Chapter Text
─── ∘ ₊ ✦: *. ☽ ⋆˙๋࣭ ⭑ ☾ .* :✦ ₊ ∘ ───
He fucking hates house parties. How he ended up in the living room, sat on the couch, with a red solo cup in his hands, is beyond him.
It’s not even like he has a ton of experience to base that on, either. They’ve been in Chicago for, what, a week? Freshmen. This is technically his first real college party. The ones back in high school barely counted—just a handful of people in someone’s backyard, a couple cheap beers passed around, nothing like this. Nothing this loud, this packed, and so soaked in alcohol that it seems like it’s the only point of being here.
Will is here with Nick. The guy that's supposed to be his best friend. Although now he’s thinking he might have to get a new one soon because best friends are supposed to know when their best friends hate house parties and are supposed to know to not drag them along to one.
It’s not like Nick doesn’t know him. He does. He’s known him since the Byers moved to Lenora. Since Will was the new kid and somehow slotted in easier than he expected. People talked to him. Invited him places. It had felt… wrong, sometimes, especially when El was having such a hard time of it. But Nick had been easy to be around from the start. When they both got their acceptance letters, it had felt obvious—automatic, even—that they’d room together.
Nick is standing in the crowded kitchen laughing with some girl in a shirt with Greek letters printed on it. Will hates Greek letters; he decides as much in that moment. He hates Greeks and he hates house parties.
Will has been nursing the same beer for about 20 minutes now. It's probably warm from his sweaty palms. It's crowded in the tiny house and everyone is too close. He runs one of his sweaty hands through his equally sweaty hair, pushing it off his forehead where it's starting to droop.
Nick had convinced him to start wearing his hair that way—pushed off to the side—when they were freshmen in Lenora. Now they're freshmen at the University of Illinois and Will is wondering why they decided to go to the same university when they clearly have different academic pursuits. Nick is currently trying to pursue losing his virginity or something like that and Will just wants a degree in Studio Art or maybe Psychology. He hasn't decided yet. But he definitely doesn’t care as much about being here, at this party, as Nick does.
He doesn't want to be at a house party. He wants to be back in his dorm, pinning up his posters and organizing his cassette tapes. He wants to make sure he's got all the suggested reading done on his syllabus since classes start in two days.
And so it's decided. He's decided. It's time for him to go back to their dorm.
He stands up, nearly splashing himself with beer. He looks at his half-full cup and sighs, hesitates, then downs the rest of it anyway. Like ripping off a band-aid.
Yep. Warm.
Not his favorite but not the worst thing Nick's convinced him to drink in their four—going on five—years of friendship. It had started slow. A sip of something bitter Nick swore “wasn’t that bad,” and a grimace Will couldn’t hide, Nick laughing like it was a prank. Then a full can at some half-empty hangout, warm and flat and passed between too many hands. Then shots—once, twice—because Nick was already doing it and looking at him like come on. And finally at a graduation party back in May when Will had one too many drinks in spite of himself, and Nick dragged him into some local ritual where they had to chug a solo cup of some concoction made up of every single drink found in some classmate’s kitchen.
Will had never really liked any of it, not the taste, not the burn, not the way it made his head feel a half-second behind his body. And he definitely hated the graduation party suicide juice, as everyone had called it later. But he’d learned how to swallow all of it down anyway, how to follow Nick’s lead just enough to keep up.
The fact that he’s even here at all is only because he finds it hard to say no to Nick. It’s always been like that, a slow kind of orbit, Will pulled along in whatever direction Nick’s moving. And most times—more often than he wants to admit—he doesn’t mind it. Sometimes it feels a little too much like something else, something heavier, something he tries not to look at too closely. Because he’s done this before and knows how it ends. And still, he stays.
But not tonight. Tonight he’s going home early.
Will walks into the kitchen, tying his plaid flannel shirt around his waist since it's too hot to wear right now. Even at the tail end of Chicago’s summer, but especially in a place this crowded.
"I'm leaving," he shouts to Nick over the repetitive bass line of a Beastie Boys song.
Nick gives him a thumbs up and hands him a shot glass from a row of drinks someone is pouring on the counter near them.
