Application to Carvaka
Mar. 1st, 2016 07:45 pmAPPLICATION
▸PLAYER
Name: Nat
Means of Contact:![[plurk.com profile]](https://plurk.com/favicon.ico)
Ammeschan
Age: 32
Other Characters Played: Demyx, Rui Ninomiya, Natsuno Yuuki/Koide
▸CHARACTER
Name: Hachiken Yugo
Journal:![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
unlikelyfarmhand
Canon: Gin no Saji/Silver Spoon
Age: 16
Canon Point: Chapter 55
Background Information:
Hachiken is the second son, born to a small family in Sapporo. He has an older brother named Shingo. He is raised in an oppressive environment, where nothing but grades and excelling in school are held to the utmost importance. The household is dominated by his father who uses emotionally abusive tactics to get the best performance out of his sons. Attending a top-class prep school, Hachiken fails to meet expectations, failing to pass his prep school class and he has a nervous breakdown. He never had friends, at least, he didn't think of anyone in his class that way, he saw them as rivals, in the way of him being at the top. Lifeless and beaten down, the only thing he feels he can do is get the hell out of there.
At the end of middle school, Hachiken wrote an entrance exam and was accepted to Yezo Agricultural High School (Ezonoo), a boarding school in Hokkaido. Of his own resolve, he attended in the fall and came face to face with agricultural living at its finest. On his first tour of the school, he met a small calf that was sucking on his shirt and worried it was going to run off, he tried to catch it, giving chase and winding up lost on the vast property.
He comes to realize his classmates all have their own dreams and goals, things they want to realize by attending Ezonoo and he doesn't feel the same way. It turns into a huge adjustment, the days are very long and waking up at five in the morning for practicums is not something he's very fond of. All of the clubs are athletic, but they are mandatory. In the end, Hachiken selects the Equestrian Club, where his friend Aki is, also having been saved from the Holstein Club by the teacher. Tragically, he learns his new wake up time is four in the morning, because someone has to take care of the horses.
Taking care of live animals becomes commonplace for Hachiken and the other students and he bonds with a little piglet that he has named Pork Bowl, because as the runt, he feels bad for him when he can't seem to get as much milk as the other piglets. His classmates scold him, because he's destined to become food, however, he doesn't care, he feels that the animals should have names too. He learns that Pork Bowl will be slaughtered in three months time.
They find a pizza oven hidden in the woods, and Hachiken takes up a project to feed the rural students pizza, something they haven't really experienced. It is through this successful event that he really makes friends with much of his class and learns how the farm's self-sufficiency is structured.
Over the summer, he spends his time on Aki's farm as a farmhand, working mostly for board alone. Hachiken chose to do so to avoid going home, but his brother finds him anyway. He learns that his brother dropped out of Tokyo University because it wasn't what he wanted to do. Hachiken is upset by this, because his brother dismisses the effort it took to get into Todai so easily. Disaster strikes at the end of the summer when the milking tank isn't hooked up properly and Hachiken accidentally cost Aki's family forty thousand yen in spilled product. Despite this, they still paid him and he was forced to accept money, but that didn't alleviate his guilt. Aki's family is very gracious and tells him not to worry about making one little mistake, they're sure he won't do it again. Hachiken tells Aki he wishes he'd been born into her family.
With the fall comes Pork Bowl's time limit. Since the pig is a little underweight, Hachiken begins getting up even earlier and hand feeding him so he too will make an acceptable grade. It's through this, that he bonds further with the little pig and he decides to take the money he has earned and buy him. Almost mistaken, he corrects his teacher by saying he wants the meat. Hachiken follows this up by painstakingly curing and turning 50kg of meat into bacon. Shingo convinces him to send a package of bacon home to his parents. He makes much of his investment back from other students, and he does eat Pork Bowl in the end, however apparently a masochist, the next litter of piglets he names every last one of them.
When his upperclassmen in the Equestrian Club were getting ready to graduate, they selected Hachiken to be the next vice-president. Despite his surprise, he finally accepted when they explained his personality was so approachable, and he was brutally honest. His mother texts him to thank him for the bacon and to tell him it's really good and that she made his dad try some and he also thought it was good. This however, is a lie. His father did try the bacon, but he had no opinion on it whatsoever.
