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Hakuro Kuroda


Mentionings: ?????


The voices had given him pause, at the entrance, just as he was leaving. It was this odd thing, like he'd been just out of hearing range, and in his mind...he thought it was Nagi. She had a distinctive voice, so he thought she was leaving for the day, as well. He was just holding the door open for a moment so that she or whoever else it was could walk on through, but no such person came. Huh... Going the other way, then? No matter. Hakuro stepped outside into the sun with a stretch. You spend alot of time holding up the wall, texting and sending emails, you get stuck in position and gotta straighten yourself out. He stopped for a moment to reflect...

I walk everyday with the sun on my face, and my life is already a planned success when I go home. Why do I mess about like this? I could get people hurt if I go too far. I almost DID go too far, and would've been burnt by it, if not for Rina, just then.

He was fortunate, in many ways. Not blessed or cursed with overwhelming success or money or power, but that life was generally good to him, and would remains so regardless of what actually happened here. A traditional family of inherited responsibility wasn't bad. He just wanted more. He just wanted to get involved, get his hands into things. He reached his hand up to encompass the sun.

I want to be in the world, to hold on for as long as I can, until I have to go.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

The Past!


"Hakuro, where are you going?! Why are you running?! We don't have time-"

It was evening, and getting later. The island was his world, and he knew every part of it as The Great Explorer, and he could leap and run across it as The Last Adventurer, but now - right now - he was a man on the run from the world, The Great Escape Artist, and his friend. It was a typical thing when you make a friend while visiting the resort. You meet the local kid who knows the island well and can help you through everything, and knows all the best ways tyo have fun. You have a good time, and you share a few laughs.

And then, you have to go, and he has to stay behind to greet the next one, and the next one, and the next one.

Meeting new people all the time wasn't all that bad, but losing every single one of them was sometimes terrible. So, one day, when fed up with it, a young Hakuro took his friend for a run around the island, late at night. They didn't stop, and as they moved, he explained why.

"There's always time, as long as you keep running. As long as they never catch you, you're free, and you can keep going."

"But you can't keep running forever."

"I can run until they make me stop. If I'm only one step ahead, I'm still ahead."


>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Now...


Hakuro lowered his hand, then adjusted his hat.

You make me who I am. I am the traveling Hatto-san. Keep running. Don't ever stop messing about. This one's important.

So, back to business for a second. He finished off all the conversations he'd been texting about to make sure that that was the end of his inquiry for the time being. He was sure that he could find the information he needed to start the investigation and get the evidence he needed, once he got the email from Rina about the past and present students who had been taught by Miss Okamoto. He was sure that something terribly underhanded was going on, but he needed to get to work. Two paths lay before him on where to get started. Did he wait for the email so he could review the profiles and look up information? Or would he begin his official statement to outline the nature of his investigation for those that might listen, when he unleashed the report and forced action upon this woman.

Hakuro took out his quarter, and flipped it high into the air, catching the sunlight as it did so. Now, call it. Heads or tails?
Hakuro Kuroda


Mentionings: ?????


His thumbs were tired, and he needed a break. The information was coming in from all the different sources. What was he planning? Hard to say. Maybe an attack, maybe to expose her, or maybe maybe he'd settle for a little anonymous leverage to force her to behave. It really depended on what information he could get out of people, his inquiries sometimes subtle and sometimes direct. For instance, Azuma made a made another doodle while in the restroom - for secrecy's sake - that was a decent copy of the original one in class, took a picture, and sent it to him. The idea that that woman was getting bent out of shape to the point of throwing the entire class out off school was patently ridiculous, and yet Azuma was insistant that she'd do it. Meanwhile, Kai had come through with a PDF file and a note stating what pages to look into. Hakuro would've preferred he just tell him over message, but he could read it over and let his fingers rest.

Hmmm, it doesn't really say much about mass expulsion, and what it says about explusion in general is just what I'd expect.

That is, the usual reasons for expulsion were violence towards staff, exceedingly poor delinquint behavior, and also repeatedly low academic scores which incline the school to have the student seek their education elsewhere, lest they stop wasting their time here. Other bits and bobs began to trickle down about Miss Okamoto. How emotional she gets, her general attitude, some of her habits around the school-

A hand suddenly came down and grabbed his phone.



Looking up in confusion, Hakuro saw a girl from another class, one whom he was familiar with...especially since he'd been messaging her earlier about the Student Council.

"Rina?"

"Hakuro...don't. Rather, you have to stop right now, Hatto-san."

She removed her hand, and the Hatto-san's head tilted slightly as his eyes narrowed a bit.

"Why? What happened?"

"You wanted me to ask the School Treasurer to bring up this history teacher and question her actions, and I'm telling you that whatever you're up to, stop right now. I asked her instead about the general opinion of Miss Okamoto instead because you wouldn't get anywhere, and you might land yourself in trouble with the Principal if one of them were to raise the question to him."

