Aoba Kuronuma

**Aoba Kuronuma** is the original founder of the Blue Squares in the light novel series, *Durarara*, and the *Wonderland* series. He is a first year student in Raira Academy, and was Mikado's kouhai, who he referred to as "Mikado-senpai" before his memories of him were erased. Etsuko Asato erases all of his memories of Mikado, making them complete strangers. He is the original founder of Blue Squares. He has a bright personality and is always seen smiling, but has a darker side that is actually highly manipulative and cunning. He's described as being akin to "a younger version of Izaya Orihara". He appears in the second season of the anime.

## Appearance and Personality

### Appearance

Physically speaking, Aoba is an average looking teenager with dark blue hair and brown eyes. In the light novel, his features are usually described as girlish and child-like and he is short enough to be mistaken for an elementary or middle school student. He wears a standard Raira uniform at school and usually wears a light blue hoodie and a t-shirt as casual clothes. He has an average physical frame but is surprisingly decent in a fight. His true strength lies in his mental capabilities as he is a thorough planner and an effective manipulator.

### Personality

As stated earlier, Aoba initially appears very cheerful, outgoing, and friendly. Mikado even states that Aoba even reminded him of Masaomi in a way upon first meeting him. However, it is quickly revealed that Aoba is actually very devious, manipulative, and ambitious. He mostly keeps people at an arms length with very few exceptions such as the Orihara twins, especially Kururi. Those who know his true personality consider him to be a younger version of Izaya which is true to a certain extent. Like the aforementioned info broker, he is very cunning and enjoys toying with others but unlike Izaya, who loves humanity, Aoba despises humanity with all his heart. He views most people as a means to an end and even uses his own brother as a figurehead leader for his gang when things went sour. Albeit, their relationship was very far from ideal. As Ran thoroughly abused Aoba for years before the fact. The fact that he was still willing to set his brother up for prison-implies a high degree of ruthlessness on Aoba's part.

Despite these negative feelings towards humans, Aoba also fears isolation. After seeing the similarities between himself and Izaya, and seeing how isolated Izaya had become from almost everyone who knew him, Aoba begins to take a conscious effort to connect with others more often, mostly with the Orihara twins who he has mixed feelings towards. While he still remains distant from others, Aoba slowly begins to open up more around his friends and his outlook on life slowly starts to change.

## Back Story

Aoba's life was fairly normal during his early years although he was no stranger to family drama. Aoba's older brother, Ran Izumii,  would occasionally abuse and bully him due to jealousy over their parents treating Aoba better than Ran. Aoba normally took these beating without too much complaint but would periodically get back at Ran in the form of pranks. In one instance, when Ran had overdone it, Aoba set his brother's room on fire and blamed it on his smoking habit.

Aoba started Blue Squares when he was in middle school but handed leadership over to Ran in order to use him as a scapegoat should things go south. Ran proved to be a poor choice as he frequently made decisions without Aoba's permission and even initiated a gang war with the Yellow Scarves. The resulting conflict with the police caused Ran to get arrested and nearly destroyed the Blue Squares, much to Aoba's annoyance. He then received and invitation to join the dollars and accepted, seeing it as an opportunity to rebuild his gang.

At some point during middle school, Aoba walked downstairs to find Izaya Orihara sipping tea and chatting with his mother. Izaya apparently claimed to be Aoba's cram school tutor and had come to give his School ID back to him. Aoba knew that this was a blatant lie as he had his ID on him at that time but he didn't want to cause a commotion in his house. He and Izaya stepped out and discussed why Izaya had come. Izaya is suprised that Aoba was able to obtain his personal information through the Dollars network while Aoba is surprised that Izaya tracked him down so quickly. Aoba and Izaya immediately begin to dislike each other mostly due to the fact that their personalities are too similar.

