Akira Asai

"Kou: Oh yeah, why are you in a uniform now? Are you going home? Akira: Nonsense, I am on my way to school.

Kou: At 4 AM?! It's dead at night! Akira: No, it's already the next morning."

- Volume 1, Chapter 6

Akira Asai (アキラ) is a side character in Call of the Night. She's the childhood friend of Kou Yamori and Mahiru Seki and also lives in the same apartment complex as Kou.

Appearance
Akira is a teenage girl with a voluptuous figure. She has short hair depicted as black with a blue tint in the manga and dark brown in the anime. Her eyes have tiny pupils and no visible iris. While her eyes are usually colored black, they are also depicted as amber-colored. Akira has a noticeable upper bust (a feature acknowledged by several characters) and an angular face.

Outside, she usually wears a school uniform consisting of a long-sleeved white shirt, a striped tie, and a grey skirt. In addition, her uniform also features a grey blazer during the colder months. In PE class, Akira wears a dark-colored track jacket with sleeves that are white on the upper half, black shorts, and ties her hair in a ponytail. She is always shown wearing a sleeveless shirt and pajama shorts at home.

At one point she was put in a maid outfit, much to her embarrassment.

Personality
Akira is a mature and disciplined student who obediently follows her school duties despite not having fun. She is approachable and perceptive, maintains a close relationship with her friends Kou Yamori and Mahiru Seki, and lets them get her into trouble. As a little girl, she was lively and talkative but later became gloomy, blunt, and snarky. Reasons for that are her boring time at school, where she puts on an honor student facade and feels alienated from the girls as she used to spend her time with boys.

Another factor is her situation at home. She doesn't seem to have a good relationship with her family and does nothing but repeat the same daily routine. At one point, she "wasn't able to bring herself out anymore" and seems to suffer from clinical depression. She gets grossed out when someone says something too positive, like Kou praising Mahiru or the latter talking about "liking someone." Recently, her lively side has resurfaced to some extent.

When around her peers, particularly Kou, Akira acts like a guardian figure, causing Michiko to give her the sarcastic nickname "Mom."

Akira has a relatively carefree attitude, quickly accepting the existence of vampires. While she's usually very cool-headed, she can also quickly feel overwhelmed by a situation and lose her cool, particularly if she feels embarrassed. She has a strong suspicion of vampires and doesn't want much to do with them, getting embarrassed, weirded out, and disgusted by their antics.

Even though Akira had no problem socializing, it quickly got boring for her until she met the two boys with whom she shared several traits, like her views on things, her inability to relate to other people, and later on, her lack of happiness.

Kou Yamori
Akira and Kou have been friends since they were children. She would frequently talk to him and try to have a conversation, with limited success because of Kou's limited social skills. Akira wondered whether Kou saw her as an actual friend since he had acted indifferent toward her in the past and was happy when he placed a walkie-talkie on her postbox, thinking that Kou tried to express his feelings this way, although Kou did it accidentally. Akira treasured that walkie-talkie a lot and kept it with her for years.

She feels connected with him because of their similarities and sees Kou as a little brother. She often watched over him to ensure he didn't stray away from everyone else when they were little. That hasn't changed over time. Akira often acts like his older sister or guardian, who is very protective of Kou.

After entering 6th grade, they stopped seeing each other, but Akira hoped he would call her. After Kou left school, she was worried and wanted to call him to see how he was doing. When they met again, Akira felt relieved when she learned he was doing well and later asked Kou to return to school since it would be more fun with him around. She talks to him casually, including addressing him without honorific suffixes. At first, she called him "Yamori" but soon started to address him with "Kou." Akira is not afraid to call him out on his behavior, questioning his intelligence.

Despite wanting him to return to school, Akira doesn't mind the life Kou is living, wants the best for Kou, and to see him happy. She supports him actively on his journey to becoming a vampire despite not feeling very comfortable around them and almost getting killed by one. Akira wants to let Kou suck her blood once he becomes a vampire, so he doesn't have to suffer and lose his mind through starvation.

After Kou turns into a half-vampire, Akira becomes somewhat scared of him because of his personality change. But despite that fact, the two are still close and care for each other a great deal.

Mahiru Seki
She had known Mahiru since early childhood and could see that Mahiru's smile and cheerful attitude were fake, witnessing him being genuine for the first time when talking with Kou. Mahiru was the first of the two to have a proper conversation with Kou, which caused Akira to feel jealous of him. They would later become good friends because of their shared traits. Akira thinks of Mahiru as intelligent and hangs out with him frequently at school. She wants him and Kou to make up after their fight, stating that they are unlikely to find friends like each other anytime soon. Despite all that happened, she was able to carry on a conversation with Mahiru but quickly became angry at him for asking her to deliver his farewell message to Kou, yelling at him to do it himself. She is fired up and determined to find Mahiru in Hokkaido.

Nazuna Nanakusa
"Yamori, I need to ask you again. Who the hell is this?"

- Akira in Volume 1, Chapter 7

Akira's first introduction to Nazuna was Nazuna spying on her and Kou as they met in a park, where she barged in and didn't hesitate to reveal sensitive information to Akira, like "only being interested in Kou's body", even insisting on it. Akira didn't mind Nazuna at first but quickly (and unintentionally) embarrassed her by mentioning Kou liking Nazuna romantically and was shocked when she sucked Kou's blood in front of her. Because of that and Nazuna's personality, Akira looked down on her and didn't try to hide it, calling her names to her face or within her earshot.

Despite being uncomfortable around her and having a hard time supporting it, Akira approved of Kou's relationship with Nazuna as it turned out to be surprisingly wholesome.

Sakura Asakura
Akira and Sakura were not very close but talked to each other occasionally, with Akira being fond of her exceptionally kind personality and thinking of Sakura as cute-looking. She encouraged Sakura to ask Kou out, believing that Sakura would easily get a "yes." After Sakura got rejected and Kou harassed by other girls as a result, Akira felt guilty, believing she hurt both of them. She wanted to apologize but thought an apology would only bother them more, and was unable to move. After that, she found it difficult to talk to her, even if Sakura harbored no ill will. After asking Akira to be in the same school-trip group as she and Kou, Akira was baffled by how friendly Sakura was, commenting that she wants to go out with her.

Abilities
As a normal human, Akira doesn't possess any kind of supernatural ability.

Trivia

 * Akira's room number is 503
 * Despite normally being drawn with black eyes, Akira and Kou also got depicted with amber eyes by Kotoyama. In Akira's case, it was on the cover of chapter 131.
 * Akira mentioned that, before sleeping with Kou and Nazuna in chapter 11/episode 4, she hadn't said "good night" to anyone in a while.
 * Akira's type of eyes is called Sanpaku eyes (三白眼). While such eyes are more of a simple design choice in fiction, there is a belief in Japan that they indicate the person is either in danger or has violent and psychotic tendencies. The former is true in Akira's case, as she was in mortal danger more than once.
 * Akira unintentionally set the whole plot in motion my advising Sakura to ask Kou out.

Quotes

 * (To Nazuna) "Please shut up, monster."
 * (To Kou) "Look, I don't care about who you fall in love with and who you go out with. I'll support you anyways. But man, if you go for this slutty monster, you're making this hard for me..."