He was rereading American Psycho; though onstage, the mook's attempt at Shylock was arguably the greater horror in the room.
The kindest thing that could be said about his performance was that he remembered his lines… eventually. Though it took pauses that the student couldn't quite disguise as dramatic.
His act just did not ring true. It elicited nothing within him. Here was Antonio, in the throes and dalliances of courtship, seeking to borrow money from this man he had mocked and beaten and decried for years. But upon this Shylock's visage, there was none of that monstrous self-righteousness that had characterized him as such.
It was a waste.
Inwardly, he felt a sense of perverted satisfaction at the thought that fifty-two years of Shakespeare's blasted life had amounted to mere recitations by rank amateurs in backwater drama clubs. Yet that satisfaction was swiftly wiped clean by the bitter reminder that for every dunce stumbling through 'hath not a jew eyes?' and 'adding colors to the chameleon', there was some thrice-decorated thespian that had breathed life into his wretched works.
No one would ever remember this.
They would remember the likes of Suchet. Or even Pacino.
And all I had was Rupert Everett's and Patrick Stewart's attempt to do me justice.
For a moment, he imagined some pretty thing bringing Titania – his shining star – to life.
He surprised himself at the rage that elicited.
From within an aisle seat of the Sobu High auditorium, the fairy prince kept reading.
'… there is an idea of a Patrick Bateman,' the familiar words cried out towards him, 'some kind of abstraction, but there is no real me, only an entity, something illusory, and though I can hide my cold gaze and you can shake my hand and feel flesh gripping yours and maybe you can even sense our lifestyles are probably comparable: I simply am not there. Myself is fabricated, an aberration. My personality is sketchy and unformed, my heartlessness goes deep and is persistent. My conscience, my pity, my hopes disappeared a long time ago in Faerie Britain if they ever did exist.
There are no more barriers to cross. All I have in common with the uncontrollable and the insane, the vicious and the evil, all the mayhem I have caused and my utter indifference toward it: I have now surpassed. My pain is constant and sharp and I do not hope for a better world for anyone.
In fact, I want my pain to be inflicted on others. I want no one to escape.
But even after admitting this - and I have, countless times, in just about every act I've committed - and coming face-to-face with these facts, there is no relief in the truth. I gain no deeper knowledge about myself, no new understanding can be extracted from my telling.
There has been no reason for me to tell you any of this.
This confession—
"That's enough."
"Hm?"
"Stop, stop, I think we've seen enough."
The lights came back on, and the head of the Sobu High's drama club rubbed her temple, composedly vexed.
"I understand this is just a rehearsal, but you need to put some effort into this, Yuuta. It's not enough to just say the lines: where's the emotion?"
"I did, Prez!"
"Making an angry face while reading your lines isn't enough, and besides, the scene we're in doesn't call for anger— I mean, the anger isn't meant to be out— " she paused, "You're not selling it, that's the problem."
"It's not like you have any clearer an image of what you want, I'm doing my best here."
At this, she darkened. "That, Yuuta, is the whole problem."
She turned around, searching the auditorium before her gaze landed upon the one student sitting away from everyone else.
"Oberon, could you put that book away and come down here, please?"
In unison, the club turned to look towards him, tittering and expectant.
Slowly, the blank look on his face disappeared, wrenching into pleasantry with ease.
"Yes, yes, your beloved fairy prince is here to take the stage!"
He bounded down the steps, gait of grace and gaiety, landing in front of the club president with a flourish.
"Now then, how can I help?"
"Yuuta seems lost about how to portray Shylock convincingly." The club president gestured towards the stage. "Show him how it's done."
"I'd rather not, though." Oberon made a face. "Isn't it always better for us to reach our own interpretation of the part we play? I think our dear Yuuta would grow into the character in time."
"It'd take years." The president sighed.
"I thought I made it clear that–"
"I am aware." She cut him off. "I'm not asking you to take over, am I? Just show him your interpretation. Go on."