"One last drink! Before we start classes!" He shouts over the music, handing another small glass to the girl in the sorority shirt. She holds hers up for them to all clink their glasses together.
Will sighs but follows her lead, tapping his glass to Nick's and then hers before shooting it back. He hisses out a breath as he sets it down on the counter. It stings and his eyes start watering immediately. He's reminded of why he hates taking shots.
"See you..." Will coughs out, clapping Nick on the shoulder. He glances over at the girl who is sticking out her tongue and making a face from the drink. "Tomorrow?"
Nick laughs and gives him a quick wink.
Will waves and heads for the door, relief hitting him the second the cool air does.
He looks back over his shoulder as he steps out and catches Nick leaning in to whisper something in the girl’s ear. She laughs, head thrown back, eyes crinkled shut.
Will can feel his stomach start to swoop, a sharp twist of jealousy curling low in his gut, hot and uncomfortable. It makes his fingers tighten where they hang at his sides—but before he can even think about what to do with it, someone crashes into his shoulder—
He stumbles, catching himself before he fully loses his balance, and turns. He’s already opening his mouth to apologize—
Tall and lanky.
Dark curls that cover his ears.
Sharp cheek bones and eyes he would know anywhere.
"Sorry," he says, turning to Will for only a second—not even catching his eyes—before turning back to his friends as they walk into the party.
Will hasn't seen Mike Wheeler in years. Not since the Christmas he traveled back to Hawkins and stayed with the Wheelers over the holidays. He hasn't heard from him since then—hasn't tried to reach out, aside from the one letter he sent a few weeks after school started again in the new year. The one he never got an answer to.
His heart starts racing. He forgets to breathe long enough that when he finally does, it comes in a deep, shuddering inhale that makes him feel dizzy. The world tries to right itself and he turns back to the street, eyes studying the sidewalk before he puts one foot in front of the other and marches back to his dorm room.
So. Mike was at the same house party. So what? Maybe he didn't recognize Will, but it's fine, he barely glanced at him. He probably didn't even really look at him at all.
It's fine.
─── ∘ ₊ ✦: *. ☽ ⋆˙๋࣭ ⭑ ☾ .* :✦ ₊ ∘ ───
It's not fine. Now that he's alone, pacing back and forth in the privacy of his own room. Maybe he's hyperventilating. Maybe he's also a little drunk. He’s definitely a little drunk.
What does this mean? Does Mike go to school here too? His parents could’ve afforded to send him anywhere, why is he here?
He can't really think straight and his stomach is churning. Not in the way that he knows means he's going to throw up, but definitely in a way that is not good.
God. And Mike looked so—
So—
Fuck.
Will scrubs a hand over his face, then through his hair, pushing it back a little too hard. There’s nothing he can do right now short of going back to the party. Which he absolutely does not want to do. And for what? To confront Mike? That feels like a terrible idea.
He leans against his desk with his arms crossed over his chest, taps his foot impatiently, and tries to think.
Then he swallows, opens the nearest drawer, and digs out the Ziploc bag of quarters his mom gave him for laundry. He fishes a few out, grabs his keys and ID, and shoves his feet back into his shoes, stepping on the heels.
He passes the laundry room, heads for the stairwell, down through the dark lobby, and out the front door.
There’s a payphone right outside. Normally he’d just use the one at the front desk, but they close at nine, and it’s almost midnight.
He stares at the quarters in his hand, trying to ignore the lump in his throat.
Jonathan is asleep by now and his mom, too. The only other numbers he has memorized are their old Hawkins home landline, his mom’s work, Jonathan’s apartment—
—and Mike’s childhood number. Which isn’t exactly useful now.
There’s one other number. One he doesn’t actually know—just muscle memory.
He feeds the coins into the slot and dials, hoping his fingers haven’t failed him.
The line rings. And rings.
Finally—
“Do you know what time it is?” A girl says into the phone. “I'm on the other line with my boyfriend right now, so you're lucky it went to call waiting and didn't wake up my parents.”
“Hey, Erica.” Will can’t help the small smile that pulls at his mouth. “It’s Will…Byers. Is Lucas there? It’s—uh. It’s kind of an emergency.”
