Good Luck, Nakamura! Hirose concept sheet (nothing about his design changes much)
Hirose isn’t the typical “fellow hero” or love interest-he’s still human, his life goes unchanged outside of Nakamura.
But that’s the thing-Nakamura is getting hurt, he’s running around in a cat boy “costume” (Hirose does not know the cat parts are real) fighting horrific shit at night and NOBODY ELSE SEEMS TO CARE, let alone notice the obvious connection between the rumored Lucky Cat and said oddities. His best friend is clearly suffering from something strange, but all Nakamura’s been doing is refusing to talk about whatever’s been going on with him and sinking into the background
It’s like Nakamura doesn’t matter to anyone, and Nakamura himself BELIEVES that horrible notion.
The first part of Hirose’s character arc is him realizing just how lonely Nakamura’s truly is, going “well shit, SOMEONE has to care, and theres nobody better than me for this!”, getting frustrated with Nakamura’s refusal to admit anything about him has changed, then seeking out some sort of definitive proof that Nakamura IS Lucky Cat so he can confront his best friend and make him talk about his problems through force. While he’s searching, Hirose does his best to be a quiet, subtle support until he has the proof he needs.
That plan does not go as he wants it to, but it DOES work eventually, in the way that causes Nakamura to have a panic attack (some snippets of internal dialogue on Nakamura’s end being “-still scary” “-still weird” “-worse now that I’m THIS”) lash out, earning himself a few gnarly cuts from Nakamura’s claws on his cheek (they faintly scar), and then run off in horror of what he’s just done
After that, Nakamura has a spiral, the two eventually make up via Hirose apologizing sincerely, and after a month of the new normal Hirose FINALLY has a thought like “he really is cute…”
BOOM, IT WAS SLOW BURN ALL ALONG BABY
(Also Marinette the cat spirit was TOTALLY talking to Hirose through all of this without explicitly stating Nakamura’s secret, because if cats had her level of sentience, they’d absolutely do shit like that)
Also, if anyone wants to do something with this concept themselves, Go For It!
I think I might design some of Nakamura’s rouge gallery later
