meh

2. adjacently—do you think fandom does the above traits justice? why or why not?

dfkjdghdjfk absolutely not the wider fandom but the yotsuba subfandom seems super cool and good-opinioned on higuchi, so yes!! i fear i have nothing new to add to the ecosystem.

3. throw this character at any other character of your choice to bounce off each other as outsider pov to each other— regardless of timeline or logistics (crossovers allowed if you're interesting about it). why this combination? what insights would they have on each other?

it'd be nice if he ever met kira!light… or yotsuba!light for that matter… all the rest of team kira has such interesting dynamics with light but higuchi only gets to hear like two lines of his voice lmao. i enjoy thinking about higuchi realizing light basically doomed him from the start with his plan and not even on purpose, like, rem was the one who chose him and not light, light just wanted the worst person possible for it. as soon as he got the notebook he was doomed. actually higuchi's conversation with rem about why kira left the killing to someone else kind of mirrors light's conversation with ryuk about why ryuk dropped the notebook, doesn't it (but rem says "i don't know" so poor higuchi never gets any resolution lmao)

4. how do you think you would react to this character in real life and vice versa? would you prefer be a million miles out of range, be amicable classmates, or fall desperately in love? (bonus: arrange a hypothetical date between yourself and this character. getting silly with it is encouraged (fakedate them! escape a dinner date through a bathroom window!))

i am escaping the dinner date through the bathroom window.

5. ideal flavor of rotating for this character? crack them open and dissect them— do you want them tormented, pining, or being loved + comforted? do you have any specific scenarios you like to think about?

WELL OF COURSE HE NEEDS TO BE TORMENTED. are there any fics out there where light fails to kill him in the helicopter and he actually gets taken into custody and tortured for information like with misa? that would be so fun. maybe misa could make fun of him over the monitors. …though now i think about it, i feel like it would take very little torture for higuchi to tell them everything he knows considering he already tells them about the notebook… this is so sad (sorry i think higuchi's great i just also love torment) (misa recreating her torture with higuchi would be so awesome augh augh augh where's the fic do i have to write it myself)

6. weave a web of dynamics through the cast for this character: which dynamics are you most interested in? both canonically and through extrapolation/speculation— which dynamics are the richest to you, and why?

ohhhhh i am not qualified to answer this question, i really need to reread the yotsuba parts of yotsuba arc………… i think all his interactions with the other yotsubas have great potential (namikawa/higuchi has such a fantastic aesthetic) but my favorite higuchi bits are still him with misa. i love how misa is running circles around him all the time. also i love that she pretends to believe he's the *first* kira and if they interacted longer he'd have to keep up that lie all the time lmao. imagine them in a candlelit restaurant or something and he's sweating bullets like oh of course i remember the promise on tv! i thought it was so romantic to communicate through really bad quality tapes! for sure!

7. do you have particular niche takes on this character? defend those takes. (openly controversial takes are permitted, but also: hyper-specific headcanons which you believe in and no one else has considered enough to disagree with yet. pick a hill to die on.)

i feel like everything i've thought of for higuchi has definitely been covered before :pensive: i guess i like considering him as suicidal, though, since he does attempt it in canon. there are probably more suicidal characters in dn than there are non-suicidal ones which is impressive to me. i think for him it's a very small itch at the back of his mind that only explodes when he's experiencing a very severe mental breakdown.

OKAY YAY THAT'S ALL THE QUESTIONS here is a panel of higuchi from the doujinshi yotsuba hard by omega 2-d as an apology for how long this took

If it were up to him, he would have stopped after one, but he can’t say no to his poor, hardworking father. Certainly not when they’re out at this sumptuous little lounge at the top of the Imperial Hotel, the last of whose patrons haven’t left yet even at this late hour. Far be it for him to reject a suggestion from old Kenichi in front of so many other people, no matter how uncomfortably disoriented he’s felt for the past hour or so. Reiji clinks his glass politely against his father’s and takes another sip of champagne.

Namikawa Kenichi is remarkably slim for his age, with hardly a wrinkle on his pale face and tasteful threads of silver through his slicked-back hair. Reiji has seen him infrequently ever since he returned from America, and he wonders for half a second if the furrow in his father’s brow is a sign of some newfound sorrow, the kind of which he always seemed to have so few. That notion quickly disappears at his father’s next few words.

