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Brand New Breeze used to be a forum for all those who were interested in the NeoRomance series "La Corda D'Oro" and slice-of-life roleplays.

Now it is nothing more but an archive of old roleplay threads and a place for nostalgic members to catch up with each other.

These threads might interest you:

...The Last Announcement....
...Old BNBers...

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...1.0...
The National Inter-School Competition

...2.0...
Seiso: A split school?

...3.0...
Everyday life in Kazebuku-chou


Nakamura Kaede [APPROVED]; Prof., Mus. Composition/Piano.
Topic Started: May 19 2009, 06:14 AM (524 Views)
Miss Avarice
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Name, Age: Avarice, at your service! :) I'm 13 and counting.

Do you play an instrument? If yes, which one and for how long?: Yes, piano, 9 years, violin... 6(?), and flute for 4. I think. I've recently picked up guitar and later I hope to learn the cello.

Do you have any RPing experiences? Yep. Here, and other places to boot.

How often will you be able to role-play?: Once a week at least.

Character Name: Nakamura Kaede.

General Education Department or Music Department? Which year?: Music. Professor of piano and composition, age twenty-three.

Does your character play an instrument? If yes, which one and how well does your character play it ("ability level")?: Piano, at the level that some would call her a 'prodigy'. She is skilled at classical music, but dabbles in jazz and jazz improvisation.

Character Description:

The Looks
Kaede's a narcissist, as in: she loves to be told she's pretty and for once, that's the truth.

Her black hair used to be almost to her waist, but she cut it off to chin length before she came to Seiso. Because of this, her appearance has taken on a slightly androgynous tone -- she has often been mistaken for an effeminate, male, which annoys her to no end.

Her eyes are a peculiar grey color, like the sky just before a storm, and she likes to think of herself in poetic terms. They are often blank, especially if she's not particularly caring about what you have to say or if she's zoning out.

Her skin has a pale, whitish hue -- she spends so much time inside playing on the piano that she hardly ever gets a tan, and as a result sunburns easily (much to her chagrin). Her fingers are long -- pianists' fingers, her grandfather told her once. She's slim and stands at around 5'5", weighing on the scale at 125 lbs.

The Inner Self
(I'm never good enough.)

Though Kaede may be very talented, she has a large inferiority complex. She is insecure and does not refrain from criticizing others constantly to make herself feel better. She can't stand being bested and there are very, very few people in the world that can earn her respect.

Upon meeting Kaede, one might find her rather abrasive, and even cold and cutting. Oftentimes, her mood swings get the better of her and she can go from being coolly polite to outright mean. (It is wondered if she holds the world record for making a person cry: 16.28 seconds of speaking to her caused a girl to break down in tears.) Some have suggested that she is bipolar, but really Kaede is quite immature, and therefore has no way of dealing with her emotions so she takes them out on other people.

Kaede makes no excuses for her conduct and can seem even fairly histrionic. She enjoys attention and she understands how she acts. She pushes most people away because she can't stand emotional attachments and considers friendship an unnecessary burden. She's not exactly a bad person, but she isn't the most pleasant girl to be around, either.

Kaede can be selfish and manipulative, but harmlessly so. She usually gets what she wants in the first place, and she's such a misanthrope that everyone who's close enough to her to be manipulated already knows her well enough to resist her stratagems. However, she tends to pull innocent bystanders into her various acts, which include throwing tantrums (albeit more composed and adultlike ones), and generally complicating others' lives as much as she can by means of impersonation or gambits. She is a convincing actress and this may be her only talent outside of piano.

She has a conscience, even if it's hidden deep down there somewhere, and if she struggles she can be empathetic and even nice.

One of the few redeeming qualities Kaede has is her loyalty to her family and friends. She can't stand people who betray others thoughtlessly and she will defend her friends at any cost... not that she has many.

Even as an adult, Kaede is still fairly infamous for her mood swings and is one of those teachers that go by: "if you play this section wrong one more time I'll snap your fingers off!". She doesn't like to teach, really, but reluctantly invests in her students' well-being because she is getting paid and because she believes in the betterment of the piano and western art music by teaching.

Primarily, Kaede is the professor of composition at Seiso but does teach piano on the side. Those who do manage to survive her lessons tend to, at least, perform fairly well and at an acceptable skill level. However, come to a lesson unpracticed and unprepared without an acceptable excuse (sickness, family emergency, etc.): or "I forgot", and she will have no qualms with getting angry.

The Past
Kaede is the daughter of Nakamura Aina and Nakamura Kichiro. Her mother was once a student training to be an opera singer, but she became pregnant by Kichiro when she was quite young. They quickly married and Aina had to forego her future for Kaede -- and Kichiro, an aspiring cellist, did also. They had quite a few hopes for their daughter and intend, even today, to live their shattered dreams through her. As a result, Kaede has been through rigorous training on the piano since she was 2. Her parents honestly care for her, but they have grown too used to the lifestyle that their prodigy daughter affords them, and therefore have no intention of allowing her to do anything but play the piano as a career.

