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Poob was so excited! Everything was coming together perfectly. They hummed an upbeat party tune to themselves as they hammered the very last nail into the wall, which finished the decorations.
“Did u git evrything Pest?!” They spun around, starting the beetle. Silly, he should be used to it by now. “Uh, yeah. That should be the last of the cupcakes.” He revealed the tray of nicely decorated yellow cupcakes which smelled pleasantly of bananas. Poob hopped off of the step-ladder and folded it up. “Hehehe! Split is guna luv this!”
“We should probably start cleaning up the tools. Considering we are in her home.” Pest suggested, holding out his left arm to take the stepladder after setting the cupcakes down. Poob nodded frantically, trotting off to watch the front door with much vigilance to see if the other guests were showing up. Of course, they’d told Split to get there about an hour later than anyone else. It might have been a bit of a stretch to rely on Bive not to spill the beans, but Poob was confident that this was going to be a great day.
First came Infected. Very surprisingly, but mostly because of all the occasions (every occasion) where he got the time wrong, he had managed to show up almost on time. Then came DrRETRO, who was wearing a purple sweater and nice periwinkle skirt instead of her usual professional red dress and lab coat. She blabbered something as she walked in, which only Infected was able to decipher due to his self proclaimed professionalism in cat-speak.
Everyone else mostly arrived in groups. Lampert with Mark and Wallter (having decided to put aside their very argument-prone differences for a day to do something nice for their friend). Prototype and Scag, who had helped Spud reach the destination. Jermbo.. arrived. When Poob turned to see who all had come in, they noticed Jermbo in the corner with Buck at his 2-Dimensional paws, even though they hadn’t seen the feline pair walk up.
As Poob was walking back to the kitchen to get everything ready, Mach and Pilby appeared with a bright red flash in front of him.
”Doh, sorry… :0(“
“Apologies.” Mach and Pilby said at the same time, backing out of Poob’s way. Mach took off her hat, considering with it on she had to slouch to not bang her head on the ceiling. Either way it was a tight fit. Her and Pilby were both holding a present, which they carefully sat down with the rest. Walking over into the crowd, they struck up conversation with DrRetro.
“Ok, I think evrything’s redy!!” Poob said to Pest, blowing their party horn. Pest nodded, flicking off the lights.
The only problem was Mach. There wasn’t really anything big enough in Split’s apartment for her to hide behind. The deity only shrugged, snapping her fingers and disappearing from view. Pilby’s startled expression when they were accidentally bumped confirmed she was still there. Poob gave a thumbs-up to confirm Split was approaching and dove for the couch, knocking into Pest, who huffed. Everything fell silent as the sound of a doorknob turning was heard. Bive’s abnormally loud voice mixed with Split’s cheery one, and as the door opened everyone jumped out, blowing party horns and shouting.
Split’s face lit up, her laugh sounding throughout the room.
————
Split blew out the candles on her cake just as the crowd of her friends that were gathered around her finished singing Happy Birthday. She smiled as cheer kicked up amongst the NPCs.
As cake was handed out she deemed to herself, mentally, that this was the most pleasant April’s Fools prank anyone could have.
It was a slightly different story for Unpleasant. It sat in its gaming chair, Fortnite lobby music blaring loudly, roaring above the tower fan in the corner. Its monitor was the only light source in the room, besides the singular candle on a cosmic brownie in front of the gradient.
It stared down at the pathetic display that had been stolen from that one intergalactic shop it had forgotten the name of. Picking at the edge of the paper plate, Unpleasant unclipped those stupid black and purple hair extensions from its hair to remove the risk of setting them on fire, which would honestly be just it’s luck, tossing them over its shoulder. Inhaling slightly, the gradient leaned forward and blew out the candle.
It picked up the brownie and tossed the entire thing into its mouth, candle and all. Chewing slowly, Unpleasant looked down as its phone vibrated on the desk. It swept aside Pop-Tart crumbs and picked it up. Tapping on Snapchat, it saw that Split had updated her story. A video of everyone smiling, cake stuffed in their mouths. Unpleasant sat its phone down, turning it off. The sound of laughter was getting on its nerves. Swallowing the wax-chocolate mishmash that was in its mouth, it chugged some Fizz-Up and loaded in to a Fortnite match.
As it smashed the WASD keys on its keyboard, the sound of it left-clicking unreasonably fast could be distinguished from the distinct lack of screaming and shouting that usually came with a Fortnite game while the gradient cranked 90s on some poor 40 year old truck driver from Minnesota, probably.
Of course, that was just a warm up. And so were the next 23 rounds. The sunlight had started to rudely leak into Infected and Unpleasant’s apartment by the time it had finished its 3rd ranked match. Feeling the burning sensation in its nonexistent eyes and the blue-light headache Unpleasant was getting, it decided to lay down for maybe 20 minutes and wait for the aching pain in its head to subside. Infected had come in during the night, presumably drunk out of his mind.
Unpleasant rudely bumped his foot as it walked by the couch that Infected was slumped over, flipping him off as the exhausted Robloxian sat up to protest.
The gradient closed the door to its room, laying down on the stained mattress that was on the floor. It pulled one of the patchy and crusty blankets over it with its shoes still on and sighed.
Unpleasant laid an arm over the spot where its eyes would be, and where it saw from anyhow. The last thing it remembered thinking before passing out was a fleeting wonder of what Split got for her birthday.