Eiri Yuki (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
heartchart) wrote2014-12-07 04:28 am
heartchart) wrote2014-12-07 04:28 am
app for ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
ataraxion
(originally I just put this on my personal account and applied from there so zerotalent wouldn't know I was applying so it'd be a surprise since she's apping Shuichi, but I figured for organization's sake this should go here too)
P L A Y E R I N F O R M A T I O N
Your Name: Danie
OOC Journal:kitskie
Under 18? If yes, what is your age?: nope
Email + IM: townwilltakeme@gmail.com | cupcakeries (AIM)
Characters Played at Ataraxion: Anne Cunningham and Clint Lassiter
C H A R A C T E R I N F O R M A T I O N
Name: Eiri Yuki
Canon: Gravitation
Original or Alternate Universe: original
Canon Point: The end of the manga, after leaving for a trip to New York with Shuichi.
Number: 023, RNG if taken
Setting: Eiri’s setting is actually pretty simple; 1990’s Japan. There’s nothing special or anything to set it apart from our own world, actually. Just Tokyo, in the mid 90’s in our own universe. For further reference, have a link.
History: Eiri is a celebrity romance novelist and international Japanese sex symbol, but he didn’t start out that way. Eiri Yuki was born Eiri Uesugi in Kyoto, Japan to a family of monks. He also happened to have the misfortune being born with a form of albinism, made apparent by his blonde hair and pale eyes and skin, and his extremely traditional parents, as he so eloquently puts it “looked at him funny”. He had a rather difficult childhood because right off the bat he was treated differently, and starting school only made matters worse. Growing up with an appearance that made him stick out so much, he was bullied throughout school. When Eiri was a teenager, his older sister Mika began dating a man named Tohma Seguchi, who also happened to be the keyboardist for Nittle Grasper, currently the most popular band in Japan. Tohma quickly bonded with Eiri, and when he offered to take him to America with him to continue school, he was ecstatic at the idea of getting out of Japan.
Tohma took Eiri to New York, where he already lived part of the time, and let him stay with him. He set Eiri up with a private tutor named Yuki Kitazawa. Kitazawa and Tohma never got along, but Eiri quickly grew extremely attached to Kitazawa, eventually falling in love with him. Things went well for a time and Eiri enjoyed living in America, where he didn’t feel quite so out of place. But one night when he was sixteen, a drunken Kitazawa tried to molest Eiri, and to add insult to injury he took ten dollars from a friend who was there at the time to let him go first. They didn’t succeed, and Eiri ended up killing Kitazawa, scaring the other man away. Numb with shock, Eiri sat beside his dead tutor’s body, covered in his blood for hours until Tohma eventually came to pick him up and found him that way.
In the time that followed, Eiri’s mind blocked out the memories of that night almost completely. He was aware that he killed Kitazawa, but the actual memory was lost to him. Tohma used his influence to keep Eiri’s involvement in Kitazawa’s death largely a secret, and the two, much to Eiri’s dismay, returned to Japan. Back in Japan Eiri’s behavior quickly took a turn for the worse. At one point in the manga, he refers to his teenage self as a “thug”. He began picking fights and causing what can only be assumed was all sorts of generic rebellious teenage trouble. At a loss of what to do, Eiri’s family, being super traditional and old, decided to work out a future arranged marriage to the daughter of the Usami family, who ran Ryuganji temple, the temple closest to that of the Uesugi family. Her name was Ayaka and she was young and sweet, and Eiri wanted none of this marriage nonsense. It’s never made entirely clear, but it can be assumed that at this point was when Eiri chose to leave home and strike it out on his own in Tokyo.
He lived with Tohma for long enough to be able to afford to make it on his own. Sinking deeper into depression, Eiri turned to writing, a hobby that Kitazawa had always encouraged. He ended up getting published and in time became the most well-known romance novelist in Japan, taking up the penname Eiri Yuki after the name of the man he had killed. Though he had found fame and success as a prolific writer and rather notorious playboy, after what had happened that night in New York, Eiri gradually became an angry and bitter person, and his trust in people was all but completely dissolved.
Six years after the night he killed Kitazawa is where the story takes a turn for the more zany and less melancholy. Walking in the park as a means of coping with writer’s block, Eiri happened by chance to pick up a piece of paper he saw drifting by. On it were written the worst lyrics he had ever read in his life, and when the writer of these lyrics happened to catch up to him, things only got worse. The ridiculous boy who had written the lyrics was more overwhelming than Eiri could have ever imagined in that moment, and he made a grave mistake; informing the young man that the lyrics were terrible and that he had zero talent. Thus, without realizing it, he lit a fire in the young lyricist’s soul that was fueled by proving him wrong.
A short time later, when Eiri was driving home, he drove by the man who had dropped the lyrics sitting on the patio of a restaurant, on a date with random side character. And of course, the man had to do something stupid. Which ended up being leaving the girl he was with at the table and leaping in front of Eiri’s car in a desperate bid to get him to stop. Luckily for him, Eiri was able to stop in time. It was raining, and the boy looked pathetic, and so Eiri took him home with him so he could dry off. The boy, who turned out to be an “aspiring rock star” named Shuichi Shindou, interrogated Eiri about his criticism, which he stood by, and things simply escalated from there.
Over the next few weeks, Shuichi gradually wormed his way into Eiri’s life. His exhausting attempts to get close to him were met with icy disdain; by this point, Eiri was so terrified of being hurt or betrayed again that he was almost entirely unwilling to let anyone in or let anyone get close to him. Even his own family he kept at arm’s length, and he was reluctant to let Shuichi get any closer. However, though he frustrated him, Eiri couldn’t deny his attraction to the vivacious young man for long, and ended up kissing him. Eiri felt a pull toward the other man that he couldn’t explain, and against his better judgment, within months the two became lovers. Through it all Eiri maintained a cool indifference as best he could, and brushed off Shuichi’s questions about why he was the way he was.
