Kichiro Koizumi

Kichiro Koizumi

PERSONALITY

Kichiro has an amazing level of tolerance towards other people, and its hard to make him outright hate someone or want to see them suffer. That being said, those who do will be greeted with violence do to his protectiveness over his loved ones. In fact, some could say he's a very possessive over others who are close enough to him to deem family. This is not to be taken lightly, however, as he is independent and does not rely on other people. In fact, he refuses to use others as a crutch, and will stubbornly try to do as much on his own as possible regardless of the consequences.

Despite this, he is not arrogant by any means and rarely, if ever, gloats about anything. He doesn't like jumping to conclusions, and can sometimes come across as meek due to this kind of nature he exhibits. He often puts the needs of others before his own, having a more fatherly nature towards those near, and always has the best interest of others at heart. Even so, he's still stern and assertive by nature with an incredibly dominant aura to him that demands respect of others. His leadership of his gang shows this forthright, as its very rare that Kichiro doesn't know what he's doing. Even then he's still headstrong, and will keep a thick head about things- making it hard to change his mind, and leading him to challenge those who deem authority over him.

He's vibrant amount of energy radiating off of him seems to drown out the fact that he doesn't like interacting with other people, in fact he's incredibly antisocial. However, he's still willing to spike conversations and get-out-there rather than brood and hope he's not noticed. Despite this, once closer one would easily pick up on how reserved he keeps himself, not liking to voice his emotions out loud and consistently bottling things up rather than letting them out. He's not very trusting of other people, and it takes quite a while to get him to fully accept someone as someone he can allow close to him. Similarly, its very easy to break his trust if you aren't within his family, and any intentional betrayal will be met with harsh behavior.

One thing to note too is his pyromaniac-level tendencies of arson, despite being ultimately good-natured and playful towards others with a passionate heart Kichiro's an antagonist at heart. Being antagonistic, he's not above illegal activity or violence as a whole, being long desensitized to death. Despite this, he still manages to remain dignified to a very respectable level.

APPEARANCE

HISTORY

Born as the first son to a very wealthy family, Kichiro Koizumi also had the distinct privilege of having been brought into the world with a fraternal twin sister. The two siblings grew up very close, sharing many attributes with one another to the point they were practically inseparable, despite their non-identical status. Several years later, Kichiro would come to have a younger brother, but he was never fortunate enough to develop a bond as intimate or personal as the one Kichiro had with his sister. Even to this day, the two remain estranged.

Though the implications weren't apparent at first, Kichiro was little more than a trophy child for his parents, who came from a long-established generation of people with close ties to the Yakuza and were more than eager to control his life at every angle. Any semblance of pride and accomplishment that stemmed from his upbringing was nothing but a business investment, for Kichiro was being groomed to become the ideal representative for their so-called "family". Consequently, this meant that Kichiro would grow up never truly knowing the joys of friendship with anyone beyond his little sister. Emotionally cold and distant, just what his parents desired.

This all changed when Kichiro encountered a boy named Hideaki, who—against all rhyme and reason—could chip away the impenetrable walls and social barriers that had been carefully placed into Kichiro's heart by his father and mother. Unable to resist his warmth and happiness, Kichiro allowed Hideaki into his life of his own volition, and their relationship blossomed into something both innocent and beautiful. Kichiro became confident and carefree, both with himself and around others, and he allowed his emotions to be expressed without restraint. So long as Hideaki was there, Kichiro could be his authentic self, and as they spent more time with each other, the idea that he could unshackle the chains of destiny and run free seemed closer to reality.

His parents, however, were privy to this sudden change in Kichiro and saw Hideaki as a splinter in their plans to keep their heir on the straight and narrow path. Together, they enacted a scheme of convenience that Kichiro would never understand was, in their eyes, in his best interests; one that would ultimately come to shape the foundations of who he was meant to become, for better or worse.

Under the false pretense of glowing approval for their son's elevated sense of self-esteem, Kichiro's parents gave him permission to invite Hideaki over to spend the night, a gesture Kichiro naively accepted without hesitation. What began as a simple race with Hideaki back to his own abode swiftly became an event that changed Kichiro's life forever, as he was the second person to arrive, but did so just in time to witness an act of unimaginable tragedy.

At the quiet behest of his twin sister, Kichiro was summoned inside, and the reasons for her silence were made transparent to him as well: Hideaki had been bound and gagged by his parents, who stood menacingly over him with knives in their hand and callous intent in their eyes. The sound of Hideaki's muffled screams echoed throughout the household as they stepped forward and kneeled down – and everything fell ominously silent.

