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In the fall of 1984, Will Byers fell for Mike Wheeler.
It wasn’t a conscious decision. Really, at the time it happened, Will hadn’t realized it had at all. They had been at the Snow Ball, a girl had asked him to dance, and Will had turned to Mike in a panic.
Save me, Will mouthed at his best friend.
Mike only laughed and waved him off, encouraging the girl to take Will’s hand and whisk him away. Will managed a nervous smile, despite harboring a faint annoyance at his friend for not scaring the girl off like he wanted him to.
As he awkwardly placed his hands on her hips, he wondered why he was so opposed to the idea of dancing with her. Probably because he didn’t even know her name. Maybe because his hands were starting to sweat. Definitely because he never understood what the appeal of liking girls was.
Then he spotted Mike and Eleven on the opposite end of the room, dancing together. They looked shy, hands barely touching each other’s waist and shoulders, both giggling like they were sharing a secret. Will smiled, but then he felt a strange sinking feeling in his stomach that he couldn’t quite place.
“Are you okay, Will?” The girl he was dancing with asked.
“I’m okay,” he said, pausing briefly when he realized he didn’t even know what her name was. “I’m going to sit down after this next dance.”
The girl looked disappointed, but she didn’t prompt him further. Once Will released his hands from her, she turned tail and immediately searched for another partner to dance with. Meanwhile, Will retreated to a quiet corner of the hall and watched his friends as they danced around the room, enjoying themselves.
At some point in time, the Snow Ball fizzled out, leaving Will to sit alone in the empty auditorium questioning whether everything he had just experienced was the work of the Mind Flayer instead of reality. Then he spotted Mike walking towards him, his mouth quirked up in a sideways, mischievous smile, as he grabbed Will’s arm and tugged him to stand.
“I just kissed El,” Mike said, grinning broadly.
Will blinked. “You what?”
“I kissed a girl! Can you believe that?”
A strange twisting feeling erupted in Will’s chest, but he pushed it down. He shrugged. “I suppose. What was it like?”
Mike quieted, contemplating, before he answered. “Okay,” he said. “It was really nice.”
Will smiled. “I’m happy for you, Mike.” And he meant it.
“Where was that girl from earlier?” Mike asked him in return, glancing around the empty room as though she might show up again. “Did you… guys kiss?”
“Oh no. She left a little bit after you disappeared.”
“Oh. That’s unfortunate.”
“That’s okay.” The thought of locking lips with that girl made an unpleasant shiver run down Will’s spine.
“How long did you even dance for?” Mike pestered. “Was there anyone else after that girl?”
“No.” Will shrugged. “I just sat here until everyone went home.”
“You… just sat here.”
“Yeah.”
“You didn’t try dancing with anyone else?”
“No…”
A few moments passed. Mike’s lip curled up into a smile. That knowing smile that’s gotten the boys in trouble before. Will didn’t like where this was going.
“What are you going to do?” Will demanded.
Mike grabbed Will’s arm and dragged him to the center of the empty auditorium. He placed Will’s hand on his shoulder and interlocked the other hand. Then he swayed them across the room.
“What are you doing?” Will asked. He could feel his cheeks redden.
“I don’t know.” Mike’s face also looked flushed, like he had just run a marathon. “I didn’t want you to end the Snow Ball without getting a proper dance.”
Will couldn’t help but snort. They were waddling around the room like a pair of penguins. “This is a proper dance?”
“Whatever you were doing with the other girl wasn’t! This was how El and I did it. We were taught by the sheriff himself.”
Mike looked so disappointed, Will felt a little guilty. He laughed.
“Thank you for this, Mike. Really.”
Mike smiled at him. Under the faint blue lights, he looked so soft. Will could feel the organ beneath his ribs lighten. So much so that if the Mind Flayer wanted to attack him again, it wouldn’t even need to break his body, for his heart was going to slip through his skin pores and melt into a mush outside on its own.
It took Will a little while to notice that Mike’s gaze had hardened. Like he was worried Will had gone into another trance and was going to lose himself again.
“You alright?” Mike asked.
His gaze was a little too heavy for a while there. Will sent his eyes to the ground before looking back up.
“Yeah,” Will said. “I’m alright.”
In the fall of 1984, Mike danced with Will without even asking him to, and it made Will’s day without him realizing it.
In the summer of 1985, Mike Wheeler began to grow distant from Will Byers.
