My mother is a literary teacher at Rose Bud High where I attend, and my father a pastor at the most well known, prestigious church in town.
You could say that I wasn't expected to be like an honor student that was perfect in everything, rather, I was expected not to stand out at all.
No skipping class, no getting into fights, nothing to draw attention to myself. Blend in.
Which was fine by me, in fact, I prefer to not have any eyes on me.
I believe my looks are average with plain dark brown hair, blue eyes, the only thing standing out being the freckles across my cheeks , and those are few in number. I am even 5'11, which is considered to be average height. I participate in pole vaulting at school to give my parents something about me to take pride in while putting on their wholesome appearance in front of others. However, I don't go out of my way to show off or look impressive or "cool". I also am not extremely social, I only hang out with two people, Luke, my childhood friend, and Tomoharu, (or as we call him, Haru) from Japan.
Haru came to the U.S. when he was five years old with his mom and dad. He transferred to this small school in North Carolina in eighth grade. We've been friends ever since he accidentally busted me over the head with a basket ball that year.
I was in the stands.....It was during a game.
He apologized after the game was over though. (Thank god they won after that).
I guess you could say Haru is partially responsible for the events that have recently unfolded during my "peaceful" (or so I hoped), junior year here in high school. One year away from graduating.
You see, Haru introduced me to manga. In fact, he taught me how to read Japanese and would bring me authentic copies of all kinds of manga when he would visit his family in Tokyo.
At first I liked the main stream shounen manga. Then I started to read more and more genres, horror, comedy, sports, and even shoujo, which is manga that targets young women.
However, while searching online for new manga one night, I ran across something interesting. It was a genre entitled "BL", which stands for "boys love".
Being a straight male, I thought that I wouldn't be interested in that sort of thing, but curiosity got the best of me.
Down the rabbit hole I fell.
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