Akito Takenaka

Akito Takenaka is the biological son of Kaguya-Hime, or Princess Kaguya, from the fairy tale The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter. He's being raised by two elderly relatives of the late bamboo cutter himself and his wife in question, people that he very much considers his closest family.

Though he may refer himself as a Royal for convenience sake, he personally prefers not getting involved with the messiness involed in the Royal-Rebel drama. He simply thinks that someone's choice to change or stick with their fate (or not) is their business alone to deal with. As he believes he'll be made to return to his birth home regardless of his stance, he has a love-hate relationship with his destiny and how it affects him personally.

Personality
Akito is an inquisitive, star-shaped peg in a round hole among your usual Royal stock, someone content under the loving care of an old and wealthy bamboo-cutter. While he doesn't mind his spelltacular lunar inheritance, he knows full well that it comes at the memory-losing price of leaving loved ones behind. It's the reason why he strives to live each day in to its fullest, embracing all walks of life (be they Royal or Rebel) with an open mind and an electic sense of adventure. He never backs down from trying new things and often finds himself remembering little quirks and details that make everyone unique. After all, no one fairy tale deserves to be alone and feel forgotten.

Appearance
Akito is of fairly average-short height for someone his age, slender, delicate-faced, and youthfully handsome at 5ft and 5 inches. His peach skin has a strikingly blue undertone that's hard to miss, and his complextion in general exudes a celestial bright glow only rivaled by Daring's teeth (and it doesn't seem to blind anyone, fortunately). Between his dark, half-moon eyes and short blue-black hair combed and trimmed in stylishly asymetrical bangs, he's the last guy in school that you're bound to miss. 

How it goes
Wikipedia is your friend. For a detailed and and direct translation of one version of the folktale, go here. For the sake of redundancy, here is a readily skippable synopsis:

The tale starts with an old couple with no children, the husband in particular being an aged bamboo cutter. One night he discovered a glowing bamboo tree, deciding to cut it down only to find a pretty yet tiny baby girl within its thin hollow crevice. He took the infant home to show his wife, naming her Kaguya-Hime, and raising her as their own. From then on, for every bamboo tree the man cut down, he would find a piece of gold within its stock, even discovering other precious gems and metals on occasion. The riches he earned from the bamboo-valuables made his family the wealthiest in the village. Their once small child, having grown into a gorgeous young woman who literally brightened up the household, was treated as royalty in their then richly furnished home.

Rumors spread of Kaguya's beauty. Men from all across the land came to visit and see her, but she showed no interest. She's eventually persuaded by her father however, when 5 offers of marriage were made by a group of princes/men of varying degrees of nobility depending on the version. She gave each of them one of 5 impossible items to retrieve. Long story short, they all failed. Three of the “returned” items were fakes, and the last two items were never found. After, the Emperor himself showed interest in her. She rejected his offer too and even literally disappeared from sight to draw him away, but they eventually became good friends and even sent letters to each other after they met.

As the months passed by Kaguya grew ill at ease, looking forlorn at the summer moon at night and even sobbing in it’s sight. After some attempts to ask what’s wrong, she reveals that she was sent down to earth from her birthplace in Tsuki-no-Miyako (the moon-capital) and that she, being a citizen (or interpreted as the moon-peoples' princess, depending on the retelling), must return to the moon during August (after autumn starts, according to the Japanese calendar). Sometimes she was sent away from home due to a celestial war; in other accounts, she's living out the sentence for a crime. The precious metals and jewels that the bamboo cutter found were payment in exchange for taking care of her. While she wanted to stay on earth, she knew it was impossible to prevent her departure.

The Emperor found out, and he sent his many guards to prevent the moon-people from seizing her. But alas her celestial entourage arrived, and with their otherworldly powers the guards were forced to helplessly stand by. They gave Kaguya a potion filled with the elixir of life, and became immortal once she drank it. Some of the potion was left however, so she asked and was granted permission to give the elixir to the guards so they could send it to the emperor. She also wrote him a message for them to deliver to him, as well as letters to her parents and friends. After then, the moon-people gave her a celestial feather robe, and once she wore it her earthly memories were forgotten. She returned to her birth home while her old and weary parents grew bed-ridden from grief.

