You know what really bothers me on the first day of school?

People.

People bother me more than they normally do.

“Oh my gosh! I missed you soo much! Tell me about your summer!” is a normal line I hear.

Maybe it wouldn’t bother me so much if I had a friend nearby so that I could talk to, but I don’t because today is the first day of school, at a new school for me.

So, here I am, five minutes before class starts, sitting in my seat at an empty table that’s supposed to fill four people, while all the other seats are full. I’ve been sitting at the same table for the last twenty minutes, alone. This is completely fine, really, because I’m just listening to music while doodling, because nothing’s better than ignoring the existence of other people than Kpop.

This is completely okay, because making friends isn’t necessary since I have an internet connection.

Quite frankly, I want this day to be over. Maybe it’s my nervousness talking, but I just want to get through this day, and have it over with so that I can go home, go on myfanfics.com and start writing the next chapter of my fanfiction because right now, my heart is beating way too fast, time is going way too slow, and the only table that’s talking right now that I can hear though my headphones is the table near the left corner that don’t know how to talk in their inside voice, and believe that yelling and laughing WAY TOO LOUD is “quiet”.

But it’s okay. It’s fine.

I kept on listening to Super Junior’s This is Love on repeat to calm my nerves.

Finally, two more people came into the class room just before the bell rang and sat next to me, and that’s when class started.

“Alright everyone! Good morning! Welcome to school!” the teacher, Ms. Wayne, as the paper said, beamed. “I’m Ms. Wayne, your art teacher for the rest of the year.”

Ms. Wayne was probably a fresh out of college teacher—I mean, she looked young enough. She didn’t look a day past 25. She had a fair completion, and beautiful red hair that fell a little bit lower than her shoulders, her bangs clipped to the side to give her a bit of a fringe poof. I can’t really see her eye color since I sat so far away—which is a bit understandable since teachers tend to stand near their desk when giving an introduction, or to where there are so many more students, and considering the fact that I sat in the corner and in a desolate table island, of course she wasn’t going to be near me. But from what I noticed, she had light colored eyes. Her outfit was very well planned out—a black blouse with a mustard yellow skater skirt.

I was a bit envious of the teachers for getting to pick out their own outfits instead of having to conform to the uniform that we students had to wear. But of course, knowing me, I was a bit happy about the uniform mainly because I didn’t have to wake up and pick an outfit every morning unlike every other teenager in America. That’s just a bit too much effort on my part—plus, I can wear the same thing over and over again without having other people judge me.

The uniform was rather simple, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. It was just a blouse with the school’s emblem embroidered on the left along with a navy blue tie (or in my case, ribbon. It was an optional choice) and a navy blue pleated skirt (pants are for both genders, but its August, so I’m very blessed to be a girl and have the skirt option). I was also the only one in the class wearing the school’s cream colored cardigan (again, with the emblem embroidered on the left side).

“Alright, so, I don’t have much to say, and I really want you guys to know each other, so let’s have some ice breakers.” Ms. Wayne clapped.

Crap.

I was hoping that since this class was Art 3, there wouldn’t be any ice breakers (since it’s a higher level art class) but dear golly was I wrong.

“So, please tell everyone your name, what year you’re in, and 3 random facts about yourself.”

Okay, okay, I can do this. And luckily, she’s starting from across the corner of the room, so I have time.

But here’s my problem. I’m not interesting. I’m far from interesting. I have no reliable facts about myself whatsoever.

Okay Jane! Think! THINK!

Well, think of a list of what you can tell people.

1. I really like cats
2. I really like blue
3. I write fanfiction.

No, wait, scratch the last one. But generic facts are fine. I shouldn’t worry too much about it.

People kept on telling facts about themselves, each and every one a bit awkward since it’s the first day of school—some were just breezing through it all.

Then one girl stood up, and it was obvious that she woke up early to look presentable. Her hair was a coffee brown and they were set in beautiful soft curls. She had parted her bangs to the side, and pinned it behind her ears. She had a more natural look on her, and I was absolutely jealous of the way she looked.

In a way, I kinda wished that I would’ve woken up a bit earlier to take care of myself—you know, put in contacts, did something special to my hair, put on some sort of concealer to hide my pimples. But no, instead here I sat with my semi rimless cat eye glasses that made my dark circles less noticeable, my messy black hair tied into a knotted side ponytail and my face that has several red dots on it. It isn’t because I wanted to impress anyone really, but because I wanted to at least feel confident—the same way that the girl who was introducing herself seemed to be extruding with confidence. I was rather jealous.

