It's years later. You've graduated highschool with average to above average marks, and you've gone through the college you wanted. You've made friends, and gained family and lost. You're living your life like you always wanted to, and your parents are proud of you, your friends are as good as friends could be, and there's no financial problems in your world at all. You have a nice apartment, and a functional and nice lookingused car you've come to refer to as "Clunker".
You didn't remember much of your teenage years, as most of them were spent browsing online sites or hanging around with your friends. In fact, oftentimes it was a mixture of the two, even if you don't remember much of how they mixed. Faint memories, they were, barely there, barely thought about. A chatroom for some show you used to like, plenty of people there, for roleplaying a character, if you remembered right.
Hitting the button to start the photocopier, you let a small smile take your face as you thought back to those teenage years, spent with friends from far away places. Most of them you'd never seen their faces, or heard their voices, or if you ha it had been something silly, or a selfie. God, what had happened to selfies? They were all the rage a few years ago, but it seems the trend died out. Maybe you should take one, just for memories sake sometime.
Hearing the machine you were leaning on beep, you glaced down, already knowing it would be out of ink. With a slight sigh, you went to the shelf to grab aother ink cartridge, eyes lingering momentarily over an advertisement stuck to the box. It was about winning an all expenses paid world tour for a large group. Scoffing quietly at it, you shook your head, doubting it would even be worth entering and grabbing the cartridge to return to the printer. For some reason, though, you sent one last glance at it, scanning the example destinations. France, America, South Korea. South Korea seemed familiar. Why?
That's when it hit you. And all because of South Korea, too.
Axis Powers Hetalia, a silly anime about history and stereotypes, where the nations were personified as humans. You'd loved it, and once you'd found out about roleplaying, well, you were just taken. Soon enough you found yourself scouring the net for sites, and had found on where you could talk to random strangers and found a link. Or you were pretty sure that's what had happened, your memory wasn't down to the specific details.
You remembered browsing one afternoon, probably on a Saturday when your parents were out. A link had popped up, with the little explanation being something about joining the worldwide tour, and buckling down yourself because of Alfred Airlines. That was….America. Yeah, America.
Being the curious and odd teenager you had been, you'd clicked it, and found yourself by a chatroom. Entering your alias- the human and country name of the character- you had entered, observing for a little, before someone- a South Korea, if you were correct, called you out to roleplay with them.
And of all the little choices you'd made, the stupid and smart, or just downright nonsensical, you would remember this one to be one of the best.
Instead of staying for a while then forgetting about the room, you'd kept coming back. Soon you were a regular, and knew everyone's nicknames. Treas and Pizza, Pocky and the admin of the chat, Mango. Soon enough more people joined as regulars, and you were given your own nickname by everyone, or chose one yourself. It was like an initiation, you were considered a normal as soon as you were given a permenant nickname. Soon enough the room became a premium room, allowing colours to change and private messages and room boards and all kinds of good stuff.
Sighing slightly, you thought back to those nicknames, the ones of your friends, the regulars and admins. Of course you remembered Pizza, and Pocky and Treas and Mango, those were some of the first you'd met. Then there was…Beri, was it? And Lexi, and Lulas- who was sometimes referred to as Fjords. Eulalie and Nai, S and Mint, Keeks and Pancake. More had come, but you remembered being closest to those the most.
You wondered if maybe, just maybe, the bookmark still existed on your old ipod. Perhaps the room was still alive, although you didn't remember when you all had just...left. Grown up, you supposed. You did remember, however, that the quicker you replaced this ink, the quicker you could get home from work and check.
And the quicker you did that, the quicker you may be able to find some old friends again.
And if you did, if you got lucky enough to find the bookmark, to find their tumblrs or whatever it was you still had of them, the still just as slim, just as unrealistic idea you'd all had all those years ago of meeting up could happen.
And as silly as it was, as slim a chance as you had of it actually happening, you could still hope. You could still dream. And just maybe you'd all still be able to get that group selfie yet, with as much ridicules inside jokes and motions as you all had always imagined it would be like.
Maybe you would finally meet some of the best friends you'd had for years, and maybe because of the long silence, all of your bonds would be just that much stronger. And maybe you would all still manage to blow something up together by simply meeting yet.
So. I know this isn't really a fanfiction, but I had to put this somewhere. To the thirteen of you mentioned here, (myself not included), this is dedicated to you. All of you. Pizza, Mango, Treas, Pocky, Lulas, Wobu (Beri), Ukulele (Eulalie), Nai, S, Mint, and Ghost (Pancake). If any of you were there a few days ago, we were talking about meeting up again, and imagining what it would be like to meet up in China with Lulas and her family. This is kind of about that, but not really. Anyway, this is for all of you, and I just wanted you all to know that honestly you mean a good deal to me as friends. Or even not friends, that's alright too. But you guys and the chat is what gets me through the day, even on the worst of them. Here's to you. -Keeks