Silence.
“Let me say goodnight to Kenny,” she says, sounding begrudgingly soft now that she knows it’s him. “Hold on.”
The line clicks out for a while, then back.
“Will?” Lucas says through what sounds like a yawn.
For a second, hearing his voice feels like stepping backward in time. They hadn’t lost touch completely—not like he had with Mike—but it hadn’t been the same either. A few phone calls here and there when they had some cash from summer jobs to pay the long distance fees. Or the letters that took weeks to send and longer to answer.
Life had a way of getting in the middle of it. Distance. New schools. New friends. He used to ask about Mike sometimes after he’d stopped calling back. Casual, like it didn’t matter. But the answers were never satisfying. Even before that, when Mike broke up with El just before spring break and canceled his trip to Lenora, it felt like he’d lost him long before they stopped talking completely.
Still, Lucas—and Dustin, when he could catch him—had always felt like the safest numbers to dial, even if he didn’t do it nearly as often as he should have.
“Hey, man,” Will says sheepishly, words slurring a bit. He rubs at the nape of his neck and takes a breath, trying to control his voice, trying to enunciate. He balances the phone between his shoulder and his cheek, untying his plaid button-up shirt and shoves his arms through it. Now that he's outside, alone, in the middle of the night, it's kind of chilly. Even for August in Chicago. “How are you?”
Lucas pauses. “Are you drunk?”
Will winces. “It's a long story. But, seriously, how are you?”
“Erica said it was an emergency?”
“Yeah,” Will starts. “Well, no.” Lucas sighs.”Kind of. Hey—I miss you, did you decide on a school? Last time we talked you said you'd gotten into a couple.”
“Will,” Lucas grumbles, “you know I hate being woken up. Especially for this. You’re lucky I like you.” He exhales roughly, and then, “I leave for Indiana State next week.”
Will hums approvingly, kicking at a fallen leaf on the sidewalk.
“Dustin got a full ride to Duke,” Lucas continues after Will doesn't say anything to fill the silence. “Max is coming with me to ISU. What about you?”
Will takes a moment to try and decide whether to answer his question or not. “What about Mike?”
Lucas sighs. “Will.”
“I just—look, I know, Lucas, I get it. It's just, I swear I saw someone that looked exactly like him tonight.” He squeezes his eyes shut, wrapping an arm around his middle like he’s holding himself together.
In a way, he is.
“You know I haven't talked to him much since…” Lucas trails off, leaving the rest up to Will's imagination.
He knows Lucas and Mike had a strained relationship. Lucas and Dustin, too, in a way—at least for a while. He remembers asking Jonathan once if he recognized the name Eddie Munson, and the way Jonathan’s lips had pressed into a thin line when he’d read the news from Lucas’s letter.
“An overdose.”
Jonathan had gone strangely quiet after that, muttering under his breath, “They shouldn’t have been hanging out with someone like Munson, anyway.”
Will had frowned, tried to press him for more information, but Jonathan seemed off—unsettled in a way that didn’t quite match the words he’d said. He spent the rest of the evening smoking weed out his window, music blasting loud enough to rattle the frames on the wall in Will’s room too.
Lucas continues, “I had heard from Peter Farley—his sister works with Nancy—that he got into the University of Illinois—”
Will’s vision goes a little static at the edges. He closes his eyes, trying to process this information. He feels like he's falling into some sort of deep, dark blackness. It's like El's description of the void and that scares him back to reality.
“—excited to move to Chicago or something like that.” Lucas pauses, waiting for Will to answer, and when he doesn’t, Lucas’s breathing picks up a little down the line. Like he can read between the lines even though they’re not there. “But he could've ended up at a different campus,” Lucas continues quickly. “Or a different school, even. I’m not—”
“Thanks, man,” Will says quickly, cutting off whatever he was starting to say next. “You get back to sleep, sorry for waking you. Tell Dustin I said hi.”
“Will—”
He carefully places the phone back on the hook and stares at it for a moment before turning away and letting himself back into the dorm with his ID card.
He doesn’t let himself fall apart until his door clicks shut.
Because it was Mike. There’s no way it wasn’t. Lucas all but confirmed it.
