Disclaimer: I don't own these characters. I don't own the show. I don't even own my own freaking computer, what more do you want from me??
Persona
Prologue
"So, tell us about yourself. What do you like doing in your free time?"
Free time? What's that? I'm never free. I'm always keeping up a front. I don't have free time if I want to maintain that. But they don't know that. They think they know me because they've seen me on TV, read about me in the newspapers. What a bunch of idiots. As if I'd honestly bare myself to the world like that. It's a great profit scheme for the media though, stick my name on anything and the money rushes in faster than water overflowing in a teacup. But I'm not going to tell them that, because then they'd think I wasn't happy with my popularity, that I wasn't happy with my success or with my money, or the fans or the adoration. Because I was never unhappy in front of the camera. That would just be bad work etiquette.
You want to know something? I don't think I've ever been truly happy before. I've never done anything for myself, did something I enjoyed without thinking about how it could affect my reputation or my image in the eyes of my parents. Never let my guard down because that would mean letting down anyone who gave a damn about me.
But I think I've dug myself into a hole. I seem to protect my true self, walled inside my mind with lies fabricated to please on the surface. Lies I sometimes can't remember are lies. I think I have forgotten to be me, if I wasn't just a tool in the first place. It wasn't so bad at first, just little half-truths about what I had been up to lately, how was school, how was work, when was the last time I went out, my favourite type of music, my favourite song. You know, things that don't mean anything by themselves, just words that are strung along in a pretty pattern to decorate a blank space with interest. But then I had to keep reusing them, I couldn't say something different, something wrong, something that didn't suit my persona. Had to build on them, make them believable until it become routine and reflex, until I had to remind myself that there were no truth behind my words, no feelings or emotions. Nothing real. But I have to wonder sometimes that maybe I was just a bunch of lies in the first place.
If my brother were around some of the time, I'm sure he would've patted me on the head, told me I was silly, and to go do something productive and homework-like good-naturedly without turning away from his desk. Oh wait, he already is. Over the phone. Once a month, if I'm lucky, and that's only if he remembers he has a brother after my parents' coddling, because God forbid that they pass up even two minutes of their precious time with their favourite son to let him talk to me. Not that I ask any more. That's something I gave up doing right after throwing hope in the trash, along with naïveté, and trust in the goodwill of human beings.
Honestly, I can't remember when the line between truth and lie blurred and spread. Now its just a big mass of confusion, swirling around inside my head to fill in the parts of me I can't feel anymore, the parts that I used to like about myself, and the ones that I hated. They faded into the background, but that was okay, because I could see myself as others saw me.
An object.
I found out that just by being me, I wasn't good enough to associate with. Oh sure, everyone wanted to see me, and read about me almost every day, but I wasn't real. I wasn't flesh and blood. I didn't feel things. My personal life was a drama everyone wanted to watch, wanted some action in, wanted to comment on and say "you know you should …", "I reckon that you could've…better…", "Why didn't you just…?" Like I would be enthralled at the idea that they could help me because they didn't know me but they knew exactly how I could be improved just by listening to their advice. In the middle of the city. From inside an ice-cream truck. Selling me a double scoop of rocky road.
Does everyone assume that because I'm this famous person that I didn't need friendship? That I couldn't be wrong once in a while? That I was okay being alone and aloof and unable to express myself truly because there was no one willing to listen, to believe something as small as that would be so important to someone like me? I hate being lonely, but I can't say that I am. Can't let on that I wasn't perfect, or was unhappy or depressed or lonely and screaming for company I couldn't have because it would be bad for business. Wouldn't cash in with the rest of the world.
It is a consequence I brought on myself though, I suppose. I expected it to happen, was told it would, in this line of work. It's always action! Action! Action! Smile for the camera! Hair! Make Up! Pose! The twenty hours a day that I'm awake, and even in sleep the nightmares of obscure cameras and mangled film strips burned the inside of my eyelids.
Myself, making the me wrapped in fallacy is my most brilliant creation. It was someone that the people watching could totally believe was real. My greatest talent, they said, was making people believe in things that weren't real. That's why I was so good at being "me", because my innate ability to do so could be honed to make me bigger and better. Always better. Never good enough as I was, always had to push to be better.
So yes, it was my job to pretend. To make the fake me flawless, I had to conform to their every wish of how I should be. That was why I was still smiling shyly at the middle-aged woman beside me, already coming up with a speech I was bound to be expected of, about how she would "affect" my career as my good/inspiring/derogative sweet mentor at the end of the year. Because she would expect me to be a shy person that she could bring out of their shell into her classroom. She must have battled heavily with the other homeroom teachers to have me in her care. I could almost see the dollar signs flashing through her mind every time her eyes met mine. How would she exploit this, I wonder? Will she be mainstream, selling her stories to the paper followed up by an autobiography titled "My Life Teaching Genius" or something gaudier before fading into the background with the rest of her kind? Or try for international stardom, aspiring for her own talk show before the age of 55? How about using her connections to me to become Japan's mafia mistress in the underworld? Or maybe all three at once?
My mind could come up with a lot of possibilities, most of which I had encountered before by people who were of the same kind, seeing me as a thing to be used for their own gains and milking it for all it was worth, for those five minutes of fame that could make them millions. I was screaming blue murder when the first person betrayed me, but by the three hundredth and ninety-second (or was it the ninety-first?) time it happened, I had long ago learnt the most valuable lesson of trust: Trust No One.
But I still smile kindly at her, before bowing to the rest of the class to introduce myself, though many would not have needed an introduction to know who I was.
"Hello, I am Ichijouji Ken. I like to act in my free time."
A few quiet chuckles are met with my statement before greeting me.
"Good morning!"
"Hello Ken-kun!"
I smile sadly, though it was probably mistaken for a shy one, as I accept the fact that nothing will ever change for me.
"Yoroshiku onegaishimasu."
Please take care of me, though I doubt you can even get that far.
-end prologue-
Author notes: this was started long before "Hard to Say." Does anyone still remember that?? [sweatdrop] He he he… [run away]. I swear, I am really, really sorry! I am about one third through the next chapter for that [pathetic, isn't it?], so while my brain and my hands refuse to co-operate, please enjoy this [rather long, I suppose] distraction filler.
Yoroshiku onegaishimasu = along the lines of "please take care of me/ thanks in advance for your kindness in welcoming me" or something like that…
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