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When Eddie woke up on his fifteenth birthday, he was anxiously awaiting the first sentence his soulmate would say to him printed on his wrist. He wasn’t, however, expecting it to be anything close to what it was.
“Je pense que vous êtes la plus belle personne que j'aie jamais vue.”
Eddie looked at the unintelligible words, his eyes wide with shock as he pulled his covers off him and stood up, peeling away his eyes long enough to get ready for the day as his mother shouts at him through the door to show her what he got. When he finally is ready with his fanny pack and all, he opens the door.
“Show me, Eddie-bear! What is it?”
“I don’t know.” Eddie frowns, displaying his wrist.
Sonia’s eyes widen. “A French girl! How exotic. What’s it say?”
“How am I supposed to know, mommy? I’ll go to the library during lunch and translate it, alright?”
“Tell me straight after!”
Eddie had been true to his word and found out what it means: I think you are the most beautiful person I have ever seen.
It made his heart flutter.
And it was in French.
He’d better start learning.
Two years later, Eddie still hasn’t met his soulmate, but he’s not too bothered- he’s practically fluent, but he’d like to be able to communicate with his soulmate as if he were a native speaker, or as close as he could get, so he wouldn’t have to miss out on any time with them with slow translations and miscommunication. Plus, some people have to wait much longer than a few years to meet the person they’re destined to be with. Eddie’s not worried, though it is a bit annoying to hear his best friend blabber on every day about how he can’t wait to meet his soulmate, that it’s going to be magical, that two years is way too long for him to wait.
Ben walks with Eddie to first period, clutching his books in his hands. “I don’t think I can take it. The waiting and the waiting…” Ben sighs.
“Yes, I know, Benjamin.” Eddie says.
“And yours is so romantic.” His friend continues. “And French.”
“It’s French? I didn’t notice.”
“Shut up! You know what I mean. Mine is ‘You guys aren’t massive homophobes or anything, right?’, which is so confusing, because I’m definitely straight, so I think I’m allowed to like the romance.”
“I think if you worked up the balls and talked to the redhead you’re crushing on-“
“Don’t even say it!”
“Maybe you’d like the outcome! It’s all I’m saying.”
Ben shakes his head as they enter the classroom and sit down in their seats next to each other, placing their bags and stuff down accordingly. “There’s no way Beverly Marsh is stuck with me.”
“Don’t sell yourself short.” Eddie replies, and looks up to the teacher, who is talking.
Their teacher is a fifty year old man with gray hair and wrinkled skin that tells the story of a man who worried too much and had lines to prove it. First period is History, and the man looks like he was there for at least the Civil War. Eddie has gotten used to tuning out his boring drawl because History is a fairly easy subject, but right now he isn’t talking about anything about Andrew Jackson or such.
“…exchange student from France.” The teacher is saying. It doesn’t click in Eddie’s mind at first, then it hits him full force at the same time Ben grabs onto his arm and yanks, that a French exchange student probably speaks French.
“Oh my god!” Ben whispers in his ear. “Eddie! It’s him!”
“Don’t get my hopes up.” Eddie says, despite his own hopes being up already. He imagines some dreamy French boy coming and sitting across from him, calling him beautiful and then sweeping him away to go get croissants while telling him stories of his adventures in Paris, of what the world looks like when standing at the top of the Eiffel Tower.
When the boy does walk in, Eddie is… underwhelmed, to say the least. He doesn’t look all sophisticated and French, and he’s actually wearing a cap backwards.
“I’m Adrian.” The boy says, and not much else. His accent is nice, Eddie thinks, but those aren’t his words. “I’m not too interesting.”
The teacher let’s the boy sit down and spares him from having to do a whole introduction. He sits in the back corner, not close to Eddie. Ben sighs and frowns, looking to Eddie. “Guess that settles it.”
“I guess.”
“Sorry, man.” Ben says. “It seemed so…”
“It’s fine. It’s just not him. He’s out there somewhere. Probably in France.” Eddie shrugs and focuses back on his work, trying not to be too disappointed.
“Or Canada.” Ben adds. Eddie laughs.