"Yes, yes…" Oberon relented, leaping with a swing of his arms – his shoes clattering musically onto the stage – as he ignored the muted gasps behind him.
"So." He clapped his hands. "Straight to it, then. Shylock's a plum gig. Any role that requires such breadth of emotion! Generates such controversy on and off the stage! Is a role that most actors would kill for. It's important not to waste it, Yuuta."
"I haven't, though." He had the temerity to look sullen. "I'm trying."
"I see that, and it's good you're putting in whatever effort you can. But you're not convincing me, or the audience, that you understand who you are. Living things are ill-defined by their very nature. Characters in a play are comparatively simpler."
At this, a familiar glint danced behind his eyes.
"It's important to understand the part you play. Let that understanding bleed into every action and every word you say. The audience begins content in their own ignorance. They will only pay attention if they are made to believe that you know more about who you are than they do."
Not for the first time, it struck him how easy it was to command their attention by stating the obvious.
"What makes Shakespeare so blastedly enduring to this day is the universality of his works and his characters." Oberon went on. "And the universality within the character of Shylock isn't within his Jewishness, trying to emphasize that isn't going to be very rewarding; it's that he's an outsider."
He smiled with the air of one enjoying a private joke. "Simply put, Shylock's a loner. He's an outsider because he is a jew, or he's an outsider who is a jew, whatever interpretation you choose will affect the way that he carries himself. Make no mistake, Shylock's ethnicity is important to the play, but only in the sense that society never lets him forget that he is a Jew. Shylock is referred to by his name a grand total of six times, but as 'jew', twenty-two. If you focus your efforts on just that, some part of his character is lost."
"And what do outsiders do? They either try their best to assimilate themselves into a society that alienates them, or they rebel against it, they refuse to change who they are, for they do not believe they are in the wrong, so why should they change, when it is society that should change! Between these choices lies the answer in how your Shylock should speak: he should either speak the language better, noticeably better, than those around him, or in an accent that he sees no need to be rid of, for it would make no difference as to how he would be treated. Either way, your delivery needs to be markedly different from everyone else's, to emphasize the character's otherhood to the audience."
Oberon felt the gazes of everyone in the room as he stroked his chin, making his way onto the desk in the middle of the stage.
"The unjust treatment Shylock receives is painful, and pain becomes suffering when it is not validated by others. When one hesitates to validate your pain, you are likely to make a greater effort to express and justify it. You wallow. You suffer more. As Shylock eloquently puts, it becomes a badge of honor you flash in the vain hope people take notice and be shamed by. And there is always that ever-present impulse to just retaliate. All the while, like anyone who's been teased and bullied can attest to, you pretend that it does not affect you, you put on a face of serenity and calm, thinking it is water off the duck's back when it is anything but… that's gaman, in a way, too."
Someone laughs. He ignored them, sitting down, crossing one leg over the other, and continued.
"In the first scene, here is one of his chief tormentors, seeking to borrow money on behalf of one of his friends. A bully comes to you for help, a bully puts himself at your mercy, how would you feel? You've pictured this moment for a long time. You've prepared for it, the exact words for you to tell him to go to hell. You are wrestling with the urge to spit upon his face as he once did to you, nevermind that he would not understand the gravity of what you did, and would just dismiss your ugly actions as a product of who you are and represent."
And here, his face darkened.
"But with Shylock, the chance of money always wins out. It is his greed that tempers and dulls this sense of righteous indignation that the audience is enthralled by, that doesn't make him completely sympathetic. With every complaint and every injustice he faces, he would find a way to bring his finances into the limelight. When his daughter leaves him and converts, he finds the time to bring up the money and the diamonds she stole as well. And so, taking all of this into account…"
Oberon uncrossed his legs, leaning towards the desk, a hand upon his chin as the other flipped through an imaginary ledger.
He read, eyes roaming across the imaginary script – as a finger tapped loudly upon the desk: andante slowing to adagio – the beginnings of a frown clouding his features.
