Nozomu, Riku

Born and raised in a cynical household where distrust was common, Riku has adopted slightly cynical outlook on life. He believes most of humanity to be driven by greed and arrogance. He was a great misanthrope at one time, claiming that mere animals were less likely to kill and murder than humans. 

However, recently, he has been seeing things in a different light. Since he began teaching at Occultus Insulam, he has seen that humanity isn't all bad and now acts politely toward most, though there is an iciness about his attitude that never fails to reveal itself. He treats his students the same way with no exceptions. He chastises the girls for gossiping and the boys for fighting. Any belittling of another student in his class is not permitted and if he hears it, he will stop class and call attention to the person gossiping or fighting. 

Outside of the classroom, but still in a school setting, he is a polite man who keeps to himself most of the time. Due to the fact that he is rather new to the school, he does not know many of the other teachers. He often keeps himself distant from the other faculty, due to his deep-rooted trust issues. He prefers to spend his time reading a book, writing or grading papers for other teachers, though the very last choice often puts him to sleep. 

Riku has a deep love for music and enjoys his job very much. He doesn't often show his emotions, but his students say that whenever he plays the piano or sings, the corner of his lips twitch up in a smile. He will not admit it aloud, but he does enjoy teaching small classes because he can see the students focusing on their music rather than talking or each other. 

At home, Riku is the quiet type of person who often curls up with a book and reads while listening to a type of music recommended by his students that day. Sometimes, he makes up his lesson plans for his piano and voice classes before trying to compose a song of his own, though occasionally his creativity fails him. He is as polite and distant toward the rest of the world as he is to the faculty, though he seems to sometimes break that facade for certain people. 

Riku is a lycan- literally a man who becomes a wolf. This transformation is often triggered by the full moon or extreme emotional disturbance. Often before he transforms, Riku shows signs of two mental disorders, including but not limited to bi-polar disorder and schizophrenia, though the latter is less common. While he does not exhibit signs of these disorders otherwise, he is medicated for bi-polar disorder, which can lead one to deduce that his bitter atitude toward humanity at one time could have been caused by the disease.

Riku has no sexual preference. He has experimented with both men and women and finds that he has difficulty loving anyone. Occasionally, he will go out with a student and stir up a little private scandal. However, the scandal never really spreads because the person is a quiet type of person who keeps to his or herself. He finds this amusing and often tries to avoid the topic of love, though deep down, he wishes that one day, he can meet the right person and finally fall in love.

L I K E SD I S L I K E S
■ Music- Ever since Riku was a child, he has loved music.He chose to be a music teacher because he loves it so much. He will often be seen wearing a pair of headphones in public.■ Art- Riku was never very talented when art was involved. He stays away from the art studio at the school and will not associate with the art teacher.
■ Books- Riku loves books and reading. He often finds that reading a good short story, novel, or poem will help him with his own poetry, which he hopes he can one day make into songs■ Television- Though Riku has a television, he rarely uses it. He claims that "it rots the creativity of the human mind". He will watch it for news and the occasional film, but refuses to use it otherwise.
■ Computers- Since he has lived for such a long time, Riku has seen various ways of writing things; hand writing, typewriter and now a computer. He finds the computer much more useful for writing because the students are so accustomed to them that he doesn't have to teach then how to use it.■Writing things by hand- Though Riku'z handwriting is legible and particularly neat, he hates writing things by hand. He also dislikes when his students try to hand in handwritten assignments that he cannot read because their hand writing is horrible.

H A B I T SF E A R S
■ Riku has a habit of praising his students if they do well while giving them constructive criticism at the same time.■ Riku is afraid of people finding out his race because he feels that they will judge him and once again, leave him to suffer through life alone.
■ Riku has a habit of always keeping his hands busy. He often twirls a pen between his fingers or pages through his notebook. This can sometimes distract the students and he quietly apologizes for it, though sometimes he does not mean it.

Riku is a tall and slightly muscular man. He has light, pale skin that is reminiscent  of the shadow people who wander the academy halls, though he is not one of those people. He has jet black hair that usually stops at the top of his ears. It is often neat and combed, though when he rolls out of bed, it is very messy and he has to wrestle with it so it will look nice. His eyes are a grey variation of a purple hue. Many say that those eyes either repel you or entrance you. He himself admits he has drawn in quite a few partners just by looking them in the eyes. He wears thin-rimmed glasses for his near-sightedness. However, when he is try to make a point, he will take his glasses off and look the person in the eyes. 

He usually wears a shirt, tie and tan khakis to school. The shirt colors he wears varies from day to day, though he never wears warm colors like red, yellow or orange. He prefers cool colors, like blue, green and purple. His tie is standard, black with no designs on it. His khaki pants are always clean and ironed. On his feet are usually black dress shoes.

Outside of school, Riku  his like any other normal person. He wears any kind of shirt, normally t-shirts, and jeans on casual days. Black converse are often his shoe of choice. 

When the moon is full or when Riku is extremely emotionally disturbed, he transforms into a wolf. In his wolf form, he has fur as black as his hair. His eyes change from a dull purple-grey to a tantalizing amber color. 

