American actor Noah Schnapp, who portrayed the role of Will Byers in the Netflix show Stranger Things, has finally confirmed that his character in the series is gay and that he has feelings for another character, Mike Wheeler, played by Finn Wolfhard.

Noah Schnapp further revealed that Will doesn’t want to hurt Eleven’s feelings by confessing the truth. In a recent interview with Variety, the actor said, “I mean, it’s pretty clear this season that Will has feelings for Mike. They’ve been intentionally pulling that out over the past few seasons. I think for Season 4, it was just me playing this character who loves his best friend but struggles with knowing if he’ll be accepted or not, and feeling like a mistake and like he doesn’t belong. It was always kind of there, but you never really knew, is it just him growing up slower than his friends? Now that he’s gotten older, they made it a very real, obvious thing. Now it’s 100% clear that he is gay and he does love Mike.”

Noah also said he hoped Will Byers will have a coming-out scene in the fifth and final season of the show. “This isn’t just a single layer thing of he’s struggling with coming out. It’s this multifaceted trauma that goes years back, because he was taken by the Demogorgon and then his friends, they never acknowledged him, and now he’s scared to come out and doesn’t know if they’ll accept him. And then Eleven is like his sister, but he doesn’t want to hurt her because if he says he likes Mike, that’s gonna hurt her feelings,” he added. The final season of Stranger Things, created by Matt and Ross Duffer, is expected to come out in 2024.