“Hey, I’m Jenn!” she began, “I’m a sophomore. Three facts about myself: I’m a youtuber, I have almost 300,000 subscribers, and I’m a beauty guru.”

I looked at her. It made sense. She kind of did look like a youtuber. Pretty, smart, spends money on things that would enhance a person rather than spend money on albums.

And I was jealous, if I hadn’t already mentioned that. Mainly because she had a hobby that she could proudly say out loud what it was. With me, I write fanfiction, and you can’t really say it out loud without people thinking that you write all the time—in which case I don’t, it’s mainly fluff and awkward scenarios.

But of course, it did seem like she was bragging about herself when she said her amount of subscribers.

However, she wasn’t the only one.

Before I knew it, the rest of the class who had yet to introduce themselves began to throw in facts about how much they’ve accomplished at such a young age.

“I’m Sarah, junior, I was a flower in the City Ballet’s Nutcracker last year.”

“I’m John, senior, I just published a book that I spent a few years writing. If you could, buy it.”

“I’m Arden, junior, my artwork was accepted into an art show a few weeks prior.”

And the names kept on coming along with accomplishments. Nothing much to say, other than that I felt left behind, and that what I was going to tell everyone as one of my three facts was that I liked cats.

No accomplishments, because the only thing that I have accomplished in life was the fact that I had 5,000 readers—mainly coming from the Philippines, Malaysia, and Indonesia.

Then it came to me. I stood up like everyone else, “H-hi, um, my American name is Jane.” I began.

Jane, stop stuttering.

“I’m a sophomore, I’m new here, I cats—I mean.” Crap, I messed up, okay, you can fix this! “I really enjoy cats, the presence of cats because they’re like little demon monsters who will—” Stop talking about cats! “And I really like blue” and with that, I sat back down in my chair as fast as I could, not even daring to look up because I knew what people were thinking.

“What’s with this girl’s obsession with cats?”

“Wow. That was awkward.”

“That was a terrible introduction”

 But that was part of what it’s like being an introvert that resides in the internet for a place of comfort. It’s a bit difficult to talk to actual people because they’re the reason why you resided in the internet for friends in the first place, so you tend to forget how to talk to people.

Ms. Wayne started talking, but I could barely hear here through the pounding that was going through my ears. My face was red, it was burning—everything was burning, but I knew that if I took my cardigan off, I would be cold. It wasn’t like I was missing anything anyways, she was reading the syllabus off to her class—telling us that we should get it signed by our parents by the end of this week, and then just going over the rules.

Before I knew it, the bell rang.

Quickly, I grabbed my bags and headed to my 2^nd hour class—which was math.

Again, we had to introduce ourselves. If a person had a visible HP bar like how Pokemon had them during battle, you could see my HP bar draining throughout the day because in every class, we had to do the same thing—or we had to do that name game where we would throw stuff at each other and recall that person’s name, or we had to remember everyone’s name and an adjectives associated with their name, so on and so forth. In 7^th hour, my bar was extremely low, practically on red, and I could already imagine that annoying beep that always made me silence the game whenever I played it.

Soon enough—and thankfully enough, school was over. I slowly put everything in my bag and walked to my locker for the first time. It was the first day of school, so there was no actual need to use my locker today. It was locker 423—luckily on the 4^th floor, where most of my classes were. I opened it, and took out a folder that I had put in pictures in the previous night. They were mainly pictures of Super Junior that I had printed, and a lot of them were just Donghae selfies that I had gotten off of his instagram.

With just that, I had felt a little bit better about my day.

It’s just one of those weird things people know about fangirls, we automatically feel better after seeing our bias’s face.

I began taping them on my locker wall, and with the few magnets that I had, stuck them on.

Let’s see, my brother, Aiden was going to pick me up, but because of classes, he said he’d pick me up half an hour to an hour after school started, and the halls were clearing up so it’d be safer for me to be inside rather than outside where everyone else was.

