Yama Ishimoto

**Yama Ishimoto**

*For his alternate persona, view* Lapsed Yama*.*

(石本山*, Ishimoto Yama*) is the main protagonist of *Lucid9.* He is a third year attending Isamu Imperial Boarding Academy. He is childhood friends with Rui Hayata and Misaki Kazehaya. He is also the former roommate of Yahiko Ikari.

He is quite commonly known among his peers as a guy with no real ambitions for his future. He frequently gets called out on this fact directly and indirectly, especially from Elizabeth Oshiro.

He is technically part of Track Club because of Masato Kurogane, but has ditched frequently.

## Appearance

Yama has a light complexion similar to his peers. He has messy and slightly wavy black hair, with bangs that curl about his face. Parts of the locks of his fringe seem to cross. His eyes are a bright, gold color, and his eye shape is fairly standard. He has two cowlicks atop his head.

He and others regard him as not particularly fit, however it has been implied by Rui that he has impeccable metabolism. Not to mention, he has run with the track club in the past and has successfully escaped Masato in a chase; it is implied he is at least a decent runner is quite possibly of decent strength, which all lends to a slimmer appearance.

## Personality

Yama is a cynical and sarcastic individual. His sarcastic remarks are particularly witty and snappy if not rude and insensitive. Most of his sarcasm seems to be in good fun, however; rather, good, ''mischievous'' fun that does little to no actual harm. He does not openly express it, but when he does actually offend someone he is remorseful. This is particularly with friends. This ability to create such comebacks and even predict any that may come at him has lent to the idea that he is decently intelligent.

He is known to be lazy and lack motivation or ambition. He is not the most tidy or healthy-lifestyle person because of such habits, it being mentioned a few times that his apartment can be fairly disorganized. He comments on how nice it feels to be alone and think there, which shows how independent and thoughtful (or philosophical) he is.

He is particularly good with analyzing, rationalization, and overall intuition it seems, but because of this he has overthought many things to the point of inner panic. Such panic may lead him to lacking understanding of anything but the current thought of his own focus if not careful.

Unfortunately, his tendency to overanalyze social interactions with his closest friends combined with his fear of harming others (what many have attributed to an underlying condition) makes him indecisive with regards to overcoming past trauma, openly acknowledging some aspects of the outside world, discussing his emotional concerns with his friends, or seeking adequate medical treatment for his numerous potential psychiatric disorders.

While Yama has been prescribed medication in the past, his decision in Inciting Incident to resume taking them after a multiple year hiatus suggests that, as the economic background of his family has not been explicitly established, was due to a clinical inadequacy in his treatment protocol or a lack of diligence and attention to his condition. It is unknown why his parents allowed him to live on his own, with gross negligence or cognition-impairing grief his appearing to be the most likely impetus.

His deep self-loathing is ever there despite how well he can mask it. His reserved nature is a result of being wary to trust and become close to others. It was believed to be by most simply cynicism, but it runs much deeper: he does not wish to hurt others for them talking to him and getting close to him. His low self-esteem also makes him disbelieve in trying, disbelieve in attempting to change his ways, and come to feel like he is too dependent on others.

Psychologically damaged from his past traumas, Yama sometimes has lapses in which he entirely forgets what he is doing for wildly varying amounts of time, as if he is unconscious, where his Split Personality *can* take over him. It has brought him great anxiety many times after not having such lapses for at least ten years, so it is plausible he has or has had anxiety problems. It is considered possible that he suffers from Dissociative Identity Disorder given these lapses. This trauma has made him run away from it, to which he has painted himself a coward for.

While no consensus exists in the community, it is speculated that Yama may also suffer from Generalized Anxiety Disorder, Major Depressive Disorder, Persistent Depressive Disorder, Borderline Personality Disorder, Antisocial Personality Disorder, Cyclothymia, Traumatic Brain Injury, Complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, Schizophrenia, or Schizoaffective Disorder.

## Relationships

### Mizu Ishimoto

Yama is haunted by the recurring memories of his 9 -year-old sister Mizu, as she died right in front of him in a bus crash.

### Rui Hayata

Rui is a childhood friend of Yama's and Misaki's. She understands Yama's witty humor and loves to joke back with him in the same way. She is often teased for having a crush on Yama in such a blatantly honest way, annoying Yama greatly with everyone's meddling.

Yama has stated many times how he is unsure of how he feels towards Rui, and he is very thoughtful towards Rui's feelings on the matter.

Yama is now traumatized by not just his sister, but Rui as well, as he walked in and discovered the dead bodies of Rui and her parents.

### Misaki Kazehaya

Misaki is a childhood friend of Yama's and Rui's. She left for four years from Seto that sent Yama into a majorly depressive state, according to Rui as he himself could not remember that time. During this time, Yama attempted suicide by taking all of the pills in the medicine cabinet. According to Rui, it so horrible that Yama had to have his stomach pumped. Regardless, Yama forgave her fairly easily upon her arrival despite his questions.

### Yahiko Ikari

Yahiko is an old roommate of Yama's for two years. He is constantly humored by as well as teased by Yama, usually oblivious. Yama has questioned multiple times how much he actually knows about him.

By the end of the common route, he and Yahiko talk about the murders in Cafe de la Paix. Yama cares enough about Yahiko to say that he will continue to look into the cases before the conversation is concluded.

Yama is very unsettled by how easily Yahiko can pull up his toothy, arrogant front.

### Masato Kurogane

Masato is a person Yama met during a previous Club Day and eventually became friends with after being invited to Track Club. Yama seems to respect how he wears his heart on his sleeve as well as how well-rounded he is (if not a bit surprised as well). Because of his openness, he does find it easy to conclude Masato's feelings as opposed to many of the other characters.

Yama is often bothered and pestered to come to the track club by Masato, and makes Masato bothered about how many times Yama has ditched instead.

### Elizabeth Oshiro

Elizabeth is a classmate from Yama's second year. Yama generally dislikes her attitude, but loves to mock her British heritage, speaking with the stereotypical British diction. The two can barely hold peaceful conversations and are shown to argue frequently. This does ease up as the two grow closer and thus have less issues.

The reason the two primarily have disliked each other so deeply was because of a project that the two were working on together. Elizabeth had made a comment about Yama's sister, and thus Yama had completely dropped the project and left Elizabeth to do all the work. This took many sleepless nights according to Elizabeth.

### Airi Hiraga

Airi is a girl Yama met from District 6. Yama can seemingly relate to how different she is and how she is bullied for it, and thus can so easily defend her. Yama has a difficulty really understanding her because of how 'mechanical' she acts. Most of everything Yama says Airi takes literally.

### Shigure Enomoto

Shigure hired Yama off the street as her assistant after a series of cryptic tests. Yama jokingly considers her onslaught of extensive and negatively-connotative vocabulary as abuse.

## Trivia

* Yama wore a Goodbye Kitty kimono when he was a little boy. He had fallen and dirtied his yukata, and the only thing he could wear was a spare Goodbye Kitty kimono that Misaki had with her at the time. He is teased about it frequently.
* He hates bugs, as seen by his reaction to the thought of spiders.

## References

1. ↑ https://twitter.com/lunachaili/status/721075409568157696