Richie Tozier has loved his first sentence since the second he saw it. “I’ve waited so long for this.” It read. He likes it a lot, because he feels the same way. He desperately wishes he could meet them already, but, for now, he just goes to school and mulls through his day until he’s with his best friend, Beverly Marsh. He thinks Beverly is perfect, and that in another life, they’re probably soulmates. But in this one, his soulmate is some fantastic and amazing person who has waited for him and dreamt about him for an unknown period of time. Richie thinks it’s romantic, though he doesn’t tell Beverly this, because she’d probably just tease him. Beverly’s is only just her name, asked as a question, so she doesn’t have much to go on. The only thing Richie has is that it’s going to be a long time before he meets his soulmate; he wonders if two years is long enough. The waiting is getting to him, though he supposes it’s like that for everybody.
“There’s a French exchange student in my Geometry class.” Beverly says at lunch, holding a ham sandwich. “The girls were swooning over him.”
“Did he say your name?” Richie teases, batting his eyelashes.
“He already met his soulmate, apparently. Some boy on his sports team or something. He said football, but I think that means soccer.”
“I think it does.” Richie agrees. He has a turkey sandwich with not enough mustard, so it’s more dry than usual. Still, he eats it because he’s hungry and skipped breakfast that morning. “Damn, he could probably get so much pussy if he tried. I’m jealous.”
“You’re disgusting.”
“French guys are hot. It’s a universal fact. Anything sounds hot in French. I could bag so many chicks and dicks in French.”
“You don’t even know French.”
“That’s why I’m jealous! He does! I took French freshman and sophomore year but I dropped it junior year and now I’ve forgotten mostly everything. I do remember how to flirt, though. I could never forget.”
Beverly narrows her eyes and a smirk grows on her face. “I dare you to go flirt with someone in this cafeteria in French. Anyone. Pick someone cute.”
Richie laughs and stands up, scanning the crowd until his eyes fall on the perfect candidate. “You’re on.” Richie smiles.
Eddie doesn’t notice anyone’s approaching his lunch table with Ben, Stan, and Bill. Not even when Stan elbows Ben and says, “Isn’t he Beverly’s boyfriend?”
And not even when Ben replies, “I don’t think she and Richie are dating. I haven’t talked to either of them, yet.”
He doesn’t notice anyone approached until some boy- Beverly’s Richie- sits down across from him in a black and white Hawaiian shirt with tossed black hair, glasses, and shit-eating grin. Eddie furrows his eyebrows and opens his mouth to ask what he’s doing here, since Eddie doesn’t even know his name, but the other boy beats him to it. “Je pense que vous êtes la plus belle personne que j'aie jamais vue.” The ink-black haired boy says in a rough, blundering excuse for a French accent.
The other three pairs of eyes at the table all systematically turn to oggle at Eddie in such haunting unison that the boy looks genuinely concerned at the movement. “Sorry.” He says uneasily. “It was a dare from my friend to flirt with someone in the cafeteria because that new French kid… It was just a joke. Did you understand that? I’m sorry.”
“I’ve waited so long for this.” Eddie says, eerily calm, and watches the poor boy go stock still. “Very, very long. I waited so long for a very nice and very pretty boy to come and sweep me off my feet and call me beautiful. I learned French. I am fluent in French because I assumed my soulmate would be French, and it was just… on a dare?”
“Oh my god.” Richie says, a smile inching onto his lips.
“I learned an ENTIRE LANGUAGE!” Eddie groans, dropping his head down onto the table in front of him. “I’m so stupid.” He says, voice muffled due to his compressed cheek.
Richie drops his head down, resting his chin on his hands, to get leveled with Eddie. “Wanna go on a date?” He asks.
“Yes.” Eddie replies lamely, still garbled from the table.
After that, a certain redheaded girl with short hair slides into the seat next to Eddie’s soulmate, and if he wasn’t already in shock himself, he would be excited for Ben because he’s had a crush on this girl for years despite never talking to her.
“You guys aren’t massive homophobes or something, right?” Beverly jokes. “Because otherwise it would be totally awkward that Richie just flirted with your friend here. I think I have to give him money now.”
Eddie lets out the loudest, driest laugh on the planet with his face still pressed against the table.