°°·.⬧︎ ᴀꜱᴛʀᴏɴᴏᴍʏ ⬧︎.·°° | ʀᴇᴅᴅɪᴇ |

#4: ᴏᴜʀꜱ ᴡɪʟʟ ʙᴇ ᴀ ꜰᴏʀʙɪᴅᴅᴇɴ ʟᴏᴠᴇ

"You totally fucking cheated, trashmouth. I want my quarter back," Eddie said in a peeved manner, reaching out to take my small wallet, which I subtly slipped back into my pocket.

"How the hell can I cheat at Street Fighter, dipshit?"

"I have no idea, but you're Richie Tozier," Eddie leaned against the back of another game, the bright and vibrant lights of the arcade surrounding his shadowed figure. Only one specific color seemed to illuminate, though; it was the large red V written over his cast in sharpie. "You find ways."

I scoffed and aggressively tapped the buttons on the side of the machine, all of my attention settled on the small pixelated figures that battled back and forth between punches. "When's Bill getting here?"

We always tended to come to the arcade after school on Fridays, it was like a tradition or something. It was also a sign of competitiveness and dominance I guess. Whoever won the most amount of games had to buy the other friends ice cream and shit at the roller skating rink directly next to the arcade building, which was next to the movie theatre, and so forth. 

Despite it originally being a devil town, Derry had a lot to do.

Countering that point, however, all of the important things here caught the appeal of children. Arcades. Ice cream. Roller skating. Ferris wheels. Carnivals. Balloons.

"Sometime soon, I guess," Eddie said impatiently, taking another sip of his small Coca Cola that he held in one hand. "He's probably out riding Silver all over town again."

"Ah, you know how Big Bill gets with those shortcuts and that stupid bike," I recalled, leaning against the Pacman arcade machine behind me, where an older boy angrily grunted in how close I was to his session. "Always late, and never equipped with a hostess gift."

"There's no way in hell he'd buy anything for you."

"Am I the implied hostess? I always thought it would be you, Girly Boy," I took out another quarter from my back pocket and slipped it into a close claw machine, watching as the metal mechanical parts moved and flexed in robotic motions. "To counter that point, though, you'd be the shittiest hostess in like, the whole world."

Eddie folded his arms, careful to make sure he didn't apply too much pressure to his broken arm. He raised an eyebrow and propped one foot against the leg of a foosball table behind him. "Oh yeah?"

"Yeah. You'd turn down the scented candles because they'd make your asthma act up, and you'd turn down the chocolates unless they were organic."

Eddie rolled his eyes when he heard me snickering in amusement, shoving the side of my shoulder with his free hand. "Shut the fuck up, douchebag. I would not."

"Would too. And you'd probably never let anyone shop for your own wine because you'd have your own cellar." I grinned knowingly, cleaning my glasses out swiftly when they began to fog up a bit.

"I'm thirteen, Richie. I'm thirteen."

I slammed my fist down softly when the claw machine missed a small Bugs Bunny stuffed animal from the bottom of the glass enclosure, sighing softly. "Even so, you're giving off drunk uncle energy."

Eddie sipped his coke once again, which made a loud growling noise from the bottom of the straw. "Nu uh, trashmouth. My mom would fucking kill me if I drank, she really would."

I shook my head, sticking my tongue against the bottom of my mouth. "No, she'd have a heart attack and die."

When there was some prolonged silence among the other sounds of pixelated arcade games and screaming, laughing children from around us, I grinned even wider.