#tatari

Uh obviously first off is their physical characteristics:

Haruka has big, round eyes and light colored hair (silver according to the vol 2 cover). He is a human omnyouji, whose "purpose" is to defeat youkai and keep human society at peace.

Tatari in his human form (aka. Narikawa Takeru) has black hair and narrowed eyes. He is a youkai who used to terrorize humans back in the day, but has since retired to live with his human family.

Sure Tatari's cat form has rounder eyes and a white underbelly, but it doesn't really count to a certain extent because we primarily see him during the days he lived with Takeru, and not the character we know of right now.

Next are their personality and goals:

Haruka sees himself as a tool. He's stoic, serious to a fault, and loves to yabber on about almost meaningless things that baffle other people. He's also incredibly violent towards youkai, but staunchly protects humans and the world because he's been raised to be their protector (omnyouji). Despite being raised as a tool solely for that purpose, I do believe that Haruka's desire to protect humanity is not just the trauma speaking, so his protection encompasses a very broad group of people. Additionally, it could be argued that his violence comes from a thought that "youkai are violent creatures and therefore violence is the only way to keep them away from humans," and so he uses his violence as a means to protect.

Tatari, on the other hand, is a lot more emotionally driven than Haruka is, and certainly wouldn't be keeping up his kind exterior (towards his classmates) if it weren't for the fact that his uncaring attitude would absolutely be out of character for Takeru (who he's been acting as). Tatari is also considerably less violent in that he literally does not give a shit unless it's about upholding Takeru's principles or if it in any way harms Yuki. Tatari's motivations to enact violence are solely based on Yuki, Takeru, and himself (self-defense, primarily). So his not giving a shit, to a certain extent, can cause harm towards people he doesn't care about (see the girl he was about to let fall to death in ch 2), and whenever he does enact violence, his motivations are centered around the people he cares about.

It is then fascinating the way that they affect each other:

Haruka starts to become a little bit more emotive. He's driven to protect people from what he considers to be dangerous (i.e. Tatari) but he also can't help but be curious about this youkai who has so much power but seemingly has no desire to hurt the commonfolk. He doesn't trust nor feels any sort of amiability towards Tatari, but he is interested in him.

Tatari, on the other hand, initially finds Haruka and his kind (the omnyouji's) disgusting. He dislikes reducing people to just being tools, and abhors the fact that Haruka literally has no ability to read the room, he's almost incomprehensible to him, he's a danger to him, and his animosity only gets worse when Haruka proves to Tatari just how dangerous he is by single handedly activating the technique that got him sealed away in the first place.

I honestly have no clue how the author is going to develop them, since Haruka is quite human in his own right and Tatari seems to have been able to start caring about people other than Yuki (though he still does prioritize her first and foremost). I guess it's one of those "you push me to be better bc I can't stand the thought of being surpassed by you" type of narrative foil? Idk, these two are fun to watch interact tho.

it does NOT help that the author has canonically shipteased these two. they're absolutely never gonna be canon but it's hilarious how there's a recurring background joke about these girls misunderstanding haruka and tatari (in takeru's body)'s relationship and honestly? I'm all for it.