He feels like he's going to be sick.
His chest tightens, his breathing going too fast—too shallow—and he’s suddenly, vividly reminded of all the times Mike used to be the only one who knew how to talk him through this.
He used to cry a lot when he was a kid.
He had to grow out of that when they moved to Lenora. His mom always told him he didn’t have to—that it was okay for boys to cry, that it was good to feel things—but no one else seemed to agree.
And now Nick is at a party—with Mike—and some girl he’s probably going to go home with and—
Will shuts that thought down hard.
He presses his palms into his eyes until he sees stars, then collapses onto his bed.
He’s still a little drunk. Still breathing too fast. But clear-headed enough to kick off his shoes, to shove out of his jeans before he climbs under the covers. His flannel shirt tangles in the sheets as he tries to get it off, but once it’s free he drops it on the ground with everything else.
He tugs the chain on his lamp and the room goes dark except for the moonlight pouring in through his window. He curls in on himself, waiting for his breathing to even out.
Across the room, Nick’s bed is empty.
He tries to settle the wild thuh-thump of his heart at the thought of some girl being under him. Tries not to think about Mike, about El, about how everything fell apart the last time.
His chest hitches. He swallows it down.
He can avoid Mike, he thinks.
But he can't avoid Nick.
That's what he should be worrying about right now. He’s never dated a girl. And that’s fine. He’s never really wanted to.
If only he could just stop falling in love with his best friends.
─── ∘ ₊ ✦: *. ☽ ⋆˙๋࣭ ⭑ ☾ .* :✦ ₊ ∘ ───
The sun—still keeping its early, long summer hours—shines through his window and right into his eyes the next morning. Will stretches, then slumps over, arm dangling off the side of the bed. When he finally opens his eyes, Nick is lying in the bed across the room, spread eagle, in nothing but boxer briefs.
Will hadn’t even heard him come in. Who knows when he’d gotten back from the party. From being with that sorority girl. And now here he is.
Will’s eyes drag—slow and traitorous—down the long, tan line of Nick’s stomach, and his own stomach tightens in response.
They’d slept over at each other’s houses before, of course. Plenty of times. But if this was going to be Will’s new normal, he was going to have a problem. Nick was all lean muscle, built from years of tennis practices and summer conditioning. He was…very nice to look at. That’s all.
Will rolls onto his stomach and shoves his face into his pillow, willing the image not to burn itself into his brain. He shifts, rolls his hips experimentally into the mattress—and shame floods hot through his chest the second he does.
The alarm clock on Nick’s bedside table suddenly blasts out some loud, nonsensical rock song from the radio, startling him hard enough that he practically jumps out of bed.
Nick moves slowly, languid, a hand slapping the off button before sliding off, arms dangling toward the floor. He stays there long enough that Will wonders if he’s fallen back asleep.
After a moment, though, Nick rolls onto his back and rubs at his eyes. He pushes himself upright, settling with his back against the wall where his bed is shoved tight into the corner, feet dangling off the edge. He stares at Will for a long second.
“Hey,” he says, hand going up for a lazy wave.
Will sits up too, knees tucked underneath him, trying to steady the way his heart is still beating a little too fast. “Hey, man.”
“I’m supposed to meet a friend for breakfast,” Nick says, rubbing a hand down his face. “Sorry if my alarm woke you. You wanna come?”
“I was already awake,” Will says, heart finally slowing enough to feel manageable. “But, yeah. I’m starving.”
Nick nods and hops down from his bed to start getting ready. Will follows his lead, moving through the motions beside him in what is mostly comfortable silence.
He wants to ask who the friend is. If it’s the girl from last night. They’d been assigned to separate orientation groups, so maybe it’s someone Nick met there. Or maybe that guy down the hall he’d been talking to during move-in.
Will grabs his keys and shoves his shoes onto sock-less feet just as Nick tosses him his ID card and wallet. Nick pauses, noticing the open bag of quarters sitting on Will’s desk. He points at it, giving him a strange look.
“Did you leave the party to do laundry last night?” Nick asks, bemused.