It was a rocky relationship from the start, especially when Shuichi did things like moving into Eiri’s home without asking and constantly pestering him for information about himself, something Eiri wasn’t willing to share in the least. Shuichi divided his time between doting on Eiri and working with his band, Bad Luck, who had recently been signed by the record company Tohma now ran after breaking up his own band. Things were able to carry on in this fashion for a while, but before too long things became complicated when Ayaka, now a teenager, came to Tokyo to visit Eiri. In a messy turn of events Shuichi ended up declaring his love for Eiri publicly, something that was difficult to explain away. Meanwhile Taki Aizawa, the singer for a rival band, ASK, bore a grudge against Shuichi for Bad Luck’s quick success, and the public began to whisper about Shuichi and Eiri’s relationship.
In the end, the idea that the public might learn he was seeing a man became too much for Eiri, and he ended things with Shuichi. In the meantime, Taki Aizawa hired a group of thugs to assault Shuichi and took pictures, using them as blackmail to force him to quit Bad Luck. When Eiri learned about this, he confronted Aizawa and nearly killed one of his bandmates to get the film back. He apologized to Shuichi and promised he’d never kick him out again; Eiri himself would disappear instead.
True to his word, Eiri packed up out of nowhere and went back to Kyoto, where he agreed to go through with his arranged marriage. Before long, however, Shuichi showed up in drag pretending to be Ayaka and convinced Eiri’s father to call off the betrothal altogether. Afterward, Shuichi confronted Eiri and told him that no matter what was in his past or what he did, he would still love him. In hopes that he would leave for good, Eiri revealed to him that he had once committed murder, but rather than having the desired effect, Shuichi told him he still wanted to be with him. Conflicted because of the confusing emotions being with Shuichi made Eiri experience but still touched by his devotion, Eiri took Shuichi back. This culminated in Eiri openly crying in front of Shuichi for the first time, clinging to him and confessing that he really just wanted to be with him, but he was afraid of getting hurt again, though at the time he didn’t really explain what he meant just yet.
After that point, almost imperceptibly slowly, Eiri began to open himself up to Shuichi. Things actually went relatively smoothly and uneventfully for quite a while, and then the emotions he felt for Shuichi began to parallel the feelings Eiri still harbored for Kitazawa too closely and it started to take a toll on him, forcing him to confront the memories of the night the man died as they began to come flooding back. When he was hospitalized because he was coughing up blood, he considered leaving and moving back to New York, but he was, to his own surprise, more attached to Shuichi than he thought and ended up staying and taking him on their first date (though they had been together for over a year at this point, showcasing Eiri’s incredibly unromantic nature). The date was a disaster, but ended with Eiri finally confessing the details of the night he killed Kitazawa. This was a huge step for Eiri, considering he had never told anyone about the incident before.
Life chugged along happily for a short while, until Tohma began to worry about Eiri’s wellbeing (because of the whole coughing up blood fiasco) and as the president of the record company Bad Luck was working for gave Shuichi and ultimatum: he could either break up with Eiri or be dropped from the record label, effectively ending Shuichi’s career. By this point, Tohma and Mika were married and Tohma, as Eiri’s brother-in-law, was fiercely protective of him and would do anything to prevent him from getting hurt again.
For a while, Shuichi agonized over the decision, though ultimately he chose Eiri. Realizing that Shuichi would be giving up his life’s dream to be with him, Eiri decided to end things with Shuichi for his own good. And, being the gem he is, Eiri decided to be a giant asshole and make Shuichi believe it was because he was interested in Tohma instead, something that Shuichi had already been worrying about for literally no reason because he was possessive and none too bright. A devastated Shuichi was then kidnapped by another record company based in New York and lugged off to America where he was given the opportunity to work for them. It wasn’t long before Eiri regretted his decision and followed Shuichi to New York. He tried to get him back, and to his surprise Shuichi rejected him.
At a loss, Eiri pouted for a while and got roaring drunk for a few days. Eventually Shuichi’s producer, Sakano, came to New York and tried to convince Eiri to try again to bring Shuichi home. In response, Eiri sulked like the adult he was and refused. Then, on the way back to his hotel to sulk some more, Eiri ran into the bartender from the bar he’d been frequenting, and she attempted to make conversation and seemed like she knew him. Acting like a heartbroken child and in no mood, Eiri threatened, quite eloquently, to “fuck her up”. Then, she threw him for a loop when she introduced herself as Yoshiki Kitazawa. She explained she was Kitazawa’s younger sister, who he had previously known as his younger brother.
Tired of wandering around New York like a lost puppy, Eiri went home with Yoshiki and together they hatched a harebrained scheme to win Shuichi back. The plan was that they would write out things for Eiri to say on cue cards that Yoshiki would hold up behind Shuichi, and Eiri would read them and look like less of an asshole. Shuichi failed to notice the cue cards, and Eiri explained to him that he wasn’t interested in Tohma. Shuichi came home to Japan with Eiri.
For a while, Eiri carried on in the relationship like the lovable asshole he was, until Shuichi began pressing for him to tell him he loved him. Eiri attempted to understand his feelings for Shuichi, and panicked when he realized that his feelings for Shuichi and his feelings for Kitazawa were different. This went on for a few weeks, until Eiri broke down and explained to him rather bluntly and in the cruelest way possible that he didn’t love him; he still loved Kitazawa.
This, understandably, threw a wrench into the relationship. Shuichi was heartbroken and though the two stayed together, things became strained. Eiri spent the time that followed trying to understand himself and why he could still harbor feelings for someone who had destroyed his life the way Kitazawa had. Eventually, he brought up the issue to his therapist, who explained to him that he was most likely so afraid of getting hurt that he was rejecting his feelings for Shuichi, and that he had to learn to search for what he needed from his life now and not from someone who was dead. Finally accepting his own emotions, Eiri admitted to Shuichi that he was wrong and that he loved him.
Now, you’d think that this would make things just fine. But Shuichi flew into full passive aggressive brat mode instead. He didn’t believe that Eiri really loved him, and he became cold and irritable with him rather than accepting his confession. While the infantile singer was on a mission to release ten singles in ten days Eiri met with Shuichi’s bandmates and composed lyrics for one of their songs, one that Shuichi was having trouble writing lyrics for. The lyrics were romantic and passionate and when Shuichi went on stage with the intention of ad-libbing and humming because he didn’t have lyrics, he found the song Eiri had written for him in his folder of music with a note telling him to sing it however he wanted to.
