Bloom in Summer(1)

Author: Bai Kuang Liang Tai Zi

Many people said Josiah Lewis was dating me because I looked like his first crush.

His first crush was that girl who discontinued her studies to receive treatment for her depression.

So, I held a photo of the girl, which was found by my roommate somewhere, and compared it to myself in front of the mirror.

Well, her facial features seemed very similar to mine, but no matter how I tried, I could not imitate her melancholic aura.

Everyone said I was born an optimist, radiating endless positivity and sunshine in whatever situation I faced.

As far as that was concerned, I thought Josiah and I were quite compatible.

He was the kind of person who attracted people's attention effortlessly with his every move and gesture. Whenever he crinkled his eyes in a smile, one was sure to be enthralled.

I could hardly imagine him being patient enough to appease a young woman who might burst into tears at any moment.

1

My first meeting with Josiah was at the school's anniversary celebration held in the same year of my enrollment.

Despite being a proper, regular high school, our school had a wide variety of clubs and societies for students to join. But for me, I would rather join some Sleeping Club than a boring, solemn, and time-wasting society like the Classical Literature Club.

Evidently, there were many people who shared my sentiments.

Compared with the lively atmosphere of the school's anniversary celebration, the activity room of the Literature Club was remote and quiet.

At that time, I was helping a teacher collect material from that classroom. Initially, I assumed there would be no one in the room, but I was proven wrong as soon as I opened the door. Someone was leaning back in a chair with his head up.

A book covered his face, and his legs were long.

When he heard the sound of the door being pushed open, his neck tilted slightly.

Afterward, the book on his face fell to the floor, and I saw the afterglow of the sunset cast a warm light on half of his face through the window. Glazed with an amber hue, his one eye seemed misty yet magnificent.

Just like that, we locked eyes for a while.

To be frank, it was not easy to escape from Josiah's gaze. especially when his gaze fixed on me.

"Excuse me. I'm here to... collect a book."

Eventually, it was me who spoke first.

Josiah raised his eyebrows, retracted his legs that were sprawled wantonly, and nodded casually.

"Sure," he replied.

With that, I entered the room to collect the book. It was not troublesome to find it. Even though there were a lot of books on the bookshelves, they were all neatly categorized and arranged.

Upon turning around with the book in my hand, I saw Josiah propping his chin up in the palm of his hand while staring intently at me.

We then fell into an awkward and weird silence again.

Josiah was always very capable of making people blush as well as putting them in a tough spot.

As a matter of fact, he was behaving like that without even being aware of it.

"Which class do you belong to?" he asked, grinning at me.

I was stunned for a moment, but eventually, I told him about my class and walked dazedly out of the activity room.

I even heard him responding to me with a chuckle.

"My name is Josiah Lewis! I'm from Class 15!"

When I regained my senses much later to think about what had happened, I felt that I was too dull.

Then again, who could possibly refuse a handsome guy who smiled at them?

Ever since then, Josiah officially entered my life.

After some careful observation, I discovered he was quite a popular figure.

Girls would always bring up his name whenever they chit-chatted after class, and he would occasionally be mentioned in posts on the anonymous confession page. Even teachers would make remarks about him.

However, this handsome boy was unapproachable.

That attitude of his had something to do with a girl named Tianna Scott back when he was in Grade 10.

Apparently, he had a first crush, and both of them had known each other since they were in junior high school. From then on, the two of them were almost inseparable, and they were not discreet with their relationship at school. The school was abuzz with rumors about them, but since I was so focused on my studies back then, I did not keep up with the gossip.

Somehow, the girl transferred to another school afterward, leaving Josiah all alone. A number of young ladies were eager to make a move on him, but the handsome boy, who appeared to be a flirt, was unexpectedly upright and honest.

After listening to Josiah's past, I lamented, "It feels like we're not attending the same high school."

