(no subject)
Name: Mukahi Gakuto (stage name: 朱 [Aya])
Age: 20
Part: guitar, bass guitar, visual kei diva
Appearance:
Gakuto stands at an extremely unimpressive 5'2, but he doesn't let this get him down: he takes no small amount of pride in his petite, girlish figure, and anyone who suggests that his lack of height or muscle is in any way a shortcoming is bound to get an earful. He is especially vain about his carefully styled chin-length hair, which he pampers and conditions religiously in order to keep it soft and silky despite its constantly being bleached and dyed various shades of red. Keeping in line with his markedly unconventional appearance, Gakuto fearlessly walks the lines of gender in his everyday mannerisms and dress - and yet, while the elderly have been known to mistake him for a woman, for anyone with fully functioning eyesight there's simply no mistaking that boyish face.
As a visual artist, on stage Gakuto tends to favor the clean-cut lines of a suit or uniform, or else some play on the same theme. He compensates for his slightly masculine facial features with heavy makeup and flamboyantly styled hair, and often plays up the femininity of his figure with heels, skirts, and short shorts. The kanji for his stage name, Aya, means "scarlet," and his overwhelming popularity with fans combined with his vocal obsession with the color red has culminated in a small wealth of crimson and ruby-hued accessories gifted to him by his followers over the years. These he treasures, and he wears them both onstage and off.
Personality:
Gakuto is prideful to the point of being conceited, often boastful, sometimes catty, and almost always quick to anger - all of which makes for an extremely abrasive personality and friends that are few and far between. Those people with enough perseverance to stick it out and get to know him, however, will soon discover the brilliant smiles of the playful imp beneath who loves to joke and tease. To the adventure-seeking, fun-loving creature of comfort that hides behind the snarky, prickly exterior that Gakuto presents to the world at large, there is nothing more important in the universe than his friends. To them above all else he is fiercely loyal, and he is not afraid to get into a verbal or even a physical fight (despite his obvious disadvantages in that area) if anyone he cares about is hurt or threatened.
Gakuto's many passions include playing the guitar, acrobatic skateboarding, and eating sweets, and fortunately he is skilled enough in all three to back up his unabashed arrogance in these areas. And though he does tend to brag and likes to make sure everyone knows he thinks very highly of himself, the truth behind all of that posturing is that Gakuto is actually rather insecure and very emotional. He worries constantly that he may not live up to the expectations he has set for himself, and cries easily when faced with disappointment or failure - which often leads to him practicing for hours and hours a day before an important show in order to make sure there is absolutely no chance for a screw-up. In dark times he tends to depend heavily on the support of his friends, which explains why he values them so highly.
Those who are intimately familiar with his personality and habits can no doubt easily tell when Gakuto is feeling insecure, guilty, or doubtful, because in these moments he becomes even more brash and snide: all the better to repel strangers and ensure that as few people as humanly possible come to know that he is capable of harboring such embarrassing emotions.
History:
Gakuto grew up as a typical middle child: always doing everything he could for attention and never getting quite enough of it to keep him happy. He soon learned that one of the best ways to gain recognition and approval from parents over his needy and annoying little brother and his perfect, gorgeous, and athletic older sister was to excel at something, and so from a very young age he learned to dedicate all of his being to his hobbies and his studies.
The young boy's first passion was gymnastics, as he watched his sister's practices after school and accompanied their parents to support her at competitions and simply knew in his burning little heart that he could do way better than that. Though presumptuous, the brat turned out to be right: with his boundless energy and natural flexibility, Gakuto excelled at even the most complex acrobatic tricks, and by junior high school was quite famous in the gymnastics circuit as one of the best junior male competitors in Tokyo, long outliving his sister's own interest in the sport. Unfortunately he also outlasted his parents' approval, as they encouraged him to give up the competitions and focus more on his high school exams.