Then, with the beautiful words that explained Eiri’s feelings in hand, Shuichi acted in a manner that was predictable to his stubborn nature; he rejected them and hummed instead. Afterward, he met Eiri in the crowd, and he was amused by his choice to hum instead of accept his lyrics rather than upset. Shuichi explained that he’d rejected the lyrics because he didn’t believe Eiri had actually written them for him, he had written them for Kitazawa. Eiri explained that this wasn’t true, that he loved Shuichi and no one could ever replace him, and that without him he had nothing. And then, he gave up on his emotional constipation and broke down crying. The two talked out their issues, and finally came to an understanding.
The series closes with the two going on a trip to New York together to visit Kitazawa’s grave so Eiri can finally have closure.
Personality: To put it in simple terms, Eiri is a crab. Not only is he crabby with everyone around him, he also tastes great with butter. But no, in all seriousness, he’s a sweet and vulnerable softie deep down, but hardly anyone gets to see that because he keeps a shell of cool indifference and often cruel cynicism wrapped tightly around himself to protect his heart from being hurt. The Eiri people generally see and who he is deep down are very different people, as his sister Mika tells Shuichi more than once.
Eiri is a very snarky person, and will make rude and sarcastic comments and just generally be a rude bastard at his worst. He’s fond of shocking people, and will often say things just to get a rise out of them (especially his father). Even though he’s an adult, he has a playful streak that tends to be negative and enjoys seeing how far he can go before people will lose their patience with him. On any given day, Eiri can be pleasant and professional in conversation if he wants to, but his general behavior consist of him being a huge brat and saying snotty things for usually no reason.
Because of the incident with Kitazawa, Eiri does not trust people in general at all. He’s been deeply hurt on a very personal level by being betrayed by the person he loved and trusted the most, and so as a result he will not let anyone get close to him. He’ll go so far as to completely withhold all personal information (when he meets Shuichi, he doesn’t even introduce himself. Shuichi has to learn who he is by seeing him in an interview on tv), act coldly and do everything he possibly can to try to push people away. Eiri is a very private person and closes himself off from those around him. Getting him to open up is a long and arduous process and hardly anyone can last through the ordeal without giving up. He’s honestly a very sensitive and kind person, but he hides all of that under what Shuichi describes as his “mask”, and he is very wary of letting anyone see who he really is.
Though Eiri is pretty much actually an asshole, he puts on airs of being an even bigger one than he actually is, and will pretend not to care about anyone or anything for the sake of retaining his distance from people. He coasts through life acting cool and suave as hell and generally seeming apathetic about most things. Because at the beginning of the series Eiri’s sexuality is something he’s trying very hard to suppress, somehow through it all he manages to be a notorious womanizer and can get any woman into bed he wants, so he does have quite a lot of charm to offer for one night at a time. Though with Shuichi, he usually will turn that charm off like a switch if he starts annoying him, which is often. And this leads to the fact that he is also easily annoyed, and impatient. He will tire of flirtations and people in general quickly and unless someone captures his interest, he will quickly become flippant with them. Eiri is hard to impress and even harder to keep impressed. He is not a humble person and seems quite a lot of the time to think his opinion matters more than anyone else’s. If you don’t impress him, he’ll let you know, and brutally.
Another of his more notable traits is his honesty. He will very rarely lie to people unless he’s trying to get rid of them, and when he tells the truth it’s often bluntly and cruelly. There are times when he seems not to have any sort of a conscience at all, and he will say horrible things to people without really thinking about the impact it will have. More often than not, however, when he’s being mean he’s just being honest. Eiri doesn’t seem to value the thought of sparing people’s feelings by lying. If he has an opinion on someone, even if it’s an unflattering one, he will share it to their face. Even though he usually comes across as a jerk when he does this sort of thing, he really does usually do it for their own good; his harsh criticism and unsympathetic attitude toward Shuichi’s more minor problems keeps him motivated and force him to suck it up and deal with things instead of moping. Eiri doesn’t take a lot of bullshit, and in some ways it’s good for the people around him.
Aside from all this negativity, Eiri does have his good qualities. Deep down he’s honestly very gentle and can be quite empathetic when it comes to people he loves, and he hates to see the people he cares about unhappy. He will sacrifice his own wants and needs for the sake of those who are important to him, as shown when he ends things with Shuichi because he doesn’t want him to give up his career and lifelong dream of being a famous singer for him. Though he often does come across as a selfish brat, Eiri’s own feelings don’t usually take priority over those of the people he loves. He’s easily embarrassed, and so when he does something sweet he’ll try to be discreet about it and become extremely grouchy if someone calls him out on it.
As the series progresses, Eiri shows more of his more positive traits that are normally hidden behind his mask of coldness. As Mika points out, he’s extremely sensitive, which amounts to the fact that he’s actually a huge crybaby and fraidy cat. Once, when he was young, Mika forced him to eat celery and he cried and ran away from home. When he’s in a position where he’s feeling vulnerable and comfortable enough to allow himself to feel that way, he cries easily. By the end of the series he feels comfortable with Shuichi to the point that he will cry openly in front of him and doesn’t seem embarrassed.
Eiri is also good to his fans; rather than putting up his front of indifference he treats them kindly and is attentive to what they have to say. He seems to put quite a lot of importance on the way his readers perceive him, which is probably quite a lot of the reason he’s so cautious at first about allowing anyone to know he’s seeing another man.
Even in his earliest appearances, Eiri is an extremely seductive person. It’s not even just exclusively sexual, either. Plain and simple, Eiri knows how to get what he wants in most situations. As a celebrity, he knows how to put on a pleasant air for the public, and at one point uses this to get Shuichi’s mother to let him come inside and visit him when he’s sick while Shuichi still lives at home. He’s a pretty persuasive guy.