"The Principal? Why would-"

"I'm sorry, but is that music playing for some reason? It's a little distracting."

He looked down as the phone continued to play this overly-dramatic theme. Hakuro pressed a button to pause it.

"Sorry, you jostled the phone when you grabbed it."

"I might've been a bit dramatic, myself. The club does it to me. Still, if you never had Okamoto as a teacher, you wouldn't know, but she has uhh...history of her own, you could say."

"Tell me."

"Miss Okamoto has a track record for getting results. There's a host of third-years that'll swear by her, instead of AT her, and a number of successful graduates will sing her praises, as well. It's sick. Half the school knows she walks all over people, and here these ones are all simping for her."

"Simping for her? Like how?"

"You know. They would do anything for her, follow every word for even ONE iota of praise. I'm surprised you don't know this stuff. Don't you have like a stalker or something?"

"I mean, maybe. Nobody's tried taking my stuff or anything like that. But the Principal eats this up, right? He sees the good results and if he knows anything about malfeasance, he's ignoring it."

"Exactly. And I'm saying stop this because you'll end up in the Principal's office with some sort of accusation about trying to cause her harm-"

"Not entirely untrue."

"-OR the other students may start trying to invade your site or the unofficial school message board to cause damage. You don't want that, right?"

"No, I can't have that..."

There had to be a way to approach this, some method that could blow this thing wide open. If he couldn't depend on the school authority, when this woman had the Principal and students eating out of her hand-

No... It couldn't be. She's NOT that charismatic, but if she has a history of getting results with a minimum of effort, then she may be doing something else... I'll need to look into this...but differently.

He was lost in thought for a second, but then quickly looked to Rina.

"Alright, I won't continue the online stuff, and I won't use any resource that'd drag it back to anyone or anything we don't want hurt. I was keeping it fairly light, mainly like curiosity, so it should be fine. I'm gonna head home now, but I'd like you to email me all of Miss Okamoto's adoring fans, both successes AND failures."

"What're you going to do?"

"I'm going to talk to them and see just how she's really affected them. Later, though. I gotta go."

Hakuro unplugged his phone and headed downstairs to leave the school. As he did, he thought her heard a familiar voice or two, but he didn't see anything on his way out. If there was anyone there, he must have just missed them...
Hakuro Kuroda


Mentionings: @PrankFox


It's always hard to tell with Hakuro, but most people found him harmless enough, unless he was actually out to cause some damage. Most people he found to be decent enough, though. It was always they Hatto-san's way to gravitate towards people of interest who might have something to say on life or impart something useful or interesting about the world. For instance, Hakuro had been doing a food-related podcast, and had therefore gone specifically to a couple of small-but-dedicated establishments, plus a fortune cookie manufacturer, to get some insight. Back to the present, though, Kenzan had clearly been through this before, but he was apparently giving our hatted boy here the reins to decide. The curio shop was actually closer since it was IN town and the bookshop was on the edge of residential, but the bookstore had the towels, and it wasn't MUCH farther because this was still a small town. Kenzan was fine either way, and so was he. A fairly-even split.

Well...I know how to handle this.

From his pocket, Hakuro produced an American quarter. It was left behind by a guest of the Kuroda Inn. For no reason other than the fact that it was there, he considered it lucky. It also reminded him of the Batman villain, Two-Face, but the fact is that the hatted youth just hated to strain over decisions that need not take up so much time. It was much quicker and easier to just allow fate to decide in the form of a simple coin toss and just follow the ruling made. If you don't like the results, just do the other thing some other day. It wasn't an important decision, right? Hakuro decided alot of random things by this method, but not when it was a dire decision. It was mainly to eliminate INdecision when weighing the outcomes didn't help any, like now. So, he said "We'll decide this way." and flipped the quarter into the air. It spun for a hot second before landing in the palm of his hand on Tails.

"Bookstore, it is."

That was another thing about the Hatto-san. He didn't always explain the rules of this game. Still, with the two of them basically committed to the act, the doors would be opened and they would dash out against the rain!



Needless to say, the two of them would brave the storm at the speed of GO, heading to the bookstore at light speed (or close enough), though the rain didn't let up, and may have even strengthened as they arrived at the location. Hakuro stepped in, removed his hat and coat, and asked for a towel, which he offered to Kenzan, as the other boy was no-doubt by the time he got there.

"So! What's good today?"

April 25th...


"Wait a minute. The date's wrong on this thing. How did that happen?"