At first, Will blamed Mike and his obsession with his relationship with Eleven. It was easier to do that, even though Lucas and Dustin also had girlfriends and were also refusing to play DnD like it was a plague of sorts. Then Will blamed himself, thinking that maybe it’s his fault he wasn’t interested in finding a girlfriend, but rather to continue the adventures of the boys’ childhood, to finish the stories they had once been obsessed with playing through. At last, Will realized maybe it was nobody’s fault but that of the passage of time, and the natural change that comes with newcomers to their group.
Despite this realization, Will couldn’t help but feel angry. There was nothing to do but feel angry. Will didn’t even understand why. But it was all he had in him, and so when Mike returned it and told him it wasn’t even that deep, Will couldn’t help but storm out into the garage to leave, even though it was raining outside.
“Stop,” Mike said, grabbing Will’s wrist to slow him down. “It’s pouring, you’ll get hurt if you leave now.”
Will yanked his arm away, ignoring how Mike’s touch was akin to grazing his wrist against a stove. “All you and Lucas care about are girls and girls and girls. Why can’t we play DnD like we used to?”
“Because we’re not kids anymore,” Mike said, sounding exasperated. “We’ve grown up, Will. There’s more to life than just DnD now.”
“What, like abandoning your closest friend to hang out with some girl?” Will snapped.
“It’s not my fault you don’t like girls!” Mike exclaimed.
Thunder raged. Will stared at him. He couldn’t do anything but stare.
Mike realized what he said almost immediately. He shook his head quickly, as though doing so might retract what slipped out of his mouth.
“I didn’t mean it that way, I’m sorry.”
At least he apologized, didn’t he? Even so, Will couldn’t help but see red. Hot white anger running through his veins, already coursed through with adrenaline from having to deal with the stupid monsters and the stupid Mind Flayer from the stupid other dimension. Yet Will still couldn’t find the courage to yell at Mike about it. So instead he grabbed his bike and pedaled off into the storm, ignoring Mike’s protests as he disappeared into the mist.
It’s fine, Will thought to himself as the rain pelted his face. He didn’t even know if he was crying or not. It’s just Mike. It’s just him being stupid. There’s no reason to care this much.
It’s just Mike. Just Mike. And maybe that was exactly why he cared too much.
Then, at the end of that summer, Max’s stepbrother and Sheriff Hopper died in the altercation between them and the Mind Flayer. Then, perhaps exhausted from losing so much to the strange things happening in Hawkins, Will’s mother decided it was time to uproot the family and move to the West Coast.
Will was stowing away his belongings when Mike appeared in the doorway of his bedroom. For a moment, Will thought he wasn’t going to do anything except stand there and watch him. But Mike had the knack of surprising him with sudden goodwill, and soon both boys were piling items into boxes for the next twenty minutes. Then Mike paused and stayed still enough to prompt Will to look at him.
“You’re giving this away?” Mike asked. In his hand was Will’s precious DnD set, and next to him a box filled with other items Will couldn’t bring with him.
Will shrugged. “There’s no use bringing it with me to Cali.”
“What if you find people there you’d like to play with?”
“I’ve only ever wanted to play with you guys.”
It was perhaps the most honest thing Will had told Mike the whole summer. He’d somehow managed to avoid addressing why he hated it whenever Mike ditched them to spend time with El. Why he was always angrier towards Mike than Dustin or Lucas for not playing along with their sessions. Why he always had a pleasant rush of emotion whenever Mike did stick with him, like this moment now.
Mike was quiet. Then he said, “I’ll write to you.”
Will smiled. “Are you sure?”
“Yes. I promise.”
A part of Will swelled when he heard that. Another part of him worked to crush that hope because he knew Mike, and he knew he wouldn’t do what he promised. Not because he was a bad person, but because he wasn’t going to do anything he didn’t have a concrete reason for.
A honk resounded from outside. Mike took Will’s box in his hands and accompanied him outside to load their belongings onto the back of the truck. Then Will watched as the house he spent his entire childhood in disappeared into the background, shrinking with every passing second.
He managed to catch a glimpse of Mike standing still in front of the house, still gazing after him, his bike lying forgotten beside him as their other friends pedaled to the opposite side of town.
Mike wrote Eleven letters, but never to Will. That’s okay. He expected that. Yet he couldn’t help but feel the disappointment crushing onto him, his knees buckling under the weight of the pain. And yet his heart continued to bloom with affection regardless, despite it being only for the memories they shared, and the next thing he knew, he was sketching and painting, and the work evolved into something he would only ever give to the boy who changed his life.
In the spring of 1986, Will Byers met Mike Wheeler for the first time in eight months.
Even with his gift for Mike in his hand, the dread wrenching his stomach made it clear that Will wasn’t excited to see his childhood friend. He knew Mike only came for El. He knew he had to guard his heart from whatever disappointment he was going to receive next.
