(no subject)
Name: Shiraishi Kuranosuke
Age: 21
Part: Vocals and guitar, also dabbles around with the piano
Appearance:
Not much different from canon. Over the years, his hair has been a rainbow of shades between powdery light brown and black, but currently he has settled on a light auburn shade which does a great deal to offset his amber-colored eyes. Usually he maintains his familiar, carefully styled 'flippy' hairstyle, but between haircuts he has been known to let it grow a little shaggier than could be deemed entirely acceptable in the adult world. And though his height is now a respectable 5'8, his stubbornly slender form - which simply refuses to bulk up no matter how strenuous his daily excercise routines - makes his appearance just slightly more effeminate than he cares to admit.
Personality:
To outsiders, Shiraishi may at first appear a little aloof - especially to those many people who envy him for his idol good looks, his calm and unassuming intelligence, or else his flawless singing. Despite his many positive qualities and rare talents, however, Shiraishi Kuranosuke is not nearly as arrogant as people tend to assume he must be. In fact, he's actually quite a nice guy, generally mature and responsible, and able to get along with (at least superficially) nearly anyone. Throughout school he was equally well-liked by both his peers and figures of authority.
Some have even called him perfect.
To those few who have been granted the rare opportunity to get to know him better, however... well, they know that hidden just behind that very calm and serious front is just a regular guy, albeit with a somewhat dry yet occasionally goofy sense of humor, who has opinions just like everyone else, and likes to have fun just as much as anyone else. It's just that Shiraishi's intense dedication to his many obsessions - music, health and excercise, and dangerous and exotic plant life (?!) among them - left him with very little time to make close friends. Especially friends with whom he feels comfortable letting down his guard, as the high expectations of teachers, parents, and classmates alike has always made it difficult for him to be himself. But now, with his strict mother hundreds of miles away in Osaka and all the responsibilities of school over with, Shiraishi is finally beginning to open up and embrace the laid-back party guy lurking within.
History:
At the insistence of his mother, Shiraishi has trained with some of the finest vocal coaches in Osaka since a very young age. The starry-eyed Mrs. Shiraishi - who dabbled in volunteer choirs herself as a hobby - dreamed that her very talented and diligent son would one day become a famous soloist, or else tour the world with a glamorous professional choir, or at the very least become a rich pop idol and support his dear mother in her old age. And indeed the boy seemed well on his way to doing just that, as his teachers declared that at just the delicate age of 12 he had already mastered nearly every fundamental rule of classical singing.
And though the young Kuranosuke loved singing dearly, some part of him wondered: shouldn't there be more to it than this? What, if everything was so darned easy, was the point?
Unfortunately for Mrs. Shiraishi's hopes and her dreams of a cushy retirement, her boy's wild, bleach-headed junior high school classmate Kenya did nothing to help that sneaky little voice of dissention that had little Kuranosuke growing more and more bored with his lessons. Though the two boys got off to a rocky start, with Kenya having taken to an almost immediate dislike of his popular and all-too-perfect classmate, when the blond punk finally relented in his near-constant teasing of Shiraishi the Goody-two-shoes Choir Boy long enough to introduce him to the wide and wonderful world of modern alternative music, the young singer was instantly hooked. Shiraishi was utterly fascinated by the organized chaos of it, the speed and dramatic interplay between noise and melody, and the artists' consistent bucking of the 'standards' of 'good music' with which he had grown increasingly disillusioned. No, these artists weren't perfect... in fact, Shiraishi noted, some of them hardly seemed to have any grasp on the basics at all. But they were saying far more with their music than Shiraishi ever had with his opera ballads and old-fashioned Italian love songs, and it sounded like they were having a heck of a lot more fun doing it!
And so, Shiraishi began to visit his classmate's home regularly after school in order to listen to the CDs his mother would never allow in their own house, and the two forged a friendship that soon grew from reluctant to inseparable. With Kenya's help, Shiraishi even taught himself to play the guitar. He and Kenya began tossing around the idea of forming a band, and even wrote some songs for it. Shiraishi longed to play them for real, but he knew his mother's vision for him, and he suspected she would never approve of such an irresponsible hobby.
