Kunio Ishihara

Creep (Nana Hinata)

Bitch/Pretty Boy (Itachi Kuro)

Pig/Pretentious, Self-Righteous, Cheating, Backstabbing, Yellow-Bellied Piece of Shit (Kenji Okamoto)

### Occupation

High school student (Budo-ga Oka, class 2-A), emotionally-stunted teen fuckboy

### Family/Relationships

Mayu Ishihara (Mother)Gen Ishihara (Cringe-Ass Dad)

Merridith Beleza (Totally not-girlfriend)

Naomi Sawaragi (Childhood friend, on-and-off non-sexual friend with benefits)

### Status

Alive

Kunio Ishihara is a second-year student at Budo-ga Oka.

## Further Elaboration on Relationships

### Family

Gen Ishihara is Kunio's father. The two's relationship has been strained since Kunio was a child, and has only gotten worse over the years. Gen's constant dictation of how Kunio should act and present himself and complaints when he doesn't adhere to it have resulted in Kunio's emotional repression and artificially bloated ego to compensate for his insecurities in himself. He isn't sure how to feel about Gen's attempts to make things better between them, and has little hope that he'll really turn around and stop nagging him.

Mayu Ishihara is Kunio's mother. While he would never show it in public, Kunio has a soft spot for her and is a total mama's boy at heart. Since she's never lectured him for not living up to certain standards, he feels like he can be a little more genuine around her... Only as much as his deep-rooted emotional repression will allow him to be, though.

### Friends

Merridith Beleza is totally not Kunio's girlfriend. Kunio gets why. When they first met, she had asked him on a date, which seemed to be shaping up to be a decent outing until they arrived at Amai Oshii's family bakery where they ran into Suzu. Merridith noticed Suzu's reaction to Kunio's name, and sent Kunio in ahead so she could discreetly ask Suzu about it. Suzu ended up telling Merridith of an incident from his past involving Shiho (see below), and despite Merridith's willingness to give him a chance to see if he'd changed since then, everything went downhill from there anyway when she determined that he kind of hadn't. Despite this, her need to Fix Him caused her to continue to get involved with him afterwards, and a couple of those times involved him getting really emotionally vulnerable in front of her. Since the only response to distress Kunio was taught growing up was to repress it, he gets very weird when he's emotionally vulnerable, so he'd understand why she's supposedly not into him, even if she doesn't hate him anymore. It's a shame, though, she's number one on his cuteness ranking... And he, uh... Actually really likes her. Obviously she's pretty ~~and has boobs~~ but he's long since started seeing a lot of other admirable qualities in her as well.

Naomi Sawaragi has been Kunio's friend since childhood. Their relationship has since upgraded(?) to kissing when no one else is around to do it with instead, but they have no plans to go any further than that. Kunio enjoys her company, feeling genuinely able to pal around with her and freely speak his mind on most topics (like talking shit). However, Naomi has a tendency to tease him when she gets the chance, which has been wearing on him subconsciously for years, on top of his father's comments. He's not entirely aware of this fact himself.

Kunio considers Aoi Watanabe and Sakura Rozu to be his good friends. Similarly to Merridith, they had come to him during multiple moments of vulnerability (In the aftermath of Sasori, when his hair was cut while he slept, when he saw Sasori's ghost and got a little drunk to try and make it stop), and didn't once chide him for his weakness. For this reason, he's kind of latched onto them. As embarrassing as he finds it that they've seen him looking uncool so many times, they're friends, so... Maybe he doesn't have to impress them?

### Acquaintances

Considering that Merridith brought in Chiuji Shai to help Kunio with his hair when it had been cut during a nap at school, and that the guy seems to have no ill will towards Kunio despite almost certainly having heard about his and Merridith's first date, Kunio is *kind of* okay with him. But he still absolutely hated the entire time Chiuji was all up close and touching him to fix his hair, and would not go out of his way to speak to him again unless it was important.

Sumi Yukikara sure was in the room during the awkward group therapy session with Kunio and his dad.

During one of Eijiro Otoishi's many, many, many, *many, many, many, **many*** disappearances, after suggesting that Yomi may have had something to do with it since her house was one of the last places he'd gone and totally not in part because he didn't like her, Kunio struck up a short-lived information exchange with "Riku" about the matter. Even though they only spoke briefly, Kunio was still a bit shaken when he 'died', because he is a human person who isn't used to schoolmates he's spoken to dying, why would he be?

Kunio spoke to Lucy briefly when she joined his class. His takeaway is that she either wasn't interested, or is just a total brick wall to talk to in general. Or maybe she doesn't speak Japanese well?

### Negative Relations

Yomi Hanazawa was a childhood friend of Kunio's... In a sense, at least. They lived in the same building as children, and Yomi often tried to play with him and Naomi. She usually had a hard time keeping up with them, though, and that fact combined with his decision that she was "gross" and "weird" led Kunio to the decision to start trying to avoid her. Despite his efforts, she just kept showing up over the years, and didn't seem to be deterred whatsoever by his behavior or Naomi's bullying... Until he asked her on a date with no intention of showing up. When she asked about it, he gave an excuse, rescheduled the date, and once again failed to show up. He intended to repeat this cycle until Yomi stopped asking about it, which only took three times before she started keeping her distance from him. He hasn't seen her in some time, and he's satisfied with this result.

