The Dreamer
Name: Roka Toshiro (goes by the alias Akira Midoriyama)
Gender: Male
Age: 23
Appearance: Roka has naturally silver hair and emerald green eyes, but since taking on the identity of Akira Midoriyama, he's been dying his hair brown and wearing colored contacts to match. He has a slender, feminine build and a round face, leading many to believe he's a female unless they take a closer look. He's 5'7" with an apricot, oriental complexion and is almost always listening to music through earpieces or headphones.
Personality: Roka is usually pretty grounded and tries to stay serious, but has occasions when he gets carried away by his emotions. This young man is very easily flustered and blushes often, unable to handle too much teasing or flirting. He is very caring, but he has a hard time relating and connecting with others because of his trouble communicating properly, leading to many misunderstandings. Thus he mostly tries to keep to himself, appearing passive and distant with a strong sense of responsibility, duty, and honor. His own desires often come into conflict with what is expected of him, however, leaving him feeling lost.
History: Roka was born into a wealthy Japanese family with a respectable background and a very traditional outlook on life. As the second oldest child in a family of four children and the only male, Roka was burdened with a great deal of pressure and expectations as the next heir to the Toshiro family legacy in reputation, honor, and business. Nevertheless, being raised with three sisters encouraged him to develop a more feminine, sensitive nature. He loved his siblings very, very much.
At a young age, he grew interested in what his society called 'commoners', but was chastised for being too interested in their lifestyle because he was told he should have been grateful for his wealth and status. His parents didn't want him entertaining the possibility of giving up his position as the next heir because they had no one to replace him.
Their eldest child, Asumi, was both female and mute, rendering her unable to carry on the family name and heritage according to tradition. Though Asumi helped care for her and Roka's two younger siblings, most responsibilities of the family fell on Roka. Because of this, outwardly he developed the coldest and most mature attitude of the four children over the years.
His parents, delighted by his capability to take things seriously, felt they were doing the right things in raising him. However, as the boy spent much of his time playing with his sisters, he hardly had any time to be social with peers which was very important in business matters. If Roka was to inherit the family business, he would have to be more outgoing. It paid to have high charisma and popularity while climbing the social ladder.
The Toshiro son was not skilled in making friends or good communication. In order to be successful, he had to be well-liked, and to guide him along this path, they sent him to a separate high school apart from his sisters, where they were certain he would be able to get close with the right people and possibly learn how to be more gregarious.
Roka was not pleased at all by this, but he did as he was told and eventually became the president of his high school's music club. His passion for music had been taught to him by Asami, whose muteness had given her a greater appreciation for music than most and its ability to express and communicate feelings. Roka sought to pass down what he'd learned from his sister to others through his shared love of music and, by extension, the music club.
Even so, the young Toshiro heir became lonely in high school without his sisters. Rebelling somewhat against his parents, he kept himself distant from most of his other schoolmates. That was, at least, until a certain young man came along who turned Roka's world upside down. His name was Ryuuzaki Kusanagi and he claimed to have been born and raised a commoner - the very sort of commoner that Roka had been fascinated with since he was young.
At first Roka couldn't stand Ryuu's casual, crass, and carefree attitude. The two often butted heads, but Toshiro couldn't deny that he was intrigued by the other young man's way of thinking. The two spent almost all their free time together - both in school and outside of it. Roka soon found himself thinking of Ryuu as his best friend.
He was often amazed at how the 'commoner' seemed so street-smart and savvy with the ways of the world despite his parents' claim that commoners were a lesser class of people. Eventually, Roka began to think of Ryuu as more than just a friend. He confessed to the other young man, certain of rejection, but Ryuu accepted him and the two started dating as a couple.
As usual, though, Roka's parents had other plans. Yua and Hiroto Toshiro, heedless of their son's feelings for Ryuu, had arranged a marriage between their son and the crippled daughter of a very aristocratic family that dealt in robotics and technology. As the Toshiro family trade consisted of music and technology, the affiliation of the families seemed beneficial to all. The only trouble was that Roka was in love with someone other than his betrothed.
From there, everything went downhill. Roka did care for the young lady he was arranged to marry, but he thought of her as a sister rather than a wife. In his desperation, he even considered running away with Ryuu to the other young man's hometown, but Ryuu seemed indifferent to Roka's situation. Along with the Toshiro heir's inaguration, the wedding proceeded as planned, though Roka had to get himself drunk on the ceremonial sake to go through with it. Ryuuzaki did not attend.
Later on, Roka discovered that Ryuu had been having his own problems. Ryuu had learned that he had fathered an illegitimate child and had been fighting a custody battle for his son. Roka found this almost too shocking to believe, but then Ryuu revealed to Roka that he had been having relations with college age women and others throughout their relationship because Roka had never made any sexual moves and Ryuu had been tired of waiting.
Devastated, Roka cut ties with Ryuuzaki when his former best friend and boyfriend left for his hometown with his estranged son to start a new life as father and child. The Toshiro heir went on with his own life, nursing his sickly, crippled wife in a large, lonely, feudal era castle while studying business in preparation of inheriting and running his family's company. He kept himself immersed in his work, determined not to think of the past or what could have been.
Despite all the expensive treatments she had been given, Roka's sickly wife died at a young age. It was the last straw. At that point, the loneliness of living by himself weakened the young man into succumbing to the misery he had suppressed in favor of pleasing his family. He became a wreck and was unable to study. Making a final decision, Roka decided to follow the dream he'd had as a child, figuring he had nothing else to lose. He abandoned his wealth, status, duties, responsibility, family, society, and everything else he had ever known in order to go into hiding and live life as a commoner.
Using a great portion of his fortune up until then to buy himself a new identity from an underground information broker, Roka took up a new life as a commoner named Akira Midoriyama. Adjusting to commoner life was difficult and took a lot of getting used to. It was also a lot harder than he realized but he began to appreciate his new-found freedom, even without all his money, possessions, or family status.
He attempted to take up his old passion of music composition, but quickly found himself feeling hollow and guilty. All his life he had been bred and raised for one purpose and he had abandoned that destiny. He had shirked his responsibilities in favor of his own desires and it ate away at him day after day. Gradually, Roka - Akira - found himself stuck; only able to dwell on the past and unable to move forward. He often reflects on the things he misses about his old life - not his wealth or status, but the most cherished memories of his parents, his sisters, his wife, his first love, and all the other people he had once known.
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