Abilities, Weaknesses and Power Limitations: As far as abilities go, Eiri is good with words. He has a fairly extensive vocabulary, likely due to his profession, and he’s also skilled at writing. He’s also a very skilled actor in the sense that he can show people around him a different version of himself than the person he really is, and everyone will believe it. He’s persuasive and seductive, and can get what he wants out of people with his good looks and his easily accessible charm, which he turns off like a switch when it’s not convenient for him. He also carries with him an air of complete and total confidence, dismissing the efforts of others often when he feels they’re not up to snuff. This is both a strength and a weakness, because while confidence is attractive, Eiri takes it to an obnoxious level.
And for weaknesses, buckle up. To put it plainly, Eiri is emotionally weak. Rather than dealing with feelings he tends to push people away so he doesn’t have to fully process them, and he hides behind a mask of hateful indifference so people can’t see how vulnerable he is. He doesn’t handle stress well and he is prone to lashing out or shutting down when faced with a difficult situation. When things get hard or he’s faced with too much, he’ll simply run away. He’s infamous for getting stressed out and literally running away and disappearing before deadlines, only to resurface later with his manuscript done.
Eiri’s constitution is weak to the point that when faced with too much stress he canonically actually becomes physically ill to the level that he coughs up blood and faints. He’s also surprisingly delicate and has no real physical strength to speak of despite his size. When he’s angry, however, it’s another story, considering the fact that he nearly kills one of the members of the band Ask when he finds out what their singer did to Shuichi.
Eiri is also easily embarrassed, a weakness that causes many problems in his social life because he becomes extremely grumpy and defensive when he is embarrassed. Because he gets embarrassed so often, he lashes out and makes himself look like an even bigger jerk than he would otherwise because he’s trying so desperately to pretend he’s not.
And then of course, we come to Eiri’s main weakness; he’s horrible at being nice when it’s not something that interests him. At one point when he’s trying to be kind to Shuichi, he actually has to cut himself off in the middle of calling him a dumbass when he’s physically making an effort to be sweet. He is almost constantly cold and callous and cruel to people around him, even those that care about him, because he’s so used to behaving that way. Though deep down he has a soft and creamy nougat center, even for Eiri himself chiseling through all the hard ice to get to it is a feat in itself.
Inventory: two packs of cigarettes, a six-pack of Budweiser, a pair of reading glasses, a lighter, a package of premade strawberry shortcakes, and a sheet of photo stickers taken with Shuichi in a photo booth.
Appearance: Eiri is tall (6’1”) and blonde with notably light eyes (they’re sometimes depicted as blue, sometimes light brown, and sometimes gold. There’s really not a lot of consistency as far as his eye color considering the manga is in black and white and the covers vary so much) and pale skin. He has wavy hair, long limbs, and a feminine face (he is described in canon as having a “David Bowie-esque androgynousnes”).
Age: 24
AU Clarification: N/A
S A M P L E S
Log Sample:
Writing wasn't working.
It wasn't the first time it hadn't worked, but this latest case of writer's block...well...it was bad. For the first time in nearly two days, Eiri emerged, sleep-deprived and hungry, from his den. The steps to the kitchen were laborious ones, and he stopped to take a piss and wash his face on the way. When he reached the kitchen it was cake, then beer. Three mini strawberry shortcakes, the ones he ate compulsively and made Shuichi screech at him about how he was going to get fat. Then, he downed an entire glass of water in four seconds and opened a can of beer, the sound of the top opening oddly soothing somehow.
With a drink in one hand and a cigarette in the other, Eiri made his way into the living room, his shirt and dress slacks rumpled from being hunched at his laptop in the dim office. It felt good to be out in the light, even if it hurt his eyes, and he took a seat on the sofa, intending to enjoy a few minutes of leisure before he had to go back and scribble away to meet the ridiculous deadline Mizuki had set for him this time. Sometimes, he swore editors were minions of the devil. Mizuki looked sweet, but he was almost positive this time that she had given him such a strict deadline just to torment him.
Lounging on the sofa with his drink and cigarette, Eiri let his tense shoulders slump. All was peaceful for a moment. What he was forgetting, though, was that there was a pink homing missile in the apartment that was perpetually locked onto his heat signal and seemed to always known when he was out of his office somehow, and its name was Shuichi. Already now, he could hear the telltale sound of his footsteps, and Shuichi burst into the living room as though on cue.
“Good morning!” he chirped, and Eiri scowled.
“It’s afternoon,” he spat, leaning back against the back of the sofa, doing his best to ignore the little annoyance that had seen fit to intrude on his first few moments of relaxation in days. “And aren’t you supposed to be at work?”
“Don’t be so mean to me!” Shuichi said, throwing a hand dramatically over his heart. “I took the day off for you! You’re supposed to be grateful! You’re supposed to say ‘thank you Shuichi, my love! I’m so happy you took the day off just for me!’”
“Like hell,” was Eiri’s response, and he finished his cigarette and lit another. “Drop dead.”
“Yukiiii!”
“Your voice is making my head split. Shut up for ten seconds.” Pressing a hand to his forehead, Eiri rubbed at the offending headache as though he could reach it from the outside and glared at Shuichi though his fingers. But the smaller man was already cuddling up to him, and he sighed heavily, defeated, and removed his reading glasses, sliding them into the pocket of his dress shirt and grudgingly threw an arm around Shuichi’s shoulders, trying to pretend he minded as much as he was acting like he did.
Comms Sample:
[When Eiri turns the feed on, he’s got his phone upside down, and he grumbles a little before he rights it, looking sour and irritated and none too pleasant.]
Look, I don’t normally do this kind of thing. I don’t normally beg for shit publicly. But…
[A sigh, and he runs a hand over his hair, looking tired and almost fiendish with a deep frown creasing his handsome brow.]
If anyone had any books they weren’t using, well...let’s just say I’d trade just about anything for something to read. I’m not expecting any charity. I’ll pay whatever. I’m just going crazy sitting in space and waiting to die.
[A pause, and he’s still frowning, though he glances uncomfortably off to the side, clearly a little embarrassed to be doing what he considers “public begging”. ]
I’ll attach my room number to the message, so anybody who has anything for me, stop by whenever.
It’s not like I’m going anywhere.