“No,” Will says, laughing awkwardly. He shakes his head, grabbing the bag and shoving it into the drawer. “Called my mom. I couldn’t find a book I need for Monday, and she told me where she put it when we unpacked.”
“Oh, so you just studied. Like a weirdo,” Nick says, rolling his eyes as he opens the door. Will follows him out into the hallway and locks the door behind them.
“No, no, no. I just got everything ready,” he shoots back as they head toward the elevator. “I was exhausted last night, I fell asleep right after that.”
Nick nods, but the look on his face says he doesn’t believe him.
Will lets it drop and presses the elevator button. With a ding, the doors slide open immediately.
They step inside, and Nick launches into a full recap of his night. By the time they’re walking out of the dorm and heading toward the campus dining halls, Nick is halfway through describing keg stands, jumping across the little man-made creek running through campus, getting invited to some local band’s show—and, of course, messing around with the girl, Heather, in the back of her car before she drove home alone.
“You really should’ve stayed, dude,” Nick says, holding the door open for him. “It was perfect. Best night of my life.”
Nick’s always like that. Blindly optimistic. Every night that involves more than playing Sega alone somehow becomes the best night of his life.
They swipe into the dining hall, and Will follows Nick through the crowded maze of tables as he zigzags through the students, searching for his friend.
Will keeps his eyes trained on the floor, tracking Nick’s Nikes as they shuffle across the room, matching his steps one for one.
Which is exactly why he doesn’t see the person coming straight at him.
They collide. Hard.
Twice in the span of twenty-four hours. At this point, he’s thinking he might start blaming the university for packing so many students into one place.
“Will?”
A familiar voice—close, startled—just as hands grab his shoulders, steadying him before he topples sideways into a crowded table of students already glaring at them.
Will looks up, panic already tightening in his chest.
Nick turns around and his face splits into a wide grin. “Michael!” Nick shouts, arms thrown up in triumph. “You didn’t forget!”
Mike is staring at him.
Will feels rooted to the spot, like something heavy and invisible has opened up in his chest—a black hole trying to drag him under. Mike’s hands are still on his shoulders, but he jerks them back like he’s been burned.
Will feels it too.
“I wasn’t as drunk as you were last night,” Mike says, turning to Nick, a grin starting to form. “I thought you’d be the one to forget.”
Nick laughs, loud and bright, cutting through the noise of the dining hall. Will wants to die. He glances around, painfully aware that he probably looks like a frightened animal: cornered and desperate for an exit.
“Oh, hey,” Nick says suddenly, pulling Will in by the shoulder. “This is my best friend I was telling you about! Will. Will, this is Michael.”
“Michael,” Will repeats, and a small, helpless laugh slips out before he can stop it.
Mike’s expression falters, eyebrows pulling together in confusion.
“Best friend?” Mike says, lip curling just slightly.
Will knows it might not be fair—but that’s not how they left things four years ago. They aren’t best friends anymore.
Will clears his throat and glances at Nick, who looks completely lost.
“We,” Will starts, searching for words. Something neutral. Something safe. “Know each other.”
“You changed your hair,” Mike interrupts.
If Will didn’t know any better, he’d have thought that Mike was trying to sound bored.
Will runs a hand through his fringe, pushing it off his forehead. “Yeah. Bowl cuts aren’t really cool anymore, I guess.”
“Were they ever?” Nick snickers, grinning at Mike.
Mike laughs along.
Heat rushes into Will’s cheeks, sharp and immediate. He hopes desperately that it doesn’t show.
“You know what,” Will says quickly, forcing a smile into place. “I completely forgot—I’ve got an advisory meeting today.”
He takes a step back. Then another.
Throws up a hand in a half-wave.
“Will—” Nick starts.
“It was nice to see you,” Will says, cutting him off.
He hesitates—just long enough—
“Michael.”
As he turns and walks away, he hears Mike say behind him:
“It’s fine. I used to date his sister.”
And it takes everything Will has—every ounce of control—to put one foot in front of the other and walk away.
Like Nick’s blind optimism, Mike had always been like that, too. He always needed to have the last word. It had always infuriated Will back then, so it’s no surprise that it really gets under his skin now.
