So, after that, it was official. Tanya and I were now a couple.

I got the feeling that my friends were fairly unhappy about the whole situation, but that really didn't matter as much as it did around a week ago. Based on my own experiences with her, I thought they were wrong about Tanya from the start. In addition, Jason, despite all of his grandiose claims, was clearly no Casanova.

By Monday, most things were back to normal. Not much notable really happened for the majority of the day. Even though I was now the only one of my close friends who had a girlfriend, school remained as repetitive as ever. 

However, something notable did happen during the last period – English class. And yes, I've noticed how much stuff in this story so far just happens to take place in English class. Uncanny, isn't it?

Anyways, Mrs. Chung had us doing an in-class essay on something about Shakespeare. While it was annoying to write, I was just glad we were almost done with that unit. As I began my second paragraph, the tip of my pencil glided across the page, the lead forming more words as time went on.

Then, out of nowhere, a loud sound filled the room. Three repetitive electronic beeps sounded off, with the pattern repeating itself over and over again. But, everyone automatically knew what to do – the procedure was engrained into a student's brain at this point. As the sound endured, everyone got out of their seats and began to head towards the door.

"Stay together as a class, I need to mark attendance when we're out on the field!" Mrs. Chung exclaimed as her entire classroom of students left the room and poured into the hallway.

I went to a high school with thousands of students, and it was fairly tough to get everyone outside at the same time for a simple fire drill. Moving along the hallways felt like driving along a highway in rush hour – no matter what you do, you're not moving at more than 2km/hour.

"Finally, something good happens to me!" Mike yelled as a few students were about to squeeze themselves in between us. "I mean, a fire drill, in Mrs. Chung's class, how often does that happen?"

In case you're wondering, only once. The descent towards the exit managed to become even slower over time, almost as if I was moving through quicksand. Eventually, my jacket responded to a slight breeze coming in through an open door. This breeze only became stronger as the door inched closer, and closer. Once outside, the line to the field moved much faster, as the pavement was wider than the narrow hallways.

Out of nowhere, there was a feeling of a finger tapping my shoulder. Swiveling around, I could see that it was just Mike. "Yo, I think that's Jason over there," he said, while pointing his bony finger at a tall figure near the centre of the field. Jason's gelled hair made it easy to distinguish him from the rest of the kids standing near the area.

"Oh, where did you guys come from?" Jason said as we were walking towards him.

"Mrs. Chung's class," Mike replied. "Also known as the tenth circle of hell." That statement was followed up by an awkward, high-pitched laugh, which became deeper as it reached its end.

"You lucky bastard! I came out of Home Economics class, and it's the only fun one," Jason said, as he dusted some remnants of flour off of his jacket.

It was the end of the school day, so it was hard not to feel hungry as soon as he said that. "Ah, cheer up, at least you'll get to go back to making cookies after all this is done and over with."

"Yeah, while we're gonna have to go back and write like fifteen pages about some old guy's play," Mike added, while he directed his index finger at himself, and then at me.

"Making cookies is not easy work. I mean, you got to get all the ingredients together," Jason began. He paused, looking up for a second before turning his head back down towards us. "Actually, yeah it's not too hard. But the stuff I'm gonna be cooking at the competition in the next few weeks is no easy stuff."

That was the first time he told us he was entering a cooking competition. "You're entering a cooking competition?" I asked.

Jason raised his shoulders up and back down again. "Yeah, it's nothing big, just something down at the community centre. I don't know, I think I'm finally ready to give my food to other people."

"When you're on TV ten years from now yelling at bad chefs, I'm gonna look back and be like, I'm friends with that guy," Mike said, while keeping a broad smile on his face.

I glanced at Jason's shoes, which also happened to be covered in flour. "Your food is bomb, you'll do awesome."

This moment was huge, as it was the first time that Jason decided to demonstrate his talent at cooking to a wider audience. To really get into why that event was significant, and the actual implications this would have on my own life story, we need to go back in time.

So, let's rewind time for a bit and go back to November 2006. The late autumn air was crisp, yet cool. My feet repeatedly came in contact with an array of fallen leaves as I walked along the sidewalk.

On that day, I was going over to Mike's house for the first time. We had been friends for two months, but he generally didn't like having people over at his house.

This time was different, though, as he had recently got Call of Duty 3, a brand new video game at the time. Once Jason found out, he insisted that we all go over to Mike's place to play it. Of course, you know I couldn't turn down a chance to shoot virtual stuff in a video game, so I was in from the moment it was brought up.

Your Uncle Mike lived in a cul-de-sac back then, which is basically a street with only one exit. One end of the street formed a circle, with houses against the street's round edges. With the street located away from traffic on the main roads, the only sounds that could be heard were cheers from a few neighbour kids who had just scored a goal in street hockey.

