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boys will be bugs by cavetown
richie tozier was not your ideal commercial boy.
he was a dumb teen boy who eddie joked about eating sticks and rocks and mud.
he didn't care about the government and he really needed a hug.
his jokes and laughs put up a facade for his insecurities. he felt stupid and ugly yet he pretended it didn't bother him. his interest to bugs was something nobody knew about.
today there was a new girl in his advanced math class. she was pretty. she sat in the seat in front of him where no one liked to sit. she turned everyone's heads. she was so pretty.
richie left the losers club to sit with her at lunch after he saw her sitting by herself under a big oak tree. "i really like your spotty sweater."
she smiled. "thanks. i'm y/n." the girl stuck her hand out to give him a handshake.
he took it gratefully and noticed the small splash of red crawling on her hand. "y'know, ladybugs are girls?"
y/n chuckled, bringing her hand back and cooing at the small insect. "how do they make kids together?"
richie sat down in front of her cross legged. "they don't."
the girls face contorted into one of confusion. "wh- how does that even- nevermind."
they sat in a comfortable silence for a while as the wind blew carelessly past them. the ladybug flew away into the flow of the wind and they both watched as the red faded into the sky.
"what's it like in the female world?" richie blurted. "i bet it's so much better."
the question caught y/n by surprise. "it's.. the same as a male's, i guess." she gulped. "depends."
"oh." he only wanted to know because he never had any female friends other than beverly, and she never really liked to talk about her woman problems. she did occasionally, but definitely not with richie.
"happy birthday, rich!" she smiled warmly at him. the losers grinned as richie walked towards the quarry.
the losers and y/n had recently been acquainted and they all hit it off well.
"you're fourteen. how does it feel?" mike asked.
"great." his intentions were not good.
he paraded around town with curlier hair and less bug eyed glasses, catching all of the teenage girl's eyes as he passed.
he was a bad boy yet still hung out with the losers. the loser richie was gone now and a new persona was shoved into his body.
richie tozier the hottie.
don't mess with me, i'm a big boy now and i'm very scary.
i punch my walls, stay out at night and i do karate.
y/n sent letters to his house and called him almost everyday. she feared she had lost the old bug obsessed richie she met five months ago.
he sat staring at the machine. it stopped ringing and buzzing and the red light started to slowly glow, meaning their was a voicemail. richie knew it was y/n. he grabbed the phone and slid down the wall, listening to the voicemail.
are you not answering my calls because you wanna make me cry? because apparently that's how it's supposed to be. this isn't you, rich. but boys will be bugs, right?
richie was just a dumb teen boy who only wanted to quit. his mother told him she was worried about how much time he spent in his room yet he wouldn't give a shit.
his only friends that understood him were his pets; spider, beetle and bee.
richie's life was going downhill. he suppressed his emotions when he was with the losers or when henry and his gang would pick on him for his massive glow up.
he never cried anymore.
"richie." y/n ran up to the boy with a smile on her face. "hey." she was always excited to see the boy she had started to like.
he weakly smiled back and kept walking to the tree that they had met at. richie had started to hang out there more and more in his free time.
he plopped down against the trunk and leant back, hugging his bag and glaring up at y/n who towered over him with her arms crossed and a concerned look on her face.
i punch my walls, stay out at night and i do karate!
"what's been wrong with you lately?" he scoffed at her question. "are you not gonna answer me or are you just gonna be a dick and sit there with that stupid grin on your face?"
richie dropped his grin and pulled his legs up into his chest. y/n leaned down beside him and dropped her hand onto his knee. "are you okay?"
he bursted into silent tears and y/n wrapped her arms around the boy, feeling the sadness warp into her own heart.