Caleb Wilson, who recounted the whole gossip to me, uncapped a bottle of mineral water and took a sip of it. Tidying his hair, he commented, "But you know what? You do resemble Tianna a lot."

"Is that so?" I tilted my head and stared at my reflection in the Coke bottle before me. To be honest, there were many people who had praised me for my beauty ever since I was a child.

"Is she as beautiful as I am?" I asked.

"Don't be such a narcissist!" Caleb waved a dismissive hand at me with a disdainful expression on his face.

As he turned around, he murmured under his breath, "Why would a decent young lady speak like that..."

I thought that Josiah and I, as well as the story between him and me, would end with me listening to the entire gossip about him.

It was a mass exercise session in school that day.

That was the daily morning routine in our school. The students in each class would line up and shuffle downstairs, one class after another. Coupled with their rowdiness and the exhilarating "Athlete's Marching Song" playing in the background, I could never fall asleep despite how sleepy I was.

Caleb and I were walking at the end of the line. He must have stayed up late playing games again. The poor guy thought I did the same thing as him last night.

But I did not. Every time I told him I was playing games, I actually pulled an all-nighter doing exercises.

Normally, the students in Class 1, the class I was in, would not be near those in Class 15 during the lineup.

Yet, as I walked forward, I spotted a familiar figure in front of me.

It was likely that every class would have a leader. Not only would they not pay attention in class, but they would also cause a racket and confront the teachers. Despite that, their grades would still be remarkably good.

Aiden Gardner was a person like that.

As a matter of fact, he was not someone of importance. What mattered was the person he was with.

Josiah had the kind of ability that made it impossible to forget him after meeting him once.

Aiden and Josiah huddled together, chatting about something among themselves. However, for some strange reason, I had a feeling Aiden intended to lead Josiah in my direction.

Afterward, I saw Aiden throwing me a quick look.

A beat later, Josiah looked in my direction as well.

Both our gazes happened to meet. The color of his eyes was quite light, which always made it seem like he regarded people with an ambiguous attitude.

After a while, he flashed a smile at me.

Well, how should I put this into words? His smile was more dazzling than the sun.

After he turned around and continued talking to Aiden about other matters while walking further away, I was left to stare at his lazy posture with curled lips.

"What's going on? We're falling behind now. Hurry up and keep moving!"

It was only after Caleb weakly patted my shoulder that I lifted my feet to keep up with my classmates.

Tut...

I was really impressed by Josiah.

2

Although Class 1 and Class 15 were quite far away from each other, both classes happened to be taught by the same chemistry teacher.

During Grade 10, we were not assigned to separate tracks yet. Despite the high importance the school placed on science, whichever science subject I learned remained a closed book to me.

Unfortunately, I was summoned to the teachers' lounge by the chemistry teacher.

The reason was that my monthly chemistry test score was simply atrocious. I just did not get it. I was not going to choose the science track anyway, so why was she so fixated on my chemistry test results?

"Look at your equation. You forgot to write 'H2O' again! How many times have I repeated this in class? Answer me!" the chemistry teacher scolded.

Even though she was rattling on while waving my test paper, my thoughts drifted away. Suddenly, I was reminded of the edge of someone's school uniform swaying in the breeze.

It made me cluck my tongue inwardly.

"Lillian Russell, whenever you forget to write 'H2O,' you will have to buy a mineral water bottle and place it on my desk. Let's see how many bottles you can accumulate in one semester! Do you hear me?" the chemistry teacher went on.

I was speechless.

What on earth did she just say?

Our chemistry teacher sometimes had such strange ideas.

But that time around, someone let out a chuckle before I did.

In fact, it was quite a familiar laugh.

I turned around, only to see Josiah putting away his smile and narrowing his eyes at me. However, he soon lost his smug expression because the chemistry teacher smacked his head with a stack of test papers.

Well, it was certainly an amusing scene to watch.