Shiraishi managed to keep his new obsession a secret for over a year, but the cat was finally out of the bag when Kenya finally talked him into performing some of their songs with him for their junior high school festival... which Mr. and Mrs. Shiraishi unexpectedly attended. But Kuranosuke had finally fallen into his niche, and much to his mother's chagrin, that one experience had convinced her son that rock music was what he wanted to do. For awhile the Shiraishi matriarch endeavored to be a patient and understanding woman, and she tolerated these shenanigans all through high school, deep in her delusion that it was only a passing fad. She turned a blind eye towards her son's longer and shaggier hair, and to the skulls and plaids that snuck their way into his wardrobe, as long as the boy kept his grades up and continued his classical training. But in senior year, when Shiraishi refused to go to her choice of musical college - or any college at all - the relationship between the two officially soured.
Things grew tense at home as Shiraishi tolerated his mother's silent, tight-lipped disapproval over the next two years while he and Kenya tooled around with their band after high school, until one day she snapped over a petty argument and finally gave voice to all of her myriad disappointments... including her conviction that had been, quote-unquote, "ruined" by Kenya and that as long as he hung around his "loser band friends" he would never grow out of "this silly rock music phase." At that, Shiraishi decided to pack his bags and leave for Tokyo, proving to his family just how serious he really was about pursuing his dream as his own decision.
Life without his hot-headed best friend proved too dull to bear, however, and just six months later Shiraishi picked up the phone and convinced Kenya to join him... claiming of course that he just couldn't find a drummer as skilled as he.
For better or for worse, Shiraishi's lingering resentment over having been told how and what to sing for most of his life influences his music a great deal. Though he leans heavily towards punk, it is not unusual for him to incorporate a variety of different melodies - running the gamut from classical to hip-hop to even traditional Japanese sounds - into the music he writes, making for a notoriously eclectic style overall. In short, Shiraishi hates to be labeled, and with his complete mastery of the basics lending him the ability to sing nearly anything, he will compose and sing whatever interests him at the time.
Just doing whatever the heck he wants doesn't really pay the bills, however, and for living money Shiraishi indulges his other passion (for plants?!) by working at the Yumenoshima Tropical Greenhouse Dome. The park was more than happy to take him on shortly after his arrival in Tokyo, as Shiraishi already had plenty of experience volunteering at the Tennoji Botanical Gardens throughout high school, and the vast base of knowledge he has gleaned from his many books on the subject more than makes up for his lack of academic qualifications in the field.
At home, Shiraishi tends to a pet venus flytrap he grew from seeds acquired from the park, named Nikkori-chan (Niko for short). And as for relationships, despite his handsome face and a reasonably good personality, Shiraishi has always had sort of a revolving door of girlfriends. Though he treats them well, his busy schedule and his dedication to his bands means he has always spent a lot more time around Kenya than he has any of his lady-friends. (Shiraishi hasn't figured out this is the reason they don't stick around, however.) As a general rule, women and the art of what attracts them both baffle him, and in fact he is consistently surprised by how many of the female persuasion turn up at his shows just to see him - though he would never date a groupie. They're just too forward. And by "forward" he probably means "kind of scary."
His current girl, Haruka, is a very sweet and soft-spoken young college student who interns at the greenhouse.
Sample Tag:
The first thing that Shiraishi Kuranosuke became aware of, upon reluctantly opening his eyes to the beam of sunlight that streamed insistently through curtains left carelessly half-open and landed directly on his face, was a blinding headache. He wasn't exactly sure what he'd gotten up to last evening, but the jackhammer-like pounding in his skull with every infuriatingly cheerful twitter from the birds outside was a pretty good indication that alcohol must have been involved. Possibly a lot of alcohol. Or maybe not even that much, since without Kenya around to drag him along on his frequent nights of debauchery he hadn't been out drinking in quite a long time, and there was a good chance his tolerance wasn't quite what it used to be...
Oh, right! Kenya! Shiraishi turned his head, and the vision of tousled blond hair and his friend's still-slumbering form lying on his recently purchased guest futon was enough to remind him at least of the reason for his headache: after six long and boring months apart, the two best friends longtime band mates had been celebrating their much-anticipated reunion in Tokyo. The singer smiled slightly to himself, remembering the fated phone call that had brought Kenya to his door. Of course he hadn't admitted it - Shiraishi's resolute claim when convincing the blond to leave his beloved Osaka had been that he just couldn't find a single decent drummer in this whole blasted city - but he had really missed that crazy bastard.
But damn, why did his arm hurt so bad...?