Things begin to change. His friends Komaba and Aki are found talking, and Aki seemed upset. Hachiken tries to offer his help but he's rebuffed and told it's none of his business. This troubles him, a lot. Despite this, the school festival is coming up soon and they try and come up with a good way to attract people to seeing their club, even considering a Ban'ei race. Hachiken runs into the principal who thanks him for such delicious bacon. Hachiken isn't sure how to take that compliment and the principal asks him why he isn't confident in himself. Hachiken admits he's just running away, but the principal tells him that may be the best thing for him right now. It's this revelation that eases his heart a little.
With their first round of exams for the year finished, they do another clean up of the grounds and once again Hachiken finds something great - an abandoned puppy! At first it seems like this puppy will be hard to place, but one of the teachers tells them they can look after it if they want to. Hachiken spends much of the rest of his money paying for the dog's immunizations. He offers to play for his food, but that's not a viable strategy. His friend Tokiwa sets it up with a little bamboo box around his neck labelled 'Snack Money'. Another senior builds the dog a doghouse, and sets him up near the horse stables. Without a name, everyone called the dog 'Vice President's dog' until when you said Vice President, the dog would bark, and so he stole Hachiken's title.
In the Equestrian Club, Hachiken learns to trot and canter without a problem, however when it comes time to jump, Chestnut refuses his request three times and he gets mad, scolding the horse for not doing what he wants. Other people try and Chestnut does the jumps which just makes Hachiken all the more upset. Aki tells him Chestnut is trying to tell him something but Hachiken isn't seeing it and he thinks he just needs to practice more, but she scolds him and tells him he needs to think of his partner a little bit, that he can't jump alone. She responds by taking him to see an unofficial competition where younger kids are jumping, just to observe a little. He notices all the other riders thanking their horses and being grateful, something he never is. When he returns he asks Chestnut for his help in jumping and to his surprise, the horse does, however Hachiken is thrown and gets a quick lesson on how to fall off a horse.
They change their tactics for the school festival and decide not just to show drafting horses, but have some of the club members do show jumping as well. Aki acquires the necessary sleds for the Ban'ei race and Hachiken gets his dorm mate to paint them, somehow making him in charge of the club's project. They make a course out in one of the fields together, and early in the morning Hachiken goes over to check it out, making sure there's no debris and to watch Aki practice. He was also put in charge of the class project and their very own jumping tournament is coming up. His turn in the cow practicum also comes around, as well as people begin calling in their favours, meaning he has to get the dorms ready for the festival, help create the potato digging experience, and he's been declared masonry oven supervisor, because a group of students wants to make pizza for the festival. Hachiken cannot find anyone else who wants to help him, but he has no one to blame for this but himself considering he can't refuse anyone. It gets so dire, that he falls asleep in class.
Hachiken places well for his first tournament, seventh in the obstacle competition and fourth place in the jumping competition. At first he's a little happy about it, however as he sits and thinks about it he begins to feel frustrated. It's a perfectly respectable showing and he doesn't understand why it's just not good enough. His brother shows up in time to see him run the jumping course, but at the end, he nearly fell off Chestnut and Shingo has incriminating pictures, so he breaks his phone. Hachiken did fall off the horse, but not until crossing the finish line, so it still counted, however he broke his glasses in the fall.
The stress of organizing what feels like the entire festival is really getting to Hachiken. He loses a fair amount of weight and his sleeping patterns are erratic thanks to his worrying. He's very organized, so everything is laid out in his notebook, thankfully, because the morning of the festival, when he's out walking Vice President on the course, all of a sudden he falls unconscious. He awakens about twelve hours later in the hospital. He's desperate to get out of there, but the nurse refuses to let him get up. With nothing to do, he's bored and when he gets up to use the washroom, he runs face to face with his father.
Sitting face to face with each other, his father berates him for choosing Ezonoo, and scolds him for not being able to know his own limits. He tells Hachiken that he knows how much he likes to study and being behind a desk is the best thing for him, but he refutes that here he's finally able to make friends. His father snorts and asks him if that's really why he's there, or just so he can be the top of his class easier with the dumb children, and points out his friends aren't there visiting him right now, are they? Hachiken's homeroom teacher interrupts and he scolds him instead, telling him that letting Hachiken waste his time and collapse because of a school festival is unacceptable when he's not learning anything in the process. He orders Hachiken to stay and do a complete work up to make sure he is in good health. When offered the chance to see the school, he coldly says he has to work and begins to leave. Hachiken asks him about the bacon he sent home, and didn't he like it? He turns a glare on his son and tells him he approved of no such thing.