April 24th, 2025


When Hakuro woke up this morning, he found the date wrong on his phone, which was weird, though stranger things had happened. No matter. Minor phone issues aside - it was probably an accident - he got up and prepared for the day unabated. Hakuro lived in a small apartment complex located in the residential district of Fujihama. The rooms were nothing special, but they were comfortable for a single person, with at least accommodations for a guest longterm or a small gathering for the hell of it or what have you. Naturally, when he got up, Hakuro checked the Hatto site. Nothing special going on. The idiot troll from before was still making noise, but mostly people were razzing him or ignoring him. 'Hatto has spoken' seemed to be a repeated theme, with gifs of Dead Poets Society going "O Captain, My Captain!". That put a smile on his face.

The school day was nothing to write home about, or write here about. Hakuro's classroom didn't have an infamous derpy teacher like Classroom 2-B. Oh yes, he'd been hearing about Miss Okamoto, alright. She definitely DID NOT seem like someone to get to know in the proper light, and today...he would learn just how bad that could get. Fujihama High had an unofficial message board and chatroom that regularly saw venting about the bad things that happened to someone, regardless of how serious it was. It was about a half an hour before the end of the day, when things in 3-A were winding down, that the topic exploded.

BURNING TOPIC: 2-B OR NOT 2-B? THAT IS THE QUESTION!


Hakuro arched an eyebrow when he saw it, and then as he read further on...what? The whole class? Impossible. A teacher doesn't have that power unless this were a classroom of delinquints, and last he checked, this wasn't Cromartie High School! You might make an argument for Nagi, but one thing Hakuro noticed about her was that she wasn't trying to bring that into school. At least...not so far as he was aware. Still, this was madness... The history teacher wasn't even that good a teacher, and according to the thread, all of this was over - of all things - a stupid doodle. This was unacceptable. As soon as class let out, he got moving. People normally watching Hakuro as he left usually saw him dash out or something to go for his hat and coat. He was still doing it, but he was actually moving in simple purposeful strides while his thumbs were sending messages. Messages to whom? Why, to his peers, of course, to the people on the scene whom he could contact with ease, especially those he'd put on his frankly-extensive contact list.

Azuma, tell me what happened in 2-B.
What was this picture, exactly?


Kai, I need to know what the rules are for school expulsion.
The EXACT rules, as they are written.


Rina, can I ask you to talk to someone in Student Council?
I know one of 'em is in your classroom, but I forget which.


This went on, with only a certain pause to put on the hat and coat. He stood by an outlet out of the general school traffic after that and plugged his phone into it so he wouldn't run down on batteries when he needed to get out messages. Hakuro was having effectively a dozen conversations to try and gather different angles on this situation. Azuma was the only 2-B student he had on phone, because of a recent favor which - Surprise, surprise! - was down to a bad history lesson. He helped him out a little, and thus managed a fairly-decent grade. The point was, though, that he had to get information piped in around the classroom to filter out the false information from the true. He also wanted to know the exact rules because there just couldn't be a single reason for which a teacher could actually just chuck an entire classroom into the bin. You can't punish all so severely for one person producing what is essentially an unflattering, but smirk-worthy picture. And as for the Student Council? It seemed like it was probably best for someone with a bit of clout in the main office to come to the Principal in protest, to give information indicating that Miss Okamoto was overstepping her boundaries ALOT. This could not be allowed.

Not in this town, not here and now, not while I have something to say about it. I'm coming after you, lady, and believe me, you won't just be humiliated by a simple picture. This whole school should expell YOU.
Hakuro Kuroda


Mentionings: @PrankFox


Kenzan's reaction was priceless, leaving the hatted youth snickering a little as the question was asked.

"Come on. Not while you're listening to music. D'you know how many people hate that?"

A little thing about the Hatto-san: He lives in a world that both pushes the boundaries, but remains respectable at the same time. It was a trait that most people couldn't hate, because he was not harmful by nature. So, for instance, he was one who collected alot of information. He knew things about a number of students in this school. Mainly, it was habits and background blurbs that he could either corroborate himself through observations or hear from another whose statement - whether they knew he was around to hear it or not - would confirm it as true. Thus, there were a number of things he knew about people that he could rattle off with ease, such as...



And to that end, it allows Hakuro to get away with a minor tease involving not bothering Kenzan in the usual way, because he hates talking to people when he's listening to music. You learn something about people, you have an 'in' with them, some means to break the ice and converse with them like normal. Hakuro himself wasn't normal, and Kenzan really knew that because they were in the same class, but because he was never so outlandishly addressed by anyone, he has to ask the why. Putting away the notepad, the hat-and-coat stepped on over to the doors, which had people walking in and out of it, inspecting the storm before he turned back to Kenzan.

"There's only one way to do this, and that's at the speed of GO. The question is, 'Go where?', though. I've an inkling for the curio shop, myself, but given the storm, you might want the bookstore. I was out on a day like this over there, and they like to offer the use of a towel in case of heavy rain. Protects the books."