When the Emperor received the letter and elixir, his heart felt truely broken. Kaguya really did want to become his wife, but with her time on earth being only so long, she couldn't marry someone who was from earth. The Emperor didn't drink the elixer, for he’d rather live a mortal life than rule forever without the woman he loved. He wrote a letter in response to hers, and ordered his men to burn the elixir and the letter on the highest mountain top in the land, hoping the smoke would carry his message across the heavenly bodies and reach the moon-bound princess.

How Akito Ties Into It
Not much is known about Akito's birth place, yet it's presumed that Kaguya bore a child with some form of celestial nobility. Who they are is a complete mystery, and even the teen himself has no idea who his birth father is. Meanwhile, the princess's earth-bound parents passed away of a broken heart, and after years of silence passed in the once occupied home, the next bamboo cutter and future wife were chosen by the Storybook of Legends (the former being one of the couple's nephews). They inherited the family fortune left by the long gone family of three, and as they grew older, the aged and destined bamboo cutter discovered a small infant within a glowing bamboo reed.

Although Akito was assigned-female at birth (AFAB), he never felt comfortable using "princess" to describe himself. To make a long story short he's trangender (though he wasn't aware of the term at the time), using masculine pronouns and longing to assert himself as the prince he truely is. He finally came out to his earth-parents when he was still a nursery rhyme (around 7 to 8 years of age), and while dealing with the revelation hasn't always been easy, they've accepted him with care and see Akito for who he is: their beloved and only son, a blessing sent from the moon-people. Along with changing his name to what it is now (among other steps), they have and still support Akito with open arms in his social transitioning.

One of Akito's fears is how his gender will impact him after his tale. While his destiny is bittersweet, he's alright with taking Kaguya's place as long as he can resume the title of prince at some point. He's terrified of the possibility that his true gender won't be accepted by the moon's imperial family when the story ends, especially by Kaguya herself. If the moon-people don't see him as a prince, he'd have a much more difficult time coping as he'll have forgotten the family and friends who have. It makes the concept of losing his memories all the more frightening: by the time his "Happily Ever After" comes, he might never know of the support system he once had.

The history and customs of the moon-people are obscure due to seldomly visiting the world of Ever After, and there's only so much Akito himself knows about his birthplace. One of his current goals is to find out more about lunar society (and its potential prejudices) before openly deciding whether to fulfill is destiny.

Family
Akito is an only child. It's not known whether or not Kaguya had more children, and the next bamboo cutter and wife has only ever had Akito as their son. Even without blood ties, Akito is treated as one of their own, being raised as any child in a stable, loving household. Like many children who've been adopted at a young age, he doesn't really consider Kaguya-Hime as a mother in the traditional sense. Sure, he'll call himself her son for his story's sake, but he generally refers to her as her namesake. Rarely would he call her "mom" or some other parental denotation, as that's normally who he'd call the current bamboo cutter's wife. He tends to feel uncomfortable when others refer to Kaguya as his "real" mother. He knows that she gave birth to them, but that doesn't make her any more of a "real" parent than the ones who legitimately raised him from near-birth.

The Takenaka household is wealthy and has a villain-free reputation, so his family's high standing (to an extent) made his gender more easily accepted in the rural village he calls home. Generations of raising royalty and being payed in gold can do wonders for one's income and connections, after all. That being said, it was a struggle getting him assigned to the boys' dormitory at EAH. The solidarity/friendship he formed with Rosalia Fee (a trans girl in a similar position) along with meetings with the Headmaster and schoolboard before entering highschool~* fortunately helped him to be placed in dorm room with his (male) Best Friend Forever After.

