The Adventures of Blake and Mishiro

Blake Saul

Blake Saul is your average entertainer, he thinks every moment as an entertainment opportunity. He really cares about how the public sees him. He is genuinely very person oriented, outgoing, and your typical average online influencer. Yet he still talks to me like he does to everyone else, goofy, friendly, outgoing.
"I adore this shop, I feel as though it's fun to live in a culture based around so much art and creativity," the words echoed in my mind, did it sound like I was having a good time, what did I feel about this situation? Something I couldn't really know.
Blake Saul, didn't shame me for my answer he told his audience it was good to have such introspective input. It sort of made my day in a sense that I was listened to for a little bit. Than he bid me farewell and went to the next person in the shop inquiring the answer to similar questions he asked me, just worded differently, while recording and smiling the whole time as if it wasn't a strange situation for someone to come up and ask you about how Japanese culture is portrayed in an anime shop to collect responses for his YouTube channel.
How weird altogether.

That's the first time I met Blake Saul. Now he didn't leave a horrible impression, he just struck me as strange and overly positive. Blake Saul acted as though he had not a care in the world. It made me want to kinda see where my life was going as well. As lately, I've been struggling to find the meaning or the point of life. I've been sorta abandoning it, going to school, coming home, and not really doing anything. There's nothing I really want to do except lay down. I wondered if I even had a meaning in this world.

I dread looking at those same four walls, my emotional prison, my dreaded life to live. I never had agency in my life, why start now. I drop my book bag on the ground and lay down passing out to another day.
-

Later in the Eve after school I run into a new bunch of folks. They were strange, quirky, and emotionally unstable, they invited me to a party and I decided why not, it's not like anything worse could happen to me. This led me to having the strangest experience of my life. Such a dysfunctional group of people yet they always stand up for what they believe in no matter what happens to them. They fight they, protect, they move on and do what they want until another thing happens. Perhaps that isn't exactly how I want to live my life but maybe it would be interesting to take some lessons from their lifestyle. They tend to just not give a damn about anything. Perhaps I should try to live vicariously through their drama as well.

I pause, at writing that thought, and continue.

What I mean is, I do not want a dramatic lifestyle but I might want to experience something like it. I wonder what would happen if I just started showing up to places and not care about what happens and just do whatever I want. That kind of life style is something that could be damaging but if a relationship is so fragile that you get called out for being yourself, isn't that just a relationship not worth having?
I must examine this more. I feel as though I've been lacking companionship in my life. Perhaps I will decide to continue to interact with these people despite having thoughts that they no longer want me there. Despite the voices telling me they're all out to get me and put me down, perhaps I will eventually see some meaning in life to be more open to experiences and less inclined to continue doing things I don't like to do.

I pause and write this more.
I wonder if it's possible to find a healthy balance in friendships that give you drama to interact with, and if it was possible to find true friendship in someone. So I hatched a plan. I would continue to interact with those around me but I'd also try to be detached at the same time and act however I feel is necessary in the situation. I wonder if I will feel any care or connection for anyone if I were to attempt this.

I think a bit more about it than add.
It all seems like some weird social experiment but I think it's a necessary one in some cases. Can I possibly learn anything? Grow from their experiences, learn about how they're struggling without caring? In a way, I hope not because, I want to feel alive again. I want to feel like I'm a person to.
-
Many months later I came to a park and I saw him again. Blake Saul, and he was his normal Blake Saul self. I had been practicing sword fighting recently, as some kids from my school who I hung out with taught me some stuff and lended me a sword. I never realized how much handling a blade would give me so much confidence in myself. I walked up to Blake and greeted him this time and to my surprise he was interviewing my feline friend Mew. Mew was an adorable yet violent sort of person. Outgoing and positive, yet childish and protective over her boyfriend, Lucy, a withdrawn and more serious seeming person, who for some reason liked Mew. Mew greeted me with a hug and Blake remarked on how we all knew each other and it was truly a small world.
I let out a slight chuckle and say.
"It must be small for you two because you're both so outgoing."
A remark I didn't know how they would react to. He didn't seem surprised by my comment at all just smiled a cheeky smile and shrugged it off. Does he not have some sort of comeback? Is he not offended by me? How did he take that statement?
These thoughts race through my head like arrows burrowing through my brain, gnawing at me to ask how he felt about what I said to him and for seemingly no reason.
Blake Saul just went on and continued with his interview with Mew than they asked me if I was going to a festival that was coming up in our city and invited me to come with them. When I realized that maybe what I said wasn't so bad I said I planned to go alone but I was flattered they wanted me to come with them.
Blake than asked my permission for him to film our experience.
"Mew and I were gonna do it but if you don't want to we won't bother, there's always next year."
They're willing to make such an accommodation for me, I was hesitant at first, I don't like my face on video but I agreed to the invitation and told Blake I was fine as long as he didn't make fun of me.
Blake chuckled weirdly, and asked why would he do such a thing like that to his friends.

