GENERAL INFO
Full Name: "Nikolas Valentine Matsuhita. Yeah, I know, It's a fuckin' mouthful."
Preferred Name: "Niko. Just Niko. Nikolas is too damn formal."
Ethnicity: "Fuck if I know. Japanese according to my last name."
Birth Date: "March 3rd. Just another day."
Age: "Sixteen. Sorry baby, not legal yet."
Height: "5'9. Fucking call me short one more time."
Distinguishing Marks: He's covered in scars (from childhood accidents or fighting incidents), his ears are pierced, as is his tongue. He has two tattoos: Love on the side of his neck, Just Live above his heart.
Niko claims not to be anything to really look at. His black hair is cut down short, always in a messy disarray that he tends to hide under beanies or backwards caps. He has thick eyebrows, strong cheekbones, and a soft jawline. His eyes are chocolate brown, framed by a slant that hints at his ethnicity.
Not particularly tall, Niko is thin and lanky due to malnourishment and substance abuse. He hides his frames in thick sweaters and baggy pants often held up by belts or simply hanging too low on his hips.
Despite not being very muscular, Niko knows how to fight. What he lacks in strength he makes up for in speed.
"Back the fuck off. You don't know me, stop trying to."
Niko, to put it simply, is a dick. At school he can be found in the back of a classroom, feet thrown up over his desk, muttering sarcastic comments under his breath. He spends half his time getting in fights or in detention because he has a tendency to run his mouth off to the wrong people. Granted, half the time, Niko doesn't even bother to show up to school. He skips more often than not, though his grades don't really show it.
For the most part, Niko's personality is incredibly contradictory. He spent the majority of his life fighting to stay in school, but rarely gives it even half of his attention. The words that come out of his mouth are usually meant to hurt, but it's a well known fact that under his shell, Niko is incredibly fragile and easy to break. He argues wholeheartedly that he's going to make something out of his life, but his reckless attitude will get him killed before he reaches twenty at the very least.
Niko has a crude sense of humor and is well known for his snide comments and misplaced sass. However, if someone takes the time to break down Niko's walls, there's almost a completely different boy on the other side. More soft spoken, quick to laugh and even quicker to fall in love, the real Niko is a dreamer who's worried about where his next meal will come from and how the hell he's going to make it after high school.
More than anything, Niko is stubborn to the core. He hates the idea that anyone can tell him where he's going to end up in life and expect to be right about it. He demands to be in control of his own fate, even if that lands him in an early grave. Maybe it's determination, maybe it's fear, but that stubbornness...it's not always in control.
He pulled away from the worst of his vices awhile ago...cut ties and walked off like it didn't hurt him. He tried to focus on his school, on his work, on making something of himself. But just when he thinks he's got away...just when he thinks he's going to be okay...this familiar itch starts up under his skin. And it's not always for the drugs.
HISTORY
Relationship Status: "I'm not fucking talking about him."
Family and Friends: "Fuck."
Niko was a Safe Haven baby, dropped on the steps of Catholic Church just outside of the city, it's not something that he talks about a lot but is undoubtedly the source of his (selective) faith. He bounced through quite a few homes as a child -- church orphanages, a few boarding schools -- but has been in the same foster home now since he was thirteen.
Having made it to sixteen without being adopted, Niko is looking at just one more year of belonging to the system and living in a house with eight other kids. For the most part, he fades into the background, not a big priority to his foster parents and mostly a lost cause. He goes through bouts of doing his best to help out and disappearing for weeks at a time.
As each year ticked by, the more Niko's life seemed to go downhill as the statistics of being adopted dropped. Money disappeared, living situations dwindled, opportunities flew out the window. By the time he was in middle school starving to death became a very real possibility, and Niko began to really spiral for the first time.
Averagely smart, Niko knew from a young age that his grades would never get him anywhere. He was too distracted to ever focus on schoolwork, and studying was a theory never put to the test in his busy household. But Niko had one thing going for him: art. Naturally talented, he has poured his heart, soul, and every last coin into drawing and painting. It's his passion, his life, and at that time was his ticket to something bigger and better.
After his favorite art teacher pushed him to submit a piece for an art show, Niko not only won but was awarded with a scholarship to a prestigious school in the upper east end. For an hour a day he was surrounded by all the finer things in life and taught by the best art professors New York had to offer. And, for the first time, Peace Nathans.
Maybe it was the idea of a good-little-boy-in-trouble that caught Niko's attention the first time Peace walked into his art room with cleaning supplies and a frown on his face, or maybe it was the perfect good looks and growing sarcasm. Regardless, Niko was hooked from day one. It was only three days later that he made a move that tied them together forever. A night when the room had mostly cleared out, Niko couldn't remember the last time he had eaten, and Pearce's wallet was right there.
Looking back, it definitely wasn't his most brilliant of plans, and it ended up with him being caught anyway. Of course, Pearce had just ended up pulling out some money and giving it to him. Which ended with Niko shouting profanities about how Pearce should be sending his ass to jail, but Niko ended up in McDonalds that night, with a tray full of dollar menu food and the start of a new friendship.
Niko lost his scholarship a year later due to a suspension (that he claims wasn't his fault) and, eventually, lost Peace too as the older male transferred from middle school to highschool. Niko didn't even hear the other boys name again until he was a Sophomore in high school, smoking in dark alleyways and trying to get his hands onto something stronger. Word flying across the street was that Flynn Nathans was dealing the best shit, and that was a name Niko was pretty sure he knew. Three hours, a crumpled phone number hidden under his bed, and a prayer later Niko was reconnecting with his once best friend.
This time, though, Pearce was all grown up. His little-boy-in-trouble changed to good-boy-gone-bad, his pre-teen cuteness turned into rugged good looks, his sarcasm polished out to dripping wit, and he began taking care of Niko in a completely different way than when they'd been boys. One too many trips down roads better left untraveled, and Niko was in far too deep.
Their relationship could really only be described as a tornado. They hit the ground running with each other, and it only spiraled from there. Niko became wrapped up in everything that was Pearce, and soon began craving not only the drugs...but the man himself. They had it good, for awhile, and then Pearce got possessive.
Niko pretended to hate it...pretended he didn't like the idea of being something someone could own...but the truth was, he loved every minute of it. The first time Niko left, it was because he was scared. Scared of the things he was feeling, scared of the future he was craving. And he went in a trial of destruction and harsh words.
He came back two weeks later.
The second time it was because he refused to enter an art show. Although he knows he's good, Niko became incredibly self conscious about his work with age, and only shares it with people who are close to him. The same art teacher who entered him years ago did it again, though this time behind his back. For the second time in his life Niko won, but this time he threw a fit. And was met with the words: "You could really do something with yourself if you'd stop pumping poison into your body."
Since then, Niko tried to cut ties with Pearce Nathans and the services he supplies. But the itch in his skin isn't just from missing the drugs...and the truth is, he might not be able to stay away.
Besides, he did all his best paintings high.
GALLERY
Italy ||
Inactive || Alive