Warning: beware unmarked spoilers!
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Main Characters
Yoshino Somei
Granddaughter of Osaka yakuza lieutenant, high school student, fiance of Kirishima.
- Cool Big Sis: To Shouma.
- In the side story Futari wa Teihen, Yoshino follows Shouma, who leaves the Somei house abruptly after detoxing and heads for the home he shares with his father. Shouma had expressed indifference about living with the Someis but after observing how his father treats him Yoshino offers to kill the man, who is a pretty horrible person, saying that she'd take the fall for Shouma since she's younger (13 to his 15) and would only get juvie. When Shouma balks, Yoshino announces he's coming back to the Somei house with her. In extras and canon this leads to a relationship where Yoshino is clearly the more mature of the two— making sure he eats and takes medicine, texting him about going to class, etc.
- Cute Clumsy Girl: During the Osaka arc, Yoshino runs away from a pursuing thug, reserves a bicycle and attempts to crash into the guy to throw him off Kirishima's tail. She misses...
- Death Glare: Invoked when any of the men in her life are being idiots. Which they frequently are.
- Took a Level in Badass: After Kirishima throws her over, Yoshino disappears for two weeks and comes back to school with a bag of cash that she says she got for selling a kidney - since he told her to sell her body. She drops it on Kirishima's desk with the invitation to do his worst, and warns the girls who accosted her for her connection to Kirishima that she'll take them down with her if they continue to bully her. Kirishima responds by professing his undying love for her.
- It turns out that she went to Tsubaki, whose mother's lover is the head of a chain of 24hr clinics, for help with selling her kidney to spite Kirishima. Organ sales are generally illegal in Japan, but Tsubaki empathized with her wish to save face and instead took a lot of Yoshino's blood. So much blood that she nearly died. Pride makes people do foolish things.
- Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?: Loathes hospitals. It's yet to be made clear why, but the girl just does not like them.
Kirishima Miyama
Grandnephew of Tokyo yakuza lieutenant, high school student, part time muscle man, fiance of Yoshino.
- Abuse Mistake: Everyone thinks Kirishima was bullied in elementary school, including his great aunt Sumire, who is basically the only adult who really cares about him but it turns out he documented his abuse at the hands of his bullies because he was enjoying it. He goaded the kids into beating him up and the whole thing was only revealed when he got impatient and tried to rile them up more. He ended up hurting them far worse, getting expelled, precipitating his parents' divorce, and eventually ending up living with his great uncle as a result. Something he chose and was not forced into, as was previously thought.
- Beware the Nice Ones: At their first meeting ahead of Yoshino's move, Kirishima seems like a very sweet, together guy. But then he goes nuke on a bunch of guys who were putting the moves on Yoshino, and when she responds by being understandably nervous about him touching her, he tells her he's tired of pretending to be nice and tells her to either sell her body in one of the Miyama group's brothels and make him some money, or go back to Osaka because he's tired of her. Ouch?
- Clingy Jealous Guy: Kirishima goes with Yoshino everywhere to the point where she calls him a stalker, but it turns out it's all a ruse. Yoshino's grandfather hired Kirishima to be both her bodyguard and teach her a lessoni n manners. Yoshino apparently has a bad personality, according to her grandfather, who tells Kirishima to freak her out enough to get her to flee back to Osaka. It backfires spectacularly when Yoshino not only gives as good as she gets, but Kirishima falls in love with her for real.
- The Cracker: Kirishima clones Yoshino's phones and turns on the GPS, plants a GPS in her electronic dictionary, and plants trackers on her. This seems pretty creepy behavior until the reader learns he's protecting her from becoming collateral damage to her grandfather's rise in power. She's not aware of Kirishima's role as her bodyguard so all this registers as stalking.
- Death Seeker: In the first volume after Kirishima drops his façade he suggests Yoshino either prostitute herself to make him some money, and then encourages her to go back to Osaka and report that he did because it might start a war in which he'd be killed which is something he's expecting because he's a pretty unpopular guy, but also Renji basically told him if something happened to Yoshino Kirishima would die.
- Hormone-Addled Teenager: According to the artist extras, Kirishima lost his virginity at 12 and has 4 or 5 older girls on the side, which is in keeping with the behavior of yakuza members but also might be an effect of trauma he experienced as a preteen. In canon he has at least one 'sex friend', a gravure model named Ayano, who has dialog (Volume 2).
- No Social Skills: Kids whose part-time job is beating up thugs for protection money don't tend to be well-adjusted.
- As a child Kirishima is shown to have a strong sense of justice, and people admire him for his looks, but he seems to lack any sort of socialization and doesn't know how to further relationships with his peers beyond basic conversations about school or the weather. When his dad asks if he can meet Kirishima's friends at a classroom open house, Kirishima is deeply confused because he has 'classmates', but that's it. He actually lies about his birthday to one of his classmates who tries to get close to him. So awkward.
- Kirishima's dad suggests he 'make friends' with people who are like him, so Kirishima basically recruits one of his judo competitors to be his friend by making the kid a sadist - taunting the kid in order to get him to beat him up. Which goes about as well as one can expect. Kirishima tells Yoshino he tried to make a friend but it 'didn't go well'.
- Kirishma literally asked his great uncle how to make friends, and when Gaku told him the only kid Kirishima's age he knew was Renji's grandkid - someone Kirishima would not be able to meet unless he was involved in the yakuza somehow - Kirishima asked if he could live with Gaku so that he could meet her. 'Her' turned out to be Yoshino.
- Stepford Smiler: Kirishima smiles. A lot. And it's not because he's happy.
- Troubling Unchildlike Behavior: Lots of stuff going on there. Aside from the latent masochism, Kirishima basically made himself into a junior yakuza just to get close to Yoshino. He spent years on this - getting the tattoos, cultivating contacts and relationships with older women (which is implied to be something like compensated dating) - and eventually being recruited by Renji to be her bodyguard.
- Unstoppable Rage: The best way to get Kirishima going is to threaten Yoshino. That's the best way to get a fork in the eye, as one thug finds out. Averted when Yoshino is present, because she seems to actually be able to stop him.
Shouma Toriashi
Foster son of Renji Somei, not a yakuza but mistaken for one, college student.
- Berserk Button: Talk smack about Yoshino and watch out.
- Beware the Quiet Ones: Shouma seems slow moving and quiet but he's a pretty vicious fighter once provoked and is actually pretty smart.
- Deadpan Snarker: Shouma seems slow moving and quiet but he has a mouth on him. In particular, he's this with Yoshino - getting snarky whenever she gets smothery - and in a fight. As with Tsubaki, Shouma snarks at his opponents whether it's to register his disgust at inadvertently touching some guy's permed hair or whatever other reason.
- My Sister Is Off-Limits: Occasionally with Kirishima when the latter seems a little too close for his comfort.
- The Stoic: Particularly when forced to spend time with Kirishima and Yoshino. Also when Yoshino tries to get him to talk about his feelings.
- Wardrobe Flaw of Characterization: See banana shirt, shirt with embroidered collar and shoulders, and anything else where his tattoos are showing and shouldn't be.
