Izumi Miyamura

Slim, pale, and of ordinary height, Izumi is repeatedly called beautiful, with long lashes and softly feminine features that others never stop pointing out. His eyes are a deep blue, and his black hair falls messy to the nape with parted bangs above thin brows. He gave himself nine piercings, four running down each ear plus one at the lip, and wears dark tattoos across his left shoulder, upper arm, and side.

At the start of the series he buries all of this. A layered winter uniform and blazer conceal the ink, straightened shoulder-length hair curtains the piercings, and thick-rimmed glasses complete the drab disguise. Off campus he drops the pretense entirely, shedding the glasses, tying his hair into a small ponytail, and letting the piercings and tattoos show without concern.

Once he begins dating Hori, he crops his hair short and abandons the glasses for good. With the sides now sitting just past his ears, his old piercing holes become visible, though a few, the lip among them, have closed from disuse. The change turns heads across the school, drawing an admiration he never wanted. By Chapter 123.5 he trims it shorter still, landing on a cut close to Tōru Ishikawa's.

On school grounds Izumi projects a withdrawn, joyless air; peers file him away as studious but impossible to approach. That surface hides a warmer, laid-back person who catches Hori off guard the first time she meets his real self. He treats his studies casually, content merely to graduate and scoring poorly as a result, and while he trips over certain Japanese words he is oddly gifted at tongue twisters.

Beneath the caution he is a loyal, considerate friend who repeatedly puts himself out for others, especially Hori and her younger brother Sōta. His protectiveness can turn physical when someone he cares about is threatened. He is also a little dense and impulsive, the same recklessness that led to the tattoos he then spent years hiding.

Low self-worth colors much of what he does. He fumbles around anyone he is not close to, doubts himself constantly, and frets that being seen with him embarrasses Hori, a worry that drives him to cut his hair and drop the glasses. He would rather be invisible than noticed. Horror and gore genuinely scare him, yet he keeps watching frightening films purely because Hori loves them.

Childhood was hard on Izumi. Timid and unable to connect with others through junior high, he was shunned and bullied, most cruelly by Makio Tanihara's circle, and the pessimism that followed pushed him to pierce his own skin with a safety pin whenever school became unbearable; the story implies he even weighed ending his life. His turning point was Kōichi Shindō, then one of Makio's friends, who showed him a kindness no one else did. The two grew close and stayed in touch even after enrolling at different high schools, and Izumi credits Shindō for who he became, so completely that he drops his gentle manner and turns loud and foul-mouthed only around him.

The main story opens when Izumi comes across Hori's injured little brother outside and walks him home, an errand that brings him face to face with a side of Kyōko Hori she keeps from her school friends. His repeat visits to the household grow into a friendship, and that friendship deepens into romance. In the webcomic's ending the two marry, making her Kyōko Miyamura, and they raise a son, Kyōhei, together, while the family bakery he loves keeps running into the future.