Content warning: Internalized homophobia, limiting masculinity, anxiety, depression, internalized xenophobia, and kinks.

Kirishima Keima's Character Profile

Basic Info

Main character in the For the Freedom to Love series.

Physical Description

Face

His well-groomed brown hair is rather average in style, gently framing his face while some stray locks spring at the back. Thanks to the perpetual gentleness in his jade green eyes, he seems approachable. He had no body issues until puberty, making his small nose morph to a strong shape on his square head shape and stand out, making him overconscious of it. Furthermore, the few moments he had to deal with pimples were times to panic, a huge blow to his self-esteem. One of his characteristic expressions is his challenging smile which he reserves for those close to him, Kiyoshi and Itsuki.

Body

He is 179 cm tall, body of an attractive inverse triangle with wide shoulders, courtesy of his father. However, he does not appreciate sexual attention. His skin is of a light beige with a yellowish undertone. He plays soccer, parkour, and attends the gym regularly. He has a lot of stamina and muscle strength, including the speed which characterizes every player in Setagaya Elementary. He doesn't wear any jewelry nor does he have any body modifications.

Clothing

Hex colors:

• Hair: russet brown (80461B)
• Skin color: Wheat (F5DEB3)
• Eyes: Jade green (00A86B)

Relationships

Personality

Kei resembles a dog, open, cheerful, and active. His speech and mannerisms are masculine, coming from a sports background. Stereotypically, he acts like a dudebro. He's straightforward and informal, even tactless which can hurt those who lean on the sensitive side. However, around Kiyoshi, Keima is much more careful and considerate. Having known each other for a long time and being romantic partners, Keima's priority is to treat Kiyoshi with care. Thus, he thinks before he acts.

Keima is a heart before head person. His emotions dictate his actions and are the main reason he doesn't think things through. He's also independent and hates being ordered around and caged in. He wants the freedom to do what he wants to do and not follow a predetermined path.

He is also fiercely loyal and immensely supportive. While he can support people he isn't loyal to, he's much more passionate about helping those he cares about. When giving advice, he internalizes the issue and uses personal examples, basing his response on beliefs and opinions, not any ideal. In other words, he's highly biased and not one to slip out probabilities or what-ifs. He believes that emotions and feelings are above everything else. While he's enthusiastic about the prospect of being of help, he makes an effort to not force others to accept it.

Despite his tendency to chase emotional experiences, Kei has a hard time being emotionally vulnerable around others. He's fulfilled through helping others but feels uncomfortable asking for help. This is also due to his independent nature, however, he doesn't like considering his problems need outside aid. He also has the habit to diminish his problems by belittling himself. This is Keima's biggest obstacle towards self-actualization, something he has been struggling with throughout his life.

Kei has thick skin, meaning he doesn't feel embarrassed easily. On the other hand, he can be described as shameless. While he can't read delicate social cues, he's sensitive to other people's emotions, especially about him. He finds most social manners stuffy and overcomplicated, preferring to be honest and direct. In addition, he's naive in matters of attraction and romantic feelings. However, if he thinks a guy is flirting with him, he feels shy.

After moving overseas, he had a hard time communicating with others because of the language barrier. This obstacle and the culture shock led him to resent the culture around him. Thus, he can be biased against Westerners, and xenophobic to other cultures.

Keima loves his partner a lot. Around most people but a select few, Kei holds back from gushing about how wonderful Kiyoshi is. Additionally, when he sees Kiyoshi while he's with others, he has a strong urge to get his attention. They have been dating for so many years but as Kei becomes more honest with himself, his attraction to his partner strengthens. He described Kiyoshi as light he can't help but feel pulled towards. This desire to be with the one he loves clashes with the desire to be free and live without strings attached. He wants to be with Kiyoshi forever but he used to believe he would travel by himself and never be tied down to anyone.

He has trouble thinking long-term and the immediate future. Kei prefers enjoying the present and not worried about what will happen. This leaves him unprepared for foreseeable situations.

Backstory

WIP

Gender & Sexuality

Kei is attached to the label of asexual/ace. He has been since he learned about it during middle school and takes pride in being ace. This usually leads to limiting his actions regarding attraction, and an obstacle in his personal development in his relationship with his partner. Because of his lack of self-esteem, his attachments become his insecurities. Thus, every time his actions don't align with his self-perception, he becomes anxious. As years passed and he learns to love himself, his insecurities lessen.

Keima has been working on his internalized homophobia since he acknowledged his romantic relationship was with another guy, in his second year of middle school. He had a hard time accepting and engaging in romantic intimacy, cuddling, kissing, and hugging. However, if the context was platonic—because they have been best friends for many years—he was all right with it. Before Kiyoshi, Keima never envisioned himself having a romantic partner; he's adamant about remaining single if his relationship ends. He's uninterested in looking for another romantic/sexual partner apart from Kiyoshi. He doesn't want exclusively sexual relationships either.

