Hella Rad

#karma

        I was introduced to Tumblr by the anime club at my elementary school. Although it wasn't really a "club" as much as it was "meet-up-at-someone's-house-and-watch-anime", but we liked to sound exclusive. Our current leader and role model Darren happened to have a blog, and he had approached me with a question on the coding and why his music player didn't play the song automatically. It was something easy to fix, and I spent a good lunch hour scrolling through his dashboard afterwards.

        My first follower was Darren.

        After that, I became immersed in learning the ins and outs of the site. It had started with a simple reblogging of things I liked, but it became creating gifs and edits, writing reviews and fanfiction. Soon, I had a custom theme up and going for my blog, and a supportive bunch of followers with whom I communicated with on a daily basis.

        Time passed. I entered high school soon after Darren, and followed him to the official anime club they had there. Then Darren came out about being gay. Darren got a boyfriend. Darren left the anime club. I had a new position. Leader. Although it wasn't really "leader" as much as it was "pick-what-anime-we-watch-today-and-what-cons-we-fundraise-to-attend".

        I met Elisa, Thomas, and Aiden.

        They became my best friends.

        And upon my insistence, they each got a Tumblr account as well. We happily followed each other and faithfully reblogged each other's posts.

        I reached five hundred followers, and we had an online party where we marathoned anime the whole night after classes.

        The next day, I didn't wake up on time for the first time since I started school.

        You probably realize how lame my life was, after that statement. And I'm not going to deny it. My name is Otto Lee. I'm Korean. Brown eyes, thick glasses, and black hair. Slightly above-average grades. I'm a nobody except in anime club and online.

        Current follower count: two-thousand one-hundred and seventy-three.

        People stalking my blog at the moment: eighty-one.

        If I could stay home and be a NEET (Not in Education, Employment, or Training) for the rest of my life I would, but my parents -as flexible as they are- won't allow that. And since I'm their only kid, I've got to make sure I tread carefully and score all my points right. At least if they ever did read my blog, the only letters they would be able to understand would be A and B- my normal grade range.

        Remember how I said that when we had the five hundred followers celebration, I didn't wake up on time? Well, that was also the last time I didn't wake up on time. My parents were not as happy about my total number of followers as I was, I seems. Which leads me to today, where I can tell you that my braces have come off, my best friends are in high school with me, the anime club has a steady amount of members and meets weekly every Tuesday and Thursday, and that our sponsor teacher Miss Wagner is the absolute greatest. She speaks fluent Japanese, for one. She's also a Tech teacher, which means that I can go to her as a general nerd as well. Not to mention she's kind of gorgeous. Let's just say that I wouldn't mind spending a Saturday with her. Or a Friday. Or any day ending in the letter "y", really.

        "Fantasizing about Miss W. again, Otto?" Elisa says, shaking me out of my thoughts as she socks me on the shoulder, joining me at our usual lunch spot outside when the club doesn't meet. "Hentai!"

        I punch her back lightly. She just called me a pervert in Japanese. And it definitely wasn't the first time. But Elisa is basically the sister I never had. She's not Asian though, which would make it sound weird if I did indeed go around calling her my sister. But she makes use of her naturally light hair, and it's been blue for as long as I've known her. Not the same blue as the flecks that dot her hazel eyes, but more like an almost-black in which you can only see its true colours under the sun. The blue in her hair is clearly visible today, because it's such a good day.