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Van Dijk hummed softly to himself as he combed out the tangles in his hair. It was early in the morning, and not many of his teammates were awake, if any were awake at all.
Van Dijk finished up with his comb and reached for the tub of hair gel in front of him. He'd tried many types before, but this was his favorite brand. Its mild scent went very well with his Dutch baby oil, and the texture was smooth enough to not cause clumping yet strong enough to hold his hair in its preferred shape.
Van Dijk closed his eyes before unscrewing the tub of gel. He inhaled a long whiff of its contents before opening his eyes. He fully regretted it.
"Jezus Christus!!!"
*
Van Dijk was absolutely seething. He tried to hide it--after all, anger didn't go well with his "calm as you like" persona. But it only took five minutes for Firmino to detect that something was wrong with Van Dijk. And once Firmino asked him, Van Dijk couldn't help but spill the entire thing.
"He put spiders in my hair gel! Spiders Roberto, this is mutiny! The little devil has too much nerve," Van Dijk muttered under his breath. Firmino had taken him on a walk to calm down, something that was rarely necessary considering Van Dijk’s attitude on life. "I can't believe Ali would do that!"
Firmino just laughed, playfully nudging Van Dijk in the shoulder. "Relax Virgil, are you sure it's him? Ali wouldn't want to prank you, it's just not his nature."
"I'm positive it's him." Though Van Dijk had to admit that it was a long shot. Alisson didn't usually play pranks on his teammates, especially not the one that Van Dijk had received earlier. Van Dijk knew full well that Alisson was afraid of spiders, just like himself. Not that Van Dijk would tell anybody.
"You know, it's funny how Gini and Ali are the only ones here that ever scared you," Firmino went on. "Even Harvey's tried, and he doesn't even come close."
"I wasn't scared!" Van Dijk insisted. He averted his gaze so Firmino couldn't find out that he wasn't telling the whole truth. "I just can't believe his audacity."
"Oh, yeah? What about the time Ali filled the shower with balloons and you nearly jumped out of your skin?" Firmino reminded him. "Big Virg, scared by balloons--"
"Quiet!" Van Dijk didn't like being reminded of that event. He'd heard Alisson in the shower stalls and thought something was wrong, only to see the balloons and freak out. "If Ali has the nerve to try and scare me, I'll do the only logical thing to do."
"This 'logical thing' being..."
"To scare him back."
Firmino's eyes widened in alarm. He took a couple of steps back before running up to Van Dijk. "Whoa Virgil, are you sure that's a good idea? Ali already has enough anxiety as things stand, we don't need to make it worse."
"Now you need to chill out. He's my friend too, I won't do anything too bad." Van Dijk snickered under his breath, already thinking of a plan. "At least, not too bad..."
*
Alisson had searched the training ground two times already, and he was more than ready to do it the third time. He'd been searching for his gloves for a while now, but to no avail.
"Has anyone seen my gloves?" he called into the locker room. "They were just here yesterday."
Firmino looked up from the boots he was lacing with a shrug. " Eu sinto Ali, haven't seen them. But I did see Virgil near your locker, maybe he'd know."
"My locker! I usually take my gloves with me into my room, but they could be there." Alisson flung open the locker door, searching within its contents. "Thanks Bobby, you're a lifesaver."
"No problem. But you know we're not training today, right?" Firmino reminded him. " El chefe called a rest day."
Alisson nodded, head still buried in the locker. He remembered Klossner's team meeting the day before. Their boss had shown them clips from the previous matches, highlighting their fragilities and possible solutions to solve them. "Yeah, but I like knowing where they are all the time. Ah, there they are! Exactly where I left— aaah !"
Firmino jumped on top the bench, gaze darting from left to right across the floor. "O que? O que é? É um sapo?"
"No, not a frog, a skull!" Wait a minute...this isn't a real skull. It's a...sugar skull?" Alisson groaned, running his still-bare hand through his hair. "Harvey's gone too far this time. He nearly scared the goalkeeping genes out of me!"
"Can anything scare the goalkeeping genes out of you?" Firmino joked, climbing down from the bench. "And are you sure that it was Harvey? Virg was next to your locker—”
Alisson glared at Firmino, forgetting all about the gloves. "Virgil would never do that!"
"It's just a possibility," Firmino quickly defended himself. "Harvey's a jokester, but he wouldn't pull something like that."
"And neither would Virg," Alisson pointed out. "He likes a good joke, but a sugar skull? He knows those things make me jumpy."
"Good point, and then who would put sugar skulls in gloves? That would be really sticky if things got hot, and that's just not Virgil. Maybe it was Harvey."
"I don't think so. Harvey’s the kind of guy who’d eat a calavera just for the sugar rush.” Alisson took up the gloves from the floor, stuffing them under his arm. “Maybe it really was Virg."
*
Van Dijk had returned to the Kirkby Ground with a plan. He would get back to Alisson by hanging his goalkeeping gloves from the auditorium roof. A harmless, yet effective, prank.
But then the elastic in his hair snapped, and Van Dijk went to the bedroom to get another from his box of elastics. What he found scared him so much, he barely even noticed who else was there.
"OH, GET IT AWAY! GET IT AWAY!" Van Dijk jumped into the first bed he could see. Coincidentally, that happened to be Alisson's hammock.
As one can imagine, Alisson was a bit confused from watching Van Dijk leap into his hammock like it was Home Base. "You okay?"
Van Dijk stuck his head out from the pile of throw pillows, scowling. "Of course not! Why would you put a porcelain clown in my box of elastics!"
"What? I never touch your hair products, you know that!" Alisson held up his glove, which still had the sugar skull peeking out. "And who put a sugar skull in my gloves?"
"That wasn't me!" Van Dijk stroked his goatee as he stared at the sugar skull, deep in thought. "Although I gotta say, it's pretty clever. I would definitely do that if you weren't afraid of skulls."
“ Você está louco? " Alisson threw the sugar skull onto his hammock. Seeing that the skull's royal icing "eyes" were still staring at him, he quickly hid it with a pillow. "I've had those gloves for years, Virgil, they can't be replaced! Imagine if those got too hot and then the sugar melted in there!"
"But you have no need to worry." Van Dijk picked up the sugar skull, pulling at its unexpected "skin." "It's in plastic wrap!"
Alisson winced, face quickly turning red as the royal icing on the sugar skull's forehead. "I didn't see any plastic wrap."
"You would've if you didn't immediately think that I did it." Van Dijk held up the tub from earlier, closing his eyes before he opened it. "And even if I did do it, which I didn't, you put spiders in my hair gel! You nearly scared the chill out of me!"
"As I said, I never touch your hair supplies, Virgil." Alisson dug through the mountain of plastic spiders, eyes widening when his fingers hit something other than hair gel. "There's a note in here...in Dutch?"
Van Dijk grabbed the piece of notebook paper from Alisson, scanning over it quickly. "It's also in Portuguese."
Je hebt een beetje opwinding in je leven nodig, bros! Licht op! Além disso, eu me diverti muito fazendo isso;) Não se preocupe em me perseguir, saí para a pista de boliche com Flaco meia hora atrás!!!!
The two exchanged glares at each other, then stared back down at the letter.
" Que diabos. ..it's really him."
"I can't believe it."
Then the two of them shouted together. " Roberto Firmino Barbosa de Oliviera! "