J is for Jealous

August 1985, Hawkins, IN

"Why are you acting so strangely? Are you jealous of Jared?" Asked El.

Mike was peeved.

This had all started on the second day of school, the very beginning of freshman year. It was Eleven's first year of school ever, and she was the most excited out of all of them, of course. Mike found her enthusiasm absolutely adorable, but then he found everything about her absolutely adorable.

Unfortunately, Mike only had three classes with her out of six. They were together in first, third, and sixth periods for study hall, PE, and english, respectively. While they had history in the same period, El had a different teacher and therefore was in a different class, and it was in that very class that the teacher had already assigned a project. A partnered project. And El's partner happened to be Jared Simmons.

Hence why Mike was pissed. Due to the project, El hadn't been able to spend as much time with Mike as she usually did and he was missing her. Knowing that she was spending her time with another boy…

So he was acting weird. He didn't really see it, but his friends did, and so did El, no matter how sure he was that she didn't notice these types of things.

"Mike!" It was a whisper. He snapped around to look at Dustin.

"What?!"

"Why are you glaring at Jared?"

Mike stared at him. "I'm not glaring! I'm just… looking," he whispered back, glancing over at the boy in question. Dustin snorted.

"Yeah, I believe that. You're totally jealous."

Mike was scandalized. "I am not! You don't know what you're talking about."

Dustin nodded. "Sure, sure. It's sooo not because he's El's partner for her history project. I know jealousy when I see it, Mike, and you have it bad."

Mike did not appreciate such commentary, and so decided to ignore his friend.

A week later, Eleven herself was fed up with her favourite person acting so strangely around her. It felt like he was mad at her, but she couldn't think of what she could have done to make him so. She had even spoken to Jared about it, not trusting the other boys or Max to keep Mike out of the loop and hoping Jared would shed some light on the situation. The conversation had gone like this:

"I think Mike's mad at me."

"Well what'd you do?"

"That's it! I can't think of anything!"

"Hmm. This is Mike Wheeler you're talking about, right? Not Russo?"

"Yeah, I'm not friends with Mike Russo."

"I don't think he's mad at you, then. If you can't think of anything you might have done, I don't think he'd be mad for no reason. It sounds like he's jealous."

"Why would he be jealous, though?"

"That you're spending so much time with me for this project, probably. The dude's practically in love with you."

"He's practically in love with me?!"

"El, literally everyone can see how you guys feel about each other! Are you both seriously that blind?"

She had shoved him quite violently, so much so that he almost fell off the chair he was sitting on, but he was also laughing so much at her indignation that the librarian had to come over and ask them to be quiet.

Afterwards, she had resolved to speak to Mike herself as soon as she could get him alone. This happened to be a few days later during study hall, since they had it together and could talk in relatively private conditions. Which led to the situation Mike found himself in at the moment.

"W-what? Why are you asking that?" He spluttered.

El gave him a look. "You've been acting weird and I want to know why."

Mike scratched his head. "I guess I- I am. I just- I miss hanging out with you, El. I know you have to be with Jared because of your project but I still wish you could be with me instead and I'm really just mad at myself because I know I'm being stupid," he said, glancing at the girl in front of him and then fixing his gaze on his shoelaces.

Suddenly, Mike felt her hands on his cheeks pulling his face down to her level. Is she going to kiss me?!

"Mike, look at me." He did as told. "I'm not going to stop hanging out with you. You're my best friend and my favourite person in the entire world, you don't have to worry. Stop being silly!" El squished his cheeks and smiled at him. "You're so cute."

Then she walked away to another section to grab a book she needed, leaving Mike a blushing mess at their table.