“I hate to impose on you in this time of celebration, but I’m going to ask a favor of you.”

Even to Reiji’s tipsy ears, it sounds rehearsed. So this is why his father insisted on buying so much champagne for the two of them. 

“What is it?” he asks. 

His father is quiet for a moment, lips pursed, then finally says, “Do you remember Higuchi Kyosuke?”

Reiji strains to put a face to the name. Higuchi… Yes, it must be Higuchi Jiro’s son, that pimple-faced upperclassman who he’d met a few times back in high school, when his father used to bring him along to company events. What had Higuchi Kyosuke been like? Sullen is the first word that comes to mind. They had spoken once or twice, and Higuchi always seemed taciturn and mildly petulant, like he wished he were anywhere else and didn’t care who knew it. What exactly they had spoken of, Reiji can’t remember. 

“Higuchi Jiro’s son?” he answers slowly. “Vaguely, yes. Why?”

“Ah, it’s a delicate situation…” His father smiles uncomfortably. “The problem is… I’ll put it this way. Jiro is one of Yotsuba’s best executives, so of course everyone was pleased when Kyosuke announced his intention to work for the company, and again when he was promoted to Vice President of Development. He’s a good worker, but he’s had some growing pains. It’s nothing serious—some issues with delegation, some hostile interactions. We hoped it was just a matter of adjusting to new leadership, but it’s been almost a month now. Jiro is a good friend of mine, and I owe a lot to him. It’s because of him that I started working for Yotsuba in the first place… but you’ve heard that story, and I won’t bore you with this old man’s sentimentality. My point is that our family owes the Higuchis a good deal, and I was hoping we could return the favor.” 

“And you’d like my help?”

Kenichi nods. “If you’re willing. You did excellent work in the American branch, and your leadership and management professors all spoke very highly of you. And, of course, you’ve always had a talent for these things, even when you were young—I know that better than anyone. So I’d appreciate it if you could… give him some advice.”

“You want me to mentor him?” Reiji asks, raising his eyebrows. “As a new hire, freshly back from abroad, multiple years his junior?”

“You’re only two years younger than him, Reiji,” his father corrects, a brief touch of humor touching his features. “In any case, I wouldn’t call it mentoring. Befriend him. It could be that all he needs is someone to lend an ear.”

It occurs to Reiji that he hasn’t even stepped foot in the office yet, and he’s already been given an assignment. He finds, though, that he doesn’t mind; his father hardly ever asks him for favors, and besides, if he can help the company by nudging an old acquaintance in the right direction, then why shouldn’t he?

“Then I’ll invite him for drinks,” he agrees. “I assume we’ll meet soon.”

“I suggest you seek him out as soon as you start. It would be to your advantage if your friendship can cause a change in him.” Kenichi pauses. “It’s always been the president’s preference to put younger men in executive roles—fresher eyes, innovative minds. That’s never sat well with certain members of the board, and if this turns into a larger issue… Reiji, you’re the youngest person we’ve ever hired for an executive position. You know that. What you might not know is how much the decision tested the board’s patience. I have complete confidence in you, but I wouldn’t want to see your prospects hurt by something that isn’t your fault.”

So in order to keep me uninvolved, you’ve decided to involve me? Reiji thinks to himself. But instead of saying it aloud, he just smiles. 

“There’s no need to worry about me,” he says. “I’m confident that Kyosuke can reorient himself with my help.”

And the board will see his worth soon, either way. 

-

As it turns out, the Development Department is directly below the Sales Department, so paying Kyosuke a visit is just a matter of finding the time to slip out of his office. Namikawa manages it just before lunch, and, as it turns out, he catches his charge in the hallway just outside the development office. 

Enough has stayed the same about Higuchi for Namikawa to recognize him after all these years: the same hooked nose, the same hooded eyes, the same thin eyebrows, the same wide mouth set into a scowl. He’s taller than before but still shorter than Namikawa, especially with his shoulders hunched like that, and he’s foregone one ridiculous hairstyle for another—what used to be an embarrassing half-attempt at a pompadour is now more reminiscent of a hedgehog. It’s the haircut, really, that sets Namikawa’s new first impression of Higuchi, more than even the scowl or the hunched shoulders. Trying to be trendy, but not socially aware enough to succeed. Posturing. Immature. 