Reluctantly, he listened, and for awhile his only pastimes were studying, listening to music (he definitely favored visual kei, for even from a young age he felt some connection with the men who dared to dress however they liked and the fans who accepted them unconditionally), and tinkering around on the guitar his mother bought him with the new-age belief that learning music would somehow make him smarter. It didn't, but it did give him an outlet to explore his interest in rock music when he was feeling too burned out on kanji, formulas and topsy-turvy English grammar. Which was often, actually, so he soon found himself quite proficient at it.
Shortly after achieving his goal of entering his choice high school, however, the formerly diligent student began to feel rebellious - and because of this restlessness, Gakuto was easily encouraged by the other boys at school to try skateboarding. At this he excelled, and the fearlessness he'd gained from flying through the air from a high bar throughout childhood soon allowed him to master even the craziest and most dangerous of aerial tricks. His parents didn't quite approve of this hobby either, but Gakuto soon lived for it. He craved the adrenaline rush, and he also appreciated the fact that as long as he continued showing his classmates these death-defying stunts, the majority of them would leave him alone about his appearance, his experimentation with eyeliner and nail polish, and his increasingly obvious lack of interest in the female gender. Of course he always acted like he was too cool to care what anyone said about him, but the truth was he did care... a lot. So in other words, skateboarding was his social savior. Well, that and the guitar (now expanded to include electric), which was also considered by his peers to be manly and universally awesome - even if it was mainly visual he was interested in. Picking up on this as a way to save himself from the sharks, as it were, Gakuto dedicated himself wholly to writing and showing off his music, and even started a band that would sometimes play at school festivals. This is when he made the switch to bass guitar. Somehow it seemed more... masculine?
Gakuto had little idea how these two interests would suddenly come together to define his life, however, when sometime in his sophomore year he was practicing a new trick at the public park and - after making a slight mid-air miscalculation - unexpectedly came crashing down on one Hiyoshi Wakashi. While Gakuto's first instinct was to cover for his humiliation with irrational anger at the nearsighted moron who had dared to get in his way, all of his bluster didn't last long after they discovered that poor Hiyoshi's arm had been broken by his fall. Overcome with a guilt that he refused to admit aloud, Gakuto escorted the fellow high schooler to the hospital with unusual meekness, and in lieu of an apology stayed with him for the duration of that very long night in the emergency room. There they talked, and Gakuto - finding Hiyoshi both more interesting and less dumb than he'd originally assumed - more or less forced a friendship on the other boy in the weeks following by popping up everywhere with offers to take his notes and help with writing his homework. Miraculously, Hiyoshi tolerated this and numerous other antics, and even came to accept their admittedly volatile friendship... but even so, imagine Gakuto's surprise when this seemingly uptight young man not only showed a remarkably non-judgmental acceptance of his quirky friend's passion in lip gloss and visual kei, but even began to show an interest in it himself (the latter, anyway)! Despite their near-constant bickering, it didn't take long for Gakuto to recruit Hiyoshi into his band... especially when the other proved to be a shockingly good singer.
The true test of their friendship - and also the biggest turning point in Gakuto's life - came, however, around the time of university entrance exams. Gakuto, in all of his cocky self-assurance, had chosen a rather ambitious first pick... and no second or third. And while the smarmy brat was actually quite capable of acing that test under normal circumstances, Fate decided she had better ideas for him: the very night before test day, the boy that Gakuto had been secretly dating decided - in a sudden fit of internalized homophobia - to call it off. Gakuto was heartbroken, and after an entire evening of being called names and cursed at by the very boy he thought he'd loved enough to embrace his own sexuality for, he was in no fit condition to take that test. In fact, he absolutely bombed it. And naturally, when the test results came out, he found that he didn't get into college.
Hiyoshi, however - though he no doubt had very little idea of what he was doing at the time - came to his devastated friend's rescue with a box of tissues, an assortment of cakes, and one simple suggestion that instantaneously lifted him up from the very darkest depths of his despair: who needed college? Why not just focus on the band?