[He sounds a bit bitter about that last part. And then the feed cuts, and the only thing left is the unopened attachment of his room number.]
zerotalent wouldn't know I was applying so it'd be a surprise since she's apping Shuichi, but I figured for organization's sake this should go here too)P L A Y E R I N F O R M A T I O N
Your Name: Danie
OOC Journal:
kitskieUnder 18? If yes, what is your age?: nope
Email + IM: townwilltakeme@gmail.com | cupcakeries (AIM)
Characters Played at Ataraxion: Anne Cunningham and Clint Lassiter
C H A R A C T E R I N F O R M A T I O N
Name: Eiri Yuki
Canon: Gravitation
Original or Alternate Universe: original
Canon Point: The end of the manga, after leaving for a trip to New York with Shuichi.
Number: 023, RNG if taken
Setting: Eiri’s setting is actually pretty simple; 1990’s Japan. There’s nothing special or anything to set it apart from our own world, actually. Just Tokyo, in the mid 90’s in our own universe. For further reference, have a link.
History: Eiri is a celebrity romance novelist and international Japanese sex symbol, but he didn’t start out that way. Eiri Yuki was born Eiri Uesugi in Kyoto, Japan to a family of monks. He also happened to have the misfortune being born with a form of albinism, made apparent by his blonde hair and pale eyes and skin, and his extremely traditional parents, as he so eloquently puts it “looked at him funny”. He had a rather difficult childhood because right off the bat he was treated differently, and starting school only made matters worse. Growing up with an appearance that made him stick out so much, he was bullied throughout school. When Eiri was a teenager, his older sister Mika began dating a man named Tohma Seguchi, who also happened to be the keyboardist for Nittle Grasper, currently the most popular band in Japan. Tohma quickly bonded with Eiri, and when he offered to take him to America with him to continue school, he was ecstatic at the idea of getting out of Japan.
Tohma took Eiri to New York, where he already lived part of the time, and let him stay with him. He set Eiri up with a private tutor named Yuki Kitazawa. Kitazawa and Tohma never got along, but Eiri quickly grew extremely attached to Kitazawa, eventually falling in love with him. Things went well for a time and Eiri enjoyed living in America, where he didn’t feel quite so out of place. But one night when he was sixteen, a drunken Kitazawa tried to molest Eiri, and to add insult to injury he took ten dollars from a friend who was there at the time to let him go first. They didn’t succeed, and Eiri ended up killing Kitazawa, scaring the other man away. Numb with shock, Eiri sat beside his dead tutor’s body, covered in his blood for hours until Tohma eventually came to pick him up and found him that way.
In the time that followed, Eiri’s mind blocked out the memories of that night almost completely. He was aware that he killed Kitazawa, but the actual memory was lost to him. Tohma used his influence to keep Eiri’s involvement in Kitazawa’s death largely a secret, and the two, much to Eiri’s dismay, returned to Japan. Back in Japan Eiri’s behavior quickly took a turn for the worse. At one point in the manga, he refers to his teenage self as a “thug”. He began picking fights and causing what can only be assumed was all sorts of generic rebellious teenage trouble. At a loss of what to do, Eiri’s family, being super traditional and old, decided to work out a future arranged marriage to the daughter of the Usami family, who ran Ryuganji temple, the temple closest to that of the Uesugi family. Her name was Ayaka and she was young and sweet, and Eiri wanted none of this marriage nonsense. It’s never made entirely clear, but it can be assumed that at this point was when Eiri chose to leave home and strike it out on his own in Tokyo.
He lived with Tohma for long enough to be able to afford to make it on his own. Sinking deeper into depression, Eiri turned to writing, a hobby that Kitazawa had always encouraged. He ended up getting published and in time became the most well-known romance novelist in Japan, taking up the penname Eiri Yuki after the name of the man he had killed. Though he had found fame and success as a prolific writer and rather notorious playboy, after what had happened that night in New York, Eiri gradually became an angry and bitter person, and his trust in people was all but completely dissolved.
Six years after the night he killed Kitazawa is where the story takes a turn for the more zany and less melancholy. Walking in the park as a means of coping with writer’s block, Eiri happened by chance to pick up a piece of paper he saw drifting by. On it were written the worst lyrics he had ever read in his life, and when the writer of these lyrics happened to catch up to him, things only got worse. The ridiculous boy who had written the lyrics was more overwhelming than Eiri could have ever imagined in that moment, and he made a grave mistake; informing the young man that the lyrics were terrible and that he had zero talent. Thus, without realizing it, he lit a fire in the young lyricist’s soul that was fueled by proving him wrong.
A short time later, when Eiri was driving home, he drove by the man who had dropped the lyrics sitting on the patio of a restaurant, on a date with random side character. And of course, the man had to do something stupid. Which ended up being leaving the girl he was with at the table and leaping in front of Eiri’s car in a desperate bid to get him to stop. Luckily for him, Eiri was able to stop in time. It was raining, and the boy looked pathetic, and so Eiri took him home with him so he could dry off. The boy, who turned out to be an “aspiring rock star” named Shuichi Shindou, interrogated Eiri about his criticism, which he stood by, and things simply escalated from there.
Over the next few weeks, Shuichi gradually wormed his way into Eiri’s life. His exhausting attempts to get close to him were met with icy disdain; by this point, Eiri was so terrified of being hurt or betrayed again that he was almost entirely unwilling to let anyone in or let anyone get close to him. Even his own family he kept at arm’s length, and he was reluctant to let Shuichi get any closer. However, though he frustrated him, Eiri couldn’t deny his attraction to the vivacious young man for long, and ended up kissing him. Eiri felt a pull toward the other man that he couldn’t explain, and against his better judgment, within months the two became lovers. Through it all Eiri maintained a cool indifference as best he could, and brushed off Shuichi’s questions about why he was the way he was.
