Ash!!

Ash was kicked out of the River and into the community because he wasn't working and was lazy. So now the reaper has to wander the streets looking for a new place to live, or at least somewhere warm.

General description: A reclusive, introverted man with sadistic tendencies who hates people and prefers plants and silence. His calm exterior is deceptive—a storm of anger and cruelty rages within him.

Appearance: Tall, thin, pale. Long blond hair often pulled back into a loose ponytail, cool blue eyes. He wears nondescript clothing: a gray jacket, a red plaid shirt, and gray pants. He has wide black tattoo rings on his biceps.

Character and personality: He speaks softly and appears shy, but this is only a mask. Lawrence considers people deceitful and dangerous, preferring complete isolation. He views people who disturb his solitude as pests and can easily resort to cruelty to get rid of them. He feels guilty for his actions, but is powerless to overcome it.

Interesting details: He works the night shift and hardly leaves the house during the day. He has an unhealthy passion for decay and death (he is a necrophiliac). His body has a supernatural property of accelerating decay around him.

Lawrence goes to the river to see Ash, which greatly confuses the reaper, but the guy does nothing about it.

Name: Ash
Gender: Non-binary
Height: 5'0" (152.4 cm)
Race: Reaper
MBTI: INTP
Enneagram: 5w4

Brief description: A young Reaper from a prestigious Reaper family. Despite his high position, he was demoted to overseeing the Veil section. He's extremely lazy and forgetful, often trying to avoid any serious work.

Appearance: Ash has off-white hair and dark red eyes, and he spends most of his time either frowning or looking indifferent. His appearance is as unkempt as he is. He wears a white horizontally striped shirt, ripped white jeans, a studded belt, and studded bracelets.

Personality: Ash shows little interest in studying. He's discouraged by his famous family and extremely talented older siblings. He spends most of his time distracted and avoiding work. Ash is usually very quiet, unless he's curious and starts asking a ton of questions. Having a poor relationship with gravity, Ash sometimes drifts a little if he gets too distracted.

Interesting facts:

1. Ash's likes and dislikes are unknown.
   Like other reapers, Ash has no need to eat. He has no sense of hunger, and food provides only visual satisfaction.
2. If Ash were a human, his favorite animal would be cats.
3. Ash has an aversion to violence and everything associated with it.
4. He doesn’t know how to communicate with girls at all, and doesn’t want to.
5. He was born a reaper, not died and became one.

Ash and Lawrence's relationship is pure sitcom mixed with psychological thriller. They hate each other, but they have to endure it.

Mutual Blackmail: Lawrence knows full well that Ash is a lazy coward who fears the wrath of his high-ranking parents. Lawrence openly exploits this. He literally tells Ash, "If you turn me in to the authorities for stealing souls, I'll tell them you've been sleeping on duty for years and allowing me to do it."

Domestic squabbles: Lawrence treats Ash like an annoying teenager. When they cross paths, Lawrence constantly teases him, makes fun of his appearance, and calls him "birdie" because of his wings. Ash only hisses furiously, curses, and promises to strangle him someday.

Ash as an "unwitting accomplice": By remaining silent, Ash technically becomes an accomplice to all of Lawrence's heinous crimes. This amuses Lawrence immensely, but it drives Ash into a deep depression and drives him to smoke even more.

Why doesn't Lawrence kill him? Lawrence is far more powerful than Ash, but he'd never seriously harm him. Lawrence understands that if Ash dies, a new, highly effective Reaper from his elite family will be sent to River. Then Lawrence's fortune will be ruined. Therefore, it's vital to Lawrence that Ash remain alive, healthy, and lazy.

Ash-colored hair: His hair isn't just dyed. According to the lore, its hue resembles the ash of burned souls, which directly ties into his ability to turn into smoke.

The secret behind his striped sweater: Ash wears black-and-white stripes for more than just an emo aesthetic. In the Reaper world, it's considered the equivalent of a "prison uniform" or a badge of shame. His family forced him to wear them during his exile on the River to emphasize his status as a loser. But Ash has embraced it and wears the sweater proudly, despite them.

Massive ankle boots: He needs those huge, heavy boots with lots of buckles... for weight! As we already know, he has gravity issues, and without those heavy boots, he'd constantly be slightly off the ground when he thinks.

Secret Tattoos/Markings: Hidden beneath his clothing are magical Reaper runes. They glow a dull gray when he uses his garrote or attempts to vanish into thin air.

A complete failure with girls: Canonically, Ash is completely inept at interacting with girls, and, what's more, has no desire to do so. He's rather intimidated and irritated by the female gender.

Love of Cats: If Ash were ever a normal human, his favorite animals would definitely be cats. He respects them for their independence and for the fact that, like him, they love to coo and sleep.

Worn Outfits: Ash consciously wears ripped jeans, striped sweaters, and old clothes. He sees it as a way to rebel against his pompous and refined aristocratic Reaper family.

As a supernatural being born (not made) a Reaper, Ash is built very differently from a human:

The Food Illusion: He has absolutely no need to eat. He has no sense of hunger, and his digestive system functions differently. If he eats anything, it's purely for aesthetic or visual pleasure, or to appear "normal."

Gravity Issues: This is one of Gatobob's funniest facts. Ash has a very bad relationship with gravity. When he's deep in thought, lost in thought, or asleep, his body loses weight, causing him to float or drift slightly in the air.

Smoking: He is a heavy smoker, but cigarette smoke for him is not just a bad habit, but a way to stabilize his body, which itself can naturally turn into smoke.

Weapon: Deadly Garrote
Like any Reaper, Ash has his own iconic weapon of death. But it's no ordinary scythe.

