Michael, a character in the High School Story series, is a student at Oliver M. Berry High School. He is also one of your love interests. He is first seen in Book 1, Chapter 1.
Appearance
Michael has gray eyes, light brown hair, and fair skin. He wears a green bomber jacket over a black skull T-shirt in Books 1 and 2, and a dark gray pocket T-shirt in Book 3.
Personality
He has a rebel/slacker personality, but he doesn't exactly fit the "rebel" stereotype because he seems to care a lot about school. He also doesn't exactly fit the "slacker" stereotype because he mentions that he used to have a job.
Although he can seem tough and uncaring on the outside, his dialogue reveals that he has a soft side. He secretly cares a lot about school, although there are some aspects of school life at Berry that he isn't crazy about. He's quite serious and mature.
Michael is often seen as a "bad boy heartbreaker". However, he's not really a bad boy because his reasons for being "bad" are not for the sake of being bad - they're for emotional escape. He's also not a heartbreaker, as Book 2, Chapter 4 reveals that his greatest fear is disappointing others.
He has demonstrated his intelligence through his skill with technology and his confidence in riding a motorcycle.
In relationships, Michael is quoted by Koh and Morgan as having "serious walls up," suggesting that he is emotionally unavailable due to past pain and trauma. They both mention that he has dated other people, but things didn't work out with them. At first, Michael has a hard time relating to the people around him; he says in Book 2, Chapter 6 that friends like Koh and Wes don't fully understand him, while insisting that you are an exception.
He has said that he wants to be the kind of guy who means what he says when he tells you that he loves you.
History
He went to Statton and Hearst before Berry. After being bullied by football players at Statton, he went to Hearst. At Hearst, however, he was again picked on by football players and was kicked out after hacking the school's system. He finally transferred to Berry half a year before Book 1, Chapter 4, but was still displeased with the school at the beginning of Book 1 because Berry had stopped following its original motto. This and his initial friendship with Brian eventually turned sour. He had a childhood best friend named Giselle and he was his first kiss in junior high, but they decided to remain friends instead.
Chapters
High School Story
Book 1
- Chapter 1: The First Day
- Chapter 2: Party Crashers
- Chapter 3: The Brokenhearted
- Chapter 4: Consequences
- Chapter 6: Practice Makes Perfect
- Chapter 7: No 'I' in 'Team' (Determinant)
- Chapter 8: Tiger Spirit
- Chapter 9: The Search
- Chapter 10: To Catch a Culprit (Determinant)
- Chapter 11: Berry's Seven
- Chapter 12: Rally Together
- Chapter 13: Game Plan
- Chapter 14: Shall We Dance?
- Chapter 15: The Beginning?
Texts From HSS
- Chapter 4: The Case of the Missing Bracelet (Mentioned)
- Chapter 9: Party Panic!
Book 2
- Chapter 1: Breaking News
- Chapter 2: New World Order
- Chapter 3: Under Pressure
- Chapter 4: Carnival Kisses
- Chapter 5: A Rock and a Hard Place (Mentioned)
- Chapter 6: It's Complicated
- Chapter 7: Edge of Seventeen
- Chapter 8: Game Over
- Chapter 9: Secrets, Lies, and Spaghetti Flies
- Chapter 10: Coming Clean
- Chapter 11: The Lion's Den
- Chapter 12: Save Me, San Francisco
- Chapter 13: The Jig is Up
- Chapter 14: Party for the Ages
- Chapter 15: Can I Ask You Something?
Book 3
- Chapter 1: Up In Flames
- Chapter 2: Friends...or Foes?
- Chapter 3: The Ones Who Got Away
- Chapter 4: Just Beachy
- Chapter 6: What Goes Around
- Chapter 7: Open Hearts and Open Mics
- Chapter 8: Missing in Action
- Chapter 9: A Scandal at Berry High
- Chapter 10: True Colors
- Chapter 11: Questions and Answers
- Chapter 12: Mall For It
- Chapter 13: Take Me Out
- Chapter 14: The Big Night
- Chapter 15: The Night is Young
- Chapter 16: School's Out!
Class Act, Book 1
- Chapter 1: New Days
- Chapter 4: So This is a Party
- Chapter 10: The Runaway
- Chapter 12: Framed (Determinant)
- Chapter 14: All the World's a Stage
- Chapter 15: When All is Said and Done (mentioned)
Class Act, Book 2
- Chapter 1: Ice to Meet You (Determinant)
- Chapter 2: Let The Race Begin
- Chapter 4: Piece of Cake
- Chapter 5: All For One, and One For All
- Chapter 8: An Impossible Situation
- Chapter 9: Winter Wonderful (Determinant)
- Chapter 10: Cats and Candidates
- Chapter 13: Team Green
- Chapter 14: Be My Valentine
- Chapter 15: New Roots (Determinant)
Class Act, Book 3
- Chapter 1: O' Brave New World
- Chapter 2: Thanks, But No Thanks
- Chapter 4: Clash of the Casts
- Chapter 5: Cold Feet
- Chapter 7: Who Are You?
