I feel as if I'm the definition of a side character.

To be honest, I would prefer the term "background", but my existence as a human being - instead of a non-sentient tree brush or an ignorant wild animal - leaves me no choice.

I usually joke around with my two close friends about how we are less important than a rushed background for an elementary school play, let alone those actors who have costumes to jig around like friendly NPCs in kids games. Seriously, we don't even have our faces show up in half of the pictures taken with our class.

The thing is, these two friends of mine are actual geniuses, and still catch people's attention with their excellent academic performance. As for me, while I don't struggle with school much (as long as I don't let myself abandon my study altogether), I don't have enough deep knowledge to help others whenever exams are around the corner. There goes the "nerd" way to be friends with some other dark horses.

I am not crazy rich; I come from a rather humble background. My parents are astonishing people, affording both proper education and quite fancy leisure activities for me and my sibling, but they couldn't go as far as to provide us with new clothes every season or technical devices like smartphone and laptop. 

Maybe it's because our parents find large wardrobes and advanced technology unnecessary for middle schoolers, but it usually gives people an impression that my family's financial status is a bit below average.  

That being said, I don't really have complaints about how my parents spend their earnings on leisure activities instead of more common consumer goods. I'd rather entertain myself with books and my brother's occasional piano practice than some fake friends gushing after my bank account.

Where was I? Ah, yes, why I refer to myself as a side character. I don't have good looks, which is quite a shame, since I have heard enough times from my mum about how I used to be favored by so many kindergarten teachers thanks to my cute face. My mother says that I have decent features, and sometimes I receive statements like "You're the type that could have a perfect body if you put effort into physical exercises". Frankly, I don't care much about my appearance, partly due to my "look is deceiving" mental claim, partly simply due to my laziness. You may have guessed: I'm not the fittest or most good-looking person. 

Who cares if I'm a bit taller than average, if I have Buddha ears? Who would even notice that I have such a small head I still use the same helmet since primary school? All they see is a beige-skin girl with an untidy low ponytail, black glasses covering tired eyes with dark circles, pimples on the most sensitive and visible parts, some scars here and there to further emphasize how imperfect and negligible she is. 

Your typical average-looking side character in a story.

You may wonder if my personality or hobbies would make up for other lacking. They don't. 

My personality is anything but stable, though most of the time you can describe it with the word "bland". Maybe "unusual" too? All the more reason for people to stay away from me. Heck, I even have that expressionless face to give off an unimpressed vibe, that in turn impresses nobody.

My hobbies - they are supposed to be the same as almost anyone else: watching movies, listening to music, reading, surfing the Internet, chatting. Until they're not the same any longer - watching random cartoons from a what-is-that channel, listening to unpopular music, reading literally anything but not into any specific fandom to go "Oh I know that book, who's your favorite character?" and "I can recommend you some books if you like", surfing the Internet for 5 seconds before sending someone a single message then going offline. 

The only reason I'm still intact with the current world is my dad's occasional check for the latest trends and my classmates' overuse of popular memes.

To conclude, I don't an outstanding trait that could catch people's attention for more than 5 minutes. It's almost as if I don't belong to this very world even, constantly living at my own pace. Or maybe I really am just that - a side character with no tale to tell, existing solely to fill in the blank, so that the main story won't seem so focused on its main characters it becomes ignorant of the background.

And yet, I spend one solid hour figuring all of these out, writing a small essay about my own mediocrity while dismissing other tasks. Unproductivity paired with over focus on meaningless thoughts.

Can I be any more paradoxical, more ironic, more useless, more average?

Frankly, I can.