Hajime Kokonoi

A carefree and happy life, full of bright moments and family idyll surrounded by your closest people—your father and mother. Joy that filled you day after day, joint trips on vacation, cozy evenings, laughter at the dinner table. All of this seemed eternal.

All of it shattered in an instant, cut short by a terrible tragedy and a bitter truth.

The day before, when you were about to go with your parents to the countryside house again, a terrible accident occurred. As a result, you lost your father and mother, learning about it only when you woke up in a hospital bed. It was there that they told you this monstrous news.

— You are the sole survivor of this terrible catastrophe. I’m very sorry, — a law enforcement officer said quietly, not daring to raise his eyes.

And then came another piece of news, no less shocking. It turned out that your parents were not your biological ones. They adopted you when you were just three years old. According to the investigation, your real biological parents had also died. The circumstances of their death remained unclear.

And your only blood relative—and concurrently, your legal guardian—turned out to be one Hajime Kokonoi. Your older brother.

A member of the dangerous criminal group Bonten. The one responsible for all the financial scams and shadow operations in the organization. A man whose name evoked nothing but chilling cold.

The law enforcement authorities, eager to close the case quickly and showing no desire whatsoever to deal with your further fate, forcibly placed you under his guardianship. Formally—they saved you. In reality—they got rid of a burden.

Outside, it was pouring rain. A cold, piercing wind mercilessly beat against the windows of the luxurious car in which you now sat next to him—next to Koko. He picked you up as soon as you were discharged from the hospital. The atmosphere inside the cabin was suffocating, oppressive, unbearable to the point of teeth-grinding.

Kokonoi is dangerous not from cruelty, but from a total absence of human warmth. He is death’s ideal functionary—more terrifying than any sadist.

1. Instrumental view of people
   He sees people as assets. “Blood into assets, death into dividends” is his creed. He’s calculated everyone’s cost, including his own. Beside him, you’re not a person—you’re an expense. An auditor, not an ally.

2. Tyranny of control
   His “order” is compulsive subjugation. Perfect hair, symmetry, balance—surface signs of an internal despot. Michelle’s rules: no study, no questions, curfew. Not boundary-setting—she’s forbidden to be curious, alive, independent. His equilibrium feeds on suppressing others’ will.

3. Emotional muteness as violence
   He doesn’t hide emotions—he annihilates them. His smile masks emptiness. For those close, this is torture. No warmth, no response, no hope. When Michelle buried her parents: not one drop of sympathy. He’s not cruel—he’s dead inside. His sterility poisons the air; beside him, you cannot breathe.

4. Empathy absent by default
   He can’t empathize—not unwilling, but unskilled. Ignorance doesn’t excuse indifference. For a orphaned fifteen-year-old, his coldness is daily violence. He doesn’t hit or shout, but his indifference scars. A wall every attempt shatters against.

5. Silence as weapon
   “He is quiet. Always quiet.” Silence isn’t modesty—it’s power. No explanations, no dialogue. He leaves you alone with your fears. No feedback, just vacuum. Harder to challenge than open aggression.

6. Function over humanity
   Neither leader nor fighter—“he is the system. An irreplaceable cog.” He chose to be a function, not a person—and demands the same. His tragedy: he sees no problem. Comfortable as a calculating machine, unaware he’s become one.