Namikawa’s face shows not a single centimeter of those reservations as he stops in his tracks and bows in Higuchi’s direction. “Higuchi Kyosuke, yes?”

Higuchi, who’s still a couple meters away, slows to a halt and narrows his eyes. “That’s right. Have we met?”

“We have, but it’s been several years. I didn’t think you would recognize me.” Namikawa straightens back up and fixes Higuchi in his sights. “I’m Namikawa Reiji, the new Vice President of Sales. We met briefly in high school. It’s my first day, so I was hoping to reintroduce myself to you.”

Higuchi’s eyes widen slightly in surprise. “Oh, right, Namikawa. I remember you. You… Uh, you’ve changed your hair.”

What an odd thing to say.

“So have you,” Namikawa comments, almost off-balance. It doesn’t last. “You must be busy, so I won’t take too much of your time. Would you like to get coffee sometime?”

Higuchi blinks, a touch of color creeping into his cheeks. After an awkward half-second, his mouth widens into a toothy smirk. “I’ll do you one better. Come get a drink with me Friday night.”

How strange it is to be working in Japan after all these years; Namikawa’s colleagues in America would never have asked him out for drinks. If only the prospect of swallowing beer and sake with Higuchi were appealing in the slightest.

“That would be wonderful, thank you.”

-

Friday comes all too quickly, and, since Higuchi is his senior, Namikawa unfortunately decides it’s best to let him choose where they go. 

“Most people can’t get in here,” Higuchi brags as they walk past the bouncer. “Luckily, I happen to know a guy.”

Namikawa wonders if that’s supposed to impress him as he glances around at the tacky gold and black decor. Then again, he thinks to himself, Higuchi raises a good point: Namikawa has been out of the country for so long that he doesn’t know many people in Tokyo, and he would hate to invoke his father’s name to get in somewhere. Not that he’s much of a drinker, anyway, and if he was, this bar wouldn’t be his first choice. 

When Namikawa doesn’t reply, Higuchi adds, “Actually, it’s not a matter of luck, at least not for me. Have you been here before?”

“No, I haven’t,” Namikawa responds absently. “I’ve hardly been to Tokyo since I graduated high school.”

“Oh, that’s right, you’ve been abroad,” Higuchi laughs, sliding into a seat at the bar. “Find anything worth doing in America?”

Namikawa follows. “Of course. Harvard was an excellent experience.” 

“What made you want to go to university in America, anyway? Nowhere good enough for you here in Japan?”

Higuchi’s tone is so overly casual that Namikawa can’t help but close his eyes, a thin smile creeping across his face. Maybe it was intended as a joke, but he’s sure there’s a note of resentment behind it. He wants to bite back that it’s Harvard, Higuchi, what do you think made me want to go, but he refrains. 

“The faculty,” he answers simply, opening his eyes and glancing sideways at his companion. “I was thinking ahead to my master’s degree, and it so happened that Harvard’s business professors annually put out a number of excellent research papers and other projects. There’s also the name recognition, of course.”

Higuchi looks bored until the moment their eyes meet, at which point an odd look comes across his face: his mouth opens halfway as if he’s about to speak and then simply stays there, his eyebrows furrow just slightly, and a red-pink color creeps across his cheeks and the tip of his nose. For several seconds, they just look at each other, and Namikawa realizes that there’s something familiar in Higuchi’s expression, something he would normally have recognized immediately. No, surely not. 

Fortunately, the bartender emerges before the silence can continue. Namikawa is quick to turn his head and order a glass of pinot noir, and as the bartender moves on to Higuchi, he reminds himself why he’s here. 

“Where did you go to college, Higuchi?” he asks once the bartender steps away.

“Wasegi,” answers Higuchi, watching the bartender instead of Namikawa. 

“In Shinjuku? I’ve been to the garden there.” 

“Yeah, yeah, it’s pretty nice… I didn’t spend much time on campus, though. Don’t get me wrong, Wasegi is great, but I was trying to get in and out of there, you know?” Higuchi laughs just a little too loudly. “Some people say university was the best time of their lives, and I say they’re crazy. And pathetic—imagine spending your entire life sad that you’re not sitting in a lecture hall, listening to hours and hours of some old codger droning on about constitutional law. It’s backwards, if you ask me.”