## Storyline History

### Happy Wonderland

Mairu and Kururi invite Aoba over for a threesome in the halo/match/key "Winter". At one point, he sits on their bed naked and waiting while the twins look up sexual positions for a threesome with two girls and a guy. In the end, all three go to sleep in bed once they figure it all out.

### Deep Blue Wonderland

The day after Chrismas, Aoba gets a disturbing video set to him of Gin cutting his arms from his wrists to elbows on a loop. At first, he thinks it's a sick joke. The next day, Aoba calls up Gin asking about the video in question only to find the EMT's taking away Gin's body from the apartment. He drops his phone in shock.

On New Year's Day, Aoba received another e-mail with a video from the same web site. Only this time, Yoshikiri was downing a whole bottle of bleach with the same dazed look that Gin had. The next day, Aoba headed over to Yoshikiri's apartment to find the EMT's taking the body away. The boy asked the police officer on the scene what was going on. Just as expected, he was told the same thing that he saw on the video. Aoba can't figure out why his fledglings are dying off one by one.

Aoba turns to Mikado to find out why members of the Blue Squares are killing themselves. They watch Yatsufusa's suicide video early in the morning at school before Junko calls Mikado away. It pisses Aoba about the Blue Square suicide pact rumor and he believes that his gang are being murdred. He finds that the Orihara twins are watching the Yatsufusa suicide video that they found in the Dollars chatroom. He snatches away their phones and tells them not to look at videos from the site, Deathvine.

Later, he goes to Mikado's apartment to investigate the Deathvine site and find out who is making these morbid videos. However, they find a new upload to the site: Nitari twins' video. Aoba gets the e-mail for the same thing. The poster's name is Lady Death and she is also on the Dollars' chatroom. In "Fujihara" Aoba gets another video titled, "Neko's Last Life". In this one, Neko has a dazed look on his face before jumping off the roof of their hiding place. Aoba rushes out to see what happened.

On Valentine's Day, Aoba gets an e-mail titled "Blue Squares' Suicides: Director's Cut". When he opens it, he finds the videos of his fledglings committing suicide with new footage at the end of each video: Kaori standing over the bodies, grinning and flashing V-signs. Lady Death sends him a text telling him to meet at his hideout. Knowing this is a trap, Aoba goes out anyway. He meets up with Kaori and she tells him that she was behind the deaths of the Blue Squares. She says she won't kill him because "mama made me promise to let that nurse lady have her fun with you" and that she called him out here to cut his ties to Chirin/Mikado. Kaori taunts him, threatening the Orihara twins, prompting Aoba to attack her. Kaori gets away and runs into three random thugs. She claims that Aoba is trying to kill her and put them under her spell to attack him. The boy is found by a prostitute and her john and taken to the hospital. Etsuko comes into his room while Aoba was asleep and injected him with Lethe.

When Mikado comes to visit him, Aoba doesn't remember him at all. Afraid of what Kaori could do if she decided to go after the Orihara twins, he is currently staying with them to protect them. When Mikado tries to call and talk to him, he gets angry and accuses his senpai of stalking him. He tells him to quit trying to talk to him because it was creepy. Aoba hangs up on him before he could say another word.

Kaori continues to taunt Aoba about the deaths of his gang. She even goes as far as to send him an edited picture of Gin in his casket surrounded by fire saying, "Help me, I'm in hell!" Aoba resorts to staying by the Orihara twins to keep them safe. Mairu tells him to make up with Mikado, but he doesn't know what she is talking about. He gets annoyed, but decides to talk to him. When Aoba gives home, he is attacked by an unseen assailant. When he comes to, Kaori taunts him over the phone again.

With nowhere else to turn to, Aoba calls up Ran for help.

### Wonderland Chaos

Aoba wakes confused in a darkness. Turns out, Kaori trapped him in a game show called Midnight Wheel of Misfortune. She proceeds to torture him through painful and humiliating games. Kaori even goes as far as to show Aoba the suicides of his gang. By the second batsu game, Aoba feels that she can't really torment him anymore and gets cocky. That all goes out the window when Kaori reveals that she has trapped the Orihara twins in the game too. She makes him choose which twin shall live and which should die. Aoba chooses Kururi and she is spared. Kaori cuts Mairu's life thread at the very top as a result. The younger twin collapses on stage and becomes a fetus-like creature before crumbling into ash.

