Chiyotarou

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**Chiyotarou** (チヨタロウ, *Chiyotarō*) is a young boy from the Lake Akan area.

## Appearance

Chiyotarou is a young pudgy boy with a dark bowl haircut, thick eyebrows, and cheek blushes. He wears a coat over Japanese style clothings and pants as well as gloves and a scarf to keep warm during the winter. While ice skating, Chiyotarou wears a pair of getas with blades attached to them, called *gerori*.

## Personality

Chiyotarou appears to be vain as he ignores Kadokura's question to ask him what he thinks about his skating. However, he is willing to cooperate when necessary. He dislikes getting bullied by the older children and will make empty threats to ensure that he does not get harmed but does have a sense of moral as he was horrified when his bullies got hurt as a result of his own actions.

## Background

When Chiyotarou was in Hakodate, he saw some foreigners skating and became enamored by it that he took up ice skating as a hobby. His family then moved to the Lake Akan area where Chiyotarou would often skate on the frozen lake. On one such occasion, Chiyotarou witnessed an exchange between Toshizou Hijikata and Waichirou Sekiya.

## Plot

The next day, Chiyotarou went out to skate again and was approached by Kadokura, asking if he had seen Hijikata, describing his appearance to the boy. However, Chiyotarou ignores his question and asks him what he thinks of his skating. Disgruntled, Kadokura turns to walk away but Chiyotarou finally answers him, saying that he had seen Hijikata but was too far away so he couldn't tell what he was doing.

Some time later, Chiyotarou is confronted by some of the older children as they try to force him to eat marimo. Chiyotarou thinks marimo is food that poor people eats, which causes the bullies to get angry and ties him up to a tree branch. He calls out for help and soon afterwards, a large man approaches him. The man is able to get him down only after Chiyotarou gives him some dried peaches and he thanks him for the help.

He then introduces himself and asks for his name, to which the man replies "Obencho" and offers to give him some more dried peaches in exchange for becoming his henchman. Chiyotarou brings some more food for Obencho since he cannot take him home and decides to take him ice skating, promising to teach him. On the frozen lake, Obencho is able to quickly learn how to ice skate, much to Chiyotarou's amazement.

They are approached by some of the bullies who threatens Chiyotarou and he introduces Obencho as his henchman, climbing up onto his shoulders and taunting the bullies, asking if they were going to feed him some marimo. When one of the bullies attempts to throw a marimo at him, Obencho violently lashes out at him, much to Chiyotarou's horror. He is able to get Obencho to calm down by giving him some more dried peaches, and as the bullies runs away, Chiyotarou wonders what to do with Obencho.

As Obencho skates around, Chiyotarou comes to the conclusion that he has to kill him in order to protect his town. He then sees a hot spring spot in front of him and takes out a dried peach, calling out to Obencho to hurry up and get it before he throws it away. He throws it into the hot spring spot and skates away with tears in his eyes, all the while apologizing to Obencho.

Chiyotarou returns to town where he sees the bullies who notices him approaching. He gives them a glare, causing them to become intimated and runs away. Chiyotarou then lets out a sigh and quietly thanks Obencho and that he will never forget him.