okay, I’m gonna rant here SO
between steps 1-2 Hanukkah wanted to become popular, he popular kids other than qiu was a group of kids who had what is known as ‘toxic masculinity’ they taught Haruki how to be a ‘real man’ and to be tough and everything, he started acting out, bullying other people all so he could be popular and a real man. He grew apart from his friendship with Tamarack and Qiu and started getting mad at his mom. He and his ‘friends’ bullied this one kid to the point their family moved.
Haruki at this point has abandoned all the things he likes in an effort to be cool and fit in with the other kids in fear of being unliked and unpopular. Opal basically had a long heart to heart to Haruki to get to the root of the problem, he feels like he has to act out to be a real ‘man’ so eventually his biological father will see how cool he is and want to be apart of his life, as he feels he’s missing out in many hinges because he doesn’t have a dad to show him the ways of ‘manhood’ eventually he grew remorseful of bullying the friend, and planned to start fresh in high school, he dumped his old friends, reconnected with Qiu and eventually became best friends, and sent a letter to the kid that moved. Eventually the kid forgave him and now they’re penpals!
for Maeve basically she’s already a pretty quiet person, she started taking speech classes when she was around 12 to encourage her to speak to strangers, she still clams up sometimes to strangers but she can be very talkative to people she really likes, I’m not sure if I mentioned this but she has a thick French accent and is still learning I English so sometimes she messes up words. So sometimes she was bullied for it. In middle school she had to go to different classes like for students who were learning English and stuff so she wasn’t around with him often. She was bullied for her accent and appearance, and lived in constant fear of that kid. But she didn’t tell anyone about it her being bullied. Eventually she expressed her emotions in a poetry book which she left in class one day. Basically the music teacher found out about it and talked with Maeve about it, in which the music teacher encouraged Maeve to tell other people. Basically Maeve grew closer to the music teacher (who also doubled as the student councilor bc why not) and eventually Maeve confides that she wants to be a singer but is to afraid people will critique her accent and that she’s not good enough, the music teacher helps her gain more confidence (along with her mother ofc who talked to the bully’s parents) and eventually Maeve turns one of her poems about the bully into a song. The music teacher encouraged more of her musical talents which grew Maeve’s love of singing even more until she realized if she tries hard enough and takes more speech classes she can become a singer, basically the bully gets expelled because they’ve been harassing other students and happy ending!
Hopefully it made sense throughout my ranting and probably misspelling 😭