Chapter Text
Will had been trying to decide whether the box labeled ART-IMPORTANT should go on top of the box labeled ART-FRAGILE for an embarrassingly long time.
Both sat in the center of the living room floor, open and half-packed, surrounded by the evidence of a life in transition. Sketchbooks were stacked unevenly against the wall, their spines slightly bent and softened from years of use. Loose pages- studies of hands, faces, nature, half finished landscapes- peaked out from folders that were already too full. A roll of butcher paper had been unspooled across the carpet and left there, forgotten, curling slightly at the edges.
This room felt slightly smaller than it used to. This was his living room. The Byers family room. He had grown up here. Maybe it was just fuller. Louder. Like the walls had begun to close in now that everything inside them was preparing to leave.
"I don't understand how this happens," Will said suddenly, breaking the quiet.
Lucas looked up from his phone, where he'd been scrolling aimlessly for the last ten minutes. "How what happens?"
"This," Will replied, gesturing vaguely at his laptop on the coffee table. The housing portal glowed back at him in an impersonal white and blue text. Assignment Pending. It had said the same thing for weeks. "There are thousands of incoming freshmen. Thousands. And somehow I'm the one who didn't get assigned a roommate."
Dustin, stretched out on the rug with his laptop balanced precariously on his stomach, snorted, "You say that like you failed a test."
"It feels like I did," Will muttered.
Steve, leaning against the kitchen counter with a mug of coffee that had long since gone cold, raised an eyebrow. "That's not how that works."
"Well, tell that to my anxiety," Will replied, not looking up.
He pressed the tip of his pencil harder into the page in front of him, sketching lines without really seeing them. His hand moved on instinct, shading and erasing and reshaping the same form over and over again. He wasn't drawing anything meaningful, just trying to keep his hands busy so his thoughts wouldn't spiral.
Everyone else seemed to have this whole thing figured out already.
Roommates. Dorms. Move-In plans. Group chats filled with inside jokes he wasn't part of. It felt like everyone had been handed a map, and he was still standing at the starting point, unsure of which direction to go.
"The housing system is a nightmare," Lucas said. "They always mess something up."
"That's easy for you to say," Will replied quietly. "You already know who you're rooming with."
Lucas hesitated, then nodded. "Yeah. I guess."
Steve took a sip of his coffee, grimaced, and set it down. "You're acting like this is a personal failure."
Will finally looked up. "It's not that," he said, though his voice lacked conviction. "It just feels...weird. Like everyone else already has their person. Someone to arrive with. Someone to figure things out with. And I'm just-"
He stopped himself, swallowing.
Dustin glanced up at him. "Just what?"
Will shrugged, looking back down at his sketchbook. "Just...unassigned."
The word sat heavy in the air. Not dramatic. Just quietly uncomfortable.
Max, who had been sitting cross-legged on the couch scrolling through her phone, suddenly froze.
"Wait," she said.
It wasn't loud, but it was enough to pull everyone's attention toward her.
She frowned at her screen, then looked up at Will. "Hold on. My friend Mike doesn't have a roommate either."
There was a slight pause from the group.
Lucas tilted his head. "Mike... as in, Mike Wheeler?"
"Yeah," Max said. "Same move-in weekend. Same dorm building, actually. I remember because he complained about it like three times."
Dustin turned over and pushed himself up on his elbows. "So... two people without roommates."
Steve's mouth twitched. "This sounds like a housing problem that can be solved."
Will felt his stomach dip. "Solved how?"
Max shrugged, setting her phone down. "Logistically. If neither of you has been assigned yet, it's probably easier for housing to put you together than scramble to find two separate placements."
"That makes sense," Lucas said. "Same floor, same timeline."
Will stared at his sketchbook, processing. A roommate. A real one. Not a faceless name on a portal, but an actual person with habits and routines and opinions he didn't know yet.
"I don't know him," Will said carefully.
"Well that's kind of how roommates work," Dustin replied. "Unless you're lucky enough to share with your best friend, which is statistically unlikely." Steve winks at him across the room.
Will huffed out a weak laugh despite himself.
Max leaned towards Will slightly. "He's fine, Will. Normal. Keeps to himself. Plays music."
Plays music.
Will wasn't sure why that detail stuck with him, but it did.
"I'm not saying you have to be best friends," Max continued. "It's just... practical. Better than showing up completely alone."
Will exhaled slowly. She wasn't wrong. None of this felt ideal, but it didn't feel catastrophic either. Just uncertain. And uncertainty had become a familiar companion lately.
"Okay," he said finally. "If housing's okay with it."
Max smiled, already typing. "I'll text him, and let him know."
Just like that, the conversation moved on.
Lucas went back to his phone. Dustin resumed typing furiously, muttering something about bandwidth. Steve picked up his coffee again, only to grimace a second time.
And Will sat there at the coffee table, surrounded by half-packed boxes and unfinished sketches, feeling the strange weight of something settling into place.
He didn't know Mike Wheeler. He didn't know what kind of roommate he'd be. He didn't know if they'd get along or quietly coexist or barely speak outside of polite necessity.
But for the first time in weeks, the idea of move-in day didn't feel quite as empty.
And for right now, that would be enough.