Brilliant, Gakuto answered. And the rest, as they say, is history... the history of jubilee+ that is, the band that Gakuto started just out of high school with the intention of making it big on the visual scene. With Gakuto on bass, Hiyoshi on vocals, and a lineup that has shifted more than once while these determined two seek out only the best of the best to complement their own skill and style, jubilee+ has indeed grown immensely popular over its short two years of existence. And now that they are newly signed to the indies branch of V.S. Company, a well-moneyed and influential visual kei label dedicated to promoting them with unprecedented enthusiasm, the band's future is only looking brighter and brighter.
Sample Tag:
"Stupid idiot Hiyoshi," Gakuto grumbled under his breath as he stomped his way upstairs to the studio they rented twice a week for rehearsals, the unmistakeable clomping of the thick platform soles of his shoes no doubt heralding his arrival to the very man he silently cursed. Insensitive prick, he added silently, knowing that the closer he got to the door the more likely it was Hiyoshi might overhear his mutterings. Not that he cared what Hiyoshi thought of what he thought, but if the stone-faced blond caught an early wind if just how angry his 'friend' and bandmate still was with him, then his plan might very well be ruined. And since he fancied this plot for revenge a rather brilliant one in particular, Gakuto didn't want it ruined for anything.
Of course he realized that the singer in question probably didn't mean to piss him off as badly as he had; since Hiyoshi was and always had been notoriously bad at reading the atmosphere between himself and others whenever he spoke his mind, the somewhat socially awkward blond probably didn't even know what he was saying when he'd stubbornly insisted that - even if it was for the sake of the band - he absolutely refused to wear anything 'too bizarre or freakish' onstage. Bizarre! Freakish! The bassist once again found himself fuming as those words echoed within his memories of the incident. Actually, perhaps Hiyoshi had not used those exact words when more or less insulting everything that Mukahi Gakuto wore and loved, but the redhead was certain that was exactly what he'd meant. Suspicions that were only confirmed, as far as he was concerned, in the argument that had escalated next... yet another in a long series of shouting matches that the hotheaded musician had left with a door slammed in the blond's face and only one conclusion: if he thinks I'm such a freak, I will show him freaky.
Their first live show was in just two days. Technically they didn't have time to be arguing at all, much less over something as petty as the exact details of their future stage wear. Gakuto knew this. But he was also pissed - not in the screaming banshee way that he had been originally but now in the sullen, silent burning rage way that didn't show at all on his face when he walked in the door and greeted the singer who had been waiting on him with a charming smile.
"Good morning," he sang, the timbre of his voice a little higher than usual - a telltale sign that the often devious redhead had something up his sleeve. Gakuto was no longer worried if anything piqued Hiyoshi's suspicion, however, because in the next instant he slid his long coat from his shoulders and revealed his master plan: a modest, long-sleeved tee that, as the eye traveled downward, gave way to the shortest shorts this side of the red-light district. The skintight pleather left little to the imagination, baring inches of creamy thigh to tantalize the senses before smooth and supple flesh was once again hidden away, encased in the shimmery lurex sheen of black thigh-high stockings.
"So, I was thinking about wearing these at the show instead of plain ol' slacks. What do you think?" Gakuto asked with an unabashedly cocky smirk in the singer's direction, hands on his hips and his weight shifted to show off legs rendered long and shapely by four inches of platform heel. "Sexy, no?"
Gakuto wasn't really sure if Hiyoshi had any gay inclinations or not, to be honest. He thought he'd caught the other young man looking every now and then - especially after Gakuto had come out to his trusted friend towards the end of high school - but the redhead could just as easily chalk the further meaning he imagined behind those furtive glances up to his own wishful thinking.
One thing, however, he did know for absolute certain: the guy was a damn prude, and shorts this short on any gender were bound to make him uncomfortable.
And it would serve the bastard right.