III

IFHY  |  Tyler, The Creator

"Perfect! You can start tomorrow."

Richie and Eddie stood side by side in front of the directors desk, mouths agape and bodies frozen in place. What the fu-

Just then, the bell rung loud in their ears, and the director ushered them out into the halls as they were still processing. Eventually, Richie turned to Eddie with a terrified expression. Eddie mirrored him as they stood in the middle of teens beginning to pack into the halls.

Richie impulsively decided he'd survive being a few minutes late to Geometry, and that he needed to speak with Eddie in private. Immediately.

He suddenly remembered that the janitors closet was merely a few hallways down, and before he knew it, he was dragging Eddie by the arm and pushing through against the rowdy current of students. Eddie made sounds of protest behind him, but Richie was too anxious to get somewhere safe to notice.

They made it to the closet and Richie quickly scanned to see if any teachers were watching, then slid them both through the crack of the door.

"What the hell, Richie?! I know we were both really fucking shaken up back there, but I didn't expect to be manhandled and sent through a bunch of shov-ie fucking teenagers!" Eddie said angrily, tugging his wrist away from Richies grasp.

Richie throws his and Eddies backpack to the corner of the room, rolling his eyes.

"Okay, I'm sorry. Really. But you gotta admit; One, shov-ie isn't a word! And two.. I have a right to be freaking the fuck out right now, don't ya think Eds?" Richie retorts, pacing back and forth around the small space he has on one side of the closet. Eddie stands on the other side, huffing with his arms crossed over his chest.

"That's not my name." Eddie spat, suddenly having the attitude of a 15 year old girl.

Richie turned to him with a frustrated and confused expression, and shook his head as if he were making no sense. "What??" Richie said almost too aggressively, visibly frustrated out of his mind in response to what Eddie had just said.

"My name is Eddie. Not Eds." he responded, grimacing when he repeated the name Richie had just called him.

Richie scoffed. "First of all, how on earth could you be commenting on that rather than the greater matter, and secondly, it's called a nickname! Look it up in the dictionary if you have to." Richie scowled back at the boy.

"Eddie is already a nickname, dumbass".

At that, Richie did feel a bit dumb, he had to admit to himself. But hell no is he letting Eddie win with it.

"Well you know what, Eddie?" he said, flailing his arms around and rolling his eyes when he emphasized the boys name. "I think I'm gonna call you whatever the fuck I want, because I just now got notice that I have to literally babysit you for an hour every day for the next two weeks! So why don't you cut me some fucking slack.". Richie was letting it all out by now, and most of this he knew was coming off a bit too mean, but he was still so shaken that he didn't relent.

Eddie clenched his fist and shoved his pointer finger at Richies chest. "Oh shut the fuck up already! You think you're all high and mighty because you're gonna tutor me about you're lame fucking elective?". Richies energy seemed to only spur Eddie on even more, and things were escalating quickly.

"Also, Fuck you man! If anything I'd be babysitting you, you're acting like a whiny little child!" Eddie spat, slowly treading closer into Richies ground.

Richie didn't seem to notice that he was stepping back as well, too fuelled into the argument to realize it.

"I'm not the one who's short as fuck, made up a word that makes no sense, and was just complaining about being called a fucking nickname like two seconds ago!" Richie fires back, numbering points on his fingers. Eddie laughs wickedly at that, a genuine, loud belly laugh filled with venom and hate that makes Richies blood boil.

They heard the sound of the warning bell for third period go off, and the halls beginning to clear out. The both of them ignored it as if they hadn't heard a thing in the first place, resuming their argument right where they left off.

"And don't even act like you know shit about theatre anyways. I know you, Eddie. I already know how much of a goodie fucking two-shoes you are. You need me! You don't give a fuck whether it's an elective or not. You just want to get a good grade on everything. You're gonna fail the class without me and you know it." Richie blurts in an angry outburst.

He leans in a bit, and whispers from barely a few inches away, "And your cute little reputation can't take that much heat, can it?" he pouts, mocking Eddie with a satisfied smirk.

Richie sees Eddie blink hard, notices his nostrils flare up for a second, and feels him step further into his space. Richie stumbles back again a bit. Two can play at that game, Eddie thinks.

"If you think I'm the one who needs you, you're one egotistical son of a bitch," Eddie remarks, scowling up at Richie.

He steps closer.

"Just imagine how devastated your poor director would be, " Eddie says, getting quieter. "when he finds out his most very dedicated student gave up on his most very important assignment. Me." He says, looking up at Richie with innocent eyes. Richie swallows the lump in his throat, and his back finally hits the shelf in the back of the janitors closet.

"It's only a matter of time before his most difficultly behaved student becomes just too difficult to withstand, don't you think?". Eddie is down to a low voice, almost even a whisper as he takes one last step closer toward Richie, their faces merely inches apart. He looks down to Eddies hand finding its way onto one of the zips of Richies sweater, delicately tugging as if to pull Richie down closer.

Richie stares down at Eddie intently, full of uncertainty and attentive curiosity, and exhales a quiet, shuddering breath. Eddie still has his eyes on him the way he did, but then he sees him glance down to Richies lips. Now Richie can't help it. His eyes glimpse down to Eddies lips, only for a millisecond. Fuck. He knows what he's doing, he knows, but he can't let him get to him that easily.

Richie thinks this is outrageous. He's cheating. This is unfair. What the hell is he doing to him? Richie isn't gay! Right? He'd definitely fucking know if he were to be attracted to boys... right?

Oh god.

Richie blinks once or twice, internally shaking those thoughts out of his mind. He quickly slips out of where Eddie had cornered him and bolts to the other side of the room, his sneakers squeaking and leaving skid marks on the tiles.

