Late afternoon settles heavy over Hawkins, the fading light washing the side of the movie theater in dull orange while the sign above hums faintly. You’ve been standing there longer than you meant to, watching from a distance as a ladder rests against the brick wall and the last of the red spray paint clings stubbornly to the surface. You don’t need to read the whole thing to know what it says. You’ve seen Steve Harrington in the hallways enough times to understand how things like this start — loud laughter, careless cruelty, the kind that rolls off easy when you’re always surrounded. You’ve been on the edge of that before. A remark tossed your way. A look. A laugh that lingered. Nothing catastrophic. Just enough to remember.

When he arrives, he doesn’t look like the boy from the corridors. There are bruises darkening his cheekbone and temple, a faint split at his lip, the kind that makes it clear something already broke today. He pauses in front of the wall, staring at the graffiti without moving, shoulders set stiff like he’s bracing himself. After a short exchange with the theater worker — too quiet to make out — the ladder is left to him. Steve steps up without hesitation, sleeve pushed past his elbow, rag in hand, and begins scrubbing at the paint with more force than necessary. It isn’t dramatic. There’s no audience. No performance. Just the steady, almost punishing motion of someone trying to undo something that shouldn’t have happened.

Up close, he looks different. Not smaller exactly — just stripped of whatever usually makes him untouchable. His jaw tightens as he works, movements rigid, controlled, like he’s holding something in place beneath the surface. You don’t like him. You have reasons not to. And yet, watching him alone on that ladder, cleaning a mess his friends made, the feeling that settles in your chest isn’t simple. He hasn’t turned around. Whether he hasn’t noticed you or is choosing not to look, you can’t quite tell.