Yes, growing season's just begun

And hurt and hate, sadness and pain

They're all in bloom

"How can you eat that?" I ask, examining the lumps of beef tendon floating in Misty's bowl of pho, "It looks nasty!"

"It's good! Try a piece!" she says, picking up an especially disturbing looking chunk with her chopsticks and holding it in my face.

Misty and I are having dinner in a small pho restaurant. It's sort of a tradition among the four of us - Misty, Leaf, Dawn, and I - to meet up for dinner after one of Misty's swim practices. At least, it was. Lately, Dawn's always been busy. Normally, it's just the three of us now, but Leaf has to tutor Gary today.

"No thanks," I say, ducking away from it. Misty laughs and eats it herself.

"So how was training today?" I ask.

"Great! Oh, guess what?" she asks.

"Um, you got a boyfriend?" I guess jokingly.

She looks unimpressed. "Are you saying that would be such a surprise?" she asks indignantly.

"It was just supposed to be a joke. You know, because your sisters are always on your case about getting a boyfriend?" I say defensively. She calms down a little.

"You're right. Sorry, I lost it there a little," she admits, "Anyway, just when practice was ending, I got a phone call." She pauses dramatically.

"I got invited to the nationals!" she squeals. Misty almost never squeals, so you can tell she's really happy when she does.

"That's amazing!" I say.

"I know! This is great," Misty says, laughing, "Also, I broke my previous record for front crawl today!"

"You're going to do great at the nationals," I say.

"I hope so," Misty says. She eats some more of her suspicious noodles.

I eat my pho too. Beef brisket pho is great without suspicious tendon lumps.

"We're going on a busking field trip in music next week," I say, "We're going to drive to the subway, and then busk in partners for an hour. There's prizes for the pairs that make the most. Dawn and I are totally going to win."

"Good luck with that," she says, laughing, "Busking is hardly lucrative. I read about this super famous cellist who made, like, 19 bucks from an hour of busking, then made thousands of dollars playing at a concert that evening."

"Really? Good thing it's only going to be for fun, then. It hardly seems like a stable career," I say.

Both of our phones light up from a new text in our group conversation.

It's from Dawn.

OMG I think Paul Shinji's going to play a concert. At least, this gossip blog says so.

There's also a link to the aformentioned blog.

"I really don't get Dawn's obsession with Paul Shinji. He's a good singer, sure, but all his songs are so depressing. Once, I found this song that I thought was going to be happier, because it was called "In Bloom" and it had a black and white picture of flowers," I tell Misty.

"And?" she asks, "How was that?"

"So I listened to it, and guess what the chorus was?" I ask.

"What?" Misty asks.

"This bitter spring has almost sprung

Growing season's just begun

And these dark seeds of hate

We've planted in our brains

And watered with our tears

Have all begun to grow

Yes, growing season's just begun

And hurt and hate, sadness and pain

They're all in bloom," I tell her.

"Okay, that's just depressing," she agrees.

"Anyway, I don't get what the big buzz about him is. Almost everyone sang and played his songs during assessment in guitar class today," I say, slurping up some noodles ungracefully.

Misty slurps with me.

"Drew texted me yesterday," I blurt out suddenly. Drew's my kind-of-friend. We're both sub-par guitarists, in a class full of really good guitarists. In fact, we're debatably the two worst students in music class. We're constantly competing to not be rock bottom. It's kind of funny. Most times, people compete to be the best. We compete to not be the worst. The competition's friendly, anyway. Most of the time.

Also, Drew's my maybe-crush. I'm not sure if it's a crush or not, because it's kind of unprecedented. I've had only one possibly-crush before, and it was a completely different sensation.

Misty knows. Even though I love Dawn and Leaf, Misty's my best friend, and the one who deals with all my musings, rants, and crises.

"Really? What did he say?" Misty asks, although she doesn't look very interested, but more like she's just playing a character. She doesn't really like gossiping or talking about boys, but she is a supportive friend.

"He just said we should hang out," I say. His exact text was: Hi May. Want to hang out sometime? It was so cryptic. I couldn't figure out what he meant by it. Also, he used completely proper grammar. Who does that when texting? Drew, apparently.

"So what did you say?" Misty asks, still feigning interest, although her eyes give her away.

"I just said sure," I say. It's a little pathetic. I didn't really know what to say, so I just sent back one word. Sure. Looking back, I should have at least added an exclamation point or a happy face. And now I'm obsessing over it. Just great.

