Author's Note: Hey! So, I got a chapter up! For the next week, though, I'll be out of town, so I won't be able to write anything. Not even internet access! But I promise that when I get back, I'll start to work on the next chapter.

That's pretty much it. You can read now! Go on.

During Which Friendships are Created

May strode into her house, closing the door behind her and humming happily, a red rose peeking out of her school bag. Earlier that day, Drew had sat with them again as they ate, and she was surprised to see how easily he and Ash became friends. Ash's happy-go-lucky attitude apparently complimented Drew's carefree one, and she, along with Misty, watched as the two boys quickly became best friends over a lengthy discussion of different strategies one could use in a Pokémon battle. Ash was obviously taking a liking to the green haired boy, and even Misty was starting to treat him with grudging politeness. May placed her bag on the ground next to her couch and pulled out the rose, twirling in around on the palm of her hand, before walking to the windowsill and placing it in the vase along with the other bright red roses. She placed one hand on her waist and traced a petal of the latest flower with her finger of her other hand.

May knew that Drew was arrogant, conceited, and pretty much a jerk to her everyday. Then why do I like him so much? May wondered, smiling as she thought of her day. She had been dropped off at school as normal, and had been bullied by the girls, as normal. She could see obvious signs of Drew being harassed as well, and she even saw Misty in an argument with a couple of girls, Ash next to the red head, glaring, before classes that morning. But, despite the troubles, these encounters with fan girls just made Ash even more stubborn about including Drew in their group, in order to spite the girls who obviously disapproved of them. Misty, on the other hand, would be a little harder to convince.

May's phone buzzed, snapping her out of her trance, and she, surprised, quickly let go of the rose petal and jumped back, pulling out her phone. The caller ID blinked Ahh Misty is freaking awesome, and she smiled as she thought back to when Misty stole her phone and wouldn't give it back until May promised to change her name to some more 'awesome'. May flipped her phone open and held it to her ear.

"Hey Misty! What's up?" she asked, walking up the stairs to her room, waving to her mom in the process.

"May!" Misty sounded exhausted. "We need to talk about Drew." She stated bluntly.

May felt her stomach plummet. Maybe she was wrong about Misty accepting Drew now. "Yeah, what about him?" she asked, hesitantly, and pushed to door open to her room.

"Well, I'm just going to cut to the chase, alright May? Today morning a couple of girls accused me of being a 'Drew Stealer', because I apparently was jealous of their good looks, and I was corrupting him." Misty's voice was tight, and May could tell that she was still furious about the accusations. She sighed.

"Yeah, well, they've been doing that to me too." She said quietly.

"Drew is more trouble than he's worth. Don't get me wrong, I may have misjudged him before, but still, he is so not worth this. Let's just, you know, give him back to his fan girls."

"Misty, just try to get to know him." May pleaded. "He may act like he's better than anyone else, but I think that he's just lonely. He's never had any friends because of his fan girls, but we're better than that."

There was a pause. "May, I'm only doing this because you're so convinced that he's a good person." Misty sighed. "And, well, I guess that I should give him a chance."

May jumped up and pumped a fist. "Yeah!" she yelled, and grinned. "He's not all that bad, Misty. After all, he does give me roses."

"Well, that's because he likes you." May could tell that Misty was smiling slyly from her house. She felt her cheeks heat up, and started to protest.

"What! Misty, no! Why would you think that? Wait, was that a click? Did you hang up on me? MISTY!" May sighed, and threw her phone down onto her bed, falling over so that she lay beside it. Does Drew really like me? She wondered. He was arrogant, conceited, and a jerk to her every day. But then he could just flip his hair, hand her a rose, and grin at her, and she would forget everything that he did before.

May groaned. She hated that Drew had this huge advantage over her, and hoped that she could do the same to him.

"Yeah, Silver Wind is cool and all, but it isn't effective against a lot of Pokémon."

"So what? It disorients the opposing Pokémon, and it can boost an appeal if used in a contest."

"Sure, it'll disorient it for a minute, but if you're going to argue about how useful Beautifly is, then it has to have better moves than that. Like you said, though, it would be a pretty good Pokémon to use in contests."