The arrangement also made way for acommodations in taking princess-oriented classes while being allowed his rightful title as prince: private tutoring/classes before/after school hours, classes arranged on the MirrorNet, anything to help him pass his classes while not raising suspiscions among students. More parent-teacher confrences and donations to the school ensued, however.~** For his safety he intends to pass as a cis male, so his identity as a trans guy isn't widely known aside from the folks from his village, certain teachers, some of his classmates from nursery rhyme school, and a few other select students at Ever After High.

Friends
The son of the husband in The Crane Wife, Katashi "Ramesh" Yukimura, is Akito's BFFA. They met when Ramesh's family, consisting of a single father (for the Crane Maiden left her husband, as the story goes), moved into the moon-child's village. The young prince noticed that the Ramesh, who had notably brown skin, looked quite different from his Japanese fairytale parent. When he excitedly pointed it out, there was an awkward misunderstanding made by both Akito and Ramesh's parents from the outburst. In reality, he simply made the observation out of the correct assumption that Ramesh was adopted like himself, being admittedly blunt yet yet happy about it.

After things settled down, Ramesh and him gradually became close friends. Because Akito's social transitioning was happening while they were in nursery rhyme school, the former newcomer was usuallt the first (and likely only) kid around who'd defend him from schoolyard taunts and bullies. In fact, the two of them found themselves defending the other: Since his dad's story ended in poverty as a result of becoming a greedy, promise-breaching husband, Ramesh was often the target of more privledged children. His friendship with the wealthy moon-prince helped to deflect their distain.

As mentioned in a previous section, Akito found solidarity with Rosalia Fee, daughter of the fairy who enchants the Beast from Beauty and the Beast. The prince met her within the summer before starting their first year of highschool, and the fae girl at the time was more accustomed to aquiring hormone replacement therapy at a particular place in Book End that Akito had stopped by in. To help out a fellow trans student, the fae girl vouched him to her doctor and they've been friends since. Though their connections are kept low-key in public, the two of them together get their shots once a month and often hang out in secret.

Pets
As did the students in The Storybook of Legends, Akito also received an animal companion: a pudgy white rabbit in fact, one that hopped right his way during the Animal Calling. Since the-bundle-of-fur's roundness reminded him of the shape of most rice cakes, Akito enthusiastically named him Mochi.

Romance
Story-wise, while his tale doesn't end in marriage, the descendants of the Emperor and Kaguya's five other suitors are primarily dudes, with a few girls and some binary-breaking offspring among them. Being bisexual, Akito doesn't mind one bit. In fact he might seem cocky when he brings up the fact, but he'll honestly try toning it down around students destined to marry those outside of their romantic prefrence. He hasn't come out about on being bi to his parents, though. Not because he thinks that they're biphobic, he just doesn't conciser the topic relevant. After all, unless he decides for sure that he doesn't want his destiny, it's difficult forming a relationship with someone knowing that he'll never be able to spend the rest of his life with them on land.

As for the girl in his Storybook Romance Status: she's Hala Amir, daughter of The Little Prince. As mentioned, they met at a local Tanabata event directed by his earth-parents. It's a highly celebrated festival in his village that attracts many fairytale tourists, and Hala, whose destiny is tied to the night sky, happily arrived there with the narrator of her story. The starlit visitor caught his eye in the best way possible, but he didn't get the chance to meet her before she disappeared among the celebrating populace. Whether by chance or Cinderella-esque cliche, Hala accidentally dropped one half of her newly bought pair of geta (footwear). Akito happened to come across the missing shoe.

While Hala turned out to be a classmate in his Astronomy class, Akito has yet to built up the nerve to approach her. He noticed, after all, that her behavior at Tanabata when compared to at school were vastly different, and not simply in the I'm-bored-with-my-classes-and-Japanese-holidays-are-fun sense. The Little Princess was in her element back there, yet barely seemed at home in the academic setting of Ever After High. Though it made the prince all the curious, he decided to keep the slipper for now, saving the shoe's delivery for a better time and place. He's not sure whether his infatuation will become something more, but whether or not it does? He hopes that he and her can at least become good friends.