With nothing else wrong with him, Hachiken is discharged the next morning and he leaves with his mother to replace his glasses. On the way he confronts her about her text regarding the bacon he made, and she nervously tells him his dad never really says anything about the food he eats, so she took that to mean he liked it. Hachiken tells her it would be better for her not to bother lying to him about such things and he gets out of the car, getting the glasses on his own. By the time he makes it back, he's missed the entire school festival, but does get to partake in the after party. Although he's feeling pretty beat down, bitter and self-depreciating, Aki nips that in the bud by telling him they couldn't have done anything without the notes he left behind. They used his notebook as a guestbook and seeing all the comments from the people who came to see their display makes him overjoyed.
Remembering what the principal said, he's glad he ran away to Ezonoo however, he's come to realize the problems he's running away from aren't going to disappear with just that.
Personality:
First and foremost, Hachiken is lost. Not only does he have a terrible physical sense of direction, as illustrated by getting lost on the Ezonoo grounds, and out near Aki's house on his way to Komaba's, but he's spiritually lost as well. He doesn't know why he's come to this school, he doesn't know what kind of future he wants to have, but he does know he wants to run from his past. At first he didn't admit that, but he's come to realize that what he did do was run away, but he's also decided not to regret that for a moment. He had an idea of how things were supposed to go, he was supposed to top out his class and defeat his classroom enemies and when that didn't materialize, he was floundering.
Hachiken initially wasn't very friendly, but being in a welcoming environment like Ezonoo, and living in a dorm room, he's grown those social skills he didn't have before. He connects with people very easily, and with a brutal honesty, he shares his feelings openly. He's always telling people what he thinks, even though their world views are different and it's because he questions everything that people tend to flock to him. The farmer's kids aren't used to the moral dillemmas that city folk face when discussing the slaughter of animals, for example, they just take it for granted.
He's intelligent, and he has great memorization skills, but he works very very hard to get to that point. It doesn't come very naturally. He has always liked learning and he's a bit of a geek. When he doesn't know about a subject, he does study it thoroughly always giving it his best effort.
Winning is very important to Hachiken. He tries to hide this, because people are pretty judgemental when you place winning as important, but some of the time, he can't help but slip out that value. However, he is also conflicted. When seeing Ban'ei horses in action, Aki's horse only places third and he comments that if it tried harder, it could have won. However, when Komaba points out that it had a good showing, and so it wouldn't die, he was visibly upset to the point of shouting that hard work should matter too. It often seems at moments like this he's thinking of himself, and his shortcomings. He fights and argues for hard work for the livestock, but at the same time he can't be happy with himself if he's not the best. Being first in his program doesn't mean much, because he's bested by different people in every single class related to farming, made a few mistakes on his exams and when he places fourth in jumping, he's frustrated with himself.
It is likely that the person who tries hard is who he wants to matter, but the person who wins is the one his father wants to matter. His relationship with his father is sour and bitter. His father is a professional and he demands perfection from not only Hachiken, but Shingo as well. Nothing outside of academics will please him, however he looks down his nose at the school Hachiken has chosen. Hachiken is the 'worthless' son, because he failed where Shingo did not. His father thinks making pizza, doing school festivals or making bacon is a big waste of time, as are friends and ideally, Hachiken should return to an elite prep school, just like he intended. Hachiken does initially argue his point against his father, but he is easily shot down and seeing him leaves a pit in his stomach. Because of this relationship, Hachiken has a serious lack of confidence. It is only recently that he can even try and talk back to him, but he is cowed rather quickly. This toxic relationship defines much of Hachiken's life, leaving him with an undercurrent hiding beneath the surface.
Aki theorizes that it's because of this tenuous relationship with his father that Hachiken is so helpful, always wanting to raise other people up or listen to their problems. He goes to great lengths to please people, and when they ask of him he just cannot say no. He is taken advantage of quite easily this way. His relationship with Aki and his friends is very good. They accept him for his honesty, and the feeling of comeraderie actually makes him feel alive and very happy. He has a little crush on Aki, but her father terrifies him. He's jealous of her family, because they seem so accepting and they forgave his mistake where his father would never have.
