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"Who here wants to help me pick the next song?"
Mike kids jump up and down waving their hands like maniacs as Mike rolls his eyes. They're way too far back to ever get picked by this singer that pulls off the curly long hair better than Mike ever did.
The singer, Conan Gray, Mike reminds himself, scans the audience until his eyes land on someone in the front row.
"How about you?"
Mike watches the screen as the camera pans over to the lucky person Conan chose, and he physically feels his heart stop.
No.
No way.
It isn't him.
Sure, he lives in Chicago now (not that Mike was stalking his Instagram from a burner account because he was blocked on his regular account or anything)—Jesus how did Mike's kids convince him to fly them out from Hawkins to Tinley Park for this damn concert—but there's no way.
"What's your name?" Conan asks the man.
"Will!"
Mike nearly throws up.
"Nice to meet you, Will!" Conan hugs him as one of his crew members bring out a giant wishbone. "So here's how this is gonna work. I'm going to put two song titles up on the screen." Conan turns around to reveal said song titles. The Story and The Exit. Mike's never heard of them. He only knows the one about that sweater. "And Will, you and I are going to break this wishbone, and if I win, I get to pick the song, and if you win, you get to pick. Sound good?"
Mike really doesn't care how these rules work as long as it ends quickly because he needs Will off of that giant screen.
Sweet, beautiful Will whose eyes still shine like diamonds and hair frames his face gorgeously.
"Three, two, one!" The wishbone breaks straight down the middle. "Oh my God! That can happen?!"
Will's jaw drops, giving Mike the perfect opportunity to stare at his lips like he definitely didn't used to do when they were kids.
"Okay, uh, you know what, just because of that, I think I'm going to play them both. What do you guys think?" The crowd loves it. "And Will, I'm going to let you pick which one I play first. So what's it gonna be?"
"The Story!" Will decides.
"Alright, hit it!"
It's a slow song. Mike tunes it out as Will's face disappears from the screen, finally allowing Mike to take that deep breath he'd been holding the whole time.
But then Conan sings, "And when I was younger, I knew a boy and a boy."
Oh my God.
Of course that's when the camera pans back to Will and—wait a damn minute is that Lucas? Dustin? Max? They're here together? Without him? What the fuck?
"Best friends with each other. But always wished they were more."
Shut up.
"'Cause they loved one another, but never discovered 'cause they were too afraid of what they'd say. Moved to different states."
Nope. Absolutely not.
It's worse because Will wasn't afraid. Not in the end.
It was his fault. Mike's fault.
"Oh and I'm afraid that's just the way the world works. It ain't funny, it ain't pretty, it ain't sweet."
Will sure is pretty though.
"Oh and I'm afraid that's just the way the world works. But I think that it could work for you and me. Just wait and see. It's not the end of the story."
Except it is the end. It's the end of their story. It doesn't work for Will and Mike because Mike doesn't let it.
He tunes out the rest of the song until the end and hopes The Exit is easier to listen to.
It's worse.
"Mid-November. And I'm sipping on a half cold coffee. Staring at a girl who's not me. On your arm a carbon copy."
Mike remembers the one time he met Will's college boyfriend. Tall, dark curly hair, weirdly similar jacket to his.
"Feels like we had matching wounds but mine's still black and bruised, and yours is perfectly fine."
Oh.
"Feels like we buried alive something that never died, so God it hurt when I found out."
OH.
Is Will's wound perfectly fine? The camera pans back to that beautiful face, and he's smiling and singing his heart out, no tears in sight.
"You love her. It's over. You already found someone to miss while I'm still standing at... the exit."
Mike looks at his phone. Is this concert almost over?
"I can't hate you for getting everything we wanted. I just thought that I would be part of it."
He should be part of it.
"Impossible to understand how you're not coming back but I can't say it out loud."
The chorus repeats, and then the bridge is just Conan torturing Mike with the worst part of the song over and over again.
"Feels like we had matching wounds but mine's still black and bruised, and yours is perfectly fine. Feels like we buried alive something that never died, so God it hurt when I found out."
Mike mumbles something about going to the bathroom, and he thinks he hears the beginning of the sweater song as he slips out.
He's not sure how long it takes him to cool off, but by the time he's back in, Conan is singing a much more upbeat song. Good. Exactly what he needs.
"You better scream it!" Conan shouts.
"If you ever cared, well I wouldn't know. Blame it on a bad manic episode."
Umm... what?
"When you meet a girl on some TV show, there's a side of you that she'll never know."
Mike's eyes widen, and he almost drops his beer.
You've gotta be fucking kidding me.
"Tell all your friends that she's the one. And you can say it's love."
He loves his wife. He does. He does.
"But the church bells won't stop ringing for an undead wedding day."
Can Conan's team please stop putting Will on the big screen?
"And you've spent your whole life drinking, oh drinking me away."
Mike looks at his beer and throws it in the trash. He definitely didn't get it to cope with seeing Will at this show. No, he got it for completely unrelated reasons that he can't think about right now.
"You pretend nothing happened, I believe. But you're a much better actor..."
Mike walks up to his kids and grabs their hands. "We're leaving."