Basic
His basic attire includes that of a blue-black zip-up hoodie, azure flame decals lining the bottom of the sweater and reaching from sleeve-to-near-shoulder-cap by its (usually rolled-up) sleeves. The zipper handle and the aiguillette of each drawstring are all stylized with the shape of hitodama (flame-like, will o' the wisp type entities that accompany Japanese spirits), yet appear in the shape of blue teardrops from a distance without close inspection. The jacket can be reversed to show a yellow base with orange flames.

It layers over a long sleeved v-neck shirt with an indigo-violet celestial print. A dark haramaki wrap printed with the phases of the moon layers underneath, and overlaps his green, bamboo-print cargo shorts. Poking from the wrap is a black and white chain clipped to hidden belt loops, which again highlights the lunar cycle. On his feet he wears a simple pair of violet high top sneakers, the tongue being yellow and the toe of each shoe patterned like craters on the moon's surface. On his head he wears a simple green bamboo-patterened circlet. The front displays a white jem in the shape of a full moon, each side lined with a semicircular stone with their flat sides facing the center.

Other than the moon and bamboo motifs, there's more story-related symbolism in his attire. On each wrist he wears a cowrie shell bracelet: the last of the five impossible tasks was to find a cowrie born by swallows. Another bracelet on his right forearm is woven together in gold and silver, with a white bejeweled flower and metallic leaf charm: the second task was to find the jeweled branch from the island of Horai, the Japanese version of Mount Penglai of Chinese myth. As for his hoodie: the third task was to find the legendary robe of the fire-rat of China. While Kaguya's third suitor did find a robe, the garnment burnt down in blue flames, thus it was a fake. Also, the flame-like hitodama print could be another motif for his otherworldly origins.

Legacy Day
[TBA]

Notes/Trivia

 * "Akito" can mean a number of things depending on the  kanji. Kaguya can also mean "radiant light" depending on how it's written, so to relate his name to that, the correct spelling of his given name is "bright person" (朗人). "Aki"  can also mean "autumn" ( 秋), being relevant since Kaguya leaves earth during the fall season (it starts on August on the Japanese callender, which is around the time the story ends), but it's not the same word despite a similar pronunciation.
 * The surname "Takenaka" means "(one who lives) in the middle of bamboo" (竹中).
 * Akito has the power to cause reflective surfaces to glow at the will of his touch. For example, if he were holding onto a dark purple quartz, if he wanted it to it would emit a bright lavender shine with the squeeze of his palm. Or if he came across a wall of ice, he could draw/write on it with his fingers and the surface he touched would glow a silver/white light. While the enchanted surfaces are temporary, the glow can last up to 12 hours if he were to enchant something on the night of a full moon. When he attempts to test this power by day, he can (almost) accurately estimate the phase(s) the moon will take once nighttime hits.
 * Of course, the light he emits (by himself and towards other surfaces) is always dim at best around the time of the new moon (no moon in sight), barely lasting a minute if he really wants light to transfer onto a surface he's in contact with.
 * The lunar cycle also affect his energy levels. On a new moon he may feel lethargic, especially on late afternoons, at night, and the early morning. On a full moon however, his levels are high and he's practically restless while under the night sky. The strength of emotions also increase by tenfold: when happy he can be ecstatic, when irked he could feel especially aggrivated, and in an especially bad state he'll shut himself in once evening hits, avoiding the light of the moon at all costs. He goes to great lengths to keep a positive mindset when the full moon is near, and even more so to avoid triggers that could especially impact him around times like this.
 * Sometimes, when Akito is with his pet, he sits Mochi on his head and pulls over the hoodie he wears. Cue bundled up bunbun and Akito pretending he has rabbit ears. Don't try this at home, kids.
 * Although Akito's creator didn't realize it at first, his blue-ish undertones may or may not be a(n accidental) play on the phrase "once in a blue moon" due to the fact that, while most Kaguya-Hime descendants are princesses, Akito is a prince.
 * Both Rosalia Fee and Hala Amir are wonderful creations of by leavesofthree on devinantart, the two of them being mentioned with her explicit permission. In fact everything written about them here has been discussed/planned by the two of us~