Spoiler:

H E I G H TW E I G H T
■ 6 feet and 0 inches.■ 175 {human}, 275 {wolf form}  lbs.

A B I L I T Y
Riku has the ability to see as well as step into other people's dreams. However, both he and the person having the dream must be asleep in order for this to work. Also, once inside a dream, Riku cannot get out and must stay in the dream. He can help change the course of the dream, but the dream does not affect the life or fate of the dreamer; it simply alludes to what is going to happen. Riku cannot use this ability in his wolf form or if his emotional state is fragile. He often uses his ability solely for the benefit of others: i.e., relieving nightmares. 

W E A P O N
Riku carries no weapon, for he is very much aware of the strength of his wolf form.

L I N E A G E
■ Relation— Haruka Nozomu~ Sister{Missing}
■ Relation—Akito Nozomu and Akira Honda~ Parents {Deceased}

H I S T O R Y
It was a bitter, cold, snowy February morning when Akira Nozomu gave birth to her first child, Riku. The new parents loved their new baby boy very much, though a rift grew between them because of Riku's constant crying and how one parent would not even bother to try to stop the poor baby from crying. Riku's father was a werewolf and Riku's mother gave him the recessive gene, so he was born a full werewolf. Of course, he never showed signs until he was a little older. When his lycanism would show, his parents would lock him in his room until it was over.

As time went on, Riku learned he was going to be an older brother. Of course, he was ecstatic and told all of his friends at school. He waited anxiously for his sister's arrival, though his parents were less than thrilled. Riku noticed a change in their attitude, but didn't question it, for he knew that questioning his parents would open the metaphorical door to punishment. 

On April 13, 1995, Haruka Nozomu was born. Of course, Akira had to hold the little girl first, though she didn't seem like she wanted to. After a moment, she handed the newborn infant to Riku, who tried everything to get the baby to sleep. When her brown eyes finally closed, Riku gave a small sigh of relief and turned to hand the baby girl to his dad, only to realize that his father was gone. He stood on his tip-toes and put Haruka, his sister, in the hospital bed for babies and stared out the tinted window of his mother's room. He saw his father holding hands with someone, but he wasn't sure who it was. He had a sinking feeling in his stomach that life was going to change.

About six months later, Riku found himself more of less raising Haruka. He changed her diapers and fed her constantly. His father had left and his mother had spiraled into a depression that left her drunk or high almost all hours of the day. He was very happy in front of his sister, but when she was asleep, he would ask question whatever being watched over the earth why his mother was so "sick". At the time, Riku had no concept of drugs or alcohol, so he thought that his mother was suffering from a very bad disease. 

All through his life, Riku found himself raising his sister. He did well in school despite the fact that he was raising her. He graduated from eighth grade at the top of his class. It was supposed to be a wonderful day. His aunts and uncles had showed up to congratulate him.

However, when he and Haruka returned home, they were met with great tragedy. In their absence, their mother had committed suicide. The medical coroner did an autopsy on the body and found that Akira had first overdosed on painkillers then hung herself from the ceiling fan. This gruesome scene still plagues Riku's mind and remembering it drives him into an episode of mania, one of the two aspects of his bipolar disorder.

Riku and Haruka were then sent to live with their father, who was living with another man. As Riku carried on further in high school, he started to question his father. One day, Akito sat Riku down at the table and they had what he called "a fireside chat".

"Dad, why did you leave us?" Riku asked, getting straight to the point.

"Things were hard, bud," Akito said, obviously equivocating. 

"You left mom alone with two children. I raised Haruka because mom was never "all there". She killed herself because she couldn't live with the guilt!" Riku hissed, tears falling down his cheeks as the gruesome memory flashed through his mind.

"If you want the honest truth, Riku, I'll tell you. I never really loved your mother. I've always been homosexual; I married your mother so that I could live a normal life," Akito said honestly, no emotion showing on his face.

"So mom was just a trophy wife?! You're sick, dad, you really are. Does that make Haruka and I trophy children too?!" Riku cried, throwing his chair back and running to his room, locking himself inside and curling up into a ball, crying. 

A few years later, in 2007, Riku graduated from high school at the top of his class. His father did not attend because he had passed away the year before due to heart failure.  Sadly, that day, his sister went missing as well. Since Haruka was like a daughter to Riku, he became distressed and forgot all about the happy event. He called the police and went on a relentless search for his twelve year old sister. After actively searching for two months to find Haruka, Riku decided that he would give up. Of course, Haruka was always on Riku's mind and he never really stopped searching for her.

Riku went to college and got his teaching degree in a little less than four years due to all of the Advancement Placement courses and a few college courses he had taken in high school. He had a few job offerings in the United States, but the one offer that piqued his interest the most was the offer from the Occultus Insulam academy, which is a private high school on a remote island in the Pacific Ocean. Riku flew into the tiny airport on the island, hoping for a fresh start and a new life that would overshadow all the pain he had experienced.