When he turns back to Eddie, he sees a satisfied smirk perfectly placed on those dumb lips of his.

He hates Eddie. This is not how he was expecting the day to go. He thought they'd end up friends at least. Chat about the weather and the current class play. But no. Things just had to go straight to shit.

"You're evil, you know that?" Richie scowled, pointing his finger at Eddie accusingly. "You're a fucking madman".

Eddie rolls his eyes and crosses his arms back onto his chest, saying nothing. Richie shakes his head, mostly to himself, and looks down to the floor, reassessing his options for the moment.

This is dumb, he thinks. What is this argument even about?

He sighs. "Okay look, Eddie. I don't wanna be here, you obviously don't wanna be here, but if we do this... we'll be helping each other out" Richie explains almost painfully, thinking of whether he'll regret this decision in the future.

When Eddie still says nothing, Richie sighs heavily and decides to take a chance. "Ugh, just-" he glances around the room, and spots a lonesome marker on the top shelf. Richie snatches it easily and holds it out to Eddie. "Give me your phone number." he says, rolling up his sleeve and exposing his pale wrist to him.

"Fuck no" Eddie says immediately. Richie is taken aback by the sudden response, watching as Eddie crosses over to Richies side of the room and snatches his backpack aggressively.

When Richie notices that Eddie is heading for the door, he swiftly jumps in front of him and dodges his hand from the knob before he can grasp it. "Wait!" he says, holding up one of his hands in front of Eddie.

He notices that his other had grabbed at Eddies before it reached the doorknob, so now it's held tightly in Richies grasp.

Eddie gives him a look, and Richie lets him go, coughing awkwardly. He backs Eddie up so they have more space between each other (god knows they need it), and Richie represses the urge to yell nonsense in frustration.

"God, Eddie, why cant you make this easier for us" Richie pleads, handing out the marker a second time.

Eddie hesitates for a moment, chewing at his cheek in his mouth while staring at Richie, then at the marker, then back at Richie.

After realizing he genuinely has no better option, he sighs and takes the marker from the taller boy, opening the cap and grabbing at his arm aggressively.

"Ah Jesus! I know you hate me, babe, but my wrist never did anything to you" he says, wincing as Eddie purposefully tugged his wrist toward him with force.

"Shut the fuck up, Trashmouth," Eddie huffs, scribbling down the numbers to his home phone on Richies wrist.

"I'm straight, you know."

Richies eyes narrow confusedly down at Eddie, and for a second he supposed he'd forgotten how to breathe properly. A silence spreads in the room, an uncomfortable one that Richie senses only he can feel, while the only sounds being the marker scratching against his own soft skin. He wondered if his body wanted to laugh -let out one of those awful, squawky, hysterical noises of his- or choke on air and collapse to the floor.

Richie decides, with a slightly strained throat, not to comment on it. But nevertheless, his mind raced with thoughts. How the fuck does he expect me to believe he's straight?! He just tried to seduce me over an argument! Does he have a girlfriend? What's her name? Does she go here? How can I be scoring less than Eddie fucking Kaspbrak?

"Done," Eddie interrupts his thoughts, clicking the cap back onto the marker and tossing it onto the middle shelf.

"We start tomorrow. You better not screw this up, Tozier" he says, walking to the door and cracking it open just a bit to check for teachers, before sprinting across the hall and out of sight.

Richie sighed, as if to let out a huge breath of relief (or defeat). He scooped up his backpack and hurried to Geometry. He wondered if he should tell Stan and Bev of this incident, and what they'd say about it.

He shrugged off the thought and snuck into his class through the door. The classroom lights were off, and they were currently watching a video on the projector. The old lady that staff call a teacher was snoozing in her chair. She never notices when Richie is late, and he can always get away with it.

He treads lightly to his seat. Some students spot Richie and sigh quietly, or chuckle to themselves, and some even scoff and whisper to each other. He ignores them and settles in, exhaling a large breath and putting his cheek into the palm of his hand, staring up at the projector.

He tries to focus on what's playing... something something Geometric Transformations? They reviewed that last week.

Soon his thoughts drift, and he is painfully aware of how much damage that has just been caused between him and Eddie. Their friendship will now be tainted with hatred and annoyance and most of all, obligation to be where they officially don't want to be. Tutoring.

Richie can't deny that he seriously hates Eddie at the moment. Not only did he call Richie a whiny baby and practically tried to seduce him, but he also fucking said theatre was lame. That's not to be forgiven.

The "tutoring" starts to-fucking-morrow! He doesn't know about Eddie, but Richie sure as hell cannot take silence well. Especially the angry kind. At some point in the day, he'll end up saying something stupid and screwing it up for everyone. What if Eddie yells at him?

God, Richie, you need to shut the fuck up, his mind tells him, involuntarily pinching at the skin that met with his jawline, hard. It felt enough to leave a bruise, but Richie was surely used to acting out subconsciously and hurting himself every once in a while. He rolled his eyes at himself and focused back on the video playing.

Of course, as the day progressed, it wasn't long till his thoughts went back to him and Eddie. Back to the chaos he just knows is about to unfold. He tries, tries, and tries so very hard to block out the stress and tell himself it's just an upcoming blip in the next few weeks.

But still, later that night, Richie lies awake, overthinking everything and being much too busy bugging at himself to go to sleep for him to actually fall asleep. Eventually, his eyes drift closed finally at 4 am, the recurring noise of Eddies dumb stupid giggle and the thought of his evil unbearable brown honey eyes lulling him into a deep sleep.

whoops sorry LMFAO, i lied so badly in the description of this book. aint nobody eager to teach anyone theatre😳 ok goodbye enjoy

love and light - author