When he was sure that he had everyone's attention, he forced his features back into something placid and spoke.
"Signor Antonio," voice low, he turned back and held the frozen Yuuta under his gaze, "many a time and oft in the Rialto, you have rated me, about my moneys and my usances. Still, have I borne it with a patient shrug, for sufferance is the badge of all our tribe."
His features were tranquil, betrayed only by the smile that did not quite reach his eyes. "You call me… misbeliever, cut-throat dog, and spit upon my Jewish gaberdine, and all for use of that which is mine own."
He heard the door to the auditorium open and close, but he ignored it, taking care to relax further into his seat.
"Well then," an easy-going lilt to his voice, "it now appears you need my help."
He smiled, a thin and terrible thing, "Go to, then; you come to me, and you say 'Shylock, we would have moneys'. You say so," he nodded, features mocking and voice high with condescension, "you, that did void your rheum upon my beard, and foot me as you spurn a stranger cur over your threshold: moneys is your suit."
Oberon lifted his palms heavenward. "What should I say to you?" He muttered, features disconcertingly dull. "Should I not say 'Hath a dog money? Is it possible a cur… can lend three thousand ducats?' Or shall I bend low," he tilted his head down, "and in a bondman's key, with bated breath and whispering 'umbleness, say this; 'Fair sir," he simpered, "you spat on me on Wednesday last; You spurn'd me such a day; another time you called me dog; and for these courtesies…" he laid a palm onto his chest, "I'll lend you thus much moneys'? Hm?"
He affixed Yuuta with a dull glare for a few moments longer, before his features bled back into something blank.
"... I'd play him something like that, I guess."
The spell broke, then came the smattering of applause, and like any performer worth their salt Oberon made a show of bowing dramatically then half-heartedly gesturing towards them to stop, but it was not the first time Oberon had been called to give a demonstration and it would not be the last.
This too was routine.
"Thank you, thank you. No need for all that, this is all I can provide." Oberon smiled beatifically. "We should be encouraging to Yuuta and the actual cast as they prepare for the grand performance soon."
"As stimulating as this little scene is, Oberon, I'm going to have to cut this short."
It was then that he registered the newcomer in the room, and instinctively fought back a tick of irritation. "Hiratsuka-sensei." He waved, beaming. "Look, everyone! Here comes another soul seeking to find and lose themselves in the performing arts. Here, we welcome everyone. The Sobu High auditorium is made brighter by your presence."
The crowd tittered, even as Shizuka Hiratsuka glowered.
"Cut the crap, sonny," the teacher barked as she made her way down the aisle, her lab coat billowing behind, "get your ass in the staff room. Now."
Oberon sighed. "That's all very well and good, sensei, but I'm afraid we are knee-deep in rehearsals for The Merchant of Venice-"
"Which you refuse to participate in." She interrupted.
"-and I'm afraid that my expertise is still needed. Perhaps we could do this another time–"
"Don't think I won't drag you there myself."
The fairy prince made a show of affront. "Now, now, there's no need to get violent. If you keep that up you'll develop frown lines." He leapt off the stage. "It appears I'm needed elsewhere. You can do it without me! I believe in you–"
"Oberon." The president rubbed her head tiredly. "Just go."
"Right!" He jauntily followed Hiratsuka out the door.
"Lights, please!" The club president called behind her, before turning to address the room. "We're redoing the scene, everyone in position, please."
As the characters on stage gathered their bearings and wearily made their way backstage, the treasurer had a question of his own.
"Prez. If he's so much better, why don't you just give him the part?"
"He doesn't want it."
"Hm?"
The president sighed. "He doesn't care for Shakespeare's tragedies." She took note of his incredulous look. "I know, I don't believe him myself, but it's not for me to pry, and I can't very well force him. By his own words, he'd only be willing to entertain the idea of playing a part in Twelfth Night."
