[all younger members of the party have been aged up to 18, all older party members (nancy, steve, jonathan, robin are aged up to 21. all go to hawkins community college, except for jonathan and nancy. el and mike stayed broken up after the season 3 fight au. will has came out and has a boyfriend named casey.]hawkins, indiana; christmas break of 1987. 5 days before christmas. slow burn and slow build romance with mike. karissa and dustin are ‘irish twins’ born a little less than a year apart, the two are and always have been close. things have settled down, and it’s going to be a normal christmas. karissa has had a crush on mike wheeler since freshman year of high school, curse her stupid teenage hormones, and curse mikes obliviousness of the past almost 5 years. the two are pretty close friends, having known each other since the first grade (yup, she was friends with mike before both dustin and lucas, but not before will.) it all started because a group of boys were making fun of will, and karissa defended him, leading mike to immediately ask her to join their friend group. karissa was the first one to befriend max when she moved to hawkins.