The Boy in the Garden (Phan)

Chapter 1- Plant Boy

"I can't believe this..." Dan grumbled to himself as he stormed down the hall, visibly pissed off. The dark-haired boy was stewing, and for a good reason. According to the vice principal, being out of school four days of the week was "violating the school's strictly enforced rules" (or something along those lines). So now he had detention for an entire hour, doing what Dan thought could be the worst punishment ever- gardening.

The school had a garden near the football field that Dan had never taken interest in, and in fact had never seen. He learned everything he needed to know about it from other students- it had started out somewhat nice, and had been maintained for about a month by some Girl Scout troop that kept migrating onto the school grounds. But after a while, the troop stopped showing up, and no one in the school bothered to maintain it. So as far as he knew, it was basically a patch of weeds and crabgrass that took up a third of the grass area in back of the school. Dan had no idea why they were making him deal with it- within a week the whole thing would be dead and wilted again.

Dan eventually reached the back door of the school that led out to the grassy area and saw that there was a note taped to the handle. Curious, he picked off the tape and examined the note. He instantly recognized the vice principal's loopy handwriting in thick black ink- Another student will be watching you while you serve your detention. Listen to what he says and take an example from him. 

Dan promptly crumpled the note in his hand, letting out a quiet sigh of frustration before opening the door and walking out into the bright sun, squinting slightly. When his eyes finally adjusted to the light, he was surprised to see that the garden wasn't completely dead- although most of it consisted of wilted plants and patches of dandelions, some parts of it were seemingly erupting with life. There were colorful, blooming flowers, and small shrubs sprinkled with blueberries and other types of colorful fruit. But the next thing noticed was that there was no other people to be seen. Sighing, he placed his backpack on the ground and looked around, trying to see where this mystery person who was supposed to be watching him was. After a few minutes of seeing no one, he tentatively opened the gate of the rusted chain-link that surrounded the garden, wincing at the loud squeak it emitted. "Hello? Anyone here?" he called. 

"Dan?" he heard a voice call from somewhere within a patch of tall flowers. Dan raised an eyebrow, stepping over the weeds and dead plants as he made his way towards the voice. Just as he reached the flowers, someone who had been hidden in them popped up, seemingly out of nowhere. Dan let out an embarrassingly girly screech, jumping back. 

"Sorry!" the boy who had emerged from the plants exclaimed. "A-are you okay?"

Dan exhaled shakily, trying to calm himself down. "Yeah, I'm fine... you just scared me, that's all..."

"Okay..." The boy held out his hand awkwardly. "I'm Phil... and you're Dan, right?"

"Yeah." Dan tentatively shook Phil's hand, taking in the other boy's appearance as he did so. The first thing he noticed were Phil's startlingly blue eyes, which stood out even more when paired with his raven-black hair and pale skin. The clumsily made flower crown perched lopsided on his head, as well as the few petals and leaves stuck to his yellow hoodie, made him seem as though he had erupted from the ground like a plant himself. Dan couldn't help but stare at him for a few seconds before managing to tear his eyes away. "So, what am I gonna be doing?"

"Well, I just finished this patch over here, so we're gonna be getting rid of some of the weeds and stuff in the other parts." Phil grinned. "It's the most tedious part, but it's worth it once stuff starts to grow in it." He gestured to the other parts of the garden and the short, slightly underdeveloped plants before bending down and picking up a pair of work gloves and couple of trowels, already covered with splotches of dirt. Dan smirked and pointed at the rubber handle of one of them, which was pink with Hello Kitty faces. "Really?"