The treasurer blinked. "What, not even in A Midsummer Night's Dream?"
She shook her head. "You try being named after a character and being asked to portray them. That's the one he objects to most of all."
He mulled over her words, uncomprehending, as the lights surrounding the stage dimmed once more.
"Alright." She steeled herself. "We're rolling!"
Spring was too lovely a time to be spent in the staff room, but Oberon supposed it could have been worse.
Apathetically, he watched as his Modern Japanese teacher lit a cigarette, one hand flicking the zippo shut, the other dragging the ashtray onto the sofa's armrest, before she returned her attention to him.
She exhaled.
"Do you know why I called you here, Oberon?"
To her credit, the teacher's tone held no trace of reproach, but that did little to improve his mood.
"I'm glad you asked." He smiled placidly. "It just so happens I've been mulling over that very question myself … well, I suppose if it was a serious matter, my homeroom teacher would be the one speaking to me, and not you, so…" he shrugged. "Am I being suspected of plagiarism?"
"If you were, it would be so much simpler."
She brought forth a stack of papers, lifting one up for him to see.
"This is the workplace tour survey form you were all told to fill out."
"So it is."
"You've listed your prospective career as an actor, your prospective workplace as 'wherever the stage is', and your reasons for your choice as 'Res Ipsa Loquitur'."
"The thing speaks for itself." Oberon dutifully translated.
She narrowed her eyes. "Does it?"
"Well, if you'd want me to be pedantic, it'd probably be a cultural center or a theater troupe. I doubt Atsugi-sensei actually wants to read a long description of why I'm venturing into the performing arts, so I kept things simple." Oberon gestured towards himself. "I have nothing but my looks, I'm in the drama club, anyone who's heard of me would reach the same conclusion."
"And here I thought you would have ventured into becoming an idol."
Oberon laughed. "What, and forsake an education at my age? To sing and dance and lie to people telling them that I adore them? I'd rather not make a career out of my hobbies, so no. You'd sooner see me in Ikebukuro before that happens."
She gave him a withering look. "That's not funny."
"Right, forgive me, that was in poor taste."
She sighed, flicking gray flecks of cigarette ash onto black ceramic.
"Dubious career choices aside," Hiratsuka-sensei went on, "you've left the section on who's accompanying you completely blank."
Oberon blinked. "... I was of the impression that we have until the end of the week to finalize our groups."
"You do."
"Then I'm afraid I don't see the problem."
"Do you even have an idea of who's going to follow you to the theater?"
"I don't see how it matters." Oberon shrugged. "There's always people who have nothing better to do and would jump at the chance to follow me. By Friday my group will be formed on its own, there's no issue."
"There." She pointed towards him. "That's the issue, right there."
Before Oberon could elaborate she took out another sheet of paper from the stack.
"This," she went on, "is the essay your homeroom teacher assigned, for you to reflect upon your high school life."
"I see it. So it is. And I'm beginning to wonder just why a teacher who's not part of my homeroom has such access–"
"And I have to say, Oberon, this is the most impressive piece of bullshit I've seen in quite some time."
Oberon closed his mouth.
"... I don't follow." He lied.
"No?" Hiratsuka-sensei lifted the essay up. "'Youth is wonderful. It is a joyous time full of excitement and splendor. The springtime of youth is wasted on the young, but as an old soul myself, everyday I thank whatever higher power there is that of all places I could be, I am here to experience the trappings and excesses of youth with my classmates whom I cherish very much. I wish these days would never end, so happy that I am, but youth's a stuff will not endure.' "
She flicked the paper away, tossing it on the coffee table between them.
Oberon shrugged. "... Introspection is often difficult when you're in the midst of things."
"Your youth is reaching its adolescence. That's no excuse."
"Even so, there's nothing inherently wrong with the essay, is there?" Oberon retorted. "As far as I see it, this is a model answer that no one can take offense with."
"It's hollow and full of empty platitudes."