I ped my bag and took out a manga that I had bought a few days ago. Mainly to figure out how high schoolers acted, but it was more like a comedy than a serious one—which is perfect, since I loved romantic comedies. But it really didn’t show the realities of high school life—mainly because it was a shoujo manga. I stayed in my position until my phone beeped, notifying me that there was a text. It was Aiden, with a simple “Here” that I went outside.

Aiden’s old beaten black car was easy to spot, so I quickly walked towards it.

“Are you okay?” he asked.

“Social interactions.” I sighed, “You know how I am with those.”

“Yeah, terrible, right?” he laughed, “But it’ll get better. Trust me, you’ll get better at talking to people sooner or later.”

And with that, our conversation ended.

The school was around 10 minutes driving distance from home—which was around a half an hour walk to an hour walk, something that I didn’t really want to do unless absolutely necessary. Near the school (possibly a 5 to 10 minute walk towards it) were a bunch of restraunts and cafes that a bunch of students went to (there were several people in the school’s uniform that walked there). Again, I was jealous.

A part of me just wanted to get this awkward part of being a lonely new kid out of the way and just make friends already, but another part of me was afraid to make friends again because of what happened last year.

I came to Marshal Art Academy because I was being bullied at my old school. Not a lot to say about it, right? I was mainly bullied from people who I had formerly thought were my friends. Why? I don’t really know. Maybe it was because I didn’t have a lot of things, since my family didn’t have a lot of money. Or maybe it was because I couldn’t hang out with other people like I would to because I didn’t have a ride to do things. Or maybe it was because whenever I had a packed lunch, the kids would say something about how I was so Asian for having that. I assume that they didn’t like me because I was the fat one in my group of friends—but even after losing so much weight over the summer before freshman year, they would still poke fun at my weight. Everyone did.

It’s almost sad, really. I wanted an eating disorder after that. Mainly because it just hurt, and I wanted everything to end. I wanted to be in pain, because I wanted to see if they did have souls. I constantly wondered, would they feel bad if I had died? Would they regret all the words that they had said to me?

But that’s why I got so into fanfiction, because it was an escape from the people at school. It made me forget about the crap that was happening in my reality, and made me focus only on what was online. Quite frankly, I found it extremely ironic, how grownups believed that the internet was filled with people who had nothing to do with their lives other than prey on children when in fact, it’s the opposite. Because on the internet, I felt so much more loved than I ever did in real life.

Once I got home, I grabbed my key that was on my Super Junior lanyard that hung around my neck and immediately, once I got it, kicked off my converse and ran to my room. I locked the door, something that happens out of habit. It wasn’t like I didn’t have anything to hide, it was just that I lived in an Asian household that doesn’t know how to knock at all, or close the door.

I my PC and changed out of my school uniform—now putting on a t-shirt and jacket along with a pair of shorts in my closet because my room was filled with Super Junior posters. Every wall had a Super Junior poster on it—except for one, but I’m still working on that. But because every wall had a poster, it was unnerving to change in my room with all the eyes staring at you. It took me a while to get used to sleeping at night.

How did I get so many posters, you might ask?

 They were all mainly birthday gifts, and were bought by my brother—after I had finished all his chores. It was a deal I had with my brother, kind of like a point system. Every time I had caught him sneaking out, he would have to buy me a Super Junior album along with a tubed poster. And trust me, it wasn’t hard to catch him sneaking out since he’s so bad at it. But, if I didn’t catch him, I would just do his chores, and he would be cool with it.

My computer was finally and I opened chrome and went to myfanfics.com.

New story comments!

I beamed as I clicked the link that showed 22 new comments on the chapter I posted last night. It was small, considering how much I would get during the summer, but it was understandable since school was starting for other people also, and no matter what, I was absolutely thankful for all of them.

I couldn’t help but smile as I replied to them. I then went onto the blog section of my account.

“Hey guys!

I just finished the first day of school.  I. AM. EXHAUSTED.

But…I still can’t believe I’m going to an art school, really. And it wouldn’t have happened if it wasn’t for you guys who talked me into it! Thank you so, so much!

But just know that I’m not going to stop writing just because the school year started!

However, I just wanted to tell you guys about some changes in my writing schedule:

Instead of posting everyday like I did over the summer, I might just do it twice a week since I’m so busy—and those being on the weekend.

And I know today’s Thursday, but new chapter coming up tonight! :D”

Posted.

