Akira

From early childhood, Akira showed plainly that he was a brighter child than most of his peers. He picked things up quickly, and could often reach, by way of some clever shortcut, goals that would cost an ordinary person a great deal of time and effort. Perhaps because nothing he attempted failed to come easily, his life has been smooth sailing throughout, and that is how he came by the casual, flippant manner he carries today. It isn't that Akira looks down on people who work hard. He simply feels that solving a problem with an air of ease is what makes him look good — after all, making most situations look effortless is what suits the style of a genius!

That way of doing things has inevitably brought Akira his share of trouble. He gets carried away easily, to the point of committing elementary blunders at the decisive moment and landing himself in some undignified position. Most of the time he does come out of it fine, and perhaps that is precisely why he never learns. Taking a spill while demonstrating his skiing technique. Getting ambushed just as he was about to bring down a Chaos Remain. Holding a pose only to sneeze at the instant someone pressed the shutter. Insisting at his physical that he stood 180cm, then stepping onto the measuring stand and coming out at 179.5cm. Episodes of the sort that leave you unsure whether to laugh are frankly beyond counting. Inside Anita, the impression these embarrassments have left seems to run deeper than the handsome-guy image Akira works so painstakingly to maintain.

Akira's manner easily leaves people with the mistaken impression that he warms to anyone instantly, when in fact he keeps a certain distance from a good many of them. Once people stop and think back on it, they find that almost nothing in their exchanges with Akira has let them come to know him any better.

This seems to have to do with his standards for friendship. Akira's fastidiousness is not confined to matters of hygiene in daily life; it extends to the mental sort as well. Often enough he is the one who starts the conversation, yet it amounts to no more than one-sided chatter. He will not readily put himself out to consider another person's circumstances, and he rarely asks anyone for help with anything outside of work, as though deliberately keeping clear of any personal ties he does not need.

It is likely only with people he genuinely regards well that Akira will do something for them of his own accord, and press them to hear out a request of his in turn. His mentor once offered this assessment: "Akira... it might be less that he holds others in contempt than that he is a little spoiled and willful. He is a perceptive person, in fact. Whether he is willing to spend that attention on you, though, comes down to how he happens to feel."

One day Conductor returns to the conductor's cabin and finds, unexpectedly, an elegant flower arrangement set inside it, in a style that by no measure looks like the work of that Imperial-run shop in Shoggolith.

Asking a few crew members from Ranshin City whether they brought it in gets nothing but denials. Then Conductor runs into Akira in the corridor, and the young man puts on his usual self-satisfied look. "Bet you didn't see that coming. That happens to be the work of yours truly, the genius! I saw flowers in the cabin that nobody had gotten around to putting in a vase yet, so I showed off a little. Quite a nice surprise, isn't it~"

Akira's image as a man of style has long been fixed in everyone's mind, and yet not even the partner he works alongside at Anita knows he has a skill like this.

"Look at how curious you are... I suppose there's no harm in telling you, since it's you, Conductor. But the corridor is a terrible place for this kind of talk. You don't look like you've got anything to do right now, so how about we sit down at a café and take our time? That place's cake has been on my wish list forever!"

This may well be the first time Akira has spoken to anyone about his family. The son of a flower arrangement master in Ranshin City, he has no intention of carrying on the art. He picked up a little of it in childhood simply from being around it, and once he was grown he left home without a backward glance.

"There's nothing strange about that, is there? My brothers and sisters and I all figure there's nothing wrong with keeping a reasonable amount of distance. Family or not, there's no need to stay stuck together all the time... A blood tie isn't the kind of thing that snaps just because of physical distance, is it?"

Akira goes on to say a fair amount more about his life back in Ranshin City. Perhaps because the stories are interesting enough, the painful memories that cake left on the palate — pretty to look at, less rewarding to eat — end up considerably diluted.