purple's our color- mileven au

PROLOGUE

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April, 6th grade
"Why you gotta be so mean?"- Mean, Taylor Swift

     El, Max, Mike, Lucas, Will and Dustin have been best friends since the 1st grade when they all got Mrs. Fab for their teacher. They haven't spent a day apart in years. That was until things began to change in sixth grade.

     After the birth of her little sister Sara in December, El's mother died in childbirth, leaving El and her father, Jim Hopper, to care for Sara and deal with the loss of who they claimed the glue of the family. El grew distant from everything for almost a month, barely seeing her friends and never going to school. It was weird for everyone else, who'd been dealing with other things as well.

     For Will, his parents officially got divorced at the end of 5th grade, which was good news for the riddance of his father. Max, Lucas and Dustin had grown to have so much tension between them as they got older, and only El knew that Max had a big crush on Lucas and Mike and Will knew that Lucas felt the same about Max, and so did Dustin. Finally, Mike had been like every other pre teen boy on planet earth, just like his friends. He was impulsive and confusing, but everyone at first thought it was funny.

Plus, it doesn't help that that sixth grade was officially the second year of his infatuation with El Hopper. El was easily oblivious but everyone else in the party was well aware of Mike's crush. He didn't treat her any different until he realized his status with her and how clueless El was to the entire thing.       

The seasons were changing, it was getting warmer and El was finally back to her normal self. The rest of the party was waiting for their tiniest brunette friend at the bus drop off right outside of Hawkins Middle. "Where is she? I'm getting impatient!" Max exclaims.

"Are you ever patient?" Mike retorts. Max rolls her eyes as El comes skipping near them with a huge smile on her face.  She runs right near Max and grabs her hands twirling around and finally settling in between Lucas and Max. "What are you so hyper about?" Lucas asks tiredly, "it's 7 am on Monday."

"Well you all know my sneakers wore out on our bike ride Friday. I was just having a bad weekend and Sara has colic or something and I was missing Mom so Dad came and asked if I wanted to go to the mall and see a movie so Will's mom watched Sara and we went and saw it and then he got me new shoes! They're so amazing," she beams.

"Ooo!" Max looks down at her best friend's feet. The sneakers were all white, they were blindly bright similar to her personality and her tan complexion looked really good with the color. "I swear if anyone does anything to them you'll get punched in the gut," El looks over to Dustin, the messiest friend and one with the highest track record for getting things dirty.

Mike, getting a grand yet stupid idea, nudges Lucas with a smirk on his face as Will and Dustin give El scenarios in which El's shoes could get ruined, all of which she denies. "Dude, I should just write on her shoes!" Mike says to Lucas, Max overhearing.

"You idiot she'll punch you," Lucas responds.

"Not with a permanent marker, just as a joke she always thinks those things are funny!"

Max, who had heard quite enough, comes stomping over to her two friends. "I swear to god if you two get any bright ideas you're both dead," she warns. Mike shrugs, he doesn't ever get intimidated by the spitbally redhead. "Do what you want man," Lucas says, "but be smart about it."

So in second period reading, with Max, Lucas, Mike and El all in the same class, that's when Mike decides to follow through. The class was assigned to read a chunk in their books for the period, so El was carried away in her book. With her forehead and eyebrows scrunched and her hidden smile whenever she thought a character did or said something funny, Mike couldn't help but stare. He was conveniently right across from her, so when he snapped out of it he dropped a purple crayola marker on the floor.