The student frowned. "Well, that's not for you to judge, is it?"
"As it turns out, it is." Hiratsuka-sensei crossed her legs. "A few weeks ago, I called Hikigaya in on a similar issue."
Ah.
So that's what this was all about.
"You mean the misanthropic diatribe about how youth is inherently evil and that everyone is phony?"
Hiratsuka blinked. "You've read it?"
"No, but it's not difficult to imagine given his character." Oberon smiled. "He's very easy to read, that one."
"Quite." Hiratsuka huffed. "Anyways, as I called him into this office to get him to rewrite the damn thing, do you know what he said?"
"I can't imagine what."
"He said that it's unfair that he's being made to do all of this when your essay was probably just as full of shit as his."
God damn him.
"Well," Oberon scratched his head, "we don't talk much, he doesn't know me very well–"
"He went on further and said you were just as much of a loner as he was, if not more."
…
For a self-professed loner, Hikigaya really had a bad habit of running his mouth, didn't he?
One of these days, Oberon thought, he really ought to give him a piece of his mind: maybe slip a praying mantis into a can of Max Coffee.
"I didn't think much of it at first – I didn't need all of the extra trouble as it was – but I've been observing you these past few weeks."
He pretended that this came as a shock.
"Whenever you can, you avoid conversing with people."
"That's not—" Oberon didn't have to fake his affront. "I can carry on a conversation just fine, thank you very much. Everyone wants to chat with me and I'm always the life of the party during class!"
"You seclude yourself at lunch every day and eat with Hikigaya outside the special-use building."
"... It has a lovely sea breeze. And the door to the roof is locked."
Not that it could have realistically stopped him.
"You go straight home after school after your club activities and avoid your classmates when they try to hang out with you afterwards."
"It might have escaped your notice, but that's what's meant to happen after school, Hiratsuka-sensei." He muttered flatly.
"Oberon." Hiratsuka exhaled, a cloud of smoke wafting out towards the window. "At this rate, you're going to go through high school without having a single meaningful relationship with anyone. Can you see at all how that's a matter of concern?"
The teen made a face.
"Sensei. If the school takes upon itself to examine the veracity and quality of our relationships, we might as well all pack up and go home."
"Aren't you living by yourself these days? That can't be very interesting."
"Yes, but at the very least, it's mine." Oberon crossed his arms. "And I'm proud of it."
Hiratsuka studied him, even as Oberon refused to look away.
He had done nothing wrong, and he refused to let this woman insinuate otherwise.
His teacher sighed. "This is proving to be more difficult than I imagined."
"Sensei. I am in school, I have had employment, I am on amicable terms with everyone, I am not in the go-home club, and I have a clear vision of my future career path, which is more than what most can say of themselves." He gestured towards himself. "I am a normal, functioning member of the human race, and there's no way anyone can prove otherwise. I don't see what else you want me to do."
"I want you to be present. I want you to truly live your life. I want you to be better." She said gently. "Why have you given up on yourself already?"
His right eye twitched, even as his features went blank once more, scrutinizing the woman in front of him with detached irritation.
Then he spoke.
"It is my understanding that the teachers who take an interest in their students' affairs hope that they can live vicariously through us, to recapture some part of their youth that they've overlooked and missed." Oberon mused. "Is this what's happening here?"
"Wha–"
"Because I never thought you had any problems in that department." He went on, unperturbed, a smile on his face. "I have always held you in high regard, sensei. I've personally always assumed that you remained single at your age by choice so you can afford all of your little vices, what with all of the smoking, the drinking and the Aston Martin. Truly, I see you as a role model in every way, shape and form."
Her hands rose and made gripping motions, but she quickly threw them back down. It did not escape his attention how she'd inadvertently gripped the cigarette tighter upon his words.
He didn't want to say all of those things, really, but honestly, his mood was foul, and turnabout's fair play.
He waited for the poor woman to collect herself.
"... You really are similar." She finally said, unamused.
