Rin Kokonoe

A mischievously precocious young girl in class 4-1 (originally 3-1) at Futatsubashi Elementary School. Born and raised by her single mother, Aki Kokonoe, for the first five years of her life, Rin Kokonoe was an affectionate, happy child. Though normally shy around strangers, she immediately warmed up to her first cousin once removed, Reiji Kokonoe, when he moved in with them after being orphaned, and was accepting of the romance that developed between her mother and him. Her joy at finally having a complete family to call her own, however, was short-lived: Aki was diagnosed with lung cancer, and, while she tried to stay alive long enough to see her daughter enter first grade, passed away several months later. Rin, who had been folding paper cranes incessantly in the hopes that Aki would recover if she made enough of them, was discovered by Reiji, still at her mother's side, with a blank look on her face: the event was so traumatic that it had left her an emotionless mute.

Rin, still in her trancelike state, entered Futatsubashi Elementary School, where she was grouped together with the two other "class misfits", Kuro Kagami and Mimi Usa, during a physical education class, an episode which marked the beginning of their association. Though initially treated as little more than a living doll by Kuro, the latter's attempt to replace one of Aki's homemade dresses with something more to her liking triggered a reaction in Rin, prompting her emergence from her trance for the first time in order to protest the action, marking the first step of her long journey on the road to recovery. Over the course of the next two years, Rin's personality and reputation experienced a dramatic shift: she went from being a silent, emotionless zombie who was picked or ignored to the popular, rebellious, de facto leader of her class who would not hesitate to stand up to adults by using her intelligence and exploiting her status as an "innocent" minor to outsmart and outmaneuver them. Her relationship with Kuro likewise changed, as the latter came to respect, admire, and even fall in love with her, the last of which Rin remains blissfully unaware of in spite of the former's repeated attempts to confess her feelings to her. The bond between the three girls grew so intimate over time, in fact, that each became willing to do anything to help, protect, or defend the other two without hesitation. Such was the case with the original homeroom teacher of class 3-1, Nakamura, whom Rin purposely drove to a nervous breakdown in retaliation for his bullying Mimi to the point where she stopped coming to school.

Though she developed a crush on Nakamura's successor, Daisuke Aoki, on the day they first met and proclaimed herself his girlfriend almost immediately after discovering that he was single, Rin remained as mistrustful of him as she had become of all adults and did not hesitate to coerce him into keeping silent about her involvement in his predecessor's fate. When a series of unrelated events, such as his persuading Mimi to return to class and treating the stray cat Nyaa with kindness, began silently attesting to his kindness and sincerity, however, Rin's attitude towards him began to soften. And, as it became to her apparent over time that his feelings for and dedication to her were unshakable — unaffected by the dark side of her he had seen or her sometimes questionable treatment of him and not borne of pity or her resemblance to someone he once cared for — what had started out as a simple crush had blossomed into genuine love. As might be expected of a child of her age, Rin displayed her affection for Aoki mostly through merciless teasing, though her flirtatious nature and vast carnal knowledge invariably resulted in her antics bordering on sexual harassment. Her subsequent discovery that Kyōko Hōin was attracted to him as well, however, slowly drove Rin to commit increasingly desperate acts, which, following a failed attempt to confess her feelings to him, culminated in an emotionally charged confrontation that left her frustrated and depressed, Aoki questioning the exact nature of his feelings for her, and the development of a rift between the two of them that would persist for months.

Taking her "love rival", Hōin's, advice on how to get someone to like her to heart, Rin decided to try and earn Aoki's love with kindness instead of trying to take it by force.[9] This change in strategy was part of what motivated her to volunteer for the position of class representative at the beginning of the next school year, a position which would both allow her use her influence over the other students to facilitate his job as a teacher and make sure her peers could make themselves heard. While her faith in and dedication to him are such that she has been willing to push herself beyond her limits, even to the potential detriment of her own health, it has been revealed that two additional, more sinister elements have served as the driving forces behind her actions. The first is Rin's awareness of Reiji's increasingly unhealthy obsession with her, which has left her in the uncomfortable position of balancing her platonic love for him as a father figure, her romantic love for Aoki, and her desire to respect her mother's memory and relationship with Reiji. The second is Rin's fear of her own dark nature — the part of her that tormented Nakamura, twice led her to blackmail Aoki with false charges of sexual molestation, and came close to seriously injuring her rival for Aoki's affection, Hōin — and that she will be consumed by her inner demons, something which she has slowly started to open up to Aoki about following their reconciliation. And while the intensity of her love for him has allowed her to endure thus far, the emotional pressure she is under has slowly been eroding away her confidence and self-esteem, a development that troubles Kuro and Mimi greatly.