F. 5

THEY COLLAPSED ON the desk together, laughing hysterically as the guitar solo filled the classroom. Mike felt sweaty, his throat hurt from the yelling.

He looked at Will, laughing besides him. He was so adorable, in the over sized sweatshirt and his hair hanging on his face, wet. Now that there was no more blood on his cheeks Mike saw a large cut on his lip and a variety of scratches decorating his cheek.

Mike felt a strange sensation in his stomach, being there with the stupid music and Will's adorable laughter and his adorable face and the empty school and-

Mike jumped to his feet and stopped the music. Will sat upright on the desk, his hands buried in his sweatshirt, and looked at Mike curiously.

"I'm really tired, I think I'm going to go to sleep," Mike said quickly., glancing at his watch. 11:20 p.m. Okay, that was a good hour for bed. The strange tugging in his stomach persisted. Maybe the pudding was rotten?

"Okay," Will said. The laughter in his face vanished like it was never there to begin with, and suddenly he seemed shy again, "I saw some long scarves in the lost and found that could be blankets I guess, want me to go get them?"

"Thanks," Mike nodded. Will smiled a small smile before rushing out the room. Mike was glad he was gone.

Slowly he went to the edge of the classroom and slid down against the wall. He didn't like the thoughts coming into his brain, he needed a distraction...

Will's tattered bag, laying on the floor next to Mike's feet. Mike knew he shouldn't, that it was intruding on Will's personal space, but he really needed something to distract himself from the weird coursing going through his body, and he thought perhaps in the bag he would find explanation to Will's strange behavior.

Before he could stop himself, he opened the top zipper in the bag and looked inside. Sketch pad, pencils, a math book, a few comic books... Mike looked under them, and his head filled with about a million new questions.

Under the regular school equipment was a pillow, a blanket and a toothbrush.

Before he could even process, Mike heard footsteps in the hall and hurried to close the bag and slide it far away from him.

Will entered, carrying two long scarves, one blue and one purple.

"The wonders of a school lost and found, huh?" Mike said, and his voice sounded strange to him as his mind raced through plausible explanations to the objects.

Will nodded shyly, placing one of the scarves on Mike's hands.

Then, he reached his hand to Mike. Mike felt his whole body freeze, his heart fluttered in his chest, but the arm didn't touch his. Will reached around him and grabbed his bag before climbing on a desk at the edge of the room.

He put his bag behind his head and covered himself with the scarf, the hard desk not seeming to bother him as he cuddled himself in the blanket.

"Good night, Mike," Will said in a low tone. Mike went over to turn the lights off before climbing on a desk on the other side of the room.

"Goodnight," Mike said and through the darkness he thought he saw Will smiling a small smile.

Then Will turned so his back was facing Mike, and in a matter of minutes Mike heard his breathing turn even, and knew the boy was asleep.

But sleep was the last think Mike could do in the moment.

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This whole afternoon was like a strange fever dream. It seemed unreal, just a few hours ago he was hanging out with the guys from football and suddenly he was with Will again.

He still didn't understand what was happening to him. He still didn't understand why the brunette boy triggered such weird reactions from him, why he wanted Will to like him so much...

He was Mike Wheeler, for god's sake. He was one of the most popular kids in school, he was dating Jane Hopper....

But was he?

Lately, Jane had been avoiding him. It was another reason why he was so unhappy lately. Without Jane, the only fun part about his afternoons was gone.

When he finally managed to talk to Jane, she had made up excuses for her absence and convinced him that everything was fine. He might've left the conversation feeling reassured, but since then it had been about three weeks and he hung out with Jane exactly once.

She was constantly hanging out with her girl friends, some girls from cheer-leading. Mike HATED those girls, so every time Jane hung out with them he'd keep his distance.

They were mean and giggly and gossipy, and all of them were named like Kylie or Chloe or something and Mike could never remember who was who... and then there was Max, who joined the team just a few months back, shocking everyone, and kept shooting Mike dirty looks and scowling at him every time they hung out in the same group....

Mike had felt so alone these past weeks.

And now with Will... Jane, the guys from football, were the last thing on his mind. He had to figure out Will's secret, he had to understand what was wrong with Will, and maybe also figure out what was wrong with himself.

And he only had 48 hours to do so.