─── ∘ ₊ ✦: *. ☽ ⋆˙๋࣭ ⭑ ☾ .* :✦ ₊ ∘ ───
The next day, the first day of classes, goes well for Will. The best part is that it mostly distracts him from his second encounter with Mike. It isn’t until he gets back to his dorm that his mind starts to wander, textbook open in his lap, pen tapping back and forth while he tries to keep his eyes on the words.
He keeps replaying it. Over and over. Staring off into the middle distance instead of the page.
He’s annoyed at how much it’s getting to him. It keeps him up later than he’d like, and Nick keeps glancing over at him like he’s dying to ask about it.
Later that night, he falls asleep—blankets kicked clean off the bed from all the tossing and turning. When his alarm drags him awake the next morning, he’s curled tight in on himself, freezing cold.
Nick has an 8 a.m. class on Tuesdays and Thursdays. But Will doesn’t have to be out the door until 9:45 and so he gets ready for his second day alone, moving through the motions in contemplative silence. They still haven’t talked about it, and the tension had sat between them all night, heavy and unspoken.
Will grabs his backpack, slings it over his shoulder, and heads to his first class.
It feels like the universe is playing some kind of cruel joke when he walks into the back of the classroom a minute or two early and sees him. Sitting at a desk, facing the front, is Mike.
He’d recognize that hair anywhere—right now a messy nest of bedhead, clearly not brushed. Will sends up a silent thank-you to whatever god is listening that they haven’t collided into each other a third time.
He takes a slow breath, tugging nervously at his backpack straps, and walks toward the front of the room. He takes a seat two desks ahead and one aisle over from Mike.
He doesn’t look at him, doesn’t dare make eye contact. But he can feel the way Mike shifts and the way the air in the room changes. The way the space between them seems to tighten, like static building before a storm.
He drops his backpack onto the tabletop and pulls out the binder he’d prepared for this class, yellow with a spiral notebook tucked inside and a matching plastic folder. Pencil bag, required reading, water bottle filled downstairs at the fountain. He lines everything up neatly, sets his backpack on the floor, and sits down.
His heart is beating too fast.
He forces himself to loosen his spine, digging through his pencil bag until he finds the mechanical pencil he likes best. He flips open to the first page of the notebook.
Fresh. Blank.
He writes the date at the top of the page and then “Intro to Communication” across the top. Then he taps the pencil against paper, trying to ignore the feeling of eyes burning into the back of his head.
Suddenly, a chair scrapes loudly across the floor behind him. His heart jumps, pulse kicking up again. His eyes flick to the side, catching movement in his peripheral—
He nearly jumps out of his skin when Mike appears beside him, dragging the chair out from the desk next to Will’s.
“What are you doing?” Will hisses, glancing at him, then around the room. He can’t keep the irritation out of his voice—breakfast two days ago still replaying loud in the back of his mind.
“My dad suggested I go by Michael,” Mike blurts, unprompted, ignoring Will’s confusion. “Said it sounded more… I don’t know. Mature? Professional? I hate it.”
Will stares at him, thrown by the sudden shift—like they’re picking up a conversation that never actually happened.
Mike fidgets awkwardly in the chair, dragging it a little closer. The legs scrape loudly against the tile, drawing a few irritated glances from other students filtering into the room.
Will watches him and feels like a frightened animal again, ready to bolt at any second.
“Okay,” Will says slowly, trying desperately to come across as unaffected. “So… don’t.”
Mike blinks at him. “What?”
“Go by Michael,” Will says, sounding irritated to his own ears. “If you hate it so much.”
Mike stares at him for a second, lips pressed into a thin line, like he’s trying to decide if that answer was helpful or not.
“Yeah,” he mutters. “I guess.”
Silence stretches between them, thick and uncomfortable.
Will taps his pencil against the paper again, too loud in the quiet space. He keeps his eyes trained firmly on his mostly blank notebook, even though he can feel Mike looking at him.
Mike clears his throat.
“You always do that, you know,” he says.
Will freezes mid-tap.
“Do what?” he asks, not looking up.
“Organize everything like…perfectly.” Mike gestures vaguely toward the neat row of supplies on Will’s desk. “You used to do that with your art stuff too. Remember?”