He wasn't sure if anyone else knew what he tended to pick up in the time he's lived in this town. Some things were known while others were not. Kenzan might never have gone to the bookstore in the rain, after all. Maybe he didn't know. Hakuro liked to know what people knew anyway, so a test here and there never hurt to find out. And yes, that IS part of why he might be showing off a little.
Hakuro Kuroda


Mentionings: @PrankFox


He was there at the front area by the lockers, checking out the site on his phone. It was what you'd expect. All the usual topics were being dominated by talk of the Prime Minister, plus complaints that the site was being dominated that very topic, a few stupid fights that the mods could handle, and...Hakuro stopped.

What the fuck? 'Hatto-san Too Afraid To Open His Mouth'? Am I being trolled?

Worse. It was a rant. It was long-winded, but it boiled down to the user complaining that the site about Hakuro's 'Go anywhere, do just about anything' attitude was cowering before the Prime Minister issue by not talking about it. Ugh... Typical. Some guy on the internet trying to tell the content creator how to make his content. There was a fairly-normal line in the sand between the parties for and against this argument, with some saying it'd be nice if they could hear from the Hatto-san himself about it, if even just a little. That part, he found reasonable, and typed something up before linking it to the thread.



That done, Hakuro put his phone down and started messing with his notepad as he heard a locker slam and saw Kenzan hanging out in his 'I'm not here' spot for avoiding attention. It never worked, and not because Hakuro kept spotting him (although he did), but because avoiding detection required you to blend into the background, be invisible by not being so easily spottable. He seemed to be trying to wait out the storm, but...Hakuro's forecast for the day suggested that this would last all day, which meant that Kenzan was in for a long wait, a wait of boring. There was only one thing to do. Quietly, the Hatto-san moved from his position to the spot just out of the taller boy's line of sight, then proceeded to write in his notepad. Afterwhich, Kenzan would receive this message in Haiku:

This rain will not end.
Like Sisyphus on the mountain,
Your fate is sealed.

What will you do, then?
Hunker down in this place of noise,
or run like hell?

In any case,
I'm bored as hell and need a break.
Join me, or stay here?
Hakuro Kuroda


April 21st, 2025


As the rain continued to pile on outside, one floor up in Room 3-A, class had also let out. Several students began to talk freely or do a stretch as they got up from their seats. In the middle of it all, one student remained largely motionless, glaring forwards.

Our world has been thrust into darkness.

Ah, he's doing a bit. Quickly, Hakuro pulled out his phone and pressed a button to play some music.



The country is in chaos, held in the grip of a power it could never withstand.

He stood up, listening to the sounds from outside.

It's raining again...

Stepping outside the classroom, he headed the downstairs as the music from his phone continued to play.

Only I have the power to weather the storm. Only I can beat back the onslaught of forces unknown.

People were mainly talking about the Prime Minister, as they had the entire week, while he made his way to the lockers. Hakuro Kuroda looked fairly normal, not standing out much at all when he was in uniform, or even in his street clothes. But when he donned the items in his locker...

The rains have met their match, for I am...the Hatto-san.

All at once, Hakuro stopped the music and put away his phone, for now. He was ready for the Drama Club, once it organized for this year. They were a little late to the scene because - as expected - people were feeling drama from a different source, entirely...

"I can't believe he did it live on television..."

"Didn't anyone notice anything beforehand?"

"How did he even hide a gun from his own security?"


The Prime Minister's death... Hakuro didn't know what to think of it. The last thing he wanted to do on the Hatto Ken Ko-to Website was make an episode using that for sensationalist content. The internet was choking with it, anyway. Reaction videos, commentaries, speeches... Even foreign Let's Players were talking about it. He didn't want to, because his site was dedicated to the lighter side of life, the more interesting bits and even some of the strange. If he put that on there, even just to air it out, it would be forever be a stink bomb on the site that would hang over him forever. But even then, he couldn't stop his followers talking about it on the message board, asking him to talk about it or do some kind of video. He could take a look at the unusual manner in which it had all occurred, take apart the scene to try and find something wrong with it, but unless he somehow discovered something that a billion other people couldn't...

Forget it. I'm not going down that path. I don't even need to flip for it. Some things - the most important things - you never leave to chance.

So, for the moment, he was hanging out in the halls, not far from the stairs. He could head out into the bad weather for a laugh, but he wanted to see if something was going on around the school before committing to that. Hakuro sighed, looking at the recent news again. No, even the authorities - who were all over this - didn't know anything, and he wanted to know, himself: Why? Why did he do it? Why did he look so haggard? It WAS strange. Nobody seemed to know anything prior to the fact. Hakuro hated to be in the same boat as everyone else, left wondering at the mystery, and yet...it was indeed a mystery, and it begged to be solved.

Things ARE pretty dark, right now. Hope it doesn't last.


@Ambra I mean, Persona 5 had mostly girls, so it's not like there's a necessary balance.
Ah, Velvet Room colors. Seems fair.
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