Natsume Sakasaki

CANON HISTORY: Natsume was doomed to a life of being an oddball the moment he was born. His mother was a fortune teller of some notoriety, and his father was, by Natsume's own description, a bit of a megalomaniac, though not a bad guy. As if having at least one parent with an unusual profession wasn't enough, Natsume was made to dress up and pretend to be a little girl as part of a performance to aid his mother's work. It meant he spent a lot of his early days having to pretend to be something he wasn't. It also meant that later in life he had a strong aversion to crossdressing.

In his younger years his parents' work kept the family on the move, and Natsume has lived all over the country of Japan. His mother was never a fan of swindlers, and at times would lend her assistance even to people who could not pay her prices. One such group of people were the Aoba family, who owned a small training facility for children with aspirations to sing and dance. Natsume, still disguised as a girl during his time here, quickly became the star of the studio before his parents moved onto the next town.

His family finally settled him into one spot once he reached high school, and Natsume began attending Yumenosaki Private Academy, a high school that specialized in training up and coming idols. While Natsume's interests trended towards his mother's profession, his father's dreams of grandeur had him pushing his son into taking the world by storm, by combining an idol's charm with a fortune teller's knowledge.

It was at this school that Natsume began to make friends. In his first year his main group of friends were a group of upperclassmen: Shu Itsuki, Rei Sakuma, Kanata Shinkai, and Wataru Hibiki. The five friends became known as the "five oddballs" of the school, for their quirky personalities and strong potential. Natsume respected all of his upperclassmen, but held Wataru in especially high regard for his own talents and connection to magic.

Things seemed to be going just fine for them, up until a boy named Eichi Tenshouin, who had been the one to coin the name oddballs for them, decided it was time to rip apart the group's reputation. You see, Yumenosaki's reputation had been quickly falling to pieces, and Eichi decided to build it back up, and establish his own reputation in the school. For that he needed a scapegoat. The five oddballs became both his creation (of sorts) and his sacrificial lambs. With a little careful slander, Eichi managed to tank the public view of the five oddballs, and destroy the group to raise his own esteem. One by one, Eichi started to publicly defeat the oddballs, humiliating them and establishing himself as a hero and real idol at the school.

Natsume's upperclassmen friends did their best to protect Natsume from all of this, but in trying to protect him they also kept him locked out of the loop. Unfortunately for Natsume, Eichi's scheming ended successfully for him. Wataru, Eichi's final opponent, let Eichi defeat him for the sake of remaking Yumenosaki and allowing other student's dreams to flourish.

For awhile Natsume laid low, but he wasn't content to let Eichi win his game and rest in peace. In his second year Natsume established his own three member group called Switch. His first recruit was someone who Natsume had a complicated history with named Tsumugi Aoba. Tsumugi had been the son of the woman who owned the idol training school Natsume attended in his youth, as well as a member of Eichi's group who helped tear Natsume's friend group to pieces, before Eichi had cut Tsumugi loose as though their friendship was nothing. The second boy was a new first year named Sora Harukawa, who was a bright boy with synesthesia.

With his new team in place, Natsume took offers to perform at small events, often outside of the school itself, to build up Switch's reputation. He vowed to take Eichi's team, Fine, down the way he had taken down the five oddballs. Natsume's personal dream was not realized, but in his second year his friend, Subaru, and Subaru's team called Trickstar managed to defeat Fine.
CANON PERSONALITY: To say Natsume has a difficult personality is a severe understatement. Natsume is teasing and stubborn at the best of times, and outright belligerent and volatile at the worst. When someone sets off Natsume's temper, he is not against hitting, kicking and throwing objects at them in an attempt to wound them. While he might not go so far as to actually seriously injure someone, he's definitely got no issues with giving certain people a little minor injury here and there. He is, however, very picky about who gets the brunt of his agitation, and who he treats with something almost akin to kindness. For example, for the small sin of trying to talk to him when Natsume is concentrating, Tsumugi will receive a kick in the stomach. On the other hand, Sora can outright call Natsume out on delicate feelings, and get a mildly exasperated scolding for his trouble.

What kind of feelings are those exactly? Well the biggest one is his loneliness. While Natsume was able to travel the country with his parents, they didn't often have time for him. On top of that, the constant moving didn't lend itself well to Natsume making lasting friendships. Natsume grew up a relatively lonely boy, and now that he has a small cluster of friends who care deeply about him, the loneliness flares up when they're too busy for him. He also gets jealous relatively easily, and feels slighted when left out of group activities.

