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“Hey, what’s taking so long?” Eddie asked as he burst through Richie’s bedroom door.
Richie, who was squatting on the other side of the bed so that Eddie could only see the top of his head, lost his balance and landed on his ass. Eddie opened the door to its fullness and lifted one eyebrow at the sight of his friend looking up at him with an ‘I’ve just been caught’ expression.
“What are you doi-”
“-Nothing.” Richie answered before Eddie even finished the question.
Suspicious and curious, Eddie got on his tip toes in a useless attempt to see past the mattress and get a glimpse at whatever Richie was hiding from him.
Not so subtly, Richie moved his arms behind his back, still sitting on the floor. The bed standing between them was starting to annoy Eddie to a great level.
“Watcha hiding there, Rich?”
“Nothing.” He spoke quickly again.
“Uh.” Eddie nodded, lowered himself from his toes and shrugged, as if he was ready to brush the incident off.
Richie cleared his throat but made no move to get up. The two boys kept staring at each other until Eddie couldn’t keep it in anymore.
“So, you just left to get more pillows and ended up leaving the group for almost ten minutes?”
With a troubled expression, Richie stammered through his words. “Ah, funny, right? I must have lost track of t- AH!”
Eddie didn’t let him finish. Like a predator in attack, he launched himself onto the bed and jumped Richie’s frame on the other side, desperately trying to grab Richie’s arms from behind his own back to retrieve whatever he was hiding. Turned out he didn’t have to do much, for Richie fell backwards with the scare, making him shoot both arms forward in order not to crash them under his weight. A small black notebook came into view and Eddie wasted no time in tearing it out of Richie’s hand.
Eddie crawled back onto the bed and got up on his, luckily, shoeless feet. He struggled a little bit with his balance but managed to stand with an arm above his head, the notebook on his hand. He watched, amused, as Richie scrambled to get on his feet with a terrified expression, ready to jump Eddie’s body just to retrieve his precious belonging.
“No-no-no!” Eddie exclaimed while holding his free hand out between the two of them. Richie stopped with his leg already propped up on the mattress. “If you so much as touch me, I’ll open this notebook right the fuck now.” Eddie threatened.
Richie whined helplessly, a troubled pout looking up at Eddie. He attempted to move again, both hands grabbing the air in desperation, but Eddie cut him off with a warning.
“Uh-uh!” Eddie stepped back. “Don’t test me, I’ll do it!” Slowly, and never looking away from Richie, Eddie lifted his free arm until he had both hands on the notebook, ready to open it at any given time.
Richie whined again, his mouth falling open many times like a fish. Eddie flipped the pages with his thumb, making Richie’s breath hitch.
“You’re just making me more curious, you know?” Eddie asked. As a response, Richie mumbled something under his breath. “What was that?”
“I said that’s private!” He blurted out.
Eddie sighed and sulked a bit, lowering his arms. “Well, in that case…” He handed out the notebook. “Take it.” Relief took over Richie’s face as he aimed for the notebook, but before he could grab it, Eddie snatched his arm above his head again. “So is it like a journal?” Eddie smirked.
“You’re Satan, Eddie Kaspbrak!” Richie screamed before finally following Eddie up on the bed. The smaller boy screamed with adrenaline before jumping off the other side. This started a full on race within the small space of Richie’s bedroom, and Eddie couldn’t help but giggle. It was fun.
“Is it a diary?” He exclaimed over his shoulder while jumping over a pile of laundry on the carpet. He hugged the notebook close to his mid-section.
“Fuck you, that’s what it is!” Richie groaned when they found themselves, once again, separated by the bed. Both of them stopped. For a few seconds they could only hear each other’s heavy breaths from the small run until Eddie spoke again.
“So, a diary it is.”
“WRONG!” Richie screamed before snapping both hands over his mouth. Eddie jumped, startled, and noticed Richie’s face turning pinker by the second.
Eddie looked around for a second, trying to formulate a plan. “It’s no biggie. You can read mine, too.” Eddie shrugged. He was trying his hardest not to laugh.
"You don't have a fucking diary, Eds. GIVE IT BACK." Richie didn’t wait another second to jump over the bed.
“NO!” Eddie screamed and turned around, running out the bedroom door onto the hallway while snapping the diary open. “DEAR DIARY, TODAY-”
“I WAS FUCKING TEN YEARS OLD!” Richie ran off after him, shouting out those words as an excuse for whatever he wrote down eight years ago. Eddie kept on reading the embarrassing entry as they burst into the living room, where Bill, Stan and Mike were entertained playing ‘go fish’ while they waited for both of them to come back.
