Profile
Hanakawa AkitoHanakawa AkitoBiographical Information
Appearance
Additional
Akito Hanakawa is a protagonist (arguably) and a main character. #fatherlessbehavior Contents
[show / hide] 1 Profile 1.1 Appearance 1.1.1 Attire 1.2 Personality 2 Background 3 Relationships 4 Involvement 5 Trivia ProfileAppearanceAkito is 5’10” and built slender. His physique is partially genetic, but cigarettes and black coffee help stave his appetite. This gives him a rather angular appearance: sharp cheekbones and prominent collarbones. He has black hair, deep brown eyes, and strong eyebrows. His eyesight is poor, and he has worn glasses since he was young. Though shy of forty, he looks about that age: despite being rather boyish-looking into his twenties, smoking and stress take their toll. He takes particularly good care of his hands and nails. AttireAkito dresses neatly, in classic styles and subdued colors. He can often be found in his work clothes -- meaning, scrubs and white coat. However, outside of work, he is partial to black, white, and gray. he likes to maintain a neat and professional appearance, and dresses nicely. Because he runs cold, he like sweaters and wool jackets. He owns a few pairs of nice, black loafers, but has sneakers for the days he spends at work, where he often is on his feet for hours at a time. At home, he can usually be found wrapped in sweatshirts and sweatpants, which he wears in an attempt to keep himself warm. PersonalityFor the majority of his life, Akito’s life was his academics. While his studious nature brought him success, it also means that he’s never had much of a social life. As a child, he was quite shy, and, as he grew, the shyness grew into a distant and inhibited demeanor. Despite his reputation as a gifted surgeon, his coworkers also know him as prickly, aloof, and arrogant -- not to an unusual degree for a surgeon, though. Akito is cool, calm, and collected, and often handles stressful situations with a level head. Despite this, he is a neurotic. He places a great deal of pressure on himself, and tends to take himself -- and almost everything else -- too seriously. Despite his more rational and empirical nature, there is a softer side to him. He could have used his intellect for almost anything -- but he chose to use it to save lives. He cares for other people, and suffers from a compulsion to care for others. With those close to him, he is often fussy, his love manifesting as sometimes unwanted help and attention. Though he generally good at surprising his emotions, when he does emote, it is often quite noticeable. Irritation, mostly, but also joy and affection, are often plain on his face. BackgroundHanakawa Akito is the oldest and illegitimate son of Hanakawa Ryo and Okada Mizuki. He was born in Tokyo, Japan, and has lived there his entire life — with the notable exception of his undergraduate years. Upon finishing his Bachelor’s, he moved back to Tokyo, where he attended the University of Tokyo and finished his medical degree. He is a licensed trauma surgeon specialized in cardiothoracic surgery. He received his license at the relatively young age of 28, and, at 35, was poised to be the next chief of surgery at the University of Tokyo hospital. Among his peers, he is held in high regard, and is accomplished professionally and academically. He was raised by a single mom, who had him quite young. Financially, she was on her own: Ryo flees Japan shortly after Akito’s birth, and her parents, unhappy about their grandchild being out of wedlock, cut contact. Luckily, she finds a steady secretary job by the time Akito hits grade school — this doesn’t provide much, but it does mean they have enough. It’s not enough to cover the cost of Akito’s tuition, however. Looking for a way to distinguish himself among the other Japanese med students, Akito turns abroad. He applies to several top schools in both the US and the UK, and eventually settles on Yale University for his undergraduate degree: a double-major in biology and chemistry. During his time at Yale, he meets Finn Kavanagh, his roommate and eventual friend. Akito finishes his degree and returns to Japan. He finishes his graduate degree and begins his residency at the University of Tokyo Hospital. During this time, however, his mother takes ill. He misses the earliest signs (largely because Mizuki does her best to hide them), but eventually notices alarming bruises over her arms and legs. Fearing the worst, he takes her immediately the hospital. Unfortunately, blood tests only confirm what he suspects: leukemia. Akito believes strongly in medicine. He gets her the best oncologists and the cutting-edge treatments, telling her that he’ll handle the finances. Unfortunately, Akito was already in the hole. His undergraduate degree, especially, put him in serious debt. When Mizuki gets sick, Akito knows he can’t afford the treatments he knows she needs. Broke and desperate, Akito grabs his coat late one night and seeks out a shadowy figure from his childhood: a man named Tanaka, a close friend of his father, who is still a member of the same clan Ryo left behind. Akito tells him he’s willing to take the organs and prepare them for transport. No more. No tattoos, no oaths, no nothing. Tanaka, who was asked by Ryo to keep Akito in his periphery, eventually convinces the current head of the gumi to accept his offer. Akito begins stealing organs from the patients he loses. Hearts, livers, kidneys — even lungs. He even smuggles pints of blood out of hospital, particularly bags of expensive type O blood. The Yakuza works out the transport and paperwork — Akito simply prepares the coolers and passes the organs along. The money he makes keeps him afloat, but it does not save his mom. Just as Akito finishes his residency, she passes. RelationshipsGijsGijs is Akito's younger half-brother, from whom Akito has been effectively estranged for most of his life. Before Gijs winds up at his door, Akito had only met him once, when Ryo sent him with a some cash for Mizuki and a letter asking her to look after him for the summer. Over the two months before school starts again, Gijs lives with Akito and his mother. With Gijs a child, and Akito a young teen, the two clash, and Akito is left with many fond memories of his annoying little brother. Though he knows it's childish, Akito finds it difficult to forgive Gijs for what their father did, and, once Gijs returns to Amsterdam, Akito seldom speaks of him. When he revisits Tokyo, Akito scarcely recognizes him, and treats him with the same wariness and resentment that he did in childhood. However, the more time they spend together, the more Gijs grows on him, and the two eventually become closer. Despite their wildly different upbringing and personalities, they are half-siblings. They bicker, but ultimately find themselves in one another. RyoRyo is Akito's father, of whom Akito has no early memories. For most of his life, he harbors a great deal of resentment towards him -- partially for leaving him, but more so for abandoning his mother with a newborn child. He also carries a great deal of shame over the identity of his father, and his high-achieving nature is an attempt to overcome that shame. FinnFinn is Akito's closest friend, confidant, and partner. Finn was originally Akito's undergraduate roommate -- first through random dorm room allotment, before they decide to move into an off-campus apartment. After a few months, they become close friends, and begin spending a great deal of time together. Introverted Akito and overburdened Finn lean on each other socially, as Akito's shyness and Finn's time constraints mean that neither of them has many friends. However, Akito ultimately moves back to Japan, and Finn stays in the states, and they minimal contact in the decades that follow. Once they reunite, they find that the connection they shared then has endured. If anything, it grows stronger, as the two make discoveries about one another and uncover parallels between their lives. InvolvementAkito's primary role is harvesting organs and working as an underground doctor. This includes stealing kidneys, livers, hearts, and other organs to be sold illegally. However, he also mends wounds and treats injuries when it's not possible (or safe) to get to a hospital. However, his closeness to Gijs, as well as his status as Ryo's son, mean that his influence extends further than just that. Being more level-headed and more intelligent than his brother, he often has the final say in making decisions, and that Gijs often turns to him for guidance. This means that others, too, turn to Akito when they need something, sometimes bypassing Gijs, who is supposed to be the leader of the group. Trivia
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