Shingo and Hachiken's relationship is also unhealthy. Hachiken hates his brother, because Shingo is everything he isn't. He openly shows disdain and annoyance whenever he is around, and he's not happy to see him, ever. Shingo got into Todai and wasted the opportunity and Hachiken is jealous, because he flunked out of prep school. Shingo however, admires Hachiken for what he is becoming and he's excited to witness the catalyst that this school has become to change Hachiken's prospects. He came to realize that doing what their dad wanted was exactly the wrong thing and in his own way, he's trying to make it right. Shingo has no problem talking back to his dad, and when insulted he just sarcastically accepts the words as though they were nothing. He knows this isn't the case for Hachiken and that his father is still cutting him down. When visiting Aki's farm where Hachiken is working, he told their mother about the pizza party and his father came on the line, asking to speak with Hachiken. Shingo refused. When pressed for the location of where they were, he told him not to interfere and hung up. Shingo has Hachiken's back, even if Hachiken himself doesn't know it. He tries to encourage Hachiken, but Hachiken mostly ignores him, unable to see what an asset it would be to have Shingo in his corner. Frequent sightings of his brother make him a little less suseptible to rage, but he's still perplexed as to how his brother can throw away his life like that.
Hachiken seems a little closer to his mother, or at least at one point he was. Since going to Ezonoo he rarely returns her text messages, and it takes Shingo's convincing to send home the bacon. She is the intermediary between him and his father and she is always placating him, trying to smooth out the bumps. When he finds out she lied to him, he snaps at her and tells her not to bother. He's not surprised by his father's reaction, and he hates being lied to. She lets him go, although she never stops texting him.
Being overemotional and wearing his heart on his sleeve, Hachiken has a penchant for overreaction. Whether it's negative or positive, at times he can be very excitable, mostly when he eats something particularly delicious. This developed as he began to feel comfortable in his own skin. Although he can be very serious, much of the time he isn't, not anymore. His relationships with his peers are at the moment, paramount. It's them who brought him out of his shell and the happiness he feels when he thinks about having friends far surpasses anything else. It's Aki who lifts his spirits after he meets with his father, and although Hachiken is a beginner, he's respected for being willing to learn and to work hard. They often tease them, light banter being part of their relationship, but he adores them all the same. Hachiken has even been caught breaking the rules with his new friends as he flourishes in the Ezonoo environment. He doesn't talk much about his family, simply because people never ask, they just accept what he says at face value and move on. Despite this, he's often seen trying to comfort others and is disappointed when they don't confide in him, as though he's failed them completely. He can be a bit clingy, particularly when it comes to Aki who he has a slight crush on. Hachiken is often challenging their views about the killing of animals for food and the way they treat farm animals differently from pets. The teachers are thrilled because the class really is learning to think differently, and they all have different opinions. Despite this, Hachiken is far too goodnatured to have conflicts with any of his friends and they are all on good terms.
Appearance:
http://images6.fanpop.com/image/photos/35600000/Hachiken-Yugo-gin-no-saji-silver-spoon-35607921-620-570.png
Abilities:
Hachiken has no super human abilities whatsoever. He's completely, one hundred percent average.
▸SAMPLES:
First Person:
Hi everyone. I'm Hachiken.
Um, I know that's not really impressive or anything, but I can help you out. If you need anything at all, I can do it! I kind of have a bit of a reputation really, for being a guy who can't say no.
[Nervous laughter.]
It's not really true, I mean, I can. But if it's within my power, I'll do it! It's only a rumour I just got out of the hospital. I'm completely fine!
[No, it really isn't.]
Anyway, let me know what I can do to help! I want to understand everyone.
Third Person:
Hachiken could hardly believe his eyes. In fact, he pulled his brand new glasses off his face and wiped them on his shirt before replacing them. No, he was still looking at what amounted to a wasteland when moments before he'd been in the middle of the city.
That couldn't be right.
He turned around in place, glancing in every direction for something desperately familiar. There was no way he was lost. Again. His friends who must have already been sick of him would definitely not take kindly to a desperate phone call. He pulled his phone out of his pocket and flipped it open. He let out a groan and shouted to the heavens.
"Why is there never any cell service?!"
Hachiken slumped dramatically to his knees. It was over. He was going to die alone and lost in a wasteland far away from his friends at Ezonoo. He couldn't help but think no one would even notice he was gone.