- Chapter 9: Race Against Time
- Chapter 10: London Ho!
- Chapter 11: Bienvenue a Paris!
- Chapter 12: The Heist, London
- Chapter 13: The Final Bow
- Chapter 14: The Actual Tempest
- Chapter 15: Cruise the Night Away (Determinant)
- Chapter 16: Night Of Our Lives
Relationships
Your Character
You can choose to romance Michael if you wish. You first meet him in Book 1, Chapter 1, when you're sitting in his seat in class. At that moment, you can choose to be rude to him or flirt with him. In Chapter 2, you can hang out with Michael by the pool and play two truths and a lie with him. Later you can go with him to the diner where you will meet Kara and Max. You can hang out with him during lunch and ride his skateboard, a situation in which you will fall and he will catch you. After Ollie the Tiger is destroyed, you can choose to hear his backstory. When the team invades Hearst to steal the Spirit Stick, you will be trapped in a closet with him (if you chose to romance him the most) and you can choose to sit on the balcony with him. Later that night, he may (if you chose to romance him the most) invite you to homecoming. At homecoming, you kiss and you can choose to drive up a hill and make out in the car. In Book 2, Chapter 1, it is said that the two of you (if you romanced him in Book 1) have been seeing each other for a while, and you can choose to go to a coffee shop and hang out. In Book 3, Chapter 8, Michael gives you a Clover Keychain for good luck if you go out with him.
Your romantic relationship with Michael is based on a deeper understanding of him. You are the only person in his life who can look beneath the surface and see the man underneath. He appreciates your positive attitude, which he wishes he had. When you convince him to join the football team by building on his values, he finds it genius and opens up to you. Physical chemistry is also important; in Book 1, Chapter 2, Michael is amazed by your appearance in the pool scene and compliments you again when you put on your uniform. In Book 1, Chapter 15, your relationship is referred to as being like Disney's Lady and the Tramp — so much so that you both pay homage to the famous spaghetti scene in Lady and the Tramp in which two dogs from different sides of the tracks nuzzle over a plate of pasta. You can get official with him in Book 2, Chapter 15.
If you choose him as your love interest, he will appear with you in some chapters of Class Act, Book 1 and Book 2, along with you. In this case, in Class Act, Book 2, Chapter 14, he will bring you roses and ask, "Wood you like like to put that down for a second?", referring to the beam of log you are carrying. You reply that your father is a terrible influence on him.
Caleb
Michael seems to dislike Caleb at first, referring to him as a "golden boy". He later warms up to him when he joins the football team as QB and they become closer friends. Caleb tries to encourage Michael to take up basketball in Book 2, Chapter 1, but Michael gently rebuffs him.
Maria
Michael and Maria are opposites. Maria does not like Michael's lazy personality and gets annoyed with him from time to time. In Book 2, Chapter 1, they work together during the morning announcements, and when things go wrong, Maria immediately blames Michael, which leads to an argument. They seem to really dislike each other.
In Book 2, Chapter 6, Michael and his friends take Maria under their wing while she is having a hard time, they make amends and hug in the gym. In Chapter 7, Maria invites him and his friends to her birthday party.
Brian
Michael was friends with Brian when he first transferred to the school, but Brian ditched him when he became quarterback of the football team, leading to a fight that ended their friendship. Michael says that they have a "mutual understanding" with each other meaning that neither of them bother each other as long as Michael helps Brian with technical problems.
Koh, Morgan, Wes
Koh, Morgan, and Wes are Michael's friends, since they're all rebels and slackers. It is implied that Michael may have had romantic feelings for Morgan in Book 1, Chapter 2, because MC catches Michael looking at her longingly during a pool party, although it is a little unclear whether he was really looking at her or thinking about something else. Koh and Morgan care a lot about Michael and try to warn MC about the emotional "walls" he has built around himself in Book 1, Chapter 6. In Book 2, Chapter 6, Michael tells MC that although Koh, Morgan, and Wes are his friends, they do not fully understand him the way MC does.
Michael and Morgan seem to grow more distant in Book 2 when Morgan joins Principal Isa's hall monitor program - the two are rarely seen to interacting after that. If you go with Michael to see Ms. Hughs in Book 2, Chapter 12, and tell her about the hall monitors, he'll say that Morgan "hasn't been the same since she became a hall monitor".