"Stop laughing, Josiah Lewis! You're still laughing, huh? How dare you laugh right now! I've got to take my hat off to you. You scored worse than someone who is preparing to join the arts track!" the chemistry teacher berated.

"Ms. Howell, I'm also preparing to join the arts track!" Josiah said as he raised his hand.

"You're in an elite class! When you first enrolled in our school, your grades were so good. Gosh, I'm so upset right now."

Both of us looked at the chemistry teacher, who was trying to calm herself down. Somehow, I felt the person standing beside me was trying to stifle his laughter.

"Both of you, buy a bottle of water each and put it on my desk now. Let's see if you've learned your lesson," the chemistry teacher commanded.

"Now?"

Just as I was expressing my confusion, Josiah had already agreed to it readily. After some hesitation, I followed him out of the teachers' lounge.

He was tall and had long legs, so I had to jog to keep up with him. No sooner had I done so than I realized I had no business chasing after him.

However, he tilted his head to look at me as though he was waiting for me to catch up to him.

"What did you get for this chemistry test?" he asked.

It was hard to answer that question.

"What about you?" I asked in return.

"47." I did not expect him to be so generous with his answer.

Because of that, I was at a loss for words.

"And what about you?" Josiah asked again.

"Uh... 21."

I could clearly hear a laugh coming out of his throat.

"According to Ms. Howell, I scored worse than someone who is preparing to join the arts track." His voice seemed to carry a hint of laughter at that moment.

I began to regret revealing my score to him.

"Don't be disheartened. You're not going to join the science track, right, Lilian... Russell?" he said.

It seemed to be the first time Josiah called my name.

To be honest, I was a little surprised at that time.

I thought he was the kind of person who could not remember other people's names.

It was only later that I realized someone's name had likely been deeply engraved in his heart.

3

It was such a coincidence that Josiah and I, both weak in chemistry, looked for the same tutor. The tutor felt that our grades were similar, so the two of us became classmates, taught by a single tutor.

When I pushed open the door to the classroom and saw the person spinning his pen out of boredom, I felt that fate sure worked in mysterious ways.

Seriously though, if I had not had such messy encounters with Josiah, there would not be so many stories between us later.

Classmates in the same classroom would become familiar with each other no matter how shy they were with each other at first, not to mention that there were only two of us in the class with one tutor.

Moreover, the tutor always liked to make the two of us compete with each other. Facing the same troubles, we were like comrades who also felt that the other party was terribly weak.

Our relationship was one of those between classmates, but we were not friends. While Josiah had a roguish appearance, for some reason, he shut people out. Nevertheless, Caleb was quite surprised at a later stage.

"When did you get so close to Josiah?" Caleb asked.

"We are in the same tutorial class. Of course, we'd get close to each other..."

I lay on the table, checking my reflection in the Coke bottle.

"Am I beautiful?" I asked him.

A brief silence ensued.

Then, he sighed and said, "Hear me out. Josiah is not a good person."

He selectively ignored my question. Hearing his words, I raised my eyebrows.

"Why did you say so?" I asked.

"Yesterday, I saw him and Aiden..."

Caleb threw a few glances at Aiden, seated in the back row, before continuing, "They went into an alley with a steel pipe."

"Oh?" I expressed my surprise with an exclamation.

"Can you be any more exaggerated?"

"What's wrong with them taking a steel pipe? He and Aiden didn't use it on me."

"Then don't you think he's very... uh, dangerous?"

I looked at Caleb without saying anything.

Then, I laughed.

"What are you laughing at? I'm giving you a kind reminder here!" he uttered.

"Nothing."

I waved my hand at Caleb and scribbled notes for last period's physics class on a piece of scrap paper. While writing, I added, "Based on my in-depth understanding of Josiah in the past few weeks of our two-to-one tutorial sessions, he is a noob who's terrible at chemistry."

Caleb did not say anything.

"Why are you looking at me?" I asked.

"With your chemistry grades, how do you have the audacity to judge him?"

I kept quiet.