Oh. He hoped someone remembered to feed his dog.
▸PLAYER
Name: Nat
Means of Contact:
Age: 32
Other Characters Played: Demyx, Rui Ninomiya, Natsuno Yuuki/Koide
▸CHARACTER
Name: Hachiken Yugo
Journal:
unlikelyfarmhandCanon: Gin no Saji/Silver Spoon
Age: 16
Canon Point: Chapter 55
Background Information:
Hachiken is the second son, born to a small family in Sapporo. He has an older brother named Shingo. He is raised in an oppressive environment, where nothing but grades and excelling in school are held to the utmost importance. The household is dominated by his father who uses emotionally abusive tactics to get the best performance out of his sons. Attending a top-class prep school, Hachiken fails to meet expectations, failing to pass his prep school class and he has a nervous breakdown. He never had friends, at least, he didn't think of anyone in his class that way, he saw them as rivals, in the way of him being at the top. Lifeless and beaten down, the only thing he feels he can do is get the hell out of there.
At the end of middle school, Hachiken wrote an entrance exam and was accepted to Yezo Agricultural High School (Ezonoo), a boarding school in Hokkaido. Of his own resolve, he attended in the fall and came face to face with agricultural living at its finest. On his first tour of the school, he met a small calf that was sucking on his shirt and worried it was going to run off, he tried to catch it, giving chase and winding up lost on the vast property.
He comes to realize his classmates all have their own dreams and goals, things they want to realize by attending Ezonoo and he doesn't feel the same way. It turns into a huge adjustment, the days are very long and waking up at five in the morning for practicums is not something he's very fond of. All of the clubs are athletic, but they are mandatory. In the end, Hachiken selects the Equestrian Club, where his friend Aki is, also having been saved from the Holstein Club by the teacher. Tragically, he learns his new wake up time is four in the morning, because someone has to take care of the horses.
Taking care of live animals becomes commonplace for Hachiken and the other students and he bonds with a little piglet that he has named Pork Bowl, because as the runt, he feels bad for him when he can't seem to get as much milk as the other piglets. His classmates scold him, because he's destined to become food, however, he doesn't care, he feels that the animals should have names too. He learns that Pork Bowl will be slaughtered in three months time.
They find a pizza oven hidden in the woods, and Hachiken takes up a project to feed the rural students pizza, something they haven't really experienced. It is through this successful event that he really makes friends with much of his class and learns how the farm's self-sufficiency is structured.
Over the summer, he spends his time on Aki's farm as a farmhand, working mostly for board alone. Hachiken chose to do so to avoid going home, but his brother finds him anyway. He learns that his brother dropped out of Tokyo University because it wasn't what he wanted to do. Hachiken is upset by this, because his brother dismisses the effort it took to get into Todai so easily. Disaster strikes at the end of the summer when the milking tank isn't hooked up properly and Hachiken accidentally cost Aki's family forty thousand yen in spilled product. Despite this, they still paid him and he was forced to accept money, but that didn't alleviate his guilt. Aki's family is very gracious and tells him not to worry about making one little mistake, they're sure he won't do it again. Hachiken tells Aki he wishes he'd been born into her family.
With the fall comes Pork Bowl's time limit. Since the pig is a little underweight, Hachiken begins getting up even earlier and hand feeding him so he too will make an acceptable grade. It's through this, that he bonds further with the little pig and he decides to take the money he has earned and buy him. Almost mistaken, he corrects his teacher by saying he wants the meat. Hachiken follows this up by painstakingly curing and turning 50kg of meat into bacon. Shingo convinces him to send a package of bacon home to his parents. He makes much of his investment back from other students, and he does eat Pork Bowl in the end, however apparently a masochist, the next litter of piglets he names every last one of them.
When his upperclassmen in the Equestrian Club were getting ready to graduate, they selected Hachiken to be the next vice-president. Despite his surprise, he finally accepted when they explained his personality was so approachable, and he was brutally honest. His mother texts him to thank him for the bacon and to tell him it's really good and that she made his dad try some and he also thought it was good. This however, is a lie. His father did try the bacon, but he had no opinion on it whatsoever.