It was a rocky relationship from the start, especially when Shuichi did things like moving into Eiri’s home without asking and constantly pestering him for information about himself, something Eiri wasn’t willing to share in the least. Shuichi divided his time between doting on Eiri and working with his band, Bad Luck, who had recently been signed by the record company Tohma now ran after breaking up his own band. Things were able to carry on in this fashion for a while, but before too long things became complicated when Ayaka, now a teenager, came to Tokyo to visit Eiri. In a messy turn of events Shuichi ended up declaring his love for Eiri publicly, something that was difficult to explain away. Meanwhile Taki Aizawa, the singer for a rival band, ASK, bore a grudge against Shuichi for Bad Luck’s quick success, and the public began to whisper about Shuichi and Eiri’s relationship.
In the end, the idea that the public might learn he was seeing a man became too much for Eiri, and he ended things with Shuichi. In the meantime, Taki Aizawa hired a group of thugs to assault Shuichi and took pictures, using them as blackmail to force him to quit Bad Luck. When Eiri learned about this, he confronted Aizawa and nearly killed one of his bandmates to get the film back. He apologized to Shuichi and promised he’d never kick him out again; Eiri himself would disappear instead.
True to his word, Eiri packed up out of nowhere and went back to Kyoto, where he agreed to go through with his arranged marriage. Before long, however, Shuichi showed up in drag pretending to be Ayaka and convinced Eiri’s father to call off the betrothal altogether. Afterward, Shuichi confronted Eiri and told him that no matter what was in his past or what he did, he would still love him. In hopes that he would leave for good, Eiri revealed to him that he had once committed murder, but rather than having the desired effect, Shuichi told him he still wanted to be with him. Conflicted because of the confusing emotions being with Shuichi made Eiri experience but still touched by his devotion, Eiri took Shuichi back. This culminated in Eiri openly crying in front of Shuichi for the first time, clinging to him and confessing that he really just wanted to be with him, but he was afraid of getting hurt again, though at the time he didn’t really explain what he meant just yet.
After that point, almost imperceptibly slowly, Eiri began to open himself up to Shuichi. Things actually went relatively smoothly and uneventfully for quite a while, and then the emotions he felt for Shuichi began to parallel the feelings Eiri still harbored for Kitazawa too closely and it started to take a toll on him, forcing him to confront the memories of the night the man died as they began to come flooding back. When he was hospitalized because he was coughing up blood, he considered leaving and moving back to New York, but he was, to his own surprise, more attached to Shuichi than he thought and ended up staying and taking him on their first date (though they had been together for over a year at this point, showcasing Eiri’s incredibly unromantic nature). The date was a disaster, but ended with Eiri finally confessing the details of the night he killed Kitazawa. This was a huge step for Eiri, considering he had never told anyone about the incident before.
Life chugged along happily for a short while, until Tohma began to worry about Eiri’s wellbeing (because of the whole coughing up blood fiasco) and as the president of the record company Bad Luck was working for gave Shuichi and ultimatum: he could either break up with Eiri or be dropped from the record label, effectively ending Shuichi’s career. By this point, Tohma and Mika were married and Tohma, as Eiri’s brother-in-law, was fiercely protective of him and would do anything to prevent him from getting hurt again.
For a while, Shuichi agonized over the decision, though ultimately he chose Eiri. Realizing that Shuichi would be giving up his life’s dream to be with him, Eiri decided to end things with Shuichi for his own good. And, being the gem he is, Eiri decided to be a giant asshole and make Shuichi believe it was because he was interested in Tohma instead, something that Shuichi had already been worrying about for literally no reason because he was possessive and none too bright. A devastated Shuichi was then kidnapped by another record company based in New York and lugged off to America where he was given the opportunity to work for them. It wasn’t long before Eiri regretted his decision and followed Shuichi to New York. He tried to get him back, and to his surprise Shuichi rejected him.
At a loss, Eiri pouted for a while and got roaring drunk for a few days. Eventually Shuichi’s producer, Sakano, came to New York and tried to convince Eiri to try again to bring Shuichi home. In response, Eiri sulked like the adult he was and refused. Then, on the way back to his hotel to sulk some more, Eiri ran into the bartender from the bar he’d been frequenting, and she attempted to make conversation and seemed like she knew him. Acting like a heartbroken child and in no mood, Eiri threatened, quite eloquently, to “fuck her up”. Then, she threw him for a loop when she introduced herself as Yoshiki Kitazawa. She explained she was Kitazawa’s younger sister, who he had previously known as his younger brother.
Tired of wandering around New York like a lost puppy, Eiri went home with Yoshiki and together they hatched a harebrained scheme to win Shuichi back. The plan was that they would write out things for Eiri to say on cue cards that Yoshiki would hold up behind Shuichi, and Eiri would read them and look like less of an asshole. Shuichi failed to notice the cue cards, and Eiri explained to him that he wasn’t interested in Tohma. Shuichi came home to Japan with Eiri.
For a while, Eiri carried on in the relationship like the lovable asshole he was, until Shuichi began pressing for him to tell him he loved him. Eiri attempted to understand his feelings for Shuichi, and panicked when he realized that his feelings for Shuichi and his feelings for Kitazawa were different. This went on for a few weeks, until Eiri broke down and explained to him rather bluntly and in the cruelest way possible that he didn’t love him; he still loved Kitazawa.
This, understandably, threw a wrench into the relationship. Shuichi was heartbroken and though the two stayed together, things became strained. Eiri spent the time that followed trying to understand himself and why he could still harbor feelings for someone who had destroyed his life the way Kitazawa had. Eventually, he brought up the issue to his therapist, who explained to him that he was most likely so afraid of getting hurt that he was rejecting his feelings for Shuichi, and that he had to learn to search for what he needed from his life now and not from someone who was dead. Finally accepting his own emotions, Eiri admitted to Shuichi that he was wrong and that he loved him.
Now, you’d think that this would make things just fine. But Shuichi flew into full passive aggressive brat mode instead. He didn’t believe that Eiri really loved him, and he became cold and irritable with him rather than accepting his confession. While the infantile singer was on a mission to release ten singles in ten days Eiri met with Shuichi’s bandmates and composed lyrics for one of their songs, one that Shuichi was having trouble writing lyrics for. The lyrics were romantic and passionate and when Shuichi went on stage with the intention of ad-libbing and humming because he didn’t have lyrics, he found the song Eiri had written for him in his folder of music with a note telling him to sing it however he wanted to.