"A combination attack of Silver Wind and Tackle would disorient the opponent for long enough to let the Tackle give its full effect, by hitting it when it's weak."

"Sure, that's good and all, but it's weak against fire, water, electric, and a whole lot more."

"But what good would those attacks do if the Pokémon can't even perform any attacks because of Silver Wind? Also, maybe if you add String Shot into that combination, it would immobilize the Pokémon, to eliminate all chances of the Pokémon being able to attack back."

"Whoa, that's rough. But you don't know if that would completely knock out the Pokémon."

"Well, Ash, that doesn't have to be your goal. In contests, all you have to do is have more points than your opponent when time runs out."

"Yeah, I guess. You know, you'd probably make a really good coordinator, Drew."

"Ash, aren't you supposed to be doing your homework?" Ash's mom appeared in the doorway, and put on the most disapproving face that she could while still wearing a smile.

Ash rubbed the back of his neck, obviously ashamed. "Er, yeah, sorry Mom." He said, embarrassed.

"Don't worry, Mrs. Ketchum" Drew said, flicking his hair. "We'll start right now." He pulled a dark blue notebook out of his bag, labeled History, and set it on the ground in front of him. Once he had positioned it in a comfortable place, he looked up at the woman standing in front of him and smiled innocently.

"Oh, all right." She said, smiling. "Get started, you two." With that, she wiped her hands on her apron and walked out of Ash's room. Ash sighed in relief.

" Thanks, Drew." After a tremendous amount of effort, he pulled his bag towards him, and despondently grabbed his history notebook, emulating Drew's actions. "But now, we have to do homework. Not complaining, of course."

Drew shook his head. "Yeah, right. Get started, I'm not letting you fail." With that, he picked up his pencil and thought back to what Mr. Miller told them during class. Too bad he was too busy looking forward to talking to May. Pull it together. He told himself. Drew still couldn't believe that he was at Ash's house doing homework. Just a month ago, they hated each other. But after Ash had invited him today, Drew couldn't refuse. He had always wondered how it would be to, you know, go to other peoples' houses, and just hang out. So Drew just casually flipped his hair and said, since he had nothing to do that day, why not? Ash, on the other hand, seemed to be able to see right through Drew's fake casual attitude, and just grinned.

Drew tapped his pencil on his sheet. Focus. Technically, he had May to thank for his new life. He knew that it wouldn't last—sooner or later Misty and Ash were going to get tired of putting up with his fan girls and kick him out of his group again. He frowned. That day, he had seen Misty get into a hotheaded argument with a group of his fan girls, and he had even managed to spot May looking helplessly at the argument when she thought that nobody could see her. He knew, any time now, they would tell him that they didn't want to be friends with him anymore, and May would side with them. Usually, people would assume it was a good thing when you're crush asked you to hang out with them, but for Drew, it just opened up another doorway of problems.

He sighed. Hanging out with May wasn't doing much good for him mentally as well. He couldn't even pay attention in classes because he was thinking about her, and just a smile from her made him freeze in his tracks. He was swooning. Drew O'Cadhla, swooning. He knew for a fact that she didn't do the same for him—she showed no sign of doing so. Fan girls are so much easier to understand. But she wasn't his fan girl, she was his friend, and his crush. He groaned, annoyed, and threw his pencil down. "I can't concentrate." He said, putting his head in his hands.

Ash looked up. "Seriously dude?" he said, staring at Drew's blank sheet. "I'm already halfway done, and I'm slow. What were you thinking about?" he asked.

Drew felt his cheeks heat up. "Nothing." He said, turning away, and trying desperately to regain his cool composure.

After a moment, he heard a strange noise behind him. He turned back around, confused, to see Ash sniggering, covering his mouth with a hand and his eyes widened. Drew raised his eyebrows, as if to ask What?

Ash took his hand away from his mouth, grinning. "You were thinking about May!" he accused, point a finger at the green haired boy.

Drew's eyes widened, and he felt his cheeks heat up even more. "What? No!" he protested, holding his hands out, which just made Ash laugh even harder. "Come on, that's insane!"