Will’s fingers tighten slightly around the pencil.
Of course he remembers.
The kitchen table in Hawkins. Paint cups lined up by color. Brushes laid out smallest to largest. Mike sitting across from him, elbows on the table, asking too many questions about whatever monster he was drawing that day.
Will swallows.
Mike shifts again in his seat, restless. “You still draw?” he asks.
He nods, once. Sharp.
Mike nods slowly, like he’s filing that answer away somewhere.
Another pause.
Students continue to trickle into the room, filling seats, backpacks thudding against desks. The noise level rises, chatter bouncing off the walls. But it doesn’t make this any easier.
Mike leans forward slightly, lowering his voice.
“I didn’t know you were here,” he says.
Will lets out a quiet breath through his nose.
“Yeah,” he replies flatly. “I didn’t know you were here, either.”
“I mean it,” Mike adds quickly. “At the university. I didn’t—Nancy never mentioned—”
Will finally turns to look at him.
Really look at him.
Same face. Older, sharper somehow. Jaw tighter. Eyes darker than he remembers. Tired-looking in a way that doesn’t fit someone their age.
“Well, Nancy and Jonathan broke up, so why would she know?” He snaps.
Mike flinches slightly.
“No,” he says. “I just—I didn’t know.”
Will holds his gaze for a second too long, anger roiling inside his chest, before looking away again. How dare Mike Wheeler waltz right back into his life and pretend like nothing has changed. How dare he act like he deserves a second of Will’s time and patience after everything that happened that Christmas.
“That’s what happens when you cut people off, I guess,” Will says finally, voice cool and low. The anger scrapes the words out of his throat until it almost doesn’t sound like him at all.
Before Mike can figure out what to say—if he even wants to say anything at all—the classroom door swings open sharply.
A woman in her late thirties strides inside, arms full of papers, heels clicking sharply against the tile floor.
“Good morning, everyone,” she calls out briskly. “Find your seats, we’re starting right away.”
Mike straightens slowly, shifting back in his chair, eyes lingering on Will’s face. Will exhales, tension leaking from his shoulders just slightly, but tries to ignore the way he feels hot all over, his face especially, as Mike’s eyes drag away and watch their professor write her name across the whiteboard.
Saved, for now.
She begins passing out syllabi down each row, voice steady and practiced as she launches into introductions. Will keeps his eyes glued to the front of the room, forcing himself to listen. To focus. To take notes. But he can feel Mike beside him the entire time.
Like gravity.
A black hole.
Something inevitable.
Class drags on longer than it should or maybe it only feels that way because Will spends most of it painfully aware of every shift Mike makes beside him; the scratch of pencil on paper, the restless bouncing of his leg, the occasional glance he can feel without looking.
When the professor finally finishes answering questions, she claps her hands once. “That’s all for today. Don’t forget! First reading assignment is due next Thursday.”
Chairs scrape loudly across the floor as students begin packing up.
Will moves immediately, packing his things away as quickly as he can. He shoves his notebook into his binder, binder into his backpack, zipper yanked closed. His fingers feel clumsy, too quick, heart already pounding in anticipation.
Don’t linger. Don’t look at him. Just leave.
He slings the backpack over his shoulder and stands, turning toward the aisle.
“Will—”
He doesn’t stop, just pushes forward into the slow-moving crowd filing toward the door, weaving between bodies, keeping his eyes locked ahead.
He keeps walking: out the door, into the hallway, and into the flood of students moving in every direction at once.
His chest feels tight, breath coming too fast, pulse hammering in his ears.
When he finally reaches the staircase, Will steals a quick glance up to the landing above, where Mike leans against the railing, frown fixed, watching him descend.
The crush of students presses him forward. He yanks his gaze away and drags in a deep, shaky breath, pushing through the crowd.
Mike’s frown—that silent stare—it’s seared into his mind.
The doors to the courtyard open ahead, cool air rushing in. He inhales it like a lifeline and keeps moving, but no matter how far he walks, he can still feel Mike’s eyes on him.
─── ∘ ₊ ✦: *. ☽ ⋆˙๋࣭ ⭑ ☾ .* :✦ ₊ ∘ ───