The doorbell lit up as the tip of my finger touched it. After a few seconds, a small young boy answered it. "Who are you?" he said, his high-pitched voice sounding garbled and nasally.

"I'm Malik, um, Mike Bookes' friend," I replied, while flashing a smile. It was hard not to, as his Mario Bros. shirt reminded me of how I was as a child. It was almost as if he had this sense of innocence and naivety about the world around him.

"Alright, hold on," he said. His head swayed a bit as he walked over towards the large staircase next to the wall. Then, I heard some colorful language that made me re-evaluate my opinion on how innocent he actually was.

A few moments later, Mike came over to the front door and I stepped inside his house. The combination of the bright, orange walls and strange pictures plastered on them made me feel a bit uneasy about the place.

The large collection of noises around me certainly didn't help. I could hear the sound of drums being played in the background, and people stomping and running. Various voices also collided with the other two sounds to essentially form a wide hurricane of speech, with the epicenter located on the second floor of the house.

As Mike and I began to walk upstairs, a tall lanky guy approached Mike.

"Wear a condom," he whispered. You know, I've come to think that people in that family simply do not know how to whisper properly, as his comment was clearly heard by myself, and a few other people who seemed to have turned their heads towards us.

"Shut up Clyde," Mike responded in a low voice. The tall lanky guy just laughed in response and began to walk down the stairwell, his arm wrapped around a bright orange basketball.

Stepping into Mike's room, the first noticeable thing were two single beds, located on opposite ends of the room. While the beds themselves looked identical, what was on them couldn't have been more different.

A mountainous pile of clothes loomed over the entire area of one bed, while the other bed had sheets which were adorned with characters from the science-fiction franchise, Star Trek. You know what, I'll let you decide which one you think was Mike's.

Jason happened to be already there, sitting on the bed with Star Trek sheets. Finding a chair to sit on, I pushed it closer towards the television and grabbed a controller from the floor. My fingers nestled underneath the controller's handles, wrapping around them like the fabric of a skin-tight glove.

It was easy to become immersed in the grungy video game world that was presented in front of me. While the trees and grass looked as if they were made out of pixels, they still managed to look better than just about any video game released at the time. Plus, the experience of playing the game surrounded with my friends was more than enough for me to enjoy myself.

Even though Mike had the game, he turned out to be quite bad at it, especially the first time we all sat down and played it. After the first match, he was the lowest ranked member of our team, due to him failing to implement a technique called camping.

Essentially, camping in shooting games is when a person hides in a corner for the entire match and waits for other players to approach their vicinity. It's largely seen in the gaming community as a technique used by newbies, or cowards.

How successful one is at camping depends on the spot that they use, and in Mike's case, his hiding spot was clearly visible to just about everyone playing, allowing his character to get killed over, and over again.

Once the match was done, I set the controller on my lap. "Hey Mike, next time, you might wanna try playing the game."

He was looking directly at the screen as he changed the gun his character was using. "Nah, I am. It was just lag."

"Bro, we were all playing on the same Xbox so it couldn't have been lag," I replied. It was hard not to begin staring at all the blank spaces on the screen, which represented items in the game he hadn't unlocked. "It's just a wuss move, you're not doing anything and waiting for someone to come to you."

"Yeah, just like you and Allison," Jason said as his face turned towards Mike's.

After a second of processing his remark, I responded by widening my eyes and bouncing my lower legs up and down. "Burn!" I yelled while patting Jason on the back.

Mike just shook his head. Then, pressing a button on his controller, he enabled the game to start searching for new online opponents. I cancelled that and went back to the main menu.

Like any spectator, I was interested to see how this would unfold. "You gotta admit, that was a pretty good burn."

"Come on bro, I give you a full year to try and ask Allison out, but I have to be able to roast ya about it in return," Jason said.

Mike flipped his red hair, with many red strands turning lighter as the sun hit them. "I will, in a few more days."

Jason chuckled. "You've said that for months."

At the time, I had no idea about the dynamic between that love triangle, and part of me was intrigued. So, I kept pressing for more answers. "What do you mean you gave him a year?"

"Okay, I'll explain it. So, me and, uh, Mike both like Allison. We decided on rock, paper, scissors to pick which one of us gets to ask her out first. I won, but after Mike begged and pleaded, I decided I'd be generous and back off for a bit. Uh... he was kinda obsessed, and still is, so I figured he wanted it a lot more than I would. So, I gave him a year to do it, which is way more than enough time."

Mike turned back to the TV screen, pressing a button which made us start a new game. "Well, yeah, I'll do it, I just need more time, so I can ask her at a good moment."

