Ryota Watari

About Ryota Watari

Kosei's best friend, the popular captain of the school soccer team, introduced to Kaori as her date, the meeting that changes everything. Watari is cheerful, confident and kind beneath the playboy act, and he understands his friends better than he lets on, quietly stepping back when he sees where hearts are pointing. He gives the group its warmth and its best advice, usually while pretending he was only joking.

Appearance

Watari is a good-looking, athletic 14-year-old with light brown hair, an easy grin and the relaxed confidence of the most popular boy in school. He dresses well without trying, is usually surrounded by admirers, and carries himself like someone for whom life has always been straightforward. The act is so smooth that people miss the watchfulness underneath, Watari notices everything about his friends, including the things they are trying hardest not to say out loud.

Personality

Watari plays the cheerful playboy: flirting, joking and treating every problem as small. In practice he is the emotional adult of the group. He reads Kosei and Tsubaki effortlessly, gives exactly the right advice while pretending it is a joke, and when he sees where hearts are pointing, he steps back without bitterness or scene-making. His kindness is deliberate, he chooses, again and again, to be the friend who makes things easier for everyone else, even when it costs him.

Background & Story

Watari has been Kosei and Tsubaki's friend since childhood, the sunny counterweight to Kosei's gloom, and by middle school he is captain of the soccer team and the school's resident heartthrob. In April, Tsubaki introduces him to Kaori Miyazono, a violinist who says she has a crush on him, the meeting that pulls all four of them together. Watari enjoys the attention, but he is nobody's fool: he quickly sees that Kaori's eyes, and Kosei's, are pointed elsewhere, and he handles it with the grace that defines him, supporting his best friend's return to music from the front row.

Powers & Abilities

• Soccer Captain: Watari captains his school soccer team, athletic, popular and a natural leader whose confidence steadies everyone around him, on the field and off it.

Key Relationships

• Kosei Arima: His best friend, whose silence after his mother's death Watari has spent two years trying, in his own light way, to break.
• Kaori Miyazono: The girl introduced to him as an admirer; he sees the truth of her feelings before she says it, and steps aside with unusual grace.
• Tsubaki Sawabe: His childhood friend, the one person who sees past his playboy act as easily as he sees past hers.

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