Natsume isn't great at expressing his hurt feelings in a mature manner though. There are very few times when Natsume is willing to tell people directly how they upset him, but usually he will act like a passive aggressive dickhead when he's upset with someone. He's also not always the best at expressing positive feelings either. There are only a small number of people who can receive direct and honest praise from him, and everyone else gets backhanded compliments or outright insults. Natsume tends to have complicated relationships with people, and this makes it hard for him to show honest concern for them. While Natsume will go out of his way to try and do what's best for his friends, he will still cover it up with pretend or exaggerated agitation. Softer feelings have to be covered up, and vulnerabilities must not be seen.

So, what better way to cover them up than lying about them, right? And if there is one thing that Natsume is great at, it's lying. Natsume is bizarrely open about the fact that he's a liar as well, and it makes it difficult to decipher what outrageous things he says are real or not. It allows Natsume to hide things in plain sight, including his thoughts and feelings.

It also makes it easier to hold people at an arm's length. For a guy who feels so lonely all the time, it's funny how quick Natsume is to push other people away. Despite being on the same team with Tsumugi, he's constantly cruel and outright abusive at times. Despite his longstanding friendship with Subaru, he won't even allow the other boy to have his telephone number. Natsume is a tough nut to crack, which makes it even more unfortunate that he gets so pissy when excluded from things. Especially unfortunate, because Natsume gets agitated when people try to drag him into social settings as well. He often prefers to be on his own, and it's not anyone else's fault that he is so full of contradictions.

He also enjoys skipping classes. Natsume is well known for his constant truancy, and being unavailable when people are looking for him. He believes time is a valuable resource, and doesn't want to waste it on something he feels will not be useful or enjoyable to him (though can waste it on frivolous things like video games without a second though). Natsume errs on the rebellious side, and will not let people trap him into routines that don't suit him.

Fortunately, he gets away with it as far as his schoolwork is concerned, because Natsume is an incredibly bright boy. He can learn an entire semester's worth of material through reading before the semester even starts. His intelligence isn't always applied well, however, and his interests tend to lead him down some questionable paths. Natsume enjoys science, the occult, actual cults, and anything secretive and unseen by the masses. Unsurprisingly considering his interests, Natsume also has a big mischievous streak. He enjoys a good prank from time to time, but more than anything he really likes harassing people via the spoken word.

As if the amount of lying Natsume does wasn't bad enough, he also speaks in a roundabout and sometimes difficult to follow way. Natsume is big on not saying exactly what he means, or hiding his true intentions behind layers of metaphor and sidetracking. He also believes in the power of words, and is convinced that there are spells you can place on people based on carefully selected word choice and stress. To no one's surprise, Natsume attempts to exploit words to his benefit relatively frequently.

He's also not opposed to treating his friends and classmates as if they were case studies to be observed, and isn't exactly against performing (mostly sociological!) experiments on other people. He's a naturally curious person, and will pursue knowledge that interests him like a dog with a bone.

Despite how he treats people, Natsume is a very loyal guy. He cares deeply about his friends, and will do almost anything for them. He's also incredibly vindictive towards anyone that hurts them, and considering everything else I've said about Natsume's personality? He's not the most pleasant person to have angry at you.

Normally, however, Natsume is a bit of a flirt on top of his other forms of teasing. It's never meant seriously, but he enjoys coy nicknames for people he likes (not necessarily romantically), and jokes that exaggerate the nature of their relationship. He has an easy, bantering repertoire with people who will indulge him.

Finally, Natsume sees himself as the hero of his own story. He's an odd guy, and relishes this fact, but he will not settle for being the villain he was once made out to be. He values his unique personality above all else, and wants to be recognized for it. He's determined to stay true to himself as he makes a climb to the top.
SKILLS/ABILITIES: Natsume is a fantastic liar, and has a decent knowledge of chemistry and magic. Whether that magic works or not is up for debate, but his knowledge on the subject is extensive. He's also a decent fortune teller, though not on par with his mother.

Outside of that, Natsume possesses the normal skills an idol would have, including singing, dancing, and the ability to woo a crowd when on stage.