------ - - - -  -  -  - >  Character Information  // Hayama Akito

Hayama Akito, at first Sana's greatest rival and eventually coming to be her number one comfort, is an interesting guy. He's a silent type. Keeps himself at a distance from everyone. A lone wolf. In the first episode, he remains detached from the commotion of the classroom, in his own world behind his headphones. Other times he's behind a non-emotional mask, one that reveals nothing. His eyes are cold. He is easily misunderstood at first impression and it's easy to mistake him as being the antagonist of the story.

It's a given that Hayama is hard to understand. As Sana says, "An interpreter would be nice." He hardly shows his feelings, whether with words or facial expressions. He uses few words as necessary. While Sana is a fanatical optimist, he's the opposite: a realist, coated with pessimism. At the beginning of the series, he finds no point in his life, hence the reason he becomes the leader of the boys as they wreak havoc in the classroom. He gets blackmail on the teachers: a picture of them kissing in a classroom. Blackmail is a nasty thing to do, but Hayama doesn't pay any attention to his conscience. He has one; he just chooses to ignore it at times.

At the beginning of the series, Sana confronts Hayama, asking him why he blackmails their teachers and causes chaos in the classroom. Hayama tells her that she would never understand; to him, Sana is too blissfully happy. When Sana finally says in exasperation that she wants to try to understand him and help him, he tells her that if she wants to help him, she should kill him, and hands her a knife.

Sana of course, completely freaks out.

Rather than chase her away, that gesture makes Sana even more curious about Hayama. For Sana, life is precious; it's worth living. Clearly it frustrates her that Hayama disagrees. Though she tries to forget about him, she keeps imagining him attempting suicide in the most ridiculous ways and gets herself worked up and paranoid for his sake. She chases him home one day, trailing him as inconspicuously as possible, and finds out why he's lost the will to live.

You see, Hayama's mother wasn't too healthy and died giving birth to him. His father was always busy with work so they never had much contact and his sister had to work to support them. She, wanting to have a normal high school life but finding herself unable to do so and be happy, blames Hayama. Throughout his life, he's been blamed for the death of his mother and called names like devil, evil child, or been yelled to his face that it would've been better if he were never born in the first place. Until second grade, Hayama truly believed that he was the son of a devil and that he burst out of his mother's body like an alien. When Mami, a girl in Sana's class, called him a devil's child, that insult angered him the most. It's quite a sore spot for him. This is the reason that when Sana was acting in a TV drama later in the series, there's a line she's unable to say. The line was directed at a character very much like Hayama, and it was to the extent of, "You devil! You devil child!" She asked to change the script, but of course angered the producers instead. Because Sana was unable to say the line that would've hurt Hayama, she lost her job.

Hayama isn't exactly a social person. He doesn't say much, but when he does open his mouth to speak, it's time to listen up. He has a hard time expressing his feelings, especially to someone that he cares about, and this shows with Sana. Whenever he tries to speak from his heart, he has a hard time forming the right words. It's difficult for him to talk directly to someone that he likes. His dad once pointed out that when Hayama says "I don't hate it," It means love. Hayama, do you like sushi, you ask? He'd answer, "I don't hate it." for sushi is his favorite food, and one of his worst weaknesses. You want to bribe him with something? Just offer him some sushi and he's hooked. He'd do anything for sushi.

Another one of Hayama's secret weaknesses is heights. When their class went to visit the Tokyo Tower, Hayama was blue with his utter fear of heights. On the way up the elevator, he was looking quite sick. This weakness became less of a secret when he and Sana had a battle of the wits. She learned that his weak spot had to do with heights, so immediately challenged him to a bungee-jumping contest. Whoever made the most noise or screamed the most while jumping off the ceiling of the gym lost. Hayama sucked up his fear, closed his eyes and jumped without any sound. He actually ended up beating Sana, who screamed her head off all the way down. "It seems I'm not afraid of heights... but I'm afraid of falling from them. Heh heh heh." she said bleakly afterward. Though Hayama's afraid of heights, he's not about to show his weakness to anyone.

Hayama doesn't laugh much, nor smile. The only person that has actually made him laugh is Sana. That's why they're so perfect for each other. ^_~ Even Tsuyoshi, who's his best friend, has rarely ever seen him laugh. He can be scary when he's seriously determined also. It's no trouble for him to all of a sudden declare his best friend as a rival because he's determined to get something. Hayama never lets anyone get in his way.