Things begin to change. His friends Komaba and Aki are found talking, and Aki seemed upset. Hachiken tries to offer his help but he's rebuffed and told it's none of his business. This troubles him, a lot. Despite this, the school festival is coming up soon and they try and come up with a good way to attract people to seeing their club, even considering a Ban'ei race. Hachiken runs into the principal who thanks him for such delicious bacon. Hachiken isn't sure how to take that compliment and the principal asks him why he isn't confident in himself. Hachiken admits he's just running away, but the principal tells him that may be the best thing for him right now. It's this revelation that eases his heart a little.
With their first round of exams for the year finished, they do another clean up of the grounds and once again Hachiken finds something great - an abandoned puppy! At first it seems like this puppy will be hard to place, but one of the teachers tells them they can look after it if they want to. Hachiken spends much of the rest of his money paying for the dog's immunizations. He offers to play for his food, but that's not a viable strategy. His friend Tokiwa sets it up with a little bamboo box around his neck labelled 'Snack Money'. Another senior builds the dog a doghouse, and sets him up near the horse stables. Without a name, everyone called the dog 'Vice President's dog' until when you said Vice President, the dog would bark, and so he stole Hachiken's title.
In the Equestrian Club, Hachiken learns to trot and canter without a problem, however when it comes time to jump, Chestnut refuses his request three times and he gets mad, scolding the horse for not doing what he wants. Other people try and Chestnut does the jumps which just makes Hachiken all the more upset. Aki tells him Chestnut is trying to tell him something but Hachiken isn't seeing it and he thinks he just needs to practice more, but she scolds him and tells him he needs to think of his partner a little bit, that he can't jump alone. She responds by taking him to see an unofficial competition where younger kids are jumping, just to observe a little. He notices all the other riders thanking their horses and being grateful, something he never is. When he returns he asks Chestnut for his help in jumping and to his surprise, the horse does, however Hachiken is thrown and gets a quick lesson on how to fall off a horse.
They change their tactics for the school festival and decide not just to show drafting horses, but have some of the club members do show jumping as well. Aki acquires the necessary sleds for the Ban'ei race and Hachiken gets his dorm mate to paint them, somehow making him in charge of the club's project. They make a course out in one of the fields together, and early in the morning Hachiken goes over to check it out, making sure there's no debris and to watch Aki practice. He was also put in charge of the class project and their very own jumping tournament is coming up. His turn in the cow practicum also comes around, as well as people begin calling in their favours, meaning he has to get the dorms ready for the festival, help create the potato digging experience, and he's been declared masonry oven supervisor, because a group of students wants to make pizza for the festival. Hachiken cannot find anyone else who wants to help him, but he has no one to blame for this but himself considering he can't refuse anyone. It gets so dire, that he falls asleep in class.
Hachiken places well for his first tournament, seventh in the obstacle competition and fourth place in the jumping competition. At first he's a little happy about it, however as he sits and thinks about it he begins to feel frustrated. It's a perfectly respectable showing and he doesn't understand why it's just not good enough. His brother shows up in time to see him run the jumping course, but at the end, he nearly fell off Chestnut and Shingo has incriminating pictures, so he breaks his phone. Hachiken did fall off the horse, but not until crossing the finish line, so it still counted, however he broke his glasses in the fall.
The stress of organizing what feels like the entire festival is really getting to Hachiken. He loses a fair amount of weight and his sleeping patterns are erratic thanks to his worrying. He's very organized, so everything is laid out in his notebook, thankfully, because the morning of the festival, when he's out walking Vice President on the course, all of a sudden he falls unconscious. He awakens about twelve hours later in the hospital. He's desperate to get out of there, but the nurse refuses to let him get up. With nothing to do, he's bored and when he gets up to use the washroom, he runs face to face with his father.
Sitting face to face with each other, his father berates him for choosing Ezonoo, and scolds him for not being able to know his own limits. He tells Hachiken that he knows how much he likes to study and being behind a desk is the best thing for him, but he refutes that here he's finally able to make friends. His father snorts and asks him if that's really why he's there, or just so he can be the top of his class easier with the dumb children, and points out his friends aren't there visiting him right now, are they? Hachiken's homeroom teacher interrupts and he scolds him instead, telling him that letting Hachiken waste his time and collapse because of a school festival is unacceptable when he's not learning anything in the process. He orders Hachiken to stay and do a complete work up to make sure he is in good health. When offered the chance to see the school, he coldly says he has to work and begins to leave. Hachiken asks him about the bacon he sent home, and didn't he like it? He turns a glare on his son and tells him he approved of no such thing.