Magic String: Ash uses a garrote. It's a thin metal string literally woven from death magic. It's incredibly sharp and can cut through flesh and bone like butter.

Stealth: The garrote suits his style perfectly. He doesn't need to carry a heavy weapon. The string appears in his hands out of thin air or smoke at his will.

Bad Ending Usage: If pushed to his limit in text scenarios (when his "yandere" mode kicks in), Ash will use it without hesitation to instantly decapitate or strangle his victim.

Family: Absolute nonentity compared to geniuses
Ash's family is his greatest mental trauma. They are aristocrats of the afterlife, and their standards are unrealistically high.

Exceptionally Talented Siblings: Ash has older siblings, all of whom are walking ideals. They delight in violence, execute soul-harvesting plans to perfection, master the family's ability to transform into smoke, and occupy the highest positions in Death's hierarchy.

Ash is a disappointment: Compared to them, Ash looks like a lazy loser. Because he shows no cruelty and constantly shirks work, his parents and siblings openly despise him. They regularly remind him that he is a "disgrace to the family."

Avoidance of Reality: It was because of the constant pressure from his relatives that Ash became a slob who doesn't care, hiding out on the River and pretending not to care about anything.

The Reapers in the game's universe aren't the angels of death from fairy tales, but a stern, arrogant, and cruel caste of supernatural beings. They have a strict hierarchy, reminiscent of a mafia clan or an elite secret service.

Upper Caste (Aristocracy): The Ash family is at the very top. They are purebred, ancient Reapers. They possess unique magical abilities (such as turning into smoke in the Ash family) and focus on the "big fish"—purging powerful entities, controlling global catastrophes, or executing traitors. They are arrogant, despise weakness, and consider themselves gods.

Hunters and Executors: The middle class of Reapers. Their job is to physically hunt down violent, life-clinging souls on Earth, calm them (often by force), and send them to the River. They use the iconic Reaper weapons—scythes, chains, and garrotes.

Bureaucrats and Archivists: Reapers who keep track of deaths, monitor the balance of souls, and distribute energy.

Outcasts and "Overseers" (Ash): The very bottom of the hierarchy. Those who failed their exams, showed pity for mortals, or were simply too lazy for the brutal work of the aristocrats are exiled here.

How Lawrence fits into this system:

Lawrence is not a Reaper, he is a half-demon/mage (necromancer), but he managed to “hack” this strict system.
He's found a loophole in Ash's protected territory and is using the River as his own personal, unlimited source of souls for his horrific experiments and to recharge his powers. Ash should have destroyed Lawrence on the spot for such desecration. But because Ash is terrified that the High Reapers (his parents) will discover what a poor guard he is, he prefers to simply turn a blind eye to Lawrence and quietly hate him.

The river isn't just water, it's the fundamental force of the Boyfriend to Death universe.

The Essence of the River: It is a gigantic mental and energetic flow where absolutely all the souls of deceased beings flow. The river flows by itself, like gravity. It carries souls irrevocably to where they are destined to be reborn or disappear.

What it looks like: It's an endless, foggy, gray space with no clear boundaries, where the concept of time is nonexistent. For a living person, this place is fatal—an ordinary mortal would simply go mad there, or their soul would be instantly sucked into the current.

The absurdity of Ash's job: The river functions perfectly and automatically. Guarding it is like guarding the ocean from the tides. The family sent Ash there not for the sake of work, but to cut him out of active life and give him the most meaningless, boring, and isolated job in the world.

Although he is a pacifist, he has a boiling point:

1. His family: Any mention of what a "loser" he is compared to his relatives instantly causes him to burst into anger.

2. The Threat to His Solitude: He's accustomed to being alone on his River. If someone tries to force him into a fight (or if the player openly mocks his weakness), Ash can summon his weapon, the Deadly String (Garrote), and then his true nature as a Reaper finally takes over.

He's sickened by cruelty: Reapers are inherently cruel, but Ash is a black sheep. He's literally sickened by the sight of blood, gore, and suffering. That's why he behaves peacefully.

Why he's always grumpy: His constant sarcasm and rudeness (that tsundere attitude, lol) are a defense mechanism. He's deeply resentful of his family, feels like a worthless outcast, and simply doesn't want anyone to pry into his soul.

Human Weaknesses: Despite his status as an immortal Reaper, Ash enjoys earthly comforts. He enjoys smoking, wearing worn-out clothes, listening to heavy metal music, and simply idling for hours.

Why he's sitting by the River: The Reapers' job is to purge "difficult," unruly souls and maintain a strict order of death on Earth. But Ash is officially considered by his family to be completely lazy, useless, and hopeless.

A shameful exile: To keep him out of the way, his angry relatives exiled him to guard The River—a dreary "nowhere" that requires no supervision whatsoever. The River operates on its own, like gravity: souls simply flow along it.

The problem with Lawrence: Lawrence has managed to find a loophole in this River and has been wandering around unhindered. Ash is well aware of this, but can't do anything about it (or maybe he's just too lazy). He's incredibly ashamed in front of his perfect family, so his main rule is to never report Lawrence to his superiors, lest he receive an even bigger reprimand for incompetence.

Ash is a Reaper. He's not just a guy with wings, but a fully-fledged supernatural being whose job it is to take souls.

Hereditary Aristocrat: He is the youngest child of an incredibly prestigious, ancient, and respected Reaper family.

Unique Power: His family is renowned throughout the afterlife for their rare ability to turn their entire bodies into smoke with a snap of their fingers. This ability makes them ideal, elusive assassins and soul hunters.