The Hermit
Chapter 1
I'm not really the idiot that everyone makes me out to be. I'm more, I really am.
"You know who Sakuragi Hanamichi is?" Ask someone who thinks they know me that, and they will probably say something like:
"That egotistical, conceited, worthless bully?" or "The self-proclaimed tensai?" or just simply "That Baka!".
Its sad. I'm more than that. Deep inside I have my own battles, fight my own demons. My heart… constantly filled with self-doubt. My fear… to be alone, ignored…. Be insignificant. My fondish wish…. To be someone special to somebody.
Its funny really. How many people see me as incapable of hiding my feelings. They say, my feelings practically ooze out of me. Hahaha! How wrong they are.
Let me tell you a secret…. Its all a mask. That Hanamichi that you see, that really isn't me. Its all an act. Not really by choice though. I wasn't like that before. I guess, you could say it started in junior high… when the first girl dumped me.
I was utterly defeated then. I was humiliated. I felt like the world had rejected me. I offered my heart, it was refused. For a long time, I was convinced I was worthless… that I was nothing… I guess really liked her. I really don't know now. Self doubt gnawed at my tender heart. I felt like I was dying from the inside. I had to protect myself. So I build my shell… my prison.
I made excuses for everything. My shell was very convenient then… I built my whole personality around that shell… adding more layers, making it thicker, more impenetrable. I hid inside that shell, never allowing myself to think, never allowing myself to feel. Sometimes my guard goes down, but I find something else to distract me soon enough, anything to keep my mind of things.
Its still there though, soaking up feelings in the background. I sense it all the time, but I don't acknowledge it. I prefer to hide. My mask is me, but I am not my mask. My mask belongs as for me… I don't really know. I never let it out… its too risky… until that day… when it all crumbled.
AN:
Sorry for the really bad sentences. I'm trying to imagine Hanamichi talking to himself. If he did that, I don't really think he would be talking in perfect sentences. I know that I don't.
The Hanamichi in this fic is meant to be OOC. He hides under a mask, underneath he is supposed to be something else (in this fic anyway). If he seems respectful when talking to someone, he was meant to be that way. There isn't any reason for him to pretend otherwise. He is talking someone he trusts though. I still cant decide if he is actually talking to someone he really trusts, himself, or writing on a diary. I wont probably bother either, it really isn't important to the plot.