Giselle
Giselle was Michael's best friend growing up. Their relationship became romantic in junior high when Michael developed feelings for her. She is the first kiss he mentions in Book 1, Chapter 2. However, they decided to remain friends after the kiss. Eventually, Giselle moved south because her father got a new job, and they grew apart. In Book 2, Chapter 6, Michael and MC (via a premium choice) make a video for Giselle to tell her about Michael's new life. Michael explains that she is the first person to ever fully understand him, and MC is the second.
Gallery
Other Looks
Miscellaneous
Trivia
- Michael is shown on the covers of High School Story, Book 2 and High School Story, Book 3.
- He rides a motorcycle but also has a car.
- He got his motorcycle from a junkyard on Ashland Boulevard, which took him a few months to fix up after finding all the parts. He learned to fix motorcycles from some videos and auto shops that were happy to give him a hand if he helped them clean up.
- In High School Story: Class Act, Book 3, he revealed during go-kart racing premium scene that he started riding motorcycle because of outlaw biker movies such as The Wild Angels and Easy Rider.
- Michael is talented at video production.
- Berry is his third school that he has attended, the previous two being Statton and Hearst.
- He resembles Singer/Actor Froy Gutierrez.
- If you play two truths and a lie with Michael during Brian's party in Book 1, it's revealed that he played hockey and chipped a milk tooth while playing.
- His dad had always wanted to be a pro hockey player but a high school injury ruined those chances, leading him to push it on Michael as a kid, but it wasn't his thing. When Michael came home with a chipped tooth from a puck hitting his face, his mom put a stop to it.
- If you don't choose to bring him to the homecoming dance, he will ask Morgan but fail.
- Michael is a playable character in Book 1, Chapter 9, and Book 2, Chapter 10.
- On Monday, February 26, 2018, a second sneak peek for the book was released and revealed a new look for Michael in Book 3.[1]
- In a premium scene of Book 3, Chapter 8, it is revealed that he always keeps a distance from anything clown-related.
- Michael's promposal in Book 3, Chapter 11, pays homage to the iconic 1989 teen classic Say Anything... starring John Cusack.[2]
- He shares the same name as Mike Darwin from the Endless Summer series, Michael Kim from Veil of Secrets, Mike Xiao from Wishful Thinking, Mickey Dalton from The Nanny Affair series, Michael Spoors from the Queen B series and Michael from Open Heart: Third Year.
- The name Michael is of Hebrew origin and means "gift from God".
- The second name Reginald is of German origin and means: Advise, counsel, decision, ruler, King.
- The surname Harrison is of English origin and means "child of Harry". The name Harry is of English origin and means "home ruler". It's a variant of the name Henry.
- His dream in Book 2, Chapter 11, about ceiling spiders and "killing it with fire" might be referencing the chapter of It Lives In The Woods where Andy can kill the Spiders sent by the monster with fire if you unlock the premium choice.
- In Book 2, Chapter 14, Michael is a decent ballet dancer but he has no interest in teaching dance as it is a hard profession.
- If asked what each person's Hogwarts Houses are in Book 2, Michael will claim that he is a Slytherin. Myra, however, disagrees, seeing him as more of a Gryffindor.
- Michael's song he's singing on Open Mic Night at Tucker restaurant in Book 3, Chapter 7, "Popular", is a song from the Tony Award-winning musical Wicked. It is performed by the Broadway company's original Glinda, Kristin Chenoweth, on the original Broadway cast recording. The song is about a popular girl (Glinda) trying to help her unpopular roommate (Elphaba) become more popular, that's why it's so hilarious when he's singing with nervous and serious emotion, because he thinks it's stupid and not fit for him.
- In Class Act, Book 2, Chapter 10, Your Character(HSS:CA) is given the chance to have Michael film a campaign video for the candidate you support. If you accept, you can later ask him how he got into filmmaking, and he will reveal that he has been making films since he was young and is considering moving to LA to try and make it as a filmmaker.
- If you instead ask him what his favorite movie is, he will not respond with a definite answer but rather he says that he enjoys movies that are about people, i.e., documentaries.
- In Class Act, Book 3, Chapter 16, he mentions that after the road trip to the Grand Canyon with the rest of the group, he will keep traveling on his bike and make a documentary in student theatre across the West Coast. While Spotlite made him curious about acting, he prefers to stay behind the camera. Caleb will be joining him as production assistant.
- On April 10, 2020, Pixelberry tweeted their #QuarantineHouse challenge, placing Michael in House 5 with Hana Lee, Kamilah Sayeed, Mal Volari, Duke Richards, and Damien Nazario.