Alexithymia | STRANGER THINGS [ON HOLD UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE]

one | the vanishing of will byers

While Matthew Wheeler made his way down the stairs from his bedroom and was headed in the direction towards the kitchen, his younger brother, Mike, quickly ran into the kitchen and yelled, "Mom, wait, just twenty more minutes!"

Their mother, Karen, told him, "It's a school night, Michael. I just put Holly to bed. You can finish next weekend."

Mike replied, "But that'll ruin the flow!"

In turn, Karen said to him, "Michael—"

Mike said to him, "I'm serious, Mom. The campaign took two weeks to plan. How was I supposed to know it was gonna take ten hours?"

Karen asked him, "You've been playing for ten hours?"

It was then that Matthew had finally entered the kitchen and looked over at his younger brother, who had already looked away from their mother with a groan and over towards Matthew.

When Matthew only turned away from Mike with a roll of his eyes and started to look inside of the refrigerator for something to drink, Mike turned away from his older brother with a groan and asked, "Dad, don't you think that twenty more—"

Their father, Ted, told him, "I think you should listen to your mother." After hitting the top of the television, he let out a groan as he said, "Dang dumb piece of junk."

It was only then that Mike turned to Matthew and asked him, "You couldn't have just helped me out or something?"

With a scoff, Matthew replied, "What the hell would I do that for?" While choosing to ignore their mother, who was telling Matthew to watch his language, Matthew told him, "You're the one that decided to play that dumbass game of yours for ten hours."

Then he started to walk out of the kitchen with a milk carton in hand, which got their mother to yell after him, "Matthew Wheeler, bring back that carton right now!"

As he went to put his headphones on and pressed a button on his walkman, Matthew replied, "What was that, Mom?! I can't hear you over my music!"

While Karen only let out a sigh at her eldest son, Mike let out a groan before he quickly ran after his older brother in an attempt to get him to listen to him.

But unfortunately for Mike, Matthew couldn't hear a thing over the sound of Hells Bells playing loudly on his walkman.

* * *

While the phone started to ring, Nancy told Mike, "That's disgusting."

Mike replied, "You're disgusting!"

Not long after he said that, Karen picked up the ringing phone and said into it, "Hello?"

While Karen simply listened to the other person on the line, Mike went ahead and poured some syrup onto Nancy's eggs, which got her to say, "What the hell, Mike?"