Kei's idea of a guy is based on a few concepts: Intimately passive but sexually proactive, useful (e. g. pleasure their partner whenever they want), be heterosexual. Hence, since he started dating Kiyoshi (AMAB), his view on sexuality has been challenged. First, he accepted he was in love with another guy, then to practice romantic physical intimacy (kiss, etc), and lastly that his worth as a man isn't tied to his sexual utility. This development spans many years and it's still ongoing. In his college years, the focus has been on sexual intimacy. Keima has learned he has many kinks which are independent of his sexual orientation, and that it's okay to receive pleasure instead of giving it.

Content-wise, he prefers consuming stories with buff people where he can relate. This is the reason he enjoys bara/men's love, despite it being homosexual content.

Keima can be tactless and insensitive about other gender and sexualities, voicing his assumptions and bias that can make him seem sexist, misogynistic, and of course, homophobic. He's particularly biased about female identities.

With help of his partner, he's been receiving therapy. It has helped him learn about his hang-ups on these topics and re-evaluate his beliefs. It is a constant effort and change.

Social Media

• Keima has an account in a microblogging site where he shitposts and shares dog videos. For the most part, he uses it to reply to his partner's posts with internal jokes but also interacts with other friends. His bio says he's @[Kiyoshi's username] trash bin for he eats everything Kiyoshi cooks so it doesn't go to waste.
• When texting others, Kei uses little emotes and emotes, usually sounding deadpan. With his partner, he uses a lot of dog gifs of his favorite breeds.
• He appeared in a couple of episodes of Kiyoshi's BL podcast as the opinion towards bara manga and diverse bodies in MLM Japanese manga.
• He uses LINE to keep in touch with his Asian friends.

Occupation

Keima chose to study Sports Management to learn how to help people become or retain fitness. He's passionate and slightly knowledgeable on the topic, having done sports for most of his life.

Sex Life

As a person who doesn't feel sexual attraction, kinks are the primary way he experiences sexual arousal. Additionally, his libido is low. Because of these two things, Keima's idea of sex is an activity he enjoys with his partner and it's not something he finds necessary in his life. For the most part, his partner initiates their moments of sexual intimacy.

During sexual intimacy, Keima is playful, spontaneous, and a risk-taker. It's usually up to his partner to decide how to proceed on things that put their well-being at risk, physically, financially, or psychologically.

At first, he was exclusively a top that moved according to his partner's words. Then, as he reached his limit, he eased into submissiveness and bottoming. Keima learned that he enjoyed submissive roles like slave, pet, and brat because he's used and ordered around without regard to his humanity and integrity.

Currently, he identifies as a service top and a bratty sub.

As a service top, he likes to takes orders from his partner. Because Keima enjoys talking, he checks up on his partner quite often. He likes to make his partner admit what he's doing is making them feel good. On the other hand, when he gets a bit more dominant and his partner submissive, he enjoys giving his partner anallingus, who enjoys it but it shy to admit it during the act. Overall, Keima is really vocal about what he likes in his partner and is now shy to describe how their partner looks during sex. He derives pleasure from seeing his partner enjoy themselves and stop being so self-conscious.

As a bratty sub, he likes when his partner attempts to dominate him. Because of his strong physique and rough mannerisms, he's quite confident in his strength. Keima enjoys rebelling, being disobedient—which he hopes gets him punished—and teasing his partner. His teasing is light-hearted, never intending to mock or belittle the other. Keima avoids words that may trigger his sensitive partner such as 'coward,' 'stupid,' 'weak' and the like; especially sexist and homophobic ones like 'cunt,' 'fag,' and 'pussy' which are an immediate turnoff to his partner.

Because of his love for bara manga, Keima is obsessed with the idea of taking his partner and is not shy to continue suggesting it to his partner's chagrin. He finds bottoming extremely masculine and feels comfortable with it. He prefers being ridden doggy style as he finds laying on his back rather embarrassing. Also, the rougher the better.

Keima's most prominent kinks are masochism, exhibitionism, and switching.

He's a huge masochist with a high tolerance for pain. He enjoys being slapped in the cheeks the most. Related to this kink is dubcon/noncon. He finds rape fantasies arousing. This goes hand in hand with his objectification kink where he finds pleasure in being used and his partner acting out of character. While at first he didn't find consent and safewords relevant to his bottoming experience and would rather just enjoy his partner's touch, he grew to acknowledge their importance.

As an exhibitionist, the thought of people seeing him being sexually intimate with his partner, or being sexually intimate in a public place turns him on. When topping, Kei enjoys thinking about how he wants others to see how much he loves his partner, and when subbing, the thought of people seeing him as his partner dominates him turns him on from the embarrassment. Similarly, he enjoys adding mirrors to spice up their sex life, either when he's at giving or receiving end.

He has a particular kink where he enjoys seeing his partner dress in pink. He finds Kiyoshi adorable in it and the more pink he wears, the more aroused Kiyoshi is.

Other kinks include scruff biting, estrus, pet play (comforting a cat roleplay Kiyo), and humiliating instructions.

Most recently, he's experimenting with his partner on orgasm control. His favorite sex toys are rope and handcuffs.