"What?" Oberon blinked. "To Hikigaya?"
She ignored him, choosing to flick her cigarette butt onto the ashtray in silence.
"Well, that settles things." She stood. "I was going to handle this matter delicately, but honestly right now I could give a damn. Here's your punishment. In your quest to form meaningful relationships with your peers, I've decided that you're going to join the service club."
Oberon blinked.
"I what?"
"You heard me." Hiratsuka brushed him off. "It's bad enough I had one of your type exit this school unchanged as it was, but I refuse to let it happen a second time. You're going into the Service Club, and by helping others, you'll become a better version of yourself."
"What, just because I got a little personal with you you're press-ganging me into the modern-day equivalent of the Breakfast Club?" Oberon waved his arms. "You're allowed to poke and prod around about my purported lack of meaningful relationships but I cannot return the favor? How is that fair?"
"I'm your sensei, brat." Hiratsuka crossed her arms. "And life isn't fair, get used to it."
"Believe me, I do not need any reminder of that."
Hiratsuka huffed. "Besides, I don't see the issue. You're not taking part in the drama club's current play for whatever reason, and you know Hikigaya well enough that it shouldn't be an issue."
Oberon grimaced. "So you're forcing me into the breakfast club just so I can make friends?"
"The Service Club is not a place for you to play friendsies." She barked. "Go somewhere else for that wishy-washy teenage nonsense. You are going to join the club to change yourself for the better. It is not a place for you to get complacent and lie to yourself."
Oberon went blank.
That was never a problem to begin with.
I lie to everyone else, but I never lie to myself.
"Besides, you messed with the bull, Oberon," she raised her hand in a rocker's sign against her head, "and you're getting the horns, buddy."
"So it is the Breakfast Club, after all." Oberon scoffed, halfway amused.
It seemed there was nothing for it.
"Fine, fine. It's not as if I really have any real qualms about joining anyway." Oberon stood. "It'll just be another place to kill time. I just wanted to see all the drama play out from an outsider's point of view, is all."
Hiratsuka squinted.
"You're going to have to fix that mindset about yourself soon, Oberon." She placed a hand on his shoulder, expression soft. "You are present, you are not just an observer. You have a part to play in this life of ours too, you know."
Did he, though?
Oberon wasn't so sure.
He belonged to a story that had long since ended.
He was never meant to be here in the first place, after all.
Still, he quietly followed Hiratsuka as they made their way out of the room.
In the burgeoning romantic comedy that was the service club, a liar was about to take the stage.
(A/N)
I got nothing. I don't know why this exists.
I told myself that I'm fine with just Actually Satan, but shit happened and here I am.
Not dead, by the way. The draft is halfway there, I swear. But stuff happened, and in my break from writing and consequent full betawork for Xolef, I found my writing style has changed somewhat, and that made picking up from where I left off difficult, in that the words don't feel right anymore.
But I need to start writing again, slowly but surely, so I'm trying something completely different.
Oberon is one of those characters that is a joy to read yet a bastard to actually put onto paper, to do justice. It's easy to imagine him immediately choosing violence upon whatever world he ends up in, but that would ignore the fact that simply isn't his way of doing things. Even in LB6 when it's his job to do so, he's more of a behind the scenes, manipulative bastard. And it's important to note he hated his duty, and subsequently himself for it. Him appearing to Chaldea was suicide by cop… or murder-suicide by cop, given the events of the final act, but let's not quibble.
Were I to write an Oberon isekai, ideally I would like to focus less about his powers but more of his character, and his viewing of life through the lens of a play, always an observer, never a participant, in a world where he finally doesn't have to do his duty of destruction.
Between Oregairu or Oshi no Ko, I chose the former.
And since the entire notion of his search for Titania can be boiled down to "what sort of woman could love a lying piece of shit like me?"
The answer, of course, is another piece of shit.
Thanks to Fallacies and the Greggster for betaing.