Sasori Ljime started as a minor annoyance to Kunio, poking fun at him after his first date with Merridith went badly. Feeling sour about both situations, Kunio had spread rumors that Sasori's previous decision to harass Toru Fukuyo was rooted in his inability to express romantic feelings for him. In retaliation, Sasori took things way too far, forcibly kissing Kunio in the hallway in an effort to... Humiliate him? Or something? Anyway, nobody bought that Kunio had liked the situation, but Sasori would proceed to fuck off and become a serial killer before he could be punished for this assault, and establish this as one of his lesser crimes that no one after him will ever care about. This is fucked up on multiple levels, especially since the incident was what pushed Kunio's general distaste for other men into a phobia, and continues to affect him deeply.

Kunio can't stand Itachi Kuro. His build and general disposition towards Kunio reminds him too much of Sasori. Itachi's previous association with Sasori and how quick he was to tease Kunio about the incident listed above don't help his case, and cement him firmly on Kunio's shit list. Another resident of said shit list is Kenji Okamoto. He doesn't want to get a lecture about girls' feelings from a guy he saw collecting dozens of girls in the past, girls that he no longer keeps around. What about *their* feelings, huh? Get off your high horse. ...Is what he thinks.

Hirou Urata isn't someone Kunio considers an enemy, but he's never really liked him anyway. In the beginning, Kunio considered him pathetic for being so easily manipulated by Naomi, and was quick to correct anyone who referred to them as friends. Perhaps it subconsciously bothered Kunio that Hirou was so tall and strong, and yet was (in his eyes) a total loser. If Hirou managed to be a total loser, how could Kunio ever be good enough? After Hirou's breakup with Naomi, he no longer goes out of his way to be around her or Kunio, so he rarely sees him anymore. Kunio is more than fine with this.

In his second year of junior high, after hearing Shiho Kazami express that she didn't see what the big deal is about kissing, Kunio volunteered to show her. He brought her to an empty classroom where they kissed, but when he went in for a second kiss, she pushed him away, said she didn't want another, and left. Kunio didn't try to stop her, but took the experience as a personal insult, which hurt his pride. These days, Kunio is more open to the concept of not wanting to be kissed, but he'd be lying if he said he didn't still think about it sometimes.

When Raiden and Ryūjin Inuoe learned of this incident, they immediately hunted Kunio down and confronted him in his classroom. Kunio screamed into their minds with Proclaimer and tried to escape while they were distracted, but only Raiden was deterred, and Ryūjin continued his pursuit, eventually catching him and punching him in the face multiple times. Needless to say, Kunio isn't fond of them.

Suzu Ninomiya and Nana Hinata are girls who wouldn't have caught Kunio's attention, if it weren't for Suzu's perceived meddling during Kunio's date where she told Merridith about his encounter with Shiho, or Nana's accusation regarding the blood that was found in Suzu's desk the next day. He doesn't care much for how 'nosy' they are.

Jacian Von Rittedel was first brought to Kunio's attention by Merridith, when she told Kunio that she works for Jacian, but finds the tactics she uses to get information while doing so to be awful and disgusting. Kunio interpreted this as Jacian making her do those things, and confronted him about it. Merridith soon came across them and had to intervene and explain the situation, but Kunio still doesn't totally buy that Jacian isn't up to no good. He'll be watching him like a hawk on the occasion that their paths happen to cross.

### Other

Celari Yukikara, being the school therapist, has been doing counseling with Kunio for some time now, to varied results. She's since brought Gen into the sessions to try and work out some form of solutions between the two. So far, not much progress has been made, but it's only been one session. Kunio thinks she's alright, he guesses. She *is* trying to help, after all.

Kunio has regularly gone to Naomi's house since childhood, and so is familiar with her parents, Mihime and Haiji Sawaragi. He thinks they're okay, though he could really, really do without Naomi bringing up on occasion that as a little kid, he would sometimes fall on purpose so Mihime would kiss his booboos.

## Abilities

### Stand

Kunio's stand, Proclaimer, takes the form of two shiny, gold protrusions on Kunio's temples that are shaped like speech bubbles. They are small enough to almost always be hidden by his hair. The only ability Proclaimer has shown thus far was to speak, and then scream in Raiden and Ryūjin's heads, but it is implied that this method is how he has spread rumors in the past without incriminating himself. Kunio has had Proclaimer for as long as he can remember, and he's honestly kind of bummed that so many people now have cooler powers than him.

## Trivia

I don't know why the spacing is so strange in the Acquaintances section. I guess even the text doesn't want anything to do with other text that mentions Naoaki.

During the first thread he ever appeared in, Pika hadn't actually given Kunio a first name yet, and he was only referred to as Ishihara. Once she gave him one, it was later established in the post that introduced Naomi and Hirou as characters.

Kunio has an allergy to citrus fruit, specifically, skin contact with the peels makes his skin red and irritated. He learned this on an elementary school orange-picking trip.

When speaking to girls, even if he's only just met them, Kunio tends to refer to them by their given name followed by the -chan suffix... So long as they're not below average, anyway.