Namikawa’s mouth twists. “You didn’t enjoy being a student, from the sound of it.”

“That’s not what I mean,” Higuchi says immediately. “And I’ll have you know that I was a model student. But I’ve always had issues with the way classes are usually taught. You can force a kid to memorize a bunch of historical facts, but that won’t help them find a job or get married or… or anything else that actually matters in life.”

“And I take it you didn’t appreciate your professors telling you what to do, either.”

“More like I didn’t appreciate them telling me how to think.”

Namikawa wants to tell Higuchi that the only people who find their independent thought threatened by their professors have very little to begin with. He reminds himself again why he’s here, and instead he says, “I hope you haven’t encountered much of that at Yotsuba.”

“At Yotsuba? Huh. I wouldn’t want to scare the new hire.”

The bartender reappears with their drinks. Namikawa thanks him politely and watches Higuchi swirl the glass in his bony hands before taking a large sip. 

“You’re not going to scare me,” he replies with a small smile, leaving his own drink to sit on the bar. “Surely it can’t be so bad.”

“There’s worse, that’s for sure.” Higuchi takes another sip and sets his glass down. As he does, his eyes slide over to Namikawa’s, and his face immediately draws together into a look of concern. “We got the same drink, didn’t we?”

Namikawa glances over. “It seems we did.”

Higuchi squints, then slowly relaxes his face. “Ha… I didn’t realize. If I had, I… Oh, whatever.”

“We must have similar taste,” Namikawa comments. He wonders to himself why Higuchi even cares, but the bemusement doesn’t reach his voice. 

“Right…” Higuchi frowns, and a distracted, faraway look comes over him. He takes another drink, then blinks a few times. “Anyway, what were we talking about? Yotsuba?”

“Yes, Yotsuba. Ever since I was young, I’ve had the impression that the culture there is quite individualistic, as far as these things go. That’s what everyone says, and Mr. Yotsuba himself seems to encourage independence.” 

“You know him?”

“Not very well. My father introduced us years ago, but he left an impression.” Namikawa thinks back to Yotsuba Dainosuke as he was then—wide and on the taller side, with thin, pale hair and fiery eyes for a man of his age. Not much has changed, although he’s gotten much balder. 

“Your father told me you want to go into sales,” he’d said with an electric smile. “With a pretty face like that, you’ll catch anyone’s attention. Ha! But looks aren’t everything. Give me your elevator pitch, Namikawa.” 

After all these years, Yotsuba had remembered Namikawa’s response well enough to mention it at his first interview. Maybe he’d mentioned it to put him at ease, but in actuality, it had left Namikawa feeling embarrassed for the first time since he was an undergraduate. Not that he’d let it show.

“Mr. Yotsuba isn’t so bad,” Higuchi admits, swirling his glass again. “But he isn’t willful enough. He does whatever the board tells him to, you know.”

“The board?”

“Yeah, the Board of Directors. Bunch of old hasbeens who can’t stand to let anyone else make decisions. You’ll see what I mean soon enough.”

Issues with authority are such ugly traits for an executive. Oh, the things Namikawa would say if only his poor father hadn’t asked him a favor, or if only he’d been at Yotsuba for longer. . 

“Thanks for the warning,” he says instead. “I assume you’re speaking from experience?”

“Oh, not really…”

“Any company that wants to stay on the cutting-edge has to trust fresh talent. I thought the Yotsuba Group understood that.”

“So did I, but not the board.” Higuchi stops, finishing off his glass of wine and gesturing to the bartender for another. He crosses his arms, and his face forms something like a pout. “They don’t like the way I run things, apparently.”

Good—now they’re getting somewhere. “Why’s that?”

“Oh, they think I’m too demanding or some bullshit. I bet one of my subordinates went complaining to them. In fact, I have a few ideas who it could be…”

The fact that Higuchi has a few ideas about who it might be is not a good sign. “Who?”

