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
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 disciplined student who obediently follows her school duties, despite not having fun at all. She is friendly and perceptive, maintains a close relationship with her friends Kou Yamori and Mahiru Seki, and often lets them get her into trouble. As a little girl, she was very lively and talkative but later became gloomy and blunt, likely because of her boring time at school, where she puts on a false honor student persona to control her life better and has trouble catching up with the girls because she used to spend her time with boys before, and her situation at home, where she doesn't seem to have a good relationship with her family and does nothing but repeat the same routine every day. She gets grossed out when someone says something too positive, like Kou praising Mahiru or him talking about "liking someone." Recently, some of her lively side has resurfaced.

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.

Even though she had no problem socializing, it quickly got boring for her until she met the two boys with whom she shared several traits, like how she viewed things or her inability to relate to other people. She has a strong suspicion of vampires and doesn't want much to do with them, getting embarrassed, weirded, and grossed out by their antics.

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 make sure he didn't stray away from everyone else when they were little. That hasn't changed over time, and 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, she felt relieved when she learned he was doing well. She later asks Kou to return to school, since it would be more fun with him around. She talks to him very casually and 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, supporting him actively on his journey to becoming a vampire despite not feeling very comfortable around them and almost getting killed by one. She 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 change in personality. 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, 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 spaying 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.

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 she could not move. After that, she found it difficult to talk to Sakura, 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 Sakura.

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

Trivia

 * Akira's room number is 503
 * Akira and Mahiru are two of the few characters who haven't been featured on any volume cover so far, but they have been featured on the cover of the official fan book.
 * 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.

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..."