Souma Endou [遠藤 創真]

*i painstakingly named him myself, if it sounds stupid definitely let me know LMAO

One of the few male students that regularly attends the Host Club. He is a customer of Kyoya (though also sometimes Mori) as he finds his hosting style to be the least overwhelming. He also quickly develops a crush on Kyoya. (They do end up dating :))

RELATIONS

• Unnamed mother
• Unnamed father

LIKES -- Single player video games, the occult (more of the vibe than activities), astronomy, history class, dark and enclosed spaces

DISLIKES -- Eye contact, bugs, crowds, having pictures/videos taken of him, people yelling

PERSONALITY

A shy, sensitive student that dislikes confrontation. He doesn't have many ambitions and prefers a simple life, which irritates his father, a director with many dreams and big plans. While he doesn't have large outward reactions to people belittling or hurting him, he has a very gentle heart and takes what they say and do to him very hard. However, he also has never directly changed who he is because of outside pressure. In his heart, he knows who he is and he can't change that. If what he is is a bad thing, so be it. He will just be a bad thing.

He has a lot of internalized homophobia because of his father and is afraid of making his queerness known to outsiders. He knows his father wishes for a better son, which is a big insecurity of his, but he is encouraged by his mother who loves him for who he is. His insecurities used to be much worse, but under his mother's parenting he has become a bit better.

He admires the students in the Black Magic club from afar, as he doesn't actually do anything related to the occult but is quite fascinated by it. He also likes the idea of ghosts and finds them cute rather than scary.

Souma is afraid of performing due to the idea of crowds, staring, and possible filming. However, he is a fairly decent singer. 

He is often unsure of how to react to praise or compliments, and usually just nervously laughs in response. Sometimes he will quietly thank the person if he feels especially brave (or pressured to). 

Souma becomes very attached to people that he feels safe around, such as his mother, as well as Kyoya later on. 

HISTORY

BACKGROUND

Souma's family is quite wealthy and works in the entertainment industry, his mother being a well-known theater performer and his father being a director. His mother often traveled around the world while his father stayed at home, and he sometimes brought Souma to work with him. It was here that Souma, at the time a small child, developed a fear of people yelling, as his father often yelled at both him and the actors and crew in his productions.

His father was very strict with him, disliking that Souma was such a quiet and sensitive child that kept to himself. He was also very homophobic, and Souma found that he was gay very early on and saw it as a shameful secret he had to keep. In general, his father often emasculated him and Souma believed every word he said.

His father primarily raised him until Souma was fourteen years old, when his mother retired from traveling theater to spend more time with her family and do more local work. Her guidance was much more kind, though there was much lost time to make up for and much work to do in unraveling her very skittish son who was ashamed of his very being. She was the one to accept his fear of eye contact and suggest he grow his bangs out so no one would be able to look him directly in the eye.

His mother brought him to more theater productions and exposed him to a more queer-friendly environment outside of his father's teachings, and him being gay was less of a secret and more of an unspoken fact between him and her. It was his mother that heard of the Host Club and told him about it.

— "Did you know there's a host club at your school? You should go there sometime, Souma."
"Mom! Do you even know what a host club is?"
"Of course I do. It'd be fun! Maybe you'll meet a nice boy there. Wouldn't that be cute?"
"Mom..."

—

MAIN STORY

When Souma first went to the club, he instantly stood out as being the only male customer that day. Kyoya was the first to greet him, as he had no customers because he was managing behind-the-scenes things of the Club that day. He explained that Souma could choose any host to spend his time with. Souma, being put off by the crowds around the other hosts, asked if he could choose Kyoya, who agreed and sat down with him. 

However, by this point many others had noticed Souma come in and were looking at him. Their stares made him extremely self conscious. It was bringing Souma back to his deeply ingrained mindset that his queerness was a terrible secret that he had to keep, and now everyone at the club knew what a failure he was.

Kyoya noticed a few minutes after he brought over some tea. He observed Souma's hands shaking while holding the cup and notably not drinking from it, and though he couldn't see his eyes, he seemed near tears. Not wanting his client to be embarrassed, he discreetly escorted him to a closet where they could sit in private. Kyoya kept Souma company the entire time, sitting in the dark on the floor while he calmed down. This experience made Souma gain a sense of trust and safety around Kyoya, as no one else had done this with him before. And while Kyoya initially did help him because of his wealth, he did not know much about the Endou family and couldn't make a very large judgement, so much of his motivation to help Souma was really from a place of kindness.

In the closet, they began to talk and Kyoya got to know more about Souma's history. He understood the struggle of having such a strict father, but did not understand why Souma did not fight to try and please him. 

— "From day one, I don't think my father even wanted me as a son. It hurts a lot to know that. But I think it would hurt more if I kept trying to please him and failed."

He did not want to emulate his father anyway, and wanted a quiet life, which fascinated Kyoya. 

By the end of the club hours, they were quite amicable with each other and Souma knew he wouldn't be quite so afraid to come back next time because he really trusted Kyoya. Kyoya felt a sort of connection with him too, though he wasn't sure what it could be labeled as yet.

TRIVIA

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