Aoba wakes up with messy clothes and a bruised body. He runs to the Orihara apartment to check on the twins. Kururi is fine, but Mairu was erased from existence and Kururi doesn't remember her at all. Kaori calls Aoba mocking him about his latest loss, leaving him angry and shocked. Meanwhile, he tries to deal with Kururi's changes. They seem to be dating now and she acts like the queen bee with all of the mean girls in their school. He can't handle her dressing like a slut and her hypersexuality. Desperate, he turns to Izaya and Ran for help with his predicament, much to his displeasure.

### Caged Wonderland

Junko has him marked for her Angel Project. In "Kyoei", Aoba is painting Kururi's toenails as her friends talk about another party they want to go to. He learns from Izaya that his mother suffered a miscarriage while she was pregnant with the twins. Only Kururi miraculously survived, but Mairu died. Back in present day, Kururi's friends tease him about Mairu again.

In "Rite of Spring", Aoba now has to work for Izaya as payment on how Mairu died in this timeline. Izaya stops by the boy's apartment and talks to his mother. Now, Aoba has to deal with Kururi and Izaya bossing him around out humiliation. Later, he overhears Kururi and her friends planning on what they are going to do with Chiyomi Noda and he doesn't like where it's heading.

### The Month of No Gods

Aoba is stuck working for Izaya and is not enjoying it. Izaya emails him directions on what to do for the day. One day, Aoba receives a message that seems a put off to him. Later, his boss goes missing. Mikage asks him where Izaya is, but Aoba says that he doesn't know.

### Devil's Wonderland

Izaya calls Aoba in for work after turning up nothing on his search results.

### Black Swan Wonderland

Kururi and Aoba are making out on her bed. He's not really into it anymore. Suddenly, her posse shows up. It turns out that Kururi had pimped him out to her friends. This is confirmed when Tsukiyama hands Kururi 5,000 yen. One of the other girls climbs on top of him as another pulls out her phone to record.

### Edge of Wonderland

Aoba views himself in hell while still working for Izaya.

### Dark Alice in a Dark Wonderland

The death of Ran sends Aoba into shock. Kururi doesn't seem to care. He wasn't close to his brother but even he thought that his death was too extreme. He later has a dream about Mairu being arngry at him for not trying to save her like him promised. That drives him to try harder to get her back. He turns to the Dollars chatroom for help. He comes across a forum about the supernatural. It's a long shot but Aoba gives it a try.

Aoba doesn't like not being in control. He's on his phone when he gets a text from an unknown number. It tells him to look out the window. The boy looks out the window and sees Taro looking up at him. Aoba demands to know who he is. Taro lures the boy outside. He wants to show him something. Aoba is wandering around the empty streets. He runs into Taro. The horseman summons his horse and introduces himself as the horseman of pestilence. Taro tells him that he already met his sister. Aoba ends up in jail until someone bails him out. He's confused but leaves the jail cell.

## Relationships

### Junko Nakahara

*Main Article: Junko Nakahara*

Junko doesn't seem to like Aoba and views him an obstacle in her part of Tandeki's game. She wants to torture the boy and kill him, but can't do that yet. It is revealed in *Caged Wonderland* that she has plans for him.

### Ran Izumii

*Main Article: Ran Izumii*

Aoba's relationship with his brother was never a positive one. Ran was always jealous of Aoba because he believed Aoba received preferential treatment from his parents. As a result, Ran physically abused Aoba frequently. Aoba usually tried to act nice around Ran but always made sure to get payback whenever Ran abused him (even going so far as to set his room on fire and blame it on Ran's smoking habit). Aoba would also frequently use Ran as a pawn in whatever scheme he was devising and used him as a figure head leader for the blue squares. When Ran was arrested, Aoba refers to him as useless and was frustrated at the prospect of having to rebuild the gang from scratch again.