With nothing else wrong with him, Hachiken is discharged the next morning and he leaves with his mother to replace his glasses. On the way he confronts her about her text regarding the bacon he made, and she nervously tells him his dad never really says anything about the food he eats, so she took that to mean he liked it. Hachiken tells her it would be better for her not to bother lying to him about such things and he gets out of the car, getting the glasses on his own. By the time he makes it back, he's missed the entire school festival, but does get to partake in the after party. Although he's feeling pretty beat down, bitter and self-depreciating, Aki nips that in the bud by telling him they couldn't have done anything without the notes he left behind. They used his notebook as a guestbook and seeing all the comments from the people who came to see their display makes him overjoyed.
Remembering what the principal said, he's glad he ran away to Ezonoo however, he's come to realize the problems he's running away from aren't going to disappear with just that.
Personality:
First and foremost, Hachiken is lost. Not only does he have a terrible physical sense of direction, as illustrated by getting lost on the Ezonoo grounds, and out near Aki's house on his way to Komaba's, but he's spiritually lost as well. He doesn't know why he's come to this school, he doesn't know what kind of future he wants to have, but he does know he wants to run from his past. At first he didn't admit that, but he's come to realize that what he did do was run away, but he's also decided not to regret that for a moment. He had an idea of how things were supposed to go, he was supposed to top out his class and defeat his classroom enemies and when that didn't materialize, he was floundering.
Hachiken initially wasn't very friendly, but being in a welcoming environment like Ezonoo, and living in a dorm room, he's grown those social skills he didn't have before. He connects with people very easily, and with a brutal honesty, he shares his feelings openly. He's always telling people what he thinks, even though their world views are different and it's because he questions everything that people tend to flock to him. The farmer's kids aren't used to the moral dillemmas that city folk face when discussing the slaughter of animals, for example, they just take it for granted.
He's intelligent, and he has great memorization skills, but he works very very hard to get to that point. It doesn't come very naturally. He has always liked learning and he's a bit of a geek. When he doesn't know about a subject, he does study it thoroughly always giving it his best effort.
Winning is very important to Hachiken. He tries to hide this, because people are pretty judgemental when you place winning as important, but some of the time, he can't help but slip out that value. However, he is also conflicted. When seeing Ban'ei horses in action, Aki's horse only places third and he comments that if it tried harder, it could have won. However, when Komaba points out that it had a good showing, and so it wouldn't die, he was visibly upset to the point of shouting that hard work should matter too. It often seems at moments like this he's thinking of himself, and his shortcomings. He fights and argues for hard work for the livestock, but at the same time he can't be happy with himself if he's not the best. Being first in his program doesn't mean much, because he's bested by different people in every single class related to farming, made a few mistakes on his exams and when he places fourth in jumping, he's frustrated with himself.
It is likely that the person who tries hard is who he wants to matter, but the person who wins is the one his father wants to matter. His relationship with his father is sour and bitter. His father is a professional and he demands perfection from not only Hachiken, but Shingo as well. Nothing outside of academics will please him, however he looks down his nose at the school Hachiken has chosen. Hachiken is the 'worthless' son, because he failed where Shingo did not. His father thinks making pizza, doing school festivals or making bacon is a big waste of time, as are friends and ideally, Hachiken should return to an elite prep school, just like he intended. Hachiken does initially argue his point against his father, but he is easily shot down and seeing him leaves a pit in his stomach. Because of this relationship, Hachiken has a serious lack of confidence. It is only recently that he can even try and talk back to him, but he is cowed rather quickly. This toxic relationship defines much of Hachiken's life, leaving him with an undercurrent hiding beneath the surface.
Aki theorizes that it's because of this tenuous relationship with his father that Hachiken is so helpful, always wanting to raise other people up or listen to their problems. He goes to great lengths to please people, and when they ask of him he just cannot say no. He is taken advantage of quite easily this way. His relationship with Aki and his friends is very good. They accept him for his honesty, and the feeling of comeraderie actually makes him feel alive and very happy. He has a little crush on Aki, but her father terrifies him. He's jealous of her family, because they seem so accepting and they forgave his mistake where his father would never have.