Eddie started running around the living room, jumping over blankets, pillows, almost falling onto the coffee table and finally managing to climb on the couch where the boys were sitting. He glued himself to the wall behind the couch, leaving Bill, Stan and Mike as a safety barrier between him and Richie.
“-Today Stanley fell on a puddle on our way to school- oh fuck!” He exclaimed when a pillow hit him in the head. “What was that for?”
“What was that for?!” Richie threw his arms in the air. “You’re reading my childhood diary in front of our friends!”
“You wrote about me falling on a puddle?” Stan asked, annoyed, as he snatched the notebook from Eddie’s hands. Richie groaned and plopped down on the coffee table, sitting over the deck of cards.
Stan worked his way to a random page and cleared his throat. “Dear diary, me and the boys went to the Aladdin today, the movie was gross. The best part was Bill falling off the stairs. I think my friends fall too much. I couldn’t stop laughing but Bill didn’t cry. If it was me I think I would cry but Bill is amazing so he didn’t.”
When Stan finished, everyone erupted in giggles and it was Bill’s turn to steal the little diary to check the words for himself.
“I’ve never read a sentence with more spelling errors than this one.” Stan said. Richie buried his face on his hands and accepted his poor fate at the sound of pages turning under Bill’s hands.
“Oh, this seems puh-promising.” Bill smirked. “My dad took me to the hair man-” Bill paused. “What the f-fuck’s a hair m-man?”
“I was a fucking child! How was I supposed to know how to write barber?” Richie hissed at the floor, still keeping his face planted on his palms.
“Correct grammar didn’t seem to be an issue for you.” Stan said.
“This is so not funny. I hate all of you.” Richie lifted his head and stared at his friends in annoyance. He could feel his face burning despite not knowing that the next things in the diary entry would finish him for good.
“Doesn’t matter, keep going.” Eddie said with excitement while he sat on the back of couch to peer over Bill’s shoulders.
“Right. My dad took me to the hair man this week and my f-f-friends laughed at me. I was really ss-sad because Eds said my hair looked stupid.”
Richie froze in place, too embarrassed to move. He stared at his diary in Bill’s hands so intensely that he thought it could catch fire.
“Well that’s depressing.” Stan concluded.
“Great, I feel like a jerk.” Eddie said quietly. “I’m sorry, Rich-” The apology was cut off by someone chuckling. All of them turned to look at Mike, who was laughing so hard by that point that he was grabbing his own stomach.
“Oh god.” He exclaimed while rubbing his eyes. “I’m so sorry, I just find that really funny.”
“Doesn’t look like you’re very sorry, mate.” Richie deadpanned.
“I can’t help it, okay? It was so obvious you had a crush on Eddie.” Mike shrugged.
Richie choked on his own breathing and Eddie’s smile was so bright and playful it could light up the whole room. Meanwhile, Stan and Bill joined the laughter.
“Here, I bet I can find proof in any of these pages.” Mike stretched himself over the couch to get the notebook from Bill’s hands. He flipped pages for a few seconds before stopping on one, reading it in silence, and then smiling up at the group. “All right listen up: Dear diary, today Eds had a yellow shirt at school and he looked really cute. I liked the shirt a lot. I think I like Eds more than the others.”
“Fine. FINE!” Richie got up and teared the black notebook from Mike’s hands and tossed it across the room. “Are you guys done making fun of me?”
Eddie had to physically hold his laughter in. “Aww, Richie. It’s kinda cute, though, that your crush comes all the way since like, 5th grade.”
Despite trying to stay serious, Richie’s lips were breaking off into a smile. “I’m so never forgiving you for this.”
Eddie giggled freely and got up from the back of the couch, pushing Stan and Bill’s torsos aside to climb down from it. He walked over to the diary laying on the floor and picked it up before going up to Richie and holding his hand.
“C’mon.” He started pulling him onto the hallway again so that they could go get the forgotten extra pillows. “I’ll make sure to wear yellow for the rest of the week to make up for it.”
Richie rolled his eyes and bumped Eddie’s shoulder. “Oh, bite me, Kaspbrak.”
“Will you write about it on your diary if I do?” Eddie teased him.
From the living room, they heard groans of disgust. “Oh, gross!”