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Take the airport scene for example. Some try to frame it as Will making things awkward because of his crush, but the awkwardness is very clearly coming from Mike’s side first. Mike is performing the role he thinks he is supposed to play. And if Will is only beginning to understand the implications of his feelings, Mike has also not figured them out, yet. He just knows he has felt emotionally too close to his best friend in the past, and thinks he has to change that in order to step into this caricature of what it means to be “normal.” He also cannot fully understand why he is so upset about that damn painting.

There are so many scenes like this, especially in Seasons 3 and 4, that expose how Mike really feels about Will even if he hasn’t fully integrated those feelings into something that makes sense to him, yet. If I were doing a real character study and not a “Duffered” one, I would argue Mike would understand those feelings before Will, especially given Will’s slower romantic development as compared to all his other friends. The other three in the core group all had girlfriends way before he even started coming to terms with his feelings for Mike.

But even if I only take what the Duffers explicitly or implicitly added to the narrative, Mike at least came to terms with those feelings by the time of their last D&D game.

I understand why they did not suddenly pivot into a kiss or huge romantic reveal in S5. I disagree that there was not enough narrative build up for Byler to happen. The first seasons more than adequately laid the emotional framework and foundation for an endgame for them even with introducing El as a love interest for Mike. That is a standard storytelling device that could’ve worked well in this case.

But because the Duffers decidedly chose a different path, the onIy place in the story it would feel narratively honest would be after some time had passed post El’s sacrifice. I would argue that Mike’s final scene leaves a much more complicated emotional footprint than any other scene because this is where confirmation of his feelings makes the most sense. It has been 18 months since El’s departure and Will’s indirect confession. And landing it there (if you weren’t going to fully canonize Byler in a future forward epilogue) was the way to land it.

In that final scene, Mike lingers on Will’s book for a long time. Not the other books. Not the room in general. Just Will’s book. And the pause matters because the Duffers are extremely intentional with framing. That lingering stare feels very specific. Like Mike is sitting with the weight of what could have been if circumstances had been different.

There are parts of the general fandom that have a strong objection to recognizing Mike’s mutual feelings for Will even here. Some attempt to indirectly make this scene about Will’s unrequited feelings or about a general loss of what was. And while I do read it as grief surrounding the finality of what he and Will began together as childhood friends, the emotion Mike reveals here, once everyone else is gone, feels too regretful and fractured to be explained by that alone. Just like the airport scene, I think people try a little too hard to force his emotions and affections toward Will into a box that doesn’t quite fully contain what Mike is conveying.

And sometimes the series wants to only offer a small peek into those deeper emotions. It attempts almost too often to re-establish friendship because there is tension there that the narrative itself keeps trying to define and contain. And ironically, the more the story reinforces it, the more noticeable that tension becomes.

That reinforcement made sense in the tower scene after the indirect confession, but what makes the tower scene frustrating is that they didn’t take the time to execute it well. The vulnerability works. Mike supporting Will works. The sadness works. It is really only the “best friends” line that lands awkwardly for a lot of the audience because it feels less like a natural emotional conclusion and more like a line trying to settle an argument outside the show. It’s not the what, it’s the how.

But they still can’t seem to let the ending itself fully shut the door on a mutual read of Byler either. They are constantly at war with how much emotional bleed they want to allow and where the story naturally wants to go. Byler haunts the narrative and will likely continue to haunt the legacy of the show because for whatever reason, they didn’t want to land it cleanly.

But alas, Mike and Will get the final shared look. There is obvious regret there, and it is framed intentionally. The show repeatedly gives Mike emotional beats around Will that linger just a little too long to read as purely platonic. Will was an option even if that path was not chosen by either of them by the end of the canonical work that has thus far been presented to us.

And that reading does not erase Mileven either. Mileven is canon. Mike loved El. But he also loved Will, and by the story’s end, the show leaves enough ambiguity for many possibilities. It leaves room for people to believe El may still be alive, and it leaves room for people to believe Mike’s feelings for Will were real and mutual, even if never explicitly verbalized.

And that ambiguity is deliberate.

At the tower scene, Mike still believes he has a future with El. He is committed to her. That is part of who he is. But once that future is gone, whether through sacrifice or escape, the final scene is the first time Mike allows himself to quietly sit with feelings he spent years pushing down or not fully reconciling.

In his “two paths” talk, Hopper has proffered a path of healing for Mike. Hopper had walked that road before and finally knew how to carry the grief in a way that still allowed hope, joy, and a path forward. That lesson also allowed him a second chance at love, and fittingly, Mike and Will were paralleled at times with Hopper and Joyce, specifically at the end of S4, and continuing into S5. That end scene of S4 was not just illuminating how Mike and Will should be framed; it also foreshadowed what was to come.

Hopper’s moving speech is a speech about forgiving yourself but also choosing yourself while still honoring those you lose along the way. It’s about second chances, not only at happiness but at love, too. There’s something almost sacred in the subtext of Hopper’s speech. A reminder that second chances are not betrayals of the past. And when Hopper says Mike knows what El would want for him, it lands like a release and a blessing. There’s a knowing look there if you catch it.

That is why the book stare and caress matters. It shows that Will was an option. Not as a friend but as a partner. Their love was already rooted; it only needed one of them to fully step forth and unequivocally ask and the other to choose. I’d like to think that happens. That Mike eventually wakes up. And that Will likes him back when he does (wink😉). But even if neither happens, Byler is fully realized in the canon work. You just have to open your eyes to see it.

Maybe that is part of the reason why the Byler fandom gets such an intense reaction at times for just enjoying the beauty and complexities of their ship. Every fandom has passionate and stubborn fans. That part is normal. But I think some people react so strongly because, deep down, they understand there is truth in our reading, and that their kind of love is too bright to ignore.