With an exasperated sneer, Higuchi launches into a list of his most rebellious subordinates, gesturing with his hands all the while and drinking down his second glass of wine at an alarming speed. Before long, a third is en route, and Namikawa’s glass gradually slips from full to half-full. He tries to pay attention to what his new colleague is saying, which normally wouldn’t be difficult, but something—he isn’t sure what—has his mind wandering. For what it’s worth, he doesn’t particularly care which one of Higuchi’s subordinates is responsible for his little problem; for it to have progressed this far, the problem must be more than one disgruntled subordinate, anyway. 

If this experience contains even the slightest bit of worth, that’s because it holds some instructive potential. When Namikawa comes across his first conflict in the Sales Department, he’ll bring Higuchi’s face to his mind and remind himself how not to handle it. The way his new colleague talks about the situation rouses all sorts of unpleasant things to mind: targeted derision in front of the entire department, vague yet accusatory emails sent out to (again) the entire department, increasingly contradictory directives. And Higuchi has yet to mention what exactly he does other than order his subordinates around. Namikawa is starting to suspect there’s little else for him to mention. 

But, somehow, listening to Higuchi talk isn’t completely unpleasant. Maybe it’s because he’s only half-listening anyway. His animated facial expressions and gestures—more animated as he drinks—are almost entertaining. The occasional slip into vulgarity as he rambles on is almost amusing. His sharp white teeth, which flash in the light every time he opens his mouth too wide, are almost charming. Almost. Just close enough to be all the more annoying. 

Namikawa reminds himself that someone like Higuchi has no right to annoy him—no, he has no right to allow someone like Higuchi to annoy him.

Fortunately, Higuchi pauses in between thoughts, just long enough for Namikawa to seize the opportunity. Folding his hands over the bartop, he comments, “It sounds like there’s a widespread issue in your department.”

“Oh, it sounds like it to you, does it?” Higuchi barks out a laugh. “You’re telling me. I don’t know how I ended up with these guys.”

Namikawa allows himself a small, unamused smile. He closes his eyes briefly and replies, “That’s not quite what I meant. Work culture is almost always top-down.”

When he opens his eyes again, Higuchi is staring at him, his already-red face somehow turning brighter. “What, you think it’s my fault those idiots don’t know how to do their jobs?”

“Well, do you know how to do their jobs?” Namikawa asks evenly. “You could try to lead from the frontlines more often, instead of doling out criticism while your people do all the work.”

He hadn’t meant to sound so blunt, and, for what it’s worth, his tone isn’t unkind. But that doesn’t seem to matter, because he’s clearly hit a nerve. Higuchi sputters for a moment, then makes a face that resembles a snarl. “What do you know, Namikawa? You haven’t worked a single month in the office yet. I’ll have you know that I do plenty of work. In fact, I’d like to see you take a walk in my shoes! You wouldn’t last a week.”

Namikawa finds himself so oddly, intently focused on that nasty, animal-like expression Higuchi is making that it’s difficult to pay much mind to what he’s actually saying. After a moment, he replies in the same tone, “I’m not trying to tell you your position isn’t difficult. It’s a simple observation: When a department has this many malcontents, it’s not just a case of a few bad apples. It must be serious, especially if members of the board are intervening. If you don’t want to be on the hook, you ought to make a few changes.” 

“Thanks,” Higuchi sneers, “but I don’t need advice from the new hire. You might have been hot shit in the American branch, but you’re still my junior.”

“There’s no need to be rude, Higuchi. I was only trying to help.”

“Not rude, just honest.” Higuchi rests his arms on the bar and hunches over himself, staring down at his drink in what Namikawa can only assume is a pointed refusal to meet his eyes. Or maybe he’s just so drunk and embarrassed that he doesn’t realize how he’s acting. 

Well, Namikawa isn’t going to grace him with a response. Higuchi can stew in his own feelings until he can’t stand the silence anymore and tries to walk back his outburst. Suddenly, though, he turns his head and looks at Namikawa’s glass for a long moment. 

“You’ve barely had anything to drink,” he comments, looking up at Namikawa. The beginnings of a devious smile are spreading across his face.

“I never drink much.”

Higuchi clicks his tongue. “What a shame. All this time, I’ve been wondering why this isn’t any fun… I might as well be drinking alone.”

Namikawa closes his eyes. “I hate to disappoint you.”

“We can always try again.” When Namikawa opens his eyes, Higuchi is grinning. “If you finish your glass next Friday, maybe I’ll listen to your advice.”