haru iwada.

Early Life

the iwadas are a generational family business that, either knowingly or unknowingly, has employed several morally corrupt values into their work practices. iwfo (short for ‘iwada foods’) is one of the single most influential fast food chains across the globe, but still has the iwadas themselves deeply rooted in their business culture. the look for ‘iwada’ features was always obvious, although the bias is a lot more subconscious among the public. to be able to be chosen as a higher up for iwfo, you had to be able to look, act, and be the part that they wanted to showcase to the public. if you didn’t fit into the image, you had no stake in the business. haru personally falls somewhere in the middle.

haru’s parents have a huge stake in the business, as development managers. they work in iwfo expansion, bringing the brand and raising chains overseas and all around the world, if they can. haru moved around a lot as a very young child, but at the age of ten he settled in a more permanent residence in deer view. he was left with babysitters while his parents travelled to scout out new locations without him.

the importance of staying in deer view was clear enough, as a state-of-the-art college sprouted up in his new hometown. it was funded by none other than iwfo themselves, and it was evident that when haru got older that he would be attending said college as well. as a child, being an iwada was really cool— everyone who grew up eating it, and was impressed by haru’s supposed affluence, was extremely impressed. still, even though he had a lot of people who admired him, it was impossible to make friends with anyone. nobody could really relate to his parents having such a huge involvement in an internationally renowned company.

on the outside, haru remained optimistic. he understood the role that he served being born into the family, and because of the values his parents taught him at the time, he genuinely thought that was good enough. although he grew up really lonely, it just meant he had more time to focus on his music.

music is something that his parents always wanted haru to pursue, and because of this, he’s classically trained in both the piano and the violin. he was a genuine prodigy, but his innate ability in music only served in further othering him from his peers.

but it didn’t matter much to him— falling in love with music was like he was finally falling in love with life. he never found much purpose in fulfilling his role when it meant nobody truly would get to know him, but music became his new purpose. creating music was something he could indulge in completely by himself.

High School

in high school, haru went to a prestigious arts academy— but still didn’t really have friends, despite many having similar interests. up until now, haru’s natural ability was something that he kept mostly hidden. but he figured that when he attended the arts school, with other prodigies (and other rich people), he would be able to find people similar to him. but his lack of socialization as a child and his disconnect from most ‘normal’ discussions made things more difficult.

although he wasn’t really aware that it was mistreatment at the time, people often picked on him. either to his face or behind his back, haru was pretty much a weirdo to everyone else. it wasn’t so bad to the point it was completely demoralizing, but it was hard to go without someone trying to trip him in the halls or fake-compliment the things that he put effort into.

being an iwada was less cool when people started farming their own opinions about the business, and articles came out detailing the mistreatment of their workers and the implicit bias in the company hierarchy. there was even a more serious accusation on some of his family being involved in money laundering. even though haru himself had very little to do with any of this, he reaped a lot of the backlash.

but— whatever. they knew for themself that they had nothing to do with any of that, besides just being related. but that was obviously never something he could control. he began to loathe the things that he couldn’t control. because outside factors would always determine how other people would feel about him, he decided it wasn’t something to care about. he was fine being alone, because at the very least it meant he wasn’t around people who were going to just hate him for who he was.

College

college was where haru did his first little act of defiance. it’s highly, highly discouraged to alter your appearance as an iwada— but haru began his freshman year with freshly dyed pink and purple streaks in his hair. it was the first time he took control of how he wanted to be, but his parents weren’t that supportive. even though haru started out as a music major, his parents had threatened to cut him off financially if he didn’t change to a business major— something that he begrudgingly accepted.

music was still one of his major hobbies, and he spent a lot of time using the music facilities at deer view university anyway. what he definitely wasn’t expecting, is the first friend he ever made. poppy spoke to him with such joy after seeing him play the piano. she explained that she had just formed a band, but didn’t actually know how to play anything. she asked him to teach her, and since he… really didn’t have anything else to do, he obliged.

stupid april’s band sessions were fun to sit in on. even though poppy wasn’t necessarily the best, he still loved to watch and see her progress. the dynamic between everyone was really harmonious, although a bit messy. he enjoyed sitting in, and the others would happily include him in their conversations. and even sometimes let him play with them!

this all very quickly soured, when through unfortunate means, haru became a more permanent member of the band. poppy had gone missing, and everyone was… really fucking depressed. felix had formally asked him to join, and although he hesitated, he wanted to be able to carry on the memory for poppy. his friendship with everyone else quickly grew awry as everyone became unnverved around him. he never meant to replace, poppy, obviously— but everyone still seems to think that he did. there’s no way it could ever actually be his fault.

and even though it was his first ever friend group, he struggles to truly call any of them friends now. it just turned into another matter of circumstance ruining everything with everybody. he would give anything for it to have been him instead of her.