"Oh, sorry, should I use the name that you seem to like more? Citrus?" Ash burst out into another fit of uncontrolled laughter, and Drew fought desperately to keep his cool.

"Come on, Ash!" Drew pleaded. "I wasn't!"

Ash, finally stopped laughing, and wiped a tear from his eye. "Ah, alright, if you say so. Well, if you can't concentrate because you were so not thinking about May, why don't we take a break?" Ash got up and walked over to his guitar. "Any requests?"

"Woah, you play guitar?"

"Yeah, I love it. I can play a ton of songs."

"So, could you play something?"

Ash thought for a while, and then grinned, and began strumming. "I was a boy, she was a girl, could it get any more obvious." He sang, grinning at Drew as the green haired boy gaped in surprise, before laughing hysterically. Soon after, the two boys were singing a string of their own, modified Avril Lavigne songs, and Drew, for the first time in a while, was completely enjoying himself. And, of course, acting like an idiot, but he didn't mind.

Misty nervously tucked a strand of her hair behind her ear and walked up to the green haired boy who was scribbling frantically on a sheet of paper while sitting under a tree. Classes were about to begin in about ten minutes, and May had pushed Misty into talking with Drew during these ten minutes. In order to get to know him? I think that I know him well enough. She thought, bitterly. After a couple of extremely long seconds, Misty finally reached the young boy and took a seat down next to him. A couple of fan girls scouting the scene immediately glared at Misty, but she responded with a threatening glare herself, and after a couple of moments, they walked away sullenly.

"Woah. I wish that I could do that." A voice came from next to Misty. She jumped, startled that Drew had attempted to talk to her first. "You know, be able to scare people that easily."

She shrugged. "Nah, you don't. Sometimes, I wish that I'm nicer." She said, thinking back to her New Year's Resolution. She was succeeding at refraining from losing her temper, but whenever she did so, Ash would give her a funny look, as if trying to comprehend what had just happened. Drew smiled next to her, and she got the feeling that he knew what she was talking about.

Drew, still scribbling, chuckled. "Don't I know. I mean, it's always a ton of fun being, you know, mean, but sometimes I wish that I could try to be someone else." He said, shaking his head. Misty furrowed her eyebrows in confusion. Drew O'Cadhla, wanting to be someone else? She wondered. As if reading her thoughts, Drew sighed. "I guess that it wouldn't seem as if I would, seeing how amazing I am now." Misty's mouth turned up in a grin. "But," he continued. "I still wonder how it would feel to be a bit different."

"It's not bad." Misty heard the words slip out of her mouth. "I'm trying to be nicer, and it's been working for me. Just, it's not me, you know?"

"Yeah, I guess. So why are you talking to me?" Drew asked bluntly. Misty turned towards him, surprised.

"Oh, well, I, er, just wanted to get to know you better!"

"Yeah, right. I know you don't like me, so I don't need your pity." Drew flicked his hair casually, and then continued to write on the paper in front of him.

Misty glared. "Oh, well then Mr. Wise Guy, you should know that I don't pity. And to tell you the truth, May made me. Apparently, she told me that I should get to know you, but if you're going to be like this, I don't really want to. I knew that you would still be the same stuck up brat." Misty muttered, crossing her arms.

There was a pause. "Well, you should know that, before I would talk before I think. But you shouldn't assume that I'm stuck up, or a brat. You don't like me, it's a fact."

Misty frowned. "Yeah, I don't. You've never given me a reason to."

Silence. "Well, hopefully, soon you'll get that reason." With that, Drew shoved his notebook into his backpack, and started to walk over to the school.

Misty got up, and stared at Drew's shrinking body for a second. He does seem like he just wants friends. Maybe he isn't that bad. Maybe May was right about him after all.

"See ya, Misty Forecast!" Drew's amused voice shook her out of her thoughts. Misty growled.

"You jerk Drew!" She yelled, just to hear him laugh. What May sees in him, I'll never know.

So…Please Review!

Until next time,

Fawkespower