After that, we went back to the video game plastered on the television in front of us. Things went back to the usual variety of screaming and yelling from us and the opposing teams. It wasn't until half an hour later that things began to get a little more interesting.

Mike got up from his chair and went towards a table near the front door to get his bottle of Pepsi. And yes, your Uncle Mike is one of the few people who still prefer Pepsi. Anyways, right after he lifted the bottle to his mouth, his face scrunched up and he spat out what was in the bottle.

While most of his spit went inside the bottle, portions of it dripped down the exterior, nestling on the edges of his frail hands. His face turned red as he examined the bottle in front of him, which was now covered in a mix of rich brown liquid and spit. Rushing outside, he came back a minute later with his hands and the outside of the bottle completely clean.

"Damn it, is this soy sauce?" Mike asked, as his eyes drifted towards the bottle. "Actually, knowing them, it has to be mixed in with something even worse, but whatever it is, it sure ain't Pepsi."

It wasn't too hard for Jason and me to laugh in response, especially after seeing his face turned as red as a ripe tomato. But, that didn't stop him from trying to finish his rant. "You know what, I hate my brothers, they're always making my life miserable."

Personally, I didn't think the whole prank was that bad. "Cheer up, that's nothing. Last month, my stepsister went through my iPod and replaced some of my songs with music from Hannah Montana and High School Musical," I began, my hand shifting towards the music player in my pocket. "All the titles of my songs were the same, but if I'd play a song I thought was by Tupac, I would be greeted with Troy Bolton's voice instead. I had thousands of songs, so it was a pain in the ass to go through all of them."

Jason set his controller on a table. "Yeah, I mean my older brother is awful too. One time, there was this video I made for a school project, and he replaced the CD with an um, different one that would have got me in a lot of trouble. I only noticed and fixed it because I played the CD again just before I went to school."

"Well, at least you guys don't have five of them. The worst part is that because I'm in the middle, everyone else still gets more attention while all still being jerks," Mike replied, flipping his hair once again.

"Trust me, it's better that way. My brother went to this really elite business school, um, I think it was Wharton. Anyways, he was smart, popular, and he was the quarterback on the football team. He was better than me at basically everything, everyone loved him, and my parents expect me to live up to that."

Mike shook his head for a couple of seconds. "If I had a nickel for the number times I've been forgotten at school as a kid, or the number of times I've had to remind my parents about my own fucking birthday, I'd have enough money to move out of this hellhole."

"That sucks, but I really wish I could take your place. I just can't deal with having my every move analyzed, and every single thing I do be compared to what my older brother did. No matter what I do, it's not like it's ever good enough, and it's really obvious that he's their favourite, their golden child. I feel like sometimes; they regret having me as a kid." Jason's legs began to shake as he looked down towards the floor.

"Well, we don't really regret having you around, but you did steal that pizza slice from me that one time last week, so I don't really know," I said, the corners of my mouth turning into a smile after I finished saying that.

Jason gently punched me in the shoulder. "They want me to go in business just like my brother did, but I'm just not down for the 9 to 5 desk job. I don't know, I mean I'd rather be a chef or something like that. They'd probably laugh at that idea, though."

"A chef? I thought you hated that home econ class," Mike said as he adjusted his glasses.

"I don't know, I mean I did at first. But, I kinda like cooking now, it just takes away a lot of stress and stuff. Plus, eating what you have in front of you in the end is the best part. And the class is filled with girls too, I'm one of three guys in a class of like 20 people."

"Well, I think if you wanna do that, everyone here will support you. If your parents don't want that, then honestly, screw what they think, and do what you like to do. It's your life, not theirs," I replied.

You know, one of the things that helped keep me motivated in trying to become a writer was Jason himself, and his resolve. Despite his entire family criticizing his move to become a chef, he followed his dream and achieved success because of it.

Come to think of it, it would have been really interesting to see what kind of advice I would give to Jason around twelve or so years from now when you're actually reading this book. While I was a bit harsh towards Jason's parents as I gave him that piece of advice back then,  I still believe in the gist of it.

As your father, I want to do everything in my power to make sure you succeed in life, and that you always have a sense of stability. Just like Jason's parents did, I also just want I believe is the best for you.

But, as a creator, I've been on the other side of the equation, and I know how much adversity you can face, especially from your family, for trying to follow your dreams. As a writer, I've had to endure so many people telling me I couldn't make it, and I should choose a job that was a more sure-fire bet to stability. In the end, though, I am so glad I didn't.

Sure, be rational about what you decide to pursue. But, don't let anyone, even myself, discourage you from following your dreams. If Jason had abandoned his dream to become a chef, or if I abandoned my dream to become a writer, I guarantee you we would have both been much worse off than we are now.