𝐸𝑇𝐻𝐸𝑅𝐸𝐴𝐿 // 𝐶𝐻𝐸𝑁𝑆𝑈𝑁𝐺 [✔️]

one

the church decorations practically screamed 'wedding,' with white flowers scattered about the aisles and covering the altar where the casket lay opened. soft chatter filled the area as people cleared out for the 'reception'—where funeral-goers would go to eat and be repaid for sitting through the slow service. not many people shed tears for the loss of zhong chenle short of his mother and detested elder brother renjun. not even his best friend park jisung could manage to cry. the whole situation didn't even seem real.

only two people—aside from the cadaver in the casket—remained in the sanctuary: renjun and jisung. the elder of the two doesn't stare inside the casket but instead looks at the white flowers. he takes one and lay it in the casket alongside his brother, bidding him one last and final goodbye.

he turns to jisung, face red and swollen from crying. "we can go to the reception together—if—if you want. mom told me she made your favorite—cherry pie."

"i think it's wrong to have a reception after an open casket funeral."

"i agree," renjun manages a small smile. "but it's what my mom wants. i just don't want to do this by myself. if i hear one more 'he's in a better place now,' i'm going to throw something."

jisung silently agrees. he had heard enough condolences to last him a lifetime, and he wasn't even related to the zhong family.

he crumples up his paper bulletin and tosses it aside. "i'll join you in a minute. i'd just like a moment alone with him, if that's okay."

"take as much time as you need. and feel free to close the casket once you're done. i think he's probably done being out in the open like that." renjun forces a chuckle despite the new tears being formed in his chocolatey-brown eyes. he walks off rather slowly but eventually ends up shutting the sanctuary door behind him so jisung and chenle's lifeless body are truly alone.

hesitantly, he steps closer to the casket. the aura feels off, like someone is watching him, so he looks around and verifies that he is, in fact, alone. he lets out a deep breath and stares intently at chenle's porcelain peach skin and black hair so neat one might think it was fake. the mortician had dressed him in a black suit and tie much like jisung's.

jisung kneels down beside him, still unable to cry. "if you can hear me, i'm sorry."

chenle can't hear him. but still, he continues. "this is my fault. it's my fault you're gone. i shouldn't have—"

"it's not your fault, jisung."

"jesus fucking christ!"

he doesn't scream. that would raise alarm. but he's pretty sure he pissed his pants. that, or he's officially lost it. he's gone completely mad. chenle definitely isn't sitting up in front of him, smiling, back to life as if he had even died at all.

"wait a minute—wait..." jisung struggles to find words through a fit of hyperventilation. "i-i'm just dreaming, right? zombies aren't real, jisung. chenle isn't sitting up right now. you're just stressed, so you're dreaming some wild-ass shit."

"you must be pretty stressed out, because this is not a dream, and i'm not a zombie." the elder of the two confesses. "i didn't expect it to go this far, really. if someone finds out about this, i'll be actually dead."

"you are actually dead!"

"i told you, i'm not!"

jisung doesn't know what overcame him, but he slapped chenle in the face. hard. the elder winces but doesn't shout in case someone could hear. "what the hell, jisung? what was that for?"

he really shouldn't be surprised that chenle's hilarious hijinks would end up getting him into something so huge he couldn't back down. normally, the prankster would put the blame on something else believable rather than himself, but faking a death is a bit more...serious. not to mention, illegal.

to think about it, chenle explains, it wasn't really faking. this all resulted from a mistake the doctors made, wherein they presumed him braindead after an accident involving a fire created from a gas leak. chenle assumed that they couldn't be serious—inhaling that much smoke and toxins couldn't kill him but instead put him into a temporary deep sleep.

he woke up a few days later starving while laying on a mortician's table. piecing two and two together was actually quite easy once he found papers regarding his obituary and funeral invitations. thank god his mother hadn't picked cremation.

and chenle, knowing how much deep shit he would get into if he went back now, went along with it. he snuck food by stealing money. and the mortician didn't ever work on him, so getting by as 'dead' was quite easy. it's illegal where they live to fake a death, and a 'prank' as big as this one could get him in a lot more trouble than if he just confessed in the first place.

"i didn't actually think you'd respond to me! i'm fucking scared right now, chenle. my best friend who is supposed to be dead just talked to me—and told me that my life for the past three weeks was a complete lie. i'm—i'm delusional. i'm fucking mad, aren't i?" he laughs to himself, although something in the back of his mind tells him to believe that chenle's actually telling the truth. how else would this be happening?

"listen to me, jisung." he puts a hand on the younger's wrist only to be whacked away. "i really need your help. we need to close the casket, and i need to escape before this gets buried. i'm not asking you to escape with me, i at least just need your help getting out of town."

now that jisung thinks about it, it's not such a bad idea. running away with chenle had always been a dream since he developed a crush back in middle school. and it's not like he has anything important to do at home, since his guardians (labeled as such) didn't care about his whereabouts. he could be dead for years and they wouldn't spare as much as a missing poster. plus, chenle seemed genuine.

this is what best friends do for each other, right?

"i'll help you," he says. "getting you out unnoticed will be a problem, though."

he helps guide chenle out of the casket, smiling to himself. as wild as this seems, he's beyond willing to go along with it. if that meant chenle would remain safe and out of trouble with the law, then by all means. he'd go to the end of the universe and back for his best friend, so this is just a minor thing. right?