Misty doesn't seem to know what to say to continue to conversation. She's not very good at this, obviously. I take pity on Misty and change the subject.

"So, the nationals, Misty! I'm so proud of you!" I gush, returning to our original topic. I really am proud of my friend.

Misty smiles. "I know. I'm still a little speechless. I mean, me at the nationals?" she says, and then laughs a little, "I'm probably going have to train much more now, though."

"Well, at least there's a bunch of restaurants I still want to try. There's this one Chinese place that makes homemade ramen that I really want to try," I respond.

Misty laughs. "That's one way of looking at it."


"My raspberry rooibos iced tea is much more sophisticated than your drink that is so full of sugar, chemicals, and artificial flavor that it can't be called a latte. Lattes are supposed to taste like coffee," Drew argues.

We end up hanging out a few days after he texts me, at a small café inside a local bookshop. It's a very platonic location, where some friends might hang out and do some homework. It's also a little disappointing.

"Hey! It's a caramel praline macchiato, not a latte!" I protest.

"The term macchiato makes it sound like some sort of nice, authentic coffee drink. Your drink tastes like super sweet rat poison," he claims.

"So? Like I said, how is iced tea any better? You can buy a gallon for two bucks, and it's loaded with just as much sugar and chemicals, and artificial flavor! Also, it hardly tastes like tea!" I retort.

"That's where you're wrong, May," he says, "Because this is not the iced tea you buy for two bucks a gallon. That kind of iced tea, I admit, is junk. This is rooibos iced tea, lightly sweetened and with natural raspberry flavor. It actually tastes like tea. This rooibos tea has a flavor that is very delicate, complex, and floral, that is enhanced with a little sugar and some fruit notes. Here, try some."

I take a sip of his raspberry kangaroo iced tea or whatever.

It's actually really good. As much as I hate to admit it, Drew is right for once. The iced tea tastes like actual tea, and the flavor tastes almost like perfume smells.

"Fine. Your raspberry kangaroo iced tea is halfway decent," I admit, pouting.

"Kangaroo iced tea?" he asks, laughing.

"That's what it sounds like you keep saying," I insist.

"It's rooibos, otherwise known as red tea," he tells me.

"Whatever. Rue-ee-boots. Kangaroo. Same thing," I say.

"You're hopeless," he says, shaking his head and supressing laughter.

"Well, at least I don't look like someone tried to experiment with new agricultural methods on my head," I say petulantly.

"Hey! My choice of hair color is actually very personal, meaningful, and symbolic! Also, do you have any idea how hard it is to find good quality green hair dye?" he asks.

"It still looks like a greenhouse," I insist.

"How about we agree that it looks like a meaningful and symbolic greenhouse?" he offers.

"Fine. A meaningful and symbolic greenhouse it is," I agree.

"How did your assessment go in music class?" he asks.

I was hoping he wouldn't ask. I consider lying to sound better than I am, but I end up being honest.

"I messed up my E major chord and my D minor supertonic chord. I got the key signatures wrong," I admit, "Also, I blanked out in the middle of my freestyle piece."

He smirks. "I played Amelia Queen's Love Letters. That song is relatively easy, but sounds pretty impressive. Also, I played it perfectly," he boasts.

"Well you suck," I retort cleverly, "I'll beat you at busking!"

"More like your partner might," he says laughing, "That is, if you get a good partner."

"Don't we get to choose?" I ask.

"Nope. Ash asked Mrs. Durnes, and she said it's going to be random. It's supposed to help us interact with new people or whatever," Drew says, drinking his kangaroo tea.

"How much do you think we'll make?" I ask, "Apparently, this super famous cellist made less than twenty dollars in an hour of busking, which is ironic, because he apparently made thousands at a concert that night."

"We'll see, won't we? That's what the field trip is about: gaining experience and finding out new things about the music industry," he says.

"Do you have Mr. Connolly for AP English?" I ask. Drew's not in my class, but he might be in one of Mr. Connolly's other AP English classes. At least, I think he's in AP English. I think he mentioned something about it last year.

If so, I want to rub my essay mark in his face. We were assigned an essay about why we learn English, and Leaf and I did pretty well, for Mr. Connolly, at least. He's a hard marker, and we only had one day to work on the essay. Leaf's a great writer. He's already one-upped me on music assessments. I want to beat him on this.

"Yeah. What did you get on the essay?" he asks, looking smug. Oh no. This might not be a good idea after all.

"87%," I say hesitantly.