Kichiro and Aina's relationship is strained, and nowadays they have taken to being rather cold to each other, united only because of their daughter. At age nine Kaede had her debut at the recital hall in their little edge of Japan, and has since been traveling all across the world to perform in concerts and recitals with orchestras, string quartets, and accompanying others. Even so, her international fame has been rather low-key: she is mostly well-known only within Japan and even then, it's a bit of a stretch beyond Tokyo.

Nonetheless, Kaede enjoyed her life with a couple reservations.

Until sixteen came along. Her sweet sixteen. She lost. Lost. To none other than some stupid foreigner by the name that she will forever despise (and that would be Kita Hototo.)

Her eyes might shift slightly at the words. A ridiculous name, she sometimes thought, and her one-and-only rival. If Kaede has a blacklist, he's on it. Her parents have taken to making unfavorable comparisons between the two -- so much that Kaede has become sick of it and, if only to placate their constant nagging to stop attending a public high school and go to a music school, applied for Seiso and was accepted.

After her stint at Seiso, where she was forced to walk the halls with Kita Hototo once again, she studied overseas at Yale and Juilliard. She received a degree in piano pedagogy and performance, and was offered a job at Seiso upon her return to Japan.

She took it.

And landed with that idiot again.

The Present
Kaede teaches piano at Seiso, but can also be found practicing in between lessons, structuring curriculum during planning periods, composing various sonatas, symphonies, etc., and generally avoiding her office space, which is directly across the hall from Kita Hototo's. Sometimes she will attend student recitals, especially if they are her own, and can be found arguing with any number of people at any given time of the day. She sometimes lobbies for more funding for the music school and will accompany the occasional woodwind, brass, vocal, or strings student if the need arises.

Friends, Family, Foes, Fish & Fowl
Nakamura Aina [44]: Kaede's mother and the driving force behind most of her practicing, Aina has long been the black sheep of her own family, the Inoue line. First criticized for going off to music school, and then for marrying a man her family hated, she deeply cares for her daughter but unfortunately presses her own failures and insecurities onto Kaede.

Nakamura Kichiro [44]: Her father is a strict disciplinarian, something he probably got from his father, who served in the military. He has high hopes for his daughter and was crushed and angry when she was beaten. He's very pushy and even though he cares about his daughter, he wants her to succeed.

Abe Katsu [28]: Her cousin and a good friend, he is one of the few to see past her outward and clear deficiencies in personality and is also one of the few who can make her laugh.

Inoue Haruka [40]: Her mother's younger brother, Haruka is a slightly mediocre conductor and occasional concertmaster of various small orchestras throughout Japan, has taken it upon himself to spoil Kaede whenever he visits. She likes him more than she'll admit and even though his appearance warrants a lot of yelling and snapping, he's her obligatory 'crazy uncle' and a favorite family member.

Kita Hototo [23]: The only person to ever best Kaede, she often mocks him for his first name, but surprisingly seems to respect him, at least a little. She's rather rude in his presence, and he ruffles her feathers more than she'd like him to. Her resentment for him runs deep, especially after being ingrained by her parents, but he's the closest thing to a best friend she's got and she clings to the idea like a loose thread in a confusing world. When he's not looking she can even show signs of loyalty, but that's debatable. (Highly.)

Sample RP (>=10 lines):
"I would ask what you did to your hair, but I don't actually think I want to know."

She glared, a single hiss escaping from her mouth as she slammed down the piano lid with a vengeance and snarled back at The Idiot (or rather, Kita Hototo): "It's called cutting it, Kita-kun. Unless you're too much of an idiot to understand what that entails."

She really wished he'd go away and leave her to practice in peace, but lo and behold the only piano rooms were all taken and filled -- and she was suspecting that he was sure he could take her room from her if he annoyed her enough. She was in a wonderful mood. A perfect, wonderful, happy mood, and then he had to just come and spoil it.

(She wasn't going to let him off easy this time.)

Stabbed a finger into the air to accentuate her point as she began what would turn into a five-minute long ramble on why she thought he was a disgusting parasite and how long was he going to be here exactly and for the love of Kami would you just leave me alone?! (But she never really got the end bit, where she was going to curse him forevermore with acne or the flu or something, because she ran out of breath and stood there trying not to hyperventilate.)

Collapsed onto the piano bench and only draped a pale arm across it and glared even harder.

(He raised an eyebrow.)

"Just go away!" she snapped, throwing one of Beethoven's sonata at The Idiot. The sheet music hit the slamming door, and she only opened another page of Chopin and started to play.

She couldn't -- she wouldn't ever admit to thinking he was her only friend. No. Not ever. Never ever ever ever ever.

(She was always a horrible liar.)

ooc: Dirge gave me permission to use his character and their relationship was preplanned.

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Chii
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Hopeless ☆ Fujoshi

Sorry for the long wait! Here's your teacher id~ It's too long to put in "piano & composition" so I just put in Piano there instead. Lemme know if you want it changed ^^~

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