Mochido Kuroki

Overview

Mochido Kuroki is a first-year student in Class 1-A at Wabi-Sabi High — a sharp-tongued smartass, socially awkward taxidermy enthusiast with a history of being bullied.

Basics

• Age: 18
• Appearance: Very dark brown (almost black) hair worn in a short, low ponytail; brown eyes, pale skins, freckles.
• Outfit: Standard gakuran, jacket usually left unbuttoned, a black skull-print shirt underneath, black pants.
• Likes: Taxidermy (inherit collection from grandfather), sewing and knitting, being the smartest person in the room.
• Dislikes: Being bullied. Cautious of yankees...

Personality

• MBTI: ENTP (occasionally leans introverted)
• Alignment: Chaotic Neutral
• Keywords: Smug, bullyable, bratty, fragile ego, actually kinda caring???, maybe wants to fall in love and act as this-lovesick-guy.

Mochido is a walking contradiction. He maintains strong grades — partly out of genuine ability, partly to avoid disappointing his grandmother — but can act arrogant and shamelessly dump responsibility onto others during group projects. He sets absurdly ambitious goals and positions himself as a "leader," the kind who directs rather than does. In truth, much of this is compensatory behavior: a response to past powerlessness, and a compulsive need to reclaim and expand his personal boundaries.

Despite the tough-guy aesthetic — the skull shirt, the cocky attitude — he's been nearly helpless when actually confronted. Insults, physical aggression — he struggled to defend himself, largely because his bullies were skilled at provoking him first, framing him as the aggressor, and ensuring he caught worse punishment as a result.

He can seem carelessly relaxed one moment, then almost manic with enthusiasm the next, as if a switch flipped. When something captures his interest — a needle collection, taxidermy specimens, old arcade hardware he's disassembled just to examine the circuit boards — he becomes too much, losing awareness of social cues entirely. He doesn't communicate well with people and tends to overshoot in intensity.

If you play to his ego — tell him only he can handle something — he'll smugly take on the entire task himself, even if moments earlier he was gracefully pawning it off on someone else. If you praise him, he'll accept it with a breezy "I already knew that, obviously — but thanks," while privately glowing. Compliments land harder than he lets on.

Background

Family: Mochido was raised by his grandmother, who loved and awaited him from the start. His parents were absent — he was the result of an early, unplanned pregnancy. It's a rough hand to be dealt, but his grandmother made sure he never felt unwanted.

In his previous school, the bullying was severe. He had always been a little odd, and while it went mostly unnoticed in elementary school, middle school was where things became hellish. Not wanting to burden his grandmother, he chose to endure it in silence. He'd come home covered in dirt, laugh it off with some excuse about roughhousing with the boys, then spend the evening helping her around the house — cooking, tidying up — all while keeping his mouth shut about what was really happening.

Eventually, he did fight back against one of his tormentors. It nearly got him expelled right before middle school graduation. With that kind of incident on his record, his options for high school were limited — he could only really count on a school willing to overlook such "minor details."

Enter Wabi-Sabi High. Other institutions might dismiss it as a school for "handicapped," but in reality it's well-regarded and accepts students that the conventional system failed. And besides — his grades were excellent, so he had that going for him.

Domestic Side

Underneath all the bluster, Mochido is surprisingly dependable in certain respects. He loves traditional Japanese home cooking — the kind his grandmother makes and taught him to prepare. He could honestly make a decent homemaker. He memorizes all of her medications and their schedules, and he's genuinely attentive to her needs. Around her, he watches his language and does his best to behave like a proper, well-mannered grandson.

He adores his grandmother Tokiwa (常盤), and she remains endlessly kind to him.