"Really? We got 100," he says smugly.

"You suck," I say, smacking his arm, "What did you do it on? Leaf and I did it on the importance of communication, and while he claimed the writing was good, one of his comments was that this wasn't a strong enough reason. He wrote that 'knowing the difference between present progressive and present perfect tense isn't essential to communication'."

Drew laughs, for some reason. "To be honest, I originally wanted to do something like that too, but my partner said that same thing. He ended up choosing our topic. It was basically a critique of our education system, and I was scared that we'd fail. He wrote most of it, too. Here, I have a marked copy in my bag," he says, pulling out his essay.

The topic is actually really smart, and the essay is well written and professional. Mr. Connolly's comments are all complimentary, too.

He wrote that he was happy to see someone be brave and choose a topic like this, and that he strongly agreed with all the points, and that the topic was very smart and well phrased. Finally, he wrote that the essay was extremely well written, and, for perhaps the first time in his long teaching career, he had nothing bad to say.

I'm really jealous. Here I was thinking that I had a great mark, because it was the highest mark of anyone I'd asked aside from Drew, and here he is with a perfect mark and amazing comments. Normally, in our constant clashing to not be the worst, we were always pretty close. This, however, was a landslide victory for Team Drew.

Drew notices. "Don't be jealous," he says comfortingly, "Like I said, it was mainly my partner. He's a great writer and he insisted that we choose an honest topic. I probably contributed 6 sentences."

He knows exactly what to say to make me feel better, because it almost instantly quells the jealousy. I'm forced to respect him for being honest and not taking advantage of what he could turn into major points for himself.

"Who was your partner?" I ask, curious about the identity of the true writing genius.

"His name's Paul, but you probably don't know him. He moved here the day before school started," Drew explains, "But you probably saw him in music. He has purple hair."

Come to think of it, I do remember seeing a guy with purple hair in music. He was talking to Drew.

"Oh cool. What's he like?" I ask.

"Not very nice," Drew says, laughing, "At least, that's how he comes off to most people. I think it's more that he's just brutally honest. Wait, is that him?"

Drew points to a guy who's looking at some very thick, academic-looking, hardcovers in the book store section. Sure enough, he has purple hair.

Drew takes a chance and calls out, "Hey Paul!"

The guy turns, and Drew appears to recognize him, which is lucky, because it would have been awkward if it wasn't actually Paul.

Paul leaves the books on the shelf and comes over.

"Oh. It's you," he says dismissively.

"Yeah. Did you see our essay mark yet?" Drew asks, unperturbed.

"Yes, I got a marked copy of the essay in homeroom," Paul says, "See, I told you honesty was a good idea."

"Fine. You win this time," Drew says, "But really, you did a great job on the writing. I don't think Mr. Connolly has ever given 100 percent before, because he's the kind of teacher who says that there's no right or wrong in English, so it's impossible to do perfectly."

Paul just shrugs. "Numbers don't really matter. I said what needed to be said. That's all," he states plainly.

This guy already sounds like fun. Not.

"Someone else I know did their essay on communication," Paul continues, "And Mr. Connolly wrote basically the same thing that I said."

"Yeah, I know. May did the same thing. It's sort of funny," Drew says, "Oh, apparently Paul Shinji is going to play a concert soon."

Paul looks surprised. Is he a Paul Shinji fan? But that his expression meutralizes so quickly I wonder if I imagined the surprise.

"Really? That stupid guy again?" Paul says, scoffing.

"Wait, Drew," I say. I think I finally found my chance to one up Drew. "Where did you find this information? Could it be, wait, one second, let me find Dawn's text," I ask, scrolling through my texts. "Aha! This gossip blog?"

Drew's face goes red. "Ah, no. Ash told me," he stammers.

"Ha! Drew likes gossip blogs!" I announce triumphantly.

"So what?"

I turn to see who spoke.

"So what?" Paul asks again. "So Drew likes gossip blogs. Well, I like playing the guitar. What's wrong with either?"

"Um, well, gossip blogs normally have female readers and-" I start, but Paul cuts me off.

"Then you'd be the one who's wrong," he points out, "Because Drew, or hell, any male, can read gossip blogs if they want. There's nothing wrong with say, a girl reading a sports blog. There's nothing wrong with a child reading a dictionary. Same idea."

"But still, it's a girly habit!" I point out.

"That's sexist," Paul points out, "That's what I'm trying to tell you."

"But, um, uh," I stutter.

