Kousei Hayakawa

**Kousei Hayakawa** is one of the main characters in My Beautiful Bard. He is an introverted student like Keiji Naganohara. Even though he’s shy, he has a sharp tongue sometimes. He is the first male character to debut as a first year in Matsubara High School.

## Plot

### Season 2

#### Debut

Kousei was first seen sitting on a bench, reading alone. As he was reading, the 2nd year student, Keiji Naganohara decides to come up to talk to him. Kousei is a very shy person, so he looked at Keiji with an awkward look on his face. As they were about to start a conversation, his overprotective friend jumps in to stop Keiji, telling him to leave Kousei alone, which made Kousei slightly annoyed. After the misunderstanding, Keiji was relieved after he finds out Kousei was a first year student. As they introduced themselves, Tadashi Satou butts into the conversation, telling Keiji that Kokomi Aoki would preform. Both Keiji and Tadashi leave the two first years alone, where it's left off with Kousei asking Hiiro who the famous Kokomi Aoki was.

Hanako was talking to the other first years about Kousei. Because Kousei was classmates with Hanako in junior high, they knew each other for a while.

#### The Fight

Like Hisashi and Keiji, Kousei had to wait at the first year floor for Hiiro. While waiting for him, Kousei meets Misaki Shimizu for the first time. She explained to Keiji and Hisashi that Tadashi got into a fight with a guy named Hiiro Sakai. This made Kousei concerned, so he asked Misaki where Hiiro and Tadashi were and where the fight took place. Misaki asked Kousei, Keiji, and Hisashi to follow her, where they ended up near the entrance. Because Kousei was furious about Hiiro, he pushed through the crowd to stop him, alongside Hisashi, who was also furious at Tadashi. Because of how furious he was at Hiiro, he yelled at someone for the first time in years.

#### Reunion

Kousei overhears the first years saying that a "cute new girl" has transferred into this school and is in class 2-4. Kousei wanted to check it out, but the result was one of his friends he hasn't saw in 2 years, Chihiro Kimura. He gets very annoyed by the fact people kept misgendering Chihiro, as they are non-binary and uses exclusively they/them pronouns.

One episode later, Kousei and Keiji go to a cafe he recommended. They meet up with Chihiro's father and talk about things with him. Having to find out he was the reason why Chihiro moved to Miyagi with their mom and didn't return after 2 years, Kousei gets extremely furious and attacks their father, saying that Chihiro wouldn't have to move out of Kyoto if he supported them for who they are and that Hiiro wouldn't have to be super overprotective with him for the past 2 years. The part where Chihiro leaving Kyoto, made Hiiro over protective to Kousei, made Keiji shocked.

## Pre-sequel

Kousei is one of the deuteragonists alongside Hiiro in the My Beautiful Bard pre-sequel. He tells his side of the story to Keiji about the aftermath of breakup of his and Hiiro's friendship with Chihiro.

### The past

In third grade, Kousei and Hiiro meets a shy fellow named Chihiro, the transfer student from another elementary school. At first glance, Kousei was scared of them, but in reality, they were actually very shy at meeting him for the first time too. Hiiro tells Chihiro that he's just a bit shy. But Kousei becomes a bit more talkative when Chihiro mentioned something about the manga series called Blazing Trails.

In the Hayakawa residence, the three decides to make a bento Chihiro's parents make. Hiiro and Chihiro decide what to put in Kousei's bento, but was decided that they would add meringues at the end. The next day, they realize Kousei's bento didn't have meringues, so while Kousei uses the bathroom, Chihiro slips in 3 meringues and Kousei thinking that Hiiro did the work.

#### Junior High School Life Without Chihiro

After school, Kousei is seen getting his shoes from his locker as he sees a piece of paper in his locker. When he reads it, he finds out that Chihiro is non binary and goes by they/them pronouns, along with that, withdrew from Maruyama International School to move to Miyagi. Finding out, he was shocked to find out, along with Hiiro, who came later to see Kousei in that state. Both wondered what happened with Chihiro, but when Kousei texted Chihiro asking what happened, he was left on read for the rest of his junior high school life. He and Hiiro distanced themselves for a while until they meet up again coincidentally and talked about the situation. Kousei was worried that he would be alone once Hiiro would leave him and move out, but Hiiro told Kousei that he'll never leave and swears to oath that he will protect him if someone lays a finger on him.

### the present

Most of the boys (excluding Akira Yazawa) and Misaki Shimizu were talking about the manga series, thundering tales. Kousei watches over them, as he reads a manga volume. He was later seen shouting at Chihiro's father, which was originally mentioned in season 2, episode 4. A day later, he was concerned for Chihiro. As he waved at them and said hello, they didn't wave back. He felt worried about them.

## Personality

Kousei is known to be very shy and introverted. Because of his personality, he couldn't speak up that much until he met Keiji. After meting Keiji, his shy persona slightly changed, meaning that he's more comfortable speaking with his friends. Kousei also has a sharp tongue he sometimes uses. Unlike Hanako and Hibiki, his sharp tongue mostly shows a scary tone, mostly when he's furious to Hiiro or Tadashi.

in the presequel, when Kousei was in junior high, he still has the shy persona. After Chihiro left his junior high, he stopped smiling and felt sad. The perssona changed a few weeks later until Hiiro promised to protect him.

## Appearance

Kousei has reddish brown hair with his bangs covering his right eye and an ahoge slightly curved to the top. On school days, he wears the gakuran, which is the male Matsubara High School Uniform, while in the summer, he wears the summer uniform for Matsubara High School.

Kousei mostly wears long sleeved polo shirts, sometimes with beige cardigans and long pants for his casual wear. In the summer. he wears short sleeved polo shirts, but also wears long pants for some reason.

## Trivia

* His least favorite food is meringues or anything too sweet.
* Kousei knew Hiiro hated Airi's personality because how much of an annoyance it gets to his mind, so he tries to avoid talking about Airi.
* Kousei had trouble standing up for himself ever since elementary school.
* Kousei's last name is based off of a certain teacher's last name.