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It was April Fools’ and Chengcheng and Justin were about to have their plan done. They were sure Zhengting didn’t suspect a thing because April Fools’ wasn’t a thing they would celebrate and the duo was always conspiring and planning jokes against their friends. It has always been like that, since they were kids. Chengcheng, Justin and Zhengting have grown up together in the same neighborhood, and later in their teens they had found the rest. Justin and Chengcheng had been so happy to find new people like Zeren to make fun of the guys with, and Zhengting had been so relieved to finally find people like Wenjun, Quanzhe and Xinchun, always victims, just like him.
Since it was a special day, Justin had prepared something special too. He had decided to prank Zhengting with a really simple but meaningful joke. It was a thing Chengcheng and him had already done to him when they were kids.
Justin and Chengcheng were tiny demons when they were children . They were never bored and they were always planning their next trick. So once, they decided they had enough. And they planned to go out at night. The plan didn’t matter too much, actually, because the real issue was to go out of bed and meet outside of their houses without their parents knowing. But, when they were outside, proud and bodies full of adrenalin, they decided to go for it. They knew it was the first weekend Zhengting’s parents left him alone. Zhengting was older than them, so he was older enough to stay alone for a whole weekend, his parents needed to go to a business’ trip, and he had been the whole week showing it off, so why not scaring him a little bit? The duo sneaked in Zhengting’s garden, smirked at each other and nodded at the same time. Justin knocked at Zhengting’s door and the bell rang. The both of them ran the faster they could and sneaked back into their houses while laughing.
Zhengting never got over that. After what happened, he spent his whole life saying ghosts exist and telling the story to prove it. So it was 11:45pm and Chengcheng and Justin were about to knock at Zhengting’s door years after.
Justin nodded and Chengcheng was the one knocking this time. Justin bursted out laughing, held his best friend hand and started running as if their lives depended on it. He could feel Chengcheng next to him laughing out loud while running and Justin wished they could run free. He knew the joke was a pretty stupid one and they have done so many much better ones but that one was a special one. Even though Chengcheng made every single one special, he wanted to make it special for him too. He thought about all their jokes, their laughs and also their tears and the hard moments they went through together. And all the times he wanted to confess, but why was it so hard?
They stopped running when they arrived to Chengcheng’s house, where they were going to sleep. They were breathless at the door, still laughing.
“Was it special?”. Justin asked, suddenly.
Chengcheng stopped laughing, confused by the change of topic and by the serious look his best friend was giving to him. He was not used to Justin being serious.
“Yeah, it was like the good old times”, he answered.
“I like you”, Justin snapped out.
Chengcheng started laughing a little bit, but not too loud. Because Justin was probably thinking he was being funny and Chengcheng needed to show him he was, but he was hurting and he couldn’t hide that not even if he was the best actor in the world.
“Really funny, Justin, but you are not going to be able to prank your jokes mate, not even on April Fools’.”
“Look at the hour…”
Chengcheng took a look at his watch. 12:02am, April 2nd. It was not April Fools’ anymore.