### Mikado Ryuugamine

*Main Article: Mikado Ryuugamine*

Initially, Mikado and Aoba got along rather well. Aoba appeared to view Mikado as a sort of mentor to him and would frequently ask him questions about Ikebukuro as well as the Dollars. This was later proven to be a front when Aoba revealed himself to be the leader of the Blue Squares. Aoba simply wanted to get closer to Mikado so that he could use him to revive the Blue Squares to their former glory. When Mikado's dark side shows itself, Aoba's condescending tone is replaced by a more fearful one. Although Mikado is acting as the leader of the Blue Squares, it becomes very clear that he isn't a mere scapegoat for the police like Ran was. Aoba acts as Mikado's second in command, and they mutually benefit from the other. During the last volume, Aoba states that he truly did want to 'swim together with Mikado-senpai' and that they'd widened the tank for the Blue Squares to swim in, considerably. Aoba's initial fear of Mikado's darker nature had been short-lived, and turned into something akin to respect. He makes sure to tell Masaomi and Anri that, when he visits Mikado in the hospital. However, after having received a warning from Akabayashi, Aoba assures Mikado's friends that he will not be dragging him back to any dangerous activities.

In Durarara!! SH, they are still shown to be on friendly terms with one another.

### Anri Sonohara

*Main Article: Anri Sonohara*

Aoba initially had very little interest in Anri when they first met. He acted like a friend to her in much the same way he did to Mikado but did not hesitate to threaten her in order to make Mikado submit to his demands. When Anri revealed Saika during her fight with Varona, Aoba became much more intrigued with her. However, he is more preoccupied with trying to regain control of his gang rather than uncovering Anri's relation to Saika.

### Izaya Orihara

*Main Article: Izaya Orihara*

Aoba and Izaya have shared a rivalry of sorts since Aoba was in middle school. The two shared many similarities in the way they handled various situations and people. However, there was one major difference. While Izaya loved humanity, Aoba hated humans. Aoba has very few actual friends and only deals with others as much as he deems necessary for his goals. He considers Izaya his rival due to both of them trying to manipulate Mikado towards a certain goal, however, it is unclear if Izaya feels the same.

### Mairu and Kururi Orihara

*Main Article: Mairu Orihara*

*Main Article: Aoba and Kururi*

Unlike with their brother, Aoba's relationship with the Orihara twins is actually very positive. Aoba is frequently seen hanging out with them, much to the jealousy of his underlings, and behaves in a far friendlier manner towards them than anyone else. It is implied that Kururi may have a crush on Aoba since he saved her from some bullies earlier. Aoba's relationship with Mairu is a bit unclear as Mairu only kissed him after Kururi did, though she at least considers him a friend. Aoba is unsure about how he feels about the Orihara twins. He is shown to care about them to a certain extent as he told his gang to refrain from attacking them should they see them in the street then warned them later on when Ikebukuro became more dangerous. He prefers Kururi over Mairu because Kururi is more gentle, it's implied he may have feelings for her. In Volume 09 he expresses his fear of being alone and without any friends (much like Izaya), which could mean that he is growing tired of his rather isolated lifestyle.

## Trivia

* His name Aoba translates to "Fresh Leaves", while his last name Kuronuma translate to "Black Swamp". Izumii, his former last name before his parents divorced is close to Izumi which translates into "Fountain".
* The author of the series, Rhyogo Narita, has expressed interest in writing a story with Aoba, Kururi, and Mairu as the leads.
* He was originally supposed to be the main male protagonist of Durarara!! SH.
* Aoba's character song is called "Romantic Ga Tomaranai"

## Sources

* Basic Information: http://durarara.wikia.com/wiki/Aoba\_Kuronuma