Malcolm Okada

## Appearance

Malcolm is a freak when it comes to genetics. While both his parents are much shorter than him, his dad only 5'7", Malcolm somehow managed to end up at 5'11" – just under six feet tall. Despite this, however, he's lean and still disproportionate with long arms and legs, which makes finding well-fitting clothes difficult. His facial characteristics are typically Asian, though it can be hard to pin down: his mother is Korean, and his dad is of Japanese origins. He ended up with a poker face to die for and strong, masculine features. Malcolm chooses to keep his hair long, tying it up in a bun or ponytail.

In terms of clothing he's not eccentric in any way, though not particularly prepared for the perpetual rain in Verona. He usually wears v-neck t-shirts or button ups with the sleeves rolled up. Skinny jeans make him look even more gaunt. Unsurprisingly, most of what he wears are from expensive brands – he is spoiled, after all. Sometimes, he wears Richard King's shirts when he can't decide on anything else to wear.

## Personality

You'll never know how he's feeling – Malcolm has a poker face to die for and is a pretty adept liar, probably because he just seems to have an honest face. Nobody ever expects it. When the anxious butterflies hit before a test or in front of his best friend-slash-crush-slash-new paramour, or when the future seems to be pressing down on him, he keeps it all locked away from the outside world. Often this explains why he takes quite a few days off school, huddling under his covers and pretending everything is okay (lying to himself).

Malcolm has a work ethic and is rather studious, feeling incredibly guilty over procrastinating so he tries not to. Furthermore, Mal is friendly and helpful to the extreme. He takes after his mother in that he will try to fuss over other people – be it through overfeeding or comforting or generally tucking in people's shirts. He's difficult to touch, because he never seems to be *there* when anyone goes in for a hug or general embrace with few exceptions.

## History

Born in Seattle, Malcolm's parents always intended to retire to a more rural area but their son's sickly health pushed those plans forward in rapid time. They were worried about him, and his asthma, as in elementary school he couldn't participate in many sporting events – or at least he refused to, with an already understandable fear of choking to death in public at age six.

His father being a doctor and his mother (at the time) a journalist, they were flexible enough to move to Verona – a quiet, sleepy community with plenty of fresh air and more potential play-dates to make for their son, who was reluctant around others his age. Mal was into books, into doing well in school since he was always at risk when doing "fun stuff" but not into actually attending school, where he was friendless. To some extent, this continued even in Verona Elementary.

Because of truancy, he grew very close to his mother. That was just more ammunition.

Thankfully by the end of middle school, Mal toughened up a bit. He found a friend in Alice Malone first, someone calm and quiet that didn't expect too much of him. It was around this time that he also befriended a neighbor, Richard King and dragged him home to his parents quite a lot for dinner and sleepovers. Malcolm was no fool, and he could tell that something was not right in the King household. Occasionally Mal got to put his first aid skills to use, though he swore to keep quiet.

King became Malcolm's best friend through years of spending almost every day together. It's not entirely unexpected that he was his first crush – a horrific, anxiety-inducing experience, that was for sure.

His time in high school is drawing to a close as he is in his final year. He seems to have grown into his own, and is not unpopular at all. It doesn't explain, however, why he feels to anxious and terrified of the future. Being a doctor would be interesting, wouldn't it, but even his new-found ability for fixing ailments seems to have cast him as that against his will. Wouldn't something else be interesting?

Something like a detective?

## Superpower

*Healing* – The touch-based ability to erase someone's physical wounds and pains at a cost.

### Abilities

Simply put, Mal can touch someone and repair any damage done to their body. This can be in any form. Wounds such as cuts and stab wounds and burns – the violent type – are the most common he can deal with easily, alongside bruises.

Long-term illnesses are more difficult, and for some incurable diseases, he's not going to be able to fix the root cause – only the symptoms.

### Drawbacks

Healing small wounds such as a cut or a bruise, or even perhaps a first degree burn does not take much energy; however, larger injuries exhaust him easily. For illnesses, it is a long, laborous process taking several days and a lot of rest.

Healing requires almost trance-like concentration on the act of healing itself, more so for the difficult ailments.

The healing is somewhat 'empathic' in that Malcolm suffers the pain the bearer of a wound would have felt, with one catch: it isn't just the pain of the wound having been inflicted, but also what the afflicted would have felt as it was healed or cured. For example, curing cancer would result in feeling the aches and pains of chemotherapy in the space of a second, concentrated.