AKIYAMA, marcel

19 ✦ male ✦ unemployed ✦ spirit ✦ citizen

In life, Marcel was an easy-going, benevolent boy. He took life in stride, and felt like his guitar could get him through whatever challenges were thrown at him. Somehow, everything would work out; that's what he believed and that's what he told everyone who asked him what are you going to do with your life?

After his death though, Marcel's become more openly bitter and irritable. He hates being around anything that reminds him of his life, because even if he had no plans for where he wanted to go, he wanted to go somewhere and now he's stuck haunting his hometown. He spends most of his time sulking and watching his hand phase through things then occasionally knocking things over. But even if he acts sulky and childish, all he really wants is companionship. He doesn't do well with solitude, and his emotions are a bit volatile at the moment so his way of venting that is having temper tantrums that... actually scare people away.

He often swings between despair and calm depending on how long he's with someone—the longer the better. Then, Marcel regains more of himself. He's more patient and considerate, willing to listen and to help since his days are filled with a whole lot of nothing. The perks of being a ghost and forgoing mortal obstacles become more apparent, and sometimes he thinks his life isn't so bad. Then it hits him later that technically, he doesn't have a life anymore and so the endless cycle of hopelessness persists.

+ sensitive
+ curious
+ sympathetic
+ modest
+ forgiving

- lonely
- temperamental
- possessive
- immature
- insecure

Asahi Akiyama met Genevieve Bordeau in her home country of France. Their Parisian love story was like out of a fairy tale, but without a grand happy ending. They fought sometimes, there were complications with Asahi's family accepting his French wife, and as first time parents they juggled working jobs and taking care of little Marcel the best they could. It was tiring, grueling days stripped of the soft glow of their honeymoon phase, but it didn't tear them apart.

Marcel enjoyed a childhood in France, and he'd never reflect on it as a bad period of his life. Sometimes he was shouldered with the responsibility of heating up his own dinner when both Mom and Dad had late shifts, but his parents would always make it up to him with a hearty breakfast and a family game night that suspiciously ended with a string of wins for Marcel.

They moved to Hawaii in time for Marcel's freshman year of high school. It was hard to leave his friends and adjust to a well-established community of teenagers, but the work opportunity would be better his parents said and Marcel resolved to be understanding. Even if he promised to write and message his friends, he had a lingering anxiety that it wouldn't be the same and they'd drift off and he'd lose them. He kept it to himself of course, and as a result, the fear was always with him even on his plane ride away from home.

It turned out his fears weren't unfounded. At first he called his friends every day, enthusiastically FaceTimed and Skyped and it was almost like he never left. But there was only so much he could do through a screen, and his voice only carried so far through electric waves. No one wanted to hold their phone up for hours, and the frequency of his involvement became less and less, until he felt too awkward calling first after waiting weeks for his own phone to ring.

Making new friends didn't go any better, and into his second year Marcel had begun to turn to different avenues to keep himself company. Music could fill the silence of his room, and Marcel's interest in the guitar gave his parents hope that he was involving himself in a hobby even if he never had friends over. Eight strings, a hollow belly, and a long neck were all it took to pick Marvel off the ground. His interest in music net him people who shared his hobbies, and he wouldn't hesitate to say it turned his life around.

Optimism leaked into his life, and his guitar was his key to happiness. As long as he had it, everything would work out. Marcel coasted through his third year with that mentality, and for the first time he thought he found real stability.

Then a speeding car turned a sharp corner, and Marcel only saw headlights before everything went black.

It didn't hit him—hit him, ha—that he'd died until he looked over his own coffin. His parents were sobbing, his friends were heartbroken, and they weren't the only ones who lost someone that day; Marcel lost himself too.

No one could see him, only sometimes did a curtain swish when he wanted it to or someone shiver from a drop in temperature. Was he going to spend the rest of his life ignored? For months Marcel spent his time wandering his house, his neighborhood, his school, wishing for death after death.

Those months stretched into one long nightmare, and now a year later, Marcel is just beginning to wake up. He's learning his capabilities and trying to hold a visible form as long as he can, rebuilding his life a second time.

Technically Marcel does want to play the guitar again, but he's scared of getting too attached to his old life and wishing for it back. So he now actively avoids strong reminders of his time alive, including friends and family.

played by lychee ✦ hibiki wataru of ensemble stars