Shingo and Hachiken's relationship is also unhealthy. Hachiken hates his brother, because Shingo is everything he isn't. He openly shows disdain and annoyance whenever he is around, and he's not happy to see him, ever. Shingo got into Todai and wasted the opportunity and Hachiken is jealous, because he flunked out of prep school. Shingo however, admires Hachiken for what he is becoming and he's excited to witness the catalyst that this school has become to change Hachiken's prospects. He came to realize that doing what their dad wanted was exactly the wrong thing and in his own way, he's trying to make it right. Shingo has no problem talking back to his dad, and when insulted he just sarcastically accepts the words as though they were nothing. He knows this isn't the case for Hachiken and that his father is still cutting him down. When visiting Aki's farm where Hachiken is working, he told their mother about the pizza party and his father came on the line, asking to speak with Hachiken. Shingo refused. When pressed for the location of where they were, he told him not to interfere and hung up. Shingo has Hachiken's back, even if Hachiken himself doesn't know it. He tries to encourage Hachiken, but Hachiken mostly ignores him, unable to see what an asset it would be to have Shingo in his corner. Frequent sightings of his brother make him a little less suseptible to rage, but he's still perplexed as to how his brother can throw away his life like that.
Hachiken seems a little closer to his mother, or at least at one point he was. Since going to Ezonoo he rarely returns her text messages, and it takes Shingo's convincing to send home the bacon. She is the intermediary between him and his father and she is always placating him, trying to smooth out the bumps. When he finds out she lied to him, he snaps at her and tells her not to bother. He's not surprised by his father's reaction, and he hates being lied to. She lets him go, although she never stops texting him.
Being overemotional and wearing his heart on his sleeve, Hachiken has a penchant for overreaction. Whether it's negative or positive, at times he can be very excitable, mostly when he eats something particularly delicious. This developed as he began to feel comfortable in his own skin. Although he can be very serious, much of the time he isn't, not anymore. His relationships with his peers are at the moment, paramount. It's them who brought him out of his shell and the happiness he feels when he thinks about having friends far surpasses anything else. It's Aki who lifts his spirits after he meets with his father, and although Hachiken is a beginner, he's respected for being willing to learn and to work hard. They often tease them, light banter being part of their relationship, but he adores them all the same. Hachiken has even been caught breaking the rules with his new friends as he flourishes in the Ezonoo environment. He doesn't talk much about his family, simply because people never ask, they just accept what he says at face value and move on. Despite this, he's often seen trying to comfort others and is disappointed when they don't confide in him, as though he's failed them completely. He can be a bit clingy, particularly when it comes to Aki who he has a slight crush on. Hachiken is often challenging their views about the killing of animals for food and the way they treat farm animals differently from pets. The teachers are thrilled because the class really is learning to think differently, and they all have different opinions. Despite this, Hachiken is far too goodnatured to have conflicts with any of his friends and they are all on good terms.
Appearance:
http://images6.fanpop.com/image/photos/35600000/Hachiken-Yugo-gin-no-saji-silver-spoon-35607921-620-570.png
Abilities:
Hachiken has no super human abilities whatsoever. He's completely, one hundred percent average.
▸SAMPLES:
First Person:
Hi everyone. I'm Hachiken.
Um, I know that's not really impressive or anything, but I can help you out. If you need anything at all, I can do it! I kind of have a bit of a reputation really, for being a guy who can't say no.
[Nervous laughter.]
It's not really true, I mean, I can. But if it's within my power, I'll do it! It's only a rumour I just got out of the hospital. I'm completely fine!
[No, it really isn't.]
Anyway, let me know what I can do to help! I want to understand everyone.
Third Person:
Hachiken could hardly believe his eyes. In fact, he pulled his brand new glasses off his face and wiped them on his shirt before replacing them. No, he was still looking at what amounted to a wasteland when moments before he'd been in the middle of the city.
That couldn't be right.
He turned around in place, glancing in every direction for something desperately familiar. There was no way he was lost. Again. His friends who must have already been sick of him would definitely not take kindly to a desperate phone call. He pulled his phone out of his pocket and flipped it open. He let out a groan and shouted to the heavens.
"Why is there never any cell service?!"
Hachiken slumped dramatically to his knees. It was over. He was going to die alone and lost in a wasteland far away from his friends at Ezonoo. He couldn't help but think no one would even notice he was gone.
Oh. He hoped someone remembered to feed his dog.