Then, with the beautiful words that explained Eiri’s feelings in hand, Shuichi acted in a manner that was predictable to his stubborn nature; he rejected them and hummed instead. Afterward, he met Eiri in the crowd, and he was amused by his choice to hum instead of accept his lyrics rather than upset. Shuichi explained that he’d rejected the lyrics because he didn’t believe Eiri had actually written them for him, he had written them for Kitazawa. Eiri explained that this wasn’t true, that he loved Shuichi and no one could ever replace him, and that without him he had nothing. And then, he gave up on his emotional constipation and broke down crying. The two talked out their issues, and finally came to an understanding.
The series closes with the two going on a trip to New York together to visit Kitazawa’s grave so Eiri can finally have closure.
Personality: To put it in simple terms, Eiri is a crab. Not only is he crabby with everyone around him, he also tastes great with butter. But no, in all seriousness, he’s a sweet and vulnerable softie deep down, but hardly anyone gets to see that because he keeps a shell of cool indifference and often cruel cynicism wrapped tightly around himself to protect his heart from being hurt. The Eiri people generally see and who he is deep down are very different people, as his sister Mika tells Shuichi more than once.
Eiri is a very snarky person, and will make rude and sarcastic comments and just generally be a rude bastard at his worst. He’s fond of shocking people, and will often say things just to get a rise out of them (especially his father). Even though he’s an adult, he has a playful streak that tends to be negative and enjoys seeing how far he can go before people will lose their patience with him. On any given day, Eiri can be pleasant and professional in conversation if he wants to, but his general behavior consist of him being a huge brat and saying snotty things for usually no reason.
Because of the incident with Kitazawa, Eiri does not trust people in general at all. He’s been deeply hurt on a very personal level by being betrayed by the person he loved and trusted the most, and so as a result he will not let anyone get close to him. He’ll go so far as to completely withhold all personal information (when he meets Shuichi, he doesn’t even introduce himself. Shuichi has to learn who he is by seeing him in an interview on tv), act coldly and do everything he possibly can to try to push people away. Eiri is a very private person and closes himself off from those around him. Getting him to open up is a long and arduous process and hardly anyone can last through the ordeal without giving up. He’s honestly a very sensitive and kind person, but he hides all of that under what Shuichi describes as his “mask”, and he is very wary of letting anyone see who he really is.
Though Eiri is pretty much actually an asshole, he puts on airs of being an even bigger one than he actually is, and will pretend not to care about anyone or anything for the sake of retaining his distance from people. He coasts through life acting cool and suave as hell and generally seeming apathetic about most things. Because at the beginning of the series Eiri’s sexuality is something he’s trying very hard to suppress, somehow through it all he manages to be a notorious womanizer and can get any woman into bed he wants, so he does have quite a lot of charm to offer for one night at a time. Though with Shuichi, he usually will turn that charm off like a switch if he starts annoying him, which is often. And this leads to the fact that he is also easily annoyed, and impatient. He will tire of flirtations and people in general quickly and unless someone captures his interest, he will quickly become flippant with them. Eiri is hard to impress and even harder to keep impressed. He is not a humble person and seems quite a lot of the time to think his opinion matters more than anyone else’s. If you don’t impress him, he’ll let you know, and brutally.
Another of his more notable traits is his honesty. He will very rarely lie to people unless he’s trying to get rid of them, and when he tells the truth it’s often bluntly and cruelly. There are times when he seems not to have any sort of a conscience at all, and he will say horrible things to people without really thinking about the impact it will have. More often than not, however, when he’s being mean he’s just being honest. Eiri doesn’t seem to value the thought of sparing people’s feelings by lying. If he has an opinion on someone, even if it’s an unflattering one, he will share it to their face. Even though he usually comes across as a jerk when he does this sort of thing, he really does usually do it for their own good; his harsh criticism and unsympathetic attitude toward Shuichi’s more minor problems keeps him motivated and force him to suck it up and deal with things instead of moping. Eiri doesn’t take a lot of bullshit, and in some ways it’s good for the people around him.
Aside from all this negativity, Eiri does have his good qualities. Deep down he’s honestly very gentle and can be quite empathetic when it comes to people he loves, and he hates to see the people he cares about unhappy. He will sacrifice his own wants and needs for the sake of those who are important to him, as shown when he ends things with Shuichi because he doesn’t want him to give up his career and lifelong dream of being a famous singer for him. Though he often does come across as a selfish brat, Eiri’s own feelings don’t usually take priority over those of the people he loves. He’s easily embarrassed, and so when he does something sweet he’ll try to be discreet about it and become extremely grouchy if someone calls him out on it.
As the series progresses, Eiri shows more of his more positive traits that are normally hidden behind his mask of coldness. As Mika points out, he’s extremely sensitive, which amounts to the fact that he’s actually a huge crybaby and fraidy cat. Once, when he was young, Mika forced him to eat celery and he cried and ran away from home. When he’s in a position where he’s feeling vulnerable and comfortable enough to allow himself to feel that way, he cries easily. By the end of the series he feels comfortable with Shuichi to the point that he will cry openly in front of him and doesn’t seem embarrassed.
Eiri is also good to his fans; rather than putting up his front of indifference he treats them kindly and is attentive to what they have to say. He seems to put quite a lot of importance on the way his readers perceive him, which is probably quite a lot of the reason he’s so cautious at first about allowing anyone to know he’s seeing another man.
Even in his earliest appearances, Eiri is an extremely seductive person. It’s not even just exclusively sexual, either. Plain and simple, Eiri knows how to get what he wants in most situations. As a celebrity, he knows how to put on a pleasant air for the public, and at one point uses this to get Shuichi’s mother to let him come inside and visit him when he’s sick while Shuichi still lives at home. He’s a pretty persuasive guy.
