavily painted striped cat face. Hyunjin. "You seem bored." Hyejoo wanted to laugh. Of course she is, which was inexplicably hard to admit, since she's supposed to love every Halloween celebration with her every body cell. Sadly, this wasn't exactly the scarefest of her dreams, a disappointment for waiting all year for this season. 

Hyejoo shrugged. "Just waiting for this to finally get to warm up." She defended, slightly slurring in her syllables for holding the fake canine on her teeth. Hopefully, the festival doesn't end at like, right now, ten, since she has the whole night for flaunting Marceline, the whole night too for being creeped out of her flesh. That's when she's realized; she was growing out of the thrill of Halloween.

"Very well then. The Mardi Gras will always remain cold for you, bad baby." Hyunjin toasts her glass to thin air, seemingly about to leave. "Ah, I'm not allowed to drink."

"Don't worry, it's non-alcoholic! I suppose your girlfriend already had her third glass."

Hyejoo squints for a couple of seconds, and bursts into a hearty laugh. "I don't know if you're being humorously sarcastic. I came here alone."

Hyunjin joins the laughter. "No, my bad. A bummer, though. I think you'd really look good with a Princess Bubblegum." She gestures over the crowd with her eyes, and Hyejoo follows the line of sight. It didn't take her two seconds to realize Hyunjin was referring to a pink haired girl standing out against the sea of edgy dark-themed costumes, smiling as she helps herself for the beverage.

Hyejoo displays no reaction. Someone's attired really vibrantly feminine and pink at an occasion like this?  She backed out from that thought, however. How hypocritical of her knowing how she was Snow White when she was 10.

"Oh, cute." Hyejoo deadpanned. 

"So you seriously don't know her, huh. What shame, most of us here thought you two were adorable." Hyunjin revealed, and blood rushed to Hyejoo's head thinking about how she was being linked with a girl she had never interacted with before. That was so embarrassing. Before Hyejoo was even halfway a breath, Hyunjin left.

"Ladies, gentlemen, and all in between," A deep voice started. Hyejoo instinctively turned her head to the stage now only noticing how the joker face-painted MC changed outfits from a fake-blood stained plain white shirt to a whole get up, with the purple suit and green tucked necktie. "For the next game will we let the spotlight choose the next set of players. This game will have their hands tied up behind, and every pair teams up to finish the apple hanging. First one to finish until the fruit falls off wins!"

Hyejoo laughs through a sharp exhale. The games were supposed to entertain the attendees, and seeing how they become cornier and cornier is getting painful. But alas, just as Hyejoo was contemplating on leaving soon, bright light blinded her all too suddenly before cheers rang through her hearing. Wait.

What the fuck. Why me? 

Hyejoo blinks in hope of her sight to adjust to the light immediately. It didn't take her long to realize she was already being escorted to the area, beside Princess Bubblegum. Her, too?