Paul looks at me expectantly.

"Why does this matter? Do you read gossip blogs too?" I blurt out. Not my finest retort by far.

Paul seems to share the sentiment. He chuckles drily.

"Why does it matter if I do?" he counters, "But for the record, I don't. I have better things to do."

"So then you just admitted that gossip blogs are a waste of time," I point out gleefully.

"I never said they weren't. I just said that if it's fine for a female to read them, it's fine for a male," he says.

"But there are cases where that doesn't apply. A male can't, for example, use a tampon," I say. Not a very good example, but it gets the point across.

"Because of physical impossibility. What we're talking about here is not physical, but mental," Paul argues.

Ugh. This guy is impossible.

"I rest my case," Paul says smugly.

"Whatever," I mutter. "How do you stand this guy?" I ask Drew.

Drew shrugs. "Magic?" he suggests.

"Who says we stand each other?" Paul points out.

"Ooh, low blow. I might have to steal your guitar again," Drew threatens.

"Please. Save all our ears. Don't do that again," Paul says, shoving his hands into his pockets.

"May here is actually atrociouser at guitar than I am," Drew says, grinning, "Last year, I onyl got the second worst mark in music class. I beat May by a whole 1 percent!"

"Atrociouser?" Paul asks, unamused.

"Yeah! It means more atrocious," Drew says, smirking.

"And this is a real word since when?" Paul asks.

"Since now," Drew responds, still looking smug.

"So could I use it like this? Surprisingly, there is something atrociouser than Drew's guitar playing: his singing," Paul asks.

"You wound me," Drew says, falling over dramatically. "Ow!" he says as he hits his head on the floor.

"I still don't get why you take music. I mean, when you actually try, you don't sound completely awful, but you don't seem very into it. Also, you got the second lowest mark in the class," Paul points out.

Drew grins widely. "Easy marks. Even though I had the second lowest mark, it was still 85%," Drew explains.

I sigh as they banter. Hanging out with Drew was actually really fun, but Drew's hardly said a word to me since Paul came. Great. Now I sound creepily obsessive. It makes sense, though. Paul and Drew seem to be actual friends, not friends/enemies like Drew and I.

"So, busking," Paul says, "I think it's a very clever field trip. I can't think of a better way to truly put us in a musician's shoes."

"Mrs. Durnes is good at planning insightful field trips. Once, she took us to see an orchestra, and then we got to talk to all the musicians after. It was really cool," Drew says.

"What else have you done?" Paul asks.

"Well, once a guy who composes music for movies came in and talked to us about that. It was pretty interesting," Drew recounts.

I remember that day. It was back in Grade 9. He was a good composer, and I wanted to be able to compose like he did. Unlike Drew, I was actually passionate about music in Grade 9, but somehow, I managed to do worse than Drew, who just took the class for easy marks. That was back in Grade 9, though. I then learned that the music industry is highly competitive and far from lucrative, and that I didn't really like music after all. Now, admittedly, I take music for the same reason as Drew.

Paul shrugs, looking far from impressed. "I didn't really want to take music to begin with," Paul tells Drew, "I didn't get to take any of the electives I chose, so I ended up with music."

Drew nods understandingly. "The same thing happened to Ash. He got stuck with foods instead of Spanish," Drew says.

"Oh god. Let's not talk about that buffoon. For our first assignment, I got stuck with him, and we had to make chocolate chip cookies, which are really simple. Turns out, they're not simple when you make them with Ash. He almost messed them up 17 times. I counted. In the end, they were edible, and we got a decent mark, but really. It was three times harder than it had to be. He put in four eggs instead of three, and I had to painstakingly scoop out as close to one egg as possible. Luckily, I caught him right after he cracked them in. If he'd already beaten them..." Paul trails off with a shudder.

I try one last time to put myself into the conversation.

"Hey Drew, how do you pronounce your kangaroo tea's name again?" I ask.

"Rooibos," he says, before turning back to Paul.

Dang. My attempt to turn that into another banter failed miserably.

"Uh, I have to go now. Bye Paul. Bye Drew," I say quietly.

Drew just nods at me. I pick up my stuff and leave the bookstore.

It's a little sad. He barely noticed me leave.

Some confusing part of me wishes that he'd have at least said goodbye, or told me that it was fun, and we should do it again.

I stare back into the cafe, where Paul and Drew are talking as if I never left.

I take a deep breath. So what?

As much as I try, though, I can't convince myself that I don't care, at least a little.