Abilities, Weaknesses and Power Limitations: As far as abilities go, Eiri is good with words. He has a fairly extensive vocabulary, likely due to his profession, and he’s also skilled at writing. He’s also a very skilled actor in the sense that he can show people around him a different version of himself than the person he really is, and everyone will believe it. He’s persuasive and seductive, and can get what he wants out of people with his good looks and his easily accessible charm, which he turns off like a switch when it’s not convenient for him. He also carries with him an air of complete and total confidence, dismissing the efforts of others often when he feels they’re not up to snuff. This is both a strength and a weakness, because while confidence is attractive, Eiri takes it to an obnoxious level.
And for weaknesses, buckle up. To put it plainly, Eiri is emotionally weak. Rather than dealing with feelings he tends to push people away so he doesn’t have to fully process them, and he hides behind a mask of hateful indifference so people can’t see how vulnerable he is. He doesn’t handle stress well and he is prone to lashing out or shutting down when faced with a difficult situation. When things get hard or he’s faced with too much, he’ll simply run away. He’s infamous for getting stressed out and literally running away and disappearing before deadlines, only to resurface later with his manuscript done.
Eiri’s constitution is weak to the point that when faced with too much stress he canonically actually becomes physically ill to the level that he coughs up blood and faints. He’s also surprisingly delicate and has no real physical strength to speak of despite his size. When he’s angry, however, it’s another story, considering the fact that he nearly kills one of the members of the band Ask when he finds out what their singer did to Shuichi.
Eiri is also easily embarrassed, a weakness that causes many problems in his social life because he becomes extremely grumpy and defensive when he is embarrassed. Because he gets embarrassed so often, he lashes out and makes himself look like an even bigger jerk than he would otherwise because he’s trying so desperately to pretend he’s not.
And then of course, we come to Eiri’s main weakness; he’s horrible at being nice when it’s not something that interests him. At one point when he’s trying to be kind to Shuichi, he actually has to cut himself off in the middle of calling him a dumbass when he’s physically making an effort to be sweet. He is almost constantly cold and callous and cruel to people around him, even those that care about him, because he’s so used to behaving that way. Though deep down he has a soft and creamy nougat center, even for Eiri himself chiseling through all the hard ice to get to it is a feat in itself.
Inventory: two packs of cigarettes, a six-pack of Budweiser, a pair of reading glasses, a lighter, a package of premade strawberry shortcakes, and a sheet of photo stickers taken with Shuichi in a photo booth.
Appearance: Eiri is tall (6’1”) and blonde with notably light eyes (they’re sometimes depicted as blue, sometimes light brown, and sometimes gold. There’s really not a lot of consistency as far as his eye color considering the manga is in black and white and the covers vary so much) and pale skin. He has wavy hair, long limbs, and a feminine face (he is described in canon as having a “David Bowie-esque androgynousnes”).
Age: 24
AU Clarification: N/A
S A M P L E S
Log Sample:
Writing wasn't working.
It wasn't the first time it hadn't worked, but this latest case of writer's block...well...it was bad. For the first time in nearly two days, Eiri emerged, sleep-deprived and hungry, from his den. The steps to the kitchen were laborious ones, and he stopped to take a piss and wash his face on the way. When he reached the kitchen it was cake, then beer. Three mini strawberry shortcakes, the ones he ate compulsively and made Shuichi screech at him about how he was going to get fat. Then, he downed an entire glass of water in four seconds and opened a can of beer, the sound of the top opening oddly soothing somehow.
With a drink in one hand and a cigarette in the other, Eiri made his way into the living room, his shirt and dress slacks rumpled from being hunched at his laptop in the dim office. It felt good to be out in the light, even if it hurt his eyes, and he took a seat on the sofa, intending to enjoy a few minutes of leisure before he had to go back and scribble away to meet the ridiculous deadline Mizuki had set for him this time. Sometimes, he swore editors were minions of the devil. Mizuki looked sweet, but he was almost positive this time that she had given him such a strict deadline just to torment him.
Lounging on the sofa with his drink and cigarette, Eiri let his tense shoulders slump. All was peaceful for a moment. What he was forgetting, though, was that there was a pink homing missile in the apartment that was perpetually locked onto his heat signal and seemed to always known when he was out of his office somehow, and its name was Shuichi. Already now, he could hear the telltale sound of his footsteps, and Shuichi burst into the living room as though on cue.
“Good morning!” he chirped, and Eiri scowled.
“It’s afternoon,” he spat, leaning back against the back of the sofa, doing his best to ignore the little annoyance that had seen fit to intrude on his first few moments of relaxation in days. “And aren’t you supposed to be at work?”
“Don’t be so mean to me!” Shuichi said, throwing a hand dramatically over his heart. “I took the day off for you! You’re supposed to be grateful! You’re supposed to say ‘thank you Shuichi, my love! I’m so happy you took the day off just for me!’”
“Like hell,” was Eiri’s response, and he finished his cigarette and lit another. “Drop dead.”
“Yukiiii!”
“Your voice is making my head split. Shut up for ten seconds.” Pressing a hand to his forehead, Eiri rubbed at the offending headache as though he could reach it from the outside and glared at Shuichi though his fingers. But the smaller man was already cuddling up to him, and he sighed heavily, defeated, and removed his reading glasses, sliding them into the pocket of his dress shirt and grudgingly threw an arm around Shuichi’s shoulders, trying to pretend he minded as much as he was acting like he did.
Comms Sample:
[When Eiri turns the feed on, he’s got his phone upside down, and he grumbles a little before he rights it, looking sour and irritated and none too pleasant.]
Look, I don’t normally do this kind of thing. I don’t normally beg for shit publicly. But…
[A sigh, and he runs a hand over his hair, looking tired and almost fiendish with a deep frown creasing his handsome brow.]
If anyone had any books they weren’t using, well...let’s just say I’d trade just about anything for something to read. I’m not expecting any charity. I’ll pay whatever. I’m just going crazy sitting in space and waiting to die.
[A pause, and he’s still frowning, though he glances uncomfortably off to the side, clearly a little embarrassed to be doing what he considers “public begging”. ]
I’ll attach my room number to the message, so anybody who has anything for me, stop by whenever.
It’s not like I’m going anywhere.
[He sounds a bit bitter about that last part. And then the feed cuts, and the only thing left is the unopened attachment of his room number.]