KHRWEEN 2024
Title: Yamamoto’s Halloween Special That Squalo Never Agreed To ⚾👻🦈
Pairing: Yamamoto Takeshi x Superbia Squalo
Prompt: Day 2 | Scary Movies + Ouija Board
Tags: Chaotic Yamamoto Takeshi, Embarrassment, Friendship,
Halloween Shenanigans, Horror Movie Night, Mild Language, Mock Fight, Ouija Board, References to The Ring, Squalo Being a Scaredy Shark, Squalo Gets Pranked, Squalo POV, Supernatural Elements (Fake).
Warnings: No major warnings apply.
If someone—anyone—would dare to ask why Squalo is sitting cross-legged on Yamamoto Takeshi’s floor on Halloween night, of all nights, he’d tell them to piss off and mind their own business in the most colorful language he could muster. The truth, though, is that even he doesn’t know what possessed him to stick around watching Japanese horror movies, and oh, perfect, now there’s some creepy girl with black hair twice as long as his dragging herself out of a TV.
It’s taking all he’s got not to look away. While he might be hardened by the daily horrors of being Xanxus’s second in command, this kind of freaky bullshit still manages to make his skin crawl… but the worst part is Yamamoto sitting next to him, grinning like a damn idiot and clearly loving every second of Squalo’s discomfort, as if it’s the best show in town.
“Come on, Squalo, don’t tell me you’re scared of this stuff?” Yamamoto says, nudging him, wide brown eyes sparkling with that relentless good humor that makes Squalo want to punch a hole through a wall.
“Shut it, brat,” Squalo mutters, shifting uncomfortably, because from the first moment he laid eyes on Yamamoto, he knew that behind that whole “nice guy” act lurked a chaotic gremlin, no matter how innocent he tries to appear. “Should’ve gone with some good old giallo instead of this crap.”
“Oh, it’s about to get better,” Yamamoto says, his smile stretching even wider as he reaches into a nearby box, pulls out a dusty Ouija board, and holds it up with the kind of reverence reserved for ancient relics. “This thing is super haunted, I swear.”
Squalo rolls his eyes. “Yeah, sure. Spirits love hanging out with idiots like you.” Thinking fast, he adds, “Fine, whatever, let’s see it, then,” hoping it’ll redirect their attention away from the screen.
With a grin so enthusiastic that Squalo, yet again, finds himself questioning the series of poor decisions that led him here, Yamamoto grabs the remote, mutes the movie, and stands to kill the lights, leaving them bathed in a dim, eerie glow from a lamp draped with an old cloth—an unnervingly precise effect, giving the impression that he’s been planning this whole setup for weeks. On his way back, Yamamoto reaches up to a shelf, grabs a shot glass, and sets it upside down on the Ouija board.
Squalo stares at him, incredulous. “Since when do you have shot glasses lying around?” he asks, eyebrow raised.
Yamamoto flashes a smirk, unfazed. “I might’ve picked it up from my dad’s restaurant,” he answers, placing his index finger against the base of the upturned glass.
Squalo, suppressing the urge to sigh, mirrors him, pressing his non-mechanical finger down on the opposite edge of the glass rim with just the right weight to signal he’s playing along, but not too seriously. There’s this conspiratorial glint in Yamamoto’s eyes as he murmurs, “Spirits, are you with us?” Their fingertips touch, the kind of brief, meaningless contact that shouldn’t even register; much to his annoyance, Squalo does and feels immediately ridiculous.
Then, like he’s delivering a line in some grade-school play, Yamamoto leans in, his voice dropping to a serious whisper: “Sadako, if you’re here, give us a sign.”
Squalo’s skin prickles despite himself. Fantastic.
Nothing happens with the glass, which is as it should be—until Yamamoto’s eyes suddenly go wide, and he flinches a bit. “Did you see that behind you?” he whispers, voice low and urgent.
Squalo whips around, heart pounding, only to find… nothing. Just the stupid movie still rolling on in silence. He grits his teeth, turning back to give Yamamoto a piece of his mind. “Real funny, you moron. I told you this was a—” He stops dead mid-sentence. Right there, inches away, is a curtain of long black hair, and this guttural, zombie-like moan fills the room.
“What the—!” Squalo yelps, scrambling backward in a frantic, clumsy attempt to stand, half-tripping as he blurts out in Italian, “Che diavolo—!?”
But before he can begin to comprehend what’s in front of him, Yamamoto is giggling so hard he’s doubled over, clutching his sides as he yanks a black wig from his head.
“Oh my god, you should’ve seen your face!” he chokes out, gasping between laughs. “Big, bad Varia, taken down by little Sadako-chan!”
“YOU—!” Squalo’s voice shoots up. “You’re dead, you hear me? I’m going to kill you for that!” His cheeks burn, blood simmering with embarrassment as Yamamoto’s laughter pours out, loud and unstoppable. And somehow, in the midst of all that mortification—against all reason and his own better judgment—Squalo feels a traitorous twitch pulling up at the corner of his mouth.
To cover it up, Squalo does the reasonable thing and lunges forward, grabbing Yamamoto in a mock chokehold that’s tight enough to get the point across without actually meaning it. Yamamoto, wheezing and struggling for air, manages to gasp out, “Alright, alright! Didn’t think I’d get you that good—guess I’m a better actor than I thought!”
Squalo releases him with a quick knucklehead smack and a shove, sending Yamamoto sprawling. Arms crossed, he looms over him with a devilish curl of his lips that would make a lesser man dash for the door.
“You have no idea what you’ve unleashed, Takeshi,” Squalo sneers, savoring the twisted satisfaction bubbling up as he envisions all the ways he’ll terrify the brat out of his smug, easy-going comfort zone. “Next Halloween, you’re in for some Varia-style horror, and I’m not holding back.”
Still catching his breath, Yamamoto picks himself up, grabbing his discarded wig and the shot glass that had flown from the Ouija board during the commotion. He grabs the remote and, without missing a beat, cranks the volume as the movie hits a blood-curdling scene, casually dropping back down beside Squalo.
With his gaze fixed on the screen, he reaches over and gives his long hair a quick yank. “Looking forward to seeing you try, scaredy-Sadako,” he says, wearing that self-satisfied smile that implies, more or less, every tiny detail has gone exactly according to whatever scheme he’s concocted.
A creeping frustration rises up in Squalo, building to eclipse both the ridiculous nickname and the gruesome scenes on TV, not to mention the nerve of that hair-tug from someone who ought to show more respect to his swordsmanship senior. He thinks he recognizes it—it’s the all-too-familiar suspicion that he’s fallen, once again, right into Yamamoto Takeshi’s hands.
To be continued next year...? 🎃
A/N: My headcanon is that Squ’s into old-school movies and would pick Suspiria over The Ring any day. My other headcanon is that he's secretly terrible with horror movies (not that he’d ever admit it), while Yama has nerves of steel and can sit through the wildest slashers without flinching. No, don’t ask me why, I just know this in my bones xD