Unless Hayama believes that they deserve it, he doesn't show respect to adults. His manners are somewhat lacking. For example, Hayama didn't give any respect to Rei because he didn't like how Rei was playing the role of Sana's "pimp" and boyfriend, and how, according to Hayama, he was playing with Sana's feelings (Rei is very afraid of Hayama :P). But on the other hand, Hayama showed a lot of respect to Sana's mother, probably because he liked her attitude and strength. When she met him she said, "He's got good eyes." And Sana's grandmother said the same thing. The Kurata household is very warm towards Hayama, since they're a very accepting bunch already. They don't pay attention that he had a bad streak going for him in the past. They all seem to take a liking to him and his smart ass attitude. A sarcastic and/or witty remark from Hayama is always present for every situation. But in return, Hayama finds out that Sana has a retort/ response to everything he says. :P She's quite a match for him.

Many of the people at school are afraid of Hayama, mainly because he's really strong. He can take out one of the toughest boys in the class with only one punch! Hayama does have a "better not mess with me" attitude around him, and it probably seems that way because he doesn't show his feelings. He seems uncaring and cold on the outside, but that's because everyone has always been uncaring and cold to him. Especially his family, from which he was yelled at and blamed for everything. So, the kid really does have a good excuse for why he can't really communicate with others. He's not used to being treated as a human being like Sana treats him.

The attitude Sana has toward Hayama soon gets him to develop very strong feelings for her. He doesn't show it much, being the very non-emotional person that he is. He once told Sana that he "doesn't hate her," which means he loves her. Even though he hardly shows any emotion towards her, Sana's the person that he can confide in the most and vice versa. There are those times in which it's really obvious that Hayama loves Sana. He tells her at one point, when she's going through tough times, that if she ever needs someone to cry to, she should come to him. Hayama's sweet when he wants to be, in his indirect way.

Hayama is a very indirect person. He avoids direct conflict/ fights with people. If there's a misunderstanding about him, he doesn't try to correct it and simply takes it by himself. If he's blamed for something he never did, he doesn't try to sort it out. Perhaps he doesn't care, or perhaps he's used to being blamed so it's nothing different. If he's going through hard times, he keeps it to himself. He was once suspended from school because of a huge mess that was mistaken. Though he had been trying to protect Fuka, who got her eyes hurt through the whole ordeal, her parents completely misunderstood. They believed it to be all his fault Fuka got hurt and forbid them to meet any longer. Once again Hayama found himself alienated due to something he hadn't done. One thing I believe is very healthy for Hayama is the way the Kurata family treats him. Neither Sana nor her mother see Hayama for the troublemaker that he was, but know that he's actually a good guy inside. They never blame him once for anything. If there's anything Hayama needs, it's belief; someone to believe in him. And Sana is just that person. She never antagonizes Hayama about anything, and fully has belief that deep down, his intentions are for the better.

Sana's family is interesting that way. They're strange, different from the rest. They're sharp; they can see what other people can't. Misako isn't worried at all about Sana when she clashes with Hayama at the beginning of the series. While other parents might be worried about their kid battling it out with the biggest troublemaker in school, Misako was quite amused by the whole thing. XP Neither Sana nor Misako were ever afraid of Hayama. Even if he threatened Sana, she never backed down. The same thing with Misako's mother, Sana's grandmother. She was able to see that Hayama was different. He had attitude that other spineless men didn't. He was different. He was worthy.

Hayama, the calm, cool, poker-faced tough guy is the exact opposite of Sana, the crazy, off the wall, hyper, emotional psycho. They're two halves of a whole. Of course, Hayama is really protective of Sana in his indirect way, never letting her know. He tracks and hunts down any other guy that might be a threat to him having Sana. I personally would not want to get on Hayama's shitlist. ¬¬ He's quite a force to reckon with, especially when those close to him are threatened. His glare of doom (tm) alone has the power to melt the bones of all those spineless fools that cross his path. And if that doesn't work, his karate chop is surely to knock some sense into them. The only thing that can stop Tsuyoshi's temper is Hayama's karate chop. And once he starts taking karate seriously, he's determined to succeed. He's determined to have something important to him, something he works hard in, just like Sana and her acting career. He wants to be good enough for her in that aspect.

Sana wears down Hayama's rough edges. The more time he spends with her, his eyes soften. He speaks more, tries harder to speak to her from his heart. He has a reason to live after she helps fix up the situation with his family. Towards the end of the series, his witty humor comes out into the open even more. Just like Sana, Hayama is affected a lot by the things he goes through, and he is a completely changed individual. He gains more of a sense of self-worth. "You're always protecting me," he says to her. In most cliché anime couplings, one person is extremely dependent on the other, and always has to be saved by them. However, Sana and Hayama aren't like that. There's a mutual sense of protecting each other, and both support each other through tough times. They're strong on their own, so when they're together, they're quite a combination.

Hayama, the lone wolf. The sarcastic, sneaky leopard with a soft side underneath all his layers that is often unexpected and surprising. I can't help but love him.

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