My online username was Jaygrey408—don’t ask me how I came up with that, it was just something that popped in my head after an hour of trying to figure out a username. It just stuck with me, and I couldn’t imagine my life without it.

I replied to most of the comments—mainly because I didn’t know how to reply to the “update soon!” comments—before I opened up my word document. I was seven chapters ahead of my posting—meaning I could take a break for a week or two without writing. But, of course, that’s only saved for emergencies only, and not just because I want to dilly dally.

Everything is as it was, quiet—except it wasn’t.

I don’t know how say how I feel about fanfiction, other than it gives me energy that I need to get through a day, or just to simply stay awake. I just feel alive whenever I do it, and it makes me forget about the crappy people that I have to deal with—or, at least, had to deal with. It was just an escape—to best put it—an escape from the people that made fun of me, that left me, that belittled me in every possible way that they could.

And honestly, if it wasn’t for them, I don’t think I would have thought about changing schools.You see, one day, I just wrote a blogpost in which detailed everything that was happening at school. The people that were bullying me, the cyber bulling me, and I just told my readers how thankful I was for them that they were there. I don’t particularly remember why I wrote that blog post, but I do remember that I felt awful that day,  that everything just hurt that day—more than it normally did. In which, my readers reacted big time, telling me to get out of that situation no matter what, that even if I didn’t have any new friends at a new school, that they would still be there for me.

And with that, I did.

It’s funny how adults think that the people on the internet are all predators—and that there is a select few (and by select few, I mean just me) that are on the internet that actually tell the truth about their age. Not only that, but they think that the internet is a place filled with terrible people that do nothing but spend their entire day writing mean comments all day.

That’s partly true, no doubt. But the internet is so much more than that. The internet is also filled with such kind people like me, people who are my age, people who deal with the bullies at school such as me. It’s filled with lonely people, and people with a lot of time on their hands because they don’t really have much friends to hang out with because they are the bullied.

So everything just happened so fast. I took my reader’s advice, and started to enroll into a new school—knowing no one. But regardless, I trusted my readers, and headed to the new school.

Of course, a lot of them are telling me to try and make new friends—a lot of the older ones at least, because they want me to enjoy my underclassmen years. But…I’ll have to see with that one.

“JANE!” my older brother, Aiden, yelled.

I jumped a little bit,. “Yes?”

“Have you seen my keys?!” he asked, sounding more desperate than usual.

“You had them, I opened the door with my own keys”

“But have you seen them?”

“No, I have not.” I said.

Aiden groaned before leaving.

I opened back up my word document up again and continued writing. Doing my normal thing: when one chapter is finished, go onto sup3rjunior.com and find a variety show of some sort to watch, then go onto tumblr to reblog gifs and read odd text posts about life that other users laugh about, then go back onto the fanfiction site to reply to comments.

That is, I was finishing up a chapter until one of my friends IM-ed me.

ElisaDarling: DID.YOU.HEAR?!

My eyebrow rose.

JayGrey408: Hear what?

ElisaDarling sent me a link in which I clicked.

I gasped.

The music video teaser came out for “This is Love”. I wasn’t expecting this—I didn’t expect this. Mainly because This is Love was a song in their version A album, and never before have they made a music video where a song from the version A album was a music video. Normally, they would keep the second song music video to be in extreme top secret (unless someone leaks it) until the right time (I don’t know when, but I assume until the company sells enough of their albums). But this…THIS.

JayGrey408: OH. MY. GOSH.

JayGrey408: I CAN’T BREATHE

I clicked on the video, and watched the music video teaser.

It’s.

So.

Freaking.

Artsy.

I was mentally flailing now.

Once the 15 second clip was over, I went down to the Youtube comment section where all the other ELFs were fangirling also.

JayGrey408: OH MY GOSH, I CAN’T EVEN. WHO ELSE IS EXCITED?! I’M SO PROUD OF OUR BOYS!

Comment, send.

Before I knew it, a lot of other fangirls replied to me, beaming.

ShayWoo: OH MY GOSH, JAYGREY408?! I LOVE YOUR FANFICS!

AmiBusi: I’M SO PROUD OF OUR BABIES ALSO!

I laughed, thinking about how we fangirls call Super Junior our babies even though they’re almost a decade older than all of us. But I do feel like a mother to them sometimes, because they act like kids—even though they’re guys in their mid to late twenties.