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Julian walked out of the courtroom, secretly smiling to himself. Today marked the end of the 5 week trials that Julian had to twist his facts inside out to prove his client’s innocence. There had been times where he hadn’t eaten to be able to work on the case in the weeks prior, but now he could enjoy all the food he wanted. He’d finally landed his first win in the courts of law that he had dreamed of stepping foot in ever since he was eleven.
“Julian, attorney of criminal law, had just won his first case today. I wonder if he’d be interested in some dinner with his dearly beloved friends that helped him out?”
Julian stopped to turn to look at the direction which that outspoken thought had come from. It was none other than his friend, Dr. Irwin Zhou, dressed in similar professional-looking attire appropriate for court, except without a suit jacket that Julian was forced to wear.
“What are you doing here? Don’t you have work?”
Irwin chuckled at the other man while waving a small slip of paper at him with the words ‘JURY DUTY’ in full capital letters.
“What a coincidence it is for the government to assign me to watch the very case that I had helped the defense with-” Julian swung his hand up to cover the other’s mouth before he could say more.
“Shut up! If they knew I had gotten someone like you to help, I would be stripped of my attorney’s badge!” Irwin laughed again as Julian turned his head frantically to see if any important people were around before they started to walk off to a nearby restaurant.
“Well, I just came to say congratulations, and that I knew you would be a good lawyer from the start.”
“And?” The other scoffed as his face flushed at the compliment.
“I also wanted to say I’m proud of you. You may not know much, Julian, but I’ve always known you’d make it this far. You deserve it, and I couldn’t be happier to call you my best friend,” Irwin smiled at the other in an affectionate way, like he always did, all those years.
Julian was almost left speechless, considering he initially wanted the other to admit his defeat, now that he could sue him. Which had been the original plan, after all. He didn’t expect for Irwin to speak in a way like that, and he certainly would never have expected that his friend would be proud of him that much.
It almost seemed ridiculous how red his face turned.
“Well, don’t be so happy! My next goal is to sue you! Just you wait, Irwi-” He said before being cut off by Irwin leaning to his side to give him a kiss on the cheek.
Julian stopped in his tracks, stunned. He was definitely not expecting that at all.
“Julian? Julian?! I should not have done that, I am so sorry I didn’t know if you would be comfortable with it and I just assumed that you would because-”
He was cut off in a similar fashion, except that Julian this time had gotten on his tiptoes to kiss Irwin on the lips instead.
Which left them both stunned and awkwardly looking away.
“I’m sorry!” They both exclaimed at each other, before nervously giggling at each other, as if they were eleven again. To be fair, nothing much had changed since then, other than the fact that they both had already achieved the dreams that they had at that age.
Besides, maybe they both enjoyed that feeling of being young and in love.
“We should probably go, Sean’s waiting for us at the hotel..”
“Hotel?!”
“Yeah, Joni and your parents decided to throw you a little buffet party to celebrate the case’s closure, even if you won or lost.”
The pair continued to make their way there, not noticing that they had subconsciously started holding the other’s hand, which caused quite some chaos with the others when they got to the place.