But then he laid his eyes on his stupid yellow button-up over his stupid pale blue shirt paired with his stupid sunglasses and stupid flowery green cap, and Will knew he was doomed forevermore.
His predictions came true. Mike pretended he didn’t exist. Avoided him wherever he went. Refused to listen to him, even when Will tried to explain that El wasn’t doing as well as she pretended she was.
Then Mike apologized, and Will knew instantly he was being genuine. Maybe that was the worst part, knowing that he meant what he said at the time.
And on that trip to find El, Will finally presented the painting to Mike. He couldn’t help but explain everything; all his thoughts about their friendship, the meaning behind certain symbols of the painting, why he was relinquishing it to him. For a moment, Will thought Mike was finally going to find out, and was going to end him somehow, some way. But Mike only took the painting with a broad smile on his face, oblivious to the turmoil raging in Will’s heart.
“You’re the best, Will,” Mike said, the skin around his eyes crinkling.
Will stared out the window with his friend’s words playing in his head. This time, there was no rain to hide the tears, so he had to turn his head completely around to disguise it. Not that it really mattered anyway. Mike could see him, but he never truly saw Will. Not really.
In the winter of 1987, Mike Wheeler kissed Will Byers.
Will didn’t even know how it happened. Had there been signs that he felt the same? Maybe it was because Mike and El hadn’t been on good terms lately. But they’ve always been that way, since they began their relationship. Maybe it was just a matter of time.
But then Mike’s hand was on his cheek now, a clear sign of his tentativeness. Will wasn’t sure why he was being that way; he had kissed people (El) before. Unlike Will, who had absolutely zero experience with anything tangentially related to this topic.
So when Mike pulled away, Will forced him to look at his eyes, and he asked, “Will you consider being married to me in the future?”
Mike hesitated. In his defense, perhaps Will shouldn’t have thrown such a heavy-handed question at him so quickly. But in Will’s defense, he’s been pining over this stupid boy for way too long. He was either going to keep going or stop.
Minutes passed without an end in sight. Mike’s face was still flushed from the kiss, or whatever it was. A liplock. A prophetic sign. Either way, Will was at peace, the way he hadn’t been for quite a while.
“Okay,” Will said. “You don’t have to answer that.”
Mike’s still looking at him, though. He’s refusing to look away. Will thought that maybe Mike was trying to get something out there, perhaps to convey whatever he’s been hiding for years, just as Will was. But he didn’t say anything. Just gazed at Will.
Will looked away first this time because he couldn’t stand it anymore. Maybe he wasn’t at peace, actually. Maybe quite the opposite.
In the fall of 1988, Will Byers said goodbye to Mike Wheeler.
It was a long time coming. Why did Will think anything was going to happen between them? If something was meant to happen, it would have happened ages ago. It would have happened when they still played DnD together, when they still went to the same school and attended the same extracurriculars, when they were bonding over cracking pipes and potential superpowers. Then the kiss happened, but then they pretended it didn’t happen, so technically it never happened.
And so Will said goodbye.
The memories were fading away fast. Castle Byers with his brother— showing his crayon drawings to his mother— running around the school grounds with Dustin and Lucas tailing after him, laughing obnoxiously— El and Will meeting for the first time, smiling shyly at each other— watching Max beat the highest level of their game in the arcade— Robin and her speech to him on finding himself—
But there was one that stuck out like a firefly at night. A memory that was just as fading, but taking longer than the rest.
A swing set on a playground. A boy with a ridiculous bowl cut, in a yellow jacket, sitting alone on one of the two swings. Then a boy in a blue T-shirt, cheeks equally compressing into his shy smile, introduced his name (“Mike”) and asked for the other boy’s name (“Will”). Then they sat on the swings, forcing themselves to go as high as humanly possible.
Years flickered by. Will saw it all— the first time he, Mike, Dustin, and Lucas played DnD, all of them confused but eager. The time Mike asked Will to stay behind at his place, without the other two. The moment he saw Mike as he woke up in the real world, after spending an eternity in the hellish one. The Halloween when they dressed up as the Ghostbusters, and Mike refused to leave his side. The time Eleven showed up permanently in their lives, and Will thought he was going to lose the only friend who cared about him as much as his mother. The time he met said friend after more than half a year. The time said friend kissed him, shyly, but perhaps bravely, for Will never thought it was going to happen to begin with.
In the end, whatever feelings he had for Mike weren’t going to preserve these fleeting memories. And so as Will replayed the moment Mike’s heavy eyes rested on him, he made peace with his fate and released his memories of the boy he loved.
In the fall of 1988, Will Byers let go of Mike Wheeler.