I felt weird in that moment, like a weight had been shifted onto me. He saw me as a friend. It felt weird because we only interacted with me twice. I was definitely taken aback.

The thought was a split second of hesitation before I responded with
"Yeah I don't mind as long as I can watch the full video before it goes out."
He said.
"Give me your email and I'll send it to you I won't post anything of yourself that you don't like."
"Thank you, and sorry if that's a weird request."
"Not at all, it's totally fine in my book."
-
That night I used his email to look at his YouTube channel. He had around 6k subs not to much and his videos got on average 16-30k views on each video. His videos are edited well. I go to the one he made about Japanese culture in an anime shop. I was the fifth one he interviewed. He didn't do anything to distort my face at all. He just showed what he asked and what I said. He didn't use my words against me or anything. I scanned the comments and they were all pretty positive and supportive. I still had my doubts and suspicions but I decided to take a chance.

I decided to bring a dagger with me just in case anything goes wrong on the night of. I wear dark clothing as to not stand out to much. I was really nervous as I waited for them to come get me but, they did and I was grateful for that. We talked on the way over there. We ran around the festival filming for about two hours, watching entertainment, trying food, looking at stands, listening to music. Blake and Mew were fun to hang out with. They included me in everything. I had so much fun I forgot everything that I did to protect myself. I genuinely enjoyed myself.
After those two hours Blake took us out on his dime and thanked us for joining him. I could order whatever I wanted and I felt like a person as we talked around the table and enjoyed a nice meal. Mew said she had to go and left us alone after dinner. Her boyfriend picked her up and she put a hat that she got for him on his head and laughed at him. He let out a low chuckle and cracked a smile as well. Maybe a little less serious than I initially saw him as.
-
Blake offered to walk me home but I declined the offer as I didn't want him to know where I lived. He accepted my declination gracefully and we went out separate ways after he bid me adieu.

I was paranoid of course but I didn't have a reason to think anything bad would happen after that day. And honestly, nothing bad ever did happen to me.
The next day I was greeted with an email from him with the video, and a little note from him saying 'just let me know if I need to cut anything out.'

I watched the whole thing, scanned every line, noted every-time I was in it and everything I said. I just realized it was fine this way. Blake used some filters sometimes but his editing was really subtle and everything seemed more natural. It was a good twenty four minutes for two hours of recording. I can give him credit for knowing what to keep in and leave out. It was a typical YouTube Vlog like video of just us interacting with people. Funny and quirky at times and just all around positive. I told him exactly what I thought and he told me he appreciated the feedback. And that was it. He didn't message me again.
His video went up and it got a good bit of views over the days he became a little larger 6.2 k subs. I truly thought Blake Saul and Mew were done with me. We had fun and now they were going to never talk to me again but to my surprise I get a message later from Mew saying, "If Jesus can walk on water, can he swim on land?" An age old question in my book. I knew that than and there I cared a bit more about Mew. I asked her about what happened to Blake and she said that he's probably sleep deprived from trying to respond to his fans and trying to come up with a next video idea. Than asks if I wanted to come over and go shopping with them the next day.

I agree to go shopping and from them on we continued to hang out with each other. They accepted me for who I was and Blake and I became best friends.
-
It took me a long time to shake my anxieties and fears about having friends but lately I've been less hesitant to try again thanks to all those who proved me wrong in the end.