Talk:Enoha Koinose
The game cycle of 1989-90 centered around three boys who went to Yasogami High School during that year: Rekiji Kumagai, the only son of a family that has been in Inaba for generations and whose father was a member of the police force, Shou Hatoori, a newly arrived student, and Enoha's older brother, the otaku Inohiko Koinose.
When Inohiko was eight, he and his family moved to Inaba after his mother inherited a house from her father. Unathletic with poor eye sight, a girlish face, and an obsessive otaku habit, Inohiko quickly became easy prey of bullies. That is, until he met Rekiji, who stood up for him one day. Finding a shared interest in shounen manga, their relationship grew into a tight friendship. This wasn't deterred four years later by the introduction of Inohiko's baby sister, Enoha, who was hoisted on him as a means to urge him to get away from his obsessive hobbies when his mother or father couldn't pull away from work.
Years pass. Rekiji's interest in manga waned, but his friendship with Inohiko didn't. Despite their difference in personality, they often confided in each other their problems as they hit adolescence. Rekiji complained about girls and how boring school was, and Inohiko talked about his problems with his father, who wanted him to get into a top college and stop wasting so much money on wasteful hobbies.
As they entered high school, Rekiji secretly realized that it was Inohiko that he had feelings for, rather than any girl. However, he was uncertain of these 'feelings' and what they translated to, as well as scared of anyone finding out, such as his parents and Inohiko himself, who seemed clueless. Instead of admitting to them, he stuffed them down, continuing as if nothing was wrong, further worsening his depression when he was alone. Inohiko himself began turning further and further inward, until Rekiji and his sister were his only ties to a world outside of school obligations and his room.
Then, a little over a year before the game cycle of 1989-90 began, Shou arrived. Cheerful, easy-going, and charismatic, he was unknowingly the first to be selected by Izanami as the 'Hope' candidate, much like Souji was twenty years or so later. Befriending Rekiji and Inohiko, he completed the trio, often seeming as a medium between the two extremes the extroverted but brash Rekiji and the sweet but introverted Inohiko represented.
Ironically, he turned out to be the nail in Inohiko‘s coffin. While Inohiko genuinely liked Shou, he hated him at the same time, seeing him as everything his father and friends would want, instead of what Inohiko himself had. It soon came to the point that he could no longer stand to be around him and, likewise, Rekiji, so, he completed his transformation to a hikikomori, shutting himself in his room to only venture out at night, when his parents were asleep.
Seeing this transformation in turn made Rekiji further depressed in his concern and deepening confusion over his emotions, making him an easy candidate for Izanami’s Despair pawn.
All that was left was Inohiko, now primed to be the perfect Oblivion candidate, whom Izanami touched when he was getting snacks at the gas station. Having a TV in his room, and wanting to test the Midnight Channel rumor that was being passed around on the local BBS, He quickly discovered his ability to put his hand inside the TV one foggy night. Comparing himself to the heroes of the shounen manga he had read, Inohiko figured he was ‘special’, and that the TV needed him to be its hero of the ‘Midnight Channel‘.
Thinking he had to wait until the next foggy night to act, Inohiko waited for the perfect night, and then told his plan to go into the TV to two people: his then six year old sister, and, via phone, Rekiji, who in turn worriedly called Shou. When neither of them could contact Inohiko the next day, or find out from his parents where he went, Rekiji and Shou turned to the only clue they had, cheerfully gained from Enoha: the Midnight channel. Enoha had fully believed her brother and obediently watched the night he went in, and saw him on there. Agreeing they would call each other if they saw anything, Rekiji and Shou returned to their respective homes.
That foggy night, when the Midnight Channel aired, Inohiko looked far less triumphant than when Enoha last saw him. As if to address them, Inohiko talked aloud, saying that he was fooling himself: he was nothing, he would always be nothing, and that, really, he wasn't that much different than the shadows that lived there. However, he didn't want to go until he said goodbye to his friends. Rekiji, who was talking to Shou on the phone as they watched, tried to then bang on his TV screen in order to get Inohiko's attention, only to have his hand pass through. He then acted on it, and went through, wanting to save his friend.
It was in vain. Shou watched in horror as the screen tracked Rekiji, as he appeared in a completely different part of the TV world, get swamped by shadows while he cried for help. Finally, Shou ran out of the room, too scared and ashamed to watch further.
The next day, Rekiji's body was found tangled in some phone lines that ran beside the Kumagai residence- the positioning making it look like he either jumped off the edge of the family home's roof. Rekiji's father, being member of the police force and having been at home the supposed night his son committed suicide, made sure no leaks were make to the media while they investigated the cause of Rekiji's death. Investigating the Kumagai residence for possible clues, (while likewise investigating the Koinose residence, as they had reported Inohiko had gone missing two days before) the police stumbled across Rekiji's journal, which detailed Rekiji's struggles with his feelings for the now missing Inohiko.
When told, the Kumagai family, not wanting their dead son to be remembered by his friends as possibly a closeted homosexual on top of having committed suicide should the investigation continue, used their influence through Rekiji's father to immediately halt the investigation, as well as quell any possible leaks to the media.
Inohiko's body was never found, and, to this day, the files remain as separate investigations, with Inohiko's case file being about his disappearance, and Rekiji's being about a horrible accident, though photos of his strangled body are still hidden within. The Kumagai family moved away later that year, with Rekiji's father finding a position in Lunarvale. Shou, likewise, having been completely changed to a mere shell of his former self, moved away as soon as he could transfer away.
No one knows the entirety of the truth. Hope had won in 1990, but only by default. Shou, Rekiji, and Inohiko, through a mixture of politics and connections that were never made, remain as distant memories in a generation of Inaba youth destined to only move away and onto greater things.
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A few further points: in keeping with the fact that Fools can't be apped and to avoid having more Izanagis popping up all over the place (in case someone *does* want to app Shou), Shou, Rekiji, and Inohiko are not Fools, further differentiating them from the people picked by Izanami currently. Furthermore, their personas, if they manifested, weren't Izanagi, but possibly other Japanese mythological characters. This helps support the general gist that Souji's (and Adachi and Namatame's?) efforts are unique.
