(有馬 総一郎,
Arima Sōichirō)
Voiced by: Chihiro Suzuki (Japanese), Christopher Nicholas (English)
Smart, attractive, athletic, and talented like Yukino, Soichiro Arima becomes Yukino's rival at school. Very handsome and popular, Soichiro excels at kendo and becomes a national champion. He is at first smitten by Yukino, unaware that she secretly hated him and constantly tried to compete with him. After unwittingly discovering that Yukino is not the model student everyone thinks she is, Soichiro blackmails her into doing his school work so he can spend more time with her. After resolving the issue and becoming each other's first true friend, they eventually fall in love.
Yukino learns that Soichiro, like her, is making an effort to "be perfect" for a reason. While Yukino is motivated by praise and vanity, Soichiro is trying to cover his "real" self, a self damaged by childhood trauma that he fears may be destructive. Yukino and Soichiro were able to find an emotional sanctuary in each other.
While Soichiro comes from a distinguished family of doctors, he was abandoned by his parents, who were the family's disgrace, and raised by his uncle and aunt. Fearing that he may turn "bad" like his parents, he is always trying to hide behind a mask and is constantly fighting his own demons. As with Yukino, he feels more in touch with his true self as he falls in love. But along with love, he is apprehensive of his other emerging emotions, such as becoming increasingly jealous of Yukino's friends, her activities, her life without him. When Yukino unknowingly damages Soichiro's bond to her, he finds himself becoming jealous and afraid. So he begins to wear another facade that he hopes will fool her and protect her from his "ugly" self.
After a lifetime of striving to be "perfect", Soichiro's dark side begins to manifest itself by vengeful feelings against those that hurt him in his family, and he realizes that he has the ability to be cold and cruel. One aspect is his possessiveness of Yukino, hating any one but him being close with her. Hideaki told Takefumi that the only reason Hideaki was allowed to be friends with Yukino was because Soichiro knew that Hideaki would never fall in love with Yukino and she would never fall in love with him. When the charade reaches a critical point that threatens his relationship with Yukino, she steps up to save him by opening him to a true and complete love. After a number of violent outbursts (one of which has him making love to her in the school library rather suddenly, which later has him thinking she wasn't willing, and almost drives him mad) Soichiro finally understands that to love, he must be willing to trust and be trusted, even enduring the suffering that comes out of love. Yukino is able to convince Soichiro that she truly loves him for who he is, and that she is willing to support and suffer for him. From that point on, Soichiro truly and completely opens up to Yukino, his friends, and his beloved adopted parents.
Source:
Wikipedia