Consumed with anguish and terror at what he witnessed, a tearful Kichiro desperately snuck his way upstairs and used the nearest phone to call the police, but by the time they arrived on the scene, Hideaki was nowhere to be found. Not even a speck of blood was left behind, but even Kichiro was fully aware of just how meticulous, how... experienced his parents were. Panic became dread, and eventually turned to guilt in Kichiro's heart, which festered and fermented into utter rage upon coming to realize that the law would never bring retribution upon the true perpetrators of this atrocious crime; they were just as quick to leave as they were to appear, their silence paid for in full by the patriarch of the Koizumi household.

The worst possible scenario had seemingly come to pass, and Kichiro could do nothing to stop it from happening. He never saw Hideaki again.

No longer concerned over the possibility of external interference in Kichiro's life, his parents cruelly refused him the privilege to attend the boy's funeral, much to Kichiro's ever-swelling anger. Not even his sister, his only remaining pillar in this cold and harsh world, could support or comfort him through the angst that threatened to consume his every waking moment.

Their words stung more terribly than any insect ever could. His parents behaved as if Hideaki never existed. Kichiro's heart grew numb from the pain as he led himself to believe they simply lacked empathy for his plight, but this was not entirely the case; it was a decision influenced within the deepest echelons of the clan, as their issues were of far greater priority than whatever struggles they suffered on the individual level. Hatred was, ultimately, not their motivator for "disposing" of Hideaki.

The sheer simplicity of this truth disgusted Kichiro, the utter pragmatism of it made him sick. He became hardened, desensitized to the pointlessness of it all, and made an attempt on his own life in a desperate bid to end the heartbreak, to draw the torment that would come from trying to live out the remainder of his days without Hideaki to a permanent close. But when a shipping order for a suspiciously large volume of pool cleaner was discovered, his parents thwarted Kichiro's plan and belittled their "chosen heir" for his cowardice.

Eventually, Kichiro found a way out. He ran away from home in an act of abject defiance, turned to the streets and enlisted in a rival gang to cover his tracks and keep away from those who wanted nothing more than to use him as a tool for their own ends. This was a move that yielded a great many benefits for Kichiro; his exposure to the inner workings of the Yakuza gave him the insights necessary to rapidly climb the ranks and secure a position of power for himself. In doing so, however, he turned to abusing drugs and alcohol as a means of coping with the anguish of losing Hideaki, where he developed an everlasting fascination with fire; the simple act of watching as transient embers dance in the air, combined with their ambient warmth and resplendent light, turned into a form of comfort for the otherwise stone-hearted Kichiro.

As irony would have it, though, his newfound interest in nature's most primal force gave way to a close encounter with a denizen of its elemental counterpart; Kichiro would find himself on the receiving end of a shark attack, pulled beneath the tides by its jagged teeth. But rather than fight for survival, he took it as another possible window to escape the crushing agony of living without Hideaki, and closed his eyes in preparation for the inevitable. He was rescued from the creature's bite, however, and remained in the hospital for a length of time to recover from the terrible injuries he received. Part of him wished the shark was more efficient in its attempts—just as his parents were with Hideaki—however he came out of the experience with an even greater number of scars, now both mental and physical.

Many more years would pass before Kichiro finally reached the breaking point. After taking part in a drinking contest, he wound up collapsing from intoxication in an alley by the night's conclusion, hoping he had consumed enough to poison his liver and slip past the event horizon once and for all. But this was not meant to be, not just yet. Kichiro would be visited by hallucinations of his beloved Hideaki and, in the throes of drunken stupor, begged for him to return from beyond the veil of eternity and take away the suffering.

Perhaps as a likely consequence of his alcohol-induced delusions, Kichiro was compelled by the vision of Hideaki to keep moving forward, to be strong, to live on for his sake. Trying desperately as he did to refuse such a blasphemous suggestion, not even Kichiro could deny the bitter truth of his situation: Hideaki was no longer here, but he did not need to endure such needless suffering to keep his memory alive. A flash of bright light was all it took for Kichiro to return to consciousness with his eyes full of tears, where he discovered himself in the back of an emergency ambulance.

Kichiro resolved to finally let go.

Some time afterward, Kichiro volunteered to put himself in a recovery program as a means of combating his addictions with drugs and alcohol. These first steps were the most necessary, as they marked a period of great upward growth for the young man. Once he became clean enough, Kichiro returned to his gang a changed person, pouring his efforts into bettering himself and his compatriots rather than tapping them for the resources he once used to stave off his inner demons. Eventually, he proved competent enough to take on a leadership role when it became known to Kichiro that his father and mother had surreptitiously bit the bullet during a mission gone awry, an incident he was more than willing to sweep under the rug with tact and grace.

Inheriting a cut of his family fortune, Kichiro used the money to finish his schooling and took up a part-time job as a reminder to stay humble toward himself, having walked many thousand miles in the shoes of the poor and destitute who lacked such opportunities. Though it was a double life of illegal activity and honest work, it was Kichiro's chance to start over fresh, to live out his days his own way, to guide his destiny with his own hand.

As it was meant to be.