Acting had never been any sort of an interest to him, because it would be the same as being entranced with the practice of learning how to breathe or eat or speak. It would have been examining his own life and trying to pry open the inner workings and learn how to live it. And that would be complicating things, and if there's one thing Natsu Tanimoto hates, it's unnecessary complications.
And Kenichi Shirahama is a complication. Kenichi Shirahama is the sort of complication that needs to be wiped away like one of the neat, perfect equations that he'd written on the boards, the one that Natsu had looked back and seen the whole class applauding for, although mathematics was by no means something to applaud for.
That was when he'd decided that the perfect student was not somebody to strive to be. The way their eyes had all been on him, applauding his perfectly poised acting (although they did not know that, there was no way they could ever know that.) Natsu knows schools, knows that the awed stares could turn to malice with one wrong moment. And in that moment, he was disgusted.
So Natsu takes Kenichi's hands some days later and whispers that he wants to be friends, all while thinking how ugly and false that word is, just like the flowers that the tiny, bespectacled girl who ogles at him and blushes and looks down grows so diligently. He can't help it, a little bit of the real him creeps into his voice, the part of him that's crying out with some stupid kind of loneliness. And the stupid, naive disciple notices, although he doesn't say anything, and looks at him with an honesty that makes him suddenly sick of himself as well as the masses of students around him.
Because Hermit, the Third Fist, is a sickening and merciless being, who knows how to pummel anybody into a pulp but doesn't know how to lie properly in the face of honesty. The sudden influx of sadness that washed over him while looking at the small, determined disciple makes him pull his hood over his head and sit down pretending that nobody can see him, because if he wills them not to, they probably won't.
And despite that acting does nothing to chase off the hollow, guilty feeling that follows him around day and night, and despite that he knows all about everyone in it's name and story and how he plans to use them in the future, it's easier to be Romeo Montague than it is to be Natsu Tanimoto.
an angsty drabble for a lovely, angsty boy. title taken from romeo and juliet itself. i claim no ownership to kenichi: the mightiest disciple.