Character Sketch

This is from Piali

Name: Miyamoto Takashi, age: 21 years, year of birth : 1987 nationality: Thai, occupation: hairstylist,  origin/ethnicity: Japanese,  parents emigrated to Thailand  before his birth.

Reason for immigration:  Mother had a premarital affair with an influential member of the DIET and got pregnant with Takashi’s elder brother Hiroshi. Hiroshi’s biological father didn’t accept paternity. Grandfather, florist,married her off to one of his students and paid them to immigrate to Thailand. Father opened a florist shop in Pattaya, and there Hiroshi, Takashi, and their younger sister Miyuki was born. The difference was two years between each conception.

Family and their behavioural characteristics, aka timeline and Takashi’s psychological development: Brother was told of his true paternity by a nosy relative (probably the mother’s aunt) when he was four. Father, trying to show that he loved Hiroshi despite his coming from a different father,spoiled him exuberantly and in the process alienated Takashi and Miyuki. Mother, who ran a parasol shop in the tourist district andwho was rather subdued and guilt-ridden for her past indiscretions, followed whatever her husband did. Being  so alienated, Takashi grew fond of his books, and Miyuki sarcastic and bitter, though they were the only two people in the household to truly connect. Hiroshi, a bully by now, used one of Takashi’s books as toilet paper. Miyuki hit him with a spanner. Father, suspecting Takashi to be the origin of Miyuki’s violent behavior, sent him to Singapore to his uncle. He had initially a very good relationship with his uncle, who had two daughters but no son, but the two soon grew distant as Takashi came to realize that his uncle fervently opposed his career decision, dismissing it as merely effeminate.

Major turn in life: 27^th December, 2006. He gets news that his parents and Hiroshi were killed in the tsunami. Miyuki was away on a vacation, so she survived. He is slightly relieved by the news, and feels no survivor’s guilt and feels very cold and clinical towards his parents’ death. Returns to Pattaya to look after Miyuki, who is still a minor( despite his uncle’s wishes, who wanted him to stay in Singapore and take on the family business). Opens up a hair salon with the aid of his mother’s friend Nakamura Tomomi and gains fame gradually. Tomomi, a widow made so by the tidal waves of tsunami, comes by often to talk about her friend and reveals that the son her friend used to talk about all the time was not Hiroshi but Takashi. Takashi does not want to hear nor believe, but he falls in love with Tomomi. He’s afraid of telling her, but he constantly offers to cut her hair. Tomomi refuses to do so, arguing that her husband used to love her hair, and will only allow her hair to be cut when she is ready to be put to coffin.

Present time: Takashi sits in his salon as he recounts all this. He is about to take part in a prestigious competition amongst hairstylists. This is the gala night. He is confident he will win and wishes to confess to Tomomi at the victory party, after she has seen him as a man capable of winning.

Characteristics: very sedate and pessimistic, but can excel if given the right incentive. His father indirectly taught him that even something as simple as a parent’s love also can never be taken for granted, so he has given up wanting even the simplest things and takes whatever fate throws his way. Has a love-hate relationship with older women, but prefers those with backbone, something his mother never had. Likes to be led around by the nose (which we may attribute to his fondness for external authority), and can never impose his own wishes upon others unless he finds a suitable and unselfish enough reason to do so ( He could only break his uncle’s stronghold on him because he thought Miyuki needed his help after the family disaster.)

Thwarter

Name: Miyuki Miyamoto, Age: 19, Nationality: Thai, Ethnicity: Japanese, Occupation: Medical Student, faring well in her studies at the moment.

Family characteristics and reasons for character development: Her father was fond of her, though she hated him with a passion. The reason for this was her father’s partiality, who favoured her eldest brother Hiroshi over the second brother Takashi for some unknown reason (She suspects that Takashi knows the reason, but he has never told her). She fancied herself and Takashi to be the second Justice League against the great big bully Hiroshi and defended her second brother at every opportune moment. At other times she was a quiet student, determined to make it out of the house and make enough money to support her brother, who she guessed (and rightly) to be a push-over. Has an intense brother complex that borders on downright incestuous feelings. She was also the only person to keep contact with Takashi over the years he spent in Singapore. The rest of her family simply did not bother.

Reason for thwarting: Nakamura Tomomi. Miyuki wanted, and still wants, to be the one to support Takashi, and does not approve of Takashi having a job to look after her, despite being only a young student herself (she resented being a minor at the time of her parents’ death). She has quite the independent streak and is convinced it was Tomomi who coaxed her brother to set up the salon. She also knows about her brother’s obsession with Tomomi.

Method of thwarting: She plans to invite Tomomi to dinner just before the latter leaves for the finale of the hairstyle competition. She will pour a few drops of a deadly poison into her dinner, and the effect of the poison is slow but sure and the subject will die within three hours of the intake, right in time for Takashi’s appearance on the stage ( and with Tomomi’s age and heart problems, it will most probably look like a natural death). She believes that witnessing Tomomi’s death will shake her brother out of the unhealthy obsession he seems to have for her locks (and looks) and he will promptly return to being her adorable big brother, completely dependent on her.

 Acknowledgement: Photos curtsey of google images. The model for Takashi is Kim Jae Wook (Koreo-Japanese actor who has worked in a bunch of Korean dramas. Do look up Coffee Prince if you ever need a sugar rush). And the model is from a hairstyle advertisement (I found it to be rather strangely appropriate.)